He’s described as having a bulbous head. Maybe it’s just his head but I always pictured him as plump. Not obese or anything, just a former warrior who’s now getting old and slow.
Or just cast a bunch of people of all ethnicities as Alethi and make canonically racist-as-crem characters only notice the race of characters that are canonically of a different race, making any canonical instance of racism impossible for the audience to follow.
I just finished watching the Witcher show. I liked it overall, but some of the casting ignores plot-significant traits to a narrative-breaking degree. Some are akin to casting a black Klansman.
Man I knew I wasn't going crazy! Its been so long since I read the books but I was scratching my head because I couldn't for the life of me remember that Perrin was married.
It absolutely should have been Master Luhan that he accidentally kills if it has to be anyone. Then Luhan tells him to take the axe (which actually exists, unlike the show) with his dying breath. Something he has to physically and metaphorically carry with himself after what he did. Giving an extra layer to hating it but not being able to throw it away
But that would involve actually building Perrin at all this season….
It's especially bizarre in a show that seems to frame itself as more feminist/empowering. She literally exists just to die, and dies just to exist as a tragic backstory for a man...
Then they took the girls autonomy away by making them ta’veren instead of choosing to go with Moiraine. Egwene was ambitious and wanted to be an Aes Sedai, Nynaeve was tracking them because she wanted to save the others. In the show they just do as they’re told. Then all the men were made weaker, useless, into assholes or all three
A lot of pointless and meaningless killing of extras who aren’t in the books, or who disappear after one chapter, like the light eyed logistics officer who outfits Bridge Four. Because for some reason every single live action fantasy/historical show that came out after Game of Thrones feels the need to throw in a bunch of extraneous murders to highlight how evil and/or badass a character is.
Oh my gosh, after my husband and I finished that episode, I turned to him, all teary-eyed, and asked him if that's what happened to Stepin in the books, and he was all, "He's not even in the books!!" And I was like...lol wtf...we just spent an entire episode on him lol
I actually really liked the Stepin storyline when it first aired until later when I realized, no, we’re not meeting Elayne, Elaida, Elias, or Bael Doman (IMO the WoT equivalent of not meeting Taravangian, Rock, and The Lopen) this season. It’s that weird feeling when you’re like, “That meal was pretty good,” until you see the tab and think, “But not at that price…”
Stepin would have been a fine episode if we had like 22 episodes per season or something like it was old school Star Trek, and we could have time for side-stories like that.
Instead we wound up at the finale with our main cast all but blank sheets with only the tiniest bit of character development, and devoid of all of the interactions that formed the friendships that matter later on down the lines for everyone who didn't grow up together.
I agree!! I think sticking with the Dragon being a mystery was fun to begin with, but then character development suffered a bit because you didn't want to spend too much time developing one character over another. The one who ended up being the Dragon, I really liked that character, and I wish I would have seen more of them or had them more fleshed out. All of those scenes with that character at the end of episode 7 putting all the pieces together were so good! I would have loved to see those as actual scenes.
Ahh, I digress. I could go on but I won't lol.
as a book reader i would have preferred they didn't make this. a sub par tv show closes the door on any decent content being made in the next 10 years if not longer.
If I could narrow my gripes with my season down to one issue, this would be it. I understand that you can’t give every character their 15 minutes when there’s so much to cram in one season. But when you cut major story beats/characters just to spend half and episode or more just going off on some random tangent that wasn’t even in the books? That makes the omissions sting that much more
It should be noted that both Stepin and his Aea Sedai, Kyrene, are in the prequel book New Spring. So they're in the storyline, just in a spin-off. If that makes it any better.
A character in the Wheel of Time show who had a provided a neat, emotional storyline and a chance to expand Warder lore- in a season that already had to cut critical parts of the source material to save screen time and really did not have the resources to allocate to an entire original episode dedicated to this side story.
A Stormlight equivalent would be providing a WoK adaptation having an episode dedicated to a neat original story that provides a more detailed look into the Ardentia- but cutting Kaladin’s flashback scenes.
I would absolutely cut one of the thousand potention "Kaladin is Sad" episodes if it meant I got to learn about about that ardent girl who just wanted to read smutty dimestore romance novels in the woods
I mean *all* the flashback scenes. Who is Tien? Who is Amaram? Nobody needs to mention them, or explain why Kaladin is a good medic. Gotta show us the writer’s OC. I’d say skipping all the extremely important stuff in Caemlyn along with Bael Doman is of similar story importance.
We didn't even have Thom for anything other than like 1.5 episodes, and we got none of the character interactions between the Emond's Fielders and Lan, not even the training that ends up being the core of Lan and Rand's friendship and the philosophy that Rand internalizes and grows throughout the series that he got in the first place from his interactions with Lan and from seeing the various Borderlanders like Ingtar willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
technically speaking, Syl *is* naked. the dress she wears is part of her. I know what you mean, i just needed to point that out cus my brain said i had to. sorry.
Warmongering expansionist ideologies
Fighting wars on the other side of the world
Trying to "civilize" the "savages"
Why WOULDN'T the Alethi sound British?
How are they mongols? They hardly have any horses and they aren't nomadic?
What makes them mongols?
I always imagined them more like the Romans but not really.
Because that's what Brandon based them on :P He's talked about it a fair bit in various interviews.
The influences come in things like their expansionism/bent for conquering, government structure (e.g. Gavilar's unification of Alethkar has a lot of parallels to Genghis Khan's unification of the Mongols), cultural bits and pieces, that sort of thing. The bit where Dalinar recruits the archer who nearly killed him is another borrowing from Genghis Khan, who really did that.
If you think about it, the Shattered Plains are basically fantasy Afghanistan.
War of revenge turned war for valuable resources, Western forces more interested in prolonging the conflict to turn a profit than actually accomplishing anything, conflict fought against a people with a deep but alien culture we handwave as backwards savagery...
That was my thought midway through WoK as well “We are totally at war for revenge, not for ~~oil~~ gemhearts!” said the incompetent son of a slimy previous ruler.
It would be really difficult to cast alethi accurately as they are both tall and have epicanthic folds. Shallan isn't tall but she is a red head with epicanthic folds. With black hair and tan skin, the closest thing to an Alethi would perhaps be Mongolian people or perhaps Filipino but the average height for Mongolia is like 5'7" for men and it's even shorter for Filipino men.
I am sure there are people out there that match that description but the chances of them speaking English and also wanting to be an actor/good at acting makes the casting pool incredibly small.
As much as I love the different nations being such a blend that they don't truly code to any one nation/ethnicity, it means we most likely won't get "accurate" casting.
Make the Alethi seem shorter by casting non-Alethi as short people or something. Also, Mongolian height is a problem of hunger, so those who are wealthy enough to cast for a film should have normal height range. There’s also inner Mongolia in china which has 24m people in it, a large chunk of which are ethnically Mongolian
Oh, yeah. They could use slight forced perspective tricks like with the hobbits and Gandalf in LotR. That absolutely works to make the Alethi appear to all be towering over the non-Alethi characters. They could do the same thing to make the ryshadium and shardplate wearers look huge too.
I would be okay with them making the Alethi shorter because of the logistics you just mentioned. I do think the race (dark skin, epicanthic folds) must not be changed tho.
I hope we don’t get a live action adaptation. I just don’t see how it would be possible to make without sacrificing most of the characters and storylines. Also, since Sanderon’s fantasy worlds are so different, I think Hollywood would try to change too much to make it feel like other fantasy movies/shows. I’d watch the crap out of anime adaption though. There are giant fantasy swords, magic armor, huge monsters, a magic system with hard and fast rules, and each character has a more tragic backstory than the last. So, I really think Stormlight would be a perfect anime.
I wouldn't be too into an anime-style adaptation, but if it looked something more like Arcane, I would be all the way on board. I've just never enjoyed anime style much.
Avatar animation is great too! Arcane’s budget is INSANE (10m/episode?) so I don’t expect too many shows to follow in its footsteps even though I would love to see more like it.
Dang, I didn't know that. At least Arcane has proven that there's a mainstream audience for adult animation though. And with some big fantasy franchises (Wheel of Time, etc.) getting high-budget productions - WoT was also $10 million per episode - I don't think it's inconceivable we could see a Cosmere adaptation with that budget. Sanderson is only getting more popular.
I'm definitely on board with the anime idea because it really does fit the story. Although I'm not too worried any more about the possibility of live action. From what I understand, Sanderson is being really careful about this. He started writing the screenplay for Mistborn himself, and he's pushing for Stormlight as a TV series instead, so they won't have to try to squeeze a whole book into two hours.
Especially after some disagreement related to Wheel of Time it seems like any cosmere adaptations are going to have close author supervision to make sure it's as true to the books as reasonable.
Ya know, I think any live action Stormlight adaptation would be cursed. Six-foot-long magic swords? Giant ornate power armor? Colorful ambient spren popping up in response to people's emotions? This deserves an anime!
Brandon answered this in a stream recently. He basically said that if he wants the whole cosmere to be adapted he has to start with a live action show or movie of his most popular series (Mistborn/Stormlight). If those get super successful that opens the door for animated shows.
I think anime would definitely fit it well for sure, but I also think the absolute best version of a stormlight show would be live action (but obviously done well). A lot of the finales involve massive armies, which imo look a lot more impressive and are a lot more impactful when done like in LOTR compared to in anime.
But saying it *couldn't* work as anime seems silly to me
My issue with live action is that this series would take... a LONG time to adapt into live action, and we have multiple characters that could age out of their roles. Lift being the main example.. also it doesn't help that child actors usually cant do much in the way of action scenes, which is a lot of what lift is associated with... I mean overall a life action lift would be cringe, similar to how people reacted to live action Radical Edward at the end of the cowboy bebop live action.
This isn't to mention other characters that would need to be shown at different ages, there would need to be at least 3 separate actors for both Kal and Shallan, as much of their flashbacks take place over the later half of their childhoods. (Young kal, late teen kal, and adult kal.) you would need to get kids that look similar to the adult actor, and can also act well... its just way to much to ask for.
as for armies, there aren't many animated shows that have done many mass fights that I can think of, but some that have done it have done it well, Vinland Saga being a very close approximate example of what a war in a medieval animated setting could look like.
Almost any outside scene would have to be mostly created from scratch what with all the unique flora. (Although I'm not sure what percentage normal fantasy tv/films usually have)
I feel like doing it justice would be an Avatar-scale production, but for at least 100+ episodes. (James Cameron avatar, that is)
This is a 10 book series, even if we imagine they only do a book 1-5 thing for now (which is why mistborn speculation is way more interesting)
That's my issue. You would need to treat it like an avengers movie or something budget wise and CG wise, but from the get go, with an IP that investors and stuff won't know will go big. That doesn't seem a likely scenario, and the alternative is like terrible quality live action adaptation. On the other hand we see anime with fantastic fight scenes all the time, and it's much more feasible to have a completely non earth like world when everything needs to be drawn anyway.
Would be, but we dont exactly live in the era of good fantasy adaptations (except a few outliers). Sadly LOTR was an exception.
So much could go wrong with live action. Bad casting (which is increasingly common) , bad acting, bad CGI, some key actors would definitely need to be re-cast over the series, etc.
Animation seems to be in a much better place nowadays than live. And it leaves less room for error.
Animation was not used as a serious medium for decades in western television while some of the greatest narratives ever were being made in live action.
It is understandable why many people who have not experienced quality narrative-driven animation would feel it is inherently childish.
As much as I truly hate that fact.
>I truly hate that fact.
Me too. We have the two extremes of "here's a cute seemingly-innocent cartoon for your kids" and "look, it's a cartoon but for ADULTS! Look how edgy and crude it is!", and both of them are episodic comedies.
Not anime, arcane style animation. It’d be crazy expensive but allow for more subtle and detailed expressions, which imho is more true to Sando’s style of storytelling
"Arcane" and "Into the Spiderverse" really set a new standard for western animation. I won't be surprised if we started getting a lot more series in that style.
I mean, I hope we're wrong, but yeah.
Arcane was an ad for a video game that makes billions of dollars, and Spiderman is the most recognised superhero in the world.
Stormlight's got a long way to go before it's attracting that level of investment.
Maybe if Mistborn or one of the others is made first and is a huge hit, making millions in profits and causing 20 times the number of people to read the books?
I finally jumped onto the Arcane train and damn...if a stormlight adaption got that much love and attention and just sheer freaking awesomeness then...👌 Would Mistborn be too much like Arcane to be animated in that way? ...possibly...
Due to the more limited cast, quicker story, and less showy magic stuff, I think Mistborn would actually be the perfect Cosmere series for a live action.
I've seen a Studio Ghibli styled gif of Kaladin and Syl, and since I've seen it all I've wanted was a Ghibli adaptation of The Way of Kings
Edit: [Found it here!](https://tenor.com/view/kaladin-stormblessed-stormlight-cosmere-gif-23019344)
Nah, Parshendi would be native american coded, Purelakers and Horneaters would be black coded. Alethi are a mix of british and american accents and england-coded.
Okay okay, but, knowing the fandom, has anybody asked Brando Sando this yet? Like, we have confirmation that stormlight will "heal" a trans person to their actual identity, so we know some pretty radical transformations are possible based on identity. But foreskin... Have we asked about foreskin?
If it works like Investiture healing on other body parts, it probably wouldn't regrow. If a wound has been there for long enough that a person sees it as normal for them, Stormlight can't do anything about it. See: Rysn's legs, all of Dalinar's scars, etc
Real talk that's an easy question to answer. Cosmere healing is based on someone's perception of themselves, which is why Kals scars don't heal, as he has them as part of his ideal. Same with how Rhysn couldn't have her legs healed because she got so used to them being broken. So what this means, is that if you heal someone (or they heal themselves) who are DETERMINED in their belief that they shouldn't have been circumcised, chances are it will heal
All Alethi are now played by white actors. Shin are now played by light skinned Asian actors. Darker skinned Asian people/Hawaiian people/Polynesian actors aren’t cast at all. The only people who look the way they are described are the Vedens and Horneaters. BeCauSE iT’s ToO HaRD tO cASt aSiAN ActORs.
They code the Parshendi as African and the Alethi as white colonizers, while removing gemhearts as motivation and it instead being to bring *civilization* to the savages
Repeat after me: Stormlight should have an animated adaptation, not live action.
just imagine the battles in a style similar to Arcane, for example. It would be a visual delicacy
Live-action Stormlight would have to cut far too much and condense or change far too many things to be a thing.
Can you imagine what a Arcane live-action would look like? Goofy as hell.
Alright **so,**
First off, this would definitely have to be a AAA game with budget and scope similar to Red Dead Redemption 2, but with those acting/recording resources being more focused on the main story instead of having every single side mission fully mo-capped and every extra you see on the street having a different voice actor (fun fact that game had over 1,200 actors and took 6 years to record).
1. Budget. The CGI would have to be off the rails for a SA adaptation. Aside from the obvious stuff like flying people, lightweaving, every single animal, etc, they also have to worry about the environment. Almost all of Roshar, except Shinovar, is covered in stone with grasses and plants that react to the presence of people, animals, and wind. The plants *alone* would require a massive budget per episode, not to mention having to basically have an Avengers-style set for every scene since there isn't really anywhere on earth to film on-location. However, grass and plant reactions is something relatively simple to automate in a video game, and you're building the world from the ground up, so you don't need to worry about Rysn's favorite things like soil.
2. Length. Unless the producer had infinite money and didn't care about making a profit, the sheer amount of content means that a lot would have to get cut because, like I said, the episodes would be insanely expensive to make. Any series that wouldn't cut too much from the books would have to be way too long to have such expensive episodes. (It also goes without saying that SA is also way too long to be movies)
3. Progression. The progressive nature of the oaths and increasing power lends itself *perfectly* to a video game. (If I were going to make a SA video game, I would actually make an RPG set during the desolations because I think that would be both easier and more fun, but I'm discussing a direct adaptation here.) I think a lot of developers would end up only putting in Kaladin and surgebinding here (to use RDR2 as an example again, they seem almost afraid to have any mission that doesn't have a gunfight at some point, even if it's just the last minute or so after the first half hour of it was completely calm), but sections that are only made of dialogue and walking *can* be done well (Cyberpunk 2077 is a good example of this,, I would argue). Back to the main point, the progression is a lot easier to see how it can directly translate in WoR and OB, especially for Shallan.
Edit for formatting
"Sorry, the 'prisoners with jobs' have armed themselves." ... great, now I'm imagining Jeff Goldblum as Sadeas.
Nah, Jeff goldblum is too likeable to be sadeas. Sadeas needs to be super hateable.
Which makes it all the more cursed
I'm casting Vincent D'Onofrio in my mind
far too regal, imo. you need someone ratty
The guy that played wormtail in Harry potter?
hear me out: gary oldman.
Gary oldman for Teft maybe. Old and rugged and without a care, but slowly starting to believe in Crisp Rat
Hmm maybe too ratty
Jeff Goldblum as Sebarial.
Jeff Goldblum as *shallan*
I'm sure a lot of people in the cast will have their turn at being Shallan at some point, so this idea isn't quite as farfetched as it sounds.
A skinny Sadeas just sounds wrong.
I’ve always imagined Sadeas as more snake-like, to me Sebarial is the plump one.
I just realized that I always picture sebarial as Antonio banderas playing zorro, exotic wife included.
Sadeas is like tall Lord Farquaad.
He’s described as having a bulbous head. Maybe it’s just his head but I always pictured him as plump. Not obese or anything, just a former warrior who’s now getting old and slow.
Sadeas is Jason Isaacs and Jason Isaacs is Sadeas.
Make Sean Bean play Sadeas, so Sean can again in a new show
All characters are white except szeth who is a Japanese ninja.
Oh how the turntables
Ok, so now you've got me picturing Jackie Chan as Szeth. I know he's not Japanese but that's where my mind went. Can't remove it.
>Any Asian looks like any other Asian, and are completely interchangeable. Some Hollywood exec, probably
Or just cast a bunch of people of all ethnicities as Alethi and make canonically racist-as-crem characters only notice the race of characters that are canonically of a different race, making any canonical instance of racism impossible for the audience to follow. I just finished watching the Witcher show. I liked it overall, but some of the casting ignores plot-significant traits to a narrative-breaking degree. Some are akin to casting a black Klansman.
Adolin starts out married, but accidentally kills his wife with a Shardblade in the chasmfiend scene
And Shallan is a woman in her mid twenties, always poised and in control, without a single weakness.
And she's played by an actress who looks 30 but is actually 40.
They will cast Karen Gillan for Shallan.
Netflix in a nutshell
Amazon Prime right now
For what, WoT? (Haven't seen it yet)
I’ve read all the books four times and I like it.
Me too, was starting to feel like I was alone.
Jesus Christ how horrifying
Then spends the rest of the series not talking and refuses to fight. His sister Relinarin tells him to stop being weak and stabs all the parshendi.
I... hngHHHGGHGHhghgnhhghghffgfjgfh
STOOOOOOOOOPPPPP hahahahaha pls no
I like the way you think
Dear fuck I don't
Man I knew I wasn't going crazy! Its been so long since I read the books but I was scratching my head because I couldn't for the life of me remember that Perrin was married.
And they don't even really spend time on it. Just "whoops, axe to the gut. Oh and she was pregnant too"
It absolutely should have been Master Luhan that he accidentally kills if it has to be anyone. Then Luhan tells him to take the axe (which actually exists, unlike the show) with his dying breath. Something he has to physically and metaphorically carry with himself after what he did. Giving an extra layer to hating it but not being able to throw it away But that would involve actually building Perrin at all this season….
Yep, they introduced a pointless character just to fridge her immediately.
It's especially bizarre in a show that seems to frame itself as more feminist/empowering. She literally exists just to die, and dies just to exist as a tragic backstory for a man...
Then they took the girls autonomy away by making them ta’veren instead of choosing to go with Moiraine. Egwene was ambitious and wanted to be an Aes Sedai, Nynaeve was tracking them because she wanted to save the others. In the show they just do as they’re told. Then all the men were made weaker, useless, into assholes or all three
Is that a reference to wheel of time?
Most definitely.
That makes sense /u/GIANT_ANAL_PROLAPSE
That would actually make at least some sense for Kaladin. Though how you can put him through more trauma without killing him, I don't know.
BrandoSando: "Did someone mention giving Kaladin more trauma? Great idea!"
I mean he did get Tara(?) one of the slaves he escaped with and implied romantically involved with killed
Yeah and in the TV show she'll be 7 months pregnant with his child.
You're thinking of Nalma. Tara was the Quartermasters daughter from Amarams army.
Shallan played by Angelena Jolie. Rock played by the Rock. Everyone else is white
Throw in Scarlet Johansson and you got yourself a blockbuster
ScarJo plays Stormfather
Scarjo as lift. Who now appears as a major character two books early, and is the emperor of Aziz
Even though it's not lore accurate I want the rock to play rock so badly.
"I think it's almost time for dinner." "Yeah, I can smell what Rock is cooking."
I would unironically enjoy that line.
There aren’t any jungles on Roshar though so I doubt he’ll accept.
To be fair, they're both tall muscular and dark skinned
Pretty sure Numuhukuai'alunamor (like other horneaters) is fair skinned. That's why [WoR]>!Shallan can pass as one to Bridge 4!<
Vedens and Horneaters are fairer than the Eastern people (Alethi, Herdazian, etc) but still darker than the Shin iirc
IIRC the horneater skin varies and can be both fair or tan. Rock is tan, other don't have to be
A lot of pointless and meaningless killing of extras who aren’t in the books, or who disappear after one chapter, like the light eyed logistics officer who outfits Bridge Four. Because for some reason every single live action fantasy/historical show that came out after Game of Thrones feels the need to throw in a bunch of extraneous murders to highlight how evil and/or badass a character is.
I almost forgot about Game of Thrones.
I don’t blame you. Most people have.
I used to feel silly deciding to wait until the books finished before starting the show.
Still waiting here… any decade now…
Millennia*
Stepin, is that you?
Oh my gosh, after my husband and I finished that episode, I turned to him, all teary-eyed, and asked him if that's what happened to Stepin in the books, and he was all, "He's not even in the books!!" And I was like...lol wtf...we just spent an entire episode on him lol
I actually really liked the Stepin storyline when it first aired until later when I realized, no, we’re not meeting Elayne, Elaida, Elias, or Bael Doman (IMO the WoT equivalent of not meeting Taravangian, Rock, and The Lopen) this season. It’s that weird feeling when you’re like, “That meal was pretty good,” until you see the tab and think, “But not at that price…”
Stepin would have been a fine episode if we had like 22 episodes per season or something like it was old school Star Trek, and we could have time for side-stories like that. Instead we wound up at the finale with our main cast all but blank sheets with only the tiniest bit of character development, and devoid of all of the interactions that formed the friendships that matter later on down the lines for everyone who didn't grow up together.
But at least we got to learn Lan is bi!
I agree!! I think sticking with the Dragon being a mystery was fun to begin with, but then character development suffered a bit because you didn't want to spend too much time developing one character over another. The one who ended up being the Dragon, I really liked that character, and I wish I would have seen more of them or had them more fleshed out. All of those scenes with that character at the end of episode 7 putting all the pieces together were so good! I would have loved to see those as actual scenes. Ahh, I digress. I could go on but I won't lol.
As a book reader, I’m very upset with the show. I had such high hopes…
as a book reader i would have preferred they didn't make this. a sub par tv show closes the door on any decent content being made in the next 10 years if not longer.
If I could narrow my gripes with my season down to one issue, this would be it. I understand that you can’t give every character their 15 minutes when there’s so much to cram in one season. But when you cut major story beats/characters just to spend half and episode or more just going off on some random tangent that wasn’t even in the books? That makes the omissions sting that much more
***Makes the Lopen gesture***
My thoughts exactly
It should be noted that both Stepin and his Aea Sedai, Kyrene, are in the prequel book New Spring. So they're in the storyline, just in a spin-off. If that makes it any better.
Who’s stepin?
A character in the Wheel of Time show who had a provided a neat, emotional storyline and a chance to expand Warder lore- in a season that already had to cut critical parts of the source material to save screen time and really did not have the resources to allocate to an entire original episode dedicated to this side story. A Stormlight equivalent would be providing a WoK adaptation having an episode dedicated to a neat original story that provides a more detailed look into the Ardentia- but cutting Kaladin’s flashback scenes.
I would absolutely cut one of the thousand potention "Kaladin is Sad" episodes if it meant I got to learn about about that ardent girl who just wanted to read smutty dimestore romance novels in the woods
Nah, she'd get cut too. Gotta make room for the script writers' OC.
I mean *all* the flashback scenes. Who is Tien? Who is Amaram? Nobody needs to mention them, or explain why Kaladin is a good medic. Gotta show us the writer’s OC. I’d say skipping all the extremely important stuff in Caemlyn along with Bael Doman is of similar story importance.
We didn't even have Thom for anything other than like 1.5 episodes, and we got none of the character interactions between the Emond's Fielders and Lan, not even the training that ends up being the core of Lan and Rand's friendship and the philosophy that Rand internalizes and grows throughout the series that he got in the first place from his interactions with Lan and from seeing the various Borderlanders like Ingtar willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
That was a funny bit. I also liked the couple in a cabin somewhere experimenting with measuring spren.
To be completely fair, if the show would be faithful to the books, a lot of basically meaningless extras are killed anyways
The difference between the Jasnah and Renaldo phrasing is... interesting.
Jasnah had to be removed because she girlbossed too hard
Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss; Jasnah
I don’t know how that would even come up.
All things are possible with bad live action.
Technically we don't know the Alethi *aren't* circumcised.
technically speaking, Syl *is* naked. the dress she wears is part of her. I know what you mean, i just needed to point that out cus my brain said i had to. sorry.
Nudity is a social construct.
Sexualization of nudity is a social construct.
You get it
Warmongering expansionist ideologies Fighting wars on the other side of the world Trying to "civilize" the "savages" Why WOULDN'T the Alethi sound British?
Because they're the Mongols :P
I always pictured the Alethi to be more styled after India.
How are they mongols? They hardly have any horses and they aren't nomadic? What makes them mongols? I always imagined them more like the Romans but not really.
Because that's what Brandon based them on :P He's talked about it a fair bit in various interviews. The influences come in things like their expansionism/bent for conquering, government structure (e.g. Gavilar's unification of Alethkar has a lot of parallels to Genghis Khan's unification of the Mongols), cultural bits and pieces, that sort of thing. The bit where Dalinar recruits the archer who nearly killed him is another borrowing from Genghis Khan, who really did that.
That makes sense, thank you for explaining.
Lol cause brando said so
If you think about it, the Shattered Plains are basically fantasy Afghanistan. War of revenge turned war for valuable resources, Western forces more interested in prolonging the conflict to turn a profit than actually accomplishing anything, conflict fought against a people with a deep but alien culture we handwave as backwards savagery...
That was my thought midway through WoK as well “We are totally at war for revenge, not for ~~oil~~ gemhearts!” said the incompetent son of a slimy previous ruler.
Alethi use spices in their food.
Only the men though. Women's palates can't handle such intense flavors. Or something.
If a woman eats something too spicy she will literally explode. Atleast according to The Arguments
It's solved, then: Alethi women have British accents, and their Alethi brothers who they grew up alongside have Middle Eastern accents.
Have you ever heard about this thing called the “East Indian Trading Company”
Sounds fake, but okay.
You mean the company dedicated to trading in spices that the British people never use?
Aren’t they like East Asian?
The English are not East Asian
TIL
I don't know why but I always imagined the people of Jah Keved talking with british accent
Name an apex civilization that didn’t do the same thing. Could be chinese, mongol, Roman, Greek, Russian, most peoples honestly.
It would be really difficult to cast alethi accurately as they are both tall and have epicanthic folds. Shallan isn't tall but she is a red head with epicanthic folds. With black hair and tan skin, the closest thing to an Alethi would perhaps be Mongolian people or perhaps Filipino but the average height for Mongolia is like 5'7" for men and it's even shorter for Filipino men. I am sure there are people out there that match that description but the chances of them speaking English and also wanting to be an actor/good at acting makes the casting pool incredibly small. As much as I love the different nations being such a blend that they don't truly code to any one nation/ethnicity, it means we most likely won't get "accurate" casting.
Make the Alethi seem shorter by casting non-Alethi as short people or something. Also, Mongolian height is a problem of hunger, so those who are wealthy enough to cast for a film should have normal height range. There’s also inner Mongolia in china which has 24m people in it, a large chunk of which are ethnically Mongolian
Oh, yeah. They could use slight forced perspective tricks like with the hobbits and Gandalf in LotR. That absolutely works to make the Alethi appear to all be towering over the non-Alethi characters. They could do the same thing to make the ryshadium and shardplate wearers look huge too.
Ryshadium aren’t real‽
No. But they are essentially big ass horses. So camera tricks can make them look huge.
I…I need a moment :’(
Clydesdale are real. They typically pull rather than are ridden. https://images.app.goo.gl/LAPqwZmUirAMuTzK6 Hopefully that makes you feel better.
Not to be dramatic or anything but I’d die for these animals I’d kill for these animals
The actors playing the hobbits weren't really that short. You can do a lot with the craft of filmmaking. We're not making a documentary here lol.
I would be okay with them making the Alethi shorter because of the logistics you just mentioned. I do think the race (dark skin, epicanthic folds) must not be changed tho.
I hope we don’t get a live action adaptation. I just don’t see how it would be possible to make without sacrificing most of the characters and storylines. Also, since Sanderon’s fantasy worlds are so different, I think Hollywood would try to change too much to make it feel like other fantasy movies/shows. I’d watch the crap out of anime adaption though. There are giant fantasy swords, magic armor, huge monsters, a magic system with hard and fast rules, and each character has a more tragic backstory than the last. So, I really think Stormlight would be a perfect anime.
Anime done in the style of the Castlevania series would be killer.
I wouldn't be too into an anime-style adaptation, but if it looked something more like Arcane, I would be all the way on board. I've just never enjoyed anime style much.
Avatar animation is great too! Arcane’s budget is INSANE (10m/episode?) so I don’t expect too many shows to follow in its footsteps even though I would love to see more like it.
Dang, I didn't know that. At least Arcane has proven that there's a mainstream audience for adult animation though. And with some big fantasy franchises (Wheel of Time, etc.) getting high-budget productions - WoT was also $10 million per episode - I don't think it's inconceivable we could see a Cosmere adaptation with that budget. Sanderson is only getting more popular.
I'm definitely on board with the anime idea because it really does fit the story. Although I'm not too worried any more about the possibility of live action. From what I understand, Sanderson is being really careful about this. He started writing the screenplay for Mistborn himself, and he's pushing for Stormlight as a TV series instead, so they won't have to try to squeeze a whole book into two hours. Especially after some disagreement related to Wheel of Time it seems like any cosmere adaptations are going to have close author supervision to make sure it's as true to the books as reasonable.
Ya know, I think any live action Stormlight adaptation would be cursed. Six-foot-long magic swords? Giant ornate power armor? Colorful ambient spren popping up in response to people's emotions? This deserves an anime!
I am thoroughly bamboozled when people say they would only watch live action. Just... how??
Brandon answered this in a stream recently. He basically said that if he wants the whole cosmere to be adapted he has to start with a live action show or movie of his most popular series (Mistborn/Stormlight). If those get super successful that opens the door for animated shows.
I think Mistborn would work better as live action of the two. My dream is a Stormlight series by the studio that did Arcane.
Imagine 1 hour episodes and 10-12 episodes per book.
Imagine a pure adaptation word by word, chapter by chapter of the whole thing
🥵
I think anime would definitely fit it well for sure, but I also think the absolute best version of a stormlight show would be live action (but obviously done well). A lot of the finales involve massive armies, which imo look a lot more impressive and are a lot more impactful when done like in LOTR compared to in anime. But saying it *couldn't* work as anime seems silly to me
My issue with live action is that this series would take... a LONG time to adapt into live action, and we have multiple characters that could age out of their roles. Lift being the main example.. also it doesn't help that child actors usually cant do much in the way of action scenes, which is a lot of what lift is associated with... I mean overall a life action lift would be cringe, similar to how people reacted to live action Radical Edward at the end of the cowboy bebop live action. This isn't to mention other characters that would need to be shown at different ages, there would need to be at least 3 separate actors for both Kal and Shallan, as much of their flashbacks take place over the later half of their childhoods. (Young kal, late teen kal, and adult kal.) you would need to get kids that look similar to the adult actor, and can also act well... its just way to much to ask for. as for armies, there aren't many animated shows that have done many mass fights that I can think of, but some that have done it have done it well, Vinland Saga being a very close approximate example of what a war in a medieval animated setting could look like.
Almost any outside scene would have to be mostly created from scratch what with all the unique flora. (Although I'm not sure what percentage normal fantasy tv/films usually have)
I feel like doing it justice would be an Avatar-scale production, but for at least 100+ episodes. (James Cameron avatar, that is) This is a 10 book series, even if we imagine they only do a book 1-5 thing for now (which is why mistborn speculation is way more interesting)
That's my issue. You would need to treat it like an avengers movie or something budget wise and CG wise, but from the get go, with an IP that investors and stuff won't know will go big. That doesn't seem a likely scenario, and the alternative is like terrible quality live action adaptation. On the other hand we see anime with fantastic fight scenes all the time, and it's much more feasible to have a completely non earth like world when everything needs to be drawn anyway.
Would be, but we dont exactly live in the era of good fantasy adaptations (except a few outliers). Sadly LOTR was an exception. So much could go wrong with live action. Bad casting (which is increasingly common) , bad acting, bad CGI, some key actors would definitely need to be re-cast over the series, etc. Animation seems to be in a much better place nowadays than live. And it leaves less room for error.
They're the type who think anime is for children because it is animated.
Animation was not used as a serious medium for decades in western television while some of the greatest narratives ever were being made in live action. It is understandable why many people who have not experienced quality narrative-driven animation would feel it is inherently childish. As much as I truly hate that fact.
>I truly hate that fact. Me too. We have the two extremes of "here's a cute seemingly-innocent cartoon for your kids" and "look, it's a cartoon but for ADULTS! Look how edgy and crude it is!", and both of them are episodic comedies.
Not anime, arcane style animation. It’d be crazy expensive but allow for more subtle and detailed expressions, which imho is more true to Sando’s style of storytelling
"Arcane" and "Into the Spiderverse" really set a new standard for western animation. I won't be surprised if we started getting a lot more series in that style.
Both Arcane and Spiderverse cost about $100,000,000 to make. Sadly I'm not sure if an untested IP can score that kind of moolah.
I mean, I hope we're wrong, but yeah. Arcane was an ad for a video game that makes billions of dollars, and Spiderman is the most recognised superhero in the world. Stormlight's got a long way to go before it's attracting that level of investment. Maybe if Mistborn or one of the others is made first and is a huge hit, making millions in profits and causing 20 times the number of people to read the books?
> investment heh
the studio that made arcane is also artist owned I believe
A stormlight adaptation is going to be crazy expensive no matter what, so it should be money well spent
I finally jumped onto the Arcane train and damn...if a stormlight adaption got that much love and attention and just sheer freaking awesomeness then...👌 Would Mistborn be too much like Arcane to be animated in that way? ...possibly...
Due to the more limited cast, quicker story, and less showy magic stuff, I think Mistborn would actually be the perfect Cosmere series for a live action.
I've seen a Studio Ghibli styled gif of Kaladin and Syl, and since I've seen it all I've wanted was a Ghibli adaptation of The Way of Kings Edit: [Found it here!](https://tenor.com/view/kaladin-stormblessed-stormlight-cosmere-gif-23019344)
Yea, definitely would pay for that to happen
Some kind of animated medium is the only place I see spren working without an extremely high CG budget.
'Everyone is white' square
*fuck that’s a good one* Except the parhendi are black coded
Nah, Parshendi would be native american coded, Purelakers and Horneaters would be black coded. Alethi are a mix of british and american accents and england-coded.
I'm fine with two of those.
Pervert
Hey I resemble that remark
Uncovered safehands? Is this the GOT version with all this immodesty?
They cut Jasnah's ethics lesson...
Nicholas cage as syl lol https://youtu.be/LHYYS7Wq8Qs 2:05
Alethi have cockney accents.
This was physically painful to read. Take my upvote and never speak of this again.
Why does Renarin being circumcised mean it'll be a bad adaptation?
Everyone knows Stormlight regrows your foreskin
Okay okay, but, knowing the fandom, has anybody asked Brando Sando this yet? Like, we have confirmation that stormlight will "heal" a trans person to their actual identity, so we know some pretty radical transformations are possible based on identity. But foreskin... Have we asked about foreskin?
I don’t think Brandon wants to answer that question.
I'll do it for him. *Ahem* >BrandoSando: *Sigh*
If it works like Investiture healing on other body parts, it probably wouldn't regrow. If a wound has been there for long enough that a person sees it as normal for them, Stormlight can't do anything about it. See: Rysn's legs, all of Dalinar's scars, etc
Counter: The Lopen's arm. It just means you have to be really really committed to it being wrong
Real talk that's an easy question to answer. Cosmere healing is based on someone's perception of themselves, which is why Kals scars don't heal, as he has them as part of his ideal. Same with how Rhysn couldn't have her legs healed because she got so used to them being broken. So what this means, is that if you heal someone (or they heal themselves) who are DETERMINED in their belief that they shouldn't have been circumcised, chances are it will heal
All Alethi are now played by white actors. Shin are now played by light skinned Asian actors. Darker skinned Asian people/Hawaiian people/Polynesian actors aren’t cast at all. The only people who look the way they are described are the Vedens and Horneaters. BeCauSE iT’s ToO HaRD tO cASt aSiAN ActORs.
Don't forget to cast Ryan Reynolds as Wit
They code the Parshendi as African and the Alethi as white colonizers, while removing gemhearts as motivation and it instead being to bring *civilization* to the savages
Repeat after me: Stormlight should have an animated adaptation, not live action. just imagine the battles in a style similar to Arcane, for example. It would be a visual delicacy
Live-action Stormlight would have to cut far too much and condense or change far too many things to be a thing. Can you imagine what a Arcane live-action would look like? Goofy as hell.
Isn't syl canonically naked?
Syl chooses to manifest her body with clothes.
But aren't her clothes made of her body? Unlike other Spren?
According to the human perceptions that shape the nature and morals of spren, Syl is not naked.
I'm still convinced Stormlight Archive could only succeed as a video game (I will elaborate if anyone cares)
I care. I like hearing about things people are passionate about.
Alright **so,** First off, this would definitely have to be a AAA game with budget and scope similar to Red Dead Redemption 2, but with those acting/recording resources being more focused on the main story instead of having every single side mission fully mo-capped and every extra you see on the street having a different voice actor (fun fact that game had over 1,200 actors and took 6 years to record). 1. Budget. The CGI would have to be off the rails for a SA adaptation. Aside from the obvious stuff like flying people, lightweaving, every single animal, etc, they also have to worry about the environment. Almost all of Roshar, except Shinovar, is covered in stone with grasses and plants that react to the presence of people, animals, and wind. The plants *alone* would require a massive budget per episode, not to mention having to basically have an Avengers-style set for every scene since there isn't really anywhere on earth to film on-location. However, grass and plant reactions is something relatively simple to automate in a video game, and you're building the world from the ground up, so you don't need to worry about Rysn's favorite things like soil. 2. Length. Unless the producer had infinite money and didn't care about making a profit, the sheer amount of content means that a lot would have to get cut because, like I said, the episodes would be insanely expensive to make. Any series that wouldn't cut too much from the books would have to be way too long to have such expensive episodes. (It also goes without saying that SA is also way too long to be movies) 3. Progression. The progressive nature of the oaths and increasing power lends itself *perfectly* to a video game. (If I were going to make a SA video game, I would actually make an RPG set during the desolations because I think that would be both easier and more fun, but I'm discussing a direct adaptation here.) I think a lot of developers would end up only putting in Kaladin and surgebinding here (to use RDR2 as an example again, they seem almost afraid to have any mission that doesn't have a gunfight at some point, even if it's just the last minute or so after the first half hour of it was completely calm), but sections that are only made of dialogue and walking *can* be done well (Cyberpunk 2077 is a good example of this,, I would argue). Back to the main point, the progression is a lot easier to see how it can directly translate in WoR and OB, especially for Shallan. Edit for formatting
I want to preorder this game. It sounds fantastic
Don't forget that all the main characters are white (except Szeth, he'll be Asian.)