TV Show???

[DSC01 he/him]

From reading this thread, it seems that most of you are not watching Game of Thrones. They've largely abandoned the gratuitous nudity thing, even though there is still nudity occasionally. Now, they're holding people's attention with the story and sets and such, since they know they've got their audience hooked. 

 

In the season premiere on Sunday, I was really struck by the Dorne sets and costumes (it showed up last season, too, but I guess I was distracted by how uninteresting they made Dorne, compared to the books). I think that the Stormlight Archive would be just as ornate and eye-catching but much more fantastic and original (i.e. not heavily based on any real-world cultures). Check out this image, below (which actually is from last season), and image something equally detailed and intricate but from the Stormlight world:

 

[Guest]

I had a twinge too when I saw GoT on Sunday... This is what SA could look like.

[geralt]

I think it would work better as a movie series instead, if only because the cheap special effects a tv show would get just wouldn't do the series justice. Each movie would have to be pretty long if it were to adapt an entire book faithfully, though. Like, three hours long.

[Nyali she/her]

SA would be utterly amazing as an animated series. The spren alone would make any live action presentation impossible outside of a big budget movie, and the story couldn't fit into a single movie. As much as I love his works, I sincerely doubt Brandon has the pull yet to have a series of movies made like was done for LotR or Harry Potter.

 

The show really does lend itself to striking visuals. Spren everywhere highlighting every strong emotion or major action. Scenes like Kaladin fighting Szeth in the air with a shapeshifting weapon while occasionally running across storm-tossed boulders (and entire plateaus). I mean, Shardplate and Shardblades alone would look amazing. I love how the Surge of Illumination is described, puffing out Stormlight and then stepping through it, having it change you as you pass through. An animated series could show all these things and be really beautiful.

 

I do highly doubt we'd ever see it though. But a girl can hope!

 

My biggest fear about a visual version of the series though is the whitewashing that's sure to happen. I mean, just look at all the official artwork. The majority of what I've seen is totally whitewashed. No epicanthic folds, pale skin everywhere... The ethnicities on Roshar are very interesting, unique, and often totally ignored by the illustrators. Reshi should look like pacific islanders, but with the eye folds. Alethi should probably look middle-eastern or Indian (but again with the eye folds). Horneaters sound Celtic except for the eyes, and Azish are dark skinned. Aimians have blue skin, and I can't recall what the Iriali look like other than they are more likely to have blonde hair.

 

In addition to skin tone and body shape, there's also the way hair color and eye color work on Roshar, which is very different from Earth. Hair on Roshar doesn't blend colors, they streak. If you have some ancestors with blonde hair and some with black, likely some of your hairs will be black and others will be blonde. That's a pretty unique look to Roshar. And the eyes - lighteyes don't just have light-colored eyes, they're actually bright, possibly glowing a bit. Foreigners with light colored eyes, like Hoid, confuse Rosharans because their eyes just don't look right colorwise. Handling all that in an animated format is easy, but in a live-action format would be pretty expensive unless it was all ignored, which it probably would be.

[Erunion he/him]

SA would be utterly amazing as an animated series. The spren alone would make any live action presentation impossible outside of a big budget movie, and the story couldn't fit into a single movie. As much as I love his works, I sincerely doubt Brandon has the pull yet to have a series of movies made like was done for LotR or Harry Potter.

 

The show really does lend itself to striking visuals. Spren everywhere highlighting every strong emotion or major action. Scenes like Kaladin fighting Szeth in the air with a shapeshifting weapon while occasionally running across storm-tossed boulders (and entire plateaus). I mean, Shardplate and Shardblades alone would look amazing. I love how the Surge of Illumination is described, puffing out Stormlight and then stepping through it, having it change you as you pass through. An animated series could show all these things and be really beautiful.

 

I do highly doubt we'd ever see it though. But a girl can hope!

 

My biggest fear about a visual version of the series though is the whitewashing that's sure to happen. I mean, just look at all the official artwork. The majority of what I've seen is totally whitewashed. No epicanthic folds, pale skin everywhere... The ethnicities on Roshar are very interesting, unique, and often totally ignored by the illustrators. Reshi should look like pacific islanders, but with the eye folds. Alethi should probably look middle-eastern or Indian (but again with the eye folds). Horneaters sound Celtic except for the eyes, and Azish are dark skinned. Aimians have blue skin, and I can't recall what the Iriali look like other than they are more likely to have blonde hair.

 

In addition to skin tone and body shape, there's also the way hair color and eye color work on Roshar, which is very different from Earth. Hair on Roshar doesn't blend colors, they streak. If you have some ancestors with blonde hair and some with black, likely some of your hairs will be black and others will be blonde. That's a pretty unique look to Roshar. And the eyes - lighteyes don't just have light-colored eyes, they're actually bright, possibly glowing a bit. Foreigners with light colored eyes, like Hoid, confuse Rosharans because their eyes just don't look right colorwise. Handling all that in an animated format is easy, but in a live-action format would be pretty expensive unless it was all ignored, which it probably would be.

 90% agree with you. Just a couple of corrections though:

- Most hair colours appear to be normal, and passed on just like ours. The only hair that streaks is the Iriali golden hair and the Alethi night-black. Iriali hair isn't just blonde, it's super-blonde golden. Alethi hair isn't just dark, it's super-black. There's something up with those two peoples. 

- Do we have evidence that eyes are super-fancy and glowing? AFAIK, that's a feature exclusively of people who are channeling stormlight. AFAIK, Hoid's blue eyes are normal to all the Alethi. 

 

But yeah, I would HATE it if Roshar got white-washed. Because the world is so cool for being UNIQUE, with almost no ethnicities matching earths 1-1. It's so cool.