1 hour ago, Skipp said:

I believe they are being merged

Oy.

Well, if that's true, then that probably is him in the shot.

56 minutes ago, Skipp said:

So aside from the fantastic image of the Lurk nailed to the door what are the chances that Elyas is on the far left?

I would expect that to be Hurin, rather than Elyas.

Unless I missed something and Hurin has been cut.

3 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Going to the way back machine - I like it!!

And there's even several new books, written by some of the people she's collaborated with over the years.  Novels by Deborah Ross, and anthologies from various "Friends of Darkover" writers.

After a complete re-read, I know that some people feel burned out from the amount of effort needed to keep up with an actual series.  For them, then starting a new multi-volume saga can just add to the burnout.

If that's the case for you, you might rather get into something that has a well-developed world, and lots of stories, but wasn't written as a single series. 

One of my favorites in this category is the Darkover novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley.  She has a fairly well-developed magic system (it is frequently referred to as a technology in the books), her own version of Maidens of the Spear (the Renunciates), and she writes interpersonal relationships much better than Jordan.  And it wasn't written to be read in chronological order.  Though it has a well-developed (though not entirely consistent) timeline, so you could read it that way if you wanted.

You get a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, traditional feudalistic roles and characters struggling against those roles, and a lot of sex and romance, of whole range of varieties.  Even a race of gender-bending "Faerie folk" (the Chieri).

On 7/18/2022 at 3:15 PM, Aut-astic said:

Inconsistencies about Jain Farstrider:

This man went on SO MANY adventures. Then he had the time to write epic stories about those adventures. Then those stories were printed and distributed FAR and WIDE, in a world where they probably have printing presses but shipping relies on horses and boats.  The timeframe that realistically covers this is more like hundreds of years, a timeframe that even an Aes Sedai would be challenged to match. Any power that he has is not the one power due to him being male during the taint. 

A few things:

In a world where the fastest way to travel is by boat, there's no problem with having enough time between adventures to write them down.  He would have filled out journals that detailed everything he saw, heard and did - long before going to a publisher.  And there are transportation networks for trade that connect every major city on the continent.  It wouldn't actually be a problem getting a popular book in the hands of people everywhere.

But you are correct, there is no indication anywhere that he can channel.

None of that is an inconsistency.

On 7/18/2022 at 3:15 PM, Aut-astic said:

Inconsistencies about Noal:

Deals with the gholam, when they are a huge challenge to deal with. We know he cannot have used the one power but what in the world did he do?
Catches fish with his bare hands by sitting still and waiting in a river. We saw Moiraine do this previously and she described it as "an old Aes Sedai trick". 

**This is one I need to check back up on. At some point in conversation, the subject of Jain Farstrider's wife gets brought up in conversation, and Thom comments that he never had heard a story of Farstrider being married.

Noal has no idea what the gholam is when he rescues Mat from it.  So far as he knows, it's just an attempted mugger.  The gholam left because it was under orders to avoid notice.  Because Noal made it think there were a lot more people coming who would see it.

The "fish catching" thing is first seen with Perrin and Loial in book 3.  Moiraine tries it, and does better than either of them.  She doesn't say it's an "old Aes Sedai trick," that was Perrin being suspicious that she had somehow "cheated."  It's a pretty common technique among people familiar with traveling in the wilderness.  Noal was just really good at it, given how much of that he had done.

The fact that Thom hadn't heard of Farstrider having a wife in any of the stories just means he didn't settle down and get married until the stories were all published.

Again - none of those are inconsistencies.

On 7/18/2022 at 3:15 PM, Aut-astic said:

Jain Farstrider is none other than Lews Therin Telamon, called Kinslayer. Like Rand, he is given a new body following his confrontation with the dark one. This new body doesn't have access to the one power but can basically bend the strands of the pattern to his will. (Like we see Rand lighting his pipe without the use of the one power at the very tale end of the series.) Hence knowing what a gholam is and being equipped to deal with it. Would also explain why he knows an old Aes Sedai fishing trick. 

Absolutely not.  Though it is true that souls get reborn over and over, they only ever exist in one person at a time.  Rand is unquestionably Lews Therin reborn, and he and Jain Farstrider were both alive for about twenty years.  So LTT couldn't have been both of them.

And again, he didn't know what the gholam was and didn't do anything to "deal with it" beyond making noise, and the fishing technique had nothing to do with the Power.

There is apparently no set limit on how many Ta'veren can be alive at the same time, so it's certainly possible that he was one, though he's never identified as such.

------

The problem with all of this is that we know exactly who Noal/Jain is.

In the first book, when we are told the story of the fall of Malkier, Jain Charin is said to have apprehended the traitor Cowin Fairheart and brought him to justice.  He is specifically said to already be known as "Farstrider" by then.  Which means that by the time of Lan's birth, he had already had famous adventures.  He would have been just under thirty at the time.

Between the fall of Malkier and the Aiel War, he continued to have (and write down) adventures.  Somewhere near the end of that time he settled down, got married, and published his book.  By which time he would have been in his fifties.

Shortly after the Aiel War, he turned up in a Stedding - near death and apparently insane - and relayed the story Loial told about the Dark One intending to "blind the Eye of the World."  A story that Ishamael tells Rand he intentionally planted to lure him to the Eye.

Somewhere around that time (before or after, we don't know) his wife dies, and he realized he had been manipulated by the Shadow, and he flees north of the Blasted Lands.  That's when he starts using the name Noal, and claiming to be his own cousin.

We aren't told in any of his story about the incident with Graendal, but it's obvious when we meet him in Ebou Dar that one of the Forsaken has done something to him that has damaged his memories, and Compelled him to spy on Jaichim Carridin, and on whichever of the Forsaken was acting in the city.  The Wheel of Time Companion tells us it was Graendal who did this to him, because of his fame.

Meeting Mat, and his impact as Ta'veren, allows him to free himself from the effects Compulsion and sets him on the path that leads to the Tower of Ghenjei.

He willingly sacrifices himself there not because he expects to be reborn as a Hero of the Horn, but because of the ideas about honor in the Borderlands.  He put down the mountain, and picked up the feather.

He was 75 years old when he died.

5 hours ago, deathgate said:

 

Well of course the commoners were all distraught when she dumped Thom 😁

It's not so much that they weree distraught (though clearly they were 😉) it's that she let her emotions get out of control when she did.  In ways that reminded everyone how young she was, and how foolish she could let herself be.

With that kind of history, her behavior with "Lord Gaebril" didn't make anyone immediately think something was wrong.  It was just her losing her head again.

14 hours ago, Dagon Thyne said:

The voice is a form of split personality disorder.  Rand can't acept who he is, so his mind breaks and he hears his own memories as a seperate person.  When he finally finds peace in who he is and what he must do, the voice is gone and he remembers both of his lives as one.

 

Actually, that's what Cadsuane implies is going on.  But it isn't really the case.

Rand learns things from Lews Therin that are real.  And which don't come from anything Rand could have experienced himself.  So he couldn't have memories of them.

He "remembers" plum trees that he's never seen.  He "remembers" Ilyena's face.  He "remembers" how to break through a Shield.  And so on.

14 minutes ago, Mailman said:

Egwene was never going to be Nynaeves successor she was only around 10 years younger than her.

Actually, in the show it seems like it's closer to 5 years.

On 7/14/2022 at 6:38 PM, Mailman said:

We don't know.

Her mentor did travel all the way to Tar Valon though.

And as I said for viewers who are aware of the significance of the colors its a little strange to see her use them then be so strident in her hatred for the Tower 30 minutes later.

 

Which is why i am surprised by people praising the significance of the colors in the water. Either they are not aware of the link to the tower in which case it has no significance. Or they are which jars with Nynaeves hatred.

 

Something else to bear in mind:

Marin al'Vere recognized Moiraine as Aes Sedai on sight.  And there was little in the way of negative reaction to hearing her named in public as the book implied would happen.  So it's not that far of a stretch to think the White Tower and the Ajahs were more well-known in Two Rivers in the show than in the books.

Which doesn't address Nynaeve's hatred, but it does show the Women's Circle could've known exactly what the colors meant.

6 hours ago, DojoToad said:

When Belgarion is in the Dryad wood, he borrows Eriond’s horse which travels in a similar fashion to Perrin in the Wolf Dream. Covering great distances with sudden lurches. 

Or the way Bela did when Egwene rode her to her summons from the Little Tower.

3 hours ago, VooDooNut said:

I was under the impression the tracking coins were a one-off as well, but I just read this paragraph from Knife of Dreams, and it reminded me of the technique Moiraine used in EOTW.

  Reveal hidden contents

Excerpt from Knife of Dreams: Chapter 16 The New Follower

 

"The weave she laid on Hark's belt buckle, his boots, his coat and breeches, was somewhat akin to that for the Warder bond, though much less complex. It would fade from clothing and boots in a few weeks, or months at best, but metal would hold a Finder forever. 'I've laid a weave on you, Master Hark. Now you can be found wherever you are.'"

 

Yeah, it appears to be one of those things that is entirely consistent in-universe, it just isn't mentioned frequently.

Given the size and complexity of the world, and how much each Aes Sedai fights to maintain her own independence, it's not really surprising that we wouldn't hear more about it.

16 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

 

We can't know so we shouldn't presume.

Not presuming.  Just speculating about what seems reasonable.

And it seems unreasonable that a landowner who got paid for the use of idle property would want to jeapordize continuing to do so by being an ass about it.

12 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

 

We don't know if Rafe would have been able to maintain it over the period of time required. When they burned it, they didn't have any idea that S2 might be coming at all, let alone S3 which would be where they would return to Emond's Field.  After LOTR, the farmer himself who had the set fields chose to keep and maintain it as a tourist site...I don't think it was Jackson's choice.  Who know who owns the Two Rivers quarry or what they wanted to do with the site? <shrug> They can rebuild it if they want.  It doesn't save that much money compared to the cost of visual effects and stuff these days.

Yes, the farmer that owned the fields agreed to keep the set on his property.  But remember, the land was actual working farmland.

The Two Rivers set was a quarry that was no longer in use.  It's why it was available for filming in the first place.  There isn't really any reason for anyone to need it for anything for 2-3 years between filming.

Not saying that whoever owns the property wasn't playing hardball, but it seems unreasonable that they would be, considering even the possibility they might want to come back to the site.

19 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

We do see this in some of the dream sequences - I think when Perrin is first stalking some of the forsaken.

The Forsaken tend to use the Tel'aran'rhiod version of the Ways for many of their early meetings.  And Ba'alzamon does the same when trying to trap the boys.  

But those seem more like the damage has already happened, it's just that you can see (as you always can in the Dream).

I'd like them to show what Loial describes, with sunlight, grass and trees.

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Again, I am not an expert, but as far as I understand it makes sense.

It will take years before they get to film that battle. in those years, they have to keep renting the land - or keep getting permission from the government to use it. Hard.

And they still need to burn down the village for the trolloc raid; so, by actually burning it down, they get to save a lot on special effects.

and the village was changed anyway by the refugees when perrin comes there, so they'd have to put in lots of work anyway. and they're not even sure they'll be greenlit to film that far ahead in the future.

 

all in all, tearing it down and then eventually rebuilding it several years into the future is the sensible decision.

The problem is that we have some specific examples of sets like this being sustained for years.  Even being reused more than a decade later - and being turned into a tourist attraction in the meantime.  This is what Peter Jackson did with Hobbiton.

The Shire/Hobbiton set was built in 1999.  It was used in the LOTR trilogy, then reused in the Hobbit trilogy that started filming in 2011.

Paying a minimal fee to keep the property available for a few years would cost less than rebuilding the whole thing from scratch when you need it again.  Given what we've seen about how the seasons are going to combine books, the Two Rivers set would be reused only about two years later.

Also: They didn't actually need to burn down the village at all.  In the book, almost everything survived Winternight.  They burned it down because they decided to burn it down.  If you look back at the episode, not that much more was damaged.

Yet Rafe specifically talked about destroying it all.

Also, also: Few (if any) refugees had come to the village by the time the Whitecloaks and Trollocs arrived.  They all came afterward.  In part, because word spread that it was safe for them, now that Lord Perrin Glodeneyes was there.

4 hours ago, DojoToad said:

No battle of Two Rivers

That's what I'm afraid it means.

Not because they destroyed the set (which isn't that uncommon).  But because of what Rafe said to explain why he cut Caemlyn and all the characters introduced there from season 1.  Everything he said about it not being fair to people to put them in early, then not use them again for multiple seasons applies even more to the Two Rivers characters, since they would be an even longer gap between appearances.

39 minutes ago, Mailman said:

The ways would not have had anywhere the value before the breaking of the world as travelling would have been widely available and the Ogier did not get the longing sickness till after the breaking as well.

 

Which is why the Ogier probably wouldn't have known about them until they were gifted the Talisman.  But they almost certainly existed - on a smaller scale - well before that.

Which makes it possible that Lews Therin knew what they were like.  Just not after they were tainted.

Something mentioned recently in another thread made me think of this:

I would like to see what the Ways were like before the Darkness infected them.

In the books, we get no more than the line Loial already delivered in the show.  It would be nice to actually see it.

Aside from that, definitely more of the lands outside the Westlands:

Seanchan

Shara

Tremalking and the other Sea Folk islands.

2 hours ago, Nik said:

The Ways were created by male channelers who were sheltering in Ogier steddings after the tainting of saidin. So LTT was definitely already dead.

He was certainly dead by the time the Talisman of Growing was given to the Ogier.  But he would probably have known the people beforehand who did so.

One other point that isn't really addressed, but is kind of implied by what we do hear:

Those male channelers already knew how to grow the Ways before they gave them to the Ogier.  The Talisman already existed.  We are also told that the Ways were created based on research into the worlds of the Portal Stones.

Given all of that, it's entirely possible that the beginning of their creation happened well before Lews Therin's death, or even before the War of Power itself.  And LTT might have even been involved in it himself.

The Ogier wouldn't have known about the Ways until they were given the Talisman, but at least some part of them must have already existed by then.  Which is why it's significant that the Breaking didn't affect them.

2 hours ago, Nik said:

Yes it feels like they're playing the long game. Building things that will be foundational and save money and time in the future. I mean they built an entire studio from scratch! Now the studio is there. They don't need to pay for it anymore.

 

But I also suspect if they'd known that COVID was going to absolutely decimate their budget at the end, they might have made different choices and left some things for later seasons.

Unfortunately, I'm not terribly confident in those long game financial decisions.

After all, they built an entire village from scratch, just to burn it down.  A village that - in the books, at least - features prominently later in the series.

So either they have to pay to build it all over again (not really a time or money saver) or they cut that entire part of the story entirely.

2 hours ago, Gypsum said:

 

I don't remember. Which book was that again?

 

No fantasy writer I've read has ever quite captured the personalities, neuroses, and stress of horses. Mercedes Lackey had those super-intelligent horses and Tolkien had Shadowfax (who was a pretty believable horsey character... he was such a nutbar that only a wizard could handle and ride him!), but those equines were not going to spook at a plastic bag or stick their foot through a wire fence. Jordan makes them characters in their own right, more so than most, but he doesn't go far enough.

 

 

The scene with the horse race is in Crown of Swords, ch.14 "White Plumes."  But I just went back over it, and the line I remember didn't come from there.

Also, the race is in the Circuit of Heaven, not the Golden Circuit.

What Mat said there about the favorites in that race was this:

Mat did not bother to glance toward the ten horses entered in the next race that were parading at one end of the course.  He had already taken a good look while putting Olver up on Wind.  "All of it.  Some idiot clubbed the piebald's tail; he's already half mad from the flies.  The dun is showy, but he has a bad angle to his fetlocks.  He may have won some in the country, but he'll finish last today."

The line I was thinking of went something like, "and the horse, like its rider, had no bottom."  When I think of it, that sounds more like something he would say about Weiramon or one of the other High Lords of Tear or Cairhien.

I'll have to see if I can find the scene I was remembering.

27 minutes ago, SilentRoamer said:

 

I mean as excuses go this one is pretty watertight. I am not sure why I was thinking Shadar Logoth formed during the Collapse. 

You were probably confusing it with the darkness in the Ways - which still didn't happen until after his death, but was quite a bit closer to him in time.  And he would have likely known the Aes Sedai involved in the initial creation of the Ways.

4 hours ago, Nik said:

I believe one of the Aes Sedai in that Rhuidean vision had the foretelling. She's the one who told them what needed to be done (make the Eye, what to do with Callandor, protect the Aiel)

Yep.

She just couldn't tell them WHEN.

11 hours ago, Gypsum said:

The withers are the horse's shoulder blades, and the phrase "strong wither" actually doesn't mean anything with regards to the athleticism of the animal. Also, a deep chest is neither here nor there if the hind end is weak. Mat, as a knowledgeable horseman, should have made a note about the conformation of the horse's hindquarters, his feet and legs, and the straightness of his movement.

Doesn't he remark during the race at the Golden Circuit that the favored horse has "no bottom?"

There are websites that have done the same things with the Old Tongue that were done with Tolkien's laguages or with Klingon, and tried to build complete vocabularies and rules of grammar.  Rafe would certainly have had access to this material, and could have used it to create what we see.

Or rather, to have an actual linguist create what we see.

For example, the WOT fan Wiki has a page that does quite a bit of this:

Old Tongue | A Wheel of Time Wiki | Fandom

And both the Tar Valon Library wiki and Tor Books actually have English-to-Old Tongue dictionaries:

Old Tongue Dictionary - English - Tar Valon Library

The Wheel of Time: English to Old Tongue Dictionary | Tor.com

Hell, there's even an online Old Tongue translator available:

Wheel of Time Old Tongue translator (funtranslations.com)

If the show made use of these resources, rather than reinventing the wheel, it wouldn't have eaten up anywhere near as much of their budget.  All they would have really needed their linguist to do was decide on pronunciation, since those pages only deal with the written language.