tv show spoilers S1E5: Blood Calls Blood

[pyrusmole]

1 minute ago, Maximillion said:

 

 

I can certainly understand the casting issue - the sequencing has to fit with cast availability and commitment.

The more I see this spoken about and compare it to what it means (what we are seeing) the more I think a really well done animated version would have been the way to go to tell this story properly.

Voiceovers from actors are a lot easier than being at a physical location to shoot at a designated time for long stretches.

 

That is my hope now, that an animated version is inspired to tell the story properly - or even a decent radio play as they did with LOTR on the BBC.

 

While I think the show is decent, at worst (I'm actually enjoying it a lot more than I did GOT), I agree that a well done animated adaptation would be fantastic for this story.

[Ralph]

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

 We're talking about a warrior culture that refuses to put on public displays of emotion, up to and including a husband and wife holding hands when outside. As put in another way, such displays are private and for family and no one else's business. To such a culture to put on such a public show...to be judged by strangers is a mockery disgracing the dead and shaming the family.

 

Curious where it says this. I think this is the second time you have said that Malkieri would not even hold hands in public. Is that in New Spring (which I disliked and have never reread) or where? 

[Agitel]

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

We're not talking modern society here. We're talking about a warrior culture that refuses to put on public displays of emotion, up to and including a husband and wife holding hands when outside. As put in another way, such displays are private and for family and no one else's business. To such a culture to put on such a public show...to be judged by strangers is a mockery disgracing the dead and shaming the family.

 

The ending funeral wasn't public.

[Maximillion]

1 hour ago, RhienneAgain said:

The review of episode 5 on the main page if Dragonmount sums it up quite well, I think, from a neutral perspective. Book Lan's version of masculinity has been replaced with a more modern interpretation of masculinity. I actually feel deeply uncomfortable with this as it feels like it's censoring the types of masculinity that are acceptable and those that aren't.

 

I did just read the review - tend to agree with it.

It's so annoying that there seems to be this need to change things to meet modern day social fads (worse than fads actually - more social dictats on what one needs to be without room for variability). If you want commentary on what you believe a man should be, do it elsewhere.  Don't mess up a perfectly well written and beloved character from such a great work of fiction.  It's not like stoic men do not exist today - they do and there is nothing wrong with them.  Not every man should have to fit in with Rafe Judkins view of who and what men are.  

It's a tragedy what he has done to Lan's character.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Maximillion

[Gothic Flame]

37 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

Curious where it says this. I think this is the second time you have said that Malkieri would not even hold hands in public. Is that in New Spring (which I disliked and have never reread) or where? 

I believe it's in the 2nd book, "The Great Hunt." When  Agelmar and his wife Amalisa formally greet the Amyrlin.

----------

On a totally unrelated note;

 

"My Lord," Egwene was saying as glibly as if she had been using titles all of her life, "I thought he was a warder, but you call him Dai Shan, and talk about a Golden Crane banner, and so did those other men. Sometimes you sound almost as if he's a king. I remember once Moiraine called him the last Lord of the Seven Towers. Who is he?"

  ""Lord of the Seven Towers," Agelmar said with a frown. "An ancient title, Lady Egwene. Not even the highlords of Tear have older, though the Queen of Andor comes close." He heaved a sigh, and shook his head. "He will not speak of it, yet the story is well known along the Border. He is a king, or should have been, al'Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, Lord of the Lakes, crownless King of the Malkieri."

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Gothic Flame
Spelling

[pyrusmole]

So one of the criticism I'm seeing about episode 5 is the notion that we're wasting time with the additional scenes. I think it's because the Moiraine-Lan-Nyn subplot in the book is actually pretty content sparse. It can basically be summed up by "Nynaeve falls in love with Lan but doesn't trust Moiraine" which is exactly what happened on screen. Now that time could have gone to Perin-Egwene or Mat-Rand sure, but I think they're trying to keep an ensemble nature to the show which means giving the 3rd subplot relatively equal screen-time. So they fill it in somehow with stuff that moves the general worldbuilding along, which makes enough sense because they skipped the explanation dialogue of that stuff earlier.

So I think by the time we got the to the ep. 5 all that's left to accomplish before everybody meets up again are (from the books perspective).
 

Spoiler

Rand needs to do his Caemlyn stuff - Seeing Logain, Meeting Loial, Meeting Elayne. Cut Elayne since

she's not really important until season 2. Rand does both of those things in episode 5
Perin and Egwene need to get captured by whitecloaks and then get freed by Nyn-Lan-Moirain group. Also Perin needs to progress as a wolf brother. The NLM group doesn't rescue them in the show but it more or less plays out the same throughout the episode.
Nynaeve-Lan-Moiraine need to rescue Perin and Egwene and then find Rand and Mat in Caemlyn using magic

So I think by the time we've reach the end of episode 5 we've reached the end of the separated plots. The problem is that Nynaeve, Lan, and Moiriane don't really have a plot. This leaves roughly 1/3rd of the episode without a cannon plot to follow (at least not while still focusing on Nynaeve, Lan or Moiraine). I think the writers decided to do some world building on the Warder/AS bond and
 

Spoiler

build for later when Moiriane "dies" in the book. Without explanation, a lot of that won't make sense. Like people wouldn't just assume warder bonds are transferable. I thought the scenes in the show were a pretty natural way to cover the full effects of a Warder loosing his Aes Sedai, from how Warders can be transferred, to the emotional devastation.

They also took the chance to build up the Nynaeve-Lan relationship from Lan's side, which, imo, was sorely needed in the books.

To rant a little bit, in the book we got very little build up on Nynaeve side (some small flirting and a general school-girl crush feeling) and no build up on Lan's side until we get to the Eye of the World where it bascially plays out like this

Nyn: "I love you, Lan. Ask me to marry you"
Lan: "I'm probably going to die in this war and I'm not going to make you a widow walking"

I parody; Lan's dialogue here is really romantic, but comes out of left field since there's nothing before to indicate that Lan had any particular feelings for Nynaeve. So I think taking a bit to establish Lan's growing feelings for her here will make the above dialogue (which is incredibly romantic and some of the writing in the book) feel more natural later on.

 

[wotfan4472]

1 hour ago, Maximillion said:

 

 

I can certainly understand the casting issue - the sequencing has to fit with cast availability and commitment.

The more I see this spoken about and compare it to what it means (what we are seeing) the more I think a really well done animated version would have been the way to go to tell this story properly.

Voiceovers from actors are a lot easier than being at a physical location to shoot at a designated time for long stretches.

 

That is my hope now, that an animated version is inspired to tell the story properly - or even a decent radio play as they did with LOTR on the BBC.

 

If we want a totally faithful adaptation of the story, the only format that would deliver in my opinion, is video gaming.

There, and only there, can it be done.

No other form of entertainment can do it.

I think the show is really good, because it is using the tv show medium to tell the story, and is doing things with its episode time to introduce elements and world that the show will go back to in the future.

 

Episode 5 and the last episode has already shown that this world is unique from any other fantasy product, and has shown elements and impacts of those in a way that no other fantasy show has done.

Those are just the Aes Sedai and Warders, and also the different examples of depression both shown and told about, and one act of suicide. 

Those are ballsy things to do, at any time.

[grayavatar]

On 12/4/2021 at 6:43 PM, FatManAngreal said:

By all means let me hear your theories around how he's managed to kill so many Aes Sedai? They are the most powerful people on the planet and we literally saw him burn one alive. It was made very clear through the direction of the scene that Valda feels completely safe because they've got no hands, but then states they don't need their hands to channel? It just doesn't stand up.

Also cutting off someones hands makes it nearly impossible to tie their hands behind their back when your cooking them alive. Also if you are being cooked alive you can use the one power in defense of your life...

[DaddyFinn]

7 minutes ago, grayavatar said:

Also cutting off someones hands makes it nearly impossible to tie their hands behind their back when your cooking them alive.

Check the scene again. The Aes Sedai is tied from her waist and elbows to the pole. That's not easy to get out of.

 

Quote

Also if you are being cooked alive you can use the one power in defense of your life...

She has a wound on her forehead. Concussion could affect her ability. Forkroot and stedding are also a possibility.

 

Does anyone know if the camp is the same in episodes 2&5? 

Edited December 5, 2021 by DaddyFinn

[grayavatar]

On 12/4/2021 at 8:49 PM, JacJohns said:

Absolutely terrible. Every episode I watch makes me shudder at the absolute failure of the entire production. This doesn't feel like something that RJ would have allowed while he was alive. There's almost nothing left of the story now, no trace of the greatness or vision of the original works.

 

This episode takes more out of the story to replace it with cheap game of thrones writing. What they have done to all of the characters up to this point is disgusting. None of them act the way they should. 

 

Matt was supposed to be happy in the beginning, mischievous. They made him a walking pile of teen angst. He basically didn't change after getting the dagger. Except for that very non book scene with the slaughtered family.

 

Perrin has been absolutely gutted. Nothing left of the original character at this point except the eyes. Reminds me of what they did to Goku in the Dragonball movie. Sad.

 

Rand. Rand basically has no character. They took all his development away to give it to Moiraine. 

 

Lan. They made him a useless, emotional baby. RJ probably rolling in his grave over that. This episode especially killed the soul of his character.

 

Thom. The least gleeful gleeman ever. Even his into is depressing.

 

I have no idea who thought any of this was ok. My wife had to calm me down after this one. Shame on Rafe. This episode especially seems like he's just trying to copy Game of Thrones' senselessly gritty formula for a story that needs humor and rationality to make the characters and story work.

 

This episode will be my last, I can't take anymore of Amazon Rafing the story to death.

 

Amen. It's a disgrace and an insult to RJ's legacy. If they didn't have the budget to do it right they should have held back the IP until they had enough.

 

This feels like a bit of cash grab to me, using the title "Wheel of Time" just to bring in audiences not realising this could have been an epic sustained and well loved tv show. Instead they came up with an utterly forgettable product.

 

If Bezos was willing to invest an hour or two of his income this could be truly epic.

[Gothic Flame]

3 minutes ago, grayavatar said:

If Bezos was willing to invest an hour or two of his income this could be truly epic.

As I understand it, he wanted something that equalled HBO's GoT. 

[grayavatar]

On 12/4/2021 at 10:57 PM, RextheDog said:

i understand the opposition to the changes in Lan, im hoping he gets a bit of 'form' back, but making him more Human can theoretically only help the WOT universe

 

ask yourself do you really want the guy to be robotically undefeatable? is that the character you want to see?

Absolutley YES

[grayavatar]

5 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

As I understand it, he wanted something that equalled HBO's GoT. 

 

He must be so disappointed. This is worse than the failure at the end of GoT. At least GoT got off the ground and had a lot of buzz surrounding it. WoT is so bland no one is really talking about it in any good way outside these forums.

[DaddyFinn]

1 minute ago, grayavatar said:

WoT is so bland no one is really talking about it in any good way outside these forums.

WoT is at the top of popular TV-shows right now. GoT was not hugely popular until after season 2 or 3 and Red Wedding, right?

[TheDreadReader]

33 minutes ago, wotfan4472 said:

 

Episode 5 and the last episode has already shown that this world is unique from any other fantasy product, and has shown elements and impacts of those in a way that no other fantasy show has done.

Those are just the Aes Sedai and Warders, and also the different examples of depression both shown and told about, and one act of suicide. 

Those are ballsy things to do, at any time.

 

The uniqueness of the world is an important thing to remember.  RJ wrote TEOTW as a homage to LOTR (at least that is how it used to get described back on the usenet days).   That made a lot of sense when LOTR was less well-known than it is today.  But, the LOTR movies made Tolkein mainstream.  As a result, keeping too many of the LOTR influences would rapidly make it look like nothing but a LOTR clone.  So, highlighting the uniqueness of the world makes a lot of sense for the show to do.

 

I happen to like the stuff they added about the Warders and their bonds.  I think it gives the average non-book viewer something to latch onto in understanding an important part of the world building. 

 

[Ralph]

New discussion:

 

Two queries :-

 

Is Liandrin touching Moiraine meant to signify anything? The info on the prime page says they have a history. Is Liandrin trying to play on that to manipulate her, or what? 

 

And what is the picture Moiraine is looking at? This has to be explained coming up, maybe when she meets Siuan, but I'd be interested in theories. 

 

And "nothing in this show makes sense why are you looking for any meaning" is not an acceptable answer ?

[TheDreadReader]

5 minutes ago, Ralph said:

New discussion:

 

Two queries :-

 

Is Liandrin touching Moiraine meant to signify anything? The info on the prime page says they have a history. Is Liandrin trying to play on that to manipulate her, or what? 

 

An interesting theory has sprouted on Twitter (at least that is where I've seen it).

 

A theory that it isn't Liandrian in that scene but someone pretending to be her has sprouted in the wild.

 

Why, for example, would Liandrian be in the Warders Quarters?

 

5 minutes ago, Ralph said:

And what is the picture Moiraine is looking at? This has to be explained coming up, maybe when she meets Siuan, but I'd be interested in theories. 

 

Two theories that I've seen is that it is a reference to the 'finns twisted doorframes or that it is some means for Moiraine and Siuan to covertly communicate.

 

Personally, I think it is where she keeps her stash of good quality two rivers tabacc and oosquai.

 

 

[ArrylT]

2 hours ago, Maximillion said:

 

 

I can certainly understand the casting issue - the sequencing has to fit with cast availability and commitment.

The more I see this spoken about and compare it to what it means (what we are seeing) the more I think a really well done animated version would have been the way to go to tell this story properly.

Voiceovers from actors are a lot easier than being at a physical location to shoot at a designated time for long stretches.

 

That is my hope now, that an animated version is inspired to tell the story properly - or even a decent radio play as they did with LOTR on the BBC.

 

 

I certainly think from the animated extra content that they are definitely showing the strength an animated adaptation could have.   

 

 

[Sabio]

I assume Liandrin was in the warder quarters looking for Nyn.  She wasn't surprised to see Nyn there.  Since she has been told almost nothing about Nyn, how she was found etc.  I took it as she is trying to find out what Moiraine has been up to.  Since the BA knows the dragon has been reborn, and Nyn is strong and just did a mass healing it's quite possible she might be thinking Nyn could be the dragon.

 

 

[Ralph]

2 minutes ago, Sabio said:

I assume Liandrin was in the warder quarters looking for Nyn.  She wasn't surprised to see Nyn there.  Since she has been told almost nothing about Nyn, how she was found etc.  I took it as she is trying to find out what Moiraine has been up to.  Since the BA knows the dragon has been reborn, and Nyn is strong and just did a mass healing it's quite possible she might be thinking Nyn could be the dragon.

 

 

We don't yet know Liandrin is BA, especially if possibly combining with Elaida

[Sabio]

I had thought I heard Eladia was being cast for season 2?  I hope they don't, combining Liandrin and Eladia would be a horrible idea.

[fra85uk]

My guess is that Liandrin will be combined with Elaida and some other sister will get book-Liandrin role (if they are going to have that arc).

[Maximillion]

1 hour ago, grayavatar said:

Also cutting off someones hands makes it nearly impossible to tie their hands behind their back when your cooking them alive. Also if you are being cooked alive you can use the one power in defense of your life...

 

This is one of the reasons I think Valda has some protection from channelling. It's the only explanation.

Remember he questioned Morraine directly with no defence.  That is not the strategy of one who is seeking to capture and kill Aes Sedai.  

People were saying that he did not ask her the direct question 'are you an Aes Sedai' because he was scared of what might happen, but that is BS.  He would already have those scenarios gamed out unless he is a complete idiot. 

Again with Egwene he ASKED her to channel - she could have been powerful and that fireball could have consumed him.

He is not going to have risked that - otherwise he's just wandering around playing Russian roulette.

He has to have protection:

1) He's one of the Foresaken

2) He has some object (Angreal) that nullifys or diminishes the OP  

 

[Vambram]

49 minutes ago, Ralph said:

New discussion:

 

Two queries :-

 

Is Liandrin touching Moiraine meant to signify anything? The info on the prime page says they have a history. Is Liandrin trying to play on that to manipulate her, or what? 

 

And what is the picture Moiraine is looking at? This has to be explained coming up, maybe when she meets Siuan, but I'd be interested in theories. 

 

And "nothing in this show makes sense why are you looking for any meaning" is not an acceptable answer ?

 

I believe that it is a painting from Siuan that Moiraine is looking at in secret reminding her of the close friendship between the two of them.  

[Sabio]

It's unlikely he thought Egwene was too powerful if she was on her way for training and three Whitecloaks captured her and Perin.  He has killed 7 true Aes Seda so what threat could a novice like Egwene pose to him?  Valda seems to have the odd notion an Aes Sedai needs her hands to channel?  I don't rule out he might have some defense against the power. But I suspect most of his arrogance with asking Egwene to channel was more of being dismissive of her ability.

 

I always thought Moiraine being wounded and in the company of the Two River folks is what might of thrown Valda off to Moiraine being a Aes Sedai.  One also has to think what is Valda's chances of getting out alive if Moiriane, Nyn, and Egwene did turn out to be Aes Sedai and Lan, Mat, Perin,. and Rand were warders?  He could of thought fighting three Aes Sedai at once was suicide.  If he thought he might of stumbled on three Aes Sedai it might be best let them pass.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Sabio