spoilers S3E1 - Discussion / Global Fan Event

[SinisterDeath]

  On 3/13/2025 at 1:06 PM, DaddyFinn said:

So that Rand doesn't have a harem. Makes full sense.

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Who says Rand's not going to have a relationship with all three women?

[DaddyFinn]

  On 3/13/2025 at 1:12 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Who says Rand's not going to have a relationship with all three women?

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Sorry, I meant that it's fine for me that Elayne and Avi also love each other and not just Rand and Min will likely be in love with just Rand.

[Turin Turambar]

Yes, I saw it as they were going more for a throuple (fourple?), as opposed to an emperor and his concubines. Plus, from the books, Avi and Elayne were very close. There was some shipping going on in the fanfics. 

[Mirefox]

  On 3/13/2025 at 11:02 AM, Irvyne said:

Just finished watching Ep1.

On the whole, it feels like a step up from the previous season.

Rand and Mat are finally beginning to feel like themselves, with actual, y'know, personalities.

But why oh why did they have to make Elayne and Aviendha lesbian lovers?

I mean, they've already torpedoed so many book relationships in the previous seasons, but come on.

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The writers have an immature and shallow worldview that can’t differentiate between eros and philia.

[DaddyFinn]

  On 3/13/2025 at 1:51 PM, Turin Turambar said:

Yes, I saw it as they were going more for a throuple (fourple?), as opposed to an emperor and his concubines. Plus, from the books, Avi and Elayne were very close. There was some shipping going on in the fanfics. 

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Rafe has said very early on that they were (paraphrasing) "interested in exploring polyamory instead of polygamy". There's been plenty of time to gird our loins. 

[king of nowhere]

the episode was overall great. and it felt like the books, more than the previous seasons, despite obvious changes. i'm super thrilled

 

i was a bit wtf when alanna went alone against a half dozen blacks and almost won. however, i can't get mad at her for doing the one thing i always blamed the aes sedai for not doing: training. alanna clearly is a trained fighter, unlike most women in the tower who are just powerful. still, 1 v 6 is a bit too much. well, she did lose in the end. not too thrilled about that scene, but i can live with it.

 

the other criticism i have of the episode is elayne and aviendha. i was fully expecting the script to bring her relationship to fully romantical (in the book they are only a very short step from that), but i was also expecting it would take a lot more time. the elayne-aviendha relationship, in fact, is one of the best, in saga that's generally mediocre on relationships. elayne and aviendha build up trust and intimacy over time, having them go full lesbian after a relatively short time together loses on that. so it's not a matter of the destination, but how they got there.

 

- rand and perrin were playing snakes and foxes, so they are keeping at least some parts of that plotline.

- maiden's kiss was a lot of fun. for bain and chiad, mostly.

- the bubble of evil was well executed, even if it was mostly lanfear's doing. i wonder if it means no genuine bubbles of evil in this turning of the wheel.

- i was expecting to see more of egwene's accepted test, but we got the relevant concept.

- jaycim carridin keeps his name, but he's unlikely to be a children of the light while also being a gray men.

 

Edited Thursday at 03:20 PM by king of nowhere

[DaddyFinn]

One criticism I have if I wanted to make any, is how Maksim and Ihvon failed to kill Liandrin. They could have chopped her head off immediately instead of stabbing. I know she "can't" die yet so it's not a big deal though. The episode was very good overall.

[Sabio]

  On 3/13/2025 at 3:16 PM, king of nowhere said:

the episode was overall great. and it felt like the books, more than the previous seasons, despite obvious changes. i'm super thrilled

 

i was a bit wtf when alanna went alone against a half dozen blacks and almost won. however, i can't get mad at her for doing the one thing i always blamed the aes sedai for not doing: training. alanna clearly is a trained fighter, unlike most women in the tower who are just powerful. still, 1 v 6 is a bit too much. well, she did lose in the end. not too thrilled about that scene, but i can live with it.

 

the other criticism i have of the episode is elayne and aviendha. i was fully expecting the script to bring her relationship to fully romantical (in the book they are only a very short step from that), but i was also expecting it would take a lot more time. the elayne-aviendha relationship, in fact, is one of the best, in saga that's generally mediocre on relationships. elayne and aviendha build up trust and intimacy over time, having them go full lesbian after a relatively short time together loses on that. so it's not a matter of the destination, but how they got there.

 

- rand and perrin were playing snakes and foxes, so they are keeping at least some parts of that plotline.

- maiden's kiss was a lot of fun. for bain and chiad, mostly.

- the bubble of evil was well executed, even if it was mostly lanfear's doing. i wonder if it means no genuine bubbles of evil in this turning of the wheel.

- i was expecting to see more of egwene's accepted test, but we got the relevant concept.

- jaycim carridin keeps his name, but he's unlikely to be a children of the light while also being a gray men.

 

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Alanna is green, since their job is to be ready for the last battle you would hope they are decent in a fight.  I think the fight would've been more believable had she stepped out and attacked, instead of the need to speak.  They were after all BA so really would be smart to just attack instead of stepping out and announcing yourself.  Ik now some have said the BA should be better in a fight, which isn't really true.  Most of the time when the BA kills its sneaky when they target isn't ready.  We saw from the books the forsaken isn't willingly to teach them special weaves unless they have to.

Edited Friday at 04:16 PM by Sabio

[DigificWriter]

 

  On 3/13/2025 at 3:16 PM, king of nowhere said:

the other criticism i have of the episode is elayne and aviendha. i was fully expecting the script to bring her relationship to fully romantical (in the book they are only a very short step from that), but i was also expecting it would take a lot more time

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Elly and Avi having a one-night-stand can absolutely be the catalyst for relationship development rather than the culmination of the same.

[Irvyne]

  On 3/13/2025 at 11:46 AM, Vosha said:

Eh, is the Elayne and Avi thing that far-fetched though?

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Yes! Absolutely!

That is NOT what that relationship was!

I will grant that Moiraine and Siuan has SOMEWHAT of a reference from a time when they were young, but this has no reference at all.

Imagine if, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, Aragorn and Boromir suddenly started making out and feeling each other up!

Edited Friday at 07:05 AM by Irvyne

[Mailman]

Overall another fairly disappointing episode.

 

Firstly the good.

 

Mat and Nyn and his reason for staying in TV excellent scene, gets back to Nyn looking out for the 5 good reason for Mat to stay given they seem to have abandoned the dagger healing path.

 

I don't hate giving Elayne and Avi a more physical relationship it is however a bit jarring that it was all created for the viewer inside one episode I know they had the trip but that was all offscreen. It will obviously change their relationship from sisters to lovers.

 

Actually one more good scene Moggy and the gray man creation was a very good scene.

 

The bad.

 

The whole battle sequence is a mess I have covered a lot of the issues in other post so will not go through it all again, but I will add that despite Siuan saying they could not let them escape there appeared to be almost no effort to prevent the escape apart from 4 sisters and 2 warders. The escape is not concluded the blacks are just gone as soon as they walk through a door. Alaana getting blasted through a stone pillar hard enough to shatter it and being fine with no healing is insane. 

 

The boys yelling across a tavern their names where they are from and the word dragon is just the height of absolute stupidity. If the tower has any of the spies Moiraine mentioned they would be there in under one hour.

 

Moiraine and Lanfear working together. Just no.

 

Rand almost bragging and joking about sleeping with Lanfear. At the very least you should have some mixed feelings about sleeping with an immortal force of evil used to scare the children of the land for centuries.

 

The whole Avi Rand dynamic feels really poorly set up.

 

However the worst thing by far is again the damage and healing issues. Nyn gets stabbed 11 times all apparently in the torso and not dead, Perrin appears to be stabbed full on in the chest and is fine. Next day they are just on their feet again no issues. The showrunner have made a tremendous rod for their own backs here the stakes are almost non-existent barring a beheading at this point.

 

Very disappointed with Egwene's arches scene and for someone who is apparently going to be the leader of the tower and love it her arc is going to have to bend hard.

Edited Friday at 07:57 AM by Mailman
Added moggy scene

[king of nowhere]

  On 3/14/2025 at 7:23 AM, Mailman said:

 

 

The boys yelling across a tavern their names where they are from and the word dragon is just the height of absolute stupidity. If the tower has any of the spies Moiraine mentioned they would be there in under one hour.

 

 

 

 

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You mean, more stupid than taking a stroll through shadar logoth? Yeah, they never do anything that brash in the books

  Quote

Moiraine and Lanfear working together. Just no.

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Not exactly working together, but the books do have similar moments of the "we can't fight her, she's not killing us at the moment, let's just play along".

Remember that rand worked with asmodean, and moiraine knew and did nothing about it

 

[Mailman]

  On 3/14/2025 at 9:39 AM, king of nowhere said:

 

You mean, more stupid than taking a stroll through shadar logoth? Yeah, they never do anything that brash in the books

 

Not exactly working together, but the books do have similar moments of the "we can't fight her, she's not killing us at the moment, let's just play along".

Remember that rand worked with asmodean, and moiraine knew and did nothing about it

 

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Oh come on.

 

Rand trapped Asmodean and basically held him prisoner and he was Rands only hope of learning to channel. That is absolutely nothing like what we just saw.

 

Shadar Logoth they thought was empty it's in no way at all similar to being told that even going out in the city could lead to the tower capturing the male channeler if he was found. If Moiraine had told the boys about Mashdar and Mordeth then you might have some argument. 

[DigificWriter]

I will never understand why people who so clearly don't like the TV adaptation insist on continuing to watch it because there is so much more else they could be doing.

[szilard]

  On 3/14/2025 at 11:23 AM, DigificWriter said:

I will never understand why people who so clearly don't like the TV adaptation insist on continuing to watch it because there is so much more else they could be doing.

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We do not watch it, we just come to see the catastrophe what happened to our series. 

[DigificWriter]

  On 3/14/2025 at 11:47 AM, szilard said:

 

We do not watch it, we just come to see the catastrophe what happened to our series. 

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Hyperbole much?

 

To paraphrase Robert Jordan, you need to go have an affair with someone or something and get a life.

Edited Friday at 12:01 PM by DigificWriter

[Mailman]

  On 3/14/2025 at 11:23 AM, DigificWriter said:

I will never understand why people who so clearly don't like the TV adaptation insist on continuing to watch it because there is so much more else they could be doing.

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I think I have answered this many times before my attachment to the book series is incredibly deep. I find it amazingly hard to not watch the series despite the fact I think they are doing a terrible job of it. 

 

I largely enjoy debating the merits or lack thereof of the show and I find it somewhat cathartic to actually express my displeasure and hope to sway some of those I talk to to want far better than we are being served up.

 

Do you really want just an echo chamber in a forum. From what I have seen recently I am just about the only consistent poster still active on the negative side on this site.

[Mirefox]

  On 3/14/2025 at 11:23 AM, DigificWriter said:

I will never understand why people who so clearly don't like the TV adaptation insist on continuing to watch it because there is so much more else they could be doing.

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Morbid fascination.  It’s like watching a train wreck or rubbernecking an accident.  This is the most irreverent adaptation I have ever seen coupled with some amateurish and nonsensical writing, and the show itself paired with a handful of vocal apologists who will bend over backwards to describe how the writers and show runners are clearly better than Robert Jordan and who are really playing 4D chess with the story offers a bizarre experience.

 

Plus, some of us love the source material so much that we continue to hope to catch glimpses of what we love beneath the bastardized veneer.

[Mirefox]

Perhaps asked and answered but I’m late to the thread - when they are in the room with all an angreal, the camera focuses on one that is some sort of cross of cubes, if that description makes sense; my memory is failing me - what is that supposed to be?

[Mirefox]

  On 3/14/2025 at 7:23 AM, Mailman said:

 

The whole battle sequence is a mess I have covered a lot of the issues in other post so will not go through it all again, but I will add that despite Siuan saying they could not let them escape there appeared to be almost no effort to prevent the escape apart from 4 sisters and 2 warders. The escape is not concluded the blacks are just gone as soon as they walk through a door. Alaana getting blasted through a stone pillar hard enough to shatter it and being fine with no healing is insane. 

 

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The battles look pretty good visually and I give the show credit for that, but also think they are structurally a mess.  The thing that really irritated me was when Liandrin is exposed and calls on the other blacks to reveal themselves.  They then slowly stand up in the middle of all their sisters, walk to the center of the room, then wreak havoc while all of the other Sitters just kind of sit there watching it happen until the carnage starts.  These Sitters - supposedly some of the best Aes Sedai on the planet, just sit there.  It’s the Monty Python scene where one of the Knights is running across the field while the guard watches for a minute then it cuts to him getting sneak attack killed.

[DigificWriter]

Loving an IP does not require someone to force themselves to consume or engage with every single thing that is related to that IP, especially when it is clear that they do not actually enjoy the specific thing they are consuming/engaging with.

 

 

[Mirefox]

  On 3/14/2025 at 12:46 PM, DigificWriter said:

Loving an IP does not require someone to force themselves to consume or engage with every single thing that is related to that IP, especially when it is clear that they do not actually enjoy the specific thing they are consuming/engaging with.

 

 

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It also doesn’t require contortionist levels of apologetics but the pendulum swings both ways.

[DigificWriter]

Being a fan of both the novels and the television adaptation does not make someone an "apologist".

 

I'm not one of said people myself (because I do not like the books), but I follow a good number of said people online.

[Mirefox]

  On 3/14/2025 at 12:58 PM, DigificWriter said:

Being a fan of both the novels and the television adaptation does not make someone an "apologist".

 

I'm not one of said people myself (because I do not like the books), but I follow a good number of said people online.

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I did not say that and I’m sure there a a couple dozen people out there who love both the books and the show.  I simply pointed out in response to you that loving the IP also doesn’t require one to write a 10-paragraph screed defending every pothole, logical inconsistency, style-over-substance decision, characterization betrayal, etc. that this show is rife with.  And just as there are those who love the books, hate the show, yet continue to watch, there are those that are willing to die on the hill of whatever objectively bad writing decision was made.  If you find yourself comfortably in the middle, great; it’s no secret that I’m clearly on one end of that spectrum where I adore the books and despise what the show has done, but I also continue to watch because I want to (hopefully) see things I’ve only had in my head for decades.

[DigificWriter]

There's no such thing as "objectively bad" because the terms "good" and "bad" are not objective.

 

There's also zero equivalency between the people who talk about the show positively and the people who don't like it but are watching solely for the purpose of complaining about it and about the people whose opinions are not the same as theirs.

 

This whole tangential screed has derailed this thread long enough, though, so this is my final comment on the matter.

 

Now, moving on to other things, I like that Rafe and Co. are committing to turning the "rainbows, carnivals, and 3 beautiful women" story for Rand into a mutual Polycule instead of a stereotypical Harem situation, and that they chose to convey that commitment by using a one-night-stand between Elly (Elayne) and Avi as the catalyst for relationship development between them individually before we get to relationship development between them and Rand.

 

I also wouldn't be surprised if we see similar relationship development happen between Elayne and Min before we get relationship development between Rand and Min.