The Sour Bitter taste receptors genetics is actually very interesting. 
Certain people have extra taste buds that pick up bitter flavors more than other people, while some people do not taste bitter at all.
So while some things may taste just sour to one person, they can taste bitter and not edible to others. 
 

18 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Reading up on this, as sour and bitter to me are sort of the same thing, I have found out I am wrong. Though much of what you can find on the internet appears to be slightly confused or contradictory.

 

But what I have learned is that sour, is a basic taste that indicates acidity, citrus fruits, vinegar, etc. It tastes acidic and pleasant. Bitter, is a basic taste that indicates base or alkaline, and is perhaps the most sensitive of our tastes as poisons are very often basic. It tastes acidic and unpleasant. So they should be on a very basic level very different, but are both for some reason similar. Perhaps not helped by such things as orange fruit being sour, and orange peel bitter.

 

Peaches I can guess at. Peaches and their close relatives almonds, are poisonous. Or at least their stones are. As are apple seeds. They contain amygdalin, a compound that reacts with hydrochloric acid in your digestive system to produce hydrogen cyanide. But they are not very poisonous. Bitter almonds are the poisonous of the family and are generally treated so that the amygdalin is removed from them, but I think you have to eat a lot to be in danger. Like for apple seeds, about a thousand in a very short period of time. Peach stones probably less. I don't think wild-type peaches are more poisonous, but I guess RJ is just taking in his world peaches still had to be domesticated from a poisonous wild-type. Just in our age we only domesticated apples very recently, and never managed things like acorns, which could have been hugely beneficial to food production in medieval times.  

Yes historically there is truth to several fruits that were originally poisonous before selective breeding, and still contain poisonous pits/seeds.
Basically though peaches were poisonous in WoT because Robert Jordan decided they should be. 


 

Predictions Lanfear finds Asmodean convinces him to follow Rand
Season 3 Focus will be on Aiel, Two Rivers, Tanchico and looking for BA 
The White tower will be politics, introducing Elaida and the fall of Siuan and Leane by the end of the season.
I think things will all depend on if we start in Falme (which is where I hope we do to tie up things and they all start out heading to destinations. )  I mean they could start the whole Lord Dragon thing right in Falme, instead of Tear. 
Or they Time skip and we have groups start out split up. 

18 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Also don’t discount the possibility of Forkroot tea. Though it hasn’t yet been introduced in the show, Liandrin could have employed it to keep everyone from being able to channel. 
 

If that’s the explanation though, I wish they’d spelled it out. Would have been easy enough to do during Liandrin’s chat with Nyn in the ways. 

They are unexperienced, it could also be a make you sleep tea.
Holding 3 shields while they are unconscious would not be that difficult. Being a red that would possibly be something she is more skilled at, or at least has had more practice doing. 

On 10/14/2023 at 9:46 PM, DreadLord31 said:

I mean they fleshed out Alanna and her Warders whilst having Lan pee on a tree… 

 

Somebody wrote that scene & Rafe approved it. 

 

So anybody who argues they need more time - nah - they are literally pissing away time with central characters so they can develop tertiary or made up characters. 
 

What is a very quick way to show that they are so concerned they are watching Lan every moment so that he does not do what Steppin did?  
 

23 hours ago, Ralph said:

 

The main reason GoT became such a phenomenon was because non readers never knew what to expect, and readers loved watching them react to the shocks (Ned, Red Wedding, Mountain duel). 

 

WoT could never have that. There aren't really any "shocks" in the whole series. 

GoT relied on familiarity historic royalty castles and intrigue, utilized the grimdark from the novels for familiar horror movie shock and awe.  
 

21 hours ago, Mirefox said:

Who ever said you need our permission to enjoy it?  We all have our guilty pleasures.  Some of us demand better than D-List crew creating a D-Level product.  If you said “yeah, it’s not great but I enjoy it anyways,” not a single person would object to that.

I have not seen one D-list actor yet.  Just because they are not known US actors does not mean they are D-list. 

9 hours ago, DreadLord31 said:

Let me give some examples: 

 

Great writing = TvThom “They call us gleeman because it’s a silly name that makes us less scary. There’s nothing more dangerous than a man who knows the past.” 🔥

 

Or Lanfear: “He thinks I’ll betray you.” 
Ishy: “Will you?” 
Lanfear: “Of course.” 🔥

Pretty much all the stuff with Lanfear/Ishy/Liandrin has been very good. 

 

Ok writing: 

Anavere “You got none of his goodness. You’re all mom.” 
Moiraine: Tear runs down her cheek. 
The whole Moiraine family story-line. 
Verin and the scooby-doo browns. 
 

Bad writing: 

Lan pees on a tree. 
Lots of “fake out deaths”. 
Siuan shows up briefly & acts completely out of character for - drama? 
SL dagger does whatever you need it to - melt locks - open the horn - instant kill - or not instant kill. 
Breaking your own show lore. 
Random archer from cliff fires one arrow. Lan catches it. Archer fires no more arrows? 
Ishy stands and does nothing while Rand gets healed. He then just lets Rand stab him with a flame sword (that has a heron & then the sword breaks). Heron marks mean what exactly to non-readers? 
Not completing story arcs & not setting up pay-offs & somehow dropping characters. Like - what happened to Min? Where’d Loial go? 
Pretty much all of Perrin’s lines. 
 

I agree with some of this, but not all. 

I found The whole Moiraine family story-line to be great writing, for me the writers did a great job at showing the awkwardness of seeing estranged family again and how siblings know how to hurt each other the most. 
 

Quote

Lan pees on a tree. 

Or what is the fastest way we can show they are never leaving him alone, and are worried. 
 

Quote

Siuan shows up briefly & acts completely out of character .. 

I think she was completely in character, 
She is doubting Moiraine since did not tell her everything, the threat to Lan, her supposed failure with Rand, how Moiraine did not trust her with something like the "stilling".  
She is hurt personally by the lack of communication, and possible doubts she is having.  I saw her running off after Leane gave her the news as acting more like a betrayed lover, and she is still the Amyrlin Seat with years of getting what she wants. 
 

Quote

Ishy stands and does nothing while Rand gets healed. He then just lets Rand stab him with a flame sword (that has a heron & then the sword breaks).

I have lot's of theories and speculation on this. 
Ishy pretty much was ready to just end things and wait another turning because his plans were falling apart, so it was not all that surprising.  But this one I doo agree could have been done much better, unless it was all part of one of the Father of lies schemes. 
 

Quote

Heron marks mean what exactly to non-readers? 

I have watch some of the show-only watches and reviews, many picked up on this. Others are wondering and trying to guess what it means. 

Yes Atha'an Miere!  Very glad I was wrong about Tanchico!

9 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

I think there's a big difference between laying out the arcs and overall structure, and having the individual scenes identified.  So I expect what we'll continue to get is visions that payoff in the season itself, but few if any specifics that go across seasons that aren't really freaking obvious. So we may get the Finn's speech to Mat about Tuon and his eye, and Min's panicked ones at the Tower or Cairhien, but few others.

We can look to some of the foreshadowing we have already gotten. 
For Mat, he loses and eye, and dressed in fancy "lord Mat" clothes. 
Ishy Visions we saw him hanged, killing a woman and dunking someone's head in a bucket.  I can think of all 3 situations that occur in one way or another in the books, not necessarily with Mat but they all happen.  

On 10/7/2023 at 12:40 PM, RitualM said:

The worst of the worst was Mat blowing the horn. He runs into a line of soldiers just standing on a rooftop waiting for no reason while the city is in chaos? That might be one of the laziest pieces of writing and direction I've ever seen in my life.

No it did not bother me it looked like excellent military tactic. 
They are protecting access to the Seanchans most important battle weapon. If they had run off to fight that would have been even more ridiculous. 

 

21 hours ago, EmreY said:

Well, I still disagree. 🙂 

 

My oldest friend - apparently we've known each other since I was three months old and he was a newborn - is still the very same naughty boy that he was in school, only he hides it better. 🙂  The same applies to everyone else I know too.  So I find character development to be a bit tedious and wholly agree with Seinfeld.

 

Buut OK if most of you like it, I can live with that, especially given the ages of the people in this series and the fact that they're going through some incredible stuff.

Just learning to hide it better is character growth. You are correct though that there can be many people that go through life with gradual or not obvious character growth, and we tend not to see it with those closest to us. 
But I have yet to know anyone that has not had any growth or changes, everything creates changes and growth (forwards or backwards) from moving to a new area, new jobs, new friends, loss of someone close to you,  having a new partner or birth of a child.
No change makes for boring books or TV, which is why books, shows, plays... focus in on the characters and or plots that do have growth. 

In books we observe change because they can tell us with inner voice. Or they can deceive us with unreliable narrator.  In just 8 hours to develop characters so that we care about them they need to establish that on screen. 
It is impossible to really compare to any of the existing Fantasy shows, because of how RJ continually adds new important characters, or brings them back 8 books later. 

Liandra will probably replace some of the other BA Aes Sedai that are introduced later. Alanna is actually always a periphery to the main characters so establishing her early is beneficial to later Arcs. 

14 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

there have been direct views of different level of power amongst channellers, but the signs  - number of threads, precision of lines, speed - are subtle, and I would not expect to get massive discussions about comparative strength.  I mean, whole chapters were dedicated to it in the books. When we have 64 hours, that's way too nuanced a topic to bring up. 

The show is doing a great job of adding this though it is subtle, I wish we had more examples from different sisters in the show, and I can not wait until we really have weaves from Nynaeve, Egwene and Elayne.  
But you can see the differences in the brightness and thickness, colors of the different channelers. 
Even Moraines weaves when Siuan compels her to shut the way gate are different, less flowy, less bright. 

I am looking forward to looking closer at the differences in detail after season 2 is done 🙂 
 

On 10/2/2023 at 12:54 PM, DaddyFinn said:

I wonder, and I'm not alone with this idea, that maybe the show tries to avoid "power creep" in early seasons. Show our characters struggle some more and slowly take on their supposed roles as leaders, soldiers, kings etc. S3/S4 they might be set in their roles 

 

In other words: keep the tension and danger throughout the series so it doesn't feel like a walk in the park like the books did so often.

 

Editedit. That doesn't mean our heroes shouldn't get wins and cool moments when they are due

This makes a lot of sense, they appear to be doing the same with new cities/locations, I have a hunch we are also going to get the Forsaken the same way where they introduce only 1 or 2 per season. 

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

Or… what if Ingtar sticks around and takes over the Agelmar role?

I like this idea. 

On 10/1/2023 at 2:54 AM, Chivalry said:

So...Mat is no longer the son of battles, he's just a recalcitrant cutthroat and thief (in all those other lives)? Please tell me that's just a trick...

Rand doesn't mind that Lanfear butchered half the Foregate to help him?

Ingtar? Is he even part of the story? Nope, let's spend more time with Alanna's warders, they seem cool.

First Uno, now Jolien?

 

This episode hurts. 

Yes they have given Mat a different background and story arc, and I do not agree with all of it, but it would have been very difficult to show the reluctant hero without internal monologue. Besides Mat was not much of a character in first 2 books, everything people keep complaining is missing did not happen until after events from midway in book 3 and later.
 

23 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

I "watch" stuff on prime to, but it's not my go to platform.

 

We're in the age of streaming overload.

 

There's too many shows, on too many platforms and not enough time to watch everything.

 

It used to be possible to watch most shows you were actually interested in watching.

 

These days you'd have to make it a full time job...

Or have a full time job that lets you do watch TV while you work.... 

They also almost never advertise shows across streaming services, I have no clue what is on Netflix since I do not have it. Trying to find things to watch is hit or miss even on the services I have.

But even then, they are relying on fans and not putting out advertisements, merchandising or content in the right places. They are hitting the numbers on the show each week for viewers on Amazon without more marketing. 

Son and his wife - both the right demographic, and have read the books, watched season 1 and did not realize season 2 was even out, he thought it might have been canceled. 
I also think releasing 3 at once was a mistake, 2 maybe but 3 means people wait to have time to binge them. 
 

On 9/29/2023 at 7:04 PM, Guire said:

Can anyone succinctly explain what Lan's mistake was that he apologized about to Mo and will never repeat?   Not liking Lan is hard on me and I want to understand.  

He asked her about if she thought of killing herself, even talking about stilling or those that had been was considered impolite. 
If she had then that is an important question, but a personal one, if she hadn't then he is apologizing for having to ask. 

4 hours ago, Wassup said:

Can anyone explain why this episode was named Daes Dae'Mar?

Daes Dae'Mar Old Tongue for "The Game Of Houses"
I think there are many possibilities, and I am sure there are plenty more that may not be obvious yet between Lan, Siuan and Moiraine, Vera and others. Plus what is Allana really up too?
1. The Aes Sedai invented the Game.
2. The Damodred family maneuvering
3. Lanfear playing games with Rand and trying to out play Moiraine
4. Anvaere out playing Liandrin her son and Lanfear
5. Lanfear playing her own game not Ishy's
6. Ishy playing Min and Mat like pieces on a board.
7. ht/ to GRR Martin and GOt with talk of a wedding

8 hours ago, Skipp said:

As for Suians turn in this episode, does anyone think she might have been complused? She hasn't really prepared the tower to support the Dragon.  Despite her concerns with Moiraine and her progress(even if I understand some of them) it seems like quite a turn and since they setup the idea of complusion earlier in the season....... maybe?  Even her line "It would have been easier if you had been born a girl"  really sounds like something Liandrin would say.

I do not think she was compelled. I think they pushed the book story a little too far with her character, but I think her fears of Rand and loss of trust in Moiraine made her fall back on tower law and thinking at this point the only way to get control of the situation is to follow the laws. It also does not mean that without Moiraine there, she hasn't had many others telling her things or influencing her. 
Just as in the books anything she would have done to try and prepare the tower would have been counteracted by both political enemies and the unknown enemy the Black Ajah. The tower has been divided and diminished long before Siuan was Amyrlin , and continued that decline. 
Pretty sure with Lanfear's comment about a broken Amyrlin means that Lanfear will take some of Mesana's role in destroying the rest of the White Tower. 

11 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

I always saw that as almost like a feedback event, we see it through the books, Egwene stills one of the dark sisters guarding them in tear. I think that is a specific situation that can't be anticipated like a "stilling" 

True, those situations feel more like the ones where Aes Sedai burn themselves out or still themselves when they pull too much or when using a Ter'angreal. There is also the fact that what they know is limited to the fact that Most Aes Sedai are much weaker than the Forsaken or Rand, or even Egwene. 

4 hours ago, DigificWriter said:

Why is it so difficult for some to accept that, in the lore of the show, the collars cannot be removed without first kilking the people wearing them?

The only thing we have to go on it is from an article from the costume designer, even if from the art drawings at the time that was the intent, we do not have anything from the show that backs it up, or if it stayed that way, until we do it is not in the "lore of the show"  Renna does not tell Egwene that the a'dam can never be removed, only that a damane can not remove the a'dam. So at this time that is the only show lore we have.  
If that is the case, and Egwene needs to keep wearing it, then that still does not mean they will not find a way to remove it at some point. 

3 hours ago, Agitel said:

Motion smoothing?! Vivid picture settings?! Color saturation set to cool?! Give me that remote now.

Would not even know what most of those are, my kids would set the tv settings, but they all moved out years ago, so it is set where ever they left it, until I tried to fix the too dark for WoT. 

3 hours ago, Guire said:

So I was a soldier long long ago.  One of my digs at show all along has been that OG RJ wrote series from a soldiers perspective, even if many readers never caught it.  He used weather in books often to show sort of the health of the world, as sort of a background sountrack, or as a real world obstacle.  Jordan also used miscommunication or lack of ability to communicate well as parts of story.  

 

Our show writers have probably never been farmers, construction workers, or soldiers.  So for writers who have probably spent most of their adult lives indoors or in Southern California like environments always on internet or with cell phones, modernizing story also means ignoring weather and instant communication.  I do expect brush fire haze or mud slides at some point.

There is quite a bit in the books that was influenced by not only his time as a soldier, but a Veteran of Vietnam. The miscommunications, working at cross purposes, or how disconnected and ineffective the Forsaken or even some leaders who are. 
When you read his interviews on war hero's and his time in the service you can see how it was a guiding force in how he wrote his hero's. 

1 minute ago, mogi68 said:

 

Does your TV have an "HDMI Black Level" setting? I couldn't see anything in dark scenes and then I discovered that in the menu and now I can actually tell what's going on

No there are no separate HDMI settings, just standard brightness or contrast, and they just make it worse in other ways. 
This is not the only show that has issues, but I would say it is the worst. 
It is like all the shows that assume TV's are set up for sound better, and I can never hear anything over the backing sound track so need to use subtitles. 

32 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

you may not have noticed a few weeks ago when we discovered the trick; you have to download the episodes and watch them from downloaded. they are better quality, and with better light. i also couldn't make out much beofre i discovered that trick

First I am hearing of that trick, I have tried every other adjustment or settings change with no changes. Not sure I even knew downloading episodes was an option. 

Ok so while not a fan of Lan's arc this season I was not hating on it, as it was more Lan later than Lan earlier in some ways.

But this episode when Lan fakes out and leaves Logain after an implied promise of giving him the key, that made me angry at it, because if there is one thing Lan is at his core it is honorable. I could put up with a softer honorable Lan, but this really bugged me. 

34 minutes ago, Agitel said:

The screenshots and clips I see from other people are all at least twice as dark as what I actually see on my TV. It's weird.

 

I guess I just stealth bragged but it's surprising to me.

That is how I see all the dark scenes, no matter what adjustments I make. I find myself going back and grabbing images to then adjust with editor to even see anything. It is really a pain, If I were not 33 year book reader I would have given up on watching a show where half the time I can not see anything.