Season 2 Trailer

[Elder_Haman]

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

If all damane wear makeup like that, it's part of the ritual and it's fine. If a damane inexplicably wears heavy makeup in a potential war zone, it would stretch things a bit

I'm not sure about the forehead makeup, but if memory serves all of the other damane I've seen pictured have the same heavy eye makeup. So that seems to be a common trait. I'm interested whether the makeup on the sul'dam will also be a common trait. I like that look.

[SinisterDeath]

14 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

If all damane wear makeup like that, it's part of the ritual and it's fine. If a damane inexplicably wears heavy makeup in a potential war zone, it would stretch things a bit

I mean, war paint is a thing.

 

Plus, if heavy Makeup is unrealistic, what's that say about the White Cloaks riding into battle with... white cloaks? 😛 

[Elglin]

Went through the trailer at quarter speed just because I can, I guess, and it seems that the a'dam design isn't the same. In the trailer, it's seen three times: when damane fling away Uno & comrades (A), when Egwene/Elayne face a damane (B), when worn by Egwene (C).

(A) does not seem to have underarm straps, although the lighting does not help with fine detail. (C) also does not have them or at least behaves as it doesn't. (B), which is the same damane as in the photo shot, has the straps quite wide, closer to two fingers than one in width. Also, (B) has a higher and tighter collar whereas the one of (C) is somewhat lower and wider.

I'd ascribe that to minor costume differences, but it does seem that we have two slightly different models. I might be overthinking.

 

And now for something completely different. The final quote of the trailer. "You are not a spoke, boy. You are ... the water that turns the Wheel itself". At the point where I've put the ellipsis, the pause between the words is shorter than normal, and also the tone of the voice slightly changes. Might it be that these are actually two very different phrases that happen at different points in the film, glued together by trailer sound engineering?

 

[Vambram]

After watching this trailer several times, my excitement for Season 2 has returned back to what I felt before watching Season 1. As long as I realize what the Amazon Prime series is, which is a condensed adaptation of 14 books of my most favorite fictional series of all time..... and what Brandon Sanderson once said is the story told after another turning of The Wheel, then I will be able to enjoy Season 2. I am hopeful that this season will be even better than the first season. 

My favorite line of the trailer is when Suian Sanche says to Rand al`Thor, "You are not a spoke, boy. You are ... the water that turns the Wheel itself" I got to admit that I got goosebumps the first time I heard her say that to Rand in the trailer. I really hope that line makes the final cut in one of the episodes. 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

On 7/25/2023 at 12:37 PM, king of nowhere said:

don't forget the staring, sniffing, and pulling of braids

And the blinking and blushing! 

[DigificWriter]

Ornateness and size don't have anything to do with ease of application or of function.

 

The collar is pretty clearly two pieces that go around the neck and across the shoulders and are then joined/fastened together seamlessly.

 

Circling back to earlier conversation, the mouth gags are pretty clearly pacifiers, even being described as such by the new costume designer, and also pretty clearly are not externally attached in any way, which again raises questions about why the damane don't remove them, but in thinking a bit, I figured out a reasoning that I hadn't thought of before: mental conditioning.

 

If a damane were repeatedly physically punished for removing their pacifier gag, it likely wouldn't take long before they stopped doing it in order to avoid the punishment.

[king of nowhere]

On 7/28/2023 at 5:23 PM, SinisterDeath said:

I mean, war paint is a thing.

 

Plus, if heavy Makeup is unrealistic, what's that say about the White Cloaks riding into battle with... white cloaks? 😛 

Which is why i said, if it's something all damane do it's part of the uniform. Yes, war paint as you call it.

 

The thing is, uniforms and paints have some practical applications. Distinguish friend and foe. Give your side a sense of cohesion. Try to scare the opposite side. 

Makeup does none of that. But as i said, i can accept it as a sort of war paint if all damane wear it. And somebody in books mentioned beauty contests for damane. I can totally see a sul dam putting makeup on her damane just like some dog owners put accessories on their dogs. 

 

Incidentally, the smartest thing to do with damane would be to dress them like soldiers, give them armor like soldiers, and hide them amid soldiers. This way enemy archers would have a harder time picking them out. But people not always do what is practical

[Samt]

19 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

Ornateness and size don't have anything to do with ease of application or of function.

 

The collar is pretty clearly two pieces that go around the neck and across the shoulders and are then joined/fastened together seamlessly.

 

Circling back to earlier conversation, the mouth gags are pretty clearly pacifiers, even being described as such by the new costume designer, and also pretty clearly are not externally attached in any way, which again raises questions about why the damane don't remove them, but in thinking a bit, I figured out a reasoning that I hadn't thought of before: mental conditioning.

 

If a damane were repeatedly physically punished for removing their pacifier gag, it likely wouldn't take long before they stopped doing it in order to avoid the punishment.

In the books, the collars are actually simple to remove.  It’s just that when a damane tries to remove her own collar, it inflicts such mental pain that she is unable to continue.  It’s easy to apply such logic to the pacifier if it is part of the terangreal.  Even if it isn’t, the suldam would simply have to instruct the damane to not remove the pacifier and the punishment system would activate if she trie to disobey.  Physical punishment wouldn’t be required.

[Nullsphere]

On 7/19/2023 at 7:46 PM, Guire said:

Who is the child or dwarf adult ishameal is escortimg around the table?  Perrin is carrying long dagger and sword in horse back scene.  Axe and hammer later or gone?

Maybe a longshot but... the Gholam? I recall it first making an appearance somewhere in either Dragon Reborn or Shadow Rising.

 

Another idea I just had could be, Tuon? Since Ishmael appears with Seanchan in another clip perhaps.

[Guire]

10 hours ago, Nullsphere said:

Maybe a longshot but... the Gholam? I recall it first making an appearance somewhere in either Dragon Reborn or Shadow Rising.

 

Another idea I just had could be, Tuon? Since Ishmael appears with Seanchan in another clip perhaps.

The gholam as a child will be genuinely scary.  That actually may be best theory I have seen.

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, Guire said:

The gholam as a child will be genuinely scary.  That actually may be best theory I have seen.

It would be, and could be a great idea, but there are two practical problems.

First, it will be several seasons before the gholam is killed. Several years. The child will age; for an adult, you can cover a few years of aging with make up, not for a child. They'd have to hire new actors every time? Maybe they could use deepfake technology like they did to rejuvenate harrison ford?

Second, with the gholam in child form its eventual death may be hard to swallow for some of the audience. Even if the gholam is not an actual child

Edited July 31, 2023 by king of nowhere

[SinisterDeath]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

First, it will be several seasons before the gholam is killed. Several years. The child will age; for an adult, you can cover a few years of aging with make up, not for a child. They'd have to hire new actors every time? Maybe they could use deepfake technology like they did to rejuvenate harrison ford?

I mean, sometimes you get Actors(es) like Maisie Williams that can pull off a young adult/teen for YEARS.

[Guire]

5 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

It would be, and could be a great idea, but there are two practical problems.

First, it will be several seasons before the gholam is killed. Several years. The child will age; for an adult, you can cover a few years of aging with make up, not for a child. They'd have to hire new actors every time? Maybe they could use deepfake technology like they did to rejuvenate harrison ford?

Second, with the gholam in child form its eventual death may be hard to swallow for some of the audience. Even if the gholam is not an actual child

I was thinking more the gholam being a sort of changling that assumes different childlike forms to hunt.  Then for the eternal fall it could have some sort of base non child form it assumes as it falls.  I would vote for booting monster child into the void though.

[DaddyFinn]

There's a short S2 preview at the end of E8 of S1. Starts around 54 minutes. Apparently it's the darkfriend social. Haven't seen it myself yet.

[A Memory Of Why]

4 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

There's a short S2 preview at the end of E8 of S1. Starts around 54 minutes. Apparently it's the darkfriend social. Haven't seen it myself yet.

 

Yeah, it's the DF social we see in the trailer. Not a Forsaken scene I was expecting, we see from under tha table an AS ring with a black stone, Seanchan nails and such from the hooded guys. The lil person is a random child ishy gets to play with.

 

Noticed an eight pointed star with the AS symbol in the centre which could support the eight Forsaken idea, though I still feel that's a misdirect.

 

Fun little scene, not long now.

[Ralph]

4 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

There's a short S2 preview at the end of E8 of S1. Starts around 54 minutes. Apparently it's the darkfriend social. Haven't seen it myself yet.

Thank you whoever found it. very interesting. 

 

natural assumption was Ish is about to feed the child to the Trolloc. 

 

But actually I think it is the same child who is playing with Perrin in the trailer. 

 

could the whole conversation be Ishamael manipulating Perrin's guilt and pacifism?? 

 

is the child's mother a Tinker? 

 

 

[Samt]

In regards to the number of forsaken, there is nothing special about the number of thirteen forsaken in the books.  It just happens to be the number of forsaken that ended up getting sealed in the bore.  There were other forsaken in the distant past and there are more forsaken added in the present era.  As such, I don't see it to be a big deal if the show goes with another number of forsaken.  Some of the forsaken are quite admittedly not well fleshed out and don't really have much to do, especially if some settings get cut anyways (Illian, maybe).  

 

That said, I think it would be weird if they changed the number of forsaken and then made it so that number of forsaken was somehow special with associated symbology and such.  It's compounding change on top of change for no real reason.  

[Scarloc99]

Am holding judgement until I see it, it certainly looks more polished, which goes to emphasise that Covid undoubtably had a large impact on the 1st season. But, I am seeing more and more diversion from the story here. Rand and Logain meeting in book 2? That suggests he will be travelling with Siuan when they go to see Rand. How this then translates into Logain escaping the tower with Siuan, Min and Leanne I am not sure. Looks like we will get Nynaves testing, which is great, so my guess is, as I have been postulating for a while the girls will travel to tar valon and then leave only the once (until Egwene is made Amirylian Seat). This suggests that characters will learn much faster and not have to have the rigours of lessons they do in the book possibly. 

The assumption that the dark lord has been released continues the narrative that Morraine is an unreliable narrator, which I like, it makes far more sense that the Black Ajah, on command of the Forsaken would have confused the narrative and done all they can to throw people off the scent. 

Really hope that Liandrin does not take up the Elaida role as has been suggested, the whole point of Elaida being raised was to have a puppet on the throne and the black ruling from the shadows, also it is really important for the battle of wills between Egwene and the amirylian that she not be of the black and that we as viewers are aware of that (as we are in the books). it also makes no sense for Liandrin to take the role of Alvarian because a major plot point there is that she is of the white. 

To be fair the trailer gives very little away, and also I wonder if it is all taken from the first 1-2 episodes so as to keep the good stuff hidden? This is a trick used a lot nowadays, marvel films seem to have started it (usually trailers for marvel movies consist of bits from the opening scenes). 

[Samt]

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Am holding judgement until I see it, it certainly looks more polished, which goes to emphasise that Covid undoubtably had a large impact on the 1st season. But, I am seeing more and more diversion from the story here. Rand and Logain meeting in book 2? That suggests he will be travelling with Siuan when they go to see Rand. How this then translates into Logain escaping the tower with Siuan, Min and Leanne I am not sure. Looks like we will get Nynaves testing, which is great, so my guess is, as I have been postulating for a while the girls will travel to tar valon and then leave only the once (until Egwene is made Amirylian Seat). This suggests that characters will learn much faster and not have to have the rigours of lessons they do in the book possibly. 

The assumption that the dark lord has been released continues the narrative that Morraine is an unreliable narrator, which I like, it makes far more sense that the Black Ajah, on command of the Forsaken would have confused the narrative and done all they can to throw people off the scent. 

Really hope that Liandrin does not take up the Elaida role as has been suggested, the whole point of Elaida being raised was to have a puppet on the throne and the black ruling from the shadows, also it is really important for the battle of wills between Egwene and the amirylian that she not be of the black and that we as viewers are aware of that (as we are in the books). it also makes no sense for Liandrin to take the role of Alvarian because a major plot point there is that she is of the white. 

To be fair the trailer gives very little away, and also I wonder if it is all taken from the first 1-2 episodes so as to keep the good stuff hidden? This is a trick used a lot nowadays, marvel films seem to have started it (usually trailers for marvel movies consist of bits from the opening scenes). 

Spoiler

Completely agree on Elaida.  One of the key points about Elaida is that Elaida believes she is "the good guys."  Liandrin and Alviarin are both willingly and knowingly serving the shadow.  Elaida is much more nuanced.  

 

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

 it also makes no sense for Liandrin to take the role of Alvarian because a major plot point there is that she is of the white.

i wouldn't call it a "major plot point". it was just another detail of aes sedai politics. in general, if there is one thing we can be sure will be cut, is a lot of aes sedai politics. it would be incomprehensible to the viewer. it was hard even for dedicated readers. if they wanted to explain it in detail, they'd need several additional seasons just of aes sedai plotting.

so, while some aes sedai politics was kept - a few scenes in S1E6 with various aes sedai blackmailing each other gave a good idea, I think - it will be hugely simplified for clarity.

if they merge alviarin with liandrin or elaida, i would not cry a bit.

[DojoToad]

14 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Am holding judgement until I see it, it certainly looks more polished, which goes to emphasise that Covid undoubtably had a large impact on the 1st season. But, I am seeing more and more diversion from the story here. Rand and Logain meeting in book 2? That suggests he will be travelling with Siuan when they go to see Rand. How this then translates into Logain escaping the tower with Siuan, Min and Leanne I am not sure. Looks like we will get Nynaves testing, which is great, so my guess is, as I have been postulating for a while the girls will travel to tar valon and then leave only the once (until Egwene is made Amirylian Seat). This suggests that characters will learn much faster and not have to have the rigours of lessons they do in the book possibly. 
 

How much training do they need?  They already have healing bombs and can take out entire armies.

[Scarloc99]

13 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

i wouldn't call it a "major plot point". it was just another detail of aes sedai politics. in general, if there is one thing we can be sure will be cut, is a lot of aes sedai politics. it would be incomprehensible to the viewer. it was hard even for dedicated readers. if they wanted to explain it in detail, they'd need several additional seasons just of aes sedai plotting.

so, while some aes sedai politics was kept - a few scenes in S1E6 with various aes sedai blackmailing each other gave a good idea, I think - it will be hugely simplified for clarity.

if they merge alviarin with liandrin or elaida, i would not cry a bit.

I really don’t get that argument, the major politics of the white tower never confused me once all the pieces were revealed. But the whole point about Liandrin is that it is not a red ajah coup. There is a risk that the tv show turns it into a red coup as opposed to showing how the black is manipulating everything. In terms of the politics piece a really easy way is to show the pieces moving as it happens rather then revealing that the heads of each ajah where trying to be the power behind the throne far later in the series. 
 

And like I say merging Elaida with either black sister just undermines that whole part of the story. She is convinced she is doing the right thing and it is her that has to save the world because of that vision. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Sir_Charrid

[Elglin]

2 hours ago, DojoToad said:

How much training do they need?  They already have healing bombs and can take out entire armies.

This comment officially made my day.

And to be on the topic, a yet another thing that the show sorely lacks is the development of the characters. RJ sure took his sweet time doing that, but he did show how relatively unimpressive lads and lasses developed into the military, magical, political or what-have-you powerhouses later in the series.

Hopefully we see more of that in S2 and less of "Hey, X is a main character here, viewers, rejoice at their powers!"

[king of nowhere]

7 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I really don’t get that argument, the major politics of the white tower never confused me once all the pieces were revealed.

the major politics, ok. but all the dozens of minor sisters, all with their small plots that ultimately make a very little impact on the book? cut.

the question is how much to cut and streamline.

[Scarloc99]

21 hours ago, Elglin said:

This comment officially made my day.

And to be on the topic, a yet another thing that the show sorely lacks is the development of the characters. RJ sure took his sweet time doing that, but he did show how relatively unimpressive lads and lasses developed into the military, magical, political or what-have-you powerhouses later in the series.

Hopefully we see more of that in S2 and less of "Hey, X is a main character here, viewers, rejoice at their powers!"

I think we will get more of that, Season 1 had a lot to do in terms of just introducing everyone and showing a baseline of where they are now, while doing that in as quick and easy a way as possible so we can then track and see the journey and where they get to. In a book you can take far more time with that, and have the benefit of internal monologues to show thoughts. In a TV show it has to be there, on the screen, and a little bit in your face to ensure all viewers get it and it isn't to subtle. 

If you equate it to Game of Thrones really season 1 did the same thing, you got a whistle stop tour of the main characters and locations in the series. You get the sense that Joffrey is a sociopath, you understand that the lannisters have a very close relationship without really understanding why in detail. You know John Snow feels like an outsider, but there are so many characters that really the only ones who go on a real journey are Daenerys, who goes from timid sister to strong leader. And Ned Stark who we as a viewer see at the end of his life long arc. But the writers did a great job of giving you moments with each character to let you really get a sense of who they are as a person right now. But they had 2 extra episodes to play with, and that for me is the biggest issue, 8 rather then 10 episodes means writers need to cram so much stuff into such little time.