re: Wheel of Time TV, Full Trailer Oct 27, show premieres Nov 19

The first Wednesday of every month they do a "WOTWednesday" and they release something having to do with the show.

So far every time it has happened at 11am CST. First two times was casting stuff, last time was the table read video.

So something should happen today.

I'm most curious how they will portray the true/one source when they film this. I'm in the middle of book 2 (first time to the series) and I'm really enjoying so far.

The Tam casting is solid. I wonder who the Thom casting will be.. Jeff Bridges would be awesome!

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Michael McElhatton (aka Lord Bolton from GoT) has been cast as Tam Al'Thor.

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Not exactly how I pictured him, but a solid casting nonetheless.

Unfortunately, similar nuts appear to be in charge of the project overall.

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Its exactly how I pictured him.

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Your picture of him is wrong, mine is right! *screeches and flings shite everywhere*

There, now you don't have to go to twitter or reddit for the day.


ETA: Honestly I think its because of him playing Lord Bolton...I just want to punch him in the face. Which of course is the mark of a damn good actor.

I agree Fun. The finished product will speak for itself.

This is by far my all-time favorite fantasy series. My bias is toward re-creating the original work as faithfully as possible. Any changes should reflect limitations of filming in real life, rather than attempting to "improve" a "flawed" work.

I would just refer those interested to the message boards at tor.com, the publisher of the books. Official representatives of that publisher have written some pretty interesting statements about the project, including defense of changes seen to date and of those to come.

The most striking is by a long–time WoT "re-read" blogger for tor who submitted a defense making the following points: LINK /

Changing another author's characters race from white to anything else is how a creator demonstrates that they are "bold and forward thinking"

If you thought the Two Rivers was racially homogeneous just because that is what the story explicitly said, over and over, you have an "unwittingly narrow view" that was "wrong"

Social justice demands that changes be made to right such wrongs whenever they are found in original source material

Stories with white people are just boring

If you disagree with any of her arguments, you are the one who is promoting "racist gate–keeping exclusionary bull shiz"

Comments are invited if you agree with her, but any disagreements are declined, because they violate their hate policy.

You will have to take my word for it, I guess, but I would be equally offended for all the same reasons if every character was replaced with a white male, especially if it was being done overtly and with the explanation that it was done to improve an otherwise inferior/flawed product.

And if, as a fan of this series and/or a believer in a color-blind ideal, you can read the following official Tor-sanctioned essay that should be titled "confessions of the guilty white person", without having reservations about the whole project, you are a better (lesser?) person than I LINK /

As I said, the finished product will speak for itself. The first hurdle is creating something that does not have the cheesy feel of xena and subsequent knock offs of the Shannara and the wizards first rule series. The second will be incorporating their world view without so twisting the original product that they offend fans from the left and right alike. I am very hopeful and excited, but not optimistic.

I do not mean to temper any enthusiasm. I sincerely hope that I am wrong. Thank you for letting me get this off my chest. I hope that all of my subsequent posts are able to reflect pure fan-boy giddy excitement and satisfaction

I would say it does not matter, except as explicitly described in the text, which would require a lighter skinned dragon compared to his fellow townfolk. (I always imagined them as having skin tone similar to Latin American or northern Mediterranean/near east people)

If those objecting to the racial disparities of the casting compared to the text had been given the explanation that the race of the actors is irrelevant,reflecting a limited casting pool and not done with ulterior intent, and that we are reading too much into it, it would be much less disconcerting

The problem is that those in charge of making this happen are on the record is saying that race does in fact matter, greatly, with the changes being made in a purposeful and corrective manner.

The in-your-face approach is put-offish. A good low-key public-relations approach would have been much better received, even if disingenuous.

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The problem is that those in charge of making this happen are on the record is saying that race does in fact matter, greatly, with the changes being made in a purposeful and corrective manner.

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This. And whenever creators are focusing their efforts on "correcting" perceived social injustice instead of creating a good story, their product suffers. We've seen it time and time again.

I hope in this case WoT is the exception, but I'm not holding my breath.

I really hope this thing catches on. Gonna be some serious blue balls if it gets cancelled after a couple seasons

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That's good news to me. I finished Eye of the World and started The Great Hunt. Been a good time.

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Strap in, shits about to take off for the next 6,000 pages.