Look, I love ya'll but please stop trashing Wheel of Time in my comment section. Save that for NEXT WEEK in my WOT video 💀 I'm really hoping to keep this discussion to adaptations in general...which is what this video is about. And no, I'm not going to go easy on WOT. I still didn't like it lol

I must live under a rock, because I have yet to run across a Tolkien fan who didn't realize Peter Jackson made some fairly substantial modifications to the books and that those changes were badly needed. Very little songs or singing by the characters (compared to the book), no Tom Bombadil, no "Scouring of the Shire", etc... In fact, the "Book fans just want a 1:1 strict adaptation" charge was thrown around a lot on the various Wheel of Time sub-reddits, but I never saw anyone actually demand that; It was more of a strawman created by people defending the show as opposed to an accurate criticism of book fans.

I'll give an example to try and illustrate something that bothers me on adaptations. In the books, Lewis Terrin going to confront the Dark One with the hundred companions was portrayed as an act of bravery and self sacrifice, but in the series it was portrayed as act of arrogance. That is the kind of "change" the bothers me most. The wheel of time series changes a lot of the "framing" of some key events. When adaptations do these kind of changes, that's when I consider them to be "bad".

Happy new year to you too. I have no issues with changes being made when they are necessary or minor. For example in WoT (spoilers ahead), Thom playing a guitar rather than a harp? Fine. Leaving out Caemlyn for budget reasons in season 1, fair enough it doesn't have a major impact to the story going forward. Leaving Mat behind in episode 7 because the actor quit? Not much else you can do there, I can live with that. However, when they change things purely for the sake of change I have much less sympathy. 5 untrained channelers defeating an entire shadowspawn army? Egwene healing Nynaeve from death? Loial surviving a stab wound from THAT dagger? Those things screw up SO much for later plotlines it makes certain things virtually impossible to do well, or even do at all. Early seasons of GoT and the Expanse are the only two I can think of recently that have struck a pretty good balance between trying to stick to the source material and making necessary changes. It's not really surprising both went on to become popular with book and non book fans alike.

I'm a fan of the Harry Potter books and loved the adaptation. I'm a fan of the Song of Ice and Fire books (GoT) loved the adaptation, until they ran out of books to adapt. I'm a fan of the Hunger Games books and loved the adaptation. I'm a fan of The Martian book and loved the adaptation. So not liking The Wheel of Time "adaptation" isn't because I'm difficult to please and the show will just never measure up to the books. It's because the "adaptation" of WoT is terrible.

I personally don’t find it important if the showrunner/actors/producers are fans of the thing they’re adapting, because that doesn’t have any influence on the quality of the adaptation 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’d rather have them just be good at their job. If, let’s take a completely hypothetical example, someone called Jafe Rudkins were to adapt The Wheel of Time, I’d just want to know what he’s worked on before. Is he a good writer or not, what sort of experiences has he made… because fans being bad writers is worse than good writers not being fans in the end.

You don't have to "not change anything", but you have to take utmost care to honour the source material. This cannot be said of WoT at all.

Nah I think any reasonable book fan will know that you can't possibly do to a 1:1 adaptation. In the case of WOT SHOW the adaptation is an outright disaster. It doesn't appeal to book fans. It doesn't appeal to tv show watchers. There's sooooo many good adaptations out there, it's easy to see what a bad adaptation is. Most recently see Dune. Am I annoyed they missed a lot of elements from the books? Sure. Do I think they kept the spirit of the novel and major plot points essentially unchanged if digestable for the format. Absolutely yet. Dennis Bellevue makes amazing adaptations. The adaptation of Anhilation also took liberal changes to the book but they were all in form with the narrative and didn't drastically change the core story. End result? The movie is freaking better than the book. Same thing with manga and anime. Monster anime >>>>>>>> manga a million times. Again it doesn't have to be a literal translation of the story from one format to another but when you change things just for the sake of them, when you lose the core message of the story, when your production values are inexplicably 1999 syfy levels, I'm sorry wot show is a monstrosity.

There is a common misunderstanding that I see people trying to defend the WOT show or at least play devil's advocate use and to be charitable I will assume that it is not intentional. It is that fans were expecting the series to be 100 percent like the books and they just had unreasonably high expectations. I find this really odd and frankly incredibly patronizing because all the Fans I've seen including myself who had the actual intention of watching the show were under no such illusion. In fact, Lord of the Rings was often cited as an example of how to make a good adaption even if there were a lot of differences. And speaking of LOTR, as awesome as it was and still is, it is blatantly obvious to anyone who has read the books that it would have been far better if Peter Jackson had stuck a bit closer to the books, (for example in the book Sauron is defeated in an epic fight by Elendil and Gil-Galad not by Isildur just cutting off his finger like in the movie), but regardless it was a good adaption because Peter Jackson understood and respected the source material, and also it was just a good movie. Could you imagine if Aragorn was a drunken wimp or Sam murdered Frodo to get the ring? If you can then you have a small understanding of why the fans absolutely hate the Wheel of Time Show. Also, the idea that because it's an adaption, therefore, you can turn everything on its head is wrong, the whole point of doing an adaption is to bring something great from one medium to another but keep it as close as possible to the spirit of the original. I think the problem is people are confusing an adaption with a complete reimagining or reinterpretation which is what the show is. The Show is not based on the books, it is barely inspired by them. The changes are not necessary, they do not improve the setting, characters, or Lore in any way, they, in fact, make them much worse and I dare anyone who has actually read the books and liked them to give a good example of how they do. If you don't understand or respect the material you are adapting you should not do it period. Here is an example of another adaption that was so bad it was universally panned as absolute garbage and I'm certain the people defending this show thought so too, and that is The Last Airbender Movie. I have never seen anyone try to defend by saying it's an adaption and Fans of the original show were just expecting it to be just like the original so they are just confused. It was rightfully panned because it was a terrible movie and an even worse adaption but as bad as it was far more respectful of the source material than the Wheel of Time Show is, the big difference between them is that The Last Airbender had barely any political messaging in it but The Wheel of Time is absolutely saturated by it and I don't mean the politics that were already in the books I mean all the stuff they tagged on only in the show. One final thing about the target audience. The disregarding of an established fanbase of millions of people to target a new and unreliable one is just bad business, you need to find your buyers before you sell not after because you have no guarantee that anyone else will be interested. Why ignore a huge and loyal market that should be the foundation of their income?🤔

So I would like first to introduce a concept that I have that probably exists under a different name: Literacy debt - a concept of needing to be close to the source material of the Intellectual property. The literacy debt is created when you use an existing IP's name as people are expecting content that is tied to that IP. By using an existing IP (lets say LOTR, Wheel of Time or any other known intellectual property), there is an expected literacy debt to the IP / story / world / writer of the IP that viewers expect to be settled. That literacy debt is settled by adding details that only fans can notice, sticking as close as possible to the source material as the interpretation is using it's name or adding details that enhance the story while keeping the spirit of the source material. Literacy debt doesn't prevent new stories but it needs to be consistent with the world/universe and it's rules. Ignoring literacy debt doesn't negatively impact only the fans, it can also create misconceptions to the viewer that isn't knowledgeable about the original IP damaging both the IP and the viewer. If the literacy debt isn't settled, it's a separate, derivative work that shouldn't carry the name of the original IP. Of course, things aren't always black and white like that, as changes are mandatory due to the restrains of show, like time and budget, but imho the interpretation needs to tell the same story even if it goes through different beats and do it in good faith / spirit of the original IP. But when you start changing the story (major changes to the lead characters, story progression, changing events on a fundamental level, character growth, locations / environments, side characters behaving out of character, prevent / obstruct connecting to the characters) without need, some agenda or out of personal need to "fix" author's work that's when using the IP name starts to be insulting. There is a fine line that allows for this and that, while the literacy debt is slowly being settled, but there are shows that don't want the literacy debt to be settled and just want to use the IP name to boost the viewer count while telling a story that doesn't do the original IP justice. A wolf in sheep skin. P.S. Being a fan of the source material isn't a must for the director/producer/showrunner, but there needs to be an understanding of the spirit of it and attention to details that really bring up the passion. So if the director/producer/showrunner isn't a fan, they would probably need an assistant that is (and both prevent each other in making mistakes).

Wheel of Time does not feel like an adaptation anymore. Its feels like a re-imagination. Not only they changed plots they also played fast and loose with the lore. Also characters doesnt feel like their book counter parts.

The show was excruciating to watch. I can't believe how bad everything in it was no plot points made sense, Perin is a weak useless wife killer, everything they changed was for the worst. it honestly is a giant steaming pile of absolute atrocity, I heard someone say that the only way saving season 2 could be a thing is if Rand wakes up and it was all a dream lol

It becomes problematic, when not only fans have problems with an „adaption“, but non-readers can‘t follow the story either. The WoT series as a fan was partly a hurting experience for me, but my wife not knowing the books asked so many questions not answered in the series, wondered about so many weird decisions, of which I was only able to explain some because I know the books so well. Some things were just bad. Perhaps it was just bad story telling, not finding the right middle ground between fans and others, corona restrictions, unlucky decisions. At some point, I only continued because there were some really great moments and pictures. And it helped to listen to your videos because I think you had a quite objective view compared to all other reviews of the WoT series I found. But for me - the series is no longer WoT, just an interpretation of the rough idea of the story. More a try to use the name of WoT to make money, then any real wish to adapt an existing story.

I feel like all adaptations really need a ”veto” person in the writers room, preferably someone who respects the source material. Someone that has the mandate to state: No, we can’t do that, that would break the lore, character or plot going forward.

Your premise was thought provoking. I recall watching an interview with George Lucas a few decades ago and one of the questions was about others writing stories using the universe he created and he said something like "so long as they are fans of the original story and aren't simply borrowing the popularity and then destroy my characters..." perhaps the fan CV of a showrunner is more 'street credit' for the studio than the audience. Especially with the volatility of fantasy adaptations, perhaps the studio need to believe that a showrunner has proven source material to help stabilize what they will be doing. As with WoT and others - it's too late to recognize artistic theft once it hits the edit booth. I haven't heard a single book fan complain that a strict 1:1 adaptation wasn't done, in fact many have offered very creative ways that would work better on the screen than they did in the book, but still held true to the main theme of balance, tone and story arch. Changes, edits and even characters removal from books will always be necessary AND can often produce a less confusing outcome. The Eye of the World book ending was not smooth at all and Judkins could have erased all the misgivings and outright errors the TV version presented up to the last episode. In fact, I observed many book fans almost ready to forgive all the terrible choices in this first season if he had built on the spark of momentum for episode 7, and produced the last episode even better than the books. Imagine, a scene where Loial was in the library at Fal Dara lecturing (exposition dump) extras about the Ways, Ta'veren, and the horn that legend claimed was at the eye of the world - and not been stabbed. That Lan would have actually forged a path through Trollocs displaying the great warrior he is to get Rand and Moiraine to the Eye. That Egwene begged Nyaneve and others to help fight, at the gate (not some random desert) before countless soldiers died and Nyaneve could have even said I think this is how we link because this is what it looked like in the cave with Logain. Then Rand's epic channeling of Saidin wiped out the remaining Trollocs and stunned everyone as to the terror the Dragon Reborn could be, Fain had been spying on them and slips in and steals the horn from underneath them. ....any fan of the books would have been familiar with the poor ending the books had and made it better and more straight forward and not detracted from the characters story arch's and satisfied both book fans and TV fans in the same stroke. Those few sentences took me about 3 minutes to write. Experienced screen writers - fans of the books, could do better and remain true to the source material and give ALL fans a truly captivating ending. So much was made about COVID and Barney leaving - the source material was there all along to save them, but instead they had already forged a path to make their own version of a story by precisely NOT doing what a fan would have. While I salute Judkins efforts and that there was, apparently for him and his mother, a personal connection as a book readers, his claim as a fan is disingenuous because a fan doesn't desecrate, a fan honours. Judkins hasn't honoured Jordan's work at all. I hope he is removed as show runner and the studio find someone who can salvage the disaster he has left us with. Sanderson said years ago when asked what he felt like when Harriet asked him to finish her husbands work and he said he was both excited and terrified but in the end decided something quite poignant ....he knew that he wouldn't screw it up, meaning he would pay homage to Robert Jordan, stay true to what Jordan wanted and would not be able to forgive himself if another writer who wasn't a fan made a hash of it. There are many many fans of WoT who likely have some TV screenwriting experience who would produce a much better fan adaptation that is both captivating for a new to the story TV audience and not massacre a work cherished by book fans. It is not that hard.

Some other things to think about. I understand your frustration, unfortunately CGI and budget are only some of the reasons for why there are story changes in these adaptations. TV shows have “main cast” “supporting cast” and “guest” billings, which correlate with different actor fees and negotiations for screen time, line count, etc. The main cast MUST be present is in every episode, Supporting cast can’t exceed a specific episode count, and guest can only appear in or or two episodes. and who is cast can have a big affect on how much screen time they get and what their fee is. For example casting Rosamund Pike was a decision to get a hollywood A list actress to pull audiences and who would have the prowess to give the character the gravitas needed (in a not so dissimilar fashion to Ian Mckellen for Gandalf) Then there’s the issue of TV schedules. A two hour film gets 2-3 years to be in development from pre production to release, sometimes even longer. TV shows get 1-2 years and border closer to 1 year whilst having 4-6 times the running length of films. For Fantasy this is ridiculous. You need a highly skilled team and even the best shows don’t land those right away (Game of Thrones had to re shoot their pilot and we all know how the end of the show went.) TV is fucking HARD to get right. There’s a reason it was viewed as the lesser of the two mediums for such a long time. Its made quicker with 4-6 times the amount of story content to be filmed and produced. You’re lucky if you get 3 takes of any given shot. I am in the TV industry, ive worked on a few tv shows, and the one thing I heard a lot is “it doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be good and done. We’ll get it better in the next episode/season” Due to schedule and budget issues and producers, PMs, and ADs pulling budget rank, most TV crews are satisfied if they get an episode that’s 75% solid. Anything more than that is a wonder. TV is too challenging for these books or any kinds of epic fantasy. I have no idea how GoT worked, but even HBO can’t seem to recreate its success with their other fantasy shows (Westworld or His Dark Materials for example- both of which are fine, but not nearly as close to as incredible as GoTs hay day.) My current belief is that epic fantasy should be Movies. 2.5-3hrs is long, yes, but there is more time for the film to get things right in production, where there isn’t in TV. Films still have top billed cast, but they aren’t constrained to the same mandates that top billed cast members are for TV shows. For example Thom Merilynd should have been a main cast actor, but they likely only had so much money for main cast and so much screen time to juggle that they had to make a call and push him to guest roll, with the hope of making him supporting come later seasons (and main should there ge audience excitement about it.) TV shows have to paced a specific way with an order for episode numbers and runtime per episode. so every hour is thrilling where you come back for the next but also ha room for character growth, this came make for awkward pacing issues (as we saw) or can lead to drawn out scenes that are booorrring. If you only have 8 episodes that could mean a rushed season, it could also mean a slowly paced one if or order to many episodes with not enough story (which i believe is the issue with His Dari Materials for example.) Having watched the Harry Potter movies again, 2.5 hrs is more than enough time to get a conciece story. HP7 pt1 is boring because it didn’t need to be split up into two movies, should have just even own 3 hr movie (but that gets into theatre run time politics which is a whole other thing.) A lot of show runners have discussed in interviews how making a Tv show is 90% being told “no” or “that sounds great, but here’s what we can manage… sorry… can you do it for this?” It’s rare to get what you ask for and rarer still for it to pay off well when you do. Time, Money, scheduling. and Negotiational politics just aren’t on the side of TV shows (this is why so many that succeed with long life spans are procedural “crime/monster of the week”) There are more moving parts in making film and tv than making a book. A book has to deal with many 10 people at most, usually 3-4 people involved from beginning to end of production to release. Films and Tv hve hundreds upon thousands of people involved (maybe even millions of a show runs long enough.) A lot goes wrong and there’s a lot of strings to pull and to manage that can effect the books “precious story.” sorry but there’s going to be chances and they’re going to be necessary. every time. always. My current stance is that WOT should have been a movie. and most fantasy books should be movies. Game of Thrones is an outlier and we shouldn’t use it as a the basis. The others have to make too may changes or suffer under the obsticales of Tv production Anyway, just some other things to think about beyond the usual “CGI” or “woke” arguments.

As a psychologist, I'll point out that another fascinating thing about marketing/development teams playing up production team members' fan status is that it can be effectively used to purposefully trigger at least some fans' sense of tribalism in defense of the adaptation/property. Specifically, it's easier to convince people to actively defend the property on your behalf if they consider you an upstanding member of their tribe, and it makes them more amenable to differences as they'll assume you have good intentions (a variation on the No True Scotsman fallacy).

I think your main goal with adaptation SHOULD be to please the fans first though, even from a budget standpoint. If a book series is best-seller, considered one of the best of the genre, you have to know theres something in there that pleases the audience, therefor making it true to the source material, you can almost guarantee that your movie will please the new audience as well. Also consider the fans will be your biggest critics, if book fans are upset they will tell everyone the adaptation sucks, if you please the book fans you automatically warrant positive reviews. The problem I see with modern studios is that they have the "all press is good press" mentality, if we piss off people or cause controversy it will get people watching regardless if we make a good product. This is such a negative way of operating your business, sure it'll make you money but so would just having a really good product. Look at GoT, in the early-mid seasons it was considered one of the best shows of all time, there was some negative controversy occasionally but that wasn't their marketing strategy, everyone talked about it because they loved it, not because they had the morbid curiosity watching the trainwreck.

If the source material is considered to be so strong that it gets adapted into a movie or series, why change major plot points and storylines? My problem with the WoT adaptation is that I don't really see why some of the changes have been made. Didn't the show runners know that a show that changes almost all storylines and threads will upset the fans more than a series that might (from their point of view) work better for a wider audience? BTW I love these discussions! You have already become one of my favorite Booktubers :)

I do not know that anyone really thinks that nothing was changed in LOTR but the story itself was not changed drastically. Jackson stayed faithful to the story, and not just the broader strokes. The exclusion of Tom Bombadil did not hinder the story in any real way. That whole segment was a side quest that had no bearing on the plot or key characters. No one from that segment touched the story after that chapter closed. It was really an excuse to arm the hobbits with Barrow Wight loot. Harry Potter started filming while the books were being written and they went to great length to adhere as much as possible to the story, but there were plenty of changes there too. It's when the changes alter fundamental aspects of the story, that things often go awry even when they aren't pushing some alternate agenda.

The vast majority understand that there has to be some adaptation from book to screen. That's not the issue. A successful screen adaptation must at the very least, capture the essence of the story. Not only is this a poor adaptation, it's not even a good story. My wife, who has not read the books, says that it's almost impossible to follow, and because she can't relate to any of the main characters, it's boring. Book fans really wanted the series to succeed, and they gave it a good chance, but Rafe clearly decided that strong male heroes were passé and rewrote the three male protagonists to be 21st century beta males with issues -- people similar to himself, I imagine. The female protagonists, he decided, needed to have Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman powers, strength, and unassailable wisdom to avoid any hint of sexist microaggression. The reviews are telling. Book fans are almost universally disgusted, while the majority of those 5 star reviews are defensive, either stating that everything is wonderful, or they sneer at the "haters" and "racists" who leave bad reviews because, after all, what else could they be? It's as if the world is divided into two groups: those that want a good story with real tension, heroism and sacrifice, and those who would rather bask in self-righteous diversity and radical feminism.

They have no excuses for what they did to Mat after the actor left, there were a dozen better ways to write him out with the resources at their disposal without further assassinating his character. They deliberately chose to have a shocking moment where Mat is out of character and betrays the party by not following them just for effect. They easily could have reshot just the Ways entrance scene without Mat and shown us an edited scene of Mat being sick again and or had a character tell us he was sick or just too uncertain to come... or really anything else that didn't have him being a jerk and unexpectedly hurting his friends. Moiraine and the others could have just expressed that the dagger sickness had retaken to Mat, stated that he needed to remain at the tower to survive and showed earlier footage from when he was sick... this would have set Mats character up perfectly for his book plot in Tar Valon.... which the show seems to be aiming for since Mat goes back to Tar Valon according to Rafe in the still we are shown in episode 8. BUT Instead of doing something that doesn't assassinate the character and more logically sets things up for a book plot though Rafe and crew went for the SHOCKING moment where he betrays them... which is the problem with this ahow it is not only disloyal to the source material but it is shallow.

Random thing: You mention that the eye illustration on the cover of the newest LotR edition is inspired by the Eye of Sauron in the movies. It isn't. That illustration actually was on the HC of the first edition of the books ever published. The illustration definitely predates the movies. I have some third editions that have it on their covers as well. edit: movies, not books

I know the wheel of time is a very popular and beloved series of books. Adaptations change things, but the wheel of time show suffers from being a bad show, not a bad adaptation. It looked cheesy and fake, the character development was sorely lacking or others are simple mary sues. It kind of comes off as a bland fantasy series that took its magic from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Nothing seemed believable or immersive. It's said this show cost $10 million an episode to make, but it looks like it's far less. It's oft compared to Game of Thrones, but that show had strong and consistent characters, a measured and well paced plot and SO MUCH more seemed to happen 8 hours into that show.

I've always thought that the "convincing fans that actors/showrunners are fans" has been a thing. It's always seemed too convenient that each actor in book adaptations get the book free, and somehow there are always shots of them reading in-between filming (Thinking of you Harry Potter/ LOTR) . That's not to say it's a bad thing, I think it's good. If you want to change one art to another art you need to have an understanding of what makes that art special. For instance, the worst film adaptation I can think of is the Count of Monte Cristo and it's movie. The book was this in-depth tale of complicated intrinsic plots all culminating in a fantastic revenge and how the main character felt afterward. The movie was a tale of a man wronged , the female he left in a crappy situation and him making them "right". The book and the movie were different from each other BECAUSE the act of righting a wrong implies morals, and the book had the main character throw his morals out.

Great video! One thing I think is interesting is just the number of people involved in a tv show/movie versus writing a book. Even if the showrunner is a fan, there are so many producers, writers, and actors involved and they all have different goals. A book character doesn't care if they're sidelined for a book, but an actor does. Fantasy books don't require a higher budget because of magic, but fantasy tv shows have to put more budget into CGI. I've been trying to keep that in mind, especially with some of the decisions made with WoT - and that show was doubly effected by external factors because of covid.

There are two types of adaptations, faithful adaptations and faithless adaptations. The Harry Potter movies were faithful adaptations. I believe that the Lord of the Rings movies were faithful adaptations. But the Shannara Chronicles and The Wheel of Time are completely faithless adaptations.

I really enjoyed the format of this video and appreciate all the research and effort you put into it.

Idk if a show runner necessarily needs to be a fan, but they at least need to "get it", understand the intention and spirit of the show.

Sometimes recently it feels just the opposite; that they go out of their way to stress that they are going to piss off the fans and subvert the lore on purpose.

Very insightful video. I've been saying for a while changing a book into a show/movie is like trying to make a painting of a sculpture. Light doesn't play over a painting like it does the sculpture, and the shadows need to be painted on much like you need to force visuals in a show to reflect the information in the book. But the light in the painting/show will always be static compaired to the light that moves around a statue and the nuanced details of the book. No matter how hard you try, you can't pick up a painting and turn it around to see every angle of it, and there will be lots of information about the piece lost in the translation. Even if you do a great job making your adaptation, not everyone will agree that the painter captured the right angle of the sculpture, and not everyone will agree whether the heart of the book has been captured in the story. (Edit: On top of all this, you would still need to appeal to critics of both sculpture and painting, as you describe so well.) All this said, Rafe needs to do better. His brush strokes are sloppy.

You always make such good points in your videos! I love watching you and learning. Also I love your bookshelves 📚😊

Thank you for reading the thesis and sharing with us! It was very insightful!

I was happy with 90% of mcu adaptations. I was happy with Lord of The Rings and even the Hobbit. I actually enjoyed Eragon and Legend of the Seeker though they weren't perfect. WOT blaming book fans for their piss poor writing is laffable. Most of the backlash didn't get loud until that trash ep 8. That was when people realized that all the changes weren't leading somewhere better. They just wanted to change stuff to fit a narrative they liked better without any consideration for how it will affect THE story.... They want to tell A story.

I'm completely new to the Wheel of Time (never read the books before watching the show) and your videos have been super helpful seeing where others are coming from, since I loved most of what I watched. I really love this video and your perspective on adaptation too!

This is excellent content. Thank you so much for exploring this!!!

I think you are kinda making an assumption that the general non book reading population would not enjoy the book as written. That assumption is where I think they are still as you said shunning the fans. while you talked about the history of how fans where treated as a negative that is similar to what they are doing when they change major plot points in an adaptation. if we are talking about WoT I think we have to look at the changes, and why they were made. There is a belief in Hollywood today that everything has to check specific boxes, the original content of the Wheel does not fit into those prescriptions so the show runner changes them. This I think it's where I disagree with them, the books in this case have a very loyal and pretty large fan base, who I believe would drive a huge payoff if they followed the books more closely. What we got from WoT is a director using the names and locations with very little ties back to the point of the story. To me I would call it plagiarism more than adaptation.

Most people get that adaptations cannot faithfully follow the books, but calling the Wheel of Time an adaptation is a stretch into fantasy itself. The only resemblance it has to the books are the names...

I write. Pretty much every medium. What I have found when covering the same world in different media is to treat the lore as real world history. Covering WWII can be done in many ways and there are many stories to be told, but we don't get to rewrite the order of events or the cast of characters. We could tell a story about the life and motivations of Hitler, but we don't get to make him secretly gay, pretend he was Russian or that he was married. Winston Churchill doesn't get to be a Black guy in his 20s with a six pack. It's fair enough to leave elements out in your story. You can tell a WWII story and never mention the Nazi leadership At all. The Wheel of Time has vast territory for a show to tell stories. That's no excuse for changing the fundamentals of the World. Never mention Elayne Trakand if it doesn't affect your story, but don't pretend Egwene is boning Rand in her place.

I wanted to point out Dune and Denis Villenueve's keeping the spirit of the book even though he left out some the inner monologue. Peter Jackson did the same thing and even changed where certain characters said certain lines but kept the spirit of the book true. I both of these cases there were many things that the author's left up to the imagination of the reader like things that happened off-page, descriptions of people/places and with TLofR that whole magic system. These things gave the showrunners plenty of space to adapt/create to add to the story and lore. The same could be said to the WoT. There is a lot that Robert Jordan did not state or implied that would let the showrunners expand and create something magical. To quote Bookborn the whole Eye of Sauron was an amazing adaptation that conveyed Sauron as an ever present menace watching you and the spirit world is another great adaptation while remaining true to what was in the books. The Same can be said for Dune's character building and the sparkles in the air due to the spice Melange and Paul's spice dreams. We can all point to great moments in adaptations where scenes like the above happen. They let the fans know that the showrunners care about the source material and want to add their vision/creativity to the adaptation without significantly changing the spirit. Nothing can be that scene-for-scene adaptation as any fan should know. I feel tired that showrunners and those companies that produce these adaptations are just looking to use the fans as a quick way to help sell the adaptation but then change so much that did not need to be changed just to make a few bucks or to push a certain ideology whether Christian, Atheist, misogynist or feminist. If an ideology was present in the book then by all means make sure it is in the adaptation but don't let the inclusion of an idea take away from the characters and plots already established. The best adaptations are able to streamline the written word into a visual medium that brings something new and exciting without taking away from the story.

This definitely gave me food for thought, and I’ll have to make a shout out in my WoT review video. I love your format and approach here, you’ve earned a subscriber and given me some things to consider as a I start and build my own channel!

Man, this is really interesting stuff. And as you mentioned, I find myself looking back on all my recent adaptation views with skepticism and mistrust. Great video, very thought provoking.

Fantastic analysis. Where does “adaptation” become “rewriting” or “fanfic”, though? Still think Rafe is a dark friend.

Book fans will always find things about the books that they liked better that the screen adaptation. Thus, has it ever been. However, the fact remains that you can do a fantastic book adaptation such as Amazon Primes "The Expanse" which book readers and show watchers generally give high marks to, or you can do an absolutely horrible adaptation such as Amazon Prime's "Wheel of Time" disaster that draws scorn from Book readers and show watchers alike.

I feel like you're going to be easy on the show after watching this. I watched all 8 ep of wot and sat in horror and disbelief at what had been done. Even knowing what you said in this video I think lines were crossed

The idea of convincing us that the show runner is a fan never occurred to me but fills me with rage. I do know that Cavill IS a fan as I had seen him talk about video games and Witcher things prior to the show ever being announced so I thinkt hats a fair assumption.

Agree so hard. This is a much more eloquent discussion than my rant attempt about the subject haha

I did believe the pictures of Rafe's worn copy of The Eye of the World, and the Instagram posts with Rosamund Pike reading it. After seeing the show I'm more inclined to believe her posts than his. I agree with everything you've said in the first part, but have a few comments. 1. It's quite a different thing to acknowledge you can't please all fans than for the showrunner to come right out and say "Hey book fans, we didn't make this show for you," which is basically what he did on Dragonmount. That's insulting. If he hadn't said it, no one would have thought about it in those terms. 2. All your propositions are correct in principle, but all are being used as excuses for a just plain bad TV show. When I tell people that teenagers having sex within earshot of the girl's parents (with or without the father coming downstairs and beheading the boy) is ridiculous, people say "well, it was never going to be word-for-word!" Characters behaving sensibly and believably has NOTHING TO DO WITH being faithful to the book. 3. Consider if Peter Jackson had made Elrond the main character of Fellowship of the Ring. Not Gandalf, but Elrond. (That's what's happened here, and the showrunners are surprised that people don't like it? Or do they even care?) Peter Jackson made some huge changes, you're right, but the story is still about Frodo and The Ring. That's what people were responding to; and yes, I still hear people complaining about the Scouring of the Shire, but the film served its purpose, and it looks like the best marriage of Tolkien and Peter Jackson. What they've done with the Wheel of Time show is just bad storytelling. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if they had tried to do it word-for-word it would have saved them a lot of trouble. They had a great storyteller on their side, and they threw his contribution in the garbage.

Wow this is so interesting! It's so wild that some special knowledge is what qualifies a 'true' fan rather than just love and enjoyment of the book or movie!

I feel that while Jackson and crew made many changes to LoTR during filming the changes were vastly outweighed by the effort to stick to the books. As an example, the scene of Elrond talking to Arwen of Aragorn's mortality has a tapestry in the background of notable importance. It has the Trees of Valinor as well as Eärendil the Mariner's ship and the Silmaril he carried. Only those in the know would give it more than a passing glance, yet it takes up half the screen as the camera rests on Elrond.

Also, let me just say, this video was awesome. Like this was really really good! I can tell you out a ton of work into this discussion

As long as the adaptation keeps the structure of the story and overall tone of the book, im ok with it. It’s understandable that maybe a character will be omitted and scenes need to be condensed to make the story more seamless and easier to understand for non book readers. But i do not like screenwriters doing a complete re-write. Especially if it makes the story MORE confusing and choppy. Regarding the wheel of time, all those things happened. Including the complete character assassination of all the men in story. And propping up all the female characters. Especially turning Egwene into a Mary Sue. That goes beyond storytelling. That’s agenda.

The problem with WoT is that when you compile down all the changes, you can't help but see that those changes are aggressive and too forced. It's like they were not interested in adopting at all. It's like they pissed in my mouth and told me it was raining To be fair, I have to admit I am not a WoT books fan. Tried to read them, gave up at book number 4. But seeing the show I felt very sorry for book fans. The changes they made, I'd think, are quite insulting to the book fans to be honest. Too many canons are broken now..... Just too many... Liked your analysis thou. Makes me rethink my feelings once again which is a good thing on it's own

I liked this discussion, especially the marketing of the production team, even the actors, as "fans" of the source material. This is something that gets discussed frequently in my experiences dating back to LOTR, and definitely with GoT and WoT. It's also the source of a great deal of frustration with Rafe Judkins as he has gone out of his way to sell his fandom of WoT, but he consistently gutted the source material and replaced it with badly written, lore breaking fanfiction. Good video though. Nice perspective.

I am REALLY impressed by this! The amount of research and work you have done is incredible! I really enjoyed this watch! Thank you!

I remember having a back of the brain itch about the people who adapt a work, being marketed as fans of adapted works, way back with Brandon when he got announced to be finishing the WoT books. I was super skeptical at the time, had to read Elantris then Mistborn before I could trust he was going to do them justice. Online forums at the time were very split on the Sanderson books but I loved them. I feel someone like Rosamund Pike, who I am absolutely certain had never heard of, let alone read, the WoT books, is a good example of how I feel someone involved should become. I don't think it's really possible to act authentically if you haven't become a fan. I don't care if you are a fan before getting hired to do a job. There is something condescending or patronizing about someone taking a job for something they don't respect. I dunno those are just my thoughts. My suspension of disbelief extends to fictional places too so I don't usually have issues with adaptations if they are internally consistent.

Wow! You make some very good points..... and have given me a lot to think about!

One of my favorite adaptations was Catch-22, the movie version from 1970. I swear the movie catches the feel of the book perfectly.

I think the most important characteristic for a director, adaption or otherwise, is the ability to make an amazing movie (or series). Being a 'huge' fan is a bonus.

I love this video - really thoughtful and helpful reflections that go beyond a lot of the other responses to book-show adaptations that are currently being discussed 😁 adds some real depth to the topic. It’s also notable that a large proportion of the folks commenting on your vid are overlooking your point that not all fans share the same point of view! There are a LOT of comments that say “X is clearly a bad show, all fans think so” or “Y is clearly a terrible show runner, nobody could possibly think they are credible or competent” - but it only takes a bit of searching and watching on KZfaq and Twitter to see that there are many different fan reactions, from hate to love and all stops in between. Personally I’ve enjoyed and even loved many book-show/movie adaptations whilst retaining a sense of critical recognition that some changes could have been better. Keep doing your thing - it’s really appreciated 😊 and I’m looking forward to a thoughtful series review of WoT!

Comparing the average audiobook and screen time available: Fellowship of the ring - 7.33 hours per hour on screen. (estimated 3 hours movie) Eye of the world - 3.75 per hour on screen. (Estimated 1h x 8 episodes) There is a significant difference in time available for adapting works into movies versus adapting works to tv series. Just wanted to point that out. - And so one might expect an adaptation that is closer to the original work when adapting a tv series, then when adapting a movie.

I never comment, but I just had to:D This was a good video! Very interesting topics and nice to see research in good use. Oh, and if you end up with more questions than answers, you are doing something right👍

Interesting take. I LOVE it you actually brought a thesis into the discussion.

Wow. This prompted a lot of internal analysis. Thanks for including a link to the thesis as well, I'm looking forward to reading it. My immediate thoughts are it's always better if the team adapting one property from one medium to another, either film or tv, if they are if not fans, like the source material. I think about Singer who refused to read the comic books he was turning into movies and how hollow they felt. I find that I don't mind if they promote themselves as a fan, because either they are and that's great, or they become fans. It's also fair for them to treat it as the job that it is to them. Because we love a thing, we want people to love it like we do, and it hurts when they don't. I think having some distance from the source material helps adapting things, because they are less concerned about getting it 'right' and more focused on telling a good story in the medium they excel at.

What you said about showrunners & actors needing to appear as fans is SO true! Another example is House of the Dragon's writer & producer Ryan Condal, I always hear fans saying it makes them hopeful about the show.

Really great breakdown. I actually came back to reference this because of Rings of Power. While it's not directly adapting a book, I still feel like they are running into a similar issue where they are changing timelines and lore from the books. I remembered watching this video after the WoT series and how good of a job you did in framing the struggles for fans and showrunners in adapting pre-existing/written works.

Ok, one of the most changed adaptation I can think of is Starship Troopers. The director changed the whole theme of the book. The film still told a complete story. And after the initial hate, it still went on to become a succes.

There was stuff in the WOT that needed changing but it was a massive world that was full of great characters. Season 1 didnt show that. I appreciate your insights. It never occured to me that producers being fans was a marketing tool. I just wouldnt care about any of this if they would just produce a good show.

"If you build it (well) they will come". A faithful adaptation does not, and has never meant a scene by scene translation. If an adaptation is compelling, engaging, coherent, entertaining in it's own right people will grudgingly, sometimes even ecstatically accept changes. If not, the changes standout out starkly, and gives people a point of reference to air their dissatisfaction, but it is not the reason for it.

Great video. Thanks for going through that research and summarising it all for us. It's very thoughtful of you to slow our emotions down for a bit by going into some background research and logic. I'm a bit more open minded now about 30% less pissed off!

Cutting things isn't the issue, the issue is we expected things to be cut because of time restraints and it was cut but instead of congruent, wise alterations, there was show-only additions that made no sense. And only cost precious time that could have been spent recreating these original scenes in the first place.

I give you major props for this stance. Its hard to correlate the disparate sides of being a fan and just enjoying an adaptation. Sometimes I think that we hold things we love to a much higher standard than what most people would consider "accurate"

So well said!

The 1984 movie adaptation of the book Dune has a lot of scenes where the character we're watching on screen is doing voice overs. The implication is we (the audience) are supposed to be hearing the inner thoughts of the person we're watching at that moment. It didn't work .. at all. That's an example of trying to take a book and LITTERLLY adapt book to screen. Books contains a lot of third-person omniscient information... which is hard to show (word-for-word) on-screen.

Amazon tries to convince WOT book readers that Rafe is a "fan". Rafe comes out and says what a mega fan he is. Rafe then says "he doesn't think book fans will like his series". Rafe completely changes the source material and cause massive problems and plot holes for not reason proving he is indeed not a fan and goes on to deliberately use wording in interviews and tweets that is antagonistic towards the book reading fandom and tells them many of the writers have never read the books they're supposedly meant to be adapting. I've didn't quite get this for a while, but I'm starting to think maybe I do more recently. I think one of the reasons there was such a massive backlash against the show runner in particular rather than just the show itself, is they almost seemed to have an agenda to "trick" the fandom for free advertising although they knew full well that was definitely not the demographic they had in mind. Then not only discarded it once they felt they could no longer keep up the pretense, but did a 180 and actively started antagonising the book fans so they had a community to demonize when they started getting mixed ratings coming through because it's just the rabid fans making a fuss over nothing. The whole thing became quite toxic. The 1:1 adaption thing that's being brought up over and over is a straw man argument. Most book fans are quite aware you can't put a book directly on the screen. Point in case, most book fans loved the opening scene with Logain which is not in the books, because it kept the spirit of the books and drew on the world that is in them to create something that works on screen.

"Four legs good, two legs bad. Four legs good, two legs better Huh? Four legs good, two legs better." The show is attempting to shove an opposing worldview into Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time world. It's creating cognitive dissonance, plot holes, and leaching the foundations of the WoT. It won't work and the whole house of cards will come crashing down. Spectacle cannot cover what will become an increasingly unsatisfying experience for the audience.

Hi Hillary, I haven't read WoT, and have no plans to either - but I am a fan of multiple other fantasy series. I used to think I wanted an exact text to screen adaptation of the things I loved, until an epiphany occurred. Most fantasy books, when you discard the *visual* story telling elements (creatures, costumes, castles), take place in people's heads. The internal dialogue of characters is what informs us of the story events, and their behaviours are explained to us as *internal* emotional reactions to those events - and last time I checked - internal dialogue is not an effective way to make a movie or tv show. What that means for an adaptation - is that sometimes there's a need to find a different way to express why a character arc changes direction, or why a different plot line comes to the forefront of the story-telling. For me, it comes down to the adaptation having the right 'spirit' - and as you said, that's impossible to quantify. We know it when we see it. Happy New Year Hillary.

Great video, it is very well researched! I will now forever be aware of studios marketing their showrunners as fans, and will definitely be skeptical about it from now on.

It’s not whether you change something, it’s what you change. Perrin’s married? He just killed his wife? I barely got to know her. Well, alright, let’s see how this plays out. Maybe they’ll devote an entire episode to him processing his grief with his friends and he’ll grow as a character and we’ll learn more about him. What? They’re devoting an entire episode to processing a character’s grief. Hang on, what’s his name? Stephen? Oh, right. Stepan. Hang on, who is he again? Why is he important? Oh well, since they’re giving him a whole episode to process his grief while they just hope we forget all about Perrin, I’m guessing Steve-o will have a huge role to play down the line. What’s that? He’s dead. Suicide you say? Alright fuck this show. Honestly.

Well said !!

Ok on the WOT. Everyone knew that characters and places would be cut out. That being said it seems obvious there is a large book fan base that feel they have not kept to the heart of the books or characters. I am fine with an actor taking a role that was not a fan of the material as long as they do their research on it. Matt smith was not a doctor who fan when he got the role and he went a watched the show to learn of the Doctor to bring the doctor to screen and did a great job Henry Cavill has been a well know fan of the Witcher game and lore

I think when it comes to good adaptation is more to do with respecting the source material. The Witcher series is a good example of this. I never read the books or played the video games but after watching the series on Netflix I started to read more of the the background and lore of the Witcher. I think they did a good job adapting the source material. The series creators for the WOT basically screwed the pooch by not respecting the source material.

I like the idea of me wandering around with a bag full of fancy coins that represent my fan credit for each fandom I engage in

Brilliant analysis.

Interesting video! In particular, the convincing fans that showrunners are fans idea is fascinating--and interesting to overlay what we got from Rafe and then later got online from Brando Sando (as certified as a fan can get). It almost feels like Brandon's comments trumped Rafe's and gave way to skepticism of "how much of a fan is Rafe, really?"

I enjoy your perspective

One Internet phenomenon that left me dumbfounded was the childish, ridiculous online petition to try to force the producers of Game of Thrones to go back and change the way it ended. It got millions of signatures, from millions of babies. 🙄

This is true but your critiques are spot-on and interesting. Haha. I really like the insight to the fandom segment around showrunners. #smartereveryday

In the age of online content creators, I think it is also a valid point to say the hype train is real. Positive hype that gets people excited and understanding and negative hype where people go to drown their sorrows. Freedom of speech in this way is a lovely gift.

Great video! :)

Something I assume you haven't seen due to not being big in to the show is how much the Showrunner of Witcher has been in contact directly with fans over twitter and actually directly answering fan criticism. Really shows your point about the difference the internet has made to adaptations. For instance the armour of the nilfgardians was changed from season 1 to 2 due to fan backlash

Making changes are fine, as long as there are real reasons behind it (budget, timing, pace, etc.). But when you make changes to fit an agenda or for personal reasons, this is where I begin to object.

Regarding your first point, I totally agree. Way too many people take a very radical approach - that any changes from the original, however necessary, are inherently bad already. It freaks me out. Some things just work better on screen than in a novel and vice versa. Also, I’m hurrying through Eye of the World right now so that I can finally get to those videos 😅

For the discussion on fidelity, I think we also have to consider that even fans differ from their interpretation of the original written work, not only from each other, but also often times from the intention of the author. Scenes and little details may be important or not important depending on what message the reader is receiving from the book, and that may not be the same message for everybody. I see often nowadays the concept of death of the author, and separating the art from the artist. If that's the case, then I don't think we can define what really is the "true" spirit of the work, when even the original creator of the work gets sidelined by fans.

Great video

This was a fantastic video sourcing a fantastic dissertation. This gives me some things to think about when considering film adaptations of older films. Do the same elements apply? For example, Star Wars episode 7 was directed by one who pushed how much of a fan he was for a very long time. The movie also catered much to fan interaction based on prequel disappointment. However, there is a growing dislike for the sequel trilogy while the prequels are increasing in that area. This leads me to believe that an appropriate understanding of the source material's spirit is more important than artist interpretation or fan communication.

The biggest issue is the changes need to make sense. If you dont establish strong rules, then the audience has to fall back on the rules established by the books. In this case, a certain bad adaptation did not explain ground rules, then completely abandoned rules set by the books. This ends up with characters doing things that would be "impossible" in the story world. Or in this case, removes a core component (such as Weaving during channeling to create effects). Game of Thrones made this mistake in its early seasons by ignoring magic for a prolonged amount of time.

Peter Jackson caught alot of grief when the LOTR movies came out, however, he kept to the original feel and impression of the books, so over time his changes have been accepted as necessary and good. I don't think a director or show runner has to be a fan, if they are competent story tellers then they will be able to see and understand the intended story, and they will be able to tell that story through a different medium. Minor changes are necessary, as the medium and audience is different, but to omit large parts of the original story, and to include many new scenes, to apparently express a certain political view... no good.

10:09 - in short .. just remember that "fan" was originally just a shortened form of "fanatic" complete with aallll of those negative connotations that particular calls to mind, at least until it became gradually more of a reclaimed term. 😁 (🤣🤣) Thank you for making this video, btw!!!💜💜 I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks about these things too ^-^

I definitely agree with the broad strokes of the difficulty of scene by scene adaptations but the early seasons of game of thrones were quite faithful and largely matched the book content. I think it matters what book you are adapting as well.