tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[VooDooNut]

12 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

A clearer pic of damane;

They look like giant pacifiers to me.

[Mailman]

13 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

A clearer pic of damane;

What im guessing is that the Gold things over the mouth are the collar or maybe the shoulder things as well and the 2 behind are the sul'dam

 

No physical leash

[Variant]

22 hours ago, Kelin said:

They won't. This show isn't about the Dragon at all. It's about the women, and only them.  The men apparently don't matter at all (Perrin? Lan? They did absolutely nothing in the finale).

 

I find it fascinating.  I read the WOT and I remembered how many incredible male and female characters were in those books.  How they all had strengths and weaknesses and a part to play in a larger interwoven narrative.

 

What I'm getting from the show is that all the male characters needed to be taken down a few pegs and all the major events have to be retold so that the women are the focal point of all the action and that most of the basic story structure is thrown out in favor of something much more confusing.

[Variant]

3 hours ago, dwn said:

The Seanchan introduction was just kind of nonsensical. I'd have likely had the girl see the red sails on the horizon and left it there. To really give the Seanchan impact they needed to fight someone--anyone--other than an eight-year-old on an empty coast.[/quote]

 

Personally it would make more sense to me that they clashed with say, a vessel rather than a beach...

 

 

3 hours ago, dwn said:

 

The redesign of the a'dam is odd as well. It's likely to better telegraph it on screen, but I don't like the way it turned out. Perhaps the collar+leash+bracelet wasn't visible enough, or posed safety/logistical problems. Also, we know the leash isn't integral to the a'dam, so maybe they'll use them in different contexts. Overall it's the same problem I have with the design of the great serpent rings: to be believable on-screen a design needs to be plausibly functional. These were visually confusing, at best.

 

Any collar would have done.  Perhaps they didn't like the visual, but (we're not supposed to like it).

[Gothic Flame]

17 minutes ago, Mailman said:

What im guessing is that the Gold things over the mouth are the collar or maybe the shoulder things as well and the 2 behind are the sul'dam

 

No physical leash

The sul'dam behind them are wearing gold bracers...maybe somehow connected.

[Variant]

7 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

 

Fidelity is not an absolute universal standard.

 

Certainly not.  However, what you throw out has to be beaten by what you include.

 

The folks at Amazon think they are better writers than Jordan was, I don't (or rather I am sincerely unconvinced from what I've seen). 

 

A great adaptation of the wheel of time could certainly be made and we could have changes that kept the heart of the story intact, instead it is a re-write where we are being told that the showrunners know better.

 

The plot changes I am seeing are for the most part nonsense.  I don't care about adding side stories, or more watchable love stories or characterization, the plot of the wheel of time is barely holding together as far as I can see and thousands of pages of masterwork thrown out.

[Bruan]

Well, back when the first few episodes came out, I was talking about how they changed the foundation and now they’ll be building a completely different story on it. This season finale only confirmed this. I bought an Amazon prime membership just to watch this show. I’ll be canceling it now I think unless a post Christmas binge watch convinces me I’m judging the show too harshly. But I doubt it. there isn’t much else on Prime video catching my eye. I won’t bother with season two unless I see some combination of reviews that convince me Rafe and Co. saw the errors of their ways and are making a sincere effort to bring things back on track combined with one of those free month of Prime offers... 

 

For those that love the show, I’m glad you like it. As for me, I hope it gets cancelled, the rights go up for grabs and one day someone decides to make a more faithful adaptation. I’ve waited a few decades so far, I can wait a couple more for something good to come around. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Bruan

[Vambram]

The Wheel of Time Showrunner Answers Our Burning Questions About Season Finale

 

 

I thought this was a good article. What do y'all think?

[notpropaganda73]

I don’t know if people recognise my username yet, as I’m pretty new to the forums. But I think it’s fair to say I’m a defender of the show. 
 

That was awful.

 

I think the Seanchan tease sums up everything wrong. What, who are these people, why should I care? Oh are they bad? Oh wait, are they channelinrg!? Cool… Weird they’re just sailing in to an abandoned area… just one girl there… oh so they’re gonna channel waves at an empty shore, apart from that one wee girl… cool

 

Like, they set up the Blue sister going west to investigate things, why not use that?!?

 

There is so much I genuinely hated about this episode, I thought it was awful. Only positive thing was Ishy. If only we’d had more of his meddling throughout the season. 

[JaimAybara]

After rewatching, I will say the two things that I did like. We got much better dream sequences, (where have these been all season?) and we did get the speech from Lan, but I give the speech a 50/50 because it didn’t land quite right, did they add to it? But those were the parts I did enjoy. 

[notpropaganda73]

Just to add on to my first reaction - it is very much a raw post. But as a TV show I don’t think the episode really works. The Rand/DO/Ishy stuff is interesting but there’s been no build to it. It’s literally - oh that flamey guy from 5 episodes ago? Cool. But from there it’s good stuff, the Ishy actor is great.

 

Everything else in the episode is frankly bad and not earned. Padan Fain whistles a couple times throughout the entire season and now he shows up. Why should anyone care? The actor is great, why have they not used him more?

 

Perrin runs around looking serious but literally does nothing. There are two Fades and Padan Fain with Mat’s dagger - again, ignore the books. We have seen in the show that Fades are super dangerous. We’ve seen that the dagger is crazy dark dangerous. But the Fades what, half-kill people? Because we know Uno isn’t actually dead. So are they just incompetent? Also Loial isn’t dead. So why should we care about the dagger? 
 

Egwene and Nynaeve… awful. Nyn didn’t suffer any block and Eg just walked around looking starstruck. Where is their payoff from the whole season? 

I just thought it was weak as a finale for the show they’ve built. So many missed opps. 
 

The Rand stuff was probably the strongest but none of it felt earned because we hadn’t met the DO/Ishy before now! 
 

The open was ok. Liked the setup but something felt not quite right about the scene. 
 

anyway. Rant over

[ilovezam]

Rafe said some of the writers never read the books and it really shows.

 

The fact that they called LTT "the Dragon Reborn" shows how little they care about the lore.

 

What a soul-crushingly bad finale. I still can't believe Rand never had a moment in the entirety of Season 1.

 

?

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

2 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

The fact that they called LTT "the Dragon Reborn" shows how little they care about the lore.

It would have been redundant to call him the dragon since his third (honorific) name Telamon literally means "the dragon".

 

55 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

I think the Seanchan tease sums up everything wrong.

I find the massive facial tatoos to be particularly bad, suggesting they are combining the Seanchan and Shara cultures. 

[Sabio]

22 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

They're not.  Sorry.  Every complaint I've seen about "weak men" has been nonsense.  Having someone else do something doesn't make the original character weak.  Having someone not do something doesn't make them weak.

Lan was a consumate badass through the entire series, just not an emotionless rock.  He repeatedly does amazing things but because it doesn't come with some big flashy move.

I mean seriously, other than Abell Cauthon can we have an example of this supposed weakness?  Because as a man, I don't feel the male characters are weak, I don't feel like the female characters are dominating any more than I'd expect out of the world.

Honestly besides watching him so easily disarm Rand, Lan hasn't done much badass.  He did nothing in Episode 8.  He didn't even know how to track someone he has been with for 20 years.  I don't think there are alot of weak men in the series yet, but Moiraine, Nyn, and Egwene have done most of the fighting and protecting so far.

[Sabio]

6 minutes ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

I find the massive facial tatoos to be particularly bad, suggesting they are combining the Seanchan and Shara cultures. 

That's what I also thought, but if you look at their faces it seems very shiny for tats.  I wonder if instead of tats they paint their faces.  Not that is much of a difference, but I immedietly thought of Sharans also.

[ilovezam]

2 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Lan was a consumate badass through the entire series, just not an emotionless rock.  He repeatedly does amazing things but because it doesn't come with some big flashy move.

He killed like three Trollocs in Episode 1 and not much else the rest of the season. I don't think it comes across at all that he's a god with the blade.

 

They also do things like make Agelmar/LTT stupid while the women who were opposing them turned out to be 100% right. There's not much nuance left once you go there 

[bombadillio]

Personally, 

 

I've been reading the books since Eye of the World came out. I've read them over 18 times. 

 

I re-read, Eye of the World just for this season. To say I'm underwhelmed is an understatement. Meanwhile my friends who never read the books enjoyed this finale. Key point  they NEVER  read the books

 

Yet we all have the same issues, 

 

1. Poor CGI

2  Production dollars don't show. 

3. Editing, cutting and flow feel like a college student at times put it together. 

4. Writing could use serious work. 

 

Story line, I think we are very far past it being aligned. I read enough viewpoints and agree now it had to be done for TV. Yet, did it have to be brutalized so harshly? 

 

I think the writers wanted to take key points and out them all into this finale like a bullet point list. 

 

It does not flow nor make sense. I.e. Horn ? of Valere is under the throne? Like seriously.... 

Or any of the other drastic changes. 

 

Nyn being cured from what looks like death? 

Seal of the Dark one being that big? 

 

If this is what 100m looks like we're screwed and I really hope they step up as I'm not impressed. 

 

For $100m it should be art and stand the test of time lime LOTR does 20 years later. The dragon there looks better from 20 years ago than any of the CGI we saw here. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by bombadillio

[Variant]

6 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

They also do things like make Agelmar/LTT stupid while the women who were opposing them turned out to be 100% right. There's not much nuance left once you go there 

 

From what I am seeing (and hoping I am wrong) LTT isn't just stupid, it seems like they are writing it so that he is the main culprit  and that the person he was arguing with told him flatly exactly what was going to  happen...

 

That scene should have been at the height of the war of power where LTT leads everyone he can find in a desperate attempt to end the madness released earlier.  Now it will be him arrogantly trying to remove the dark one from the pattern from the beginning.

[Gothic Flame]

14 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Honestly besides watching him so easily disarm Rand, Lan hasn't done much badass.  He did nothing in Episode 8.  He didn't even know how to track someone he has been with for 20 years. 

I guess they still have to keep building up Nynaeve. I mean they were on horses and Moiraine did say where she was going to begin with...

[Sabio]

10 hours ago, Finfolfin said:

If it is the Shadar Logoth dagger then Uno, Ingtar and Loial are dead. If they aren't dead then they nerfed it, we are yet to know either way.

I hope he doesn't have the dagger yet, since we have no idea what Moiraine ever did with it.  If he has the dagger they at least need it show how he got it.  To simply say he has the dagger will be confusing.  Rafe said Mat was going back to Tar Valon, so maybe Mat will get the dagger there then Fain steals it from him.

 

Ingtar wasn't there, the actor left so he was replaced with that Lord Yakota.  The new Ingtar will appear is Season 2 it seems.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

18 minutes ago, bombadillio said:

For $100m it should be art and stand the test of time lime LOTR does 20 years later. The dragon there looks better from 20 years ago than any of the CGI we saw here. 

What dragon?  Goblins, orks, elves, ents, trolls, a balrog and the winged mounts of the nazgul are all not dragons.  

[Gothic Flame]

4 minutes ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

Goblins, orks, elves, ents, trolls, a balrog and the winged mounts of the nazgul are all not dragons.  

But they were done well...

[Bruan]

6 minutes ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

What dragon?  Goblins, orks, elves, ents, trolls, a balrog and the winged mounts of the nazgul are all not dragons.  

dragon, goblin, troll... Who can really tell the difference until after you kill them and add up the XP and divvy up the treasure? Until then they all look the same...

Edited December 25, 2021 by Bruan

[DigificWriter]

Paranoid Fain definitely has the Shadar Logoth dagger.

 

However, Loial  isn't dead, as per Rafe.

[Gothic Flame]

Big difference in xp. Balrogs and dragons vs gobs and orcs...