The Wheel of Time (Page 5 of 5)

1. Moraine was never shielded for an extended period in the books. She never abandoned Rand or Lan in the books either. This makes zero narrative or story-telling sense to me at all. She spent Rand's entire life looking for him, knows he's the chosen one and is the only person who can defeat the Dark One, you really think she'd let him out of her sight?

2. Egwene killed the Seanchan that was controlling her. In the books she left her there with the collar on, making her a damene as payback. The revelation that Suldam's also could channel was a huge shock to the Seanchan and a major disruption to their society later in the books. So that was actually a HUGE plot point that was changed. On top of being a major change for Egwene's character who wouldn't have killed a captive like that.

3. The Horn of Valere. That was a goofy looking horn. Also in the show they state that it 'summons an army of heroes'. I guess the budget constraints prevented them from the actual army part. I thought it was hilarious that the show is treating it like this huge key in fighting the Dark One when in the show it barely summons 10 people. The books horn summoned around 300.

4. Matt was not a hero of the horn. He's a Ta'veren. The show has actually mentioned Ta'veren and told us there are 5 of them. Rand, Perrin, Matt, Egwene, and Nynaeve. In the books there were only three. Rand, Matt, and Perrin. All Ta'veren influence fate simply by existing. People around them may agree to do things they'd never normally do, extreme cases of luck both good and bad manifest as well around them. Matt in the books has no powers unlike literally everyone else in the group. It's revealed around this point in the books that out of all the Ta'veren he's the one who influences luck the most, and his super power is luck. Which fits given all the gambling we've seen him doing.

5. Rand's fight at the season ending was completely different and way less cool than the books. But what really annoyed me is Moiraine kind of offhandedly mentioning that he was prophesied to announce himself in the sky at Falme. Ummmmmm again why did you abandon him if you knew that prophesies had gone unfulfilled? Why are we just NOW hearing about the prophesies of the dragon, which was a huge part of the books and were constantly mentioned? The prophecies included some Herculean tasks that Rand had to complete to prove to the world he is the Dragon. They drive the plot of the books for most of the series. The TV show offhandedly mentions them once and never elaborated.

6. The seals... those giant stone disks. They didn't hold the Forsaken like some oversized pokeballs. They were the magic seals created to hold the Dark One in his prison. Made of a material that's supposed to be indestructible, in the books the seals had weakened and could be easily broken by hand. When the last seal breaks, the Dark One is fully released and the Last Battle begins. So in the books there's a pretty frantic scavenger hunt on both sides for the remaining seals.

7. The Seanchan are missing their flying lizard mounts they used as scouts. I actually wanted to see the riders and am disappointed we didn't get to see them.

8. Seriously, it wasn't until Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve were captured that the show started even resembling the books again. There are some really confusing nods to book readers, like Rand burning the letter from the noble in that one scene and Lanfear mentioning that all the people in the room thought he was some far away random lord no one had heard about. That was actually a major storyline in the books and was kind of humorous but lead to the Fireworks guild. The guild of people who discovered gunpowder and kept the secrets of making gunpowder. That's... pretty important later on for some pretty obvious reasons. If I were to create a full list of the changes this would be like 30 to 40 points long. Min never is tempted to give up her powers by working with the dark for example. Sure she hates her sight in the books, but would never work with the Dark to get rid of them.

9. Moiraine destroying the ships with the damenes on them. First off Moiraine is bound by the 3 Oaths, which have been established already. She can't channel to kill unless he life is in direct danger. So her killing those ships shouldn't have been possible. The other reason that shouldn't have been possible is the FACT that those ships were full of women who could channel, some or all of them should have been able to block Moiraine.