On youtube season 2 episode 4 promo trailer at minute :54, it appears to be Mat on left side of screen leading charge against Seanchan across sea fort parapet. The group he is leading appears blurred with different clothing, armor, and weapons. Heroes of Horn sighting? No obvious Rand or Mat. I am going to rewatch episodes a few more times before any other comments. Not enough benadryl to stop itch from current nits over running me.

The books have a massive amount of page space so yes he is their more. He does disappear for long stretches while we are in other characters arcs. basically ef5 all havr an arc and posse that interweaves with each other.

I am embracing the delightful possibilities of season 2 or I would have a strong response to this post. so with that in mind, may you go in the light and only good things happen to you and yours.

So 2 days away from season 2 premier. I have a thousand ways I would have done WoTprime differently for my personal enjoyment. I just wasn't willing to part with 50 million US to get my anime adaptation with Critical Role actors doing voice work. So here we are. I decided last month to stop my current reread. I watched season 1 again up through ep 7. I am head creating ep 8. I am cleansing my pallette of all my preconceived anger and I am going to try and watch season 2 and WoTprime as its own entity. I hope we can all get some joy from the show and have many more great conversations about it.

I wonder if Perrin will get separated like eg and him did at some point with Elyas and wolf telepathy formally introduced. Then later Hopper killed by White Cloaks and spirit Hopper gives us Wolf Dream/Tel exposition. Do you think we get disembodied voice or some kind of visual language for wolves?

Covid definately ruined lots of best layed plans for entertainment projects. I would be really interested in a rough breakdown on costs for show. I think Amazon made an understandable but ultimately poor choice building the giant studio in Prague. Lots of scenes feel like redressings in same circular soundstage. I get they may be trying to be clever with wheel motif but many scenes feel like I am watching a play. It would be nice to see what show season 1 would have been with 12 episodes and normal situation with filming and editing. I think a few added scenes like Moraine and Tam discussing need for EF5 to leave EF, a bit more of Aes Sedai camp before dragonsworn attack, and better paced more tense lead up to Shadar Logoth would have probably garnered more award type attention. Use the more experienced talent for exposition like they did but more, and give us small day to day slices that tie us emotionally to EF5. I know they did both these things but pacing generally made it feel forced.

I would have went with having 2 or 3 trained wolves or wolf hybrids and lots of theatre of the mind. We need lots of good Hopper but other wolf interactions can be howls, growls, movement sounds of screen. some distance cgi for battles. glimpses that dont have to be fully fleshed out. I think we already saw the wolf dogs didnt really work out as hoped in White Cloak attack so they had to do more theatre of mind than they wanted. They have spent tons on intricatr sets to tear them down and costuming. In the grand scheme of funding this show its priorities. I am assuming animal stunts is a drop in bucket compared to costuming and wigs. I am joking here but not completely.

Everyone powerful person is a villain to someone. Decision making on a macro level usually requires some degree of winners and losers. So a journey to corruption is just as interesting as a redemption arc. But selfishness is probably the most dominant trait among powerful people even if they present as competant and concerned. I think that is part of why RJ used young people as the world saviors. Young people can still see hope and idealistic novel solutions while us old folks are careful , protective or worse case completely self absorbed. But all villians needing some understandable reason I think is more a product of academic intersectionalism and trying to understand complex societal patterns.

I completely understand the decision as a business decision. Its not the size that is totally the issue. Wolves come in different sizes and shapes worldwide. Wolves and coyotes just dont act like dogs. The trained czech dogs used act like trained dogs even with their wolfish appearance. Wolves have a way of moving that is cautious and menacing at the same time. Their heads stay low and they are alwayd low key on alert. Its very similar to how soldiers get a thousand yard stare. Its the acceptance and ease of violence as your best tool. Its why I wanted Elyas in season 1. He was the counter to the way of the leaf. I am not sure if show creaatives understand this importance. Its why I am afraid we are going to get goofy soldiers, labradoodle warders, and loving wolf dogs. Its a small change but I think reflective of the priorities of show's creatives.

Regardless of your politics. You cant look at reality and say Jordan wrote unrealistic villians.

Becoming powerful doesnt require one to be nuanced or complex. It requires one to be narcistic, vain, selfish, overconfident, and have enough talent to not flop from sheer incompetence. Elon Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jeff Gaetz, Trump, Bolsanaro, and on and on. You dont think some of the Kardassians or Kanye West would miss a chance at the dark friends social.

I think RJ had a lot of real world experience woth who and what causes destruction, death, and evil. Looking at the uber powerful and the state of our current world Jordan was probably more right than wrong in the way he wrote his antagonists.

I like Eve Greens kind of crazy, but natasha okeefe is very appealing to me.

At the end of the day this show will live or die on the fan's investment in the EF5 unless the show really changes the plot. So some of us realized what the show was doing but know that if we don't have an emotional attachment to the eventual main characters then we wont stick with show.

Inside WoT specific videos I am seeing a lot less pure negative than mixed to purely positive videos. Its more the low engagement in general. Maybe a good season will make the engagement ratchet way up. I doubt any channel that is mostly WoT is making any real money unless they are possibly subsidized by Amazon to keep some interest. And yes the culture war channels definately create that pile on effect. I try to take that into account when looking at the show.

There are no reliable metrics so its all suppostion. Both of 2 other book readers I know irl who watched show thought it wasn't good. Both said very average. Same from non book readers I encouraged to watch show. My feeling that show wasnt great comes from online presence. I have seen very few non book reader youtube sites blowing up with praise for show and engagement by fans. There are some but it is very far from widespread in Americas or Europe that I have seen. Reddit seems to have engaged show thread but it appears heavily modded to keep a positive tone. Across most platforms I have seen, its mostly book fans that are engaged and reception to show is very mixed. If there are places that aren't basically marketing arms for Amazon that are really enjoying show let me know what they are. Seeing how fans are enjoying show has helped temper my early dissapointment quite a bit.

At this point Selene's identity reveal will occur while banging Rand in a bathtub while both are chanelling and burning down the foregate while Asmodean/ Errol is playing violin watching the 2 through a burning privacy screen.

Unless Selene uses pregnancy or fake pregnancy to bind Rand to her. Sex always changes things.

He probably hasnt changed it but he gave a strong impression the cause was arrogant men seeking power vs a counterstroke by DO to a semi successful desperate attempt to save the world.

So you didnt like going back to bed with trollocs, fades, and Ishy dancing in your head? Probably good they changed it. Experiencing Lanfear in middle of the night is definately too much.

I was trying to pull a quote out of Sir Charrids post above and ended up pasting it instead. When I was a 19 year old soldier traveling the world finding a friendly companion was never a problem. My 6'6" tall blonde buddy was fighting woman off everywhere we went. That part of story and other parts people found unbelievable made perfect sense to my soldier self. The lack of communication as a driver for conflict especially was something I have seen people criticize when that is actually very common in military history. Even today the number one cause of medical malpractice is miscommunication.

I am comparing it to other recent large IPs that set out with similar social messaging. Most of those have been total crap compared to WoT. I have begrudgingly come to that opinion. The show at least had some externalities that interfered. I am giving season 2 every chance to redeem itself. If it doesnt then I wont feel bad about crapping all over it and then quietly giving up on series and leaving fan series alone.

To my knowledge that is only scene with Elyas. you could be righr. He may just dip in shortly how he does in EoTW with Perrin and Egwene.

I agree everything is political. Rafes political is different than Jordans political. In an adaptation with lots of externalities making it complicated, I think this change in voice makes it even harder to make a truly great show. I dont doubt Rafes talent, I think he has just bitten off more than can be well chewed.

Rough...but fair. Definately win hot take of day. I see it as Rafe and creatives wanting to clumsily make a point about silencing women. From an activest point of view I perceive that woman are powerful but all of them are also victims regardless of status. The clunkyness of fitting a message into an existing IP. The choir will nod knowingly while many of us will have the WTF face.