#and that need to be changed for a mordern adaption

I first got into wheel of time through the show but am now about ¾ through Eye of the World and I love both show and books, but I have to say that while the show changed a lot from the books, I think they made good calls on most of their changes? (Except for the obvious fridged wife issue.) This might just be the first time I ever say that about an adaption, but I think they did the right thing in straying from the books in several areas. This is not to say that the plot points the show changed were bad in the books, just that I think that the books, much as I enjoy them, are impossible to make into a successful TV show without significant changes.

I get wanting an adaption to include all of the beloved scenes from the books, but I honestly can’t see myself (or many others who hadn’t read the books yet) enjoying the show that much if it had stuck extremely closely to the books. Mostly because the start in the books is just incredibly slow and even for me who was already hooked from the show, it took some effort to get through it. Most of the really interesting worldbuilding is revealed only gradually. The characters spend a good proportion of the book just being dragged along by the plot (in the form of the bad guys chasing them and Moiraine and Lan telling them what to do) more or less willingly. Besides, none of the characters start out especially unique or interesting. They all have their unique personalities, of course, but there’s nothing that really sets them apart from other fantasy protagonists. What does exist in the books is a sort of implied promise that there will be stuff happening with them, that there is more than we see, that we’ll just have to stick around and watch them because there will be something interesting coming there. (All of which is legitimate for the books and even works for a large part because of the subtle ways narration and POV keep tension up and keep readers interested. Besides, the massive scale of the series goes hand in hand with a slow start and anyone who starts reading knows what he’s signing up for. But that doesn’t work for a TV show with a much bigger audience that will not happily sit through several episodes before things really kick off, or wait around patiently for the main characters to fulfil their promises of becoming interesting.) Not to mention that in our time (which is several decades after the books were published), the Ordinary Farmer Fantasy Protagonist is a bit of a cliché and “Wait for the not overly unique white guy with a crush on the girl from his village to get Super Special Powers” is… not really the promise that will draw people in.

I think centering Moiraine and Lan so much in the series was a brilliant decision. As a non-book reader, they were what hooked me to the story immediately when I started the series. There were two characters who were interesting right off the bat, who provided the story with the very concrete goal of finding and protecting the Dragon Reborn (and proceeded to work for that actively, which made the entire protagonist-side feel much more active because the people doing the protecting were as much the focus as the ones being protected) and also immediately introduced the unique bits of the worldbuilding. The focus on them was what gave the Edmond’s Field kids the time to develop and grow on me as the viewer. And if some of the mystery surrounding Moiraine and Lan in the books was lost in the process… well, it’s honestly a small price to pay. And I think the show’s “We know we are looking for the Dragon Reborn, but we don’t know which of these five it is” works just as well as the books’ “We don’t know what the dark wants with these three, but it’s pretty clear to the reader that Rand will be The One”.

Similarly, I think cutting down the amount of travel scenes made sense for the show. Don’t get me wrong, I adored the travel scenes following Shadar Logoth, that was when the books really started to draw me in on their own, without the show needed as back-up, but I still think they wouldn’t work for a TV show. A lot of what makes these scenes work in the book is the narration, the constant sense of fear and being chased, as well as the worldbuilding and all the questions that keep being brought up. But that type of thing just doesn’t translate well into movie format, and watching the show, I don’t think I would have appreciated episodes of travel scenes where I am constantly introduced to new characters who all only get brief appearances before disappearing again (and apparently reappear later on, which is brilliant in a book series and something I am looking forward to a lot, but would probably have overwhelmed me hopelessly in a show) and the several run-ins with various servants of the Dark that worked well in the books would probably have felt repetitive quickly in the show.