On "Wokeness" and the Wheel of Time - Be Thoughtful in Responding

[Elder_Haman]

What I keep coming back to is this:

• If your concern is that they are making the show "woke" and;
• Your definition of "woke" is seeing lots of different cultures and people represented, the portrayal of strong aggressive women who don't fit traditional gender stereotypes, and the inclusion of gay and lesbian characters and sexual relationships;
• But you love RJ's worldbuilding.

How do you not understand that Wheel of Time was "woke" when it was written?

 

• There are tons and tons of cultural differences in RJ's Wheel of Time;
• There are strong, aggressive women who don't fit traditional gender stereotypes in RJ's Wheel of Time;
• There are portrayals of many different cultural ideas surrounding sex and sexuality - including canonically gay and lesbian characters and polyamorous relationships;
• There are nods to virtually every modern religious tradition and mythology adapted from incredibly diverse places = including Norse mythology, Arthurian legend and others too numerous to list.

 

If a fictional world exists where one can simultaneously accomplish a LotR/GoT level adaptation and meet "woke" ideals of diversity and inclusion without significantly altering the basic structures of the text, that world is the world of the Wheel of Time. 

 

If your concern is that they are going to preach at us through the writing, please stop complaining about it until the show is out and we can have an evidenced based discussion about the subject rather than the same tired speculating based on incomplete information.

[AusLeviathan]

I don't personally care about whether the series is woke, I care about whether it makes sense and keeps the spirit of the books.

 

The things I do have a problem with which are related to that and are confirmed.

 

- Nynaeve taking on and killing a Trolloc after Tam struggles with and needs help taking out one Trolloc.

- Nynaeve sneaking up on Lan and getting the drop on him.

- Nynaeve suggesting that the ability to take a life is what makes a woman strong.

 

This is poor writing that makes no sense for the character or the world. It's in the show because writers often struggle with female characters, not wanting to show them actually vulnerable in situations when they would be and defaulting to making them fighters regardless of how much sense it makes.

 

As for the preaching, the marketing has made it pretty clear what tone the series is going for and the fact we've seen the first scene of the show and the first thing we're told is that men are arrogant world destroyers supports the marketing's message being accurate.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Harldin]

27 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

I don't personally care about whether the series is woke, I care about whether it makes sense and keeps the spirit of the books.

 

The things I do have a problem with which are related to that and are confirmed.

 

- Nynaeve taking on and killing a Trolloc after Tam struggles with and needs help taking out one Trolloc.

- Nynaeve sneaking up on Lan and getting the drop on him.

- Nynaeve suggesting that the ability to take a life is what makes a woman strong.

 

This is poor writing that makes no sense for the character or the world. It's in the show because writers often struggle with female characters, not wanting to show them actually vulnerable in situations when they would be and defaulting to making them fighters regardless of how much sense it makes.

 

As for the preaching, the marketing has made it pretty clear what tone the series is going for and the fact we've seen the first scene of the show and the first thing we're told is that men are arrogant world destroyers supports the marketing's message being accurate.

Nynaeve killing the Trolloc, who says she doesn't use Saidar to do it? she has been unknowingly channeling for years.

Nynaeve sneaking up on Lan, she does it in the books when she meets up with Morraine and Lan after Shadar Logoth and listens to them speaking for several minutes from a hiding spot, before Morraine  finally calls her out and Lan is totally surprised she is there.  

[DaddyFinn]

32 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Nynaeve taking on and killing a Trolloc after Tam struggles with and needs help taking out one Trolloc.

Nynaeve sneaks up on it. Tam is faced with a vicious attack.

 

33 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Nynaeve sneaking up on Lan and getting the drop on him.

What's this? The shot where she holds a knife on him? How do you know she sneaks up on him?

 

34 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Nynaeve suggesting that the ability to take a life is what makes a woman strong.

That's odd, I give you that.

 

35 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

As for the preaching, the marketing has made it pretty clear what tone the series is going for and the fact we've seen the first scene of the show and the first thing we're told is that men are arrogant world destroyers supports the marketing's message being accurate.

The book prologue didn't exactly portray the men in a positive way. That's also pretty accurate when talking about (LTT and 100 companions) male channelers.

[AusLeviathan]

50 minutes ago, Harldin said:

Nynaeve killing the Trolloc, who says she doesn't use Saidar to do it? she has been unknowingly channeling for years.

49 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Nynaeve sneaks up on it. Tam is faced with a vicious attack.

She doesn't use Saidar (there's no weaves, she has to grab a weapon and she attacks with the weapon).

 

She sneaks up on it and grabs its weapon (yes she's strong enough to hold a weapon designed for a Trolloc and grab the weapon away from it). The Trolloc turns around and attempts to hit her which she avoids leading into an overhead slash which rips open the Trolloc's front (blood everywhere) at this point she takes the Trolloc underwater as the pool fills with its blood.

 

Tam is experienced and prepared with his weapon and still gets his butt kicked. Nynaeve literally overpowers a Trolloc and takes it out rather easily by comparison.

 

50 minutes ago, Harldin said:

Nynaeve sneaking up on Lan, she does it in the books when she meets up with Morraine and Lan after Shadar Logoth and listens to them speaking for several minutes from a hiding spot, before Morraine  finally calls her out and Lan is totally surprised she is there. 

She maintains a distance so that they can't hear her in the books, smart and a good way to show she knows how to hunt realistically. This is very different from how the show handles it.

 

49 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

What's this? The shot where she holds a knife on him? How do you know she sneaks up on him?

Footage from the new promo shows that she sneaks up on him and places the knife right against him, or do you think Lan just randomly allows people to be that close to stabbing him for fun.

 

49 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

The book prologue didn't exactly portray the men in a positive way. That's also pretty accurate when talking about (LTT and 100 companions) male channelers.

It's not in anyway accurate. LTT and the 100 companions went with the only plan on the table after the female Aes Sedai decided they'd rather wait around and hope that the war they were close to losing would suddenly turn around for them and this was after the Choedan Kal access keys had been captured. Their actions are the only reason the Dark One didn't win the War of Power.

 

In any case, starting the first minute of the show by telling the audience that men are arrogant idiots who destroyed the world for their own hubris (without any attempt to show sympathy to why those actions occurred) is not the best way to start this series and is probably going to leave a bad first impression.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Kudzu]

56 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

 

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

Nynaeve suggesting that the ability to take a life is what makes a woman strong.

That's odd, I give you that.

"A woman must be strong, with the ability to give life and to take it" Misrepresenting the quote much? I'm not even sure that was Nynaeve speaking.

 

32 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

 

56 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

What's this? The shot where she holds a knife on him? How do you know she sneaks up on him?

Footage from the new promo shows that she sneaks up on him and places the knife right against him, or do you think Lan just randomly allows people to be that close to stabbing him for fun.

Impossible to tell, because you can't really see Lan, but my take is he's already facing her. He see's her coming and is not concerned about her knife because he is Lan. (assuming you're talking about the bit at approx 0:25 in the new Egwene and Nynaeve clip) 

 

32 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

In any case, starting the first minute of the show by telling the audience that men are arrogant idiots who destroyed the world for their own hubris (without any attempt to show sympathy to why those actions occurred) is not the best way to start this series and is probably going to leave a bad first impression.

 

Paraphrasing from memory cause I'm too lazy to look it up. "Men with great power thought they could cage darkness itself, the arrogance". She is calling the specific actions of specific men arrogant, not all men. There is nothing untrue about that statement.

 

I do agree they are leaning into the woman being the saviors and protectors of the world. Certainly from the Aes Sedai POV. What I think they are doing is setting up the imbalance, to demonstrate how women working alone is not and will not work.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Kudzu
stray punctuation

[DaddyFinn]

27 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

She sneaks up on it and grabs its weapon (yes she's strong enough to hold a weapon designed for a Trolloc and grab the weapon away from it).

Didn't she grab a large knife or something like that from its belt? It's not that big she couldn't swing it with two hands

[AusLeviathan]

3 hours ago, Kudzu said:

"A woman must be strong, with the ability to give life and to take it?" Misrepresenting the quote much? I'm not even sure that was Nynaeve speaking.

It is her speaking, it's clearly part of Egwene's women's circle initiation. It still says that a woman must be strong with the ability to take life, I'm pretty sure Nynaeve from the books would beat anyone who said that with a stick.

 

3 hours ago, Kudzu said:

Impossible to tell, because you can't really see Lan, but my take is he's already facing her. He see's her coming and is not concerned about her knife because he is Lan. (assuming you're talking about the bit at approx 0:25 in the new Egwene and Nynaeve clip) 

She appears to grab something from him with her right hand as he starts to turn around (the sword placement shows he's turning in her direction and isn't facing her when she's right behind him at first), notably her right hand doesn't have anything in it before grabbing at him and after it has a knife. I'm pretty sure she repeats what she did with the Trolloc and takes his knife (either that or she quickly switches hands with the knife in less than a second). She might also be grabbing at him and change her action to drawing the knife from her side when he starts to turn around but if so that's a really smooth and fast draw.

 

3 hours ago, Kudzu said:

I do agree they are leaning into the woman being the saviors and protectors of the world. Certainly from the Aes Sedai POV. What I think they are doing is setting up the imbalance, to demonstrate how women working alone is not and will not work.

All fine but if you start the first minute of the show by telling the audience that men are arrogant world destroyers and offering no explanation for what lead to that situation then I can see a lot of people unfamiliar with the series quickly being turned off, particularly since the next scene is very likely a group of women describing how great women are (the women's circle initiation).

 

3 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Didn't she grab a large knife or something like that from its belt? It's not that big she couldn't swing it with two hands

You ever tried holding something really light? It's awkward and certainly not what you'd want in a weapon so logically a Trolloc's weapon would have to be pretty heavy (since they'd be much stronger than a human).

 

Plus she grabs its weapon before it notices her and overpowers it. These are meant to be the bulky soldiers of the shadow and they can't even take on an unarmed healer.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Pandemonium]

I'm pretty much down for anything these days as long as they keep the spirit of the books in tact.

And yes no overt preaching either!  Was merely hoping they still keep saidin and saidar distinct since gender itself seems to be such a problematic construct these days.  

 

Bisexual Rand, trans actors, pillowfriends galore, pansexual, mixed race cast... cool no big deal, not even cutting edge these days.

 

Some people here have a problem with man-hating, but I think that was already abundant in wheel of time.  The Aes Sedai are going to be heavily biased against men who can channel and the show wouldn't be doing its job if they didn't have lots of haughty/arrogant Aes Sedai.

 

Keep the story alive and this should be amazing so I'm still really excited for what's coming.  

 

[Kudzu]

5 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

All fine but if you start the first minute of the show by telling the audience that men are arrogant world destroyers and offering no explanation for what lead to that situation then I can see a lot of people unfamiliar with the series quickly being turned off, particularly since the next scene is very likely a group of women describing how great women are (the women's circle initiation).

 

I can see people with a pre-conceived notion that the show will be "woke" being turned off. I'm not sure the same applies to everyone else.

[Guire]

First I want to say most of this conversation is more a reflection of current political jockeying inside US culture and politics.  Entertainment fields and media have a much higher percentage of people that are LGBTQ people as workers than other work fields in US.  I work in healthcare and was in the military.  Both of those fields have what I would consider a fairly reflective percentage of workers for LGBTQ.  But my point is that people who have many openly LGBTQ people in their sphere have lots while other people have very few.  I think this leads to one group feeling like some people are way under represented while other groups feel like they are way over representing people.  To me this is the crux.

 

One of my issues I have noted from trailers which may not stand up is way they chose to cast.  EF seems very cosmopolitan.  So there seems like lots of very different races instead of sort of an main mixture with a few more distinct individuals.  I always pictured EF people as sort of Portuguese.  A darker flavor of southern European with some north African features.  Thats my head cannon.  So Rand would seem to kind of stick out but not be totally unbelievable.  The casting of EF5 is actually pretty decent with restrictions concerning acting.  But rest of village seems all over the place without a reason to be.  This might reflect a change in Two Rivers history in general but may just be that some people in entertainment feel like the world is like a liberal arts college or Brooklyn when it usually isnt for most people.  There are often kind of racial norms as you move around inside areas that are easily noticed but not considered currently polite to notice.  

 

My hope was that WoT would have very distinct cultural areas with some racial distinction for each culture with the normal variance inside that culture allowing for more or less racial cosmopolitanism based on history of area.  An example would be I always pictured borderlands as kind of a sweep across Asia into eastern Europe.  Saldaea I always pictured as Persian. Shienar as possibly Japanese or Korean.  Arafal and Kandor as Slavic or Eurasian.  If entire Borderlands is mix of all world races it will feel less like a closed martial society.  Andor is probably much more racially cosmopolitan inside Caemlyn because it is sort of a stable prosperous centralized capital.  A London type city. Where as Bandar Eban as a more isolated city with geographical barriers would probably be more racially distinctive.  I hope they at least try for this.

[AusLeviathan]

17 minutes ago, Kudzu said:

I can see people with a pre-conceived notion that the show will be "woke" being turned off. I'm not sure the same applies to everyone else.

It's not about being woke, it's about drawing the viewer in.

 

Is "men are arrogant and useless, women are strong and responsible" the best hook to intrigue people for a fantasy action series?

 

Introduce those things slowly over the first episode and give hints of that the story isn't necessarily that simple and it'd be fine and would work well but throwing that into people's face in the first few minutes so that it's the first impression people have before they know anything about the characters or the world is not the best idea.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[Yellowbeard]

I could envision the message about arrogant men destroying the world in the past being put that way to tell the audience the point of view of the current in-world regular, everyday people in show-Randland. It's not the truth, but it's what people believe. Their giving the audience a starting point. 

 

I suspect they start with "male AS broke the world, saidin is now tainted, male channelers go mad and are extremely dangerous" to convey to the audience why show-RL ppl hate and fear make channelers so much. then we go right to confronting Logain to drive the point home.

 

The audience then finds out show-RL people are misinformed about how saidin was tainted and why, and misinformed about why LTT and the companions did what they did as the show progesses and new reveals come out.

 

it's also a good way to build tension for the audience, non-readers especially. start with conveying how scary male channelers are but then build up to the reveal that one of your main characters you are connecting with is not only a male channeler but likely TDR.

 

then progress thru more new reveals as the show continues, trickle new info to the audience bit by bit so they start to figure out more puzzle pieces of what's truth and what's not. 

 

it's actually pretty smart. the show will have viewers new to the story theorizing as hard as we did when RJ was writing the books. and they've got it looking to be different enough for book readers to be intrigued by changes and have some excitement and anticipation as well. i know I'm looking forward to seeing my wife (non reader) theorizing, re-watching to look for clues, and know sort of what's coming but also be guessing some myself. 

 

As for "woke" in the story - its a world where everyone was literally mixed up scattered randomly around the globe during the breaking. it makes sense there'd be lots of diversity. People landed where they after the breaking, and random others with different skin color and culture would all be just jumbled together. They're descendants would maintain that diversity. 

 

As for a societal message to viewers that "men are bad" if given too much power, basically the books start with that too. The message and themes for the audience change on the way to the story end, but I'd just urge those viewers who feel attacked by the message to just give it a chance. Their gonna quickly show the right examples of masculinity too - Tam, Thom, Lan, and Rand and Perrin in particular in EoTW, they all will demonstrate much better and be part of backing up the initial all men bad message. Don't let your own issues with wokeness today color the show too much.

 

 

[Tim]

5 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

- Nynaeve taking on and killing a Trolloc after Tam struggles with and needs help taking out one Trolloc.

Where is the footage of Tam fighting a trolloc? I don't remember seeing that.

[AusLeviathan]

10 minutes ago, Tim said:

Where is the footage of Tam fighting a trolloc? I don't remember seeing that.

We see it briefly in the trailer, at least that Trolloc puts up a good showing though at the cost of making Tam look quite a bit weaker than he was in the books. 

[Ralph]

Tam blocks a Trolloc attacking him, Nynaeve attacks a Trolloc taking it by surprise. Not really comparable

Edited November 10, 2021 by Ralph

[MasterAblar]

I mean kinda gotta see the whole scene to know if it’s believable. 
 

For all we know in the next second tam slices up the trolloc with crazy skill. And for Nyneave it might look silly but gotta see it properly first. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by MasterAblar

[Tim]

Okay I just watched it again and understand why I couldn’t remember what scene this was - it is so brief I don’t know how any conclusions can be drawn as to how Tam actually fares in this fight? If we’re talking about the same scene then the trolloc tries to kill Tam and Tam stops him with his blade?
 

Moreover, we don’t know if he pushes the trolloc off him after they close with eachother, how the scene gets set up (it appears rand is on the other side of the trolloc so it’s possible that Tam basically went kamikaze to save his son), whether Tam is already injured etc. plus it looks like this trolloc is (lightly) armoured whereas the one nynaeve faces is not. 
 

the idea that we would draw from these snippets that the show runners want to present men as useless and women as powerful warriors kinda boggles my mind to be honest. 

[Ralph]

2 hours ago, MasterAblar said:

I mean kinda gotta see the whole scene to know if it’s believable. 
 

For all we know in the next second tam slices up the trolloc with crazy skill. And for Nyneave it might look silly but gotta see it properly first. 

I think the description on @thewheeloftime twitter said Rand shoots the same Trolloc 

[notpropaganda73]

Hi all - first post here...

 

I've lurked a little recently and read a lot of posts and I must say I'm really surprised at some of the extreme negative reactions in terms of the show being "woke". A lot of the things I've seen there being complaints about in terms of diversity and the position of women in the show are things that were in the books. One of the biggest complaints and frustrations throughout the series would be powerful women constantly talking about men as if they were stupid, stubborn, wool-headed etc., so it is a view that is in-built in the WoT world. If people are saying this is "woke" culture being forced on to Wheel of Time, I'd argue they never read the books in the first place. 

 

The Wheel of Time world is incredibly diverse, in fact it's the best series I have ever read in terms of world building. I've no issue with the casting which I have seen some complain about, as long as it is consistent within the world they build for the adaptation. One of the absolute keys to the Wheel of Time are the very distinct cultures and the attitudes between different cultures, so as long as they get that right I will be happy. 

 

The biggest thing I have seen people complain about is the wording around who the Dragon may be and the change about LTT possibly being reborn as a woman. I can understand people being annoyed at this change from the books but I do admit to rolling my eyes when people put it down to "wokeness" or whatever. I sometimes wonder do people think the writers, Rafe, whoever, are in a room together maniacally laughing as they tear up the books and just have a whiteboard with phrases like "Men are Trash!" "White privelege in WoT!" "Let's make everything woke!". It's weird to me when I read comments like "I feel like Rafe is changing the material to suit his own worldview" or whatever it was I saw in another thread. 

 

It's a big change, but I think it could be interesting. What does it mean for the world and the magic system if LTT was reborn in a woman's body? Can they only access saidin? The fact is trans people are much more prominent in today's world than they would have been when RJ was writing the series - would he have incorporated trans people into WoT, and how would he have done it? I think it's an interesting question and one that opens up opportunities for interesting characters and scenarios in the adaptation. And that is to say - we don't actually know for sure what changes *have* been made, so we are speculating!  

 

Sure, it could all be done terribly and we'll be upset. But I don't understand the eagerness to label the show straight away without watching it. Key things to remember are: it's an adaptation, what works on the page doesn't always work on screen. Changes *have* to be made for it to be a successful TV show - we will not be happy with all the changes but pretending as though the showrunners have a cultural agenda they are forcing on the material is, honestly, crazy to me. 

[AusLeviathan]

The footage we have when looked at together is pretty clear, a single Trolloc attacks (it's the same lone Trolloc that barges in on Tam that we see Tam struggling against), Tam struggles pretty badly and is doing all he can to stay alive then Rand shoots an arrow at it (can pretty much guarantee this will be what stops it).

 

How do we know this is basically how it goes? Well episode one is at most 60 minutes but more likely 55-56 minutes with the opening and credits taken out. In that time they have to get the backstories down for all five of the EF5, show off their relationships, set up Moiraine and Lan, show those two meeting everyone then have the Trolloc attack where we will have to see at least five view points of the attack (Moiraine & Lan/Rand/Mat/Perrin/Egwene & Nynaeve).

 

There simply isn't enough time to have the Tam & Rand vs Trolloc fight scene then follow it up with more Trollocs arriving then have Rand take an injured Tam to the village. The result is that Tam must be injured during the attack by the lone Trolloc and Rand has to help finish it off (which is what the footage is showing us).

 

As for the whole women as powerful warriors thing. Well we have multiple promos including the teaser where a main female character informs us that women are the strong protectors of the world, we have Nynaeve informing us that part of a woman being strong is that she can take lives, we have Nynaeve overpowering a Trolloc and butchering it, we have Nynaeve and Egwene both reacting fiercely to the Trollocs attacking the village and actually attacking them head on (Rand by comparison is portrayed as scared and even looks worried whilst aiming his bow).

 

We have a number of Two Rivers women taking down Trollocs (apparently in the show it wasn't just one rather strong woman but rather every single woman in the Two Rivers reacting to the attack by picking up a weapon and going after Trollocs, well perhaps almost every woman at least).

 

We also have Nynaeve getting the drop on Lan and holding a weapon right against him (this alone would make Nynaeve one of the most impressive warriors in the world) and we also see that the fight in the pool isn't her only time taking on a Trolloc by herself as she's shown stabbing one during the attack on the village.

 

I'm not sure how you could come away from all this footage not thinking that women are being portrayed that way.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AusLeviathan

[king of nowhere]

regarding the whole "give life or take it", i have two different possible explanation.

one is that "take life" does not mean to actually kill someone, but to witness someone's passing. women are healers, and they will have some patients they cannot save. they will have to be powerless in watching those people die, and they will have to live on and keep healing as best as they can. it also ties in medieval lore where women were the keepers of life and death; in the past, men were forbidden from assisting a childbirthing, and when someone died he was surrounded by women. there is a passage in the life of dante alighieri where his beloved beatrice lost her father, and dante was crying because he knew it would make beatrice sad, and women from the home saw him and actually scolded him, crying for the dead was women's business. women are in charge of life and death.

 

another possible interpretation, we know the women's circle has a role in administering justice, so it may just mean "to sentence someone to harsh punishment".

 

either way, it feels more like a ritualized formula than a literal statement.

 

as for nynaeve vs trolloc, she snuck on the trolloc and stabbed it from behind. it required a major stroke of luck on her part that the trolloc stopped exactly where he was, and never turned around to see her. it shows that she's brave, to reach for the beast hunting you; fear would compel her to stay hidden. It shows determination, resourcefulness. but a great warrior? nope.

and we don't see much of tam's fight. in the book, tam kills four trollocs while taking a flesh wound. he almost died only because the blade was tainted.

 

finally, for "the show" calling men arrogant in the beginning, that's only moiraine's recap, in her own voice. it's clearly her own point of view, not to be taken as a hard statement. and i like the idea that they would start by showing the aes sedai perspective, only to move on to gradually undermine them

[notpropaganda73]

5 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

finally, for "the show" calling men arrogant in the beginning, that's only moiraine's recap, in her own voice. it's clearly her own point of view, not to be taken as a hard statement. and i like the idea that they would start by showing the aes sedai perspective, only to move on to gradually undermine them

 

Yes, 100% agree. The books did a great job of showing us suspicion of Aes Sedai, so it would be great to show us Moiraine's perspective and then have that trust of Aes Sedai eroded for viewers' as the series progresses. The show has a lot of opportunities to play with expectations (and that's a testament to RJs writing). 

[DaddyFinn]

30 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

The footage we have when looked at together is pretty clear, a single Trolloc attacks (it's the same lone Trolloc that barges in on Tam that we see Tam struggling against), Tam struggles pretty badly and is doing all he can to stay alive then Rand shoots an arrow at it (can pretty much guarantee this will be what stops it).

This scene was shown in London Comic Con. Wheel of Time Theory posted a reaction clip on YouTube. It went somewhat like this:

 

Spoiler

Trolloc breaks through the door, Tam gets his sword and defends himself, tells Rand to run away, Rand jumps on it's back and gets thrown into a wall, few seconds of metal on metal sounds, Rand wakes and gets up, shoots an arrow, no effect, shoots one through it's neck and kills it. Tam is wounded to shoulder.

 

The order of those things is probably different than I remember.

 

[AusLeviathan]

I mean it's not realistic to take what Nynaeve said any other way when she's saying it so seriously, "Egwene it's your responsibility to be strong enough to take lives, now when I say take lives I actually mean peacefully watch them pass on or pass judgement on someone, I'm just informing you of this responsibility in an extremely aggressive way that could easily be taken the wrong way and cause issues for some reason".

 

Nynaeve kills a massive 6+ foot man beast, not just a quick lucky shot she overpowers it and butchers it whilst it faces her with blood flying everywhere and soaking the pool. At that point the audience has to accept that she's apparently a capable warrior since we've already seen that Trollocs aren't so easy to take out.

 

Yeah Tam in the books impressively takes out a few Trollocs, I'm pretty sure he won't in the show though because he's struggling to take on one.

 

I've said this before but I firmly believe that the reason Amazon is making both this and LOTR is because they're expecting them to target different demographics. Rafe sold this to Amazon as a feminist fantasy series and every bit of marketing, every interview and article written on the direction of Amazon has supported that take. Even Rosamund Pike saying that the series will portray more men as naked than women ties heavily into that appeal towards the female demographic.

 

I mean based on the marketing alone the top three picks for series lead would have to be Moiraine, Egwene and Nyneave with Rand being the fourth most likely due to his general lack of dialogue and looking a lot like Egwene's love interest (since Egwene's is being presented in the marketing as if she's the Luke Skywalker of this story I guess you could say).

 

Not that they'll actually change Rand being the Dragon Reborn of course, that will stay the same. I do think however that they're going to put a lot more emphasis on Egwene though. I suspect during season one she will come to believe she actually is the Dragon Reborn and that Rand being the Dragon Reborn will be a twist in episode 8 that affects her and sets up conflict both for herself and her relationship with Rand.

 

That will allow them to give more focus to Egwene early on and I think that they'll use that to drive her character during the early parts of the series.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AusLeviathan