Wheel of Time initial thoughts
I've decided to make a rule that I can only watch Wheel of Time on my stationary bike, so I've only watched the first three episodes so far, but so far I'm really enjoying it, and I'm getting a workout. The visuals are utterly stunning, and it's just a treat to watch for that reason alone. The show sustained an impressive sense of tension for the first two full episodes, even though I know where it's all going. And they showed reasonably good judgement in how to pace out the action, making a meal of the Eye of the World's opening chapter but then speeding up the travel to Shadar Logoth, then slowing things down again as the party split up.
primeideal's posts, full of detailed commentary on the episodes, are fun reads but I don't really process the Wheel of Time like that. So I want to say more but I'm not really sure what to say.
I guess the thing I am interested in, as I watch, is the Wheel of Time as the biggest piece of metafiction I've ever read, and wondering how that element of it gets adapted. The idea of ta'veren got brought up earlier than I think it comes up in the books, which is one of the most significant metafictional ideas in the books: the idea that Rand and Mat and Perrin (and Egwene in this adaptation) are Main Characters in a metaphysical sense, the weave of the Wheel of Time literally warps around them. Anywhere they show up, they instantly become the center of the story and they suck up the people around them as supporting characters and spit them out transformed. In bad fantasy novels, this is a silly trope that we mock, in Wheel of Time it's a deliberate structural decision Jordan made. He's asking the reader why we keep telling stories about destiny and fate, how would we feel if we really lived in a world where you can feel the hand of fate pushing you. And I'm really curious how the show will commit to this structure. The idea of ta'veren has not been mentioned explicitly since the first episode, but Rand invokes a related question in episode 3. "I... I never gave much thought to the Wheel before all this. I just always done what I thought was right, then moved on to the next thing and tried to do right again. But now... I don't know. I don't know what's right. I don't know what to do. I don't know shit, really." One of the most deeply metafictional ideas Jordan explores consistently through the series is what it's like experientially to be a Main Character, what it's like to have prophecies describing your future actions, what it's like to just do what you thought was right and have the world change in response.
Along these lines, Rand is nowhere near hateable enough. Maybe give it time on this one and he'll grow into it, but I feel like the more obnoxious you find Rand, the better the Wheel of Time works as a story. Because The Wheel of Time is a story about rejecting the One True Savior narrative in a world where One True Saviors are a real thing that influences life and you can't simply pretend out of existence. Jordan rejects these savior narratives in two ways: First, by showing how terrible Rand is, so that the idea of the world resting on his shoulders seems both ridiculous and unfair, and Second, by ultimately requiring that every time Rand saves the world, he does it in coordination with a team. Paradoxically, the fact that Rand is incredibly ill-suited for his work is what enables you to sometimes root for him in this metatextual world. You are rooting for him to win in spite of the fact that he's a real piece of work.
Meanwhile, the adaptation has an extra level of baked in intertextuality by virtue of being an adaptation. I've spent episode after episode screaming at Perrin to realize he's a Wolfbrother already, but at least I know he'll figure that out sooner than later. I've also spent episode after episode screaming at Nynaeve and Lan to kiss already, but I know that I spent a lot of time screaming that while reading the books, we've probably got a long ways to go there. (I also enjoy that the TV show explicitly ships Mat/Rand, there's a pairing who deserve each other) There are reasons for this. Jordan gives you what you want, but he also signposts that he's going to give you what he wants for miles and miles before he gives it. I charitably call this part of the metafiction, Jordan writing a story for people who already know how fantasy stories work, but also sometimes Jordan is a clumsy writer doing clumsy things. And sometimes Jordan's plot is too big for him and it produces clumsy plotting as a result. In the condensed form that is the TV show, signposting and foreshadowing works differently. The TV writers can't afford to let storylines spin out indefinitely over years, and they have a different range of tools (including visual and musical cues) to foreshadow with than Jordan does. So I think sometimes when the show is trying to lead to some reveal that readers of the books already know is coming, there's a level of oversignaling that... kind of enhances the metafictionality? Like, it makes the aware viewer key into the fictionality of the characters, the way in which they are being impelled by the dictates of plot, and that reinforces the sense of ta'veren.
Yup, this was silly. This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/386550.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.
primeideal's posts, full of detailed commentary on the episodes, are fun reads but I don't really process the Wheel of Time like that. So I want to say more but I'm not really sure what to say.
I guess the thing I am interested in, as I watch, is the Wheel of Time as the biggest piece of metafiction I've ever read, and wondering how that element of it gets adapted. The idea of ta'veren got brought up earlier than I think it comes up in the books, which is one of the most significant metafictional ideas in the books: the idea that Rand and Mat and Perrin (and Egwene in this adaptation) are Main Characters in a metaphysical sense, the weave of the Wheel of Time literally warps around them. Anywhere they show up, they instantly become the center of the story and they suck up the people around them as supporting characters and spit them out transformed. In bad fantasy novels, this is a silly trope that we mock, in Wheel of Time it's a deliberate structural decision Jordan made. He's asking the reader why we keep telling stories about destiny and fate, how would we feel if we really lived in a world where you can feel the hand of fate pushing you. And I'm really curious how the show will commit to this structure. The idea of ta'veren has not been mentioned explicitly since the first episode, but Rand invokes a related question in episode 3. "I... I never gave much thought to the Wheel before all this. I just always done what I thought was right, then moved on to the next thing and tried to do right again. But now... I don't know. I don't know what's right. I don't know what to do. I don't know shit, really." One of the most deeply metafictional ideas Jordan explores consistently through the series is what it's like experientially to be a Main Character, what it's like to have prophecies describing your future actions, what it's like to just do what you thought was right and have the world change in response.
Along these lines, Rand is nowhere near hateable enough. Maybe give it time on this one and he'll grow into it, but I feel like the more obnoxious you find Rand, the better the Wheel of Time works as a story. Because The Wheel of Time is a story about rejecting the One True Savior narrative in a world where One True Saviors are a real thing that influences life and you can't simply pretend out of existence. Jordan rejects these savior narratives in two ways: First, by showing how terrible Rand is, so that the idea of the world resting on his shoulders seems both ridiculous and unfair, and Second, by ultimately requiring that every time Rand saves the world, he does it in coordination with a team. Paradoxically, the fact that Rand is incredibly ill-suited for his work is what enables you to sometimes root for him in this metatextual world. You are rooting for him to win in spite of the fact that he's a real piece of work.
Meanwhile, the adaptation has an extra level of baked in intertextuality by virtue of being an adaptation. I've spent episode after episode screaming at Perrin to realize he's a Wolfbrother already, but at least I know he'll figure that out sooner than later. I've also spent episode after episode screaming at Nynaeve and Lan to kiss already, but I know that I spent a lot of time screaming that while reading the books, we've probably got a long ways to go there. (I also enjoy that the TV show explicitly ships Mat/Rand, there's a pairing who deserve each other) There are reasons for this. Jordan gives you what you want, but he also signposts that he's going to give you what he wants for miles and miles before he gives it. I charitably call this part of the metafiction, Jordan writing a story for people who already know how fantasy stories work, but also sometimes Jordan is a clumsy writer doing clumsy things. And sometimes Jordan's plot is too big for him and it produces clumsy plotting as a result. In the condensed form that is the TV show, signposting and foreshadowing works differently. The TV writers can't afford to let storylines spin out indefinitely over years, and they have a different range of tools (including visual and musical cues) to foreshadow with than Jordan does. So I think sometimes when the show is trying to lead to some reveal that readers of the books already know is coming, there's a level of oversignaling that... kind of enhances the metafictionality? Like, it makes the aware viewer key into the fictionality of the characters, the way in which they are being impelled by the dictates of plot, and that reinforces the sense of ta'veren.
Yup, this was silly. This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/386550.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.