House of R - 'The Wheel of Time' Premiere With Zach Baron and Rafe Judkins

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Mal and Jo sit down to talk about the massive three-episode premiere of Amazon's 'The Wheel of Time' series on Prime. They are joined by GQ's Zach Baron to talk about the beloved fantasy novels that inspired Amazon Prime's new show, adapting fantasy tales in the 'Game of Thrones' age, and more (03:35). Then, they speak with 'The Wheel of Time' showrunner Rafe Judkins about bringing the books to life, fan theories from the premiere, 'Survivor', and more (81:33). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Zach Baron and Rafe Judkins Producers: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a row. Road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer.

Visit weathertech.com today. Swear your oath, moraine Sidai. I swear to speak no word that is not true. To make no weapon with which one person may kill another. And never to use the one power of. a weapon. Do you know what Isidai means in the old tongue? Servants of all. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my

absolute pleasure to invite you not only to Bell Time, but to join us on the Ringers Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, now that she's finished explaining that my life isn't going to be what I thought. It's my house of our working title. co-host, Ringer Senior Staff Writer, Joanna Robinson. Have you ever been to a ceremony where you've gotten to light a lantern and shove it off into a lake? Because I've always wanted to do one of those. Can we do one of those for the Ringerverse somehow? We can.

Let's make it part of our year-end celebration. Love it. Love it for us. Love it. Oh, speaking of things to come on the Ringerverse, a few quick programming notes, as always, before we dive in today. Next week, it's jam-packed. Jam-packed holiday week on the Ringerverse on Monday.

We will have a bonus house of our working title episode for you all on Netflix's Cowboy Bebop, including a special interview from Joanna. Anything you want to tease? It's Joe. What a dream. Very excited about that. That is going to be a joy and a delight. And then, of course, talk eye season on Wednesday at the Midnight Boys, Van and Charles.

Piu-Piop! we'll have their instant reaction to the two episode Hawkeye premiere. Remember, two episodes, episodes one and two are dropping at once. We'll be covering both on the podcast. On Friday, Joanna and I will be back for our Hawkeye premiere deep dive. And Joe will have another special guest. It's not Joncho that time. Follow all of that by following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts

and following our social feeds. And bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning today. We are chatting about the Wheel of Time. We'll be talking in some detail about the first three episodes that have dropped on Amazon Prime. We will be chatting more broadly about the adaptation and a little bit about the story that inspired the television show. First, we will be doing that by chatting with our pal, GQ, senior staff writer and Wheel of Time expert and enthusiast, Zach Barron. He loves the books. We're going to talk to him about those beloved fantasy stories,

adapting tales into the IP age and more. And then, later today, we're chatting with Wheel of Time showrunner, Rafe Judkins. And we are so excited about both of those things. It's going to be a fun show. What a joy. What a delight. Beware of the Trollocks. It's time to dive in.

Joining us now. Now that he's finished explaining that we can't outrun a fade. It is GQ senior staff writer Friend of the Ringer And resident Tavarine Did I say that right? Zach Barron

What's up? So happy to be here I'm glad I'm welcome At least on one ringer podcast You know Oh I see how it is I see how it is You know it's like

You know my My significant other doesn't want me on her podcast. You know, my friends don't want me on theirs, but I found my home and I'm very happy to be here. Yeah, you are welcome here with us on the Ring ofverse anytime. And what a joy it is for us to travel with you to the two rivers today to talk about the wheel of time, something that you know very, very well and have loved for a long time and something that Joanna and I are just now discovering there are so much we want to hit on today, so much we want to talk about.

I'd love to talk to you about Devontas Smith and the Eagles, but we can save that for another pod. Okay. I mean, are you sure? Because we could do a little now. Your freedom make as many Eagles and Sixers references as you'd like. Okay, yeah, yeah. I look forward to doing the typology of all the characters

based on which one is Alan Iverson. Where to begin? There's really no better place, I think, than your own fandom. We, of course, are talking about this today, because the show, the wheel of time, just hit Amazon. We all, I believe, have seen six episodes, Zach. You might have seen more.

You might be there right now watching as season two gets made. We've seen six screeners. Three episodes dropped on Amazon last night when this officially premiered. So that is what the listeners have seen. We will try to limit any plot specifics to those three today. And of course, the story is based on Robert Jordan's 14 volume. plus a prequel. Fantasy epic. Last few books in the series written by Brandon Sanderson. Season one, going to be eight episodes, season two already in the works. So there's a lot to cover.

The reason we want to talk about this with you today, in addition to the fact that you're wonderful, is because you wrote the definitive piece on this for GQ recently. And you've loved this story for, as I believe you said in the piece, literally half or more than half your life, right? So let's to start there. A brief history of our respective wheel of time, fandoms, and familiarity, because they're very different. So why don't you go first? Yeah. Well, I am very curious to hear how this fell through the cracks for you guys, because I know you're a completist. But yeah, for me, I've been reading these books since they started coming out, which is, I think, 1990. And so, yeah, more than half of my life, I've been reading them. I read the first two. And

then, which were already out, and then ever since then, every time a new book has come out, I've reread each of the prior one. So I've probably read like a few of these books, you know, 14 times or something like that. And it's funny because I, you know, I love it. I know I'm dating myself by saying I read anything at all in 1990, but I wasn't that old then. It was a real childhood thing. And then I sort of carried them into adulthood by default because it just took forever for them to finish this series. So my relationship to these books is very personal, but has also changed over time

as I've gotten older and appreciated different things about them. I have a vivid memory. And I feel compelled to share this. It wasn't the first time I met you. I believe the first time I met you was years ago in New York at a Grantland Live show.

But one of the first times we really got to hang out over at your house. holiday gathering, eaten a hot dog, wonderful grill work. It was delicious. And we were talking about fantasy stories.

And I remember keenly, and perhaps this is an apocryphal tale that I have altered in my own mind, but I feel sure this is how it went. I remember feeling that I have really let you down when I said that I hadn't read the wheel of time. Absolutely. They're entirely correct.

You're 1,000% correct. I was like finally a kindred spirit. I've gone through my whole life, barely, you know, these books have now sold more than 90 million copies. But for some reason, I very rarely ever run into anybody who has ever read them. And I was like, Mao, that's my person. We're going to get to dig in. She knows everything about these books, I'm sure. Finally a friend.

And you were just like, yeah, I was never really into those. Well, it's not that I didn't, like I tried them and didn't like them. It just was a miss for me, a hole, just like a gaping, embarrassing hole in my fantasy literature education, which I will say now the way I look at it is there's no reason to be embarrassed because part of the joy of this is that the education is always ongoing and it's never too late to discover a new story. No, no, I think I think you should be embarrassed. I do feel bad that I wasn't there for you that day. But I will say, as a little primer here, obviously we're going to talk more about the show itself. and what we enjoyed, what we have questions about as we go today. The show finally got me to start the books.

I have started the first book. I am going to read the books. I promised Joe on the pod. We did a like a fall hype pod a few weeks ago where we were looking ahead. And I said, you know, this is going to be it. This is going to be when I dive in at last. This is the impetus I needed. And when I was watching the screeners, it's like, I want to spend more time in the world.

I want to fall deeper into this fictional universe. I want to learn more about the history between these characters. I want to learn more about the lore. And so, I don't know when we'll hang out next. And I don't know how far I'll be. But I intend to not let you down in this fashion again, Zach. All right. We'll recreate the barbecue.

We'll go back to the house. Get the hot dogs. Get the hot dogs. Yeah. And we can just rerun that scene and fix our troubled history. You know, heal the old wounds. and bring justice to the world of fantasy. I hear that the wheel keeps on spinning, though.

Yeah. Ages come and go, yeah. Joe, what about you? For anyone who is not aware, what is your relationship to the wheel of time at this moment in time? I haven't read a page. Not one page.

Joe, was that out of principle? Was it a deliberate choice? I couldn't tell you why. I think at the time that I would have been, because I also was reading things in 1990, And I think the time that I would have been most, you know, open to diving into this, I was knee-deep in Dragon Lance novels for some reason. Like, that was my jam.

I went, and there's only, like, eight good Dragonlance novels, but I read a lot more than that. So that's sort of what I was doing. You and me both. With my time around then. Yeah, and I don't know why. And then I was, you know, not to spoil our interview. with Rafe that we'll hear a little later on.

But I think when I started working in bookstores, which I did for all of my 20s, I was just intimidated by how many books there were. It was like those books and then like the Terry Goodkind books, like they all just like, there were so many of them. And I was like, how do I, how do I even start this? It was sort of how I felt. So I think that's my journey through it. I won't say I'm embarrassed, but I will say I regret.

I regret not knowing more about this. and I regret not being ready for this show with like my usual book snobbery. But I will agree with Mel that like maybe not the first first three episodes, but I think by episode like five, and I don't think is a spoiler to say. Like we're jamming more in the Isidaya world. Like I also got interested in learning much more about this world. So I think they got me. I think they got me with the powerful council of women.

No, no. No joke. So yeah, so that's where we are. I mean, but we're all three of us, even though some of us are maybe superior to others because they've read all of the Wheel of Time books. But we're all of us massive fantasy fans. And I'm just curious, you know, for you, Zach, like what got you into fantasy in the first place? And like, what did it do for you as a young reader into adulthood? I think in some ways, like, what I love about fantasy is inseparable from what I love about these particular books, which is exactly the kind of paradox you're talking about where you're working in a bookstore and you're seeing 14 of these on the shelf and each of them is like, you know, several inches thick and it's just, it's preposterous. But that is also the thing that these books can offer that nothing else does, which is like the depth of the world that they create, the amount of the amount of, of time that you spend with the characters, not just sort of like as you read, but also like over literal decades, basically, as these books come out, it's just this, there's no other storytelling that's this immersive or that kind of takes the details like further and further and further out of the frame. And there's a universe over here and there's people over here and

there's lore and there's legend. And this person has. a destiny that's going to take literally like a million words for it to unfold. Now, probably to some people, that sounds like nails on a chalkboard. But for me, I always love this idea of another world that you could escape into. Obviously, for some people, that's Star Wars. And for some people, that's the Philadelphia Eagles. And that's actually both of those people are me. But on top of that, there's just nothing as immersive, nothing as deep.

And nothing kind of, the one thing I really love about the wheel of time, and I think fantasy often does this really well, is it presents to you a somewhat ordinary person or group of people who have really interesting destinies, right? Who don't know yet that this incredible thing is coming for them and they're going to live out all these amazing things and find out these things about themselves that they don't currently know and those things are going to be, frankly, like usually really cool. And I don't know. I think as a romantic kid, I love that notion. And as a romantic adult, I still love that notion. I can only, I mean, I have to imagine it's like, because we have some negative experiences around this, around like, let's say, a song of ice and fire or the Patrick Rothfus series, you know, where you get really excited about a new world. And, you know, the Rothfus rollout, I thought was really exciting. People were really into it and then you're just like waiting and nothing. And the fact that the Robert Jordan books

like came out, um, even after he died were completely, you know, there was like a fairly steady flow of these books. Is that, is that accurate to your experience waiting for the next one or what was it like for you? I'm glad that people don't have to relive what readers of these books, like contemporaneous readers of these books had to live through because initially, so what, what happened was the first two books came out in the same year. And then Robert Jordan for a while was good pretty much every year. It's like September, October, we'd come out with a new one. As the plot kind of got away, I don't know if I want to say got away from him, but got bigger, more expansive.

And the characters grew, you could tell that he was just having a harder time getting through the story. Sort of like what happened with George R. and Martin, but he did keep going, but it was like all of a sudden. Right. One key distinction. A year for the next book, you're waiting two, and then sometimes three. And then the other thing that happened is that the books themselves, like, kind of lost momentum. So there's a very famous, at least famous to me, but I think it's book 10 starts chronologically in the middle of book nine. And I was like, bro, you are going back in time now.

Like we have been waiting for this to go forward. And in fact, we waited and it's actually going backwards now. And, you know, I think if fandom was organized differently then, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have Wingerverse yet, you know. But like there would have been a full scale rebellion because it's like, bro, what are you, what are you doing? So in some ways, it's really a gift that they're all there now because you don't have to live through this. Like, when's the next one coming out? Once the next one coming out.

And, you know, we should we should say, and I'm sure we'll talk about this more in depth. But like, it used to be a joke. Like, man, this guy better not die before he finishes these books. And I don't want to be callous to Robert Jordan, who I love. Robert Jordan died before he finished these books. Like the thing that you feared happened. And luckily, he sort of described to his families and friends what was supposed to happen. And Brandon Sanderson came and finished the books.

But like, this was really like a race against time. And it was a race that the author of the books lost. That is quite sad. Brandon Sanderson, hero of the sci-fi fantasy section, honestly, right? Like the fact that he completed this for for the readers. And like by all accounts, did a pretty good job, right? Like his books were,

they're not exactly the same, but they're still considered good, right? Zach? Are we at the section of the podcast where I share my deep feelings about what Brandon did or didn't do? The whole section of the podcast. The whole podcast is for sharing deep feelings. Okay.

Here are my thoughts. Okay. First of all, lovely guy, really appreciate him. his existence, his finishing of these books. I think to my point about what one loves about these books, for me, it's the characters. And so there's sort of two things that needed to get resolved, right? Or sort of two things is it was what happens. And Brandon Sanderson was really good at that.

I don't think Robert Jordan was anywhere near the finish line when Brandon Sanderson took over. And Brandon Sanderson tried to do it in one book, ended up doing it in three. but he did it. And if you read those books, they move. And this was a real problem with the Jordan books, like in 7, 8, 9, 10. They really don't move. For people who are thinking about reading this series, I do recommend it, but with a massive caveat

that there's like a whole section of these books that go really, really, really slowly. And you spend a lot of time with like not even tertiary characters, like a word I don't know for, you know, one-fifteenth of a character. And Brandon really sped it back up and, you know, delivered on what people were waiting for for years and years and years, which was like what happens to everybody and how the story ends. Fantasy is told in POV chapters, right? So you're in the head of characters. The thing that for me was very tough about when he took over is all of a sudden, all these characters, which I knew intimately, deeply, just were completely different people. And he was doing the best that he could to be authentic to their interior monologue.

But his version of their interior monologue and Robert Jordans were different. And in particular, and I don't blame him for this, my favorite character is Matt Cawthon. He's the roguish rebellion gambler, womanizer. And Brandon Sanderson, blessed heart, Mormon from Utah. Seems like he lives a very beautiful in Chase life. I would say the character he'd identified by far the least with was Matt. So all of a sudden, Matt just didn't sound anything like Matt. And that always kind of broke my heart.

So, yes, we are grateful to him. But, you know, it's funny watching these get adapted for Amazon now because it's sort of the second time that readers of the books have had the experience of seeing someone else take a shot at trying to tell the story, right? Because it's like we had Robert Jordan and then Brandon Sanderson did his best version of it. and now Rafe Judkins is doing his best version of it. Well, so how does it compare? I mean, obviously, it's early days still, but based on what you've seen so far and based on what our listeners

will have seen so far in the first three episodes, how does that adaptive comp feel like it's bearing out in real time for you, given how clear those character voices are in your head, how attached you are to the world? Does this feel like the dawn of the adaptation that you've been waiting for for decades? Or maybe not.

I'll answer your question by not answering it, I guess. So I was lucky enough to visit. A proud podcasting tradition. To visit the set of this show in 2019, just after they had started shooting in Prague. And I, for this, for reporting the story that you mentioned. And it's very funny when you get on set, there's almost like a name tag. They slap on you like book reader. Because, you know, it's a, the crew is almost a thousand people.

you guys are deep fantasy nerds, haven't read these books. You can imagine that some actor who just got cast like six months ago in this thing has not read 14 of these books. And the guy behind the camera hasn't

and the costume designer hasn't. And in fact, it's not necessarily in their interest to know what happens eight books from now. It's like live in the moment, be present to the story that you're telling right now.

But that meant that if you were there and you did have this knowledge, that you possess this knowledge, Everyone was really curious. So word got around set that I was a quote unquote book reader. So everybody like, like Rosamund Pike would like finish a scene and be like, is that how you pictured it? Oh my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And my honest answer to her and anybody else was like, I didn't really. When I was like 14, I wasn't like, hmm, how will like they depict this in the eventual adaptation? I was like deep off in my own head somewhere. So on the one hand, it's very cool. see like a set that was the two rivers or a set that was the white tower. And I was like, oh, my God,

this was so personal to me. And now, you know, 800 amazing Czech artisans have, have built this out of nothing. On the other hand, I was just like, this has nothing to do with this weird private world that I dwell in. It's something completely different. So is that how I pictured it? I don't know. I never pictured the actress from Gone Girl, you know, telling, telling five people that their life is going to change and and evil is coming. It's just never crossed my mind. What was your favorite thing that you did see on set? Like, what was something you saw on set that you're like, I can't believe I get to watch

this made visual, this thing that I saw on the page, right when I was in the 90s? Probably the set for Shatter-a-Logoth, which I think I'm saying right. Again, I'm a reader, you know, I never had any, Mal never talked to me about these books. So I never got a lot of practice pronouncing the words. Let down the team. I got to just walk around that set. They weren't like shooting on it, but they had already built it. And I was like, this is crazy.

This is like remarkably detailed. I can walk in and out of rooms. There's like heaps of fake treasure. Like, it's exactly what it was in the books. And there it was just built on this stage. It was amazing. That was really cool. And then just randomly, one of the days that was there, that climactic scene of the first episode,

where Wairn is like, you know, your lives are not going to be what you thought they were. I was just there when they shot that. So it was funny when they started doing the promos. And it was like the first thing that they were showing everybody was this scene that I had watched them shoot. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember that. That was cool. Oh, my God. I already have so many follow-up questions.

It's so interesting to hear you describe like that deeply intimate and personal, you know, relationship to the time you spent reading the books into the story and the almost like uncanny nature of watching it now go out into the world to the masses. And I think, you know, a lot of us who love fantasy stories, whatever the tale may be, have like a version of that, you know, the thrill of seeing it brought to the screen, the thrill specifically of knowing that other people are going to discover this thing that you've loved. And that that intimate personal thing will then transition into the other thing that's really beautiful often about falling into a world that you love, which is sharing it with other people and the community that can spring up around a tail and are fractured past aside.

I'm curious, like, how that part of it feels, you know, seeing a bunch of people now, like, tweeting and talking about this thing that has been sacred to you for yons, not to make you sound like a hundred years old and immortal, but, you know, I don't know. Maybe you two have pursued immortality and are in league with the dark one. I don't know. I can't say. But what is that part of it like? And like especially, and maybe from that we can kind of transition into some of the like Amazon of it all and the next Game of Thrones of it all because there is so much narrative around the premiere of this show, so much about what it means for Amazon. want to be openly, at least as, you know, we understand it based on reporting in certain

pieces and quotes, pursuing that like monoculture project, right? The thing that everybody gathers and talks about and obsesses over. And what increasingly, like, TV is today and what it is to adapt or try to tap into something where there's so much loyalty and affection and expectation when the goal from the studio perspective is, of course, IP. Right. And they have a very tricky job, which is on the one hand, they have these extremely dedicated fans

who want their dedicated fan thing. But for it to be successful, they also need to convert a million people who have never even heard of these books before, and they're trying to please both audiences. I will, like, make a brief disquisition on fandom and say that I don't subscribe to the super possessive tribe of this is this is mine and it's my way and what these creators are here to do is to serve as me.

I don't, I don't enjoy that in culture. I think it's a very entitled attitude. And I think, you know, even if you listen to like Brandon Sanderson told me, I carried this ring for a while and now it's Raves. And he has no opinion. Like the guy who wrote the last few books of the series has no opinion basically about what Rafe should or shouldn't do except that Rave should do what he thinks is right. And that's kind of where I come down, too, which is like you guys are in Prague doing your best to make a thing. You should make the thing that you want to make.

You shouldn't make the thing that accords with all of my interests and all of my preferences and just realize what's in my head. It's already in my head. I don't need that. I think going into this show, because I'm not a book reader and I don't have those expectations, what I wanted from it was for it to be an inviting enough. adaptation that we could have a big conversation about it and that like a bunch of people would pick up the books and we could talk about the books and all that sort of stuff like that's I I mean it sounds so simple for me to say I just want the thing to be good but like I just want the thing to

be good even if it's not exactly what I expect it to be whether it's something that I a property I know or property I'm unfamiliar with I just want it to be good enough that it can like break break why it doesn't have to be huge. Like, Thrones honestly got too big at the end, you know, in a way that just felt like the fever pitch was hard, hard to handle. But that's where I am with that. And, like, I don't tend to get precious with these things. I'm just like, tell it intelligently and tell it in a welcoming way, which I think was definitely the intention of this adaptation. But I guess my question for both of you guys is, do you feel like this?

is a show that is likely going to break beyond the core fandom that exists. And I'm also curious about that the question that Mal raised of how it felt, but you guys went through this with Thrones, I think. I know Mal did of this is a thing I know. And then all of a sudden it's water cooler conversation, which I think is it was, I wasn't, you know, this could be blasphemy here, but I wasn't the biggest fans of the Thrones books in part because there's an interesting interaction between the Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones.

I think, I know, I know. I think Thrones to some extent was like in an argument with Wheel of Time about, you know, is it all fun in games or do people get their heads chopped off? You know, I think that was like an interesting move and fantasy. It just wasn't the place I wanted to go. Regardless, even for me, it was really weird when people were like, hey, man, let's talk about dragons. And I was like, well, I spent 18 years in my life trying to talk to people about dragons

and no one wanted to talk about dragons, and now you want to talk about dragons. and now you want to talk about dragons. Like, I find this genuinely strange. But I'm curious for you guys, did it feel that way? It's a great question. And it's one that I almost feel like I don't know how to answer anymore because it's like impossible to go back to the moment in time that doesn't account for all the years that have like unfurled since, you know?

But I think of like my younger years and, you know, like my dad putting a bookshelf in my room. and putting The Hobbit on it and like how, you know, I was a very late bloomer as a reader, very late bloomer. And, you know, Tolkien and The Rings saga was like kind of a foundational on ramp into not only like fantasy, but reading in general for me, honestly. We're truly spiritual brothers. Well, I mean, if I can get you to switch from the Eagles to the Ravens that will be aligned in full at last.

But, you know, birds, at least, go birds. And then, you know, as I've talked about for hundreds of hours on Ringer podcasts of Your Harry Potter was the thing for me that like completely changed my relationship to these stories and to falling in really deeply to a fandom. And like I saw the first movie first and like my book reading came in later. And then, you know, by the time I was reading Gobble to Fire, which I had three movies had come out. then. I was just like, there's nothing else in the world that I want to talk to anybody about other than this, you know, nothing. And like, the people who don't want to talk to me about

this, I don't know how to interact with them. Maybe they'll be able to talk to me about the Orioles. Like, that was it, right? And so to get to, like, the Harry film era and then the Thrones, HBO era and see all of this become, I mean, it feels weird in a way to say, like, become the because if we trace back the roots, like Star Wars is, you know, an archetypal event and like fulcrum point in pop culture history. So I think this stuff is like cyclical and goes in waves, right? But for us and our like prime years, I guess, of consuming and talking about pop culture, like the Game of Thrones thing, like for me and I feel confident saying for Joanna, like literally changed our lives, you know, professionally, personally and hard to tell the difference sometimes, right? When something's that all consuming. That was a read, Mal.

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We can talk a bit about maybe the critical response to the show. I think I liked it more than maybe many others did. I certainly had things about it that I had questions about or that didn't work as well for me. But overall, I enjoyed it certainly enough to say, like, I'm excited to keep watching and see where it goes. And I'm, again, like, I'm diving into the first book now. Like, I'm eager to explore the world more. And I've watched the first three episodes twice now. the first time

I was like, man, I can't, like, I think about this stuff a lot and pay a lot of attention to it. Like, I can't tell you what these character names are. I don't, this is just a lot to process, right? It's moving really quickly. And when I watched it through the second time, I was just able to, like, absorb it more. I had, like, you know, subtitles on, which really helped.

Oh, that's how Isidai is spelled, et cetera. And of course, like, I'm, you know, an adult human with a computer and could Google a thing. But I'm fearful of spoilers. So I'm trying to Google with great care. But as is often the case, once I knew. what to expect, I found that it flowed a little better. But overall, I think that like that challenge of establishing everything that is essential to establish right away, the number of central characters and elements of the mythology, while keeping the thing moving and they're only

eight episodes total. That's a real challenge. Yeah. And there are just a lot of gods to satisfy. I mean, Rave told me that on the pilot alone, he got 11,000 notes from Amazon. I'm telling you, that was the part of your piece that I, if I had been reading it in a physical magazine, I would have dropped it. It was an insane line. I was just like, yeah. And I mean, that's the, Amazon is still relatively new to making TV at all. And certainly TV on this scale.

Yeah. And I mean, I think, I think it's like an interesting microcosm of all the different things that are going on here. You know, when I, one person I talked to for the story was this guy, Brad Stone, who wrote a, he's written a lot about Amazon. And he's like pretty plugged in there. And he was like, look, you know, does Jeff Bezos want to make this or Lord of the Rings, which they're also trying to make because he loves fantasy? Like, well, he might like it, fine, but he wants to make it because he just thinks that this is the thing that's going to be the most successful. So it's, it's not necessarily coming from this place of deep fandom. It is partially, you know,

don't get me wrong, everyone involved has a lot of creative integrity. But it is, it is, as a play to make prime video, you know, a bigger thing in the world, to export it further and to have a hit like Game of Thrones. So you have Rafe, who's like jealously guarding the flame of what he loves about these books and trying to keep that intact. You have these executives that are like, well, you know, how will this play in Sweden and Omaha and all the other places that we're trying to make it work. And then you have just the general imperatives of a pilot where you have to introduce a bunch of characters.

And in fantasy, you also have to induce, like, what are the rules of this world? How does magic work? Yeah. And, you know, Thrones famously had to reshoot their pilot. And the other thing about Thrones is they didn't have the money to show you a dragon in episode one. So that first season is like pretty low tech until it's not. but here they're kind of working with a bigger budget.

And so there's like people doing magic right away, but then you have to explain what that is. And it gets complicated really fast. It's really hard. I mean, my take on the pilot was, I think, the same as everyone else's, which is like, especially on the first viewing, you guys are doing your damnedest to tell us

who all these people are and what the stakes are. But it's hard. It's hard. And it's hard to like also tell a gripping story while introducing all these different ideas and these characters. I was put off by the pilot. Like I said, my feelings changed as I watched all six of the screeners that we got. And I eventually sort of got the rhythm of what we were doing.

And like Malay, rewatched the first. Yeah. Yeah, of course it's easier a second time. But like, you shouldn't have to watch an episode two times in order to like, you know. It's a lot in a first episode for people who don't know the world. Do you know? I think we all sort of agree that what really works about fantasy in general. And I would argue particularly with this one is your connection to the characters.

But how long do you want to just be like this is what Randall Thor is like before something dramatic happens to Randall Thor? You kind of have to move it along. But because of that, I think it's harder for people to sort of like connect with these characters and also like be like, oh my God, trollex are attacking. oh my God, they have to run. Oh, my God. Now they're in this crazy city and there's a devilish wind chasing them.

It is a lot to take in. And it's hard to balance. It's hard to say to someone like, well, you'll feel really connected to these people if you just stick with it. Because if you don't and they're going through these dramas in episode two or three, then it's tricky. And I was very curious. I asked you guys this before, not on the podcast, but just like when we were emailing back and forth of like how intelligible is any of this that people who don't know it?

Like I'm watching it and I'm like, okay, that's like what that is and that's what that is. And they're like, they're previewing this thing that's going to happen when they, this is foreshadowing. But I couldn't tell at all watching it, whether it like hung together for someone

who doesn't already know this stuff really well. Unlike Mal, I have zero fear of spoilers ever. Like bring them all to me. I'm not mad. And so I was furiously wicking while watching this show to try, to parse what was going on. I would say with the Wiki assist and the occasional question to

like book reader friends. Like I got there. But I, but again, it's just like that was actually more more my frustration than anything else is I was like it felt like the barrier of entry was too high for people who are not, who don't do this for a living and don't have the time to sit here and like go down all these avenues. And I wanted it to feel more welcoming than I felt like it did. What did you think, Mel? Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I hope that people, obviously, again, like the three episode drop bundle. In general, I'm not like a fan of that Amazon strategy. Like, I've watched three episodes of the boys and I want to just watch the whole season now.

And now I have to wait every week or like, same thing with Invincible. But in this case, hopefully it's helpful because people have more episodes than they can. And I thought like episodes two and three were like progressively each episode got better, I thought. And by the end of the third episode, I was like, I'm pretty interested in finding out what happens. And so I hope that, you know, I hope that other people had a similar experience. And when we head down into the mining town, down in that, like, you know, nestled valley and they're with Dana and the gleam and Tom, you know, everything that is unfolding there, Perrin and the wolves, Neve coming back in and everything that's happening with her and

Moirene and land. And, like, I was just, I was genuinely like I'm interested in what happens to these people. And that's kind of what I need when I'm watching a show. Am I interested in learning what happens to the people? And the, you know, you mentioned, like, it's an interesting point about Thrones season one and the respective scope and scale to what we became accustomed to. I believe in Allen Seppinwall's piece, he cited that too. And I think in hindsight, that was very very, very.

very beneficial for Game of Thrones because it wasn't just the spectacle and these like vast sprawling battles. It was time with Aria. It was time with John. It was time with brand. It was time, time getting to learn who these people are, why Tyrion has this relationship to his family, et cetera. That alchemy, like that secret sauce is, it's a hard balance to strike. But I think ultimately an essential one for these, these stories to really grip people and really prove lasting. I'm really curious to see how season one of Wheel of Time concludes in that respect, like how partial anybody who hadn't read the books before is to any given character, you know, how many predictions we feel like we're ready to make about the future of the show,

how invested we are in the stories in the arcs versus just saying, like, well, that was a kind of a fun way to spend an hour. Because one of those things is like, that was a fun way to spend an hour. That's fine. You can make a show that way. But I need to talk about these things. things and I need to know and I can't wait to discover more and learn the answer, that is the essential ingredient for tapping into that spirit of community and that monoculture that we were describing earlier. I think it's the essential ingredient. That's what people need. And every show obviously aspires that, but particularly something like this where the investment is so high from Amazon. And also from the people who are making it who are in like a completely

Prague is not a remote corner of the world except to, you know, if you happen to be in Los Angeles right now or something. But, you know, they're far from home and there's a lot of them and they're dedicating every waking hour to this. So yeah, and that's like explicitly what they want. And that's where I think the next Game of Thrones conversation is like the most fair because that's what they just want that feeling of. It's water cooler conversation and everybody's like completely bought in. And I think, you know, it's funny, Mal, as you were talking, I was thinking that in some ways the length of the books might be a little bit of a trap for the makers of this show. I mean, something that Rafe and I talked a lot about, which I think was originally

a Brandon Sanders in recommendation was like, hey, book one and book two are somewhat duplicative in their plots. They have a similar shape. They're kind of like, this group of people goes on a quest, and they kind of split up and they come back together. And then it's like, you know, I don't think this is like a spoiler to say there's a climactic battle at the end of a fantasy novel. How dare you? Just spoiler alert. There's going to be some climactic battles coming. And so I, I think one thing that they're doing is they're folding some of book two into book one and book three into book two, if that makes sense. And I get it because they're sitting there and they're saying, okay, even if this goes really well, and we get to make our whole show, we get to go all the way from the beginning of the story to the end, well, they're not going to, they're not going to do 14 seasons of a show. I mean, even if you wanted to, like, your actors would age out of the parts.

I mean, you just can't do it. So they're trying to condense and they're trying to, you know, rather than like maybe what happened with Roensworth's where they're like, we're running out of material here. We better like make sure, we better like dwell in the present because who knows what the future holds. This is like, wow, we really, there's a lot to get to. and what you hope is that they still remember to kind of like pace the reader experience with the characters so that that you sort of get that durational experience. And I agree with both of you guys that in the first episode, it's a little hectic.

And then you get to start to spend some more time with the characters. And it's that sort of starts to kick in that feeling of like, okay, I'm interested in what happens to this person and this person and this person. And one thing that is great about these books and that I will absolutely recommend is that everyone has a cool arc. There's no, like, instrumental characters. There's no, like, hey, this person's just here to trigger this next bit of adventure. They all have destinies.

They all come back. It all matters. And all of them kind of get to do something really cool somewhere along the way. I'm really sympathetic to this idea of, like, we got to go. We have to get on the road. Not just for a, we have to cram 14 books into, I don't know, four to five to seven. seasons or something. But also, I would imagine perhaps pressure-wise from the studio to be like, don't give us an hour just in the two rivers of these kids before we get some magic and explosions

and fights, right? That's me projecting. But I think, you know, not to spoil our conversation with Rafe, but I think some of the things he said kind of implied that that partially might have been the case. That being said, again, I'm sorry that we keep making all these Thrones comparisons. But But something that Brian Cockman is really fond of saying about Game of Thrones is that the pilot episode is just like two, one friend coming to another friend's house for dinner. That's the pilot episode of Thrones. And like with a little bit of a little side of DeNaris, like, you know, you're really just at a dinner party and getting to all all these people in that context. And with the pilot of Wheel of Time, I, you know, it's. on the one hand, it's unfair to Monday morning quarterback a show or something of this size.

On the other hand, then I think that is exactly what our job is at the other hand. So, like, you know, bearing in mind that I didn't have to make the thing, I think if I could have and if Amazon would have let me, I would have spent the whole episode just with the kids. You know, we would get, like, I would say that's the first, like, four scenes or whatever, and they're not kids. They're older than that. And that stuff, like, you're warming up. You're getting them. And then all of a sudden it's, like, chaotic. and whatever grasp you had on these characters sort of breaks away.

It was my experience watching that pilot. And you start with this sort of action sequence with the I said I, I think, gentling, a male channeler, which is cool, but also is kind of like. I had no idea what was going on. Yeah. Like I know and I didn't. I was like, what? Like who is that?

Who is this other person? What's going on? And I was like, okay, what they're signaling is this on the other thing. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, I understand why they're starting it that way, because otherwise it would be very quiet and it would be like a loot playing. So like, I'm here for the lute show. The Rathust fans are waiting for the lute show. Yeah, yeah. A.K. Schumann, you know, said, like, when she tried to read the books, it was like just a lot of character was going on a lot of walks to a lot of ends.

But that is kind of the core of these books in some ways for better or for worse. And the kind of more, like, look at this cool thing that Maureen is channeling or, you know, look how scary the red aja are or, you know, white cloaks who I think are more villainous on the show than they are in the books. I get it because you have to convey this information somehow and you probably have to convey it sooner rather than later. But it does feel like at times, and this is a very, I think, book reader complaint. there's like an element of nuance to everything that is like lightly being shaved away in order to just like tell people who all these all these people are and I get that. Can I talk a little about the way the show works or looks and what that does to my immersive ability to watch it?

Creating a fantasy world that feels both otherworldly yet, you know, familiar enough that, you know, we don't feel completely disoriented watching it is is one that, I think a lot of the majority of fantasy adaptations struggle with. And something I was talking to Mal about this, I thought long and hard about this because I watched all six episodes, then I thought about what was working, what wasn't working for me, et cetera. This sounds like such a superficial complaint,

but the costuming and the production design on some of the sets, I think that that was a barrier of entry for me, too. The costuming, there's something about it that just doesn't look, like a real people would wear this. And I think maybe I've just gotten used to not just the Thrones with the Lord of the Rings, like sort of thing where those costumes don't feel like cosplay costumes. They feel like the clothes that the people live in. And I think maybe with the exception of Matt, like no one feels like anything's ever dirty.

Nothing's ever like lived in. It just all looks like very fresh and costuming in a way that I just had trouble feeling like this is a real lived-in world. Does that make any sense? Do you have similar or different reaction to it? I mean, I think one thing that I would add to that is there's a producer that show Mike Weber, who said something to me that I just really stuck with me. Sorry to everyone who loves the wheel of time for saying Game of Thrones one more time. But it was him who said it. And he said, you know, what viewers are used to is not season one of Thrones. They're used to the last season of Thrones. So that's like where you're meeting them.

So that's like what the show's budget is. That's what the show's ambition is. But in some ways, it might have been helpful if it's like, oh, you can't fly all over to gather these textiles for these different costumes, you know, and you can't computer animate channeling and all this stuff because they have a lot of resources to build all this stuff. But sometimes I think you're right, Joe, that it might just be better to like throw a dusty cloak on that. somebody and call it a day. But when you have all these amazing artisans and you have resources, it's tempting to, like, go and go and go. I did find myself appreciating Rans, like, very chunky sweaters more on a second viewing. Same. Same. Those look great. Yeah. And I will say, I do love a braid. Great braid work in this show. Big fan. That's also a fan service, by the way.

Braids, very, very, just a lot of braid talk. I've heard tugging on braid and smoothing skirts is like a thing. Yeah. Yeah. If a woman is angry, you better believe she's tugging that braid. I think for me, the visual aspect that I struggled with a little bit was the way the trollex looked and just generally kind of the visual effects. Like obviously, there are a lot of practical effects.

And I obviously admire the ambition and all of the hard work that went into that. but it just looked, I don't know how to say it other than to say like it looked different than I was expecting it to look. And similarly, actually, with the casting of the magic itself, that had a certain visual quality to it at first. It took me a little while to get accustomed to, but I eventually did with the casting.

The trollecks, especially because of the amount of time we spend with them in the early going, I found it a little jarring. Not jarring enough to ruin the experience for me or anything, but that's, I guess, my version of the costume note. How did you guys feel about the trollecks? Well, I mean, you know, this is funny. I think in the, I really don't come from me fandom

if I'm wrong about this. But my understanding of channeling is, if you don't have the power, you can't see it done. So it's already an interesting choice, in the books, that is. So it's already an interesting choice to kind of show you. And again, I get it because it's like, otherwise it's somebody gesturing and then something happening. And you can easily see an executive or even the creator of the show being like,

you know what? Let's like, let's show the connecting pieces between A&B. Yeah. But I think in the, books, like you can't see. It's just an effect that's happening. So that is a choice. And similarly with Trollex, it's not, these are people who have never seen these creatures. before who didn't even believe these creatures existed, you know? And, and, and that is, like, very much part of the thing is, these are small town kids who, like, got told about some of these creatures as, like, bedtime stories, but don't really know them to be real. So it is interesting, like, how much of them you get, because I think even in the books, there's some, like, I didn't really see a guy with, like, horn swinging an axe of me. Did I? Because that's not real.

That doesn't exist. That must have been something else. So it's interesting in the books, there are some outs to these questions. You know, you could have been more gentle or more frankly vague about some of it. But you're right. It's like all in bright lights and very much there on the screen. I want to ask you in the pilot specifically maybe like what were some of the adaptive changes that stood out to you as either things that you were that didn't quite. suit you or you were like, oh, that's a smart. That was a smart move

for you, the book reader. One thing I will say is I think they cast the show really well. I think if you know who Matt is in the books, you're like, wow, Barney Harris, great casting. Unfortunately, Barney Harris has been recast, which is unfortunate because he's fantastic. And also, if listeners are homework keeping track,

I'm already mad at Brandon Sanderson for depriving me of Robert Jordan's Matt. now I'm kind of mad at this show for depriving me of Barney Harris. I can't be on my fourth mat, you know? It's too many mats. You might be the world's biggest mad head, but you're not alone. I think every single person I've talked to and read responded most to Barney's performance as Matt, like that that was the standout.

Yeah. So it is unfortunate. But it's like if you know Perrin in the books, Marcus Rutherford is, I think really has the qualities of that. character. And I think Ram, I think, is tougher because he's less archetypal in some ways. But I think Yoshi's like pretty good. I think

Aguaine is great. I think Nan'ev is great. Like, I think they did a really good job being like, finding actors that really had qualities of the characters. That part is not jarring at all. Now, you're asking about adaptive changes.

You know, I think anybody's read the books. What happens with Perrin in that first episode, I guess we're doing spoilers, right? Where he's like, we can talk about this. He's married and also accidentally kills his wife. And none of that, none of that happens in the books. They're younger in the books. They age them up, which I get, like I said, most of the time I knew exactly what was going on, like maybe even more than I was supposed to. And that was a time where I was like, I don't have no idea what is going on because I've never seen this before. And then there's like smaller things about like where where a town,

Maryland comes into the story and stuff like that, that, that feel very different. But I am, I am trying not to be too attached to like, well, they did it this way in the books. In the year of Our Lord 2021, I will try to invoke Thrones just one last time and say, Michael McElhatton, aka Roosevelt, plays Rand's dad, you know, with a special sword and with the hair and mark on it and stuff like that. And, you know, we know enough, I think, from that casting and just the way that that character's position that that's probably not the last time we'll save him. But I have her from some book readers that they were disappointed to not spend just even a little bit more time with him before they hit the

road. Did that? Did you feel that at all, Zach? Yes, very much so. And again, great casting. Love that actor. I saw him very dejected when I was, it was like pouring rain when I was on set. And he was just like, you know, in like a Columbia jacket or whatever, getting rained on looking. But it was funny to just see Bruce Bolton look so sad. But, yeah, like, Tam Al Thor is just an awesome character with a very interesting past and very cool secrets that are sort of revealed in the episode that you see him in and are sort of not. And I agree that he's great and probably will, like, come back in some shape or form. But yeah, I felt the lack of that. You feel the lack of a lot of things if you know that they're there.

If you don't know that they're there, I wonder if people miss them. I think that with, I'm glad you asked that, Joe, because that was one where I definitely thought, like, oh, the casting is kind of like a cheat code here where even if we are not getting more time with that character right now, we just, I think, have to deduce and assume that he will be back because that's a recognizable person. Obviously not the only recognizable figure in the show.

I mean, you know, Rosamond Pikes the lead, but like many of the actors in the show are relative unknowns. And so when you see someone who's very recognizable to many of the people watching the show, It's like, okay, I'm just going to, I'm just, I don't know, but I'm just going to assume that this person will be back, that this character will be back in whether it's this season or seasons to come and we will spend more time. So I actually found that was like helpful that I was like, Roos will be back. Surely Roos will be back. And I will say, I don't think this is a spoiler to say as like a tease, like another actor that I really love that was cast in the show, Sophia Konato and she shows up, you know, towards the back end of the screeners we got. And the stuff with her was really strong. for me, I thought that was some of the strongest stuff, like, right at the end of the, of the episodes that we got. Um, so that's something, you know, for maybe folks to look forward to, if they're, like, wobbling and uncertain that they want to continue, so like that. I, I just

thought that stuff is really powerful that we get to eventually, so. Agreed. And I think that one other adaptive change that's worth mentioning is just the sort of, obviously, to some extent, the drama of this thing revolves around Moirene, believing that the dragon has been reborn, the dragon being this sort of really controversial figure in this world because he, you know, he saved the world, but he also broke it. You know, he, he in a, I don't think this is like a spoiler as part of the lure. I think she said some version of it at the beginning, you know, but he, which is itself was sort of a bridgment of a prologue that is not included here.

My suspicion why they didn't include that actually is because there's this weird, um, FXX, fake pilot for this show. That is the weirdest. Yeah, yeah. In order to secure the rights and basically bring us this show, although at the time they did not know that's what they were doing, they aired basically like a fake piece of television only once a few years back, starring Billy Zane.

And they like pretty much are just like, let's just take the first eight pages of this book and like have basically Billy Zane like stand on camera reading out of the book. with like very few effects. It's wild. My guess is they were like, you know what? Let's just stay away from that. That's got a very weird history now on screen and we'll just let it go. But Maureen is looking for is this reborn figure of myth that is sort of supposed to save the world,

although potentially in a very dangerous way, which is like why you have read Aja running around gentleman guys who can channel. In the books, it's not like a gender neutral thing. It's not like, oh, it could be a man or it could be a woman. It's like we're looking for a man. And then the show, it seems like, I think she even says, like, it could be, you know, any one of you guys. And that is like part and parcel of a general, I don't know if you call it a change or an update, you know, one thing about the Robert Jordan books that people like to talk up now that I think is sort of right and sort of wrong is they were much, they sort of featured much more. gender quality, more female characters than, say, Tolkien was doing,

which is absolutely true. It's a low bar that Tolkien said. I had Rosamine and Pike being, like, I think it's a beautiful feminist text. And I was like, I have literally no idea what you're talking about. I mean, Robert Jordan was a very traditional man in a lot of ways and kind of, I think, wrote women from that perspective. But he did have a lot of female characters.

And one of the things that, and maybe you guys talked to Rafe about this, that he was just very, very, very. conscious of emphasizing was like putting putting those characters on equal footing, really enjoying the fact that you have some of issues from, and just generally emphasizing the sort of diversity of the show, whether it be, you know, gender racial. They're really bringing those elements to the fore. And I think that's very cool. But it is, you know, as much as Rafe, I think, downplays it as like, this was what the books were always like. They sort of were and they sort of weren't. But at the same time,

I think it's a, it's a very cool update they've made. It's a, it's a change that I'm right into. Yeah, and we should, we should say we did ask Rafe about the, about a few of those things, especially the parent-and-wife thing, which I know is like a real, it's a real sticking point for a lot of book readers. They're not thrilled with it. So I thought, I found his answer really interesting. So, you know, stay tuned to hear what Rafe has saved on that.

I have, like, one kind of broader story question for Zach that I candidly don't know how to really ask. And I don't want you. to spoil anything in attempting to answer my perhaps meandering bad question, but I'm going to go for it. We can see where we, we can see where it leaves us. Spoiler as much as I can. Just like in a, truly in a, in like a macro sense here, I'm interested in, you know, you talked about destiny earlier. One of the things that I am just personally always interested in and like kind of obsessed with with fantasy stories is how the idea of destiny interacts with the idea of free will,

especially when like character arcs and individual journeys and character identities and choices are so central, I think, to the way the story unfolds. And then in this universe, and again, my exposure to it is new and limited so far. So part of why I'm not sure if this is a bad question is because I assume the answers will come. The role that prophecy plays in the world, the role that the wheel plays in the world, this idea of reincarnation, these spokes on the wheel and the turning of the ages and the weaving of the tapestry. and the way that people, who again are people and live their lives and make decisions about the course of their own journeys, but also are like in some ways presented as cogs, right? What are we supposed to be gleaning this early, I guess, about the message or intent in that respect? Like, is this a story where free will and individual agency has any bearing on what happens? Is there a great guiding hand?

what sort of like religious or spiritual or even just archetypal chosen one elements are at play there to either like pay attention to and latch onto or maybe expect to be subverted? Without spoiling anything, I think this is actually like one of the very cool things about this book is as you sort of learn more lore and more prophecy or things that seem like prophecy, right? Things that are like written in dusty books and libraries,

the characters stumble across or that I said I sort of like proclaim or see in their dreams or what have you, how the characters interpret what they've heard versus it might not match someone else's interpretation. It might lead them astray. It might lead them on the path that they need to be on. And I think a cool thing about this is these are ordinary people. They're not kings and queens, you know, and they have a. destiny, but they have a long way to go and nothing is sort of set in stone for them. And their

own interactions with like, okay, I just read this thing. I think this means that I'm supposed to be like this. Or I accidentally did this thing and now I guess this means this is going to happen. And like sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. And them grappling with this notion of prophecy and fate is one of the many plot engines in these books in a way that I just completely love and think is really well done and kind of subverts the basic idea of like this there was a thing that was fated to happen. It's like, well, it sort of is and it sort of isn't. And you may think you know how it's going to happen and you might be completely wrong. I love that. That's exciting. That's fun. Any predictions that you want to make, Joanna? Any like we could we could throw a few things

out there based on our initial viewing. Zach cannot obviously tell us if we're right or wrong, but we can attempt to deduce something from his response. You can't bring any of your wiki knowledge into it. I know. I've wiki. So this is a real test. But anything that you want to toss out into the world, anything you feel sure of as an early prediction at this point.

Or anything your biggest question would be fair to. Anyone you're most interested in or most eager to learn more about. Like what didn't I wiki is the good question. I wikied a couple things just for like basic awareness. And I immediately caught one spoiler and was just like, I'm afraid. Yeah. I'm surprised that you guys can like. navigate the wikis at all, you know?

Oh, no. I know, I know a lot of things. I know. Well, and Mal, you let me tell you one. One. Only one. But it's not the kind of show. I mean, as you mentioned, it's different.

I'm sorry, I'm going to say the word again, but it's different from Thrones because people aren't dying left and right, right? So it's not like, on Thrones, you were constantly like, you pop on a wiki and you'd be like, you know, if you hadn't read the book and you'd be like, oh, well, I guess that person's dying around the corner sort of thing. Like, that's not. really what this world is. Do you great? Disagre? Zach? What do you think? I'll say this. One of my just George R. Martin complaints that I will have so that I die is that it doesn't make

sense to read thousands of pages of POV from a character and then just like stab them in the heart and be like RIP to that guy. I don't like, that's not my version of books that I enjoy because I'm kind of like this isn't a process of getting no characters better and I don't appreciate this thing of like I had to spend all this time in this guy's head and now it got chopped off and I don't have access to that head anymore. That said, like, you know, not everyone is safe. Not everyone makes it that, you know, there is real danger in this world and not everybody's like fate is like cheerful. I hope the wolves are going to be okay. I love the wolves. I'm already invested in the wolves and I just want to spend more time with them. I'd love if a wolf came and licked my

leg wound and then guided me toward the the tinker wagon path. I'm interested in the in the in I don't know if I am prepared to make any predictions. I will say I told Joanna this pilot immediately I was like all right I guess it'll be rand like that just felt like the intuitive takeaway and then I started to lean iguen and then I started to think why does it just have to be one maybe it'll be like a mix or a combination. And then I went back to the beginning again. And I've tied myself in knots a hundred times with it. So I feel like the only dragon contender who I feel like it definitely won't be is Matt.

That's the only one I'm confident to eliminate. But I loved Matt. And that was, again, probably like my favorite. The character I was just most interested in spending time with so far, though, I do love Lon. and the whole warder Isidai Bond is really interesting to me and I just really like that performance and I'm eager to spend more time

with Lon and Moraine in their like parsley dappled bathtub and anywhere else that our journeys take us together. Yeah, he's one of my absolute favorite characters. He was great, yeah. And I've said this about like six different characters, but like his backstory, who he actually is, what is to come.

And his relationship with... I didn't wiki that. Some of the characters that you're now meeting kind of where it goes is awesome. He's like one of the really cool aspects of this story. And I think Daniel Henney is doing an amazing job. Yeah, it's like great moments. portraying him. Okay.

How exciting. I know. Big moment here for me a new lawn head. Land? How should I be pronouncing it? I always say land. Land. But I'm from Philadelphia, you know.

I was saying land and then I felt like is that, is my Baltimore, mid-Atlantic accent eating me in that direction. He's land to us. I will say your question about like who is the dragon or is the dragon in one person or whatever is the first thing I waked. Did you just literally type in who is the dragon reborn? I think so. I hope other sites have their SEO articles ready.

I think for books. book graders, this is like a funny mystery because it's solved early, isn't it? It's solved relatively early. I mean, in the show, who knows how they'll solve it? But it's solved relatively early. And so, like, what I think of mysteries are things that took, you know, 14 books to resolve or eight books to resolve or whatever. And this is like not one of those things. But of course, if you're watching it now. And if you're reading even the books, it is a mystery. So I, but it is funny as a book reader because you're like, oh, wait, right. Yeah. People don't. People don't. You don't have to wait to find out who the prince was promised was or whatever. It would really take some nerve on the part of the show creators to answer that question differently than it's answered in the books. And I doubt that will happen. It would be amazing if it did. It would be really fun, I think.

But I doubt it. I doubt it. I agree with you. Matt is the character I'm most interested in. I'm interested to see this new actor and, like, if I'll be as interested in the character with this new actor, I hope so. And I think I can say without spoiling, like you mentioned the, the, the warder, I-Sidiye Bond. There's a plotline involving that in the episodes that we've seen.

That was some of my favorite stuff, like from a character we haven't met yet and stuff like that. I got like really emotionally attached to a character we haven't even like met in these first three episodes. And then the politics, I alluded to this earlier, but the Isidai Council and like all this, there's a lot of like political machinations and stuff like that around those women. That was the juice for me. I got really excited by palace intrigue. You love palace intrigue. I do, I do. You love White Tower intrigue.

I do. I do. So that stuff I would be delighted to see more of. I have a question for you guys, which is, I would love to see this show thrive, in part because I love the books, in part because I got to know the people making it and I'm rooting for them. I'm curious for you guys as, like, relatively new to it. And this may be just an impossible question. but what kind of, what elements you would want to see click into place before this season ends to be like, okay, we're in, this is like in the Pantheon, you know, this isn't the only

ringer verse episode ever devoted to this show. Well, those are- We spin off a new podcast and talk about it all the time. No, but like- We're in and this is in the pantheon are two different bars, my guy. Right. I have the pod, pot of the world. You know, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe I'm interested in both answers, you know. It's a good question.

No, it's a great question. I was talking to someone about my issues with, like, some of the visuals, the costume, so like that. This is the first season. And if you look at Season 1 of Thrones, like, it's not perfect. There's a lot there that I love, but it's like, it's, you know, the wigs were bad. Like, other things were bad about season one of Thrones. So there's definitely room for improvement.

And there's, there's a not. I think this world is so fascinating that I am, and, you know, we got to know Raff a little bit in our conversation with him. I'm like, what a delightful person. I really want nothing but the best for him in this world. So I'm rooting for him. I think, you know, you mentioned a climactic battle. We only have two episodes left of this season, right? It's a short season. If there is a climactic battle to come before this season ends, I would want to really feel the character stakes of it. You mentioned the characters. Like, you know, I completely agree with you.

Like, if I'm not emotionally invest in the characters, I don't care how good your CG dragon looks or whatever. I'm not going to care. So whatever that battle is, I have no idea. I didn't wiki it specifically. I would just want to really feel the people that we've met in that circumstance. So that makes sense? If it's just like a spectacle that's meant to dazzle me, I'm going to be disappointed.

I think I'm already after the six that we've seen at the I'm in point. Like I'm genuinely eager to see how the season concludes. I'm eager to read the books. I hope season two is going wonderfully. I hope that more people come to the show and that it is something that we're all talking about for years to come. Pantheon, or to even move in that direction, or to just keep feeling excited and to leave season one with a lot of real, like, intrigue for what season two

will look like, when we will get it, etc. I think my answer is the same as Joe's, like, really just investing more fully in who the characters are. I want to learn more about their shared history with each other. There have been a lot of interesting allusions to, like, other aspects of the universe and other like the IEL. But like I want to learn more. You know,

that was such a fascinating brief exchange between Tom the Gleiman and Matt near midway through near the end of episode three. And like I, it felt like the kind of thing where you're like, that's there for a reason, right? It has to be there for a reason. So like I'm really eager to learn more about, to simultaneously widen.

the tapestry so that we can learn more about the world without having to pull away from what Joanna is describing, which is the dynamic and bond between the characters. Like, I want to, I felt like that little moment, I mean, I'm like a complete total sap. So this is obviously like just predictable, I think. But that little, like, darling little, my dad told me, I used to like pick berries for you.

And like, here's a berry. I've been carrying in my pocket on there. Like, not the Barry moment particularly, but like, oh, you can glean from that exchange that these people have known each other their entire lives. So I want to like learn more about that history and that time and the two rivers and who they are and why they care about the things that they care about and how they came to have these bonds with each other. Something like what we've already in the early episodes been able to see about Matt is like there's that roguish spirit, right? And you can be kind of a dick in a way that makes it really fun to watch him as a television character. but he has this soft, tender spot when it comes to, like, his sisters

and his, like, sense of, I think, familial duty and also we can glean, like, the resentment that he carries toward his parents, it seems to me, again, just in the early episodes, for maybe not feeling that way or not responding to family that way. So, like, all of those things. I just want to learn more about who the characters are

and why they are this way. And if that meshes seamlessly with the battle to come and learning more about, the questioners and the one power and the true source and the wheel and the creator, the dark one, and the eyeless, and all of these wikiable terms that Joe is already much more informed about than I am. If that balance feels right, then I'll be like so hyped to to keep coming back for more. You hear that, right? It's easy. It's easy. Just do all that. And we'll be there for you.

More land in the tub, you know. that too. Rand, like of all, you know, of all these characters that we mean in the beginning, Matt is like our, our Sawyer, right? Like the character that we love who's like a rogue, but like has a, has a gooey center. Mal and I are particular suckers for that archetype. But like, but Rand is burdened with like the most boring archetype, which is, you know, the like, you know, the leader of the group type of guy.

And something I will say that I loved, I mean, I loved all his stuff with his dad, honestly. But there's that moment in the first episode when Egawain tells him, like, and I don't know how accurate this is to the book, but Egawain tells him that she's going to, like, you know, choose to study, which means, like, we're not going to get married or we're not going to have kids, even though we're like childhood sweethearts and all sorts of stuff like that. And he's just like, I know. And that's, and he's not, like, shitty and toxic about it. I was like, I was really proud of Rand in that moment for not being shitty about it, even though he was in his feelings. And the last thing I forgot to admire about the pilot and the thing as a whole is whatever visuals I have, I might take exception to, this stunning natural setting, you know, they shot in all these gorgeous locations. Like, there's, it's gorgeous stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny that part of the world is, is beloved by film production cruise the world over because you can sort of shooting a modern.

city if you want to or you can just drive like 10 miles out of town or kilometers as the case maybe and yeah just be in these complete crazy beautiful vistas that look like people have never been there before okay last question to wrap it's a rapid fire one this is something joanna came up with and it's a delight you could be anyone anyone in the world not necessarily a character but part of a certain group a gleamon an isidae a warder tinker Can I just say really quickly that the reason I put it in the order that I put in, because I was trying to do it, I was sweating to try to get a Tinker Taylor Silder Spy. Yeah. Tinker Gleemann Trollic, I said die. Isidai. That's pretty good. I almost got there. It's close. What's your pick? Gleeman? I don't know. I didn't wiki them. So I don't know a lot about them. But I am intrigued as to what and where and how they go. I think they're very fascinating, enigmatic figures as far as I can glean. Is that a bad choice, Zach?

What do you think? No, no. I mean, Tom Barillan's like one of the best characters in the thing. And, you know, one of the fun thing about the archa, you know, they're not archetypes, right? They're sort of job professions, really. But is, again, like, Robert Jordan went deep on all this stuff. So it's like a gleement has many, many talents, you know? And so that is a very.

cool sort of skill set to have, I would say. Now, I think it's a great choice. I love it. I'm going to go with Isidai, Mal Sadai. I'm not prepared yet this early into my journey to say whether I'd want to be a blue or a green. Not a red. I think I'm ready to say not a red, but I'll get back to you. There's also yellow. Yellow. I know there's a whole seven, right? Well, I, White as well. Is the answer a spoiler? I don't. Well, the existence of the black aja is only rumored.

So, you know. That's my pick. So I don't think anyone's going to pick Trollic, but I'm glad that we got it into the prompt. Yeah, I mean, not to like morph back into an 11-year-old boy, but the answer is water for me. You know, these guys, they, through their bond, they get some special powers. They're all sort of weapons masters. They're very loyal. They go on adventures.

And they're sort of like the scary gruff uncle, you know, in the world. And obviously they protect the I-Sid-I. I will say Tinker's underrated category, I know that there's sort of coming on strong, I think, in episodes so far. But really, you know, peace-loving people who do not fight and who are, who are, who are searching for the song, and anybody who knows anything about fantasy knows that what they're searching for must be very interesting.

And it is. But still have to be true to myself and become a warder like I always wanted to be. I love it. Great pick. This was an absolute joy, Zach. Thank you for hanging out with us talking about stories, man. This was so much fun.

It was really a joy for us. Everybody go read Zach's GQR. article on the Wheel of Time if you haven't and read everything that Zach writes because he's great. Thank you so much, guys. All right. What a treat to chat with Zach. And we have another treat coming up right after the break. We will be speaking to Wheel of Time showrunner, Rafe Jutkins. Stay tuned for that. The playoffs are here. And you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses.

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Rafe, welcome to the ringerverse. Thank you for chatting with us today. We're so excited to be here with you. No, it's awesome. Thank you guys for having me. We have so many things we want to ask you about, so many things we're excited to get into. But to start, you know, we know that you are a huge fan of the books

and have been for some time. Curious to just hear more about your personal fandom and your relationship to the story and why you were so drawn to the idea of making this a show. Yeah, you know, I actually read the books when I was younger with my mom. It was like, my dad had read us Lord of the Rings when we were kids, my brother and I, like, every night before we go to bed, he would go through,

like, the illustrated Lord of the Rings with us. And then I would be, like, shaken about Golem for, like, 30 minutes, and he'd have to, like, comfort me. And then we would go to bed. But, you know, when, uh, but my mom never, like, had that connection with us. And so she had read the wheel of time. And then she gave it to me. And she was like, I think you would really like this like that. It was something for us to connect on in the same space, um, because it had all these incredible female characters and like, you know, I obviously love women as well so like my mom and I could

really kind of connect in the same way that my dad and I had been with Word of the Rings. And so it was like a really special thing to read it with her when I was younger. And then you know, when I saw that it was being adapted, like that they had sort of cleared out the rights because it was stuck in for a long time. And then I saw that Sony had cleared out the rights to do TV. And there was this moment where I was just like,

I think I have to do this because no one else is going to have read. No one else is going to have read all the books. And like, I just can't see this series get destroyed like so many other things that I love. And so I was like, I feel like, you know, I knew even in the moment when I called Sarni the first time to talk to them about it, that it was like, like this huge burden that I was going to be placing on myself for the foreseeable future. But it was like, you know, I love them enough that I really just wanted to make sure that someone who cared about them was at the center of making the series.

As you say, this is like, this is a massive undertaking. This could be the next decade of your life if you wanted to be. And I'm curious, what have you done previously that most? most prepared you for what this would be, the show running thing would be. And if your answer is Survivor, that's an okay answer. But I'm curious.

I'm just being desperate to talk about Survivor. Joe getting the first Survivor mentioned in in the pod, unbelievable upset. Who, the way you set me up for that, I did not expect it to be you, Joanna. I think that, you know,

the lucky thing I had is I had a lot of years in broadcast network television in America. which is just like you, the, the pace of it is so enormous, like that you're putting out, I did a season of a show where we did 24 episodes in one year. And so you just get so much experience with all of the different pieces of production from writing to sets to actors to costumes, casting, post, and what you do with sound and music and final mixes and all of those things. And so being exposed to all of those pieces of the process and being involved in them,

before having to do them at this, which is even a different level, like our post schedule on the show is, I mean, 30 times longer than it was on some of the shows that I worked on. So, you know, being able to have all that experience, I think, was a huge help to me going into this. So I didn't have to learn, like, how, what the levers were before I had to figure out how to maneuver them on such a big show. Factoring in all of that. the book fandom, your affection for the universe and the fictional world, that experience, making other shows, working on other shows at the outset of this, how did you think about navigating or how did you navigate, attempting to make a show that would satisfy book readers, right, that the people who loved the story already and for whom it occupied such a huge part of their lives and their hearts would adore this show. but also make a show that would be accessible and welcoming for the general television audience that maybe did not have that familiarity with the canon, with the mythology, with the lore.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's the impossible task that we've always been faced up against from the beginning and sort of we're aware of too. So I try, you know, like I love the books, but I'm also, you know, like a lifelong TV writer and that's my career and know how to approach things in terms of adaptation. for television so I can see it with those two hats on, but I just tried to surround myself with people who existed on all ends of the spectrum. So we had, you know, even just in the writer's room, we had people who'd read every single book and obsessed over them since they were children

and knew way more than I did. We had people who literally had never touched the books during the show and don't like fantasy, didn't watch Thrones or Lord of the Rings because it just wasn't for them. But they liked these characters in this story when they read the pilot. And so it's like, you know, trying to bring together a group of people who were complimentary in the writer's room, in the directors, in the production team in post so that the whole way through the process, we could, I could be gut checking things against people of like, hey, you who don't like fantasy, like, is this making sense to you? And you who literally obsess over every hair that's different in the height of all the characters, like does this story? like throw you off so completely that you can't take in anything else.

So I think finding that balance, I tried to surround myself with as many people as I could to help me find it. And then simultaneously, sometimes you do just have to make decisions and you have to go with your gut or you end up making something that's like, I don't know, you can try really hard to make something that everyone likes, but then usually no one loves that thing.

So I tried more to make something that I loved and that I thought a lot of people could love. So, you know, we tried to stick to that even when there were disagreements among the various camps of fans and non-fans. An advantage to us talking to you, you know, we're talking to you Friday morning after the episodes have dropped. So people have had a chance to see the first few episodes, which means hopefully you feel free to speak maybe a little bit more specifically than you have. in the past or fear of spoiling people about maybe some of those adaptive changes that you might have made at the beginning for the sake of clarity or for the sake of a TV show rhythm. One change that I know has been pretty popular among my friends who are book readers is centering the women more in the narrative, even though they already have strong roles in this universe.

But yeah, I'm just curious of like what are some of the changes that you made that you felt really helped build a stronger, clearer, TV show. I think it's like it's two things. It's one thing I tried to really look at Wheel of Time as a series and see like what are the iconic elements of like these 15 books, not just the first one because the first one is totally different too. It's like very much sits in more of a Lord of the Rings traditional space. And like that will always be there for it and you will feel that no matter what.

but trying to take some of the things that were iconic about the whole series and put them into this first one as much as I could so that, like, hopefully when you watch this first season of TV, it really feels reflective of, like, the whole series of Wheel of Time. And women are so essential and central to the series that is the Wheel of Time and having this group of women, the Isidai, who sit at the center of it. And Egwain and Nineve, who are these incredible characters that, like, I don't know.

You know, I read Lord of the Rings with my dad and, like, I'd be like, what's happening with AOL? You know, like, I just obsessed with her. And so to be able to have Egwain and Nineve, like, central POV characters with half the chapters in some books, like, I felt like it was really necessary to take that and lead that into the first season. not for any reason other than like it's true to the wheel of time. I'm curious while we're on the subject of the characters here and introducing these characters, their relationships to each other is, of course, fundamental. But also the way that each character and each faction connects

to that larger tapestry of the lore of the world and how much there is to establish so quickly. And one thing that Joanna and I were talking about when we were watching the screeners was like what felt to us like visual coding, you know, the color coding. And obviously some of that is there with the I-Sidai factions. That's Kornan, that's in the story. But when it came to pairing story with the production elements, the costume design, the set construction, et cetera, did you find that those sort of visual codes and distinct elements were essential variables in terms of establishing the world in like a efficient time-sensitive way as you're making a pilot and getting a lot of story into eight episodes of a first season?

I mean, you know, when I had first pitched the show, I thought we would have 10 episodes for the first season. So, like, figuring out a way to tell the story in eight episodes is, I mean, it feels luxurious compared to a movie, but it's like, it's tight. It's 800 pages, you know, like you, everything has to be doing double duty. Like, every time anything is on the show, it has to be conveying multiple things and doing multiple things. And one thing we had to do, another change that I think we made to the series. from the first books was making, the whole series is very much an ensemble piece and the first books are kind of told from one character's perspective.

And so finding a way to make this first book also feel like an ensemble piece and really meet these characters in their lives where you're meeting each of them and you're seeing like what they were doing during these first days, you know, like in the two rivers and, you know, the battle with the Trollics, like what was. was happening to each of these people and what would their lives like and trying to find ways

like, you know, parents are blacksmith. So he is always wearing leather. He has, you know, they have tiny scars that they applied to him every single day on set that that you would have if you were blacksmithing. He wears them through the whole series, like stuff like that can go a long way to just reminding your audience of who these people are. Matt is always kind of like, you know, this rascal scoundrel. But like really ultimately good. hearted guy character through the series of books. And to bring that into the first one, like, you'll see his clothes are like more threadbare than the others. It feels like he, even in small towns, I grew up in a small town, like you have your highs and your lows in a small

town. It's not like everyone sits at the same place. So getting the feeling that his family maybe had a very different life than like Aguane, who's the innkeeper's daughter, you can see that in their clothes and kind of like the expense of them too. You've talked a lot about Lord of the Rings, personal favorite of mine and mouse, obviously. Obviously, clearly. And mine. I know, though, also that you're good friends with friend of the show, Brian Cogman, and I asked him what we should ask you.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And he was like, dear God, Joanna, anything but something to do with Game of Thrones. And I'm afraid that I'm going to break that that suggestion slightly. I mean, I know that Thrones writer Dave Hill is on your staff. I know that Amazon has this like, you know, overt desire to grab a Thrones like hit for themselves. How much has this talk of Thrones in relation to your show been helpful or has it just been like a burden? for you. I mean, I find it exclusively an oppressive burden.

You know, to be honest, like the show is really not, and the books are not like Game of Thrones. And I said that to Amazon right up front. I was like, if you were looking for the next Game of Thrones, this isn't it. Like what I'm going to pitch you is a series that is really different. And I think, personally, like the next Game of Thrones in terms of like, I think when people say they're looking for the next game of thrones. Often they mean something that like pops the cultural bubble and like exists in a hugely global space. And I think the next thing that does that will be a totally different kind of show. It'll probably, you know, like it could be like about Danish soccer players. I don't know what it'll be. But it'll be something that feels, you know, like. Ted Lassau's spin off.

I want that show now, though. I love that. But, you know, so I was really clear with them from the beginning that like we're not trying to be thrones. Like the DNA of these books is not Thrones. Like so if they want to see like crazy sex and violence at every turn, like as much as I mean, I loved the Thrones books and then love the adaptation too. So like I was like, I love this, but it's not what this is. And like I'm not going to make it this.

So like if we engage in this together, like do it knowing that you're bringing something else that's really amazing to like. which is the wheel of time, which is, you know, in so many ways, like a pillar of fantasy literature that has never been adapted. And so I tried to be super clear with them from the beginning about it. And to their credit, I think that they really embraced that. And, like, you know, we've heard honestly more talk about Thrones in the last five days than the entire two years of making the show combined. So it's funny because everyone's like, oh, the network must be putting so much pressure. you about tones, but they actually really haven't. I think they're excited to have something

different. That's really interesting. More broadly, not specific to Thrones, but just more broadly in terms of the through lines and connective tissue across fantasy stories in general. And the moments where as a reader or a viewer or a creator, there actually is like a deliberate reference or inspiration or a nod you want to make. Like, given your love for the genre in general, I'm curious how you balance, especially in light of what you were just describing to us, how you balance the desire to actually like pay homage to something that you love, right? And put a little nugget there for fans while making something that feels totally distinct and new and fresh.

And that doesn't always lead to people asking you here on this very Zoom about other shows and stories. Yeah, it's inevitable, though. you know, like I think Wheel of Time also held this place, I think, in fantasy literature of kind of like, it's a lot of the connective tissue between Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones in terms of like, you know, especially this first book starts with so many rings kind of tropes in it of like, you know, small town taken out, chased by people with black cloaks on, you know, like there's a lot of it that's like directly referential and then there's a lot of it that just has the, the feeling of it built into it. And then as you get into the later books,

you know, it very much becomes about like, you know, these very interesting different cultures and the politics of them. And like, you know, you have something called the game of houses in one of the cities,

Kyrian that like, you know, George was really inspired by to create Game of Thrones itself. So, you know, I think it almost like, it's almost like a mullet of like Lord of the Rings in the front

Game of Thrones in the back for Wheel of Time where you like, you really do see this, this through line and fantasy that is carried across these books. And they at the same time maintain something that is like uniquely theirs. I wish more showrunners would describe their shows as a mullet. It's my new favorite. Does this get edited down? You do cut things out of this. We're not cut the mullet, though.

The mullet stays. The mullet stays. When you're putting the show together, putting together the pilot, putting together the episodes, did you have other fantasy projects? I mean, obviously, like Peter Jackson's films loom large, but like do you have other fantasy launches? I mean, this is such, it's such an incredible world. There's 14 books. There's so much information to download to folks. Were there other films or TV shows or even books that you felt did a really good job of launching us into the world that you were. looking to help guide you in this. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, I feel like, you know, weirdly, I would say Battlestar Galactica for me. I always had one of the best, like, launches into world of any. I have Galactica right there.

Right there. What do you hear at Starbucks? That TV show so perfectly launched you into the world. I thought it was really, really effective. And like, I had originally pitched the show. is like we would start with the two-hour premiere to like, you know, that everything that happens in the two rivers would happen in this big premiere and then, and then crash out of it, which like, obviously we couldn't do for a lot of different reasons.

And they're like, great, can you do that in an hour? You're like, no problem. About 49 minutes. And I'm like, oh, well, okay. But it, you know, I thought that beautifully set up its world. And I think one thing that I did try to do too, was like, was trust the Wheel of Time story? Like, for some people, it does take a while to get into the Wheel of Time.

Like, I didn't get into it until further into Eye of the World and, like, really into the second and third and fourth books. But I don't think it's the right thing to do to just switch out the story of the first book. Like, people all came to the series. They read that first book. And whether they, you know, like, were instantly grabbed by the very first prolog, which a lot of people were and like just pulled right into it or it took them a while to come into this world.

This story brought them into the world of Wheel of Time. And I think you just have to trust that too with the show that like this story will bring people in and even though it has echoes of Lord of the Rings, you know, in elements of it and that it is really like earnest. Like these kids really like, I like that about it. Like I like that it has like this helpful earnest heart at the core. And you feel that the whole way through the series. we've seen so many nihilistic things recently.

So it's actually refreshing. But I think you just have to trust that too and trust that it's the right way to adapt it is to start with that spine of the first book because it's brought 90 million readers to the books. Not bad. Don't fix it if it's not broken. Well, I will share with you that I am enjoying the prologue immensely, which I am reading for the first time because the show inspired me to fall deeper into the world and check out

at the books, I've always been embarrassed that I haven't read them and considered it a gaping and mortifying hole in my fantasy literature. I would agree with you. Like, get hit cracking. I know. It's bad. We're fixing it now. So thank you for the push. I don't want to cut you off, Mel, but I just want to say, I worked at a bookseller for years.

And you have to, like, there's something daunting when you work as a bookseller of like the entire, I don't know, three shelves of the fantasy section is taken up by the series. You know what I mean? You're like staring down the barrel of so many. books. You're like, where do I begin? Or are you staring into like this amazing world that there's 14 books worth of it that you get to like, it's just waiting

for you to open? I like it. I'm glad you said that because it transitions nicely into my next question. Talking about the beginning. But the story is so vast. Are you how much are you allowing yourself to look into the future? Obviously

season two is in production now and thinking about what the ultimate ideal scope and scale of the adaptation and of the show would be given the volume of the text. Is it a 14-season show in your mind or something else? It can't be our sweet children from the two rivers will be 50 when it finishes. You know, like the books are told in the scope of a couple years. So like we are limited. De-aging tech has really come a long way, though, you know?

It actually hasn't. It's really hard to do. And people look awful. We looked into it for de-aging the isidai, and it really is like not something you want to get into. But it's hugely expensive and usually makes them look like creepy. But I know where we have to land, if I'm lucky enough to get to take it to that landing point, like it's a good one. Like with the Wheel of Time famously, like they stuck the landing on the books. Brandon Sanderson did a great job.

like Robert Jordan had left volumes of notes about where it lands. And it is so good. Like I get emotional sometimes even just thinking about that final book and like how all these characters pay off. So it's always, I never forget that. Like I always think about if we're so lucky to be able to hit that, we've got to be doing it from the beginning. And it means that we need to be at like a pretty breakneck pace

for some of the early stuff to like, I would, you know, again, I would love Amazon, are you on this call? I would love more episodes per season. But the, you only have so many seasons. And the books have very, like, strong, beginning, ending arcs to the books as well of each book. So it's, you know, when you combine them, it's tough, too, because you have to really lose, like, a big chunks of story. So I think, you know, it's something that we just have to be thinking about. from the beginning so that we do stick the landing if we get there and that we've set ourselves

upright to do it. Like if I've only told, you know, two books worth of story and we then suddenly find out we have four seasons to tell the other 12 books, then like we're done for. Like it doesn't, you know, like we can't tell the story of the wheel of time if we have to do that. So we're gunning for the end point from the beginning, whether we get there or not. I come to you now with a question from my book reader friends. I think the biggest question the book readers have, having seen the first couple episodes, is centered on an adaptive change around the character of Perrin, giving him a wife and everything that happens in the premiere.

What can you say about that, like, what can you say about what you were hoping to, you know, give us with that choice? Yeah, I think it was an important one for us because Perrin is the most novelty of the characters. He has the most internal sort of struggle that you see. Those characters are usually the hardest characters to adapt to screen are the ones that you learn most about in their internal monologue and they never tell anyone anything about anything. I think it's out of character to have that character suddenly start to be someone who's talking to everyone about what he's feeling all the time. So I wanted to maintain his quietness, but what I needed is for the camera to be able to sit on his

face. And the audience has something visceral enough that they remember about him, that they know what he's thinking even like 10 episodes later, two seasons down the line. They need to understand what that internal monologue is and put that together for themselves. And he is a character that in the books always struggles with violence and what the cost of it is. Like, you know, Robert Jordan was in Vietnam War. And so it's a very different, I think one of the things that's great about Wheel of Time is that it does feel much more inspired

by a Vietnam War kind of era than it does like a World War I, World War II era that some other kind of stuff is inspired by. It's a much more complicated approach to war and violence. And Perrin is our avenue for that in the books. So I needed something that really told the audience, like you could understand why someone would say, why should I ever pick up an axe?

Like, even if my friends are going to die, is it worth it to pick up an axe? And so we wanted to put a moment into the pilot that would leave the audience still asking that question seasons from now. I am very, very shortly going to hand the mic over to Mal to ask you about Survivor, but I have one quick, we love a theory. We love a book reader theory. And so they're already starting, which is so exciting.

And it does, I don't know if you've seen any of them, but it does have to do with Perrin's wife. So I'm just going to say a phrase to you and you tell me if it means anything to you. Okay, okay. Dark friend. No, I think that's the wrong. I don't know. I don't know this fan theory, so I don't want to engage on it. But I think that at least later than the character comes from a sentence in the books where Perrin said, you know, like I.

I think if I'd, I don't remember the exact words, but I think if I'd lived in the two rivers a few more years, I probably would have married Lela Dern. And so now that the characters aged up a few years, we thought it was like sort of an appropriate nod to that, that that's who she is. Excellent. Thank you. Can you tell me what the theory is? Well, they think that she, because, you know, she seems kind of troubled before she dies, right? She's not having the best time already in her life than two rivers. So this idea, forgive me, since I'm not a book reader, I might translate poorly.

So a dark friend, right, is a person who could be, like, seduced by the dark side to, by the promise of immortality, is that correct? To, or something. Yeah. You know, so the theory is that, and, you know, when I first heard it, I laughed, but then my friend tried to explain it to me. But that he turns and she has her axe up and they think that she was actually going to kill him because she had been seduced the dark side. And that maybe she might, because there is a character in the books that shows up looking like someone from parents' family, right? Like books down the line. And they were like, maybe this character is being set up to be that person.

I shouldn't speak to this probably, but they are noticing things that are worth noticing there. Fine. Love a theory. Love a theory. Look at that. that's all I can say. Okay. Wow.

Intriguing. Okay. People will be parsing that. How exciting. You've been so generous with your time. I just selfishly have to ask a survivor question because I'm a survivor obsessive. And for anyone who's listening who does not know you were, of course, on Survivor,

Survivor Guatemala. You made it very far. Which Survivor contest it from any season? It can be yours. It can be any season. Winners of War. Any season. season, okay? You have 41 to choose from

would do best in the Wheel of Time universe and which Wheel of Time character would do best on Survivor. Oh my God, these are two really good questions that require thought there's so many hundreds of people who've been on Survivor. And I believe 2,782 named characters in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. It is,

hmm, listen, I'm never going to bet against Moraine in any kind of game of manipulation. I feel like I feel like she either gets voted out first because people are like, we cannot, or she wins the thing. I would say, well, you really need, in the actual universe of Wheel of Time, you need someone who's like very hardy for actual survivor. So I'm going to go with my queen, Tina. I think she could do it all.

That's an incredible answer. I love it. She can do anything. And I think that includes living in the world of Wheel of Time. Wow. Absolutely remarkable answer. I love it. Incredible.

Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you for indulging. Appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for joining us. This is such a joy to talk to you. appreciate. So nice. I hope that you guys, I hope you enjoy the Wheel of Time books as you're

reading them in the show as you're watching it. I mean, we've plowed through our six screeners, so now we just have to hurry up and wait for the rest. Seven and eight. I like those ones. I like those ones a lot. Okay. Excellent. Well, looking forward. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. It's so nice to meet you. Well, friends, the eyeless near. So it's time to wrap today. episode. Thank you as always to Our Dragons Reborn. Steve Allman for producing this episode. Arjuna Ramgapal and TD St. Matthew Daniel for their additional production work on this episode and Joe Me a Denneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember to follow the Ring ofverse on Spotify wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the Ring ofverse across our social feeds and head back into the

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