I think it is a talk she has with nynaeve when they are on the boat from shienar to tar valon, in book 2. nynaeve wanted to make a knife of air, or something like that. not sure if that's what you are referring, but it's in the great hunt, chapter 18.

or, it could just be a way to make damane more visible. there was a big push in that direction, because while the book can point out a detail like a ring, a casual spectator will easily miss it. so aes sedai rings are massive. in a similar vein, long nails for the seanchan nobility became those claw-like jewelry, as they are much longer and you can't miss them. and for the damane? a collar can easily be missed on a nondescript grey dress. many of them also seem to have ponitails, which could further mask a leash. from the front, it would be hard to see. instead, they made a huge metallic thing right on their faces. even their dresses are much more colorful. now you can't miss them. i wonder, on the other hand, how the damane can talk with those things in mouth. because damane are supposed to communicate with sul'dam, if nothing else to report if they have problems. you know, besides being enslaved and tortured into compliance. can damane talk in the tv show? I will be curious to see. also, I can't see the leashes at all in the few scenes where we see damane. maybe they won't be there. it will certainly be more convenient, it must be quite complicated and dangerous to ride horses while bound that way. a simple fall can easily result in a broken neck for the damane and broken arm for the sul'dam. and it could complicate things for the actors too.

tangent not over. I did not watch got, but those who did said that the quality was steadily going downwards for a while. plot holes were also mentioned. but I did watch the witcher, and season 1 was great, season 2 was not, and season 3 was middling; until episode 5, which was good. All this to say that there's no guarantees on the quality of a tv show. a good first season may be followed by a decline, and a bad first season may be followed by progress. we can only hope

regarding the comparisons with got and stuff like stage quality, I think confirmation bias has a lot to do with it. if one has liked got, then one is more likely to praise the overall quality and ignore small details. if one did not like wot, one is more likely to nitpick every little thing. including things that are not problems at all, just because he's annoyed and more likely to complain. it's pretty bad form to call criticism bias-induced, because it can just be a cheap way to shot down criticism, legitimate or not. On the other hand, bias does exhist, and everyone is susceptible to it. angry fans that were expecting one thing and got a different one most of all. while I certainly would not want to pan all criticism as bias, when it comes to the setting, lighting, and all that stuff that is very suble and virtually impossible to judge objectively, I do think bias has a major role. especially because there's a very strong correlation that people who liked the overall adaptation are also perfectly fine with the image, while people who didn't like the overall adaptation are also lamenting on the production quality.

ok, some of those are legit things i didn't notice, but for others you're grasping at straws 1 is fallout from the first season 2 i interpret it as a forsaken waking up. could be anything, really. 3 you yourself say the meet in the books 4 ok, not in the book, but their conflict was there and was real - especially in book 3, and we know S2 will incorporate elements of book 3. so i wouldn't call it a big deviation until we see the full scene 5 ok, i forgot about this. 6 ok, i forgot about this. though semirhage ended up with the seanchan elite, but even then it's much earlier, another point i concede 7 moiraine and siuan do meet in book 2, and while in the books they were no longer lovers, in the tv show they still are. if that's the equivalent of the meeting in fal dara, and m&s are kissing instead of just being friendly, i don't count it as a deviation. fallout from S1 in the worst case 7b perrin with girl i really assume it is a flashback or dream. although they could have moved the return to the two rivers already to S2 8 i mentioned that already. So, only 3 scenes that are unequivocal deviations from the books. of which one (a foresaken among the seanchan elite) is totally in line with book facts anyway. the only big change i see there is rand meeting logain so early. but then, we know bigger changes are there. they have to condense books 2 and 3 in a single season. in the books, rand would travel chasing the horn, to cahirien, then by portal to falme. the girls train in the white tower, then they get themselves kidnapped and also end on falme. then (off panel) rand goes to a secluded valley in the mountains of mist, while the girls and mat return to the white tower. the girls leave for tear, meet aviendha. rand flees alone. the others chase him. the whole party meets back in tear. seems too much stuff for one season, so I fully expect to see a much straightened version of this. we may even see callandor in falme instead of tear, with the two book endings merged into one. tldr: trying to gauge how faithful this second season will be to the books is probably an excercice in futility

there's lots of scenes recognizable from the books in this trailer. at least, I can't think of any scene that's clearly not in the book (EDIT: I forgot rand tied to the wheel). compared with the trailer for S1, which started with egwene being pushed into the river, this would suggest greater aderence to books. on the other hand, we know they have to change more than they did in S1 because of ripple effects of the changes. not that I complain; as long as they keep the major points and the character arcs, they can make as many changes as they need. but it does suggest an attempt to stay closer to the books when possible

I find both weird and fascinating that some people put so much importance on background music. as far as I'm concerned, I like the music, it fits the ominous vibe of the story, and that's all. by the way, I tried listening to the actual song and didn't like it. for the trailer they used some kind of resounding effect that makes all the difference. you can see how little I understand music by how I stumble with terminology.

Imegine the scene. Perrin and a wolf stare at each other. Then random images start passing in front of the screen. I think it would be extremely confusing, and would not be appreciated

I magnified the image, but I still see a single seat where you labeled 5 and 6. then again, other people are accepting it, and it would make sense for them to be 13 anyway, so I assume it's just me and the dark image. on a side note, why fantasy has to be so dark? it's like ever since game of trones people decided the best way to show it's serious fantasy is to have everything in muted colors. I was outside when the trailer was released, and I literally could not see half of the scenes. I had to go back home in a dark room before I could make out details. that background song gave me chills. "i'm bigger than this world". makes me feel the weight of rand's responsibilities. by the way, I can't make out one word in it, so I take the chance to ask: "I'm bigger than my body I'm bigger than my ______ I'm bigger than this world" can someone tell me what's the word I can't understand? thanks

0:23 seems a darkfriend covenant, but there are 12 seats 0:46 could she be lanfear trying to woo rand? 1:07 is that logain? they brought him back? nice 1:24 looks like perrin with one of his sisters. did they move the return to the two rivers early? more likely a flashback 1:25 siuan and moiraine. they look younger, so it could be a flashback? but we have other scenes with them, so the two are meeting and it could be the present 1:30 looks like out only image of elayne in the trailer

😍😍😍

They improved the art for the weaves, apparently. only 45 days for release, can't be too long for a trailer

ah, you mean that. so you are right. but i'm not wrong either. so calling ltt the dragon reborn is correct, although they didn't call him that in the books

that is book lore too. there is no beginning or ending to the wheel of time, so there were infinite reincarnations of the dragon

it's not in the books seems likely, yes. also the man gentled in the first scene had a voice in his head talking to him. I say it's a great way to keep suspence on whether rand is going mad or not

in that case, weaves could be tied so they would dissipate over time, or so that they would stay. the weaves around rhuidean are one examples of waves active after 3000 years

if you tie a wave, it stays there. there are plenty of waves from the age of legends still around, like the ones in [spoiler, not sure you read the books]. the people who made them are long dead, but the waves remain. on the other hand, stilling would send lan into the death spiral, just like the death of the aes sedai. but then, several details have been changed from the books. for example, in the tv show you can overdraw while in a circle, while in books you cannot. and women can feel their strenght just by being close, while in the tv show they cannot - moiraine didn't knew nynaeve was stronger than egwene until she channeled. so, don't overanalyze what can or cannot be done with the one power according to book lore; the tv show made some changes, and I'll be fine with them as long as they stay consistent

I was thinking more of a comparison with popular movie genres. like superhero movies, which as far as I can tell are full of the worst traits of bad fantasy but appear to be incredibly popular nonetheless.

yeah, it's kinda weird because if we go by any definition of fantasy, big classics like the iliad or odyssey are fantasy, with magic and god interventions. shakespeare is fantasy, with ghosts and fairies and such. and yet you'll find plenty of "intellectuals" praising those great classics while dismissing fantasy as stupid and childlike. It really does seem like prejudice is at work here; apparently mainstream and critics like fantasy as long as it's not labeled as such.

actually, the few successful fantasy shows underlined the problems. fantasy's main strenght is worldbuilding. it's what divides it from other forms of fiction. but worldbuilding requires a lot of time, and movies don't have that. sci-fi also has a similar issue, but less so; you can put people in a spaceship without having to explain it; take for example star wars, while it has a huge worldbuilding detailed in dozens of books of the expanded universe (don't ask me about canon, I'm not an expert), the movies themselves have very little of it. take a fantasy, lower the magic because of limited special effect budget, handwave most worldbuilding because you don't have the screentime to deliver it... you get something like the wot tv show. which has mixed receptions, but in any case has big limitations compared to the book. then, if you go specifically into big sagas, it gets even more complicated. a lone writer in his room can take his time, make revisions, polish the plot. He can have a few assistants to find and smooth out possible plot holes. try to convey that into tv form, it collapses. main actors may become unavailable. you work on a tight deadline, you can't just delay your production to smoothen the plot because everyone has already been hired for filming in advance. and if you need to change something afterwards, you can't just hire everyone and put them back on set. as such, tv shows tend to have much less coherent plots - because you have many more interferences. so, making good fantasy adaptations (or original works) is very, very hard.

I wonder if jain will even be included in the tv show at all. merging him with thom makes a lot of sense, since thom is more or less in the same places and can do all the same things.

so what? there's still plenty of canon that they had sex regularly for years and were romantically involved. rand and egwene did not have sex in teotw - canonically, they never did. perrin was given a wife. and while I can agree or disagree with some of those changes, each one of them is clearly motivated by story reason. they want to externalize some points that in the books were internal. they want to show stuff that in the books is rendered through the internal processes of the characters. siuan and moiraine is the same here. it moves forward a plot point that was made at the beginning of tgh, that M and S are very close and are conspiring together behind the rest of the tower. in the book, the fact that they were close was basically dropped exposition - something like "let's hope nobody in the tower remembers". upgrading their relationship is not a big change, and it does add drama and tension to the whole business. no bigger change than making rand and egwene closer than they ever were in the books. look, I share your disliking for "box checking". I hate when something is marketed as "inclusive", because if you are using it as a selling point, it stops being inclusion and it becomes exploitation. but that's not what happened here. the relationship makes sense for storytelling - there are reasons to include it. it is only a moderate change from established canon. Equally important, it was never used as marketing point. you don't get a shot of siuan and moiraine in the trailer; you don't hear rafe patting himself on the back on how progressive he was in putting that homosexual relationship. It is not "just inserted for box checking and/or fanservice". and the exact details on how exactly close were M and S as novices, and how long they remained such, is irrelevant for such a discussion.

what stripping of power in servico to those men? both moiraine and siuan are the important person in the relationship, with the man being her warder. even gareth, a mighty general, ultimately is an aes sedai underling. ok, siuan has to do menial work for bryne, I never considered how that can be seen by somebody as "putting women in their place - the kitchen". i've always seen it as just an indication that both siuan and gareth put a lot of stock into one's word. in any case, siuan's mission and power are not stripped in the slightest. No, it's not. others have given details. "experimented sexually" would be appropriate if they had sex a couple times. it could pass as appropriate if it was just sex, considering aes sedai novices are kept away from men and some homosexual experimentation is normal in those circumstances (cfr. prisons). but that's not the case here. siuan and moiraine have been extremely close for all of their years as novices and accepted (total 10 years, iirc), and they've been sharing a bed through most of that time. You could argue that they were not lovers but best friends forever superplus who also had sex regularly, but I would argue that the two are basically the same thing. so, queer.

also notice it does not mean anything for jain. it's been established that men can reincarnate as women and viceversa in the tv show, to the point that aes sedai themselves don't know if the new dragon will be a boy or a girl. so jain can be a man and a girl can stll be his reincarnation

lord of the rings was a famous fantasy work, and game of thrones was a famous fantasy work, and... what else? I'm not aware of any other famous fantasy (I'm not counting harry potter because that's fantasy for kids; I'm talking fantasy for adults here) So, either you're telling me there are only two well made fantasy adaptations that ever exhisted, or fantasy is still niche despite a couple (three if you count HP) of great successes. P.S. if you're telling me that only 2 or 3 good fantasy adaptations were ever made, that would also be a solid argument for fantasy being niche