9 hours ago, Andra said:

She might be out of the price range, but how about casting a "Selene" as, well ... Selene?

 

Another excellent choice would be Morena Baccarin - except that I always pictured her more as Berelain.

Oooh, Morena is a good one!

Out of all of the castings, Lanfear is the one I think will cause the most controversy, almost no matter who is cast. Finding someone whos is the most beautiful woman ever is just... impossible. On top of that, she really has to be able to act, be the right age and preferable look a little bit like she is described in the books (although I think this is least important). And it has to be an actress they can afford and that is available, which means that most big names are out. It can't be someone who is innocently pretty, nor someone who is just pure sex appeal. 

For fun, I'd like to see all of your ideal Lanfears! Both unrealistic castings and fully achieveable ones. 

I bet Lily James could pull it off, but she is way too famous. 

I could also really see an indian woman playing Lanfear, but I have no idea who. 

If I had a time machine, Monica Belluci all the way. I know she has a daugther, but she is way too young. 

15 hours ago, Daenelia said:

@AdamA if I look at pics from the 70s ... yeah, people were normal-sized. Not skinny. I think we've been re-defining normal to be 'skinny'. But that's a different topic. I am still watching Blake's 7 and Cally is ... so ... thin.

 

Did you know btw, that salmon was once so common in The Netherlands that it was considered peasant food? Go figure. Good for fat and protein, salmon.

Same in Sweden. My husbands greatgrandfather was a logger up north, and part of his pay was food and board. It was stipulated in his contract that they would not have to eat salmon more than 3 days a week. He was probably as big a guy as you could get back than, but with todays eyes he looked beefy, but fairly normal. 

I don't thunk people of Randland would br super malnourished, other than the Aiel. However, they never got huge the way gym goers today can get. Protein played a much smaller role in food. A serving of read meat used to be less than 100 g/person. And most people could not afford meat on a daily basis.

20 minutes ago, grayavatar said:

Before clicking the link I thought the actors might be at least slightly Asian looking. Apparently the actors playing Lord Agelmar and his wife ARE Asian looking. This diversification of races in all nations hurts the show I feel.

 

So many excuses have been on why the two rivers have African and Indian looking actors "the books say they have dark features" so does most of southern europe. But now they are mixing things up in Sheinar and I think in ep6 Siouan Sanche (the blue eyed blonde) becomes and old black woman.

 

I think they are trying very hard to not have any European looking actors in this show. Rand, Mat, Liandrin, Bornhald, Arams mom are the few exceptions. Thom has a distinctive American look to him somehow.

 

The theme we have seen in areas so far is european, with architecture, clothing. weather, forests, weapons. The diverse skin tones makes it all seem very jarring. Feels more like modern day multicultural countries like USA, Canada, Australia rather than the old world theme of Randland where people are mostly the same in their corner of the world. There is definitely a modern agenda being applied rather than the authors vision.

And yet, a large portion of the actors ARE European. Thom is Danish, for example. From the main cast, Moiraine, Perrin and Mat are from GB and Rand is Dutch. For convenience, most of the guest actors are from Europe as well. I don't really know what you mean by European looking? 

I know this horse has been beaten to death, but to sum up the discussion that most of us on these forums has already had:

- Because of the previous age being very high tech, there already was a lot more diversity than what you would have seen in our world a few centuries back. 

- Because of the breaking, all nations and races were spread around the world.

- Jordan already described people of many different races in different nations. 

- No cultures matches the architecture and nature of their nation to our world, see gingers in the desert as an example. 

I am so happy with all of these new castings! They fit my head canon 100% spot on, especially Masema and Uno. I think it is really clever to hire these actors with some solid credits to their names as characters actors, to play medium sized roles in WOT. It will give the younger cast more to lean on, and it was one thing that worked out really well for GOT in their casting. 

9 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Yeah, but everything did during the slog. A reasonable edit of the slog books into good TV. and Slayer really bounces back as a concept. Just give him a personality. Like a lot of the Dark.

 Couldn't agree more. Slayer is like Fain - a fantastic concept that never got fully realized. Dunno if Jordan dropped the ball on it, or if Sanderson did not have any notes to go on in regards to them, but either way, they could have way better story arcs as fully fleshed out three dimensional villains.  

Like, why would Gitara tell Luc to seek his honor in the blight, if it would not have mattered later on? And why did he kill the Gray man that was out for Egwene in the white tower? That, and the Dark Prophecy, leads me to believe that Jordan had way bigger plans for Slayer than how it turned out. 

Oh, and one more thing! Isam/Luc/Slayer really needs to be changed as well. We have this whole thing about him being such a huge part of the Dark prophecy and him being related to both Lan and Rand, and then nothing comes out of that. He is a villain without any personality that chases Perrin. I would have loved for him to be part Malkieri to actually MATTER. 

One gripe I have with the books is that everyone has to be paired up in the end, even when there is no real need for it. Both Thom and Gawyn were token lovers and the romance did not feel real or earned. Same with Galad and Berelain. Their love stories kind of cheapens the really epic ones: Lan/Nyn, Rand/Min (no, I will not include Elayne and Avi, those are filler) and yes, Perrin and Faile. 

I hope that they will play up Moirane and Siuans pillow friendship into a tragic love story - they give each other up in proper Blue fashion for the Quest of the Dragon reborn. Either they rekindle their love in the end, or they don't, but I could make for damn good drama either way. Especially since we have two Oscar nominated actresses playing those parts. I can see Amazon seeing that as their Emmy/Golden Globes moment. 

And Egwene does not need a partner. She is way too ambitious for that. She has purpose and focus and I just can't see her thinking about kissing boys. She is married to her job, if anything. 

9 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Book Rand responded to this equivalent situation by punching the Darkfriend. It's kind of weird to portray the stubborn sheepherder as a panicking coward who want fight just because he has a slight disadvantage.

 

They can portray him as scared if they feel the need to but to go so far as to make him useless in a situation he should be able to get out of makes no sense.

 

The point is she grows into those things as part of her arc.

 

She's a village girl who'd never left the Two Rivers and had lived in safety and yet she's already starring down death and daring someone to follow through. What's the point of her arc in going through slavery and learning from the Aiel if she's already that strong.

 

They may as well just start the Aes Sedai split now and throw her into that storyline.

I agree, showing Rand fight back a bit before fleeing would have been apt. 

Sure, she grows, but her slavery is very early in the story, and she is defiant and unbroken by it, in contrast to Rand and the box. In any case, your suggestion that panic from Eggy and strength from Rand would have been more suitable to their characters is just plain wrong. 

6 hours ago, AusLeviathan said:

This episode compared to episode 3 also showed off their intentions very well in terms of how they're portraying men and women.

 

Rand is lazily threatened by a short women who's only half paying attention to him and responds by screaming and banging on a door for someone to help and then later runs away in complete terror.

 

Egwene is threatened by a man who makes it clear that he wants to kill her and has her tied up so she can't do anything and she responds by calmly telling him to do it whilst displaying an impressive lack of fear.

 

Did they get these two characters mixed up?

Does not really matter if you're short if you have a sword and the other person does not. But sure, Rands reaction was a bit panicky. It was his first meeting with a DF though, and trying to get a away was the smartest thing he could do.

Eggys I found in character. I mean, she probably is the strongest of mind of all of the main characters. Look for example how slavery/captivity/torture impacts her contra Rand (a'dam vs the box). That is her main trait in the books, that and her ambition. She survives slavery, the wise ones training, the AS puppetry and many other things, and still stands strong. Maybe too strong - it takes her a good long while to get on Rands side in the end. 

3 hours ago, Pandemonium said:

Toss a coin to your witcher has much better covers.  When someone covers does a Thom cover better than this witcher cover, let me know.

 

 

That guy is amazing. His cover of Wuthering Heights is fantastic.

That aside, I was also not best pleased with Thoms singing. I am hoping for some high chant or other when he returns. I was not a fan of the song either. It felt way too modern, without leaning in to being modern like Toss a coin does. It was just inbetween, and therefor felt odd. 

15 hours ago, ArrylT said:

 

My favorite book of them all 

  Hide contents

A Horse and his boy

 

Omg I am not alone! 

12 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Or it could have worked - just as Nynaeve used saidar as a barrier to remove the taint from saidin.  If saidar had been at LT's attempt to seal the prison we might have avoided the taint and the breaking.  Maybe.

 

Also - who's fault was it that the hole hole was drilled to begin with?  Realize it was Aes Sedai but anyone remember the specific folks responsible?

Sure thing - it was Lanfear, or Mierin.

I do not think that the point they are trying to make is "men bad, women good". I think their point is that women of this age blame men for what went wrong in the previous one, and this has caused an imbalance, much like our own society is imbalanced, but the scale is tipped in the other direction. I think we can see the way that Aes Sedai describe the world as a case of an unreliable narrator. History is written by the victors, and all that. I think they genuinely believe that the breaking was the fault of men, through and through. 

20 minutes ago, Gypsum said:

 

I was hoping for a Highland or even a bay cob-type, but a Haffie would certainly stand out. Any of those native mountain/moorland types would fit the description.

 

I have a three-year old Andalusian, and even for a baby, she is brave. Learns so fast and gets over scary new things faster than any other horse I've owned. I see why they are so popular for TV. The one playing Adlieb looks like a dream.

 

My Highland, however, is ready to invade your city walls.

She is gorgeous! I am currently horseless (a horrible affliction) but am actually looking at an andalusian or a PRE for my next horse.

Me and my SO went on a week long riding trip in northern Spain like 10 years ago. Those horses are like mountain goats! So smart and brave. 

I think they should have thought about not picking 5 dark brown horses for the EF5. They all look to similar, and people who are not fan of the books will not think there is anything special about Bela. Keeping her importance is a cheap "aaaaw" moment they could have cashed in on later when Bela is reunited with Eggy. I guess Bela is described as being brown, so I agree a cob or something would have been great. Preferable with some white markings to make her stand out more.

6 hours ago, Gypsum said:

I grew up reading the books, and I think the first two episodes of the TV  show are fantastic. My only real complaints are that the horse playing Bela was neither a shaggy carthorse, nor a mare. Too refined, and not a mare.

 

Love Moiraine's Spanish horse, though, and I always imagined Mandarb as a draft cross/Friesian thing, and he is. Also, the Whitecloaks' ponies had great outfits. I'm looking forward to more exciting baroque/medieval tack.

 

As ever, the horses whinnied too much, which is par for the course in every film ever made. They were suprisingly chilled around the Trollocs (one of mine thinks umbrellas are problematic, so I don't think I'd be stopping when Lan told me to "draw rein"...LOL).  And my very favourite bit, the clear shot of the toe clips on the Myrddraal's horse's shoes! ROFL! Not even the Dark One or the Forsaken can stop horses from throwing shoes.

 

On the other hand, Jordan/Sanderson's descriptions of riding were always a little bit baffling. 

I was hoping they would go with a haflinger for Bela. It is a cart horse breed, and they are not too big, shaggy and a bit stocky. The unique color would help non-horse people identify her later on in the books. A yellow horse with white man sticks out with all the iberian and frisian horses they probably will use going forward.

Very happy with Aldieb and Mandarb as well, and even more so that we can tell that the actors are riding themselves, even though I kinda wnat to tell Rosamund to shorten her reins ?

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

On the other hand, women live longer but they get to retire earlier.

Women can take a lot of time off job to stay with their toddlers. Paternity leave amounts to what? One week? As a man, i don't have a right to spend the same amount of time with my children.

And several nations have mandatory military service only for men.

 

Now, all those problems morani stated are real. It is true that women are more often discriminated on their job, more often victims of violence, do more of the household work.

But those are all consequences of unjust actions taken by individuals.

If a woman is not a victim of violence, she has a caring mate that shares the chores evenly, and she has decent people as coworkers... Then she has advantages over men. Advantages that are explicitly, objectively written in the law.

 

I don't want to start a war on who's the most discriminated, because those things are not productive. 

But there are problems with the idea that "women are mistreated by some, so let's give them benefits to compensate".

Women are mistreated... So they should not be mistreated, and the offenders should be censored/punished. Letting a woman retire earlier to compensate for all those household work she does is terribly unfair towards those men who share work equally. They are punished for their good behavior.

 

The feminists are right to denounce pervasive mistreatment in many social context. They have all my support. 

But i ask that they consider, when men complain about discrimination, that they have a point too.

That is the case in the US, maybe. Here in Scandinavia both of the parents get 195 days off each (roughly 150 of those are with 80% of your salary and the other 40 you get like 9 dollars/day, but you can take the time off whenever you want and your employer has nothing to say about it). And, alas, still, women do more of the unpaid work at home. I agree that parental leave as it stands in the US is horrible, for both parents and their kids. But that is an differently question entirely ?

However, I find it interesting when in WoTTV when women hold more offices than men (from what we have seen so far) many viewers are frothing at mouth from the horrible feminism that she show is showing, while when we live in a world where it is the other way around, it should not be held as evidence that men are still, in fact, in power. 

1 hour ago, Maximillion said:

I think he was half right. Women do have a lot of advantages over men in modern society. Not in every situation of course… in fact men probably have more  advantages still, but let’s not pretend women have it so bad.

 

 

Almost all the advantages I bet you will post about women are social. All the advantages of men are real and life altering. Men still hold most positions of power and the economic resources available. This while women do the lion share of the unpaid work, even while both partners work full time. 92 % of all domestic abuse is done by men onto women in the US. Two thirds of all homicide of women in the US are done by a close relative - husband, boyfriend, ex husband, or other family member. Less than a fifth of the same is true for men, and only about 5 % of men are killed by an SO or ex SO. 

Being a you female professional means that you always has to bee at least 10 years older than your male equivalent before being seen as experienced. And don't get me started on medical inequality. Look at the numbers on how illnesses that affect women (like autoimmune diseases, endometriosis or injuries caused by child birth) receive a pittance compared to illnesses that effect men. Women are more likely to die of illnesses that affect both men and women, and women are still to a much higher degree not getting proper medical help, even when they have the same symptoms as men. Look it up, there is an abundance of scientific studies done on this. I especially like it when you put the number of studies done on endometriosis (a very common and incredible painful condition that makes sex impossible) next to the number done on erectile dysfunction (same outcome, except for the lack of insane pain). Spoiler alert: The difference is even bigger than you might think.

To quote Margaret Atwood: Men are afraid that women will laugh at them, women are afraid that men will kill them. 

On 11/20/2021 at 1:59 PM, Akragard said:

The meeting was cool.  I thought they looked like coyotes.  Wolves are huge.  I don't know why they made them so smol.

Two Rivers climate sounds like that of central Europe/the Balkans, seeing as it is warm enough to make wine in regions close to it. Wolf sizes actually warries a lot and increase proportionally with latitude, it is called Bergmann's rule. So while an arctic wolf is HUGE, a wolf in central Europe where this is filmed is not. Look at Italian wolves for example (which are native to roughly the same latitude as where most of WOT has been filmed). They weigh 25-35 kg according to wiki and 50-70 cm shoulder height (I think roughly 28-20 inches then), which makes them the size as a german shepard or a labrador. 

Scandinavian and Siberian wolfs however can get more than twice as big as that! At least twice as heavy.

Sorry for the way too specific and nerdy answer ?

As someone who used to play League of Legends, I was really skeptical about Arcane (if you have not seen that yet, do it! It is amazing), before it dropped last week. and I have been super hopeful about WOT all along. Then Arcane got an insane reception, as in both critics and viewers were completely blown off their feet, and it landed high on IMDBs top 250 shows really fast. 

From these early reviews and from fan reactions, I does not seem like WOT will get the same success. Not like it is bad, but it might not be the huge success Amazon was hoping for. I just hope that will not mean no season 3. 

This thread makes me really sad to read. @NightWolf and @Wolfbrother31 - including people who are NOT white men, are NOT the same as saying that white men are less than. You have gotten so used to a world where you are pandered to, that you are mistaking equality for negative treatment. White men still hold most of the economical and political power in this world, and until that has changed, we have far from an equal society.  Including gay characters are not "woke", it is not "reflecting our society today". We have had gay people since the dawn of time. In some cultures it has been perfectly fine (like being gay in ancient Rome, or being trans in the Hawaii Islands) and in some it really has not. Judeo Christian culture has ben AWFUL towards LGBTQ people through the ages. They have been rooted out, murdered and tortured in the name of your god. You have quite a lot of history to atone for. Keep that in mind when you speak of sin. 

Including more LGBTQ people in randland, where LGBTQ does not seem to be a sin, according to how characters react to it in the books, will NOT make it "woke", is NOT a breach from the book - it is simply a way of broadening the world a bit more, without changing it. 

Including things you do not like is not an attack on you. This is your problem. Stop thinking everything is about you. I know you have been used to it being that way, but thankfully we are at least slowly approaching a reality where that is not always the case.

And @Rose - your posts are my favorite. Please do not let them scare you away. I think the reason this thread has been poorly moderated it that moderators are afraid some will cry "CANCELED" as soon as they tell people off for being hateful.

5 minutes ago, DaddyFinn said:

Did you read this? 

 

 

Thank you. I had not read it, and it changed my mind almost entirely ? 

16 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

 

 

One of the hallmarks of a woke production is that its critics are always framed as morally wrong rather than just people who creatively disagree with the show. Just look to the marketing for the Eternals ("Looks like we're pissing off the right people") or Captain Marvel ("I don't want white men to watch Captain Marvel"). 

 

Looks like you have been caught up on the anti-woke band wagon, my dude. Brie Larson NEVER said anything of the sort about Captain Marvel, and I dare you to find any evidence on the contrary. She did however say that A wrinkle in time was not made for white men, and that Hollywood needs less old white men to run the show, basically.  This caused a lot of white men to have a hissy fit and say that she obviously did not want their patronage for Captain Marvel either. I can tell that source criticism is not your strong suit. But that has been evident from how you have been jumping to conclusions with the WOTTV as well. 

First of, I don't think the changes is necessary either. It does not put me off the series, but I am a bit miffed about it. 

HOWEVER - as to how big ramifications it will have: Does the prophecies ever mention specifically that the Dragon will go mad? Not to my knowledge. Isn't it mostly talk about (him) breaking the world to save it? How painful the salvation of the world will be.  I do not see how that would be gender specific, it would mostly mean that for the Light to win, there will be a big price to pay. 

Also, we as readers know a lot of things as a fact (the gender specific souls, for example). But how on earth would people in randland know this for a fact? It would be all religion and mysticism to them. A lot of knowledge is lost during 3000 years, especially if you add a breaking to that. I bet a lot of people do not actually believe in the Dragon. After all: Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

Edit: I would also like to point out that the breaking of nations, making the Aeil see their way and follow him, and all the other important things that happens in the books does, as far as I know, really have nothing to do with Rand being mad. 

8 hours ago, swollymammoth said:

 

Not to mention that these days you can look to just about any blockbuster and the creators are shouting their movies wokeness from the rooftops, how they're proud that their stories are vehicles for their politics. Ex. Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Birds of Prey, Shang-Chi, Eternals, No Time to Die, and that's just off the top of my head. 

 

I'm just saying that this seems to be the prevailing attitude in showbiz rn. 

Everyone writes what they know. Seeing as there are some female and LGBTQ people that are finally let into the writing business, a lot more stories will have that perspective.

For every movie that you mentioned (and btw, what were "woke" about these movies, I am genuinely curious, please give me examples) we still have twenty big budget movies being released who were not "woke" in the slightest, but told the same old perspectives that we are used to, and that would never pass the bechdel test. 

12 hours ago, TheMountain said:

Agreed. People don't realize that the humiliation and injury to pride part of the punishment is key. Think about what happened to Semirhage. One of the most powerful and feared people in the world, one of the Forsaken... one who undoubtedly endured the painful torment of the Dark One many times... simply turned over Cadsuane's knee and spanked like a child. The indignity of it is what broke her.

I think the "problem" is that most people do not associate spanking with children, they associate it with sex. Most adults do not hit their children, in fact it is illegal in a very large part of the civilized world (as well it should be!). In the cases that adults do beat their children, few do something as elaborate as spanking. 

Spanking as a sexual act is however extremely widespread. For the average viewer it will therefor not read as reducing someone to a child, it will read as reducing them to a sexual object. It is a very large risk it will come off as silly and make the viewers have the entirely wrong reaction to it. 

At the end of the day, we want the series renewed.