Mat In Season 1

[KakitaOCU]

59 minutes ago, Pukel-man said:

(and all white in the books).

I'm aware this is likely bait, but taking it anyway.

No, there's no confirmation of specific skin tone in the books.  A great deal of talk about dark hair and eyes, but nothing on complexion.

This came up and was discussed at length over on Tor.com when the first casting announcements came.

In fact, the only time skin tone comes up at all in book one is when Elaida is doubting Rand's heritage during the audience with Morgase.

 

“…Two rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height.” Her hand darted out to push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. “Or such skin.”

 

Seems to me that not only is the actual complexion of the TR folk not discussed but the only time ANY skin tone discussion happens it's to say that Rand being caucasian is an oddity.

The only argument I really see is "Doesn't that make Rand stand out."  But he always did.  We didn't know the Dragon was born somewhere else at this point, that comes later.  And Nynaeve confirms that Tam came back from the war with an outlander wife and a son.  So literally everyone knows Rand isn't TR blood, or rather think he's half.

Edited February 9, 2022 by KakitaOCU

[Cauthonfan4]

17 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

No, there's no confirmation of specific skin tone in the books.  A great deal of talk about dark hair and eyes, but nothing on complexion.

Except you know.

When they talk about two rivers folk being in awe of the exotic people with olive skin or dark complexion. Thus making it pretty obvious that the people of two rivers are lighter skinned than that. I would have pegged the 2 rivers as Mediterranean at darkest.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Cauthonfan4

[Andra]

33 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

And I would add to this that while the Forsaken are all evil, they do have different motivations; Sammael is personal, Demandred is jealousy, Ishamael is despair, Lanfear is ambition. Sure, they may all be evil, they're just evil for different reasons

 

On Mat, it's not that he wasn't grey in the book, it's that TV producers don't want moderate improvements over time, they want extremes. So it's not enough for Mat to be from the poor side of town, he has to be a thief. It's not enough that the Whitecloaks are an evil threat, they kill AS and take trophies. Everything is less subtle, and more extreme. So people without flaws get them, and people who were flawed get more extreme ones.

 

It's the Hollywood way, and as was noted in another thread, it's that way because the general viewing audience demands it.

I would say that it's not necessarily the Hollywood way *today* or that it's what the general viewing audience demands *today* - it's more how things were back in the '50s.

 

The "complicated hero" or "sympathetic villain" would be very popular today.  Rafe just doesn't seem to know how to write those.

 

 

 

And one additional point regarding the Congars and Coplins as being some kind of social outcasts or disrespected in Emond's Field:

Daise Congar is part of the Women's Circle at the beginning of the story, and becomes Wisdom after Nynaeve leaves.  That doesn't happen to disrespected social outcasts.  And also note that Cenn Buie is referred to using many of the same terms as the Congars and Coplins (and falls in with them frequently), and he's on the Village Council.

[KakitaOCU]

16 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

Except you know.

When they talk about two rivers folk being in awe of the exotic people with olive skin or dark complexion. Thus making it pretty obvious that the people of two rivers are lighter skinned than that. I would have pegged the 2 rivers as Mediterranean at darkest.

Quote of them being in awe of said complexion vs in awe of strange people with different cultures and clothing?

[Andra]

15 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

Except you know.

When they talk about two rivers folk being in awe of the exotic people with olive skin or dark complexion. Thus making it pretty obvious that the people of two rivers are lighter skinned than that. I would have pegged the 2 rivers as Mediterranean at darkest.

 

Before this thread goes down that road, I would like to point out that "racism" being about skin color is actually a very recent - and mostly American - phenomenon.  Even in the U.S. the racism was more about nationality than color until the 20th Century.  Irish and Italian immigrants were originally treated with the same bigotry as Chinese immigrants were later, and Middle Eastern and Latinx immigrants are today.

Which means "white" didn't really have a definition either.

 

Mediterranean people wouldn't have been considered "white" when they were the face of the downtrodden immigrant.

[Andra]

All we know from Jordan's description is that Two Rivers folk were dark of hair and eye, and significantly less pale of skin than the Aiel.

And that all of them except Rand looked pretty much like each other.

 

Don't flame this thread.  It has nothing to do with the question.

[Mailman]

8 hours ago, Requiem said:

The whole point is that it only takes one Darkfriend to give the information to the Dark Ones force's so the entire group are butchered by fades. Secrecy is by far the best option, the more people you involve the higher the likelihood that someone you don't want to know finds out.

No.

If you use 50 soldiers then what you end up with is 45 allies vs 5 DFs and 2 fades. Plus having more means that you can set a proper guard rather than have all of them busy digging it up making it impossible for the fades to sneak up on them.

[Cauthonfan4]

36 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Quote of them being in awe of said complexion vs in awe of strange people with different cultures and clothing?

I don't have time to dig into all the books right now, but frankly it doesn't matter. Diversifying the cast didn't bother me at all.

[Mailman]

Just now, Cauthonfan4 said:

I don't have time to dig into all the books right now, but frankly it doesn't matter. Diversifying the cast didn't bother me at all.

For me it did not matter what race the Two rivers characters where as long as they are of a similar look across the region. As a very remote very insular community it would not make sense for them to be a big spread of looks. 

[Cauthonfan4]

1 minute ago, Mailman said:

For me it did not matter what race the Two rivers characters where as long as they are of a similar look across the region. As a very remote very insular community it would not make sense for them to be a big spread of looks

This exactly was the bigger concern but theh already made the village less isolated and more worldly in the show, so whatever.

[KakitaOCU]

5 minutes ago, Mailman said:

For me it did not matter what race the Two rivers characters where as long as they are of a similar look across the region. As a very remote very insular community it would not make sense for them to be a big spread of looks. 

I would disagree.  Manetheren was cosmopolitan and only 2000 years prior.  AoL definately cosmopolitan and 3000 years total (1000 before Manetheren)  2000 years is roughly 60-100 generations eyeballing things.  That's not really enough time for true homogeny to set in.  Add in things like Tam coming back with an outland spouse and some ethnic diversity is bound to be.

 

22 minutes ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

I don't have time to dig into all the books right now, but frankly it doesn't matter. Diversifying the cast didn't bother me at all.

Fair enough, and I'm by no means trying to pin any of the darker connotations of these things on anyone.  If you end up finding quotes cool, if nothing else comes, cool as well.  But heaven knows we get into enough arguments over opinions, so wanted to see if we had harder source here.  ?

[WhiteVeils]

Getting back to Mat...

 

Rafe did an interview today with the Empire Magazine podcast and we have notes (Below).
In it, he shares that Amazon gave him a 250 page book of comments from book readers for WOT about things book readers wanted changed or improved in the series and one of the biggest one is the lack of character  for Mat in the early series. The backstory was changed to allow that character development to happen in the early seasons in the show.

There's lots of other good tidbits here, but we should probably put that in  another thread (but I don't know where)

 

[Jaysen Gore]

1 hour ago, Andra said:

I would say that it's not necessarily the Hollywood way *today* or that it's what the general viewing audience demands *today* - it's more how things were back in the '50s.

 

The "complicated hero" or "sympathetic villain" would be very popular today.  Rafe just doesn't seem to know how to write those.

 

 

 

And one additional point regarding the Congars and Coplins as being some kind of social outcasts or disrespected in Emond's Field:

Daise Congar is part of the Women's Circle at the beginning of the story, and becomes Wisdom after Nynaeve leaves.  That doesn't happen to disrespected social outcasts.  And also note that Cenn Buie is referred to using many of the same terms as the Congars and Coplins (and falls in with them frequently), and he's on the Village Council.

They are popular insofar as they become the protagonist (Wolverine, SOA, Breaking Bad - villain as protagonist) . The EF5 are not anti-heroes - or even all that complicated, morally - they're GOOD. The Forsaken are not conflicted, and they're not sympathetic. They are EVIL.

 

This is Jordan's take on fantasy. All of the conflicts that all of the EF5 face aren't because they don't know right from wrong, it's because they struggle with paying the price of doing what they know to be right. And to change the characters from that is to break the fundamental model of the story, and what makes it the kind of fantasy it is.

 

Rafe shouldn't be trying to write complicated heroes or sympathetic villains for this show. Because none of those exist in the Wheel of Time. But it's also why there's a whole segment of the audience up in arms, because they were promised the next GoT, and there isn't a morally grey character to be found.

 

And I call it the Hollywood way today, because anything made without those kind of morally grey characters gets called childish, adolescent, unrealistic, saccharine, unbelievable, and worse, and the ability to even find morally pure heroes on screen is almost impossible Jack and Starlight from the Boys do count, but damn they are few and far between nowadays.

[Andra]

3 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Rafe shouldn't be trying to write complicated heroes or sympathetic villains for this show. Because none of those exist in the Wheel of Time. But it's also why there's a whole segment of the audience up in arms, because they were promised the next GoT, and there isn't a morally grey character to be found.

 

And I call it the Hollywood way today, because anything made without those kind of morally grey characters gets called childish, adolescent, unrealistic, saccharine, unbelievable, and worse, and the ability to even find morally pure heroes on screen is almost impossible Jack and Starlight from the Boys do count, but damn they are few and far between nowadays.

And I think that's the fundamental issue.

Complicated heroes and sympathetic villains are popular with audiences, so Rafe tried to turn characters that are neither into ones that are.

 

And he doesn't know how.

 

So he exaggerates both into unrecognizability.  Or just makes them whiny punks.

[Requiem]

3 hours ago, Mailman said:

No.

If you use 50 soldiers then what you end up with is 45 allies vs 5 DFs and 2 fades. Plus having more means that you can set a proper guard rather than have all of them busy digging it up making it impossible for the fades to sneak up on them.

Sure thing, so they maybe don't get ambushed in the throne room. 

 

You get ambushed on the road by a fist of trollocs. 50 men are easy to track, or the 5 darkfriends engineer things so they arexall on watch at the same time and slaughter everyone in their sleep.

 

There are myriad ways that even a single spy can utterly ruin any plan to move this valuable object.

[Andra]

35 minutes ago, Requiem said:

Sure thing, so they maybe don't get ambushed in the throne room. 

 

You get ambushed on the road by a fist of trollocs. 50 men are easy to track, or the 5 darkfriends engineer things so they arexall on watch at the same time and slaughter everyone in their sleep.

 

There are myriad ways that even a single spy can utterly ruin any plan to move this valuable object.

Which is why, given the circumstances, they would have been better off leaving it right where it was.

Or never having it such a ridiculous place to begin with.

[KakitaOCU]

1 hour ago, Andra said:

Which is why, given the circumstances, they would have been better off leaving it right where it was.

Or never having it such a ridiculous place to begin with.

 

They were convinced the city was lost. Leaving it there is a 100% bad choice.  Getting it out has a chance for a good result.

 

As for never having it there, maybe.  Mayne we could have left it in a super secret place that any forsaken could get into.

[Andra]

5 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

 

They were convinced the city was lost. Leaving it there is a 100% bad choice.  Getting it out has a chance for a good result.

 

As for never having it there, maybe.  Mayne we could have left it in a super secret place that any forsaken could get into.

You mean like the Eye of the World?

Oh wait - the Forsaken couldn't get into that, because the Green Man wouldn't have let them.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Andra

[KakitaOCU]

2 hours ago, Andra said:

You mean like the Eye of the World?

Oh wait - the Forsaken couldn't get into that, because the Green Man wouldn't have let them.

 

The green man didn't let them and they came anyway.  You could argue it was Mat's dagger that lead them there but allowing it to be found at all is a weakness.  As is sticking it in the blight.

[Andra]

22 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

 

The green man didn't let them and they came anyway.  You could argue it was Mat's dagger that lead them there but allowing it to be found at all is a weakness.  As is sticking it in the blight.

No, I wouldn't argue that at all.

 

Pinning down the location of the Eye when someone found it is what allowed them to come.  Until that happened, none of the Forsaken had any chance to get it.  It wasn't "in" the Blight.  It wasn't really "in" the real world at all.  But you had to go through the Blight to get close enough for Someshta to notice your need and let you find it.

 

Hiding it under the throne in Fal Dara (a city that didn't exist until after the end of the Trolloc Wars) meant anyone who heard where it was could come get it.

It's a stupid idea.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Andra

[Mailman]

12 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

I would disagree.  Manetheren was cosmopolitan and only 2000 years prior.  AoL definately cosmopolitan and 3000 years total (1000 before Manetheren)  2000 years is roughly 60-100 generations eyeballing things.  That's not really enough time for true homogeny to set in.  Add in things like Tam coming back with an outland spouse and some ethnic diversity is bound to be.

 

You would be wrong if you go back only 1000 years every person in Europe is related.

 

I would say it is safe to assume that there would be 2000 or less people in Emonds Field (probably half that).

 

When you have such a small amount of people that tend to remain in the same geographical location the rate of homogeny increases rapidly.

 

Within 12 generations if we allow the sample size to be 2000 everyone within the area would statistically be related to each other.

 

Tam leaving and bringing back a outside partner was considered extremely rare and would not even account for a rounding error over 60+ generations.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Mailman

[Raal Gurniss]

1 hour ago, Mailman said:

You would be wrong if you go back only 1000 years every person in Europe is related.

 

I would say it is safe to assume that there would be 2000 or less people in Emonds Field (probably half that).

 

When you have such a small amount of people that tend to remain in the same geographical location the rate of homogeny increases rapidly.

 

Within 12 generations if we allow the sample size to be 2000 everyone within the area would statistically be related to each other.

 

Tam leaving and bringing back a outside partner was considered extremely rare and would not even account for a rounding error over 60+ generations.

Whole point is it was a casting issue purely done for the purpose of diversity as the showmaker wanted make a point, it is however a Fantasy series based on a fantasy book, so it doesn’t have to make sense, so the casting doesn’t really matter to the point of anything…

 

So whoever plays the parts is not really an issue……. Although the forced agenda is still discriminatory the same as the discrimination they were making a point against…Which is rather ironic.

 

Better to have made a fresh story and had open casting for every part free from any bias….Nice and clean, free from bias on anything.

 

 

 

[AdamA]

If they wanted to make it "realistic," everyone would be mixed-race. Homogeneity could be produced inside of a thousand years if there is little outside input to the gene pool, but the starting gene pool would have been multiracial, and the timeline for regional selective pressures to produce regionally distinctive people is more on the order of 15,000 years, not 1,000. At least that's the minimum estimate of historical depigmentation/repigmentation events when people migrated to different latitudes. I doubt the actual latitudes in question are enough to even produce those selective pressures, though. The Westlands are supposed to be slightly larger than the continental United States. If you look at real world pre-globalism people of the Americas, Navajo were a tiny bit darker than Mohawk, but not by much. It wasn't anywhere near the book difference between typical Tairen and typical Cairhienin. And that was after 15,000 years of post-migration selective pressure.

 

So both the books and the show are equally unrealistic.

[Skipp]

9 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

 

The green man didn't let them and they came anyway.  You could argue it was Mat's dagger that lead them there but allowing it to be found at all is a weakness.  As is sticking it in the blight.

Question;  Do you know why the eye was able to move around?  What allowed it to only be found once or by great need?  Maybe having pattern crucial items placed in a single spot caused the Wheel to weave around it?

[KakitaOCU]

23 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Question;  Do you know why the eye was able to move around?  What allowed it to only be found once or by great need?  Maybe having pattern crucial items placed in a single spot caused the Wheel to weave around it?

I don't have answers for that, if someone does please share.  I always chalked it up as one of the early book weirdness things like not seeing how traveling works or the weird metaphysical nature of Ishamael and Rand's dual or the giant voice talking to Rand.