the wheel does not care what you want

[usuallyhats]

I watched The Wheel of Time! It was kind of a mess but had a lot of good stuff as well, some of which I loved A LOT.

• Lan and Moiraine's friendship is EVERYTHING, give me all of that deep intense platonic affection, I adore it.


• I was spoiled for Moiraine/Siuan, but I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did. I thought I'd just like it in a "I recognise that this is a cool choice" way, but the easy chemistry of the actors and the fact that they're both older really sold it for me. They seemed so comfortable with each other, and I really loved that their dilemmas are about how to make space for this relationship with the rest of their lives. And that they're approaching it in such a grown up way, both understanding that the other has certain priorities and constraints on their actions that might affect the relationship without it being about not loving the other person enough. So good.


• On the other hand, I could not be having with either of the m/f romances. Rand/Egwene was the usual adolescent nonsense - Egwene, you could do so much better than someone who takes an entire season to realise that you are a person with your own wants and desires! (Don't get me wrong, the fact that he got there is a step above what this kind of thing usually manages, but that's not exactly saying much.) To be fair to Lan/Nynaeve, I feel like it was partly a casualty of the show's pacing issues? It seemed to go from "no longer antagonistic" to "deeply in love and everyone knows it" in about seven seconds flat, and just felt really hollow to me. It is also true that m/f relationships where the man is significantly older are my least favourite kind of fictional romance, so I don't know if I'd ever have been completely on board, but definitely not like this.


• alwaystheocean and I agreed that a lot of things would have been better and more interesting if all the kids had been at least ten years older, especially Nynaeve. I just cannot be doing with someone in her mid to late twenties being portrayed as the old, wise mentor, and it seems like a weird choice in a show that's otherwise quite good at realising that people don't stop being interesting when they hit thirty.


• I loved the commitment to casting diversely, but iirc all the dark skinned black people with speaking lines ended up either evil or dead, which... isn't a great look. I also have Concerns about the visual coding of what looks to be the villains for next season.


• All the gender stuff was SO binary, ugh. How do trans and non-binary people exist in this world? We just don't know, because the show either hasn't thought about it, or doesn't care.


• Also I have so little time for "in this world the women have the power, so of course they use it to OPPRESS MEN". Either it lets patriarchy off the hook by implying that hey, at least agents of the patriarchy aren't going out and murdering/depowering any woman who might have power, or it tries to do a more subtle critique of how power operates... which just ends up focusing all the narrative attention back onto the men.


• Relatedly, of course the extremely average white dude is the most powerful and important. If there's one thing I've learned from media it's that there's nothing more relatable, but also nothing more special, than an extremely average white dude.


• It all looked AMAZING, sterling work by the locations/set/props/costumes/effects teams, really sold me on the whole show.

Despite all its flaws, I did mostly really enjoy watching it! And I'm really looking forward to season two, especially to seeing how Moiraine and Lan's friendship develops. I'm also crossing my fingers for more Alanna - what we saw of her was so great.

Comments

[muccamukk]

At least everyone wasn't 17 like they were in the book. I kind of felt like the idea with Nynaeve having that much responsibility when she was very young and half trained was part of her character arc. Like a lot of her fightiness was because she was struggling. Given that all the actually interesting characters were the ones in the tower who were in their forties and fifties, it felt reasonably balanced.

I'm very tired of fantasy duality around good = light, bad = dark. I guess that one was too embedded to change, but ugh.

Rand is so boring. All of the men who aren't Lan are, really.

[usuallyhats]

Oh wow, I'm glad they aged them up that much at least!

I'm very tired of fantasy duality around good = light, bad = dark
Yeah, definitely agree.

[goodbyebird]

I also have Concerns about the visual coding of what looks to be the villains for next season.

Having read the books? Yes. Be very concerned.

But the show has given me so much in regards to Lan and Moiraine, and I love Nynaeve in this! (she was in fact aged up from the books) Really looking forwards to seeing how much screen time other Aes Sedai get next season.

[usuallyhats]

Oh dear, I will be bracing myself in advance in that case. D:

Yes, so excited to see more of all of them! I can't get over how good Lan and Moiraine are.