Mat In Season 1

[Andra]

1 hour ago, WhiteVeils said:

I am pretty convinced the whole reason they did Mat's relationship with his sisters and his bad family (in addition to making him have a 'save the cat' moment where he looks very sympathetic and appealing) is to give us this traumatic moment where we realize he has forgotten them. 

 

38 minutes ago, Pukel-man said:

That was his only decent moment.

 

I thought he had a couple other decent moments, but they were mostly squandered.

 

I liked when he started the song about Manetheren, I just wish I could have understood a word of it without subtitles.  His "accent" made him sound like he had a mouthful of gravel.

I liked his occasional flashes of humor - like when serving beer or commenting about Rand having picked up a little bit of prudent suspicion of Thom's motives.  Or even just that Rand was trying to be funny.

I liked him stealing his money back from Thom without him noticing it.

 

But very little of that went anywhere.  And even by this point in the book, a lot more of that was seen.

[Truthteller]

6 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

I've heard the phrase 'Priming the pump' used before.  Titanic was a huge box office blockbuster. It made many people cry, was widely acclaimed and adored when it came out. The special effects were considered amazing, the lovestory heartbreaking, the end tragic. 

 

I was not interested in seeing it. Love stories were not my thing.  I didn't care for the actors. I had objections to some of the themes, and I thought the whole thing was just ...bleh.

 

I did see it, eventually, when it came out on video.  I thought much of it was hilariously stupid. The love stories were as cheesy as I expected. I could find a million plot holes that didn't make any sense at all to me.  I thought the characters acted ridiculously.  Watching the movie verified all my preconceptions. I thought it was ridiculous.

Because of course it did. I was not putting on my suspension of disbelief..I was making a choice to mock it and laugh at it and not let myself enjoy the love story for what it was, because that was what I thought it would be. 

But my reaction to the movie was not because it was badly done. It was no reflection on the show, the special effects, the writing, the acting, none of that. It was a reflection of me...of who I was and how I came into the show and chose to look at the show.    I chose, subconsciously, to ignore the setups for the tender moments, the actual meaning of certain scenes, to 'shorthand' them in a way that, then, to my mind, depicted them as ridiculous. That was my choice.

Lan's expression of grief, as a designated mourner where his stated duty was to express communal grief for a group of men who were not allowed culturally to express strong emotion except through such specific channel, can certainly be ridiculous of you ignore that whole cultural context and want to see it that way.

Digging up the horn of Valere 'just to give it to Padan Fain' seems ridiculous if you ignore the fact that Fal Dara was being overrun with trollocs and they had to retrieve it or it would fall into the hands of the Shadowspawn. 

There's tons of these examples...places you can choose to think it's ridiculous just like I thought Titanic was ridiculous.  Many would be WOT readers feel the same way about the books...they encounter scenes that they feel are so ridiculous they quit the series.  Maybe they decided before they started that this is too much like LOTR, and are waiting for the hobbits to come out. Or maybe fantasy worlds at all are ridiculous.  Or maybe Mat and his badger is stupid and childish and what are these grown men doing fussing like pre-teens about who knows more about girls?  It's a choice that's been made, conscious or not, that then feeds into how you perceive the books.  Or the show. The pump is primed.

You're welcome to watch WOT with your pump primed for ridicule. You'll find reasons.  But it doesn't say much more than my attitude towards Titanic actually said about Titanic.

It is just different views.  Sorry if this is too long...Just thinking aloud here I guess.

And yet I was primed to love the show, my son even more so, and yet we didn’t.  
 

This is what so many don’t seem to understand, they think the book lovers were predisposed to dislike the show that they, to use your words, have chosen to not like it.

 

In fact, the opposite is true, we desperately wanted to like it, choosing to see it as good as possible time after time.  That is how bad the show is, they could have made any other version of the show and we would have liked it.

 

Instead, they made the worst possible version of the show, a show so bad that the most captive audience, the one most willing to suspend its disbelief, still disliked it.

 

Don’t believe me, chew on this.  I think every single decision they made was bad.  We live hear in the worst of all possible worlds. And yet I will still watch season 2.  And not to hate watch the show, but because I am more than willing to make the choice you speak of.  

[Andra]

14 minutes ago, Truthteller said:

And yet I was primed to love the show, my son even more so, and yet we didn’t.  
 

This is what so many don’t seem to understand, they think the book lovers were predisposed to dislike the show that they, to use your words, have chosen to not like it.

 

In fact, the opposite is true, we desperately wanted to like it, choosing to see it as good as possible time after time.  That is how bad the show is, they could have made any other version of the show and we would have liked it.

 

Instead, they made the worst possible version of the show, a show so bad that the most captive audience, the one most willing to suspend its disbelief, still disliked it.

 

Don’t believe me, chew on this.  I think every single decision they made was bad.  We live hear in the worst of all possible worlds. And yet I will still watch season 2.  And not to hate watch the show, but because I am more than willing to make the choice you speak of.  

 

This.

[wastingtime]

14 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

I'm sure we'll get that Mat.  We've already been told about Donal's comedic timing, just for a first hint...not something necessary for all dark Mat.

I think with Mat there's two things to remember:
1) Moiraine is /wrong/ about a ton of things. She was wrong about the Eye of the World. She was wrong about the Dark One. She was wrong about who she initially thought the Dragon would be.  She was wrong about the strength of her own power.  She was so, very wrong. I think a major part of her S2 arc will be her coming to the realization that she was wrong and learning what the truth is and still going on.  In regards to Mat, she is wrong about Mat. She thinks she fully healed him...she did not.  She thinks there's a darkness in him from the beginning, but that is her misunderstanding poverty and abuse. She never had to live in poverty and that kind of abuse...there is trauma there, which the dagger is amplifying and feeding off of. She is dismissing that as an inner darkness to Mat, but she's wrong. Trauma and abuse don't make you evil or bad...but they can make you think you are bad, and Moiraine is sensing that.  And she will see very much how wrong she is when he rescues her (if the series lasts that long).  That's the payoff for those words now.

2) Mat gets dissociative amnesia. This TOTALLY is a driving factor for him in the books, and I don't see how they escape it.  However, to do it in the show, they are going to have to make it stronger than it was in the books. I fully expect a heartbreaking moment where we the audience realize he's forgotten his sisters, for example.  He forgets all the abuse and trauma and stuff, because that's the only way that we can see that he has forgotten anything, to have memories worth pursuing.  If he forgets the trauma and abuse, it does give him the opportunity to make a fresh start with a fresh understanding of the world, and as he regains his memories, they'll have a different perspective.
2)

This is an awesome take. Thanks. Second time round viewing, I do kinda feel/realise/agree the show sets a lot of things up in S1 for a payoff further down the line. It might be a bridge too far for some fans, and I reckon the writing still needs to tighten up, but I'm actually now more hopeful that they'll get there than I was initially.

[SingleMort]

15 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

Lan's expression of grief, as a designated mourner where his stated duty was to express communal grief for a group of men who were not allowed culturally to express strong emotion except through such specific channel, can certainly be ridiculous of you ignore that whole cultural context and want to see it that way.

 

But why as a showrunners do you do this with a character who's meant to be reserved and closed off with his emotions? He only reveals his true emotions with a select few like Nyneave. This is why we never see the true extent of Lan and Nyneave relationship in the books until Nyneave is a POV character. IMO it would be a far more powerful scene if Lan is fighting to hold back his emotions and maintain his stoic visage rather than wallowing in them.

 

15 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

Digging up the horn of Valere 'just to give it to Padan Fain' seems ridiculous if you ignore the fact that Fal Dara was being overrun with trollocs and they had to retrieve it or it would fall into the hands of the Shadowspawn. 

This is not the reason this scene didn't work. The reason this didn't work is because they had the horn for centuries possibly even millennia and never used it once despite being under attack constantly and in this attack possibly about to lose the entire city with thousands dying. The point of the horn being lost was that no one would have the chance to use it.

 

15 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

Or maybe Mat and his badger is stupid and childish and what are these grown men doing fussing like pre-teens about who knows more about girls?  It's a choice that's been made, conscious or not, that then feeds into how you perceive the books.  Or the show. The pump is primed.

There's a difference between a character who is meant to be foolish and immature (at the time) doing silly a thing, and writers for a show creating plotholes and broken logic in a narrative. The audience of LoTR didn't complain when Merry knocked that skeleton down in Moria because it was logical that the foolish character did a foolish thing 

[Ralph]

53 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

 

But why as a showrunners do you do this with a character who's meant to be reserved and closed off with his emotions? He only reveals his true emotions with a select few like Nyneave. This is why we never see the true extent of Lan and Nyneave relationship in the books until Nyneave is a POV character. IMO it would be a far more powerful scene if Lan is fighting to hold back his emotions and maintain his stoic visage rather than wallowing in them.

 

This is not the reason this scene didn't work. The reason this didn't work is because they had the horn for centuries possibly even millennia and never used it once despite being under attack constantly and in this attack possibly about to lose the entire city with thousands dying. The point of the horn being lost was that no one would have the chance to use it.

 

There's a difference between a character who is meant to be foolish and immature (at the time) doing silly a thing, and writers for a show creating plotholes and broken logic in a narrative. The audience of LoTR didn't complain when Merry knocked that skeleton down in Moria because it was logical that the foolish character did a foolish thing 

Pippin

[SingleMort]

37 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Pippin

Lol ? I always forget which is which. They're basically a double-act but the point remains the same.

[WhiteVeils]

10 hours ago, Truthteller said:

And yet I was primed to love the show, my son even more so, and yet we didn’t.  
 

This is what so many don’t seem to understand, they think the book lovers were predisposed to dislike the show that they, to use your words, have chosen to not like it.

 

In fact, the opposite is true, we desperately wanted to like it, choosing to see it as good as possible time after time.  That is how bad the show is, they could have made any other version of the show and we would have liked it.

 

Instead, they made the worst possible version of the show, a show so bad that the most captive audience, the one most willing to suspend its disbelief, still disliked it.

 

Don’t believe me, chew on this.  I think every single decision they made was bad.  We live hear in the worst of all possible worlds. And yet I will still watch season 2.  And not to hate watch the show, but because I am more than willing to make the choice you speak of.  

I can't say for sure, to be honest, and this may be stepping out of bounds.  But I think you were primed, before the show, to watch the book Wheel of Time put on the screen. And I sympathize, I really do.  I think you went into it with a set of expectations about what it would be going into the first episode, and it wasn't that.   I don't know what expectation specifically it was that left you feeling you had crushed expectations.  Maybe it was a small lore change 'the Dragon could be a girl or a boy' or 'four ta'veran' or it being Marin instead of Bran in charge of the activities, or Perrin being married or Mat's family, or whatever...but that thing pushed the show into 'different' rather than 'same' for you.  And after that, you were disappointed, and maybe angry.  Anger as an emotion comes from having expectations not met.  And you couldn't see why the showrunners made that change. You felt focused on the differences, now, looking at every change from the books as a bad thing. They had to be; they obviously were.  Each change had ramifications down the line, and each change  would have ripple effects that meant the story was going to get further and further away from what you loved. So even if it was a minor change, it meant, for you, that the end story was never going to be what you remembered in the books.  You couldn't see that there could be good changes from the books, not really.  It was a focus on what you lost.  But you were beginning to look for those changes...look very closely.  And that is what was priming the pump to look for the bad.  If it was just like you imagined it would be, would you have hated the CGI?  Is the color saturation bad or just different enough from GOT that you are anxious about it?  I don't have those answers...I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes.  

Peter Jackson taught the school on how to do adaptations.  And his first lesson to anyone who wanted to adapt a work was 'start at the end and work forward'.  Think about what pieces you have to have in place to set up the big, epic conclusion for the story that you are adapting, and then work backwards, cutting, combining, retelling, and even adding new stuff, to get everything in place to tell the end of the story and have everyone understand it.   Then you go to the powerful scenes earlier and put the pieces in place for those until you've captured as much as possible.
They couldn't do this for GOT: The end hadn't been written...and they paid a price for it.

WOT has a much more cerebral, complicated ending already in place than LOTR. But you can tell they are adapting backwards the way Peter Jackson said. That's why the episode on the Warder Bond now...it's all about setting up Alanna. Just as an example. Episode 1 is packed with end game Memory of Light stuff. 

I went into the show with as few expectations as possible.  I was so happy to see all the main characters at all...expecting major cuts.  I expected it to be terrible.  Afraid of it, perhaps.  Every moment, or visual reference, or phrase or quote from the book I was totally happy for.  I was looking for them in a positive way.  And for everything that was different, I had a lot of fun trying to figure out what the payoff would be further down the line.  Huh...Perrin is married, and killed his wife.  How would that make visible his ax/hammer conflict, which is so internal, later on?  Would that impact his relationship with Faile...make it understandable why he is so overprotective and she so prickly and determined about that overprotection? That made sense to me.  I looked for how the changes might improve the story, or at least adapt it to a visual medium, and I felt a lot better about it. There are things I don't like. I wish they spent a lot more time with the boys. I'm 100% sure the ending was severely marred by the loss of Barney Harris, and I'm sure that he was meant to be stabbed by Fain, and Perrin was supposed to lead Lan to Moiraine. That would have been so much better.  But that was impossible, so it was changed, and I didn't like the change. But I think they can make up for that and make things better, and I'm keeping my 'pump' primed to accept it for what it is.

Sorry. Rambling.
 

[WhiteVeils]

1 hour ago, SingleMort said:

 

But why as a showrunners do you do this with a character who's meant to be reserved and closed off with his emotions?

You do this as showrunners /because/ he is reserved and closed off with his emotions. An audience doesn't empathize with 'stone faced and says nothing about his feelings'.  And an audience unfamiliar with the books doesn't have access to the heads of him or other characters that say 'Oh, he's training me and guiding me and taking such good care of us'.  There's no time to depict the development of long relationships that lead to those thoughts.  An audience sees a stone-faced man and says 'That guy can't act' or 'That man has no emotions'.  They definitely don't see why someone as fiercely emotional as Nynaeve could fall in love with him.
On the other hand, the audience sees a stonefaced man who, under specific circumstances, shows a moment great emotion, and they say 'Oh...he's got great emotions but he's hiding them under this stony exterior.'    Which is where you want Lan to be, for his love story, and just to get the right relationship towards him that a reader has towards him in the books.  They even did it so he only showed that great emotion when it was his duty to show it...it's not like there's a sudden trauma where we think it's going burst through if something else traumatic happens. This scene showed all the emotion at once so he can be stone-faced dutiful 'tiny gestures' Lan for the whole rest of the series, while leaving the audience knowing there is a full emotional human being under that surface.

 

Quote

This is not the reason this scene didn't work. The reason this didn't work is because they had the horn for centuries possibly even millennia and never used it once despite being under attack constantly and in this attack possibly about to lose the entire city with thousands dying. The point of the horn being lost was that no one would have the chance to use it.

They explained this in episode. The Shienarans believe that only the Dragon could use the horn.  It's different lore than in the books...well, possibly.  In the books, everyone believes that anyone who finds the horn can use it and become a hero. In the show, at least the Shienarans believe the horn can/must only be blown by the Dragon, and they are protecting and saving it for him. There may be Hunters for the Horn still, based on what other cultures believe, and the Shienarans would be protecting the horn from them too.
 

As to Mat being immature...
An adult, 20 year old man, unlike a hobbit, being silly and immature in the way Mat is in the books looks stupid and unappealing.  It comes across like...I don't know. Sticking Will Farrell in 'ELF' in the middle of your show.  Or a dumb frat prankster. We easily let it go because in our minds we really see them as teens.  And we know their thoughts. But it's not nearly as appealing in RL.  They changed Mat so audiences would like him more.

[Skipp]

18 hours ago, Pukel-man said:

That was his only decent moment.

 

How about him being the first to notice something was wrong with Rand(Just after the conversation with Egwene about her being The Wisdom apprentice) and ask him about it.  How about him being the first to notice Perrin carrying Layla and then went and comforted him as a friend would.  Or how about when he gives Perrin the dagger that Layla made, essentially his only useful possession, knowing it would mean more for Perrin to have it.

 

These are all great moments to show that Mat cares about his friends.

[Cauthonfan4]

39 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

That's why the episode on the Warder Bond now...it's all about setting up Alanna. Just as an example. Episode 1 is packed with end game Memory of Light stuff. 

Which is how they screwed it up bad. We have 7 seasons to setup for memory of light and they didn't need that stuff "NOW". They could have easily spent that time developing the characters instead. They put the cart way to far before the horse.

Our characters are even less developed then yhe book at this point and that says a lot.

 

24 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

There may be Hunters for the Horn still, based on what other cultures believe, and the Shienarans would be protecting the horn from them too

What culture? The show threw culture out straight from the get go.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Deviations]

12 hours ago, Truthteller said:

And yet I was primed to love the show, my son even more so, and yet we didn’t.  
 

This is what so many don’t seem to understand, they think the book lovers were predisposed to dislike the show that they, to use your words, have chosen to not like it.

 

In fact, the opposite is true, we desperately wanted to like it, choosing to see it as good as possible time after time.  That is how bad the show is, they could have made any other version of the show and we would have liked it.

 

Instead, they made the worst possible version of the show, a show so bad that the most captive audience, the one most willing to suspend its disbelief, still disliked it.

Couldn't agree more.  I was thrilled when the trailer came out.  I thought it was going to be SO GOOD!  I was completely duped by the trailer.  I didn't go into each episode waiting to be pissed off.  I kept hoping the show defenders would be right.  That something missing or wrong in an earlier episode would get corrected later on.  WAFO.

 

Puke.

[SingleMort]

24 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

An audience doesn't empathize with 'stone faced and says nothing about his feelings'. 

 

What you mean like Data and Spock in Star Trek? ? They just didn't have the patience to develop Lans character subtly so the did the cheap and cheerful shortcut. 

 

30 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

They definitely don't see why someone as fiercely emotional as Nynaeve could fall in love with him

And this is why it's not until Nyneave becomes a pov character in the books do we see the details of this. There's no reason to condense 10 books of development between Lan and Nyneave into a couple of scene. Again shows lack of patience and opting for the shortcut.

 

34 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

They explained this in episode. The Shienarans believe that only the Dragon could use the horn. 

They never explain why they think this or who gave them this task. Without further information it seems lik assumption at best. I find it difficult to believe in the centuries or millennia that they have kept the horn that no one tried to use it.

 

35 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

As to Mat being immature...
An adult, 20 year old man, unlike a hobbit, being silly and immature in the way Mat is in the books looks stupid and unappealing.  It comes across like...I don't know

Err allow me to introduce you to frat boys. They literally appear in just about every teen movie ever.

[Deviations]

37 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

They explained this in episode. The Shienarans believe that only the Dragon could use the horn.

WHY?????

 

Just because they "explained it" doesn't mean it makes any sense.

[Deviations]

40 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

An audience doesn't empathize with 'stone faced and says nothing about his feelings'. 

John Wayne

Early Clint Eastwood

Rip in Yellowstone

on and on and on

[WhiteVeils]

31 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

What you mean like Data and Spock in Star Trek? ? They just didn't have the patience to develop Lans character subtly so the did the cheap and cheerful shortcut. 

 

There are multiple episodes of Star Trek that show Spock and Data showing great bursts of emotion under very specific circumstances.  Say, Pon Far, for example?   They did the exact same thing. AND Lan is supposed to be human, unlike Data and Spock.

 

Quote

And this is why it's not until Nyneave becomes a pov character in the books do we see the details of this. There's no reason to condense 10 books of development between Lan and Nyneave into a couple of scene. Again shows lack of patience and opting for the shortcut.

The 'You are a Lioness' speech is in EOTW. Book 1.  If there is impatience and a shortcut in advancing that relationship, it is in the books.  It's just now we see what is in Nynaeve's head (who is a POV in book 1 too) explained on screen.

 

Quote

They never explain why they think this or who gave them this task. Without further information it seems like assumption at best. I find it difficult to believe in the centuries or millennia that they have kept the horn that no one tried to use it.

 
How much exposition do you need here? 
Uno: There it is.

Perrin: What is it?
Uno: The Horn of bloody Valere, lad.

Yakota: To be blown at the Last Battle. To call the Pattern's greatest heroes to stand at our side.

Perrin: Well, then let's hurry up and get it.

Yakota: We're not going to use it. It's for the Dragon.  Without it, they won't stand a chance.

 

That's as much as there is in the books. We don't ask who made the Horn.  It's clear in text the Shienarans, at least, believe the Horn is for the Last Battle, for the Dragon to use against the Dark One. They haven't used it before because there hasn't been a Dragon fighting the Dark One before.  Seems pretty obvious to me.  As to 'never in 3000 years used?  Maybe it has been used before....and it didn't work because the Dragon wasn't there. Per the book, he is kinda necessary.  All the more reason to keep it stashed until the Last Battle.

 

Quote

Err allow me to introduce you to frat boys. They literally appear in just about every teen movie ever.

And terribly unappealing in every one. This isn't supposed to be a teen movie?
Considering I married a real life fraternity grad, I can definitely say that even fraternity boys aren't as bad as fraternity boys in shows.
 

Edited February 4, 2022 by WhiteVeils

[Cauthonfan4]

16 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

And terribly unappealing in every one. This isn't supposed to be a teen movie?

Funny, the teen drama in episode 7 and even the initiation in episode 1 convinced me otherwise.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[WhiteVeils]

1 hour ago, Deviations said:

John Wayne

Early Clint Eastwood

Rip in Yellowstone

on and on and on

Most of whom show strong emotions at specific moments so you empathize with them...AND are the main characters so the whole show is getting them to those moments when they do, not as one small role in an ensemble cast.

[Cauthonfan4]

7 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

Most of whom show strong emotions at specific moments so you empathize with them.

But in a way that is totally in line with their character. What we have seen from the show is not Lan at all. But hey, who cares about accuracy to the source material?

 

Why even call yourself wheel of time if you're not gonna follow the wheel of time source material?

Edited February 4, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[WhiteVeils]

2 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

But in a way that is totally in line with their character. What we have seen from the show is not Lan at all.

Book Lan? Show Lan? 

You do think that either Lan, if told it was his duty to be the designated mourner for the funeral of a dear fellow Warder, would refuse to do the task asked to the best of his ability?  Or would he put his 'face', his 'pride' above that task?

[Cauthonfan4]

5 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

You do think that either Lan, if told it was his duty to be the designated mourner for the funeral of a dear fellow Warder

I think this is an idiotic idea of monumental proportions to begin with. No one should even NEED A PERSON DESIGNATED SPECIFICALLY WHOSE JOB IT IS TO MOURN THEIR PASSING.  Just think about how dumb that sounds. Imagine if a church literally told people they HAD to come mourn someone else's passing. 

 

But hey. Keep defending a show that literally makes this a thing. Keep defending a show that doesn't understand the source material at all.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Cauthonfan4]

6 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

Or would he put his 'face', his 'pride' above that task?

What does show Lan have to have pride in? Being a good soldier? Because he certainly doesn't hold a candle to book Lan.

[KakitaOCU]

2 hours ago, Deviations said:

John Wayne

Early Clint Eastwood

Rip in Yellowstone

on and on and on

 

The stoics of the past.  And yet, when you look to action heroes in today's time do we get stone faced tough guys?

We get Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans, who show emotion, weakness and personality.

We get roles played by Leonardo DiCaprio who shows emotion easily and honestly.

We get Chris Hemsworth who weeps openly for loss the character is experiencing and falls to weakness to have to try and fight his way back to who he was.

There's a reason today's leading men aren't like Wayne or Eastwood...  Times changes, audience preference and desire change with them.

 

  

48 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

I think this is an idiotic idea of monumental proportions to begin with. No one should even NEED A PERSON DESIGNATED SPECIFICALLY WHOSE JOB IT IS TO MOURN THEIR PASSING.  Just think about how dumb that sounds. Imagine if a church literally told people they HAD to come mourn someone else's passing. 

Except it has precedent as is a real thing that some cultures did.  I think the entire concept of the a biologically determined Monarchy is ludicrous, yet I don't freak out because there's Kings and Queens of the show.

Edited February 4, 2022 by KakitaOCU

[WhiteVeils]

1 hour ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

I think this is an idiotic idea of monumental proportions to begin with. No one should even NEED A PERSON DESIGNATED SPECIFICALLY WHOSE JOB IT IS TO MOURN THEIR PASSING.  Just think about how dumb that sounds. Imagine if a church literally told people they HAD to come mourn someone else's passing. 

 

But hey. Keep defending a show that literally makes this a thing. Keep defending a show that doesn't understand the source material at all.

 

Daniel Henney is Korean.  Having a designated mourner, just like this, is an accepted practice in historic Korean culture.  It is actually a common practice in cultures where public displays of emotion are considered somewhat offensive. So you can think it's dumb, but it's real life.

There are even people whose job it is professionally to be the paid designated mourner at funerals.

Edited February 4, 2022 by WhiteVeils

[Skipp]

9 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

Daniel Henney is Korean.  Having a designated mourner, just like this, is an accepted practice in historic Korean culture.  It is actually a common practice in cultures where public displays of emotion are considered somewhat offensive. So you can think it's dumb, but it's real life.

There are even people whose job it is professionally to be the paid designated mourner at funerals.

I knew this was a real cultural practice in the wider world.   I did not connect the dots that it often appears in cultures where showing public emotion is frowned upon.  It does make it's inclusion into Warder culture even more appropriate by that standard, at least in my eyes.