7 hours ago, Nassim said:

2. The access key for the two most powerful sa' angreal were lost/destroyed before they could use them. Their loss is what spurred LTT to finally act alone.

 

3. Callandor did not exist until after the breaking. And both its flaw of not having a buffer and it's ability to enhance the true source are critical for the end of Rands plan. 

A couple of points:

There were at least two pairs of Access Keys created.  One was lost or destroyed (hence the broken remnant in the Panarch's little museum) but the other wasn't.  The Aes Sedai knew the Aiel had one pair, which ended up in Rhuidean.  Their existence was eventually forgotten when the White Tower lost contact with the Aiel, but the Aes Sedai during the Breaking certainly knew where they were.

We know from Rand's vision in Rhuidean that Callandor existed before the Aiel were sent away.  It is seen on the table in the Hall of Servants along with some other famous artifacts.  It was created at some point during the War of Power.   We don't know exactly when, but there's no specific reason to believe Lews Therin didn't know about it.

12 hours ago, DojoToad said:

How complete was Rand's access if  he still needed Asmodean to teach him?  And the books went to great lengths on multiple occasions to emphasize how much information had been lost by both Aes Sedai and in general society.  I'm still not buying that a bit of research by Rand, Min, and Herid plus some input from LTT got Rand to a better place than the knowledge from the AoL.

By the Last Battle, Rand's access was complete.  Rand had LTT's memories in their entirety because he had given up fighting LTT and pretty literally merged the two into one.  When Asmodean was teaching him, that wasn't remotely the case.  There was some "leakage," but it wasn't in any way useful to him at the time.

Except insofar as Rand's surprising tidibits from that leakage kept Asmodean honest, by not knowing which of the things he was teaching turned out to be things Rand already knew.

10 hours ago, SilentRoamer said:

Maybe it required a Tav'eren in order for the exact circumstances necessary to become necessary. Also was Mashadar and Shadar Logoth completely understood during the AoL? I would argue probably not.

Considering that neither of them existed until more than a thousand years after Lews Therin's death, I would certainly argue they didn't understand them then.  😉

---

One of the things we know from Rand/LTT explaining at Merillor why they almost lost the War of Power (which is why the issue of resealing the Bore came up in the first place) is that, though they knew more about the One Power in the AoL, they were ignorant about a whole lot of other things.

They had forgotten war, so they didn't have a clue how important the command structure was in order to win one.  They knew so much about the Power that they believed there was nothing else to learn.  Which is why the Forsaken were so frequently shocked by things like the Warder Bond or the Aiel practice of "unraveling" weaves to prevent them from being traced.

Lews Therin hadn't understood back then the danger in touching the Dark One with the Source.  But he learned it the hard way.  At the same time, no one in the Third Age understood that this was what caused the Taint (rather than the "backblast" or "counterstroke" as it was commonly described).  It took knowledge from both Ages - including Min and Herid's research - to finally do it right.

20 hours ago, Nik said:

 

Yes and they also didn't have the True Power. It's not that the AoL Aes Sedai couldn't figure out. They literally didn't have access to the tools they needed to pull it off.

 

Really like the bubble of oil analogy by the way.

Also really important, yet many readers tend to miss, is that part of what Rand needed to know he learned from cleansing the Taint from Saidin.  He learned how to use one of the Powers to control and direct another, while some other third hazardous thing was piped away.  Without directly contacting that third hazardous thing with the first.

A fairly complex and exhausting technique Lews Therin would have never had any cause to have experienced, and without which he couldn't have re-imprisoned the Dark One.

One other point - Rand and Nynaeve were using the Choedan Kal for the Cleansing.  

1 hour ago, Humbugged2 said:

Well Cavell will have a non-compete in his contract as he is working on Enola Holmes 2 as well

 

What was suggested for Lanfear on this page was a 55 year old and 2 actresses who were leads in 2 shows filmed at exactly the same time season 2 was filmed

 

As for Avi it have seen 'hire Rose Leslie'who it 5'2 and by the time the show finishes will be 44

 

So Thom is only going to be in 3 scenes ever then ? Or they cast an actor who will not be 85 when they finish as he will be a regular for the next 6/7 seasons

 

I just don't see the show getting $2b to spend on casting

Go back and read the opening post in this topic.

It is NOT about predicting who will get the damn role.  It is about imagining who we might like in it.

How many times do you need to have that explained to you?

14 hours ago, Kalessin said:

I've always taken that time loop to be a side-effect of Rand learning how to tentatively touch saidin; though a bubble of evil makes a bit more sense. Only a bit more - Rand is the only one in that party of soldiers and tag-alongs who is affected by it.

 

But then, that bubble of evil that almost kills him during his sword practice with Lan, doesn't affect Lan. So we've got two sizes of bubbles of evil, the huge one that gets big groups of people, and the micro-bubbles, which affect only one person, and usually only because that one person is ta'veren and able to channel.

And that was definitely one of the things we noticed as the books progressed.

The first examples (when we didn't know what they were) directly affected Rand and no one else.

The next examples (when they get their name) directly affected the three Ta'veren separately and simultaneously.

After that, though they may have happened more frequently in the vicinity of the Ta'veren, they affected anyone nearby.

Eventually, their appearance became completely random.

9 hours ago, Nik said:

The short story came out around the same time as Path of Daggers. The novel came out after CoT. I personally like reading it after FoH as a (temporary) farewell to Moiraine's character. But I like @Andra's idea of reading it between TDR and TSR too.

And mostly that placement was to avoid putting it too early.  Pretty much anywhere between there and Crown of Swords would work.

And yes, if someone has already read the whole series, none of that matters as much.  But on my most recent re-read, I found the rhythm of the story still worked better that way.

Since there's always stuff you forget in between, the timing at which you're reminded helps the experience.

At least that's the case for me.

1 hour ago, Jeff Sedai said:

Thank you for the info; hopefully they Age of legend or Breaking trilogy does go into production. I hope to re-reading the series in a few years. I’ll definitely start with New Spring. 
 

thanks,

I still wouldn't start with New Spring, either.

Jordan wrote EotW as his introduction into this world.  He uses it to let the readers discover it alongside the naive characters.  Reading New Spring first spoils that rhythm.  You learn too much before meeting everyone.

Seriously, it fits the pace of the story better between books three and four.

1 hour ago, Nik said:

 

Yeah I think it needed to be episode 1. I got a distinct feeling that they were trying to say "hey look we can do sexy stuff too, don't worry, just stay with us for the ride." Because there was none after that until episodes 6-7. It just has that pilot feeling, for me. Which isn't necessarily bad, but I could tell they were doing some things because they had to for external reasons at times. I don't know if you've seen the original leaked script for episode 1, but it went even more heavily in that direction.

 

  Hide contents

Among other things, it included Nynaeve slaughtering a lamb and spraying its blood on Egwene during her ceremony. And Mat going down on Dana. The Rand/Egwene scene was also more explicit.

 

It felt very much like a script that was trying to sell WoT to people who wanted the next GoT. I'm glad they toned it down in the final product and even more as the series went on. I hope as the writing team earns some trust from the execs they get more and more freedom to do things their own way and not have the burden of replicating GoT.

I haven't seen the scripts, but I have heard some of what was in them.

Personally, I think they could have pretty easily just expanded the Rand/Egwene scene to get whatever sexy time they felt had to go into the first episode.  Since it was pretty obviously a sex scene that happened off screen.

It's just there there were actual tubs with naked people getting into and out of them in Baerlon.  So why not film them?

And yes, I agree that they were trying to pull some GOT feelings there.

30 minutes ago, Jeff Sedai said:

Hi; I just finished reading the WoT series and am starting on New Spring. I was wondering anyone knows if there will be any more prequel novels for characters? And if there is any plans on a post WoT novel to catch us up on some of the mail characters like Rand, Perrin, Matt, Moiraine & Tom etc,…, 

 

Thanks

The last that I heard on the subject is that there are no plans to write more on the characters in the book series - either sequels or prequels.

There is a reported project for a trilogy of prequel FILMS.  But they are supposedly set during the Age of Legends and the Breaking.  So none of the modern characters would be involved.

Incidentally, while I know it's too late to say this now, I would have advised that you read New Spring much earlier in the series.  Somewhere between the end of book 3 and the beginning of book 7.  Preferably between tDR and tSR.

I honestly can't really think of much of anything I wouldn't have changed.

Not that I don't understand why they did the things they did, but I would have done them differently.

As one example among many - I don't have a problem with Moiraine and Siuan having kept up the relationship they had as Novices and Accepted.  But I wouldn't have played it the way the show did.  They introduced something completely foreign to the books with the Love Shack and the way they accessed it, then again with the Oath Rod.

One of the few things I mostly agreed with was the Blood Snow scene.  But the lack of context made it confusing for non-readers who didn't yet know anything about the Aiel War.

3 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Yes, they did what they thought they had to do, but could have been done better:

• I think that could easily have been interpreted as 'sexy time is coming'
  • Especially with newcomers to WoT - they have no knowledge of the relationships from the books
  • Even for those that read the books, as episodes progressed, they changed so much - maybe they are getting it on...
  • Maybe they have an open relationship, friends with benefits?
• Still doesn't make sense to have a hot tub-sized bath in the backwater Two Rivers
• They didn't get to the Borderlands until the end of the season, but that was a much more natural place to have this occur - I know, too long to wait for a butt shot...
• They weren't shy about adding scenes not from the books or changing the order of scenes - 
  • Maybe start with a quick clip in a borderland fortress with multiple women and men relaxing in the bath house talking, joking with no sexual overtones - fairly quick scene with maybe some world-building commentary.  An alarm horn sounds and the scene shifts to the fortress wall and our first glimpse of Trollocs - maybe in the distance, at night...
  • Maybe in Tar Valon with some Aes Sedai and Warders in the Tower baths, but maybe someone is fishing for information on Moiraine.  I can see this as a longer scene then transitioning to Moiraine and Lan outside - "Where next?"
  • I don't think there were any shared baths in the Tower, but if we're changing things anyway, what better place than where women and men from all over the world gather bringing their own customs?

Many are fine with the scene as it was.  Just daydreaming over how I would have made it better.

Or perhaps they could have left Baerlon in the show, and made the bathtub scene there be communal, rather than individual copper tubs.

Of course, the biggest problem with doing that would be that theirs were not mixed-gender like those in Shienar.  But at least they actually existed.  And it would have given them the opportunity for a naked butt scene early.  Probably episode 2, rather than episode 1.

21 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

Mind sharing a book description that describes her incredible assets?

The only book descriptions I recall, are about her "unmatched beauty" and that she makes "Graendal look Plumply Pretty". I don't recall her assets being the beautiful part. <_<

I may be reading too much in to Loial's admittedly distracted description of "perfect human beauty, in face and form."

Which is a description I don't recall ever hearing applied to Keira Knightley.  Nor could I imagine it to be.

"Boyish" is more common, I believe.

6 hours ago, Nik said:

I read it as a One Power trap because Rand cuts through what seems like weaves to stop it. But no idea who could have set it. It doesn't seem Lanfear's style.

 

Other option: bubble of evil?

It does sound more like a bubble of evil.  And we know that channeling has been used to fight those.

10 hours ago, SilentRoamer said:

Do we even know if Lanfear is with Padan Fain or just incidentally close by? 

Readers are led to believe that Lanfear is in the same town, and is seen by Uno.  He had probably seen her once earlier, and couldn't find her either time.

She would almost certainly NOT have been working with Fain, as something like that would be completely counter to what we know of her.  But keeping an eye on the Horn and on Rand?  Absolutely.

On 6/26/2022 at 12:13 PM, Thom Arceneaux said:

Keira Knightley?

She's certainly attractive enough, but they would have to give her some, uh, strategic padding to match Lanfear's physical description.  😉

I suppose it's possible that, if Lews Therin understood his role as the Light's Champion, he would have understood he shared that role (and soul?) with numerous others throughout all seven Ages.  He could have been open to hearing from those others, but it almost seems to require a bit of madness before that's possible.

If that's the case, it would mean he couldn't have heard Rand in his head until AFTER the Taint.  Nothing we see of him while he was alive during that brief point indicates it.  But then we don't see anything of him that's coherent enough to tell.

10 hours ago, SilentRoamer said:

Ok so this is the scene:

 

tGH - Chapter: Kinslayer Page: 

"It seemed odd to him that he had begun to think of them as Fain's Darkfriends, Fain's Trollocs. Fain was just a madman. Then why did they rescue him? Fain had been part of the Dark One's scheme to find him. Perhaps it was something to do with that. Then why is he running instead of chasing me? And what killed that Fade? What happened in that room full of flies? And those eyes. watching me in Fal Dara. And that wind, catching me like a beetle in pine sap. No. No, Ba'alzamon has to be dead. The Aes Sedai did not believe it. Moiraine did not believe it, nor the Amyrlin. Stubbornly, he refused to think about it any longer. All he had to think about now was finding that dagger for Mat. Finding Fain, and the Horn. 
     It's never over, al'Thor.
     The voice was like a thin breeze whispering in the back of his head, a thin, icy murmur working its way into the crevices of his mind. He almost sought the void to escape it, but remembering what waited for him there he pushed down the desire."

I have copied the italics and the indents straight out of the book. It seems clear to me that "It's never over al'Thor" is not part of Rands inner voice monologue. 

I've been really keeping watch for when Lews Therin starts to show up and I think for me that is the first time I have seen it. 

I believe it's clear that was intended to be Fain.  Fain said that to Rand when he visited him in the dungeon with Egwene, and it was the part of the Dark Prophecy that Rand was erasing when Liandrin found him there after the attack.  And tried to kill him.

From tGH, ch.3 "Friends and Enemies":

"I feel you there hiding, Rand al'Thor," he said, almost crooning.  "You can't hide, not from me, and not from them.  You thought it was over, did you not?  But the battle's never done, al'Thor.  They are coming for me, and they're coming for you, and the war goes on.  Whether you live or die, it's never over for you.  Never."

And then the last line in the chapter:

In the darkness, Fain laughed.  "It's never over, al'Thor.  Never."

After the attack, when he goes back to the dungeon to look for Egwene and discovers what was written there - ch.6 "Dark Prophecy":

He started toward the inner door, took two steps, and stopped, staring.  The words on the door, dark and glistening wetly in the light of his lamp, were plain enough.

WE WILL MEET AGAIN ON TOMAN HEAD

IT'S NEVER OVER, AL'THOR.

----

At the point in the story you're looking at, Lews Therin hasn't put himself forward in Rand's head at all, and none of the other antagonists had called him by his real name yet.  Ishamael (as "Ba'alzamon") is still taunting him for pretending that's who he is.

6 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I for one am glad they chose to make several characters less than upstanding citizens - more realistic.  In Morgase's case - I never really bought how much people turned against her (and Elayne) when she was under compulsion.  I understand some of it, but if she had been such a great queen before Rahvin showed up, then why wouldn't they place the blame on him rather than her.  Years of great rule followed by a few months of bad and everyone is on the anti-Morgase train.  Now if she had made some bad decisions and was just overall not a great queen before Rahvin - then I could see the sentiment going strongly against her once the compulsion kicked in.

Aside from the questions of her support of Tar Valon, she also had a history of taking very public, very foolish actions involving romantic relationships.

As no one would have had any idea that Compulsion was even a possibility - much less that her newest lover was actually one of the Forsaken - it would have been seen at first as simply being more of her letting her emotions make her crazy.

21 hours ago, Mailman said:

I really did not get a feeling that Bain and Chiad where lovers from the books. 

39 minutes ago, Dagon Thyne said:

I did.  Or at least that they were more than just close friends.    I always assumed that there was or had been a sexual element to their relationship.

They absolutely were more than just close friends.  They were First Sisters who had undergone the same ritual Elayne and Aviendha eventually did.

They would have started out as close friends (whatever other dynamic their relationship had) whose bond deepened enough to decide to go through that process.

I don't doubt that some - perhaps even a majority - of Aiel first siblings through this unique bond include a sexual aspect.  But nothing about it actually requires that.

On 6/21/2022 at 9:37 AM, Nik said:

 

The Sept and Clan were added in by Wotseries under the assumption that it was Aviendha. The actual script had fake names and words for everything.

I hadn't noticed that.

If so, there's really nothing at all tying that conversation to Aviendha at all.  It's Gaul, whatever name or gender they assign him.

On 6/24/2022 at 8:25 PM, SinisterDeath said:

Interesting thing of note, I'm pretty sure we see a Steam Engine in that "College" Rand creates.

Yep.

Eventually, they even produce "steam wagons" which were put to quite a bit of use during Tarmon Gai'don.

Something else we see in his Academy, that helps fix Randland's place in technological history, is apparently the first attempted use of natural gas for lighting.  In our world, that happened in the 1780s.  Roughly coincident with early developments in steam power.

Technologically, WOT isn't actually in the 16th Century, but closer to the time of the American Revolution - again, with the singular exception of the wide use gunpowder.

They had water power for grist mills, metallurgy  to produce high-quality steel, blacksmiths everywhere, draft animals and wagons, crop rotation, lens making (Kin Tovere innovated telescopes, not lenses themselves), naval engineering, etc. etc. etc.

This is where our world was immediately before the Industrial Revolution.  Which isn't as "stagnant" as it might first appear.

It also bears emphasizing that, except for the absence of widespread use of gunpowder (which we know the Illuminators kept secret) their technology isn't actually that far behind ours.  In years, rather than a subjective "advancement" level.  Agaian, except for gunpowder, they are at an immediately "pre-steam" stage.

Steam power didn't really spread until after the Industrial Revolution expanded past Britain in the 19th Century.  Mills and factories were originally powered by water.  Steam replaced water power because it was more flexible and more potent.  You might wonder why we don't see much of that water-powered technology in Randland, but in our world it was only widespread for a few decades before steam replaced it.  And we do know Emond's Field had a water-powered grain mill (operated by Jon Thane), just as most villages had all over the world for centuries before the development of steam.

Most of the technological advancement beyond the general level seen in WOT happened in our world after the development of steam power.  In about two centuries.

It's not so much that their technology stagnated, it's that ours accelerated dramatically in a very short time from approximately where they are to where we are now.

4 hours ago, Nik said:

I'm actually a bit unclear on how exactly the Jenn Aiel went extinct. Did they just die out? Why? Did they starve? Did they all leave to become regular Aiel? It never fully made sense to me 🤔

It was mostly through isolation and attrition.  And differences in birthrates.

We know from the ancestral visions that at one time in Aiel history, the group later called the Jenn was actually the majority of Aiel.  And that those who kept to the Way of the Leaf severed all personal contact with those who took up the spear.  Even so, as the conditions during and immediately after the Breaking worsened, more and more Aiel were willing to experience that severing in order simply to survive.  And the severing was eventually mutual.  Neither group wanted any interaction with the other.

Something else we see from examining human history is that warlike cultures have higher birthrates than pacifist cultures.  It's one of the reasons why we know of so many warlike cultures and so few truly pacifist ones.  So the "regular" Aiel would have outbred the Jenn, until their extinction.

We don't know how long that took, but once there were enough Aiel who'd taken up the spear to reach replacement-level birthrates, the disappearance of the Jenn became inevitable.

The Tuatha'an avoided extinction by never staying in one place.  And by accepting outsiders.  The Jenn did neither of those things.

5 hours ago, JyP said:

I wonder when the Jenn Aiel disappeared in fact. 300 years ago ? more ? As the last Aiel true to the path, and having protected Avendesora and a lot of angreals since the Breaking, there should be so much Ji in Aiel society for them... Maybe she is the one seen in chieftains' visions ? Or there is a secret society of Jenn Aiel infiltrated in all Aiel tribes ?

Supposedly, the Wise Ones share the same visions as the Clan Chiefs.  If she were the one who appeared there, you'd think Aviendha would recognize her when she went through the columns the next day.

Yeah, I don't see anything in that transcript that points specifically to Aviendha as we know her.  Except for the Sept and Clan, of course.  It's pretty clear that it is whatever passes for Gaul in the show.

My guess is that, if that actually ends up in the show as it appears, it will be a gender-switched Gaul.

Just found this example:

The Wheel of Time Complete Epic series leather bound – The Great Blight: A Wheel of Time Fan Store (shopwheeloftime.com)

He makes and sells them as complete sets, but could probably make just your missing volumes if you ask.