As I start to look at assembling my season 3 outline, and reading into LoC, it has become apparent to me that one of the biggest hurdles that the show will need to reconcile with is the disappearance of certain POV narratives for long stretches of time. This isn't a noticeable trait of the first two books/my seasons, however starting with the material in TDR, we have a major shift (which is welcome), but leads to larger gaps later. Rand functionally is out of the picture for nearly 3/4 of the book. He is around at the start, the end, and we have a couple harrowing moments with him in between. The other major shift is Perrin adopting the mantle of the main narrative along with Nynaeve, Egwene, & Elayne for most of the book. Mat also has a much diminished role.
This is not crippling to a show for a couple reasons.
1) Even with a more limited presence all our primary protagonists are present.
2) Allows for necessary development of other characters while Rand is not doing too much of note.
3) You could add fluff if you needed to in a TV production to add some action or additional appearances.
I do think there is a point where it will become a more noticeable issue. FoH has 0 sequences with Perrin in it outside of a T'A'R appearance with Egwene (and only in the town not with him beyond the wolf hints). So for a TV show to not cast a primary protagonist for an entire season feels like a daunting topic. When we get to books 8-10 I think my goal will be to prompt some massive reorganizing across books to make a smoother narrative. The problem is even more exacerbated in those sections. Once you hit the end game of 11-14 the narrative tightens down again and it'll be easier to streamline the show much like the earlier parts I've proposed. The later books feel more like the first 4-6 and I think that will be reflected in how much of everyone you get in each episode, but that's still a ways away!
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