tv show spoilers S1E4: The Dragon Reborn

[Maximillion]

14 minutes ago, Daenelia said:

Had a great time reading all the opinions once again. And again, I am super happy with this episode!

 

As for what RJ would have wanted or liked, it is kinda irrelevant because in his heart I think he'd want people to be entertained by the series and I think a fair number of people are. If he had not wanted his material out there, he would not have published it. There are very few authors who ban people from forging their own stuff out of their world.

 

There were moments I was grinning (most of the Nyneave/Lan scenes) and moments when I was getting a bit emotional (Perrin's pain). But all in all, yeah: loved it.

 

So did my guy who is drawing some conclusions which I am not allowed to comment on. He won't even look at me when he talks about possibly foreshadowing some stuff that was obvious to me. Because I would confirm or deny in a second with just my eyes. And he likes to be surprised.

 

As for slow-burning, I dont think so. I think they are racing through the material quite nicely, at the right pace. I love that they take slow moments when they can and then throw the audience in a frantic battle. I am (almost) happy with the weekly episodes, because I would just sit and watch them all in one go and that can't be good. I don't like binging at all, so I am happy to be forced to wait 7 more days.

 

Seven. More. Days. With everyone's support here, we might just make it.

 

 

I think you re right that what RJ would have wanted or liked is not very relevant now - the is not the WoT at all.  It's just taking his character names and place names, general themes, and telling another story.

If I put on a football uniform and ran out onto the field, it wouldn't make me a football player.

 

I am not really sure this story even needs anything from the WoT.  If you called the show something else, the characters something different and the place names something different, didn't use terms like Aes Sedai, I doubt anyone would  have even known it was linked to WoT. 

 

So that leaves just the show itself - which is just too rushed and too formulaic to be any good.  It's a pretty bog standard 'who is it' or 'whodunnit' story with a Marvel type superhero thrown in to add some excitement.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Maximillion

[Reader]

For me it was a 7.6 out of 10.  I was at 7.4, but then they threw someone through a tree.

[MasterAblar]

If you keep linking being women only, then I don’t see how you can do away with the strength differential at the highest level. It’s part of the balance between saidin and saidar.

 

Nyneave herself is extremely strong being close to the to for women. Logain is near as strong as a man can be so is definitely stronger but I don’t think what he said was a comparison of their strengths, he was just in awe of the sudden burst of power.

 

Logain’s strength was made apparent when he easily broke through the two women shielding him. It ultimately took a circle to fully bring him down.

 

Remember in LoC a 6 woman circle is enough to keep the shield on Rand and he didn’t break through until it was only 3 actively keeping the shield on him.

Edited November 26, 2021 by MasterAblar

[TheDreadReader]

3 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

If you keep linking being women only, then I don’t see how you can do away with the strength differential at the highest level. It’s part of the balance between saidin and saidar.

 

Nyneave herself is extremely strong being close to the to for women. Logain is near as strong as a men can be but I don’t think what he said was a comparison of their strengths, he was just in awe of the sudden burst of power.

 

Having them gentle him there after Nyneave's display of strength sets up the future Logain healing moment rather nicely.   If she is that strong here just wait until we get to the Eye. 

 

They've really brought the "vileness" backstory front and center with this episode.   That, establishes a pretty clear foundation for some of the Hall scenes we've seen in the teasers and trailers.

 

 

[divica]

3 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

If you keep linking being women only, then I don’t see how you can do away with the strength differential at the highest level. It’s part of the balance between saidin and saidar.

 

Nyneave herself is extremely strong being close to the to for women. Logain is near as strong as a men can be but I don’t think what he said was a comparison of their strengths, he was just in awe of the sudden burst of power.

The thing is that she could have healed everybody without the "fireworks" and have logain in awe of her ability without repeating moiraine's words about the dragon's power and it would have fit much better.

 

The more I watch the show the more it feels that who wrote it has no sense of how to tell a story. All he wants is to have people talking about who the dragon is and he has no subtlety in how to do it.

[Maximillion]

More narrative in this episode about two things they were definitely trying to embed in viewers minds:

 

1) Again, that the DR can be a woman or man

2) The DR Can either save the world or break the world.

 

It makes me think the two are going to be linked... if it's a woman the world is saved, if it is man the world is broken. That is my prediction of where Rafe will take it.

 

[wotfan4472]

It is called flawed narration.

The female Dragons spoken of in this episode could be White Tower cover ups of women that went bad in the past.

There are hints of this in the episode itself.

Edited November 26, 2021 by wotfan4472

[Agitel]

If Rafe was being 100% straight in his AMA, we'll only see people thinking the Dragon Reborn and past Dragons have been women. We'll see no word from the Creator confirming it.

[Daenelia]

This is fun ? I am usually the one being quite negative about things. And I have to say, I feel much better when I can actually enjoy things, the way I am enjoying the series.

 

My biggest fear was that I'd hate it and my guy loved it. Turns out, we both love it, even if I seem to be enjoying it a bit more, due to really having fun with him not wanting to hear my theories and stuff I know from the books.

 

I also like not being able to rely fully on my own knowledge of the books. But there is a lot I can see from the original story, and for me it does ring true to what I read.

[MasterAblar]

7 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

More narrative in this episode about two things they were definitely trying to embed in viewers minds:

 

1) Again, that the DR can be a woman or man

2) The DR Can either save the world or break the world.

 

It makes me think the two are going to be linked... if it's a woman the world is saved, if it is man the world is broken. That is my prediction of where Rafe will take it.

 

We already know Rand is the Dragon. There’s literally no reason to believe they would change the story is such a massive and nonsensical way, just based off Nyneave showing exceptional power and great healing ability (both things she has in the book). Yes there’s obviously a bit of rule of cool in the visuals, but what Nyneave did there is not all that different from when she channeled balefire out of nowhere tDR. 

[divica]

4 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

We already know Rand is the Dragon. There’s literally no reason to believe they would change the story is such a massive and nonsensical way, just based off Nyneave showing exceptional power and great healing ability (both things she has in the book). Yes there’s obviously a bit of rule of cool in the visuals, but what Nyneave did there is not all that different from when she channeled balefire out of nowhere tDR. 

But the problem is why did they make nyn's healing so amazing?

 

Literally justo so that logain could repeat moiraine's words about the dragon and make the audience think that maybe nyn is the dragon. It brings NOTHING to the story and only makes it weirder.If you are going to change things then they should try to improve the story. This only makes it worse because it is another ass pull...

[MasterAblar]

5 minutes ago, divica said:

But the problem is why did they make nyn's healing so amazing?

 

Literally justo so that logain could repeat moiraine's words about the dragon and make the audience think that maybe nyn is the dragon. It brings NOTHING to the story and only makes it weirder.If you are going to change things then they should try to improve the story. This only makes it worse because it is another ass pull...

Nyneave’s healing is amazing in the books. She’s able to heal in ways none of the Aes Sedai could.

 

She healed severing something nobody thought was possible. Same with madness. Obviously they’re trying to make the visuals very impressive.

 

And yes of course they’re trying to hint that  Nyneave could be the Dragon Reborn. The whole episode was suggesting one character after another.

Edited November 26, 2021 by MasterAblar

[Gothic Flame]

1 minute ago, MasterAblar said:

Nyneave’s healing is amazing in the books. She’s able to heal in ways none of the Aes Sedai could.

In the books she had to grow and learn to be that way. That she can do this sort of thing now...well, it's ridiculous.

[divica]

1 minute ago, MasterAblar said:

Nyneave’s healing is amazing in the books. She’s able to heal in ways none of the Aes Sedai could.

 

She healed severing something nobody thought was possible. Same with madness. Obviously they’re trying to make the visuals very impressive.

 

And yes of course they’re trying to hint that  Nyneave could be the Dragon Reborn. The whole episode was suggesting one character after another.

I meant to say look so amazing.

They basically had a character do something super flashy that she had no logical reason to be able to do just to awe the audience.

 

No matter what people think of the show it is AWFULL writing to make a character do something that should be impossible. And it is even worse writing to do it for no good reason.

 

 

[Gothic Flame]

Moiraine can't see males channelling, but seems to use Egwene to measure Logain's strength? And this makes sense?

[MasterAblar]

2 minutes ago, divica said:

I meant to say look so amazing.

They basically had a character do something super flashy that she had no logical reason to be able to do just to awe the audience.

 

No matter what people think of the show it is AWFULL writing to make a character do something that should be impossible. And it is even worse writing to do it for no good reason.

 

 

Again she channeled balefire in tGH without having any idea what she was doing. That was arguably even more impossible. It was instinctive and drawn from a powerful emotional place. So there is precedent from the books actually. There’s also Aviendah traveling without any knowledge of how to do it. And she couldn’t remember how to after. I highly doubt Nyneave will be able to replicate what she did there any time soon.
 

Not to mention all the crap Rand pulls but you could justify that through Lews Therin.

[MasterAblar]

2 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Moiraine can't see males channelling, but seems to use Egwene to measure Logain's strength? And this makes sense?

She’s guessing, she has no idea. She’s probably basing herself off the fact that two women seemed to be able to shield Logain. Turns out they couldn’t of course.
 

Also keep in mind that she only thinks Egwene is exceptionally strong because the White Tower doesn’t have strong channelers any more at that time. She has no idea just how ludicrously strong the dragon actually is.

[TheDreadReader]

29 minutes ago, divica said:

But the problem is why did they make nyn's healing so amazing?

 

 

Sense of wonder. 

 

She's a wilder.  There has not been a lot of talk about her channeling before this in the show.  Going big in that moment reveals that she is a powerful channeler in her own right.   Bringing that reveal forward to episode 4 (when the narrative has focused heavily on her in eps 1 through 4) could help make events at the Eye/Tarwin's Gap less cluttered and confusing.  

 

Just think of how big they can go with the reveal for another character now...

 

29 minutes ago, divica said:

 

Literally justo so that logain could repeat moiraine's words about the dragon and make the audience think that maybe nyn is the dragon. It brings NOTHING to the story and only makes it weirder.If you are going to change things then they should try to improve the story. This only makes it worse because it is another ass pull...

 

I suspect this will make far more sense when we get to episode eight.  It is doubtful that we'll see her take out a forsaken now but we've seen her help take out a false dragon.  Given her general view of Aes Sedai at this point it also sets up a conflicted relationship with the WT and a reason for her to heal Logain later.

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by TheDreadReader

[Maximillion]

What was the 'force field' about?  I was not under the impression that cutting off a person from the source created a real forcefield around them that would block an axe????

If Logain is cut off from the power, the moment he was attacked by a warder with two axes, he was a dead man.

How did he stop the axe attack?

Only watched it once so maybe there is something I missed through tears of laughter.

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Maximillion

[Ryan al'Thor]

Awesome awesome episode. Miles better than first 3. Bravo!

[divica]

2 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

Again she channeled balefire in tGH without having any idea what she was doing. That was arguably even more impossible. It was instinctive and drawn from a powerful emotional place. So there is precedent from the books actually. There’s also Aviendah traveling without any knowledge of how to do it. And she couldn’t remember how to after. I highly doubt Nyneave will be able to replicate what she did there any time soon.
 

Not to mention all the crap Rand pulls but you could justify that through Lews Therin.

You are justifying the show introducing an asspull that had no use with asspulls from the books. How is that a good justification? How is thinking that as the books had the characters doing impossible things then the show can also create situations like these that have no use and everything is fine?

 

Good writting is trying to present the audience a way to explain what happens in the situations you talked about. To create more situations where characters do unexplainable things is just lazy and incompetent.

 

Hell, nyn didn't have a single lesson about using the power to heal! It is ridiculous that she can just to something as amazing as this out of nowhere.

[MasterAblar]

7 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

What was the 'force field' about?  I was not under the impression that cutting off a person from the source created a real forcefield around them that would block an axe????

If Logain is cut off from the power, the moment he was attacked by a warder with two axes, he was a dead man.

How did he stop the axe attack?

Only watched it once so maybe there is something I missed through tears of laughter.

 

I don’t believe he was cut off from the power yet. He seemed to still be channeling and holding off the shield, so he himself would have blocked the axe. I’d have to watch again to get a clearer idea. 

[SinisterDeath]

8 minutes ago, divica said:

You are justifying the show introducing an asspull that had no use with asspulls from the books. How is that a good justification? How is thinking that as the books had the characters doing impossible things then the show can also create situations like these that have no use and everything is fine?

From the books:
Rand healed Bela from a distance while running from trollocs, and possibly changed her on a genetic level to actually keep up with the fastest horses in the world.

Rand used wind to knock trollocs off a ship.

 

Rand used lightning to blow up the side of an Inn... all without training or even knowing what he was doing..

 

Nynaeve is documented in the books as being able to heal people even before training, she just had to be especially angry while using her herbs to do it.

[themann1086]

I think having her do this without understanding or being able to replicate it without actual training is fine. That's how a lot of new channelers in the books worked: a moment of stress and trauma lets then touch the Source and the Power sorta just does what they need it to. They are of course completely incapable of replicating this feat, but they can get back there with time and training.

 

I do hope we see Nynaeve being completely exhausted next week. Beyond the sheer amount of Power used, it's probably her first major channeling. She should basically be bedridden. They can have Lan secure her in the saddle while she complains haha

[DermidAjala]

  

7 minutes ago, divica said:

Hell, nyn didn't have a single lesson about using the power to heal! It is ridiculous that she can just to something as amazing as this out of nowhere.

Truly it is ridiculous that Nynaeve the wilder whose usage of the power manifested from her healing people without training, and who performs healing in a different way to any modern day Aes Sedai, would perform some instinctive act of healing. Shocking.