8 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Agreed. It's a disease, albeit magical. What's does the Hippocratic Oath say, "First do no harm." The BA "cure" for the disease does ultimate harm. And again, the whole point of 15 Books is to NOT take that approach of the AS, lead by the BA.

There are plenty of problems with Aes Sedai doing things the way its always done, and functioning by custom for customs sake. And this practice and aftermath could use some revisiting. But there are great disanalogies between the previous 3,500 years or so and the final three years after the prophesied savior starts acting for an all or nothing final battle, taking action we only ever see the short term consequences of and never the long term, and which he ends up ending the problem at issue.

3,500 years of not severing male channelers would have resulted in incredible problems. We're told the Aes Sedai only started using severing as a last resort because other methods did failed. We know as fact the land was grossly, physically ravaged and changed for 100+ years by male channelers going mad.

Severing was not the "BA cure." The Vileness went beyond Tower law.

3 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Not agreeing with me. It's handled fine in the series, the way Jordan would have wanted. Every male channeler shown, even "young man" is shown as a victim of the Reds, and no manifestations of "madness" except voices and ephemeral companions are shown. Isn't it odd that in a fantasy series with teleportation and magic, the immediate cornclusion of many is: "Voices...must be madness!"? Even non-Book readers don't see it that way.

 

There's a hundred % chance that everyone in every world will die. However, if they do good before that, what is the justification for murdering them and worse. 

I say this somewhat tongue in cheek, but you sound like a "The Breaking Denier".

I've said my piece on the topic, and I'm drifting away from the show, even if it is related to the plotline of the episode.

5 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

And didn't the Dragon break the world? Using that reasoning all the Forces of Good should have stilled and killed Rand as soon as he was identified. The BT was instituted as a fight against the madness that succeeded despite the infiltration, and contributed to the final victory. The fact that the BA were systematically eliminating male channelers, as they understood their evil charter, should give one pause about the big lie that they were inherently mad destroyers. If so, they should have been protected and heralded by the dark forces.

The Aes Sedai (as a whole) did not believe male channelers were big bad evil persons. They believed they were inevitable dangers to those around them and walking time bombs. Again, the BT existed for less than a year. Even if saidin was never cleansed and they survived long enough to fight Tarmon Gai'don, there are clear lore facts that they'd all have inevitably become incredible dangers to themselves and others. The Dragon Reborn was prophesied, and the WT, the non darkfriends at least, understood that he must not be gentled. But again, the Red Ajah mission to prevent another breaking and mad channeling of the power was a legitimate mission that was only adopted by its original founders as a last resort because other methods all failed.

It is over simplistic thinking to think that darkfriends twisting it to their evil purposes means the whole mission was a lie to begin with.

We were also told within the books that the women Aes Sedai during the Breaking were loath to sever their male counterparts. It was horrific. They tried searching for other cures and alternatives. It didn't stop them from going mad. It didn't stop them from becoming a huge danger to others. The practice of severing was only adopted after much hardship and resistance as a last resort.

Just now, Harad the White said:

Evidence is always nice when there are assertions.

I'm not sure what you're looking for here. The world was ravaged for over a century when saidin was tainted and mad men in mass used their channeling powers to reshape the earth in their fits of madness. Men who channel saidin clearly go mad over time. Many men of the Black Tower who had only been channeling for less than a year were all showing clear signs of madness that were still progressing. All hard facts. It's not an unsupported assertion to claim that 1+1+1=3. We have three ones. Therefore three.

2 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Nope. One could argue, correctly, that the people that overcome the 'taint including Rand are MORE heroic for doing it despite the Despite. The cleansing just puts Saidin on the same basis as Saidar. Before that Saidin was still used for good. Am I misremembering all the good that the BT did before the cleansing? 

We're not saying the men of the Black Tower weren't heroic. We're saying that they were on a path to collectively go mad in large numbers and cause a lot of destruction and even geography changes.

9 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

But are they? Another way to interpret even the Book, is that a cadre of evil AS are out to get male channelers for nefarious purposes. And they use the big lies: they will go mad, they will destroy things, etc--a classic disinformation campaign. The BT was a significant collection of male channelers created to do good, and it succeeds. 

The Black Tower was founded in late fall or early winter of 999, and saidin was cleansed in early 1000. And many men were already suffering signs of madness before saidin was cleansed. If Rand didn't cleanse saidin, the Black Tower would have been highly disastrous, even if they did help during Tarmon Gaidon. The Red Ajah's founding mission to prevent another breaking is legitimate.

2 hours ago, Harad the White said:

Ok, then a follow up. Could they see Forsaken channeling/weaves? And, if so, would the BA, being DFs, not have that influence in their weaves, and look like junior Forsaken? Or a weaves just generically, Saidar & Saidin, without good or evil influencing them.

 

There is a trick called "inverting weaves" that is not rediscovered until midway through the series. Inverted weaves can't be seen. The Forsaken new how to do this. But if they didn't invert invert weaves, their weaves could be seen like any others.

1 minute ago, JenniferL said:

The Wheel of Time is Certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes. 
 

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_wheel_of_time/s01?cmp=TWRT_TV_WheelOfTime_CF

 

So Rafe will be fired any day now, I guess. 

I guess I'm not sure how it all works, and how episode reviews are counted against season reviews. The season reviews come to 70%, and I wouldn't think mid-season its score would be considered "settled". But what do I know.

Don't get me wrong, I want the show to be Certified Fresh and have great scores and draw more people in. I'm being honest when I say I'm a bit confused as to how it works.

Other reasons to go to the Eye: A new foretelling. Or Intel from Siuan.

4 hours ago, AdamA said:

Even as a book series, Wheel of Time does not try to be realistic about language. There is absolutely no reason that, 3,000 years after most of the world was speaking the old tongue, they would have reverted to speaking English. Robert Jordan did that because it's the language he spoke, not for any other in-world reason. 

I never took the language they're speaking in the series as actually being English. That's not a judgment I'd have ever considered making. 

Bela is to the Creator what Shaidar Haran is to the Dark One.

8 minutes ago, Joe B said:

Episode 5 teaser:

  Hide contents

"A LING TIME SINCE WE'VE BEEN HOME" 

To me, Lan has only ONE home.

WTF?!?!? I couldn't even pay attention to the rest of the clip.

*This is not the books* *Calm down* *This is not the books* *Calm down*

*Enjoy the show for what it is* *Relax*

I will watch the clip later and continue to enjoy the show. Sometimes the writing clashes with my expectations, though. Huge dissonance that I must navigate.

Before I opened the spoiler tags I thought it'd be something big.

1 minute ago, Elder_Haman said:

My understanding is that they were angling for a longer first episode and that Amazon forced a good many cuts in order to bring it in under an hour. 
 

I’ll wait for the “Judkins cut”. Good thing the last 3 episodes have steadily improved. 

Rafe has said the "Judkins Cut" never made it past script form. Amazon's length requirements came before any filming was done, so the script was trimmed before filming.

He does say there are deleted scenes he thinks will be added as extras, but that is something different.

Let's keep in mind that Moiraine was obviously stalling so Kerene and Liandrin could recover. Moiraine gives us some not subtle glances at Kerene to see how she's doing. She was keeping Logain distracted for that conversation. 

People wonder at Moiraine's appearance there being suspicious. About her using it as an opportunity to question Logain. It may have been as simple as her being clever enough to know where the real threat was and feeling her sisters' channeling/shielding stop, and her going to try to keep Logain contained with stalling tactics.

Just now, Theseus78 said:

I think it was meant to cause 'buzz' and for people to talk about what it means, etc. Not sure it did that well

I don't know about Logain's reaction, but we're talking about the last two minutes of an episode and so many of our questions are cliffhanger questions that may be addressed in the next one. At least some of them.

12 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

 

They are not saints either.

But likable.

4 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

 

He has just led an army - presumably killing hundreds if not thousands.

He's not exactly a saint.

Book spoilers.

57 minutes ago, Dew21 said:

....I can't get over Perrin.  Why was he married?  And why did he kill his wife and child (She was pregnant, right?)???  HIs relationship with Faile is such a great part of the book.  What purpose there?

And Matt's dad was Tam's partner.  Another great character destroyed for some domestic lesson?  Unnecessary changes....

Without being able to hear Perrin's internal monologue, and while competing with an ensemble cast for limited time, it is a shortcut to bring to the forefront and provide show-justification/highlighting of his struggle with the necessity of violence, why he hates the axe, his fear of the line between man and beast, why he puts Faile off for so long, and why he becomes so ridiculously over-protective of her.

It's not clear at all whether she was or was ever pregnant.

5 minutes ago, Dead Warder said:

Yes, I would hope so since EP 4 they're already starting to establish a difference.

 

What is that incentive? 

 

If you plan on remodeling your house as an adaptation from your original design, you don't kick out your structural support beams while still inside. The WoT universal truth of the One Power is that there are two halves of it, to include differences between them. Unless the showrunners plan on completely substituting the One Power for the True Power, you will need to portray some semblance of contrast.

 

I see your statements as desires towards gender nullification for personal reasons unknown.

 

This is a common sentence opener that I've seen some show defenders often use (predominantly the bold section). It's a signal flare to publicly call for reinforcement when the user gets frustrated and annoyed, often from naysayers. No doubt you'll receive your call to arms as even N&N's such as myself get the occasional brick to the face.

I don't think Tim is saying make them the exactly the same. He's just saying details like "men have a higher power cap but women use more finesse" and "men are generally stronger in earth and fire and women in air and water" aren't details really necessary to adapting the story in eight seasons.

Nynaeve's hair was also flying upward super saiyan style so I don't know. The trivia built into the show says they can't see each other weaves. Moiraine says she can't see men's weaves. Whatever was happening with Logain could be explained away if they wanted to. They could say "Nynaeve's weaving was untrained and unfocused and she also wove visible light and air" or something.

1 hour ago, Gothic Flame said:

Didn't Rafe say he was going to flip the table over on the 8th episode in regards to readers' expectations?

I haven't yet read that anywhere.

3 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Alright, let's take a look here.

The prophecies say it's a man.  People disagree on if the prophecy is accurate.  Rafe already said this.  Re-write avoided.

One power scales?  Only because there's an idea that the DR is possibly a woman.  We've already established the Karetheon cycle is right, problem averted, no re-write needed.  Future incarnations could be female and maybe Saidar gets tained, not relevant to this story.

The Red Ajah.  What about them needs to be re-written?  They're not anti-dragon hunters, they're police against misuse of the one power which when Men use drives them insane.  No re-write needed.

People's perception of female channelers:  What needs to be re-written? 

Do the aiel still only send Men to the Blight?  Yes, because only men touch Saidin and go insane.

Do the Seanchan check their Damage for being the DR?  Probably.  Since their version of the prophecies say the DR will bow to the Crystal throne.  What re-writes does this cause?

Nothing you've said requires a re-write of any kind.

Right, none of it really changes any of the plot arcs. Even if they get rid of "men are in general stronger in the power", there's no big change to any of the story beats.

Perrin and Egwene are encountering Whitecloaks in the next episode.

The Cauthon's being terrible wasn't a separate subplot, it was meant to characterize Mat and also give him some likable moments in caring for and running out into danger to save his sisters.