well, in book one moiraine fights aginor or balthamel, and holds one off for a bit. egwene is stronger than moiraine at this point, and possibly more trained in war channeling. i can easily accept the scene. in both scenes it is clear that the foresaken has the upper hand from the beginning. just in the same way that if I got in a boxing match with a trained boxer, there's no way I can win, but if I focus on defence I may be able to hold off for half a minute or so.

I understand that fantasy cities in movies are meant to look good, to provide striking visuals, not to be particularly realistic. still, would it really kill the production to show some farmland around? so far we had 3 cities shown: tar valon was placed in the middle of mountains, with no single sign of human presence outside of it. fal dara instead was in the desert. and now falme, also desert. what is it about a nice green grassland that makes it so unsuitable to settling a major city? are fields of wheat or corn so ugly that the production must eschew them at all cost? my poor suspension of disbelied is suffering.

netflix supposedly does earn a profit, though it doesn't have that much higher number. and people only pay the subscriptions. and that's how it was discovered that the whole tv shows industry was actually a face for a giant money laundering scheme 😁

sorry, i'm too busy spending half of a book as part of a circus to have time for that 😛

the problem with expectations here is that of different media. tv does some things better, books do other things better. and one of the things books do better is plot. in a book, you can spend some pages detailing exactly why a certain character is in a certain place to do something. in a movie, there's no time for that. in general, a book can explain deeply, a movie cannot. so my expectations there are lower, and I can accept - if grudgingly - on a tv show plot holes and ass pulls that would have me throw a book at the wall. on the other hand, tv shows do images. combats, scenery, costumes. I'm never going to complain that swordfights in the book are not as spectacular as they are in a tv show, because the book is more limited there, and i have lower expectations of what a good book fight is.

only 1 billion total minutes? well, I had no idea what are normal viewership numbers, but I find it very weird. how can they recoup their expences if they put 100 millions into a show and 2.5 million people watch it? they'd need to earn 40$ for each viewer to break even. you sure your math is right? in any case, my point had nothing to do with getting book readers to watch the show. my point was that there aren't enough book readers to pick screenwriters among them, and the books are too long to ask them to read the books after they are hired

yeah, those are actual issues. though with all the times nynaeve just exploded and solved the plot in the first season, putting her down is good to advance her arc. and rand+logain feels a waste, but maybe rand will come back and be trained in the next season. ingtar... was a bit of a wasted arc

interesting. it's the kind of details, unfortunately, that most viewers miss. including myself. by the way, by show lore rand and ishy should be evenly matched - though I doubt they ever fought with the power in the books. it seems show rand is a lot stronger than even his book counterpart.

it's highly coreographed because it's a tv show and must look good, no other reason. even valda himself states that hand gestures are not necessary, so there is no lore issue unless one already decided he hates the show and wants to see the negative in everything. well, if a damane resisted all the torture, and still won't channel in battle. if you cut her tongue, and still she resisted. what else could you do? last extreme, you can try to threaten an even bigger physical punishment, and chopping off hands is pretty much what's left. It will also make the damane less effective, because she can't ride unaided, but the alternative is losing the damane, so it's worth a try. finally, if the damane still resists, I suppose they'll kill her. But I don't think it's actually relevant, because I don't think therre's ever much need for that punishment. Seanchan culture approves of damane, so most girls just go along and obey orders without need for cohercition. The recalcitrant ones can be tortured very effectively. Even aes sedai and wise ones are known to eventually give up. How often do you think it will be actually necessary to chop pieces off a damane? not enough to be a real issue to society. and the possibility of it happening is there as bogeyman; it's one of those cases where the threat is more effective than its execution.

huh... my comment wasn't entirely serious. anyway, hand gestures are unnecessary, and people can be taught to go without them. see, here's a bit of a misconception. Yes, the wheel of time is a bestselling series of books. It sold over 100 million copies worldwide. that's huge, right? everyone must have heard of it. Then you consider it's 14 books. So divide 100 by 14, you get 7 million copies for the whole saga. already a lot less. You can even double that numer because people may share those books - me and my brother have a single copy, but we both read it - and you get 15 million readers maybe. In the whole world. Now, we can assume most of those readers are in the western world, which has roughly one billion people, and we get that little more than 1% of your population has read the wheel of time. A few more % have heard of it from someone else, but a good 95% of people never heard about it. So, while wot is a major bestselling series of books, it's not something like star wars, or james bond, which are major bestselling movies. a major bestselling movies is something everyone heard about - and even non-fans are at least vaguely familiary with the topic. a major bestselling book is something most people never heard. Then you also get sample selection. we determined that 1 to 2% of the population has read the wheel of time. but that number is skewed towards book readers and fantasy nerds. most movie writers and directors, I'd surmise, are not book readers, else they would have become writers. they are instead movie watchers, hence they went to work with movies. So the percentage of movie directors who actually read the wheel of time could be even lower than in the global population. You want a writer/director who's familiar with the content? good job, you already excluded 99% of all available creators. I don't think there are enough screenwriters familiar with the wheel of time in all the united states for your needs. And most of them already have other contracts. And here's the second misconception. While the show has a big budget of 100 millions per season, that doesn't mean it's got money to throw away. Sure, they look like a lot of money. Then you have to pay the actors, some of whom are expensive. Even the extras are not cheap; a trolloc may appear one minute in the show, but it took days of work to prepare the prostetics and train the actor. Then you have to pay the set. Emond field does not build itself, you know. how much did they spend to create a whole village, then burn it down? Then there is the cgi, a lot of it in a fantasy show with widespread magic. then there is marketing. consider it all, you don't have much money to spare. with that in mind, can you put in the contract with a screenwriter the need to read the books? if it was a single book, then yes. I'm sure when they filmed the martian everyone majorly involved had read the book, because it was a relatively short book you can read in a couple afternoons. Not so the wheel of time. it takes months to read. And even after you read it once, you still miss most details. So, do you think you can ask so many writers to stop all their work and spend months doing nothing but reading books, just to familiarize with the material? or to do it in their own time? Hopefully you see it's not realistic. what you can realistically do is hire a recognized book expert to sum up and explain to the writers what they need to know. which is exactly what they did, with sarah nakamura.

which is not even all that different from the books, because even in the books there are plenty of things I would have done differently, plenty of storylines that feel forced, stretched, overly contrieved, or just plain unnecessary. but the overall result is a net plus. It's quite easy in 8 hours of show to make a list with a dozen questionable things in the season. it's also easy to make a similar list with a dozen good things. if I may suggest, just mentally retcon - or skim - the things you didn't like and focus on those you like. this is how I appreciate the tv show. the books, too.

on the other hand, since they will be killed if they refuse, it can be argued that they are channeling in the last extreme to defend their life...

you know, in the books 2 powerful one power wielders had a fight sword against quartestaff instead, was that any better? so, you propose that the show goes out of its way to characterize every individual hero of the horn?

You are selling the books short if you think they are little enough dialogue to fit into a tv show and everything else filler descriptive text. very, very short. the books were also full of explanations of the finer points of the plot, long historical excursus, people in their heads thinking on their course of action and their internl struggles. even in conversations, there was plenty on how a character wiggled their finger in a suggestive way and how the other character read volumes in that wiggled finger. no, you really can't take the dialogue of the books and get it equal in the tv show, and get the descriptions ofn the books to set up the environment, and think that will work.

I get the feeling they do not want to give strict rules, because they want to still improvise if the plot needs it. I also get the feeling that this is just normal tv policy. watch the scene without thinking; does it have an emotional impact? if yes, mission accomplished. when you think 10 seconds you see a continuity error? well, people who care about those things - or about getting detailed explanations for stuff - usually read books, and don't watch much tv. it's called segmentation of the market. you give your customers what they want to see. it affects every adaptation.

why does it make no sense? we do have, indeed, seen perrin fight with the sword a lot more than rand. perrin also spent months with the shienarans, who will have taught him some. and he is big and strong, which is always an advantage. what did rand do? practice some forms, maybe? it makes complete sense for perrin to be competent with melee weapons at this point, and it makes absolute sense for him to be better than rand in the show

no, i wasn't referring to that of that. I'm talking of the "wait until they allow you to use the power in battle, and then cause some "accidental" friendly fire" before your suldam realizes it.

heh, but the oath specifies "last extreme". otherwise it would be all too easy for an aes sedai to kill like lanfear did, and then justify it as "those packed up peasants were fertile ground for the covid pandemics that threatens everyone, so I dispersed them"

did I miss something? lanfear already killed the people in cahirien. rand made a deal with her partially to get her to stop, and partially because she's too powerful. unless you are referring to rand killing turak? well, it was self defence. sort of. yeah, rand was still softer at this point of the books. but then, this also encompassed book 3, rand was like this at the end of book 3

you get the point. she used the power as a weapon, despite it not being the last extreme to defend her life - she could have used it against the soldiers, but not the boats that hadn't even noticed her.

on the other hand, it was a very emotional moment, and perhaps the whitecloaks now will come across as something more than closeminded morons. maybe the trial on perrin will have some actual weight behind it. I, for one, am looking forward to perrin pleading guilty and declaring himself ready to face whatever punishment borhnald decides, with bornhald then deciding to give him another chance.

yes, but it wouldn't kill to ask for both. i can forgive minor things, but really, the thing with moiraine. it would have been so easy to have her cut the flows of the damane to free rand, and keep the same plot. this is just a major oversight, and I'm extremely surprised that nobody, from rafe to the other writers to sarah nakamura to the actors themselves who knew about the three oaths, picked up on it and suggested the simple change that would not alter the plot in any other way. It is not a "we don't have the time to explain it fully". it is not a "we had to simplify it". It's not a "we need it to advance the plot". and it's not even "one guy had an oversight and didn't notice". I am dropping my rating of the whole season from 9 to 8 for that single accident.

it is very good television. with the unfortunate exception of a few plot holes and inconsistencies. well, i long since gave up on the notion that any movie could have the same level of consistency as a book. some of that, i accept as a limitation of the medium. in a book you can put in a page of explanation, in television you cannot. but really, moiraine using the power as a weapon and sinking a whole fleet of boats? I could almost hope they'll reveal her for a darkfriend, it would at least justify that

both of you have a point. i would say that it shows one can understand emotional character arcs very well, but still fail at worldbuilding and plot consistency.

it does feel rushed, indeed. well, i was wondering how they could tie all the remaining loose plots in one episode, i knew it would be rushed. same problem this show always had, really, not enough screen time for all the plot. too bad for turak. looks like this incarnation of rand is not a sword expert. not yet, at least. ingtar is not a darkfriend. or, we'll never know at least. it was a good choice at this point, he wasn't expanded enough as a character to keep his arc meaningful. only thing i don't like, you hold a choke point by staying in it and blocking the way, not by charging out. stupid hollywood tactics. so, they said suldam are weak channelers, they don't have the distinction between those that can learn and those that will do it spontaneously. i suppose it's shorter. oh, I totally said that damane could cause a friendly fire accident in battle, and so many people were tellling me no, that's not possible. despite well established book lore that suldam order you to bombard the enemy, but they leave the handling of the power to the damane herself. and yes, they can see weaves and stop them, but they have to be ready I suppose I am entitled to some gloating? egwene killed renna. well, hopefully we won't have any cringeworthy stuff about making sure moghedien was comfortable. nooooo! perrin killed bornhald! the one good guy among the whitecloaks. how could they do it? so sad scene. perrin and bornhald jr could be friends. i suppose that's why they concocted this scene. I really loved old bornhald for his speech of "the seanchan are murderers and slavers, someone has to stand up to them" uno a hero of the horn? it fits. but is the woman amalisa? i like that much less. i don't see birgitte. hopefully because they don't want to cast her prematurely, and not because they cut her out entirely. Oh, by the way, while mat saying "i remember everything" and just gaining a bunch of new powers didn't sit well with me initially, I have to admit it's actually a lot better than "I can defeat those two highly trained warriors because I was taught by a farmer that occasionally spars in his free time" damn, ishy using the illusion to get mat to stab rand was brilliant. the books rarely used it in battle, but it was a wonderful ploy. lan gets to be badass! yay! it was long overdue. wait, wait, wait. moiraine cannot use the power as a weapon except as last resort to defend her life, that of lan, or that of other aes sedai. she ABSOLUTELY cannot use it to blow up ships in the distance that are not paying attention to her; most of those ships don't even have damane on board. That's a MAJOR plot hole. And it could easily be avoided by having moiraine cut the flows of the other damane. I'm dropping the rating of the whole show just for that. shame on everyone involved. it was good, a real mark up over the previous season. I can enjoy it and just pretend that the last thing with moiraine never happened.