10 minutes ago, Mailman said:

In the books Moiraine is more shrewd and capable than in the show so far, she concealed her identity as well as the fact that she was looking for the dragon reborn as both facts make it more likely she will be unwelcome or not trusted, she is clever and resourceful after leaving Emonds Field whereas here she is far more of a injured passenger in the series, hell she could have easily secured the ferryman with a flow of air to stop him drowning.

She didn't conceal that she was an Aes Sedai in Emonds field in the books. She wore here ring openly and used her real name. Lan was also wearing his Warder cloak around.

Just because Rand and the other kids didn't realise she was Aes Sedai doesn't mean no-one else did.

10 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Fain was sprinkled throughout the first book meeting them in Emond Field, Baerlon, he was the beggar in Caemelyn Following them through the ways being captured outside Fal Dara before being questioned by Moiraine in Fal Dara. They may be able to catch up on some of the character but with the speed they are travelling im not hopeful as well as the fact that it would appear he was not consumed/melded with Mordeth as the trollocs never entered the city and Mordeth was not introduced at all.

Pretty sure Fain was the shadow we saw in Shadar Logoth. He was seen whistling as he drove into the Two Rivers and we heard whistling in Shadar Logoth just before we saw the shadow.

4 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

2nd try: who was the guy who was running with the first FD, and then poofed.

He was a figment of the other guys imagination, due to Saidin channeling madness. He disappeared when Liandrin pointed out no-one else was there. Also, no reason to believe he was a False Dragon rather than just a channeler.

Loved the banter between Rand and Mat in episode three.

From memory so not 100% accurate.

R: Mat, the man who once walked while a little chilly.

M: You're funny now! That's a new wrinkle.

R: All roads lead to Tar Valon.

M: That's not how roads work.

R: Come on, we'll take turns.

M: Do you think she'll be up for it?

2 hours ago, ArrylT said:

 

Yes!  Plus I loved that nod to Mistress Alys.

 

I thought her monologue on horseback was epic.  4 minutes and her facial expressions were spot on at all the key moments.   The other actors said they were truly enthralled by her while the scene was being filmed.   

 

Her flash of a smile as she mentions Manetheren as a thorn ?

All the while showing she is suffering from the Trolloc wound. I've already mentioned it, but the layers to her acting in the episode were phenomenal.

8 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Wow. Your town is attacked by 8 foot monsters out  of myth, half the people are killed, in words, but seeing it on screen makes it "far more brutal." Just need a more vivid imagination.

I mean in terms of body count and destruction, also Egwene's involvement. In the books the Trollocs focused their attacks on the forge, Mat's house and the farm and I didn't get the impression a lot of people died. We don't really know what Egwene was up to, but in my head she was holed up in the Inn the whole time rather than being out there fighting and watching her friends die.

11 minutes ago, Whittle said:

Not a big fan so far. Watched the first 2 episodes. Pacing issues and wooden acting. I’ve heard people say that they are trying to cram a lot into a few short episodes but it doesn’t feel crammed to me. It seems we are missing a lot of the story! They would have time for more of what happens in the book if they actors spent less time staring at the pretty landscapes and doing things that, you know, are not in the books. 

I find this interesting. It seems to be far more common for book fans to have issues with the pacing than non-book fans. Especially in episode 1. At least in the reviews I've seen anyway. Also my wife who has read some of the books, but isn't a big fan didn't think there was anything off with the pacing in episode 1. I certainly found it rushed on first watch, less so on a second.

My theory about what is happening here is that those of us that know the story so well are noticing everything that's missing. So it feels like they are jumping from one thing to another, because we know the bits that go in-between. Thus it feels rushed. But for someone who doesn't know the story, they can just accept it as it's presented and it feels pretty natural.

7 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I guess I find this frustrating. You keep saying things like "we're past that level of naivete" or that the writers "missed a layup", but you don't explain WHY we're past it, or what the layup was that was missed, or where it would have fit in the overall narrative.

 

So again, what scene or scenes make Egwene not naive anymore? What scene or scenes with Egwene should have been changed and how? What would you add and where? Try to explain your views to me...

I think in the books Egwene certainly had a naive excitement for adventure that is missing in the show. The Winternight attack was far more brutal in the show than the books, she's watched her mentor be carried off by a Trolloc and thinks she's dead. She is dealing with the breakdown of her relationship with Rand. She seems to accept that the Trollocs might actually be chasing her and the boys and is sharing the nightmares, that she didn't have in the books. Book Egwene didn't really seem to accept they were in any danger until after Baerlon and was just excited to be on an adventure.

I'm not sure what the missed layup is though, because I found that Egwene annoying and unrealistic. I think the place she's in now as a character is similar to where she was at this point the books though.

50 minutes ago, Joe B said:

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Ok this idea that the characters have been “aged up” is nonsensical. In the books the 3 boys are nearly 20 and Egwene is 17

B...b...but, Rafe said on Twitter:

Quote

We aged up the Emond’s Field Five from the books because sometimes TV shows with a bunch of 17 year olds as leads feel more like YA and Wheel of Time isn’t YA

I don't think it's really made clear exactly how old they are in the books, at least not early on. They are actually more like 19 and a quarter. Born in winter, story starts in early spring. So the boys would have turned 19 a few months ago. Looking at the timeline on the Amazon Prime app they are exactly the same age in the show. So Egwene is the only one that's actually been made older.

I think what they really mean when they say "aged up" is they've increased their maturity level. In the books they really are still acting like and are treated like immature kids. Whereas in the show, they have adult relationships and adult problems.

45 minutes ago, Beidomon said:

Several folks on here have noticed it, including me. Evidently this reviewer, too:

 

“It's not that the show looks cheap, by any means. There are plenty of breathtaking vistas and vibrant, richly textured costumes and elaborate sets. It's just that it can't help but feel scaled down, reduced, distilled, made for television. Something about the quality of light in certain scenes seems a bit too sharp, too clean, for a world lit only by sun and fire. The sinister Children of the Light, for example, wear cloaks so blindingly and pristinely white, even as they trudge through muddy forests, that you can't help wondering about their OxyClean budget.”

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/20/1056816693/amazon-reinvents-the-wheel-of-time-for-the-small-screen-with-surprising-turns

I think I understand the complaint about the lighting, but I don't share it. I think we've been conditioned to think dark and gritty equals realistic, which isn't actually reality. The way it's shot looks real to me. I've spent quite a lot of time hiking through dense forests, they are vivid and colorful and pretty bright, in full daylight. The open forests we see them in wouldn't be much darker than an open field.

The too clean argument I don't get at all, look at the hems of the Whitecloak's pants, they are pretty filthy. There are multiple scenes where people are covered in grime, where it makes sense.

Not my thread, but can I respectfully ask concerns and criticisms be left out of here? There are many other threads for those discussions. If you have things you like and things you don't, this is the place to talk about the former, no need to mention the latter.

One more from me: Rosamund's acting as Moiraine slowly succumbs to her wound. She does such a great job of portraying someone pushing through severe pain and fatigue to stay strong and positive.

The Emonds Field Quartet singing of Manetheren. Was a beautiful song and beautifully performed. The harmonies, Perrin's bass, loved it. 

19 hours ago, ManetherenTaveren said:

Think of the mess in the pool she had to clean up afterwards!!  Ugh. Will anyone ever use that pool again???

I found myself wondering about this as well for some reason.  Like, did Nynaeve remember to tell someone before she left or will they find a bloated rotting Trolloc corpse the next time they have a braiding ceremony. ?

2 hours ago, rowdie said:

You liked his singing??  Blood and Bloody ashes !!! I can sing that good and I sound like a wounded mule.    Thom's character is one of my biggest disappointments so far.

Guy's got a good enough voice to be a Disney prince. Pretty sure he'd do ok in a royal court.

2 hours ago, Tim said:

Yeah I don't read that quote in that way at all. It seems more like, "well, in this case we're not going to literally recreate the book's description of this particular costume because e.g. a costume like that wouldn't work given the actor's build, or it would be too expensive, or it would look unrealistically cold or hot given the backdrop for the scene. But we can always explain how and why we moved from X to Y"

I expect there will also be cases where the designer says "I just think this other approach would look much cooler on the screen than what Jordan describes" - which would not be inconsistent with the above quote - but, taking Rafe's statement at face value, it doesn't at all seem like the starting point was to just "let them do their own thing."

Pretty much this. I remember Rafe saying something like his way of ensuring the show had soul and felt real was to give his team creative license, to embed their own soul into their work. He thought that would end up with a better result than mindlessly copying descriptions from the books.

There's a really good interview with Rafe, I think on IGN where he talks about the design of Emond's Field and Harriet's thoughts on whether the roofs needed be to be thatched or not. I thought it summed up pretty nicely how changes can work (and be good) if done for the right reasons. 

8 minutes ago, NightWolf said:

Well actually, I pondered on this very subject for awhile and I certainly feel that the novels were written with some pretty foundational structuring concerning male / female differences with established absolutes. Biological differences that have indegenous traits and accesses that are foreign to the opposing sex. I think its a real world term refered to as gender essentialism? For example, saidin / saidar is clearly a gender specific concept that Jordan created to give the readers the feeling that there are clear delineations between male / female. As a man, I was able to relate well to the male characters of the novels but not so much to the females. I think Jordan developed and penned these contrasts purposely, perhaps to have woolheads such as myself looking at characters such as Siuan, Liandrin and Nynaeve with absolute strangeness, mystery and confusion. A feeling that I still have today concerning my bride... (it's by design).

 

To really get into the weeds, being ex-military myself, I would feel right at home applying as a warder or maybe the Queen's Guards... but if I were to sit amongst the Women's Circle or be a guest in the White Tower, I would feel completely out of my comfort zone and would want to run as far away as possible. Why? Its because of the amazing writing genius of Jordan and his ability to portray these absolute contrasts into words that, atleast for myself, hit home perfectly. He penned these for a purpose, a reason. These gender absolutes are not wrong, it's the universe of which Robert designed. One should not be pissed about it, but be angry at our nation's current political and social battlefield, not a fantasy fiction series that began 31 years ago.

 

Clearly I digress.

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. I also don't believe de-gendering souls removes that tension. It's not like they are de-gendering people. They are very clearly setting up a dichotomy between men and women, look at the reported first minute of the show. People are up in arms because Moiraine dared called (a specific group of) men arrogant.

5 hours ago, Agitel said:

I'm growing tired of the term fridging. Stories are put together from tropes, and fridging is one of them. I think it comes down to execution as to whether it's stale or lazy, or sometimes even in a way blind to culture issues. But I see nothing inherently wrong with having a character arc kicked off with the death of a loved one. 

There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but when viewed through the lense of modern western society, I can see why people would have an issue with using violence against women as a motivation for a male characters arc. Especially when said woman has no other agency in the story, her entire reason to exist is to die violently. I don't personally feel very strongly about it, but I can certainly understand why someone would.

Wow this thread really exploded while I was asleep.

I'm not sure where the histrionics reacting to Rafe's interview are coming from. He basically just confirmed what we've all been suspecting may be the case for weeks now. For me it re-affirmed that they are taking care with these changes and thinking through the effects.

De-gendering souls really isn't (or at least doesn't have to be) a really big lore breaking change. Sure is has implications, but none of them have any impact at all on the major arcs of the story. I challenge anyone to demonstrate how this change effects any character in a meaningful way. Remembering that Rand is definitely the Dragon Reborn.

To be honest I think playing up the who's the Dragon Reborn angle at all is a bigger change, whether or not that includes women. For me, it wasn't a major theme of EotW at all. Not just because it's plainly obvious for anyone who thinks to ask the question (young naive me didn't when I first read it). But the characters themselves never asked the question, none of them, not even Rand went through the first book worrying about being a prophesied savior/destroyer.

5 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

All fine but if you start the first minute of the show by telling the audience that men are arrogant world destroyers and offering no explanation for what lead to that situation then I can see a lot of people unfamiliar with the series quickly being turned off, particularly since the next scene is very likely a group of women describing how great women are (the women's circle initiation).

I can see people with a pre-conceived notion that the show will be "woke" being turned off. I'm not sure the same applies to everyone else.

1 hour ago, Wolfbrother31 said:

Did you watch the latest teasers? 

They 100% implied in the latest teaser that Nynaeve is a possible DR candidate as well. 

Are you talking about Nynaeve emerging from the the blood shaped in the dragons fang, or is there something more overt that I've missed? If the former I think it's a bit of a reach.

56 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

 

1 hour ago, AusLeviathan said:

Nynaeve suggesting that the ability to take a life is what makes a woman strong.

That's odd, I give you that.

"A woman must be strong, with the ability to give life and to take it" Misrepresenting the quote much? I'm not even sure that was Nynaeve speaking.

32 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

 

56 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

What's this? The shot where she holds a knife on him? How do you know she sneaks up on him?

Footage from the new promo shows that she sneaks up on him and places the knife right against him, or do you think Lan just randomly allows people to be that close to stabbing him for fun.

Impossible to tell, because you can't really see Lan, but my take is he's already facing her. He see's her coming and is not concerned about her knife because he is Lan. (assuming you're talking about the bit at approx 0:25 in the new Egwene and Nynaeve clip) 

32 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

In any case, starting the first minute of the show by telling the audience that men are arrogant idiots who destroyed the world for their own hubris (without any attempt to show sympathy to why those actions occurred) is not the best way to start this series and is probably going to leave a bad first impression.

Paraphrasing from memory cause I'm too lazy to look it up. "Men with great power thought they could cage darkness itself, the arrogance". She is calling the specific actions of specific men arrogant, not all men. There is nothing untrue about that statement.

I do agree they are leaning into the woman being the saviors and protectors of the world. Certainly from the Aes Sedai POV. What I think they are doing is setting up the imbalance, to demonstrate how women working alone is not and will not work.

Show-runner who loves and cares about the books. Talented cast. Massive budget. Experienced directors. Excellent composer.

I'd say the odds of it being a well made and successful show are very much in it's favour.

They are definitely using the yin yang. We've seen it many times already.

While they haven't specifically talked about the power having gendered halves. They have shown male channeling being tainted and talked about male channelers going mad. So it's already gendered, why would they remove Saidin and Saidar and invent a new reason male channeling is tainted?

25 minutes ago, Kudzu said:

I'm still not entirely convinced it isn't just marketing, though I'll concede this latest drop suggests it is more likely at least some in the show will believe a female Dragon is possible.

I just noticed the story on the front page says this is actually the first minute of the show, (don't think I saw anyone in the thread mention that?) Which means it definitely isn't just marketing trickery. This has to be the big change Brandon was talking about. I don't like it (yet). But I'm not going to get too worked up until I see how they handle it.

1 hour ago, DragonFairy said:

 

But then we drift even further from the original story. That's the problem with changes. They have a ripple effect, so you have to be very careful about what you change.

 

For instance, in LoTR movies: Aragorn's character was changed from a leader ready to assume his throne to a reluctant leader afraid of his human weakness. But he does his duty always and still helps to save Gondor and becomes king. But, change Sam's unwavering loyalty to Frodo, and Frodo never makes it to Mount Doom, and Sauron wins.

I was actually trying to bring it back closer to the original story to what some others are suggesting might happen. I was positing an example of how a small change, a couple of extra lines of prophesy, that reference events as they occur in the books could add some doubt as the gender of the DR.

I agree, any changes need be very carefully thought through. They'll very quickly tie themselves into knots if they don't consider the ramifications of changes beyond the scope of the first couple of books. But Rafe has mentioned in interviews the ripple effect changes can have on this story, so we can have some confidence they will be logical for the show, even if they upset us book nerds.

I'm still not entirely convinced it isn't just marketing, though I'll concede this latest drop suggests it is more likely at least some in the show will believe a female Dragon is possible.

What if they added some prophecies about Egwene and Nynaeve (maybe even Elayne and Aviendha) using female pronouns. But have it unclear they aren't actually about the Dragon.

I mean 

Even if they include the existing prophesies with the male pronoun, wouldn't the addition of something like that be enough to sow some doubts with Moiraine, without it actually being possible the DR could be female?