The Shannara Chronicles

Thoughts on tonight's episode?

I'm really excited now that the quest has finally begun!

I sense an awkward love triangle on the horizon.

 

Eretria is too cute.

 

I've officially lost interest in the show. I deleted this week's episode from my DVR less than halfway through. The deciding point for me was Amberle's "test" in the tree. When the illusion told her "Your heart is your weakness and you need to stop caring about individuals and be willing to kill your friends to save the world," I was expecting that to be a trick, that the real way to pass the test would be to see through the deception and say "No, my heart is my strength, and my caring for the people is what motivates me to save the world," something like that. Instead, she just went ahead and killed Fake Wil and that was supposedly success. First off, I don't like the moral message there, that ruthlessness is right. More to the point, though, it strikes me as poor writing. It's not very impressive to pass a test by just doing what someone explicitly tells you to do. That's a very low hurdle for a heroine to face, and it fails to prove her worth to the audience. It doesn't make her strong or smart, just obedient. She didn't prove she was strong enough to sacrifice people for the mission -- she proved she was too weak-willed to stand up for her principles, and too passive to think of her own solutions. That's not what makes a hero. And it's not a very clever way to write a test scene in the first place, just to have the answer explicitly stated up front without any twists or subtleties.

Now, maybe I missed something in the second half, something that belatedly revealed that she could stand up for herself and reject the tree's moral standards. But it didn't feel it was heading that way. It felt like the test was just done that way to set up some arbitrary teen-romance angst with Amberle pushing Wil away so he'd fall into Eretria's arms. And that didn't hold much interest for me. The young actors just aren't engaging me.

I'm also getting sick of the heir-apparent guy continuing to stridently deny the existence of magic even though the king -- the guy who taught him that magic was dead in the first place -- has repeatedly told him that he was wrong to teach that. Rather than having a plausible dissenting perspective, he just comes off as gratuitously hostile now -- and with the king deciding not to abdicate, it's now becoming clear that he's going to attempt to overthrow his father or something. I just don't find him an interesting enough character or actor to care about that.

 

Arion just wants the throne. He's power-hungry.

While I'm sick of love triangles, the show is geared towards younger people, who live for that kind of stuff.

I'm more interested in seeing their journey.

 

There's no real love triangle on the horizon. But if they follow the book Wil and Amberle will have to face their greatest fears.

 

Well that's nice to know. Too many shows focus on potential romance instead of the actual story. Then it's all about the shipping which becomes annoying.

 

I have a feeling that even if it isn't really a part of the book, they're still going to play up the love triangle. They already seem to be pretty clearly headed in that direction.
I finally watched the third episode and I really enjoyed it.
Amerble's vision while she was in the Ellcrys gave me a big Luke in the Dark Side Cave vibe.
I wasn't to bothered by what the test was. She's getting ready to try to save the world, so there's a good chance she'll need to be ready to make some pretty major sacrifices to do that.
I was glad that they didn't drag the Changeling as Eretria bit out forever.
I was a little disappointed they were just forcing Eretria to come along because of Bandon's vision, I was really hoping she was going to decide to help them all on her own.
I doubt the guards going along with them will last very long.

 

Maybe, but the problem isn't with what it was testing for, it was with how the test was formulated. "I am telling you exactly what you have to do in order to pass the test." That's a stupid way to test someone. She doesn't have to figure it out for herself. She doesn't get presented with a false temptation and have to be smart enough to turn away from it. She doesn't have to stand up for her own principles against the pressure to submit. She is literally, prosaically told what to do, and she simply does it. That doesn't test for leadership or strength or intelligence or adaptability, but solely for passive obedience and conformity. Which are pretty lousy traits in a leader or hero.

Also, simply from a writing standpoint, it's a boringly straightforward way to do a mystical-test scene. No misdirection, no surprise twists, no ambiguity, just simple literalism. That's just dull.

And I do disagree with the moral aspect. What's the point of saving the world if you aren't doing it on behalf of all the people who inhabit it? Yes, sacrifice may sometimes be unavoidable, but a real hero does her damnedest to make it a last resort. Villains have no problem throwing lives away in the name of a greater cause. Heroes should remember that the big picture is made up of little pictures, that individual lives are what the quest to save the world is all about.

 

Maybe they just wanted to keep it quick and to the point. There was already alot going on, so they probably didn't want to spend a ton of time on the vision.
I didn't really see the test being about her figuring out what she had to do, it was about if she had it in her to make the hardest choices that might come about during the quest.
I don't think they are going to be having just throw away anybodies lives, it was just about showing her the worst possible way things could go.

 

I thought so too, Amberle and Wil will face their greatest fears. The real question is how well will the series present that?

 

But if you want to test if someone can make choices, you create a situation where they make the choice. You don't just tell them exactly what to do and demand that they obey you. Choosing is about thinking for yourself, not blindly following orders.

 

It's going to be a loooong journey with Eritrea tied up and stumbling behind a horse the whole way.

 

I'm sure a few miles in, Wil will feel bad about her being tied up and untie her, which once again makes him an idiot.

 

Yes it's a classic move

 

Which will then make Amberle tie them both up while she carries out the quest herself without having to worry about Tweedledee and Tweedledum screwing everything up.

 

I don't think it was necessaily testing whether she could make the choice, but was just trying to show her that she might have to do it, and then seeing if she would be able to. It wasn't about if she would choose to kill Wil, but simply about if she could kill Wil if she had to.

 

And I stand by my opinion that that isn't a very well-conceived or interesting "test." Given how much it was hyped up beforehand, the actual test felt anticlimactic and slapdash. As mystical tests of the worthiness of a Chosen One go, it was pretty lame, and I've seen much better elsewhere. If that's the best Millar and Gough (or Brooks?) can come up with, then it doesn't give me reason to expect this show to hold my interest.

 

I stopped watching after the first 10 minutes. The sets are horrible, the story is totally changed and the writing stinks. The show does not do the books justice at all. Horrible.

 

Amberle at least in the book had no clue what was required of her til the end and niether did Wil. But Allanon knew all along what was required of both of them.

 

Whoa, episode 5 was very exciting! I love the pace of this show!

I'm also continually impressed at how the demon makeup and cgi is incredible and disgusting and horrifying and amazing and yet everyone else looks like they are in a school play