From the very opening scene, Rafe Judkins seems unapologetically focused on turning The Wheel of Time into The Wheel of Thrones. Unfortunately for Judkins – and for everyone involved – everything about The Wheel of Time is diametrically opposed to GRR Martin’s vision and tone. Jordan and Martin were friends, yes – but they have very different ideas about what fantasy should look like. The chief and most glaring problem with this series is that they already had a story – set in successive stages – and they are ignoring it, almost completely. Instead, they have changed major plot points with implications for the eventual end of the series, and have seemingly no plausible reason for doing so, aside from pure expediency.

I’ll go into the individual issues shortly, but let me give you an overview of the problems they have created. This will be done by spoilers, sorry. The book series has been done for nearly 10 years. Whatever the plot of this series is, it isn’t the Wheel of Time’s – so I’m not interested in spoilers for that, either. This is a review, from a longtime reader, so if you don’t want book (or series) spoilers – you probably want a different review. There have been major changes to the characters, geography, magic system, and various setting elements introduced which cause significant plot issues for the story down the line.

Let’s begin with Episode 1. The story goes off the rails almost immediately when, in the opening scene with the Reds, Liandrin says to the unnamed channeler; “this power – it’s meant for women, and women alone. When you touch it, you make it filthy.” The male half and the female half are separate. What men touch is not Saidar – it is Saidin. Only Saidin is tainted. The women’s half of the source, Saidar, is untainted by the Dark One. I noticed this mistake instantly. Most other readers of the series will, as well. It is the Dark One who tainted Saidin – and it is the Source which taints men, not the men who taint the source. Next, in Lan and Moraine’s conversation that I’ll refer more to later, she says that there are “rumors of four ta’veren there” in the Two Rivers. This is a particularly egregious line, as ta’veren are exceptionally rare – and the Two Rivers are exceptionally isolated. For someplace so isolated – where not even an Andoran tax collector has gone in generations, and whose only ties to the outside world are the occasional peddler – how would “rumors” get out, let alone rumors of 4 ta’veren in one small settlement? The reason Moraine goes there in EotW is because the Karatheon Cycle says that the Dragon “…will be of the ancient blood, and raised by the old blood.” It isn’t clear (even to Moraine) which “ancient blood” is being referred to, but the blood of Manetheren is old blood indeed. Indeed, Moraine is shocked to discover later (as she gets to know the Two Rivers folk) that she has multiple ta’veren on her hands. Many readers seem to be shocked to discover that four of them are ta’veren – and rightly so – because they aren’t.

ROBERT JORDAN – For ben, of course women can be ta’veren. None of the major female characters in the books is ta’veren, though. The Wheel doesn’t cast ta’veren around indiscriminately. There has to be a specific reason or need.

BRANDON SANDERSON – I’ve often gotten questions from people asking if Egwene was ta’veren. Obviously not, as Siuan would have seen the glow of it.

The current Amyrlin Seat, Siuan Sanche, has the ability to “see” ta’veren – and she doesn’t “see” Egwene or Nynaeve as such – or Elayne, for that matter. Ta’veren are made, not born, as the quote above shows. Only three ta’veren came out of the Two Rivers.

On to the opening scene in the Two Rivers; Egwene’s induction into adulthood is a mere mention in the books – she has been permitted to wear her her hair braided for the first time – and this seems to be permitted by her mother. In the series, she is being inducted into “The Women’s Circle” – which in the books, is the circle of women leaders of the village – and is a very select company of gray-haired women. That membership (at this point of time) consisted of Nynaeve al’Meara, Daise Congar, Alsbet Luhhan, Marin al’Vere, Natti Cauthon, and Neysa Ayellin – by no means a large company. Nynaeve is impossibly young, for a Wisdom – and even younger to be on the Women’s Circle, even by dint of being Wisdom. Having an even younger not-quite-apprentice Wisdom on the Women’s Circle beggars belief – or, alternatively, the show doesn’t know what the Women’s Circle is. The entire “mystical” induction sequence – the dialogue, the ceremony, being pushed off the rocks into the river, “trust the river”, the grotto (and all that seems to entail) is completely fabricated for the show and has no basis anywhere in the books. Next, there’s a line Perrin drops about Taren Ferry being full of soldiers and mercenaries headed south. Geographically, this is nonsense. The Two Rivers is isolated by terrain, as the conversation with Padan Fain and the Village Council in the books bears out. They are hemmed in by mountains, a mire, and the eponymous two rivers. The only supposed access to Ghealdan (which the panicky, uneducated villagers are afraid of providing a path through the Two Rivers) would be through an exceptionally dense (and most importantly, pathless) forest, the Forest of Shadows, that has grown up between the two mountain ranges that almost meet in the south. Taren Ferry is on the opposite side of the Two Rivers from Ghealdan, and might with great justice be called the gateway to the end of nowhere. There would be absolutely no reason for soldiers to be gathering there – and where, precisely, would they be gathering from? Taren Ferry (and even Baerlon) is 500+ miles from anywhere accessible to soldiers from even Andor – who would have no reason to head in the direction of Whitebridge, let alone into the hinterlands near Baerlon. While we’re on geography, too – there is no river through Emond’s Field. There is a small springfed creek, called the Winespring Water, which starts just outside town, is bridged by the Winespring Bridge near the Inn, and which feeds into the Mire in the southeast – but that is easily crossed. Putting a river through the middle of, or just outside of town is problematic. The Two Rivers after which the area is named are dozens of miles off in either direction – the Taren to the north, and the White River, aka the Manetherendrelle, to the south. The villagers would have to go quite a bit past Deven Ride to the south, or to Taren’s Ferry in the north to reach either of the rivers forming a natural boundary to the area – and they are quite large rivers – unforded and formidable. The geographical problems the show poses are legion, as we will soon discover.

Now we come to Moraine’s entrance. Instead of arriving during the day, and instead of claiming to be a noblewoman asking for stories, she is instantly recognized (and named) as Aes Sedai by Marin Al’Vere. The Two Rivers is exceptionally isolated. Far more isolated than the show seems to want to admit. In the books, they don’t recognize her as Aes Sedai until she and Lan are actually fighting Trollocs, and she channels in their defense -calling down lightning is pretty unmistakable. The series also completely skips over her engagement of the three young men (along with a couple others of similar age) as gophers, and her giving them small coins as payment – which, later on, allows her to track them. Egregiously missing, and egregiously replaced by Moraine in a dramatic evening entrance to the inn, is Thom Merrilin – a gleeman who was contracted by the village council to tell tales and perform for Winternight.

Other changes: Perrin is unaccountably (and seemingly unhappily) married to Laila Dearn, a possible love interest he mentioned – once – in later books. Abell Cauthon, horseman, master archer and farmer, is (for whatever reason) a womanizer and drunk – while his wife, Natti, is a drunken slattern who neglects her children and lashes out at her son – instead of solid and levelhead members of the Women’s Circle and Village Council, respectively. Also unaccountably missing are Haral Luhhan, Perrin’s blacksmith Master (Perrin is rather young at 20 to be the village’s blacksmith, although about to become a journeyman) and his wife Alsbet – also members of the Village Council and Women’s Circle, respectively. Why a random wife and drunkard parents were added to the show completely escapes me – and will cause multiple plot issues later – assuming the show lasts that long. Another thing that was added was a sexual relationship between Rand and Egwene. Now, I know that later on in the series, there is some extensive hanky panky in all directions – however, it’s pretty well established that such hanky panky would have been severely punished by pretty much everyone in the Two Rivers. In fact, there’s a story told about a similar situation in which the two participants were both treated as children for a significant time – well, here, let me quote it – and this occurs in book Five.

For that matter, he remembered when Nynaeve caught Kimry Lewin and Bar Dowtry in Bar’s father’s hayloft. Kimry had had her hair braided for five years, but when Nynaeve was through with her, Mistress Lewin had taken over. The Women’s Circle had nearly skinned poor Bar alive, and that was nothing to what they had done to Kimry over the month they thought was the shortest decent time to wait for a wedding. The joke told quietly, where it would not get to the Women’s Circle, had been that neither Bar nor Kimry had been able to sit down the whole first week they were married. Rand supposed Kimry had failed to ask permission.

The Fires of Heaven, pg. 53 – emphasis mine

Again, I’m well aware that later on in the books, there are great varieties of hanky panky going on. In the Two Rivers, however, this sort of thing is unacceptable. Adding it is gratuitous – not to mention the fact that they are depicted as getting it on in… the middle of the tavern’s common room, in front of the fire (where Moraine had just warmed her hands earlier), where literally all the guests upstairs could walk in at any time. Why? Also, the Al’Veres should have a cozy little inn, not a boisterous tavern. It’s just… perplexing? We won’t even get into the Voldemort-looking Myrddraal.

Cue the next day. There are a variety of things to hate here, too. As many, many others have mentioned – the match. Guys, there are no matches in this world – they haven’t been invented yet. In fact, a significant plot point later is the invention of matches by an “Illuminator” (Calling Aludra!)- one of a guild who have the secret to fireworks and their manufacture – whom we don’t meet until the next book, and who doesn’t create matches until a significant amount of time passes. Little details like this are what make or break adaptations of existing source material. It points to the people writing this show not actually knowing said material. Tam (and Rand) using matches here is just flat out stupid. We won’t even get into the completely inserted nonsense about Bel Tine lanterns and “guiding spirits back to us”. Also, just because it annoyed me as well – Winternight is the night before Bel Tine. It is the last night of winter, while Bel Tine heralds the coming of spring. Winternight is the celebration that the Trollocs interrupt. Fain arrives on the morning of Bel Tine in the series – while Rand and his father discuss whether they should “be there for Bel Tine tonight”. In the show, they had stayed the night in town (which they don’t typically do, being farmers) over Winternight, but had left the next morning to return to their farm. Bel Tine was a day of festival, with contests and dances and the like. Tam and Rand avoid those entirely (and they are not pictured in the show) and return to their farm. The Trolloc attack therefore occurs on Bel Tine itself.

On to Moraine and Nynaeve’s made-up conversation. The stupid “sacred grotto” makes yet another appearance – and Nynaeve’s parents are thrown under a bus to create unnecessary drama. Her mother does die when she is young – not a baby – but her father is alive well into her teens, and teaches her woodcraft – which, in addition to her link (through Saidar) to the young people, is how she tracks and finds the party after they leave the Two Rivers. There was no reason to delete her parents here – and this part of the story seems even more contrived and hackneyed as a result. We know who her parents are from the books – and she is too old to be the Dragon, and female besides – so why are we bothering with this? Maybe the showrunner is too source deaf to figure out that the Dragon is male for a reason, and we get these idiotic red herrings about female Dragons – but there is a reason in the material that the Dragon has to be male. Not to mention that the Karatheon Cycle straight up says he is. Plus, there is a made up story about Doral Barran – with the even more unbelievable accusation that Aes Sedai care about whether someone is a peasant or not. The current Amrylin seat grew up a fisherman’s daughter – and most, not few, Aes Sedai are of peasant origin. We move on to a scene with Mat and Fain. Mat is now depicted as a thief pawning stolen jewelry, in addition to the rest of his newly terrible family life. Fain is probably less creepy than he should be, although he couldn’t very well be more creepy. The following scene with the boys at their table is awkward and unnatural – as most of their scenes are. Instead of being generally happy folks, Mat and Perrin have an uncharacteristic brooding pathos that has been entirely fabricated by adding in these new elements. It completely changes the character of their interactions – and thereby, their characters. Rand is the least changed – although the decision to change around Thom and Min’s meetings with the group, to escalate the encounter with the ferryman to cause his death, and to put the army of trollocs right on their heels, instead of having the Draghkar in the skies ramp up Rand’s aggression toward Moraine and make it look unreasoning – when in the books, there is a general progression which brings him to that pass – one which takes days, even weeks, of events to bring about.

The Trollocs all look like Steppenwolf from Justice League, honestly. Not a terrible decision, but I can’t get it out of my head. When they attack, the body count seems a bit higher than in the books, but they’ve expanded Emond’s Field somewhat from the size in the books, as well. Moraine and Lan carving through the Trollocs is a pretty righteous scene, I have to admit (although a trifle extended from what it should be); it omits Lan warning the village of the impending attack – and results in Moraine tearing down the Winespring (the only brick building in the village, incidentally) to wipe out this newly beefed up attack on the village the show incorporates. There is an entire fist of Trollocs present here. Even a Halfman will retreat from an Aes Sedai and Warder (and a roused township) – and that’s what is supposed to happen at Winternight. In this version, though, at least 25 (and possibly more) villagers die, the fight goes on much longer, Moraine is randomly pegged by a thrown dagger and destroys half the village by herself, and Nynaeve is carried off by the braid in a scene right out of the Battle of Emond’s Field 10 books later – by a Trolloc who has a throwdown with Nynaeve (again with the stupid grotto!) doing her best Birgitte impression (which she seems to have been doing all along). Here I was thinking that Nynaeve would call that man-brained idiocy, and thinking with your muscles – right? Well, apparently not. There’s also Daise Congar being… whatever it is when she tells the Trolloc “you want a real feast”. Look, Congars and Coplins… they’re special – but that’s special, even for them, okay? Since Moraine destroyed the inn, now we have the conversation where we decide to leave in the middle of the village green; all in the space of 2 minutes from Rand’s entrance into town, and Perrin carting his wife’s body to the corpse piles. One thing I did appreciate, however – Moraine’s exposition at the end with the iconic “…but it was a beginning”.

So, on to Episode 2. We open with the Tide Poster Children (of the Light) – who instead of wearing just white cloaks, apparently wear all white, all the time, even in the field – and we are treated to another… fascinating departure from the source material in the form of Eamon Valda, of all people, privately burning a Tar Valon “witch” for his own amusement, and collecting her ring to add to his collection – after he cuts off her hands, of course. We then cut back to the Emond’s Fielders, who are fleeing along a riverbank. Which river? I have no idea. there are no rivers heading north and south anywhere in the middle of the Two Rivers. Both of these rivers run east and west, and bound the area in from the north and south.

The North Road doesn’t run along a river toward Watch Hill and Taren Ferry. The Winespring isn’t large enough for this scene to make any sense, either – and where would you go down it, anyway? It is sloppy errors like this – for purely aesthetic reasons, apparently – that make this show so maddening.

Instead of Dragkhar pressing them from above to Taren Ferry – we go directly to Shadar Logoth. For a bit about why this is extraordinary, we have to talk about distances. It is 171 miles (150 WL miles) from Emond’s Field to Baerlon – which the show completely skips past. Taren Ferry is just slightly less than halfway to Baerlon from Emond’s Field (assuming the scale in the maps are correct – and I suspect it isn’t, quite) – say, 65 WL miles or so. In Ch11, they reach Watch Hill at a gallop. It is slightly less than halfway to Taren Ferry on the map – say, 30 miles. They are about at the limit of horses (30-35 miles) at a sustained speed (which, by the way, isn’t a gallop) – therefore Moraine’s ministrations to the horses at this point makes sense. They reach Taren’s Ferry before morning (but to be fair, 60+ miles in a night isn’t exactly realistic, but we’re dealing with magic users and the first book in a series, so we’ll wing it) and the ferryman brings them across (and doesn’t die, by the way – his ferry does get sunk, but they just give him more gold). At this point in the show, Moraine should have created the fog to misdirect the Draghkar, et al – and they camp for the night, before heading for Baerlon the next morning – which seems to take a total of six days in the books. She doesn’t do that in the series. Instead, they press on for a while more, then rest at some undisclosed location – presumably in the woods northeast of Taren Ferry, approximately 15 miles away, which is the closest wooded area in the direction of Shadar Logoth. See the map of the wooded area in roughly the shape of Africa below – that’s where they’d have to get to before camping in old forest, instead of camping in the convenient wood just west of the road north of the Taren.

At this point in the show, they’ve covered 80 miles in a single night – and still have time to rest until morning, apparently.

During the discussion with Egwene (at which point she, too, questions the Aes Sedai overly aggressively – since the ferryman just died to no apparent purpose for additional drama) Moraine relates The Three Oaths – but with a startling omission, given what she just did in Emond’s Field; she omits the clause(s) “against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn, or” prior to “the last extreme defense of her life”, etc. If words are so important, why does she leave that part out? Again, if words are so important – why do we add the line “it’s the wind that listens to you?” You do not control the One Power. You channel the One Power – you are a conduit – you surrender. Practically all of the high drama in the next morning’s conversation is entirely fabricated – as is the Whitecloak encounter they have, instead of the one they should have had in Baerlon. There is also at least one strange issue with this encounter. Bornhald tells Moraine to see a sister at Whitebridge to heal her wound. It is hedged about, to be sure, but hardly something a Lord Captain would say in front of a Questioner – or at all. Something else worth mentioning is that Whitecloaks, on the main, wouldn’t believe in Trollocs out of the Borderlands or the Blight itself.

Now we’re into geography problems again. Whitebridge is 588 WL miles from Baerlon – as the crow flies. We do get a sort of limited travel montage, so it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was on the first watchthrough – but the terrain involved is not nearly as varied as it appears from that montage. There are no significant bodies or water or wastelands between the wood northeast of Taren Ferry and Hills of Absher – north of the Caemlyn road. The road itself isn’t nearly well defined enough, either, if that’s what they are traveling on several days later. It is used for a significant amount of overland traffic between Whitebridge and the mining town of Baerlon – which means wagons laden with metal and rock. As such, it’s almost certainly paved, and definitely kept in good order. Further, the huge overlook Rand is standing on, depicted in the group scene, isn’t a terrain feature anywhere between Baerlon/Taren Ferry and Whitebridge. Anyway, it’s roughly 60-65 WL miles to Taren Ferry from Emond’s Field. It’s an additional 85 WL miles to Baerlon – but approximately 120 WL miles overland to Shadar Logoth from Taren Ferry – 15 of which they covered the day after their flight from Emond’s Field to Taren Ferry. In the books, they took 6 days from the river crossing to reach Baerlon to recover the horses – but the trip down the Caemlyn road took only 3 as far as Shadar Logoth (due to the better road, and the horses having rested again). They reach Shadar Logoth on the 11th day after they leave the Two Rivers, I believe, since they spend a day in Baerlon before being chased out by a Fade. Going overland for most of that route would cut their pace significantly. We’re probably looking at well over a fortnight in that case. An overland trek to the road, and then on to Whitebridge, makes significantly less sense – and would take even more time than otherwise, not less, as the series depicts; but more about that in a minute.

The single most significant moment in the series so far (lore wise) occurs on the ride when they begin to sing a peculiar song they don’t seem to really understand – and Moraine delivers a stripped-down version of the Fall of Manetheren – the story she should have told to unite the villagers when they angrily confront Moraine about the Trollocs, instead of Rand making that confrontation alone. I must admit, that song (and the story to follow) was pretty cool – probably the coolest thing in the series for me so far. At least I get *one* thing that’s even remotely close to the story out of all this. Sadly, it may be the only thing. We are then told that they are headed for the road (east to Whitebridge, we are told, which means that they’re headed overland toward the Caemlyn road – the small track they are on can’t possibly be the Caemlyn road, as they haven’t gone nearly far enough yet, and the path isn’t nearly well-defined enough). We are not told why they would be “skirting Shadar Logoth” – it is miles north, across the Caemlyn Road. (Shadar Logoth is another 100 WL miles or so from their initial camping spot out of Taren Ferry, as the crow flies, and significantly out of the way if they are truly headed for Whitebridge.) Why they would be tooling around north of the Caemlyn road, and trapping themselves against a navigable river like the Arinelle beggars belief. Where they are supposed to “find a sister who can heal” Moraine, as Lan says, in a wilderness as complete as that which obtains near Shadar Logoth, is a complete mystery. They are above the Hills of Asbher, and hundreds of miles from any settlements whatsoever, at this point – which, I might add, makes their meetings with both the Whitecloaks and later, the sisters with Logain, that much more unlikely – vanishingly unlikely, given the geography, which we will further address shortly. When Moraine falters at last, due to the randomly added dagger wound she received Emond’s Field, a Fade catches up with them, and they ride to the city. East to the city. If you look at the map above, that means that they have passed the road, nearly hit the river, and are actually skirting around that significant bend somewhat south, in order to hit the city. They arrive at Shadar Logoth as it is turning light. The horses stop dead and refuse to go on as soon as they get a certain distance away from the walls – but just as suddenly are willing to go again when the group finishes their conversation. Convenient. The hundred foot wall has a similarly convenient narrow crack in it right where they arrive. At this point, they have covered 180 WL miles, with 350 or more to go just to Whitebridge – and are driven out of Shadar Logoth at nightfall, instead of in the middle of the night (and incidentally, Lan and Moraine leave via yet *another* conveniently narrow crack in the hundred foot walls) – and by Mashadar, not by a combination of Trollocs and Mashadar – which is the crucial combination.

Rand and Mat get out of the grating just in the nick of time, chased by Mashadar’s oil slick instead of being driven out by Trollocs on the one hand, and the tendrils of Mashadar on the other. Mashadar is a black creeping film in the show, rather than a darkly luminous mist. They push a fallen log across the river (which is unaccountably narrow, considering that this is the Arinelle – a river that is navigable by coastal vessels all the way to the Borderlands in Saldea) and make their way to a mining town in… uh, a mountainous gorge. Of which there aren’t any, to my knowledge – especially not between Shadar Logoth and Whitebridge. There aren’t any mountains between the Mountains of Mist and Kinslayer’s Dagger – not unless you’re going down to Garen’s Wall, which separates Ghealdan from Andor. I’ll be honest with you here – from this point, the show doesn’t even pretend to be The Eye of the World. It sort of pretended at the beginning, but now it doesn’t even pretend. It just throws characters in and out, topsy turvy, doing whatever they want to whomever they want, wherever they want – with no order, rhyme or reason. For example, Lan, of all people, gives a lengthy treatise on Shadar Logoth – which should be Moraine’s – because they’ve given Moraine a random dagger wound that prevents her from giving it – and is the new pretext for them having gone to the city in the first place, rather than three fists of Trollocs each ahead and behind giving them no other choice but north or south of the road. While I’m sure the conversation between Mat and Perrin is touching – it’s yet another fabrication, about a situation they contrived exclusively for the show. There are only two things that happen in Shadar Logoth that happened in the books. Mashadar spreads, and Mat takes a dagger without telling anyone. Everything else is fabrication. There is one interesting item I hadn’t noticed, however – albeit yet another fabrication. There is a whistling heard in the streets prior to Mat’s trip out to get the dagger. Fain’s whistling. In the books, you see, the Trollocs drive Fain with them as their hunter – it is he who tracks them from Emond’s Field. He doesn’t, however, run into Mordeth until after the escape of the Two Rivers folk – where Fain also makes his escape from his masters. When he encounters Mordeth, Mordeth tries to subsume him, but is unable to do so, since Fain has been changed by what was done to him to make him the hound of the shadow. In the show, Mat (alone) follows a shadowy figure to the building where he finds the chest containing the dagger – instead of surreptitiously acquiring it from Mordeth’s treasure hoard during the encounter.

From here, we meet a randomly fabricated darkfriend barkeep, an Aiel in a cage that Mat, not Perrin meets – and who is dead, not alive. We meet Thom in a nonexistent bar in a non-existent town, playing a guitar, not a harp. We skip the river passage, we skipped Moraine’s money which pays for it, we skip Thom’s involvement in the trip – in the escape, he’s the one who gets them better conditions on the boat; and we have skipped any necessity for them to be in Caemlyn ahead of the rest of the group. We’ve skipped Elyas, we’ve skipped Lan and Moraine’s involvement in Perrin and Egwene’s rescue from the Whitecloaks; we’ve skipped Mat’s defense of Rand from Shaine, Rand’s defense of Mat as he deteriorates (not to mention his actual channeling to escape Gode, which has the side effect of partially blinding Mat). We’ve added Tinker non-violent confrontation with Whitecloaks, and Valda in this stage of the story at all, let alone setting him up as an Aes Sedai-burning torturer. Valda is not even a Questioner, people. He is a blademaster, and a combat veteran. Jaicham Carridin is the Questioner and Inquisitor of the tale – and it is he who has the hatred of Tinkers, not Valda. Last, but certainly not least, we’ve added Logain at least 700 miles north of anywhere he could possibly be. We’ve already spoken of the fact that the Two Rivers is isolated – Ghealdan’s northern border is Garen’s Wall – a craggy mountain range (with no passes) that stretches nearly the entirety of the way from Altara to the Mountains of Mist. There are zero ways to get to Andor from Ghealdan that don’t go through Altara and Murandy. We’re talking well over a thousand miles around the mountains, and through two countries – just to get into Andor via Whitebridge, the only crossing into Western Andor. Just for giggles, too – Andor has more soldiers posted at the border to Murandy than anywhere else – perhaps excepting Cairhein, but probably not at this time of the story. Now, how are we supposed to believe that Logain got there – or that a picked guard of the King of Ghealdan, including the King himself, got there, in the hinterlands of Western Andor where there is literally nothing of interest whatsoever? Nobody has rediscovered traveling yet, my dudes. Further, while we’re on the subject of Logain – men cannot see women’s weaves. He couldn’t see Nynaeve “shining like the sun” if he were referring to her channeling. Men can tell that women are channeling. It is very subtle – they get gooseflesh when it happens- that is all. It is not a matter of degree, either. Women have to use a special sort of ter’angreal to accomplish the same thing – but they still can’t see the men’s weaves, and neither can men, with women. This may be a reference to Logain’s ability to see ta’veren – but Nynaeve is explicitly not ta’veren, per RJ, as we explained previously. It could also be a reference to Moraine telling Logain that the true Dragon will be “like the raging sun.” These attempts at misdirection harm the story, not help it. Again, Logain cannot see women channeling, so no matter how powerful she is, it is irrelevant as to what Logain sees. In addition, she is not ta’veren – so his ability to see ta’veren is not applicable either. Therefore, neither suggestion makes this encounter explainable – assuming, of course, that it is either sensical or possible for him to be in Western Andor in the first place – which it isn’t.

As to the Crown and Lion being in.. Tar Valon… which crown could that refer to? Which Lion? The White Lion is the symbol of Andor, and the proprietor of that inn, Basel Gill, is a firm supporter of the Queen of Andor – and figures very heavily in the remainder of the story – he is also the source of information about Thom Merrilin’s past, for that matter. We are then embroiled in an entirely fictitious drama concerning the Warder, Stepin, of the slain Aes Sedai Kerene (a former Captain General of the Green, and we’d assume current Captain General) – who actually died at the hands of Black Ajah while searching for the newly born Dragon 20 years earlier. The drama is high, and it shows the Warder bond clearly – but again, it is entirely fictitious, and creates a number of continuity issues – not least with the current Captain General, Adelorna Bastine, figuring so prominently in the later story.

Before I get to the character arc issues, I want to make a serious note – many folks, including the showrunner, seem to have the mistaken idea that the main characters needed to be “aged up”; but he has internal consistencies even there.

We aged up the Emond’s Field Five from the books because sometimes TV shows with a bunch of 17 year olds as leads feel more like YA and Wheel of Time isn’t YA— Rafe Judkins (@rafejudkins) August 18, 2021

Moraine, when viewing the capturing of the channeler in the opening moments of the series, says “it isn’t him” – and is chided by Lan, who says “He was born 20 years ago.” The Emond’s Field trio are all within a few weeks of 20 in either direction (all born in 978 NE)- with Nynaeve only four years older (974 NE), and Egwene two years and change behind them at 17 (981 NE) – at which age she begins to braid her hair, and is considered a woman. The prophecy referred to demands that the Dragon be born at a certain time – a time 20 years previously. While the actors look older, the characters are apparently the age they are supposed to be, given Moraine and Lan’s exposition in the series. They don’t need to be “aged up” – they are all supposed to be 20, not 17; and although Egwene is younger, she is still an adult. They all begin as adults in the novel Eye of the World – braiding her hair means that she is considered an adult by all and sundry – and she is the youngest of the group by a comfortable margin. The idea that the writers and the showrunner seem to have that they should include the female characters as possibly the Dragon seems to be the only reason for ignoring the actual ages of the main characters – which are well-documented. Any reader of the series could have told them that the three boys were very close in age – and all roughly 20 years old. The strange relationship tensions that are introduced by the changes to Egwene’s relationship with Rand and the marriage of Perrin don’t “age up” the characters – they just introduce juvenile, badly-written drama that adds nothing to the story, and remove significant elements of it.

Firstly, Perrin’s story arc will now necessarily be almost completely different from the actual plot. By giving him a wife, who he immediately kills, you now have a serious problem on a variety of levels. Most importantly, the issue with the slaying of Whitecloaks no longer has primacy as the first and most important act of violence in his young life. This act defines him throughout the entire series of books. It occurs only after he has been formally introduced to wolves as companions, to Elyas, to the Tinkers, to the concept of ravens as the Dark One’s eyes (and killers!) – to Stedding – and finally, to the Whitecloaks. Perrin slaying the Whitecloaks (and Hopper’s sacrificial defense of Perrin) is integral to his self-image throughout. It affects literally everything Perrin does throughout the books – and drives practically everything about the events which drive him, as well. Further, the decision to exclude the Luhhans from the story has significant consequences later on – notably concerning them being his hostages to the Whitecloaks, as well as once Perrin returns to the Two Rivers – but especially when Haral saves Perrin’s life in AMoL. Two very large-looming figures are gone from his life, and the substitute we are given (and who is immediately taken away) is not going to compensate. There is now no Whitecloak slaying. In fact, it is Egwene, not Perrin, who commits the only act of violence, and stabs Valda in their escape – and given his importance later on, I highly doubt his demise is imminent. Further, practically everything about Perrin’s character (as we’ve seen thus far) is going to be about Laila, not his self-horror at the connection with the wolves, and his self-image as a bestial murderer that comes from that connection.

Secondly, Mat’s story arc now revolves around a bad family life, not his own character. Abell Cauthon is now a womanizer and drunk; which I would imagine precludes him as Tam’s second-in-command from the Two Rivers, and from various other heroic exploits he performs throughout. There is also no character buildup of Mat (or Rand!) as gleeman’s apprentices – skills which figure prominently throughout the rest of the books. Mat’s juggling, sleight of hand, and knife skills come from this period – and Rand’s flute playing does as well. Compressing their interactions with Thom into a single song, a theft or two, one heart to heart talk with Rand and Mat each, and two fights gives us very little tie between these characters. Mat’s unexpected facility with the old tongue in moments of stress has also been elided – which will have consequences later as well. We’ve also completely skipped Bayle Domon, which has additional plot consequences – not least in the Last Battle. Not least, playing Mat up as the Dragon is completely, utterly, unbelievable. Even given the fact that they’ve done their absolute dead-level best to remove each and every single thing about Rand which would have given a single clue that he was the Dragon (you have noticed that, haven’t you?) – Rand’s still the Dragon. Mat has just been made pitiful, and all of the unique elements of his character have been stripped of him for expedience’s sake, and to make bloody room for all of the utter sweep swallop they’ve replaced the story with.

Thirdly, since Rand’s character arc has Mat seemingly introduced (quite ham-handedly, I might add) as the obvious choice for the Dragon – despite the fact that Rand alone looks foreign – and that we know who Mat’s parents are. Using him as the stalking horse for all of the early distrust of Moraine is problematic, as well. Look, the only reason you don’t suspect Rand to be the Dragon by now is because they’ve gone out of their way to replace each and every thing in the story that tells us he is the Dragon. When they unveil him, it’ll be a complete non-sequitur. Think about it. There’s nothing about him getting goosebumps as Moraine channels, nothing about Bela, nothing about his feverish encounter with the Whitecloaks as he deals with the consequences of channeling, no lightning bolt to escape Howal Gode. The deletion of Thom’s companionship (and Baerlon entirely) removes several important plot elements, and the fabricated element of Nynaeve’s capture by Trollocs introduces still more issues.

• He no longer meets Min at Baerlon – or her prophetic words.
• He no longer runs afoul of the Whitecloaks, and one Whitecloak personally and in particular, at Baerlon.
• He no longer suffers, at Baerlon, the side effects of his first use of the One Power when he refreshes Bela to save Egwene, as he believes.
• Nynaeve doesn’t meet up with the party at Baerlon, so doesn’t encounter Shadar Logoth – which will have plot consequences at a later date.
• He no longer encounters a Fade at close quarters for the first time, to learn that “the look of the Eyeless is fear” – and to mark him out as one the Dark One wants especially.

The exclusion of the encounter with Mordeth (and the exclusion of Rand and Perrin from the excursion) does two things with the Shadar Logoth plotline; there is now no reason for Padan Fain/Mordeth to be able to resist the Dark One – and no specific reason for him to hate Rand and Perrin in particular. Further, there is also no longer a specific tie-in to Rand’s eventual wound with the dagger by Fain/Mordeth – or Fain/Mordeth’s eventual death at Mat’s hands.

Fourthly, Nynaeve’s capture and escape introduces issues; the rivalry with Moraine for the Two Rivers folk (and for Lan himself) is practically gutted. Lan’s reasons for helping Rand – and his vulnerability to Nynaeve in the place he most considers home, Fal Dara – are shattered by these story changes, and replaced by a completely fabricated story involving an Aes Sedai who no longer dies at the hands of Darkfriends in New Spring, but at the hands of Logain in a place he never was. Nynaeve no longer tracks the Two Rivers folk to Baerlon, but instead tracks Lan all the way past Shadar Logoth – presumably to make her more impressive – despite the show’s having killed her parents off, especially the father who taught her to do the tracking she’s supposedly doing. Yeah, we didn’t think about that one, did we. Look, I just don’t think that the writers and showrunner are being very smart about this. You already have an entire host of strong female leads. You already have a female-controlled society, for the most part. Instead of following the story you already have, you turn Nynaeve into the same sort of “man-brained idiot” she decries through the entire book series. There is already a “hoorah Nynaeve” moment when they break out Perrin and Egwene. The sort of “mass healing” that she performs in the cave is… not a thing, either.

Egwene’s arc is in a similar mess to Rand’s. The inexplicable addition of Nynaeve’s capture and escape have introduced a weird tension over her place in life that shouldn’t exist – and the deletion of Thom and Nynaeve from the group have put several uncharacteristic outbursts in her mouth, instead of others, much like with Rand. The incident with the Whitecloaks is now all about her ability to channel, instead of Perrin’s slaying of the Whitecloaks – and the flensing scene seems far more gratuitous than the horrific bruising that occurs in the books as a result of Byar’s ministrations and Bornhald’s cold-blooded pronouncements of execution. As with the other main characters, we are being presented with an entirely different person, created by entirely different experiences. The more it continues, the more it will necessarily depart from the actual Egwene. Even the incident with breakbone fever is reharnessed from Nynaeve’s healing what she believes to be a fatal childhood disease (but which is actually a painful, but relatively harmless disease) into a pronouncement that Egwene is “unbreakable”. While this may be true, it is of a piece with the wholesale changes made to the characters.

Here’s something to think about – out of the 5 episodes I’ve watched thus far, at least 4 episodes worth of run time has been spent on sheer fabrication. If they had followed the actual story at the same pace, they could be in Caemlyn right now. They’d have 3 episodes to spend – one on the Ways, one on Fal Dara and Borderlands in general, and one on the confrontation at the Eye. What in the world are they thinking? If I was writing this show, I would have stuck to the story – introduced Moraine, Thom, and Winternight in the first episode. Moraine’s story, the leavetaking, the events of the run to Taren Ferry (and the events immediately following) the second episode. The third episode would be in Baerlon, and introduce Min, Thom as a working gleeman, the Whitecloaks as involving Rand’s post-channeling sickness, Nynaeve catching up, the encounter with the Fade and their escape. The fourth episode would be travel to Shadar Logoth, the encounter with Mordeth, the escape; their meetings with Elyas and the Tuatha’an on the one hand, then the run from the ravens to the stedding; the escapades of Thom and the boys on board Domon’s ship on the other, and Moraine’s choice – ending with Perrin’s slaying of the Whitecloaks and the boys’ escape from Whitebridge and Thom’s battle with the Fade. The fifth episode (with, I might add, a similar ‘one month later’) would bring half the party to Caemlyn – make sure you do a short madcap scene of the encounters with Gode and Shaine, interspersed with them playing/juggling for their suppers – but that’s it – the boys arrive at Basel Gill’s Crown and Lion – resulting in the meetings with Loial, Logain, and Elayne – and the rescue of Perrin and Egwene by Moraine and Lan. The sixth episode would begin with Moraine sweeping into the Crown and Lion, to be told Loial’s story, and off into the Ways… Now, did we skip over some parts of the story? Yes. Did we add in random nonsense? No. We could have met Elayne Trakand and Min, had dealings with Bayle Domon, actual character progression with Thom, no idiotic false trails with Mat’s sickness, Nynaeve’s mass healing, or bad geography with Logain et al.

Instead of this ridiculously hackneyed, trope-laden soap opera, we could have had a sweeping epic. It was already written for them. All they had to do was adapt it. Not replace it. Not re-imagine it. This isn’t Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. This is The Wheel of Thrones – and it is vastly poorer for it.

In some ways, globalization isn’t a bad thing. One of my favorite experiences thus far in life has been running IRC channels/networks with a global population. On the other hand, the globalization – especially corporatization – of online social life has been a decided negative experience. Having to deal with behemoths like Google, Amazon, and Facebook just to socialize with dispersed family isn’t anything to write home about. The cognitive dissonance of massive corporations whose sole purpose is to surveil you in order to sell the products of that surveillance to advertisers also being the ones who have come to define the meaning of privacy online to an entire generation (and redefine it, for my generation backwards) is truly something to behold. I used to volunteer for an organization which sought to protect the vulnerable from cyberstalking in the earlier days of the internet. These days, the ability to stalk people has grown exponentially – and usually on the backs of platforms which have grown around the express purpose of tracking their users everywhere they go.

How did we get here? The same way we’ve arrived at most of the places we’re currently at, as Western consumers – by way of convenience. One-stop-shopping has been a plague on our habits since it was introduced, and the more it has invaded our social lives, the worse it has become. We’ve centralized everything because it is most convenient. With this centralization has come a relinquishment of control – of myriad aspects of our lives. What else we need to realize, though, is that while these corporations are indeed creepy – they aren’t the real problem. The real problem is us. We are the ones who made them behemoths. We are the ones who sacrificed quality, locality, privacy and personality on the altar of convenience. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Just like the problem came from us, the solution comes from us as well. We have to choose to act differently.

Instead of ordering from a company’s Amazon storefront – order from the company itself. Instead of looking globally for things you need – look locally. It takes more work to find, sometimes, yes – but it also provides more work to people who live near you. I just planted 4 fruit trees in my front yard. I have a paper route, where I deliver a secondhand goods paper to a variety of local businesses. While on that route, I bought the trees from a local feed store, a rake from a hardware store – and since I was delivering papers to a different hardware store at the time, picked up some gravel to fill in holes in my driveway. If you’re going for convenience, go to places that are actually convenient to you. Local places, that are on your way to wherever you are going. On the other hand, sometimes what you need is only available at big box stores – or if you order it. I broke down and went to Home Depot to get some foldable sawhorses yesterday. Where they get you is when you see that they also have red mulch on sale for 5/10$… but I digress 🙂 What I should have done was find a small business that sells foldable sawhorses – but I didn’t think of it at the time – because I’d already looked at all the hardware stores on my route, and none of them sold what I wanted. The other thing I could have done was buy the lumber and make my own sawhorses… but I’ve made a good half dozen sets over the years, and they never last – and they’re a pain to store.

In my Mancave post, I talk about how I’ve shopped local for the building supplies I needed for this project. What I haven’t done as well with is shopping specialty for my equipment. It was so much easier to just make a wishlist on Amazon, populate it, and pick up practically everything for the project from there. I’ve decided that this is the last project I’m doing that way. I’m proud that I’ve been able to support my local businesses (like Jack’s Hardware and Alexander Hardware and Supply) with the building materials, but I really could have done better with the equipment. This is getting a bit afield of the point, though. Where Home Depot is better, marginally, than Amazon, is that they rely (primarily) on having a large stock of items in a central location that you can actually look at and go to. The same thing goes for an Auto Zone, or a Harbor Freight, or other “chain” stores of that magnitude. That is supply chain thinking. Amazon has taken “supply chain thinking” and made it gargantuan – and has mostly eliminated the local option. They are supply chain in the cloud.

With places like Amazon, though, we have outsourced our privacy to gain convenience. Amazon “knows” what we want, and can “suggest” things we might also want by means of number-crunching comparisons to both our purchase history, and that of millions of other people. Facebook and Google do the same thing with our browsing history – and sell the results of that number-crunching to advertisers, to better “target” us. They’re so good at surveilling us that their platforms are also outsourced by government agencies for surveillance tasks. Not only that, they have created “sweetheart deals” with other large corporations to circumvent things like DMCA laws through AI-driven content managers like YouTube’s ContentID. ContentID scans every video uploaded to YouTube, and scans it for copyrighted content. When that content is “flagged” as something a corporation has copyrighted, YouTube forces the uploader to prove that it isn’t copyrighted – to prove a negative. The corporation on whose behalf it was “flagged” is the only court of appeal for that content. Tell me that isn’t backwards! As a church tech/sound guy, I’m in charge of our service recordings. At least two hours of my week, every week, is spent appealing obviously public domain songs that were flagged as copyrighted – because some company, somewhere, has a performance of said song copyrighted. As a result, and after spending some time talking with some others at my church, I’m working on a way to move us off of YouTube – because it has crossed the line into harassment – into cyber-stalking. Big Tech’s relentless drive to know everything about us – the price for using their “free” services – has got us almost convinced that this is normal.

This is not normal. This is not right. I’d much rather go to the expense and trouble of hosting my church’s videos myself, rather than fighting with a Google subsidiary (and her music industry sweethearts) over whether public domain music is actually in the public domain. Outsourcing privacy to Google costs too much. They don’t actually offer privacy – just a fig leaf. The prospect of ads (over which we have no control) during a church service is appalling – and that is the consequence of losing an in-house appeal to a company who has a vested interest(!) in saying that public domain music is not public domain – and there are zero legal consequences for doing so, since Google has circumvented the legal process in place for companies to enforce copyright(s) by using this system. Your privacy has been outsourced in a similar fashion to a variety of companies who have a vested interest in seeing that your private affairs don’t stay private. They have a vested interest in knowing everything about you. Not only that, but they have a vested interest in telling other companies everything they know about you – in fact, that’s their business model. Not only that – but we’ve handed these companies everything about us – because they have told us “we care about your privacy.” They do care – just not in the way we take it to mean. We trust them with our outsourced privacy – and they violate that trust each and every day.

We have nobody to blame but ourselves. Do you want your privacy back? You have to change your behavior. Stop using Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. As far as you can, use less Microsoft & Apple products. If we want the status quo to change, we have to change – because the status quo follows our behavior.

Look, we all have told ourselves to “shop local”. We mean to do it, we really do. We don’t like how massive corporations have taken over practically every facet of our lives. We like the helpfulness of local business owners, and the idea of supporting our friends and neighbors. Then we’re on the lookout for something specialized, and… our local businesses don’t have it. This isn’t specific to small town life, either. Sometimes, we have very specific needs, and nobody even remotely nearby has what we’re looking for. So, where do we go? Amazon.

Why do we go there now? First and foremost, because Amazon has worked very hard to become uniquely ubiquitous. They have rolled a fairly large percentage of their profits, for a great many years, into diversifying – and cornering the market on online shopping. They are a video provider, book publisher, and also provide the hardware to support their various endeavors. They not only have Amazon Prime, but Prime Video, Prime Wardrobe, and Prime Music. They not only have FireTV, but the FireTV stick. They not only have Kindle, but the family of Kindle readers. They have Whole Foods, Twitch, IMdB, Amazon Music, Audible, Goodreads, Kuiper Systems, Alexa, Echo, Ring – their own appstore to compete with Google Play and Apple – and their Basics brand offers cheap(er) knockoffs of just about anything you could want – along with the real thing, of course. They also have their own logistics tail (including Maritime shipping!), warehousing, and of course, their massive online storefront – which has proceeded to incorporate a massive amount of third-party sellers. This doesn’t even count Amazon Web Services, which power a significant portion of the cloud market – about a third of it. In short, they have become ubiquitous – and not in a good way.

Nobody needs a history lesson about how Amazon came to dominate the online market – and thence the brick and mortar market – but it is illustrative of just how much convenience trumps sanity in today’s world. The fact that Amazon keeps buying subsidiaries and capitalizing them isn’t the issue – the issue is that we are the reason Amazon is what it is. They keep steamrolling businesses – large as well as small – because we’ve enabled them to. Whenever we use Amazon because it is easier, we’re giving Amazon business at the expense of local companies – or even other, larger corporations. Now, this isn’t a fault of Amazon – it’s our fault. Don’t get me wrong – it’d be great if other companies invested in infrastructure proportionally – but one business advantage Amazon has is, quite simply, the fact that it doesn’t have to duplicate their logistics tail for each of its subsidiaries. The other is that we have traded convenience and price for control of the markets. It is entirely behavior driven – by our behavior. I confess that I am guilty of this as well.

Amazon does what it does well – practically unexceptionally. That isn’t the problem. That is a feature of the business model they use. Efficiency as the means of cornering the market. Of course they are efficient – and usually cheaper, to boot. The problem is that when they do so, they intentionally drive their competitors into the ground as a feature of their business model. This is free-market capitalism, true – but it only works if we are willing to assist them in so doing. We don’t have to min-max our lives like an MMO raiding guild does with their characters. No matter what the markets say, if we choose to use something a little slower, a little more expensive, and local – we should – because those local businesses are run by people with families, and employ people with families we know. We should, because we want people to work for places other than, well, Amazon – who are famously terrible employers in order to make their business model work. In other words – whenever and wherever you have a choice, choose the option that doesn’t intentionally undercut your friends and neighbors’ ability to do business. If you need hardware, wood, or tools – go to your locally owned and operated hardware store instead of a box store – or Amazon. If you need specialty goods – find a supplier that *isn’t* a box store – or Amazon. It might be someone *else’s* local business – but that’s fine! It might even be a bigger business that caters to that particular specialty – but if it keeps that business from being eaten by the Amazon machine, isn’t that all to the good?

Don’t just shop local, either – live locally. Those ties to small businesses are part of what make communities. The more we live globally, the less ties we have to where we live, and who lives there. It creates an artificial distance between people. It’s fine to have communities where you unite around a common interest – that isn’t the point. The point is that those should be ancillary to communities in your locality. Churches, schools, sports all create local communities within the places where we live. Divorcing our purchasing from those communities drives much of the reasons for living in a particular place, having common interests, and common places of employment into the background – and denudes our lives of an ontology of place. Consumerism can’t provide much in the way of commonalities. Service employers and food service are important, but manufacturing and distribution are also key elements of creating communities that aren’t migratory. If our only choices for employment boil down to which chain of big box, global franchise, or behemoth online megalith we can work for – how much stability and sense of permanence does that offer?

In a similar fashion, outsourcing our communal lives to social media corporations is a bad idea. For the same reason we should stop feeding the Amazon machine so much of our money, we should stop feeding the Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter machines our social lives. Yes, COVID-19 was bad, and the ability to use the ephemeral imitation of society that Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, and Twitch offers was a virtual lifeline – but we mustn’t forget that they are ephemeral imitations – and ephemeral imitations that are only there to provide advertisers with targeted data about us, so that they can more efficiently sell us things. That is the precise and specific purpose for the existence of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, and a host of similar corporate networking and social platforms. They take what you share about yourself – and sell it to advertisers – full stop.

Here’s something else to think about. Do you remember when “cyberstalking” was a big issue? I do. I used to volunteer with a group who addressed cyberstalking (CyberAngels)- especially of women and children. Online privacy was a very big deal for a decade or more. Once all of these big corporate social media companies got into the mix, however – most of that buzz just… disappeared. The big tech empires basically do everything we used to tell people was cyberstalking. They encourage all of the behaviors we discouraged in people’s online habits. Sharing personal information, photos with clear location data, photos of children… practically every single thing we advised that people stop doing – they want you to keep doing – and use their services to do them. They then have the audacity to ask you to trust them.

For those of you old enough to remember when there wasn’t an internet – you probably also remember its infancy. Back in BBS days where you had to dial in to someone’s computer, or to a usenet service – then later to providers like AOL, Prodigy, or Compuserve. As the internet grew older, there were always a couple of competing philosophies – whatever the most insistent FOSS advocates remember.

There have always been the decentralized, individualist proponents – and have always been the corporations trying to centralize as much as humanly possible under their brand. AOL was a giant, comparable to Facebook today for the time and then-current userbase. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and its war with Netscape (which was often bundled with dialup giant software!) was a fascinating struggle – comparable to the modern corporate throwdowns today.

It’s no accident that Apple and Microsoft are still players. Their forays into the incipient internet were largely due to the fact that their products ran a sizable portion of the computers that all the corporations vied to capture as customers. The corporate opportunism displayed by Google, Twitter, and Amazon is nothing new. In fact, it seems to be part and parcel of internet history for companies to repeatedly (serially and in parallel) attempt to capture large swathes of the internet. The argument for distributed and decentralized internet is not that corporations shouldn’t do what corporations do – but that the construction of the internet ensures that corporate entities can’t take it over, and definitely not for long – unless we give it to them wholesale.

There might well be a danger, currently, of large corporations “owning” large channels of distribution. However, that danger is largely due to our own complaisance – and complacence. Nobody made us sign everything over to Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon. We did it ourselves. I’ll offer up a reason for this: we’ve become accustomed to handing over large chunks of our lives to big companies for convenience’s sake. We did this in the 90s, the 00s, the 10s, and we continue to do it today. The same thing happens on a smaller scale, with companies like Steam, Epic, Spotify, Adobe, or a host of others like them. Companies always try to get you into their walled gardens. That’s what they do. The cool thing about the internet is that those walled gardens last only as long as we decide to put up with them. AOL, for example, crashed and burned precisely because we were done putting up with their walled garden. Their DSL offerings had nothing to recommend them over other ISPs – and in fact, charged for services they overlaid that other ISPs offered for free. Other companies had similar problems. Where is Yahoo! these days? Compuserve?

Look familiar? It should. Facebook can buy up WhatsApp and Instagram – AOL could buy Time Warner. They’re making the same mistake, and setting up the same sort of walled garden. The CEOs of these bright new internet startups that seem to have taken over the internet are suffering from the same caretaker syndrome that the second generation of CEOs of the original startups suffered – for much the same reasons. Why did AOL crash and burn? They crashed and burned because people realized that they were paying to be manipulated and advertised to. These companies create problems that they try to sell themselves as the solution to.

We’ve never needed them. We all know that. It’s just easier to let someone else do the work, give up a little bit of privacy and control – and “use it for free”. It’s easier to use the all-in-one shop than it is to do the traveling and research things for yourself. The “swiss army knife” operating system is a lot easier to work with than any of the specialty jobs that the Linux community offers. There’s a reason that Ubuntu is the only one of them with any sort of significant market share – and even that is infinitesimal in comparison. Ubuntu can’t do everything that Windows or Apple does – and we’ve become used to the idea that it should. Some of the things that are done by Windows or MacOS aren’t things they should be doing.

That is neither here nor there – just offered as a comparison. There are, I think, three (somewhat) separate issues with the tech giants that need to be addressed. 1) Ease of use/familiarity 2) Ubiquity 3) Privacy. I’ll use Facebook as an example here.

Ease of use

While nobody will call Facebook’s interface truly user friendly, it is easy to use – and easy to seamlessly plug things into. Like any CMS, it is purposely modular, and meant to give the administrators a myriad of ways to plug in content in discrete blocks. This modular design is well-suited to Facebook’s swiss-army-knife philosophy. Grandma both can and does use this platform – and so do her grandkids. Hate it or not, it *is* easy – but no more so than any CMS.

Ubiquity

Again, hate them or not – everyone and their Grandma uses Facebook. Pretty much literally. It is the very definition of ubiquitous. It doesn’t have to be good – it just has to be everywhere. Since it is everywhere, it has what Facebook (the business, remember!) really wants – reams of data, to sell to advertisers – and an absolutely killer market share. They are, by any measure, the largest and most popular social network in the world, with over 2.7 billion users.

Privacy

We’ve grown used to everything happening “in public”. Everything. This was not always the case. Every thing in your life is now fair game for sharing. Our lives are content. We are all part of The Everscroll. Our digital lives are primarily composed of scrolling, endlessly, through other people’s lives. What they choose to share of them. What they – and we – choose to share, though, is practically everything. Why do we do this? We do this because we are incentivized to – through notifications, likes, comments – the entire social media ecosystem hamster wheel. We can talk about dopamine, about habit-forming, about a large number of things – but it all boils down to “they designed it that way, and we’re eating it up just like we eat up tabloids and reality tv.” If you didn’t eat up tabloids and reality tv before – you do now. It just comes in your endless scroll.

The Real Problem, Summarized

I remember what things were like before there was social media. Before Amazon. Before Google. It was a lot like it is now, just without nearly as many people on the internet – and way more glued to their network TVs. Soon after, Cable (and syndicated programming, let’s not forget) blew open the TV biz – and internet streaming has blown it up even more. Since that is true – why did we once again have Netflix owning practically all the streaming content? Well, we didn’t have all the other networks opening their own shops. Now that they have, what do we see now? Streaming everywhere. All the things. Streaming. Constantly. Netflix is still a powerhouse, but it doesn’t own streaming anymore. iTunes owned music content for a while. Not anymore. Why? Competition. Alternatives.

While it’s annoying that streaming is fragmented over a bunch of networks – much of the annoyance is over the fact that we have to choose now. Everyone has streaming. Everyone has platform-exclusive shows or movies. Remember what we said earlier about walled gardens? Companies always try to get you into their walled gardens. That’s what they do. While it is annoying, the fact that there is is competition is a good sign – that the corporations are going to be busy fighting each other like monsters in a Kaiju movie. In the space that leaves for thinking things over – there’s an opportunity for reflection.

What if your choice was not between which corporate behemoths to give all your personal data to – but between telling the corporate behemoths to go take a long walk with their creepy corporate surveillance culture and using community-or-family sized alternatives with a vested interest in your interest? Like I said at the beginning – there have always been two simultaneous internet cultures. Somebody made all the cool alternative stuff you used to think was cool, back before social media. Newgrounds, Strongbad, all those awesome (but mostly stupid) flash games… most of those were made by random dudes and dudettes – and were posted to communities. Those guys that used to host BBSs started making their own websites, and hosting IRC servers, building community forums. The internet of the 90s and 00s was weird – but there were so many quirky things that would get lost in today’s mindless everscroll. Virality is fleeting – and monetizing virality, more fleeting still.

We can do a bit better than IRC servers, a forum, and a website now. Of course, we can still do all of those – and many do. I’m an IRC server admin myself. You’re reading this on my personal website that I’ve maintained since 2003 – using the internet handle that I’ve used since the early-to-mid 90s. This website has changed software at least 4 times, and themes a dozen or more times – but it is just as recognizably “mine” as it was back then. If you want to grasp how identity and privacy should work – that’s a start. Further, the internet itself should work similarly. Your primary identity service should be yours. If anyone wants to know who you are, they should ask your stuff (your personal identity server) – which shares precisely as much as you wish to share, and no more. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not Amazon – and certainly not Google – you. Any “central” datastore about you should be in your hands, and no one else’s. Using other people’s services should be a matter of verification with you of your identity – just like any other identification is – not a carte blanche to share whatever they feel like with whoever they feel like – about you. No service is worth that.

Ubiquity should devolve to how ubiquitous you choose to be, not how promiscuous your social media platform chooses to be with your identity. Ease of use is no excuse for being creepy. Google, Facebook, Amazon and their ilk know too much about us, and we give it all to them by our behavior – because we do too much stuff on their sites. If you want things to change, you have to change. You have to change your behavior, your habits, and where you do things. We all whine about Walmart and Target, and talk about how we should “shop local” – but it is our shopping behavior that drove their competition into the ground – drove our neighbors into the ground, because that is who runs those local businesses competing with the big box stores. Amazon is driving all the specialty box stores into the ground – and all the specialty shops too – unless they bite the bullet and become part of “the ecosystem”.

There is a problem – we’re too centralized. It’s our problem. We created it, we perpetuate it, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for how much of our lives Big Tech has taken over. Once we recognize that here is a problem, we have to commit to change. Pick one Big Tech company to wean off of – and start moving. There are alternatives for each and every service we have learned to not live without in these all-in-one companies. You can start somewhere.

There are alternatives.

• Amazon alternatives
• Google alternatives

Sometimes, however, you don’t want an alternative.

I’ll be honest with you. There’s nothing else quite like Facebook. That’s not really a bad thing, in my estimation. Facebook shouldn’t be a thing. At least not in sense of the ginormous everything-to-everyone behemoth that it has become. Facebook still has your grandma, or your kids, or your best friend from 4th grade. If you want to move off Facebook, you’re going to have to get together with those people and start making plans on how to continue keeping in contact – and having this same conversation with each of them, to fill the specific needs for your friends & family list. You might need something for birthdays and events. You might need something for groups. You might need some sort of social media hub that you can all keep in contact with. You might need chat. You might need video calling. All of those exist, all can be done – but only at the cost of work, and possibly expense on the part of your group. If you’re already doing that sort of thing, like I am, you probably have the infrastructure for doing a good portion of the above. You probably also have the know-how to help others learn how to manage their own identities, away from Big Tech. If you don’t, and you’re reading this entire article with a bit of alarm about how scathing I am about Big Tech in general, and you trusted these big companies – be aware that I am actually understating how bad the situation is, for the most part. Ask your techie family member or friend about those companies, and see what they tell you. You might be surprised to learn that the only reason they are still on Facebook is because of you – and people like you. Don’t take that the wrong way – it shows they care about you enough to use something they hate – just for you. Let it be a wake-up call for you – all of these companies are using your relationships as fodder for selling information to advertisers – and tracking your every move from the epicenter of your usage of their services. It’s what they do. The reason they exist is to target you as accurately as possible, so that someone can sell you exactly what you want.

That might be convenient – I won’t say it isn’t – but it is also dystopian to an extreme usually seen only in scifi until recently. What price does that sort of convenience actually have? If you want things to change, you have to change. You have to use these companies’ stuff less – and because they have also sucked all of your friends and family into the same black hole’s gravity well that you’re circling, you’ll have to convince them of the same thing. Not only that, but you’ll have to use the same thing(s). Preferably something that isn’t a walled garden just like the one you’re leaving – only not quite as big. How you build your communities is up to you – but build them you must – unless you want some big company to continue doing it for you – and vacuuming everything about you into their big server farms.

You can do it – but you’ll have to give up some familiar things – our goal, though, is to keep the familiar people. I’ll post more about ways to detox from surveillance capitalism and the Big Tech ecosystem next time. In conclusion: The internet has always been corporate and individual – but in structure, it has always been decentralized – no matter how many walled gardens are constructed. Those walled gardens last only as long as we decide to put up with them. Decentralized is how the internet is supposed to be.

Historically, when David Hume and Immanuel Kant exposed the invalidity of the theistic proofs, apologists generally balked at returning to revelation as the basis for their certainty of God’s existence. They elected, rather, to maintain status in the the blinded eyes of the “worldly wise” by attempting to prove Christianity’s credibility by means of arguments that hopefully pointed toward the probability of God’s existence and Scripture’s truth. They settled for a mere presumption (plus pragmatic assurance) in favor of a few salvaged items (i.e., “fundamentals”) from the Christian system. Refusing to presuppose the sovereign God revealed in the Bible as the source of all material or logical possibility, and hence failing effectively to challenge or internally criticize the very feasibility of knowledge, logic, factuality, interpretation, or predication as based on the boasted autonomy of “free-thinkers”, apologists found their defenses razed by those who (likewise) postulated that bare possibility was a principle more ultimate than God. … By appealing to probability, apologists saw Christianity relegated to the museum of of mere religious hypotheses (i.e.. “possibilities”) rather than embraced as the actual truth of God.

~Greg Bahnsen (Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended; ch 1, pg 5)

Enough said. Don’t you think?

Church History Classes:

Week 1
Week 2
Weeks 3-5
Week 6
Weeks 7-8
Week 9
Weeks 10-11
Week 12

I appreciate you taking the time to write your statement earlier today, as well as the irenic spirit you assayed in it. I want you to know that I appreciate that you did so, as a Southern Baptist – and that I do appreciate the work you do, despite our disagreement in many matters.

While I am appreciative, I think it may be useful – for you, and for the brethren, to clarify a few matters.

Item 1): The “motive”, to borrow your own phrase, was not to question your conversion. In fact, your conversion, as far as I know, was never referenced or questioned in the vast majority of the *Christian* articles/blogs that negatively referenced your comments on The Pastor’s Perspective, the discrepancies in your testimonials, or your recollections of life as a Muslim. I, for instance, do not question at all that you were raised Muslim, or that you converted to Christianity. What was rendered suspect was whether you were a *devout* Muslim – especially the discrepancy noted with the Shahada.

Item 2): To most of us, the pronunciation issues were a minor head-scratcher, but nothing more. In fact, one of the team bloggers at AOMin.org – TurretinFan – publicly defended you on those allegations on the most public Christian post leveled at that topic. As you may know, Muslims, Roman Catholics, atheists, and others often tout their conversions from “Protestantism,” and often inflate their level of devotion and knowledge – we call it “conversion story syndrome”. Yusuf Estes, Tim Staples, and Dan Barker are good examples of this tendency. While this may not be the case for you – there were many of the hallmarks of similar cases implied by the discrepancies noted – and it caused concern.

Item 3): You state: “Being called a “liar,” however, is a serious charge, especially when it is made by Christians. That would indicate that (1) the accusers can know the motives of the accused person’s heart, and (2) the accused person intentionally misled people.”

With all due respect, by those standards, no man can ever be called a liar, save by God. Also with due respect, by any objective standard, I would hold forth the following statements: “Calvinists are worse than Muslims” and “Formal debates have been taken over a lot by myopic Reformed guys, uh, they try to turn it into these little, uh, show ponies, it’s like the Jerry Springer Show, basically, and there’s really not any real discussion going on, there’s rolling of eyes, its huffing and passive/aggressive garbage.” Dr. Caner, both of these statements may be your opinion – but they are hardly the truth. Since they are not the truth, what else may we call them? Couple that with your statements on hyper-calvinism, and we can take nothing out of that series of comments but that we are being systematically misrepresented.

I do not offer these criticisms lightly, nor do I offer them glibly. I’m honestly commenting with the intent that it may be evident that I offer them to further your understanding of why you are being criticized by those who hold to Reformed doctrines and a Reformed apologetic method. Above all, we seek to be consistent – theologically, and apologetically. If we do not question the facts presented by those on our side as we do those opposing us, we cannot help but be inconsistent, and rightly criticized by our opponents on that basis. While I understand that you appear to fully belief what you state about Calvinists – understand that what you criticize as “hyper-calvinism” is simple, historic Reformed belief. What is recently called “moderate” Calvinism by folks like Dr. Geisler is nothing like the historic Calvinism of ANY of the Reformed branches.

I am “Reformed” – one of the group you criticized – and I’ve had one moderated debate – whether it was “formal” is debatable, as it was online. Nonetheless, Dr. White, and other Reformed debaters are being classified as engaging in nothing but “passive-aggressive garbage”, “no real discussion”, and “the Jerry Springer Show”. I’m sorry, but I’ve watched a great many debates – and debates like Dr. White’s with Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, or Shabir Ally were anything but “no real discussion”, or “huffing”! I don’t think I was engaging in “eye rolling” or “no real discussion” when I engaged a young atheist man on the topic of “The Triune God of Scripture is the grounds for all knowledge” – as is clearly stated in Col 2:3!

Enough criticism, however. So that you can know that there are areas of agreement – I completely agree with your position concerning the CAMEL method. For nearly identical reasons. I support you 100% in your statement of opposition to it, and thank you for your public statement concerning it’s dangers. I appreciate many things about your ministry, and service, despite our theological differences.

In closing – let me again thank you for your statement, and the attempt to mend a breach. It IS appreciated, despite the criticisms offered above, and I don’t want to detract from that. My earnest desire is that this is taken constructively, and that there might be an honest attempt to mend fences with your Reformed brethren in the SBC and without. You aren’t going to change our mind about the glorious doctrines of God’s sovereign grace – but please be aware – we aren’t questioning your salvation, or your conversion by questioning your consistency. We’re as likely to question one of our own on those grounds as we are anyone else. We do not do so to cast aspersions on their character – but to safeguard the reputation of the God we serve and love – as, I believe, do you, however mistaken we believe you to be concerning what you defend at times.

For your edification, I’d encourage you to look at the following: “Open Letter to Ergun Caner.”

Molinism advocate and apologist Wes Widner quoted Open Theist Gregory Boyd earlier today, concerning non-violence. The quote was as follows:

Any peace achieved by violence is a peace forever threatened by violence, thus ensuring that the bloody game will be perpetuated.

This is cited (but not in the tweet, for obvious reasons) from Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation, pg 27. (Excerpt of the book linked here) As no context was provided by Wes, I asked him, via Twitter, the same format I saw the quote in.

In the meantime, while waiting his reply, I performed a cursory search of his site. In November, he mentioned that self-defense was, in fact, justified.

Unfortunately, many people completely miss this point and, instead, tend to believe that where the Bible commands us to love our enemies1 and turn the other cheek2 it also forbids us from self-defense or the exercise of justice insofar as we, imperfect though we may be, can exact here on earth.

If so, we have an issue. First, why is he quoting an open heretic? Second, why is he quoting someone who is clearly opposed to his views not only on the issue of Open Theism (or so I’ve gathered, given his adherence to Molinism), but on the subject of the proper role of violence?

I received his reply: “Yes, it was from Boyd’s ‘Myth of a Christian Nation'”.

So: Wes is, indeed doing what I suspected. Citing from an Open Theist, in the context of pacifism, approvingly. However: Wes may have been unaware that Gregory Boyd is an Open Theist, or a pacifist. This goes to show, however, that theology truly does matter. If you’re going to cite an author approvingly, should it not be understood that the author is writing from a certain context? If the context in which the author is quoting is different from your own, should that not be noted?

I understand that he was merely tweeting this comment. What this doesn’t explain is why he would be tweeting this approvingly. Gregory Boyd is a heretic, quite simply. Denying the nature of God is no trivial matter. I won’t belabor that point, as Boyd is very famously the chief proponent of the Open Theology movement. Pacifism is no trivial matter either, however.

Take this article from Gregory Boyd’s blog: Jesus’ Repudiation of Old Testament Violence

A small excerpt, but you can read the rest for yourself.

Is it possible that some divinely inspired material is not supposed to reveal to us what God is like but what he is not like? Is it possible that some material is inspired precisely because God wants us to follow Jesus’ example and repudiate it?

Really? Check the context out, here:

What’s interesting is that Jesus himself repudiated the violence of the Old Testament — despite his belief that this collection of writings was inspired.

Catch that?

Now, how does that resolve itself with the quote from Wes above? Or this, from the same article:

Small wonder, therefore, that when Peter drew his sword in self-defense — acting in accordance with Old Testament norms — Jesus rebuked him.

Now, quite frankly, is this the God that Christians worship? Does this bear any resemblance to Christian theology? I highly suggest, yet with great trepidation on my own part, that we examine those whom we quote with approval.

While I’m not positive as to the nature of what he is approving of in this quote, a read through the section in question leaves me scratching my head. On the next page, there is a discussion of Peter’s debut with the sword, and it states that

“Jesus rebuked the disciple and demonstrated the nature of his unique heavenly kingdom by healing the soldier’s ear (Luke 22:50 – 51), showing that his kingdom would advance not by destroying the enemy who seeks to destroy you, but by loving, serving, and hopefully transforming the enemy who seeks to destroy you.”

On his website, he gives the explanation I posted above – that Peter was acting in self-defense. Now folks, I don’t know about you, but Peter isn’t always the sharpest tack in the drawer. He attacks – (the word used is “strikes”) and cuts the ear off of a servant. First, Peter obviously isn’t all that awesome. Second, he’s obviously not really interested in attacking soldiers or guards. He attacks a slave! (Or, re: 1, he just stinks.) Third, self-defense? What? He attacked.

Boyd’s handling of this passage is poor, in any case. Additionally, I invite you to examine the book and see WHY Boyd says what he says in the approved quote. According to Boyd, Christians are not to involve themselves in politics because that is power “over”, not power “under”. I invite you to examine his exegesis of the texts he handles there, and compare them to The Shack’s discussions of power and the nature of God. (Incidentally, Boyd is very complimentary to the author of The Shack, Paul Young. I recently addressed The Shack, and it’s manifold theological deformities, in the apologetics class I recently taught for my church.)

Wes recently addressed the theological issues with The Shack himself.

One sentence in that article struck me, as it pertains to this issue.

…it is really just another example of how many Christians in America are more willing to embrace the existential, heterodoxical, and (often) heretical views of our present day15 rather than spend the time to study and listen to the orthodox views or fathers, grand fathers, and great grandfathers in the faith handed down throughout the ages.

Is Wes arriving at the conclusion he approves of above in the same context as Boyd is doing so? If so, there is a serious theological problem to be addressed. Was he quoting this author without checking into his background, or the context of the quote? If so, this may be something we all can learn from – the believers in Berea searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so. In the same manner, it behooves us to know those whom we are quoting, to see what context we are quoting. If we fail to do so, we may lead others astray. Most importantly, we must realize that inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument – or a failed worldview. If we can affirm a statement from a context we disagree with, from a viewpoint we cannot affirm as Christians, we are being irresponsible as Christians. We represent our Savior, and as such, we cannot afford to give God’s enemies a reason to mock. In my experience, and in the testimony of Scripture, the greatest slurs to God’s name come from the inconsistencies of His followers. May we show ourselves workmen that do not have to be ashamed!

My humble suggestion to Wes is that he re-examine his own statement above in the light of Dr. Boyd’s open, repeated commitment to various heresies – and to recall that in all parts of life, theology matters.

I’m going to include the transcript of a discussion I had (along with several others) with a Middle Knowledge proponent that frequents AOMin’s chat channel. The reason I do so is in order to give an example of how the argument I advanced recently functions in an actual discussion.

The discussion was fairly wide-ranging, but I think demonstrates the ability of a consistent return to the nature of God as the foundation of a reply to the assertions advanced by proponents of MK and other similar philosophical systems, over against the Biblical conception of God’s nature and the modal collapse I feel this outlook necessitates.

Discussion linked below.
Read the rest of this entry

God is Sovereign. He ordains all things, whatsoever. He is unconstrained by anything; yet by Him, all things are constrained. God is eternal. He did not begin, He did not end. He is outside of time. God is unchanging. No aspect of God is subject to change. He does not alter in any fashion.

A popular (and approaching universal) conception of possibility entails there being a multiplicity of hypothetical possibilities to be selected from. In the case of God, it is often advanced that God is selecting from amongst multiple possibilities which He has to choose from. My design is to show that such a conception is completely at odds with who God is. First, Scripture.

which He will bring about at the proper time– He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him [be] honor and eternal dominion! Amen. ~1 Tim. 6:15-16

also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will – Eph 1:11

Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; [I am] God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned [it, surely] I will do it. ~ Isaiah 46:9-11

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him [be] the glory forever. Amen. ~Romans 11:33-36

Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it? ~Isa 43:13

But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, {Too} little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity. ~Micah 5:2

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ~Rom 1:20

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, {be} honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. ~1Tim 1:17

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ~Heb 9:14

{Abraham} planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. ~Gen 21:33

The eternal God is a dwelling place, And underneath are the everlasting arms; And He drove out the enemy from before you, And said, ‘Destroy!’ ~Deu 33:27

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, From everlasting even to everlasting. Then all the people said, “Amen,” and praised the LORD. ~1 Chr 16:36

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, From everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen. ~ Psa 41:13

Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. ~Psa 90:2

Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. ~Psa 93:2

Trust in the LORD forever, For in GOD the LORD, {we have} an everlasting Rock. ~Isa 26:4

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. ~Isa 40:28

But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation. ~Jer 10:10

Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O LORD, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct. ~Hab 1:12

Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind. ~1 Sam 15:29

The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek. ~ Psa 110:4

For this the earth shall mourn And the heavens above be dark, Because I have spoken, I have purposed, And I will not change My mind, nor will I turn from it. ~ Jer 4:28

For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. ~Mal 3:6

My covenant I will not violate, Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. ~Psa 89:34

Jesus Christ {is} the same yesterday and today and forever. ~Heb 13:8

Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow ~James 1:17.

for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ~Rom 11:29

Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back. ~Jer 4:28

Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. ~Psa 102:26

In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. ~Heb 6:17-18

Note first: This is the consistent view of Scripture. God is Sovereign. God is Eternal. God is immutable. God is also self-sufficient, all-wise, infinite, holy, trinitarian, omniscient, faithful, perfect, loving, self-existent, just, merciful, good, and omnipresent. All of these attributes are interrelated. Therefore, if an imperfect conception of one of God’s attributes is held to, the rest are compromised.

For the concerns of this post, I will concentrate on the first three mentioned, but will refer to all of God’s attributes, to show how the argument I am making violates none of God’s attributes as listed above, while showing how the popular conception of possibility violates many, if not them all.

When we think of God, should we think of God as thinking linearly? Where every one of his thoughts follows a linear progression? To do such a thing requires that God be *changing* – having *new* thoughts. This is unacceptable, when matched against Scripture. So, how must we think of God’s thinking? Well, God is eternal. Would His thoughts not also be eternal? God, being omniscient, knows all things. God, being eternal, knows all things simultaneously. God’s knowledge of all things is also related to His ordination of all things – His sovereign decree. As God decreed all things from before the foundation of the world, He therefore knows all that He has decreed. Does God “know” that which He has not decreed? What content does a hypothetical “something” not decreed by God have? In these other supposed worlds, not decreed by God, what is the content of them? Not-real, not-decreed non-things? Such a concept, when examined, seems quite a bit akin to “God knows something about nothing”

Further, there cannot be possibility apart from God – as He is self-sufficient and self-existent; since He is, He is the only grounds that can exist for any other existence, and the only thing in existence that can provide that grounds, in His self-sufficiency. If God is perfect – and nothing exists (including concepts, I’d argue) that does not have God as it’s Creator, then this concept involves God having well-nigh infinite numbers of imperfect conceptions of His creation! Not “a creation that is imperfect” – but an “imperfect conception of creation” – almost infinite numbers of them!

When we think of God’s thoughts, should we not think of them as eternal thoughts? Do God’s thoughts escape Him? Do they go away? Are they, unlike everything else about Him, NOT from everlasting to everlasting? If God’s thoughts are, therefore, eternal – “as high above as the heavens are above the earth” – do we *really* expect all of these imperfect conceptions, and as *eternally existing* conceptions? If God’s thoughts are eternal, if they are perfect, if they are sovereign, if they are good, if they are holy, if they are immutable; etc, etc. If they are all that, God would think exactly as He intends, without changing, for all eternity, with utter control, about everything He has decreed will take place. In other words – God thinks exactly as He intends to, without error, and without change. He thinks it for eternity, with sovereign control, and with utter holiness. There IS no possibility apart from the ordination and will of the Holy, Eternal, Sovereign, unchanging God.

A possibility apart from God’s control of it is an affront to His sovereignty. A concept which is imperfect has nothing to do with His perfection. It is NOT good. It is NOT holy. Linear thoughts are not the thoughts of an eternal God. A process in which God chooses from all of the “possible worlds” in which men make “free choices” is not loving – as men are fallen, and *cannot choose God,* and neither are they free. It is also absurd.

If God chooses from among “possible worlds” – what makes them possible or impossible?

If it is God – are the ones not chosen “possible” at all? Why use the term?

If it is NOT God – what puts a condition on God? Is God then sovereign? Is He self-sufficient? Is He truly self-existent? These are things I don’t see ways around, from Scripture, and the revelation of God’s nature to us.

If God is sovereign over all things, He is sovereign over possibility, and always perfectly sovereign.
If God is eternal, His thoughts are eternal. They always have existed, always are existing, and always will exist.
If God is immutable, He cannot change His intention, His mind, His conceptions, His determination of possibility.
If God is perfect, neither His thoughts nor His actions can be imperfect, and this can never change.

We could go on and on with combinations of God’s attributes – but we MUST think linearly, as God has created us to do so; so it is hard for us to contemplate all of God’s attributes at once. Impossible, probably. We do not have that capacity. When we attempt it, however, we find it hard to reconcile these ideas. I’d welcome feedback on these things.

In summary, the concept of all possible worlds cannot be compatible with the Scriptural picture God gives us of Himself.

Suggested Reading:
Whate’er My God Ordains: A Biblical Study of God’s Control
Always Ready, Dr. Greg Bahnsen – esp. Chap. 16, Worldviews in Collision
Revisionary Immunity, Bahnsen (1975)
Science, Subjectivity And Scripture, Banhsen (1979)
At War With The Word – The Necessity Of Biblical Antithesis, Bahnsen (1990)
The Problem of Knowing the “Super-Natural”, Bahnsen (1991)