Glad to hear about "Dawnshard"! I'll definitely put it on the list then.
The most recent Wheel of Time TV episode had something with a fairly minor character who in the books was just a bad guy and died, but in the adaptation has a Redemption Equals Death twist, and they say "oh if you betray the dark side you die forever and can't be reborn." Which is definitely not a thing in the books. (One of the main examples of redemption-equals-death in the books has already come and gone in the TV show, and it seemed like they were setting that character's plotline up only for the "actually I was a bad guy" reveal to be cut for time??? Another is yet to come but this will presuambly have implications when we get there.)
The Pendragon books had a similar issue; the "Travelers" (main characters with superpowers) were basically invulnerable, and then it turned out that actually their healing magic was bad because it was sucking up energy from the central source/hub of everything, so they have to stay dead. But that central hub place does function as an afterlife, so that's good. Except again, redemption equals super-death so the villain who tries to defect back has to be perma-killed?
IDK, it feels like the authors wrote themselves into a corner like "if there really is an afterlife there are no stakes, so we have to undo that." Which...is not really a fair representation of how religious believers act IRL! But that's speculation.
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Date: 4/20/25 09:51 pm (UTC)The most recent Wheel of Time TV episode had something with a fairly minor character who in the books was just a bad guy and died, but in the adaptation has a Redemption Equals Death twist, and they say "oh if you betray the dark side you die forever and can't be reborn." Which is definitely not a thing in the books. (One of the main examples of redemption-equals-death in the books has already come and gone in the TV show, and it seemed like they were setting that character's plotline up only for the "actually I was a bad guy" reveal to be cut for time??? Another is yet to come but this will presuambly have implications when we get there.)
The Pendragon books had a similar issue; the "Travelers" (main characters with superpowers) were basically invulnerable, and then it turned out that actually their healing magic was bad because it was sucking up energy from the central source/hub of everything, so they have to stay dead. But that central hub place does function as an afterlife, so that's good. Except again, redemption equals super-death so the villain who tries to defect back has to be perma-killed?
IDK, it feels like the authors wrote themselves into a corner like "if there really is an afterlife there are no stakes, so we have to undo that." Which...is not really a fair representation of how religious believers act IRL! But that's speculation.