8 hours ago, Ryrin said:

I’ll try again. Both were against fan fiction. Fan fiction includes people altering his story while using his characters and writing in his world (without his permission.) For that reason, I was surprised that Harriet gave permission to alter the story and characters to the extent that we have seen. If people are unable to connect the dots, I can’t help that. 
 

Numerous people have opined on the alterations and I won’t do so here. Maybe later. It’s late. ?

Harriet's not really a factor here. RJ sold the rights for TV/Film/Games to Red Eagle in 2004.

She is a consulting producer, like Brandon. Even if they opposed various choices, they don't have creative control or any authority over the production team.

I would have begun with a 5 minute intro montage akin to the prologue in the Fellowship of the Ring, briefly describing the idyllic Age of Legends, the Dark One, the strike at Shayol Ghul, and LTT going mad and breaking the world. End shot of this is dragonmount looming with Tar Valon island below in it's shadow (like the ending of TEOTW prologue).

It would be lore heavy, sure, but it would be efficient and have cool visuals. Then the first scene would be Rand and Tam on the quarry road. Rand sees a rider in black.

Guy Roberts looks like he'll make a proper Uno

ZOMG

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Roberts plays Uno Nomeshta, a gruff one-eyed soldier and tracker who serves Lord Agelmar. Fedaravicius plays Mesema, a quiet and intense warrior who serves Lord Agelmar. Chillingirian portrays Ingtar Shinowa, a lord and soldier from war-ravaged lands.

 

Thomas Chaanhing (Marco Polo) also guest stars in Season 1 as Lord Agelmar, and Sandra Yi Sencindiver (The Bridge 4) guest stars as Lady Amalisa.

edit: didn't see this was posted in the other thread. apologies

11 hours ago, KnightWhoSaysNi said:

I’ve watched Episode 1 three times so far… introducing new people to it and whatnot… and I keep catching new things I’ve missed in previous watchings.  For instance, the dragon fang with the sheep, missed that the first time around. Was that the Trollocs (most likely, but I don’t remember Trollocs being THAT intelligent) or someone doing that to scare someone off?  
 

Maybe it's a forsaken disinfo campaign to get common people to hate the Dragon/Dragon Reborn ?

I've watched them all 3 times so far I think, except for Episode 5 which I've watched twice.

2 coppers says the whole party won't be reunited until they meet at the Waygate, and that's where this photo is from

Hitting plot points is the most basic criteria for an adaptation. There is also such a thing as tone, characterization, and aesthetic.

The show is (in my humble opinion) falling short for a few main characters in terms of characterization.

1. Rand is missing the primary internal conflict he had in the novel (the question of Tam, and who he really is). I realize that we will see the Blood Snow flashback, but that doesn't change the fact that he verbally pines for Egwene in near every scene, which is a far cry from his character in the books. Even when he picks up The Travels of Jain Farstrider, he thinks of her instead of his father (which he does in the Queen's Blessing in TEOTW).

2. Perrin's development has been arrested on account of Laila's death. After Winternight, he has yet to do violence to anyone, kill a man, or even pick up a weapon. Young Bull has not yet been born.

3. Egwene has not discarded Two Rivers tradition - it has been done for her.

4. Nynaeve does not have an adversarial relationship with Moiraine.

5. Lan has not developed a relationship with Rand.

I know that some of these things may come later, but timing is important. The development of these characters influences the way that they move through the world, react to events, and so on. There are some missing threads in the pattern is all.

disclaimer: I not want the show to fail by any means or am bashing it. I want it to succeed and for everyone to have a good time watching it. There were parts of the first few episodes I really enjoyed

5 hours ago, Dead Warder said:

That game is great..........

 

Loved the Balefire ter'angreal. I remember the Ways being actually creepy - Machin Shin was a expanding fog of twisted/horrified faces

Would be cool if it looked like that in the show

33 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Is there a name for the planet they are on? It's clear that on that planet "wolves" are the size of huskies on planet Earth. Why not? The canuspocentric hypothesis that all wolves in the Universe have the same relative size to humans as on Earth has never been proven.

They're on earth

I see a lot of, "RJ would say this or that today". There is no possible way to really know that. I find the willingness to put words in a dead mans mouth a little disturbing

That's all well and good but they have 7 seasons before that is a factor for Rand, and 2-3 before its a factor for Lan. They could have spent that valuable time on the actual main characters. The way they introduced Loial was extremely rushed, and I doubt a non-book reader knows what an Ogier is, even after seeing him. Rand literally runs out of the room after they talk for 20 seconds. Did this episode really need three funerals?

11 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Lan is a copy paste of Aragorn, Rafe and Amazon do not want WOT to come across as a copy paste of LOTR, I am really pleased with the changes being made to Lan, I always felt he was a one dimensional character in the first few books, there simply so RJ could write cool fight scenes with him, then RJ started to develop him, but I think if RJ wrote WOT today this is the Lan we would get, it is far closer to Lan towards the end of the book then at the start. 

It sounds like its been a while since you've read the first few books. They are both outdoorsmen and heirs of fallen kingships, but the similarities end there. They have totally different personalities.

Tam's sword has a heron on the scabbard

I just noticed in this behind the scenes photo from EP5. I hadn't seen it before - I thought that there was only the one. So they do the branding later, this gives Rand something more reasonable to be holding onto instead of the blade itself lol

Episode 6, what have we got?

The blurb:

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Moiraine faces the consequences of her actions; Mat faces the darkness in himself; Egwene faces the most powerful woman in the world.

My predictions:

• Moiraine appears before the Hall of the tower and is disciplined. The Hall will try to reign in Moiraine since she's been gone from the tower for so long and getting involved in questionable events
• Later, she meets privately with Siuan and the nature of their relationship is shown (possibly in a flashback).
• Perrin and Egwene show up at the White Tower. Egwene is brought before the Amyrlin and is either made a novice or is promised to become one. The Amyrlin questions if she is the dragon
• Mat has some kind of dream/vision induced by the dagger. Perhaps we will see more of Ba'alzamon
• Moiraine, Lan, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve go to see Mat and Rand. Mat gets his first healing
• Some sort of revelation sets them towards the blight.
• They leave in secret since Moiraine is in trouble with leadership and they travel to the waygate
• Episode ends with walking into darkness

26 minutes ago, Sabio said:

My prediction:

Since Perin now didn't kill any whitecloaks he somehow becomes even more pointless and boring.

That's a good point. Perrin killing the Whitecloaks is how he gets the name of Young Bull. It's what legitimizes him among the wolves. There's rumors that an Elyas type character will appear in S2, so perhaps Perrin will earn his stripes next season.

When is Perrin going to get his axe? Right now, he is in shock over Laila and hasn't yet picked up a weapon. When will he? The press photos of him at the waygate don't show a visible weapon. Perhaps he'll get one in Fal Dara before setting out for the blight, or early next season before setting out for the Great Hunt. The rumored Elyas type character sets up room for the "keep the axe until you don't hate it anymore" conversation, which is pivotal in Perrin's character development imo

There was one cool bit of worldbuilding I liked - when Aram take Perrin and Egwene away from the Whitecloaks they run past a series of weathered stone faces buried in the hillside.

Love to see things like that that hint to previous ages and extinct kingdoms. More ruins plz!

I would take out the part in the Dragon Reborn where the wondergirls get captured by brigand darkfriends and rescued by Aiel. It diminishes the impact of when they get captured later in the book and doesn't add too much IMO. Although the way they channel to wipe out the Shadowspawn that show up is cool

5 hours ago, Mailman said:

Dreadful episode worst of the series not good from either a book or non book perspective.

 

Seriously Moiraine has shown zero effort to find the Emonds Fielders and now its a month later and shes hoping they are just going to show up at Tar Valon. 

 

Just a joke of a episode.

If I were the show runner heh, I would have done something more like this:

• Have Stepin kill himself towards the beginning of the episode, by hanging or with blade. Lan finds him and collapses to his knees, end scene.
• Moiraine and Lan after returning to the tower hear of whitecloaks near Tar Valon. Moiraine is troubled by this, and they go to check it out.
• Nynaeve comes with them because she doesn't trust Moiraine and doesn't want to be in the tower
• They find the beaten tinkers and ask what happened, learn of two whitecloak prisoners who match the description of Egwene and Perrin
• They wait until nightfall and execute the rescue much as they did in the book

Boom. It leaves room for fun whiz-bang explosions and lightning, leaves room for heroic moments from pretty much everyone (they can keep Egwene's defiance and Perrin's goldeneyes), and we still get the emotional devastation from Stepin's suicide in the beginning.

16 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Rafe & co. seem to have deliberately dismissed Lan's history. He's been fighting the Shadow for decades. Lord of the Seven Towers, uncrowned king of Malkier, trained at the sword ever since he could hold one. So skilled he even killed two fades at once. Malkieri, alike Shienarans, keep emotions in check when in public. (Husband and wife won't even hold hands)

 

Reading what you typed out, it seems they don't care to have the characterizations that made the characters...at all.

They are missing a lot of little things. They've turned Rand into a simpering fool. Book Rand picking up the Travels of Jain Farstrider, he would have thought of his father, not Egwene .

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Only a few had wooden covers. His eyes gobbled up the titles, picking out old favorites. The Travels of Jain Farstrider. The Essays of Willim of Maneches. His breath caught at the sight of a leather bound copy of Voyager Among the Sea Folk. Tam had always wanted to read that.

 

Picturing Tam, turning the book over in his hands with a smile, getting the feel of it before settling down before the fireplace with his pipe to read, his own hand tightened on his sword hilt with a sense of loss and emptiness that dampened all his pleasure in the books.

Then when Nynaeve is there at the inn, they both leave Mat festering there on the bed, seemingly unconcerned about the guy turning into a wraith in the other room. There's no sense of urgency about getting him help. She doesn't even ask Rand questions about Mat's condition, instead they sit on the bench and have a little egwene wank session. Like come on, are you guys for real?

I hated all the stepin shit & I'm glad he won't be soaking up screentime anymore.

What kind of healer gives a visibly drunk and depressed man painkillers? WTF. Book Nynaeve would have better sense than that

Our brains work by finding patterns, even where none may exist. The joke is that people have these notions about others/groups of others while being completely off base.

I think it's meant to point out the absurdity of miscommunication (and the limitations of perception) rather than being an endorsement of gender stereotypes

I enjoyed your post OP and am interested to read your report back. I'm not familiar with a lot of what you referenced but it's fun to think about the origins of myth and legend and how they've passed through the ages.

I know that RJ was a Freemason, and they talk about the Light a lot, but beyond that I'm not familiar with any of their lore. I've got a mason coming soon to replace a few bricks on my chimney, maybe I'll ask him?

Here's my fringe theory: the crystal that the caged Aiel had was from the Eye of the World. Young men sometimes travel into the blight thinking that they are called to kill the Dark One. Moiraine, having been to the Eye of the World before, will find this crystal on Mat and see it as evidence that the pattern is leading them towards the Eye.

As in the book, Loial will tell his story of a man at Stedding Shangtai who said that the DO "means to blind the Eye of the World". This man had intended to carry the message to Tar Valon, but died in the Stedding (perhaps the message is even why Loial is in Tar Valon). 

The message + the crystal + the ba'alzamon dreams (even if he doesn't speak) will lead Moiraine to the Eye

1 hour ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

I've been wondering if the crystal that Mat takes off the dead Aiel plays a part in the Eye.  Perhaps, it is a Jenn Aiel "key" to the Eye that unlocks a special dragon-mode for the eye.   Assuming they want to keep Moiraine's previous trip to it and rid themselves of the "need" factor.

 

I'm not really sure what they intend to do with the Eye though.   Mostly, I think that crystal is a chekov's gun waiting to be fired. 

 

Interesting, the Eye chamber is lit with glowing crystals

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As he looked around in wonder, he realized that the long years since the making-three thousand of them-had worked their way while no one came. Not all the crystals in the dome glowed with the same intensity. Some were stronger, some weaker; some flickered, and others were only faceted lumps to sparkle in a captured light. Had all shone, the dome would have been as bright as noonday, but they made it only late afternoon, now. Dust coated the walkway, and bits of stone and even crystal. Long years waiting, while the Wheel turned and ground.

EP7 blurb (now removed): Moiraine and her charges are diverted from their path by an unexpected encounter. This diversion reveals many things - Moiraine's true goal, Lan's past, the fractures that have grown in the group, and the identity of the Dragon Reborn.