Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I started reading The Wheel of Time in 1998, and loved it immediately. I was devastated when Robert Jordan died, skeptical about Brandon Sanderson taking the reins for the final three volumes, and ultimately thrilled when Sanderson seamlessly combine his writing style with Jordan's to give this epic a remarkable finish. And then Amazon created this show, and completely ruined everything the true fans came to know and love. Amazon wanted their own Game of Thrones, so they were willing to destroy The Wheel of Time to do so. They spent $10 million per episode to do just that. 1. Forced diversity. The books were diverse enough. Why do production companies now feel it is necessary to make every romance interracial? I get it, love whom you want. But there is no need to shove diversity down our throats by making it a centerpiece of the show. Between the forced diversity and neo-feminism, the showrunners forgot the one crucial element to a show: the story! 2. Lost focus. In the early novels, the storylines revolved around Rand, Mat and Perrin, with a few chapters here and there to help set up future arcs for others. This show focuses around the female characters and virtually nobody else. Egwene and Nynaeve are supposed to be supporting characters for the first couple seasons, not the leads. This tells me that the entire plot of the series is going to be completely different from the books. As in, feminism will save the world from the tyranny of men. I don't think the scriptwriters read the books. Because this is nothing like them. 3. Extreme character changes and poor character development. What in the world happened to Mat? Why did they make him so sullen and serious? He's supposed to be a carefree trickster without a thought for the consequences! And his father. They made Abell a lecherous pig? What? In the books, he's a decent, hardworking man (as are most of the men in the Two Rivers) and an expert of horseflesh. The whole Cauthon family was changed without any good, plot-driven reason. I would say I'm hoping that changing Mat's actor for Season 2 would be a good decision, but I don't think I'm going to bother even finishing Season 1. And why would they have Perrin already married with a child on the way, only to have her die almost immediately? That's not how a good story is told. But Amazon thinks it is, because Amazon thinks they are the new Hollywood (even though Hollywood no longer knows how to tell a good story). The scriptwriters bombed on character development here. In the books, we know who Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Moiraine and Lan are within the first few chapters. In the show we still don't even know who is supposed to be the main character in the early going, much less what kind of characters they are. And don't say Moiraine, because if you do then you've obviously never read the books. Want a really, really good example of good vs. bad character development? Go watch RedLetterMedia's Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7) on YouTube. You won't find a better explanation anywhere else. The scriptwriters definitely did not watch that review. 4. No exposition. A 20-second narrative by Moiraine is not how you introduce an epic series. Especially when it is ended by suggesting that the Dragon could possibly be a woman. Again, more forced wokeness when the whole purpose of the books was to find the balance between men and women, light and dark, alleged good and alleged evil. I know that there was a failed partial pilot hastily filmed several years ago, in which the series' prologue was butchered beyond recognition, but this show had a chance to really do something with Lews Therin Telemon, to really showcase the background of the world and its history, and they failed to take advantage of it. It was handed to them on a silver platter, and they passed. 5. Pacing and compression. I didn't really think it was possible for a show to be so slowly paced and yet have its plot compressed into something shorter, yet here we are. I understand that editing must be done with an epic series 14 books (plus a prequel) long. But no prologue? No Fade encounter by Rand in his first scene? A completely unnecessary hazing ritual as Egwene is thrown off a cliff into the river below to welcome her into the Women's Circle (she wasn't a part of it in the books), while never mentioning the Circle again afterwards? Once again, the focus is on the women, and only the women. The men in this show are nothing more than afterthoughts whose stories are glossed over in a bid to hurry on to the next women's scene. If you want a show in which the showrunners are eager to inject their worldviews, critical theories and political opinions into every single scene, by all means, watch this show. But if you grew up reading The Wheel of Time and thoroughly enjoyed the adventures, battles, struggles and achievements of each of the characters, you are going to be completely disappointed by this series plagued with wokeness and near-extreme feminism.