tv show spoilers S1E8: The Eye of the World

[Mirefox]

I think Moiraine was saved from an even worse fate by being stilled.  If men taint the One Power when they channel then it follows that with the Dragon Reborn now walking around with a sa’angreal the taint will now spread exponentially.  Maybe Season 2 will be about Moiraine leading an increasingly-unstable Nyn and Eg on a hunt to find Rand before he irrevocably destroys the One Power (probably out of arrogance).  Having been stilled, Moiriane will still maintain her sanity to be a competent leader (who doesn’t really know much) of an incapacitated group.  Their journey will be filled with danger but she will at least have her trusty warder at her side to finally clean up her tells that she’s been leaving for 20 years that he was just told about.  Meanwhile, a group of seafarers (who are totally NOT into bondage) clearly hate - and possibly fear - mountains and continue to ravage the land using mountains’ only known weakness, water.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Mirefox
Autocorrect is my arch-nemesis.

[Ralph]

1 hour ago, Mirefox said:

This is a completely fair request and I wanted to acknowledge that I saw it.  Unfortunately, I never copied the quotes down or anything; I think they both came from a post-season interview.  If I stumble across them again I will be sure to bring them to your attention.

 

Did you kill Loial?

I didn't kill Loial. Everyone is worried about it. I can say that he is safe, alive and currently shooting for season 2. And that there are a couple people who are at death's door at the end of the finale who are not dead and a couple people who are in fact dead.

Hopefully, the finale will prepare people emotionally for the deaths that will come. Because one thing The Wheel of Time books do so beautifully is they maintain a massive cast of characters for 14 books. And we can't do that in a television show. So, there will be shocking deaths to come, but I can confirm that this is not the end of Loial. 

 

From https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/wheel-of-time-episode-8-spoilers-rafe-judkins-interview/

 

I assume this is what you meant by the second one, but I don't think he says that

 

I also recall him early in the series saying he can't wait for people's reactions to some of the (real) deaths in future seasons

[Ralph]

1 minute ago, Yojimbo said:

Have they even used the words The Dragon's Flame?   Did I just miss this?

 

 

 

 

Painted on Siuan hut

 

Not named

[Mirefox]

1 minute ago, Ralph said:

Painted on Siuan hut

 

Not named

Wasn’t it also shown with the dead sheep in episode 1?  Of course, that made no sense at all and was never explained.

[Yojimbo]

3 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Wasn’t it also shown with the dead sheep in episode 1?  Of course, that made no sense at all and was never explained.

Yes, it was.   I have felt that at times they are putting things like this in as Easter eggs of the book readers, but since they never explain them the general audience has no idea what they are supposed to mean.   That they have gone an entire season without doing so could mean they never will.  

[Mirefox]

1 minute ago, Yojimbo said:

Yes, it was.   I have felt that at times they are putting things like this in as Easter eggs of the book readers, but since they never explain them the general audience has no idea what they are supposed to mean.   That they have gone an entire season without doing so could mean they never will.  

Yeah.  When completely foundational lore becomes an Easter egg in the snow, you know there are problems.  They did the same thing with Loial briefly mentioning the Karaethon Cycle.  Easter eggs should be little things, like if Mat had been in a quarter stick competition at Bel Tine or if Perrin had patted a dog or something.

[DreadParrot]

In terms of the discussion over how they have altered the dynamics of saidar and saidin…

 

*They seem to be intentionally murking the waters here to prevent audience from having to learn a lot of rules and lore.

 

*They seem to be avoiding the need for training and teaching. Those aspects have virtually vanished from the written story. No scenes of Lan drilling the EF5, no scenes of Moiraine or other sisters working with Egwene/Nynaeve. Moiraine intentionally avoiding either attempting to help Rand understand his power, explain she is incapable of assisting him, or showing she actually can assist him. Instead she avoids the topic because it would contribute to his insanity. Intuitive learning seems to be their preferred route. 
 

*There has been painfully little distinction between the different flows, limitations on how it can be used, and now show-canon alterations to the rules of channeling. Linked channelers being forcibly overdrawn and burned out is a tangible and important change. 
 

why does this matter? Anyone who read or watched Death Note would potentially agree that working within the rules established by the Note was a huge part of the appeal. Most readers of the Wheel are endeared to the lore and very detailed dynamics of channeling. The whole power split and gender driven system was intentionally designed to eliminate mumbo jumbo Latin phrases and some hand waving to solve problems. The system designed helped drive the story and added nuance and layer. The show is skipping over those aspects or diluting them either because they lack understanding themselves, lack the confidence in an audience to follow the trail they need to lay down, or simply don’t care about the importance. 
 

 

[TheDreadReader]

10 hours ago, Jackdaw_Fool said:

This. Or that simply there is only the one power and it is tainted when used by men. There is certainly nothing there that proves there are separate components to the one power or that saidin or saidar exist.

 

 

Saidin is explicitly mentioned in the show as is the phrase "the male half of the one power".   

 

 

[Mirefox]

1 minute ago, DreadParrot said:

In terms of the discussion over how they have altered the dynamics of saidar and saidin…

 

*They seem to be intentionally murking the waters here to prevent audience from having to learn a lot of rules and lore.

 

*They seem to be avoiding the need for training and teaching. Those aspects have virtually vanished from the written story. No scenes of Lan drilling the EF5, no scenes of Moiraine or other sisters working with Egwene/Nynaeve. Moiraine intentionally avoiding either attempting to help Rand understand his power, explain she is incapable of assisting him, or showing she actually can assist him. Instead she avoids the topic because it would contribute to his insanity. Intuitive learning seems to be their preferred route. 
 

*There has been painfully little distinction between the different flows, limitations on how it can be used, and now show-canon alterations to the rules of channeling. Linked channelers being forcibly overdrawn and burned out is a tangible and important change. 
 

why does this matter? Anyone who read or watched Death Note would potentially agree that working within the rules established by the Note was a huge part of the appeal. Most readers of the Wheel are endeared to the lore and very detailed dynamics of channeling. The whole power split and gender driven system was intentionally designed to eliminate mumbo jumbo Latin phrases and some hand waving to solve problems. The system designed helped drive the story and added nuance and layer. The show is skipping over those aspects or diluting them either because they lack understanding themselves, lack the confidence in an audience to follow the trail they need to lay down, or simply don’t care about the importance. 
 

 

The sad thing is, most of it wouldn’t even take much effort.  The Saidar/Saidin thing could be explained in a couple sentences and there were a couple perfect opportunities in the show.  As for the different weaves, they easily could have made them different colors to at least visually identify say, fire vs spirit.  This again comes down to the simple fact that the writers either don’t understand the story at all or are deliberately changing it.

[Ralph]

21 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Wasn’t it also shown with the dead sheep in episode 1?  Of course, that made no sense at all and was never explained.

Sure, but that (and the Trolloc blood in Nynaeve's sacred pool) were not man made

 

[SingleMort]

On 12/27/2021 at 7:06 PM, EmreY said:

To all the people saying that Rand was done a disservice in this series, I say: I agree.

 

To all who say that Nynaeve and Egwene got bumped up too much: I also agree.

 

However, let us cast our minds back to an earlier Age, a simpler Age when all we had were the books.  Their endings (very simplified) were:

 

Book 1

  Hide contents

Rand blows up Ishy and a bunch of other folk

 

Book 2

 

  Hide contents

Rand blows up Ishy and a bunch of other folk

 

Book 3

 

  Hide contents

Rand blows up Ishy and a bunch of other folk

 

Book 4

 

  Hide contents

Rand doesn't blow up Ishy (I was shocked, let me tell you), and there's relatively little blowing up overall.  

 

You see where I'm going with this?  The last chance for Rand to show off?  No, nowhere near.  However, if you're going to maintain any kind of interest in a character who at the end is supposed to confront a primordial Big Bad, you start slow.  As RJ did.  I'm very pleased with the continued distraction that is Nynaeve and Egwene and the focus off Rand.  Now, I like Rand as a character, but I think the second series will again understate his role.

 

No offense but I think you are missing the point. Yes there is a lot of repetition in the books but whether or not Rand fights Ishy is not really the issue. It's the fact that Rand is essentially passive for the whole season which means people aren't going care that much about his character unless they already care from reading the books. I've see many people who haven't read the books genuinely disappointed that Rand is the DR because they wanted it to be Egwene and others who doubt even now he is DR because the "who is the Dragon" plotline has made them think this is all a red herring or false reveal. None of that is particularly helpful towards moving the story forward. 

 

So yes I agree with some of your point insofar as we don't want to have the same fight over and over but by not giving Rand anything substantial to do and not really building his character they've not made many viewers care about him really sold people on him being the DR. If the audience is not invested in Rand in a WoT show that's a problem because yes it's an ensemble, but Rand is the central pillar of the whole story. It's like if you didn't care about Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. 

[RhienneAgain]

36 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

Did you kill Loial?

I didn't kill Loial. Everyone is worried about it. I can say that he is safe, alive and currently shooting for season 2. And that there are a couple people who are at death's door at the end of the finale who are not dead and a couple people who are in fact dead.

Hopefully, the finale will prepare people emotionally for the deaths that will come. Because one thing The Wheel of Time books do so beautifully is they maintain a massive cast of characters for 14 books. And we can't do that in a television show. So, there will be shocking deaths to come, but I can confirm that this is not the end of Loial. 

 

From https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/wheel-of-time-episode-8-spoilers-rafe-judkins-interview/

 

I assume this is what you meant by the second one, but I don't think he says that

 

I also recall him early in the series saying he can't wait for people's reactions to some of the (real) deaths in future seasons

I think the comment that they can't maintain a big cast of characters is ridiculous (and demonstrably false by comparison with GoT). Absolutely streamline, and combine, and ditch characters where needed, but I don't see any reason that would actually prevent them from maintaining a large cast. This seems like a weak excuse at justifying wanting to kill off characters.

[Mirefox]

4 minutes ago, RhienneAgain said:

I think the comment that they can't maintain a big cast of characters is ridiculous (and demonstrably false by comparison with GoT). Absolutely streamline, and combine, and ditch characters where needed, but I don't see any reason that would actually prevent them from maintaining a large cast. This seems like a weak excuse at justifying wanting to kill off characters.

In another interview (again, I don’t have the link, sorry) it was implied that he doesn’t believe in introducing a character, having them disappear for a couple seasons, then reappear.  Hence the Aglemar death.  Hes rather introduce a character and have their arc end.

[RhienneAgain]

23 minutes ago, DreadParrot said:

In terms of the discussion over how they have altered the dynamics of saidar and saidin…

 

*They seem to be intentionally murking the waters here to prevent audience from having to learn a lot of rules and lore.

 

*They seem to be avoiding the need for training and teaching. Those aspects have virtually vanished from the written story. No scenes of Lan drilling the EF5, no scenes of Moiraine or other sisters working with Egwene/Nynaeve. Moiraine intentionally avoiding either attempting to help Rand understand his power, explain she is incapable of assisting him, or showing she actually can assist him. Instead she avoids the topic because it would contribute to his insanity. Intuitive learning seems to be their preferred route. 
 

*There has been painfully little distinction between the different flows, limitations on how it can be used, and now show-canon alterations to the rules of channeling. Linked channelers being forcibly overdrawn and burned out is a tangible and important change. 
 

why does this matter? Anyone who read or watched Death Note would potentially agree that working within the rules established by the Note was a huge part of the appeal. Most readers of the Wheel are endeared to the lore and very detailed dynamics of channeling. The whole power split and gender driven system was intentionally designed to eliminate mumbo jumbo Latin phrases and some hand waving to solve problems. The system designed helped drive the story and added nuance and layer. The show is skipping over those aspects or diluting them either because they lack understanding themselves, lack the confidence in an audience to follow the trail they need to lay down, or simply don’t care about the importance. 
 

 

I agree completely. I think for whatever reason the showrunners have decided the details (even the broad ones) of channeling as a magic system will not translate well to television (maybe they're right and the average viewer isn't interested?) and we really need to let go of pretty much everything we know about the one power from the books.

 

A lot of people (myself included) seem to be getting very frustrated with the show when it ignores the rules of the one power. I think to enjoy this series we need to accept that almost none of the rules or details are part of the TV series world.

 

Looking through the first season it seems to me that all that has definitely been kept in is:

• Female channelers go to the White Tower to train;
• Magic users have varying levels of strength in the power;
• Applications of the one power have been kept broadly true to the books but any hierarchy or organisation weaves is unclear or non-existent
• Magic use involves working with power that comes from outside the channeler
• Linking/circles
• Stilling

 

That's it. I don't think anything else is confirmed show-canon. So all our speculation about blocks, Healing as a talent, saidin/saidar may be totally irrelevant as these may not be 'things' in the TV show.

[Mirefox]

1 minute ago, RhienneAgain said:

I agree completely. I think for whatever reason the showrunners have decided the details (even the broad ones) of channeling as a magic system will not translate well to television (maybe they're right and the average viewer isn't interested?) and we really need to let go of pretty much everything we know about the one power from the books.

 

A lot of people (myself included) seem to be getting very frustrated with the show when it ignores the rules of the one power. I think to enjoy this series we need to accept that almost none of the rules or details are part of the TV series world.

 

Looking through the first season it seems to me that all that has definitely been kept in is:

• Female channelers go to the White Tower to train;
• Magic users have varying levels of strength in the power;
• Applications of the one power have been kept broadly true to the books but any hierarchy or organisation weaves is unclear or non-existent
• Magic use involves working with power that comes from outside the channeler
• Linking/circles
• Stilling

 

That's it. I don't think anything else is confirmed show-canon. So all our speculation about blocks, Healing as a talent, saidin/saidar may be totally irrelevant as these may not be 'things' in the TV show.

This is a monumental issue, too.  If they want to change up some stories and call it a different turning of the Wheel, ok, let’s have that conversation.  But different turnings don’t break the fundamental rules by which the world works.  Rules/consistency/etc. are the basic framework they needed to work within but they want to change even that.

[Mirefox]

5 minutes ago, RhienneAgain said:

I agree completely. I think for whatever reason the showrunners have decided the details (even the broad ones) of channeling as a magic system will not translate well to television (maybe they're right and the average viewer isn't interested?) and we really need to let go of pretty much everything we know about the one power from the books.

 

A lot of people (myself included) seem to be getting very frustrated with the show when it ignores the rules of the one power. I think to enjoy this series we need to accept that almost none of the rules or details are part of the TV series world.

 

Looking through the first season it seems to me that all that has definitely been kept in is:

• Female channelers go to the White Tower to train;
• Magic users have varying levels of strength in the power;
• Applications of the one power have been kept broadly true to the books but any hierarchy or organisation weaves is unclear or non-existent
• Magic use involves working with power that comes from outside the channeler
• Linking/circles
• Stilling

 

That's it. I don't think anything else is confirmed show-canon. So all our speculation about blocks, Healing as a talent, saidin/saidar may be totally irrelevant as these may not be 'things' in the TV show.

Female channelers go to the White Tower to train…except 80% of the circle that destroyed and entire Fade army and saved and entire city…

[WhiteVeils]

11 hours ago, chri5 said:

I think the answer is that Aes Sedai are wrong, and they believe that there is no distinction between male and female power. 
 

My logic is this…

 

All Aes Sedai learn from the same teachers. 
All* Aes Sedai are bound by the oaths. 
Other Aes Sedai heard her say that the man causes the taint. 
 

Either they heard her lie in violation of an oath, or they heard her say accepted Aes Sedai dogma. 
 

If they heard her lie, they would know about a certain issue she has in the books and they wouldn’t keep quiet. 
 

This makes me believe the Aes Sedai don’t know that there are two halves of the one power. 
 

This was my theory after episodes 1-3. 
 

And there will be a big reveal showing that Aes Sedai aren’t as smart as we thought they were. 

 

Well, there will be a big reveal showing the Aes Sedai aren't as smart as they think they are, I'm sure. 
But Liandrin in this scene isn't instructing students or teaching about the power.  She is speaking quietly, just to the man in front of her, further forward than the Aes Sedai with her, almost under her breath.  Those Aes Sedai would have no reason to be trying to determine if she is lying or not...in fact, depending on how they have been taught, they may actually believe the same.  The rot in the Red Ajah is pretty deep at this point.  And "you" in the phrase can refer to "you men as a whole make/made the one power filthy" which is absolutely true according to current main Aes Sedai belief, because they believe men were the ones who allowed the Dark One to corrupt Saidin.  It's certainly true enough to pass in phrasing like this.

 

[WhiteVeils]

11 hours ago, chri5 said:

If I remember correctly, that is the angreal Rand uses through most of the book. 
 

But now it is also effectively the EoTW from the books, and upgraded to sa’angreal 
 

That means it is way OP for Rand to have all the time. Sigh. 

Not necessarily.  It may have 'burned through' its store and be a normal angreal now.  It doesn't have to be exactly the same. (And Rand is as overpowered as he needs to be when they write him).

[Scarloc99]

On 12/24/2021 at 2:16 AM, JimGalaxy said:

Coming off of Ep7, which I personally felt was the strongest yet, and was really re-establishing ties with the existing fan community ...

Ep8 was, by far, the very worst yet in terms of telling the established story. I could list ten major things - BIG things - but I don't need to; you all know what they are.

My anger and disappointment are in the showrunners, for getting off to what was, overall a promising, mostly-faithful start ... and *then* turning this far left from the storyline. I expect that they just lost a full third of their built-in audience; hundreds of thousands of viewers, gone, for the start of Season 2. I'm not among them; I will view it, but with vastly diminished expectations. For me, the entire series dropped from an 8, to a 4, tonight.

 

... what could have been. ?

I think you are being very very optimistic with your hundreds of thousands of viewers comment. I would imagine book readers make up maybe 10% of total viewers and judging from this board I would suggest the majority of them are sticking with the show. 

 

[Scarloc99]

1 minute ago, WhiteVeils said:

Not necessarily.  It may have 'burned through' its store and be a normal angreal now.  It doesn't have to be exactly the same. (And Rand is as overpowered as he needs to be when they write him).

I mean Rand was a bit of a mary sue character when it came to the levels of power he could channel and the things he could do without training, especially at the start. 

[Scarloc99]

11 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

This is a monumental issue, too.  If they want to change up some stories and call it a different turning of the Wheel, ok, let’s have that conversation.  But different turnings don’t break the fundamental rules by which the world works.  Rules/consistency/etc. are the basic framework they needed to work within but they want to change even that.

as long as the rules are consistant in the TV show then in the interest of removing reams of boring dialogue explaining things that actually, in the grand schemes of a TV show, don't matter I don't really care if they dumb down the one power rules a bit. In the books they took up pages and pages of descriptive text to explain, in the TV show that takes up screen time and requires exposition, which personally I can't stand. 

[Scarloc99]

20 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

In another interview (again, I don’t have the link, sorry) it was implied that he doesn’t believe in introducing a character, having them disappear for a couple seasons, then reappear.  Hence the Aglemar death.  Hes rather introduce a character and have their arc end.

There is also a big scheduling issue here, you book an actor give him a role and ask him to book his other work schedule for the next 8 years based on being needed maybe for a scene or 2 each season. 

If you look historically most TV shows have regulars, who appear most episodes (so can call it an actual regular income) or guest stars who are big enough to be able to call the shots for other work and tell them that. The ones that leaps out at me, whoopi goldberg in Startrek, and Walter Koenig (bester) in Babylon 5. 

Asking an actor to appear in season 1 and return in season 5 is asking for you to have to recast him 5 years later. 

[Scarloc99]

31 minutes ago, RhienneAgain said:

I think the comment that they can't maintain a big cast of characters is ridiculous (and demonstrably false by comparison with GoT). Absolutely streamline, and combine, and ditch characters where needed, but I don't see any reason that would actually prevent them from maintaining a large cast. This seems like a weak excuse at justifying wanting to kill off characters.

Did it though, at any one time the cast was not massive, as characters died others where introduced, but also those characters could be guaranteed an appearance every season, meaning a regular pay check. I am trying to think and there are no characters who drop out for entire seasons. 

WOT you are unlikely to get that same consistency if you are outside of the main cast. So as a jobbing actor you will drop the casual gig for a proper regular thing very quickly, meaning it makes more sense to keep the cast tight. Also COVID, that is a serious consideration that needs to be considered. 

[Scarloc99]

11 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

I feel like I watched with an open mind, too, but eight hours of content is enough to form some definite opinions. Some of ya’ll remind me of the parable of the boy with the shovel in a room full of manure and a smile on his face because “with all this poop around there’s gotta be a pony somewhere!”

You know what we are capable of just enjoying the show without holding onto hope or thinking it is better then it is, I have read the entire series 8 times, I have read books 1-10 multiple times more (from books 1-10 I re read every book up to that release again each time there was a release). I am embedded into the world as much as anyone, but, I am also a realist and you now what I enjoyed the series, there are some production issues I found jarring early on. I thought the first 3 episodes felt rushed. But, and this is important, WOT is not a biography,

 

The TV show was always going to have massive changes made to it, it was going to be dumbed down to attract as wide an audience as possible high fantasy does not sell well, GOT did well because it was about as high fantasy as you can get, there was a dragon, but not really any magic, no wizards and witches throwing fireballs all over the place, it is fairly lo magic in it's world. Any TV show that has a ton of rules that the viewer has to remember is asking to fail because you will lose your bread and butter viewer, the binge streamer who is looking for a new fix. As has been said multiple times High Fantasy Lovers are not enough to warrant making good movies/TV, it is why we have to put up with the kind of stuff you get on the Sci Fi chanel. Science Fiction does better in many ways. 

 

Wheel of time the book series has a ton of rules the reader has to be taught, we love that, that is why we stuck with the books, but that make for awful TV. 

 

Amazon needs it to make them cash. It has the characters, it has the broad strokes of the story and the changes that have been made are not offensive to me. Everyone I know who is not a book reader loves it, the several people I know who handed me back book one telling me it was a load of rubbish enjoyed it, it has done exactly what Amazon needed it to do and the words Wheel of Time have a broader audience who might, just might pick up book 1 and you never know they might stick with it through to further books. 

[Mirefox]

6 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Did it though, at any one time the cast was not massive, as characters died others where introduced, but also those characters could be guaranteed an appearance every season, meaning a regular pay check. I am trying to think and there are no characters who drop out for entire seasons. 

WOT you are unlikely to get that same consistency if you are outside of the main cast. So as a jobbing actor you will drop the casual gig for a proper regular thing very quickly, meaning it makes more sense to keep the cast tight. Also COVID, that is a serious consideration that needs to be considered. 

Yawn.  So many excuses, one after another, for why the poor old show runners simply can’t do what they ought.  It is hard to cast characters so the solution is to kill them off early?  Seriously?  I know, how about the writers do their jobs and instead of reinventing half the story and spending an inordinate amount of time on some background characters they actually write a legitimate reason to keep actors around?  The GoT books have entire books where characters are not present but the writers over there found ways to keep them show-relevant.  If it is really as hard as you want to claim it is then that is further proof that this group of show runners and writers is in way too far over their heads with this IP.