WoT Season 2 Episode 8: What Was Meant to Be

[Yamezt]

1 hour ago, Gypsum said:

where any 'fact' that an Aes Sedai convinces herself to be true (whether it is or not) gets her around them

Well in tGS:

Spoiler

The scene with Egwene serving dinner to Elaida and some sitters - Elaida either was able to convince herself Egwene was a darkfriend for pretty frivolous reasons (granted she was insane), or simply went too far.

 

Egwene had gashes and was bleeding - quite hard to say that it wasn't used as a weapon but for the fact Elaida manage to convince herself that she didn't break the oaths. 

 

Egwene or Siuan even later commented that Elaida may have convinced herself Egwene was a darkfriend in order to go that far. Neither seemed surprised by this possibility. Elaida was even able to attempt to start a trial that Egwene was a darkfriend (even declared that Egwene was a Darkfriend to the sitters when Egwene later said that there was no evidence and the trial should fail).

 

Other posters have posted possible ways that Moiraine got round the oaths. While some of the proposed scenarios are possible due to TV Moiraine appearing more fanatical, I do wish it was cleaner or more straight forward. 

 

If exclusion for Shadow Spawn and Darkfriend were left in Oath 3 for the TV, I think it would have been a sufficient call back to tGS Elaida. Heck, the fact that Rand was last seen with Lanfear not long before, it wouldn't be far fetched for Moiraine to wrongly assume Rand was captured by Lanfear (therefore darkfriend exclusion can be applied) - and a great way to show how beliefs are what make the oaths work.

 

Be interesting to see if they resolve this in S3 like they did with the Ferry in S1

Edited October 10, 2023 by Yamezt

[Samt]

2 hours ago, Ralph said:

 

I don't think the ships blew up, I think she holed them with a small explosion and they sank. we don't know if people died in explosions or drowned or neither 

Generally speaking, the definition of a weapon is not restricted to devices used to hurt or kill people. It also includes devices that are used to cause physical damage to structures, vehicles, etc.  There are lots of modern weapons that are fundamentally anti-vehicle or anti structure weapons.  Oftentimes, that will kill the occupants, but sometimes that is not the intention or result.  Nonetheless, these are definitely weapons.  
 

The Aes Sedai are rather creative with their justifications, but this is a bit tricky.  Even if she knew that everyone on the ship would survive, I’d say she still used the power as a weapon since she used it to disable an enemy in battle.  A big factor here is that they are in the middle of a battle.  

[LightHelpMe]

On 10/6/2023 at 1:30 AM, BenPatient said:

Matt makes his own Ashandarei from the knife...I did not see coming, and I actually like that

I liked his ingenuity there. It felt like a very Mat thing to do. Two problems with it though--I don't think it would hold up well for any extended period of time, and more importantly, it's too dangerous of a weapon to carry around. He could kill or at least seriously injure someone by accidentally bumping them with it.

 

On 10/6/2023 at 1:30 AM, BenPatient said:

Not sure anyone did the math on the whole double-collar thing. I think RJ probably already ruled that out at some point, didn't he? Like...it would kill them both if they tried it, type of thing.

The writers don't let little things like book lore bother them! Seriously, I can't remember that specifically, but I do know there is no way Egwene should have been able to touch that collar. Anyone who doubted she intended to use that as a weapon hasn't been paying attention. (That makes two things she should not have been able to do.)

 

At first I thought it was just me who had a problem with Suroth. I agree she feels off. Like she's not serious about anything even when she's supposed to be angry. I don't know if it's the actress or the writing, or both.

 

I was happy to see Lan being a bad ass again--I missed that. 

 

I enjoyed the episode overall, but I definitely have some problems with it.

[LightHelpMe]

On 10/6/2023 at 9:33 AM, The_Watcher_And_Wanderer said:

The more I think about it the more I realize how poorly the show has handled Perrin and the Whitecloaks

This one has me upset too. I know a big part of his arc is his struggle against battle rage and fearing becoming more wolf than man. But in the books, he never outright murders anyone. Dain has no legitimate cause to hate Perrin in the books. He wasn't even there when his father died. It was Child Byar who misinformed Dain and kept egging him on. Geofram was one of only two really decent Whitecloaks in the books (the other being Galad). But the books aside, the show's depiction of him is also that of a reasonable man (for a Whitecloak) whom Perrin had no good reason to kill. He'll know that too, when the dust settles, so now on top of everything else, he has to carry this guilt.

[Ralph]

2 hours ago, Samt said:

Generally speaking, the definition of a weapon is not restricted to devices used to hurt or kill people. It also includes devices that are used to cause physical damage to structures, vehicles, etc.  There are lots of modern weapons that are fundamentally anti-vehicle or anti structure weapons.  Oftentimes, that will kill the occupants, but sometimes that is not the intention or result.  Nonetheless, these are definitely weapons.  
 

The Aes Sedai are rather creative with their justifications, but this is a bit tricky.  Even if she knew that everyone on the ship would survive, I’d say she still used the power as a weapon since she used it to disable an enemy in battle.  A big factor here is that they are in the middle of a battle.  

 

I don't see how disrupting an enemy's attack with no intention to harm them is using it as a weapon. 

[LTL]

These arguments saying that Moiraine didn't use the one power as a weapon are absurd. A few definitions of "weapon" from dictionaries:

 

"any object used in fighting or war"

 

"something used to injure, defeat, or destroy"

 

"a means of contending against another"

 

"any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, or cannon."

 

"anything used against an opponent, adversary, or victim:"

 

Nowhere in the definitions does it say or imply that a weapon has to be something that is used directly against the human body or with an intention to physically harm a human. If you fire a cannon at an enemy ship then you are using it as a weapon, regardless of your intention to only sink the ship and not directly hit enemy soldiers. If you use a missile to hit an unmanned enemy drone then you are using the missile as a weapon against your enemy, even though you have no chance of harming an enemy soldier.

 

The three oaths do not make any mention of not using the one power to try to kill someone, they state that it may not be used as a weapon. These are different things and we know that the wording of the oaths is crucial. People arguing here that Moiraine could do this because she wasn't trying to directly hurt/kill anyone are arguing a point in which they are wrong even if they are right. Even if it is true that she wasn't trying to directly hurt/kill anyone, she still used the one power as a weapon by any correct definition of weapon.

 

If you're trying to defend the show for this scene then the only sensible angle to do so from is to say that Moiraine believes that Rand being shielded by multiple damane while facing Ishamael means that she can use the one power as a weapon because she believes it is in the last extreme defence of Rand's life and by extension, the last extreme defence of her own life because Rand's death will inevitably lead to her own. I really enjoyed season 2 and I'd like to keep it that way so I'm more than happy to grasp onto a plausible explanation and go with it rather than being annoyed that it makes no sense but the "wasn't used as a weapon" argument is not a plausible explanation.

[Ralph]

do you really think that an AS would not be able to use the OP against an unmanned drone? 

 

against victim would presumably inckude torture and punishment, both of which we know are fine for them

Edited October 10, 2023 by Ralph

[LTL]

Do we see any examples in the 14 book WOT series of Aes Sedai using the one power against an enemy structure when it is not in defence of their or their warder's life? Genuine question, the answer may be yes. If not then it seems pretty unlikely that RJ was using an incorrect interpretation of the word "weapon". If yes then it becomes much murkier.

[Ralph]

or this would also depend on how the one who swore the Oath understood the word 

[LTL]

15 minutes ago, Ralph said:

against victim would presumably inckude torture and punishment, both of which we know are fine for them

 

Not necessarily. If you stab a victim with a knife then you have used the knife as a weapon so this could be why the word victim is used in that particular definition. We don't generally describe implements of punishments or torture as weapons although torture certainly starts to get pretty questionable. However, we absolutely do describe missiles used to attack structures/drones/vehicles as weapons. If Ukraine used a missile to sink a Russian ship then people would say that they used US supplied weapons to sink the ship etc (even if the ship were unmanned). I feel like this may be the first time in history that people have tried to make the argument that something used to sink an enemy ship wasn't a weapon.

[Mailman]

Not overly important but did anyone else find it a little odd that Moiraine used fire for the attack and then sent the fire under the water that would have required additional effort one would think.

 

 

[Requiem]

9 hours ago, LightHelpMe said:

The way things are presented in the show, she had to kill Renna to remove her collar. 

 

That's just not true, Renna unlocked and released the adam before she died, with the expectation that if she did Egwene would do the same for her and was then shocked that Egwene let her die.

[Mailman]

5 minutes ago, Requiem said:

 

That's just not true, Renna unlocked and released the adam before she died, with the expectation that if she did Egwene would do the same for her and was then shocked that Egwene let her die.

I thought it would be possibly have been a big chance to fold Renna into Egeanin. Have both of them be unwilling to release each other but Renna be unwilling to face life as a Seachan Damane. With the inability to force the removal of the collars or harm each other they could have been forced to work together with Renna eventually releasing Egwene when she realizes that the Seachan way is wrong. 

[Mirefox]

The Trollocs would have taken Fal Dara if they had had incense.

[Gypsum]

7 hours ago, Ralph said:

 

I don't see how disrupting an enemy's attack with no intention to harm them is using it as a weapon. 

 

If you fire a missile or a cannon ball or the One Power at a manned ship, with the goal of sinking it, I don't think it's a valid argument that you didn't intend to cause harm to the people on it. Exactly no one in the entire history of naval warfare has ever thought that. You know or should have known that sinking a ship will potentially cause the injury or deaths of its crew.

 

Agree with LTL. The only way I see Moiraine's attack as fitting within the rules (or Jordan's rules anyway) of the Three Oaths was if she knew Rand was being shielded by those damane and sunk the ships in defense of his life. I may have to rewatch the episode. I'm now vaguely recollecting that there was indeed a line where she said she sensed them shielding a male channeler. If I'm now remembering rightly, that just about justifies the whole scene, LOL.

 

The collar thing was also a bit baffling now that you got me thinking about it. Perhaps more so than Moiraine's fiery assault on the ships. As per the show's own rules -- the whole thing with the water jug -- Egwene surely should not have been able to pick up the other damane's collar, much less place it on Renna.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Gypsum

[JyP]

For the collar shenanigans : if I recall correctly, Egwene corners Renna after the Horn is sounded ? It would be online with the TV show logic that the Horn "awakens" heroes past and present, so the EF 5 are awakened while past heroes are summoned from Tel'aran'rhiod.

[Mirefox]

Quick, I need memes:

 

A kid with incense at a Catholic Mass and a Whitecloak army behind him.

 

Cheech and Chong's smoke-filled van, with a Whitecloak army in it.

 

Stephen King's "The Fog" filled with a Whitecloak army.

[Scarloc99]

8 hours ago, LightHelpMe said:

This one has me upset too. I know a big part of his arc is his struggle against battle rage and fearing becoming more wolf than man. But in the books, he never outright murders anyone. Dain has no legitimate cause to hate Perrin in the books. He wasn't even there when his father died. It was Child Byar who misinformed Dain and kept egging him on. Geofram was one of only two really decent Whitecloaks in the books (the other being Galad). But the books aside, the show's depiction of him is also that of a reasonable man (for a Whitecloak) whom Perrin had no good reason to kill. He'll know that too, when the dust settles, so now on top of everything else, he has to carry this guilt.

It isn't murder though, it is in the middle of a battle an he was attacked by a whitecloak prior to Hopper dying, in many ways it is far clearer then in the books when there was no battle happening. His defence now is battle lust in the middle of a fight so what he did is not murder, is not illegal.

[Elder_Haman]

18 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

His defence now is battle lust in the middle of a fight so what he did is not murder, is not illegal.

Technically, “battle lust” is a defense to murder (“heat of passion”), but the killing would remain a crime (manslaughter). Now, that’s just US law so maybe there’s no such distinction in Randland…

[Scarloc99]

12 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Technically, “battle lust” is a defense to murder (“heat of passion”), but the killing would remain a crime (manslaughter). Now, that’s just US law so maybe there’s no such distinction in Randland…

I mean in the book he gets off on the technicality that "whitecoloaks are not really people because they are an invading force and not subject to the laws of the land". 

Now where I am unhappy is that in the books he didn't kill Geofram, I would have much prefered if he had been seen killing a different whitecloak and then cast as killer of Geofram by association allowing the viewer to "know" and watch as the truth is uncovered later on. 

[Mirefox]

Are we at least all in agreement that the Watering Can of Valere is up there with Damane pacifiers as one of the worst props of the show?

[SinisterDeath]

22 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Are we at least all in agreement that the Watering Can of Valere is up there with Damane pacifiers as one of the worst props of the show?

I actually enjoyed the look of the Horn of Valere in the show.
It looked totally alien, like it came from an Age before the Age of Legends.

Also, I like this interpretation of what the horn's supposed to be.

 

[Mirefox]

8 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

I actually enjoyed the look of the Horn of Valere in the show.
It looked totally alien, like it came from an Age before the Age of Legends.

Also, I like this interpretation of what the horn's supposed to be.

 

Klein bottle cannot be a horn, though, as there is only one opening.  A horn has to have 2.

[DaddyFinn]

2 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Technically, “battle lust” is a defense to murder (“heat of passion”), but the killing would remain a crime (manslaughter). Now, that’s just US law so maybe there’s no such distinction in Randland…

It"s a skirmish/battle/war/whatever  between different factions. Killing is a part of it.

 

Edit. Yes, Perrin fought alongside Whitecloaks for a moment but Valda ruined it and Geofram killed Hopper aka Perrin's buddy and it's messy and great

Edited October 10, 2023 by DaddyFinn

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

Klein bottle cannot be a horn, though, as there is only one opening.  A horn has to have 2.

There are 10 openings on the picture you posted.