tv show spoilers S1E7: The Dark Along the Ways

[Mrs. Yojimbo]

8 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

What is the number that is "A significant number of viewers"

A quick glance lists WoT as the most watched this year for Amazon and in their top 5 period.  VS the numbers that actually spoke up or even just gave a score in RT or such.

People like us on these forums?  Heck, even people who actually go give reviews.  We're a minority.  We're not the majority, we're not even a significant overall number.  For everyone of us here making our opinions known there's another 10 or more that aren't saying a word.

 

I'm honestly not sure what you're arguing with me about.  I'm sharing my experience of the show. I'm not denying your experience, or that of any of the many folks who are clearly enjoying this show very much.  We may disagree on the program's quality, but our personal opinions are just that: opinions. 

[Spiritweaver1]

3 hours ago, Mrs. Yojimbo said:

 

Sure, the books still exist. But I don't think it's unreasonable for lovers of those books who have long looked forward to seeing their beloved story translated into film to be disappointed when that translation doesn't feel like their beloved story.  (For example, The Hobbit trilogy broke me heart.)

 

Mine too.  Only watched it once.  TLOTR on the other hand, I used to binge all three movies on my birthday. As far as WOT goes I love the discussion on here.  I do appreciate you and others providing steady non reader inputs.  I personally feel like those are free of the comparison bias that many of the rest of us struggle with.  I know I do.

2 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

 

Moraine flat out says the Dark One is stirring, Trollocs and a Fade massacre two small towns.  A fade chases Rand and Mat, a Darkfiend tries to kill them...  The constant dreams from Ba'alzamon.  Seems to me there's plenty of presence.  Honestly, the only place we don't see Dark One presence are in Egwene/Perrin's story, and it wasn't there in the books either.  

 

 

 

 

First of all we don't see the DO''s "presence" in the EOTW at all.  We see Ba'alzamon in all three of the boys dreams.  You will recall he is trying to smoke out the DR.  You will recall that Ba'alzamon is believed to be the DO in TEOTW but it is later hinted by a prophesy that may be coming up in E8 that it is not. After a certain number of attempts to kill him he is revealed as the crazy second tier bad.  You know who I mean!!!. That individual is running the show until enough of the seals break so that the rest of the second tier are released.    Of course that  individual is still talking to the DO so i suppose one could argue that the DO is running the show.   

[TheSmurf]

29 minutes ago, Deviations said:

I was going to post in the ep6 thread how much I hate this expression on this actress.

 

 

Then I realized it was probably a good copy of my face when I'm watching the show.  Fair is fair.

The directorial choice to have Leanne Sedai have this facial expression is a prime example of my issues with many of the changes... 

 

But I'm sure there's a reason or deeper meanings for that face, that I missed. 

[Spiritweaver1]

21 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

I'm glad you liked early Mat.  I found him obnoxious, worthless and pointless save as an anchor on Rand's back and an Aes Sedai hook to force Rand after the Horn.  I didn't even expect him to matter until Book 3 started turning him around.

 I went back and reread this post.   I love how different people have different perceptions of the same thing.   I liked Matt in TEOTW.   I was learning about the characters and I liked all three of the boy's for different reasons.  I liked their relationships between each other especially the ongoing internal/external dialog  about which of them was best with women always that one of the others was the expert.  I am still loving that in my current reread.   As I stated in a post elsewhere I felt that Matt's character arc was one of the best in the books.  I grew to appreciate Egw and Nyn more as the series went on.  Each character gets at least one superpower and I loved that.  Each of the EF5 have trials struggles  against their character flaws.  Matt's character led him to make a giant mistake in SL and then he had to struggle against that evil.  At the end of TEOTW I thought that perhaps the dagger would be like the one ring and have to be cast into the fires of dragon mount to be destroyed.  Guess I was wrong about that like so many things!! 

[KakitaOCU]

14 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

If you have to fill in the blanks from the book...and non-readers have to look elsewhere for answers, then you have a "dead scene."

You caught "something" that you can translate correctly because you know the source, someone else not familiar with the source is either going to dismiss the scene, or wonder "what the hell?"

....as I said "broken recording."

Why wife read the scene correctly with no book knowledge.  I wasn't using book knowledge to read the Perrin/Egwene/Rand thing.  So not sure the point you're making.

 

12 minutes ago, Deviations said:

Are you familiar with the concept of sampling a population?

 

And before you ask, I don't have actual statistics.  On this particular topic, I don't think they are readily available.  However, the folks on this forum have at least demonstrated an investment in the material (book and TV).  For a recognizably large portion of THIS audience to have trouble with the scene should be concerning to those who created the scene.  There was a misfire somewhere. 

 

Yes, I'm LEAN and Sigma 6 certified and work with analytics on a daily basis.  ?  But if you want to look at it from that perspective then you accept the show is successful and a majority of people watching have no problem with it.  As RT shows.

If you are going to try and use Dragonmount as a sampling.. No.  This place is specifically home to book fans and more so dedicated book fans, which is not an even sampling of the show's audience or the population as a whole.  It's stacking the deck, which is dishonest from a statistics standpoint.

 

15 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Meaningless when you see "Shannara Chronicles" as a top watched show when it wss running.

Two issues with that.

First: I'm talking about how big the audience is versus this vocal minority we're part of, which your point has no relevance to.

Second:  Season one was solid and well received and supported by the author.  It went downhill after season 2 when it completely walked away from the series and tries to shoehorn the Elfstone characters into other stories they didn't work for.  If we were looking at JUST season 1, it didn't do too bad and even now it's still over 70% fan positive.

It's pretty clear it was canceled due to Season 2's lack of budget and payoff combined with trying to be on multiple platforms which divided the viewing base and made it unsuccessful numbers wise for any one network to want to keep it.

 

 

 

 

[Sabio]

4 hours ago, CanisNoir said:

What's Known: Egwene and Perrin grew up together in a very small isolated Mountain village and Egwene is quite pretty. I'm sure half of the Two Rivers boys crushed on her at some point, including Perrin.

That is sort of how I saw it, sure if she had been single there would have been alot of boys trying to get her attention.  But she was with Rand so in the series he acts more of a protective big brother than someone thinking of her in romantic terms.

[Arie]

Let's stay on topic, please. ? Thank you!

[RhienneAgain]

6 hours ago, Windigo said:

 

What I love about this is how closely it follows the early book discussions.  If like me you remember the early discussions as books came out, there were Perrin, Rand, Mat, Egwene or Nynaeve haters, I do not think there were too many that agreed on liking all characters, there was always at least some faction that thought someone was annoying, boring or a waste of pages (Except Bela).  Much of that was often related to the ages, or real life situation of the reader at the time they read it. 
Even early I was a fan of Nynaeve, I remember many discussions on how she was not  just a pain or was not important.  
I think too that many of our reactions to the show portrayals probably align to our favorite or not so favorite book characters.  While looking at Nynaeve from show perspective only they are doing a good job of setting up her role, as a fan of hers in the books I find more issue with how they have changed her character than I do others I did not reading  about as much.   

 

I think you're spot on there.  It's much harder handling the disappointment of seeing an 'imposter' in the place of your favourite character that you've been longing to see realised on TV for ages than it is to see a character you weren't particularly attached to get an upgrade.

[RhienneAgain]

5 hours ago, Mrs. Yojimbo said:

 

Sure, the books still exist. But I don't think it's unreasonable for lovers of those books who have long looked forward to seeing their beloved story translated into film to be disappointed when that translation doesn't feel like their beloved story.  (For example, The Hobbit trilogy broke me heart.)

Agree completely.  I was a fan of the WoT, GoT, HP, and LotR books before any of them were turned into films, and WoT is definitely the adaptation that sits least well with me, the Hobbit movies excepted (I wouldn't say I dislike the show; more that for everything I like about it, there is something I dislike as well).  I'm trying to work out why that is through the episode discussions each week, but so far I'm struggling to put my finger on what it is that makes this adaptation less enjoyable for me than the others.

[RhienneAgain]

1 hour ago, KakitaOCU said:

Why wife read the scene correctly with no book knowledge.  I wasn't using book knowledge to read the Perrin/Egwene/Rand thing.  So not sure the point you're making.

 

 

Yes, I'm LEAN and Sigma 6 certified and work with analytics on a daily basis.  ?  But if you want to look at it from that perspective then you accept the show is successful and a majority of people watching have no problem with it.  As RT shows.

If you are going to try and use Dragonmount as a sampling.. No.  This place is specifically home to book fans and more so dedicated book fans, which is not an even sampling of the show's audience or the population as a whole.  It's stacking the deck, which is dishonest from a statistics standpoint.

 

Two issues with that.

First: I'm talking about how big the audience is versus this vocal minority we're part of, which your point has no relevance to.

Second:  Season one was solid and well received and supported by the author.  It went downhill after season 2 when it completely walked away from the series and tries to shoehorn the Elfstone characters into other stories they didn't work for.  If we were looking at JUST season 1, it didn't do too bad and even now it's still over 70% fan positive.

It's pretty clear it was canceled due to Season 2's lack of budget and payoff combined with trying to be on multiple platforms which divided the viewing base and made it unsuccessful numbers wise for any one network to want to keep it.

 

 

 

 

I am being suuuuper nitpicky here, but just because the show is popular doesn't mean people liked the specific scene being discussed here. The general reaction to the show as a whole doesn't necessarily have any correlation to the reaction to one scene from it.

[JaimAybara]

3 minutes ago, RhienneAgain said:

Agree completely.  I was a fan of the WoT, GoT, HP, and LotR books before any of them were turned into films, and WoT is definitely the adaptation that sits least well with me, the Hobbit movies excepted (I wouldn't say I dislike the show; more that for everything I like about it, there is something I dislike as well).  I'm trying to work out why that is through the episode discussions each week, but so far I'm struggling to put my finger on what it is that makes this adaptation less enjoyable for me than the others.

The editing and dialogue are a bit choppy for me. In E7 when they are walking into Fal Dara Loial starts talking to Lan and it really feels like they just cut the entire conversation. In the way they edited it at best Lan just ignored him. 

[DigificWriter]

5 hours ago, CanisNoir said:

Perrin's wife is at home in the forge jealous of Egwene, having not gone to her Braiding Ceremony. 

 

We don't know why Laila didn't go to Egwene's Women's Circle Initiation.

[Elder_Haman]

4 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

We don't know why Laila didn't go to Egwene's Women's Circle Initiation.

What if it's entirely the other way around? What if Egwene was hot for Perrin and made a move on him, but Perrin was in love with Laila? Laila and Egwene have a falling out over it. Perrin doesn't understand it. Blames himself for leading Eg on. 

 

Flamin' ashes if that wouldn't be entirely on brand for Perrin.

[DigificWriter]

Based on what little we were shown with regards to Perrin and Laila, I think there's a strong implication that Laila had withdrawn in on herself because she'd had a miscarriage.

[Spiritweaver1]

1 hour ago, DigificWriter said:

Based on what little we were shown with regards to Perrin and Laila, I think there's a strong implication that Laila had withdrawn in on herself because she'd had a miscarriage.

You know that was my thought as well.  

[ArrylT]

5 hours ago, JaimAybara said:

I think this is a possibility. They may have thought they could do touch ups in editing and it just didn’t turn out how they wanted. I would have preferred a really good actor with ember eyes and mouth overlay to what we got. It looked like a bad alien costume. This is just my subjective opinion I know, but yikes. 
 

*I know some of the old artwork does actually look a bit like what they did but this is just for giggles.*

 

To be fair, while I agree that the other 3 are more appealing in their look - the one they have is very similar to the description according to one WoT site

 

Spoiler

Appearance

Ishamael was not as tall as Lews Therin Telamon (TEotW, Prologue). He appeared to be in his prime and was handsome (TEotW, Ch. 14). Ishamael had black eyes (TGH, Ch. 41), and black hair (TDR, Ch. 36). Over time, his image changed. His mouth and eyes became caverns of flame. Whether this was the desired effect or it was caused by the extensive use of the One or True Powers, it is not known (TEotW, Ch. 14). He often appeared dressed in black with a mask covering his face. The mask covered skin that was horribly burned (TGH, Ch. 12).

 

Just to be clear - I think at the start he was scarier in the dreams, but the more focus on him look in the dreams gives a familiarity and that lessens that (for me).  I think he looked great in the first 2 dreams, less so in the 3rd dream (Rands at Grimwell farm).  But the 1st two when all you could really see was his eyes & mouth aflame all in black.  That was pretty darn good imo.  

[JaimAybara]

24 minutes ago, ArrylT said:

 

To be fair, while I agree that the other 3 are more appealing in their look - the one they have is very similar to the description according to one WoT site

 

  Hide contents

Appearance

Ishamael was not as tall as Lews Therin Telamon (TEotW, Prologue). He appeared to be in his prime and was handsome (TEotW, Ch. 14). Ishamael had black eyes (TGH, Ch. 41), and black hair (TDR, Ch. 36). Over time, his image changed. His mouth and eyes became caverns of flame. Whether this was the desired effect or it was caused by the extensive use of the One or True Powers, it is not known (TEotW, Ch. 14). He often appeared dressed in black with a mask covering his face. The mask covered skin that was horribly burned (TGH, Ch. 12).

 

Just to be clear - I think at the start he was scarier in the dreams, but the more focus on him look in the dreams gives a familiarity and that lessens that (for me).  I think he looked great in the first 2 dreams, less so in the 3rd dream (Rands at Grimwell farm).  But the 1st two when all you could really see was his eyes & mouth aflame all in black.  That was pretty darn good imo.  

Yeah, but it doesn’t really look like a mask or even burns to me really. Just kinda bizarre. I just wish they focused on the ember eyes and mouth more and went with more practical effects on the looks surrounding it. Don’t get me wrong, it could have been worse, but once I got the up close it was kinda meh. Not horrible, but also not mind-blowing, if that makes sense? 

[Windigo]

On 12/20/2021 at 4:21 PM, KakitaOCU said:

Was that your experience?  Because I never particularly got the feeling Mat was liked until Book 3.  In fact I remember multiple sources including Tor.Com and the re-read threads and Dragonmount where it was a very common statement that Mat is rescued from the Scrappy Heap.

It's even specifically quoted on tvtropes: "Hate Plague: In Books 1 and 2, which made him a major Jerkass.  The two together soured a lot of the fandom on him, though after he got better, and particularly after he started being awesome, he got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for many."

I'm glad you liked early Mat.  I found him obnoxious, worthless and pointless save as an anchor on Rand's back and an Aes Sedai hook to force Rand after the Horn.  I didn't even expect him to matter until Book 3 started turning him around.

If I am remembering correctly early Forum talk when the books came out, there was quite a bit of Mat, Egwene or Nynaeve haters.   
I was not a fan of Egwene or Mat, but liked Nynaeve, later books is when Mat became a favorite for me. 
One of my  kids was the opposite liked Mat disliked Nynaeve.  My un-official survey is it made a big difference what age people were when they first read the books. 

[Bruan]

My biggest problem with Ishamael in the dreams isn’t his appearance. It’s more the fact he’s been reduced to a jump-scare monster out of some B horror flick. His appearance isn’t what made him scary. His dialogue did.

[ArrylT]

1 hour ago, JaimAybara said:

Yeah, but it doesn’t really look like a mask or even burns to me really. Just kinda bizarre. I just wish they focused on the ember eyes and mouth more and went with more practical effects on the looks surrounding it. Don’t get me wrong, it could have been worse, but once I got the up close it was kinda meh. Not horrible, but also not mind-blowing, if that makes sense? 

 

Makes perfect sense to me - this is something that I believe can (but will it?) be improved upon for S2

[Terry05]

This was my favourite episode so far - just ahead of episode 4.

 

Like others, on first watch I was put off by what I thought was a "triangle" with Eg, Rand and Perrin, but on re-watch it definitely seemed like Nyn making a mountain out of a mole hill. Eg seemed to put it to bed later on so doubt we'll be seeing anymore of it.

 

The stand out for me was the Fal Dara set - looked amazing. Production design has been a real positive for me the whole season.

[DigificWriter]

5 minutes ago, Terry05 said:

Like others, on first watch I was put off by what I thought was a "triangle" with Eg, Rand and Perrin, but on re-watch it definitely seemed like Nyn making a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

It really shouldn't have taken a rewatch for this to be obvious, but at least you got to the correct conclusion eventually.

[Mailman]

13 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

It really shouldn't have taken a rewatch for this to be obvious, but at least you got to the correct conclusion eventually.

Im not sure you can dismiss this from the TV show as easily as that Rand also got involved and actually brought up the the specific date of Egwene and him getting together as same day that Perrin became involved/engaged with his wife.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Mailman

[DigificWriter]

11 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Im not sure you can dismiss this from the TV show as easily as that Rand also got involved and actually brought up the the specific date of Egwene and him getting together as same day that Perrin became involved with his wife.

 

Which is an accusation that was completely baseless and that Rand only made because he was emotionally compromised on account of trying to slowly reconcile himself to the reality of being the Dragon Reborn.

Edited December 22, 2021 by DigificWriter

[Mailman]

6 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

Which is an accusation that was completely baseless and that Rand only made because he was

emotionally compromised on account of trying to slowly reconcile himself to the reality of being the Dragon Reborn.

Possibly, but you have 2 separate things linking the accusation,  (I seriously hope they dont follow through with it personally as it feels so out of character for Perrin), but to dismiss it as conclusively as you have feels more like hope than based off any complete evidence.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Mailman