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I have just watched the opening two-parter of the Shannara Chronicles right now. It was ... interesting, I think is the word. I really don't know how to feel about it yet, though I might stick with the show a few episodes more to see how it goes. But it just ... it feels odd. Maybe it's just that Shannara was my childhood in so many ways, my first proper fantasy doorstopper series (Lord of the Rings actually came later for me). Apparently I have deep, deep nostalgic feelings about Shannara that aren't entirely sure what to make of the adaptation.
They changed quite a few things. Some of it is okay, some of it is just weird, some of it I don't know if I like at all. Ander, in particular, they're doing something very odd with Ander. And Allanon, in a lot of ways, though I do like the actor's actual performance. It's things like the horribly scarred hand and the tragic love interest (!) that are weirding me out.
There is one thing in particular that's really bugging me though, in relation to the Dagda Mor:
They changed quite a few things. Some of it is okay, some of it is just weird, some of it I don't know if I like at all. Ander, in particular, they're doing something very odd with Ander. And Allanon, in a lot of ways, though I do like the actor's actual performance. It's things like the horribly scarred hand and the tragic love interest (!) that are weirding me out.
There is one thing in particular that's really bugging me though, in relation to the Dagda Mor:
The show has apparently merged the Dagda Mor with Brona. This ... confuses me. The show's Dagda Mor is apparently a fallen Druid corrupted by the Ildatch now, a-la Brona's backstory, as opposed to a really, really incredibly tough Demon sorceror who's spent many, many millennia stewing in hatred while locked in a demon dimension. That causes ... That's a wee bit of a timeline issue, isn't it? The Ellcrys and the Forbidding predate the apocalypse. By a pretty long way. They go back to the Age of Faerie, before the 'dawn of the old race of man' (as in, us, human civilisation). The Four Lands and the Druids happened a full thousand years after the Great Wars finished the old race of man. ("The history of Paranor was the history of the Druids, the history of his forebears. It began a thousand years after the Great Wars had all but annihilated the race of Man and changed forever the face of the old world" - The Elfstones of Shannara, Chapter 6). That is ... a very big gap in time. If the show wants the Dagda to be both a fallen Druid and a Demon sealed in the Forbidding, they are either bringing the Forbidding up into the timeline of the Four Lands, backdating the Druids to the Age of Faerie, or having the Dagda not a Demon at all but a Druid inserted (somehow) into the Forbidding long after it was sealed. Or they're just tossing the backstory of the Four Lands out the window. You know. Either or. That ... is bugging me some.
And, okay. To be fair to them, the Ildatch itself does also go back that far, and it did belong to the leader of the Demons in the Age of Faerie. So there is a link between the book that corrupted Brona and the Demons. But the Demons came first, then their magic and corruption made the Ildatch, then thousands and thousands of years later the Ildatch started corrupting people left and right and made a whole trilogy-plus-prequel worth of problems. Minus, you know, the one book in the trilogy that this show is supposed to be adapting. Elfstones was the one part of the original four books that didn't rinse and repeat 'Ildatch corrupts, cue problems', instead skipping straight back to the Ildatch's source and bringing out the actual Demons instead. It was arguably the most original of them all.
And, thing is, apparently the Warlock Lord and the Wars of the Races did still happen in the show universe. So we've already had the fallen Druid corrupted by the Ildatch wreaking havoc across the Four Lands for around about a thousand years. Are they just repeating the backstory because the show isn't actually doing First King or Sword?
Yech. I don't know. It's bugging me. More than it probably should.
Also! On a different note, Allanon's love interest who wasn't in the books, Pyrea Elessedil ... is she possibly modelled on Jerle's love from First King? Preia Starle, who helped convince kid!Allanon to warm up slightly and talk to people? Because that ... look, I don't think I like that random throw-in element in the episode. Giving Allanon a random tragic love interest who grew old as he slept in Druid Sleep and then promptly gets torn apart the second he reunites with her, that is not a necessary addition, okay? If they are basing her slightly on Preia as well, I don't like that either. That was a completely different relationship. Allanon was twelve, she and Jerle were in love, and Allanon was really more concerned with his new adoptive father and not dying like his massacred family at that point in time. So, you know. (Why does Allanon need a love interest anyway? Especially one who just dies on him straight out of the gate? Why was that necessary?!)
Ugh. I am having very confused feelings at the minute, shall we say. Very, very confused.
And, okay. To be fair to them, the Ildatch itself does also go back that far, and it did belong to the leader of the Demons in the Age of Faerie. So there is a link between the book that corrupted Brona and the Demons. But the Demons came first, then their magic and corruption made the Ildatch, then thousands and thousands of years later the Ildatch started corrupting people left and right and made a whole trilogy-plus-prequel worth of problems. Minus, you know, the one book in the trilogy that this show is supposed to be adapting. Elfstones was the one part of the original four books that didn't rinse and repeat 'Ildatch corrupts, cue problems', instead skipping straight back to the Ildatch's source and bringing out the actual Demons instead. It was arguably the most original of them all.
And, thing is, apparently the Warlock Lord and the Wars of the Races did still happen in the show universe. So we've already had the fallen Druid corrupted by the Ildatch wreaking havoc across the Four Lands for around about a thousand years. Are they just repeating the backstory because the show isn't actually doing First King or Sword?
Yech. I don't know. It's bugging me. More than it probably should.
Also! On a different note, Allanon's love interest who wasn't in the books, Pyrea Elessedil ... is she possibly modelled on Jerle's love from First King? Preia Starle, who helped convince kid!Allanon to warm up slightly and talk to people? Because that ... look, I don't think I like that random throw-in element in the episode. Giving Allanon a random tragic love interest who grew old as he slept in Druid Sleep and then promptly gets torn apart the second he reunites with her, that is not a necessary addition, okay? If they are basing her slightly on Preia as well, I don't like that either. That was a completely different relationship. Allanon was twelve, she and Jerle were in love, and Allanon was really more concerned with his new adoptive father and not dying like his massacred family at that point in time. So, you know. (Why does Allanon need a love interest anyway? Especially one who just dies on him straight out of the gate? Why was that necessary?!)
Ugh. I am having very confused feelings at the minute, shall we say. Very, very confused.
