It's good but not great basically. 1st seasons are often pretty rough. Had the execution for the last episode been better I'd feel pretty good about it, but since it wasn't I'm satisfied but no more. Season 2 has a lot of work to do, particularly with Perrin and Mat.

1 minute ago, Weird_Old_Lady said:

Amilisa had training, she spent years in the tower. Nynaeve and Egwene had the power she needed.... And more

Strictly speaking only Nyneave should have had the power she needed. Egwene can barely channel a trickle.

While I think they went a little too ham with the One Power (how do you make it more impressive now?), it made sense to not have Amalisa lead, not Egwene or Nyneave since those 2 would have no idea what they're doing. 

Issue is if the point of not having Rand show up there as to give Egwene and Nyneave more to do than just stand around pointlessly then I don't feel like that was sucessful. They were basically batteries and did nothing, so either way they're not very active.

I honestly find it much easier to excuse big changes which are done out of necessity. You're trying to fit in as much as you can and sometimes that means restructuring things.

The small changes are what annoy me. So pretty much all of the cold open just annoyed me, because I'm just failing to see why bother changing the perspective on the Strike at Shayol Ghul. But there's plenty of small details like that, a lot of them to do with Lan and Perrin.

6 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

 

Didn’t like Amalisa going super saiyan like that. I would not give a half trained channeler like her control of a circle. That’s what happens when you don’t know what you are doing! 

I think that's the point though to be honest. Don't believe you can burn yourself out like that in the books when in a circle but the catastrophic result made sense seeing as it's a bunch of untrained channellers basically.

1 minute ago, JenniferL said:

Yeah, I noticed that change too. So now it’s just an act of normal hubris instead of a desperate last gamble. 

Not only that but LPD straight up says exactly what's gonna happen if LTT does what he did. The Strike at Shayol Ghul was a messy desperate and incredibly risky gamble in the books by a man with his back to the wall and seemingly no other choice. Here it just seems like an act of complete arrogance by LTT. In the books the split made sense. What's the reason for it here?

Just now, JenniferL said:

Man, I do not know how I feel about this. This is probably one of those cases where not having read the books is an advantage because that was a ton of changes and some of them really took me out of the story. 
 

How about you? 

Well for the biggest things:

I don't think Moiraine is stilled just shielded from the power with the shield tied off. There was clearly a shield going inside her and Ishamael's hand movement made me think he was tying off a knot.

They're 100% baiting with the Loial death right? I think Hammad is filming for season 2 anyway, and they didn't show him actually die just get stabbed. Think Uno lives as well.

Egwene/Nyneave I don't know what in the world that is. I assume Nyneave was near death but not dead because there's no way they're allowing death to actually be healed.

There's a lot of changes from the book but that was rather expected all things considered. Ishamael was fantastic in my opinion. LTT not so much. I don't get the switch in roles between him and Latra Posae Decume. It doesn't matter much I just feels like it doesn't give LTT the stature he deserved.

Well they kept one thing from the book: the ending is confusing as hell.

I'm fairly certain Moiraine was not stilled but had a shield tied off on her. It look nothing like what happened to Logain, and instead looked a lot like when he was being shielded.

I can't imagine they're actually allowing channellers to heal death so Nyneave must have been near death. Hopefully. Because otherwise that just seems crazy.

If they killed Loial then I'm pretty disgusted to be honest. That's just purely trying to shock people. Except it doesn't even work that well because I don't think Loial has been developped enough to really make people care about him.

Unfortunately I didn't like anything from the cold open. LTT acting seemingly out of arrogance instead of desperation. LPD wearing the ring of Tamyrlin instead of him. Watcher of the Flame? That doesn't even make sense. The acting was nice and I like the call forward of LTT's outfit to the Ashaman outfit. But I don't see the point of some of these changes. Yes they don't matter much but still.

Most of the episode I enjoyed. I get why they split the battle at the gap from Rand's struggle at the eye, but after so much building up of the DR's power I feel like that fell flat a little. Ishamael was the best part of the episode in my opinion.

1 minute ago, KakitaOCU said:

EotW Ending in a very simplified statement:

  Hide contents

Rand is tempted by Ba'alzamon, shown his mother, told if he sides with the dark everything will be alright and he'll get everything he wants.  Just surrender and join the side that will give you what you want...

To be fair I feel like Ba'alzamon was attempting that every couple chapters in the first few books. Bit slow on the uptake old fire eyes.

Birth mom killed Companions as a warm up, father basically the most badass Aiel in living memory, and adoptive father a blademaster and pretty much the coolest dad you could have. Kari must have been a retired Amyrlin or something.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

hey, i'm sure someone said in the books "5 on 1 is even odds against aiel, if your 5 are good troops". the companions were good troops, they were 5 on 1, even odds. they all died but mortally wounded tigraine, so the math worked ?

 

but really, i don't see anything superhuman in that fight; except maybe that it was made by a pergnant woman in labor. i don't see any of the wuxia stuff that the article complains about. did he ever watch the olympics as a show of what humans can achieve with training?

this reminds me of people complaining about dana running with a sword because somehow they think running for one full minute with a sword weighting 1 kg in your hand would require some "special training". I'm sedentary and overweight and I could do it.

i just take it as prejudiced people grasping at straws to despise the show.

I don't dislike the show. I don't even dislike that scene. I think that scene is one of the best in the series so far. It being somewhat unrealistic to me isn't criticism, it's fine for things to be a tad unrealistic at times. 

I believe the line is an unarmed Aiel against an armed person is an even fight, if you're good. There's a far cry between that scenario and this one. That being said Perrin and Gaul do kill 12 Whitecloaks on their own in tDR. Granted Whitecloaks aren't Companions, and Perrin and Gaul were not rudely interrupted in the middle of giving birth but nonetheless it's a pretty crazy feat. Certainly nothing suggests that Tigraine was as good as those 2 but then there's nothing that suggests otherwise either.

So while Tigraine's feat is a tad unrealistic to me, I'm perfectly fine with it because the whole point of the scene is to show how ridicilously dangerous Aiel are, not least those who are protecting their unborn child. And, you know, she's Rand's mom. If she's crazy dangerous then surely he'll be as well goes the movie logic.

EDIT: Oh and regarding the Dana scene I never understodd what the issue was with that scene. Only thing I was meh about there was it seemed weird to me that a Darkfriend would be that blatant but it's a minor thing.

4 hours ago, Ralph said:

https://winteriscoming.net/2021/12/22/the-wheel-of-time-boss-wanted-snowy-fight-scene-realistic/

I do kind of agree with the author, if realistic was what they were going for I don’t think that really came across. It was very well done and all kinds of awesome but some of the stuff in there is a bit much to be called realistic.

I did have to laugh at the elite Companions of Illian being made to look like a bunch of nobodies basically.

Bring me Narg?

30 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

 

I can't remember where I talked about the Tam scene before, but I honestly think they were trying to show him as a skilled swordsman but that the Trolloc was too large/wild at close quarters. I think they failed with the scene, and should have included more Trollocs in that attack to show Tam's skill before numbers overwhelmed him and caused the injury. But I don't think the show were thinking "let's reduce Tam's skill". When you watch that scene, they make a big deal of showing the heron and then zooming in as he expertly slashes at the Trolloc. It says to me that they wanted to focus on the sword and that Tam's skill with it subsequently means the sword is important. It didn't work, but I think that's what they were going for. 

 

They just did a bad job of showing what they were trying to show with Tam (imo), whereas they did a successful job of showing what they wanted with Tigraine. 

Agreed, I think the scene was maybe a tad too short. You could clearly see Tam had great skill but the result made him look less than what he is. 

I think it's important to understand though that the scenes are not decided based on who looks cool and who doesn't and dumb stuff like what gender they are. The point of Tigraine kicking ass was also to show that the Aiel are exceptional warriors. The point of Winternight was to show the terrifying reality of darkspawn. Yes Tam gets the shortend of the stick here, and it could probably have been done better. But it's frankly very minor and hardly the point of the scene.

I feel like the still with the avendesora leaf is just targeted towards readers to be honest. To viewers it means nothing, to readers it means ok that still exists and will hopefully come up again in the future. Such as when Perrin travels back to the Two Rivers.

Didn't Rafe say that a character death at the end of season 3 would shock non book readers? Moiraine is the only one who fits that description at the point where the tv show would be. I can't think of any deaths or "deaths" that would warrant that comment other than her.

Building up the Dragon Reborn as a near force of nature would be pretty weird if he ends up doing nothing at the key moment.

3 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

Because the show establishes that Min's visions are actual glimpses of future events.

So you think Min seeing a white flame for Egwene is supposed to be a literal white flame rather than: 

14 minutes ago, Sabio said:

The initial guess is those two are Algemar and his sister standing next to Nyn and Egwene.

The one on the far left has blond hair though.

7 hours ago, Mailman said:

We get lots of references that the womans circle gets there way on most occasions

References yes but compare that to the village council which is directly shown leading, making decisions, wielding power.

7 hours ago, Mailman said:

 

a ship captain as male in a profession that would be almost entirely male is not a great surprise

The Sea Folk would have something to say about that but regardless that's not the point, the point is that is what the 1st book shows, a man in a position of power. 

7 hours ago, Mailman said:

Tuathan maybe but its more of a collective than anything else

 

I don't disagree but the same could be said in the show. Regardless Raen is still clearly making decision for them, holding power.

7 hours ago, Mailman said:

Whitecloaks an entirely male solely military body and you are expecting a female leader. 

 

Yes absolutely, but that is nonetheless the exemple of power the book chooses to show. I am not expecting a female leader in this situation, I am sayint that the situation the book chooses to present is one with a man wielding power.

7 hours ago, Mailman said:

Morgase is far more important than all those characters combined (excluding Ishy as the bad guy).

And you forget that the driving force behind the whole first book is Moiraine who is a immense presence throughout the book intelligent, focussed and ruthless. All traits that have been seriously diminished in the TV show.

I agree Morgase holds more power than all those others put together. However that's still just 1 person, and she's only shown for half a chapter. And she's not present in the show.

Personally I see Moiraine more as a guide for the main party than a person holding power. I'd compare her more to Elyas or even Thom. She leads to party yes but she doesn't hold a position of structural power like a Queen, General, Mayor, Lord, etc. But sure you could include although in that case I would argue Elyas and even Lan command at times.

This isn't criticism of the book to be clear. One could argue the plot lends itself to showing more men than women in the first book. But nonetheless in terms of quantity the book presents far more exemples of men holding power than women, and for a TV show which is quite intentionally meant to shift things to a more female centric setting (at least in some aspects), it would have come across as rather contradictory. Even though yes it would certainly be adjusted in the following seasons.

Who are the two standing next to Egwene and Nyneave facing Tarwin's Gap?

We’ve gone from a book 1 that was 90% focused on Rand to a show that has a very heavy focus on Moiraine instead. It’s pretty natural that the character development is gonna shift.

Rand’s development is what has suffered the most and that’s the unfortunate consequence of the DR mystery. It’s not a man/woman thing. 
 

Egwene has barely had anything to do, just like in the book so I don’t know why people think she’s had the spotlight. She shared it with Perrin for a slice of an episode and that’s about it.

28 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

I'm so glad they cut the weird/creepy dagger belly rubs though. ?

 

Yeah good lord who's idea was that. That was some GOT level dark and disturbing ew right there that I would not care for.

4 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

 

That's a misread of what Min's vision of the sparks and the darkness and her description of it as presented in the TV show was intended to tell us as an audience.

So you think that she had this vision, the exact same vision she had in the books word for word basically, but whereas in the books it was metaphorical, in the show it will be literal as in actual sparks fighting off shadows?

Yeah the actual logistics of those Napoleonic Wars sized armies are definitely handwaved in the books. They usually are in fantasy though.