tv show spoilers White Cloaks - Bad writing or ? - TV show spoilers ahead!

[flinn]

11 minutes ago, Skipp said:

They didn't blunder into them.  The path they were on was a narrow forest road with rather steep slopes on either side.  Lan was able to provide enough warning to have Moiraine hide her ring and prepare for the encounter.  All of this while, presumably also scouting behind them watching for the Trollocs.

 

It certainly would have been worse had the Whitecloaks got a glimpse of them trying to lead their horses up the hills away from the road.

too many ways to have them intersect with the WCs without making Lan into a failure at his job.

[SingleMort]

I thought the Whitecloaks characters were pretty well realised and suitably psychopathic (at least the questioners) my only nickpick was they didn't seem to wear cloaks (I also expected armour like medieval knights). Someone tell Rafe they're called Whitecloaks not Whiterobes ?

[Skipp]

3 minutes ago, flinn said:

too many ways to have them intersect with the WCs without making Lan into a failure at his job.

Once again you say he failed at his job.  He scouted the Whitecloaks, saw they were coming towards the party and gave Moiraine enough warning to prepare.  In the situtation, as shown, what would you have had Lan done different?

 

Have the party turn around and possibly head into the trollocs following them?  Have them dismount and attempt to lead their horses up steep hills in the forest?  And if so, if the Whitecloaks saw them wouldn't that be more suspicious? We know they will hunt you down if they find an abandoned camp near a water source.

[Mirefox]

I thought the whitecloaks were fine in general but advising that Moiraine visit an Aes Sedai for healing?  What?!?

[Chivalry]

On 12/28/2021 at 4:09 PM, Mirefox said:

I thought the whitecloaks were fine in general but advising that Moiraine visit an Aes Sedai for healing?  What?!?

 

I rather liked this scene. For me, this helped demonstrate that even members of the White Cloaks can be complex and multi-dimensional. They're not all cartoon villains.

 

But it will only matter if they follow through and reveal divisions among the Children in future episodes.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Chivalry

[Jaysen Gore]

On 12/28/2021 at 7:09 PM, Mirefox said:

I thought the whitecloaks were fine in general but advising that Moiraine visit an Aes Sedai for healing?  What?!?

It's similar to a G. Bornhald scene in tGH where he muses that of course the witches were needed in order to deal with the male channeller in Saldaea. He is a realist, not an idealist, and existed to show that the whitecloaks were not a monolithically insane organization. So I did think that was in character for him.

[Gothic Flame]

 the White Cloak All Male Revue Boy Band comes across as a bigger threat than the Dark One. I mean a group of them did what 10k trollocs and dozens of fades couldn't do.

[DaddyFinn]

On 12/29/2021 at 2:02 AM, SingleMort said:

I thought the Whitecloaks characters were pretty well realised and suitably psychopathic (at least the questioners) my only nickpick was they didn't seem to wear cloaks (I also expected armour like medieval knights). Someone tell Rafe they're called Whitecloaks not Whiterobes ?

They have small capes on their backs

[Chivalry]

Jordan did a good job painting morally ambiguous groups of "villains" like the White Cloaks and the Seanchan. I'm hopeful that this element will translate well onto the screen, even without using exact scenes from the books. I think most fans of the books would agree that these particular changes in the story are less problematic than tinkering with beloved characters and their individual arcs.

[Gothic Flame]

20 minutes ago, Chivalry said:

Jordan did a good job painting morally ambiguous groups of "villains" like the White Cloaks and the Seanchan. I'm hopeful that this element will translate well onto the screen, even without using exact scenes from the books. I think most fans of the books would agree that these particular changes in the story are less problematic than tinkering with beloved characters and their individual arcs.

I'll give ya a hint;

 

Not much ambiguity to see here.

[JaimAybara]

9 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

They have small capes on their backs

 

Haha, I’m just playing but this is what you made me think of. All things considered I really like what they did with them. 
 

*I also want to add that I 100% agree about the capes vs. cloaks. 

Edited January 2, 2022 by JaimAybara
*Added info

[KakitaOCU]

6 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

I'll give ya a hint;

 

Not much ambiguity to see here.

The organization is nuanced.  Hence Elder Bornhald being decent, Niall being arrogant and stupid but not evil, Galad redeeming them.

The questioners and Valda were never anything but villains in the books to the point that Valda was bragging about a certain crime committed against Galad's mother while trying to kill him in a sword fight for daring to speak up against evil actions.

[Gothic Flame]

And Valda is the captain commander in the show...showing well in the image above collecting another Aes Sedai ring, her blood on his hands.

[Ralph]

48 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

And Valda is the captain commander in the show...showing well in the image above collecting another Aes Sedai ring, her blood on his hands.

He is a questioner, not commander

[RextheDog]

On 12/29/2021 at 10:07 AM, flinn said:

 I have no issues with what the Whitecloak meeting accomplished, I have an issue with the stupid, lazy writing to get them there.

 

 Lan is a secret service agent and Moiraine is the president. Blundering into a group of whitecloaks is lazy, stupid writing.

 There are hundreds of ways where they could have met up with WCs without making Lan worthless again.

 

WC meetings can be flipped though...

 

Book Lan did a bad boo boo at Baerlon,  until Moiraine HAD to reveal herself to deal with just six whitecloaks because book lan couldnt

 

yeah?no?

 

you reckon he nailed it in Baerlon?

 

[flinn]

2 hours ago, RextheDog said:

 

WC meetings can be flipped though...

 

Book Lan did a bad boo boo at Baerlon,  until Moiraine HAD to reveal herself to deal with just six whitecloaks because book lan couldnt

 

yeah?no?

 

you reckon he nailed it in Baerlon?

 

 You mean when they were rushing out of the city through the ONE AND ONLY gate they could pass through?

 

 Yeah, that is exactly the kind of circumstance I meant when I said there were hundreds of ways to write it so they had to confront white cloaks that wasnt just lazy writing. Thanks for a perfect example.

Edited January 2, 2022 by flinn

[Raezold]

7 hours ago, RextheDog said:

 

Book Lan did a bad boo boo at Baerlon,  until Moiraine HAD to reveal herself to deal with just six whitecloaks because book lan couldnt

 

 

Wait, what? Baerlon? What did Lan do?

[RextheDog]

7 hours ago, flinn said:

 You mean when they were rushing out of the city through the ONE AND ONLY gate they could pass through?

 

 Yeah, that is exactly the kind of circumstance I meant when I said there were hundreds of ways to write it so they had to confront white cloaks that wasnt just lazy writing. Thanks for a perfect example.

 

exactly.

 

a perfect example of your bias framing the narative.

 

on one hand we have the party travelling the most logical road to their destination and Lan warning Moiraine of an upcoming encounter= Lan massive fail

 

on the other we have our party being allowed to roam the streets of a packed town encouraging confrontation with darkfriends and whitecloaks, and even then we have a race to a packed gate where Lan doesnt even bother to forward scout the situation.

 

 

the only thing that stops you from calling the Baerlon confrontation a massive fail is that its the source material.

 

why didnt Lan scout the gate?, why didnt Lan follow the EF lads as they galavanted around the town?, why didnt Lan take out the whitecloaks to buy the travellers time and not give away his AS?

 

is it because, like the show version of the confrontation, expecting him to deal with every possibility is impossible and makes for a dull story?

 

theres obvious differences between the two situations that could be bickered over for an age, the rounding point im trying to make is not whether the scene is better than the source material, or whether its even a good scene, im trying to downplay the claim that Lan bumbled the situation, and book Lan would not have handled it in a similar way.

 

 

EDIT; my bad, just checked the chapter summary for clarity, the whitecloaks come late to the gate, so Lan couldnt have stopped the confrontation with a forward scout, but could have paid an appropriate amount to the towns watch to cover their backs....

Edited January 2, 2022 by RextheDog
edited for clarity

[RextheDog]

1 hour ago, Raezold said:

 

Wait, what? Baerlon? What did Lan do?

 

Lan did nothing. thats my point.

 

he let the lads waltz around town without a proper induction to the point where the EF taunted the WC, playing pranks and inciting confrontation(hand on the sword) and then left Moiraine to clean up the mess at the gate.

 

its not as blunt as all of that, but if 'failing' (he didnt even fail at that, he saw them and told Moiraine, its only a 'fail' becuse M decides not to run) to forward scout WC in the show when his main task is to watch and cover tracks behind him is  then what do we class Baerlon?

 

[DojoToad]

On 11/24/2021 at 7:41 PM, JJLXL said:

Never said Valda would be stupid about it.  Like you said, he'd call for archers, or some such device.  She wouldn't attack him for asking a question.  Not unless she was in acual real danger.  Heck, there was a point in the books where Aes Sedai couldn't attack trollocks because they weren't close enough in proximity to pose a real threat.

 

Where was this scene?  Shadowspawn is always on the menu for Aes Sedai.

[Raezold]

21 hours ago, RextheDog said:

 

Lan did nothing. thats my point.

 

he let the lads waltz around town without a proper induction to the point where the EF taunted the WC, playing pranks and inciting confrontation(hand on the sword) and then left Moiraine to clean up the mess at the gate.

 

its not as blunt as all of that, but if 'failing' (he didnt even fail at that, he saw them and told Moiraine, its only a 'fail' becuse M decides not to run) to forward scout WC in the show when his main task is to watch and cover tracks behind him is  then what do we class Baerlon?

 

 

Ah, got it now.
Never understood the complaint about him failing to spot the Whitecloaks miles away. It's like people just ignore the surroundings. All those hills and twisting paths. Not like he has a dozen drones flying around keeping track of everything. 

 

Silly comparison with Baerlon though ?

[Raezold]

7 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Where was this scene?  Shadowspawn is always on the menu for Aes Sedai.

 

For some reason he's thinking the fight at Dumai's Wells, where that actually happened, was against Shadowspawn instead of humans.

[Deviations]

On 12/28/2021 at 6:04 PM, Skipp said:

Once again you say he failed at his job.  He scouted the Whitecloaks, saw they were coming towards the party and gave Moiraine enough warning to prepare.  In the situtation, as shown, what would you have had Lan done different?

As a book cloak myself, I can confidently say Lan would have been scouting FAR ahead and provided the group an opportunity to totally avoid the white cloaks.  Jordan wrote Lan that way.

[RextheDog]

impressive feat given his main task was to back track and cover for the pursuing hoard of trollocs.

 

also, why didnt book Lan interject when our intrepid heros wandered around a packed town playing pranks on the whitecloaks?

 

i think its getting to the point where its just a given that book Lan faced the dark one down himself in chapter two of TEOTW and the only reason it carried on for another 14 books is the darkone didnt fancy going toe to toe with him.

 

i think alot of the issue is that when watching the visual adaptation, its easier to see what could have been done differently.

 

i dont want to keep going back to Baerlon, but if you try and picture the time in the town as a stand alone TV episode, and pick through what both Moraine and Lan did/didnt do right or wrong they both look reasonably incompetant.

 

i mean, Lan had a bath and a chat, and Moraine, despite spending twenty years searching for the lads, sends/allows them out to have a bit of a poke around a big town......if that was to transpire on screen, hand on your heart, would you accept it?....

[RextheDog]

having thought on it further, the meeting of the whitecloaks on the road pretty much just replaces the Baerlon chapters with outsourcing to other scenes re Min and Nyn being reintroduced to our travellers.

 

if we accept the show needed to be compressed, and most people at least accept that premise, then it was quite well done really, the WC were introduced and as a threat but not a worthy opponent for Moiraine who walked away after being threatened on both occasions