Fresh Eyes

Even though I try to keep an open mind about adaptations of things, I know I can still get frustrated when things range so far away from the original material that it's basically not even the same story anymore. Sometimes I'm fine with that. I just accept the adaption as an alternative universe. Sometimes it's really difficult. 

This is one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to Wheel of Time. I've not read it and so I will approach the show in blissful ignorance. I plan on just taking it at face value. I'm not going to read the commentary. I'm not going to wiki the characters. I'm just going to let the story, whatever it happens to be, unfold around me. 

This is actually really refreshing to me. It's going to be so nice to have no expectations and no theories and, honestly, no clue as to what is going on. I'm not even going to let people make me feel bad about not already being a fan. They won't be able to because I'm going to look at no fandom content. None. I want this to all be fresh. 

I got the idea from an article I read a few months ago. The author hadn't read GRRM and knew little about the plotline or the books. They watched Game of Thrones with fresh eyes and really enjoyed it. This made me think about what a quagmire fandoms can be and how expectations can just ruin any possible pleasure you might find in a show. We've all let the details poison us. We've ruined our experiences by hyper-focusing on someone wearing the wrong wig or someone not looking like how WE want them to look.* We're making ourselves miserable over the trees when the forest is still beautiful.

So Wheel of Time will be a new forest for me. I'm walking into it with no clue as to what will happen. I have a feeling I'll probably be the better for it. 

*Understand I say this knowing all too well how frustrated I'm going to be if Annatar isn't pretty enough or in a pretty enough wig on the Tolkien show.