“I don’t want this adaptation to turn into an ersatz Game of Thrones: the author of the novel is not a fan of big changes in the wheel of time

It was a nice surprise for the fall of 2021. And The Wheel of Time returns for a second season on September 1. But Brandon Sanderson, the author of the novels, spoke about the first season and one change in particular.

Brandon Sanderson, who made a name for himself in the world of fantasy thanks to his novels Children of the Mist and Roshar archive (among others), completed writing a series of Robert Jordan novels after the latter’s death in 2007. He is also a consultant and producer of the series, although he had no decision-making power. That task was, and still is, the responsibility of series creator and showrunner Rafe Judkins.

According to Sanderson, the two men did not always agree on the changes made by the series compared to the books. One major change from the first book, eye of the worldis about Perrin (Marcus Rutherford).

Remembering the facts

In the series, after Champ’s village of Emond is attacked by a group of Trollocs (evil beasts that are essentially orcs in the series), Perrin and his wife, Lyla, fight the group of creatures in their forge.

In the heat of the moment, Perrin accidentally kills his wife by blindly shooting what he believes to be another Trolloc. Soon after, he and other companions flee the village with Moraine (Rosamund Pike) and Lan (Daniel Haney). It seems they don’t have time to organize a funeral.

In the book, Perrin is single and doesn’t accidentally kill anyone. It just doesn’t happen, much to the surprise of many readers. Why this radical change? According to Raf Judkins, this was to give Perrin a more compelling storyline and help the audience get to know his character better from the start of the story.

““When we started the adaptation, I talked to people about what they didn’t like about the books.” Judkins told him HollywoodReporter. “One of the things that came out the most was that people felt like they didn’t really know Matt or Perrin until the end of the books in particular.

You can’t really afford a series without one or two of the seven main characters not being famous until season four, can you? (laughs) Therefore, one of our main tasks was to make sure that each of these five children of Two Rivers could understand the heart of the story that they will encounter in the first season – and throughout the series – from the first episode.“

point of contention

Apparently, in one of the books, Perrin says that if he had stayed in Deux Rivières for a few more years, he would have married Laila, and that’s where the inspiration for the character came from. In a long post Reddit Published when the series was released, Sanderson wrote that he disagreed with this change, as well as other changes that made the story stronger.darkWhich translates to “deplorable,” a subgenre of fantasy that Game of Thrones would fit in, but Wheel of Time wouldn’t. Here is what he wrote:

“The biggest issue he and I disagreed on was Perrin’s wife. I understand that there is a good opportunity here to show Perrin’s anger issues and fear of the potential beast within him. I liked the idea, but I didn’t like that it was a woman for many reasons.

First, it’s very similar to the disposable woman trope (or The woman in the fridge). Also, I think the trauma of his wife’s murder is so great that the story being told fails to deal with it realistically and responsibly. Perrin killing his wife and then going on an adventure really bothers me even now. I’m sure the writers won’t take this lightly, but still. This kind of trauma, handled realistically and responsibly, is really difficult for an adventure series.

I suggested that he kill Master Luhan, his master blacksmith. As much as I hate to spoil Luhan like this, I think the idea of ​​Rafi and the team is a good one to speed up Perrin’s story. The accidental killing of his master takes the trauma back a bit, but provides the same motivation and the same hesitation.

There’s one thing this adaptation has tried to do is turn into an ersatz Game of Thrones, which means I don’t want to rely on the dark side of ideas. Killing Perrin’s wife seemed brave enough for him to dare“.

Sanderone is not the only one unhappy. Many fans of the book were upset by this change, as were others, such as the idea that the reincarnated dragon could be any of the Five Young Men of the Two Rivers, not just Rand Al Thor (Joshua Stradowski).

But Sanderson has a clever way of dealing with these changes. “I see this as a new turning of the wheel“, he wrote in a comment below the thread.To me, it’s not an adaptation of the books, it’s an adaptation of NEXT when these people experience the story.“

Season 2 of Wheel of Time will be available September 1st on Prime Video.