tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[Mirefox]

3 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

*shrugs*

I would have thought Dragonmount itself would be at the forefront of an angry mob looking to crucify Rafe & co. Color me surprised. After all no matter how much you slice and dice and reinterpret the word "adaptation," you didn't get that. You got a bastardization of the books... Dragonmount should be incensed.

 

As inferred earlier, those watching are pointing to moments and little nuggets like our three cabelleros, Rand, Perrin, and, Mat, rubbernecking in Baerlon thinking they're seeing a great city. But it isn't Andor anymore than this show was a respectful, careful "adaptation" of the source material.

I am as shocked as you that there are ardent defenders of this show on this site.  
 

It is amazing that instead of discussions about our favorite scenes, little Easter eggs, or - yes - even complaints about changes a faithful adaptation would have had to make, we have arguments between people feeling sucker punched by a complete bastardization and the people who say “well yes, but that’s ok because…”.  I didn’t really expect the latter here.

 

[JenniferL]

Alright, y’all can stop with the name calling. It is a TV show. If you can’t act like an adult, go bake some cookies or something. 

[TheMountain]

2 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

I am as shocked as you that there are ardent defenders of this show on this site.  
 

It is amazing that instead of discussions about our favorite scenes, little Easter eggs, or - yes - even complaints about changes a faithful adaptation would have had to make, we have arguments between people feeling sucker punched by a complete bastardization and the people who say “well yes, but that’s ok because…”.  I didn’t really expect the latter here.

 

Everybody copes in their own way, clearly.

[Gothic Flame]

9 minutes ago, Sarlic said:

I’m just so disappointed - and now I’m wondering if Amazon’s immediate renewal for S2 was an act of desperation instead of a sign of confidence.  Take all of the changes that annoy us away, and the writing quality of this show just isn’t good.  

Considering they very publicly greenlit season 2 before the release of the first episode it was likely an expensive pr/advertising move.

[mogi68]

Sick and tired of Hollywood deconstructing the stories I grew up with. I'm canceling my prime subscription 

[TheMountain]

1 minute ago, Gothic Flame said:

Considering they very publicly greenlit season 2 before the release of the first episode it was likely an expensive pr/advertising move.

I think that Amazon-manufactured hype is definitely carrying the show and driving views.

[DigificWriter]

Even though I find the vehemence of this negativity amusing, it also says some really unflattering things about the people engaging in it, especially when said people start to imply that anyone who doesn't share the negativity - even amongst hardcore book readers - is 'the other' and that people can't possibly genuinely enjoy the series without being 'shills'.

[Gothic Flame]

5 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

Alright, y’all can stop with the name calling. It is a TV show. If you can’t act like an adult, go bake some cookies or something. 

Cookies... Used to be a tradition first week of November.

I do need a cup of coffee.

Diving into social/political forum. *updates will*

[Dreamwalker]

I haven't posted on the last few episode threads because generally I like the show, but have found this Dragonmount forum to have gotten pretty negative and hostile in some ways that made me feel unwelcome here generally, so I've been talking offline with other book reader friends instead.

 

But as we are at the end of the season I thought I'd try a post again.

 

AoL scene 

I LOVED the Age of Legends opening, it looked futuristic just like it should and I liked the portrayal of how before the Aes Sedai were men and women working together. The symbolism of LTT wearing black and Latra Posae wearing white with the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai, and making it clear they were friends who disagreed. I actually think they may be setting up some paralleling with Rand and Egwene for the whole series which I think would work well.

 

Only irk on this scene was I twitched when they called him the Dragon Reborn, I think that was intentional as something to make it simpler for show viewers to understand but I think that underestimates the audience's intelligence.

 

I do still hope we get the aftermath of LTT madness from the prologue soon to show the stakes, maybe cold open for beginning of season 2 since Rand left at the end of this season out of fear of killing everyone he loves.

 

Lan and Nynaeve

I have liked them showing more Lan and Nynaeve romance onscreen but have been waiting for Lan to say this speech. Be still my heart - it was wonderful. I liked Nynaeve telling Lan how to find them as a character moment. I hope next season we get a "mashiara" and the signet ring.

 

Fal Dara/ Tarwins Gap plotlines

I thought putting the Horn here made sense, as well as moving up Fain stealing it. They also seeded the Ingtar betrayal with Fain knowing the password and the cut drawbridge. Fain is pretty good but I can't help but think this would have worked better with Mat and that seems to have been what they were intending having set up some antagonism between him and Mat in episode 1 - can't fault the showrunners though as they got put in a tough spot by the casting change.

 

I liked them having the channelers defending here, and while I am a little unsure of some of the implications of letting people burn out while in a circle as someone else can force you to burn out, I thought showing burning out in a more visceral way was a good move for the medium. It was also good to introduce it now as they so far had shown no consequences or risks of channeling for women. This will be good setup for our Tower training next season. Maybe having this possible in a circle also helps explain potential plot holes of why you would not just always link all the time.

 

Egwene healing an almost burned out Nynaeve I was more iffy about though, I think it was unnecessary. I thought Nynaeve might have just stabbed/clubbed over head Amalisa when she couldn't let go.

 

The Blight and the Eye

Ishamael is great. I liked the change to the confrontation to be something more about tempting Rand, as early series that is the DO plan is to turn him. And tempting him in a way that mirrors the end of the series I think will work well later. I loved Rand choosing to keep Egwene's agency, that is in character. It also shows a nice flip of the cold open with LTT and Latra Posae which I think will parallel the overall Rand and Egwene arc for the whole series of ultimately needing to work together better in this life. They might even make Egwene be Latra Reborn, at least parallel them pretty hard.

 

I thought the channeling with Rand looked good, this sa'angreal I think is taking place of the fat little man one. And of course book 1 Rand does think he defeated the Dark One.

 

Unsure about Moiraine stilling/shielding but I'm ok with it if she still takes out Lanfear in epic fashion later, and she doesn't need to channel for that.

 

Seanchan

Blood and bloody ashes I am hyped. They looked great.

 

Predictions

For Rand, I'm wondering if he's heading for the Waste. They can have the Lanfear stuff on a solo journey, and just put Callandoor in Rhuidean? Egwene has to get to learn from the Aiel though so maybe we can't speed up quite that much. Alternatively, will he hit up Caemlyn and meet Elayne, then Stone of Tear for Callandoor. Have the Seanchan be landing at Tear, BAM you have books 2 and 3 combined in 1 season.

[JenniferL]

Alright, I know folks have STRONG opinions on this episode. I reacted badly to it as well, though I might give it another watch to see if I change my mind. But an entire thread of “I hate this!” is really boring to read. Let’s consider our spleens vented. If you have something to say besides “this sucks!” please say it. But if that’s all you’ve got right now, then maybe go find something else to do today? 

[TheMountain]

3 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

Alright, I know folks have STRONG opinions on this episode. I reacted badly to it as well, though I might give it another watch to see if I change my mind. But an entire thread of “I hate this!” is really boring to read. Let’s consider our spleens vented. If you have something to say besides “this sucks!” please say it. But if that’s all you’ve got right now, then maybe go find something else to do today? 

How about this:

 

As a representation of how Ishamael won, the Dark One broke the Wheel and remade the pattern, the show is brilliant ?

[Weird_Old_Lady]

8 hours ago, Mailman said:

5 channelers all not tower trained or too weak to complete the training wipe out 10k to 20k trollocs how is anyone defending this episode.

 

 

Amilisa had training, she spent years in the tower. Nynaeve and Egwene had the power she needed.... And more

[MasterAblar]

1 minute ago, Weird_Old_Lady said:

Amilisa had training, she spent years in the tower. Nynaeve and Egwene had the power she needed.... And more

 

Strictly speaking only Nyneave should have had the power she needed. Egwene can barely channel a trickle.

 

While I think they went a little too ham with the One Power (how do you make it more impressive now?), it made sense to not have Amalisa lead, not Egwene or Nyneave since those 2 would have no idea what they're doing. 

 

Issue is if the point of not having Rand show up there as to give Egwene and Nyneave more to do than just stand around pointlessly then I don't feel like that was sucessful. They were basically batteries and did nothing, so either way they're not very active.

[Andromedus]

 

 

Ishy (assuming they are keeping to the books more here and making audience think it's the DO) was really good.  I wonder, and this is my brain trying to reason out their thinking, if they feel showing three confrontations with Ishamael is overkill for the show (as happens in first 3 books).  Maybe they're saving Rand's big showdown and display of power to later confrontations and decided to mirror Manetheren here.

 

That bummed me out, I wanted Rand to suddenly appear at Tarwins Gap and wreck shit.

 

I like this show, but this episode was a bit of a disappointment.  I still think this show can be great, but they really need to find more expressions for Perrin than befuddled "I'm about to cry" face or get him off the show, he's useless and more boring than he was in the books.

 

Hopefully the writing and editing can improve, I can deal with the story changes (the Seanchan had a nice sense of dread in the last scene) but they need to figure out where some of these characters are going and get them moving.

 

LTT - they needed another scene or two with him to make that scene make more sense.  Still cool but could've been more.

 

I think this show will be better with the characters splitting up also.

 

First Season - B+

Episode 8 - C

 

 

 

 

[Weird_Old_Lady]

2 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

 

Strictly speaking only Nyneave should have had the power she needed. Egwene can barely channel a trickle.

 

While I think they went a little too ham with the One Power (how do you make it more impressive now?), it made sense to not have Amalisa lead, not Egwene or Nyneave since those 2 would have no idea what they're doing. 

 

Issue is if the point of not having Rand show up there as to give Egwene and Nyneave more to do than just stand around pointlessly then I don't feel like that was sucessful. They were basically batteries and did nothing, so either way they're not very active.

The Great Protector of us all, Nynaeve the Wisdom, does not ever "just stand around" she is keeping us all safe all the time because we are her children.

 

I'm considering starting a cult ...??

[JenniferL]

So there’s many individual moments from this episode that I enjoyed. But it never felt like it came together cohesively and most of the not Rand stuff just didn’t land for me. 

[Mirefox]

I’ve always been willing to give them a little benefit of the doubt with the special effects given their claims of constrictions from COVID, but I’ve also been willing to criticize design decisions.   That said, I think that now that the season has ended, my favorite effect is still the way the OP always comes from off screen.  Channelers are visibly grabbing on to a power that is already there and not producing something from their hands.  It even makes the more physical acts of channeling - like when Moiraine does it - make more sense; they are literally grabbing at streams of power and manipulating them.  I don’t like how some of the channeling looks after that, but oh well, I can live with it.

[fra85uk]

Just now, JenniferL said:

So there’s many individual moments from this episode that I enjoyed. But it never felt like it came together cohesively and most of the not Rand stuff just didn’t land for me. 

 

Taking away from Rand his first iconic scene was utterly disappointing, i really have no words to explain how bad this is and how the distrust is high for the rest of the series.

[JenniferL]

So one of the things that didn’t work for me was the reveal of the Horn. I don’t mind that they changed the hiding place. It’s a logical consequence of changing the nature of the Eye. But I don’t like that it’s just sitting there under Agelmar’s throne and everyone seems to know about it. In three thousand years, they never had a “oh no, we’re all going to die” moment? What about when Malkier fell? No one thought they should use it then? It would have been better if it had been hidden in the keep, but no one knew about it and some combination of the EF5 discovered it while wandering around. Or maybe Loial happens to know it’s there and asks someone why they aren’t pulling it out? ??‍♀️

[Hudson]

6 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Negatives/other complaints

-LTT and Latra Posae's conversation. Latra knew that the DO would taint the Source?

Yeah...everything was cool until that meddling man in his arrogance went and screwed things up.  The world wasn't in a crisis and desperate or anything.

 

If they aren't intending this message...they need to remember Speech 101 from college.  The most important message isn't the one intended it's the one receive.  This is the message a lot of people (even female viewers) are receiving.

[mogi68]

I always read the end of TEOTW as it being Rand's baptism-in-the-Jordan moment. I know they wanted to give the girls something to do but they could have incorporated Rand into the gap still. It would have been cool to have gotten the "big voice" 

Edited December 24, 2021 by mogi68

[fra85uk]

2 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

So one of the things that didn’t work for me was the reveal of the Horn. I don’t mind that they changed the hiding place. It’s a logical consequence of changing the nature of the Eye. But I don’t like that it’s just sitting there under Agelmar’s throne and everyone seems to know about it. In three thousand years, they never had a “oh no, we’re all going to die” moment? What about when Malkier fell? No one thought they should use it then? It would have been better if it had been hidden in the keep, but no one knew about it and some combination of the EF5 discovered it while wandering around. Or maybe Loial happens to know it’s there and asks someone why they aren’t pulling it out? ??‍♀️

This is one of the LOTS of things that do not make sense in this series.

[JenniferL]

7 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

 

Taking away from Rand his first iconic scene was utterly disappointing, i really have no words to explain how bad this is and how the distrust is high for the rest of the series.

I am okay with changing how Rand battles Ishy. The end of the book doesn’t really match much of what gets established later. You can tell Jordan rethought some things as he was working. 

[Mirefox]

Just now, fra85uk said:

 

Taking away from Rand his first iconic scene was utterly disappointing, i really have no words to explain how bad this is and how the distrust is high for the rest of the series.

Absolutely.  Rand needed a moment that put all other previous use of the OP to shame.  He didn’t get it.

 

Again, this just points out some of the show’s inconsistency.  We’ve been told that we needed 1/16 of this season devoted to Steppin because it was important to SHOW the devastating effects of losing a bond, something that couldn’t just be TOLD.  But then when we need to SHOW the power of the Dragon Reborn, his moment is given to the women in spectacular visual fashion and Rand gets a flash of bright light and TELLS Moiraine “I just destroyed the Dark One” as if that is some giant climatic cinematic moment.

 

Changing Tarwin’s Gap can be debated ad nauseum as a matter of “adaptation” but from a series arc point of view, Rand needed a moment he didn’t get.

 

I can’t really think of a great analogy off the top of my head, but it’s kind of like if they remade Star Wars and showed Luke finally letting go and using the force to “discover” a vent and the. Forgetting about him and having some massive space battle with spectacular visual heroics and Porkins ultimately dropping the bomb.  

[DigificWriter]

I want to take a moment to give credit and kudos to @JenniferL for starting to steer the discussion somewhere that isn't just blind outrage regardless of her own personal feelings on the episode.

Edited December 24, 2021 by DigificWriter