tv show spoilers S1E4: The Dragon Reborn

[DaddyFinn]

4 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Matt did not throw a rock without his hands. Matt did not cut his own throat or exhibit other signs of madness. There is nothing he did that should make Thom suspect he was a channeler. However, it was cornvenient for the show writers to move the story in that way. It's just is a logical flaw.

Mat's behaviour has changed. He's feeling sick. Horses are afraid of him. Plenty of reasons for Thom to be suspicious.

[Harad the White]

9 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Mat's behaviour has changed. He's feeling sick. Horses are afraid of him. Plenty of reasons for Thom to be suspicious.

People get sick, a horse can rear once, and Thom and Matt haven't been together long enough for any noticeable evolution. Heck, I know he has the Dagger, and I didn't notice anything until he reached the farm. Even then, nothing about those issues imply that he was channeling, which is the reason Thom told the story about Owyn and warned about the AS.

[Deadsy]

32 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

People get sick, a horse can rear once, and Thom and Matt haven't been together long enough for any noticeable evolution. Heck, I know he has the Dagger, and I didn't notice anything until he reached the farm. Even then, nothing about those issues imply that he was channeling, which is the reason Thom told the story about Owyn and warned about the AS.

 

 

I think you're requiring too much here, especially in a TV show. And in the TV show, we don't know exactly what type of sickness a male channeler goes through. It may be that in the TV show, the major symptoms are nausea and having animals scared of you which is happening with Mat and which at least one of happened with Owyn.

 

There is also clearly something going on with these boys, what with a dark friend chasing them across town, then instead of just killing them herself, she calls in a fade to come take them. It isn't out of character at all for Thom to see that something fishy is going on here, and when it comes to men, channeling is one of the major options there. And he's likely to be extra sensitive to the possibility that he's dealing with a male channeler due to what he went through.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Deadsy

[Harad the White]

5 minutes ago, Deadsy said:

It may be that in the TV show, the major symptoms are nausea and having animals scared of you which is happening with Mat and which at least one of happened with Owyn.

Who are the male channelers shown in Amazon? Logain and "Young Man." Neither of them show those symptoms. I will listen again to whether Owyn scared animals, and was physically ill. But his main clues to channeling were throwing a rock without his hands and being mad. Matt scaring a horse was underplayed since he rode the horse between the town and the farm without any difficulty, and he was certainly not mad, until after the scene in question. Look, for some reason, the Amazon writers wanted Thom to think Matt was a channeler. I don't even know why. But, they didn't do an adequate job, for me, to believe that Thom had any reason to think so. Thom could think Matt was a rogue, or needed guidance, or was a hale fellow well met or under the weather--but that he was a channeler? Naah. (And, although this is not important, that's not in the Book.) 

[Deadsy]

30 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Who are the male channelers shown in Amazon? Logain and "Young Man." Neither of them show those symptoms. I will listen again to whether Owyn scared animals, and was physically ill. But his main clues to channeling were throwing a rock without his hands and being mad. Matt scaring a horse was underplayed since he rode the horse between the town and the farm without any difficulty, and he was certainly not mad, until after the scene in question. Look, for some reason, the Amazon writers wanted Thom to think Matt was a channeler. I don't even know why. But, they didn't do an adequate job, for me, to believe that Thom had any reason to think so. Thom could think Matt was a rogue, or needed guidance, or was a hale fellow well met or under the weather--but that he was a channeler? Naah. (And, although this is not important, that's not in the Book.) 

 

 

Thom is telling us Mat reminds him of someone he knows who was a male channeler. I'm not sure why you aren't trusting Thom. He literally says Mat is acting like Owyn did when he started acting strange right before he threw that rock. He's going to be wrong here but under normal circumstances he would likely be right. It just so happens Mat entered SL and picked something up. Probably the only human to ever do that since it fell. And his symptoms are similar to what Thom saw in his nephew, otherwise he wouldn't suspect he's a male channeler. I think you're overcomplicating things.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Deadsy

[Harad the White]

29 minutes ago, Deadsy said:

I think you're overcomplicating things.

Matt interacts with Thom four times in the town. First when he loses his money. Second when he goes to the Aiel body. Third when he returns to the Aiel body. Fourth when he escapes the DF. Nothing in these interactions shows any similarity to a male channeler. Next they ride horses to the farm. At the farm Matt's horse momentarily rears, but immediately calms. By coincidence there are three armed people surrounding the party at that time with arrows drawn. Nothing there in my mind.

 

Next the story of Owyn, 

"I knew another lad the same way." What same way?

"Spent half his life getting into trouble." How would he know about Matt's life, and how is that different than many teens?

"Then one day he went sour." How does that apply to Matt in the time Thom knew him?

"Animals had their hair up whenever he passed." Matt just rode a horse from the town to the farm uneventfully, and yes the horse momentarily reared when they arrived, but immediately calmed.

"Nobody could figure out what happened until he threw a rock without using his hands." That is the key, and what did Matt do that was comparable? Nothing.

"Matt's got all the signs lad."  This is a completely unjustified conclusion on Thom's part. Notice that nothing is said about physical illness.

 

Thom doesn't have free will, BTW. He says whatever the Amazon writers tell him to say. For some reason they are not satisfied with the reason in the Book that Thom helped Matt and Rand. That was because they were being followed by dark forces, not because he thought Matt was channeling. In fact, it is Rand who is channeling (or capable thereof) in both the Book and Amazon. I think the writers want to continue the confusion as to who is the DR, and they use this clumsy, unjustified way, because the audience has been trained to think the DR is a channeler. If Matt is not a channeler, he can't be the DR, so Thom has to think that Matt might be a channeler, albeit, for hokey "reasons." At least with this discussion, I can fathom the reason that the Amazon writers went in this direction. 

 

[Ralph]

In the books he helps because he wants to protect them from Moiraine. Once they changed when he joined them they had to change this

Edited November 28, 2021 by Ralph

[RextheDog]

On 11/27/2021 at 2:46 AM, CaddySedai said:

 

One off shows of power should not be considered breaking to this. Also we have the benefit of seeing the Power as a viewer. I would love to get a rewatch of the scene where the CGI is removed and its literally a woman yelling in grief. And then all these mortally wounded people stand back up. Several of them make a hand gesture. A jesus looking fellow lifts mysteriously into the air, screams, then falls over crying

 

Not terribly impressive now. lol

 

to be honest, that sounds pretty awesome....

[Agitel]

6 hours ago, Harad the White said:

People get sick, a horse can rear once, and Thom and Matt haven't been together long enough for any noticeable evolution. Heck, I know he has the Dagger, and I didn't notice anything until he reached the farm. Even then, nothing about those issues imply that he was channeling, which is the reason Thom told the story about Owyn and warned about the AS.

 

Characters can be in error and make incorrect judgments within the story. Thom's seen one case of it. It affected him personally. He has presumably not read any textbooks about the signs. He's relating to his personal experience. Entirely believable.

[LoRd PyrO]

21 hours ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

Since they've added the mystery of who the dragon is, it makes sense from a story structure standpoint to introduce a little doubt for Moiraine here.  She's on a character journey as much as any of the other characters are.   

 

On the how powerful thing...  In the books, male channelers are said to be naturally more powerful than female ones.  The audience has seen Moiraine do some amazing things with the power in the first episode and they see other Aes Sedai use the the power in this one.   By introducing 'Logain is powerful' here, the average viewer can start to get a sense of the different levels in power between everyone.

 

If it takes at least 2 Aes Sedai to maintain the shield on Logain that shows us that Logain is at least more powerful than any one Aes Sedai.  That is relatively consistent with book lore.  

 

Much of that is spelled out in the books.  The information is just presented to the reader in different ways and some of those ways don't translate well to the differences between reading and watching something happen.

 

Another good example, I think, is the presentation of the warders in this episode.  Based on comments from Rafe and Sarah, I think it is reasonable to assume that as soon as they decided to include this set of non-book scenes that they reached out to Sarah and said.  "Give me a list from the books of how the warders and their relationships are described."    They then used those descriptions to construct various elements of the fire scene.

 

Just because they change things and move things around doesn't mean that they cannot bring things forward to put things back on track or incorporate information in the present that we wouldn't learn for several books.   

 

 

When Logain was brought to Camlyn; he was guarded by 13 Aeis Sedia. Because that is what it took to subdue him. How in the world can only two hold him?!?

 

[LoRd PyrO]

20 hours ago, Rand the Plumber said:

A plausible argument.  Let's see what they do with LotR.

 

"It's a good story, but we need to do away with this concept of malevolent jewellery.  And instead of Hobbits, our test audiences show that sentient vegetables will be much better received by those unfamiliar with the source material."

Dude, wtf???!!; Can you elaborat?!!

[LoRd PyrO]

20 hours ago, Rand the Plumber said:

A plausible argument.  Let's see what they do with LotR.

 

"It's a good story, but we need to do away with this concept of malevolent jewellery.  And instead of Hobbits, our test audiences show that sentient vegetables will be much better received by those unfamiliar with the source material."

Dude, wtf???!!; Can you elaborat?!!

[Beidomon]

17 hours ago, ManetherenTaveren said:

Where are they going with Nynaeve's arc now? Does she even have a block, or was this scene meant to demonstrate that she can only access her power while under extreme duress and/or anger?

 

Yes and yes. 

 

17 hours ago, ManetherenTaveren said:

Incredibly, she went from picking herbs and natural elixers to a god of mass mortal wound healing. (I was caught off guard by Lan's mortal wound too!) That was a phenomenal, jarring leap for her.

That was the point. 

[MasterAblar]

22 minutes ago, LoRd PyrO said:

When Logain was brought to Camlyn; he was guarded by 13 Aeis Sedai. Because that is what it took to subdue him. How in the world can only two hold him?!?

 

 

No there were only 4 Aes Sedai shielding him as he was brought through Caemlyn, and they were definitely weaker than Moiraine, Kerene, and possibly Liandrin.

[AusLeviathan]

31 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

No there were only 4 Aes Sedai shielding him as he was brought through Caemlyn, and they were definitely weaker than Moiraine, Kerene, and possibly Liandrin.

Actually it was 8 Aes Sedai, 2 at each corner of the wagon watching and shielding Logain.

[Ploodie]

Anyone else think Liandrin is almost coming off as a likable character? Maybe it's the actor portraying her doing such a good job, but I find myself hoping for more and more of her in this series. I think the portrayal of the Aes Sedai has so far been the best thing this series has done .. including the costumes. 

[flinn]

Just now, Ploodie said:

Anyone else think Liandrin is almost coming off as a likable character? Maybe it's the actor portraying her doing such a good job, but I find myself hoping for more and more of her in this series. I think the portrayal of the Aes Sedai has so far been the best thing this series has done .. including the costumes. 

 absolutely not.. she is horrible.

[MasterAblar]

20 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Actually it was 8 Aes Sedai, 2 at each corner of the wagon watching and shielding Logain.

 

Ah correct it was 2 at each corner. Which makes sense if they have the numbers, no point taking chances.

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, flinn said:

 absolutely not.. she is horrible.

Horrible as an actor or as a character? I think they’re doing a great job of making her three dimensional. She’s not obviously evil but she also clearly has her own agenda. 
 

Kate Fleetwood is doing an amazing job. 

[Guest Wolfbrother31]

I, too, concur with a lot of the early sentiment on this episode ... Best one so far and hope the whole series continues in this vein. For me the previous episodes were like B- level. This was an A. Still a little room for improvement, but top-notch. 

 

Moments that really stuck out to me: 

#1. I love the pump fake at Matt with the Thom/Owen speech - him vomiting Shadar Logoth blackness and then pointing the dagger at the Fade, "I see you." Then Thom throwing a knife and the Fade catching it. Freaking brilliant. 

 

#2. I really like Tv Thom. Maybe more than book Thom. Loved the line, "There's no one more dangerous than a man who knows the past." 

 

#3. Nyn saying that Liandrin is a snake and then asking Lan, "Is the WT full of women like her?" ... "You'll see soon enough." 

Spoiler

Whole books of Nyn and Elayne hunting Black Ajah reference??

 

#4. I really liked the channeling battle in this episode. The clearing scene looked wonky in the trailer - with the second half of the sequence it's cool. Loved the explosions. The Green channeling and her Warder covering her with his shield - nice touch. 

 

Really quality episode. The only major thing we're lacking right now with the show is a quality antagonist that we can relate to. Hoping they do something more with Padan Fain or a Forsaken or something before the season 1 is done. 

 

Also - they're really pressing into the "Who is the Dragon" question...especially in this episode ... And though I've been very critical in the past that that's not an interesting question to much of the audience ... In this episode, I can see it taking shape and they're doing it quite well. So now I'll be less critical on that point.

[DaddyFinn]

13 minutes ago, Ploodie said:

Anyone else think Liandrin is almost coming off as a likable character?

Yes and I like it. I hope she is still a Black. There's a couple of hints that she is (her ring looking black in episode 1) so I'm not too worried.

[Rand the Plumber]

1 hour ago, LoRd PyrO said:

Dude, wtf???!!; Can you elaborat?!!

 

I was being whimsical, aided by half a bottle of very nice cabernet saugivnon.  Pay me no heed.

[Rand the Plumber]

1 minute ago, DaddyFinn said:

Yes and I like it. I hope she is still a Black. There's a couple of hints that she is (her ring looking black in episode 1) so I'm not too worried.

 

TV-Liandrin seems to be set up to be a significant villain in the series, and it's nice to see that she is not being immediately portrayed as someone we should all be booing and hissing.  In my entirely unhumble opinion, some of the best villains are the ones that make us go "I hate you, and I hate that I hate you".

[Guest Wolfbrother31]

I'll amend my previous statement to, "We don't have an antagonist that we know is a 'bad guy' that we can relate to." Since 

Spoiler

Liandrin is probably still a Darkfriend and they're setting that up nicely. 

 

[DaddyFinn]

3 minutes ago, Rand the Plumber said:

 

TV-Liandrin seems to be set up to be a significant villain in the series, and it's nice to see that she is not being immediately portrayed as someone we should all be booing and hissing.  In my entirely unhumble opinion, some of the best villains are the ones that make us go "I hate you, and I hate that I hate you".

Valda is one I love to hate