Season 1 Discussion (Full Book Spoilers) v2.1

[DaddyFinn]

28 minutes ago, Wassup said:

A question I just thought of regarding Moiraine. 
If she was stilled, wouldn’t that release her from all oaths taken on the oath rod?  She would be able to return to TV without Siuan calling her back. 

Yes and Lan would go crazy, right? That happened to Siuan's warder IIRC and he got killed

[SingleMort]

34 minutes ago, GanoesParan said:

 

You are correct. If Moiraine was stilled, instead of shielded, then she would be released from all of the oaths she had taken on the oath rod. 

I really hope she isn't stilled. The only way out of that I can see is for them to just transplant the Nyneave Logain story onto Moiraine and bring that forward 6 seasons early.

[Ralph]

1 hour ago, DaddyFinn said:

Yes and Lan would go crazy, right? That happened to Siuan's warder IIRC and he got killed

He was killed beforehand

[Terry05]

1 hour ago, SingleMort said:

I really hope she isn't stilled. The only way out of that I can see is for them to just transplant the Nyneave Logain story onto Moiraine and bring that forward 6 seasons early.

Same here. Really hoping they save that healing scene for much later. Nyn already has so many big moments - no need to cram that in so early.

[DaddyFinn]

30 minutes ago, Ralph said:

He was killed beforehand

Did Siuan feel it? I don't recall that

[Ralph]

56 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Did Siuan feel it? I don't recall that

She didn't notice because she was so busy

[DaddyFinn]

5 hours ago, Ralph said:

She didn't notice because she was so busy

That's starting to ring some bells

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

1 hour ago, DaddyFinn said:

6 hours ago, Ralph said:

She didn't notice because she was so busy

That's starting to ring some bells

More accurately the order of events was that her warder was killed, then Siuan was stilled (breaking the reaction to the death of the warder), then she was healed and then she started to suffer the reaction.

[sidcarton2]

My impressions of Season 1 are kind of all over the place, so what follows are my first reactions after having seen episode 8 and where I think the show is trying to go. In a perhaps unhappy coincidence, while I was waiting in between episodes I did a detailed re-read of the last four books in the series. As a side note, I discovered that even now, many years later, there were entire scenes that I had skipped or blocked out, especially in aMoL, probably in my haste to get to the end in the original read.

 

Anyway, let me say up front that my overall impression of the Show was more positive than negative, but not by much. I think I understand most of the changes that were made for the sake of time and medium constraints. However, there were numerous aspects of the adaptation that don't make sense to me as a book reader, and perhaps that is part of the problem. 

 

Let me also add that I watched most of these episodes with non-book readers, who in some cases had similar reactions to mine and in some cases accepted certain changes that seemed wrong to me, simply because they hadn't read the books. Fair enough.

 

1. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I really, really, really do not understand this insistence of making the identify of the Dragon Reborn a mystery. My point was that the Dragon Reborn is one of many hugely important characters that all need to be present in story, and this was never more clear than when I was re-reading the series.

 

Nynaeve had all sorts of awesome moments. She is a hugely consequential character who doesn't need to be the DR. She healed stilling. She helped Rand cleanse Saidan. She is probably the single most powerful exemplar of Yellow Ajah awesomeness of this Age.

 

Mat is the Son of Battles, the Prince of the Ravens. He is the leader of the Band of the Red Hand, a masterful battle commander and strategic genius. He doesn't need to be the DR to be awesome.

 

Egwene journeys from village girl to the Amyrllin Seat, the most powerful ruler in the world. She is the counter-point to the DR, she doesn't need to be the DR herself and her heroic journey and death duel makes her legendary. She doesn't need to be the DR. 

 

Perrin is the renewer, wolf brother, killer of Slayer and Forsaken alike. He doesn't need to be the DR. 

 

The DR is the first among equals in great characters in this story. By trying to make it a mystery, I think it does a disservice to the other characters. It has the potential to cheapen their endings, which are actually significant and powerful, as consolation prizes because they didn't win the DR sweepstakes. I think the show wasted a lot of time and narrative contortion to maintain this mystery which should have been done and dusted by episode 3. 

 

2. Building on point 1, I think in an effort to keep the DR mystery alive, the show short-changed early character development that would help non-book readers  empathize with the characters. For example, instead of showing the battle of Emond's Field in the first episode, maybe focus on Tam's fever dream and the growing sense of Rand's confusion about his own origins would have made Loail's Aielman comment at their first meeting resonate more effectively. Granted we did get the fever dream, but it came too late and out of context in my opinion. 

 

3. The One Power was never explained properly and neither was the Breaking and how the male half was tainted. There was an excellent opportunity in episode 8 with the discussion between Lews Therin and Latra Posae. It was a missed opportunity for a couple of reasons because A) there was no sense of desperation or urgency. Looking out the window it looked like just another day in Paren Dissen with clean skyscrapers and a bright sky. There was no sense that we were in the last throes of an existential war between humans and the Source of All Evil -- a war that humanity was about to lose -- because it all looked way too clean and Lews and Latrae looked like they were having a business discussion over tea,  B) we didn't get to know what the two plans were ("hey, I want to jump to the Dark One's home and seal the hole he's trying to get out of now, before we're overrun!" vs. "no, we should use the huge One Power amplifiers to build a temporary shield around the hole he's trying to get out so that we get some breathing room because we're about to be overrun!") and C) no sense that when Latrae said "we don't support this" she meant all female Aes Sedai and that's why the male half of the One Power is tainted and conversely why the female half isn't, which could build on the two-halves of the One Power idea that I think wasn't as clear as it could have been,

 

4. Adding to point 4, in episode 8 we had a non-Aes Sedai (Amalissa) lead a circle of 5 untrained channelers that basically did to the 10K trollocs what Rand did at Maradon. How? Why? I think they were trying to build the idea of the Kin without being explicit, but we've been told up to this point that Aes Sedai are the ones who use the One Power and now we have a random bunch of women who can channel a trickle apparently and that's enough. I can maybe buy that these women aren't known to Amalissa beforehand and show up to answer her call for "all hands of deck" -- because the Borderlanders in this adaptation don't get along with the Tower because reasons -- even though for most of these people the Landscape of Evil is a daily reminder that is literally on their doorstep. 

 

Overall, I think the acting is fine but the story is a bit of a mess. I am chalking it up to Season 1 trying to orient the non-book readers, but I think there were a lot of unforced errors and missed opportunities, and I think some of those were due to time constraints -- and that those constraints could have been relaxed if the show did not waste so much screen time on the DR mystery-which-shouldn't-have-been.

 

Despite all of this, I really am rooting for this adaptation, even though at the moment it's no longer on my list of things I can't wait to see each week. It's clear to me that there is a lot of heart and dedication from all involved in the production. I hope they can add more to the positive column in Season 2 and beyond. 

[EmreY]

Is the cuendillar

 

Spoiler

Part of one of the seals?  Which are now really big?

 

If so, there may be changes ahead for the final season.

 

 

Spoiler

"A caravan has appeared, led by a Seanchan who insists she must speak with you."

 

[Later]...

 

“Do it,” Gabrelle said. “Do it, sealbreakers.”

 

The Asha'man all took a deep breath and started jumping on the once unbreakable seals, one by one.

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by EmreY

[WoTwasThat]

@sidcarton2 you pretty much covered the changes/omissions I found most disappointing about this season.

 

1. The whole "who is the Dragon" mystery, coupled with the Dragon possibly being male or female, was hugely off-putting. They wasted so much story and made so many changes to misdirect the audience.
2. The BEATING HEART of WOT is the difference between Saidar and Saidin, the taint upon the latter due to the desperate actions of the Dragon, and resulting gender dichotomy. The TV series almost completely ignores this, dumbing it down to "men can't wield the One Power without going mad," ignoring that men can't see women's weaves and vice versa, and making LTT look like an arrogant ass.
3. The supergirl stuff, contrasted with the mostly ineffectual men, is over the top.

 

All of these problems above were particularly evident in the final couple of episodes: the "mystery" is resolved in a frankly dumb fashion, supergirl moments abound, the guys are ineffectual, the whole LTT scene (shudder), and the idiotic "Mo and Rand take a hike to the Eye" thing where the writers once again had every opportunity but completely failed to explain the difference between Saidar and Saidin.

 

I think it is a stretch to call this an "adaptation." It is a markedly different story inspired by characters and concepts from the WOT.

[Meskell]

Why does the forum take so long to sign off on new threads made?

[Hobo]

2 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

The BEATING HEART of WOT is the difference between Saidar and Saidin, the taint upon the latter due to the desperate actions of the Dragon, and resulting gender dichotomy. The TV series almost completely ignores this, dumbing it down to "men can't wield the One Power without going mad," ignoring that men can't see women's weaves and vice versa, and making LTT look like an arrogant ass.

I actually made a complaint much like this recently, in the books Saidin is described as a raging torrent of fire and ice that needed to be fought and controlled, and Saidar was described as a gentle but infinitely powerful stream that needs to be surrendered too, its why men refer to "seizing the power" and woman "embrace the power". So many things that descriptively made this dynamic amazing and in the show we gave men and woman with this samey swirly white crap except men have some black swirly crap on thier white swirly crap.. also am really salty they removed the elemental nature of channeling.

 

i absolutely HATE the dopey hand waving, nowhere in the books did you have whole body waving as a prerequisite for channelling.

 

[Meskell]

The way channeling is portrayed in this is very similar to The Magicians series. Just have a quick look at any magic between the two and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a link between choreographers or similar on both shows. 

[Skipp]

50 minutes ago, Hobo said:

I actually made a complaint much like this recently, in the books Saidin is described as a raging torrent of fire and ice that needed to be fought and controlled, and Saidar was described as a gentle but infinitely powerful stream that needs to be surrendered too, its why men refer to "seizing the power" and woman "embrace the power". So many things that descriptively made this dynamic amazing and in the show we gave men and woman with this samey swirly white crap except men have some black swirly crap on thier white swirly crap.. also am really salty they removed the elemental nature of channeling.

 

i absolutely HATE the dopey hand waving, nowhere in the books did you have whole body waving as a prerequisite for channelling.

 

Except that it is specifically said that Aes Sedai do use hand motions for most weaves.  And if they learned to do a weave with a motion it was incredibly difficult to change that.   The Aiel look down on the Aes Sedai for doing weaves that way.  And as we see in the show both Logain and "The MAN" barely use any motion at all.

 

I also think that having the Aes Sedai weaving seem slow in the show is to be a direct comparisons at how quickly "The MAN" was able to shield Moiraine.

[Mailman]

3 hours ago, Skipp said:

Except that it is specifically said that Aes Sedai do use hand motions for most weaves.  And if they learned to do a weave with a motion it was incredibly difficult to change that.   The Aiel look down on the Aes Sedai for doing weaves that way.  And as we see in the show both Logain and "The MAN" barely use any motion at all.

 

I also think that having the Aes Sedai weaving seem slow in the show is to be a direct comparisons at how quickly "The MAN" was able to shield Moiraine.

im not sure its most things

for things like throwing they do

healing they seem to just place hands on the injured not wave them around

joined in circles they just seem to sit or stand

certainly nothing to the extent shown in the tv series 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Mailman

[Mirefox]

Oddly, the weaving doesn’t bother me.  I’ll admit the first time Moiraine started waving her arms all over I thought “what I’m the world is this garbage,” but overall the visual is that the power already exists; they aren’t forming it from nothing, they are grabbing at the flows around them and weaving them into what we would call a spell.  This is further visualized on screen by the power always seemingly coming from off screen somewhere.

 

I think 95% of this show is a travesty but for some reason the weaving worked for me after an initial hesitation.  Now the end results, like Nyn going super Saiyan, are a different matter.

[Keyser]

I'm doubtful my opinion will contain profound revelations, or indeed many points not yet raised in this 48-page thread, but here goes.

 

Having watched the entire Season 1 (episode 8 just a few hours ago), I felt like a gambler at the horseraces: the anticipation and hopes of what might be ahead of the race, the ups and downs of the race itself, and throwing away the betting slip, returning to my 9-5 job after the horse collapses on the track and doesn't even cross the finish line...

 

I come from the books, I read them all. That's my bias if you will, I won't try to hide it or say that I judge the show as a neutral, objective critic. The cinetmatic WoT adaption I imagined when I first heard of this project like three years ago was amazing. What I got didn't, as things so often do, live up to this. Could be my expectations were unrealistic, I don't know. I don't think they were. In any case, what I certainly didn't expect was the mediocre, bordering on bad, fantasy pap that was delivered.

 

Plot

My main issue is quite simply that the rich story of the WoT was not just adapted to the TV format, it was changed. And while I'm sure that the writers of the show are nice chaps, they are sadly no Robert Jordan. They thought they could do better, turns out they couldn't. Like Benioff&Weiss when they left the safety of GRR's pre-written story to spread their wings, the resulting product falls apart immediately.

I am interested in the story of the WoT as told by Robert Jordan, I am considerably less interested in random people's interpretation of his story. Rafe Judkin's vision of "another turning of the Wheel"? Ok, but why should I care? My respect for the series won't just magically transfer over simply because there's a character on-screen named Rand al'Thor. This series has been likened to a fanfic project several times throughout the thread, and I can definitely see why. I understand that this paragraph is what some may call pure book-fan snobbery, but hey, my critique is no less valid than anyone else's because of it.

Without going into specifics: glossing over the Saidin/Saidar divide sells one of the most interesting and unique aspects of the WoT universe short. Wasting so much time on the silly "who could be the Dragon" mystery left too much else underdeveloped. The changed ending was a hot mess, I daresay non-book-readers were left utterly confused.

 

Characters

Rand - well cast I thought, the acting didn't strike me as particularly good or bad, mostly solid I'd say. There were, to my liking, too few opportunities to get to know the character so far. From what did happen, I would say he's going into a direction that's at least compatible with book-Rand.

Mat - well cast and good acting that carried two of the episodes. Unfortunately, the changes to the character don't work. Mat is no longer the scoundrel with a heart of gold, he's kind of an ass. I don't know what they're setting the character up for. In the final scenes of ep 8 it was even suggested he might turn to the shadow.

Perrin - liked him in the first few minutes, now not so much. The character gets repetitive quick. Might be the narrow range of the actor or the lack of development in the script. In any case, his scenes usually were unengaging for me. The backstory with the wife... yeah, it's an easy shortcut to explain his cautious and violence-averse nature, but I see it interfering with future development significantly.

Egwene - kinda blank. I don't like her, I don't dislike her. To be fair, in the books her character also starts gaining some texture only later on.

Nynaeve - Oversized presence so far to be sure. This may be to sell the misguided 5-way Dragon whodunnit subplot and misdirect the audience to assume she'd be it. Not a fan of the ridiculous uplevelling of all of her skills and strengths either. I won't speculate on the reasons for this. If anything, it makes her less interesting to me, a problem that good-at-everything characters often face (looking at you, Mary Sue Palpatine).

Morraine - I'm OK with the character so far in the context of what the show made possible.

Lan - aka Cerberus turned lapdog. Instead of hiding deep complexity under a hard outer shell, he's now your run-of-the-mill good guy sword dude. Casting was spot-on though.

Secondary characters: stand-out performances by Padan Fain, Valda, Aram, and Ishamael. Not enough exposure yet to say anything about Thom or Min, I'm leaning towards good.

 

CGI

Servicable. Trollocs and Fades looked good, Channeling wasn't my cup of tea. The cities and scenery I liked overall, although even while cutting 80% of the book's content, they somehow still managed to make the world of the WoT look empty.

 

Without droning on for another two pages, overall 4/10. I may give the second season a chance, but honestly, I probably won't. Too many threads (pun intended) of the story have gone off in a bad direction already and I think it's very unlikely that it can be salvaged, or that the current show leadership is likely to even try. Back to waiting for another, more faithful adaptation, however unlikely that may now have become.

[itsjodie]

On 12/28/2021 at 3:40 PM, WoTwasThat said:

The BEATING HEART of WOT is the difference between Saidar and Saidin, the taint upon the latter due to the desperate actions of the Dragon, and resulting gender dichotomy. The TV series almost completely ignores this, dumbing it down to "men can't wield the One Power without going mad," ignoring that men can't see women's weaves and vice versa, and making LTT look like an arrogant ass.

And there were so many instances where small hints could have been added to show this.

When Rand asks if Moiraine could teach him to channel, I was really hoping to see the iconic, “A bird cannot teach a fish to fly, nor a fish teach a bird to swim.” Because that’s quoted multiple times throughout the books and with two more lines of dialogue we’re showed how saidar and saidin are different.

Besides that, I’d have loved to see a Brown asking Logain about his experience using the power (…Verin?) and from there getting an explanation on how men’s channeling is different & how that developed, whilst also showing the inquisitive and studious nature of Brown Ajah members.

[Variant]

On 12/28/2021 at 5:56 PM, Hobo said:

i absolutely HATE the dopey hand waving, nowhere in the books did you have whole body waving as a prerequisite for channelling.

 

It isn't a prerequisite for channeling but is mentioned in the books as something the tower has taught (but isn't necessary).

 

[Blackbyrd]

On 12/30/2021 at 6:15 PM, Keyser said:

 

 

Without droning on for another two pages, overall 4/10. I may give the second season a chance, but honestly, I probably won't. Too many threads (pun intended) of the story have gone off in a bad direction already and I think it's very unlikely that it can be salvaged, or that the current show leadership is likely to even try. Back to waiting for another, more faithful adaptation, however unlikely that may now have become.

I appreciate the lack of droning and the way it totally belongs

[7th age]

On 12/28/2021 at 7:22 AM, SingleMort said:

I really hope she isn't stilled. The only way out of that I can see is for them to just transplant the Nyneave Logain story onto Moiraine and bring that forward 6 seasons early.

 I agree 100% with the sentiment, just one thing to (sadly) remember.

Logain gets healed (and Eg. becomes Amyrlin) in Book 6.  6/14 -> 3-4/8 so while Nyn healing stilling still seems of hundreds of miles away for us it would actually only be about 2 seasons  even without them changing any timelines.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by 7th age

[ArrylT]

From Reddit - here is the full Screen time, word count & talkative totals for S1

 

[Shrike]

After a week of trying to gather my thoughts and impressions, I decided to go back to the first three words that came into my head as credits rolled on Episode 8...

 

"Well THAT sucked!"

 

I was ambivalent going in to Ep08.  Lots of good adaption choices mixed in with poorly thought out additions and departures in the first 7 episodes.  My hope was they would have a good Ep08 to build momentum into a redeeming Season 2.  Instead, there was poor CGI, cobbled together plot and amateurish editing and direction, new instances of "we can do better than RJ", a really and truly underwhelming climax, and just a general jambalaya of an episode.  

 

My hopes for getting their feet under them for Season 2 went significantly down.  They have a great cast - so it can be done.  But I see no signs of them catching on to the heart of the WOT.  

 

Ah well.  

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

On 12/27/2021 at 9:57 AM, futurehermit said:

Edit: but, hey, the viewers know who Kerene and Stepin are, now both dead with no ongoing impact on the story.

Actually, it's even worse than that. 

 

Everyone here on DM was theorizing that the Stepin stuff was put in to set up for Moiraine's "death" when she passes through the archway with Lanfear. 

 

Actually, it now seems that the Stepin stuff was there to setup for a totally pointless show-original plot involving stilled Moiraine and Lan in S2 which was invented by Rafe in order to justify keeping Rosamund Pike around for marketing purposes.