Mat In Season 1

[Deviations]

1 hour ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

you don't like the show, maybe stop watching and participating in show-related discussion? (A suggestion.) I doubt the show will get better for you from here

A forum discussion is boring indeed when there is only one view.

[SingleMort]

5 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

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.

Yes there are but they don't feel the need to rush through their entire emotional spectrum in a handful of episode in those shows. It's called pacing. 

 

5 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

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.

Lan and Nyneave's relationship in EOTW is seen mostly from afar, because the book is focussed mainly on Rand. We catch glimpses here and there but we don't know the full picture, we don't even know if they were physically intimate. The glimpses we did see though showed it as more of the beinnings of a relationship that Lan did not allow to bloom rather than them being essentially full on BF and GF. Again it's rushed and shows they have no patience to set up the romance.

 

5 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

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.

Sorry but you are just flat out wrong here the Horn is mentioned mulitple times throughout the first book. The first time is all the way back at Baerlon. It's not just randomly injected into the narrative at the last minute. 

 

Quote

“Silken manes flutter with tossed heads. A thousand streaming banners whip rainbows against an endless sky. A hundred brazen-throated trumpets shiver the air, and drums rattle like thunder. Wave on wave, cheers roll from watchers in their thousands, roll across the rooftops and towers of Illian, crash and break unheard around the thousand ears of riders whose eyes and hearts shine with their sacred quest. The Great Hunt of the Horn rides forth, rides to seek the Horn of Valere that will summon the heroes of the Ages back from the grave to battle for the Light....”

The Eye Of The World  (p. 209).

 

And again the Shienarans having the Horn just creates even more unnessesary divergences with the book such as...

 

Quote

Moiraine motioned for Loial to set the gold chest at her feet, and when he did, she opened it, revealing the horn. “The Horn of Valere,” she said, and Agelmar gasped. Rand almost thought the man would kneel. “With that, Moiraine Sedai, it matters not how many Halfmen or Trollocs remain. With the heroes of old come back from the tomb, we will march to the Blasted Lands and level Shayol Ghul.”

The Eye Of The World (p. 719)

and Moiraine's plan was to take it to Illian, which isn't mentioned either. I mean we are not even talking actions here, just a few seconds of dialogue

 

5 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

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.

Well do you think Merry and Pippin doing silly things made LoTR a teen movie? Rand, Mat and Perrin are transtitioning from boys into men, and boys do silly things.  Throughout the course of the series we see them grow up and become more mature. I heard so many people complain they didn't want this to be a Game of Thrones clone and yet you want the series to be darker than the books and cut out all the lighter moments. ?

Edited February 4, 2022 by SingleMort

[Skipp]

5 minutes ago, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

See, this is a mindset that I've seen from lots of show-lovers. Almost like you think there's nowhere on the internet where people just watch a show and react positively to it en mass. A negative response to WoTtv was not inevitable. It was not always going to happen. The only reason it happened was that the show isn't very good, even on its own merits. 

 

Take this thread (also from today) about Euphoria and note how different the discussion is. It was posted on the same subreddit, and yet people seem to have no problem being positive about the show. How is this possible if reddit (or the internet at large) is a place which just brings out the most negative people? 

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/skif09/euphoria_renewed_for_season_3_at_hbo/

Also see: Any thread about Arcane. 

Or this thread about Yellowstone. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/sjmqje/yellowstone_renewed_for_season_5_at_paramount/

 

The truth is that there are just as many people on the internet who are eager to throw praise at literally anything as there are people who show up just to hate. The scales are tipped by the normal people, a demographic that WoTtv did a less than stellar job at appealing to. Ironic, considering that that's the demographic that Amazon kicked us fans to the dust in favor for. 

I am sorry for simplifying what is a complicated subject.  But in truth negativity tends to win out in our current society.  People are generally more vocal about things they dislike compared to things they like, the 3 vs 33 rule and all.

 

As for your other examples, Euphoria's source material is an Israeli TV show so I imagine it didn't have much of a built in fanbase.

 

Arcane is a wonderful show based on something people love. but Riot has always played fast and loose with their lore and Arcane is no exception.  But it is certainly a gold tier story telling.

 

 

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

With regards to Lan and Nynaeve's relationship in EotW, I've always thought it strange that people complain about it being rushed. It's not rushed. It's just backwards. 

 

Sure, RJ really cuts to the chase with regards to how quickly the two of them express their feelings for one another, but the only reason we say that this is rushed is because decades of pop-culture have lead us to set "characters declare their feelings" as the end-point for on-screen relationships. 

 

RJ is much less interested in what leads two people to fall in love and WAY more interested in what happens AFTER they fall in love. Yes, the initial burst of affection is abrupt, but its actually no more abrupt than a story which ends with a wedding and just leaves us to assume a "happily ever after." 

 

For the record, the obsession to actually SEE characters falling is love is a relatively new one. Read anything before Jane Austen (like Shakespeare) and the relationships are almost always treated just like Lan and Nynaeve's. Love is assumed, and then the drama proceeds rather than drama leading to love. 

 

IMO, Lan and Nynaeve's insta-love is very much a feature of WoT and not a bug which needed to be ironed out in adaptation. 

[Skipp]

6 minutes ago, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

IMO, Lan and Nynaeve's insta-love is very much a feature of WoT and not a bug which needed to be ironed out in adaptation. 

Highly disagree and I am one of the people who defends Jordan's writing of this romance as Rand being the majority PoV character and we just don't see everything blossoming in the background.

 

If it was the only romance that was portrayed like that I could see it but nearly every romance in the books is the same.  Mat and Tuon being the exception.

 

This is nothing that bothered me growing up reading the series because I was always able to place off screen interactions.  But it seems to be a fairly common criticism of RJ's writing and I don't think they're wrong.  But to each their own

Edited February 4, 2022 by Skipp

[VooDooNut]

Yeah, I'm in the Lan-and-Nynaeve-were-rushed camp for TEOTW book. The conversation Rand overhears between them is one of my favorite moments in the novel, but also came completely out of nowhere. A very touching moment nonetheless. The TV adaptation does a better job of showing the lead-up to their romance without dropping it like a bomb on the reader. But just because I feel that way about the book, I don't expect TEOTW book to be rewritten to fit my individual tastes for pacing.

[Truthteller]

8 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

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.
 

I can see why you would think this, but it isn’t the case.  I told my son that adapting it would be hard, that events and characters would be cut,  that it might be disappointing.  We knew there was no Caemlyn, no Elayne, things like that but all of that was fine and to be at least somewhat expected.
 

Then we saw the first episode and it was, frankly, shocking.  Every single thing about EF was, and is, wrong.  
 

But we kept watching, I told my wife and daughter not to ask me for clarifications since everything was different, and settled in to see what would happen.  I went through something like the transformation you describe when I realized that this was a different story with different main characters.  But this other story doesn’t work either, and the reason it doesn’t work is that while the show changes everything important, it kept a lot of small things, which alienates us all over again from the new story they are telling.

 

The result is the worst of all possible worlds.  I went in with low expectations, but I never imagined the show could possibly be this wrong.  Not bad, not even a bizzaro world version, but wrong, a corruption.  
 

 

[Pukel-man]

On 2/4/2022 at 10:31 AM, WhiteVeils said:

 

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.

 

This bit about the horn was so bad.

 

In the show, they believed that they were about to be overrun, and everyone slaughtered by a trolloc horde. In that context, they would blow the horn in desperation. Or, if the believed they could not blow the horn, they would not take it out of hiding to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. If they believed they were going to be overrun, taking it out of hiding creates a high likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands. In the show, there was no reason to support their actions. If they believed they were going to be overrun, they would take it out to blow it, or they would leave it in hiding. Either the trolloc threat was overstated in the dialogue, or the actions contradicted the dialogue. It was bad writing.

 

They literally got the horn out to give to Fain, and no other reason. Because the next season has to have the horn in it.

[Pukel-man]

On 2/4/2022 at 1:10 PM, WhiteVeils said:

I explained why they chose to have Warder culture have this kind of funeral. To make the actor for Lan not seem like a robot as he goes into his love story with Nynaeve, but show that he has emotions, even if he does not show them.   I suspect they also chose it in collaboration with the actor based on his own cultural roots, but I don't know for sure. I do know Henney drew on that background for his performance in the scene.

BTW: Designated mourners are part of historically military cultures. Just not Western ones.

This isn't a story about Korea, or the west. It's a story about the Wheel of Time. With plenty of Asian influences in it, as it always had, and no depicted warden funerals that we've seen to know /what/ they do at them. So the show writers could choose to do what they felt fit best with the world from their POV.  There's nothing that contradicts it.

Warder funerals aren't part of the story and don't advance the plot, no matter how they're done.

 

"Setting up Alanna" carries no water. That entire story line could easily be written out of the show with no loss. Alanna's contribution at the end is of no consequence. So spending a large fraction of the season dwelling on this one thing is a poor investment.

 

Unless they change the story to make it far more important than it is in the books. Anything goes.

 

Edited to add - I love Daniel Henney in this role, and I really like the TV Lan. Radically different, yes. But it doesn't harm the story to make Lan more approachable, and probably makes it better for the screen. Necessary change? No. But still, the Stepin stuff was a distraction.

Edited February 6, 2022 by Pukel-man

[JeffTheWoodlandElf]

On 2/4/2022 at 3:40 PM, Skipp said:

If it was the only romance that was portrayed like that I could see it but nearly every romance in the books is the same.

Yeah but then all of these relationships are then explored in depth. WoT began as a RJ setting out to do a modernist take on the Arthurian myth. The Arthurian legends are literally where the word "romance" comes from (though in those days, a romance was an adventure). In those legends, romantic relationships are all portrayed the way that RJ does it with rapid beginnings followed by big trouble when it turns out that real life has other plans. 

 

I'm just saying that in the 80's, RJ wrote a trilogy of bodice ripper romances. He knows how to write a big build up in a romantic relationship, and his choice to avoid that in WoT seems super intentional. I for one am glad that we didn't have to slog through multiple books of trite romantic bullcrap and instead just got to use the characters' initial attraction as a springboard to delve into  much richer, more interesting parts of their characters. 

 

As I said before, all RJ has done is swap the "nothing after the wedding matters" approach to romance with a "nothing before the characters develop feelings matters" approach. 

[expat]

Quote

Then we saw the first episode and it was, frankly, shocking.  Every single thing about EF was, and is, wrong.  

Good since the depiction of EF was one of the most unbelievable and off-putting things about the first book.

 

Lets see:  a hardscrabble small town on the edge of civilization with a technology level around 1700 and an average life-expectancy of 35-40, yet everyone is essentially perfect, almost all of the parents/parent figures are alive, and people are totally carefree.  The only thing that mares this perfection is the subtle racism against the people on the other side of the tracks (e.g. Coplins) who are described in racist terms as shifty and lazy.  Kids are allowed to be kids, so 20-year-olds can be described as frat boys.

 

Pass.  This has a very 21st centaury vibe, where technology makes everyone's life easier, life-expectancy of 79 years, and kids don't take on adult responsibilities until after college in their early to mid-twenties. This is totally out of place for the book EF.  Given the supposed location and technology level, life would be hard, and kids would be required to take-on adult responsibilities at a very young age to allow the village to even survive.  In real life, such a village would be dirty and life gritty.  EF in the book was much too idyllic.

 

Quote

I can see why you would think this, but it isn’t the case.  I told my son that adapting it would be hard, that events and characters would be cut,  that it might be disappointing.  We knew there was no Caemlyn, no Elayne, things like that but all of that was fine and to be at least somewhat expected.

I'm sorry, but when you say that every change is horrible and takes away from the series, claiming that you went into the series knowing that some changes and needed are fine with that, is hard to believe.  By sheer chance, some changes are neutral or even improve on issues with the original.  The old saying about a stopped clock has an element of truth in it.  Yes, your statement is hyperbolic and many changes they made can be argued with and legitimately disliked, but all of them?

 

Too much of the criticism comes across to me as absolute.  Never an acknowledgment of the good things in the series, but a seemingly endless need to complain about the things the viewer disliked.  In contrast, I don't remember any of the people defending the series (including me) stating that the series is perfect.  Everyone, even the most strident defenders note areas they disagree with.  As I've stated before, I thought the pacing was uneven, some of the characterization was off, I heartily disliked episode 8, I disliked the implied P/E interest in episode 7 etc.  More nuanced argument from both sides about what was good and what was bad (in each person's opinion) would make for a much more interesting discussion.

[KakitaOCU]

4 hours ago, Pukel-man said:

In the show, they believed that they were about to be overrun, and everyone slaughtered by a trolloc horde. In that context, they would blow the horn in desperation. Or, if the believed they could not blow the horn, they would not take it out of hiding to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. If they believed they were going to be overrun, taking it out of hiding creates a high likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands. In the show, there was no reason to support their actions. If they believed they were going to be overrun, they would take it out to blow it, or they would leave it in hiding. Either the trolloc threat was overstated in the dialogue, or the actions contradicted the dialogue. It was bad writing.

You're missing context and some reasoning here.

No, leaving it hidden if they're about to be over-ridden is a horrible idea, because even if the enemy doesn't find it, it's not lost to your side.

No one knew Fain was going to be able to get inside the walls (or that he existed)  So you can't judge the situation based on his involvement.  The reality is they were uncovering it to take it to safety elsewhere, and if not for Ingtar's betrayal (that we don't know about yet) it would have succeeded.  So the failing there is the fact that no one considered that the traitor could be one of Agelmar's most trusted men.

[SingleMort]

34 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

No one knew Fain was going to be able to get inside the walls (or that he existed)  So you can't judge the situation based on his involvement.  The reality is they were uncovering it to take it to safety elsewhere, and if not for Ingtar's betrayal (that we don't know about yet) it would have succeeded.  So the failing there is the fact that no one considered that the traitor could be one of Agelmar's most trusted men.

Lol okay yeah I'm sure Fain was just in Fal Dara because the weather's lovely this time of year ? Also you mention "Ingtar's betrayal" just want to point out it is complete speculation and assumption on your part that there even is any betrayal. You've pointed out in many previous posts how things like the story of the horn and dagger are going in different directions so why not that too? In the books the dagger  kills in seconds, Agelmar and the Shienerans clearly state they would have used the horn given the chance, Moiraine was never stilled, Agelmar and he sister were not killed, Mat did not have the Red Ajah sent after him. Yet you are sure that this one thing will happen, when far more significant parts of the story have already been changed, why? 

[KakitaOCU]

41 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

Lol okay yeah I'm sure Fain was just in Fal Dara because the weather's lovely this time of year 

Do Agelmar, Uno, Loial and Perrin know Fain is there?  If not your statement means nothing to my point.
 

41 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

Also you mention "Ingtar's betrayal" just want to point out it is complete speculation and assumption on your part that there even is any betrayal. You've pointed out in many previous posts how things like the story of the horn and dagger are going in different directions so why not that too?

 

It could be someone other than Ingtar, but I don't see a narrative purpose for that change.  If they do change it, my point remains that it was not known that someone high ranking to Agelmar was the traitor.  We SEE Fain use the password and sneak in, so we know the same betrayal Ingtar did in the books happened.  Even if it turns out to be, say Uno, instead of Ingtar, it doesn't change that the plan was to take the horn to safety and the plan failed because of an unknown element arriving.
 

41 minutes ago, SingleMort said:

Mat did not have the Red Ajah sent after him

Funny enough, this is a discussion point worth having.

The reality is the actor left.  So he wasn't there for Episode 7-8.

Now, I can easily understand and get behind what's coming with the reds.  BUT, there were other ways to take it.  So let's talk to this.

This was a change that show didn't WANT to do and had no choice but to deal with.  The actor left and so the character has to suddenly be removed from two episodes.   What path would you do with it?
 

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by KakitaOCU

[Cauthonfan4]

1 minute ago, KakitaOCU said:

The actor left and so the character has to suddenly be removed from two episodes.   What path would you do with it

Instead of vilifying him how about go with the obvious very easy out and say that he was recovering from his healing and unfit to travel?

 

It's a very simple solution to the problem without all the nonsense avout mat being a dark person 

[KakitaOCU]

Just now, Cauthonfan4 said:

Instead of vilifying him how about go with the obvious very easy out and say that he was recovering from his healing and unfit to travel?

 

It's a very simple solution to the problem without all the nonsense avout mat being a dark person 

The speaks well in a vacuum and if they knew before episode 6 was done they could have done that.

But, instead they filmed and finished episode 6, went on hiatus due to pandemic, then found out they had to redo the last two episodes.  

Did they have access to the scenes and set for the Tar Valon Waygate?   Did they have the budget to refilm all of those scenes a second time without Mat?  

I don't know those answers, neither do you.  For the sake of argument.  You find out Harris is gone after the scene where they're all at the Gate.  How do you procede?

[expat]

Quote

Instead of vilifying him how about go with the obvious very easy out and say that he was recovering from his healing and unfit to travel?

How?  He was at the gate and all the previous shots included him which they couldn't reshoot and they couldn't edit him out.  So Moraine gets everyone except for Mat in the gate and then tells him to go home because he is unable to travel?  Since he had already traveled to the gate (with no apparent injury), why was he fit to return to TV, but not to Fal Dara?  

[SingleMort]

25 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Do Agelmar, Uno, Loial and Perrin know Fain is there?  If not your statement means nothing to my point.

?? Lol what are you on about??? I just meant he didn't just happen to be in the neighbourhood. 

 

25 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

We SEE Fain use the password and sneak in, so we know the same betrayal Ingtar did in the books happened.  Even if it turns out to be, say Uno, instead of Ingtar, it doesn't change that the plan was to take the horn to safety and the plan failed because of an unknown element arriving.
 

So what? we also see him use the Ways with no explanation (they have been shown to only open with magic, LOL, this in itself makes no sense as they were a gift to the Ogier but hey ho this is what we've got to work with). We also see he has the dagger so are we to also assume Ingtar somehow told him about that and how to get it? There are loads of different things Fain (not even counting all the other characters) does that haven't had explanation so why this one in particular?

 

25 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

It does, not sure what that has to do with anything I said, my argument is on the logic of moving the horn, not on if the betrayal plot is identical to the book.

 

25 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

They state they had considered using it but quickly bow to other plans.  Less they want to use it and more Boromir with the ring.

Not sure why you felt the need to quote every single line here individually. The point seems to have escaped you that these were just a few examples of things that differ greatly from the books. Also in what way is the Horn anything like the Ring in LoTR? That makes no sense at all they function completely differently and the ring is a thing of evil that corrupts and addicts those that come into contact with it. The horn does none of those things. You might as well compare the horn to a ham sandwich. 

 

25 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

And she wasn't still in the show, glad we got that out of the way.

 

Well that's the word that we've heard put about by the people involved with the show. In any case it's semantics. Moiraine does not have anything like this happen to her in the enitre length of the book series can we at least agree on that?

25 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Funny enough, this is a discussion point worth having.

The reality is the actor left.  So he wasn't there for Episode 7-8.

Now, I can easily understand and get behind what's coming with the reds.  BUT, there were other ways to take it.  So let's talk to this.

This was a change that show didn't WANT to do and had no choice but to deal with.  The actor left and so the character has to suddenly be removed from two episodes.   What path would you do with it?

Again you miss the point. These are just examples of changes, and I don't see what bringing the real word into this has to do with the price of butter? I'm talking about the fictional narrative of the show not what some actor did. You seem to be trying to defend a decision I was not even criticisng but merely pointing out that the show has changed so many things but you seem quite confident that a relatively minor plotpoint from the books will be kept.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by SingleMort

[Andra]

4 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

You're missing context and some reasoning here.

No, leaving it hidden if they're about to be over-ridden is a horrible idea, because even if the enemy doesn't find it, it's not lost to your side.

No one knew Fain was going to be able to get inside the walls (or that he existed)  So you can't judge the situation based on his involvement.  The reality is they were uncovering it to take it to safety elsewhere, and if not for Ingtar's betrayal (that we don't know about yet) it would have succeeded.  So the failing there is the fact that no one considered that the traitor could be one of Agelmar's most trusted men.

They didn't need to know about Fain.

They knew - before the battle, and before any order to dig up the Horn was given - that there were darkfriends within the walls.  Given that knowledge, it was supremely idiotic to get it out of hiding without knowing who they were and what they were after.

 

The chance that you might get it safely away from the darkfriends is no more likely than that you would do what actually happened.  Place it directly in their hands.

[Andra]

3 hours ago, expat said:

How?  He was at the gate and all the previous shots included him which they couldn't reshoot and they couldn't edit him out.  So Moraine gets everyone except for Mat in the gate and then tells him to go home because he is unable to travel?  Since he had already traveled to the gate (with no apparent injury), why was he fit to return to TV, but not to Fal Dara?  

Why couldn't they?

 

I've seen this argument numerous times, and I've never seen an actual statement about WHY they couldn't do those things.

 

We see another - visually identical - Waygate in Fal Dara.  A Waygate they were able to film the group in front of without Mat.  After coming back from Covid.  Clearly they didn't just have one set in one location. If they only built one set, they were obviously able to film scenes with it surrounded by different backgrounds.  Could be in a physically different place, could be green screen (same as how they CGI'd the opening in the Gate). 

 

And most of the shots of Mat in that scene were closeups, that didn't impact the rest of the shots.  Including the (duplicated) shot of Mat's face as the Waygate started to close.  The shots that weren't closeups didn't have anything in the background (except the Waygate itself) to give away the location.

It would have been trivially easy to reshoot a small number of things without him, or even to just cut the shots he's in.  You don't have to cut him out of a scene where someone's hugging him if you just cut the hugging scene entirely.  No Mat, no one hugging Mat.

 

And incidentally, if they built a Waygate set only to tear it down - when the SAME Waygate is in the next season - it's not about what "had" to be done.  It's about what was idiotically chosen to do.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Andra

[zacz1987]

10 minutes ago, Andra said:

Why couldn't they?

 

I've seen this argument numerous times, and I've never seen an actual statement about WHY they couldn't do those things.

 

We see another - visually identical - Waygate in Fal Dara.  A Waygate they were able to film the group in front of without Mat.  Clearly they didn't just have one set in one location. If they only built one set, they were obviously able to film scenes with it surrounded by different backgrounds.  Could be in a physically different place, could be green screen (same as how they CGI'd the opening in the Gate). 

 

And most of the shots of Mat in that scene were closeups, that didn't impact the rest of the shots.  Including the (duplicated) shot of Mat's face as the Waygate started to close.  The shots that weren't closeups didn't have anything in the background (except the Waygate itself) to give away the location.

It would have been trivially easy to reshoot a small number of things without him, or even to just cut the shots he's in.  You don't have to cut him out of a scene where someone's hugging him if you just cut the hugging scene entirely.  No Mat, no one hugging Mat.

 

And incidentally, if they built a Waygate set only to tear it down - when the SAME Waygate is in the next season - it's not about what "had" to be done.  It's about what was idiotically chosen to do.

I agree with this. It would actually have not been that difficult to edit Mat out of the scene. All they would have to film is a scene with Moiraine telling the others why Mat wasn't coming. That could easily have been done as a closeup of her and they could have filmed it even without the others present. 

 

[Andra]

7 minutes ago, zacz1987 said:

I agree with this. It would actually have not been that difficult to edit Mat out of the scene. All they would have to film is a scene with Moiraine telling the others why Mat wasn't coming. That could easily have been done as a closeup of her and they could have filmed it even without the others present. 

 

They could have even kept in everything that included him, then do a single shot from behind (no need to see his face) showing him doing something that was pretty bizarrely missed anyway.

Leading the horses away.

 

If they had left the Waygate where it is in the books, there would have been no problem with the horses - they would have just walked there.  Since they didn't, but for some reason made out that horses couldn't survive the Ways (?!?), they had to get rid of the horses.  But there was no one there to take them.

 

Mat could have been given that job, along with the explanation that though he was out of bed, he wasn't well enough to travel.

 

No problem, no need for faked outrage, no reason to sic the Red Ajah on him.

[KakitaOCU]

2 hours ago, Andra said:

They didn't need to know about Fain.

They knew - before the battle, and before any order to dig up the Horn was given - that there were darkfriends within the walls.  Given that knowledge, it was supremely idiotic to get it out of hiding without knowing who they were and what they were after.

Agelmar's choices were:

A: Leave the horn hidden.  If the city is overrun then the horn is lost and will potentially be found by the Shadow.

B: Bring the horn out and get it out of there, trusting that his personally picked men were not DarkFriends. 

He was wrong most likely, but given the two choices.  ONE of them gives a chance for the Horn to be kept and the other one loses it.

It's only due to factors that Agelmar did not know about that the city stood.  Without Nynaeve and Egwene the trollocs take Fal Dara.  So given the choice between 100% lost and a chance at not being lost, you take the better odds.

Look, say someone jumped from a third floor building, hit pavement and is paralyzed.  You'd call that stupid.  Now let's add in the details that the building was on fire and there was no other way out.  Jump and hope or stay and burn, suddenly instead of stupid it's the better option.

 

  

1 hour ago, Andra said:

Mat could have been given that job, along with the explanation that though he was out of bed, he wasn't well enough to travel.

 

No problem, no need for faked outrage, no reason to sic the Red Ajah on him.

The same people complaining now would instead be complaining that Moraine left one of the possible Dragons behind.  There's a plothole no matter how you slice it.

Edited February 7, 2022 by KakitaOCU

[Andra]

23 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Agelmar's choices were:

A: Leave the horn hidden.  If the city is overrun then the horn is lost and will potentially be found by the Shadow.

B: Bring the horn out and get it out of there, trusting that his personally picked men were not DarkFriends. 

He was wrong most likely, but given the two choices.  ONE of them gives a chance for the Horn to be kept and the other one loses it.

It's only due to factors that Agelmar did not know about that the city stood.  Without Nynaeve and Egwene the trollocs take Fal Dara.  So given the choice between 100% lost and a chance at not being lost, you take the better odds.

But unless the darkfriends (that he already knew existed) were among his inner circle, there is no reason to assume losing the city means the Shadow finds the Horn.  The fact that it remained where it was for as long as it had can only indicate that the Shadow didn't know about it.  And if the traitor is in his inner circle, it's lost either way.   Those aren't "better odds."  Pretty much the opposite.   The "better odds" are that leaving it hidden means the Shadow doesn't find it - even if the city falls - because they don't know to look.  The worse odds are that digging it up means the Shadow does get it - as actually happened.

 

And remember that he had already sent out messengers to other Borderland cities - including to his own king in the capital at Fal Moran - letting them know about the attack.  Even if the trollocs had taken the city, they wouldn't have held it long enough to search for something they had no reason to know was there in the first place.

 

They only found out about it now because Ingtar (or whoever it turns out to be) heard and told them.  If the Shadow doesn't believe it's there, they have no reason to look for it even if they take the city.  When the King's forces retake the city, they ensure that it's still safe.

 

The only valid reason to dig it up right now is if they believe this is literally Tarmon Gai'don, and that the Dragon is already present.  And if the Dragon is already present, he's the best option all by him(or her)self to save the city.  Even without the Horn.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Andra

[Mailman]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:32 AM, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

WoT is down to 49 on imdb's TV popularity rankings. Witcher is still at 13. GoT is at 14. Breaking Bad is 24. Expanse is 27. How low will it sink in the next year before Season 2? Meanwhile, decade old shows are outpacing it left and right. 

 

This show is not sticking with people. People are watching it and totally forgetting that it exists. That "if" in "if it gets a season 3" is becoming larger and larger by the day. 

 

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=tv_series

It will get a season 3 the question is will season 3 be a rushed quick wrap ending to tie the story up so that its a completed product.