13 hours ago, Joe B said:

I can see where you are coming from. Personally, I WANT the attack to have occurred on Winternight.  After another rewatch, I am even more convinced that the attack on the night of Bel Tine. Here is a timeline:

Day 1 (which appears to be Winternight, thought there is no mention)

1. Rand and Tam arrive to EF.

2. Moiraine and Lan arrive.

3. That night, during clean up, Tam says ..if there is an Aes Sedai here... Bran then cuts him off and says "then she will enjoy Bel Tine TOMORROW like the rest of us."

4. They stay the night.

 

Day 2 (Bel Tine)

1. Padan Fain arrives... "Merry Bel Tine. Merry Bel Tine"

2. A bunch of things happen

3. Rand and Tam return to the Westwood (I mean "up-mountain")

4. Around dusk, Rand says "maybe we should be at Bel Tine to light a candle for her". Then they light a candle using a match firestick striker ???

5. It gets dark in EF and people are floating their lanterns.

6. Marin strikes up the party.

7. Then the trolloc attack occurs.

 

Day 3

1. Rand brings Tam down the mountain

2. Tam is healed

3. They all leave.

 

I am okay with BTTA. However, it still chafes when people say it happened on Winternight in the show. The book lover in me cries inside each time, because I know it should have. It should have.

You may be right - I'll have to check again.

The timeline I wrote up was based on the book.  Hence, the mention of Thom.

Also, if that's correct, then the most ridiculous part of it wouldn't be the precise day the attack happened.  I mean, what's one day either way?

It's having Rand and Tam stay overnight, then go back home ON BEL TINE.  Preposterous.

On 1/3/2022 at 7:50 PM, DeadRabbit23 said:

I don't know if that bothered me as so much as the fact they kept name-dropping this "Eye of the World" and just wondering: "but what is it?" About halfway through I was plucking my stubble and by the end was grateful just to find out what it was. When the two Forsaken showed up, I was so interested in the Eye is was just like "Oh, okay, bad guys."

Part of the story was that the Eye was something of legend, that people had heard of (at least vaguely) but no one knew what it was.  Moiraine knew, because she had already been there.

But even she (as in a few other things) appears to have been wrong about what it was actually for.

The Eye was a hole in the ground full of pure, untainted Saidin.  That bit she knew.

But there wasn't enough of it to make a huge difference to anything, if that's what it was for.  Rand (and a couple Forsaken) expended it all having a fight that used a whole lot less Power than fights we see later.

It appears that its true purpose was to hide the objects that were submerged in it, until someone who could use all that power came by and took it away.

On 1/12/2022 at 3:11 PM, Joe B said:

Question for episode 1 that's been bugging me. Did the trolloc attack occur on Winternight or Bel Tine?

Here are possible explanations.

Winternight:

1. Rand and Tam came down a day earlier than the books....Winternight's Eve?

1a. Same for Moiraine and Lan

2. The dancing, merriment, and lantern lighting are Winternight celebrations.

3. Padan Fain arrives on Winternight day, as in the books and says "Happy Bel Tine" to the kids, because Bel Tine is a multi-day time of year??

 

Bel Tine:

1. Rand and Tam come down on Winternight, as in the book.

1a. Same for Moiraine and Lan

2. The dancing, merriment, and lantern lightning are Bel Tine celebrations

3. Padan Fain doesn't arrive on Winternight, contrary to the book. He arrives the next day (Bel Tine) saying, "happy Bel Tine" to the kids.

4. Rand literally says "Maybe we should be at Bel Tine. To light a candle for her."

 

Other option:

1. It doesn't matter. The show is the show and the books are the books. Get over it.

2. I try to go with this option, but it eats at me every time someone mentions the Winternight attack when discussing the show. I will have to do another rewatch, but is Winternight even mentioned in the show?

 

Under the calendar the books use, Winternight is nothing more than Bel Tine eve.  I don't think it is its own holiday, and I don't think they consider it to start until sundown.

All the things we see happening the day Rand and Tam first came to town are preparations for the holiday the next day, except for those that are specifically related to dark - like the lanterns.

The dancing on the Green, the outdoor games, the food - those are all Bel Tine.

If the attack happened at night, it was Winternight.

Wishing kids "happy Bel Tine" the day before would be the same as wishing "Merry Christmas" the day before.  It's a recognition of the season, not the specific day of the holiday.

Also, regarding when outsiders arrived in EF in the book:

All of them except Fain were already there when Rand and Tam got into town on Winternight day.  We know that Thom got in late the night before and had to pound on the Inn's door to be let in.  "Alys" and "Andra" probably arrived earlier the same day as Thom.  I don't recall the book ever saying specifically.  But they had been there long enough that she had already been asking around town about the boys.

Given those details, Lan and Moiraine arrived the day before Winernight day.  Thom arrived the night before Winternight day.  Fain arrived on Winternight day.  And the attack happened after dark on Winternight.

6 hours ago, Deviations said:

I think the thing for me is that these look like anthills.  Structurally, a tower should be hollow unless it's a statue.

Yeah, those are more like the remains of columns that have weathered with time.  Rather than towers that have been broken.

Also - the earlier depiction of Paaren Disen is supposed to show 3000+ years of abandonment.  While the Towers of Malkier have only been vacant for about fifty years.  The parts of the towers that remain would hardly be eroded at all.

On 1/12/2022 at 1:27 PM, Ralph said:

https://www.small-screen.co.uk/barney-harris-sacked-from-the-wheel-of-time-heres-why/

 

Any thoughts on this? 

 

Someone pointed out the vaccine wasn't available in UK for under thirties yet, but it is possible amazon made arrangements?? 

I don't think that's likely to be the answer.  It's not something Amazon could have "made arrangements" for.  Someone who wasn't eligible to be vaccinated wasn't eligible.  Eligibility was based on government requirements wherever they were, not on whether Amazon was able to pay for them.

And you can't fire someone for not doing something they weren't eligible to do.

It's conceivable that they cut him from Season 2 because he told them he would never consider it.  But they would have had plenty of time to complete Season 1 before that became an issue.  Remember, S1 filming only started back up in April of 2021, and wrapped in May.  They had only needed about a month to finish after coming back.

In the UK (where he's from), he wouldn't have been eligible until June.

In the U.S. (where he lives) he would have first become eligible in mid-April.  And the decision had already been made by that point.

It wouldn't surprise me that much if that's the direction the show takes.  That the weaves with Saidin themselves are currupted, rather than just the (eventual) sanity of the channelers.

It would be a(nother) clear change from the books, where the same weave produces the same effect, every time.  Provided the channeler has the strength and control to weave it.

It's actually the thing that made the aftermath of Elayne's gateway from Ebou Dar so dramatic.  Because for both male and female channelers, the Power didn't do what they expected it to.

2 hours ago, Dagon Thyne said:

The are surrounded by the lakes, so they have to be in the same general area.

Right.  But those lakes could surround an entire city, with the towers all being within it.

2 hours ago, AdamA said:

I'm pretty sure Uno was stabbed with a Myrddraal sword, but that doesn't help, since that is also supposed to be auto-death sentence. Also, the Lord Yakota guy that also got killed by a Myrddraal sword was supposed to be Ingtar until the actor took a different role and they changed his character and recast Ingtar to not appear until season two. That implies to me they were also originally going to have Ingtar survive the stabbing.

 

A bunch of puzzling decisions, but I guess it means Myrddraal blades don't have the same effect in show universe. Arguably, that's not a big deal, as honestly, the whole "tempered with a human soul" thing was always a kind of silly evil that sounded like a 7 year-old came up with the idea (on brand for the often childish Dark One, but still silly).

 

Ogier seemingly have to come from a different world, to the extent Randland is just future Earth and we don't have anything on current Earth that seems on path to evolving into an Ogier in the next 6,000 years or so, and they're not constructs. Much like the Seanchan mythical beasts, they had to have originated elsewhere.

From the books, it makes it sound like Thakandar blades, while seriously deadly, don't kill quite as quickly as the dagger.

Tam was cut with Trolloc's sword rather than a Myrddraal's, but it was still apparently a Thakandar blade.  A nick would have killed him eventually, but not so fast that they couldn't get him to Moiraine.

1 hour ago, Ralph said:

Book of Translation sounds like more than that. And RJ confirmed this

That was my impression from reading it.  It's just that the text doesn't make it clear enough to be certain.

On 1/12/2022 at 12:59 PM, Jaysen Gore said:

Because, to your point around Judas, in service to his Lord, he commits the only unforgivable Mortal sin due to his guilt resulting from one of the most important actions of the new testament, and is damned to hell for all eternity as a reward for ensuring Jesus makes it to the cross.  That is the reward he receives for his service from his beloved Creator.

 

 

 

Which I believe is one of the reasons Christians reject it.  They've painted themselves into a corner.

Interestingly enough, nothing in the Biblical canon says suicide is an "unforgivable sin."  Jesus makes clear that the only thing that's unforgivable is "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit."  That claim about suicide doesn't come about until Augustine.

And Judaism (which both Judas and Jesus would have practiced) doesn't really have the concept.  In Judaism, forgiveness comes from the victim who has been wronged, rather than from God.  So the only thing "unforgivable" would be the one that prevents the victim from offering forgiveness.  In other words, murder.  But if the victim survives long enough to forgive their murderer, the sin is forgiven.

6 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Good point

 

Ogier are from a different world, though

True.  Sort of.

At least we are led to believe so.

The books don't ever tell us where they're originally from, but they do tell us it's a place they could go back to and leave the world of humans permanently.  Maybe it's more like all gathering in one big Stedding, then closing it off like the Ways are.

We do know that they didn't used to be tied to the Stedding, and the Seanchan Gardeners don't seem to be tied to them now.  So perhaps that "different world" is just on a continent away from Randland.

4 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Kind of amusing, but this is in fact one of the objections of Satanists; if he fulfills the same role in Christianity that the DO does in Randland, then he is both absolutely necessary to the adoption of free will, and performing the task he was created to fulfill. So if that's the case, can he truly be considered evil?

Also amusing is that his interpretation in Christianity isn't all that similar to his interpretation in Judaism.  Which is supposedly where Christianity got him from.  In Judaism, he's more like a prosecutor in a trial.  With various prophets being defense attorneys, and God being the judge.  Or possibly with God being the defense attorney, and some unidentified watchers being the jury. The difference isn't really clear.

An interesting take on the concept within Christianity (and therefore naturally rejected by most Christian authorities) is the apocryphal Gospel of Judas.

The idea being that if Jesus actually came here to be a sacrifice, then the person who enabled the sacrifice to happen was not only NOT the worst of the evil, he was actually the best of the good.  Jesus trusted him with the most difficult task of all the Disciples.

A task that was the equivalent of the Hebrew High Priests that carried out the sacrifices that the people needed for their salvation.

Another version in popular fiction was Snape killing Dumbledore.

9 hours ago, Ralph said:

Do you have evidence for this? 

The dagger's influence is implied as part of the explanation of how he can command Shadowspawn (including Myrddraal) to go against their orders.  I believe it's mentioned in at least one point that a Myrddraal is actually afraid of it.

4 hours ago, SingleMort said:

Think it's pretty obvious at this point that the rules of the dagger are going to be very different. What I don't understand is why they even needed to? With a few simple tweaks you can have the exact same scene but keep the dagger the same as it was in the books. 

 

For example instead of using a dagger Fain could have just used a regular sword to do his stabbings, and when Perrin comes in and sees him standing over Loial he could pull out the dagger from his belt and say something like "Your friend's lucky I didn't use this one. The last person I used it on didn't even look human by the end of it. A quick death" he grinned unpleasantly "But definitely not a painless one. Maybe I'll give you a demonstration one day"

 

There! Now we've established what the dagger can do and that Fain has it but hasn't used it on Loial. As for why Fain wouldn't have used it you could argue because they were fighting Shieneran warriors and an Ogier he would probably need a weapon with a longer reach. Otherwise he might be cut down before he got close enough to use it. Alternatively you could say he deliberately left Loial alive for the same blah blah reasons he left Perrin alive. I'm not saying this is perfect and would fix all the problems just saying by just adding a couple extra lines of dialogue would fix most of the problems with the dagger

 

  Hide contents

 and spare us another miraculous resurrection scene that it sounds like they are going to do with Loial.

 

Giving Rafe the benefit of a level of cleverness I'm not sure he deserves, perhaps the result will be similar to Tolkien and the Tom Bombadil scene with the ring. 

Unlike the way everyone else wil be affected by it, will Ogier be in some way "immune?"  Obviously an Ogier can be killed with a sharp pointy object, but maybe the evil of Shadar Logoth doesn't do anything else to them?  Because it's an evil made by humans, it only affects humans?

That could be an interesting story, but it's a completely different story.

Because in the universe of the books, it absolutely affects more than humans.

I always pictured it more as if the seven hills of Rome each had a tower on its crest.

Not spread out along the country's border (the way wachtowers would be) but still not all bunched right next to each other, either.  Spaced out similarly to the "topless towers" of Cairhien.

I always viewed this as a measure of LTT's madness, or at least of his comparative lucidity at any given moment.

At his least lucid, he thinks of Ilyena without remembering she's dead.

A bit more lucid, and he remembers that she's dead, but not that he killed her.

A bit more than that (his most common state throughout the books) he remembers that he killed her and hates himself for it, but doesn't remember the rest of his family.

More lucid still, and we get this bit from Lord of Chaos, ch.42 "The Black Tower":

I will kill him, and then them. They must serve him. It is plain; they must serve him.

Go away, Rand shouted back silently. You are nothing but a voice! Stretching toward the Source.

Oh, Light, I killed them all. All that I loved. If I kill him, it will be well, though. I can make it up, if I kill him finally. No, nothing can make up, but I must kill him anyway. Kill them all. I must. I must.

No! Rand screamed inside his head. You’re dead, Lews Therin. I am alive, burn you, and you are dead! You are dead!

Somewhere around that level is when LTT is at his most dangerous to Rand, because it's when he starts reacting to the world around him, and trying to seize saidin for himself.

Also, please note: Though Lews Therin in his madness may usually ignore his children, the lore doesn't (though the lore never knows their names).  Those children are the reason he's called "Kinslayer" and not "Wifekiller" or something similar.

And given how long channelers lived during the AoL, I don't find this all that surprising.  His wife would have been a part of his life for much longer than his children.  So a patchy memory would focus on her more than it did them.

2 hours ago, Deviations said:

It gives Fain power over fades, but they won't show that progression either.  You're right.  It doesn't matter.  None of it does.  They can tell whatever story they want.  They should tell the story that's in their hearts.  The story that sings to them.  Just don't pretend it's Jordan's story.  To be honest, I really wish Rafe would have written a story from scratch and told that.  It may have been great but we'll never know.

But also the part of the story that they can't skip and even pretend it's the same story - what happens when he cuts Rand with it.

Every bit of what happens at that time is critical to the rest of the story following it.

The story arcs for Cadsuane, Darlin, the understanding of the differences between Aes Sedai and Asha'man Healing, even Cleansing Saidin.  All of them are dependent on what the dagger does.

On 12/26/2021 at 10:45 AM, Yojimbo said:

Mat slashes a DF with it during their travels, doesn't he?   And that person dies quickly and horribly.  

 

And as I stated before, they can and will change anything if it serves their purposes, no matter how many ripples it will cause further on in the story.   Jordan's Rules on how things work are only Suggestions to the writers of the show.  

The first character we see killed by the dagger is Turak's top so'jhin Huon.  By Mat.

Earlier he held it against a darkfriend's neck to keep her from killing Rand with her knife that boiled a bucket of water.  A darkfriend who we meet again later and learn her name (Shiane/Mili Skane).  But he leaves her alive.

The first person we see Fain kill with it is the Accepted in the basement of the Tower when he steals it back and talks to Alviarin.

Both those victims die fast and hard.

11 hours ago, EmreY said:

Hmmm.  My interest is piqued by a different matter.  Is that a gold or silver mark? 

If it's the same coin he has used before (which would make sense if he says it's "getting to be my lucky coin") it's gold.

From chapter 22 "Out of the Stone" of the same book (before using the portal stone):

"Oh, burn me.  If you're trying to decide ..."  Taking both horses' reins in one hand, he dug a coin from his pocket, a gold Tar Valon mark, and sighed.  "It would be the same coin, wouldn't it."  He rolled the coin across the backs of his fingers.  "I'm ... lucky sometimes, Rand.  Let my luck choose.  Head, the one that points to your right; flame, the other.  What do you say?"

7 hours ago, WhiteVeils said:

 

It's true, it is imagination. But you here are trying to prove a negative.  It seems to be you are saying, to my understanding, that it is completely unreasonable for anybody's imagination to possibly believe that the outer physical structure, if broken and overgrown, of a city from the Age of Legends could possibly survive in a semi-recognizable form into the time of the book series, and that anyone who imagines that one could and depicts it as a way of showing that this is a post-apocalyptic world is making a grave continuity error.

I am saying that it is, technically, possible for someone to imagine that such a place exists in a remote and uninhabited area.  We have individual buildings and docks survive, with the possibility of more, we have artifacts exist. We have a substance that can be generated through the One Power in fairly large quantities (like river chains) that is immune to the One Power and physical destruction in the first place. We have ways for channelers to cause destruction that would cause a city to be abandoned without ever harming the structure of it itself. We can have cities physically moved to places where they can't be found again.

 

I would say the only way you can prove your case is to say that the entire surface was slagged in such a way that no buildings stood, which is certainly wrong, and that level of destruction would probably eliminate life entirely.

No, what I'm saying is that we are told in the books - repeatedly - that nothing like a complete city survived the Breaking intact enough to be recognized as such.  And that the single example seen at a distance in the Jangai Pass provides nothing to refute that repeated statement.

Please note: This example doesn't go so far as to say that even individual buildings survived.  It says (perhaps) shattered remnants of buildings remain.  So unless you are speculating that an entire city might have been made of Cuendillar, and this one obviously wasn't, there's no reason to doubt that what we've been repeatedly told is true.

My "case" is that what the books have said about the subject is true, unless the books provide evidence that it isn't.  And this isn't that.

Also please note: I'm talking about what the books say on the subject, not what the show (where the images come from) says on it.

The show is welcome to make up its own version of the events, as it has done about many things.  But the books don't support that version.

I remember back when I had just finished the first book, and having the same kinds of questions and ideas.  All I can say without spoiling pretty much everything to come is "the best laid plans ..."

Regarding Tar Valon - there are some of the party that HAVE to go there reasonably soon.  For training, or for Healing.  Those people do so.  Reasonably soon. 

Others don't have to, but end up there anyway, even if only briefly.  Eventually. 

And still others don't ever go there at all.

But I will say something specific about one of your ideas, because I don't think it is actually a spoiler - if you just think through it:  There's no such thing as a "pet wolf."  To Perrin, wolves are equivalent to other people, not pets.

To put it simply, they knew who his parents were because the circumstances leading to his birth were unique in the history of the Aiel.  And because an Aes Sedai was directly implicated in it.

No wetlander had ever been allowed to join an Aiel society, much less Far Dareis Mai.  The only reason it happened was because of her story of being told she had to go by Gitara Moroso.  Everything else about her made her famous among them.  Up to and including how and where she gave birth.

It's possible that, given the mention of Gitara Sedai, the Wise Ones recognized her as being part of the fulfillment of their prophecy at the time.  It's certain that they realized it after the fact.

So when they went into the Wetlands looking for him, they knew exactly what they were looking for.

And it didn't hurt that the ones who had known his parents recognized his resemblence to them.

And it's important to realize that the Wise Ones in every clan talk to each other all the time - in Dreams and otherwise - even if their clans are fighting.  There is much more sharing of information throughout the Aiel than in any other culture in the WOT universe.

37 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 And this discussion is one of the reasons I love Fantasy. ?  Thank you, OP and others. ? 

And I definitely agree with you on this.

Though I would clarify *GOOD* Fantasy.

Thorough world-building, with internally consistent rules, makes it all worthwhile.

4 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

I'm heavy and if I decide to walk on ice that's formed on a lake, the ice might well crack.

 

Yes, I would be the reason why that's happened, but it wouldn't be because I willed it to.  I think the same sort of thing applied in every instance Rand turned up, the most funny being when Rand turns up at the White Tower.  At that point, what's necessary for the Wheel is for the DR to get everyone on board - or at least to meet at Merrilor - not argue.  So Egwene can speak (not because she knows Rand from before) but because some sort of interaction is necessary.  However, everyone else's tongues are glued to their mouths.  And that's also why I think that Rand has no problem with being shielded; if the shield became an impediment to the Wheel's mission, the channellers following him around would trip, have heart attacks, sneeze, etc. ? And by that point Rand has accepted what needs to happen; the Wheel will sweep anything non-DO-related out of his way.

 

This of course begs the question of why everyone doesn't agree with Rand immediately when he unveils his three point plan at Merrilor.  Well, Rand would certainly want them to agree, and if he were consciously altering reality, they would have.  But what is being discussed - as IIRC Egwene points out - is the course of the next age.  And, at that point, Rand has no ta'veren-relevance to that.  Except maybe for the peace bit, and that Moiraine points out is a symmetry of the pattern.

 

As for the trees at Merrilor, maybe the Wheel wanted to say hi to its Ogier guests?  But IIR the scene correctly, Egwene reacts to their springing up (it becomes darker in the tent, there are sounds coming from outside) but Rand doesn't seem to.  IIRC, that is.

I see where you're coming from.  And I think it may just be a matter of interpretation.

If you know that your weight will cause the ice to crack, and you step on the ice anyway, did you intentionally make the ice crack or not?  If you release an object you're holding over someone's head, knowing that gravity will make it land on them if you let it go, did you make it hit them or not?

It's clear from the examples that it's his presence making things happen.  If he knows what his presence is doing, and takes specific actions that allow his presence to do what it does, is it really meaningful to say that it wasn't him doing it?  Or is it a distinction without a difference?

And regarding him influencing the decisions of people he wanted to agree with him:  Elayne remarks to herself that they agreed with her being made the leader of their combined forces without much argument - because he was there.  But once he's no longer present, they start pulling back.  So she has to push before they start thinking about it.  So he really did get them to agree to something he wanted them to do regarding his plan.

But as just making everyone fall over and go along with him on everything - he knew he needed their true judgments and acceptance.  He knew from LTT's memories of the War of Power that they needed the best possible plan, not just HIS plan.  So he didn't want to force their agreement.

And in a very real way, it's the examples of when he DOESN'T just get his way that indicates he can either choose to make it happen, or choose not to.

2 hours ago, DaddyFinn said:

 

"Gather those apples quickly. My presence will hold him off for a time, I think, and whatever you take now should be safe from his touch."

 

I see why @EmreY doesn't think this is conscious. I could take it either way.

If it were only that, I would agree.

But similar things happen multiple times after that, with each example including an awareness that's beyond simply knowing something is coming.  He talks about being able to feel the life in an area, and the integrity of the earth.  And that it's his duty to "make things right."  And even in that passage, he specifically states that it's happening because he's there.

The grove of Great Trees that grew in five minutes outside the council tent at Merillor is far more than just something that happened because it could.  Same with the ship full of supplies that were suddenly all pristine because he was there, when every container that had previously been opened was rotten.  It only makes sense that he made these things happen intentionally.