tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[7th age]

6 hours ago, CanisNoir said:

My understanding of the ending of EotW was that everyone played into Ishy's plan and released the Foresaken on the world. I saw the book ending as being an L for the Light as well, very similar to how the show played out.

 

Apparently some other people see it that way as well and  I really really dont understand how you get to that conclusion. The one argument in favor seems to be that Ishy planted some (or all) of the "seeds" that led them to the eye (which requires taking Baalzamon at his word to some degree).

But simply looking at the results this is what I see.

 

The light gains:

-The Horn!!!, probably the most powerful object in the whole series

-The Banner

-2 Forsaken  that tried to take the pure Saidin for themselves get denied that power and killed, another one chased of

- Army gets saved

- Winter to spring, as the dragon is one with land

(+  Rand gets a message direct message from God...)

(+ not sure if I remember correctly, but doesnt the blight recede for a bit which would be a first in the history of Randland)

- and possibly as some here have theorized, the pool is what allows Rand to jumpstart his strength without accruing much of the madness

edit: - this is minor and doesnt play a role until much later, but I think rand here first notices the connection between the Forsaken and the DO which later allows him to cut off Asmodean

 

The Dark:

-apparently some believe Rand breaks the seal by accident, I dont see how as they are still at cuendillar strength at this point and no amount of Saidin could break them. But more importantly A. and B. are already free before Rand ever gets to channel., how would they be free if the seal only breaks after???

In my mind the sealbreaking happens as they arrive at the eye, but (temporal) correlation is not causation or rather it is the pattern that demands this confrontation and therefore times the breaking with their arrival (or their arrival with the breaking)

 

-the GM dies

- M. gets wounded

 

 

This is an honest question, as I am seriously baffled by your view on this. How do you see this as a L for  the L / a victory for the Dark???

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by 7th age
forgot a point

[7th age]

6 hours ago, CanisNoir said:

Also, Rand isn't incompetent one in this situation. Moiraine and Suian are.

 

Both know the power of dreams and that the Dark One can manipulate them, yet both allowed Dreams to bring an untrained, clueless shepherd to The Eye of the World, armed only with a Sa Angreal and the words "The power will come when your life depends on it" as guidance. I don't blame the good meaning but clueless shepherd for the way things went down. I blame the super powerful seemingly all knowing women who, in their arrogance, believed they were immune to the very thing Moiraine warned the Emmonds Field Five about - the power of dreams,

 

 

Well yes and no. Id certainly agree that Moiraine and Siuan got tricked here and the show kinda makes it clear because of Siuans drams and possibly Mins viewing of M.

But the actual channeling is Rands part. And arguing that he cant be expected to do this right is bit of an overstrech if you consider Nyn and Egs channeling this season. They didnt have any training either, yet consistently manage pretty well (frankly the first part that threw me off about the circle was Nynaeve just joining, for a moment when they went out I thought now they will show her block and only later perhaps to save Egwene or others she will get angry enough to channel, but no, shes calm and collected and has seemingly no trouble touching the source)

 

 

 

[Guest Testeria]

2 hours ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

Perhaps for some.

 

The majority of non-readers that I've experienced the show with at this point have good questions but little in the way of confusion.

 

Like for example:

1. why women so easily sleep with men out of wedlock? Do they have ways to control fertility, abortion is common, bastard children are accepted? I don't know.

2. why is dragon reborn important? He mostly seems to be a danger to the world, nothing more.

3. what is Morraine plan? It seems so much like "lets put a grenade into a microwave and see what will happen". She had like 20 years at least to think about it all, read things, prepare. She should have speeches ready, legends and prophecies to cite, many different plans just in case. But she is mostly suicidal (like Angemar) and gets what she deserves really - lost her power and abandoned by Rand who realized she is just stupid and despises her.

4. What is Angemar plan? I mean - they are just sitting there their whole lives preparing for a war. Why didn't they dig a f**n ditch???? (Or two, or five).

5. how magic works? why the training? If it is enough to make a circle to kill an army - why there is no circle in episode 4? I know there are two different kids of magic (kind of Yin Yang) from this forum but not from the movie. What are the restrictions? It feels like deus ex machina most of the time.

6. What are all those people eating? Are they fed by magic? I just started to read the book and there EVERYBODY are worried about long winter and lack of food. Everybody are talking about it. Here people just eat.

7. we have whitecloaks killing aes sedai just outside the Tar Valon. Why is that? Is their (political, magical) power so insignificant? Or are whitecloaks so powerful?

8. why are the girls in ep. 8 making their show on the plains? It really make no sense. They should either in front of their husbands to save them - or under the protection of city walls.

9. why trained swordsman with exceptional blade cannot kill one trolloc but old lady with a pan can?

10. why wards are so inept with fighting? if they are supposed to be some kind of bodyguards and not comfort boys for aes sedai shouldn't they be a little better at it? In ep. 1 Lan seems to have this skill but later he is completely lost.

11. why are people from small village so worldly (both in behavior and appearance)? In the book Jordan went to great length to show how lost they are in the world - why in the show they all feel like band of new-yorkers?

12. why Chinese people on the ships attack a lone girl on the beach with magic tsunami? Is she a real dragon reborn?

 

I could go on and on. I get used to this kind of inconsistencies because they are common in all Hollywood shows. The Witcher has the exact same problem, it just has better acting and more interesting characters.

 

Still the show is colorful and fun overall. I just need to not think too much about things. ?

 

[Guest Testeria]

38 minutes ago, RextheDog said:

 

what were his options;

 

a)defend the gap by maning the only structure between it and the blight

b)....

 

Prepare? Dig a ditch? Ask magic users to do the show IN FRONT of the wall? Dig another ditch?

I mean - they were sitting there their whole lives, right? Ask Mannerheim for help maybe?

 

The whole scene reminds me of Japanese soldiers hitting their helmets with grenades in Ivo Jima. But for ceremonial suicide he should wear his ancestors armor, right? No, he disrespected those too. I understand that his sister needed one for her show - but they could easily add second armor for the tv version, no? They changed so many things anyway... what is the meaning of him disrespecting his ancestors? Writers made a great deal of effort to show us this so what is the point? Is he tainted by Dark One or just that stupid?

 

I mean in Gemmell's Legend they are defending similar pass. Can You see the difference?

[Wassup]

4 hours ago, Yojimbo said:

Edited to add: With regards to Nynaeve, yes, they established healing in other scenes, but what she did was like a bonfire (or a "raging sun")  compared to a candle.   Why can't Rand have that kind of moment too?  They established a form of traveling using the ter'angreal, and he simply did it without it.  Again, JMO that the audience would be able to make that connection.

I had this same thought initially, especially from a book reader’s perspective. 
After a second time and considering non-reader comments, I think his moment had its own impact. 
The “DO” made short work of Moiraine with little effort while having a conversation with Rand in another reality at the same time. He gave the impression of being way more powerful than What we had seen in the show up to that point. 
Rand confronted him in both realities and took him out with one shot. It was a shot that appeared to crack the cuendillar, which cannot be broken. 
it wasn’t as flashy as destroying the trolling army. However, it should be impressive based on these points.  It just lacked the visual spectacle that we wanted. 

[VooDooNut]

1 minute ago, Wassup said:

I had this same thought initially, especially from a book reader’s perspective. 
After a second time and considering non-reader comments, I think his moment had its own impact. 
The “DO” made short work of Moiraine with little effort while having a conversation with Rand in another reality at the same time. He gave the impression of being way more powerful than What we had seen in the show up to that point. 
Rand confronted him in both realities and took him out with one shot. It was a shot that appeared to crack the cuendillar, which cannot be broken. 
it wasn’t as flashy as destroying the trolling army. However, it should be impressive based on these points.  It just lacked the visual spectacle that we wanted. 

I loved the revolving camera effect they did with this moment.

[Jackdaw_Fool]

1 hour ago, RextheDog said:

what were his options;

 

a)defend the gap by maning the only structure between it and the blight

b)....

Just to add to Testeria's great reply... This scene was awful because of the ludicrous apparent lack of preparation. The show makes it seem that those were the only options. But where were the scouts? Why didn't they know days or weeks in advance that a force of that size was amassing and heading to the gap? They were instead totally surprised. Oh Lord Agelmar, look! There's this huge trolloc force amassing at our doorstep! And we totally didn't invite them! The nerve! Their job by birthright is basically to defend the world from the forces of the dark one spilling forth from the blight, and apparently they don't even have scouts?

 

What a silly wall structure... Really? They need balistraria/arrow slits so strangely oversized weakening the wall structure AND need them as low as the second floor where basically the one thing they are defending against (trollocs) can easily climb to them? It's a structure designed to be defeated by trollocs. When they mentioned they had darkfriends within Fal Dara, they must have meant all the engineers.

 

They could have also spent some time devising some effective military tactics... (I'm not an expert... but I did watch LoTR! ) When the Shienarans mounted and Agelmar called out his "For the light! Shienar!" charge, I thought we would be seeing some dramatic cinematography similar to the charges by say Rohan against Sauron's forces at Minas Tirith. LOL - instead, they literally charge across the field and then... Dismount. "Right then, leave all your horses somewhere out of sight, men! We won't be needing them! We have this ridiculously ineffective wall to all die inside of! Climb on in!"

 

Could go on, but there is no point.

[RextheDog]

OK

 

can i ask....

 

lets say either/or/and

 

we had a scene with a ditch infront of the wall, and a few weak channelers were put infront of agelmars army (not behind, in reserve) would you have picked through that instead?

 

i know i would have.... that would have been worse

 

if there were issues with an armoured wall(and there was, its a pretty lame defence to be honest given you have hundreds of years to prepare), what obstacle would a ditch become?

 

also, there were scouts/fools in the blight, they were the ones with mushrooms growing out of their heads....and besides, i assumed(maybe wrongly) the trollocs used the ways to get there....which would point to the bigger flaw, why didnt they use the waygate to attck fal dara from behind the gap....not infront of it.

 

either way, plenty of real historical battles/campaigns can be picked apart with the same precision we pick apart high fantasy battles......for some reason we refuse to acknowledge some campaigns are just riddled with errors...

 

i mean, to dig deeper into the 'just retreat' angle, why even bother with the scouts, just retreat and forget about fal dara if thats the logical decision (based on the advancing blight, not a couple of thousand trollocs. )

 

 

 

the episode was far from perfect, but with a bit of context next season its nowhere near as bad as people are making out, i dont have endless confidence in the show runners, they seem too self indulgent to real nail the series, but its only a small tweak away from the L realising how done over they were....again, to me, one comment or scene about how that trolloc army was pulled back strategically would undo alot of the issues people have here with the show...

 

they lost the wall, and despite nearly burning out, they didnt even save fal dara type thing.....maybe Fain sends out a signal that the real task (the horn) is done and the trollocs are told to retreat....its a fair theory....

 

could happen, its not a huge leap....

[RextheDog]

the more you think about it the more the whole thing was set up to evacuate the throne room only....means theres a darkfriend in that lot....soldiers and channelers out of the city....

 

i really hope thats the result, makes the show better without changing it one bit.

 

Agelmars real error was leaving the horn insitu as the blight advanced, thing should have been hightailed to TV years ago.

[Chivalry]

2 hours ago, 7th age said:

 

 

Well yes and no. Id certainly agree that Moiraine and Siuan got tricked here and the show kinda makes it clear because of Siuans drams and possibly Mins viewing of M.

But the actual channeling is Rands part. And arguing that he cant be expected to do this right is bit of an overstrech if you consider Nyn and Egs channeling this season. They didnt have any training either, yet consistently manage pretty well (frankly the first part that threw me off about the circle was Nynaeve just joining, for a moment when they went out I thought now they will show her block and only later perhaps to save Egwene or others she will get angry enough to channel, but no, shes calm and collected and has seemingly no trouble touching the source)

 

 

 

 

I've said before that I don't like just how weak and uncertain Moraine has appeared in this adaptation. I think Rosamund Pike (along with Daniel Henney) is the MVP, she's terrific. But it seems that the WOT team has chosen to build up mystery and suspense at the expense of the overall story.

 

In the book, when the Forsaken handle Moraine so easily at the Eye of the World (treating her basically like a child), it hits like a ton of bricks. That's because we've seen Moraine battle countless minions of the DO with confidence and skill. The story built her up. Are the Forsaken that much more powerful than the strongest modern AS? Of course they are, and that's a powerful revelation at that point...

 

In Episode 8, the neutralization of Moraine doesn't pack nearly the same punch, because even Moraine has been diminished in this adaptation. We've seen her fail and flail and need rescuing by Nynaeve multiple times.

[Whittle]

Finally got a chance to watch ep 8. That was total hot garbage! I’m out. I’ll just continue my reread of the real Wheel of Time. The show can be whatever it wants to be but Wheel of Time it is not.

[7th age]

4 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

But then you have to drop the pre-conceived notion that the show is trying to make men weak.   Acknowledging depth and that ultimately just because someone looks good to a casual view doesn't mean they're actually looking good on the big picture.

 

Since this is a response to a response to a post of mine, but more importantly because this seems to be the main dividing point over which this fanbase splits I feel I should make myself very clear here.

 

For context let me first say that Im a lefty. I dont live in the USA but if I was Idve voted for Bernie. I also consider myself a first and second (but not third) wave feminist and I have attended anti-neonazi protests since I was 12. This is to dispell any notion that I am somehow "anti-woke". I wouldnt consider myself "woke" either (I hate that word, in part because it is used as a slur by people who often(but not always) are quite openly racist and misogynist, but mostly because it is imprecise)

Im also a trained physicist/scientist, meaning I was trained to seperate the analysis of a problem from the judgement that only follows after.

 

Now, when analyzing this one has to be very careful, because if you view something through a colored lens everything becomes monochromatic and most of the time, if you search for signs of something hard enough, you end up finding them and ignoring everything else. Certainly some of the "nerfing all the men"-crowd have fallen into this trap which amuses me greatly as it reminds me of the feminist complaint that female videogame characters (think LoL here) are often portrayed in a sexist way, scantily clad armor, big boobs etc. , which is true but completly ignores that the same is true for the men, i.e. giant muscles, chisseled chins etc...

 

 

 

That all being said, it is impossble for me to deny that modern feminist ideology has played a part in shaping this season. Whether or not I think that is good or bad in each individual case is immaterial to this at first.

 

 

Now there are plenty of other reasons that should be considered first when analysing this.

 

For example, the downpowering of Logain (he gets held by 2 -3 AS instead of 6 if i remember correctly) has nothing to do with a desire to "nerf men" and everything to do with an episode that doesnt work so well if most of the scenes happen in an overcrowded cave. Could you avoid this by changing the setting? Yes, but thats a whole lot of cost (lets remember here that most ppl think ep 4 was the best or at least close) for not a lot of gain (Logains accurate strength beyond he is strong is irrelavant to the series).

 

Similarly you can argue that showing the womens circle is important for Nynaeve and Egwene and gives us the river scene which I think most bookies liked, whereas showing the Village Council would do nothing similar for the boys(though it would show balance, but time is scarce).

There are other examples.

 

 

When we want to actually understand whether or not ideology plays a part in this season or not we first need to define what exactly we are talking about. In the shortest way possible, the heart of modern (third wave) feminism /wokeness in general is the denial of biological sex as a relevant factor and instead explaining everything in terms of gender or sociological/psychological sex (which to me is just as absurd as most right wing positions that try to postulate the opposite, obviously both biology AND sociology play a role in forming humans).

It also includes a normalizing of non heteronormative sexual relations(which I personally think is a good thing so long as it means being tolerant towards those that get born with these inclinations but can become a bad thing if it is expected to be the new norm, i.e. just because Im in favor of viewing LGBT people in the same light as everyone else doesnt negate the fact that the large majority  are plain old heteros)

 

Now these two "tropes" can be found abundantly throughout the season and this is where it becomes clear that at the very least this worldview of the showrunners has influenced their decision making, at worst they are actively trying to rebuild parts of the world of WoT in this image. At this point I will remind you guys that Rafe said this before the season ever started, he thinks there are things that Jordan would have written differently if he were to write the books today and he hopes to implement this ...

 

But lets get more concrete. In no less then 4 episodes in a row we get told/shown how normal homo/bi sexual relations are. Dana mentions it at length in ep 3 . we get humorously shocked Nyn in ep4,  Lan and Steppin talk about it in ep5 (which is actually very offensive as they almost imply that being gay/bi is a choice, a notion the gay community has fought for decades) and then we get Moirain and Siuan.

None of these thing bother me on their own, I expected Siuan and M. and I found Nyn reaction funny, but together they start to paint a picture here, because after all screen time is very very valuable...

 

Lets get to the first "trope", the denial of biological differences. Obviously this is not to mean that men have Boobs or can carry babies etc..  Rather it goes into into denying/minimizing the differences that come with men being physically superior but less socially/emotionally adept.

This is why we have scenes like Egwenes father being super worried, Steppin moping about instead of going out in a rageinduced berserkersuicide and ofc Lans whole transformation from "stoneface" to crying at a funeral and being quite in touch with his feelings. Again, this isnt necessarily bad. I think it works when it comes to Lan/Nyn especially because being stoic doesnt mean you are emotionally inept, just that you arent prone to showing emotions in public. I really didnt like it at the funeral, because here it seems forced to me (but thats just opinion). 

This also seems part of the reason why we get to see a whole lot of tears and crying and whining from Rand and Perrin. Im not saying that this was done bad or without incharacter reasons, but  it was a choice to focus, especially Perrins arc, on this. They could have chosen to highlight other parts just as well but didnt.

 

Now for the minimizing of difference in physical strength.

This starts with the Emondsfield women being the only resistance to the trollocs, goes on to Dana trapping and chasing Rand with a sword and lands in the sacrifice of the core principals of the Borderlanders(for people who claim to admire the diversity of RJs cultures they sure didnt  care about this one). The Borderlander culture is based on chivalry. They would rather die then let a women take a wound. Throughout the series there are loads and loads of rules set by women that the men have to and do follow, remember what Agelmar tells rand when  he wants to say goodbye to Egwene, they do not necessarily understand the womens rules, but they abide by them. So it is not a matter of disrespect. The price for this chivalry is the (afaik)  ONLY rule ever imposed on women by men, that is they are not allowed to fight shadowspawn / join the men fighting in the blight(not even Tenobia, queen of Saldea could break this even though she manages to ignore it at the LB and promptly gets herself killed). I wrote about this earlier, this always made supreme sense to me, for one because women on average are physically much weaker then men (womens football/soccer nationalteam cant win against an average U16 mens club even though at that age there is almost no height difference, also Siuan Sanche agrees, see the TGH lection with Nyn/Eg), but more importantly because while you can ask people to die in a hopeless fight against the shadow in order to protect their loved ones and most will be willing to take on enormous risk, but if you ask them to die WITH their loved ones/wives and especially children any decent husband/father will take his family and run.

But instead of showing this as one of many cultures we get to see loads of women with swords and armor and Amalisa calls on all women and children to stay and fight/die(after all she doesnt expect to win here).

 

Now finally for the part that doesnt need any "trope". In ep.1 Moiraine clearly states that "the arrogance of men" was responsible for the breaking. At the time I wrote this of as unreliable narration which made sense to me in a world where the prophecies are muddled, but the cold open of season 8 flatout confirms this to be true. It is not arrogance and desperation, it is not due to the fact that the plan of the women /LPD for whom if I remember correctly LTT orignally postponed his plan at first and only came back to it later after the womens plan became untenable, it is purely due to the arrogance of men (whereas the women were wise enough to exactly forsee the consequences of something that has never been done before...).

It is those last 2 things, both happening in ep8 that broke the camels back for me.

 

Note that I am not going into a lot of the complaints voiced here before:

- Lan getting responsibility for the break up of the group (M. says your losses are my losses, but she is unconscious at the time and  warns against it before) but not getting his decapitating a Fade moment; 

the whole tracking thing;

-M. Eg. Nyn. and Shaiel getting their visually awesome moments, most if not all of which I liked (someone noted earlier that badass moments dont make strong characters which might be true for the poster but is at least only half true for the vast majority of viewers, Nyns explosion as well as the fight are  a big reason ep.4 was so well received, also lets not kid ourselves people watched GoT because of battles and dragons and smart intrigue not because they enjoyed cersei drinking wine and looking out of a window) but there being nothing remotly similar for the men up to them giving Rands power moment to the women;

-giving Mat and Perrin nasty backgrounds and nasty endings (ones a potential DF at this point the other just lets his friend bleed out and the Horn just taken away, heck even if he follows the Way of the Leaf he couldve tried to at least block them and then get knocked down or wounded, the tinkers did it earlier)

-etc.

 On their own all these things can be explained by other factors which is why I dint include them in my original argument, but the sheer number of them adds weight to the general argument.

 

There is also at least one (very minor yet still I hoped for this before the season) aspect to this that i think is 100% positive, they managed to show non-gratitious nudity (bathhouse scene with the first selector), something that could be very helpful in properly implementing various scenes later one as well as something that I would not trust a hetero, non-nudist, man to get right.

 

 

All in all I think it is fair for everyone to judge the success and extent of these influences for themselves and we can argue/debate the merits/faults of them to our hearts content afterwards, but to actually say that there simply are no such influences, even after watching the whole season and actually reflecting on it is absurd.

 

 

 

ps. Im new here and certainly dont feel  in a position to demand new threads plus Im aware that this discussion was raging (and probably getting out of control sometimes) even after the first 3 episodes were released and I think the mods shut down some threads due to repetetivness and maybe toxcicity of the debate, but as this seems to be one of the main topics and we can now discuss this with the full season watched maybe it would be appropriate to concentrate this topic in a new thread, should the mods choose to do so so certainly feel free to transfer this post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ilovezam]

7 hours ago, Yojimbo said:

Why can't Rand have that kind of moment too?  They established a form of traveling using the ter'angreal, and he simply did it without it.  Again, JMO that the audience would be able to make that connection.

It's so easy to have him make a similar looking gateway and then stepping through it - he sees Egwene and Nynaeve struggling after Amalisa burns out and goes NOOOOOOOOOOO! - cue EoTW climax. We get that "raging sun" moment that was set up, Egwene/Nynaeve gets to put a sizeable dent in the armies, maybe in so doing saves a bunch of soldiers, yada yada.

 

Random Borderlands soldiers shouting: "He's here!" "The Creator!".  

 

Rafe doesn't seem to understand that it's okay for Nynaeve and Egwene to be weaker than the Dragon Reborn. Every female YouTuber I've been watching thinks that Rand's been robbed.

[Ralph]

1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

It's so easy to have him make a similar looking gateway and then stepping through it - he sees Egwene and Nynaeve struggling after Amalisa burns out and goes NOOOOOOOOOOO! - cue EoTW climax. We get that "raging sun" moment that was set up, Egwene/Nynaeve gets to put a sizeable dent in the armies, maybe in so doing saves a bunch of soldiers, yada yada.

But then we can't discover gateways because of Aviendha

 

1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

 

Random Borderlands soldiers shouting: "He's here!" "The Creator!".  

This is against the books

 

1 hour ago, ilovezam said:

 

Rafe doesn't seem to understand that it's okay for Nynaeve and Egwene to be weaker than the Dragon Reborn. Every female YouTuber I've been watching thinks that Rand's been robbed.

 

 

[EmreY]

3 hours ago, ilovezam said:

Rafe doesn't seem to understand that it's okay for Nynaeve and Egwene to be weaker than the Dragon Reborn. Every female YouTuber I've been watching thinks that Rand's been robbed.

 

I am male, and I agree with Rafe that it is OK for the DR to be underwhelming at this point in time.  I was both looking forward and dreading the "sun" moment at the end.  I'm pleased with the way it worked out.

 

1 hour ago, Ralph said:

This is against the books

 

IIRC it is reported as having happened, in Book 2.

[RextheDog]

7 minutes ago, EmreY said:

I am male, and I agree with Rafe that it is OK for the DR to be underwhelming at this point in time.  I was both looking forward and dreading the "sun" moment at the end.  I'm pleased with the way it worked out.

 

actually thats a really good way of looking at it, i must admit i wanted the big payoff, but maybes its worth waiting a bit longer for.

 

just becuase Nyn is capable, doesnt mean Rand has to be from the get go as well, maybe he has to earn it a bit more......could work.

 

theres so many good things they can do from here i refuse to believe its a write off as some are suggesting, i just dont have absolute confidence that they will really exploit what they have set up.

 

the only thing that really bugs me about this series, as in really really bugs me, is the wasted time on Steppin, there is absolutely NO payoff there, or whatever minimal payoff there is, it doesnt justify a full episode on the warder called Steppin to set the scene, it was self indulgent crap in reality.

 

 

[Ralph]

15 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

I am male, and I agree with Rafe that it is OK for the DR to be underwhelming at this point in time.  I was both looking forward and dreading the "sun" moment at the end.  I'm pleased with the way it worked out.

 

 

IIRC it is reported as having happened, in Book 2.

Exactly. After Falme. Not now

[Guest Testeria]

6 hours ago, RextheDog said:

we had a scene with a ditch infront of the wall, and a few weak channelers were put infront of agelmars army (not behind, in reserve) would you have picked through that instead?

 

It would make a little more sense. Channelers would still die but at lest they would save the army.

 

 

6 hours ago, RextheDog said:

i know i would have.... that would have been worse

 

if there were issues with an armoured wall(and there was, its a pretty lame defence to be honest given you have hundreds of years to prepare), what obstacle would a ditch become?

 

Go outside and try to charge through a ditch and You would know. Few days ago I put my younger daughter on the top of little ditch and asked my son to try to overcome her and now they understand that clearly. Basically every force in human history trying to defend on stationary position start with digging a ditch - or five.

 

 

6 hours ago, RextheDog said:

either way, plenty of real historical battles/campaigns can be picked apart with the same precision we pick apart high fantasy battles......for some reason we refuse to acknowledge some campaigns are just riddled with errors...

 

Sure, that is why I wrote that he looks like a complete idiot. He was there for his whole life to do two things and he failed miserably with both.

 

 

6 hours ago, RextheDog said:

i mean, to dig deeper into the 'just retreat' angle, why even bother with the scouts, just retreat and forget about fal dara if thats the logical decision (based on the advancing blight, not a couple of thousand trollocs. )

 

It is mainly cultural thing. I would retreat and protect my people and the horn. Spartans would just die there defending their city.

 

I have no problem with them dying, but they seem to just want to die without any meaningful input. That is stupid but still ok - but then why not put on ceremonial armor? Suicidal fools love to do things like that. It is just not coherent.

 

 

 

6 hours ago, RextheDog said:

i dont have endless confidence in the show runners, they seem too self indulgent to real nail the series, but its only a small tweak away from the L realising how done over they were....again, to me, one comment or scene about how that trolloc army was pulled back strategically would undo alot of the issues people have here with the show...

 

I didn't read the books yet. I have no problem with what happened  - they just showed that the general is a complete fool. If he was not and it was not the intention (as people here suggests) - than in my opinion they failed.

[Guest Testeria]

Double post, sorry.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Testeria
double post

[RextheDog]

1 minute ago, Testeria said:

It would make a little more sense. Channelers would still die but at lest they would save the army.

 

you honestly see Agelmar putting two sheep hearders wives, his sisters and two maids infront of his army? wouldnt happen.

 

as for the rest, i accept all your other points.....?even if i question why you are teaching your kids the value of a ditch in warfare by making them enact it!!!!

[RhienneAgain]

23 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Steppin was not about Lan, or it was to show this is different to death. Rafe has said they purposely set things up in season one that will not come to fruition until later, some as late as season 8. Steppin was all about the final battle and Moridins final gambit. The moment that Rand could have destroyed it all. 

Well, if that's the case they did a pretty awful job of that, in my opinion. It wasn't clear to non-book readers that Steppin was anything beyond really depressed by Kerene's death/his failure after having a long-term very close personal relationship with her. The show did not convey at all that the severing if the bond has a massive negative emotional impact on the channeler. 

 

Unless Rand and Alannah become very close in the show, Steppin's episode set up nothing for Alannah dying while holding Rand's bond that would impact the Last Battle.

 

 

[Guest Testeria]

6 minutes ago, RextheDog said:

you honestly see Agelmar putting two sheep hearders wives, his sisters and two maids infront of his army?

 

I don't expect him to because he is a complete fool. If he was smart, he would prepare with them, put them ON TOP of that wall structure and protect them from trollocs and possibly even from burning out. When You defend the whole world from unimaginable evil You use the best weapon You have, no matter the cost.

 

 

6 minutes ago, RextheDog said:

as for the rest, i accept all your other points.....?even if i question why you are teaching your kids the value of a ditch in warfare by making them enact it!!!!

 

That is the best way for them to understand history lessons properly and understand why they should not learn from most holywood movies...

 

[RhienneAgain]

On 12/27/2021 at 11:03 AM, ilovezam said:

I think to have character growth you do need to start off with a Lan that's a bit more closed off. Even if you wanted to accelerate it, at least give us a few episodes of badass warrior Lan, and then have him soften in more private moments with Nynaeve or Moiraine. His stoicism made his romance with Nynaeve that much more poignant, in that their love softened both characters and they made each other better.

I totally agree with this. Watching a character that's already at the end of their character arc at the beginning of the series is not very fulfilling or satisfying. I'm finding Nynaeve the same - she's already like Nynaeve from the end of the books.

 

I'm really missing seeing these characters' growth.

[fra85uk]

Or show-Egwene doing a god-tier healing that probably book-Egwene would not be able to do at the end of the book-series

 

any perspective of character growth is Lost unless unless we move from character arc to character hyperbole.

 

on the other side, Mat, Perrin and Rand can be still subjected to further butchering...

[Weird_Old_Lady]

I think that there are plenty of ways for Egwene and Nynaeve to still have character development. Like Nynaeve has a bunch to learn about jumping to conclusions and when to keep her mouth shut. I think Egwene maybe set up to come down a few pegs as well. I think that will be kind of a thing with my EF ladies.... Just because you accidentally didn't die doesn't mean you know what you're doing. I think that the Circle of Fall Dara will set up some serious trauma for them and probably set up Nynaeve's block and Egwene thinking she can do anything. I love these girls but they have too much pride for where they are going and what they are up against.