On 6/17/2023 at 4:03 PM, DojoToad said:

I know fantasy isn't for everyone, but I didn't think it was this niche.

 

I was expecting fantasy to be this niche 20 years ago, not now.
ah, well, we'll just have to go back into our closets

thom seem to have been demoted to a more minor role, if he even returns at all. bryne may not even exhist. my money is that siuan/moiraine will stay as they are. unless siuan is killed off during the white tower coup.

All in all, I just don't think the show can afford to divert attention to those minor characters.

14 hours ago, DreadLord31 said:

The fact that they need to "totally recover" a final scene, is my point about silly writing/decision making. 

 

Yes. I understand that it's suppose to be a hook for season 2. There's strange invaders that use the OP as weapon & we should fear them.

 

Sending a massive wave at a lone little girl on the beach ... is similar to ... having calvary ride out in full battle armor to man a wall and be overwhelmed. You scratch your head and go ... What?

now, let's not go too overboard on that. the final scene works well enough. You do get a sene of dread. At least, I did. We just saw 5 channelers wipe an army, and now those people have dozens? omg how strong are they? and what can stop them?

the scene is meant to evoke those feelings, and it does.

it's only when one stops and think "why they threw that massive wave at a deserted beach?" that it becomes silly.

on the other hand, using a powerful weapon on a deserted place as a demonstration of might is something that's totally done. just think of all those nuclear tests they did in the cold war, nuking empty places to threaten "we could do that to your cities too". military excercices; armies posting videos of dozens of cannons or rockets firing at once. Ever since the stone age, where people would wave their weapons and try to look dangerous. A display of might is a most natural step towards aggression.

which is why throwing a weapon of mass destruction at a deserted place and being seen doing it is a perfectly workable way to push some cities to submission.

as such, the final scene of season 1 is more incomplete than anything else.

8 minutes ago, expat said:

I think that you are missing the meaning of the final scene.  The Seanchan aren't sending a wave at the girl on the beach.  They are sending a signal to the inhabitants of Falme and the local villages to not resist them because they have overwhelming might.  Given the force of the demonstration (to get the tidal wave of sufficient height, it will necessarily be very wide), it is likely that there are people that will be caught in its destruction, signified by the little girl.  The alternative would be to invade and destroy a number of villages until the local inhabitants stop resisting.  I'm guessing that there will be a shot of the local leaders on top of the crest in season 2 watching the incoming wave.  The scene was meant to show both their power and their ruthlessness.

yes. I can see the scene

city of falme. palace of the governor. the governor and a few seanchan officers watch the wave. the governor is shocked and terrified. The seanchan make some threat, maybe vague, maybe overt, not that there's much need when they showed already they could level the city with a tsunami. the governor kneels and swears allegiance to the seanchan. the seanchan board a toraken and go back to the ships.

Such a scene would totally recover that final scene, that looked a bit silly otherwise.

Not sure if it was mentioned already, but apparently in the show channelers can't feel each other. Book moiraine immediately knew the relative strengths of egwene and nynaeve; in the show, it's unclear

18 hours ago, Mailman said:

The nails look like a prosthetic rather than natural nails that I think the books describe they are also extremely longer than I imagined I find it hard to imagine they would not effect Turak's sword handling if they are as long as that photo makes out.

they are a sort of jewelry piece work on the last phalanx of each finger. as I said, they changed it from the actual fingernails because it's much more practical. turak can take them off - assuming he still fights rand.
as for why they are so long, I'd guess is for the same reason the aes sedai ring is incredibly huge: because otherwise people on tv won't notice it.

9 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Right.  I don't recall a veil being mentioned anywhere around Suroth.  Appears a change has been made.

yes. i suppose getting some actor to shave her head bald or to grow some fingernails to insane lenghts is going to be very expensive. and they may not even be noticed.
they kept the style of extreme sophistication and formality for the nobles, though, which is what matters. you see suroth, and you understand that this is a supremely classist society

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Too many episodes?

the episodes of season 1 are included in the list.

in fact, that's too few names - only 14, which would imply 6 episodes for season 2.

mind you, if they are 6 episodes 90 minutes long, we're still gaining. If, instead, those meddling executives decided to cut by 25% the already inadequate screen time, the quality of the show can only take a turn downward

53 minutes ago, WheelofJuke said:

You can tell when a tv series has too long a wait between seasons when the fan base starts arguing over aprons. 😉

nah. we're wheel of time fans. jordan created a world full of intricate details with a lot of easter eggs hidden within, and we liked it. we are the kind of people who would nitpick over aprons regardless.

In the final book, in the final battle of elayne's army, gareth bryne surrounds the trolloc in what's basically a rehearsal of the battle of cannae (before a second trolloc army came and the black tower men came to rescue). That was easy to notice.

Now I randomly came across a description of the battle of austerlitz, and I noticed it's very similar to what mat does in the last battle - surrender the high ground, lure the enemy into attacking, then take back the high ground and use it to shell the enemy. Even the name is similar, polov heights compared to rea life pratzen heights. It's clear sanderson has researched some famous battles to have the great generals come across as capable.

I wonder, are there other real battles used as inspiration in the books? did jordan do it too?

the end.
i'd really like to see the end of the books. you know, because it would mean that the tv show does not get canceled halfway. and if it does not get canceled, it probably means the quality was at least passable

I am bad at imagining people. I can't really form a mental image of a person unless I devote all my attention to it, and then I'm not reading the story anymore. in my mind, the characters are dark shadows.

with that premise, I like getting a movie of a book - even when the movie is not very good - because it lets me imagine real characters. I have no problems imagining a person if I saw the actor in the movie, and  it certainly beats a dark shadow.

5 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

 

Uh yeah, that 100% should have been put in spoiler code if only because it's a very late book spoiler.
 

oh, right. I assumed everyone reading here is a book nerd, but there can be people who started the show without reading the book. spoiler is appropriate

On 5/15/2023 at 11:14 PM, DojoToad said:

She looks great for Verin.  Wondering how much her story changes from the source material.

regarding verin's role in the story

if I was the screenwriters, I would expand her role, giving her parts of other minor sisters, because she's otherwise a minor character, disappearing for whole seasons, and that's not good for keeping an actor.

She looks excellent.

of course, this doesn't allow to draw any conclusion - good or bad - on the plot.

1 hour ago, WhiteVeils said:

I think this change was done for a specific reason.  Having the tattoo there is what let us see without any explanation at all that that poor fisherman's daughter in the cold open of episode 6 was also the extremely powerful Amyrlin Seat when we see her later.
/THAT/ tells us a few other things. 

good point.

though still going to be missed by any but the most observant viewer.

that said, the books are full of subtle things that nobody will notice unless they look for an internet guide, so in this the tv show keeps to the spirit of the book

after the latest wotwednesday drop on the topic, I feel kinda bad for all the work that went into it and that nobody noticed.

you don't really see it much unless you stop the frame and focus on it anyway

for those who want to criticize the series, there are a lot of threads for that. please, keep on topic.

as for the video, the costumes look good - but they always do. i lacked the patience to follow it all to the end, especially because i have troubles with some of the accents. did I miss something special?

Would it be more correct to say that it's old new content, or that it's new old content?😛

I can't make out a few words, and it's enough to lost the subtler meanings. they are talking about kari al'tor, but i don't see anything new or special about the dialogue. good acting, yes, but nothing is added.

as for the possibility this starts some new releases, it is possible. or maybe after 3 months since the last news we get this little bit and then nothing again for 3 more months. i won't get excited until i have a trailer and a release date.

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

The similarities between the Aiel and the Freman, Rand/Avihenda and Paul/Chani are obvious and have been discussed at length online. I know many have stated that RJ was not influenced by the dune saga but I sometimes find that difficult to believe. There are other similarities as well, the bene gessarit and the aes sedai for instance,

 

As far as I know, RJ was influenced by dune. I mean, every writer is influenced by everything he's read through his life, but the aiel and aes sedai are clearly inspired. I don't see any real similarity between aviendha and chani, on the other hand.

that said, it's not the same thing and there are enough differences. the aiel have a touch of fremen in them, but they are modeled more closely to the zulu impis - at some point someone even describes aiel common tactics that's exactly the same as the impi fighting tactics. then there is the short spear - iklwa - and the fact that they can run for very long distances. while the whole clan structure is modeled after irish or scottish clans.

actually, the fremen and aiel look similar on the surface, but they get more different the more you analyze. so, let people analyze.

1 hour ago, ForsakenPotato said:

And the show has not shied away from various ceremonies so far, we've already seen funeral rites, the women's circle induction, the oath rod, etc.

 

oh, right. if they found the screen time for pushing egwene down a cliff, they should totally find it for the arches.

no, they are not. more important scenes have already been cut.

but they would make for good, cinematic scenes, so they may be included for that reason

which hopefully will mean hope of getting more than 5 seasons. if season 3 has the second battle of the two rivers as one of its main points, I don't want to imagine how much they'd have to cut to wrap everything in 5 seasons. heck, if after season 3 they'd have to wrap up everything in two more seasons, they'd probably have to rewrite the plot entirely.

it will never release.
we died and we are now paying for our sin of impatience by being forced to wait forever for stuff that we want dearly

more dark? I agree with sanderson, they are pushing too hard on the "dark" stuff.

still no news on when it could come out? last we knew it was end of 2022-beginning of 2023, and obviously none of them materialized. so i'm now hoping we'll get a trailer any day