tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[Gary Reborn]

In the books Agelmar just sent his men into the gap as a last ditch defense and basically knew he wasn’t going to succeed. They didn’t have any defensive structures, were massacred and at the last second were saved by Rand. Agelmar didn’t have some brilliant strategy in the book either, he wasn’t prepared for a random massive onslaught by the shadow.

 

I don’t think the point of this scene in the book was to show that Agelmar was a brilliant strategic mind it was more meant to show the constant onslaught of the blight and how it was steadily pushing back humanity. In the book I thought it was also meant to show a current day version or Malkier of humanity steadily being on the brink of being wiped out and the sacrifice of the borderlanders for people that didn’t even believe this was happening in the show they took the opportunity to show a version of Manetheren and I think still drive home a lot of the same borderlander theme of sacrifice for the world.

 

I agree it would have been smart to put the channelers on the wall but they were pretty clear that the men defend the gap and the women defend the town so I think they set this up as just the SOP if they get attacked men do one thing women do the other so in a way maybe they did do a little women circle business and town council business lol.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Gary Reborn

[nsmallw]

19 hours ago, flinn said:

 Another big miss about snatching away Rand's big moment is that what happened at Tarwins Gap starts rumors...

 

 "We were saved by a man who was doing what no man should do"

 

 the people have to accept the dragon reborn as well, as of now, there is nothing Rand has done to make people think he will save them.

 

but I am sure that means nothing because they will have Nynaeve tell people Rand is the DR and everyone will do as Nynaeve says.

In the books, Rand isn't "proclaimed" the DR til Tear in book 3 but ppl assume that the DR has been reborn by what happens at Falme in book 2 they just don't know who it is. I think the show folks will just hold off til Tear to make the formal DR moment, especially as it seems Perrin will be the one going to Falme. 

[nsmallw]

Loved your line about wave mechanics. Fantasy tv is full of bad science. 

[nsmallw]

16 hours ago, TheSmurf said:

Or its just a hypocritical stance to justify one over the other. 

 

Why don't we just... Not call each other names. 

Exactly !

[Padmehlc]

From reading through this thread it seems other people saw something different than I did in the AoL scene. Did some of you have subtitles? I couldnt understand any of what they were talking about and the visuals gave no clue - could have been discussing a school for the baby with it all in Old Tongue.  For anyone who did have subtitles - how do you turn them on just for that scene?

[Yojimbo]

55 minutes ago, Gary Reborn said:

In the books Agelmar just sent his men into the gap as a last ditch defense and basically knew he wasn’t going to succeed. They didn’t have any defensive structures, were massacred and at the last second were saved by Rand. Agelmar didn’t have some brilliant strategy in the book either, he wasn’t prepared for a random massive onslaught by the shadow.

 

 

In the books the Shienarans are considered the best heavy calvary in the world.  Their strategy had always been to use the advantage of terrain and maneuverability, which would amplify their numbers, so that even if outnumbered they would mitigate that factor to some extent.  It had always worked in the past.  In the book, word came of Trollocs massing at Tarwin's Gap in numbers larger than had ever been seen too late for them to call for help from he other Borderland nations, so they rode there hoping that their deaths would provide time for the women and children to be evacuated.   

[JenniferL]

8 minutes ago, Padmehlc said:

From reading through this thread it seems other people saw something different than I did in the AoL scene. Did some of you have subtitles? I couldnt understand any of what they were talking about and the visuals gave no clue - could have been discussing a school for the baby with it all in Old Tongue.  For anyone who did have subtitles - how do you turn them on just for that scene?

We didn’t have to turn them on. They were just there as part of the show. That’s really weird that you didn’t see them. The scene would have been incomprehensible without them. 

[Padmehlc]

Just now, JenniferL said:

We didn’t have to turn them on. They were just there as part of the show. That’s really weird that you didn’t see them. The scene would have been incomprehensible without them. 

Yup, that was my issue with the scene, it was completely incomprehensible because there were no subtitles for me. Ill have to retry and see if making it full screen projecting my laptop to my TV cut off the bottom and all the subtitles. Ill try watching with the smaller in browser screen....

[Skipp]

The one thing people are missing about the strategy of putting the channelers with the army.  Amalisa didn't have this grand plan of breaking the army.  It was her defiant last stand and she expected to die.  As Agelmar says, the Men guard the gap and the women hold the city.  The only reason the Amalisa's plan worked was because she suddenly found herself with 2 uncannily strong channelers to use as batteries.\

 

I don't think Amalisa ever worked out this strategy with Agelmar so even had their been time to move the 5 of them to the gap fortress there might not have been time to incorporate them into the general strategy.

 

The next point is that people want to put these channelers on the wall or in front of the army.  Did it look like Amalisa had control of what she did?  She brought a huge bolt down on herself and lashed out with a shockwave in ALL directions.  The only reason the city didn't take damage was because it was on a large cliff behind them.

 

Yes we know the entire sequence could have been better planned, shot etc....  But this was their last resort rewrite after having to deal with all the covid protocols.

[Guest Testeria]

38 minutes ago, Yojimbo said:

In the books the Shienarans are considered the best heavy calvary in the world.  Their strategy had always been to use the advantage of terrain and maneuverability, which would amplify their numbers, so that even if outnumbered they would mitigate that factor to some extent.  It had always worked in the past.  In the book, word came of Trollocs massing at Tarwin's Gap in numbers larger than had ever been seen too late for them to call for help from he other Borderland nations, so they rode there hoping that their deaths would provide time for the women and children to be evacuated.   

 

That actually makes perfect sense, contrary to what happen in ep.8... except maybe for the lack of fortifications. How wide is Tarwin's Gap in the books?

[Guest Testeria]

1 hour ago, Gary Reborn said:

I don’t think the point of this scene in the book was to show that Agelmar was a brilliant strategic mind it was more meant to show the constant onslaught of the blight and how it was steadily pushing back humanity. In the book I thought it was also meant to show a current day version or Malkier of humanity steadily being on the brink of being wiped out and the sacrifice of the borderlanders for people that didn’t even believe this was happening in the show they took the opportunity to show a version of Manetheren and I think still drive home a lot of the same borderlander theme of sacrifice for the world.

 

Again - if it was to show their sense of duty why rejecting the ancestral armor? From my perspective it was clear they wanted to show he was wrong about everything. He rejected the armor and died achieving nothing, she is wearing the armor and saves the day. Both symbolic and real victory belongs to women.

[Sabio]

2 minutes ago, Skipp said:

The one thing people are missing about the strategy of putting the channelers with the army.  Amalisa didn't have this grand plan of breaking the army.  It was her defiant last stand and she expected to die.  As Agelmar says, the Men guard the gap and the women hold the city.  The only reason the Amalisa's plan worked was because she suddenly found herself with 2 uncannily strong channelers to use as batteries.\

 

I don't think Amalisa ever worked out this strategy with Agelmar so even had their been time to move the 5 of them to the gap fortress there might not have been time to incorporate them into the general strategy.

 

The next point is that people want to put these channelers on the wall or in front of the army.  Did it look like Amalisa had control of what she did?  She brought a huge bolt down on herself and lashed out with a shockwave in ALL directions.  The only reason the city didn't take damage was because it was on a large cliff behind them.

 

Yes we know the entire sequence could have been better planned, shot etc....  But this was their last resort rewrite after having to deal with all the covid protocols.

The fact their last rewrite was to have five women destroy the entire army doesn't give me alot of hope for the future.  They have shown channeling to be way too powerful now, so nothing that happens in the future will be shocking or OMG how did that happen.  Look at what Moiraine did in the first episode.  We have seen mass healing, a shield saving everyone, Egwene looking like she saved Nyn, five people destroying 10000 trollocs, If they destroyed 10000 trollocs, what needs to be done to make people impressed later?

[Yojimbo]

16 minutes ago, Testeria said:

 

That actually makes perfect sense, contrary to what happen in ep.8... except maybe for the lack of fortifications. How wide is Tarwin's Gap in the books?

I'm not sure they ever specified how wide the gap was, but the implication I get is that it is a fairly narrow gap that creates a bit of a bottleneck before it widens out to a larger valley, which makes it easier for smaller numbers to defend against larger numbers.  IIRC they always carried long spears to make it harder to break through the forward ranks. Those that break through could be picked off or overwhelmed by the next ranks using swords, spears and horse bows.    

[Chadouken]

50 minutes ago, Padmehlc said:

Yup, that was my issue with the scene, it was completely incomprehensible because there were no subtitles for me.

Wait, you mean you aren't fluent in the Old Tongue? Bruh.

[TheDreadReader]

14 minutes ago, Sabio said:

The fact their last rewrite was to have five women destroy the entire army doesn't give me alot of hope for the future.  They have shown channeling to be way too powerful now, so nothing that happens in the future will be shocking or OMG how did that happen.  Look at what Moiraine did in the first episode.  We have seen mass healing, a shield saving everyone, Egwene looking like she saved Nyn, five people destroying 10000 trollocs, If they destroyed 10000 trollocs, what needs to be done to make people impressed later?

 

At the expense of 3 out of 5 of the channellers involved.  Not exactly the most effective use of your resources.

 

In the modern world, it is the equivalent of calling in artillery or air strikes on your perimeter because you're about to get overrun.  It happens from time to time to even the best prepared and capable combat forces.

 

In terms of comparative power level, it does track back to Moiraines Winespring Shotgun weave in episode one.   The audience has seen what one channneller can do against trollocs and now they've seen what a linked group of channellers can do against trollocs.  Naturally, the later would be more than the former.

 

It wasn't entirely executed well but I don't see any big conceptual problems with it.

 

 

[fra85uk]

7 minutes ago, Sabio said:

The fact their last rewrite was to have five women destroy the entire army doesn't give me alot of hope for the future.  They have shown channeling to be way too powerful now, so nothing that happens in the future will be shocking or OMG how did that happen.  Look at what Moiraine did in the first episode.  We have seen mass healing, a shield saving everyone, Egwene looking like she saved Nyn, five people destroying 10000 trollocs, If they destroyed 10000 trollocs, what needs to be done to make people impressed later?

 

Exactly the point.

There are no stakes in this story. 

If two untrained rookies can already outperform the best of the best of the Aes Sedai by wiping out entire armies and healing from near-death, I don't know what can happen next...

[Sabio]

1 minute ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

At the expense of 3 out of 5 of the channellers involved.  Not exactly the most effective use of your resources.

 

In the modern world, it is the equivalent of calling in artillery or air strikes on your perimeter because you're about to get overrun.  It happens from time to time to even the best prepared and capable combat forces.

 

In terms of comparative power level, it does track back to Moiraines Winespring Shotgun weave in episode one.   The audience has seen what one channneller can do against trollocs and now they've seen what a linked group of channellers can do against trollocs.  Naturally, the later would be more than the former.

 

It wasn't entirely executed well but I don't see any big conceptual problems with it.

 

 

But if you lose three and they lose 10000, seems a great use of resources.  But that is the problem I was talking about, they have made channeling so powerful now.  5 women just killed 10000 things, so how can they explain why the Seanchan can't overrun Randland in a week with their hundreds of channelers trained for war?  Maybe they are spending too much time making cool tidal waves, but after seeing what those five women did, how can they top that?

[Chadouken]

14 hours ago, Jackdaw_Fool said:

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.

 

More like Darwin's Gap. 

[TheDreadReader]

1 hour ago, Skipp said:

The one thing people are missing about the strategy of putting the channelers with the army.  Amalisa didn't have this grand plan of breaking the army.  It was her defiant last stand and she expected to die.  As Agelmar says, the Men guard the gap and the women hold the city.  The only reason the Amalisa's plan worked was because she suddenly found herself with 2 uncannily strong channelers to use as batteries.\

 

I don't think Amalisa ever worked out this strategy with Agelmar so even had their been time to move the 5 of them to the gap fortress there might not have been time to incorporate them into the general strategy.

 

The next point is that people want to put these channelers on the wall or in front of the army.  Did it look like Amalisa had control of what she did?  She brought a huge bolt down on herself and lashed out with a shockwave in ALL directions.  The only reason the city didn't take damage was because it was on a large cliff behind them.

 

Yes we know the entire sequence could have been better planned, shot etc....  But this was their last resort rewrite after having to deal with all the covid protocols.

 

 

Agree in a lot of ways. 

 

Just thinking in terms of "doctrine" or the standard ways of doings things in military terms.

 

Aes Sedai are bound by the three oaths.  One of their oaths limits their utility in a general sense because they have to be in defense in order to use the one power as a weapon.  Therefore to use them tactically you have to put them (generally) in an exposed position.  So, putting them in the front line makes sense.  But, there is a tradeoff for that.  If you put them in front of the wall and they are forced to retreat you risk compromising the integrity of the wall.  That can lead to bad results.  

 

Putting someone within the wall or on top of the wall who is not bound by the oaths would require a degree of skill and precision in order to use the one power there.  Does Amalisa have that skill and precision on her own?  That's unclear.   (Put in modern terms... anyone can squeeze the trigger on a machine gun.... but can they do it effectively without melting or warping the barrel over a long fight?)

 

Putting someone behind the wall but not in the fortress of Fal Dara itself fits in with the general method of using the one power in battle, may not have the same skill/precision requirements.  And, it sets up a killing ground if she does manage to do something (like summon lightning).  So, it does make a certain amount of sense.  The key "tactic" would be to speed bump the onrushing trollocs so they can't build up a ton of momentum and take advantage of their larger mass. 

 

Effectively, Agelmar is counting on the defense at the wall as being successful but if it is not completely successful to act as a speed bump to break up the trollocs momentum and mass and eliminate a percentage of their numbers.   The channeller layer is also set up to be a speed bump. 

 

If there are 20,000 trollocs hitting the wall then how many are taken out by the defenders on the wall?  5,000? 10,000? 15,000?  

 

Of the trollocs reaching beyond the wall, how many can be taken out by chanellers behind the wall?

 

And, lastly, how many are left over to be handled by the defenders on the walls of Fal Dara itself?

 

Basically, that is how you set up defenses in depth.  You don't assume that the front line will hold, you assume the ways that it will break, and try to create measures to account for how it breaks.

 

Overall, there are plenty of problems in how the battle was displayed but the basic tactics make sense.  

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by TheDreadReader

[DigificWriter]

It was pointed out that the ending of Episode 8 was actually a loss for the good guys, so I don't think we should be trying to look at or analyze Amalisa's strategy in a positive light.

 

It ended up working to save the city, but wasn't a good strategic call.

[divica]

The problem with that stand is that no matter how you look at it, if it as supposed to inflict heavy losses on the trollock army then it should have been done at the beguining of the battle to give a better chance to the men.

 

What we had was all the men dying and then 5 women outside the city (for reasons nobody will ever know) casting to kill a whole army. They should have done it at the gap and on the city walls.

 

What we saw was just amateurish...

[Guest Testeria]

16 minutes ago, TheDreadReader said:

Overall, there are plenty of problems in how the battle was displayed but the basic tactics make sense. 

 

I'd say it is the other way around.

 

You put channelers on the wall because they are artillery like: they move slowly, they are vulnerable to attack and they do best damage to the packed enemies in narrow spaces.

 

On the other hand, You put cavalry on the plains where they have more space for maneuvers to use their supreme speed and shock power, useless on the wall.

 

Channelers should be on the front doing mass damage (preferably on the top of the wall if possible). Infantry should be on the TOP of the wall (with all the windows filled with stone) shooting. Cavalry should be on the plains to clean up whatever made it to the other side of the wall.

 

But again - remember the ancestral armor scene. Writers of this episode WANTED to show us how wrong Agelmar is. So I do not understand why people defend him if this is clearly what was served to us.

[TheDreadReader]

12 minutes ago, Testeria said:

 

I'd say it is the other way around.

 

You put channelers on the wall because they are artillery like: they move slowly, they are vulnerable to attack and they do best damage to the packed enemies in narrow spaces.

 

Doesn't solve the problem of the three oaths.

 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Testeria said:

On the other hand, You put cavalry on the plains where they have more space for maneuvers to use their supreme speed and shock power, useless on the wall.

 

Yes.  There are three places (generally) you can put heavy cavalry in the terrain as laid out in the scene each have their advantages and disadvantages.

 

1.) In front of the wall 

2.) Inside the wall as a counter-attacking force if the initial attack bounces off the wall's defenses

3.) Behind the wall (either inside Fal Dara or just in front of Fal Dara)

 

 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Testeria said:

Channelers should be on the front doing mass damage (preferably on the top of the wall if possible). Infantry should be on the TOP of the wall (with all the windows filled with stone) shooting. Cavalry should be on the plains to clean up whatever made it to the other side of the wall.

 

 

Possibly.  Trollocs are basically heavy cavalry/infantry.  Channellers would break their momentum but they are not very maneuverable and they can be fairly easily bypassed via simple momentum.

 

Also, take into account the channellers level of combat readiness.  Green sisters would work well in front of the wall.  Untrained or less trained channellers would be less effective.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Testeria said:

But again - remember the ancestral armor scene. Writers of this episode WANTED to show us how wrong Agelmar is. So I do not understand why people defend him if this is clearly what was served to us.

 

I 100% don't agree with this.  They wanted to show that Agelmar was confident but not completely wrong.  The defense worked even if it was costly.   The dramatic stakes were the driving element of the battle's construction.   They wanted a costly victory or a near defeat based on how the battle progressed.

 

There's no reason to assume anything other than story functionality as a motive for any decision they made in the show.

  

 

 

[MasterAblar]

9 minutes ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

Doesn't solve the problem of the three oaths.

 

 

Oaths don’t concern shadowspawn and darkfriends. Or are we just talking theoretical scenarios agains regular people?

Edited December 28, 2021 by MasterAblar

[WhiteVeils]

17 hours ago, RextheDog said:

however, your quote above about Mat seems a fair stretch, 'if a character did this instead of that he would have lost, ipso facto, yet another loss'......errrr....no.

I don't disagree. I just included it because I think it is obvious that Loial was stabbed instead of Mat due to Harris leaving.