Just found this podcast with back to back interviews with Rosamund and Hammed. I'm only 10 minutes in, but Rosamund says something that literally caused me to spit take after the 5 minute mark, and she also answers where exactly the ter'angreal paintings took them. I'm linking to the tweet by the interviewer so you can listen via your service of choice! Enjoy ?

My reaction to the idea of cutting the Siuan/Gareth and Moiraine/Thom romantic relationships is basically the "Stop. Don't. Come back" scene from Willy Wonka. Do it Rafe!

Anyway, like I said in the E6 thread when posting my first reactions: this is my ship. I shipped these two years before New Spring came out and thought it was a shame that RJ lacked the, let's be generous and call it familiarity, to write a mature same sex relationship. And the show absolutely knocked it out of the park.

I finally had the opportunity to rewatch the episode (my wife and I got married this weekend) (yes I am still at the "delights in calling her 'my wife' at every opportunity" phase) and the oath rod scene was incredibly powerful. I do think the part where Moiraine has those intimate comments scans weirdly, but it works if we assume those added lines are supposed to be whispered and not heard by anyone but Siuan. Maybe it's because we watched it literally less than 48 hours before the wedding but the wife and I definitely teared up at their similarity to wedding vows. And the fact that her Oath was to "Siuan Sanche" and not "the Amrylin Seat" could be pretty important!

I'll have more predictions later but a little one I've thought of: Moiraine initially intends to lead them to the Waygate in Malkier as the quickest path to the Eye. Something (Machin Shin? Shadowspawn? Padan Fain? Some combination?) diverts them to Fal Dara instead.

1 minute ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

"steal the horses"

 

He's finally a horse trader WITH horses!

Every non reader I've recommended the show to loved last night's episode more than I did ?‍♂️ I'm still in "episode 4 was the best" camp.

At least Mat disappearing from the plot for a bit doesn't require a building to fall on him this time

One thing I enjoyed a lot but didn't put in the bulletin was all the Aes Sedai wordplay in this episode. It takes me back to pouring over every quote to try and figure out either how they bent the truth or if they were actually lying.

Also, I'm now on Team "Liandrin is probably not BA in the show". This may change!

Oh, and "Siuan Sanche waits for one woman, and it's not you" was an all-time great line

Let's goooo 

• Young Siuan! So happy to see that, did some good world building too (Tear hates channelers)
• "The Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon" yesssss
• Logain is amazing
• Also amazing, Siuan calmly seeing through him
• "kill me... Kill me! KILL MEEEE!" Chills
• Liandrin is so good haha
• "On your knees" yes Mother
• Hah, Lan found the boys I see.
• Rand draws the sword and is immediately disarmed and pinned by Lan, lol
• Venom!Mashadar is interesting. Definitely worked for this scene!
• Glory to the Builders!
• Hi Seanchan and Aiel, I see you referenced!
• One of Moiraine's eyes and ears got a message to her about Perrin and Egwene, love to see that
• The painting!! Love that, very clever
• MY SHIP IS CANON???
• "On your knees" oh my godddddd
• I am completely fine with Moiraine doubting the Prophecies (or at least how accurate the details are) but I feel like the show needs to give us a reason for her to mistrust them so. WAFO I guess!
• Siuan having dreams about the Eye is less abrupt than "I heard a story about someone else who heard that the Dark One plans to blind the Eye". At least we're getting first hand plot direction
• Moiraine bringing out the big blackmailing guns with Liandrin
• The exile scene! The Oath Rod! Moiraine's wording of the oath! Ahhh
• The Waygate! Everyone back together again ❤
• "I didn't trust you before. Now I... well-" lmao couldn't say it could you Moiraine!
• Definitely creepy. Decent start, excited to see how this continues
• Mat. Mat no. Mat get in the Ways. MAT!
• For the record, while I was shocked by Mat not coming with, my fiancé thought it was obvious. Book knowledge blinded me!

Cannot freaking wait for next week's episode 

I'm surprised folks don't find Mat sympathetic. He's stealing yes but he's doing it to try and provide for his sisters. He's got a gambling problem but again he's doing it to try and get more money for his sisters (lots of people make this mistake). The people I'm watching with, non-book readers, really like Mat and feel for him. Just my 2 cents!

Yeah I'm rarely a fan of text-on-screen time skips. Show don't tell. One of the few exceptions is (spoiler for the MCU)

It's not like a gamebreaker or anything but I do find it annoying.

Teaser is out

When asked about missing the Tam/Rand sequence during a Reddit q&a, rafe answered "did we?" Pretty clear at this point the scene will be included in a flashback for e7 or e8. Possibly one of the cold opens, just like e3's showed us Nynaeve's perspective of that night.

I can! But I also played it on a loop for a good 4 hours the week the show came out, so...

7 minutes ago, Mnemosyne said:

 

My guess is that they needed to give Stepin an excuse to go see Nynaeve so they could show that she is still grieving the loss of her parents -- "the pain never goes away." But they've already shown that aspect of her character, e.g. when Lan translates her parents' final words. Unnecessary.

I assumed it was that Stepin was under a kind of suicide watch and that drugging Lan was his way of getting enough time to finish the job and die before they could get him to an Aes Sedai.

Wasn't sure where to put this but I think this is probably the right place...

Amazon Prime Romania has a new teaser video for the show that includes a couple new shots/lines, most notably what appears to be Rand in the Blight. I've added a video by Wheel of Time Theory who goes through the whole thing (maybe a little bit more dialogue from Moiraine and a creepy new shot of a Fade). Seems to me we're getting the Eye this season.

1 minute ago, flinn said:

 (at least he hasnt yet)...

 

 That ship has sailed. If he killed a WC now, who would blame him? At this point Perrin and the WCs are enemies as far as I am concerned and feeling guilty for killing a WC after they tortured him is not something for him to feel guilty about.

And since the wolves definitely killed some WCs, and Valda is absolutely going to hold the dude whose eyes turned wolf like responsible, there's already a ton of emnity between them. Mission accomplished

E6 cold open is going to be a flashback to Siuan as a child in Tear, probably first channeling or something like that, before a smash cut to the Amrylin Seat approaching/entering TV. Roll intro

Definitely going to get the full party reunion as well, I think. Some answers for Mat. Fain makes his big move, although I doubt we'll get answers for what his game is yet. Siuan and Moiraine publicly at odds, privately embrace (and yes I've shipped this since I was a teen let me have this one, show!!). Episode ends on them entering the Ways.

Still don't know all that gets them to these points (Fain stealing the dagger makes sense) or where the Eye comes into play...

Oh and I was wrong last week but I'll keep guessing until I'm right: Ba'alzamon speaks in this one

50 minutes ago, bobert said:

I agree with the many people seeing the Elaida/Liandrin Mashup. One thing I haven't heard on this topic. Is this Liandrin Black ajah or not? The character mash up puts this in question.

 

If she isn't all my "go light" jokes that my fiancé doesn't understand will have been for nothing!

They might merge black!Liandrin with Alviarin maybe? She's pretty much the most powerful/successful member of the BA in the series anyway...

Huh. I did not get that vibe at all, despite others saying so, but that may have been my bias as a book reader coming through. Guess I'll have to rewatch and look for that!

Ok I've digested the episode a bit more and I feel like it's hard to really rate it properly. It's a transitional episode that's doing a lot of groundwork laying, so how "good" it is is pretty contingent on how things pay off going forward. I think the episode was competent from a technical standpoint and the acting was, as usual with this group, top notch. We'll see how the various plot choices work out going forward. If they succeed, then this episode becomes better in hindsight. If they don't it makes the episode worse. Literally every review has praised episode 6 (and Sanderson was extremely positive about episode 7) so I'm cautiously optimistic it'll work out. Time will tell!

Oh yeah one other thing that jumped out at me: the conversation between Rand and Mat after Logain goes past hit pretty hard. "Promise you won't let me get like that". Oof.

Oh yeah Valda is absolutely still alive. Not a chance he's dead.

My dog was ready to jump into the scene by the way. The pack called!

3 minutes ago, Frenata said:

what were those stone faces that Perrin/Egwene/Aram ran past?

Ah! Yes, I think that's suppose to just be a bit of a nod to the book where Perrin and Egwene encounter Whitecloaks at that statue in/near the abandoned stedding. That was my first thought but I could be wrong!

Definitely more of a "take a breath and move the pieces around" episode, which is definitely not a bad thing. I quite enjoyed an episode where the characters could breathe and grow. Thoughts from the episode:

• "Last embrace of the mother" definitely got me tearing up
• Tar Valon and the White Tower took my breath away
• Mat: I’m even sweatier and paler, and more crazy. (I will never not take an opportunity to quote Isam's summaries)
• "Blood and ashes" hey there are those WoT swears! ? 
• Hi there Padan Fain, I hear you whistling!
• LOIAL!!! Looked great. Obviously shorter than the books but definitely a worthwhile trade in my opinion. Perfectly nailed his character too
• Apparently the ruby on Mat's dagger is in the shape of a herring (I think I'm funny)
• Tower politics so soon? Heck yes
• Valda is such a creep, incredible work
• I'm glad Perrin was finally able to tell someone what really happened. Absolutely heartwrenching
• Loial continuing to talk while Rand and Nynaeve reunite had me cracking up
• The story of Egwene almost dying as a child, very good (and reading between the lines... channeling!)
• "Egwene does not break" perfect segue to-
• Egwene and Perrin saving each other. I really liked that neither of them were damsels in distress for this
• FIRE. GOLDENEYES. WOLVES. I loved it!
• Forsaken foreshadowing!
• I didn't get a good look, what was in the thing Moiraine opened in her room?
• Oh Stepin ?

Overall a solid episode that moved our characters close to all reuniting and gave us some very good exposition and world building. Very excited for next week to really kick this into high gear

4 hours ago, Daenelia said:

But specifically in WoT, we all kinda assume as readers it is a version of Earth, right? Or should we question that as well?

Yeah at least in the book series it is heavily implied that "we" the readers live in the First Age while the story proper takes place at the end of the Third Age. What happened to bring about the Age of Legends is, as far as I'm aware, a complete unknown

8 minutes ago, CaddySedai said:

 

Only if there will also be Biscuits.

Biscuits of course being the name of the Trolloc that gets eaten by the other Trolloc in the E3 open