Season 1 Discussion (Full Book Spoilers) v2.1

[Humbugged2]

On 11/29/2021 at 9:13 PM, Rand the Plumber said:

 

And they had better cast her perfectly, or I will be overturning tables and stomping about in a foul temper. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Verin

happens to be my favourite character from the books.

As far as know they have got a great actor playing her in Meera Syal

 

 

[Cauthonfan4]

1 minute ago, KakitaOCU said:

Suffice to say I believe and agree with her assessment but don't feel value in arguing it

Considering all the hate rafe gets I don't see how you can logically agree with her assessment. 

[Elder_Haman]

7 minutes ago, Humbugged2 said:

As far as know they have got a great actor playing her in Meera Syal

This is not confirmed, as far as I know. Meera Syal has been cast, but her role has not been revealed. Until the (extremely unlikely) event that Amazon casts someone else, the role of Verin will be played by esteemed character actress Margo Martindale.

[KakitaOCU]

3 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

Considering all the hate rafe gets I don't see how you can logically agree with her assessment. 

I refuse to go into details as that'll quickly turn this too dark for this type of forum.  I have close to two decades dealing with criminal elements and behaviors.  The death threats and violence threats I've seen men receive are not the same as the ones I see women receive.  They are different in both direct threat (Manner of abuse intended or threatened, level of detail in description, etc) and in indirect threats (threats to family members and what those will entail).

I can't speak to this specific situation, I am not involved in it, but given what I've seen in 17 years of what would be considered white collar and somewhat higher class crime.  yeah.... I believe her.

[ilovezam]

22 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Suffice to say I believe and agree with her assessment but don't feel value in arguing it.

That's cool. It's not like I think they're not sexists anyway, I'm just trying and maybe failing to straddle a middle position that is as fact-based as possible, and I'm struggling to see how anyone can assert with any confidence one way or another. Now if someone DM'd her "I knew they shouldn't have let a woman be the lore expert", then that would be incredibly sexist. If someone said "you ruined the show!" - probably less so, right?

 

I guess I have just grown so incredibly weary of accusations of sexism being thrown around any time any kind of ire is directed at anything that involves a woman one way or another. Hated Captain Marvel? Sexist. Hated Ghostbusters? Sexist. Hated Daenerys slaughtering a bunch of innocent civilians? Sexist. I kid you not, that Daenerys thing really came up from an acquaintance who thought that men only hated that scene because it portrayed a woman wielding her power forcefully.

 

22 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

posts insisting the men are being destroyed to prop up women

Now the show has managed to come across that way to many, and I think that's really unfortunate. I don't think there's any intentional attempt on Rafe's part to destroy men or anything quite so asinine, but there's a heavy-handedness in some of the writing that unfortunately makes it seem that way. A feminist, female YouTuber articulates some of this stuff better than I could, check this out at this timestamp if you can. 

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by ilovezam

[Humbugged2]

2 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

That's cool. It's not like I think they're not sexists anyway, I'm just trying and maybe failing to straddle a middle position that is as fact-based as possible, and I'm struggling to see how anyone can assert with any confidence one way or another. Now if someone DM'd her "I knew they shouldn't have let a woman be the lore expert", then that would be incredibly sexist. If someone said "you ruined the show!" - probably less so, right?

 

I guess I have just grown so incredibly weary of accusations of sexism being thrown around any time any kind of ire is directed at anything that involves a woman one way or another. Hated Captain Marvel? Sexist. Hated Ghostbusters? Sexist. Hated Daenerys slaughtering a bunch of innocent civilians? Sexist. I kid you not, that Daenerys thing really came up from an acquaintance who thought that men only hated that scene because it portrayed a woman wielding her power forcefully.

 

Now the show has managed to come across that way to many. I don't think there's any intentional attempt on Rafe's part to destroy men or anything quite so asinine, but there's a heavy-handedness in some of the writing that unfortunately makes it seem that way. A feminist, female YouTuber articulates some of this better stuff better than I could, check this out at this timestamp if you'd like!

 

So this woman claims that nobody in a circle dies tell that to the people who were in circles at the last battle and died like Kiruna and Faeldrin

[Cauthonfan4]

10 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

A feminist, female YouTuber articulates some of this stuff better than I could, check this out at this timestamp if you can. 

She hits it well. And while I could totally see uplifting the others a bit and downplaying rand they took it so far with downplaying him that we literally have people asking if that rand as the DR was a red herring

 

[Deviations]

32 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

These threads here have been relatively calm, but I've seen posts pushing an "agenda" to diminish men, posts insisting the men are being destroyed to prop up women. 

I mostly tried to avoid this until I read the ep1 draft.  Rafe states in that draft, that the sex scenes  should show the women in control and the men working to please the woman.  It's one example, but its a clear intention.  I'm not saying it's a crime or that it isn't justified after 90 years of Hollywood sexism, but it can't be denied at this point.

[ilovezam]

8 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

She hits it well. And while I could totally see uplifting the others a bit and downplaying rand they took it so far with downplaying him that we literally have people asking if that rand as the DR was a red herring

 

Yeah, I think "not willing to let the male characters have their moments" is a really fair way for her to put it. Not some crazy anti-men agenda, but maybe a desire to not have the women shown to be outdone by the men in any way? And a bit of that CW Supergirl heavy-handedness comes to mind, like when Martian Manhunter asks her to retreat from an enemy she's losing against and her adopted sister goes: "you think she can't do it - just because she's a girl?!" 

 

There are also some egregious lore things that I'm really hoping is just misdirect like with the Dragon and the Breaking, but Rosamund Pike said in an interview that the Breaking of the World was about "men who had power and abused it and broke the world", which I think all of us in this forum would know is straight up incorrect. So yeah. I'd still WAFO but morale is low at this point.

Edited January 14, 2022 by ilovezam

[KakitaOCU]

20 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

A feminist, female YouTuber articulates some of this stuff better than I could, check this out at this timestamp if you can. 

A woman feeling that Rand was diminished doesn't prove or disprove that some posters have insisted on an agenda.  Not sure why you bring this up.

That said, watching it, her disappointment seems to be that Rand didn't deus ex machina out of nowhere, something I was happy to see changed because I don't think less of Rand for not throwing lightning at Trollocs but I did find the end of EotW annoying as it really is a case of "Oh, and then Rand saves everyone"  Rand at Tarwin's Gap wasn't important, Rand rejecting saving his mother, standing against Ishamael, THAT was important, and that is in the TV episode too.

 

5 minutes ago, Deviations said:

I mostly tried to avoid this until I read the ep1 draft.  Rafe states in that draft, that the sex scenes  should show the women in control and the men working to please the woman.  It's one example, but its a clear intention.  I'm not saying it's a crime or that it isn't justified after 90 years of Hollywood sexism, but it can't be denied at this point.

That's... not an Agenda to weaken men.  That's stating they want sex scenes to empower women vs the way GoT did them.  
 

6 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Rosamund Pike said in an interview that the Breaking of the World was about "men who had power and abused it and broke the world", which I think all of us in this forum would know is straight up incorrect.

I disagree that this is incorrect.  This is missing some context, fair, but it's not incorrect.

LTT's weakness is his arrogance and hubris, point blank.  He decided his plan was best, he wasn't willing to negotiate on it, he wasn't willing to compromise.  No, "We're doing this, I want your help but I'm doing it no matter what."  Further, we know the women were right to not help, if they had the entire source would have been tainted.

Now, there is a lot of nuance and mitigating things to bring in over the series, but those aren't things a viewer should know now.  We're doing to see that Latra was just as stubborn, true.   We're also going to see that Lanfear made the bore, so there's a whole spin to make it a woman's fault instead of a man's.  But when it comes down to it, LTT is what he is.  Rand is the same in Merrilor.  He's pretty much "This is my way and that's it" right up until Moraine comes in and convinces him to back down, showing he's grown from before.

[Cauthonfan4]

4 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

That's... not an Agenda to weaken men.  That's stating they want sex scenes to empower women vs the way GoT did them.

You can empower women without reducing men. You can develop women without reducing male development. 

 

And yet they decided to grossly reduce male chatacter development scenes left right and center and take men's moments and give them to women. 

And it was laughable watching "moiraine has a tell". Lan can't track his own aes sedai but nynave can. Please.

 

How you can say they didn't diminish men is beyond me.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Deviations]

4 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

That's... not an Agenda to weaken men.  That's stating they want sex scenes to empower women vs the way GoT did them.  

I know we are never going to agree on much, but why make Abel a drunk womanizer?  Why give Agelmar a dirt nap?  Why give the girls the lightning and take it away from Rand.  That is all intentional.

[notpropaganda73]

1 minute ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

You can empower women without reducing men. You can develop women without reducing male development. 

 

I mean you are specifically responding to a discussion surrounding Rafe's note in that leaked script about the sex scenes showing the women being empowered so I really hope you've misread it because otherwise... you know that focussing on women's pleasure in sex isn't "reducing" men, right?

 

--

 

I said it when that script was leaked and people first spoke about it here, I cringed at that note in the script but to be honest in a world where GoT dominated for so long, I don't really blame anyone for feeling the need to put that in as a point of emphasis. But I'm much happier with how the show has decided to show sex so far anyway, it's more in keeping with how Jordan handled it. 

[notpropaganda73]

1 minute ago, Deviations said:

I know we are never going to agree on much, but why make Abel a drunk womanizer?  Why give Agelmar a dirt nap?  Why give the girls the lightning and take it away from Rand.  That is all intentional.

 

Why make Natti a hysterical drug addict (that's how she came across to me)? 

 

The whole point of the changes to Mat isn't about vilifying men, it's to make his journey as a reluctant hero resonate a bit more. Personally I think it's one of the more interesting changes in the show, and considering how vehement Rand's defence of Mat was in episode 7, I think the writers know what they're doing there. 

[ilovezam]

3 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

A woman feeling that Rand was diminished doesn't prove or disprove that some posters have insisted on an agenda. 

She's a feminist reader who normally champions for strong female characters and moments, but felt that the show overdid by imagining it had to deliberately diminish male characters to achieve that. I think this is exactly what loads of readers are very unhappy about. You claim that people stating that the show was "pushing an "agenda" to diminish men... insisting the men are being destroyed to prop up women" reflects their misogyny, but I think if you compare what they say with what she said, the parallels are clear. I guess the only difference, really, is whether there's a broader "agenda" or not, whatever that even means. But I can see why people might feel that there was one, and I don't see why that makes them sexist.

 

2 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

LTT's weakness is his arrogance and hubris, point blank.

But men abusing their power? It was a last ditch hail mary. It's also maybe pretty arrogant of a plan. But it's also very tragic and nuanced and there were no good options remaining. I'm not saying they won't cover this in Season 2, but surely "male arrogance broke the world" is a pretty poor way of summarizing the events.

[Humbugged2]

On 11/30/2021 at 10:32 PM, Kudzu said:

"There are rumours of 4 ta'veren"

which Dara said was wrong as 'is one of you 5'

 

Which led to what else happened next episode with Logain who can spot ta'veren

[ilovezam]

15 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Rand didn't deus ex machina out of nowhere

Ha, I think if someone has to deus ex machina, the Dragon Reborn was a much better candidate to do so than Amalisa Jagad and squad. But the point is the male characters didn't get to shine all season, and people are upset about that.

 

7 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

The whole point of the changes to Mat isn't about vilifying men, it's to make his journey as a reluctant hero resonate a bit more.

Rafe thinks "Mat is the character who most clearly struggles with the darker elements of himself" and that there are "darker questions Mat has of whether he's a bad person at his core". I agree it's not about vilifying men, but I also think he completely didn't understand the character. Being reluctant to charge into danger and save the day does not make you maybe a bad person at your core. If anything, Mat was probably the lightest character of the trio, and the least likely to "turn if the dark side", if you will.

[ilovezam]

14 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

but to be honest in a world where GoT dominated for so long, I don't really blame anyone for feeling the need to put that in as a point of emphasis.

The sex scenes in GoT were never meant to "empower men" though? If anything I thought they were mostly supposed to make the audience feel a little uneasy and disgusted.

[Cauthonfan4]

4 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Rafe thinks "Mat is the character who most clearly struggles with the darker elements of himself

Considering that perrin literally spent entire books dealing with conflicts over killing while mat would go through entire battles while laughing and joking I think rafe entirely missed the mark 

 

[KakitaOCU]

12 minutes ago, Deviations said:

I know we are never going to agree on much, but why make Abel a drunk womanizer?  Why give Agelmar a dirt nap?  Why give the girls the lightning and take it away from Rand.  That is all intentional.

Abell was already addressed, so no need to rehash.  For the others.

What does Agelmar's death matter and how does it diminish him?  Let's compare Agelmar in the books vs Agelmar in the show.

Book Agelmar: Fails to adequately prepare or defend the Gap, almost dies, gets saved by channeling.  Disapears for 13 books, shows up at the end where he Yes Mans Elayne, gets compelled, gets a bunch of people killed needlessly and disappears from the narrative.

Show Agelmar: Fails to adequately prepare or defend the Gap, dies.   

We're not removing a man's time to shine, we're removing excess failure.

Moving on to Rand's lightning.  Rand's significant moment in EotW is standing up to and resisting Ishamael.  Driving him away and fully standing up to the shadow.  His Deus Ex at the Gap is a cool visual scene but it has nothing to do with his plot development or character.   It really kind of bothers me that of Rand's three fights at the end of EotW, they kept the most important one and people are like "Yeah, but he doesn't throw fireballs and lightning bolts so meh."

 

10 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

But men abusing their power? It was a last ditch hail mary. It's also maybe pretty arrogant of a plan. But it's also very tragic and nuanced and there were no good options remaining. I'm not saying they won't cover this in Season 2, but surely "male arrogance broke the world" is a pretty poor way of summarizing the events.

It wasn't a last ditch plan, it was his plan that he only backed down on because he didn't think it could work if he didn't have all the pieces he wanted.  Then when another plan failed he said screw it and tried anyway (At that point it became last ditch).   Male Arrogance broke the world is fair.  A man deciding he could rival the creator took it upon himself to try and cage the DO with just Saidin, which lead to the taint and the world being destroyed.  

Further, the fact that so many men at the time tried to hold on until the taint drove them to make things worse is another sign of male arrogance.  Sure the 100 Companions immediately went nuts and massacred, but the rest?  The taint came slower and yet they kept at it until they joined the breaking.  Why not accept shielding or stedding while the women worked on the situation?  (Some did, but even then, decided the taint probably wore off and left).

Male arrogance is not a complete story, not at all, but it's not inaccurate.

 

[ilovezam]

1 minute ago, KakitaOCU said:

Then when another plan failed he said screw it and tried anyway (At that point it became last ditch).   Male Arrogance broke the world is fair. 

What else could they have done? Didn't he follow along Latra's plan right up to the point where it was no longer possible to do? He also saved the world from complete and utter defeat against the Dark One, which would have been much worse outcome than the Breaking of the World. 

 

2 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Why not accept shielding or stedding while the women worked on the situation?

It's repeatedly emphasized that the Power was like a drug, and that people cut off from it would sooner die than live without. The girls could hardly stand being in Far Madding for a couple of days. I could see some of the men arrogant enough to think they could handle the taint without losing it, but I could also see it being a good dose of copium and excuses addicted people might tell themselves when they're desperately trying to feed an addiction. "Maybe after all these years the taint is gone!" 

 

Generalizing the situation to be about the arrogance of an entire sex seems horribly presumptuous and inappropriate to me. At the start, we were all clamoring to defend the Ep1 clip by convincing each other that it was simply Moiraine having an unknowledgeable and unreliable take, but now...

[EmreY]

2 hours ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

My bad I forgot that this was rafes wheel of prime, not Jordan's wheel of time.

 

Peace favour the Lord Showrunner and his Vision illumine us all. 

 

 

2 hours ago, ilovezam said:

It's super dangerous, and I'm not even very sure what the ceremony is supposed to represent. Strong women have good fortune?

Like the surrendering to the river thing was pretty cool if they're still going to be doing saidar in the next season, I guess.

 

 

I missed the discussions about this.  I thought it was ridiculous.

 

50 minutes ago, Deviations said:

I know we are never going to agree on much, but why make Abel a drunk womanizer?  Why give Agelmar a dirt nap?  Why give the girls the lightning and take it away from Rand.  That is all intentional.

 

I am almost tempted to ask Abel who?  Agelmar I remember because he was a Great Captain who got derailed.  Rand better get some fire.

[Skipp]

16 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

What else could they have done? Didn't he follow along Latra's plan right up to the point where it was no longer possible to do? He also saved the world from complete and utter defeat against the Dark One, which would have been much worse outcome than the Breaking of the World. 

 

It's repeatedly emphasized that the Power was like a drug, and that people cut off from it would sooner die than live without. The girls could hardly stand being in Far Madding for a couple of days. I could see some of the men arrogant enough to think they could handle the taint without losing it, but I could also see it being a good dose of copium and excuses addicted people might tell themselves when they're desperately trying to feed an addiction. "Maybe after all these years the taint is gone!" 

 

Generalizing the situation to be about the arrogance of an entire sex seems horribly presumptuous and inappropriate to me. At the start, we were all clamoring to defend the Ep1 clip by convincing each other that it was simply Moiraine having an unknowledgeable and unreliable take, but now...

In hindsight neither LTT nor LPPs plans would have worked.  LTT certainly had desperation that drove him to do what he did but neither that or the fact that LPP's plan would have also failed doesn't change the fact that he was arrogant to act as he did.

[ilovezam]

1 hour ago, Humbugged2 said:

So this woman claims that nobody in a circle dies tell that to the people who were in circles at the last battle and died like Kiruna and Faeldrin

Not directly as a result of channeling within a circle, right? 

[ilovezam]

1 minute ago, Skipp said:

he was arrogant to act as he did.

He might have been arrogant but he was also many other things. "Men had power and they abused it and they broke the world" doesn't even begin to adequately summarise the Breaking IMO.

 

Also, even if we were to grant that his arrogance broke the world, it should be "Lews Therin's arrogance broke the world" and not generalized to his entire gender. And there's still no abuse of power anywhere.