19 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

I don't know other writers, but I follow brandon sanderson, and he goes through a half dozen revisions on every book - those revisions include rewriting significant portions.

so, there's nothing shameful to "admit". writing a book is much akin to some project of engineering - in that the first prototype will never work properly, and it will need several iterations to get it right. an engineer may just come up with an idea for a new gadget and have a perfect idea on how to build it before even going to the drawing board, but that first idea will never work on the first try and will always need tweaking.

This is exactly how I know this because BS was doing a progression blog during the writing of aMoL and he would be like...well, that was an easy chapter, all I had to do was make a couple of corrections and write about a paragraph. 

RJ wrote the ending when he wrote the Eye of the World prologue.

Large portions of the final chapters in aMoL including Rand's defeating and resealing of the Dark One were already written or partially written by RJ in his notes.

Rand in his new body riding off into the sunset and the lighting of his pipe was all RJ as well.

Yep book 4 is pretty much always in everyone's top-3 and probably gets ranked #1 the most.

It's #2 for me behind book 11 and ahead of book 6

On 9/5/2023 at 3:06 AM, Scarloc99 said:

The Aes Sedai can think the test is useful while also totally misusing the ter angeral in a way that makes it dangerous because it is in no way its intended original use. It’s like the oath rod, it actively makes the Aes Sedai as an organisation weaker because it shortens their life and so means research and learning and progression is shortened. But they don’t understand or know that and carry on regardless because “tradition”. 
 

 

What is called the Oath Rod now was actually for dealing with Channelers that broke the law in the AoL. One of the Forsaken referred to it as a Binder or Binding Rod if I'm not mistaken.

The "tradition" of swearing on the Oath Rod is only about 1000 years old and it wasn't voluntary. The 3 Oaths were forced on the Aes Sedai by Hawkwing when he surrounded and sieged Tar Valon. It was basically a Treaty they agreed to so Hawkwing would leave.

Of course this was actually Ishamael pulling the strings as Hawkwing's top advisor during one of his 40/1000 parole times. He knew they had a Binder and what would happen once they swore on it (halving their lifetimes).

But yeah, they don't even know what most ter'angreal do and even some of the ones they figure out how to use weren't used the way they are now. The Oath Rod as mentioned or the ter'angreal that makes Warder's cloaks that was simply used to make fashionable clothing in the AoL.

Others of course are straight forward like the Finn's door frames or the one Rand has that hides him from the Dark One's gaze or of course Mat's Foxhead Medallion. 

I was having a debate the other day with yet another person trying to project later book Mat onto early book Mat and I came to an interesting realisation, at least to me anyway.

Now let me just state right off the bat that this is premised with the assumption (and hope we all have) Mat will indeed be blowing what he needs to blow tomorrow night.

Anyway, so despite losing Barney after ep6 last season and having to completely switch gears, they have actually managed, by putting Mat even further down, to set up his redemption to be an even greater thing. Climbing out from an even greater hole and have even more value/impact than in the books.

A true thorn in the Darkone's foot, spit in sightblinder's eye moment.

If they pull it off tomorrow, there will need to be some props going out IMO

25 minutes ago, MarcusM said:

Aha, I like this idea.

Better yet, I just now got confirmation from a very credible source that Lan is to become the permanent Karaetheon Warder of the White Tower libraries from now throughout the rest of the show. Apparently many viewers complained that all the prophesy was too obscurely delivered on screen and they realized they had to something significant. And obviously they got awesome feedback on the test concepts where Lan explored (... and here I quote my source) "his softer self" and "where he was to contribute more with reasoning, philosophy, literature".  So they realized that they would want him "to deliver frequent of insights from the Age of Legends throughout each episode from season 3". As a result they are apparently seriously considering removing Herid Fel completely and maybe reducing the brown-ish part of Verin's role significantly in favor to make her all black-ish.

So you see, they will make "a very modern completely non violent man out of him".

Or if they do something with them in the Extra's maybe.

If you only watched GoT and never actually read the books then you don't realise how much of that series' prophecies were cut for the show.

The issue of course is if you're going to include a prophecy in a tv show, it means you need to know for sure that you're going to be doing a certain event and you already have an idea/plan of what that will be.

So far they have kinda been dropping them after or just as something is happening.

Blood calls blood poem as Lanfear is revealed.

Both Moiraine and Verin separately quoting the Toman Head fire across the sky one right after each time Rand says he's going to Falme.

So the one passage about "The Dragon healing the wounds of madness". Do they drop that a couple seasons in advance of the cleansing, the season before, the season of, right as he's doing it or right after he does it?

My guess, going by current tends so far, is it will be one of the options during the season of.

10 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I have a feeling Fain won't be the one to stab Rand, I am also finding it interesting that people seem so accepting that Rands first wound will come from Fains blade and not Ishy's as it does in the book. Does this mean he won't be stabbed twice? 

but back to Fain, in the books his story kind of drifts off, it feels liek once he created him RJ wasn't really sure how to end his arc, and then we get BS awful ending. I think we might see Fain die far far sooner. The important thing here is Shadar Logath and the part it plays later, Fain as a character doesn't realy do much other then stab Rand (and kill off a few people Rand want's dead). 

I think RJ always knew how Fain would be killed (by Mat obviously) but yeah the when and how was still the question.

In end, most of the issues people have with Fain has to do with them being fooled into believing what Fain was preaching. Fain thought he was outside the Pattern and was destined for some great thing.

The reality was he was never outside the Pattern, he had delusions of grandeur and he was absolutely insane.

Shadar Logath was created by the Pattern 2000 years in advance of Rand needing it. Fain's whole purpose give or take was to deliver the means to Rand to figure out how to cleanse Saidin.

*EDIT* As well as being the catalyst to set all 3 boys on their respective paths. Perrin going to the Two Rivers to save it and unlocking Mat's initial memories as well as his need to acquire/replace more of them.

I mean you could maybe make the argument that Fain kept some of the Shadow's forces in check from time to time but really once he got Mat and Perrin going and stabbed Rand, he was just a big ole Red Herring for the rest of the series.

6 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I really wish they'd stuck to this. Would have been more compelling IMO.

Yeah me too as the dominoes that fall and the chain of events after this is basically how Siuan ends up being Amyrlin and Aviarin ending up as head of the Black Ajah.

After Tamra is killed by the Black, a hardass Grey becomes Amyrlin but within 5 years she pisses the Reds off so bad they have her killed. Seriously right lol

Then another fearsome woman becomes Amyrlin from the Blue I believe and she catches the Reds gentling men on the spot without trial or even informing the Tower they were doing it. These Reds are punished and 3 are even exiled from the Tower.

Then she after about 4 years, being almost 300 years old passes of natural causes.

Meanwhile the Black sister hunters kill all of Tamra's hunters, even lose a few themselves and are not only killing any child they find born close to when the Dragon was, they're also killing kids that are kinda close that exhibit any out of the ordinary good luck. 

This is when Ishamael makes his set every 1000 year appearance, he finds out that the head of the Black Ajah wasn't trying to just find the Dragon Reborn but is trying to kill him. He is furious, loses his sh!t and kills her where she stands which in turn is how Alviarin becomes the new head of the Black.

So now with all the killing along with the exiles, every sister that was strongest in the Power or held a lot of influence were gone leaving Moiraine, Siuan, Leane, Sheriam and Elaida as the strongest in the One Power Aes Sedai left outside of Cadsuane who most of the Tower thought was passed by now anyway.

That paved the way for Siuan to become Amyrlin, Leane her Keeper and Sheriam as Mistress of the Novices while Moiraine was free to search for the Dragon Reborn. Elaida took off to Caemlyn because of her own Foretelling as an Accepted about the Lion Throne being the key to the Last Battle or something like that (this actually had to do with Rand's mother Tigraine not the current line so tough luck b!tch lol). It also helped that she was one of the Reds that was punished but not exiled for Gentling men illegally and getting out of the Tower for a bit sounded like a good idea lol

At the same time, all this said, I don't think there was any way they were getting all this into the TV show. Hell we all had to dig and dig just to figure it all out from the books. Most of this was not surface information that you're putting together in just one read through lol

Hopefully we get a little of it though, even if it's just some Easter Eggs. That would be cool.

18 hours ago, Guire said:

Its being pretty nit picky but the show just got the green fields and spring dress by Siuan and Moraine wrong.  I assume because they wanted a light mood while they flirted.

 

Aiel war ended in winter.  Rand was born in roughly December.  Tar Valon is fairly far north in Westlands.  Sure there may not be snow in lowlands but that grass would be almost all brown.  At top of White Tower it would be quite chilly even on a sunny day.  In New Spring Lan's last battle before Aiel withdrew it was very cold.  When Mo and Siuan went out to collect birth info it was very cold.  Not a big deal but an error.

They changed most of it really. The weather was the least of it lol.

First off Mo and Su were still accepted at the time.

Second, they weren't alone. The then current Amyrlin Seat Tamra was also present who then swore them to silence that they were even there and sent them back to their rooms.

Tamra then secretly sent a few of her most trusted sisters out to find the Dragon. Unfortunately the Black Ajah figured out something was up, they then tortured and killed Tamra and found out about the foretelling and which sisters she had sent out but not about Mo and Su's presence in the room.

The Black then sent out their own hunters for the Dragon as well as Tamra's hunters which they did and killed them all.

It was after Tamra's mysterious death and the disappearance of those Sister's Mo and especially Su knew were closest to Tamra that the two of them knew they had to be the ones to carry on Tamra's orders in secret.

24 minutes ago, DreadLord31 said:

I like your idea but I bet you the unnamed actor is Arthur Hawkwing & that’s who Rand, in the trailer, says “Who are you?” to. 

Ngl Hawkwing is who I thought he was going to be in the first place.

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

No. She said she moved Logain to keep him away from other Aes Sedai who would study him like an animal. 

"And away from where he would never be able to teach you."

14 minutes ago, DreadLord31 said:

Oh. I just had a season finale cold open idea sooo good… if there are an Amazon ppl on here that lurk, bring this to Rafe as evidence I could be useful! 😉 

 

Ok. Opening scene of Finale. 
Lews and Ishy are playing a board game, Go maybe or a Chess-like game, Ishy makes a move & smirks. He says, “I win again Lews Therin.” 

Lews laughs. 
Lanfear is standing behind Lews scowling. Then you hard- cut to Lanfear taking them through the ways. 
 

Come on. That’s gold! Riiight??? 

My cold open guess involves a little cheating from casting leaks. I'll put a spoiler tag in so don't click if you don't want to know.

36 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

I felt that while writing the end of book 2 RJ was figuring out who Matt would become. 

A younger version of this guy...

20 minutes ago, ilovezam said:

Rand being in the Tar Valon is definitely the last thing Moiraine wanted, and she was willing to FUBAR her relationship with Siuan to make sure that didn't happen.

I don't think this was actually the case. As I mentioned above, I doubt Moiraine could have gotten Logain moved without Suian's approval.

This jives with Mo and Suian's "deal" as Suian's job was to prepare the Tower for the Dragon and Moiraine's was to guide and teach him.

That's why Suian was so pissed that Mo never told her she was "stilled" as that meant Moiraine would have no way of being able to stop Rand if something happened. This along with other Sisters now knowing about Rand it puts Suian in a very dangerous position of being called down for not following Tower Law and possibly losing the Amyrlin Seat.

And as we all know, this is probably exactly what is going to happen next season when this lady shows up...

10 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

Matt and Ishmael. This incarnation of matt is so so so much better then Book matt at this point in the books (basically RJ's version of Gollum with the dagger being the ring), I am open to the tea being the gateway to his other lives. 
 

Bingo! I wish more people would stop projecting pre-cleansing Mat with post-cleansing Mat, it's getting annoying lol

That said, I'm not convinced the tea wasn't just another Ishy trick, we shall see.

4 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Is this not what Lanfear claimed, that Moiraine had set Logain up so Rand could reach him in her home city. But Moiraine (who cannot lie) said that she had moved Logain to keep him away from Rand who she thought would be at the Tower. 

 

Or am I misremembering? Or do people just want to believe Lanfear for some reason, as if her smoldering sexual energy is actually a sign of sincerity?

You're misremembering. Lanfear said that Moiraine had gotten Logain moved there so she could keep tabs on Rand. Moiraine then admitted flat out she had him moved there but it was so Rand could learn.

Lanfear twisted it to drive Rand and Mo apart.

This all jives with Moiraine's and Suian's original plans and I highly doubt Moiraine could have had Logain moved without Suian allowing it.

2 hours ago, Chivalry said:

So...Mat is no longer the son of battles, he's just a recalcitrant cutthroat and thief (in all those other lives)? Please tell me that's just a trick...

 

Too early to jump to conclusions on this. Mat's flicker flicker moment in the books was very similar as he came out of it pleading with Rand to believe him that he wouldn't betray him.

And how many times does it have to be said...stop superimposing book 3 and beyond Mat with book 1&2 Mat. Mat was easily the least likable of the main characters in the first 2 books and kind of a dick to boot.

The finale and next season will be where we truly see where they're going with him, JUST LIKE THE BOOKS.

"The Sword of Truth was an awesome totally original series."

One of my cats is named Aviendha, the white and beige suckball 

1 hour ago, DigificWriter said:

For a clear example of what I envision when I talk about having Egwene die and then be immediately resuscitated, see the conclusion to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Prophecy Girl.

Unfortunately predominately only forming opinions based on 4th wall unconfirmed/questionable sources or what the X-ray does or doesn't tell you especially when it flies in the face of book and/or show source material is not going to get one very far.

At one time I would've complimented you on your passion to argue for your opinion but I have since come to think that it's less about what your actual opinion is and more just about a passion to argue.

10 minutes ago, DreadLord31 said:

Because @DigificWriter assured us that the costume designers word in an interview was gold - see link a ways back. 

Lol say no more, it all makes sense now.

Why is everyone so hung up on the whole a'dam/damane has to die ro remove it?

This is WoT, unreliable narrator is a huge thing.

Shame on people for forgetting that after how many years RJ screwed with us using it lol

You can NEVER take everything said as fact. What a character believes and what is actual fact are quite different. 

Who said it can only be removed through death? What context? Was it  sul'dam telling a damane that? Is it truth or is it to set into their mind that there's no hope of escape?

3 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

Killing her and then immediately recuscitating her wouldn't be a 'fake bout' death; it would be actually killing the character, temporarily, in order to release her from the a'dam.

 

If it's the same in the show as in the books and i don't see why it wouldn't be, that Sul'dam will be scared completely shitless to find out the a'dam works on her. Simply asking her how to take it off should get an immediate honest and extremely emphatic answer. 

4 minutes ago, A Memory Of Why said:

While we're here, what's up with Eggy's capturers bathing her? I thought it was Elayne that has a thing for baths 😅

You realise we're 15 episodes in without a single spanking yet???

27 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

My comments about the X-Ray features and the locations of specific scenes are not opinions; they are statements of fact.

So what fact did it provide you when Nyneave was still in the Arches again?

And what are you even talking about? The X-ray didn't even provide location in s1.

Again, if it gives you something it's a fact. Absent of a fact doesn't make it a fact.

It took me all of 2 minutes to go back to s1e2 at the 19:40 mark when Rand coughs up the bat in TAR to see no X-ray location of being in TAR lol

According to your logic, he wasn't in TAR there cause the X-ray didn't say he was but it's crystal clear he absolutely was in TAR.

The X-ray didn't even name Ishamael in any of his scenes prior to e7.

They keep things out of the X-ray when needed, that's an actual fact.

Move on friend.