tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[king of nowhere]

I liked this episode less than others.

the dialogue when they said "the fortress will fall" three times in three lines was too telegraphed, way too cluncky. it's the first time i complain of that. And for 5000 trollocs???? the real borderlanders would laugh at 5000 trollocs. the real borderlanders have a name for being assaulted by 5000 trollocs: they call it "last tuesday".

Speaking of clunky dialogue, last episode i wanted to see lan put up some resistance with nynaeve. here he utters one of his famous sentences from the book - but in a context that makes no sense. after bedding nynaeve, he tells her they can't be with each other? and without further explanation, either. why? what? if i hadn't read the book, i'd be utterly dumbfounded.

 

And the seanchan introduction? what did they do to the damane? but most of all: why the hell would they start a tsunami on an empty coast? an empty coast with a big cliff behind, so one of the few places where a massive tsunami wouldn't do any damage - except perhaps to a child passing there.

seanchans weren't mass murderers; even in their first appearance, which is quite different from their later characterization, where the brutality was toned down. they showed up, told everyone they had to obey, then they went on, business as usual. they definitely did not unleash a tsunami on an unknown shore.

Yes, I see that they needed to show an army of channelers. After showing just 5 channelers stopping an army of trollocs (way too strong, by the way. the white tower has 1000 channelers, if 5 can stop an army like that, then armies aren't threatening anymore), they wanted to show those newcomers with dozens of channelers, so we could get an "oh crap" moment. unfortunately, it doesn't make sense.

 

the battle was bad, bordering on terrible. i get the feeling it would have been terrible, if only they had it fought in the open. the men go in the fortress shooting arrows, while women who can channel stay in an empty field. how about those women go in the fortress and hit with the power from cover? or do something before the men are all killed?

 

the scene also introduces big changes to world lore. You can kill someone linked in a circle by overdrawing through them; in the books, you couldn't. this has all kind of abuse potential, and just for a scene that wasn't needed. Egwene was a crappy healer, and here she heals nynaeve. what if her lack of healing ability becomes part of the plot? are they making all channelers equally good at healing?

 

Finally, in the blight there are no trees trying to eat the characters. no insects with deadly stingers. no mutated animals. what are the dangers of the blight? we see some corpses, no more.

 

granted, there are things i liked. i liked padan fain. i liked the eye of the world. i liked the prologue. I admit that the ending of the first book was confusing and unsatisfying, and the tv show wasn't worse and may even be a bit better. I'm still going to wait with trepidation for the second season.

But for the first time, there's lots of things I didn't like, and I can't reconcile with. in earlier episodes there were things i didn't like, but i could see why they were included. not this time.

My trust that rafe knows what he's doing, that his master plan for "delivering the same character arcs" can work, has taken a hit.

rafe has done what is a very common sin in hollywood: doing nonsensical things for emotional impact. they do stuff to get a reaction, and they get a reaction, and then you analyze things a but and you see it's all stupid, and it loses everything it was trying to achieve and make a mockery of itself. I don't know, maybe those creative types aren't used to thinking things through? Or maybe they just think viewers are morons and won't think past the initial emotional impact? Let's throw a tsunamy against a deserted cliff with a child in front of it, that's a wonderful idea to show how powerful we are!

[RhienneAgain]

Finally caught up with this episode and most of the comments.

 

After reading a few pages of comments before watching I was expecting to hate thos episode but actually ended up really loving the Rand and "DO" parts. Best part of the series so far for me by miles. Acting was really good, writing somehow captured the characters really well and the I think the changes to plot here were an improvement; they incorporated lots of good elements from the books but recast in a simpler, more visually compelling way. This is the stuff of good adaptations in my book.

 

The rest of the episode was a lot less satisfying. There are plenty of good bits in there, but they're all jumbled in with rubbish sloppy writing and world building. For example, I loved the way the circle of women was shown visually and I think this scene did a great job of demonstrating the allure and danger of channeling. But at the same time this scene had the bizarre pseudo-resurection of Nynaeve by Egwene which changes so many aspects of lore so casually and for very little purpose that I can see.

 

The writers seem to be playing very fast and loose with the rules of RJ's magic system. I understand it may have needed modification to translate to TV but there is no sense of cohesion with the changes; it feels lazy.

 

Thoughts/Questions

Does Nynaeve have a block? Are blocks even a thing in the TV series? I'm guessing the burnout recovery impacts Nynaeve and I'm assuming the writers want to make her cautious of circled to make her linking with Rand to heal saidin a big deal (and possibly the Bowl of the Winds circle, too) but those things are already big deals. I don't get why they're adding new dimensions to her character when there is already too much to do justice to.

 

What's going on with Moiraine's and Lan's bond..? All that set up with Steppin and in left thinking what was the point. I'm hoping I'm misinterpreting and someone can explain it to me, but my take is Lan can't tell the difference between the bond being masked and broken...in which case there is no big emotional impact on him (or any Warder beyond losing a connection to a long standing friend). So Steppin's suicide was not related to the bond being broken and instead he was just really sad about Ketene dying...in which case how is an episode setting up the nature of the Warder bond justified..?

 

 

[Brytac]

21 hours ago, CaddySedai said:

Honestly I liked it. 
 

It diverged hard from the books so I think this is where some people get off the trolly. 

 

For the rest of us who stay on are going to be in for some interesting stuff. 

 

Yeah Id have loved for the series to hold true to the stories. 

 

But way I see it - I have no idea what will happen now. 
 

To me this is a new story now - one I am walking into blindly like the non readers will. 

 

I have an idea of the forest I am walking into, so at least I have that. But the map is old and hasn’t been updated in years. 

Thank god the Game of Thrones shown makers didnt think like the WOT ones did.

 

Thats why GOT became a worldwide mega hit, they didnt mess around and think 'hey, you know what, wouldnt it be cool if Eddard jumped up and stabbed Joffrey and then flew away on a Superwoman version of Caitlyn stark'...coz...hey that would be cool!!

 

They knew the books were popular for a reason...and were clever enough to follow the story even though a few minor details were changed.

 

[fra85uk]

Well  GoT at least had some very good seasons before going in the mud

 

 

 

[Meskell]

Did anyone notice that when the men went to fight the Trollocs there were 5,000 Trollocs but when the women went to fight the Trollocs it was stated that there were 20,000, 30,000 or even 40,000. 

[Meskell]

Can someone please explain to me what a ‘tracking tell’ is?

 

That Moiraine tells everyone who she is, where she is going and writes notes on trees to make sure people know exactly where she is at all times?

[VooDooNut]

8 minutes ago, Meskell said:

Can someone please explain to me what a ‘tracking tell’ is?

 

That Moiraine tells everyone who she is, where she is going and writes notes on trees to make sure people know exactly where she is at all times?

Pretty sure Nynaeve just slipped an air tag in Moiraine's cloak.

 

Not that I know anything of tracking, but it could be reasoned that Lan primarily scouts ahead so he might not often have the opportunity to analyze the tracks Moiraine leaves behind as well as someone in pursuit of them (Nynaeve) would be able to.

[dwn]

29 minutes ago, Meskell said:

Can someone please explain to me what a ‘tracking tell’ is?

 

That Moiraine tells everyone who she is, where she is going and writes notes on trees to make sure people know exactly where she is at all times?

A 'tell' as in a behaviour that gives her away, like a poker 'tell'. Thus, Moiraine does something that makes her trail distinguishable from others and thereby easier to follow. How this applies to Moiraine on horeseback vs. Moiraine on foot is best not dwelled upon.

[Cellardur]

39 minutes ago, Brytac said:

Thank god the Game of Thrones shown makers didnt think like the WOT ones did.

 

Thats why GOT became a worldwide mega hit, they didnt mess around and think 'hey, you know what, wouldnt it be cool if Eddard jumped up and stabbed Joffrey and then flew away on a Superwoman version of Caitlyn stark'...coz...hey that would be cool!!

 

They knew the books were popular for a reason...and were clever enough to follow the story even though a few minor details were changed.

 

Again this is not really true. GOT made several changes in the early few seasons and in my opinion they were for the better. The first three GOT books were excellent, but the series was even better in the early days despite the changes. 

 

They also had 8 seasons and 10 episodes to do what is expected to be 5 books, but they cut out lots some in my opinion rightfully and changed a lot, even before they ran out of source material. They also invented many scenes such as the Harrenhal scenes notably the Tywin and Arya scenes thought by many to be some of the best scenes.

 

Here some notable changes. They drastically aged everyone up. Turned Ned into an excellent warrior.

Completely changed Renly's character.

Got rid of all of Stannis great moments.

Changed names etc

Changed Loras

Made Joffrey magnitudes worse than the book and invented most of his evil actions.

Took Cersei's actions and gave then to Joffrey.

 

 

 

 

[Mailman]

8 hours ago, Sabio said:

I noticed the Seanchean channelers didn't seem to be collared and chained now.  Not a ground breaking change but something I noticed. Maybe the giant pacifier controls them or the gold breast plate.  I am a little confused about what causing a giant tidal wave on what appeared to be a largely uninhabited beach was suppose to accomplish. I think instead of just a little girl the scene should of been from the POV of the people in Falme seeing this come in at them.

I thought it looked like they had something over there mouths

I took it as the 2 standing in front with the gold things over the mouth where Damane and the one standing behind was the Suldam

[Mailman]

10 minutes ago, dwn said:

A 'tell' as in a behaviour that gives her away, like a poker 'tell'. Thus, Moiraine does something that makes her trail distinguishable from others and thereby easier to follow. How this applies to Moiraine on horeseback vs. Moiraine on foot is best not dwelled upon.

It also leads us to believe that Lan who has travelled with Moiraine for over 20 years and is considered a excellent tracker and incredible at disguising trails has not noticed the tell.

 

Simply unbelievable.

[Mailman]

33 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Pretty sure Nynaeve just slipped an air tag in Moiraine's cloak.

 

Not that I know anything of tracking, but it could be reasoned that Lan primarily scouts ahead so he might not often have the opportunity to analyze the tracks Moiraine leaves behind as well as someone in pursuit of them (Nynaeve) would be able to.

He would have had to disguise trails during that time and its 20 years.

Scouting would also mean checking enemies are not approaching you from behind as well.

[dwn]

3 minutes ago, Mailman said:

It also leads us to believe that Lan who has travelled with Moiraine for over 20 years and is considered a excellent tracker and incredible at disguising trails has not noticed the tell.

 

Simply unbelievable.

I'm not as super offended as some people seem to be, but it's definitely a bizarre writing choice. I'd have just had Lan head out after them without explanation--why wouldn't he (or Nynaeve) be able to follow Moiraine and Rand under normal circumstances?

[Mailman]

Theres also no mention that the eye of the world is not stationary in the TV series so why would Lan need to track them he could just go directly to it.

[Yojimbo]

17 minutes ago, Mailman said:

It also leads us to believe that Lan who has travelled with Moiraine for over 20 years and is considered a excellent tracker and incredible at disguising trails has not noticed the tell.

 

Simply unbelievable.

C'mon. He's just a warder.   He can't be expected to be competent.   It's not like he's a village girl who's never been 3 miles from where she was born or something.

[dwn]

9 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Theres also no mention that the eye of the world is not stationary in the TV series so why would Lan need to track them he could just go directly to it.

There is a suggestion of it, actually: Moiraine notes that Malkier is far closer to Tarwin's Gap than it was before. It's not particularly well written, but they're clearly going for the area around the DO's prison being all reality-shifty and whatnot.

[Mailman]

7 minutes ago, dwn said:

There is a suggestion of it, actually: Moiraine notes that Malkier is far closer to Tarwin's Gap than it was before. It's not particularly well written, but they're clearly going for the area around the DO's prison being all reality-shifty and whatnot.

Did not catch that I thought they where speaking about the creep of the blight being closer to the Gap each year not that the eye itself had moved.

 

I cant stomach a rewatch to check at this point maybe someone else can confirm

[Vambram]

13 hours ago, dwn said:

I liked most of the broad strokes, but there were a number of things that didn't work well, or make sense, as others have pointed out above.

 

I liked the cold opening, though I agree the tone should have been different to show the desperation of the War of the Shadow. Latra Posae predicting what would happen is just a TV thing to remind viewers how saidin was tainted.

 

They really didn't need to give Moiraine a tracking tell--Lan could have just followed them on his own and refuse to take the others so he could move faster.

 

The battle scenes were pretty meh--clearly showing the limits of their budget. The myrddraal still look cool. The blight and Malkier matte painting were pretty bad.

 

Padan Fain and the Horn of Valere worked fine. I think we should have seen someone we know let Fain into the keep, rather than using the pass-phrase thing. Perrin's struggle with violence is interesting, but I think his scenes were poorly directed. Assuming Loial's death is a fake-out, it's kinda weird.

 

Amalisa's wilder circle was silly, but I'm okay with it. I like that she died from lack of control, but I feel Nynaeve should have just hit her over the head with a rock or something. The Nynaeve dead-not-dead thing was kinda pointless.

 

Ishamael was great. I like that it's never confirmed he isn't the DO, but we can easily tell it's some guy from the AoL given his clothing. That Moiraine saw him, and that he channeled like any other man, will likely feed into her research quest next season. I agree she's shielded--not sure where they're going with that.

 

Rand's choice worked well for drama. Interesting that they pulled stuff from Egwene's accepted test. Whatever he ended up doing was extremely vague, though. Looks like they're merging the seven seals into one, which is probably easier to understand than the metaphysical weirdness of the DO's prison in the books. I expect they dropped Shayol Ghul so viewers wouldn't confuse it with Dragonmount.

 

Padan Fain's speech about this being the first battle was really good--possibly the best part of the episode. Ishamael should have echoed that before he poofed.

 

 

I was going to make a long post detailing what I liked and didn't like about episode 8. However, after reading yours, I realize that you have already said what I was going to say and I couldn't improve upon it. 

 

i.e.  I agree with you and I couldn't have said it better myself. 

[Raezold]

19 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Did not catch that I thought they where speaking about the creep of the blight being closer to the Gap each year not that the eye itself had moved.

 

I cant stomach a rewatch to check at this point maybe someone else can confirm

 

It goes like this:

-What are those?

The Seven Towers of Malkier
-Malkier? That's where Lan said he was born. It looks like it's been that way a thousand years.

Forty at most. Three years ago it was miles from Tarwin's Gap. It's just another sign that the Dark One's strength is building.

*they then continue to touch everything around them even though just before Moiraine said not to touch anything*

[Mailman]

8 minutes ago, Raezold said:

 

It goes like this:

-What are those?

The Seven Towers of Malkier
-Malkier? That's where Lan said he was born. It looks like it's been that way a thousand years.

Forty at most. Three years ago it was miles from Tarwin's Gap. It's just another sign that the Dark One's strength is building.

*they then continue to touch everything around them even though just before Moiraine said not to touch anything*

Yep thats what i thought for me thats talk about the increase in the blight not movement of the Eye

[7th age]

Decade old (on-off) Lurker here,  so let me start by saying hello and a thousand thank yous to the people running/administering this site.

 

Lots of thing I feel like talking about, though many have been touched on in this thread and im too short on time to go into it now, so Ill just focus on the part  I havent seen mentioned here.

 

Now, Ill have to rewatch parts of ep. 8 and see whether that changes anything, but out of curiosity ill just ask:

 

Who else felt that this episode, and in particular the engagement at the eye was a 100% win for the shadow?

Now I realize thats not the intention of the showrunners, as Rand seems to withstand Ishys temptation, but lets look at what Rand actually acomplishes here:

 

He doesnt save the army...

They dont find the Horn at the eye.

They dont find the banner...

The seal gets shattered(by Rand??? by Ishy??? if it is Ishy it happens the very second Rand "defeats "him)

Presumably some or all the Forsaken get freed as a consequence.

M. gets stilled...

Presumably, since no green man and no hard winter before, there will be no sudden Spring as a sign of the light winning.

 

This doesnt go into whether or not you like the changes or not, can anyone tell me any upside for the light/anything Rand accomplishes here?

 

 

[Gothic Flame]

A clearer pic of damane;

[SingleMort]

10 minutes ago, 7th age said:

 

 

This doesnt go into whether or not you like the changes or not, can anyone tell me any upside for the light/anything Rand accomplishes here?

 

 

He'll have one heck of a story to tell the fellas during poker night at the Winespring Inn

[LoRd PyrO]

2 hours ago, TheMountain said:

Fat chance of that happening. His Q&A saying that he knew all along he was going to lose hardcore book fans tells me that he is doubling down.

I feel like Rafe is just outright stealing the story. IMHO

[sw0mp_d0nk3y]

1 hour ago, Mailman said:

Theres also no mention that the eye of the world is not stationary in the TV series so why would Lan need to track them he could just go directly to it.

Exactly, Moraine's "tell" was that she already telled them that she was going to the eye of the world.  Good thing the clever Wisdom caught that.