10 hours ago, Dark Ones Taint said:

 

How much subtle foreshadowing is there over multiple reads?  I would love to pick up on some easter eggs.  I know there will be obvious stuff, I am just hoping for some gems that reward the reader!

I'm thoroughly enjoying my first full reread and the foreshadowing in books 1-4, at least, is exquisite, imho. 🙂

On 8/19/2022 at 8:19 AM, DojoToad said:

I actually just switched from Amazon to Barnes and Noble on my last order.

 

Amazon wanted to charge $31 and change for a paperback trilogy.  Was just about ready to check out when I saw they were selling the books singly for $7.99 each.  So I could buy them for $23.97 with a few extra clicks, or buy them as a bundle for $8 more.  No way!!!  Plus they don't accept PayPal which is what I was wanting to use.

 

Barnes and Noble - next day delivery, $23.97, and accepts PayPal.  I might have my new bookstore...

I stopped buying a lot of stuff from amazon because of shady pricing issues like this. They think people will assume (most probably do) that because it's a bundled item they will save, but often the single item cost is lower than the bundle prices. 

I'm really not into playing games like that so I take my money elsewhere. IIRC thriftbooks is where I picked up the last several novels (used) in order to finish the series. 

(Hope the above doesn't run afoul of the advertising forum rules, if so mods please delete!)

I don't see how Mat's and/or Thom's characters are supposed to work without the snappy dialogue. 

🤷‍♂️

21 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Honestly, if you skim through S1 of GOT, the one thing that stands out is the use of outdoor scenes compared to WoT.

What's probably feeling like "cheap sets" is that we get a lot of interior shots, that are often made to look cramped as they're trying to get us closeups on the main characters.

Then we flicker over to GoT, and we see these expansive landscapes. These' outdoor set pieces. Courtyards with stables. Natural lighting is littered throughout the first episode of the first season. 

If a show goes from one interior set to another interior set, it starts to feel like a stage play, and that might be the feeling you're getting. It doesn't help that we only got 8 episodes to GoT's 10.

We can't have a lot of extra's in certain scenes without crowding out the main characters.

But if your in an outdoor scene with characters walking around, you can have extra's doing extra stuff... and we didn't get a lot of that stuff in S1 of WoT.

I literally have not watched, or even seen 2nd hand, a second of GoT. 

So I cannot be said to be making that comparison. 

And using that as a comparison is meaningless to me personally (obviously a freakish outlier in that regard). 

You're correct in saying it feels like a "stage play."

1 hour ago, SinisterDeath said:

If we get flicker flicker,  It's likely this was the child Perrin & Laila lost.
 

  

I don't get this criticism.

The sets don't look low budget, and they don't look too clean or neat/orderly at all. I'll give you that they need to work on lighting. (HBO has superior lighting compared to Amazon's).

RJ was always going on about how the Aes Sedai, Aiel, and White Cloaks were meticulous about bathing and keeping things spick and span, so there are going to be areas of the world that ARE going to be clean and orderly, and that's reflected in the show.

Here's a screenshot of Shadar Logoth. We see dust on the floor, broken stuff everywhere.

 

Here's Dana's Bar. It's quiet lived in. Clutter everywhere. You see dust in the air due to the way the lights coming in.

 

Here's the Place Rand was staying with Mat when brother book brought Nynaeve over.
The piller's a bit dirty, the furnishing is sparing but it's an Inn.
It doesn't need to look like a family lives there. You keep it to a few beds, wardrobes, light sources, maybe a painting or two.

 

Here's Lan with Steppin. The area looks about as lived in as a Warder who spends a few weeks out of the year there. It's clean, because it should be. The novices & accepted do their jobs well.

 

And of course here's Fal Dara throne room area. It should be clean. They're nobility. It's an open dais, you don't want a bunch of clutter around it.


Now here's Game of Thrones S1.
Sansa's room.
Boy, that looks clean! The only "dirty" thing I see is all that candle wax.


That throne room is really clean and bare!

 

And of course, look how clean this chamber is! Those chairs are spaced far to evenly! Thank goodness there's no starbucks cup in this shot! 😉 

Despite your examples, I'm not the only one of that opinion. 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. 🙂

37 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I get it. A lot of people felt that way, and I'm not trying to criticize you for it. On the other hand, other than your pre-established feelings about the show, I'm just trying to figure out what put you off about the trailer. 

 

Not trying to shame you for not liking the show. Just trying to figure out what makes you feel that there's been no change in direction. 

I didn't study the trailer, so I'd have to say I'm going from more of a first gut impression sorta dealio. Intuition usually serves me fairly well. 😉 

*watches it a second time in slow mo*

Ok, there's so much wrong to unpack. 
- Rand grabbing Moi by the throat
- Perrin with a sword
- "You're the water that moves the wheel" line (paraphrasing) Suian line
- Eliada/Liandrin? I can't even keep them straight, lol. Her line about those who survive is so cringe. Why can't they just keep the great dialogue that Jordan wrote?
- Apparently constantly bloody Nynaeve ???
- All the sets/lighting/extras still seem really low budget and not believable. This was another of my main criticisms from S1. Everything's far too clean and neat and orderly and not lived in, from a set and lighting standpoint. None of the extras make the towns or cities feel real. 
-Ishy with Seanchan
- Perrin with child?
- more gratuitous Moi/Suian (?) love scenes (almost as cringe as seeing Rand/Eg S1...ugh)

- Rand bound on a cliff's edge (maybe a dream sequence?)...

The gestalt doesn't pass the smell test. 🙂

 

3 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

I don’t think the music will be in the show. Seems like it was used more as a tone setter. The tone seems to be leaning into the horror/thriller aspects, which would be a smart way to go, tone wise. 
 

The VFX of the weaves are much improved and the visuals are still top notch. The costuming also looks good. I’m not sure what’s not to like from a visual standpoint.
 

As for “purposefully continuing down  the path set during season 1” can you elaborate? What “path” did season one go down? And how does the trailer demonstrate that S2 will continue following that path?

I'll try to be succinct in a very complicated matter. 

I didn't care for season 1. I thought it was bad. I have admittedly high standards for the visual media that I choose to consume (because I consume very little, I feel like anything other than the best is a waste of my time). 

It wasn't one or two things, the entirety of season 1 just felt off. I didn't connect with much of it, and the plot and character deviations also detracted from my enjoyment. 

I guess "the path" I refer to would be "inspired by" vs. "the actual thing."

Re: music. I thought season 1's music was one of the strong points. Hope they're allowed to build on that. 
 

There's not much in the Season 2 trailer that grabbed me. 

The music was not at all my bag. 

There was much in the Season 2 trailer that, as Guire points out, leads me to believe that this show is purposefully continuing down the path set during Season 1. 

Very uncertain if I'll bother watching any further, but interested to see how it's received. 🙂

On 7/2/2023 at 7:04 AM, Gypsum said:

My sense of it is that RJ used knife-throwing in the way a writer of a thriller set in our era might utilize a firearm, but without thinking too much about the physics. If a character needs lethal force to defend themselves against a sudden attack, they can whip out a knife in the same manner a modern character would whip out a gun, and seemingly strike their foes with the degree of accuracy you would expect of James Bond. But what do I know. Not a lot about knife throwing.

I really like this! 

Gives Mat, Min, Thom, et al. a gunslinger vibe. 🙂

I've already imagined much of the gaiden, as well as the mechanics of channeling,  'in manga,' so to speak; it only stands to reason that other scenes and characters pay homage to spaghetti westerns and the like. :)

Rand's totally embarrassed about his hair on the cover of MOL, too.

So it's canon.  :| :| :|

3 hours ago, Samt said:

The book series has nearly 3000 named characters.  While many of them are very small (some not ever appearing on page), there are still hundreds of relatively important characters.  

 

When thinking about what gets cut, I think a big consideration is which characters are getting cut.  When talking about the Faile/Perrin arc, for instance, we have:

Berelain

Sevanna

Alliandre

Cha Faile members

Gaul

various Emond's Fielders

Galina

Tylee

Rolan

Therava

 

Are you going to cast all of these characters and make an arc out of it? That's a big commitment.  

 

It'll be the story arc for seasons 5-9. :p

My hot take is that Rafe *expands* Faile's rescue slog, just to show WoT fans who's *really* the boss.  😐

A few I didn't see in the video:

"BS sure nailed Mat's character right out of the gate."

"I wish BS would tie up all these loose ends more perfunctorily."

"I can totally relate to those Children of the Light...more characters should be as morally upstanding."

"I prefer the tv series."
 

6 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

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.

Well, I think classics like The Illiad or The Odyssey, or all of Shakespeare's works,  are written at such a higher artistic level than 99.9% of fantasy, that the distinction must be made.  

10 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

The only answer I could have for this, is she just didn't put enough power into the Balefire. 

The amount of power = how far back in time balefire burns something back. 
If they died an hour earlier, but she only burnt the mydraal back 5 seconds, it's not going to change anything.

My first thoughts as well. This seems very plausible; however, I could see Nynaeve being powerful enough to pull the same 'back-to-life' trick with balefire that Rand does. 

10 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Plot Armor.

😄 😄

10 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

 

Also, at this stage Rand barely has any understanding of what it is he's doing with the one power.

Later on he has more control, and with that control he's able to fully grasp how how unwieldly Callandor is.

 

It's kind of like operating a machine or tool as a child, and then later as an adult operating that same tool, you fully understand the power behind it, and how lucky you were that you managed to operate it without incident as a child.

I guess I see what you're saying.

I thought the last few books (or MOL maybe) said explicitly that Callandor was a "trap" that couldn't be used solo by a male channeler and needed linking with others. Or am I wrong there?

Thanks for the insights! 🙂

This is my umpteenth time reading The Dragon Reborn, but the first since completing the full series. I seem to be picking up more of the "behind the scenes" intrigue and Forsaken machinations this time around.

But I'm also finding plot points that seem inconsistent to the rest of the books. Not sure if I should call them "continuity issues" or "plot holes." 😉

Not sure if these have been discussed before. I'm sure they have been, as the community has always been on top of such things. 

A few of my observations:

- Why isn't Lan with Moiraine when she confronts Be'lal in the Heart of the Stone, despite saying he was going (and her acquiescing) in an earlier chapter? I find it hard to believe he'd just wander off at the most important moment. And if he was held back, why didn't he rush to her aid at the first chance he had after Be'lal crumples her up? 

- Why is Rand able to split and redirect Baalzamon's balefire in the Heart of the Stone, but Be'lal isn't able to react in time to Moiraine's similar blast of balefire?

- When Nynaeve balefires the Myrddraal after being captured by bandits, why aren't the Aiel who were killed/wounded by those Myrddraal brought back to life/healed of their wounds? 

- Why is Rand able to channel through Callandor in the Heart of the Stone without incident, yet it proves unwieldy in later books (when his lightning against the Seanchan strikes his own men, killing them)?

Curious to hear your thoughts.

That's wonderful! Thanks for sharing! :)

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

RIP ANDY ROURKE!!!!!

While Mat in the show was nothing like Mat in my mind, I agree it's still one of the more successful tv adaptations. 

Now that Barney is gone, though...:shrug:

I prefer my head canon images over the casting images. 

I've done my best not to let the show "replace" my personal images of the books, and will continue to do so. 

I don't know why, but Perrin and Egwene *really really really* don't match my personal images, and it bothers me. 

The rest of the cast much less so. 

Oh, Thom Merrliin's portray was absolute dreck, too. Nothing personal against the actors and/or actresses, just doesn't jive with the "head canon."

Checked with my buddy who is a part of the Writer's Guild strike, as a prop master. He said there's no way they would be carrying on  production such as auxiliary shoots due to the strike, it's not just the writers.

It would be the entire production crew (grip, dolly, props, camera guys, etc.) shut down, according to him.

So definitely going to impact the release time of S2 if stuff isn't completely wrapped up and ready to  go prior to the strike. 

S3 is obviously impacted as well.