As tempers go Ninny was certainly up there, but by temperature it's almost impossible to say, perhaps Aviendha as she lived in the waste and would surely often have been hot. Truly, many a time I have taken a cold shower to cool off after a days work in the summer and marveled at how warm the cold water pouring on my head had grown by the time it rolled off my, but there's another possibility. It seems very unlikely Ogier would keep exactly the same body temp as humans so if they tend towards something higher, then surely the hottest would be Erith or Loials mum.

Course if you meant looks that would either be Lanfear, or maybe Erith if you make allowances for attractiveness towards intended target, naturally Ogier standards are different yet she is the only one we saw him get all hot and bothered about on first sight. As for Lanfear, as late as TSR Selene had been be the most beautiful woman Rand ever saw, yet Lanfear revealed made that form look like a child yet to reach full bloom.

OTOH, perhaps Lanfear had the edge as even Loial was moved to marvel at Selene's beauty, and while his human friends failing to appreciate what was fine about Erith might just be their youth and uncouthness showing, it seems more likely it was her Selene's looks as she was said to make even the loveliest look just pretty.

Finally, if you mean on a personal level, then merely pretty would be enough for me to be smitten if paired with interesting features and a kickass personality.

RJ was a fantasy writer, at the time in question the Potter books were bestsellers, quite thrilling for their fans, and took pains to include an international set of characters.

The answer is obvious.

There can be all sorts of reasons why one would not want to be so bound.

What have you read to give you any indication that Elayne's reason is being a secret DF, and why do you find those indications more suggestive than all the indications she is not?

You do raise an interesting question though. The world still contains a lot of DFs, with surely more than a few of them in positions of power and influence. Quite possibly even a few Black Ajah who escaped the purge and survived(or were not present for) the Last Battle.

What shall become of them now? Both the petty schemers among them and the true believers?

And regarding those true believers, might a few of them seek a way to reopen the Bore, or unleash some other sort of evil on the world?

Best we know of the future is they won't accomplish anything major and obvious in the time it would have taken Seanchan to genocide the Aiel, unless sidestepping that fate has loosed some very unfortunate butterflies upon the world, but that seems unlikely.

Yes, you can do what the above admin suggests if you like, but I'd be willing to bet quite a bit that even the above admin has never seen my suggestion fail.

If an Aes Sedai was considered to be worth more than 1000 cavalry at Tarwin's gap, then of course more should have been done to shore up the hot spots in the Border Lands however small The Aes Sedai numbers.

It's not like they would have needed to reinforce everywhere equally, certain places are known trouble spots. In TEotW it is beaten into readers brains that just about every land has sent men to the Gap more than once.

That certainly sounds like a spot which would have merited some extra attention.

Too consider this, for centuries Christendom and the Muslim World rallied vast forces to war with one another not for sake of wiping out evil, but just over who more properly practiced religion.

And yet in the WoT we have a world where true evil exists in a physical base and spreads its influence ever further every year as a festering malignancy on the face of the world itself.

Once the Trolloc Wars were won how could it possibly not have been constant Crusades forever to scour the Blight clean of life and do what can be done to cleanse the land afflicted with Blight? Even get the Ogier invoved, why not? Loial's singing to Someshta's baby Groot seemed to have some effect towards keeping the ookiness away. Surely a host of Ogier singing, in addition to whatever Aes Sedai could do, could have helped at least a little to beat the darkness back. And if the Ogier were really smart they might have suggested getting the Aiel to harmonize with them.

Must have been a lot of DF's holding positions of influence that such a thing never occured.

Just post  a video of yourself standing on a bench, wearing a bucket on your head, holding up an ice cream cone, and shouting "I am the dork who say ducka!" while you shake your hips like Elvis.

Trust me, I have never seen that fail to get someone bonded as a warder. I doubt anyone here has seen it fail.

Look, the Chapion of Light accidentally crossing streams of BF with the Shadow's top guy is so contrived and unlikely an event I just cant imagine it managing to occur in every 3rd Age of the Wheel's spinning. 

What else can you imagine might have been done to fix things, be it either some other way of using the TP or a completely different method of closing the hole in reality?

So several years back some wicked clever and frightfully obsessed fans once convincingly deduced, from writings and interviews, that Myrdraal births occur at the same rate as humans who can channel, and thus Myrds are the result of Trolloc fetai receptive to Power being exposed to whatever for however many months they spend in the womb.

So now imagine Mama Trolloc is living in a Stedding where Power does not go.

What would become of the fetus? 

Is the transformation to Myrdraal a one time thing, like set from the moment of inception? Or is exposure to Power needed to shape the fetus into a Shadow Man over time?

If the latter would the half formed Myrdraal just die if Mama Trolloc spent much time in a stedding? And too would what might have been a Myrd be a normal Trolloc if conceived and carried to term in a stedding? Worse, might it possibly become a channeling Trolloc?

Is it even possible for Shadow spawn to conceive in a stedding, or outside of the Blight at all for that matter? I knows it's never suggested in the books, but only being able to breed in Shadowland would explain why some of the nastier blight creatures have not become worldwide infestations.

Well in any event what are your thoughts on this very pressing question?

On 7/4/2019 at 3:32 AM, Jaglover said:

A good Q&A session

 

I fully agree with his point about height and Hugh Jackman, there is far more to embodying a character than just height. I agree with him that Pike could be a good Moiraine.

I actually don't agree with that point. So far as Wolverine, his height has been raised as a sore point in the comics many times. Not something he is dominated by, but often a significant part of his character.

Too with Moiraine, it says something about her being so coolly confident despite being fun sized .

Being short sucks for lots of reasons there is no need to explain because everyone innately understands.

Even if the character says and does the same things it won't quite be the same character because all interactions will be different due to that significant change.

Now that doesnt mean she must be bad as Moist Rain,  she is an excellent actress and very likely could do a great job, but it is to say what we get from her will necessarily be different from the books because things which are different are not the same.

And yes I am OK with that, frankly my first choice for Moist Rain would have been Rosie O'Donnel. A very different choice from the books, but one I think would have been just right for screen.

3 hours ago, Dagon Thyne said:

Thom is one of the roles which I think should go to a somewhat well known actor.  Preferably a stage actor who has done Shakespear, since I feel that the "High Chant" version of stories would kinda work like somewhat hammy Shakespear style acting.  

Yeah, you have it right. Thom has to be played by someone who can hold a crowd by telling a story, and also seem as though he could do just the same for fancy folk. And that is a rarer talent than it sounds like it ought be. I have seen(and heard) more than 1 mediocre(at best) story teller at a Ren Faire.

It is actually pretty hard to think of an actor who could capture the essential traits of how I imagined him. Perhaps Prince if he weren't both dead and tiny. Or maybe the narrator from 300, he must be old enough by now, but I am not sure if he is tall and lanky enough, but at least he could tell a captivating story.

On 7/22/2019 at 2:30 PM, johnnysd2 said:

John's heritage was shoehorned in and was a total MacGuffin.

 

Not at all. If you pay attention the foreshadowing for Jon's parentage is pretty strong even from the first book.

 Long before the show was even a twinkle in HBO's eye it was as settled among the ASoIaF fan community as Logain getting healed eventually was obvious to the WoT fan community before LoC was published.

On 6/16/2019 at 2:32 PM, Sabio said:

Shaido were considered the most dishonorable clan, but just seems like they tossed away all their beliefs rather quickly.  Taking wetlanders captive etc...

It was bad enough with the names of some of the Trolloc clans, but the bad guy Aiel clan being the one with a name one consonant(or one vowel, depending upon how you read it) away from Shadow, surely I can cannot be the only fan who had to roll their eyes at just how on the nose that was.

Only thing worse, in fiction, which I can think of off the top of my head is Worm Tongue turning out to be exactly what you would expect someone named Worm Tongue to be. Why did anyone in Rohan ever consider that guy's havering to be worth a listening?

What was this thread about again? Oh, whatever, guess I'll go yell at some clouds. You know they were much better at looking like things back in my day, also why they gotta be looking like things? Rabbits are supposed to be little white things hopping through the fields and forests, not giant white things floating in the sky. What day is this?

::wanders off grumpily::

1:  The old man in the cave from Zelda. No, not the one who gives you the sword, the one who says "Let's play money making game" and runs an underground betting house.

2: Error, from Zelda II. His name is Error and he whiles away his days letting strangers know that. I love it.

3:  The "If all else fails use fire" guy also from Zelda II. Like, can you even imagine how badass he is? Some homeless road dusty murder-hobo barges into his house and all he can be bothered to do is give the guy some advice on how to be a better killer? Dude got balls.

3: The sexually ambiguous polymuf majordomo from the Welsh King's court in the Sword of the Spirits trilogy. If youve read the books you know what I'm talking about.

4: Those guys in the first Conan movie who were the last guys left on the wheel with him before he got big enough to turn it all by himself. Like, what happened to them, and might one of them had gone on to have a life like his had they been the last turning the wheel?

5: I will call SW fantasy and mention the kids from Toshi Station.  Why oh why did they call Luke "Wormy"? Did he once have a date with the black haired girl which ended disapointingly for her and humiliatingly for him? If so it doesn't seem like they were very good friends to dub him Wormy instead of never referring to his shame. Kinda makes you wonder why he wanted to go hang out there so bad. Was he that hard up for friends? 

6: Hoggle, from Labyrinth. Public urination is tight.

7: The skinny inn-keeper from TEotW. It was from his naughty nature I got my prized catchphrase, "never trust a skinny innkeeper". I say it all the time, even when it doesn't apply to the situation at all.

8: The overseer in ancient Egypt who calls your character "Spear Carrier" if you make the choices to end up back there in the Twist-a-Plot novel Horrors of the Haunted Museum. Like, what was that guys life story?

9: The crazy old sailor stuck on a deserted carribian island in the same novel. And same question, what was his deal?

Well, that's all I can think of now friends, ya'll have a nice day, and like I always say, never trust a skinny innkeeper.

Seen a lot of talk about Hugh Laurie on this page.

Personally, were this 30 years earlier, I would have thought Christopher Llyod a better fit for Thom than Hugh Laurie.

It ain't 30 years earlier though and Lloyd is far too old now, alas. In any event it don't really matter if the actor can sing, that can be dubbed over like a girl at the Chinese Olmpics.

As for the other roles, I've got some unusual opinions about them. Way I see things the WoT TV series is prolly gonna end up being done in the LOTR/GOT all serious and lingering and mopey mode, and while GoT certainly was more explicit than LOTR it was also following in the same over-serious mold LOTR did, a mold set for modern fantasy productions by the film Gladiator.

And, partially because it just ain't a tone of story telling I care for, and partially because it really is played out by now, I think that is a pity. I'd rather see The WoT done in a style somewhere between Conan and Krull, with a bit of Flash Gordan flair thrown in.

And to that end, seeing as no screen adaption can ever be 100 percent loyal to paper anyway, I would be fine seeing many liberties taken in adaption of the text so long as the proper tone was struck.

So, in pursuit of that proper tone which is the only tone that would properly befit such a product of the 80s as WoT, my dream cast for the WoT would be as follows:

Moiraine: Rosie O'Donnel. A bold choice, I know, but beyond the comedic persona she truly is and intense and skilled actress, and one of the few today I'd expect to have the chops to properly pull off the role.

Lan: Once upon a time, Arnie. Today, The Rock. Alternatively Elba would also do fine, and it might add some flavor to make Randland more mixed.

Mat: That kid from Kickass

Tam: Kevin Costner

Aviendha: Chloe Moretz, if the height issue is too large to overlook she'd also do fine as Egg Wind.

Thom: Kirk Cameron, especially if the writers would add in a line where he asks the kids to call him Mike.

Well these are the only ones to come to mind right now for a dream cast. If more occur to me later I will be sure to share.

12 hours ago, Sabio said:

I can say Far Maddening does not substitute as a steading, Not being able to channel in Far Madding is because of devices not natural.  

Yes, and no. 

Yes it is due to an artifacts effect rather than natural, but that does not mean it cant substitute in some ways. Certainly it substitutes for no channeling.

But yes, clearly I meant can it give an Ogier rest. And I think you are too quick to say no.

IIRC Ogier come from another world, and Stedding are bits of it present in Randland which is why  they cannot be entered from TAR, they are not natural parts of the world. Too the OP cannot be reached from them. This implies Ogier hail from a world where the OP is unreachable, or at least not reachable in the ways of Randland.

So the question about the Longing is then raised, is it due to the lack of exposure to something found in the Stedding, or to the disruptive presence of something not found in the Stedding? 

Now that I write this out I wonder, seeing as The Longing only developed post War of Power, might it be a consequence of the taint?

It is possible, there are lots of little bits about the WoT world Jordan imagined reasons for yet never explained. Take Myrddral for example, it's never once explained in the books but enough hints are given, and enough was said in interviews, that a bunch of frightfully clever and obsessed folk figured out Fade birth rate matched that of human channelers and they were essentially what became of Trolloc fetai which were open to magic power.

Could be a similar never explicitly explained matter with Ogier, Taint, and Longing.

Alright, I'll tackle this first. Let's say he has it after TGH but prior to the start of TDR.

Well in that case forget Tear, he warps right over to Rhuidean to pick up the CK.

"But Zorlon", you might be protesting, "how would he know they are there?" 

Well simple, there was a moment when the memories of all his previous lives were laid bare to him. He knows how this rodeo goes and that the former servants of the wizards will ever be the best bet for the ones entrusted with the high level artifacts, and too just from LTT he knows enough to guess who the Aiel used to be.

But you are part right, he wouldn't know Rhuidean specifically, so I guess first he'd wrap to the Waste and find a random bloke to tell "Yo, I'm da Dragon, Yall call me Carycar. Now take me to your leaders"

Then he tells the chiefs and wise ones the same thing, adding that he is the last real Aes Sedai alive, and tells them to show him where they stash the good stuff. And yes, of course he would have enough sense to be properly polite as he goes about this.

At that point, with the both the CK and enough Aiel channelers(plus Moist Rain) to form a large circle I imagine he has a lot of options open to him and only three things he really ought do, but can afford to do in any order.

1: Scour the Blight clean of life.

2: Cleanse Saiden.

3: Pop over to the White Tower, with a dual CK wielding circle as entourage, and tell Sanche "Yo, I'm the Dragydrag, yall be my buddies now cause we got a Battle to win and Ima need your help, but don't worry I dunn fixed it so we get to play on easy mode.  Also, get off my fancy chair. I'm the Tamyrlin, my claim predates yours by 3k years. I'm the boss now"

And of course he can now take Excalibur(yeah I said it, we all know what the inspiration was) at his leasure and there ain't much anyone can do about it.

Sheeoot, with as much experience as 400 YO Lewy had, and whatever residual remained from the moment he knew all his lives, he might even have the sense to pop over to Shara to see what's popping. Might end up being their fancy Wyld man as well as The Dragon. Almost makes one wonder how dual channeling through Excalibur in one hand and that Shara artifact in the other(not being cute, I genuinely forget its name) would compare to what could be pulled through the CK. Wait, can they be dual weilded?

Only real problem is how might he deal with the Bore without being linked to Ish? Might there be another way to close the hole, or is the best the Light can hope for in this scenario only a partial victory after a relatively easily won Last Battle?

41 minutes ago, mb said:

entering the matrix seems similar to entering telaranrhiod.

and the effects in "real world" while there seem equivalent.

So what? TAR reflects reality. Changes in reality clearly change TAR. The Matrix OTOH has no relation to reality, it is whatever it is programmed to be

It is as like the utter opposite of TAR.

Again, Matrix fake, TAR dealer than real. How are you not getting that distinction?

1: Might have been interesting had Logain become general of the armies of the light after Rand's death. As for Rand he either ought have been the first person to be healed from death or have come back to save the day after being summoned by the Horn of Valere.

2: Fain and Shadar Haran were lazily dropped plot threads, so lazily it was almost insulting to have to pay whatever it was the book cost to see such laziness, and both should have been better explored or at least not have been so played up as though they were gonna be things.

3:Androl and the other fella. They were only included cause the fans were clamoring and Sandy thought he'd throw them a bone to shut them up. And they weren't at all what they were said to be, not really. All there was was a throwaway line about preffering men. A line so cheap that if not for it Androl's story with the red sister could be read as a romance. Kinda makes me wonder just how late in the writing Sandy decided to toss that in.

Ought have made a real effort to include a real character or not have bothered at all.

And yes I am aware people are not defined by their sexuality, but under the circumstances it really does come across as "see, I said he prefers men, happy now? Good, shut up and quit bothering me"

4: Just what was that thing Rand saw in the sky of the portal world, and where do Ogier come from? Yes yes that whole Karethean Cycle thing was kinda interestin7g to read about as it unfolded, but what I really wanted was an in depth exploration of how things work in the WoT 

Like, how much does Mashadar have to eat? What will happen to the Ways now that Saidin is clean? What was Fain becoming? Could Far Madding substitute for a Stedding? If, as RJ said, interstellar travel was possible in the AoL are there any off world colonies surviving in space?

The story was nice enough, but these are the sort of things I really want to read about.

5: Egwene's end fight with Taim is so reminiscent of Sailor Moon's season 1 end fight with Beryl I will never believe any claim that it was not Sandy's inspiration.

Wouldn't be surprised if that was playing on the telly as backgroud noise while he wrote the scene.

5 hours ago, mb said:

the matrix to me is more comparable to telaranrhiod than to "Randland".

I posted about it in some thread, but am not sure where the thread is now if it still exists.

I don't think that idea holds up against scrutiny.

For one thing in TAR anyone properly trained can shape reality to their will. In the Matrix this ability seems limited to Neo and other potentials. 

Curiously enough in the waking world of Randland that ability, or a close enough analogue, seems limited solely to the Dragon.

For another thing the Matrix was explicitly not the real world while TAR seems to be more real than reality.

Well the examples of si.ilarites the above guy cites are pretty common in fiction, no need to assume WoT was the inspiration.

As for Shakespeare giving tales his own voice, no. Anyone who has ever had to read about Pyramus and Thisbe in HS will forever be painfully aware of the source material while watching any version of Romeo and Juliet.

Certainly the bard was not a bad playwright by any means, but he was, like authors today, deeply derivative of the tales already told. Though he certainly did add his own touches which, to his credit, continue to inspire authors to this day.

13 hours ago, wotfan4472 said:

Jordan saying the Shadow winning a minor victory is what happened at the end of the previous Age though. The technological level of the world at that time was completely lost, saidin was tainted, the Breaking had begun and would continue for 300 years. That was actually a minor victory for him. 

 

No matter what happens, if there are people still willing to sacrifice to stop the Dark One, then he loses. How much he loses by depends on what his followers achieve in the time he has access to the world, and how much his influence impacts the world going forwards. Rand's assessment of the Dark One just before re sealing him back up is the correct ultimate purpose of the Dark One and his relationship to the Wheel Of Time and the Pattern. I suspect the Creator also has the same relationship to both as well.

 

Also, to kill the Dark One without destroying Creation with him, the Creator must also be killed at some point during the events. It would be like deciding that if you eliminate Hell, then Heaven must also be eliminated, for exactly the same reason along with all that is associated with both spiritual realms for the reality around them to survive.

Was it a minor victory though? From what we have been told via Jordan talks and Ishy thoughts a major victory would be the end of all things forever, as almost occured in TGS, as for minor victories again from Jordan talks and Ishy thoughts we know there have been times where the Dragon himself was brought to serve the Shadow.

    As sad and bad as the Third Age was, how much worse would it have been if LTT had become the champion of darkness and bent not only his channeling ability but also his special Dragon powers towards that purpose?

    In TGH Hawking said there have been countless times he tilted against the Dragon, but frankly I cannot imagine how some bloke with no magic powers and just a fancy sword could win the day and restore the light.

In any event though my understanding had always been Ish had the right idea about what was going on and the Shadow sought oblivion, and this was something which could only be attained by having the Dragon will it, again an idea based on both Jordan talks and Ishy's board game ruminations. If you don't know what I refer to I'll dredge up the quotes if you need em.

23 hours ago, Sabio said:

Are you saying Randland is really the matrix and Fain is Agent Smith the wildcard trying to mess everything up?

Well I wasn't saying it before, but now that you point it out...

On 7/28/2019 at 5:24 PM, Sabio said:

No not destroy, remake.  The DO is smart enough to understand if everything and everyone is dead then what good is he?  He would basicly be a god of nothing.  But the DO ultimate goal is to make people lose hope, he doesn't care about the actual fighting, as long as people are fighting he has failed.  

Are you sure about that though? I could be wrong, I do not have the books on hand at the moment, but if I recall Ishy's ruminations on his board game correctly and if I correctly recall what Jordan said about minor and major wins for the Shadow, then I must conclude that after 50,000 Books worth of trying to break Rand's spirit it was in TGS where the Shadow came closest to a game ending major win as Rand was about to destroy the world with the CK.

There have been Dark Ages before, according to Jordan, ages where the Shadow won a minor victory. Presumably like one of the bad worlds Rand was shown. Yet as long as the world is still there things can get better eventually.

No comming back from oblivion, at least that was the impression which I got. FWIW Ish also seemed to be of that opinion.

In the sense of "are they the same guy, is that where RJ got his inspiration?" No, that's just silly. The WoT predates The Matrix by a good decade.

And while, if you squint at it just right The WoT can be seen as a simulation story, blatant outright  simulation stories predate The Matrix by decades, millennia for soft simulation stories.

OTOH, there is no reason the Neo character is incompatable with LTT, and we have no idea what stories the other Ages hold, so sure maybe at some point in one Age the machines take over for awhile and build Portal Stones I guess(though if even tales of Mosk and Merc survived one would expect the Rule of the Iron Men to be remembered in lore).

Then again who knows what ultimate pattern the Wheel Weaves? Maybe it is simulation within simulation and a new design starting in a sub wheel of a new matrix each time the machines ascend.

Or maybe they are just two distinct characters from unrelated works who just happen to share some similarities due to the respective authors taking inspiration from similar source material. Nah, that's crazy.

In any event yes they do play largely the same role in their respective stories.

In the sense of "it is the tale, not he who tells it" I think this is a fine and useful idea.

While it would not be the story as Jordan intended it be read and imagined, it would still be the story and there is something to be said for seeing the same story through a different sort of telling.

Too a shorter version would be useful as an easier read.

However this is probably not going to be done officially, at least not on it's own, but perhaps if we could show Team Jordan just how fine a product this could create they might be inspired to act.

So to that end I propose we give them a simplified EotW. And why stop with an abridged version like some sorta Reader's Digest condensed book? I say we go full simplification for an easy introduction to the series.

To that end I will offer a simplification of the prologue in the hope it will inspire others to join this effort.

Prologue: 

    Lewy, a man who used to have an important job, was walking around his house- think a neo-classical/ magitech wonders blend of a mansion with lots of marble- and looking for his wife. He kept calling her name but she did not respond.

    Then a new guy showed up, he was kinda goth looking. The new guy said "Wow Lewy, you are super nuts".

     This startled Lewy(who really was super nuts at this point) enough that he noticed the dead bodies of all his family, his wife included, strewn about the room. After the shock of seeing this he turned to face the goth guy and said "Hello! My name is Lews Therin! You killed my family! PREPARE TO DIE!" And he looked like he was getting ready to do magic.

    Then the goth guy said "No, Lewy, you are the killer. And then he fixed Lewy's brain.

    This made Lewy feel bad so he went somewhere else, by magic, to kill himself by making a beam of light that made a mountain.

And there you have it. The story essentially captured in a quick and easy read, a fun read too. I think the whole series could be done that way. Who wants to tackle chapter 1?