I think that is valid. The need to show Lan outside of his relationship with Moiraine matters. We have to remember, in the book our perception of Lan is primarily from Rand. Of course Lan is going to be reserved and not expressive in front of him. Now I do believe RJ fell when showing the budding romance between Lan and Nynaeve. While we saw her pay rapt attention to Agelmar's telling of Lan's story in Fal Dara, we didn't really see any indicators from him that she was planting seeds in his walls.
The show is setting up Lan to be a more relatable character and allowing him to show the depths of his feeling in a ritualized and prescribed manner did that brilliantly.
Lan *IS* a fan favorite. But ultimately, while ALL of them matter in the long run, the story is about the EF5 and the Dragon in particular. We need to see more of both what he is and more about Rand. Rand needs more story to keep him from being defined purely by his relationship to Egwene (and to Mat, to a lesser extent.) Rand needs his own story. And we haven't really seen one, whereas we have from all the others.
I was going to say it will be tough to do in 3 episodes, but we are talking 3 hours. It can be done in that time- but needs to be started in the next episode. Waiting until 7 to show the blood snows might be too late. Pacing has been pretty wonky this first season. And I get the challenges.
Book 1 is notoriously hard to adapt for a number of reasons:
1) it was intentionally written to mirror or recall LOTR. Not just the 1st few chapters, as RJ admitted. A lot of the same story beats appear in it as well, at least until they hit Baerlon.
2) he was *trying* to fit it into the trilogy he pitcher to TOR back in the 80s. But he was already bursting at the seams with the story. Still, it made it uneven because it seemed Rand was fighting the DO. (I've heard that if the series wasn't picked up past book 3, that Rand's killing of Baalzamon would be his taking out the DO. In RJs early notes, that was a possibility, as odd as it seems now.)
3) his magic system was still being worked out. Things like the Eye or the green man's place or how dreams worked are hard to explain given how rigorous his metaphysics became. (There are some way to explain it using the world of dreams it's intruding into the real world, but it takes some work.) The battle of Falme (in book 2) is definitely hard to explain, with them appearing in the sky and their battle being reflected in the battle between the heroes and the seanchan. RJ tried to explain in a q&A on Dragonmount n 2005 that the pattern was intervening to remove all the false dragons from the board by doing that, but frankly that felt like a retcon.
4) The 1st season cannot simply be a replication of book 1. It has to set up the whole series. So it has to also introduce characters and politics and settings that would not become visible until later, when our viewpoints were expanded beyond the EF5. So some time from the book 1 story line would have to taken and given to world creation and later story set up.
So Rafe and co have to do a lot and juggle a lot. The dragon mystery is good but....we need to remember why we care. The stakes about the Dragon need to be raised. Let alone the fear of male channelers. Because that is a huge driving point for rand in book 2. His terror at being able to channel and his attempts to avoid doing so at all costs. We've not seen any real indicators that the fears about male channelers are justified- that the response of the AS and the red in particular are NOT exaggerated.
But 3 hours is a whole movie (Endgame, for example.) Hopefully, the writing is tight, the editing flows (Nynaeve's meeting loial and being led to Rand should have been on screen so that it didn't seem out of nowhere), and the focus is laser like. I am excited to see 6 since that is (or should be) the beginning of the downhill rush to the end.
And it *appears* we will be seeing the Eye (Aside from the last episode name) from the map of Randland and cultural styles. If you look at the screenshot panning you can see a dotted line from the 2R to TV and then to Fal Dara and then it disappears heading north into the blight.
it will be interesting
The show is setting up Lan to be a more relatable character and allowing him to show the depths of his feeling in a ritualized and prescribed manner did that brilliantly.
Lan *IS* a fan favorite. But ultimately, while ALL of them matter in the long run, the story is about the EF5 and the Dragon in particular. We need to see more of both what he is and more about Rand. Rand needs more story to keep him from being defined purely by his relationship to Egwene (and to Mat, to a lesser extent.) Rand needs his own story. And we haven't really seen one, whereas we have from all the others.
I was going to say it will be tough to do in 3 episodes, but we are talking 3 hours. It can be done in that time- but needs to be started in the next episode. Waiting until 7 to show the blood snows might be too late. Pacing has been pretty wonky this first season. And I get the challenges.
Book 1 is notoriously hard to adapt for a number of reasons:
1) it was intentionally written to mirror or recall LOTR. Not just the 1st few chapters, as RJ admitted. A lot of the same story beats appear in it as well, at least until they hit Baerlon.
2) he was *trying* to fit it into the trilogy he pitcher to TOR back in the 80s. But he was already bursting at the seams with the story. Still, it made it uneven because it seemed Rand was fighting the DO. (I've heard that if the series wasn't picked up past book 3, that Rand's killing of Baalzamon would be his taking out the DO. In RJs early notes, that was a possibility, as odd as it seems now.)
3) his magic system was still being worked out. Things like the Eye or the green man's place or how dreams worked are hard to explain given how rigorous his metaphysics became. (There are some way to explain it using the world of dreams it's intruding into the real world, but it takes some work.) The battle of Falme (in book 2) is definitely hard to explain, with them appearing in the sky and their battle being reflected in the battle between the heroes and the seanchan. RJ tried to explain in a q&A on Dragonmount n 2005 that the pattern was intervening to remove all the false dragons from the board by doing that, but frankly that felt like a retcon.
4) The 1st season cannot simply be a replication of book 1. It has to set up the whole series. So it has to also introduce characters and politics and settings that would not become visible until later, when our viewpoints were expanded beyond the EF5. So some time from the book 1 story line would have to taken and given to world creation and later story set up.
So Rafe and co have to do a lot and juggle a lot. The dragon mystery is good but....we need to remember why we care. The stakes about the Dragon need to be raised. Let alone the fear of male channelers. Because that is a huge driving point for rand in book 2. His terror at being able to channel and his attempts to avoid doing so at all costs. We've not seen any real indicators that the fears about male channelers are justified- that the response of the AS and the red in particular are NOT exaggerated.
But 3 hours is a whole movie (Endgame, for example.) Hopefully, the writing is tight, the editing flows (Nynaeve's meeting loial and being led to Rand should have been on screen so that it didn't seem out of nowhere), and the focus is laser like. I am excited to see 6 since that is (or should be) the beginning of the downhill rush to the end.
And it *appears* we will be seeing the Eye (Aside from the last episode name) from the map of Randland and cultural styles. If you look at the screenshot panning you can see a dotted line from the 2R to TV and then to Fal Dara and then it disappears heading north into the blight.
it will be interesting
"Good and ill.
We're like the wind,
we blows both ways."
- Mad Sweeney, American Gods
- Mad Sweeney, American Gods