How different is too different?

[Lethira the second]

13 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

Could you ? answer all of those by the end of EOTW?

 

In show only teams...

1 The Dark One is the one who sends Trollocs and Fades to kill and eat every person in the world, who is bound but trying to enter the world. E1+E6

 

2 Men go mad because the dark one corrupted the male part of the one Power. E1+E8

 

3 The One Power is A power inside you that makes the world listen to you and do as you want E2

 

4 Ta'veran are Focal points of the pattern E8

 

5 She needed to find him To bind the Dark One so he doesn't break out E1, E6, E8

 

6 Perrin being followed by wolves is still a mystery for his character at the end of S1 and it is supposed to be.

I disagree with you.  You're bringing too much book knowledge in.

 

1. Is answered in the book prologue as is #2.   In the show, he's just some guy who sends Trollocs and Fades -which can be wiped out by the 100 with a couple of linked channelers.  The WT is full of channelers, they should not be the threat they are meant to be. 

2. Episode 1 says 'men make the power icky', not the other way round.  The only reference to Saidin is in the Old tongue cold open for episode 8, which is translated to 'your power'.  The two halves of the power have not been established as distinctly different.  This is covered repeatedly in book 1.

3. Wrong! The power is something external to be channeled, not something inside of you.  The ability to channel is something that *some* people have. There have been no mentions of the different elements and weaving together.  There is also no definition to the limits.  All of which are covered in depth in the book.

4. A fairly insufficient explanation as we don't really know what the pattern is.  Again, covered in the books.

5. Why do we care about the dark one breaking out, hell why is he 'bound' anyway.  Who bound him. See my answer to #1.

6. Shouldn't be a WAFO, looks like a GoT rip off.  The books, yep it's clear.

 

I'm happy that you're enjoying the show.  I hoped that I would.  But at least be honest about the poor job they have done communicating.  With TV series, you are not guaranteed to get everything you are promised at the outset, things get cancelled all the time; even things that appear to be popular.  The showrunners have taken their eyes off the ball with this, and I suspect this will be the downfall for the project.  In trying to be clever, they have alienated a lot of the fans and done a poor job of communicating what is special about WoT over generic fantasy show #56.

[WhiteVeils]

1 hour ago, Lethira the second said:

 

Quote

 

I gave episode notes and used near quotes, not book knowledge. It's not complete, but it's enough for non-readers.  Non-readers seem to have no problem understanding what's going on, with teased mysteries that make them want to watch in the future.  Why do they have to explain every single detail in S1?

 

If it wasn't clear, non-readers would hate it and book experts would love it, because it would not have communicated differences with the books.  Not the other way around. Non-readers seem to really like it.

 

Some of your explanations of things you gave are from later books.  Like different elements for weaves is after EOTW.  Rand doesn't know anything about the Dark One in EOTW other than that he is bound.  The illyana open does give us Lews Therrin, but doesn't tell us who he is either. We know more at the end of this than we did at the end of EOTW on many subjects.  It's not perfect, but it's communicated enough successfully for most non-readers whose reviews I've seen 

Edited January 25, 2022 by WhiteVeils

[notpropaganda73]

2 hours ago, Lethira the second said:

Let me give you a bench mark -that doesn't involve someone else' opinion.  If the screen writers fail to communicate something; whether it be character development or world building or the nature of the magic system, then the writing is bad.  You can put as many pretty scenes in something as you like (like yeeting Egwene off a cliff) and call it symbolism or something but if the audience doesn't widely understand what you are driving at then you have ultimately failed.  The writers for WoT have overall failed to communicate a vast array of things to the non book reader audience.

 

I think you've mentioned this failure to communicate before and I do really agree with it. My partner is a non-book reader and was confused by many elements towards the end of the season in particular - however by the same token, a lot of things that I was frustrated with or felt didn't work really landed for her. I know it's all anecdotal but I was very surprised at how much the "mystery" of the Dragon worked for her, for example. The wolves/Perrin and the lack of clarity around it made her believe he could be the Dragon - whether that was intentional or not by the writers we can't know. I lean towards they just left the wolves alone outside of hinting at them in order not to reveal that Perrin wasn't the Dragon, and a lot of the issues with S1 writing wise can actually be linked back to the desire to make this a mystery. But overall my partner liked a lot of elements I didn't enjoy, and a lot of the things that I know are simplified or changed from the books did really work for her. 

 

I do agree that they spread themselves too thin as well. If the mystery of the Dragon was supposed to be the driving force of the season, imo we should have had 1) more dreams with the DO in order to build that suspense as the DO doesn't know which of them it is, which also builds the danger of the DO and 2) more prophecies about the Dragon in order to feed into the mystery and who could fulfill the prophecies. I think the reveal of Rand didn't work particularly well for example because they showed us the Blood Snow (cool scene for book lovers), but non-book readers had literally no idea why a baby being born on the slopes of Dragonmount mattered. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but was there any indication in the show that the Dragon had to be born outside the Two Rivers? Why does that matter, in the show? 

 

One thing I think they have communicated very well in the show though is the Wheel itself, and the nature of this universe in terms of being reborn and how that impacts the everyday world (Tam in ep1, the Tinkers, the confrontation in ep8 between Rand and the DO). 

[Lethira the second]

54 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

I do agree that they spread themselves too thin as well. If the mystery of the Dragon was supposed to be the driving force of the season, imo we should have had 1) more dreams with the DO in order to build that suspense as the DO doesn't know which of them it is, which also builds the danger of the DO and 2) more prophecies about the Dragon in order to feed into the mystery and who could fulfill the prophecies. I think the reveal of Rand didn't work particularly well for example because they showed us the Blood Snow (cool scene for book lovers), but non-book readers had literally no idea why a baby being born on the slopes of Dragonmount mattered. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but was there any indication in the show that the Dragon had to be born outside the Two Rivers? Why does that matter, in the show? 

 

 

There was no mention of the Dragon being born outside of the Two Rivers, I don't think it really matters for the show.  Though I liked the Blood Snow scene, it's another thing they could have made more of.  If, for example they had dropped the 'many headed dragon' line in favour of a reminder that he had been born in sight of Dragon Mount the scene would have had more impact.  The first part you would know it was the DR about to be born and the scene when Roose Bolton Tam takes off his helmet would have been a stronger moment.

 

I liked what they did with episode 4 -with the exception of Nynaeve's mass ress.  It felt like this was a moment when things got to breathe, that is something that was sorely needed. I believe that someone with more experience would have recognised that they were doing themselves dirty when they tried to cram so much in the first season.  

[notpropaganda73]

8 minutes ago, Lethira the second said:

 

There was no mention of the Dragon being born outside of the Two Rivers, I don't think it really matters for the show.  Though I liked the Blood Snow scene, it's another thing they could have made more of.  If, for example they had dropped the 'many headed dragon' line in favour of a reminder that he had been born in sight of Dragon Mount the scene would have had more impact.  The first part you would know it was the DR about to be born and the scene when Roose Bolton Tam takes off his helmet would have been a stronger moment.

 

I liked what they did with episode 4 -with the exception of Nynaeve's mass ress.  It felt like this was a moment when things got to breathe, that is something that was sorely needed. I believe that someone with more experience would have recognised that they were doing themselves dirty when they tried to cram so much in the first season.  

 

Definitely agree on episode 4, I think it shows what the show can be as it married "new" story threads in with beats from the books really well, introduced world building and concepts naturally as well as developing our main characters. I hope we'll see more of that standard in S2. 

[Jake Sykwalker]

13 hours ago, VooDooNut said:

The show was poorly done in comparison to other shows I enjoy.

 

The show was well made in comparison to other shows I don't like as much.

 

Both of the above are opinions, as are all critiques of works of arts and forms of entertainment.

 

Just like someone can walk into a museum, see a sculpture in the shape of a giant peach, and say it's the most evocative thing since sliced bread, I can walk into the same museum, see the same sculpture, and wonder who left this trash in the middle of the gallery.

 

You missed the point I was trying to make, but lets use your art example.  Have you seen the David by Michelangelo?  It is a stunning sculpture that you need to see up close in order to fully appreciate.  I never fully understood its popularity until seeing it in person.  The detail on the sculpture is almost unbelievable that somebody could do that in stone.

 

There is another art exhibit where somebody nailed a rotting banana onto a wall.  It was given high praise by some.

 

Both are art exhibits.  Both have people that like them and don't like them.  One was objectively well done and showed skill while the other was not well done and showed little to no skill.  Saying the banana exhibit was well done and showed skill compared to David because you liked it isn't a valid observation.  That is allowing your opinion to influence an objective assessment.  It happens all the time and is one of the things that makes doing reviews very difficult.  

[Jake Sykwalker]

5 hours ago, Lethira the second said:

 

 

 

Let me give you a bench mark -that doesn't involve someone else' opinion.  If the screen writers fail to communicate something; whether it be character development or world building or the nature of the magic system, then the writing is bad.  You can put as many pretty scenes in something as you like (like yeeting Egwene off a cliff) and call it symbolism or something but if the audience doesn't widely understand what you are driving at then you have ultimately failed.  The writers for WoT have overall failed to communicate a vast array of things to the non book reader audience.

 

They have introduced a lot of things in season 1 but not followed through on them.  The story as it stands is a hot mess of half done storylines which were not developed.  That is the problem with pulling too much from later books and spreading things too thin.  I keep coming back to the wolves, right now we don't know who they are, what they want; it just looks like GoT had wolves we have wolves.  A little more time to develop them and the introduction of Elyas would have cemented 'this is not a GoT copy'.  They messed up on that because tried to cram too much into season one instead of developing the heart of the series, which is the characters.

 

Now, if you are Brandon Sanderson writing another SA book, you can afford to put things in there that stick out as odd, because he has the good will of his audience, they know his work and trust him to use it later on.  The Showrunners of the WoT do not have that trust, their job first and foremost should be hooking in an audience and getting them to want to watch 8 seasons of it.  Sadly, we will not have the data to show how many abandoned the show and how many views are multiple rewatches.

 

If you like the show, that's fine -I'm not criticising that.  My opinion -borne out by some experience is they got more wrong than they did right.  The whole thing looks like an apprentice trying to emulate the masters experience.  That leans in my thoughts about the budget, I don't believe the spent it wisely.  Sony/Amazon backed the wrong horse, enthusiasm is a poor substitute for experience.

 

You exactly nailed it.  Thank you for expressing it in great terms.  This is one of the things that makes Robert Jordan's works difficult for people.  He has a lot of things you think are throw away, or weird that later make a whole lot of sense.  I read Eye of the World in 1995 for the first time.  About 15 years or so later I read the comic adaptation and learned a whole lot that I missed the first time.  If you haven't read the comic adaptation I highly recommend it.   Recently I listened to the audiobooks of EOTW and GH.  Picked up even more I missed the first time. 

 

Using many fake out deaths, using healing to bring people back from the dead and giving Rand's moments to other people.  That is too many changes.  They lost me long before that, but the fake out deaths directly speak to how bad the writing is.  That is a trope you use very sparingly if ever.  Brandon Sanderson used misdirection to think a character died in Mistborn, but left enough clues that the reader could understand the whole thing later.  He didn't hide the details and say surprise I did this like in the show.  

[WhiteVeils]

11 minutes ago, Jake Sykwalker said:

Both are art exhibits.  Both have people that like them and don't like them.  One was objectively well done and showed skill while the other was not well done and showed little to no skill.  Saying the banana exhibit was well done and showed skill compared to David because you liked it isn't a valid observation.  That is allowing your opinion to influence an objective assessment.  It happens all the time and is one of the things that makes doing reviews very difficult.  

The problem is you're using the term 'objectively well done'.  It's not objective.  It's subjective.

 

So, to take the flip side, you can't say "David sucks and was lazily and sloppily done"  just because you don't like it or it doesn't match what you thought the statue of David ought to look like.

David took many more hours to craft, however.  It took time and money.  Those are objective measurements.  You can measure that...that's objective.  You can survey the audience and say 'The consensus of opinion regarding this piece of art is XXX', and if your survey is done correctly, that is objective.  You can be an expert in the field, and say, David used this special technique and this special technique and this special technique in the carving of it.

It sucks or it's good are opinions. Time and $$ are objective standards. Techniques used is based on an experts evaluation.  And consensus is a plurality of opinion.

It has had plenty of time and money invested in it, and many of the people working on it are considered very skilled. 

Plurality of opinion general opinion is that it's not perfect, but it doesn't suck  (currently 64% on rotten tomatoes)

Plurality of expert opinion is that it is good (82% on rotten tomatoes)

Industry professionals like the podcast initially cited spend hours and hours explaining what techniques were used in the storytelling and why, and how that makes it good.

None of that adds up to 'Objectively bad'.  The 'Bad' is an opinion. You're welcome to it, but you can't claim it as fact.  You can claim that maybe you weren't the target audience?  I don't know.
 

[Pukel-man]

11 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

Rafe says Mat has questions about whether or not he is a bad person.  That's his fight with the dagger...am I a prick like my dad? Did I kill that family? Is the dagger right? Will I cave and join the dark one?  That he has those questions means he has a conscience..and that conscience means he is a good person in the end.  They can't show his thoughts, so this is showing him fighting against the dagger in a visible and empathetic way.  And the answer he reaches, I think is one that ends up with him not wanting to be the person the dagger wants him to be.  So he loses his memory to become something else.

 

I think we'll get a big shift as he loses his memories and has the dagger taint removed properly.  Then he has a new question to tackle... straight from the books...who am I?

 And the rest of the story for him is finding those memories and finding himself, and I hope, at least literarily, it ends with him integrating his lost memories with his new self to become a whole Mat...a man who knows the darkness in himself, knows he's no hero, but knows he's going to do what needs to be done anyway, because that is what he is.  In short...late book Mat.  This darkness is explaining /why/ he says he is no hero.  It doesn't change what he becomes.

 

I've watched the show exactly once, so I haven't spent serious study on this. But what you write a above, I don't recall any of it from the show. Are you adding your own inferences or interpretation? I'm only talking about the direct actions and words from the screen.

[Lethira the second]

19 minutes ago, Pukel-man said:

I've watched the show exactly once, so I haven't spent serious study on this. But what you write a above, I don't recall any of it from the show. Are you adding your own inferences or interpretation? I'm only talking about the direct actions and words from the screen.

This is based on comments made by Rafe about Mat, nothing explicit in the show.  Moiraine made a comments about darkness within him.

[Deviations]

1 hour ago, Jake Sykwalker said:

1 hour ago, Jake Sykwalker said:

Let me give you a bench mark -that doesn't involve someone else' opinion.  If the screen writers fail to communicate something; whether it be character development or world building or the nature of the magic system, then the writing is bad.  You can put as many pretty scenes in something as you like (like yeeting Egwene off a cliff) and call it symbolism or something but if the audience doesn't widely understand what you are driving at then you have ultimately failed.  The writers for WoT have overall failed to communicate a vast array of things to the non book reader audience.

 

They have introduced a lot of things in season 1 but not followed through on them.  The story as it stands is a hot mess of half done storylines which were not developed.  That is the problem with pulling too much from later books and spreading things too thin.  I keep coming back to the wolves, right now we don't know who they are, what they want; it just looks like GoT had wolves we have wolves.  A little more time to develop them and the introduction of Elyas would have cemented 'this is not a GoT copy'.  They messed up on that because tried to cram too much into season one instead of developing the heart of the series, which is the characters.

 I wish I could have expressed my views correctly to make this point.  They took the time to explore the warder bond before they needed to.  That time should have been used to give us a reason to care for the characters.  I suppose you could say that we needed to care for Nynaeve but at the expense of Perrin?  At the expense of Mat and Rand?   Additionally, the screen time they used on some characters was poorly used.  Rand has high screen time yet all he did was mope after Egwene.

I wish I could have expressed my views correctly to make this point.  They took the time to explore the warder bond before they needed to.  That time should have been used to give us a reason to care for the characters.  I suppose you could say that we needed to care for Nynaeve but at the expense of Perrin?  At the expense of Mat and Rand?   Additionally, the screen time they used on some characters was poorly used.  Rand has high screen time yet all he did was mope after Egwene.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Deviations
Format

[Guest Cranglevoid]

24 minutes ago, Pukel-man said:

I've watched the show exactly once, so I haven't spent serious study on this. But what you write a above, I don't recall any of it from the show. Are you adding your own inferences or interpretation? I'm only talking about the direct actions and words from the screen.

You haven't missed anything. Moiraine repeteadly says that Mat has an inherent darkness within – there is no mention of this darknes coming from the dagger. The exact opposite, actually, since she says that the dagger feeds on this darkness. Apologists of the show tend to add information in an effort to cover plot holes and paint bad writing in a better light.

[WhiteVeils]

27 minutes ago, Pukel-man said:

I've watched the show exactly once, so I haven't spent serious study on this. But what you write a above, I don't recall any of it from the show. Are you adding your own inferences or interpretation? I'm only talking about the direct actions and words from the screen.

Amazon Prime content:
Most see Mat as a witty, mischievous rogue — which he certainly is — but deep down, Mat fears he’s a bastard like his father; a drunk like his mother. If this Dragon Reborn business comes with responsibility, he’s not interested. But perhaps, whether or not he’s who Moiraine is looking for, it can be his ticket to a better life.

 

Episode 5:
Mat: Tell me again.
Rand: Mat...

Mat: The little girl...on the farm...

Rand: It wasn't you, Mat. It wasn't you. Thom and I both saw it.

Mat: Thom's not here. Thom's dead.

Rand: Then please believe me. It was the Fade. You know you didn't kill that family. You would never hurt that little girl.
 

He's obviously asked that question over and over (from their postures, and acting, etc) and is pleading for Rand to reassure him that he isn't evil. 

 

Later Episode 5:
Rand: Mat? Mat?

Mat: Let's make a deal. All right?

Rand: All right.

Mat: If it turns out it's one of us...that you or me can...channel...we wont let each other become like that.

Rand: Mat...

Mat: I'm serious. I don't give a shit about this prophecy nonsense. Aes Sedai, Dragons, whatever. I won't be like that.

Rand: You won't.

Mat: You don't know that. Promise me.
Rand: I promise.

 

He's crying in this scene. He's seen Logain brought in as an example of an insane person, (as Loial says earlier in the scene, to show the people of the dangers of  madness and hunger for power).  He knows (and shows in later scenes) he thinks it's because he can channel and is going insane, and evil is a part of it.
Mat: I know what you're doing here. I know what Aes Sedai do to men like me. (Episode 6)

 

Episode 6:

Mat: The world doesn't need a Dragon like me.

He doesn't say it's explicitly from the dagger...he doesn't know it is.  Until the dagger is taken away, he thinks the evil is in him, because he is a channeller. But it's clear how it develops it's because of the dagger...they do a lot of visual things to show that the dagger has changed him. Rand says he is losing himself for example.

Moiraine says there is inherent darkness in him too, which is why the dagger was feeding on him. She also says he resisted it far longer than he ever should have been able to.  But that doesn't mean she is right...she is wrong about TONS of things in this show.  Her being wrong about Mat is a thread of tension and distrust between them that can carry forward to future seasons and will make the Genji tower bit pretty darn good if they do it.

Edited January 25, 2022 by WhiteVeils

[EmreY]

27 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

she is wrong about TONS of things in this show

 

That, at least, is not so far off her portrayal in the books, where she's pretty hit-or-miss, except for her points when she crashes a meeting she wasn't invited to much much later on. ? 

[Gothic Flame]

27 minutes ago, Cranglevoid said:

You haven't missed anything. Moiraine repeteadly says that Mat has an inherent darkness within – there is no mention of this darknes coming from the dagger. The exact opposite, actually, since she says that the dagger feeds on this darkness. Apologists of the show tend to add information in an effort to cover plot holes and paint bad writing in a better light.

Which is a damn shame, as Mat is probably the best character in the books...funny without being comedic, irreverent, outrageously dismissive of rank, empress, queen, Amyrlin..("HI Egwene, how's the White Tower? Still...white?")

A character with character..lol

[WhiteVeils]

I think he'll get there. Mat's my favorite, and reports are promising for Donal Finn.  I'm banking on some big changes as he gets free of the dagger and loses his memory, and then some slow integration of the two.  They're not going to toss out Mat. They're just setting it up so we can see him change, IMO.

[Katherine]

2 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

The problem is you're using the term 'objectively well done'.  It's not objective.  It's subjective.

 

So, to take the flip side, you can't say "David sucks and was lazily and sloppily done"  just because you don't like it or it doesn't match what you thought the statue of David ought to look like.

David took many more hours to craft, however.  It took time and money.  Those are objective measurements.  You can measure that...that's objective.  You can survey the audience and say 'The consensus of opinion regarding this piece of art is XXX', and if your survey is done correctly, that is objective.  You can be an expert in the field, and say, David used this special technique and this special technique and this special technique in the carving of it.

It sucks or it's good are opinions. Time and $$ are objective standards. Techniques used is based on an experts evaluation.  And consensus is a plurality of opinion.

It has had plenty of time and money invested in it, and many of the people working on it are considered very skilled. 

Plurality of opinion general opinion is that it's not perfect, but it doesn't suck  (currently 64% on rotten tomatoes)

Plurality of expert opinion is that it is good (82% on rotten tomatoes)

Industry professionals like the podcast initially cited spend hours and hours explaining what techniques were used in the storytelling and why, and how that makes it good.

None of that adds up to 'Objectively bad'.  The 'Bad' is an opinion. You're welcome to it, but you can't claim it as fact.  You can claim that maybe you weren't the target audience?  I don't know.
 

 

 

I see what you are saying about experts. 

 

I also think that 99% of humans don't need an expert to understand that the Statue of David is a superior work of art, especially when compared to a banana nailed to a board (or whatever it was). 

[Cauthonfan4]

11 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

They're not going to toss out Mat. They're just setting it up so we can see him change, IMO

They could have done it without making him so awful in season 1

[Gothic Flame]

14 minutes ago, Katherine said:

 

 

I see what you are saying about experts. 

 

I also think that 99% of humans don't need an expert to understand that the Statue of David is a superior work of art, especially when compared to a banana nailed to a board (or whatever it was). 

I assure you in some circles modern art is an experience. To truly grasp this the smell of rotted banana must permeate the air as you gaze in wonder and sublime appreciation at what constitues a grotesque irony.

[Pukel-man]

50 minutes ago, WhiteVeils said:

I think he'll get there. Mat's my favorite, and reports are promising for Donal Finn.  I'm banking on some big changes as he gets free of the dagger and loses his memory, and then some slow integration of the two.  They're not going to toss out Mat. They're just setting it up so we can see him change, IMO.

We just disagree. In my opinion, they already tossed out Mat. "Setting it up so we can see him change" isn't necessary. Mat's basic character didn't change in the books. He was always mischievous, but never greedy. Always good-hearted. He always did what he had to do to help his friends, which is what landed him in some unusual situations. From my first read of the books, I thought Mat's character had the least growth and change of all of the major characters (although I still love the character for his humor). His flamboyance, his disrespect for authority, his loyalty to his friends, his resistance to the Shadow - all were constant from book 1 to the end. The influence of the dagger specifically made him untrusting and suspicious, but not otherwise malicious. Book Mat also did not wager needlessly or fruitlessly. He was shrewd, and would not throw away his last coin on a losing roll of the dice (unless that was the result he wanted).

 

The show made him very unsympathetic to start with, and raised the prospect that the dagger was making him not paranoid but evil, and Moiraine confirmed that. TV Mat was shiftless, reckless, and selfish. TV Mat made me dislike him. And if I dislike him, other characters would too. So he's not the one who can lead the armies of the Light. Not with that history.

 

But the writing on the show doesn't worry about trivialities like consistency or fidelity to the books, so I have no doubt they'll contrive some absurd rehabilitation for him that may or may not have anything to do with book content. Fans of the show will love it, others won't.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Pukel-man

[Humbugged2]

1 hour ago, Cauthonfan4 said:

They could have done it without making him so awful in season 1

But he was dreadful in nearly all of books 1-3 ( until chpt 18) . He was gollumed early on and all that changed when he was free on the dagger

[Spiritweaver1]

2 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

Amazon Prime content:
Most see Mat as a witty, mischievous rogue — which he certainly is — but deep down, Mat fears he’s a bastard like his father; a drunk like his mother. If this Dragon Reborn business comes with responsibility, he’s not interested. But perhaps, whether or not he’s who Moiraine is looking for, it can be his ticket to a better life.

 

Episode 5:
Mat: Tell me again.
Rand: Mat...

Mat: The little girl...on the farm...

Rand: It wasn't you, Mat. It wasn't you. Thom and I both saw it.

Mat: Thom's not here. Thom's dead.

Rand: Then please believe me. It was the Fade. You know you didn't kill that family. You would never hurt that little girl.
 

He's obviously asked that question over and over (from their postures, and acting, etc) and is pleading for Rand to reassure him that he isn't evil. 

 

Later Episode 5:
Rand: Mat? Mat?

Mat: Let's make a deal. All right?

Rand: All right.

Mat: If it turns out it's one of us...that you or me can...channel...we wont let each other become like that.

Rand: Mat...

Mat: I'm serious. I don't give a shit about this prophecy nonsense. Aes Sedai, Dragons, whatever. I won't be like that.

Rand: You won't.

Mat: You don't know that. Promise me.
Rand: I promise.

 

He's crying in this scene. He's seen Logain brought in as an example of an insane person, (as Loial says earlier in the scene, to show the people of the dangers of  madness and hunger for power).  He knows (and shows in later scenes) he thinks it's because he can channel and is going insane, and evil is a part of it.
Mat: I know what you're doing here. I know what Aes Sedai do to men like me. (Episode 6)

 

Episode 6:

Mat: The world doesn't need a Dragon like me.

He doesn't say it's explicitly from the dagger...he doesn't know it is.  Until the dagger is taken away, he thinks the evil is in him, because he is a channeller. But it's clear how it develops it's because of the dagger...they do a lot of visual things to show that the dagger has changed him. Rand says he is losing himself for example.

Moiraine says there is inherent darkness in him too, which is why the dagger was feeding on him. She also says he resisted it far longer than he ever should have been able to.  But that doesn't mean she is right...she is wrong about TONS of things in this show.  Her being wrong about Mat is a thread of tension and distrust between them that can carry forward to future seasons and will make the Genji tower bit pretty darn good if they do it.

Great summary of one of the things that really makes me want to stop watching the show.  Amazon took a great character and just turned him into another character completely.    Instead of of the mischievous youth, who always  keeps his promises and is loyal to his friends.  We get the above, damaged boy plus being a thief.    If the show staff had bothered with the source they would know that redemption arcs come from other characters like Ingtar.  Anyway this is another dead trolloc so I won't stab it anymore.

 

[ilovezam]

42 minutes ago, Pukel-man said:

We just disagree. In my opinion, they already tossed out Mat. "Setting it up so we can see him change" isn't necessary. Mat's basic character didn't change in the books. He was always mischievous, but never greedy. Always good-hearted. He always did what he had to do to help his friends, which is what landed him in some unusual situations. From my first read of the books, I thought Mat's character had the least growth and change of all of the major characters (although I still love the character for his humor). His flamboyance, his disrespect for authority, his loyalty to his friends, his resistance to the Shadow - all were constant from book 1 to the end. The influence of the dagger specifically made him untrusting and suspicious, but not otherwise malicious. Book Mat also did not wager needlessly or fruitlessly. He was shrewd, and would not throw away his last coin on a losing roll of the dice (unless that was the result he wanted).

 

The show made him very unsympathetic to start with, and raised the prospect that the dagger was making him not paranoid but evil, and Moiraine confirmed that. TV Mat was shiftless, reckless, and selfish. TV Mat made me dislike him. And if I dislike him, other characters would too. So he's not the one who can lead the armies of the Light. Not with that history.

 

But the writing on the show doesn't worry about trivialities like consistency or fidelity to the books, so I have no doubt they'll contrive some absurd rehabilitation for him that may or may not have anything to do with book content. Fans of the show will love it, others won't.

Fully agree that he was done dirty as hell this season, but if he starts developing towards becoming more Mat-like and we never bring up any "inherent darkness" nonsense again I could see myself enjoying the character in future seasons. 

 

Not that I'm getting my hopes up though. 

[Gothic Flame]

Rafe did say they didn't need so many main characters.

[Deviations]

3 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Rafe did say they didn't need so many main characters.

Maybe this show didn't need Rafe?