On 1/25/2022 at 11:05 PM, VooDooNut said:

The wolf eating her in the dream is what really sold me on Laila being a dark friend.

What episode was that dream in ?

I ask because if it was in a episode BEFORE Rafe explicitly denied that Laila was a DF then it could be that

the plan WAS to make her a Darkfriend but the huge outcry over the "fridging"  thing,

made him have to he  backtrack that idea to appease the viewers.

18 hours ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

i so appreciate everybody who put energy into this thread.  Having come back to it after being away and pickling in my own disappointment about the season I mostly stand by my previous post.  However here is my mashup of the most likely scenarios from everybody else.  Ignoring all the specious, humorous. sarcastic, etc takes gets me to this summary of our progress (not consensus) to date:

 

The season will likely be a mashup of TGH and TDR.

 

The super girls will spend time in TV training and meet Elayne, and Gawayn. Egwene will fall for Gawayn and start her career as a dreamer.   Matt will get captured by the Aes Sedai.  Liandrin will winkle them out of the tower per the books and they will  rescue and take Matt with them.  They will go to Tear which is under siege by the Seanchan.  The Stone stands.  Egw is captured per the books.  

 

Perrin, resurrected Loial and Ingtar, and the Sniffer Elyas chase after Fain.  Perrin realizes that the only way to save himself is to embrace the way of the leaf.  Elyas recognizes a wolf brother and tries to convert him to the way of the wolf.  This continues the whole season. 

 

Moraine will struggle with the loss of the source and seek out Verin.  Lan will saddle the horses  and do all the camp chores as befits a male warrior.   Verin will give Moraine the clues she needs to untie the shield.   She will also heal Lan who badly wounds himself when cutting firewood with his sword.  

 

Rand will wander the blight learning the sword by killing shadow spawn. Eventually he meets Selene who Travels with him to Tear to take Callandor.  No portal stones or worlds of if.  

 

The last episode has the white cloaks charging the Seanchan, Matt blowing the horn and the hero's throwing back the Seanchan.  Meanwhile Rand,  Perrin et al, sneak into the Stone and grab the sword. There is a Shadow spawn attack which Rand defeats per the book.  Per the books we see the forsaken working at cross purposes.   It may be that E7 is the repelling of the Seanchan and E8 is the taking of the Stone if they want two action episodes back to back..  There is no Turak but Rand does stab Ishy. 

 

BTW there will be little of the punishments of novices in the tower.  We all know that corporal punishment is not an effective way to modify behavior.  Novices who misbehave are told to stand in the corner, are grounded in their room, or sent to their room without supper.  If they are really to be punished then it is all three.    This is where Rafes enlightened view of the world will really make the story realistic. 

 

 

 

 

Love your humorous take on Lan and Tar Valon's behavior modification practices.  Personally I will miss the spankings ? 

As for Lan,  I truly hope Lan gets to kick butt throughout the season not just here and there. 

• " He had little influence with Ep 5-6, and none with 7-8. "

Imagine if BS had had more influence on the last 4 episodes. I think they'd have been even better.

Certainly if you look at the  last 4 eps. they have the least amount of book events in them than the 4 episodes that BS had a good amount of influence upon. I think that's quite telling.

On 1/24/2022 at 11:06 PM, Pukel-man said:

After the first episode, there was never another thought about Mat being "desperate." It gives the impression that the business of being "for the sisters" was a throwaway, or something added to make a shallow and dark character more sympathetic.

 

As for the part I underlined, you're reading things that are not there. We can't impute our own interpretations on the characters, we have to respond to what we're shown. Moiraine said he's evil. His actions are, taken together, pretty rotten. I don't think it's hasty at all to say Mat is a villain, this comes from eight episodes of his actions. I forgot to even mention shirking the chores at the Four Kings seedy tavern, just one more piece of bad character. Again, not a heroic character, not even a reluctant hero.

Moraine can be wrong , in fact is mostly wrong about almost everything in season 1 it seems to me

7 hours ago, ilovezam said:

Do we know if the animated add-ons are canon for the show? 

 

They don't have to fully explain everything, but in the time Moiraine took to tell Rand she wouldn't teach him because it'll make him go crazy, have her say this from the books:

 

"I know saidar, but I can teach you nothing of saidin. Those who could are three thousand years dead."

 

Would that have been too much? I think it's a neat bit of worldbuilding that would have been much less confusing than the way the show used "ta'veren" and "sa'angreal".

About the whole sa'angreal bit in the show. Do we think they are avoiding the whole explanation of the differences between sa'sangreal, angreal and Ter'angreal so as to not make things to confusing for tv audiences or maybe to avoid too many info dumps. I think the latter, most audiences today have the attention span of zilch and need action and drama to keep focused and thus pertinent information is left out in order to avoid that.

What about the battles in GOT ?

Those battles seem to be to be far more related to battles in WOT due to both being tv shows. 

All the battles mentioned here are from movies, totally different in funding, extras etc. 

I haven't watched GOT ( Bad, i know) so I think that's a more fair comparison. 

22 hours ago, notpropaganda73 said:

 

Haha yes, I think we agree on more than we disagree - but the bit I bolded - I do think there are some posters here that believe the women are "winning" in terms of the depictions on the show. And where you say intentionally or unintentionally is, personally, something I think is an important distinction. Because it seems to me that some are seeing intentional changes which are purely agenda-driven rather than story-driven. 

 

Essentially, I feel that the vast majority of the issues of S1 are down to writing ability rather than any core issues with the concepts or ideas of these scenes or story/character arcs. I think that's where I differ with a lot of those "angry readers" as you put it. 

 

And I have to say, when the writing is good in the show, I think it is really really good. There are moments from the season that I still think about, and some great dialogue (imo). That's what gives me hope going forward.

Maybe Rafe shouldn't be writing episodes but rather instead reviewing the scripts from all episodes in a season and and suggesting/order changes to the scripts that help  them all coalesce into a smoothly flowing season where episodes don't contradict each other or leave dangling chads(P) messing up the overarching season plotline.

Just my thought.  Opinions ?

2 hours ago, Rmp said:

Considering what we saw of the Tower Guards in episode 6, I’m not sure they would have been particularly useful in a fight anyways ?

 

it’s possible Covid restrictions limited the amount of extras they could bring, but imo should have just filmed at night to mask the limited number of people on “set”.

Yes I wasn't sure if those folks in white n gold were Accepted or Tower Guard. Not very impressive. Hopefully they do better with them as with so many other things. 

15 hours ago, Rmp said:

It was reasonably well written - unsurpringly it was guest written by Dave Hill (GoT alumni).

 

The battle was hilarious though - they couldn’t spring for a few more LARPERs?

 

And lest we forget him - it introduced us to Sir Stepin the Sad, the protagonist of season 1.

I believe that episode was finished before the covid shutdowns, so the idea that they couldn't spring for more logain troops/tower guard doesn't fly at all. Amazon just didn't commit enough money to season 1. If they'd given 25 percent of what they've given to the LOR TV show , then the season would have been much better

On 11/20/2021 at 11:09 AM, 2RiversFan said:

I've been trying to get 15 year old daughter to read WoT for about 4 years now.  She never got past chapter 4 of EotW even though she's a voracious reader.  She likes the show.  Her mother (my ex) loves the show and can't wait for more episodes.

Tell her to push through chapter 10 and she should be hooked ?  Also, tell her that there are multiple times in the series that you've just got to push through. Persistence is a virtue. 

On 12/29/2021 at 4:41 PM, Skipp said:

He wasn't shown to be proficient in tEotW either.  But I am also unsure if we will get the scene

In the books it was Rand's training with Lan that made him a good swordsman. And Rand dueled Turak not Suroth but I get your points, I don't see them making Rand's sword work a part of the show sadly

49 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

The one on the right has some similarity to Graendal

 

Has anyone tried to figure out who these figurines represent ? I've not seen anyone talk about that, at least in the forums I've been.  

On 1/3/2022 at 4:08 PM, JeffTheWoodlandElf said:

Funny you say "if" WoT had a GoT level budget because season 1 WoT had a higher budget than GoT season 1 and somehow looks significantly worse than a show that's 10 years old haha 

 

Anyway, I actually think that 8 episodes should have worked just fine. 10 would have been ideal, but 8 is plenty. 

 

My Fantasy Rewrite: 

Episode 1: Winternight and leaving Emond's field

Episode 2: Baerlon (Introduce Whitecloaks

Episode 3: Shadar Logoth 

Episode 4: Team is Separated and out on the road. 

Episode 5: Rand and Mat in Caemlyn by themselves. Egwene and Perrin with Whitecloaks. 

Episode 6: Team meets up in Caemlyn and sets off through the Ways

Episode 7: The Ways and Fal Dara. Ends with the Team going off into the Blight. 

Episode 8: Eye of the World and Tarwin's Gap. 

 

I think an extended/two part first episode would have definitely been welcome, but my sense with the series wasn't that 8 episodes was too few. It was that the showrunners wasted so much time on show-original bullcrap that they then had to rush all the stuff that was actually in the books. 

 

However, if you were gonna add two extra episodes, I think expanding on the stuff that happens while the group was separated would have been nice. 

GOT had 13 episodes ! Why couldn't we get at least ten ?  I would have been fine if they'd waited to release the show in fall or summer 2022 and take extra time for extra episodes, editing etc .

On 1/3/2022 at 2:57 PM, Ralph said:

It was not Whitebridge

They never actually went to WB which was disappointing to me. I was really looking forward to seeing a visualization of that bridge. ?

1 hour ago, fra85uk said:

Because they were thinking they could not get away with changing the DR as they really wished...so they kept It secret to justify the lack of focus on Rand and when they could not Hide him anymore they Just downplayed him and stripped him of his big moments in favour of other characters. 

This whole thing is a thought experiment, I don't think they'd have gone down this route even if they could.

Imagine if the showrunners wanted to make Egwene the DR. There are hints in the show of how they'd show it. Liandrin said to Nyneave that most of the world is run by men who fear aes sedai(ep 5) and Rand figured out that Moiraine thought/hoped that Egwene was the DR (ep 8).  Then the show could be all about  those woman hating rulers rejecting Egwene as DR just because she's a woman. 

On 12/27/2021 at 9:28 PM, Chivalry said:

 

And that's an important part of his character. Before he learns how to control his channeling, and even afterwards...his skill with the sword helps protect him and others and even defines his development, from simple farm lad to skilled warrior. 

 

Interesting choices, really...Nynaeve being a tracker is not an important part of the story going forward (per the books), but Rafe made sure to emphasize her ability on multiple occasions this season.

 

Let's see what they do with Rand and the sword. I'm willing to WAFO. I can't imagine that he'll continue to carry this sword without learning how to use is proficiently.

 

On the other hand, have we been told anything about the Heron mark to suggest it's anything other than a cool design, or that he got it from his father? Certainly, sword master Lan did not comment on it. Political genius and amateur historian Moraine did not comment on it. Other than Min...did anyone else even note the design? It seems like a major oversight.

 

Yeah, surely Lan saw the heron sword here and there but they never brought it up in the show. I JUST thought of that . Thank u.

In Season 1 , Rand is in the Tower library and sees the prophecy book ( id butcher the title lol). 

Does anyone think they'll bring it into the show or was that scene just an Easter egg. 

On 12/24/2021 at 10:22 PM, notpropaganda73 said:

It’s not a prediction but a big problem with how they have left S1 is Rand going off on his own. It means

 

1) Lan never trains him 

 

2) Rand doesn’t chase the Horn with Ingtar et al. Ingtar’s reveal as a DF will be hollow without his relationship with Rand imo

 

 

The Ingtar arc is one of my faves in TGH. I truly hope the showrunners keep and expound upon it.

On 12/23/2021 at 11:20 PM, Wolfbrother31 said:

Well, I started this before the Finale...so now my S2 prediction is...

 

Show gets cancelled part way through - I shed tears & pray that Disney decides to buy the rights to WoT and make it right.

 

That was the worst Finale I've watched in my life... Bad WoT. Bad Tv. 

 

At least it's Christmas and I can watch Hawkeye. 

Disney screwed up Star Wars so I hope to God, Disney stays away period

15 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Did we ever get any confirmation what, exactly, it was that Rand went to?  They kept calling it the Eye of the World but Moiraine also called it the Dark One’s prison.  We didn’t have a pool of Saidin, no Green Man, no horn, no banner, etc.  I kind of assumed Moiraine was just wrong but the show Eye wasn’t really recognizable as the book Eye.  

Yes, I too was confused by the "Eye" section. I enjoyed the acting but am confused by exactly why they went to there, was it just a plot by Ishy to get the DR there, and what were both Moraine's and Ishy's expectations about what could happen at the Eye.  I've watched the ep. twice and still aren't sure. 

Please help if anyone knows a good breakdown.

On 11/24/2021 at 5:07 PM, JJLXL said:

  Hide contents

Ok, the burning scene was fine.  You can explain away why the Aes Sedai didn't fight her way out.

 

The scene with Moiraine was either terribly written or there have been big changes.  Maybe both? 

 

First of all, White Cloaks would recognize(at the very least) Aes Sedai agelessness.  The fact that they didn't(Valda especially) is proof of bad writing or agelessness is totally out. 

 

Second, they would recognize a Warder traveling with his Aes Sedai.  This could be explained away I guess, so not a huge deal.

 

Third, and my biggest critique.  White Cloaks are kind of like Hyenas.  Generally speaking they're a bit cowardly on their own, but ferocious in numbers.  They clearly had the upper hand with the Dragon troop.  Why wouldn't Valda have simply asked Moiraine if she were Aes Sedai?  She couldn't lie, and if she stalled with a wordy answer, they would have seized them all. Bad writing or??  If there were any suspicions whatsoever, why wouldn't White Cloaks simply ask the woman if she is Aes Sedai?

 

 

Aes Sedai agelessness has been eliminated from the tv show along with warder cloaks, so there wouldn't be any real way for the WC to recognize Moriaine and Lan as anything other than a noble and his guard. 

16 hours ago, TheSmurf said:

Or its just a hypocritical stance to justify one over the other. 

 

Why don't we just... Not call each other names. 

Exactly !

Loved your line about wave mechanics. Fantasy tv is full of bad science. 

19 hours ago, flinn said:

 Another big miss about snatching away Rand's big moment is that what happened at Tarwins Gap starts rumors...

 

 "We were saved by a man who was doing what no man should do"

 

 the people have to accept the dragon reborn as well, as of now, there is nothing Rand has done to make people think he will save them.

 

but I am sure that means nothing because they will have Nynaeve tell people Rand is the DR and everyone will do as Nynaeve says.

In the books, Rand isn't "proclaimed" the DR til Tear in book 3 but ppl assume that the DR has been reborn by what happens at Falme in book 2 they just don't know who it is. I think the show folks will just hold off til Tear to make the formal DR moment, especially as it seems Perrin will be the one going to Falme. 

57 minutes ago, JaimAybara said:

Yes let’s be frank…People calling those that disagree with the show as the dark one or darkfriends is outrageously offensive. Particularly since the dark one is inspired by Islamic and Judeo-Christian demons / Satan… you are going to say this is nowhere near the same as being called a sellout? Come on…and it simultaneously implies they are right by default without having to actually argue points, because what’s the point in arguing with a “darkfriend”? They’re darkfriends. Both of these otherise. Let’s not pretend one is tongue in cheek though. It’s just as sanctimonious and condescending.  
 

 

*Both of these insults are ridiculous to me. We’re all fans here. Thinking differently doesn’t make anyone “not a fan”. It’s all Ad Hominem and Straw Man nonsense.*

Thanks for your input. If I in any way misquoted you or misrepresented your views, I apologize.

We all are passionate about WOT and my thoughts are based in fact that I want the series to succeed and want it to be worthy of RJ's legacy. Thanks for your constructive criticism of my post.