Wheel of Time season two

[AuntieEsther]

Does it come out today?

It's available now.

Woop!
just started episode 1 - I expect it's on weekly episodes isn't it 😩

Yes, weekly😥

There are three episodes up.

First one is pants. I'm rather pissed off about all the nonsense they've added, including some moralising.

I wish they would leave stuff alone. Will watch but first episode was crap.

I watched them all yesterday- I thought they were good! The 2nd and 3rd better. I'm satisfied so far...

Thought all three episodes were great. I’m completely fine with the changes, they’re going to have to do so much condensing of the series if they ever hope to get to the last battle it makes sense they’re making changes to characters and storylines.
Intrigued as to where the Moraine/Lan storyline is headed.
LOVE the casting of Elayne, she’s perfect for the role.
Also woke the dog up by shouting “VERIN!” when Verin appeared. My favourite WoT character 🥰

Well. I did not find Episode 2 any better and I have now officially settled into hate watching.

Maybe episode 3 will make me feel better, but I doubt it. I loathe what they've done to Lan & Moiraine's characters.

Not loving it anymore.

I’m keen to keep watching I’m only on book 8/15 and there is so much to go through massive book with tiny words!
they do seem to be changing quite a lot though.
agree with the casting of Elayne.
I love Lan :)

I'm still enjoying it! It's a different thing to the books but frankly I'm just relieved it's much better than season one!!

Annoying having to wait for each episode though. I just want to binge it.

Can anyone recommend something else good to watch?

Just checking in. I'm only on S2ep1.

I watched S1 having never read the books but have since read all of them (and then watched S1 again). Will be interesting to watching series 2 knowing more about the plot and any changes.

I'm looking forward to meeting The Forsaken and the Seanchan, as well as Faile Bashere. Was nice to see Domon in S2ep1 and hoping Thom reappears soon.

Love the casting of Verin and Elyas and don't mind that Hurin and Elyas have been seemingly merged.

I started to watch S1 but as a long time fan of th ebooks, I then just stopped and went to reread the books instead (waving goodbye to a few weeks of my life in the process).

But I keep seeing adverts for it and I read a review that said if you can see it as a standalone and not as a knock off of the books, it's quite good. So am toying with trying again. I've reread the books recently enough that I won't want to redo that but long enough ago now that I'm not going to be all whiney because the story is different.

What does everyone else think?

I'm loving it! Verin!

I haven't read the books, and though I'm enjoying it as something to relax with, I can't keep up with what's going on.
Do the books make better sense?

I felt same about Harry Potter. I read the books first so I knew what was happening in the films.

You read all 14 books since last year? Respect! I read them in a year but that was before DC and before smartphones so I did a lot more reading in general 😆

Frankly season 1 was a bit rubbish. It suffered from confusing writing, poor pacing and Covid restrictions. But season 2 so far is much better. It's not essential viewing yet in the way they seemed to be aiming for as the 'new GOT' but it's very enjoyable. If you can accept the changes to the story I recommend it!

Yes, but they are loooong and some of the exposition is quite boring!! I admit to skipping occasional chapters such as the later white cloak ones. There was often a lot of history and lore that made things make sense but was a lot.
If you just want to understand the series a bit better try watching one of the YouTubers out there - Daniel greene and wot up are super fans who post videos breaking down the episodes without book spoilers

I think it took me about 10 months to get through them all. It was quite the commitment!

Got about halfway through book five after watching season one last year, then I had to have a break and read other things. I found they were merging into each other a bit, when I was reading them one after another. I think when I pick them up again I should read one, then move on to something else, then read the next. WoT - it’ll separate the plots out a bit.

I don’t like the casting of Lanfear - she should be riper, more lush looking, to my mind.

My ideal casting for Lanfear was Nina Dobrev (like when she's Katherine in TVD).

Book 6 is full of action, book 7 has plenty, and then the action slows right down, IMO, so you might not find it so difficult to read the rest in one go. There are some good bits sprinkled here and there, but the later ones are not a patch on the first half of the series.

@GrouchyKiwi I think I’d pictured someone like Eva Green or Rachel Weisz.

It’s not that I found them hard to get through, just that I started to find them a bit hard to distinguish from each other. I couldn’t tell you what happened in any of the ones I read - I could give an overview of the whole story so far and mention things that happened to each character, but I didn’t feel each book had an individual character of its own, unlike some series I’ve read, even though they were enjoyable and exciting. I don’t think I’d have found it so noticeable if I’d been reading them as they were released, a year or two apart.

I know I sound overly critical - I did enjoy them and plan to go back to them!

Yes, Rachel Weisz would have been wonderful if they'd made a series when the books came out. A bit too old now, same with Eva Green. I was on a WoT fan page for ages back in the day and casting threads were always fun.

I think the books have more of their own identity after book 6, but not in a good way...

Breaks are probably good. I used to do a reread of the whole series every year, before Jordan died and Sanderson took over with his writing style that I hate, so my opinion is coloured by that.

It's definitely quite different from the books, but I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is.