Season 1 Discussion (Full Book Spoilers) v2.1

[Gothic Flame]

44 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

This simply isn't true.  IRL Norse mythology warrior's who died valiant deaths went to Valhalla.  A fine place where they could drink and wench all night.  Then they would go out and fight.  Those killed and wounded would be resurrected at quitting time and start the process over again.  From another angle, that's what RJ did with the DO's incessant resurrecting of killed Forsaken.  I really hated that in the books my first time through.  Then I realized that the Hero's of the Horn were the Creator's version.  So alls fair in love and war.   Why shouldn't ordinary folk have the same opportunities for endless rounds of battle as the great and mighty.  I am pretty sure we will see Matt brought back from the dead in the Series.  

Then where's the suspense? Or any sense of urgency? 

[KakitaOCU]

2 hours ago, Mailman said:

Not such a problem for superman since he can travel at very close to the speed of light or at it, his coverage is immense he can stop a bad guy in Australia and save a woman in England and save a drowning man in China within the same second.

 

It's what makes the snydercut truly terrible. The Flash breaks the movie in every way possible way.

He can, but it's still only one place at a time.  There's more than those three things happening.

His choice is not on the scale ours would be, no argument, but he still can't be everywhere.  And in his case he's on a cosmic scale so while he is that fast he has a LOT more ground to cover than Nynaeve would.  ?

Side note, I don't know if that's the main issue with Snyder's DC.  I think it's a bigger issue that Snyder took stuff like Watchmen as dead serious instead of a deconstruction.  It colors his view of super heroes in general.  But yeah, honestly, Flash is one of those heroes that just truly trivializes everything if people thought about it for a few seconds.    

[KakitaOCU]

1 hour ago, Raal Gurniss said:

And if both sides were constantly healing and resurrecting instantly over an area of effect what would be the point in them fighting? It would just be continuous….The whole scene was poorly thought out, nothing more nothing less! 

Aside from us having no reason to believe someone other than Nynaeve or Damer or a few really good Yellows would be capable of this.

You're looking at this in a vacuum.  Nynaeve couldn't save everyone, Kerene stayed dead.  So there's a speed and time issue even if her healing is perfect.  Also, there's VERY little chance that any of those sisters or warders were less than well fed and we know what combat healing does to a person.  Her throwing a burst like that could heal a person only to have them drop dead of starvation.

But moving past that and just looking at the issue on the surface.  Again.  The Dark's forces don't protect their people.  It makes healers targets and means people would be gunning for Nynaeve or at least slicing her weaves apart.  AND, there can be stakes that have nothing to do with body count.  If they need to make sure a certain device isn't stolen or a person kidnapped, not losing anyone to death is a small thing if the VIP is kidnapped or turned.

 

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

Then where's the suspense? Or any sense of urgency? 

 

There's a really good example of it right in book 12.  Hintersnap (going off memory, sorry if that spelling is wrong).  There was absolutely no danger of anyone dying.  Any member of Mat's party that died would have just been perfectly fine the next morning.

But they'd be trapped there, maybe permanently, removing their ability to interact with the larger world and with no guarantee it could be fixed.  (In fact, we don't learn what happens with them, do they die?  are they still eternally trapped?  Who knows)

[Gothic Flame]

45 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

There's a really good example of it right in book 12.

Book 12...really? You don't say?

I'm reminded of a rpg session where the first levelers were twinked out with higher level gear and complaining about the 15th leveler that had the same gear...but had earned it all.

[KakitaOCU]

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

Book 12...really? You don't say?

I'm reminded of a rpg session where the first levelers were twinked out with higher level gear and complaining about the 15th leveler that had the same gear...but had earned it all.

 

Not sure of your point there...  I wasn't saying book 12 as a later in the series thing, just an in series example.   Figured that was better than the comic examples I already brought up. 

Edit: but since you want to make that angle.  Nothing about the Hintersnap scenario banks on how experienced or competent Mat is.  In fact, it would be even more high stakes and concerning if Mat wasn't a master fighter/tactician/strategist.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2022 by KakitaOCU

[EmreY]

10 hours ago, ArrylT said:

Based off of the distance the knife had to have done at least 2 full rotations, if not 3.

 

This ranks close to Christopher Lee's "No, Peter, if you stab a man from behind this is the sound he makes". ? 

 

6 hours ago, Raal Gurniss said:

And if both sides were constantly healing and resurrecting instantly over an area of effect what would be the point in them fighting? It would just be continuous….The whole scene was poorly thought out, nothing more nothing less! 

 

As stated in the bit you quoted, RJ doesn't escape this criticism either, though I think we'll find St Nynaeve the Healer healed herself, which would cut down on the opportunities. ? 

[Raal Gurniss]

Some people just don’t get that its poor writing…..There is zero use in defending it or justifying it! All it does is encourage more poor writing!

 

Although I am starting to think that is the intention, some people don't want the series to improve they want the series to slide further and end.

[Raal Gurniss]

2 hours ago, EmreY said:

 

This ranks close to Christopher Lee's "No, Peter, if you stab a man from behind this is the sound he makes". ? 

 

 

As stated in the bit you quoted, RJ doesn't escape this criticism either, though I think we'll find St Nynaeve the Healer healed herself, which would cut down on the opportunities. ? 

So? RJ was also guilty of writing poor scenes, I enjoy his work doesn’t mean he was perfect…And Nynaeve could teach how to do it and a small circle could replicate it….And the Seanchan/Aiel/Forsaken were quite able to replicate such a skill..

 

It cheapens everything and makes 99% of fighting pointless.

 

It is poor writing.

[EmreY]

18 minutes ago, Raal Gurniss said:

It is poor writing.

 

I don't disagree in the case of nearly-resurrected Nynaeve.  As far as I'm concerned, it's not just poor writing, it's a serious lapse in judgement.

[Raal Gurniss]

3 hours ago, EmreY said:

 

I don't disagree in the case of nearly-resurrected Nynaeve.  As far as I'm concerned, it's not just poor writing, it's a serious lapse in judgement.

And sadly given how the showrunners don’t take criticism onboard for whatever reason we can expect much more of the same in the next season, which may well be the last because of it…

 

 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Raal Gurniss

[Cauthonfan4]

30 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

I don't disagree in the case of nearly-resurrected Nynaeve. 

the problem here is they have written her into super human mode, and now the only real place you can go with her story arc is to "nerf" her some way, which is going to be a huge character regression and not very fun to watch imo. Basically almost all the writing for Nynaeve was done poorly if you ask me. They've built her up as someone who can track better then the best trackers in the land, who can heal near death, who can control weaves within someone elses circle, and who has awe inspiring power and that leaves little for forward growth without backtracking.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Gothic Flame]

9 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

Not sure of your point there...  I wasn't saying book 12 as a later in the series thing, just an in series example.   Figured that was better than the comic examples I already brought up. 

My response was reflex.

But the question of suspense is related to resurrecting during/after battles. Because there won't be any suspense beyond winning a game. Heck, not even much need for battle tactics either since suicidal strategies can be put into play. This is the direction of where the show has diverged clear from the book, as when Rand tried to bring a little girl back to life, and Moiraine says, "There's no healing death."

Edited January 22, 2022 by Gothic Flame
Clarity

[KakitaOCU]

6 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

But the question of suspense is related to resurrecting during/after battles.

The thing we don't have any indication of being able to do.  People are conflating two separate things that happened and making assumptions.  We know due to Kerene that no, Nynaeve can't heal death.  So someone who's flat out dead is still dead which means that risk exists still.  That also doesn't change that Nynaeve is not everywhere at once.  So no, death is not easily fixed everywhere because there's not going to be a huge number of people on Nynaeve/Damer's level.
 

6 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

Because there won't be any suspense beyond winning a game. Heck, not even much need for battle tactics either since suicidal strategies can be put into play.

 

Except we've shown several examples of stakes without death specifically and that they can work.  And we've also pointed out that these developments don't magically remove threat of death from everything.  

There's also massive gaps and stupidity in the idea that suicidal strategies can just run the day.  Because again, if you're dead, you can't be fixed (Kerene).  And even if it could be.  Hmm, I set up a line to draw in a suicidal charge, the healer exposes themselves to heal, we slice those weaves and kill the healer.  Oh look, we won.  Because even if Nynaeve was as potent as you're suggesting, she's mortal and no one is there to heal her.  So again, death still on the table.

 

6 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

This is the direction of where the show has diverged clear from the book, as when Rand tried to bring a little girl back to life, and Moiraine says, "There's no healing death."

And Kerene shows that's still the case.  Let's look at the scene where "Death is healed".  It's Ep 8 when Nynaeve nearly burns out.  Now aside from the implications aspect, no, I don't like the scene, I think if they were going this way it should have been Nynaeve healing Egwene, but it being a bad scene is not the same as it unwriting drama from the plot.

So fun real life facts here.  People "die" all the time and get brought back.  Every real life situation where you see someone doing chest compressions?  That's because the heart has completely stopped.  The chest compressions are to force blood flow to keep the body alive until full medical attention can come which can restart the heart and get things going again.  The victims in these cases are clinically dead.

So let me ask.  Why is Egwene doing something with magic that we do in real life with science some type of deal breaker?  Better question.  Do you find every show set in modern times to be without stakes?  Of course not.  Bullets in the right place kill immediately before aid can be offered, damage gives a very small window before it's too late.  Just because someone CAN be fixed from severe injuries doesn't mean they will be.

 

 

 

[Gothic Flame]

4 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

Why is Egwene doing something with magic that we do in real life with science some type of deal breaker?

If you create your own narrative to rationalize it all then it isn't...

But my books say "death can't be healed."

[VooDooNut]

Just now, Gothic Flame said:

If you create your own narrative to rationalize it all then it isn't...

But my books say "death can't be healed."

Nynaeve wasn't dead. I suspect the show will abide by the dead-is-dead rules of the books (timey-wimey weaves aside).

[Yojimbo]

52 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Nynaeve wasn't dead. I suspect the show will abide by the dead-is-dead rules of the books (timey-wimey weaves aside).

What about the wibbly wobbly weaves?

[KakitaOCU]

3 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

If you create your own narrative to rationalize it all then it isn't...

But my books say "death can't be healed."

Book 4, Chapter 26: The Dedicated.  Mat is dead.  No breath, no heartbeat.  Rand brings him back with CPR.  Not only that but it's clear it's just skill, not power and he learned it because Master Luhhan also did it in the past.  

I'm not creating my own narrative, I'm pointing out that you can be dead and revived without the power.  Further that it happens IN THE BOOKS.  So the fact that Egwene used the power to perform CPR is not significant.  (Again, don't love the scene, but is it a good scene is a separate question from does this ruin all stakes and risk in the future)

And before you try to claim Mat wasn't really dead.  Remember two things.  #1: We don't know that Nynaeve was "really" dead either.  And #2: We've seen healing weaves used on a dead person, they didn't work (Kerene).

Edited January 23, 2022 by KakitaOCU

[ilovezam]

1 hour ago, KakitaOCU said:

Further that it happens IN THE BOOKS.  So the fact that Egwene used the power to perform CPR is not significant.

Wait, how do you get to CPR from watching the show? Seems like an incredible reach to me.

 

No amount of CPR would reverse the damage done by having your insides of your head burning.

 

Healing severe injuries is something incredibly difficult and not something even endgame Egwene would be able to do, and over the past few weeks I thought even those who defended the show are agreed on this.

Seems a weird hill to die on.

Edited January 23, 2022 by ilovezam

[KakitaOCU]

2 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Wait, how do you CPR from watching the show? Seems like an incredible reach to me.

 

No amount of CPR would reverse the damage done by having your insides of your head burning.

 

Healing severe injuries is something incredibly difficult and not something even endgame Egwene would be able to do, and over the past few weeks I thought even those who defended the show are agreed on this.

Seems a weird hill to die on.

 

The argument isn't about Egwene, I agreed and stated I didn't like that scene.

The argument being made is that "Healing the dead" is going to break the risk and stakes of the show.  So I was pointing out that we heal the "dead" and that there are still stakes.  

[ilovezam]

4 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

So I was pointing out that we heal the "dead" and that there are still stakes.  

Don't think the analogy works that well here though, because the two cases don't affect the stakes to nearly the same extent. For CPR, the stakes are maybe lowered by the tiniest blip for certain situations, but CPR is extremely risky and you would never, ever, want to be a position where you ever need to receive CPR, and of course, healing the rest of your injuries/disease after a successful resuscitation is still going to be just as difficult as ever.

 

Now if they establish that whatever Egwene did was only very specifically useful for very niche situations and was only a tiniest extension of Nynaeve's window of survival and that only a good 20% survive the intervention and the hospital stay afterwards and that even if they do survive it's not going to be a good time after, then yeah...

[KakitaOCU]

16 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Don't think the analogy works that well here though, because the two cases don't affect the stakes to nearly the same extent. For CPR, the stakes are maybe lowered by the tiniest blip for certain situations, but CPR is extremely risky and you would never, ever, want to be a position where you ever need to receive CPR, and of course, healing the rest of your injuries/disease after a successful resuscitation is still going to be just as difficult as ever.

 

Now if they establish that whatever Egwene did was only very specifically useful for very niche situations and was only a tiniest extension of Nynaeve's window of survival and that only a good 20% survive the intervention and the hospital stay afterwards and that even if they do survive it's not going to be a good time after, then yeah...

I'd say it's fair because I'm not arguing Egwene's specific act.  The people disputing this issue are saying Egwene's act plus Nynaeve's in Ep 4 somehow constitute that no injury is permanent and thus there are no stakes.

[ilovezam]

14 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

I'd say it's fair because I'm not arguing Egwene's specific act.  The people disputing this issue are saying Egwene's act plus Nynaeve's in Ep 4 somehow constitute that no injury is permanent and thus there are no stakes.

People were arguing that Egwene Healing near-death so easily lowers the overall stakes with regards to injury and death. You are claiming that this doesn't in fact lower the stakes, by comparing the feat to something that we can already do in real-life, but now you're saying it's not about what Egwene did?

 

Different stakes are lowered in different ways to different extents depending on what's being done. For example, the invention of antibiotics does lower the stakes for someone with a bacteria infection to a spectacular extent, but not for other conditions. 

 

I think a much more appropriate analogy would be if we invented some sci-fi nanomachines stuff that fully cures us of any physical damage short of death at a very low cost. I would say that is objectively something that "lowers the stakes", is it not? 

[KakitaOCU]

10 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

People were arguing that Egwene Healing near-death so easily lowers the overall stakes with regards to injury and death. You are claiming that this doesn't in fact lower the stakes, by comparing the feat to something that we can already do in real-life, but now you're saying it's not about what Egwene did?

 

Different stakes are lowered in different ways to different extents depending on what's being done. For example, the invention of antibiotics does lower the stakes for someone with a bacteria infection to a spectacular extent, but not for other conditions. 

 

I think a much more appropriate analogy would be if we invented some sci-fi nanomachines stuff that fully cures us of any physical damage short of death at a very low cost. I would say that is objectively something that "lowers the stakes", is it not? 

Re-read the posts, the arguments are things like "Now we can just use suicide tactics and heal everything, no one will ever die, there's no stakes at all."

The point I make is that even in the books death is undone.  Don't like comparing CPR to Ep 8.  Alright, how about Balefiring murderers?  That happens too.

Either way, a healer cannot be everywhere, a healer can be taken out, people can still die (Kerene).  My points don't magically go poof because you don't like CPR vs Egwene's weave.

[ilovezam]

15 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Alright, how about Balefiring murderers?  That happens too.

This is fair, there were definitely moments with a sense of "why don't you just balefire?" 

 

16 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Re-read the posts, the arguments are things like "Now we can just use suicide tactics and heal everything, no one will ever die, there's no stakes at all."

I didn't read every post, but I get the sense that that was probably an extremely hyperbolic representation of their points. But even if they did, I just don't think the CPR comparison works at all, which is what immediately jumped out a very faulty argument.

 

It's not that there's no longer any stakes - I'd agree with you if that's what they're arguing, because as you say, you could still get completely murdered, but the stakes associated with getting severely injured is now severely reduced. Agreed on this?

 

Also, unless they're giving Egwene new Talents in this, then what she did was not some kind of special feat specific to her, but something that other Aes Sedai should be able to pull off. So the "Egwene can't be everywhere" thing doesn't seem to fly. I'd be much more comfortable if it was Nynaeve doing Healing like that because they could establish that she's an insanely overpowered healer and it's just her, and I think this is why there didn't seem to be nearly as much backlash with the Ep 4 feat.

 

 

 

[KakitaOCU]

7 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Also, unless they're giving Egwene new Talents in this, then what she did was not some kind of special feat specific to her, but something that other Aes Sedai should be able to pull off. So the "Egwene can't be everywhere" thing doesn't seem to fly. I'd be much more comfortable if it was Nynaeve doing Healing like that because they could establish that she's an insanely overpowered healer and it's just her, and I think this is why there didn't seem to be nearly as much backlash with the Ep 4 feat.

 

It may be specific to strength (Like Gateways)  Which narrows it down a lot.

Even if every channeler can do it, there's only so many, and it's doubtful you can do it at ease or on your own time.  It's going to be a matter of being right there as it happens and acting quickly.  Which means death is still a risk and a consequence.