Overreactors Anonymous: Wheel of Time Edition

A 12-step program for angry fans

© bayek/ Freeimages.com

1. You do not have to watch the new adaptation if you do not want to.
2. Books and TV are very different mediums.
3. Internal monologue is impossible to film.
4. Unless you use a voice over with nothing happening on screen… And you don’t need to be an expert on screenwriting to know why that’s boring.
5. Even if you liked the books, Robert Jordan was not a technically perfect writer.
6. A lot of people disliked Jordan’s writing, and found the books overly long.
7. Jordan set out to write a trilogy and wrote fourteen encyclopedia length books instead. Maybe — just maybe — he had a problem with pacing?
8. Not everyone wants to read fourteen encyclopedia length books to know how a story ends.
9. Some people are not deeply invested in the same fiction you are.
10. Some people are not deeply invested in fiction at all. Some people just want to watch a respectable show with magic, witches, wizards, dragons and stuff after a hard day at work…
11. You’re are completely entitled to feel how you feel about the show, however, you do not have to articulate all your negative feelings about the adaptation to anyone who will listen. After a while this begins to say more about you than it does about the show. (Usually by the 100th essay-length comment on Facebook, 15th thesis-length blog post, or the third YouTube video…)
12. You should let people enjoy things and be happy for them, even if you don’t enjoy them yourself.

Look, I get it! A lot of my favourite books have been mangled in their adaptation. There have been so many…

But if you look for things to enjoy, rather than for things to dislike, you’ll enjoy your life much more.

Consume entertainment media. Enjoy entertainment media. Don’t get one’s knickers in a twist.

Fin.

Thank you for reading — I hope you found my thoughts interesting. You can find links to my other work here: https://linktr.ee/sayde.scarlett