A Female Dragon? Examining the Evidence

[Lance Mitchell]

*shrugs*

 

I just don't see it as the end of the world if this is what they are going for by making Egwene a red herring.

[AdamA]

I honestly don't think any of this makes sense. The timeline says Moiraine heard a rumor of four, but her video shows the three boys when she mentions the Dragon is in this village. It almost feels like whoever wrote the promo material is just confused. It's hard to see how this would even work as some kind of marketing stunt. The only people paying that much attention and scrutinizing the marketing material this closely before the first episode even airs are people who already know the answer. They're not attracting any additional viewers by making us wonder if Egwene might be the Dragon.

 

We'll see, of course, but I can't believe they're actually going to present her as a viable possibility in-universe.

 

One interesting fact I came across right now is that Josha Stradowski and Marcus Rutherford are both the same age, and Madeleine Madden is two years younger than them. That fits perfectly with the lore that the three boys were born at the same time, which is what causes the ambiguity in the first place. The interesting part is that Barney Harris is the same age as Madeleine Madden, but Donal Finn is the same age as Josha and Marcus. So recasting Mat put the actors perfectly in line with book canon. I'm sure that had nothing to do with it and is pure coincidence, but I still found it amusing.

[TheMountain]

"One of the five of you."

 

Confirmed.

[AdamA]

I almost feel the opposite. Nynaeve is definitely older than the other four, so if the reason for the mystery is only knowing the Dragon's birth year, that still rules out Nynaeve even if they aged up Egwene. So if she's being presented as a viable candidate for someone who will be able to stand against the Dark One, that means something other than actually being the Dragon.

[TheMountain]

Unless the foretelling and prophecies have been completely changed for the show.

[mogi68]

ITT: we learned who is susceptible to Aes Sedai-isms

[Beidomon]

I’m glad to hear - I think - that everyone here finds the idea of a Saidar-wielding Dragon totally ridiculous and destructive to the story, but it’s actually kinda hilarious that we’re even having this discussion. This is what happens when spinning the Wheel of Woke.

 

I mean, the prophesies make pretty specific  reference to “he” - not “him, her, they, etc.” Gitara was likewise specific in her foretelling about “he.” Moraine knows this - in the books. But maybe not “in this turning.” Gah. 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Beidomon

[Tim]

1 hour ago, TheMountain said:

Unless the foretelling and prophecies have been completely changed for the show.

I heard this rumour that they’ve changed the plot so that Rand is actually the Dark One reincarnate - which is patriarchal colonialism of course.
 

He no longer channels saidin, but instead pure white male privilege. But he can tell when a female channeler is around because it causes him to cry white male tears. 

 

Season 1 ends with Egwene and Nyanaeve trapping him in the male a’dam so that Verin can deliver him a lecture on intersectionality. 
 

Once that happens and he realises the error of his ways, he becomes extremely politically aware and sensitive, which causes his weaves to turn from white to black. 

[Beidomon]

8 minutes ago, Tim said:

I heard this rumour that they’ve changed the plot so that Rand is actually the Dark One reincarnate - which is patriarchal colonialism of course.
 

He no longer channels saidin, but instead pure white male privilege. But he can tell when a female channeler is around because it causes him to cry white male tears. 

 

Season 1 ends with Egwene and Nyanaeve trapping him in the male a’dam so that Verin can deliver him a lecture on intersectionality. 
 

Once that happens and he realises the error of his ways, he becomes extremely politically aware and sensitive, which causes his weaves to turn from white to black. 

Look if you want the show to succeed, you gotta make a few changes to appeal to today’s audience. 

[Elder_Haman]

1 hour ago, Beidomon said:

it’s actually kinda hilarious that we’re even having this discussion. This is what happens when spinning the Wheel of Woke.

But the only reason we're having this discussion is because people keep injecting the "woke" hobgoblin into the conversation at every turn. Yes, Rafe has said some things about feminism and whatnot. Fine.

 

But not a single one of the things he's said justify the bizarre conclusions that people are happy to jump to and declare to be "confirmed" based on some tortured interpretation of a few seconds of footage or marketing blurb.

 

So the reason we're having the discussion isn't because there is solid evidence of a dramatic change in the lore, but rather because people just keep trying to drum up controversy based on speculation. It's absolutely exhausting.

[RiKToR]

I feel the ambiguity helps create the Macguffin for the show.  I have read the series several times over the course of the last several years, more so the older books. The biggest thing that I realized when I first read the series was that going back to the first 3 books after reading through books 1-7 that I understood alot more of the foreshadowing and the significance of items during the second re-read.  It was one of the things that originally turned me off to the WoT series in the early 90s when it was recommended... I just didn't understand anything and that prologue didn't make sense.  It wasn't until I got audio books that I really trucked through the first few books and the re-read made me like the story even more.  

I think if they take the books' approach with the series they will lose alot of people.  You have to establish the world and some of the motivations for what is going on.  That means borrowing from a New Spring and re-imagining the world from the perspective of how do you get an audience engaged and stay engaged.  

The question of whom the dragon reborn is something they can present right of the bat.  I could also see that implication that all 5 are Taveryn (spelling? remember I am audio book guy).  All five of them have those qualities though only the three boys were specifically identified as such.  Egwene dealing with the Seanchen and the Hall of Tower being perfect examples.  They are all key to the dragon in the last battle.  

I think the new viewers will see this as THE question for the first season with the happenings at the Eye of the World revealing ultimately the dragon but also the importance of the other characters.  It will be the quickest way to get people invested in all of the initial cast as the show progresses.

 

As filmmaker myself, I often pondered how you could tell this epic story and I know things will have to be changed, moved, and cut; however if the essence remains then we should grant the creative license due to the differing medium.  As we examine this, we could look at this at another turning of the wheel, a similar but not the same pattern of events; a new third age cycling around.

[TheMountain]

A female Dragon Reborn though wouldn't be another turning of the Wheel, it would be a different universe.

[Zyxthior]

Here's my 'uneducated' thoughts:

1.  From a Marketing perspective (in this day and age) the potential for the Dragon to swap genders is an interesting concept...keeping the audience in suspense as to who it is....seeing Egwene's strength in the power...I'm fine with it being a mystery (i.e. the show isn't just for 'us', the book fans, it's for a wider audience).

2.  I have been worried about them up and switching the Dragon Reborn from Rand to Egwene...and that started with a comment Brandon Sanderson made about changes between the book and the TV.  He said there would be "a change that fans would hate"  (or dislike....I"m forgetting the exact quote).  At first people were saying this change was going to be Perrin starting out married at the start of the show--which to me personally was a 'meh' change...that particular change doesn't bother me one bit....  But what if it truly is a switch from Rand to Egwene....and we can forget the whole Amyrlin seat/Split Tower subplot (I mean....if this show targets for 8 seasons worth of shows...some serious cuts are going to have to be made)....   I got to admit, I'm fine with dangling Egwene as the DR as that would be a safer choice because there's not help for men who channel...but then it's a sudden reveal at the end of Season 1 (i.e. the overarching mystery of S1 is who is the DR)....but if they truly switched it....that WOULD be a change I'd hate.

[RiKToR]

55 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

A female Dragon Reborn though wouldn't be another turning of the Wheel, it would be a different universe.

 

Agreed, and I don't really think that they will change the identity of the DR.  If you watch todays trailer release with the showrunner talking over what we see, it implies his desire to convey the source material as best possible with the medium; ie showing the Moraine swearing the oath on the Oath Rod or Lan clearly in emotional distress (when he normally conveys little emotion) and Moraine experiencing the feeling, or Logain having a more significant part in the events of EotW besides rumor and Rand's sighting in Caemlyn.  

 

That was the point I meant about another weaving... I don't think Egwane will be the DR... but implying she is more significant than the first book did I am fine with because it ends up being true.  For the first two books Elaine, Egwane and Nienieve seemed to be ancillary to the plot... providing different views but not significance vs the boys.  That changed in later books but I think its fine to start with that implied significance in the show.

Edited October 27, 2021 by RiKToR

[flinn]

 When I heard

 

 "one of the five of you"

 

in the trailer... I stopped watching it.

I have been overall positive about the changes, but this just takes the cake.. Nynaeve is now included? 5 years older than everyone else, and TV Morrainne is such an idiot that she includes Nynaeve?

 

 Did Rafe even read the books? (yes I know he did and is a big fan but screw that bullshit).

[Elder_Haman]

Just now, flinn said:

 When I heard

 

 "one of the five of you"

 

in the trailer... I stopped watching it.

I have been overall positive about the changes, but this just takes the cake.. Nynaeve is now included? 5 years older than everyone else, and TV Morrainne is such an idiot that she includes Nynaeve?

 

 Did Rafe even read the books? (yes I know he did and is a big fan but screw that bullshit).

*sigh*

Let's go over this again. Moriaine's exact quote:

 

"The Dark One is waking. But there will be one who can stand against him. And it's one of the five of you."

1. We do not know whether this line is dialogue from the show, voiceover specific for the trailer or a combination of both.
2. If it is dialogue, we do not know whether these lines are one line or a mashup of several different lines of dialogue.
3. The Dragon Reborn is not specifically referenced. While "one who can stand against him" implies that Moriaine is speaking of the Dragon, Aes Sedai often use implication to avoid the Oaths.
4. Even if the reference to "one who can stand against him" is specific to the Dragon Reborn, the statement "it's one of the five of you" is true. It's Rand. Rand is one of the five Moiraine is addressing. Therefore both the Dragon and Rand are included in the set to which she refers.
5. The statement is also true in that all 5 of them "can stand against" the Dark One and do so.
6. Nothing in any of the dialogue comes close to suggesting that Moraine is uncertain about the gender of the Dragon Reborn.

Is it possible that the writers decided to degender the One Power and explicitly include a woman as a potential Dragon Reborn? Sure. It's possible. Is it likely they've done this? No. It is actually fairly unlikely, IMO. We will find out in 3 weeks.

 

[DaddyFinn]

1 minute ago, Elder_Haman said:

*sigh*

Let's go over this again. Moriaine's exact quote:

 

"The Dark One is waking. But there will be one who can stand against him. And it's one of the five of you."

1. We do not know whether this line is dialogue from the show, voiceover specific for the trailer or a combination of both.
2. If it is dialogue, we do not know whether these lines are one line or a mashup of several different lines of dialogue.
3. The Dragon Reborn is not specifically referenced. While "one who can stand against him" implies that Moriaine is speaking of the Dragon, Aes Sedai often use implication to avoid the Oaths.
4. Even if the reference to "one who can stand against him" is specific to the Dragon Reborn, the statement "it's one of the five of you" is true. It's Rand. Rand is one of the five Moiraine is addressing. Therefore both the Dragon and Rand are included in the set to which she refers.
5. The statement is also true in that all 5 of them "can stand against" the Dark One and do so.
6. Nothing in any of the dialogue comes close to suggesting that Moraine is uncertain about the gender of the Dragon Reborn.

Is it possible that the writers decided to degender the One Power and explicitly include a woman as a potential Dragon Reborn? Sure. It's possible. Is it likely they've done this? No. It is actually fairly unlikely, IMO. We will find out in 3 weeks.

I admire you still try to explain this. I think that the fact that Moiraine speaks first of four, then five people is proof of intentional misleading. Rand is still the DR.

[Agitel]

1 minute ago, DaddyFinn said:

I admire you still try to explain this. I think that the fact that Moiraine speaks first of four, then five people is proof of intentional misleading. Rand is still the DR.

 

That specific quote, if kept in the show, sounds like she's trying to usher the group along, not drop lore on the Dragon Reborn.

 

I do think it's possible Egwene might be floated as a possibility in more specific circumstances, but the inclusion of Nynaeve in a broad statement I'm just taking as what I said: "I'm not lore dropping, we just have to go."

[Pandemonium]

The way the age is stacked, the dragon has to be male.  Not saying there couldn't be a female dragon in other ages.  but needs someone to:

1.  learn the ways of saidin

2.  learn enough about saidin to figure out a way to cleanse the taint

3.  unify a force of male channelers to rebalance the female Aes Sedai (the wheel is about balance)

 

Don't really think a female Aes Sedai would be motivated enough to try to learn the ways of saidin and then find a male channeler to combine with to cleanse the taint.   Females were too biased against men going mad to ever going near helping one.  That's a completely different story if they decided to go that direction.

 

Everything Moiraine is saying is simply her way of getting the girls to come along.  She senses their potential in saidar and knows they are important.  And using them to help defeat the dark one might not be untrue.  All this create mystery for the show, but anyone who has read the books knows it is simple misdirection. 

[AdamA]

After watching this again, it feels like a serious non-issue. It's like if my wife sent a present to one of my sisters and didn't tell me which, and then I went to visit my entire family and told them "one of you got a present from my wife." I could have narrowed it down even further and specifically only addressed my sisters, but why bother?

[Beidomon]

On 10/27/2021 at 3:31 PM, Elder_Haman said:

But the only reason we're having this discussion is because people keep injecting the "woke" hobgoblin into the conversation at every turn. Yes, Rafe has said some things about feminism and whatnot. Fine.

 

But not a single one of the things he's said justify the bizarre conclusions that people are happy to jump to and declare to be "confirmed" based on some tortured interpretation of a few seconds of footage or marketing blurb.

 

So the reason we're having the discussion isn't because there is solid evidence of a dramatic change in the lore, but rather because people just keep trying to drum up controversy based on speculation. It's absolutely exhausting.

I respect your input. You are far and away one of the most measured and reasoned contributors here. So I mean this with all due respect when I say that what really must be exhausting is continuing to defend the little wokeisms in interviews and injected into the content we’ve seen to date. 

 

Moraine never said anything close to “one of you five” in the books - nor would she. It makes absolutely no sense. Claiming that there’s a legit reason for this - this it is deliberate misdirection by Moraine and an Aes Sedai bending of the truth - is a bit silly, if you ask me. We all really know what is going on here: it’s one more little “wokeism” inserted for PR purposes.

 

Do I think they are seriously contemplating changing the Dragon to Eg? Absolutely not. Am I annoyed that they keep doing stupid little stuff like this? Yes. I don’t think it bodes well. Tell the darned story.

 

And another thing, in a two minute trailer, you could set up the whole premise of the series from the taint to the breaking to the rebirth. And for whatever reason we got this instead. The production value looks great, but they really paint this show as extremely generic “the dark one is rising” fantasy. That’s been done about a million times. Where is anything that makes WOT unique? Oh yeah, the girls are in charge this time.

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

it’s one more little “wokeism” inserted for PR purposes.

Okay. I'll concede this point for the sake of argument. Is it a bad thing to market the series broadly? Is the goal to attract only loyal readers? Or are they trying to hit a little bigger than that? 

 

They've very purposefully cast actors like Alvaro Morte, Daniel Henney, and Alexandre Willaume (among others) who are huge stars in their respective home countries. And they have decided to lean heavily into the gendered structure of Westlands society to put women forward as main characters. Seems like the goal is to appeal to a very broad group of people. 

 

But that's not the same thing as dramatically changing the lore and the story in order to pander to a political agenda. 

 

And to be clear, the show could be horribly written and suffer from all of the "woke politics" you fear. But we have literally zero evidence that such is the case. I'll 100% come back and eat crow if I'm wrong. What we've seen so far gives me lots of "we're trying really hard to make a great show" vibes and zero "we're trying to bash you over the head with our politics" vibes.

[swollymammoth]

This is some BUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLL CRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPP 

 

And I'm not afraid to say it. 

 

Why? Literally why? The "It's one of the boys but Egwene and Ny'naeve come along too because Moiraine senses they may be important too" setup from the books is FINE. There was nothing about that setup which needed to be changed in order to adapt the story to TV. 

 

Just yesterday I was listening to a podcast with the Dune director and Christopher Nolan, and the guy just kept talking about how the source material was the bible to them while working on the move, and all I could think was, "Why couldn't we get someone like this to do WoT?" No talk of an "interpretation" or "another turning of the wheel." Just a straightforward adaptation. Put the source material on the screen with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as accurately as possible in another medium. 

 

Apparently that was too much to ask from Amazon. 

[king of nowhere]

16 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

Just yesterday I was listening to a podcast with the Dune director and Christopher Nolan, and the guy just kept talking about how the source material was the bible to them while working on the move, and all I could think was, "Why couldn't we get someone like this to do WoT?" No talk of an "interpretation" or "another turning of the wheel." Just a straightforward adaptation. Put the source material on the screen with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as accurately as possible in another medium.

and yet, they changed a lot compared to the book

Spoiler

the part on caladan was greatly expanded, the whole scene with the imperial emissary was invented, the sardaukar have been turned from professional soldiers into a blood cult, the baron has a different personality than his book counterpart, keynes was gender swapped, the battle for arrakis was hugely expanded with a lot of gratuitous fighting, and during that fighting there is a vast use of projectile weapons that in the books were just not present.

I'm sure there are many more changes that i'm forgetting. And I'm not even a book fan, I only read it twice, and I can point all those changes just from the top of my memory.

 

*SD Here, added spoiler for Dune above*
 

and do you hear people complain about the adaptation?

well, I'm sure someone did. If you find a forum of book purists, you'll find them complainging about how the changes "completely ruined the story". And they'll all be in agreement; all ten of them.

Everyone else is saying the adaptation was great

 

if the changes are those we see in the trailer, there's a good chance wot will be as faithful as dune. Which means, no big changes to the overall story, things that are readapted are so for a good reason.

Edited October 28, 2021 by king of nowhere

[SinisterDeath]

17 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

This is some BUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLL CRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPP 

 

And I'm not afraid to say it. 

 

Why? Literally why? The "It's one of the boys but Egwene and Ny'naeve come along too because Moiraine senses they may be important too" setup from the books is FINE. There was nothing about that setup which needed to be changed in order to adapt the story to TV. 

 

Just yesterday I was listening to a podcast with the Dune director and Christopher Nolan, and the guy just kept talking about how the source material was the bible to them while working on the move, and all I could think was, "Why couldn't we get someone like this to do WoT?" No talk of an "interpretation" or "another turning of the wheel." Just a straightforward adaptation. Put the source material on the screen with the goal of recreating the experience of the books as accurately as possible in another medium. 

 

Apparently that was too much to ask from Amazon. 

Spoiler

For it being their Bible, they left out that Paul was trained as a Mentat.
They changed the scene where we're introduced to Stilgar.
The "Duke's" pet was entirely unnecessary. 
They changed Liet Kynes gender.
They never mentioned the Crysknife must never be sheathed until it's blooded.
Paul never almost got eaten by a sandworm helping the sand crawler.
Liet Kynes dies of exhaustion in the dessert, not knifed to death.
Jamis doesn't immediately challenge Paul to a duel in the desert

Don't click the spoiler above, unless you've seen Dune.


So yea..  If only Rafe was like Nolan, and didn't change a thing... right?