tv show spoilers Darkfriends in WoT TV Series (and books by extension)

[Sabio]

Most DF's don't think that deep, it's natural to me that they would try to justify their choices.  Can what they say be trusted?  But in the book it seems the majoirty of DF's are that way simply because it seemed edgy and cool sort of thing. It might have been Fain that had a POV about reminding DF's their oaths were more than just words and they might be called to act on them.  Most probably never thought more than this is some cool secret society I belong to.

[7th age]

Of course they cant be trusted (for that matter noone can be trusted from our PoV since unreliable narrator...).

And yes I can see some rationalising by a DF ( or even Dana just saying what Ishy told her to say without believing any of it). Question is why the showrunners chose to give us these as examples as an introduction to DFs, also dont forget that this isnt targeted at us/Bookreader. Introducing these Motivations only to later say, nah that was all just lies, in reality 99.9% of DFs are selfish bastards seems bad storytelling to me.

 

 

[Sabio]

Well to be fair the story telling in this season was a bit inconsistent.  Rand channeled to break the wall and we saw nothing, until Episode 7 and Rand had his flashbacks then you saw the channeling CGI.  There has been some good story telling this season and some pretty bad also.

[Rogue One]

I always found the rationale for people

to be DF in the book to be a bit thin. As someone else said there was a common theme of people joining thinking it would just be a thrill / career boost, and then finding themselves actually dealing with Fades / Chosen etc. But that can’t be all of them, and even within those that are if that was their whole reason you would expect more of them to defect as they got closer to the last battle. 
 

If instead some of them were true believers than that makes it even more difficult to understand, as you’d have to believe some otherwise pretty mundane / unremarkable people  were working towards the end of the world.

 

this was a very long winded way to just say I think there’s room to try and make DFs (or at least some of them) make a bit more sense in the TV show (or there would be if handled properly, I should say) 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Rogue One
Edited to remove a book spoiler

[Sabio]

The Big White Book describes DF's the best.  

 

"There are many levels of commitment among the Friends of the Dark.  Some extremists are deeply dedicated to obtaining freedom for the DO and thus immortality and dominion for themselves, while those in the lowest level simply want to belong to something greater than themselves, something dark and naughty.  Many of the latter do not actually believe that they might actually be held to their oaths.  Some might not even believe in the existence of the Dark One."

 

I imagine in the show it probably wouldn't do much good to show the average DF who joined to be cool.  So seems reasonable you will get DF's and how they try to justify wanting the DO to win.  It's easier to live with oneself if you can justify this not simply because you want power but because you want people to stop suffering.  Sure I might get power and immortality but everyone will benefit from this so I'm not a bad person at all.