tv show spoilers S1E6: The Flame of Tar Valon

[Skipp]

2 minutes ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

"the world does not need a dragon like me" (roughly that).

 

Absolutely loved that line

[Sabio]

I

1 minute ago, ArrylT said:

He and a few others I consider Jenn Aiel, and that is meant as a compliment and not mockery.  The events Rand experiences at Rhuidean are some of my favorite WOT moments and without the Jenn Aiel there is no Rhuidean and no He Who Comes With The Dawn. 

Are you saying Dojo is really super old??

[Skipp]

@Zarathustra

If you want a great video that breaks this down better than I can I recommend the Daniel Green and Mat Hatch(From the Dusty wheel) breakdown.

 

 

[Bobafettt]

I have been triying to watch the series without any prejudice for 6 week as best as I can despite the tonnes of weird changes, yes I know this is a tv show and always needs some changes but unfortunately  my journey has ended. Siuan and moraine relations which is terribly  rendered in the show will not  contribute any positive way to the show and I still  try to undertand why that soiress scene is attached. As I said, may journey is ended, never gonna watch the show again.

[The Purple Ajah]

Just now, Zarathustra said:

1)  Back at you.  It's irrelevant to me and a useless change.  However, you like it.  I still see it as ignoring the source material.  It's,  introducing Traveling, even worse because it completely negates the reason why the used the Way gate.

 

2)  Your view is equally speculative.  However, evidence presently supports an argument about the SF being absorbed into another culture.

 

3)  Dark as in med-tanned.  Siuan had "fair skin" and blue eyes.

 

4)  Jordan made an artistic choice too and he geographically separated races and cultures.  There's a reason why Semirhage was playing in Seanchan instead of W-Randland.

1) If it is Traveling, then it is obviously to a fixed and unchangeable location. There was also a hint I took from someone who interviewed Rosamund, who said to pay attention to the Trivia. From the comment about "experiences" in the Trivia, the ter'angreal seems to create an imaginary world similar to the Chair of Remorse ter'angreal.

 

2) And I have presented evidence about the Tairens generally not having tattoos in the concept art. As stands, we have evidence that have not "merged" any nations or cultures so far, and the crew speaks highly of the expansiveness of the worldbuilding. However, my general rule of thumb is: only criticize if you actually know something to be a change, rather than simply speculating it as a change.

 

3) "A charcoal-skinned fellow who might have been one of the Sea Folk, though some Tairens were as dark" (New Spring, 4). It is book canon that a woman with Sophie Okonedo's skin tone could be Tairen, unless you see "charcoal-skinned" as simply having a tan.

 

4) And they have deviated from Robert Jordan's aesthetic, and this has been obvious for several years. Siuan's fair skin was not fundamental to her character, and Sophie has done an amazing job as Siuan. And it seems like if you are still disliking this change, you ought to at least acknowledge that this is a general issue you have with the show, rather than specific to Siuan or something.

[DaddyFinn]

7 minutes ago, The Purple Ajah said:

It is book canon that a woman with Sophie Okonedo's skin tone could be Tairen, unless you see "charcoal-skinned" as simply having a tan.

Juilin Sandar is quite dark IIRC. As you said, Siuan's skincolor is not important. The skill of the actress is.

[fra85uk]

Honestly, discussing actors is really futile. They are the only excellent thing in an otherwise unredeemable show

[Sabio]

The only time to me it would be an issue is if they were way off on something like making all the Aiel blonde and dressed them like Vikings. Something that went totally against the description of the group.  You would expect a places like Tear, Illian, etc with ports that attract people from all over to have a wide variety of looks and customs. 

[sw0mp_d0nk3y]

First complaint.  Not enough Rand, Mat, and Perrin.  I think Perrin had 1 line in episode 6.  If they knew at the beginning that they were going to focus most of the show on Moraine's experience and perspective, then they shouldn't have bothered aging up the book's main characters.  We spend so little time with them anyway, they might as well be naive little kids.  Could have skipped the silly Perrin kills his wife bit, and the mopey, not fun Mat bit.  Two of the best book characters wasted in order to be darker and more adult.  

 

Second complaint.  Its not that hard to make a 10 foot Ogier.  See Lord of the Rings.  Forced perspective, body doubles, and only occasionally needing actual vfx.  I did enjoy someone calling Loial the Burger King though, fair description.

 

Third complaint.  Slow down and have a few conversations in these amazing sets.  Good dialogue. Character development.  This is where Game of Thrones really sucked people in before the budgets were enormous.

 

I am enjoying the show for the most part though, just wish it could have been better.  I'm sure I'll keep watching right through to the end, or the cancellation.  For those thinking it is a doomed show though, 3rd season has already been greenlit, and a lot of people are watching it.  Ratings don't matter as much as number of viewers, and I'll bet a Tar Valon Mark that all of the people complaining and saying they won't watch anymore, will be right there with the rest of us watching every episode on release day.

 

 

[Skipp]

3 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

Honestly, discussing actors is really futile. They are the only excellent thing in an otherwise unredeemable show

You keep repeating this as if it is fact.  The show may be unredeemable for you and that is fine but there is clearly a number of fans here who really seem to enjoy the show.

 

The show has plenty of things that can improve and i believe many of the technical things will improve with time.  But this is a place for reasonable discussion and you repeating  that doesn't really add much to the discussion.

 

But hey, we are both free to post what we want within the rules

[Sabio]

I can cut them some slack with Perrin.  Rafe and Brandon did say the biggest challenge with Perrin is most of his dialogue in the book was internal like his thoughts, thinking about emotions he's smelling etc. And they really can't show him smelling people's emotions.   He is rather quiet in the first few books and is more of a follower.  Then alot of the places he did speak (Like with Elyas and Hopper) are gone and the time with the Tinkers was really short in the series.  Rand was the one arguing with Moiraine, Mat was distrustful, but Perrin was sort of the quiet one that went along with things.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Sabio

[fra85uk]

1 minute ago, Skipp said:

You keep repeating this as if it is fact.  The show may be unredeemable for you and that is fine but there is clearly a number of fans here who really seem to enjoy the show.

 

The show has plenty of things that can improve and i believe many of the technical things will improve with time.  But this is a place for reasonable discussion and you repeating  that doesn't really add much to the discussion.

 

But hey, we are both free to post what we want within the rules

 

Of course the show is bad for me

  But discussing the fact that Siuan Sanche is played by a black woman seems again to me futile since the important thing is that she is Amazing as almost all the cast (with of course Rosamund Pike being on top)

 

[Zarathustra]

45 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Jordan's world has culture's geographically divided, rarely races.  The 2 exceptions being the Seafolk and the Aiel.  Everywhere else Jordan uses terms like "They were darker than Tariens" or "They were lighter than Domani". 

 

But in cases where he went more specific in skin colour we have examples like Old Cenn Buie is described as being as dark as an old Root.  Go dig up a root, they are fairly dark and that is directly in the Two Rivers.  The first Queen of Andor is described as being very dark, akin to the seafolk.  Elaida says Rand can't be from the Two Rivers because his untanned skin is to pale. 

 

This all shows that while the countries of the Westlands have general physical attributes, Jordan mostly cared about hair/eye colours and then relegated the rest of the differences to dress.  But when it came to skin colour, except for the two exceptions I mentioned above,  everywhere had a fairly large range of skin colours.

 

On Siuan specifically while she is described as pale as snow the general peasant populace is described as fairly dark almost to the point of the Seafolk.  But by casting Sophie in the roll it hasn't changed anything with her character in the slightest.  Same is casting a taller actor as Moiraine or casting a slightly shorter Rand.

 

 

I disagree.  The Two Rivers was based upon any of the small towns in the South (similar to where I grew up;  we just had cattle and tobacco instead of sheep and tabbac) and while the Irish is strong in me (I become lobster red if I'm not careful) most people are "dark as root" compared to me.

 

Consider when Tuon is introduced and how unique she is compared to every other character introduced to that point.  Regardless, that horse has been flogged so many times that the mud open which it fell now has grass.

 

I disagree on the second point too--more so about Giant Mo.  To each their own though.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by Zarathustra

[Zarathustra]

41 minutes ago, Skipp said:

@Zarathustra

If you want a great video that breaks this down better than I can I recommend the Daniel Green and Mat Hatch(From the Dusty wheel) breakdown.

 

 

Or, you could just review RJ's thoughts about actors to be cast as characters that he created.

[Therese Sedai]

1 hour ago, Zarathustra said:

I simply don't care and did not when I read the books--it's not in the main sequence and that scene served no purpose other than tapping into a potential praise well and further alienating fans of the books (perhaps you should review the books, because they present a completely different narrative of the two after the death of Gitarra).  It's not good simply because you wanted something that was not in the books.  Of course, the casting choice and the sea folk tats are equally strange.

 

Queer characters are not necessary because the press tells us they are. They’re necessary because some people are indeed queer. Why should those experiences be relegated to side characters, bit dialogue, and innuendo? 

[Zarathustra]

6 minutes ago, Therese Sedai said:

Queer characters are not necessary because the press tells us they are. They’re necessary because some people are indeed queer. Why should those experiences be relegated to side characters, bit dialogue, and innuendo? 

I never wrote that.  I don't care about whether or not the characters were--now or when I first read the books. 

 

I do care about it ignoring the source material. Including that scene and making that choice with the narrative only serves to tap into a specific well of praise that is guarded by reviewers.

 

They could have handled this differently by simply using the RedA as a sub-plot instead of using Si-Mo love via Traveling.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Zarathustra

[Skipp]

10 minutes ago, Zarathustra said:

Or, you could just review RJ's thoughts about actors to be cast as characters that he created.

They do discuss Rj's actor's list in the video.  I still recommend you check it out.

 

EDIT

 

They also look directly at RJ's notes that have been made public.  The two of them did a fantastic amount of research.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Skipp

[Yojimbo]

6 minutes ago, Therese Sedai said:

Queer characters are not necessary because the press tells us they are. They’re necessary because some people are indeed queer. Why should those experiences be relegated to side characters, bit dialogue, and innuendo? 

If they ever get to her, I strongly suspect Aviendha will be bi.   She and Min become quite good friends in the books and since they would be in a poly relationship with Rand it would be a natural choice to make for those characters.    

[TheChief]

My two cents: 

 

the tv show is focused on getting viewers emotionally involved with the characters. Most new additions are adding backstory and vulnerability to characters so the audience cares about them.  im sure you care about the characters  if youve read the series 4+ times. Imho, in the WoT books all the characters were pretty one dimensional until you got well into the books. You absolutely have to have complex characters for the audience to care about for people to return each week to watch. If it was simply an accurate world building show, people wouldn’t watch. The details would be confusing and the characters would be one dimensional. 

 

so, making M + S confirmed lovers- that shows vulnerability on screen for both characters, and gets the audience to care about them because they become 3 dimensional. I mean, I always assumed they were in the books.
 

and as an aside, I also though the implication that young novices grew out of being lesbians (pillow friends), and if you didn’t you were a dark friend (Liandrin) to be kind of offensive tbh.

Edited December 11, 2021 by TheChief
Typos

[Zarathustra]

1 minute ago, Skipp said:

They do discuss Rj's actor's list in the video.  I still recommend you check it out.

Fair enough.

[WheelofJuke]

8 minutes ago, Therese Sedai said:

Queer characters are not necessary because the press tells us they are. They’re necessary because some people are indeed queer. Why should those experiences be relegated to side characters, bit dialogue, and innuendo? 

They shouldn't; however, tokenism is a real thing, as pointed out previously. 

 

Not saying I think this is the case, simply mentioning that side of it. 

[RextheDog]

quick question.

 

why is it such an urgency to cquickly get through the waygate before it closes?

 

if she opened it with the power, why cant she just hold it open?

 

what am i  missing?

[Therese Sedai]

2 minutes ago, Zarathustra said:

I never wrote that.  I don't care about whether or not the characters were--now or when I first read the books. 

 

I do care about it ignoring the source material. Including that scene and making that choice with the narrative only serves to tap into a specific well of praise that is guarded by reviewers.

 

They could have handled this differently by simply using the RedA as a sub-plot.

Where is this praise well then? I assumed you were referring to the press. 
 

I see what you’re saying about the red ajah but depicting all lesbians as militant misandrists is probably not a good look. 

[chri5]

2 hours ago, Yojimbo said:

 And that 4th oath scene was laughably bad in my opinion and a total waste of valuable time.   

See, I liked how it showed that their quest to stop the DO is more important than their relationship to the point that Moiraine is basically giving it up and willing to almost never see SS again. 
 

Except later when spoilers happen of course. 

[Yojimbo]

1 minute ago, chri5 said:

See, I liked how it showed that their quest to stop the DO is more important than their relationship to the point that Moiraine is basically giving it up and willing to almost never see SS again. 
 

Except later when spoilers happen of course. 

Except that they give themselves an easy out, saying she can't return until Siuan calls her back.   And IIRC Suian starts crying, which defeats the purpose of her punishing Moraine, who also throws in a few terms of endearment while changing the wording of the oath.   I just found it poorly done to give them another "special moment.