There will be severe spoilers to both Asimov’s Foundation series and the TV show that, at best, can be described as inspired but not adapted from Asimov’s books. You’ve been warned.

As for the WoT, I hope not to have any detailed spoilers, but put the book spoiler warning into the title to allow others to include book spoilers and just in case I do. There will probably be spoilers as to themes and character development.

I’m surprised and distressed by the number of times I’ve seen hyperbole such as “the WoT show has nothing to do with the books” or “doesn’t show respect to the books”. People have lost a sense of scale for what matters to the themes of the books. Looking at what happened to the Foundation series illuminates the sense of scale.

For those unfamiliar with the Foundation, it began as a series of short stories based on the fictional science of psychohistory and its ability to predict large scale social change, in particular the fall of the galactic empire and collapse into the dark ages. (Think fall of the Roman Empire.). The Foundation was established at the periphery of the empire, with the hope of reducing the dark age period from 30,000 years to just 1,000 years. It relies on this fictional science to ensure that this Foundation will, through social and political events, inevitably survive and contribute to restoring advanced civilization.

Asimov later combined it with his Robot universe, and in particular, the Three Laws of Robotics, a concept so seminal to science fiction that it’s been copied in numerous works and has its own Wikipedia page. That’s something that can’t be said for the One Power, but I point it out to show how absolutely critical and pervasive the Laws of Robotics are.

The TV show tossed them into the garbage. Demerzel, who is a robot in both the books and TV show, kills two people directly, while standing around doing nothing as others are executed. There’s no rationalization, no indication of the robot being faulty or somehow coming under the zeroth law. It would be as if the WoT series simply said the Three Oaths don’t exist or that they’re merely oaths without the Oath Rod as enforcement.

The other part tossed out is the amazing cleverness Asimov had in devising political situations whose resolution could be predicted. He (Asimov) set up the first crisis, created by an small imperialist government that split from the Empire, threatening the existence of the Foundation, and resolved it through a balance of power with other small governments in the vicinity of the Foundation, to combine to keep any one of those governments from colonizing the Empire. What did the show do? They resolved the war through a piece of information unknown to anyone but the founder of the Foundation, revealing that the Empire and not the second nearby government was responsible for the assassination of a leader of the first nearby government. It’s a total cop-out, which would be cheesy even in a story that had no connection to Asimov. It’s like writing a Holmes story that resolves with information never even hinted to the audience. It would be like the WoT series revealing in episode 8 that the Dragon was really Wit Congar.

So please, please start measuring the show against the truly major themes and concepts, and not the little plot points or the technical characteristics of the magic. I realize that some of the complexity, the detailed construction of the magic system, etc. are things that make the books for many people. But a broad based TV series can’t preserve all the details.

It’s still a battle between light and dark. There are still dark friends in unexpected places. There’s still a savior who never expected to be a savior and as far as we know so far, doesn’t want to be. The savior is still a reincarnation of a previous leader. There’s still the Aes Sedai, with Ajahs represented by colors and purpose. There’s still the One Power and the Three Oaths, and men going crazy if they use the One Power. There’s still the fanatic cult of the Whitecloaks. There’s still Nynaeve being persistent and capable. There’s still Rand, quiet and pensive. There’s still Egwene, strong and torn between her leadership ambition and love of a man. There’s still Perrin, slow and afraid of physically hurting those near him. There’s still Mat, a gambler and rogue. There are still false dragons. There’s Thom, whose cloak may not be what we want, but he’s still a knowledgeable gleeman. There’s Padan Fain, with his black market trades with Mat. The Tinkers are still peaceful, if a bit gruffer than expected. The Aiel are still there, and they still veil before fighting. There are trollocs and fades and mention of Ishmael. There’s still mistrust between people we expect to be allies. There’s still split loyalties. Whether the politics stays the same is too early to tell, but I’m optimistic it will be recognizable. Whether the White Tower is arrogant remains to be seen.