3 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

I personally think that expecting Season 2 to change your mind about the WoT TV series is a fool's errand because you already know what you're getting and you either liked it or you didn't, but "to each their own", as it were.

I think it depends what your issues where, for instance if like me it was production values, effects, dialogue and some of the script where the main issues then this is all easily fixable, or at least improvements can start to be seen. 

Just now, VooDooNut said:

I agree he has some cool fight scenes in the books, as does Galad, but if someone has to be cut, I'm firmly on Team Gonewyn. His completely misinformed rage towards Rand was the most annoying part of his character for me.

Mis informed but not irrational. The whole world is telling him that Rand killed his mother, the Aes Sedai in the tower are reinforcing that by not telling him it isn’t true. He has been raised to believe the Dragon is at best someone who needs to be caged and controlled and at worst downright evil who will destroy the world. Yet despite that hate he doesn’t kill Rand when he has him locked in a box. 
 

Gawyn becomes frustrating only at the end, and that is all Sanderson fault making him suddenly go from accepting who he needs to be for egwene to then wanting to be the hero again, up until that point his is a very logical character progression. Someone who is lied to and manipulated and then starts mistrusting everything, including how important Rand is. 

1 hour ago, DreadLord31 said:

 

So ya'll are convinced we're going to get Gawyn AND Galad? Do you think in this season or next? 

I'm not convinced that Gawyn won't be cut, but I think a strong argument could be made for keeping him. The show just can't keep everybody from the books -- and much of the Camelyn plot-line needs to be condensed or cut. 

I don’t see how you can’t, both play a key role. Galad in the evolution of the whitecloaks from murder hobo extremists to something less murderey. Gawyn on the other hand is a key part of the coup, a lot of which we will see on screen where as it doesn’t make the book and then is present at some of the key moments especially Rand in a box, his hatred for Rand is something that the show can lean into and his relationship with Egwene, as frustrating as it ends, is key to her development in many ways, plus him vs the Seanchan assassins will be a cool tv moment. 

32 minutes ago, nsmallw said:

Gratuitous naked scenes ?  Lol.  RJ was no GRRM.   

 

Even where there was nudity, it was never exploitive and all of the actual sex acts were all "off screen" .

 

I remember people getting all up tight with all the nudity and sex in GOT, they shouldn't have that issue with WOT TV show

Lol are we reading the same book, WOT is one of the most explicit fantasy novels I have read. 
 

Naked sweat tents, naked Seanchan slaves, naked Gaishan, Faile tied up with everything on display, aes sedai getting topless for ceremonies to “prove they are women”,  then you have the rapes (several including a man by a women) the Forsaken use of compulsion to make human sextoys, or just darkfriends using there position to make those below them offer up sexual favours, you have Berlain being punished, you have I forget her name, the female darkfriend stripped naked, aes sedai stripped naked lol. Tuon standing around naked with Mat, I can go on and on, the sex and nakedness is there on the page and is in many ways far more kinky then GOT, especially what the Forsaken get up to for “fun”. That’s not to mention every women is described in terms of size of bosom and hips, and the amount of cleavage on display. 

A lot of it is left to the imagination but GRRM doesn’t describe scenes as lewdly as they where shown on the screen either. 
 

I remember as a teenager thinking WOT was about the most explicit fantasy novel I had read up until that point, and I had read the chronicles of Thomas covenant which starts with a very graphic rape scene that has a purpose and defines the characters entire story. In WOT many of the scenes have no real purpose other then to show how fish out of water people are, or how evil someone is. 
 

5 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

Another clip.

 

 

 

trying to remember, in the book this is one of the many things aes sedai do naked isn't it? Not important to the scene but confirms that the tv show is going to get rid of some of RJ's more gratuitous naked scenes. 

On 8/16/2023 at 11:22 AM, LTL said:

As a book reader and long-time lurker, I have finally been inspired to post in case my experience with a re-watch helps encourage anyone else to go for it. I had mixed feelings watching the show the first time round. Before the opening credits of Episode 1 we'd already had Moiraine say that the Dragon could be a woman (I'm glad they released that scene before episode 1 aired so I didn't have to digest that as I sat down to watch Ep1) and Liandrin say that the power "isn't meant" for men. I think all the reviews saying that the writers clearly haven't read the books were pretty inevitable given the choice to really slam it in viewers faces that there would be large changes from the first second of the show and then try to win them back. If they wanted to expand the possible dragons, I think a better choice would have been to start with everyone assuming the dragon would be a man and then a couple of episodes in have Egwene ask Moiraine how we can be sure that the Dragon will be reborn a man and Moiraine reply that as people don't remember past lives, it's not really possible to be sure if people are always reborn with the same gender. You'd still have some complaints but I think most book readers would agree that it makes a lot of sense that characters in world would not have much idea about how re-incarnation works exactly. That would feel like better writing to me than to shoehorn in Moiraine stressing in a show opening speech that that they don't know if it'll be a man or woman.

 

The show then continues and I loved winternight, thought the end of Episode 1 was a bit ridiculous with everyone happy to let Moiraine take the 5 of them with trollocs descending on the village with no dissenting voices. The pacing didn't feel great for the first few episodes but I enjoyed parts. Loved Episode 4 and hoped the series had finally hit it's stride. Brought back down to earth with Episode 5. Didn't love the Steppin arc, especially Lan at the end of the episode.

 

I rewatched each episode before the next one was out and always enjoyed it more the second time when the shock of some of the bits I didn't like had passed a little but I couldn't stomach a second viewing of episode 8. Overall, I would have rated the show at 6-7 out of 10. It was great to see the characters brought to life (loved the casting) and to see some of the story on screen, which it seemed like may never happen. However, it seemed like a missed opportunity to do better. Had it been 6-7 out of 10 and really close to the books I'd have loved it, or had it been 8-9 out of 10 with a lot of changes I'd have loved it, but to make so many changes and not really knock it out the park seemed a bit of a shame.

 

Anyway, fast forward 18 months or so and I finally got round to watching ROP. It was no GOT but I quite enjoyed it, thought it was better than WOT although I don't have any real allegiance to the source material for it. When a friend said they thought the two shows were of similar quality it got me thinking that maybe I was being too harsh on the WOT due to the changes made so I gave it another re-watch, going into it with the pain from the bad bits and changes faded over time and I enjoyed it a lot more. Some of it still seemed pretty bad but I did find that some of my complaints were probably not really valid or were at least overblown and I wouldn't have given them a second thought in any other show.

 

I recently gave it a final re-watch before series 2 came out and I mostly really enjoyed it. Focusing on the positives and letting the negatives wash over me made me appreciate that I was actually getting to watch some version of my favourite book series from a couple of decades ago. If you really hated it then I imagine a re-watch will do nothing but anger you more but if you find yourself somewhat on the fence like I was then I'd recommend watching it with the mindset of just enjoying the bits you found to be positives and maybe you can find yourself enjoying it more and looking forward to season 2!

I assessed WOT and ROP as follows.

ROP had a far far better look, was generally better acted (I say generally there where some very cringe moments), had far better dialogue. The scenes between Elrond and Dain I felt where really good, and it had Adar, who was a fantastic bad guy who managed to make Orcs relatable. But the linking back to the IP was just awful, as far as I am concerned unforgivably so. The lore and history was just ignored and removed in a way that made WOT look like a page by page perfect adaptation. But ignoring the Lore the story wasn't awful, I mean I always think it is bad when the Bad guys plan is all reliant on something out of his control happening, if Galadrial had just kept her hands in her pockets instead of pulling him from the seas lol. 

WOT, a far closer adaptation and the changes that where made generally (not all) made sense, or at least I can understand why they where done even if I don't agree with them. But, it looked like a cheap CW tv show, not an Amazon prime production. The effects where sloppy, the trollocs looked hilarious at times, the dialogue was wooden and very stiff, the acting was meh at times and the fight scenes where poorly executed, but, we have covid to thank for that (no chance of 100 extras standing shoulder to shoulder lol). 

Both had massive flaws but ROP for me was the better product over all because it was shiny and pretty and that overrode the bad story and lore keeping. 

On 8/8/2023 at 9:25 AM, DaddyFinn said:

One final rewatch before S2. I watched S1 10+ times in 2021-2022

each to there own but even if I had enjoyed it massively I doubt I would watch it more then twice. I love the Boys, one of the best things on Amazon, but I have only watched each season once. I really don't get the appeal of watching a TV show over and over, a book I can re read because I paint and change the picture in my head. Now movies, some movies I have seen multiple times but I think for me wasting 100 hours of my life rewatching the same thing over and over, when instead I could use that time to watch 10 different series (and there is so much to watch what with Disney, Netflix, Amazon and Normal TV) just feel like hours of my life wasted. 

I did try rewatching season 1 but really cant get past the shoddy acting, script and special effects, it just feels more and more cheap the more I watch it. I am hoping that season 2 fixes those production issues otherwise I might have to step away all together. 

2 minutes ago, Samt said:

Why do people think the book doesn’t have complex villains? Not all of the book villains are complex, but there are lots of villains and most of them are complicated in one way or another. There are even some characters that may or may not be villains.  

There are some fantastic non darkfriend villians yes, and, far later in the books even some of the forsaken become more understandable, but the fact remains that most of them are cartoonish, and probably right up to books 5 or 6 there is very little complexity to the villiany. You see Forsaken being evil, because they should be evil, you see Whitecloaks being murder hobos, because they are murder hobos etc. Even later on the only truly complex villain is Elaida, everyone else is either evil because they are evil, or does what they do because they don't have all the information and have been manipulated, or compulsed. 

There is plenty of complexity about many of the villains, if you read the source material after reading the actual story, but, as they are written on the page you see very little of any actual motivation, especially early on. The TV viewer cant be waiting until the very end of the series to start being told reasons why the bad guys are bad. That needs to happen in scenes like this. 

On 5/28/2023 at 2:40 AM, DreadLord31 said:

For me, I'd say my favorite character from S1 was Thom. 

 

He was definitely a change from the books... Darker, grittier ... But that made way more sense and was so much more believable that he'd take on a Fade. His scenes were really good. 

Thom from season 1 was closer to how RJ changed Thom in the books. I always feel that all the characters in EOTW are caricatures of what they become later on, this is in part because he needed book one to read like LOTR, Shannara, Dragonlance etc, the big selling fantasy books of the time, so the gleeman is the Bard of traditional fantasy tropes. RJ uses 2 events to change Thom, the fight with the fade and then the death of his love. This then gives him a far more interesting character to write.  

The fact that we are trying to Fix Gawyn shows that the flaw is not in how the reader sees him, but in how it is written and I place the blame for this squarely on Brandon Sanderson, Gawyn's story is one of the many things Sanderson mishandled.

Sanderson felt he needed Gawyn to die for Egwene to then have her moment, he then traced that back and came up with the very valid idea of the Seanchan rings. Everything until that moment was great, Gawyn sacrificing his own life to save Egwene from the Sharans made sense, him running off to fight Demandred made no sense. 

Where the TV show needs to change things is in the way Gawayn dies, Egwene doesn't need him to go off selfishly and get himself killed in what has to be one of the dumbest story ideas in the last battle, Demandred working his way through the lands best swordsmen. She can show the determination and strength without him dying like that. Instead he should die saving her, protecting her, or, remain alive right up until she fights against taim, defending her from mundane threats as she battles against the magical. 

 

5 hours ago, DreadLord31 said:

 

I don't think your "loins are girded" enough, my friend (referring to what the book consultant, Sarah Nakamura said about how book readers will feel about S2). There are a number of points that I can already prove to you your wrong. 

 

#1: We've already gotten their version of the Dark Friend social. You can go to the last episode of S1 and they added a 4-minute scene at the end. Be interesting to hear your revised thoughts after you've watched that. 

#2: The actor for Matt, Donal Flinn, has said in an interview that in the first episode his main co-actor is Kate Fleetwood (Liandrin) -- episode one will definitely have Matt locked in the White-Tower as a prisoner and Liandrin dialoguing with him. We have a still of "sad Matt" locked in a room in the WT, that is from Ep1. 

#3: Neither Rand or Matt will be part of the horn hunting. It's just going to be Perrin and Shinaran soldiers and then they'll meet Avi, Bain, and Chiad (and maaaybe Gaul, but I doubt it). The most recent interview I've seen of Perrin even gives away that "Perrin gives an impassioned speech about how they need to kill Fain ." Interviews have noted that Rand will be in Cairhein hanging around the mentally insane, he'll meet Selene there who is an Innkeeper, he'll talk to Logain in Cairhein when Suian brings him there -- and she'll meet with Rand in Cairhein as well. 

#4: I can just about guarantee you that Falme will be episode 8 due to pics released in an article that had episode stamps -- the one of "Jedi Rand" facing off against Turok is episode 8. 

#5: Based on the most recent interview with Daniel Henney, I know that Lan will fight two Fades at the end of Episode 1; and based on that info, I would guess that Lan is trying to follow Moiraine/protect Moiraine as she hunts for Rand/heads TO Cairhein. 

#6: Based on the most recent interview with Zoe Robbins, we know that her Accepted test will be in Episode 3. And I can just about guarantee you that Ep3 is going to end with Liandrin taking them through a "Gateway" in the WT -- and Suroth with Damane being on the other side -- fighting the girls, CGI battle -- Nyn and Elayne escaping, but. Egwene being captured. 

 

https://winteriscoming.net/2023/08/22/the-wheel-of-time-cast-spills-season-2-details-talks-the-one-power-changes-and-more/

 

 

Sorry that isn't the dark friend social. And that is ok, it is a scene probably inspired by that scene in the book but it's purpose is very different. The scene in the book is designed to show the reader something of the inner workings of the forces of the dark, it starts to shift the story from the very traditional LOTR style of EOTW and introduces the machinations and manipulations of the forces of the dark. Now, Season 1 has already shown some of that through the Darkfriend who tried to catch Mat and Rand. The audience understand that darkfriends can be anywhere, so, this scene instead introduces us to Ishy, introduces us to someone who is convinced what they are doing is right and puts into the viewers mind questions. 

I really like this scene, one of my major issues with the books is the one dimensional nature of the bad guys for much of it. The bad guys are bad because they do bad things, Trollocs are mindless evil beasts etc. I like the idea of having more nuance, If the Dragon is intended to break the world then why is Ishy the bad guy when he just wants to make it all more ordered. This is a narrative that the TV show can play out. 

On 8/16/2023 at 2:17 AM, DreadLord31 said:

Really? I would say that being put in a box and being taken out only to be beaten would cause quite a bit of mistrust 😂

 

And Elaida was shady from book1. 

 

And I think book and show have done a decent job of showing the nuance to: not all Aes Sedai are alike. Liandrin has got the RBF down. Alanna has warned Moiraine about the dangers of the WT. Tv Thom was the best part of the show & he definitely, albeit briefly, warned the boys not to go to Tar Valon. 
 

I guess, for me, I didn’t like RJ’s obsession with WT politicking. Wish the show would cut most of that. But I think Rafe has said that, that’s one of his favorite parts — so I can be disappointed without being able to complain “it’s not like the books!” 

I mean the WT politicking is a key key part of the whole story. The idea that a powerful body created to keep the world safe almost destroys it because they all work against each other. It makes Egwenes clever maneuvering of the tower even more impressive of you see just how devious these women who are much much older can be day to day. If you cut it all out then Egwenes story might as well be removed. 

On 8/21/2023 at 3:31 AM, DreadLord31 said:

Yeah, I think Gaul is cut; but I don’t think we’ll get a cage scene. 
 

No, I think Liandrin is gonna “help” break her block and they are gonna do it this early (need to fast track a lot of story-lines). And then she’ll take her Accepted test; I think Liandrin will then forge 3 rings & take her, Eg, and Elayne through a gateway and into their capture by the Seanchan & that’s basically how Ep3 will end. 
 

But that’s all speculation from clips and interviews and other people’s speculations. 

Nynaeves block is such a key part of the story that this won’t be fast tracked. The way she loses it in the book is a key cinematic moment. 
 

I will say if you’re right with any of this then I am done with the series but I think your miles off. The only “confirmation” we have of no Gaul or cage is that they haven’t been shown in the trailer. Rafe previously reassured a fan that the Aiel seen dead in season 1 was “certainly not Gaul” that indicates to me we are getting Gaul at some point. 
 

My prediction. The opening will match the book fairly closely, Siuan will travel to meet Rand and the boys etc but I think Mat will be with her and she will tell them that they must find the dagger to save mat. This means Mat is back with the party as he should be. Rand, Perrin and the rest go Horn/dagger hunting and the girls head back to tar valon. Oh you will also get to see Rand and Lan sparring and Lan does his “sheathing the sword” speech. 
 

I think hunting the horn will take just 3-4 episodes. We don’t need 8 episodes of traipsing across more of Randland chasing a mcguffin. 
 

The girls will go to Tar Valon, meet Elayne and we will get some Tar Valon training stuff (cue a montage). Nyn gets to go through the arch but her block is not cleared. 
 

Liandrin then takes the girls to be captured as per the book, but they won’t then return to Tar Valon ever again, which does make me wonder if they move up making elayne and Egwene accepted far faster. 
 

Episode 4 I think we get Falme. 
 

Oh and I don’t think the Scene in the trailer is the dark friend social, I think that is just the forsaken. I don’t think we will get the darkfriend social because really from a narrative perspective it doesn’t really achieve anything in terms of getting Rand to the final battle. What I think we will see instead are Darkfriends being spoken to one to one. 

2 hours ago, Elendir said:

 

I agree with you, that we can call it mistake with colossal consequences. I am just looking at circumstances as much as mistake itself.

 

Rand was Mad,

he had a lot of responsibilities over 4 countries + aiels, Aes sedai and Sea Folk,

He had to start black tower,

He had no one he could trust with the black tower.

I will add to that, he had no idea that Channelers could be “forced” to turn to the shadow. If he had then he would probably have made some alternative decisions and safeguards, and had no idea that traveling could be blocked.
 

If you assume worse case  50% of  your Ashaman might become dark friends you can assume the other 50% will fight them so self policing itself. The moment you find out that those ashaman who are on your side can be forced to switch the scales then tip massively. Now the realistic probability was 10-20% dark friends, in that case with no forced turning the black tower can easily police itself. 

I mean RJ didn’t always manage it brilliantly. I’m really looking forward to Tam meeting up with Rand for “the talk”, only to then wait 2 seasons before Tam actually leaves Perrin :). 
 

But on a serious note one story thread that hasn’t been mentioned is the interweaving of the first breaking that Rafe is doing, which is not anything we see in the books other than through other characters. 
 

I think a GOT approach will also nicely match the books, I remember GOT just ignoring swathes of characters when it made more sense to focus an episode somewhere else. We didn’t get dany or Tyrion all the time. 

So from a story perspective mats powers did just seem to appear, I feel it’s more than Ta’veren because it is so focused on him. I always wondered if the dagger somehow had something to do with it. 
 

From an author standpoint I really wonder if Robert Jordan had any idea what he was doing with Matt before he started Dragon Reborn. It feels like he starts the character in one direction, picking up the dagger and getting infected. Then it always felt in healing him RJ went “what now” in trying to figure out his role moving forward. I wonder if in these early days he really thought about the mechanics of the ability. 

15 hours ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

Interesting thought. As thoroughly baffled as I still am at this point in my first reread of the series by the handling of the BT by Rand, I admit I don’t have any idea what alternative would be preferable (in terms of the realistic and practical limitations on rands time and attention to go around) and what timing would have been ideal to strike even if an alternative approach existed. Having said that, I still can’t comprehend how the deeply paranoid and innately untrusting Rand at that point in the story essentially sought out, gathered and subsequently created an unstoppable force of powerful, sizable, concentrated and unpredictable/dangerous army of male channelers and then appeared to entirely ignore and neglect the whole thing. He never seemed to have much trust for taim from the get go. It’s like he kinda knowingly created a monster that clearly was as likely to turn against him as follow him, and instead of taking that knowledge of the necessary risk and being alert and observant of the situation, I felt like he just abandoned and blocked the whole thing from his consciousness entirely! Ok, rant concluded. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get that off my chest, thank you for the opportunity and sorry for the long post. But. Wtf?

Rand could not train the Ashaman himself and he knew he needed male channelers as weapons to win the war. At the start Rand thought that Lewis was being irrational about Taim but he also failed to consider that Taim might turn to the shadow, he saw Taim as being a threat because he wanted to be Dragon. 

7 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I agree with your post, but do you really think Rafe has to do anything?  Rafe has missed (or added) lots of key journey points for multiple characters.  Rafe will continue doing what Rafe does...

Oh I know he can do anything, and for me not including these 2 characters will be a travesty. I will say the things he has tweaked and added, or not yet included, have not fundamentally changed the character journey, season 1 was all about that introduction and so I am not massively unhappy personally. Noam and Elyas are a key part of that journey and I have no issue with either being introduced later in the story then they are in the books, or in a different way, but they are one of those things that needs to exist to tell the arc of Perrins journey to the last battle. But we will have to wait and see what he does :). 

To be honest Egwene and Gawyn is more frustrating later on, and I think Gawyn is far more an example of toxic masculinity. 

Yes Rand identifies (post his merging with Lewis Therin) the mistake that Lewis made, while Min identifies the role that Callandor needs to play in using the true power as a buffer to protect saidin and saidar. Had Rand not done that at the last battle then the darklord would have corrupted both halves of the power sending men and women mad. 

On 8/19/2023 at 10:15 AM, Elglin said:

This is some really great analysis. I must admit that the concept went absolutely over my head on both the first and the subsequent rereads - until this very summary. I would hence hazard a guess that this would also go over the head of a your average show fan, which ironically makes it an omission target.

However, you could rework both Noam and Elyas into one-episode (or two-episode) wonders, which would make it much more filmable.

To be fair when Perrin realises it the scene where he meets Noam again in the wolf dream is a quick blink and you miss it, post hopper dying I think it is given barely a paragraph by Brandon Sanderson. 

14 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Since the book-leash is a physical object, couldn't their enemies just channel heavily to it (lift up, push down, twist side to side etc.) to try and incapacitate the sul'dam&damane or distract their channeling?

 

Or is a'dam one of those ter'angreal that direct weaves can't touch?

Or just find ways to tangle them up. Another comparison is going on a walk with more than 1 dog on leads. No matter how well trained the dogs are you always have at least one tangled moment lol. 
 

But also, the leash clearly shows who the sul damne is so your archers know exactly who to target. 
 

I almost (and it won’t happen) want a dead pool type 4th all break where a Seanchan character says “these used to be leashes but we just kept getting terribly tangled” lol. 

6 hours ago, Rsmithboeing said:

😂🤣😂

 

Seriously LOL

Read the books LOL

Decided instead of just laughing about the comment on mine that I should just answer.

 

The male half of the power "which just like the female half, counter parts can't actually see," was corrupted when the dark one was sealed back in the prison the creator put him in.

 

Made the comment about male and, female not actually seeing their counterparts power because, well just another easy thing to both explain and, implement that wasn't done.

 

Men don't make the power "dirty," it was corrupted then Lewis Therin and, the 100 companions tried "saving" the world.

 

You know Lewis Therin a male always reborn as a "male." 

 

The Dragon Reborn was "never" female. Not once.

Also easy and, no cost involved in getting that right.

 

Ok again someone is conflating what characters think they know to actual lore. 
 

In the books no one really knows how the make half was corrupted, they just know it was and assume the dark lord did it somehow. This has not changed in the tv show in any way. Please identify where it has.

It has been confirmed that men and women can’t see each others half of the power, just because we can see it on screen does not mean the characters can. 
 

The dragon is a male, it is Rand, and yes ok in this version souls can be reborn different genders, but that does not significantly change anything because the emphasis is that they “can” not will, and over the millions of years that the wheel may turn over and over can you say absolutely that every time the dark lord escapes it is always a man who saves the world. We know that the wheel turns differently each time, each breaking might not involve the male half being corrupted, or any of the events of this turning. 
 

Changes were made for the very practical needs of converting a very convoluted book to a succinct tv show. All the points you state actually have no impact on the overarching story anyway. Why does it matter if they changed the reason for the taint (they haven’t by the way), how does it matter to the story of souls can be reborn in different genders. In this turning no characters have switched gender so it doesn’t, you have seen season 1 of hopefully 8, there should be no journey or real character development yet. Season 1 has to be about showing all the relationships between characters. Robert Jordan had the benefit of 3-4 books to do that. Rafe needed to get it all laid out in 8 episodes covering that first story. 
 

I have made this point many times but, the only thing that is important is that Rand is at the last battle as the dragon and the other key characters are in there places. How they get there will have to change because the story is too long. Much like Peter Jackson made significant changes to adapt LOTR rage has to do the same. Now we might debate the pros and cons of those choices but claiming that someone commits themselves to a career defining project for at least 8 years of there lives in order to try and destroy the IP intentionally really is just a dumb supposition. 

On 8/18/2023 at 1:49 AM, Samt said:

I’m not sure I really get the symbolic difference between a leash and a muzzle. Both are things you put on a dog and are dehumanizing.  My main objection to the change is that it feels like a meaningless change that the showrunners are making to prove to the book fans that they can do whatever they want and they don’t care what fans think.  
 

A man tells a woman that he loves her deeply and that he just wants her to cut and dye her hair, lose 20 lbs, change her clothing and makeup style, quit her job, learn to cook, convert to his religion, adopt his political views, and indulge his weird sexual fetishes. Rafe saying he loves Wheel of Time has the same energy.

Just to back up some other points, I have always considered the actual logistics of the leash to make them horrendous. It reads great on paper when you don’t have to visually see it. I spent a long part of my life in a lifestyle where you would be around many people on leashes, and just navigating around a room was sometimes more an art in choreography than anything else. One or 2 Damme on screen, not an issue, the hundreds we will build to, the scenes of damme running or fighting. You get to a point where it will just look stupid. It really was one artistic element RJ came up with that sounds amazing, but, actually try using it and I imagine the Seanchan would have tried creating something different after the first time a group of damme got tangled in a battle. 

On 8/19/2023 at 10:20 AM, Elglin said:

In Rafe's defense, there were hints in TEOTW. I read those as a product of Egwene's mind being a little messed up, which is completely valid in the circumstances. An interesting parallel would be that Harry/Hermione dance (a beautiful scene) that had half of Harry Potter fandom squeeing and the other half incensed :).

However, it's really subtle in the books and doesn't go anywhere, which quite often happens IRL. Rafe's decision to make more out of it is questionable, but he didn't conjure it out of thin air.

I mean the main thing I see in TEOTW is when they are traveling Perrin becomes concerned when she is with the tinkers, but I always saw that as a big brother combined with looking out for Rand.