tv show spoilers S1E5: Blood Calls Blood

[mogi68]

5 hours ago, Mailman said:

Dreadful episode worst of the series not good from either a book or non book perspective.

 

Seriously Moiraine has shown zero effort to find the Emonds Fielders and now its a month later and shes hoping they are just going to show up at Tar Valon. 

 

Just a joke of a episode.

 

If I were the show runner heh, I would have done something more like this:

 

• Have Stepin kill himself towards the beginning of the episode, by hanging or with blade. Lan finds him and collapses to his knees, end scene.
• Moiraine and Lan after returning to the tower hear of whitecloaks near Tar Valon. Moiraine is troubled by this, and they go to check it out.
• Nynaeve comes with them because she doesn't trust Moiraine and doesn't want to be in the tower
• They find the beaten tinkers and ask what happened, learn of two whitecloak prisoners who match the description of Egwene and Perrin
• They wait until nightfall and execute the rescue much as they did in the book

Boom. It leaves room for fun whiz-bang explosions and lightning, leaves room for heroic moments from pretty much everyone (they can keep Egwene's defiance and Perrin's goldeneyes), and we still get the emotional devastation from Stepin's suicide in the beginning.

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by mogi68

[Gothic Flame]

4 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Did everyone miss the different colored weaves when Egwene channeled fire?

 

 

 

 

Lan was the lead mourner. He expressed everyone's grief.

Relate that to the books.

[Reader]

Watching other people's view of the episode, to help form my view of the episode.

[DaddyFinn]

2 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Relate that to the books

That funeral tradition doesn't exist in the books as far as I know. Lan was given the honor. Why is that a bad thing? It doesn't make him a lesser man.

[pyrusmole]

4 hours ago, Blackbyrd said:

I'm still puzzled about Lolial finding Nynaeve. Very big 'Let's just leave EF' energy

I'll defend this.

Let's assume for a moment that Loial knows a bit about Two Rivers dress and cultural practices (like the braid). I know that's a big assumption but just grant it to me, okay? So he runs into Nynaeve in the Tar Valon library and it passes his mind "She's dressed like a Two Rivers person." I'm pretty sure the first thing book or show Loial is going to say is something along the lines of

"Hello there, I'm Loial son of Arent son of Haren. You have dress like a friend of mine. Are you from the Two Rivers as well? Oh you are, and you're a wisdom? So you're a healer? Fascinating. This reminds me of ... Oh yes my friend. Would you happen to know a Rand al'Thor, he's an Aielm... {Interrupted by Nynaeve}

Edited December 3, 2021 by pyrusmole

[Nors]

Like others, I thought Loial was too short. But love the aesthetic they went with for him and like the actor even more. Can’t wait for him to become a bigger part of the show. 

[Gothic Flame]

2 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

They may as well just start the Aes Sedai split now and throw her into that storyline.

Considering how haphazard things have been done so far, you probably shouldn't put forth such ideas.

[Gothic Flame]

5 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

That funeral tradition doesn't exist in the books as far as I know. Lan was given the honor. Why is that a bad thing? It doesn't make him a lesser man.

It doesn't make him Malkieri either.

[DaddyFinn]

Just now, Nors said:

Like others, I thought Loial was too short. But love the aesthetic they went with for him and like the actor even more. Can’t wait for him to become a bigger part of the show. 

Loial's voice and manners were always going to be the make or break for me and Hammed nailed them. It was so funny to listen to his ramblings ?

[Nors]

Just now, DaddyFinn said:

Loial's voice and manners were always going to be the make or break for me and Hammed nailed them. It was so funny to listen to his ramblings ?

Absolutely agree. What a gem!

[SinisterDeath]

  How my Predictions went.

On 11/30/2021 at 1:00 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Ep 5 Predictions:

Tinkers will be confronted by the White Cloaks. Eggs & Perrin will see Valda and attempt to flee with Aram, getting captured in the process.

 

The wolves will attack the White Cloaks, setting up Perrin, Eggs & Aram to escape. Aram splits off from Eggs & Perrin to return to the Tinkers, finding their wagons burnt down and almost everyone dead.

Mat & Rand will travel, possibly have one more DF encounter before meeting Loial and maybe Min in a Tavern near Tar Valon.

Nyn will be exhausted after her ordeal, and all the witches travel to Tar Valon with Logain, whence Mat see's Logain in the cage and Nynaeve.

At the end of the episode, Eggs and Perrin finally make it to Tar Valon. Eggs has a reunion with Nynaeve.

Mat loses gold at dice again.

Rand is spends the night recovering.

Perrin makes his axe.

Red words = Remains to be seen?

Green = Technically accurate, though they didn't know they encountered Fain.

 

Eggs & Perrin didn't quite make it to Tar Valon but they were literally soo bloody close I want to give it to them anyways.

 

Mat spent the night recovering, not Rand. Never saw Mat gamble (to sleepy)... and Perrin was to busy getting turned into deli meat to make an axe.

[Cosmic Gifted]

I enjoyed the episode. I am glad they have finally made it to the white tower that they kept on mentioning, Very cool looking city. I was quite surprised though that the guy hunting the aes sedai was so close to the city? Seems like they would do more about a group of people like him, 

[mogi68]

There was one cool bit of worldbuilding I liked - when Aram take Perrin and Egwene away from the Whitecloaks they run past a series of weathered stone faces buried in the hillside.

 

Love to see things like that that hint to previous ages and extinct kingdoms. More ruins plz!

[SinisterDeath]

2 minutes ago, mogi68 said:

There was one cool bit of worldbuilding I liked - when Aram take Perrin and Egwene away from the Whitecloaks they run past a series of weathered stone faces buried in the hillside.

 

Love to see things like that that hint to previous ages and extinct kingdoms. More ruins plz!

My first thought when I saw those faces was the "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil".

[DojoToad]

Outsiders perspective - as I did not watch the episode as promised, but I have read every response in this thread.  Varying reactions:

• Best episode yet - the show will be a great success
• Episode lands in the middle, not the best but I can live with it
• Weak episode but I'm hopeful
• The flaming train wreck has gone completely off the rails and the nukes are about to blow

Biggest funny for me is the reaction to Loial.  In the run-up to the show some of the pics and posters showed the ogier being way too short.  Myself and many others pointed this out and got slammed.  'Perrin is closer to the camera that's why he looks bigger than the Loial.'

 

But now it is okay that he is too short because the acting is phenomenal.  Glad the actor nailed it, but how long ago did 'The Fellowship of the Ring' come out?  We've had the technology to make actors look larger or smaller for decades.  They couldn't do this with Loial who in the end is a secondary (albeit important) character?

[DermidAjala]

15 minutes ago, pyrusmole said:

Let's assume for a moment that Loial knows a bit about Two Rivers dress and cultural practices (like the braid). I know that's a big assumption but just grant it to me, okay? So he runs into Nynaeve in the Tar Volan library and it passes his mind "She's dressed like a Two Rivers person." I'm pretty sure the first thing book or show Loial is going to say is something along the lines of

 

It's also quite funny because Rand was talking about Egwene and he came back with a two rivers person and is like "look I found the girl you spoke of" and of course it's not who Rand spoke of at all.

[DojoToad]

10 minutes ago, Cosmic Gifted said:

I enjoyed the episode. I am glad they have finally made it to the white tower that they kept on mentioning, Very cool looking city. I was quite surprised though that the guy hunting the aes sedai was so close to the city? Seems like they would do more about a group of people like him, 

You would think.  They have access to tower guard and warders to harass if not outright kill them

[flinn]

 I liked Loial. Yes, they could have made him taller, but then every room he attempts to go in from then on would have to be very large. I am fine with him just being much bigger than normal people.

[TheDreadReader]

9 hours ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

Pretty sure Moiraine's secret window is her spying on Nyn's room. It's a women with her back turned looking out a window in the ... Picture? 

 

I think it is a ter'angreal of some kind.   Perhaps, for communicating with Siuan via T'A'R

 

 

9 hours ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

Still bummed/disappointed that they spent ... Over 10 minutes on Steppin (the actor did well but as a book fan - kind of pissed you cut so much for that). 

 

 

I think the Steppin stuff is them laying more groundwork for Lan and Nyn down the road.  It was a quick mention but they already had her talk about passing her bond in this episode.  That doesn't come into play for a while now in the books but it may be good to touch on it here.

 

 

My first reaction was that they put a lot of nodes to book readers in this episode and maybe even a few in-jokes for readers to catch.

[Cosmic Gifted]

4 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

You would think.  They have access to tower guard and warders to harass if not outright kill them

 

Yeah exactly. I thought maybe I missed something, but it seemed very brazen of these light people.

[Agitel]

The Steppin stuff felt a bit long. I expect they're trying to set up Lan's bond being broken later. They had Moiraine probing Alanna about passing the bond, so we may see that this season, and what happened with Steppin as kind of the backdrop justification for Moiraine acting as she does behind Lan's back. If they don't show us that or reference it it'll be a missed opportunity. Siuan and Egwene later make the point that doing that to a Warder is comparable, as Aes Sedai see it, to rape. So Moiraine (and the viewer) seeing what happens to Steppin puts us in her head.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Agitel

[SinisterDeath]

4 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Biggest funny for me is the reaction to Loial.  In the run-up to the show some of the pics and posters showed the ogier being way too short.  Myself and many others pointed this out and got slammed.  'Perrin is closer to the camera that's why he looks bigger than the Loial.'

Camera angles can be funky. I used some basic measuring stuff to show Loial taller than Perrin.

 

As it turns out, the distances & angles were a lot more skewed then I thought. 

It looks like they have him wearing something to give him extra height, and I'm guessing they can only do so much with the stilts they use for Trollocs.

 

But yes, you are right, they could have used more complex camera angles to give him extra Height.

 

I will say, that the early photos didn't do him justice. The minor cgi touchup helped. If anything, I wish they gave him more peachfuzz hairy face then he's got now. Not a fan of the blonde hair either.

 

That said, he nailed Loial's personality/mannerisms.

[Elder_Haman]

2 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

Book Rand responded to this equivalent situation by punching the Darkfriend. It's kind of weird to portray the stubborn sheepherder as a panicking coward who won't fight just because he has a slight disadvantage.

I don’t remember Rand punching someone who was holding him at sword point. I do know that Rand does not like enclosed spaces and that he does not ever want to hurt women. His response to Dana did not feel off to me in the least. 

[TheDreadReader]

11 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

You would think.  They have access to tower guard and warders to harass if not outright kill them

 

There are multiple instances in the books where the white cloaks are seen operating in or near the bridge towns.  Their presence that close to the Tower is consistent with the books in that respect.

 

 

[Guest Wolfbrother31]

17 hours ago, thievingsackofpotatoes said:

Felt the need to say that.

 

I sincerely apologize. It did feel way over the top. Bad analogy & totally ok if the Mods delete!

Edited December 3, 2021 by Wolfbrother31