Sweet!!! This is the series that got me interested in Fantasy. I hope they do well bringing to life the world they have been granted.
IIRC, Book 10 (the last book Jordan actually wrote himself) is the low point of the series. Just a heads up.
The Wheel of Time TV Show Cast Revealed: Rand, Perrin, Mat, and More Left to right: Egwene, Rand, Perrin, Nynaeve, Mat. My only problem with the metropolitan approach is the fact that they are supposed to be from a tiny village. In fact, in the books, Rand's differently-colored eyes and hair immediately marked him as an outsider, and his parentage was a subject of intense speculation among the other villagers. The rest of the villagers should look like Egwene, as they are basically Italian or Mediterranean in appearance from the book descriptions.
The problem with comparing it to the real world analogues is that the real world is messy and rarely just black and white. The Mediterranean is a huge place with centuries of trade and travel and intermixing. This being fantasy, the show runners can make the setting whatever they want it to be to fit the narrative of the story. Like ASOIAF/GOT, the show won't be a 100% faithful adaption to the novels and I think that's OK. Whatever works in the books, won't necessarily work for television.
It's laid out pretty clearly in the books that the Two Rivers is a backwater village with near-zero contact with the outside world, descended from the ruins of Manetheren something like a thousand years ago. The odds of it having a genetically diverse group of people is basically zero. I don't care if they don't look like in the books, since the guy who did the covers couldn't get 90% of the characters right. They should look like they are from the same small, isolated village, however. The cast of the dozen or so books is huge, and if they wanted those particular actors, there's plenty of main characters that they could have played. If nothing else, replace Egwene and Mat. I am not talking about being a 100% faithful adaption. I am talking about being internally consistent. It doesn't matter what the Two Rivers looks like, but it shouldn't look like it has constant contact with the outside world. As for ASOIAF / GOT, the show runners did exactly what you said here, and buried the series. If they are going to make Two Rivers a large city with constant trade and mingling with the rest of the lands around it, they are going to have to change a lot of the story. If it seems like a weird thing to gripe about, I do my own conworlds / subcreations, and I just hate stuff that is internally incoherent like this. Robert Jordan put a lot of work into his world. Dude really wanted to see his books adapted, but didn't live to see it. So it would be nice if they would treat his world with at least a tenth of the respect LOTR got.
Just depends on how big a deal the show runners want hair and eye color to figure into the story. My guess is, it won't be very integral to the plot. GOT ending badly really has nothing to do with anything either. Quality in terms of characterization and plot is a whole different can of worms.
WTF....??? OK, this is straight up ridiculous casting. There are different ethnic groups in WoT, but like our world, the regions they come from make them unique. Clearly the casting director doesn't know or didn't give a shit. I mean....WTF, the Sea Folk are either Black or dark brown like southern Indian, the region Faile is from is something akin to Persian or Armenian, the Ayel are akin to Bedouin, the Seanchan are like East Asian, and Perrin, Matt, Neneve, and Egwene are like Europeans. The odd man out would be Rand, and he SHOULD be unique in some fashion. But this is more of the same - it's like everything HAS TO be viewed through a "woke" microscope. Christ almighty, people need to knock that off. You can get away with "diversity" of appearance in places like Tar Valon or the Sea Ports, and even some of the larger inland cities. That makes sense. It makes ZERO sense to see it played out like it's normal for other regions, such as villages or the majority of inland countries. Even in the real world, this is how it plays out - ethnic groups tend to stick together, and as a consequence, there is less diversity. And with how these types of stories play out, that's vitally important when engaging the reader/viewer in a story about a specific group of people who leave their secluded village and are traveling to places where other people look and act different depending on the region and culture. Ugh, I'll stick with the books...
THIS. Definitely NOT a weird gripe. Part of the charm and realism of WoT is the fact that there are different cultures and ethnic groups which are unique to specific regions. It shouldn't look like a college campus in 2019, it should be more akin to the world in 1419.
What is sad is the fact that the world is pretty diverse for a fantasy world. Seanchan are African with a huge empire on the continent across the western sea. Sea Folk are Arab or Indian and live on small islands off the southern coast. Aiel are blondes and redheads living as nomads in the eastern desert. Travelers are similar to Aiel but live like pacifist Romani instead of desert warriors. Sharans are African (but unrelated to the Seanchan) living in the far east lands beyond the waste All of the smaller societies on the mainland (west of the waste and south of the blight) are various shades of european, varying by region. The lady cast as Nynaeve would be great as Tuon, and be a lot more popular than the world's biggest, nastiest tsundere.
Yikes. Well...there's goes that show. Wow......um....I dont even know what to say. Ill still watch it, but I'm not expecting a second season with this one. One thing that has bothered me, is realizing how much concept GRRM stole from Wheel of Time. Like..all of it. I love GoT but I had never read WoT. Almost every concept and even a lot of names and terminology from GoT is blatantly taken from WoT. How did GRRM get such a free pass?
The Game Of Thrones directors got it right, casting people of different Earth ethnicities to represent different ethnicities of a fantasy world. This on the other hand makes me think of that Merlin show where characters were of random ethnicities without rhyme or reason. Don't know much about the books, apart from seeing them everywhere when I was a kid. And reading an article that stated that the writer must love domineering women because once a male character gets married in the books, they turn into doormats. Oh and how everyone is always tugging their braids and crossing their arms when they speak.
Nynaeve tugs her braid in just about every chapter she's in. With regards to the women in these books, I always felt the author (Jordan) excelled in creating exceptionally good female characters. Most of them draw strength from who they are AS women, rather than trying to emulate men, again, adding to the realism. And it works in the book very similar to how it is in real life when both sexes acknowledge each others differences and compliment/respect them rather than constantly compete against each other.
Oh I knew I had this review of the book series saved somewhere. It's hilarious, pointing out Robert Jordan's editing problems and also how he seems to be unable to write likeable characters, where everyone is bitchy and condescending and immature. And this all goes on over not 3 books like LOTR or GoT, no, through 12 or more... Warning it contains some adult language. https://forum.malazanempire.com/topic/21832-hateful-wheel-of-time-review/ Also, this: It seems tugging a braid for Jordan is like for Furman to add mentions of Vast Predatory Birds. And far from it that he only writes the female characters as unlikable... And I wonder if it was from Wheel of Time where good old Martin got his idea to have a myriad easy to forget characters and nations and groups in his books...
They're already having to replace a major character. Jordan said he based the women on his wife, which my missus replied to by saying that she would have killed him for suggesting that she was an "unlikable bitch."
For some reason this book series was something I just couldn't get into, which was surprising to me. Might give the show a chance though....