55 minutes ago, Mnemosyne said:

 

Ooooohhh especially as Moiraine made the earlier comment that the Dark One "is already whispering in our ears." Yes, I think this is a likely theory.

Me too!

On the one hand I feel like TGH being written as an ensemble piece from the start will make it easier to translate more directly to TV. On the other, I feel like they really need to get to the end of TDR in S2, so that will require a lot of condensing and adapting. So I'm very mixed... unfortunately.

3 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

The fact that the voices are real means he is not. 

We don't know what the voices are just yet.

5 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

The female shadow, "He will betray you like your parents." The male shadow, "Like your sister." Past lives?

 

And why would Logain have past lives? Is he the DR?

Everyone has past lives. Though I'm skeptical about Logain remembering his.

I get screenrant in my phone's browser feed and they're all clickbait tabloid articles. While I'm not saying the criticism can't be valid, screenrant is just not a food source. 

Edit: In addition to not being a food source, screenrant is also not a GOOD source.

58 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Some of the changes like no shifting cloaks and no ageless faces I assume are simply to make things easier. How do they give people ageless faces?   Some are just to build drama like the shielding.  Not sure why a whole episode needed to be focused on Logain to demonstrate how powerful he is.  Some for time, like no Berelon.  And some leave me wondering if they even read the book.  The leaving the Two Rivers and Tam giving Rand a nod had me going WHAT?  These people are going off with a dreaded Aes Sedai and no one cares?

 

I assumed the bright light was there for all to see,

The whole episode shows the corruption of saidin, shielding, gentling, linking, different Aes Sedai Ajahs and their differing roles and tensions. It did a lot of work in introducing these concepts to show watchers outside of monologues. It wasn't just to make things more dramatic, it did a lot of mechanics legwork.

For all the plot deviations from the book, it should be considered that this episode introduces a lot of key book concepts without resorting to long exposition.

We learn a bit about why Aes Sedai are color coded and that there are different Ajahs and about what two or three of them do. We learn there is tension between Aes Sedai and no love lost between Liandrin and Moiraine. We see relationships with Warders have their own variations. We are really introduced to the taint on saidin and the madness. We're introduced to shielding and, in a climactic moment, linking. We get a bit of lore and misdirection about channeling sickness and early madness. We see the Fade clearly cautious around the ruby hilted dagger. We learn about the Way of the Leaf. There is a lot there.

29 minutes ago, flinn said:

 It might be even with Shadow and Bone, but I dont think it is behind it. Witcher and GoT definitely have a leg up at this point though.

I liked the Witcher and am excited for the next season, but I always said it felt very B Movie. And that's okay.

1 minute ago, Sabio said:

Anyone else notice how hard the series is trying to change things so there is no mention or hint of the BA yet?   Kerenne dying to Logain, the seven sisters who went out to look for the Dragon dying to the white cloaks.

I think it's just pacing how fast they're rolling out new information and antagonistic organizations. I've no doubt they'll be introduced.

6 minutes ago, RhienneAgain said:

R.e. the shielding, it looks to me like the shielded channeler can channel inside the shield, which is quite a deviation from the books - think Nynaeve and Rand scrabbling for weak points in their shields to reach the source - albeit, probably not a significant one in terms of plot points.

 

 

To me the scene with Logain and Steppin looked like Logain was able to block the axes with saidin once they passed through the shield but couldn't get any weaves past the shield.

I think the shield wasn't fully in place and he was still trying to fight it off in that scene.

11 minutes ago, flinn said:

 While I dont think Lan and Moiraine are having sex, it is certainly implied to the audience to mislead them.

 

 They have a 5 minute conversation about the bond and then the warders all head to the tents to bang their Aes Sedai, then Lan gets up saying the same thing and head to Moiraines tent. Certainly they want to red herring the relationship, so hard for me to see why so many seem to be upset that people think they might be having sex.

The immediately following conversation between Lan and Moiraine, though, makes it clear that interaction was platonic. There's no sexual tension in that ending, and I'd be upset and sensitive to it if I thought there was any.

While people might have wondered as Lan goes to the tent, the scene definitely doesn't end on a question. It ended clearly platonic.

29 minutes ago, divica said:

If the warder retires to someone's tent, there is a single bed and she has an intimate talk with that someone then yes.

 

If the idea wasn't to make you assume that the warder is going to have sex then don't show several warders retiring to have sex and your female warder doing the same at the same time...

 

It is a matter of knowing how to write a scene...

It was an obvious contrast.

2 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

 

I am not talking about Episode 1.

 

I am talking about the scene where the Green Aes Sedai wanders off for a threesome, then Lan says he is retiring too and wanders off.  Nynaeve is looking on clearly wondering whether he is off to shag Morraine.

Then we seen them together in the room, get on to the bed for a chat and then it cuts away.

 

It was an entirely sh*t sequence.

 

And we see again that they don't, contrasted with that Green and shown the different relationships some Aea Sedai have with their warders.

5 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Did Episode 4 drop at 12:00 AM EST across the entire USA?

12am GMT Friday and 7PM EST Thursday.

I'm confused by what's being said of a Circle of Thirteen rule. People can be severed from the source by a single channeler. You don't need thirteen. It may just be Tower custom.

The thing about a circle of thirteen is that a linked circle of thirteen of even the weakest women can't fail to shield another channeler.

7 minutes ago, comicbooksarethebestthing said:

This is not true. This is the way you want it to be, but it's not lol. in the books only rand is more more powerful and that's because her block and he still not better than her at healing.

I can't tell if you're trolling. Alivia (freed damane) is much stronger than Nynaeve. Nynaeve is nine tiers beneath Rand's strength. I can link you to a wiki, but the books themselves are clear Nynaeve is not "just below Rand."

https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/One_Power

1 minute ago, Harad the White said:

The X-ray said it was "Elusha Salid." Unlikely, imho, to be the whispers of other lives, when named specifically and incarnated. Also as posted earlier, that is what Lanfear (under various names) does in the book. Why they chose another name is curious. Salidar is a prominent smallish city in the Book.

I think Selene would have been too obvious for book readers if it is Lanfear, so they may have went for some misdirection.

What @Maximillion says about RT is correct. It had been at 67 and 68 for awhile, climbed up to 73% a a few days ago, then dropped to 72% a few days ago. All before Ep4 dropped.

3 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

And it's mine.

But seriously, the lack of response is making me think that the Elusha character was in a special version of the episode only on my Amazon. Don't you think a character trying to influence Logain to evil could be important?

I did wonder if Logain was hearing the whispers of Forsaken rather than other lives. But there's very little to go on.

Also, I want Ba'alzamon to talk and not just be creepy fire mouth guy.

3 minutes ago, divica said:

It isn't exactly that.

Without the shiny cgi this could have been a scene with nyn healing people without making it look like a great feat of power that makes logain think she is much more powerfull than him.

What they wanted to establish was doubt, particularly in Logain's mind.

4 minutes ago, divica said:

I agree that rand does pretty unbelivable things at the end of the books. 

The problem is should an adaptation try to make that final battle in the eye of the world more belivable or create even more unbelieving shit along the series?

 

Because if you want to create a good series you have to make it belivable. 

I agree. But I think you're approaching the scene as a book-reader rather then let the show breathe a bit to establish its rules.

3 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

 

Except it didn't when Moiraine healed Tam.

 

According to the show's timeline, Moiraine's had that wound for nearly a month. Plus, Moiraine is on the level of strongest Aes Sedai in the Tower. And some Aes Sedai have more talent for healing than others.

There's lots of things to nitpick on, whether we think they're a big deal or not. But there's nothing to nitpick with Moiraine's scar.

If you want my personal preference, I wish it stuck with hands-on-the-head healing rather than holding hands out at a distance, and no AOE healing, but that's me wanting to stick closer to the book's presentation of how the weaves work. It's not inherently show-world breaking, though.

3 minutes ago, Dreamwalker said:

I actually thought maybe this wasn't supposed to be a scar but like new pink skin. But I also had another thought-

 

The other healing they have showed, with Logain healing the king of Ghealdan and with Moiraine healing others hasn't shown scars. 

 

But this was a wound from a Trolloc/Fade. Maybe they'll have those be especially nasty and leave a scar - something about thakan'dar blades.

I agree. Plus different levels of skill with the weaves, plus exhaustion, plus power level, plus the episode is basically bookended with two acts of healing which can be contrasted and compared.