12 minutes ago, dwn said:

 

Sure, a lot of important events happen, but Moiraine returning early wouldn't impact very much except Rand's arc. So long as she's gone long enough that Rand can 1) learn to stand on his own, and 2) start really going off the deep end, I think it could be made to work. At the very least her return could be handled better than it was in AMoL.

 

Sure they could rearange Mat's story line in order to get him to rescue Moiraine sooner, but why would she stay away from Rand then? And if she doesn't what does she do? Just seems odd to me to have her in the show but not have her really do much just hang around to say hey we still have this really good actor on here.

I don't know maybe they can come up with a way to do it convincingly but it seems uneccesary to me.

3 of them die instantly to be honest so the number isn't actually a big deal over so many seasons.

I'd argue the question is moreso would they want to have certain Forsaken have such a low impact while others are extremely important. Would that undercut the Forsaken's aura of danger and fear too much?

9 minutes ago, dwn said:

 

As for Moiraine, it's worth noting that while she was gone for 8 books (and was hardly in AMoL), those books only covered a few months in-world. If the timeline is smoothed out and reorganised, Moiraine could disappear at the end of one season and return at the end of the next.

 

Quick look at the chronology says she was gone 9-10 months.

Regardless there's a lot events that happen between Moiraine's "death" and her return, to many to show in a single season, and they culminate in Rand's ephinany on Dragonmount. I don't see how you have Moiraine be present for that considering the impact her dissapearnce had on him.

6 minutes ago, Ralph said:

They wanted to degender souls. Therefore they used this to create the possibility of Eg and Nyn being DR

 

Not the other way round

 

At least that's what RJII has said

I honestly find that pretty odd though considering the gender of souls is of no consequence whatsoever in the books. It never comes up at all in the books and could have been the exact same in the show. It has no bearing to the story.

 Would have made much more sense to me if they wanted to have DR mystery, and therefore wanted to use Egwene and Nyneave for it, but needed to degender souls as a consequence to do so. Well technically ignorance and mistrust for the prophecies could have been enough as well I suppose.

To me doing away with the Tower of Genji would be like doing away with Dumai’s wells, the Cleansing, the Seanchan attack on the White Tower or the defense of Emond’s field. These moments are iconic in the books, but who knows maybe they will.

Regardless you have to separate Moiraine and Rand somehow. 

23 minutes ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

They wouldn't have to change much to keep her fate in the show while keeping her absence shorter.

 

It all depends on which middle and late book plotlines they want to keep or scrap.

 

  

You’d need 2 seasons at least even with a fair bit of pruning. Dumai’s Wells, conflict with Sammael and the Seanchan, the Cleansing, and Rand’s descent into darkness all have to happen before she shows up again.

35 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

Moiraine has been made the main character of the TV show; short of Rosamund Pike leaving the series, I find it unlikely that this will change, regardless of what may have happened in the novels.

So you think they’ll change her fate? Because it’s hard to remain the main character when you’re MIA for half the series.

He certainly was the main character throughout the 1st and even the 2nd book. Beyond that he remains the foremost protagonist (although in certain books including the 3rd he has relatively little “screen time”), but shares the stage with others.

8 minutes ago, Lethira the second said:

Having shown the two are in a relationship, it would be disappointing if that was indeed their last meeting.  A throwaway scene.  Siuan could quite easily send Moiraine a coded message to "come home" whether that may refer to their love nest and that would allow Moiraine to return to the Tower, given the wording of her oath.

Problem is there’s unlikely to be any opportunity for Moiraine to return. She basically stays by Rand’s side until her “death”, because her life purpose is to ready the Dragon Reborn for the Last Battle.

Honestly I really don't want them to write Gawyn out of the show. He was immensely frutrating but he was meant to be. He's a very real character, someone who couldn't set their pride aside and paid the price for it.

As for Egwene and Elayne, issue I see with that is Egwene and Elayne don't actually spend much time at all together past book 3 and that's gonna come up real quick. They'd have to build a relationship almost entirely off of dream meetings. 

Granted it's not like Rand and Elayne saw each other that much, but that's always been pointed out as being pretty weird.

Concerning Moiraine and Siuan, like I said elsewhere I think that relationship is doomed to tragedy. Even if Siuan doesn't end up with Gareth, they still never see each other and believe the other to be dead or almost certainly so. And Siuan does end up dying.

14 minutes ago, Windigo said:

Didn't they see each other when the Amyrillian visits Shienar? 

Well to be honest I assume that’s not going to happen in the show considering Moiraine was banished and all that remains to be done from their meeting in Shienar is telling Rand he is the Dragon. 
 

It might still happen or course, I just wouldn’t really bet on it. Even if it does though. Moiraine and Siuan don’t cross paths the entire series starting from book 2. 

5 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Didn't the DO want the kids because one was the dragon?  We knew the DO was after the kids because one of them might be the Dragon.  The only differences are instead of three suspects they gave us five suspects and they cut away alot of Rand POV to hopefully not make it so obvious.  

No the Dragon Reborn was never mentioned. Moiraine told them the Dark One wanted them, either one or all, and convinced them by pointing out only their homes were attacked. And to be honest it made more sense, I'm still not happy about Moiraine just revealing to 4 complete nobodies she knows nothing of and has 0 trust in that one of them is the Dragon Reborn. But then Moiraine is, for the most part, a lot less close lipped and mysterious in the show. 

That last part could be problematic when it comes to selling how suspicious Rand is of her. They still have time to build that up though to be fair, and Rand has already shown himself to be incredibly stubborn so we'll see.

1 minute ago, The Purple Ajah said:

Thanks for the link! Yeah, you do have to go digging for it, and it's something that appears to be only in ancillary / unpublished stuff for now.

 

As for the other Dragons, I'm assuming that people are talking about Logain's comments? I am pretty sure that at this point, his perception of what the "Dragons" actually are is incorrect, and that they are either manifestations of madness or his own past lives (who would not be Dragons, since he is a False Dragon). The only Dragon that has been referenced so far is Lews Therin, and if the First Age did have a Dragon (equivalent) I'm not sure that anyone would be able to remember who that was?

There are other clues, such as Arangar, as well as Birgitte saying that her and her husband are always reborn together in the same circumstances. But no one in the books ever straight out says that souls are gendered, simply because it’s never relevant. Even the Dragon Soul has lives where he doesn’t fulfill any great purpose so for the most part souls have little importance in the story. 

4 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

Even if the show keeps the identity of the Dragon Reborn homogenous with the novels, Rafe makes it clear that we will see onscreen evidence of the metaphysical change that was made with regards to the gendering of souls by talking about past Dragons having been female.

 

Anyway, this has gotten 'into the weeds' a bit, so to pull it back, the broader point is that saying that the Dragon Reborn could potentially be female isn't merely a misdirection, even if the show doesn't actually change the Dragon Reborn's identity, because it is a tangible manifestation of broader show lore about the nature of souls.

Yeah, I’m rather confused as to how that will come up to be honest. The only people who would remember incarnations of the Dragon that predate LTT would be the heroes of the horn and they barely show up with the notable exception of Birgitte. 
 

Only other way I would see for it to be brought up is through Rand madness, but I would really dislike any changes there, as the conflict between Rand and LTT is incredibly important.

To be honest, the nature of souls is itself rather irrelevant to the series. The only person it matters for is the Dragon Reborn and since that will be Rand, I’m having a hard time seeing what the point of the change was.

Moiraine and Siuan’s relationship basically ends here anyway. They never see each other again, or perhaps they do just before the last battle and Siuan’s death. In fact both believe the other is dead before that I believe.

I can see Gareth and Siuan happening if not exactly as it did in the books. Moiraine and Thom seems harder, but it came out of nowhere in the books even though I thought it was rather cute.

Can’t wait for Bashere to show up and basically introduce himself to the Dragon Reborn going “Yo I got booze”.

All souls reincarnate over and over. The heroes of the horn are special in that they will often relive similar live I believe (but not always) and they spend their off time in the dreamworld where they remember all of their lives.

The dragon soul is very particular in this turning because his is the only soul (at least in the context of the books story) whose reincarnation has prophecies announcing it.

As for the female dragon question, it was answered several times by RJ so I’ll just link the interview database:

https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt='dragon soul'

Short answer is: no the Dragon is always male because the Dragon soul is male.

Long answer: if the wheel needs someone to fulfill the role of the Dragon but it needs to be female, then the wheel will weave in a female hero (perhaps one specifically, perhaps whichever one is needed depending on the situation) tied to the horn.

Essentially the idea is that in another turning, Rand/LTT’s soul might not be the adversary Dark One, but that in this turning (and in countless other’s) it is. In other words you could easily have a very similar story to the one in the books but with gender’s switched around. The souls however, would not be the same.

2 minutes ago, swollymammoth said:

I mean, so long as the Dragon Reborn defeats the Dark One at the end of season 8, everything's cool, right? 

 

Anyone can create a set of parameters in which a given concern is meaningless. 

Literally no one said the concern was meaningless. Simply that people are making premature assumptions without waiting to see how things turn actually out. As they’ve been doing since the beginning in fact. 
 

If anything is tiresome it’s the 37 582 posts that all basically have the same take utterly lacking in nuance which can basically be summed up as “The series is doooooooomed”.

Not to mention the super classy constant attacks on Rafe as a person from people who I highly doubt have met him and know basically nothing about him.

Sorry spoiler 

16 minutes ago, WOTReader2 said:

 

In the book, I am pretty sure they are trying to escape Trollocs when they go to the waygate, but are still trying to make their way to Tar Valon. It is only when they find the path broken that they change direction and, eventually, head for the Eye of the World. They also know about the forsaken/dark one wanting the Eye of the World before going there, so it makes sense. 

 

In this episode, it is a quick discussion with no evidence: 'The Dark One is at the Eye of the World; you think one of the five are the Dragon; let's send them there with no training or experience.' It is so bad and there was no reason to do this. 

 

No, in the books Moiraine hears 3 different mentions of the Eye of the World: Jain’s message to the Ogier, the maiden’s warning to the tinkers, and Baalzamon’s statements to the boys in their dreams.

From this she decides in Caemlyn to go directly to the Eye instead of heading to Tar Valon.

Her justification for taking everyone to  the Eye in the books is quite similar to the show. She realizes she has 3 ta’veren, with Nyneave and Egwene also mentioned as being important, and basically decides to take all of them to the Eye because the pattern will weave around them where they are needed most or some such thing. Pretty damn similar to taking all the possible Dragons if you ask me.

21 minutes ago, WheelofJuke said:

Respectfully disagree 100%. It's poorly made television that misses the mark and makes an unwatchable hash of the source material. I am by no means a nitpicker or 1-for-1 adaptation idealist. If anything, I'm for streamlining of the source material. But it seems like they chose to keep words but not concepts. 

That’s totally fine you have a right to your own opinion and perspective on the show. I’m simply saying that so far the show has hardly been a failure when you take overall audience reactions. And ultimately that’s what’s gonna matter.

I would also strongly advise people to listen to Loial and stop being hasty. Judging the entire show without seeing the entire season narrative it is trying to build is being unfair in my opinion. 

3 minutes ago, DreadParrot said:

Any chance they are altering the pacing and focus of the show to try and create a Ned stark moment? Basically are they going to potentially off moriaine in season finale and they want to stage her as focal point to amp the shock factor? We have the emotional and trending moment in place with “on your knees”. Could segueway into Ishy echoing that statement before killing her…

No chance Moiraine is offed at the end of this season. Her and Rand have barely interacted so far.  
 

That said the comparison to Ned Stark is accurate in the sense that the 1st season is essentially being told from Moiraine’s perspective not Rand’s. At the moment she is the main character of the story and we pretty much knew this ahead of time. I don’t get how anyone can be surprised that fair amount of time is being spent on her story.

I highly doubt anyone at any point in the production said this is gonna be a 1 to 1 adaptation that will be completely faithful.

Acting like the fandom has been betrayed because the show is veering off the book path somewhat to bring other perspectives to the fore is just silly. No matter how disappointed some might be with the show, and believe me I am by no means 100% pleased by it, there is simply no valid metric by which the show could be called a failure.

1 minute ago, Gothic Flame said:

I think with this latest episode we can readily see the difference of a work that is an "adaptation" and "based upon the books."

Feel like we sort of knew that before we saw the episode though. The characters were never in Tar Valon in the book and we knew they were only going through the Ways in the next episode. So necessarily a good chunk of the episode was gonna be entirely new for the show.

So Mat remains in Tar Valon... I can only imagine the reason has something to do with Padan Fain and the dagger. Something tells me he's not healed entirely.

They mystery of the Dragon goes on. At this point you might as well point at Rand because of how much they're trying to hide it. Many Dragons suuuuuuuuuuure.

Siuan all but says Egwene and Nyneave are ta'veren. If you're gonna hint that strongly why not just say it especially since she has the Talent? Or is their strength alone making her think they are key to what is to come.

A ter'angeal linking Moiraine and Siuan's rooms. Cool.

When Moiraine was speaking her oath to never return to the White Tower until Siuan called her back, I couldn't help thinking "And she never will".

Really wish they had Moiraine pull out a leaf when opening the Waygate, even if it's with the One Power. Seems like it would have been an easy thing to do but oh well.

WOULD YOU PLEASE LET LAN LEAD THE WAY INTO THE WAYS! IT'S LITERALLY HIS JOB DESCRIPTION!

I know I'm nitpicking but come on. 

Weakest thing is the justification for going to the Eye. Incredibly abrupt and out of nowhere. It was quite sudden in the books too I suppose but still.

Overall an episode wholy focusing on Moiraine, Siuan, and the Aes Sedai. Was really good overall. Now lets get back our favorites please.