So... About Lan...

[DojoToad]

8 hours ago, Rose said:

 

It looked like a funeral to me, with everyone's dressed in white (the color of mourning in WoT) and the two women on either side of Moiraine look like Nynaeve and Alanna, so it would be in the present timeline. I'm extremely curious what it is.

Dang.  If that is Nynaeve - no cookie for me.

[Guire]

I hope this is young Lan recently bonded at Bukama's funeral.  So we have emotionally ragged Lan fighting to control rage and pain from loss of father figure and last connection to Malkier.  Moraine is reacting to the depth of emotion and what Lan feels inside.  This is also her first bonding. 

 

I hope this is a flashback.  In the present we have the dogged, driven, stoic Moraine and Lan who have searched for 20 years and will never give up.  Death is lighter than a feather Lan.  I hope he stays stoneface in show.

 

[Borderlander]

Daniel Greene mentions in his trailer breakdown that Rafe offered some kind of explanation for this Lan scene in an interview with IGN. Anyone know what he is talking about? I searched IGN but could not find anything.

 

Edit: at the end of the video, Daniel says Rafe's explanation is that Lan is feeling Moiraine's pain through the bond. Still not sure of context or timeline.

 

Edit #2: Found it! 

 

https://www.ign.com/videos/the-wheel-of-time-exclusive-trailer-breakdown-with-showrunner-rafe-judkins-ign-first

 

Fast Forward to about 7:30 for the Lan stuff. Still light on details, but it does rule out some of the other theories being suggested.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Borderlander

[Agitel]

8 minutes ago, Borderlander said:

Daniel Greene mentions in his trailer breakdown that Rafe offered some kind of explanation for this Lan scene in an interview with IGN. Anyone know what he is talking about? I searched IGN but could not find anything.

 

Edit: at the end of the video, Daniel says Rafe's explanation is that Lan is feeling Moiraine's pain through the bond. Still not sure of context or timeline.

 

 

[TheMountain]

2 hours ago, Borderlander said:

Daniel Greene mentions in his trailer breakdown that Rafe offered some kind of explanation for this Lan scene in an interview with IGN. Anyone know what he is talking about? I searched IGN but could not find anything.

 

Edit: at the end of the video, Daniel says Rafe's explanation is that Lan is feeling Moiraine's pain through the bond. Still not sure of context or timeline.

 

Edit #2: Found it! 

 

https://www.ign.com/videos/the-wheel-of-time-exclusive-trailer-breakdown-with-showrunner-rafe-judkins-ign-first

 

Fast Forward to about 7:30 for the Lan stuff. Still light on details, but it does rule out some of the other theories being suggested.

 

Like I was saying earlier: to be true to Lan's character, if Moraine is crying out, Lan should have a single tear rolling down his cheek, not the other way around.

 

To me this looks like an attempt to raise up Moraine as strong by lowering Lan.

Edited October 29, 2021 by TheMountain

[Elder_Haman]

I will be interested to see if men beating their breasts is a cultural signifier of mourning in the Borderlands.

 

Lan is absolutely not crying in the scene. He is beating his chest and screaming. To me, his expression looks angry and frustrated. Perhaps the person being mourned is important to him? 

 

I'll agree this is an out of character moment for Lan. But such there are reasons in visual media that you use such devices. I'm going to withhold judgment until I see the scene.

[AdamA]

There's no reason at all that Borderlanders or Warders can't have something equivalent to the basic man law that it's okay to cry when your dog dies and during Brian's Song but never otherwise. You still get to save face as an unflappable tough guy.

 

This could also be like Michael Corleone, famously stoic, barely reacts when his brother dies, when his dad dies, calmly orders his other brother's execution and looks vaguely lonely and regretful, calmly closes the door on Kay as she's totally flipping out telling him she aborted his kid. But then he totally loses it when his daughter is murdered and it's widely thought of as one of the better scenes in Godfather III even though the movie wasn't well received overall. Something finally got to the guy with no weaknesses and it made a huge impact to see it.

[Agitel]

48 minutes ago, TheMountain said:

To me this looks like an attempt to raise up Moraine as strong by lowering Lan.

 

Yeah, I really think that's just too big of a leap at this point.

 

I also feel like a picture fell off the wall and people are running about saying there's a poltergeist in the house while some of us are just saying "let's look for a more rational explanation before jumping to conclusions."

Edited October 29, 2021 by Agitel

[TheDreadReader]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

I will be interested to see if men beating their breasts is a cultural signifier of mourning in the Borderlands.

 

Lan is absolutely not crying in the scene. He is beating his chest and screaming. To me, his expression looks angry and frustrated. Perhaps the person being mourned is important to him? 

 

I'll agree this is an out of character moment for Lan. But such there are reasons in visual media that you use such devices. I'm going to withhold judgment until I see the scene.

 

They could also be altering the worldbuilding a bit by adding ritualistic mourning to the borderlander/warder cultures.   Basically, warriors are stoic and reserved in all cases except when one of their own falls in battle and then they are expected to mourn in a way that would seem excessive to our culture.   Military and militaristic societies (and sub cultures) often have their distinct rituals but they are rarely shown well in popular media.   

 

From a show perspective you also have to show the warder-bond in action and this seems like a pretty good way to do it.

 

[Elder_Haman]

Men ritualistically beating their breast in grief is definitely a thing. Lots of such described in the Old Testament, for example.

[Elgee]

Firstly, where DOES this misconception come from that the Bonding is painful? Are people confusing it with the effect of the Oathrod? If so, that is a bit uncomfortable - not painful to the point of screaming.

 

Secondly, we are already seeing a complete break from Aes Sedai character in the trailers, ie them showing much more emotion than they would in the Books (Leanne banging her staff on the floor and pulling a grotesque face in the Hall is an example).

I presume they have to do this because having a bunch of blank-faced people would not make for good TV. It stands to reason that if the Aes Sedai serenity has gone out the window, Warder stoicism probably will too.

 

As I mentioned at the trailer reveal party, the chance which Brandon said the fans are going to hate, is probably going to be Emo Lan instead of Emo Rand ?

[DojoToad]

40 minutes ago, Elgee said:

Firstly, where DOES this misconception come from that the Bonding is painful? Are people confusing it with the effect of the Oathrod? If so, that is a bit uncomfortable - not painful to the point of screaming.

I brought up the bonding as being painful as I was trying to figure out what was happening in the scene with Lan on his knees beating his chest.

 

I addressed that the oath rod is not painful.  And the books never addressed bonding as being painful.  But things are changing from books to show and I thought this might be one of those things - just speculation.

 

Make sense?

[Wassup]

My speculation on this is it may be from the New Spring time, Something has happened to affect Lan and Moiraine is reacting to it by sensing his feelings through the bond.  I have seen several comments by people with similar thoughts. 

I have not read New Spring, so I cannot add any more than that.  Maybe she has newly bonded him and is learning how to deal with that aspect of it and the aftermath of it is Lan becomes the man we know in the rest of the books?

Just spitballing here.

[Elgee]

19 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I brought up the bonding as being painful as I was trying to figure out what was happening in the scene with Lan on his knees beating his chest.

 

I addressed that the oath rod is not painful.  And the books never addressed bonding as being painful.  But things are changing from books to show and I thought this might be one of those things - just speculation.

 

Make sense?

 

Thank you for clarifying that you're purely speculating, not misremembering. I don't think you're the only one who's mentioned this, tough, so hopefully others aren't just running with your speculation as gospel.

 

I wouldn't agree that it makes sense, but seeing some of the changes thus far (stomping Lan, etc), I wouldn't say it's impossible.

[DojoToad]

21 minutes ago, Elgee said:

 

Thank you for clarifying that you're purely speculating, not misremembering. I don't think you're the only one who's mentioned this, tough, so hopefully others aren't just running with your speculation as gospel.

 

I wouldn't agree that it makes sense, but seeing some of the changes thus far (stomping Lan, etc), I wouldn't say it's impossible.

Most people aren’t liking my idea. They’re thinking mourning…

[Rose]

Unless I'm misunderstanding, Rafe didn't explicitly say Lan is feeling Moiraine's emotions. It could be the other way around, someone died that's important to Lan and Moiraine feels his pain. (My question being: who could possibly die that Lan cared about so much?)

 

Alternatively, maybe it's some sort of memorial to Malkier anniversary thing. 

Edited October 30, 2021 by Rose

[Guire]

1 hour ago, Rose said:

Unless I'm misunderstanding, Rafe didn't explicitly say Lan is feeling Moiraine's emotions. It could be the other way around, someone died that's important to Lan and Moiraine feels his pain. (My question being: who could possibly die that Lan cared about so much?)

 

Alternatively, maybe it's some sort of memorial to Malkier anniversary thing. 

If this is a flashback to New Spring, there are several people murdered by a Black Ajah Aes Sedai that are all close to Lan.  I am going to reread New Spring  to see if it might make sense.  Or they may just be changing Lan because they want him more expressive.

[Agitel]

4 hours ago, Rose said:

Unless I'm misunderstanding, Rafe didn't explicitly say Lan is feeling Moiraine's emotions. It could be the other way around, someone died that's important to Lan and Moiraine feels his pain. (My question being: who could possibly die that Lan cared about so much?)

 

Alternatively, maybe it's some sort of memorial to Malkier anniversary thing. 

 

You're right. Rafe didn't say he's feeling her emotions. But I think a youtube reaction video brought it up and people have been repeating it. It looks very much like she's feeling his emotions.

[Skipp]

8 minutes ago, Agitel said:

 

You're right. Rafe didn't say he's feeling her emotions. But I think a youtube reaction video brought it up and people have been repeating it. It looks very much like she's feeling his emotions.

 

I believe Rafe said the following

- Lan is showing much more emotion than a book reader would expect from him in this scene.

- They wanted to show, not tell, the complicated dynamic of the Bond between Warder and Aes Sedai

- That they feel each others emotions and pain(physical and emotional)

 

So yeah no direct confirmation on if this is Lan channeling Moiraines pain, his own or some combination.  But I imagine it is one of them and it is not something we will see Lan do often.

 

Someone mentioned that it is possible that Lan and Moiraine have worked out that She must always keep her composure in public because she is the Aes Sedai and that he does this to vent for both of them.

[king of nowhere]

not sure if i should start a new thread with this speculation, but i believe it can possibly be the funeral of lord agelmar. see my reasoninge:

 

- there seem to be many warriors engaging in ritualistic mourning, as would befit the death of someone important

- the scene seems to be from present timeline

- lan is wearing a sort of "official" garb

 

he wouldn't have an armor with white drapes on the road, it would make sense for him to be able to get one in fal dara. and lord agelmar is important enough that his death could cause emotion in lan, and justify an elaborate funeral.

furthermore, while in the books lord agelmar mounts a desperate defence at tarwin's gap but lives after rand destroys the shadowspawn army, he's then put on a bus and not seen until ten books later. we know, for a tv show, that's a bad thing to do. much better to kill him for good this time, and then show up another lord to be the great captain from shienar if the show manages to run to the end without getting cancelled.

 

in short, it would make perfect sense to kill agelmar in the tv show, and it would make perfect sense for lan to behave that way at lord agelmar's funeral.

[Skipp]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

not sure if i should start a new thread with this speculation, but i believe it can possibly be the funeral of lord agelmar. see my reasoninge:

 

- there seem to be many warriors engaging in ritualistic mourning, as would befit the death of someone important

- the scene seems to be from present timeline

- lan is wearing a sort of "official" garb

 

he wouldn't have an armor with white drapes on the road, it would make sense for him to be able to get one in fal dara. and lord agelmar is important enough that his death could cause emotion in lan, and justify an elaborate funeral.

furthermore, while in the books lord agelmar mounts a desperate defence at tarwin's gap but lives after rand destroys the shadowspawn army, he's then put on a bus and not seen until ten books later. we know, for a tv show, that's a bad thing to do. much better to kill him for good this time, and then show up another lord to be the great captain from shienar if the show manages to run to the end without getting cancelled.

 

in short, it would make perfect sense to kill agelmar in the tv show, and it would make perfect sense for lan to behave that way at lord agelmar's funeral.

 

We have that one shot of Lan and his sword that appears to have an enscription from Agelmar so they may play up that relationship more than the books.  Possibly that Agelmar helped raise Lan.

 

Two knocks against this entire theory is that this would be a scene from very, very late in the show to highlight in a trailer.  2nd being that Rafe wants this scene to give information about the warder bond, so that would mean leaving it very late in the season.

[Rose]

2 hours ago, Skipp said:

 

We have that one shot of Lan and his sword that appears to have an enscription from Agelmar so they may play up that relationship more than the books.  Possibly that Agelmar helped raise Lan.

 

Two knocks against this entire theory is that this would be a scene from very, very late in the show to highlight in a trailer.  2nd being that Rafe wants this scene to give information about the warder bond, so that would mean leaving it very late in the season.

 

That makes sense. I could see them playing up Lan's relationship with Agelmar and merging him with Bukama or something like that.

 

It could be that this isn't the only means of showing the warder bond, so it's okay that it comes later because we have other examples before. But they put the most spectacular one in the trailer.

[Morani]

11 hours ago, Rose said:

 

That makes sense. I could see them playing up Lan's relationship with Agelmar and merging him with Bukama or something like that.

 

It could be that this isn't the only means of showing the warder bond, so it's okay that it comes later because we have other examples before. But they put the most spectacular one in the trailer.

 

The good thing with combining Agelmar and Bukama would be that it would give the showrunners a better way of showing of Lan's backstory, without it just coming of as exposition. And it would also narrow down the number of named characters, something we know that they absolutely have to do for the series to make sense to the average viewer.  

[SinisterDeath]

~Daniel Henney

 

From his interview with slash film

 https://www.slashfilm.com/654425/4-things-we-learned-about-the-wheel-of-time-from-rosamund-pike-and-daniel-henney/

 

*Edit*

Fixed link.

[Agitel]

6 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

~Daniel Henney

 

From his interview with slash film

 https://www.slashfilm.com/597205/fantasy-films-that-never-got-sequels/

 

Looks like the wrong link. This one goes to the interview: 

 

https://www.slashfilm.com/654425/4-things-we-learned-about-the-wheel-of-time-from-rosamund-pike-and-daniel-henney/

Edited November 11, 2021 by Agitel