Priyanka Bose gave a podcast interview - she is such a delight. 

https://shows.acast.com/6181a97a239943001917ea15/episodes/interview-priyanka-bose-the-wheel-of-time

49 minutes ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

I am amazed that somebody would take what a person that has two imaginary friends whispering in his ears as spouting show canon.  Logain's speech was just his attempt to stand up to the Aes Sedai and get under their skin.  

Madness aside, Logain brought up a good point that they were weakening farther from Tar Valon though because he did have an "army" (seemed like a small rebellion) aligned with him against the White Tower. My point was the farther you go, it seems weaker the reach the Aes Sedai have. I agree the borderlanders do seem more no nonsense or time for you. 

@FanofKnotai I've posted in previous threads commenting on Bran/Marin and Ila/Raen so feel free to peruse if you care for other thoughts in an effort to keep this to 1x07 only. Why the change? Because the show isn't written by RJ and they're going in a different direction. As a book reader we're both biased and will never have the same experience/reaction to the changes as the non-book readers and wider audience they are trying to adapt to but I trust that the writers have a reason for some of these changes and the storyline they are setting up. You don't have to like it but it is what it is. Who knows what these changes might lead to later on. I mentioned earlier, everyone was up in arms about the waygate leaf change after episode 6 but in episode 7 we have teased that there may be another way in/out that we just don't know about yet. 

Small tidbit - Rand's comment in response to Loial about the guiding stone"If he's asking for patience then we're gonna die." That Rand/Loial relationship on point but also Rand buddy, that's just rude. 

8 minutes ago, chri5 said:

I just re-read the initial scenes with Agelmar.  I wish they would have left that in an almost word for word version. 

From the books? I like that they didn't. For me, book Agelmar tried too hard to please the Aes Sedai. Has been mentioned already in the thread - this version supports Logain's comment on how the Aes Sedai reach is weaker the farther from Tar Valon they are. Adding the book version personality of Agelmar doesn't add much to the plot IMO, so the change to support the direction they went with Logain (Aes Sedai authority weakening) is one that I'm on board for. 

Side note: comments about the imbalance of power displayed in the tv show.. here's a display of a strong male personality and fierceness coming from Agelmar here as the Lord/guardian of the city. Why make the changes? So hasty, WAFO. Also, it's a tv show and it'd be boring to have a show that goes exactly by the books because you'd know everything that is going to happen. Loving the new theories that are coming out with every tv show change. The great thing is you can always go back and read the books if you want the book version storyline. 

Finally got to watch the episode and quite enjoyed it. A few comments to the nitpicks

• Loial was busy at the library in Fal Dara but he'll get back to you next episode.
• Waygate channeling hate - Fain with the leaf teases that the channeling isn't the only way in. The waygates stick out in the open. The secret leaf key way to enter is rational cause otherwise anyone can enter (without knowing the harm that lies). Everyone was hating on the fact that it required channeling to open - just because we saw it open by channeling the clues are there to show it's not the only way. So hasty to criticize, WAFO what more they have in store
• Moiraine's message to the Red about Mat .. WAFO. Would love for Liandrin to hunt Mat and try (but fail) to gentle him only to find he can't channel *amused*

Loved typical Egwene "waited an hour for you to apologize" because that's so her character. Snarky Min ❤️. Love that we are still getting the essence of the characters. Not sure about Perrin but honestly other than the golden eyes and Travelling People he didn't have a storyline in the first few books. At least not one that stuck out. 

Also have come to love Rosamund Pike's acting. Haven't seen anything she's done before but I am loving her portrayal of Moiraine with the little nuances in her facial expressions. I've got a bad feeling about her future in episode 8 though. 

Loved this relationship introduction in the show because of the roller coaster of emotions that it gave. Have done one full read of the book in the past two months (first time read) and I truly did not think Siuan and Moiraine were going to have an intimate relationship. Going through the hall scene, they both really sold the intensity of the trial (or questioning or whatever you want to call it). Sophie Okonedo truly commanded the scene. 

And then you get their scene together and it was the perfect touch of longing, vulnerability, and intimacy. I enjoyed the 'pull back the mask' of Moiraine and insight to her as a human being. The little pufferfish comment got me - Rosamund Pike's soft smile at that ? You really feel how much they care for each other in this scene. 

Lastly the oath rod scene.. holy emotions. I still cannot watch this without tearing up. Duty really is heavier than a mountain here. 

Would love for them to reunite several seasons down the road but I fear their paths will diverge from each other and stay true to the books with Them and Gareth. For some reason I can't picture S/M getting their happy ending in this and it makes me sad. 

An interview with Zoë Robins I just stumbled upon. She honestly seems like such a sweetheart ?

Bringing back to the little things.. some other small ones that I found neat besides the Fain sightings. 

• 16:54 - The faces carved in the stone. Just looked neat
• 20:25 - Nice shot of the novices in white.. you see them again at 20:39 and 20:54 bowing at the Aes Sedai as the procession passes
• Anyone else catch the accepted sighting? At 21:23 in the bottom right corner you can see the seven bands of colours on their cuffs and dress. 
• 31:57 - Valda's ring collection .. 3 red, 1 blue, 1 yellow and can't tell the colours of the other two. 

Wait a second .. 

Perrin and Egwene run into a familiar face. Mat and Rand see strange ones. Moiraine and Lan mourn their loss.

Lan mourning the loss of Stepin dying because Kerene is gone? Same with Moiraine mourning Kerene.  Perrin and Egwene gathering back with Moiraine and Lan .. but Mat and Rand, not sure who the strange faces could be. Not really a prediction because some of it is based on the books but I wonder if I'm on track with the Lan/Moiraine mourning because the show of emotion from Lan in the trailers was something I had wondered about and could not clue in given that Nynaeve was in the background behind Moiraine (indicating present time vs past flashback). 

8 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Give the Book a chance. You can't expect it to capture all the nuances of a multi-episode TV series.

Oh I read the whole series - don't get me wrong I enjoyed the books I just meant while reading the books I didn't like Nynaeve as much as I'm enjoying her in the tv series so far. She was frustrating in the books for most of the series except for the last few books.

Also love the line from Lan in the show "You are welcome around our fire. If you promise not to shove anyone into it." ? I wish we got his response to Nynaeve about how she is what he expected. 

Another perspective RE: Nynaeve - maybe she isn't stronger than Logain, perhaps she is the same level strength but she is extremely skilled with healing so her display of power was highlighting her area of skill. She hasn't really done much else to directly compare her strength against Logain (i.e. both using air weaves to attach or something). Not saying she is but not saying she isn't, just an observation.

Also, first time (assuming) ever seeing trollics, survived a traumatic trollic kidnapping, friends were presumed kidnapped by a lady you don't trust and then eventually end up getting attacked by an army of men who want to kill you for no reason other than wrong place at the wrong time. You survive only to have everyone else that has been trying to keep you alive/safe from the second attack get injured and the one person who you are developing a mutual respecting relationship with, have his throat slit and gruesomely bleed out to die. I mean .. that's a pretty traumatic series of events to trigger intense emotion for that super saiyan uncontrollable healing explosion. I don't know about you but I would be rattled. The fact that she hasn't trained or learned to control it makes it reasonable (to me) that she went berserk and cast those healing waves just all over the place in the cave without knowing what she was doing or how. So far Zoe Robins is killing it at playing Nynaeve and it's been a complete 180 from a frustrating character in RJ's depiction in the books to a holy cow she is one of my favourite characters so far in the show. 

This episode just blew my mind. Liandrin is the portraying the perfect red ajah that we I love to hate. Lan/Nynaeve scene with the praying was ?. Holy Logain portraying the Dragon Reborn vibes very well. Love the added touch in the opening with him wanting to bind everyone and not killing off the king. Also the episode ending was EPIC. Instead of a cold opening it felt like a cliff drop close. 

Gotta re-watch it a second time because HOLY there was so much to unpack. This blew the first episode out of the waters by FAR for me. I am so excited for Thursdays to be my new favourite date of the week until Christmas. 

Rosamund Pike said she was looking forward to fans seeing episode 6 as well on the Amazon Live interview she did the other day. I can't wait! I'm also really hoping that they give us more episodes in season 2 even if just 2 more episodes. 

15 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

I assume they’ve elected to use our swears instead because it sounds pretty silly when you yell “Mother’s milk in a cup!” in real life. 

☝️This. Some of the swearing in the books was lost on me at first when I was reading through. Had only picked it up because of the other character reactions to them swearing (i.e. scolding). Took a bit to get used to. I am indifferent overall but I do think more "flaming" "blasted" "blood/bloody ashes" and "light burn you" could have been incorporated and understood.

I appreciated the use of Egwene calling Rand a bastard in that episode because insult that hit harder to me than it would have if she had said "wool-headed sheep herder". 

BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD (just in case)

Watched a few interviews and some members of the cast are excited for us to see episode 6 and 7 - I'd be more interested in what else we have coming up. These small changes either don't impact the plot OR provides underlying reasoning/depth to the characters and the plot moving forward so I am for it. 

Love it and can't wait to watch more. Brings the books to life--sure there are changes but the show is based on the books as an adaptation so I can understand and agree with the changes to push the character arcs along. I picked up the books after watching the trailer so I did enjoy how the show pushed certain things along because one of my biggest gripes reading the book was how verbose it was at times (granted, that is just RJ's style of writing). Hope it does well enough to stick around for the full series. I'm on board.

16 minutes ago, Skipp said:

Canadian here and I can only access it using a VPN, any other canucks having the same issue?

It should work? West coast Canadian here and it's available for me. Watching right now with a mini snack break. Wasn't expecting it for another 24 hrs so this is a treat. 

Catching some of the live stream videos now and so far mad props to casting director/team. All of the actors seem so genuine and wholesome--this just makes me even more excited to watch it come Friday. No special screening for me but hope everyone makes it to an early screening enjoys!  

19 minutes ago, Deadsy said:

 

 

What is like GoT without dragons or Houses?

GoT without dragons or houses is like WoT without Aei Sedai ? I do think the show will stay true to the core of the book series. Time will tell.

Love the new clip with Egwene and Nynaeve. The fierceness of Nynaeve and the hug at the end between the two. ? 

Still finishing up the first read of the books (almost done--on the last book!!). My favourite character has been Egwene and favourite book 'The Gathering Storm'. Really hope the show succeeds so it can make it that far into the series. 

Newbie here--hooked onto Wheel of Time from the trailer and started to read the books afterwards. Still haven't finished the series yet but quick thoughts on the trailer.

- Casting - Yeah, some of the characters don't seem to match up with what I would envision from the descriptions in the books but I trust that the casting directors went off the merit of the actors portraying the characters. Looking back now could you imagine if Emilia Clarke was never casted for Daenerys if she a foot taller? I never got into GOT but point being you can't help some of the physical attributes of the actors (i.e. height, skin colour/race, etc) but it seems like they do try where they can (hair colour/style, beard). 

- Moiraine/Lan's entrance - Totally different from the books but I get it for the context of TV. As someone who's seen the trailer/clip before reading the books you get the vibe that these strangers to EF are both important characters. To set up their character entrance like the books it would take several scenes which they wouldn't have the time for. 14 books translated to a TV show? Could imagine this running maybe 6-8 seasons. I hear the first season is 8 episodes, probably an hour per episode. Could you imagine taking 5-10 minutes of that episode just to set up them entering into town like the books? 

- Nynaeve tossing Egwene off the cliff - This caught my eye as someone who hadn't read the books before the trailer. For me, this scene really set the tone for the rest of the trailer starting off with a bang like that. 

- Egwene popping out of the pool with the colours - After finishing the first book initial thoughts were could this have been foreshadowing something farther along with the different Ajahs? You can see blue, red, white, yellow... missing green and brown. Reading some of the other comments could also be the Women's Circle. No clue. 

- Red Ajahs/Leanne - Wow they look fierce! 

- Myrddraal - This scared the crap out of me when I first saw it (granted watching the trailer at night in bed..)

- Also anyone else think the music in the trailer was spot on? I thought it was the perfect build up throughout, especially around 0:54 shot of Tar Valon. 

All in all, I was pretty stoked with the trailer and it had me hooked enough to delve into the books. Backwards sort of view from everyone here I guess (seeing the trailer before reading any of the books) but it does a good job of enticing the general public while trying to bring alive the story for the die hard fans. Just an outsider perspective here. Excited to see this story come alive. 

(Also .. Nynaeve's braid ?)