I promised @samhainsam that I would write up my thoughts about how the story told on the tv adaptation of Wheel of Time relates to the book series. In my typical fashion, it's been several months since that pledge.

First off, I haven't finished the book series and I haven't read the prequel. I am about a dozen books in though, so I've gotten a pretty good feel for this world.

This is the place to start because it's become the norm for tv adaptations of late. Shoutout to Dave Cullen for the excellent term "cultural vandalism" to describe things like new trek that go out of their way to pervert established canon in order to serve their ideological agenda.

First, I don't think they would have kept the hero as a straight white guy if the writers were trying to push some lefty agenda. The casting was mostly faithful to the physical character descriptions and they didn't make the white characters particularly more flawed or the non-white characters particularly less so than they're described in the books. The relative importance of everyone is handled pretty consistently as well, allowing for time constraints and such.

However, the books explicitly state that The Dragon (who will both save the world and break it) must be a man, while the show explicitly states that it could be either a man or a woman. This is probably the first big red flag for book fans. It definitely feels like an attempt to level the playing field and erase any sex differences.

The show also massively elevates the power of one of the female Forsaken (making her character much less interesting in the process, btw). The books are pretty clear about the male Forsaken having more raw power, while not necessarily being more formidable.

The most annoying changes to me, though, were making a couple of explicitly straight main characters gay or bi. That seemed entirely gratuitous and cheap. There are such characters in the books and others where it's not explicitly described, so why the need to jam it in where it didn't belong?

It's certainly true that The Wheel of Time show is more woke and gay than the books. That's inarguable, but I think there's a reasonable in-world explanation for this version of the story.

Myth and legend are massively important in this universe. Every book opens with a version of this statement:

It's made clear that the events we're reading about are from an age that is both in the distant future and the forgotten past from the POV that they want us to enter as the reader. I believe that's the key to a charitable interpretation of what the show is (and what the books are).

Storytelling, and how versions differ in dramatic ways, are also recurring elements of the books. We're frequently informed that the accounts people know from history or legend bear little resemblance to what actually transpired.

I believe the tv show should be considered a telling of the story from either a different age or at least from a storyteller who was much less well acquainted with the events as they happened.

Even some of the big differences, like who The Dragon could be or how The Power works, make sense in this context. We're told that most people in this world have very limited knowledge of such things, including the gleeman and bards who popularize and propagate the tales.

The personal relationships would be similarly unknown. They may know who spent time in whose company, and rumors may have led some to believe relationships were more intimate than they were, especially if it were a little scandalous. Or, they may have simply been embellishments for the sake of entertaining an audience.

My sense is that the show was made by people who genuinely loved the books but who also had very different cultural sensibilities from Robert Jordan. Those differences are evident, as is the attempt to tell the same basic story.

In that way, it's unlike most new Star Trek or Lord of the Rings products, which seem to go out of their way to undermine the original works.

If you imagine the show being a rendition of famous events from someone who doesn't have all the information but loves the story, I think it holds up and is worth a watch. Just don't substitute it for the books, which are so much better.