The Wheel of Time television series is an Amazon Prime series, released November 19th 2021, based on the popular Epic Fantasy Series by Robert Jordan. Adventure Time is an Animated Dark Comedy set in a post apocalyptic—fantasy world, created in 2010. The reason I wanted to write a blog. A review called “The Wheel of Time Vs. Adventure Time” was because of the choices the studio made making “The Wheel Of Time” TV series.
After watching the first 6 episodes, I asked myself a weird question. What is inherently better TV, The Wheel of Time or Adventure Time? For the purpose of this blog post, I have intentionally avoided reading reviews about either television series.
All creativity comes from a state of playfulness.”
John Cleese
Playfullnes Vs Quotas
But something that has shaped my beliefs recently is an interview I saw recently of John Cleese on of the creators of The Monty Python Flying Circus. In the brief interview, he made a statement, “All creativity comes from a state of playfulness.” In my opinion, this is what has gone wrong with Hollywood and the modern visual story telling enterprise.
So The Amazon Prime Series stars out with a diverse ethnic cast, nothing wrong with that. But as the episodes go on, it appears that they checked every box for diversity. We have a strong black female protagonist; we have a strong female lesbian dynamic; we have a splattering of ethnicities. That’s all well and good, but are any of the characters like-able?
Who is The Dragon?
Hell it could be anyone? And everyone is equally unlikeable, mostly winey and prone to petty arguments. In the book, correct me if I am wrong. The Dragon had to be male. This had a major significance because in the Wheel of Time only women could use magic, the one source would make men go insane if they tried to use it. So the man being the Dragon was the only one who could use it. Also, every city has a perfect ethnic blend. It simply seems contrived.
Hero’s journey or National Lampoon Vacation, comedy of errors.
Because for the first 6 episodes of “TWOT” we don’t who know the main protagonist is, so the hero’s journey doesn’t get off the ground. It instead is a mystery. But no clues are really given and the writers do not give me enough reasons to care.
TWOT = The Wheel of Time.“
Merick N.H. Ulrik
Adventure Time and cultural diversity.
While we have a very diverse cast of characters in Adventure Time, we know that Jake the Dog and Finn the Human are the main heros immediately. We have cultural diversity in AT (Adventure Time), in the last episode we see Princess Bubble Gum and Marceline fall in love, there is your lesbian romance. Finn the human maybe a white boy, but his brother is a magical dog who is married to a Japanese-speaking magic rainacorn. But not race or species seems to take away from the stories and the craziness.
First battle!
Which story has more like-able characters? Amazon’s TWOT or AT? In my opinion, no contest. Adventure Time has more likeable characters. To put this to the test, I had my girlfriend watch both. She had never watched TWOT or AT, and she found it hard to watch the entire season of TWOT. Granted, the last 2 episodes were more interesting and exciting, but there were some real poops taken by the writers. Contrarily, she thoroughly loved AT. The stories about Ice King Origin’s and his ties to Marceline and Betty.
Back to TWOT, take the main protagonist, I guess, Rand al’Thor, played by Joshua Stradowski. And to be fair to Stradowski, I am sure it’s not his fault that character seemed completely whiny and insecure, much like Anikan in the Attack of the Clones. Funny thing is, he kind of looks like Anikan. All the characters seem a little mean and heartless except for Egwene a’Vere, who is our bleeding heart of the group. But every character seemed over the top and not very enjoyable to watch.
Contrarily, all the characters of AT, from Jake and Finn to Bemo and The Ice King, are insanely fun to watch.
Which Series had the best characters? Comment or email me at merick@mericknhulrik.com .
Second battle!
Which story was more compelling? This should be no contest for a goofy cartoon or a high dollar Amazon Prime series. Sadly, I could argue that a goofy cartoon made for something like adult swim had a more compelling story. Although to be fair Adventure Time had 10 seasons and (Spoiler) I can only bear the 1st season of TWOT. The story development seemed to be the last thing on the minds of the writers and directors of TWOT. For several episodes we watched and really couldn’t understand the significance of The Dark One, who just appeared cheesy, and The Dragon.
It felt like TWOT was trying to duplicate the success of Game of Thrones, by mimicking the epic settings, but again the story dragged. It’s like they couldn’t build on the story. Yes, they needed to stop the Dark One from taking over the world by finding the Dragon, but why?
Why now is the Dark One taking over when he’s been around for 3000 years? He left everything well enough alone before and how and why was The Dragon going to set everything right? They did not lay it out or make a compelling case. The threat didn’t seem real.
No judgement against the Epic Fantasy Book Series The Wheel Of Time.
Where viewers expected to read the entire series of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time in order to properly enjoy Amazon’s TWOT? Again, I am sure that Robert Jordan’s book series is great. It was massively successful. But this seems like another grab by woke media, to take an establish brand with fans and just milk them with for views with bad writing. I get the feeling that massive amounts of market research. I’m sure it was done to find out what elements would be most compelling with age groups but what they left out was good writing, and good storytelling. And this goes back to John Cleese’s quote: “All creativity comes from a state of playfulness.” You can’t be playful when you are being woke. Contrarily, Adventure Time is very playful and has an amazing amount of creativity in the stories.
The Wheel of Time Vs, Adventure Time—Which Story was more compelling?
My favorite thing about Adventure Time is that it could be totally silly or tug on your heartstrings a little. In some episodes, we see Simon, The Ice King’s prior identity, searching for chicken soup for Marceline in a post apocalyptic world. It was very touching.
Obviously this post, The Wheel of Time Vs. Adventure Time, is a quasi-joke but I just want to say I found TWOT to be boring. It was not a binge worthy series, not until they went into the spin of the world it got a little interesting. But then it was over and anti-climactic.
This is just the first battle!
Was I the only one who thought that the battle between the Dragon and the Dark One was just too easy? Characters that I didn’t really care about faced death but lived. The ones who we started with all lived even when we were told they would die.
What is your plan to beat the Dark One?
I have a Mcguffin. It makes you 100 times more powerful, and I never felt the need to mention it till the last episode or where I got it from. Oh, and The Dark One took an important McGuffin from the Asian Warriors, but we don’t know what it is or what it does or what it looks like. Now the Dark One has a McGuffin of his own, but it’s a McGuffin I don’t really care about.
The love dynamics of the show didn’t feel natural. Maybe Robert Jordan explained the bond between an Aes Sedai and their Warder, but it seems a little like manipulation. Like we will put you under a spell that makes you care about us more than your family or wife. But the love plays do not seem genuine. A romance brews between Moraine’s Warder al’Lan Mandragoran and Nynaeve al’Meara the Wisdom from Emond’s Field but it just seems forced. Maybe they needed a sex scene.
I give Wheel of Time an F on entertainment.
I did not find TWOT to be entertaining, but AT was hugely entertaining. Veteran voice actor John DiMaggio plays the voice of Jake the dog, but is a well-known voice actor who played the voice of Bender from Futurama and many other roles. The humor in Adventure Time is adult at times but child like as well. Adventure Time is a dark comedy set in a fantasy world. The land of Ooo is a post apocalyptic—magical world with elements of Dungeons and Dragons and candy. Adventure Time had one thing going for them. it’s an original idea. They did not adapt it for TV; it was just created.
Adventure Time wins the battle in my book. But what are your thoughts?
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2 thoughts on “The Wheel of Time Vs Adventure Time.”