59 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

he Forsaken really come across a little cartoonish, which is part of what they are, selfish individuals who all want to be number one

That's not the problem. Villaims in it for power alone are ok. And most foresaken have reazonable plans.

I'm objecting to lanfear specifically. I need spoilers for that

1 hour ago, Samt said:

She does a lot actually.
 

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She just doesn’t do much that actually helps the Dark One.  She’s on her own side.  Of course, and I’m not sure this needs to be in a spoiler, the bad guys lose. So I’m the end she fails. But if you look at Lanfear (and all of the forsaken to varying extents) not as a fanatically loyal servant of the DO but rather as a self interested actor with her own goals, it seems to me she does a lot. She sets up the Asmo mentorship situation. She saves Rand in the stone. The thing is, it seems that Lanfear’s plan involves Rand sort of winning and then her ending up in control of him. 

 

on the other hand, it can be argued that it's a very, very, very stupid plan.

really, what are the chances of it actually succeeding? it's like lanfear put all her hopes on a lottery ticket

3 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Why? Because he was intimate with his long-time boyhood crush? Why are we assuming that Rand is suddenly going to become some sort of playboy? 

 

We have one scene of a kiss on a mountaintop, and everyone assumes Rand is gonna bang her?

there was a scene in the winespring inn where they were both topless, with the clear implication that they had sex.

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Maybe instead of "I'm too awkward to understand that this beautiful woman wants me" this version of Rand will find some insight into Selene's bad motives and choose not to bang her. Sorta like in the room alone with the darkfriend.

i would like that. from the beginning, even before she was revelaed as a foresaken, there was clearly somegthing wrong with her. she reeked of ambition, and not the good kind.

2 hours ago, DreadLord31 said:

Now, with the new clips and articles we got, seems pretty clear that they’re going to imply that Rand and Selene have sex. Some people really, really hate that change from tGH. What do y’all think?

in the books, rand was attracted to "selene", and was only kept back by both his inexperience and his prudish upbringing.

in the tv show, rand is more experienced and less prudish, so it would make little sense for him to do nothing at all. I'd pin it as a "change that had to be made as consequence of another change".

on the other hand, tv rand is a lot more strongly attached to egwene than book rand, so I'd not like it if he was unfaithful - possibly they break up first? also, i'd rather they not go full sex. there's no reason to. some smooching would be the best compromise to accomodate book faithfulness and tv characterization

1 hour ago, Pandemonium said:

Looks like the show will be airing at 8pm ET  on 8/31 again.  No need to stay up to binge like I heard someone mention on youtube.  

 

you may have heard of this thing called "europe". it's actually got twice the population of north america. and for us, 8 pm ET is 2 am.

there's also other continents, but i think most primevideo subscribers are from europe or america.

6 hours ago, Pandemonium said:

Creepy Selene and Rand love scene, and a new montage on X today!

 

 

is it me, or the audio on those is very low? even with maximum volume, i miss most of the dialogue.

There is a scene of the trailer of nynaeve coming out bloodied from the arches, but clothed in the same clothes she has going in, so they removed the gratuitous nudity.

not surprising. in a book, you can write "character X disrobed" and no more description, and it's not sexual in any way. with actual images on a screen? not so much

23 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

In said video, she points out that in the Episode 7 scenes set in the Ways, Perrin has dreads in his hair but not in the scenes set in Fal  meaning that those Ways-set scenes would have had to have been filmed prior to the COVID shutdown, which in turn means one of two things:

1) as Lezbi Nerdy postulates, the scenes in the Ways were filmed with Barney Harris present, necessitating rewrites and re-edits that were far more extensive and complex than anybody realized

 

Or

 

2) Episode 6 always ended with Mat choosing not to enter the Ways, and he would have probably ended up in Fal Dara separately from his friends (possibly in the company of Padan Fain)

 

Personally, I've been leaning towards Option 2

Or

3) they filmed part of episode 7, then there was the covid break, then mat didn't return. so they had to remove it from the narrative somehow, and making him leave before the ways was the only point where he could escape. they could keep those scenes where mat wasn't in, though.

Or

4) those scenes were filmed or re-filmed after the second covid break. or anyway, after a long real life time.

I don't think there's enough to draw sure conclusions.

13 hours ago, Rsmithboeing said:

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

 

Because liandrin is such a reliable source on anything, really. how about "that scene was meant to introduce there is some kind of taint that draws the men mad, and also how prejudiced red aes sedai are about it"?

7 hours 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?

If you can channel heavily on the a'dam, chances are you can also hit the damane with a similar flow of power. in which case it's easier to just smoke the damane. unless you're specifically trying to take her alive. some book characters do it, unlatching the collar with flows of air

14 hours ago, 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 😂

 

 

that happens later. i'm referring mostly to the fal dara meeting where rand goes all "i won't be your false dragon on a leash" stupidiy.

but we're going offtopic. if more posts are made on the subject, perhaps a mod should move them to a new thread

4 hours ago, Vartija said:

And especially Ba'alzamon who fed the boys stories of false dragons and how Tar Valon would put him on a leash. And underneath it all the "stubbornness of Two River folk" who do exactly opposite what other people want them to. 

those are actually the parts where the book characterization fell flat.
I mean, on one hand, there's moiraine. there's stories about aes sedai, sure, but what you know is that she saved your life and your village and she healed people. on the other side, there's the dark one. you know, the one bound on shaiol gul with all the foresaken and all that stuff, it's your very cathecism. he sent trollocs after you, and those trollocs killed indiscriminately everywhere they go.

who do you trust more?

as for two river stubborness, seems more like a charicature.
I think the tv show did right in having moiraine kill the boatman, even though the scene wasn't very well executed.

3 hours ago, Vartija said:

 I don't think the show quite succeeded in planting the seeds of mistrust between Rand & Moiraine/Aes Sedai in the first season so it would make sense to fan the flames a bit so that the Rand & Moiraine mistrust doesn't look too much like Rand being a complete dolt. Also, this descent into darkness worries me a bit because this would be early for Dark Rand. I feel like the show still has work to do to make us really like Rand and if he starts flirting with the dark side already viewers might not learn to like and care about him in the first place.

I'd say the books also did at best a fair job there. And the books had much more time to develop that mistrust. Here's another issue where the show must do better than the books.

the scene with liandrin and nynaeve, it looks like the scene from tgh with siuan and nynaever on the boat. so it seems they kept the scene, but put liandrin in place of siuan

27 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Right.  But how did they approve S2 before S1 even aired?  Couldn't be a cost/benefit analysis.  There is something else they are looking at.  Maybe they just had space to fill and nothing else to plug in?

could be as simple as needing to keep the contracts with the actors; maybe they started saying "either you give me the certainty that I will have a salary, or I will look for a new job elsewhere". S1 was delayed a long time for covid, and this probably also disrupted the schedules of some actors.

else, I could not guess

On 8/8/2023 at 11:13 PM, Samt said:

I'm not sure why there was any confusion as to the fact that my opinion is my opinion.

 

the way I interpret it, "i didn't like it" means it's my opinion; "it sucks" has a harder edge, it implies a level of objective badness that at least a majority of viewers would agree with. "the execs should have canceled it" implies it to be objectively bad by agreement of almost everyone, and economically losing too.

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And what hard data is there on the success of the show? Amazon doesn't publish viewership numbers, and no one bought the show because it wasn't for sale.  It comes for free with a prime membership.  Obviously, this is a challenge with streaming in general, but how do you quantify the revenue that a particular show brought in, when all of the revenue is general?

On 8/9/2023 at 12:52 PM, DojoToad said:

S2 was greenlit before S1 dropped - so the decision to carry on had nothing to do with the show's success

we have no hard data on viewership, but season 3 was greenlit after season 1 was aired, so the execs judge the data to be at least good enough to keep spending money on making new episodes. as for how to quantify revenue, I have no idea how they do it, but I am pretty sure they do have ways to at least make estimates. people do not throw around hundreds of millions without some cost/benefit analysis.

8 hours ago, expat said:

I appear to be in a minority of one, but I thought that the Abel Cauthon change was one of the best things they did the entire season.

 

Truth be told, the entire EF story was badly written because it had the narrative that a hard scrabble village on the edge of civilization with ~1700 technology was filled with a bunch of goody two shoes with late teens as innocent as the day they were born.  The reality was that these types of locations were (and are) filled with desperate people that often act like the dregs of society.  Children would be married and put to work at a young age so it's totally unrealistic that Mat would be the town prankster at 19.

I wasn't happy with the cauthons, but it makes a lot of sense.

certainly the characterization of the two river people (with every bad one as coplin or congar) made me raise a few eyebrows.

53 minutes ago, Samt said:

That's not the point.  The point is that it sucks

I preemptively covered that point

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

I enjoyed it, a lot of book fans enjoied it, and every single non-book-fan I know who watched it liked it.

I may also add that I heard positive comments on stepin specifically.

you are confusing your personal taste with objective truth.

there is no objective way to rate art, but there is an objective parameter used by those in charge, which is basically "will people like this enough to keep paying subscriptions and cover the cost of this production?". This also illustrates exactly the level of commitment they have in making a good product. A good product sells more, but it also costs more, and they have to strike the right balance.

Well, I don't have hard numbers there, but I am pretty sure wot was not an economic fiasco. otherwise, they would not have greenlit season 3 already. wot was successful on the one objective parameter that matters to the people who get to decide whether to greenlight it.

as for improving, I'm sure Rafe would have loved to have the chance to, but it would have required reshooting scenes, redoing special effects, basically paying money. So, once more, the question was "will improving this get us enough extra customers to justify the cost?" and the answer was likely no. if your idea of "improving" was adding extra time to better flesh out the plot and characters, I'd be all for it, but it would have cost extra money, that the executives were probably unwilling to pay. if your idea of improving was changing the plot to bring it closer to the books with the screentime they had, well, you would have liked the show better, and I would have liked the show better, but a majority of people who did not read the book and who make up a majority of viewers may have liked it less.

annyway, after the first season was successful enough, the executives decided it may be worth gambling more money into this, so we are - apparently - getting improvements here. at least, special effects on channeling are much improved. I heard voices that episodes will be a few minutes longer, but can't confirm. anyway, it shows that the people in charge at amazon are willing to bet some more money that improving quality may turn in more profit. that's all we can ask for; they are running a business, not a charity.

long story short: you can absolutely say that you didn't like the show. You can go as far as claiming that the show insults book fans personally.

but the moment you say that the show sucks, or that the execs should have done something drastic about it, that's objectively, factually false. we don't know all the facts, but every piece of hard data we have agrees that the show was generally liked and reasonably successful.

3 hours ago, Samt said:

 And even on the second point, someone greenlit it for release. 

2 hours ago, BookMattBetterThanShow said:

(Will say if it had been left to me, I would have just stop at episode 6)

"we spent 100 millions on a project, involving some pretty famous actor too. the result is not great, not terrible. let's just not air the series then. [or, let's only air the first half and stop it there]. we'll tell the fans we canceled it because we didn't like it enough"

best. management. ever! (sarcasm mode)

reality check, please. I can understand shelving something if it is terrible, like asylum-level terrible. like, star wars christmas special terrible. the kind of stuff that the fans will try to forget and the actors will try to hide their involvment in.

this is not the case. wot S1 is far from perfect, but I enjoyed it and a lot of book fans enjoied it, and every single non-book-fan I know who watched it liked it.

is that bad enough to cancel a project in which you already invested lots of money? to tell the fans "sorry, we didn't like the product" after hyping them for two years? to tell the young actors for whom this was their first important role than they spent a lot of working time and now won't get any recognition or anything to put in their resumee? what actor would still want to work with you afterwards?

7 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I really don’t get that argument, the major politics of the white tower never confused me once all the pieces were revealed.

the major politics, ok. but all the dozens of minor sisters, all with their small plots that ultimately make a very little impact on the book? cut.

the question is how much to cut and streamline.

8 hours ago, Agitel said:

I definitely think this season can be much better, though whether a person likes it or not will depend on what bothered them about the previous season.t.

totally.
yes, there are a lot of things that could be improved and looks like they were improved. but if someone dislike the changes from the book, one will still dislike the tv show. in fact, S2 is bound to have even more changes, since they have to write a role for moiraine basically from scratch and they have to accomodate for the changes they already made. I'm cool with that, I knew this adaptation would come with major plot rewriting. but for those that didn't, S2 it's going to be worse.
i remember there was a guy in this forum who was furious for the sword of Tam lacking a couple fine details from its canon description; I bet he'd not like S2 no matter how much they improve.

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

 it also makes no sense for Liandrin to take the role of Alvarian because a major plot point there is that she is of the white.

i wouldn't call it a "major plot point". it was just another detail of aes sedai politics. in general, if there is one thing we can be sure will be cut, is a lot of aes sedai politics. it would be incomprehensible to the viewer. it was hard even for dedicated readers. if they wanted to explain it in detail, they'd need several additional seasons just of aes sedai plotting.

so, while some aes sedai politics was kept - a few scenes in S1E6 with various aes sedai blackmailing each other gave a good idea, I think - it will be hugely simplified for clarity.

if they merge alviarin with liandrin or elaida, i would not cry a bit.

12 minutes ago, Samt said:

The WoT is not that old and I don't think values have really changed for the better since then.  The inclination to need to label relationships as "healthy" or otherwise is a symptom of the disease that is affecting the modern world.  Everyone is at least a little bit broken and that means that relationships with real people will also sometimes be a little bit broken. 

look, i'm all for "try to fix things with your loved ones before leaving them forever", but there is a vast gulf between "throwing out a relationship the first time something gets a little bit tough" and "your partner beats you on a regular base and you think it's your fault".

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The response to finding something broken in a relationship should usually be trying to fix it.

and perhaps the most damning thing in wot relationships is that almost nobody tries to. faile never tries to fix anything. egwene never tries to communicate with her partner(s). nynaeve never communicates, but luckily for her lan is good at reading her. and let's not even get into what will happen with mat. there are very few instances where people sit down and talk things through like rational adults.

I'd be willing to call perrin's relationship ok if faile made any attempt to communicate her problems to perrin. especially because perrin tryies to be the best husband all the time. she can't even claim culture clash, because unlike perrin, she was raised into a court, with the expectation of political marriage to some foreign prince; she should know about different cultures and expectations. instead, faile does all she can to make perrin feel miserable. jut because she hopes he will get angry and will "fight" with her. when all she had to do would be explain that fact to perrin. 

her scene with berelain is also pretty cringy. she pulled a knife on a woman who wanted to court her husband. we can find many similar instances in newspapers, and they never lead to anything good.

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Throwing out a relationship the first time something gets a little bit tough because it's "unhealthy" is exactly why divorce, unhappiness, mental illness, loneliness, and isolation are all so prevalent in our society today.  

I'm not touching any real life implications. too much of a potential flamebait

On 8/2/2023 at 8:01 PM, JeffreyBoring said:

I really wanted to like Faile, and maybe the character is written better later, but I just can't with her. She is so enormously awful. Selfish and mean about every single thing. And Perrin is the one that got strapped with her? She's horrible to him, bullying and even abusive in nearly every interaction. I'll grant that Perrin is obnoxiously "protective" of her to the point that he steals her personal agency trying to keep her out of any danger. That's also gross. However, they are easily the most toxic "good" relationship I've read in ages, and it's nearly enough to quit reading to avoid this narrative.

I have trouble thinking of a single healty relationship in the whole 14 books (maybe rand and elayne in the stone of tear), but perrin and faile take the cake.

there was an interview from robert jordan saying something like men in his family having to be strong to avoid being dominated by the strong women around that makes me think he grew up in a fairly disfunctional environment where bullying was the norm, and that reflects in his characters.

the wheel of time has a lot of issues like that. in the end, you can decide to keep reading or to stop there. but ultimately, I think the best way to take all that "gender relationship" garbage is for what it is: a projection from the culture of the time the book was written. isn't it funny how we write about people from different worlds, in different times, with all kinds of magic, but they all share our fundamental moral values? you never read a book with a protagonist thinking it's all right to burn someone as an heretic, or to stone someone for infidelity, or that it's ok to marry and have children at age 13, or to own slaves. probably we'll also find the books written 50 years in the future to be very strange.

anyway, the point is, at the time wot was written, a lot of stuff was ok that is now definitely not ok. just roll with it.

there are much bigger value dissonances when we consider works of the distant past, like those of shakespear or dante. but in that case we accept that because we know them for what they are. I guess wot is close enough to us that we don't activate the disconnection "this is written by people from a far past who had values very different from ours, i must not take this as a moral guide". we recognize the values in wot as our own, until something like domestic violence pops up.

12 hours ago, DojoToad said:

It gets worse...

ah, but then it gets better. eventually.

5 hours ago, Wassup said:

The one in this scene made it a point to show it because she put it on over her glove. Like, why?

 

simple bravado. "look how powerful I am. I'm not just a high ranking darkfriend. no, i'm also an aes sedai. i wield power in so many ways, I had to hire a secretary just to remind me of all the different ways I'm powerful"

perhaps also "don't you think of trying a klingon promotion at my expence, i can incinerate you with a thought"

similar considerations for the one wearing the markings of seanchan high blood. probably suroth
and while "bors" called those showing symbols fools, it's not like it actually matters. ok, so you know one of the masked figures at the meeting was black ajah. so what? there are hundreds of aes sedai, you can't identify her. it doesn't really tell you anything.

3 hours ago, Guire said:

The gholam as a child will be genuinely scary.  That actually may be best theory I have seen.

It would be, and could be a great idea, but there are two practical problems.

First, it will be several seasons before the gholam is killed. Several years. The child will age; for an adult, you can cover a few years of aging with make up, not for a child. They'd have to hire new actors every time? Maybe they could use deepfake technology like they did to rejuvenate harrison ford?

Second, with the gholam in child form its eventual death may be hard to swallow for some of the audience. Even if the gholam is not an actual child

On 7/28/2023 at 5:23 PM, SinisterDeath said:

I mean, war paint is a thing.

 

Plus, if heavy Makeup is unrealistic, what's that say about the White Cloaks riding into battle with... white cloaks? 😛 

Which is why i said, if it's something all damane do it's part of the uniform. Yes, war paint as you call it.

The thing is, uniforms and paints have some practical applications. Distinguish friend and foe. Give your side a sense of cohesion. Try to scare the opposite side. 

Makeup does none of that. But as i said, i can accept it as a sort of war paint if all damane wear it. And somebody in books mentioned beauty contests for damane. I can totally see a sul dam putting makeup on her damane just like some dog owners put accessories on their dogs. 

Incidentally, the smartest thing to do with damane would be to dress them like soldiers, give them armor like soldiers, and hide them amid soldiers. This way enemy archers would have a harder time picking them out. But people not always do what is practical

If all damane wear makeup like that, it's part of the ritual and it's fine. If a damane inexplicably wears heavy makeup in a potential war zone, it would stretch things a bit