^ Again, the gags aren't pointless; they're a visual symbol of how dehumanized the Damane are in the eyes of the Suldam who control them.

😄 1. The Sul'dahm would never be expecting their Damane to have any need to verbally communicate because the idea is that the Damane are essentially pet dogs. 2. The only Damane we saw with the ability to detect the ability to Channel in others was Miri, and she could pretty clearly and obviously communicate non-verbally (like, again, a pet dog)

Here's a transcript of Moiraine's line: I now believe that this Aes Sedai could have been/was Liandrin, because the attitude and approach as described matches what Liandrin tries to do with Nynaeve, and would also explain why Liandrin felt 'familiar' enough with Moiraine to caress her cheek in Season 1. This is really neither here nor there, but some portions of the fandom have latched on to the idea that the presence of Jenny the Irish Wolfhound in Moiraine's room - despite Novices not being allowed pets - was related in some way to the aftermath of the incident(s) she describes. Re: my comment about finding the villains rootable, it comes down to the writing and performances, with a bit of costume design thrown in, and Kate Fleetwood, Natasha O'Keeffe, and Fares Fares were all killing it with their portrayals of Liandrin, Lanfear, and Ishy. Re: the gags, they do serve a purpose, which is to be visually and psychologically dehumanizing; they also look neat and cool as designed.

Yes. She mentions it to Rand in The Eye of the World. More observations about S2 that have come out of my rewatch so far: * I really want to know when and how Moiraine learned that Rand had gone to Cairihen and how exactly she got Logain transferred to the Sanitorium there * Credit for this one goes to KritterXD, but the fact that Egwene and Elayne met because Elly's maids left pillows in front of Eggy's door and Eggy returned them is amusing given the existence of the concept of Pillowfriends * When the show has such interesting bad guys like Ishy, Liandrin, Lanfear, and the Seanchan (just in general), its kind of hard not to find them 'rootable' * I still love the costuming choice to have the Damane wear pacifier gags, especially given the revelation from later on in the season that they're only forced to do so in public spaces * Having Moiraine and the characters around her believing and behaving as if she'd been Stilled is still really effective even knowing the truth of the situation, and I like that it exposed her as flawed, imperfect, and in some cases unlikable

@Mailman Pretty much every single person I named is a respected pillar of the WoT fandom (and four of them are directly involved with Dragonmount.com itself), and so by calling anybody who maintains that the characters in the TV series are absolutely recognizable vis a vis their book counterparts (which all of the named individuals have said is very much the case) 'borderline delusional', you are directly calling into question their credentials and credibility as WoT experts and fandom leaders, which is very much not a smart thing to do and which I was politely trying to dissuade you from doing. You don't have to like the TV series or the way its characters have been written, but there is a distinct difference between expressing negative opinions and calling into question the cognitive functions of any person who disagrees with you, which in this instance is a group that includes all of the individuals that I name-checked.

I'd be very careful calling diehard WoT fans like Thom DeSimone, Kathy Campbell, Rajiv Mote, Maureen Carr, KritterXD, Ta'varen Tavern, Winespring Cafe, LezbiNerdy, and MalkierTalks (to name but a few) 'borderline delusional'.

A person's refusal to acknowledge/see something as being true doesn't mean that it isn't true. I'm rewatching Season 2 at the moment and had a thought that I wanted to reiterate: until/unless we're told otherwise in the future, I'm fully convinced that Liandrin was the Aes Sedai that forced a young Moiraine to get over the things that were blocking her ability to Channel because it makes so much sense in regards to how she (Liandrin) is characterized in the early part of the season (S2).

Egwene specifically using the One Power to revive Nynaeve is a one-off thing until/unless she's able to consciously replicate whatever she did and revive someone else, at which point it becomes something to possibly explain and explore (although I expect that Race and his writers will 'default' to whatever Egwene actually did being generally dismissed as impossible, which is perfectly fine). Nynaeve's two 'power explosions' established that it is possible for the One Power to be unconsciously used in OTT ways, but the circumstances under which the three examples of 'power explosions' that we've seen have all been different and, thus far, have not been shown to be replicable insofar as intention and control is concerned.

You might find the notion ludicrous, but that's often how storytelling works, especially in Sci-Fi and Fantasy stories. Inexplicable/unexplained things will happen, and then they're intentionally never followed up on.

Unless Egwene ends up being faced with another situation where she revives someone using the One Power, what happened at Tarwin's Gap remains what it came across as, which was a one-time unconscious emotion-fueled OTT 'power explosion' that revived someone she cared about. Also, the fact that she was untrained actually reinforces the idea that what she did at the Gap was just a one-off OTT feat that she did entirely unconsciously.

One anomalous case unconsciously fueled by emotion does not establish either a precedent or a rule. Also, the only two people who would know, in-universe, whether or not Egwene revived Nynaeve from death would be Egwene and Nynaeve themselves, and I don't see much reason why they'd openly discuss the truth of what happened with anyone.

Nothing about the world-building is 'damaged' even if Nynaeve was dead and Egwene used the One Power to revive her because such action was a one-off unconscious occurrence.

How? It's a one-off OTT use of the One Power that is fueled entirely by emotion and isn't a conscious choice any more than Nynaeve's two 'Power explosions' were. There is also an argument to be made that Egwene was possibly in possession of an Angreal at the time in the form of the jewel Moiraine gave her in the episode Shadow's Waiting. I just rewatched a discussion of Season 1 from three of my favorite WoTTubers (KritterXD, Winespring Cafe, and Ta'varen Tavern) where the execution of Egwene's revivification of Nynaeve was discussed slightly negatively, and, had I been in their chat when they Livestreamed, I would've tried to make the argument that there is no difference, either mechanically or metaphysically, between Egwene - who had been established as an exceptionally powerful Channeler - using the One Power to revive Nynaeve and the two times that Nynaeve herself - who had likewise been established as an incredibly powerful Channeler who was even stronger than Egwene - accomplished/performed entirely instinctual OTT feats/actions with the One Power. As for why The Eye of the World is my favorite episode of Season 1, it contains the strongest character development of the season for certain characters (Rand and Moiraine), is our first introduction to the phenomenal Fares Fares (Ishy), tees up future storylines in ways that I found extremely compelling when I first watched it and that I still find exciting upon rewatch, and contains my favorite Cold Open of the season (the Age of Legends convo between Lews and Latra). I also choose not to be negative over or critical about things that were 'extracurricular' to the episode narratively.

Somebody above was once again complaining about Egwene healing Nynaeve in The Eye of the World (my favorite episode of Season 1), and, after just finishing a rewatch of that episode, all I have to say is this: people really do need to chill out when it comes to the 'correctness' or 'incorrectness' of how the show uses the One Power, because in the end, the point of that scene is to show off Egwene's strength in the Power and deepen her relationship with Nynaeve. Being hyperfocused on whether or not Nynaeve was dead and taking the stance that the One Power couldn't have brought her back to life if she was is completely missing the point. People don't have to like that scene, but there's a difference between disliking something and lodging pedantic objections against said thing simply for the sake of having something to comment on. The same also applies to Egwene saving herself from Renna; pedantic objections to that plot point based on whether or not the A'dam should've worked the way in which it's used in the scenes in question are entirely missing the point.

The first thing it did is that it directly shaped the way that the early episodes of Season 1 were written with regards to Moiraine's search for the Dragon Reborn and Egwene, Perrin, Mat, and Nynaeve's individual stories played themselves out. . Second, it allowed them to add depth to Egwene's character by including the detail about her love for the Travels of Jain Farstrider being rooted in and influenced by a belief on her part that she was Jain Farstrider reincarnated. Third, it provided them with the ability to have both male and female figures represent Logain's madness and reinforce his belief that he was the Dragon Reborn and that he was hearing the voices of his previous lives. Fourth, it gave them an avenue by which they could adapt to Barney Harris' departure and the ripple effect that it created by making it impossible for Mat's storyline to remain as it was in the books by having him experience hallucinations/visions that could be described as being related to his past lives and include both male and female characters.

This is not how writing works. Rafe has admitted that he and his writers never truly considered changing the identity of the Dragon Reborn. That does not mean that their decision to degender souls and therefore fundamentally alter the underlying lore of the novels as established by Robert Jordan did not provide them with the ability to make the choice of changing the Dragon's identity, nor does it mean that they did not make said change in ignorance of the knowledge that the option of changing the Dragon's identity was in fact on the table should they have wanted to exercise it.

See the link I posted earlier and the contents thereof, which directly and explicitly refute this argument. Rafe and his team are not even remotely as incompetent in terms of the ways they have approached the adaptation of these novels as some people keep trying to insist that they are.

The amount of narrative focus that Rand has received is 'diminished' relative to the novels because, for better or worse, he is not the 'primary POV character' of this Turning. The overall story is his, but it is being told through the point of view and perspective of Moiraine.

We've already seen additional manifestations of souls not being gendered in the TV series (beyond the obfuscation of the Dragon Reborn's identuty), namely Rand's comment to Loial in Blood Calls Blood about Egwene's love of The Travels of Jain Farstrider and the hallucinations/visions that Mat experiences in Season 2 while he's held captive by Ishy.

Here you go: https://gizmodo.com/adapting-the-wheel-of-time-for-tv-is-an-epic-all-its-ow-1848026456

I'm not making the statement I made based on that one single line; I'm making it based directly on comments from Rafe himself - given in an interview conducted just prior to the debut of Season 1 - that directly addressed the subject of reincarnation and the gendered nature of souls and that clarified/established that, for the TV series, he and his writers had intentionally chosen to do away with Robert Jordan's strictures on gender-based reincarnation, thus allowing for male souls to be reincarnated in female bodies and vice versa.

I once again feel obligated to point out that, regardless of how any individual fan or non-fan felt about it, the show's obfuscation of the identity of the Dragon Reborn was not just a 'mystery box' plot line: it was the manifestation of a choice to fundamentally alter the core Reincarnation-related lore of the Wheel of Time world. Said choice meaning that the Dragon Reborn could have legitimately been any character, and this one fundamental truth is not changed by the fact that, in the end, the choice was made to leave the identity of the Dragon Reborn the same as it was in the source material.

All adaptations add new things; that's just a stone cold truth. You can either accept it and be open-minded or obstinate and closed-minded, in which case you'd be far better off just ignoring the adaptation and contenting yourself with only the original source material. My broader point still stands, though: new stuff in an adaptation is not wrong or bad simply because it is new.

Re-reading this thread has reminded me of a generalized response that I told myself I was going to use whenever somebody criticized anything about an adaptation and didn't care to - or wasn't willing to - explain their criticisms in anything but broad declarations of negativity: "Things are not wrong just because they are new!" It's a snippet of lyrics from my favorite musical and is really the only appropriate response for the kind of negative comments that this thread is filled with.

Just wanted to put this out there: the show's Costume Designer, Sharon Gilham, has apparently confirmed that the 'blonde in red' is in fact Elayne despite much fan speculation otherwise.