Canon doesn't go into very much, but you are assuming that only objects can be thought of as weapons. What if body parts and the power were the same? Egwene punched her sul'dam without thinking, but what if considering how best to one punch kill her sul'dam she could no longer make a fist or raise her arms until she had convinced herself that she would never, ever hurt her sul'dam with her hands? That is the point of the a'dam, it can read your intent. You don't have any plausible deniability, you cannot make legalistic arguments to get around it. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't loopholes as written, but we don't know what they are or quite how they would work. Ryma I thought was more about them trying to break the three oaths more than her refusing to cooperate but I could be misremembering that. That is why the show doesn't make sense, to me at least, as Egwene deliberately used the a'dam to hurt her sul'dam. She should - in the spirit of how an a'dam works at least - only have been able to put it on if she genuinely believed that it wouldn't hurt her. It did make great TV, but it did not seem very consistent, as the loophole had not been shown in advance.

It is a shame your ability to accept that other people can have different opinions from you is so limited. You must be very happy having the one true opinion.

Mat's character was awful until RJ ripped it up and started again with his healing. How could heavy drinking, womanizing, and gambling Mat grow up in a village that has one tavern run by Marín al'Vere? The Two Rivers was a poor copy of the Shire in the first book, and the main characters acting like children while being twenty made no sense except in that hairy footed fantasy. Not saying I necessarily agree with all the changes, but a maturing of the Two Rivers and the Emonds Field Four seems rather inevitable in any adaptation. Either that or a streamlining of the story and starting at a different point. As the first book is a lot of exposition as the characters learn about the world that sets up the reader to understand who and what the Dragon is, a lot of it is unnecessary as a show can probably never employ the same technique. The flight from the Two Rivers could be told in a flashback in broad brush strokes. Or some such device, anyway.

That is some clever twisting of words. Just like a real Servant of All, wink wink. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. Erm, for a while anyway. Though I may forget it is a secret and then it is not exactly my fault if I tell someone, is it? All the Ajahs are nice here. And they absolutely don't beat us Aspirants until we say that. Honestly. I have no idea what you need to do to get a spanking round here. But if I find out, I'll let everyone else know.

Welcome to Dragonmount, Catt. A real member of the Brown Ajah, I see 🙂 Can you also Channel? Probably hoping too much there, but it seems the obvious question. Hope you enjoy your time here, and it is always great to meet another fan of the Wheel of Time.

Of course that can be said to go both ways. It is not only about finding those that agree with us, but about experiencing different viewpoints. I would hesitantly put forward that that is why dealing with specifics is better - I have seen many differing opinions about the casting, for example, yet very few entirely positive or negative. That leaves room for interesting discussion. The same with for example, Thom's instrument. COVID has played a large part in some of the issues, yet that does not stop opinions or discussions of the rest.

I think that discussion should always be possible regardless of your overall opinion. Too often what passes for criticism is actually announcements of how objectively dire the show is. If people are interested in the show (in as much at least due to the source rather than the output) it should be possible to discuss things with people who have different opinions. Exactly the same should be true for those that have a really positive opinion of the show, that some do seem to have, that that should not prevent discussing aspects of the show or looking critically at certain aspects of it. It has been a fairly common theme in the time I have been here that users claim that you are not allowed to criticise the show, despite that being demonstrably false. What often seems to be meant is that abuse is not allowed to be thrown at other users and the individuals who make the show. The personal attacks against Rafe in particular are rather disappointing - we know from what little information comes out of the production team that Rafe does not have final say in the content of the show (him taking Sanderson's idea about Perrin not killing his wife to the "higher-ups", for example). And yet people continually justify personal attacks against him as they feel strongly about the book. It doesn't seem like a good justification to me. And if we see an actor doing a bad job in our opinion, rarely are personal attacks thrown at them, and allowances are made for the role of the director, etc. I'd prefer to see discussion of the aspects of the show and the book, instead of arguments about whether the whole is objectively bad or good. Sharing opinions is fine, but it is not so profitable in discussing them without specifics. In my humble opinion, of course.

The prologues are like the "cold starts" in a show (I think they are called), where you have a vignette outside of the main narrative to illuminate a different part of the world-building or story. In terms of the Wheel of Time, 95 pages is just a brief detour, it goes with the territory.

Who needs expensive climbing frames when you can just break the washing line instead? Apparently we need more work on the phrase "get ****ING off that, tubby". Vincent appears to think it means continue to sit and look cute.

I don't think it is something that can be answered. For example, Mat tried to resist the pull of the ta'veren repeatedly, yet was unable. Perrin at the same point in the Age Lace, successfully did break free. So is that Perrin exercising his free will, and Mat failing to do so, or was it fated before time? Was every struggle of Mat preordained or could he wriggle as he chose as long as he ended up in Rhuidean on time? Or was every move he made on the Stones' board against Thom written in stone? There isn't anyway to separate chance from fated. Admittedly, Min and Foretelling does mean it isn't completely random, but it doesn't answer the degree of freewill that anyone has - not least as those prophecies were fated to happen for those exact circumstances in the "no free will" scenario, but it says nothing for other circumstances. What happens if Min turns a different corner and sees someone else and has a different vision? Would visions she didn't have still come true?

Aside from the general start of the story being incredibly Tolkien-esque, to say the particulars of the story do not match up - the female only magic wielders living in a great white tower on an island, the militant pseudo-religious order in white, etc, etc, - is twisting the facts completely. Many people don't like the changes, fair enough. But to represent their opinions as actual objective fact and to claim that all "true" fans agree with them, including the Jordan estate, his widow, Sanderson, etc, all secretly agree with them whatever they say in public is just wrong. The fact is that with airtime allotted to the show, no matter how faithful to the story it had tried to be, it was never going to be able to do so, especially not with the standards that some want to hold it to.

While that could definitely play a role, the book makes clear that age at least doesn't determine how they treat him. I think it explicitly uses examples of young who treat him like a son and old who treat him like a brother. But yes it definitely makes sense that those that gave a baby up for adoption would be more inclined to see him a representative of all those children given up.

I mean no matter what you think of the changes made to the story, I don't see how any adaptation would be possible of the books with only 8 short episodes per season. Sadly I'd say that decision is the part that is too different from the books and nothing, particularly from a purist's point of view for the plot could be done to save the original story, or any embellishments.

I tell you, Mother, he is the most disobedient dog I've ever had. It's like he doesn't even understand English! And telling him to say cheese was disaster. Hasn't stopped miaowing since.