random khemjira thoughts (ep 1-2) as someone who is reading the novel (as non-spoiler-y as i can make it)
i prefer khemjira's personality in the show than in the book. while i do have a certain liking to cry baby characters, novel!khem annoys me sometimes. i think the show actually is doing a much better job of conveying that while khem is naive and a bit more delicate than other characters, he's actually curious and he actively do stuff to help others (and himself). we can see that he actually speaks up to pharan instead of shaking and fearing him like in the novel.
i saw people pointing out that khem is naive after episode 2 and i think that actually makes a lot of sense for his character. his mom died when he was young, resulting to his father getting ordained as a monk. then the relatives who took him in basically left him alone with some money. he didn't really have stable home growing up and he was pretty much isolated in his village since no one wants to befriend a cursed boy. jett is the first friend he made and they pretty much say in the novel that khem only has him to rely on. he still has an idealistic way of looking at things.
khem and jett's friendship makes more sense to me in the series. look, i also love their friendship in the novel but we can assume they were friends for at least one more year in the series than in the novel (they were aged up a year more in the series). that means they bonded a lot more and jett's willingness to basically die for khem makes sense. they do stay mostly true to the novel tho, he thinks khem is the cutest thing to ever exist.
the dv storyline is not in the book so im actually confused as to why they added it in the series. as someone who grew up in a village in SEA, i get the characters' reaction to the matter and the resolution is unfortunately not that far from real life in a village. and we did get a masterfully done original scene of pharankhem on a bike that in my opinion adds a bit more substance to their character. but that still doesn't make me any less confused on why this is the way they decided to go through it when i think they could do it in other ways. they didn't handle it as delicately as they could have.
overall, i really enjoy this show and im actually excited about the upcoming episodes. im not really a nut for following the book accurately to the dot so im actually enjoying the (imo many) little changes they made in the show. i hope the following episodes meet my expectations.
