4 hours ago, ForsakenPotato said:

It's also pretty subjective what different viewers and readers are going to get out of Moiraine's characterization in either the books or the show. When I read book 1, Moiraine felt to me like an extremely aloof and potentially morally ambiguous character. Yeah she's kinda like Gandalf but Gandalf is very warm and friendly in comparison. He's like the sweet group grandpa and Moiraine is like the strict school fieldtrip chaperone. Yes she's driven, yes she's ambitious, but as a first time reader I wasn't totally sure what was driving her and it wasn't immediately obvious to me she was trustworthy, mainly because we see her from the POV of characters who also aren't sure they can trust her. It was only later in the books that I understood more of her motivation and behavior and actually liked her at all.

 

What I like about her portrayal in the show is that we get to see more of her as a full character early on. Her friendships and enemies in the white tower, her private conversations with Lan, a little romance, etc. I don't think she's less ambitious or focused than she was in the books, and she still is regularly annoyed and pissy with the teenagers (and withholds potentially useful info from them), but we also get to see the rest of her life and personally, I found that made her much more relatable and easy to root for.

 

Obviously that's just how it struck me, and others had different experiences! That's part of why it's great to see this story told is different mediums and different ways!

Firstly I would say ambitious is a poor word to describe Moiraine. It is more apt to describe Moiraine and Siuan plan as ambitious and the fact that they would have gladly sacrificed their own lives in service of this plan makes them more selfless in it's service. I never got the impression at any point in the series that Moiraine was acting in her own self-interest.

I'm not sure how seeing her having more normal side interests during the show could fail to impact your view that she was less focused on her mission's goals. It may give the character a wider appeal but you have 100% lessened her portrayal as being fixated on her goal. Her fixation was what made her character compelling in the books it is what made her great. 

2 hours ago, expat said:

Mailman said

Sorry, I never noticed that I didn't have attribution of the previous author in my posts (of course, I never noticed that other posts did have attribution either).  However, after your request, I tried to post this with attribution, but I have no idea how to do it.  Everything I tried got a message about my browser not supporting it.

NPS then. The main issue is that I don't get an alert that someone has responded to my post is all.

2 hours ago, expat said:

Without the artifact of the coins, please explain how Moiraine was supposed to find our heroes?   In the book, they were separated by enough distance immediately after the escape that she couldn't quickly find/retrieve them, even with the coins.  In the show, more time passed because she was sick and then she was under the distrustful eye of the Reds throughout the journey.  Ignoring the Reds, it was like in 1700 America, trying to follow people from the edge of the frontier to Washington without knowing their path.  There were lots of ways to get between the two spots, so making elaborate plans, that you couldn't execute, to find them was only for show

 

Given they didn't have show time to spend large amounts on Moiraine trying to track down the lost heroes, what would have been gained by making a big deal of her making plans to find them?  I don't know about you, but Moiraine using her magical GPS to slowly follow behind the others is not interesting TV.

 

I don't miss the coins because even in the books they were clearly just plot movers since they never appeared again and they would have been extremely useful at many stages of the series.

Could you please stop quoting me and removing the attribution of the author of the quote. I am not sure why you do it every time. I dont even know how you do it.

It does not change the fact that show Moiraine went from proactive to passive.

She could have gone to likely locations and asked questions. She could have gone to locations near TV and found the potential male channeler before they entered alone exposing them to danger. Nynaeve, Moiraine and Lan could have covered 3 of the roads into TV and met each evening to see if they found any of them.

She has just about the best tracker in the blight. And she has Nynaeve who is a good tracker as well.

Still claiming that Moiraine is in the same spot as book Moiraine makes no sense. She is still changed by the writers into a passive character.

47 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Thanks I made that point as well but it seems to not want to be heard, even hunting down Perrin Morraine doesn’t go in a straight line, she figures out where he is and where he is likely to be heading to and intercepts. It is Nyn who drives constantly trying to find them, she wants to move faster, further, Morraine always felt like she was moving at a more relaxed pace, she certainly wasn’t riding her and Lans horses to death. Or trying to hunt through the day and night for them. Like you say she was confident she would find them and she did. In the books she has the same view and behaves the same. In that moment the real threat is both Logain, but also the red who Morraine knows will switch there attention elsewhere as soon as Logain is Gentled. 
 

I also just want to add in the books Egwene is at the bottom of her priority list, Nyn is under no illusions that Morraine will sacrifice all of them for the Dragon Reborn. 

It has been addressed.

Why when you can sense the direction he is travelling in, in real time, would you not account for an intercept course based on his current movements.

Riding the horses to death or exhaustion would make them slower. Which would be stupid.

Nynaeve wants to find them all and Moiraine logically explains her plans and reasoning which make sense to Nynaeve. Moiraine at no point does not want to find them all any less than Nynaeve does even if not for the same reasons.

Logain is more than a month from being gentled at that point and while the red may be interested in Moiraines movements it is not more important to keep that secret in comparison to protecting the Dragon Reborn.

Logain is not the main threat. the threat to the true dragon is the main threat always.

1 hour ago, Skipp said:

 

After losing the trace on the coins Book Moiraine has the same plan as Show Moiraine, go to a location she had already told them to go to.  Show Moiraine makes a point of saying, "When we get to Tar'Valon, if they are there, we will find them.  And if they are not there we will find them still".

 

In the books, after Perrin regains his coi,n Moiraine goes and rescues him but once that is done her plan is to hope Mat and Rand make it to Caemlyn. 

 

Aside from not introducing a minor weave that only ever returns an incredibly minor plot point in Elayne's Throne arc I am not sure what you are missing.

Moiraine makes multiple plans. 

Mat and Rand give up there coins once they are on the river she uses this information to plan to hopefully reconnect with them at Whitebridge. 

Upon reaching Whitebridge she asks questions and believes they have left in the direction of Camelyn after the Fade incident. Reasoning that it will be harder for the dark ones forces to move openly against them mixed amongst the travelers and not being able follow both groups at once she changes her plans to follow Perrin who still has his coin. (Perrin is only without his coin for a couple of hours).

She then rescues Perrin before resuming her search for the others by  moving to a logical location.

That is not the same plan as show Moiraine who makes no effort to find them just goes to the end point slowly and waits for them. Book Moiraine is actively searching and tries to find them. Show Moiraine is passive and just hopes they show up.

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Actually no in the book she is able to track Perrin with the coin, she hopes Mat and Rand are heading a particular way but is often shown as being unsure, although all those scenes are from Nyns perspective and so what we see is her in quiet conversation with Lan. Nyn certainly doubts at various times that Morraine knows what she is doing, and in some ways she is right to because in many ways it is luck that lands Morraine and Mat and Rand together. 
 

The show isn’t perfect but I am perfectly willing to see past that because with only 8 episodes I don’t see what you get in terms of stuff happening, an episode of the party just travelling and talking, that instantly breaks up the drive of the show and more importantly probably turns off far far more viewers. In the modern day in a TV show every episode has to have something happen.  You extend out the time before shadar logarth you don’t really gain much, you extend the time after you have more scenes of Mat and Rand sleeping under hedges. Maybe a scene or 2 more of them making coin in a tavern but nothing that drives the show forward and makes the show bingeable. 
 

Now you do what you suggest then you lose the scenes with Logain, which most readers accept were a brilliant thing to add (even if we maybe disagree on the quality of those scenes). We lose the politics in Tar Valon, which are really important for an audience to understand, you maybe gain 14 minutes from Steppins story but there are those of us who feel the Bond is so key to the last battle and so many events leading to it that it has to be shown to the audience somehow. Maybe the stepin piece needed to be re worked but a story of a warden losing his aes sedai showing the audience the impact that has and given just how key it is needs to be included in season 1, you can’t get away with simply explaining it, especially when I imagine episode 1 or 2 of season 2, when Lan berates  Morraine for going off and risking his safety as well as her own she turns round and tells him not to worry his bond will switch to another “I won’t have what happened to Steppin be your fate”. 
 

So it isn’t as simple as just “adding in an episode”. 

We are not going to agree you argue Moiraine is the same as in the books despite making no effort to find the EF5 an argument i find simply insane.

Probably the simplest way to describe the whole thing is after book 1 of the wheel of time I was excited to find out what happened to the characters next and where the story was going.

If I had watched season 1 of the show with no knowledge of the books there is no way I would be watching season 2.

47 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Yes because there was only so much time and really, rereading the series now they act largely as world building scenes in a TV show you can show all that stuff (and the show does that well). With only 8 episodes and the amount of “world” Rafe had to show in season 1 to help the audience understand the rules of this show I am fairly happy with this being condensed. We get a feel for it, Mat slipping to darkness and he and Rand being chased. Perrin and Egwene meeting tinkers and Perrin starting to connect with wolves and then coming face to face and killing white cloaks. 
 

Given that across the entire show that period of them all being split doesn’t really feed into the last battle in any meaningful way I don’t mind us losing some of that so that we can get on with introducing Tar Valon, meeting Logan, seeing the male half being used etc and get those out of season 2. There is plenty of walking from place to Place to come, at least until they level up and get first horses, then carriages and then traveling :). 

Except we dont know the main characters that well, there relationships with each other are paper thin especially with the characters who are new to each other. The magic system is only lightly addressed.

I'm not saying that the timing is not tight, i dont really believe it can be done in an 8 episode run at all. But i can only judge on the content delivered and what was delivered was poor.

11 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Book 1 and the show match up, there is more time devoted to the journey before Shadar Logath, when Morraine is with the boys, this is not in the show because of pacing and all the other reasons given. Then the party get split up in exactly the same way as the books and for about the same amount of time. 

She then meets back up with mat and Rand in an inn and saves Mat, as per the show, then they travel via the waygates. Her time with the boys matches the books, yes while hunting the boys she focuses on Perrin first, and then stumbles into mat and rand, that whole section has been changed but, in terms of the time away from Morraine it pretty, much matches they just all meet in Tar Valon. 

In many ways we get to see more of Morraine being controlled then the books, where she basically spends a large part traipsing through the countryside following the coins. 

Morraine is pretty close to the books as a whole, in book 1 she was the Gandalf character and Robert Jordan then made her more and more fallible as he realised he didn't want her being all powerful and all knowing. She is not so much that all knowing Gandalf at the start of season 1 but again that lines up with how RJ wrote her for the whole of the series. Book 1 has always been the outlyer that thematically and stylistically is different to what the series becomes and this includes how characters are written. I maintain had RJ written book 1 after he had written book 4 or 5 we would have a very different style book. In fact I think if he had gone back and re written the series then books 1-3 would have panned out differently with a lot less repetition of story idea (people travelling across the land hunting for item, person or escaping people) and certain characters would be written differently in book 1 (Lan and Morraine for one). It really feels like book 4 is where RJ finds his stride telling stories in his world and not just relying on mcguffin A being the driving force for the story. I think this is why for so many people the Shadow Rising is the best book. 

Rubbish.

I'm sorry but that is just nonsense. In the book she is calculated, driven and plans how to relocate the lost Emond's Fielder's. In the show she goes for a leisurely ride for a month with her Aes Sedai mates. If you think book Moiraine would have done that then I almost feel like we were reading different books. 

You say she is traipsing through the countryside following the coins. What she is in fact doing is engaging in a fraught chase to recover her lost charges before the forces of the dark can find them. Traipsing really!! The show she just lets them make there own way there while she really just traipses along with her Aes Sedai friends.

Whatever you say about pacing and timing being the same, from the shows perspective Moiraine is basically a complete stranger to the EF5 apart from Nynaeve. The show made no effort to fix this, hell you seem OK with the 1 month later (which i hated) you could have had another one of those before they split up even a 2 weeks later that would have increased the time the group was actually together making them not strangers to each other.

Show Moiraine is a shadow of the character we get in the book.

3 minutes ago, VooDooNut said:

Yeah, I see what you mean, but that's assuming the show is finished with "wise Moiraine" after season 1. I would bet that's not the case. In the book her arc, as described in above comments, is more like a V. Starts out driven and central to the plot, gets reduced to a side-character, and is redeemed many books later. But maybe, since the show is definitely trying to put more of Moiraine into the story than was in the books, her arc is more like a W. Season 1 we see central Moiraine who then tumbles into confusion with the season finale. Perhaps season 2 (maybe into 3?) we see Moiraine regain some of her control, only to see in (season 4+++?) her confrontations with Rand (and others) leads to another loss of control. Eventually she is taken out of the picture when she confronts Lanfear. Then, by the end of the series, we have her redemption arc that matches closer to the end of her arc in the books.

 

Dunno, but it makes more sense just thinking about how Rafe et. al. want more Moiraine in the show than the books allowed for.

Its possible as I dont see anyway the show is going to remove Rosamund Pike for more than half the runtime as the leading name attached to the show. But the characters are basically complete strangers at this point she has only spent maybe what 3 or 4 days with them at this point and some of that she was unconscious.

I am bemused by people bringing up Perrin spanking Faile repeatedly. But pardon me if I'm wrong had she not been the one striking him on more than one occasion previously. They did not have the time and luxury of taking her before a law authority who could have charged her if such an authority existed in the WoT universe. Was he supposed to just continue being abused going forward?

5 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Rereading the books and people really seem to be forgetting books 3 onwards lol. She loses control of Rand, loses control of the situation and you watch her become more and more desperate to do anything just to get Rand to listen to her advice. She realises very quickly that she has no idea what is going on. Her bravest moment before Lanfer is in book 3 where she goes off and faces down one of the forsaken but from

there until Thom saves her she loses power and control and understands she actually knows nothing. 
 

I think That is the journey they are trying to show in the TV show and the lack of time they have they had to condense it all to make sure the confident know it all Morraine is what we see at the start and then by the end of season 1 the audience is clear she didn’t know it all. Not knowing who the dragon is becomes part of this narrative. When she then makes the sacrifice for Lanfer then she gains back her agency as she does in the book. 

But thats what i'm saying book 1 she is the brains and the drive behind the journey she is relentless and driven in achieving her goals of finding and protecting the Dragon. 

Show Moiraine spends almost no time with anyone except Nynaeve. Spends more time with Logain and the Tower than any of the Emonds fielders. 

Moiraines journey after book 1 till just before she exits fighting Lanfear is one of frustration as she tries to control Rand but he pushes back constantly against her control. That is why i said she shines brightest in book 1 she is the driving force through the entire book. The things that made her great in the first book are massively lacking in the show.

On 12/20/2022 at 6:53 AM, SinisterDeath said:

I again assert, some of ya'll need to watch some trashier television to truly appreciate what a Bad Movie/TV show really is. 

I think part of it is expectation if a show or movie has an advantage of big budget, excellent cast or amazing IP then while it might be better than something lacking those qualities the disappointment is higher.

Obi Wan is the most recent example the disappointment factor is massively multiplied by the fact it has all the advantages and yet fails so badly.

3 hours ago, ForsakenPotato said:

@DigificWriter that's an interesting perspective! How do you see that impacting things like the potential passing of her warder bond to Nyneave? I think the show is still setting up for that to happen based on season 1.

 

Unpopular opinion on this forum, but I think Moiraine is the most improved character from book to show, so I have no complaints about getting more scenes with her. I am less optimistic that means she'll stick around as a main character though...I think she's being portrayed as more likeable so that we can have our hearts ripped out when she dies.

Moiraine IMO is the most damaged character compared to the books. Gone is her overwhelming drive, gone is her intelligence and sadly book 1 was when she shined brightest.

I'm not sure about her being the main character going forward but i also can't see her being out of the series for the same portion of time as in the books or at all.

6 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Re reading the books I am finding myself thinking about things that I want to see in the TV show, and realise there are a number of events that as a reader you never see in the first person, but, on screen will make great action scenes. 
 

a Couple I can think of (up to Fires of Heaven). 
 

Gaul and Loial closing the gateway. 
Mat killing Couladin. 
Avihendas vision her first visit to Rhuieden (this I am on the fence about). 
 

So which off page moments that you hear about but never see first hand do you want to be given screen time? 

Gaul and Loial closing the gate would take up too much time i think.

Assuming we get Rands view it would be very similar to Aviendhas just through a different ancestors eyes.( i way be getting the visions order wrong here.)

Mat actually killing Couladin was not a very long fight i thought the way he described it was almost like Couladin was trying to go through him and he killed him straight up not like a duel or anything.

Gawyn fighting his teachers would be something i would like to see on screen.

20 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

That is not equivalence, the point was about a scene where a person falls into a river and lets it carry her down stream, Egwene is told to trust the river and let it take her, keep her hands in. There where questions about the realism of this scene when it was possibly one of the most realistic scenes in the whole series. The fact that someone (I imagine a stunt double) actually did those takes, there is no CGI there, shows that it is possible and the womens circle would not do it if it wasn't. This is not a warrior culture where "the weak die" if someone had been hurt doing this ritual it would have been stopped. 

And again, like I said, it is an activity people do for real around the world relatively safely. 

People still die in white water accidents and thats despite using buoyancy vests having experienced guides and ropes attached to boats. They are also not wearing ankle length dresses.

If there is zero danger the scene makes no sense as its not any type of surrender to the river scenario as there's no point to surrendering to the river as it's perfectly safe either way. You can't have it both ways.

10 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

I used to river swim when I was in the states, there were patches of river and rapids you could do this very thing in fairly safely. You lay on your back hands across your chest and let the rapids take you is loads of fun. 
 

If in a series about magic,  a dark lord locked away in a magical Prison and the same souls being reborn your issue is that swimming some rapids takes you out of the universe because “not realistic” maybe your focusing on the wrong things. 

Yep and star wars is a story about space wizards and laser swords so why worry about good story telling at all I guess.

10 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

 

Oh and the Snyder cut still wasn’t that great a movie. I mean it was better but that wasn’t hard. 

I don't think it was even better than the Whedon cut. Sure it fleshed out some characters a bit but it created 2 problems for every 1 it fixed. Plus he had full autonomy whereas Whedon had to deal with the mess he was left with.

2 hours ago, expat said:

You do realize that the episode length was probably based on the cost.  Episode 2 had the SL set and a fair bit of CGI.  They couldn't just arbitrarily add 5 minutes because they had already spent the budget for the episode.

 

While I'm not a script writer, everything I've seen discussing writing of episodic TV shows explicitly says that there is flow both within seasons and individual episodes.  You want them to solve your issue by changing the way the writers write their scripts.

 

Agree that you can cut the scene.  Now how and when do you introduce the Whitecloaks, especially Valda, and make them threatening prior to Perrin's and Egwene's capture?  Cutting the scene in episode 2 might (partially) solve one problem, but it introduces a series of follow-on problems that then need to be addressed.  

You already have the heavy-handed scene of Valda

• Burning an Aes Sedai alive at the stake
• After cutting her hands off
• While eating a live bird that he gains pleasure from the pain it causes him as he swallows it
• As he caresses his string of Aes Sedai ring trophies from his previous kills.

Not exactly a scene that screams good guy.

The fact that the commander of the children of the light recommends an Aes Sedai healer totally undercuts the entire forest scene. How a non-book reader would understand that is beyond me.

On the scripts ideally you want a large number of episodes having build ups and exciting ends but for an epic fantasy 6 season show having a few episodes that dont conform to that pattern is no problem to accommodate. If the writing is so bad that it can't risk not having a cliff hanger hook to every episode it's not worth watching.

6 hours ago, expat said:

I asked you once already and you ducked the question.  How do you change episode 2 to accommodate an extra 10 minutes of new material?  You don't have the option of making it a 70 minute episode while reducing episode 5 to 50 minutes.  The only way to do it is to restructure episode 2 by cutting/shortening/moving existing material.  Existing material includes SL, dream scene, Manetheren explanation, Rand getting mad at Moiraine, Moiraine starting to teach Egwene, sinking the ferry, Valda meeting setting up Perrin and Egwene capture, and being chased/escaping from Shadowspawn.

 

Let's take these individually:

 

SL - ends the episode on a cliffhanger, so moving it to the beginning of episode 3 doesn't work well within the confines of TV story telling.  Critical to the overall story.  Already seems rushed, so shortening not an appealing choice.

 

Manetheren explanation - Possible, but it is an important lore component to our hero's backstory.  Has to be in this episode because it requires all our heroes to be together.  It is about a 4 minute scene, so it doesn't generate the necessary 10 minutes by itself.

 

Dream scene - critical story element.  Has to be in this episode because it requires all our heroes to be together.  It is about a 5 minute scene, so it doesn't generate the necessary 10 minutes by itself.

 

Rand showing distrust of Moiraine - possible.  It shows the stress the EF5 are under and communicates the overall distrust of Aes Sedai in the world, so it provides important world/character building information.  Since Rand is the dragon, foreshadows his distrust.  Might be able to be moved to later when Rand/Mat are found by Moiraine.  It is a short scene, so it doesn't generate the necessary 10 minutes by itself. 

 

Moiraine starting to teach Egwene about the one power - critical world building because she is teaching the audience about the one power. Has to be done in episode 2 because Egwene uses the one power against the Whitecloaks prior to seeing Moiraine again.  Another short scene which doesn't provide the necessary 10 minutes.

 

Sinking the ferry - must be done in episode 2.  Climax to the immediate threat of trollocs.  While the specific scene might be cuttable, something is needed to resolve the immediate trolloc threat in a TV friendly way.  Another short scene which doesn't provide the necessary 10 minutes.

 

Valda meeting - possible.  You could use the book encounter for Perrin's and Egwene's capture which allows this to be moved to a later episode.  Problems with that is the character introduction of Valda as a big baddie is reduced, you lose character development of the Tinkers and Whitecloaks, and you need to spend more time on the Wolf Brother aspect, but doable.  This is a reasonably long scene, so moving it gets you a long way to your needed 10 minutes.

 

Escaping/being chased by Shadowspawn - This is the tension of the episode.  You can play around with the specifics; you need our heroes to be under threat.

I did not duck your question. As I said it has been a year since I watched it.

The Valda meeting with Moiraine could definitely be cut it was terrible. Remember Bornhold actually suggests finding an Aes Sedai healer for treatment. How does the man cutting hands off Aes Sedai not immediately denounce him at this point. Apart from that they look like a small group of idiots in weird armor riding around the woods. 100% cut. Cut even if not trying to re arrange.

The episodes themselves range from 54 minutes to 62 minutes. Episode 2 is 57 minutes. So cut Valda that's maybe 5 minutes and extend the episode up to 62 and that an easy way to find the 10 minutes.

You again seem to have the impression each episode must be self-contained this is epic fantasy designed to be told over a 6-season run you absolutely do not have to have a climatic end to every episode.

I mean seriously just by cutting that one piss poor Valda/Moiraine  scene and adding 5 minutes to episode 2 you can have the training and keep most of the Stepin story.

Bloody hell this series has been butchered in the writing room.

On 11/19/2022 at 9:43 AM, A Memory Of Why said:

I think it would be difficult to shine Semirage in a sympathetic light.

 

She sounds like a complete psychopath who really doesn't understand why people would have problems with her sadistic price for her gifts.

 

What I'm trying to say is.. I think Semirage is a cat 🐈 

As horrible a person as Semirage is she only joined the Dark One to avoid being bound by the oath rod which would have halved her life as well as preventing her from exacting her price. If I remember correctly her choice was binding or severing. 

She clearly had a desire to hurt people but her defection had a fully understandable cause and effect.

8 hours ago, expat said:

This sounds good in isolation, but considering the actual series flow, it doesn't work.  You are adding scenes in episode 2 to save time in episode 5.

 

What are you going to cut from episode 2 to find the necessary screen time for your new scenes?  Are you going to cut SL short or move the entire thread into episode 3? Important things from episode 2 (from memory so I might forget things) include SL, dream scene, Manetheren explanation, Rand getting mad at Moiraine, Moiraine starting to teach Egwene, sinking the ferry, Valda meeting setting up Perrin and Egwene capture, and being chased/escaping.  

It's been a year since I watched the show but shuffling about 10-12 minutes out of episode 5 and into episode 2 would not be that hard IMO. Especially considering the gain.

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

only wanting to comment on this little bit, but giving the impression of time passing is a big weakness of movies. the lotr movies themselves failed at that, watching them I got the impression the whole adventure lasted a few weeks rather than a couple years.

the reason of course is that screen time is limited, you can't be repetitive, and so there's really no way to show that the party really has been marching for three months straight, short of a character calling it - which actually wouldn't be a bad thing, thinking about it.

A single line from Mat whining about the travel could give an update on the timeline followed by a response from Lan or Moiraine about how they will travel as long as it takes to get them safe.

It's still better than throwing up 1 month later on the screen as well.

2 hours ago, expat said:

Someone that thinks the training scenes are so critical to the story that leaving them out/postponing to season 2 is anathema, please explain their logic within the story.  We leave our intrepid heroes escaping from Terren Ferry with large numbers of Shadowspawn on their trail, although temporarily safe.  The Shadowspawn known the general direction that our heroes are traveling, so know where to look to try to pick-up the trail again.

 

In order for the training scenes to make sense, Moiraine and Lan must believe that they are totally safe and are traveling at a reasonably slow pace, camping with hours of daylight still available.  We know this because training requires time, light, and energy.  If they are trying to avoid capture/detection, our heroes have none of these three things because they are traveling as late into the night as is safe for the horses.  I'm not a weapon master, but I doubt that you do successful beginning training in the dark with exhausted pupils.

 

What is more logical, that Moiraine and Lan are so confident after escaping that they allow a leisurely journey or that they take steps to avoid their trail being picked-up by Shadowspawn that preclude weapon training?

 

This question may have a different answer in a TV series and in the books.  The TV series structure requires rising and falling tension within episodes while the books allow longer tension building.

 

 

 

 

The line about TV series having to have individual episodes that have a pattern is not true except where the episodes are self-contained. There is nothing stopping WoT from building suspense across multiple episodes and having quieter episodes contributing to world building.

There was nothing stopping the show having the same break pattern as the books. The shadowspawn could not cross the river (easier to buy if the river was wider) and the horses required rest so as not to kill them after washing the fatigue away. Completely logical to rest them so as not to slow the party overall. This gives you non exhausted boys with a couple of hours light to practice.

10 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Sorry on this I will have to respectfully disagree, you can't emphasise the importance of the bond to non book readers as quickly as the TV show needs to do it in just a few lines. There are examples throughout movies and TV's where that is done and it gets lost in the noise. The bond is so important that I think it deserved a 10-15 minute long story to demonstrate how it works in the TV show, where I do agree is being unsure as to how well the Stepin bit came across (Lans bare chested screaming is one thing that grates). I also don't think it was explained clearly enough that Stepin killed himself directly because of the bond, at least one person I know thought he did it because he was depressed he had lost the Aes Sedai he was sworn to protect, but, that doesn't mean the concept of that story was not needed. 

 

I am not saying to ignore it but what I would have done within the layout of the show we got is.

Multiple nights of training during the travel out of the two rivers this achieves work on the relationship between the boys and Lan. Also indicates that more time has passed with the company together rather than it feeling like a couple of nights before they get split up.

Rand trying to pry information about Warders and Aes Sedai subtly from Lan but being not used to being sneaky it is obvious as to what his line of questioning is about. This is good development for Rand and for his relationship with Egwene.

Could also explore a bit of Perrin being hesitant with the axe after killing his wife.

Maybe an extra training scene between Moiraine and Egwene.

Nynaeve should find them before they split so she can listen to some of the conversations. 

Then during the battle with Logains army have Steppin fighting in close with Lan and near Nynaeve and having him go beserk when Logain kills his Aes Sedai. And instead of running to her body he charges into the enemy and is killed. This can lead to an awesome short conversation between Lan and Nynaeve about how the death of an Aes Sedai causes the Warder to basically feel that death within themselves. Awesome development for Nynaeve in particular who can be shown to have started having feeling about Lan but now realizes the cost of him being split from Moiraine.

For me that gives a very good explanation of the warder bond and gives you a lot of extra development of the main cast and you lose nothing but a side character of no importance.

12 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

We had a needed exposition dump in the first 2 episodes, Morraine explains the history of mantheran. Studies have been done and proven that most viewers only take so much information in. And the Bond is far too important to be a throwaway line, so, you have Lan and Rand talking for maybe 5-10 mins about the bond, explaining the rules, clarifying, making sure they understand. Stepin was 14 mins of screen time, so you lose showing for telling and don’t really gain any more time to tell other stories. 

You do however gain 10+ minutes of development of main characters. Something that was woefully lacking in season 1. 10+ minutes of developing main cast relationships is an amazing gain over the Stepin story arc.

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

More exposition, which makes for awful on screen story telling. Especially for such an important part of the story. 
 

Not all exposition is terrible.

It's completely valid for the lovestruck farmboy who knows nothing about Aes Sedai and Warder bonds and who wants to maybe become her warder to try and gain information about it.

1 hour ago, WhiteVeils said:

He said he wanted to put in those scenes but couldn't.  That's why they were cut.  Not because he prioritized Stepin or whatever.  They were cut after they were written, then were written as part of episode 2, and cut most likely for time, or perhaps because they weren't moving the story forward in focused enough fashion.  There was nowhere else after episode 2 that they were all together in order to put them back in.  It's very likely he didn't even have the choice about it being cut.

 

It's easy to think it's all a zero sum game...that including this thing I don't like here is clearly what cut this thing I do like from this completely other place, but that's not how it works. 

 

 

Rafe is the showrunner the buck has to stop with someone.

More development of the main cast in exchange for cutting a nonexistent book character IMO clearly does far more for the story. Would have been easy to weave discussion on the Warder bond into some dialogue between Rand and Lan after he found out that Egwene was going to train to be Aes Sedai.