On 8/18/2019 at 7:41 PM, DemandredFO said:

Maybe she went to the in between realm to have a confab with Gandalf, Dumbledore and all mentoring magic folk.

Now I imagine Obi'Wan and Jaga loudly arguing at that meeting mentors are much better off as glowing blue ghosts while Gamdalf counters no of course dying and coming back stronger is the better, and everyone else looks mortified at these suggestions and start mentioning the ways they died. Then perhaps the old man from The Last Dragon mentions he just had to take a plane ride to let the hero complete his journey.

3 hours ago, 2RiversFan said:

I think the early absence from Fal Dara was entirely a mechanism to serve plot points.  The reason I think this is because of the general population's perspective Aes Sedai have that Mystique about them, noone knows what they're doing, where they're going, or what their motivations are.  While Rand is no longer unfamiliar with A.S., there was still a lot about them he doesn't know or understand.

I think in this case, RJ was merely using that Aes Sedai mystique to build Rand's angst about his situation.  RJ needed the hero to be apprehensive about his situation prior to the events that were just ahead;  more A.S. , meeting the Amyrlin Seat, etc.

If I'm correct about this, it's a bit of a departure for RJ.   His writing style was very thorough; he nearly always had hidden purpose for every little bit of information he gave, and very rarely had "throwaway" information concerning major character arcs.  (I'm guessing this is the reason you have been wondering about it also). As this is very early in the series, I wonder if he originally had something else in mind for her absence in this instance...   

You know, I honestly would prefer if she was just off doing Moiraine stuff. I wasn't kidding when I said even Merlin expies have lives of their own, meaning lives outside the hero, and it would have made the world that much richer if she was attending to personal stuff.

Remember the old man in the cave from the first Zelda game, the one at the start who said "it's dangerous to alone, take this" and gave you a magical wooden sword?

Now imagine the reality of the story was you jumped to take the sword too early and he had been intending to say "it's dangerous to go alone, take this lonely old man with you"

Doesn't that suddenly make him 5x more interesting, dont you want to know more about him? And thus as I said before, supporting characters ought have lives of their own.

Except Luhan, the less known about him the better. Fain too, I very much get the impression Fain backstory would wander deep into Martinesque territory.

14 hours ago, JakeSt4r said:

PG13? Huh? 

 

WoT gets just as brutal, if not more so. Padan Fain on his own gives everyone in ASoIaF a run for their money, and that's not even mentioning half the stuff that the forsaken and shadowspawn do. The difference is ASoIaF ONLY has brutality, whereas WoT balances the brutality with humor, and happy moments. WoT has darkness, sex, and extremely brutal violence, but it doesn't center the entire story around those things like ASoIaF does. 

It is more than that, consider the boy without a sausage, or more to the point how thoroughly his plight was described.

We can guess what happened to Moghedian, we were told in detail what happened to Theon.

ASoIaF dwells in its brutality, revels in it, while TWoT usually only hints at brutality the way an old person will talk around an ugly topic like mentioning someones infidelity as a woman having "one of those golf husbands". Yeah, you can guess how many years ago I heard that one.

5 hours ago, Carebear Sedai said:

 

If you truly think someone with Zoe Robin’s complexion can’t blush red or go pale, I’m genuinely concerned. 

It still doesn't work, for one thing everyone on that cast is far too light skinned, just about everyone in the Two Rivers is described as having a farmer's tan. And sure a few extra carrots a day and a week at the beach could fix that up lickity split, but I am very much getting the impression this wont be thought of.

Beyond that Mat is way too pale. The books often make a point of Rand having a lighter complexion than most in the Two Rivers, yet the guy they got for Mat is noticably lighter than Rand.

Worse, for the Two Rivers folk I do wish they had gotten actors who looked more alike. Its a small village which has been isolated for centuries, you gotta figure everyone is going to be at least 2nd or 3rd cousins with everyone else. After so many generations the only way to avoid that would be even more unthinkable.

I know these are minor things to get hung up on, but I do care about world building and attention to even such minor details would imply care will be taken with all aspects of the story.

Id say poor Tom, but I am sure he still has plenty of Myspace millions to enjoy. Still, I cant help wondering if he feels intimidated when he runs into Zuck at the grocery store

My favorite chapter would be the Trolloc raid on the Stone in TSR.

I know it's not the best part of the story, but I started the series with a copy of TSR someone left on a take a book/leave a book table, and that was where it started to get good for me. Before that it was just confusing, cause I didnt know what was going on, or weird like with the cards and axe and mirror, but that Trolloc raid chapter with its straight action let me see how enjoyable Jordan's writing could be when you aren't confused about everything.

I was just about ready to put the book back on the table before I got up to that.

48 minutes ago, wotfan4472 said:

My only concern with this show, and this is something everyone should be mindful of, is if the show says Egwene is the Dragon Reborn. That to me is botching the show. I have no issues with the casting decisions. I am more worried about  the world and its mechanics like the One Power and how the characters interact with the world around them. Particularly if they make Egwene the Dragon, which completely turns the story inside out.

 

That causes a snowball effect on the whole story, and kills the product when the audience goes to the books to see how they did it there. Particularly after the show ends. How it performs affects any other take on the story in other mediums like animation or video games.

 

We have seen a lot of those projects that have been anywhere from brilliant, to average, to awful and everywhere in between.

 

I have my hopes for the show, but that scenario above is my biggest worry. 

 

As for next casting announcement, I need Lan. How his actor works on screen makes or breaks Moiraine and Nynaeve both.

Is Egwene as Dragon a thing which has even been hinted at? 

It wouldnt necessarily be terrible, or even out of linec with prior worldbuilding-Jordan did once say there is also a female Dragon soul-, but from Dragonmount to the Eye, and everything afterwards, so much would have to be changed that it wouldnt really be the same story anymore and Rand kind of becomes as narratively pointless as the 4th boy on the cover of TEotW.

8 hours ago, Sabio said:

Trolloc and Myrddraal can enter a stedding but need to be forced to.  So there is no reason a trolloc couldn't give birth in a stedding and that any offspring would die.  Myrddraal cannot channel, the OP and TP were used to make trollocs, but it's not needed for them to have babies, they have babies like everything else man trolloc and female trolloc get together and make trolloc magic.  Not sure where you got "Myrds are the result of Trolloc fetai which can channel" from.

The percentage of Trolloc births which are Myrds matches the percentage of human births which are channelers.

Two, we know being able to use the Power opens people up to vulnerabilities others do not experience. No Myrds cannot channel as they are, but being able to touchh the Source leaves them open to Shadow warping in the womb.

Myrds are Shadow warped Trollocs, how you missed that I do not know.

Three, if Shadowspawn can spawn outside of the Blight, then why have they not overrun every ecosystem?

On 8/13/2019 at 2:31 PM, The Gambler Matrim said:

I don't think a Trollic would survive e very long in a Stedding. Might not get a welcome reception if you know what I mean!

No, I dont know what you mean. Ogier are exceptionally polite and I am sure they only kill Trollocs cause Trollocs do Trolloc stuff, not cause they are Trollocs.

If one came to a Stedding and was all "I just wanna have a baby" I am sure the Ogier would be accomodating.

On 8/13/2019 at 3:14 PM, Sabio said:

A stedding would have no effect on a trolloc birth.  Trollcs breed like humans, the companion states females are mostly just used for breeding so they are never seen outside of the blight.  The OP and TP were used to create trollocs and shadowspawn, but they don't need it to reproduce.  But yes it's born a myrddraal.  They are the twisted offspring of Trollocs in which the human stock used to create Trollocs resurfaced,  but tainted by the by the evil that made the Trollocs.  So basicly when a Trolloc gives birth it's usually a Trolloc, but sometimes a Myrddraal happens

 I dont think you followed my reasoning. Myrds are the result of Trolloc fetai which can channel. We know being able to channel leaves one open to effects of Power(Turning, extended life span, Rand's kids able to channel since the womb being super good at it). In Myrds case it is the TP making them Shadowmen.

But there is no power accesable in the Stedding. So no causative source of change from Trolloc to Myrd.

Toothere is the question of whether Shadowspawn can even spawn outside of the Blight. 

There are plenty of nasty critters in the Blight which could be ecosystem wrecking invasive species, but they never leave the Blight.

And thats just on land. Now imagine the Oceanic Blight, and yet the seas are not filled with such horrors as born of that area.

@szilard The Dragon Reborn may(or may not) always be male, but the Dragon is not always male. Jordan explicitly stated there is also a female Dragon soul.

And of course Rand was not the DO, he was a PoV character for crying out loud.

As for who won the Last Battle, I would say Fain.

We know a bit of him was absorbed by Mashadar, and we know Mashadar has learned to exit the ways, and we know it lives in a seperate world where removing the DO's influence does not remove the product of that influence, and we know not even the entire Tower could be certain of destroying it.

Just a matter of time until the Wind gets out and starts doing Fain stuff.

I think, to depict channeling, they should just duplicate the origional Super Mario Brothers star effect.

Just have tbe character star flashing crazy colors and play the star tune.

10 hours ago, The Gambler Matrim said:

I just read in aMoL where Demandrad thinks to himself that he came to Taim to recruit him to the Shadow.

Well that settles that, even if it is  a Sandersonism.

Thanks for the research.

It still leaves the narrative question though of why, once it was decided Taim was not Demandred, Perrin smelled such odd emotions from him.

But there's probably no more answer for that then there is for the early bookisms.

On 8/8/2019 at 2:28 PM, DemandredFO said:

Yeah some of these scenes and characters are going be hard without inner monologues, like I just relistened to TOM and Perrin making his hammer(won't try spelling) will be hard without the monologue because have the reason that's an epic scene is his narration. Also some of the comic relief comes from the inner monologues especially all them realizing Moiraine and Nyneave can dance and turning into stumbling idiots from shock.

I know it almost certainly wont be done this way, but couldn't they just hanlde thisproblem  by having a narator explain "and then Perrin was shocked to find himself dancing with the intimidating Aes Sedai"?

Just have it be the same voice which does the "Some wind blew around and stuff hasppened" intro narration.

Also, am I the only person who thinks it'd be nifty if they used an older sounding version of Loial's voice? Not sure how you make an Ogier sound older, but that just allows for more creative freedom, and Loial did write the book on the WoT so using an altered version of his voice to narrate would track thematically.

Wait, what did I just write? "And he did write the book on the", oh my, might Loial have been a however stylized Jordan self-insert? Hardly tracks with what he shared about his younger days, but everyone has deeper thoughts, and even Loial had a scary place one best not take him.

As an aside, most shoes are bad. Look at the grotesquely curled and bent knuckled toes common among folk in well-shod cultures and contrast them with the finger straight toes of the sandal-folk. No your Big Toe and it's buddy Index Toe are not meant to bulge at the knuckle and slant outwards as though they were following the contours of a shoe.

And the less said about the horrors wrought by pointy toed shoes the better.

7 minutes ago, DemandredFO said:

If he was turned, I'd think it would be remarked upon when the light began figuring out what was going on. Also turning seems liked it should reverse once the DO is sealed.

Where would they have had opportunity to figure it out? The Black Tower Turnings were discovered only because some were observed being done, Taim's would have been long before that.

As for reversing? Why, because the Blight got better and Shadowspawn died? It's pretty clear those things weren't part of the world, at least in the same way Stedding are not. They can't be entered from TAR. So in a sense they can be seen as needing the Shadow to hold down a dead man's switch upon the pattern to keep them going.

What if the turning though requires no maitenance in order to keep up, rather its just a one time recajiggering of some things?

In any event what does the nature of the Turning have to do with what we saw of Taim considering that if he were Turned he would have been Turned before we were introduced to him, and Egwene slew him before the Bore was Sealed?

8 minutes ago, The Gambler Matrim said:

I would think always a DF. From the very beginning he had that "almost smirk".

Yes, but we still first meet him after his rescue by the Black Ajah

That almost smirk from the begining can be read as written to show Demandred's contempt for the primitives around him, but after the plot swap it could be argued that smirk and Perein's later  thinking he smells like a nutcase could best be read as showing the side effects of a Turning.

Or it could just be a dude who has been channeling way too long but still made his own choices freely.

7 minutes ago, The Gambler Matrim said:

I wonder if Taim was already committed to the Shadow or if it had to do with Rand dumping everything on him and never being around?

He was rescued by the Black Ajah, had originally been intended to be DemandredSurprise when he showed up, and those he promoted mostly showed all the characteristics of being jerks.

My only question is whether he was always a DF, or he got turned himself.

I like idea of an epilgue 5 years later. What would you think if it went something like this?

It begins by explaining that early on in his travels Rand decided to see whats become of the Ways. Unfortunately it slipped Rand's mind that The Black Wind has been known to wait for him near Waygates, learned to exit the Ways, and might have survived after the Last Battle.

Unfortunately after opening up one for a jaunt he was taken by surprise and became the Black Wind's very first victim as it began to spread across the world. 

As Rand was still the Dragon, and the Dragon is the Land, the Land began to sour and darken and grow barren.

Meanwhile as the darkwind spread and fed on so much food, it grew. Oh how it grew, and strange fell twisted beasts and foul blights and vermin began to emerge from it.

But worse, oh so much worse, just as there was a bit of the Black Wind left in Fain, there was a bit of Fain left in the Wind, and the Wind began to collect an army of those with taken souls and send them forth to spread the hate plague of Aridhol and as the wind grew the mind of Mordeth began to awaken.

And so our epilogue shows our heroes struggling to survive in a hunger filled world of frequent drought(the bowl of wind helps, but not enough and as Fain grows stronger it gets harder to accomplish any good through it) filled with dangerous fiends twisted by the madness of Shadar Logoth, mindless hate plague spreaders wander the land and corrupting all they touch, and army of undead thralls led by the Wind, and the Wind itself scouring villages and entire cities clean of life as it feeds and grows. Oh, and of course, all the nasty diseases beasts and creepy crawlies.

And while perhaps a concerted effort of song and chanelling might have beaten the terror back if undertaken early, by the time it was discovered what was happening the Mordeth tainted had already begun too many wars to allow that kind of organization. No force ever mounted at once was enough, and at this point not even a force as large as those first efforts could be fielded even if everyone worked together.

As for Blackwind Fain? Will it ever become what Fain sought to be in AMoL? That's just the question the epilogue leaves us on after explaining where all of our heroes find themselves in the current world.

How would that be for an epilogue? Yay or Nay?

I do not care for that combination of flavors and textures.

Strangely though, I have found that powdered garlic added to milk is not actually unpleasant.

Maybe she just sometimes has a difficult monthly and prefers to be alone for awhile. Must everything be some big riddle to unravel?

Or maybe there was a village a day or two from the fortress where some cook makes just the best whatever Saldean dish she's ever had, so figuring there's no telling when she'd be back up North she just had to make a roadtrip.

Maybe even a childhood sweetheart lived nearby, and though the the passion between them has long since cooled, she enjoyed visiting whenever she had the chance just to reminisce about earlier days.

Remember, even Merlin expies do have lives and concerns of their own.

2 hours ago, DemandredFO said:

It's not surprising that Brandon got the timeline wrong considering the mess it was in. RJ probably only knew it all because he wrote it but he might not have had notes on it for anyone else to follow.

You... you cant possibly have taken me seriously about Bela being a magic wardrobe horse and Sanders and Harriet hiring champions for a lip sync battle, can you?

That thing about The Rock being a champion lip sync contender with Shake It Off though? That was real. Your life will be enriched if you look it up. Like he plays it so well it makes you believe he'd be doing that on his own time just for fun.

So I don't like glasses because they allow little peripheral, and I don like contacts because they hurt my very close up definition. And I dont want lasers because they have risk of side effects.

So i settled on wearing one contact lense in to see clearly and keeping that eye closed while reading to read clearly.

Unfortunately this has led to me develop double vision when wearing lenses in both eyes oand no lenses in either eyes.

Has anyone else here ever had a similar problem?

Less than an afternoon.

There is something deep in Jordan's about Bela, after the story, stumbling out of the same wardrobe she had wandered into so long ago only to find just a short while had passed at the country house.

Now the notes don't make it clear whether Bela is also a horse in the world outside the wardrobe, but I would guess not because what use would a horse have for a wardrobe and how would they build one anyway? It just doesn't make sense unless it were some kinda opposite world where men serve horses.

Anyways, there was an addendum splainin' how Sandy thought that idea was too cheesy but Harriet wanted to keep it in. They both apparently felt real strongly about the matter so decided to settle by hiring champions to contest in a Lip Sync Battle.

Unfortunately for Harriet Sandy hired The Rock and, well, let's just say his performance shook off the wardrobe idea. No surprise really, you can look up him lip syncing Shake it Off at another contest if you like. Amazing performance.

Anyways the addendum added it is still the truth of the series, just not included in the books.

1 hour ago, imlad said:

Yep, that's who you think Adrian Paul is, and he was so much better than Christopher Lambert.

Wait, Christopher Lambert is in the show? Who is he playing and how will the writers ever resist mangling the book's plot however much they must to havr his character get in a sword fight with Tam?

Bah, if I cannot not have that, then at least let him play Lan just for sake of that one line he says to Tam in AMoL.

The meta value alone would make doing one of these worthwhile no matter the narrative cost.

Wait WoTFAQ is down? Pity, a bunch of folk put a lot of work into that compilation, and I enjoyed their sense of humor.