On 9/2/2023 at 6:52 AM, DaddyFinn said:

Removing the long intro also helps. It was so good though 🥲

But it is very anti RJ, I was hoping for a catch-up on every characters story to that moment every time they appear on screen 😉 

1 hour ago, DreadLord31 said:

So some things I noticed on my rewatch I didn’t notice the first time (and I apologize if these were already mentioned - I didn’t read everybody’s posts): 

 

A) The Perrin scene with the flies is a nod to a chapter in the Great Hunt that happens to Rand, but that was a much creepier scene in the book though. 
 

B) When Liandrin takes Nynaeve to see a break-bone fever healing she says, “We come only to observe. 
 

  Hide contents

Which is a lie. She also came to steal crimson thorn for her son. Who I’m guessing is a product of rape — pretty sure that’ll be a backstory reveal… 

C) Liandrin told Nynaeve to come by her room and then “just left, perhaps you can catch her” I.E Liandrin wanted Nynaeve to follow her?? 
 

D) Verin says, “3 Fades we’re hunting you…you didn’t think we’d ask why?” 
 

  Hide contents

There were 4 Fades… writers incompetent? Or that detail slipped in there on purpose? 

E) Verin says that there are books in the Tower that speak of “Toman head, battles in the sky, a sword of flame, and a branded hand that wields it.”

  Hide contents

Perhaps we will get a season finale that is awfully close to the book

 

F) Moiraine explicitly says that “Isha’mael cut her off” (not stilled her)

I predict that, there will be a payoff before the end of the season that her line “we were never equals” means “you were always better than me, Lan”. 

I am convinced it isn’t her son and is all part of her plot to cover up her real nature, or it is her son but he was “punished” either for her or his failure. The writers are leaning heavily on this, if season 1 was about “who is the dragon” season 2 will be “who is really good and evil and who can be trusted”.
 

Selene with Rand, Elyas with Perrin, Min with Mat, Moraine with Lan, and Liandrin. 

Setting Liandrin up as a relatable character and then doing the switch (possibly with her death end of season 2 at the hands of the girls), means when Elaida comes along the audience more easily get sucked into thinking she is a darkfriend leading to another gotcha moment. 

2 minutes ago, Cipher said:

I am not sure if Liandrin is a dark friend in this adaptation.  I think she will be the Amyrlin when the tower splits.  And Elaida wasn’t a dark friend.

No she is, there are far too many hints, and the writers are trying to hard to make her relatable. I think we will find out she was at the “social” at the start and her mission in season 2 is to see the girls and mat end up with Suroth and Ishy. Now, it might be that she isn’t outed as a black ajah in show and stays in the tower. But right now I am not convinced we are going to get the split of the tower in anything like his get it in the books.

49 minutes ago, Cipher said:

I find it is less about politics and more about the tone and tenor of the WoT.  Rampant sexuality was not present in Jordan’s work and in my experience in polite society it is not discussed.  Good friends sure and some men just let some stuff out once in a while (usually when no woman are present), but I don’t think it improves Jordan’s work at all and it has turned away the people I wanted to enjoy the show.  

I have had this debate before but I think it is a perspective issue, for me when I read WOT it felt full of sexuality and references to sex, especially later on. In many ways as a  teenager it was one of the things that kept me going. No it isn’t overt on the page but read between the lines and RJ puts plenty of theater of the mind stuff in there. I always expected the tv series to be sexual, not GOT levels (and it isn’t) but this isn’t Harry Potter either. 
 

Certainly amongst everyone I know it hasn’t caused any issues, one friend happily lets her children watch it with her. 

2 hours ago, Mailman said:

I am not saying you are wrong but she could just be being tricky if she removed the mention of Mat from the letter then read it to him she could just be referencing the letter as it is now. It would be remarkably clumsy for her to be caught in a lie so easily when not necessary.

 

Also 12 letters delivered in a 5month period in a society that does not have any real postal service is a bit optimistic.

Maybe they have a great owl service :). 
 

But no we are going to get that reveal once she ensures everyone is sent to ishy and the Seanchan. 

3 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I don't think you're meant to. I think they very much want her to be unlikable right now.

I mean I don’t like her much from the books, I see it from Rand’s POV and she is just controlling and secretive, at least until she realises the end is coming and even then she is still frustrating. 

A thread on the TV forum about the arches got me thinking about the nature of ter'angreal and how they relate, in particular as a type of magic item in other fantasy. I think we as readers get caught up in the mystique of them, mainly because the characters do, and so that means we mis something fairly obvious. Ter'angreal where not special in the age of legends, everyone had them and 99.9% of those that where made where created to do fairly mundane everyday things. You want to brush your teeth without moving your hand, there is a ter'angreal that does that, you want to call or text a friend to meet up, a ter'angreal does that, when you meet up you want a hot coffee or a hot chocolate, the barrista has a ter'angreal to make the water or milk piping hot for you and another ter'angreal keeps the 30 different types of milk cold. Aviendha finds a kindle amongst the Kin's horde, I like to imagine the reason it has taken the aes sedai so long to get through all the books on that is because whoever is studying it is wrapped up in trying to find out what happens to Anastasia and Christian, or does Bella get with her vampire, or, in a meta meta verse, is reading a book by this guy called robert jordan hoping that all his volumes are present (or even worse a series called Game Of Thrones, which was never completed). But I digress. 

Mesaana even tells us that many ter'angreal could be used by non channellers, the way I look at it is the power replaced electricity, TV's, the internet, something as mundane as lighting a house, all done using the power. 

Then the war happens and most ter'angreal made are weapons, but thats a different conversation. 

This means that the odds are that any ter'angreal found doesn't just, as we already know, have a different purpose to the one it is used for, but it's purpose in the age of legends was totally mundane, no hidden depth or deeper meaning. 

And so we come to the arches. I have seen many ideas postulated online as to what these are, but my own idea is that they are as simple as a form of entertainment. A form of VR, someone can come along, say what they want to experience, pop in and have the time of a lifetime, maybe, like that VR suite in minority report, pop in and kill there boss, or live out some deep dark fantasy, or maybe just escape from the hum drum existence of a dull life and go on holiday. Now the Aes Sedai channel into them to create a novices darkest fears, and maybe that was a setting, or maybe that was the weave they found that works when really, if they just tweaked the settings a little you can get a better picture. 

I like the idea that we attribute this huge significance to items that, in there day, may have been as mundane and pointless to everyday life as a segway is in our world. 

7 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

 

I'd thought it was Verin too until a WoTTuber or podcaster I follow mentioned that the initial shout and sonic wave were from Adeleas (although she doesn't appear in the scene) while the fire weaves that helped kill the last Fade were from Verin.

 

Yes. See above for the explanation as to why I said what I said about their source.

Which makes sense given what we know, she needs to keep her cover enough while also not getting in the way of other plans, so better to come in at the end when it is obvious things are handled. 

5 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Fade fight is bright enough when room is dark. During daytime I couldn't see anything

It was dark, not as bad as the battle of Winterfell which I still have no real idea what happened in it because it was so so so dark. It seems to be a thing of modern TV making that they want to create these dark droody scenes and then ignore that most of us dont have a home movie theatre to watch it in, and if you change the contrast to see the dark scenes everything else is far to bright.  

2 hours ago, Samt said:

In regards to Nynaeve's accepted test, I think there is quite a bit to unpack.  

 

1.  I'd agree that we don't get a good explanation as to why the arch comes back.  And it's clear in the books that the accepted test is not strictly speaking a construction of the imagination of the testee.  It is more an alternate reality that the pattern (or some other similar power) is constructing in order to entice and test.  This is evidenced by the fact that Sharina Melloy appears in Nynaeve's accepted test in the books even though Nynaeve has not met her yet.  I hope we get a better explanation, because as it stands it feels like a cheap fake out death to build tension in the episode without really building the story.  

 

2.  Is the implication of the third arch test that Nynaeve experienced years of an alternate reality?  Her child appears to be 5 or more and we know that she didn't just get dropped at that point.  She started by leaving the tower.  Alternate realities may have time pass much faster or slower compared to each other, but they always seem to be passing at normal speed to those in them.  Therefore, it seems that we are to understand that she lived an entire 5 years in that reality, day by day, and remembers and experienced all of it.  That's a bit wild.

 

3.  What is the show trying to imply is the nature and point of the tests?  In the books, the point is that the testee is presented with a compelling reason why she should stay in the alternate reality and do something.  This is seen in all three of the tests and also explicitly explained by Sheriam.  But this doesn't really seem to be the case in the show.  In the first test, her parents are already dead (or at least beyond her help) and Nynaeve is stuck with no way out from the cellar until the portal appears.  Unless the show is suggesting that little girl Nynaeve wanted to stay and fight a hopeless battle armed with nothing by a cleaver, the portal seems to be just offering her a way out of an otherwise intractable situation. It isn't presented as an alternative to staying and doing something that might also be important.  Similarly, in the third test, the portal appears after Lan, Matt, and Perrin are already clearly dead. An overwhelming force is approaching.  And the test even allows her to take her daughter to the portal.  Once again, the portal isn't some type of test presenting two compelling options.  It's just literally the only way out.  Asking her to abandon her portal family and friends to an uncertain fate because she has a path she must follow at the tower would have been an interesting choice.  But gruesomely killing them means she isn't asked to make any real choice.  I was predicting that she would be forced to leave her daughter in order to make it to the portal which would have been a horrifying scene that would have made you think (especially considering that the portal family might actually be real in another dimension/reality).  But the actual ending in the show feels pretty flat and pointless.  

I think we sometimes miss the point behind these wonderful magical artifacts which is that we don’t know the point of them, or how they have behaved for anyone else mainly because Novices are almost prompted not to tell anyone anything about it. 
 

We look at it through the eyes of the Aes Sedai who see these works of wonder and try and determine what amazing purpose did they have when, the truth is, in the age of legends the one power and items using it where so prevalent that 99.9% of one power items where created Simply to make life a little easier, automatic toothbrushes, shavers, mobile phones, watches, tv’s anything you think of right now that uses electricity in the age of legends it existed but was powered instead by the one power. 
 

So when we look at the arches the instinct is to think there is some deeper meaning to them, when, it is far more likely that these were trinkets used to amuse and titillate. Think of it a bit like in the minority report he goes to an underground VR place where people pay to live out there darkest fantasies, I think it is far more likely that, in the age of legends, people paid money to go into the arches and live out some fantasy of life, the Aes Sedai think it shows you your fears, who knows there might be alternate weaves that let it show you your desires, pleasures or anything else. Maybe even programme it to give whatever experience the person entering it wants. 
 

To understand the deeper meaning behind how the arches work means we have to understand what there original purpose was and that “peak behind the curtain might actually disappoint more then it will excite as you come to realise, wait a minute there where arches in every city and people used them for the most mundane of reasons. 

5 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Okay, this is at least a semi-plausible out... we'll see if there's any discussion of it at all

I mean I don’t really care, sometimes it is good to leave stuff unexplained, especially when it comes to “magic” and “magic items” the Aes Sedai don’t have any clue what the arches are, how they work or what they are really for so it makes sense that they will have absolutely no clue what happened and by extension, because WOT is a POV story neither then should the reader/viewer have any idea. 

4 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Fades became cannon fodder along with trollocs and regular soldiers had no problem with them at the end. 

  Hide contents

Talmanes

alone killed several fades while being mortally wounded

To be fair he points out that one way of beating a fade is to already be dying so you don’t need to avoid a nick or cut. 
 

Sword fighting in WOT seems to expect you will get cut up even if you win, if an enemy blade kills even with a non lethal nick then it becomes harder to fight them. 
 

Having said that until that moment in MOL fades go from the dark lords crack assassin type monsters to a bit of a laughing stock who can be killed easily by Aiel, Wolves, a 2 rivers man with a bow and arrow and in dying always take a load of trollocs with them. 

4 minutes ago, Guire said:

Wonder if Adeleas will also be involved in Verin and Tomas alternative lifestyle?  If not we may have a familial killing.  Also a majority of sisters with spoken lines this season are likely walking in the shadow.

I think we will have a sister killing sister, the TV writers may choose to reveal Verin is black far earlier and openly so the big reveal has time to properly ferment. In the book we never really see Verin being a “darkfriend” so she is still pure and good in many readers heads when she makes her big reveal. I do wish instead of hiding the fact she was black RJ had made it openly obvious and almost made the reader hate her, only to then have the big reveal as a true moment of redemption. 

1 minute ago, SinisterDeath said:

Book Aes Sedai didn't know it broke the 3 oathes... 

and because of that I am now unsure, in a good way, because I wonder did she lie to Lan indicating the oath rod is broken now (hence she can return to the white tower). 

16 minutes ago, Gary Again said:

Really enjoying the season I was sad about Uno but that was an amazing way to introduce the Seanchan and he doesn't do all that much more in the books. I do like him trying not to swear around Nynaeve and the scene with him and Galad later in the books but I get the feeling a lot of that stuff is going to get cut so it was probably worth it. What I didn't like about it is the actor himself seemed like a big fan so that part kind of sucked but it was an epic way to go and it seemed fitting for Uno to go out cursing the Seanchan and refusing to bend to them. Someone had to not go along so you could see why people did go along and this really drove the point home.

 

I really liked the change with Rand helping out at that home it was just a beautiful way to show his character and it totally makes sense that he would want to understand what insanity is and looks like and it makes his choices later have more weight because he knows exactly what he faces. Loved that the guy that he's helping is an actual blade master and knows the moves I really enjoyed that part. I'm hoping we get a cat crossing the courtyard training with those two where Rand has to wonder if the guy is just screwing with him lol and it would be even funnier if Lan later shows him the same thing before meeting the Amerlyn and he realizes the guy from the insane asylum is a legit blade master. Also liked the Logain thing but the payoff for the wine was pretty bad but it seemed like he was trolling Rand by spilling it so I wonder if he's trying to get a sense of Rand's temperament before deciding if he wants to help him kind of like Cadsuane did in the books. 

 

Nynaeve's test was great I was actually wondering if they would just have her leave and what that would do for the story so they kind of got me with that one. Nynaeve just slamming that glass of dirty water was absolutely perfect too. It's kind of similar to Egwene and Nynaeve later in the books but this was just cool and pure Nynaeve. I kind of liked the direction they were taking things with Liandrin too it makes more sense than Siuan and I kind of liked that she was the one willing to tick off Nynaeve to get her to channel it makes sense that she would be willing to bend the rules and push harder to get the result which was what Nynaeve needed. Siuan works but I feel like Liandrin fits this great and it added more depth to both Nynaeve and Liandrin and just makes things more interesting between them. 

 

Elayne was absolutely perfect and I agree she wasn't how I imagined visually but her attitude is just perfect I loved her basically calling Egwene's belongings trash in the nicest possible way. Also really liked the prison hooch because it fit Elayne having interest in common things like swearing so brewing hooch was great and I just liked her line about Egwene living at an inn should be able to hold her liquor lol. The books had that really awkward start "Are we friends now?" so I thought this worked so much better and I thought the line about I barely know you was a clever call back to how easily they became friends in the book but then the fact that Elayne just showed up and was there for Egwene was perfect. Whoever is doing casting for this show deserves an award because they are just consistently doing amazing work.

 

I was worried about Donal's Mat but he is doing a great job and he seems to have great range as well being able to get mischievous Mat as well as serious Mat. Barney did a really great job with this too so I'm just glad to see that Donal is keeping it up. Barney's line about 'That's not the way roads work' is still probably the funniest line I've heard in WOT so I'll always appreciate his contribution. With the scene where it looks like he's stabbing Rand the books did a lot of great foreshadowing and they did a lot of great false foreshadowing where you thought that a vision or prophecy meant one thing and it was fulfilled in a completely different way. I'd imagine that is how this vision will play out but we'll see. I loved that he came back for Min and I liked how they were playing off of each other they actually fit really well as characters but we didn't see them interact until so late in the books. Also really loved the scene with Egwene and the out of focus Mat in the background it was a really nice image and felt like Mat.

 

Also enjoying Perrin and the hunt for the horn, I really like that Ishy adds doubt about the wolf because it makes Perrin's reluctance there make sense and Fain laid the groundwork with making Perrin think he was going to the shadow using his axe. I think they did a really nice job setting up his struggles with the way of the leaf and the wolf brother. Also like how they are showing the wolf power I think it works well and I think as he gains power we will see full blown Tel'aron'rhiod. I'm actually really digging Elyas and I loved that when he rescued Perrin he fairly obviously tore someone's throat out with his teeth. That is very normal for a wolf but shocking for a human so it sets up Perrin's fear and struggle with the wildness nicely. Also really liked Ingtar's conversation with Perrin because you understand it from Ingtars perspective but it's the perfect amount of shocking from Perrin's perspective. 

 

The Moiraine Lan thing is I think basically taken from the book they are just doing it earlier in the series but when she was passing his bond in the books she was purposefully trying to anger Lan to start to break their bond so he was willing to move on because I think she felt if she didn't anger him he would never move on. I think they were able to be more subtle in the books because they had more time but there was a good period there where she starts to lay down who is boss and making the bond chafe and I think she even says that at some point if the bond chafes you need to move on or something to that effect. They are basically doing mid books Moraine and Lan now and it just fit into Nynaeve's test perfectly they got me with it I thought Nynaeve was going to walk right out of the tower and the timing with Lan riding up kind of made sense because of what we saw previously so it paid off to me.

 

I thought the fade fight was great because their shadow walking ability brings something new to the fades compared to the other shadowy bad guys we see in fantasy. They are going to be compared pretty hard to ring wraiths so it's nice that they have some things to distinguish themselves and this was done well. I also wish Lan would have had a better showing here but taking out 2 fades and fighting 3 at the same time in the dark is pretty crazy. I think they were showing how much he was missing the bond but when you add it to how people were feeling he hasn't had many moments to shine yet this kind of compounds that. I'm ok with him not being over the top competent though right now as the threats they are facing need to seem significant and if Lan is just always crushing everything his character becomes kind of cartoonish which doesn't play as well in a show. Also I feel like for good parts of the books the shadow doesn't seem all that threatening I think at the beginning it is and then at the end the shadow shows up for the last battle ready to rumble but in the middle I think RJ struggled to show them as capable threats which is where I think people talk about how ineffective a lot of the chosen seem to be is that middle part of the books. This fight and the shadow walking of the Fades sets them up to be more capable threats as we get to the middle of the series so it's hopefully part of making a more consistent threat level throughout the series.

Fades for me went from these scary creatures in the early books to a bit of a joke that don’t really threaten anyone really. Aiel, Wolves, a two rivers man with a bow and arrow can all take them down easily, I think also as they went from being just 1 or 2 in the early books to then seeing them in there hundreds on the battlefield you see them more as very good soldiers vs the monster enemy. 
 

They gained a bit more threat in a memory of light, Talamanes shows the true threat they can offer even when dying, and a big deal being made of Lan taking on 2 at once on the battlefield but for me but then the mystique was long gone just because I don’t think you ever see a fade kill anyone in the books, they turn up, die, and then more come along later. 

Bayle Domon made my wife happy watching it, given her family name is Domon and she is welsh lol. It’s weird I never gave any of the characters in the books a welsh accent, I did for some reason always picture Uno as Scottish though :). 

6 hours ago, Agitel said:

 

I'm pretty sure they replaced/merged Vandene with Verin, so Adeleas and Verin are now biological sisters.

My only hope here is that her sisters death isn’t what send Verin to the black ajah and instead we get to see that Verin had to do some really messed up stuff in her pursuit of the truth. In the books Verin is sanitised and we get to imagine she was a “good darkfriend” who never once killed a child. 

1 minute ago, Sabio said:

The series would of ran another three books had RJ tried to flesh out and give reasons/histories to most of the bad people.  The companion has histories/motives for many of the bad people, but you simply can't devote a lot of time in a series to why many of the bad people are doing things.  It also comes down to why spend a lot of time explaining why lesser characters are doing what they're doing?

I mean if he had removed all of the “last time in WOT” call back and reminders then he could have used that space for more backstory, I also would have had no issue with 3 more books, one of the issue with Brandon’s books (and for me there are many many issues), is just how much he rushed through storylines to just get to the end. 
 

But on a serious note you can give more of a hint of motivation in just a couple of lines, I genuinely think that RJ just chose not to bother because for him it was good enough that darkfriends are evil and they do evil things I don’t think he would ever have written out fully fleshed bad guys because that wasn’t his style of writing. The closest we get probably is Elaida, but we never really see truly why she is the way she is, and it is hinted at that she is actually “evil” because Fain made her that way (evil man doing an evil thing because he is evil”). 

On 9/1/2023 at 6:44 AM, Jsbrads2 said:

In the age of legends there was a global network of Terangreal to control the weather, but those terangreal were not bowls of wind, those were something else.

the bowl of winds was probably created after the sealing of the Bore. Once the global network was shattered, one or more powerful surviving female Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends created it to prevent the world from being covered in storms and the necessary weaves were given to the Seafolk. 

No those were the bowl of the winds, one of the forsaken specifically says that they have found an item from the age of legends that helped control the weather. If it was made post breaking then the forsaken would have no knowledge of it. 
 

The global network was made up of hundreds of “bowls of the winds” most of them are lost or destroyed. 

Also, those who where unsure if he would be appearing, Taim gets mentioned so I think we will be seeing the split in the tower and Logain vs Taim :). 

So I might be wrong but I think we got our first full American accent in episode 3, and it was Seanchan. 
 

So far Randland has been presented as pan European/Asian with a mix of English, Spanish and Asian accents and looks. I didn’t really think about that, being British in my head I have always thought that the characters in Randland where European and have never given any fantasy character an American accent ever lol. 
 

But I am intrigued if a decision has been made to make the Seanchan American, it makes sense creatively as a way to differentiate Randland from Seanchan, but also the “Americans” are returning back to there home. But I wonder how that lands across the Atlantic with American fans? Did you always envision Randland as American and then the Seanchan would be the European invaders? 

2 minutes ago, Samt said:

I was trying to figure out if they are confirming that they are biological sisters or if it's just the fact that the Aes Sedai all call each other sister.  

I take it as they are real sisters, but might be wrong, the way they interact and talk and the fact they look similar. 
 

I am also loving seeing some great actors from British small screen tv shows appearing, Meera Syal is one I have grown up with, but also Gary Beadle 

Something no one seems to have picked up on, from what I can tell, our first American accent, is Seanchan. So I guess the invading horde from across the sea will be the Yanks then :). (I am a Brit lol) 

10 hours ago, PhilMegrim said:

Welcome to our version of the Red Wedding.  I guarantee now that no character is safe. RIP uno

I mean Uno was a fan favorite but was also a very minor character who has very little of any bearing on the story other than a bit of comic relief in the books. He is a handy character that RJ and BS can pull out if they need a soldier to appear in a scene to at the reader knows. He doesn’t really have much of any kind of an arc (unless you count him becoming a bloody commander at the last bloody battle). He has had his moment in the show and I am pleased that he got to go out refusing to bend the knee to any foreign bloody noble. 

18 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

My $0.02 on E3:

 

The Rand/Selene thing is working. She's insidious. And part of Rand recognizes that. The party was great. "Leave me again and I'll kill you" was great. 

 

Alvaro Morte is a treasure. Looks like Asmo and Logain are going to be merged, which is smart I think.

 

Ishy trying the okie-doke with Perrin is also great. 

 

Elayne is very Elayne and the relationship with Egwene feels very authentic.

 

Not sure what Liandrin is up to with Mat and Min. 

 

Nynaeve's journey through the rings was powerful storytelling. They did a great job with it and really seemed to break Nynaeve. I'm wondering where they'll go with her from here.

 

Despite all of the changes, most of the characters feel like their book counterparts. My biggest exceptions are Lan and Mat. Lan is just a completely different character - I enjoy the character and what Henney is doing as an actor, but it's definitely the biggest change. 

 

Mat has yet to come into his own. But they've inverted his personality I think. Whereas book Mat always wanted to let his friends down by running off, he never found himself able to do it. This Mat actually let his friends down and thinks that is his defining feature. Curious to see how they pay this off.

 

Great episode. Best of the series.

 

9.5/10

Lan for me underwent the biggest change in the books and I think the Lan on screen is probably closer to how RJ pictured him as he developed his character. In book 1 he is Aragorn, right down to the lost crown etc, that is his role and that is why RJ had him, Aragorn to Moraines Gandalf. Book 2 and 3 RJ tried to move him away from that characterisation but for me it isn’t until the bond is broken that we get to see the proper Lan, not because of in world stuff but more because I think RJ finally realised who the character was. I really feel the Lan arc in the books is largely RJ wanting to write a different character and needing the character to have a reason to be different.