Season 1 Discussion (Full Book Spoilers) v2.1

[Ralph]

1 hour ago, SingleMort said:

Personally I don't think they needed to have the stilling thing to give Moiraine and Lan more screen time. You could just have Moiraine take  Verin's role in the early books or even Cadsuann if you want to give her more to do. I can't see a way this stilling storyline isn't going to undercut Nyneaves cure and healing Logain from much later books or cause it to be thrown out altogether. 

 

I expect them to bring up Healing Logain to Season 2, and Nynaeve to Heal Moiraine instead of Siuan. 

[Jaysen Gore]

16 minutes ago, Ralph said:

 

I expect them to bring up Healing Logain to Season 2, and Nynaeve to Heal Moiraine instead of Siuan. 

I can't see that happening, especially now that more Seanchan castings are coming out. The Wonder Girls aren't in the tower long enough to be able to execute that plot.

 

Also - shielded, not stilled. So I do think the knot thing with Siuan makes more sense. 

[Katherine]

10 hours ago, Skipp said:

Between the end of book 1 and the end of the series, how important is it that Moiraine can channel?

 

Off the top of my head there are 3 big moments and a handful of smaller.  Introducing us to Balefire by killing some darkhounds in tDR, Balefiring Be'lal also in tDR, and joining the circle with Nynaeve and Rand at the climax.  Smaller moments can include healing Rand and washing him of exhaustion during tSR/FoH books.

 

During Book 2 I don't even know if we see Moiraine channel during the book, maybe during the Trolloc attack on Fal'dara but that scene is unlikely to happen in the show.

 

Whether they keep Moiraine shielded/stilled past season 2(I believe she is shielded btw) doesn't affect the plot all that much.  While introducing us to Darkhounds and balefire are semi-imporant and very important respectively it doesn't have to be Moiraine who does that.  I have said before that I think Be'lal is the most cuttable Forsaken of the bunch.  Yes, these are 2 kickass Moiraine moments but every character is going to lose moments in the show and these are not super important.

 

By the end of the show when Moiraine returns, assuming she is stilled, Nynaeve can heal her.

 

Honestly of more concern to me would be the smaller moments with Rand and Moiraine during the Aiel arc but she could provide the same role without being the one to heal Rand after every encounter.  Maybe this is why they are setting up Egwene to have some healing ability.

 

My personal theory is that season 2 for Moiraine will be similar to what she does in tGH but will involve Suian unknotting the shield on Moiraine before she is deposed. 

 

1. Her arc with the wise ones is dependent on her ability to channel and her position as an Aes Sedai. 

 

2. Let's agree that all of your points are valid, logical and true. Still doesn't make this a good story line worth exploring. There are still only 8 episodes next season, and we are going to spend book 2 and maybe 3 watching Moraine deal with this?

 

There are so many other things I would rather watch. 

 

[Katherine]

8 hours ago, EmreY said:

 

Yes, I agree with you (and would say she is important in other ways) for the books.

 

But in my 100 word precis, she doesn't exist.

 

 

BY this logic you don't include Gandalf in your "100 word precis" of The Hobbit. 

[EmreY]

26 minutes ago, Katherine said:

 

BY this logic you don't include Gandalf in your "100 word precis" of The Hobbit. 

 

I probably wouldn't.

 

Anyway, the point of the exercise is not to include or exclude anyone, but just that an exercise, my exercise, to determine what could be expressed in 100 words.  I did it because it's easy and short enough, but also because this is the sort of thing that needs to be done whenever someone tries to tell another's tale.

[EmreY]

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

Hmm...I'd say there's more than 100 words here;

 

?

[Katherine]

16 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

I probably wouldn't.

 

Anyway, the point of the exercise is not to include or exclude anyone, but just that an exercise, my exercise, to determine what could be expressed in 100 words.  I did it because it's easy and short enough, but also because this is the sort of thing that needs to be done whenever someone tries to tell another's tale.

 

I promise that I wasn't trying to say anything negative about what you are doing in ANY way. 

 

Just engaging the point that Moraine could be left of out because she is unimportant....... I don't see how she could any more than Gandalf. 

 

That is all. 

 

Promise ? 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Katherine

[Gothic Flame]

Moiraine eas too important in the overall story. She becomes one of the few Aes Sedai Rand trusts, and that through perseverance, and overcoming her own arrogance and her eventual self-sacrifice in defeating the one enemy he would have become enslaved to. She provides impetus for Mat and his self-realization of his own heroism. And in the end she becomes legendary for other Aes Sedai to look up to.

[expat]

Quote

Agelmar i would forgive (and id guess even the harshest critics would too)  if they just used another looky likey actor. not worth mentioning.

Why do you care if they recast Agelmar and not just replace him with a different character?  I think this gets to the heart of the way people see the series and hence some of the discussions here.

 

Agelmar in the first two books was a generic noble.  In the last book he was a generic military leader who was unlucky enough to be targeted by a foe he couldn't defeat.  In neither case did he do anything particularly interesting or noteworthy.  There was no arc (either character or plot) linking his two appearances.  I'm not sure that, other than one line of description when reintroducing him the later book, that any word in the series would change if it was two characters, say Hamlet and Gen. Halftrack.

 

I am on my second rereading of the series and before this thread, I totally missed that the two characters were the same.  With 2000 or so named characters, I quickly forgot most of them unless they did something to remember them by.  I think that by the middle of the second book, I had already forgotten the name of Algemar and Fal Darra since neither was important to the progression of the series.

 

As I composed this message, I had a thought of something that I wished Jordon had put in the books.  There was no good analogy for Ishy and the other Forsaken's back story of why they turned to the dark.  It would have made them more relatable if there was an important secondary/tertiary character that through POVs turned from the light to the dark and betrayed the good guys.  All the dark friends were just defined as dark friends with no character arc.

[Gothic Flame]

14 minutes ago, expat said:

There was no good analogy for Ishy and the other Forsaken's back story of why they turned to the dark.  It would have made them more relatable if there was an important secondary/tertiary character that through POVs turned from the light to the dark and betrayed the good guys.  All the dark friends were just defined as dark friends with no character arc.

You're making a demand that the Age of Legends and its downfall should have been explored. 

[ArrylT]

On 1/9/2022 at 8:50 AM, fra85uk said:

Yes she goes to Caemlyn and find them.

But since had to inject Stepin storyline and Siuan/Moiraine romance, we lost all the urgency of the main story.

 

Not exactly.

 

I recall a lot of the discussion after 4/5 /6 was centered around the lack of focus on the EF5 and the demand by a lot of people was "We want more Rand and/or other EF5 characters)".

 

Then we got Ep7, which is currently one of the most popular and highest rated episodes.  

 

Why?  Per chance because we got that demand satisfied.  But if it was not missing, would all of the non-book readers have felt the desire to reconnect with those characters.   If we do not know something is missing/lacking can we truly appreciate it?   The urgency came from us having our anticipation built up for several episodes and then a payout in the last 2 episodes (in terms of focus on the main story). 

 

But I know people will disagree.  I know many here will say yes, we wanted Rand front and centre for the entire season.  But there are plenty of Lan, Siuan & Moiraine fans and so forth that are quite fine with more screen time for their favorite characters.  The WoT has, as most I am sure well aware, been more of an ensemble series, that still had a good focus on Rand.  So far to me that has held true in the show as well even if it has not for others.

 

So in the end, a different kind of urgency but still one that seemed to have worked for a lot of people watching the show. 

[ArrylT]

Just now, ArrylT said:

 

Not exactly.

 

I recall a lot of the discussion after 4/5 /6 was centered around the lack of focus on the EF5 and the demand by a lot of people was "We want more Rand and/or other EF5 characters)".

 

Then we got Ep7, which is currently one of the most popular and highest rated episodes.  

 

Why?  Per chance because we got that demand satisfied.  But if it was not missing, would all of the non-book readers have felt the desire to reconnect with those characters.   If we do not know something is missing/lacking can we truly appreciate it?   The urgency came from us having our anticipation built up for several episodes and then a payout in the last 2 episodes (in terms of focus on the main story). 

 

But I know people will disagree.  I know many here will say yes, we wanted Rand front and centre for the entire season.  But there are plenty of Lan, Siuan & Moiraine fans and so forth that are quite fine with more screen time for their favorite characters.  The WoT has, as most I am sure well aware, been more of an ensemble series, that still had a good focus on Rand.  So far to me that has held true in the show as well even if it has not for others.

 

So in the end, a different kind of urgency but still one that seemed to have worked for a lot of people watching the show. 

 

In any case I've had discussions with people who found those storylines some of their favorites.  As always different people will watch a show for different reasons.    And as shown by the screen time count, it is not as if they suddenly only got 3-4min an episode.  The focus was not on them, but the EF5 still got a good amount of screen time.   The lowest percentage for Rand was 13%.   I'd be curious to know the percentages of characters in Witcher & GOT on a per episode basis.

 

I do know that Rand got more screen time in 8 episodes of WOT than any character from GOT got - despite 2 more episodes, according to the data from this reddit thread.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/2acke9/s4heres_a_breakdown_of_each_characters_screen/

 

This Youtube video has the screen time done differently - stop at 0.21 for S1 Ep10 - but same result in that no character from GOT got the same amount of screen time.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOkWXE688w4

 

Rands screen time, as I have seen from 2 different sources has been listed consistently between 157-161 minutes.    Again this is 8 episodes of 60m vs. 10 episodes of 60m, and Rands screen time is higher than all GOT characters.

 

So basically we have a  WoTshow trying to bring the ensemble feel of something like GOT, and the rest of the WOT book series, and even that, with less episodes, and we still have a heavy amount of Rand, at least from my interpretation, and screen time amounts for the rest of the EF5 comparable to main actors on GOT (even Mat who is basically not in 2 episodes got 80+ min of screen tme - more than most GOT characters in S1). 

[ArrylT]

1 minute ago, ArrylT said:

 

In any case I've had discussions with people who found those storylines some of their favorites.  As always different people will watch a show for different reasons.    And as shown by the screen time count, it is not as if they suddenly only got 3-4min an episode.  The focus was not on them, but the EF5 still got a good amount of screen time.   The lowest percentage for Rand was 13%.   I'd be curious to know the percentages of characters in Witcher & GOT on a per episode basis.

 

I do know that Rand got more screen time in 8 episodes of WOT than any character from GOT got - despite 2 more episodes, according to the data from this reddit thread.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/2acke9/s4heres_a_breakdown_of_each_characters_screen/

 

This Youtube video has the screen time done differently - stop at 0.21 for S1 Ep10 - but same result in that no character from GOT got the same amount of screen time.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOkWXE688w4

 

Rands screen time, as I have seen from 2 different sources has been listed consistently between 157-161 minutes.    Again this is 8 episodes of 60m vs. 10 episodes of 60m, and Rands screen time is higher than all GOT characters.

 

So basically we have a  WoTshow trying to bring the ensemble feel of something like GOT, and the rest of the WOT book series, and even that, with less episodes, and we still have a heavy amount of Rand, at least from my interpretation, and screen time amounts for the rest of the EF5 comparable to main actors on GOT (even Mat who is basically not in 2 episodes got 80+ min of screen tme - more than most GOT characters in S1). 

 

So Stepin in terms of screen time is basically on par with Khal Drogo - who was the 14th most shown character of GOT S1.   And like Khal Drogo in can be said that his arc sets up things for other characters going forward.  Much like Khal Drogo had a major effect on Daenarys.  Stepins screentime was 12th out of WoT Characters for S1.

 

 

[Gothic Flame]

Screen time doesn't translate to characterization if it's nothing more than "face time."

[ArrylT]

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

You're making a demand that the Age of Legends and its downfall should have been explored. 

 

I hope down the road we get a prequel that fully explores the folly of humankind and led to the breaking. 

[ArrylT]

8 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Screen time doesn't translate to characterization if it's nothing more than "face time."

 

Fair enough but we all have different ideas of what the characters portrayal has been so far.  I've been quite happy with the Perrin & Rand arcs to this point, for example.  Whereas obviously others feel differently.   

[expat]

Quote

You're making a demand that the Age of Legends and its downfall should have been explored.

1.  I'm not making any demands.  I simply said that I think that it is missed opportunity for the books and would have been interesting.

 

2.  This has nothing to do with the age of legends. It was a wish to show a parallel arc to the forsaken in one of the Randland characters.  Don't you think showing the descent of someone like Ingtar would have been interesting? It would have helped illustrate the path of the forsaken, but also lend gravitas to the DO and Ishy trying to turn Rand by showing how someone could be corrupted from good to evil.  

[RextheDog]

3 hours ago, expat said:

Why do you care if they recast Agelmar and not just replace him with a different character?

 

i wouldnt.

 

[orbops]

4 hours ago, ArrylT said:

I hope down the road we get a prequel that fully explores the folly of humankind and led to the breaking. 

If all the WoT fans that keep ripping the show, stop watching and cancel their Prime membership, then the chances of a prequel diminish. If they stop watching but keep their Prime membership - then Amazon could care less if they're watching.

[Gothic Flame]

7 minutes ago, orbops said:

If all the WoT fans that keep ripping the show, stop watching and cancel their Prime membership, then the chances of a prequel diminish. If they stop watching but keep their Prime membership - then Amazon could care less if they're watching.

I hear Truth in this.

[Ralph]

9 minutes ago, orbops said:

If all the WoT fans that keep ripping the show, stop watching and cancel their Prime membership, then the chances of a prequel diminish. If they stop watching but keep their Prime membership - then Amazon could care less if they're watching.

To a certain extent, but only people watching spread the word, recommend to friends, etc etc

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

Copy/paste from a mod-deleted post on r/WoT which brought up something I hadn't noticed about the AoL flashback scene. 

 

"The show calls Latra Posae the Watcher of the Flame. This throwaway point really bugged me. It once more suggests the writers either don’t care, or don’t know about the lore. I’m not sure what would be worse. The Watcher of the Flame seems to be a mixture of the Amyrlin Seat’s titles in the Third Age (Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon). The Flame of Tar Valon didn’t exist in the Age of Legends as Tar Valon didn’t exist back then, and also the Flame refers to the flame shaped female half of the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai. The symbol was whole during the Age of Legends so the Flame terminology would not have been used to describe its female half, in the same way the Dragon’s Fang terminology was not used to describe the male half of the yin/yang symbol. Besides, Latra Posae already had a great title in the books. Shadar Nor, Cutter of the Shadow. Why not keep it?"

[Raal Gurniss]

18 hours ago, Chivalry said:

I'm not sure how they're gonna fix the Moraine stilling/shielding thing. I did not like that at all. And if it ends up being a simple, quick fix, it just cheapens the whole plot point.

 

Moraine is by far the most powerful Aes Sedai we see in action for the first third of the series. I always got the sense that her confidence (even arrogance) was based on her knowledge and competence. Diminishing her (and Lan) really bothered me.

Its going to be a quick fix…The plot has already been cheapened by a thousand cuts.

[VooDooNut]

6 minutes ago, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

Copy/paste from a mod-deleted post on r/WoT which brought up something I hadn't noticed about the AoL flashback scene. 

 

"The show calls Latra Posae the Watcher of the Flame. This throwaway point really bugged me. It once more suggests the writers either don’t care, or don’t know about the lore. I’m not sure what would be worse. The Watcher of the Flame seems to be a mixture of the Amyrlin Seat’s titles in the Third Age (Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon). The Flame of Tar Valon didn’t exist in the Age of Legends as Tar Valon didn’t exist back then, and also the Flame refers to the flame shaped female half of the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai. The symbol was whole during the Age of Legends so the Flame terminology would not have been used to describe its female half, in the same way the Dragon’s Fang terminology was not used to describe the male half of the yin/yang symbol. Besides, Latra Posae already had a great title in the books. Shadar Nor, Cutter of the Shadow. Why not keep it?"

Which user wrote this?

[Raal Gurniss]

20 minutes ago, orbops said:

If all the WoT fans that keep ripping the show, stop watching and cancel their Prime membership, then the chances of a prequel diminish. If they stop watching but keep their Prime membership - then Amazon could care less if they're watching.

Or they just rate WoT at the score they feel it deserves….As RottenTomatoes has previously shown, if a show does get massively panned they do start paying attention even if they have to buy up the website to “adjust” the rating.