In WInter's Heart the answer is given on who ordered it, but never stated why to kill Rand at that time.

Problem is the Tolkein family hated the movies to refused to allow the Rings of Power to be based on or part of the movie lore.  One could wonder what may have happened had RJ's wife taken a more demanding stance on the WOT series.

The cold open did a horrible job of portraying how desperate things were.  The strike on the DO was born out of desperation and knowing they were about to lose the war.  It seemed way to casual of a coversation.

LTT's memories ensured Rand didn't make the same mistake.  Without them Rand would have been going in totally blind like LTT was.

The Big White Book does a good job of explaining the situation.  The plan to use the giant se'angreal statues was doomed to fail because when LTT was devising his plan, the place where the ter'angeral to access the huge statues were lost.  The area they were being made was overrun by the shadow.  The ter'angeral were successfully hidden but now the Aes Sedai had no safe way to use the se'angreal.  They believed even the strongest Aes Sedai that tried to use access the giant statues would be burned out by the huge flow of One Power, probably within minutes.  The pattern basicly forced LTT to do his plan.

Force of will probably won't make you immune, but makes it more likely you can fight against it even if you have no idea what is going on.  Perin still has a love for Lanfear even though he was able to break free of her compulsion.  Morgase kept breaking free of Rhavin.  But the more compulsion used makes it harder to resist or break free.  It's constantly mentioned how Graendal  uses so much compulsion it makes the person worthless for anything else.

I couldn't find anything in the Companion that says holding the power makes one immune to compulsion.  I always took it as the strength and skill of the one trying to use it vs how much power the target is holding.   Elayne and Nyn had no skill or experience to protect against compulsion.  We know how skilled someone is at forming a weave goes along way

I agree it added very little and not to mention Rand forgot to even try to have the Seanchan give up the Sea Folk islands when he was making the agreement with Tuon.  You think as the Coramoor he should have been looking out for them.  The Sea Folk mostly come off as bossy jerks.  They seem mostly added to intimidate the Aes Sedai.

Three things played a part in this.  Black Ajah + Eladia's ambition and hatred for Siuan and the Red's open dislike of Blues.   Elaida started the ball rolling when she approached Alviarin.  The Red's anger about no Red being Amyrlin for a long time meant they blindly accepted any reason to topple a Blue and have Red put in the position.   

Yeah some of the accents are rather cringe worthy.   I agree more fantasy the better.  I do hope if LOTR is a huge success it might encourage Amazon to spend a little more on WOT and maybe buy a few more episodes a season.  I was never a huge LOTR fan but IMO so far they seem to be doing a better job with the pacing (Episode 1 did seem to drag on though), which was one of my biggest complaints with the WOT.  Where it seemed slow, then seemed rushed, then dragging, then super rushed again.  I guess my concern is if LOTR ends up bad it will discourage Amazon from investing in more fantasy.  As long as Amazon never makes a Sword of Truth series.

Both have larger budgets then WOT, LOTR costs $250 million per season, House of dragon is like $100 million, and WOT was only $80 million I think.  It will be interesting to see how the money is spent.  Hopefully at least the CGI will be better.  I mean to me the trolloc masses in WOT looked pretty cheesy.  The CGI in WOT didn't really impress me.  

Honestly though with the limited time the series has for stuff, is this really needed?  There is already too much for eight episodes without wanting the series to add or explain all of our RL issues.  The WOT isn't suppose to be fair or equal.  It's a world with slavery, where gender plays a part on what jobs you can hold in some nations, and torture is commonly used.  Where White Cloaks roam about looking for any excuse to accuse someone of being a darkfriend.  I tend to see it as since the series is based in medieval times, I judge things on what I think many attitudes would probably be at the time.  I would guess their attitudes about such a thing would be the person is crazy.  Now in the Age of Legends and LTT's time I would suspect it would probably be a lot more enlightened about such an issue. 

1 hour ago, Mailman said:

In the books channeling is tied to the soul. As can be seen from when the Dark One brought the forsaken back in different bodies and they remained channeling the souls original power.

 

I cant remember if souls changed genders between births there is not a example I can bring to mind.

At least in RJ's world a soul always retains its gender, which is why the Dragon is always a male.

Men draw on the male half and women the female half.  It would be totally confusing and a mess if someone could pick and choose, since who in the right mind would pick the half that would guarantee they would go insane and die a horrible death?   I would suspect things would be if the dragon was a female in this turning, then it would probably be the female half tainted when a man is the dragon it's the male half.  Most of the Rafe answer about if it can be a female or male was to try and keep some suspense as to who the Dragon might be and keep some people happy that it wasn't always a man.  I took the old prophecy stuff and it could be mistaken about some stuff, as a this will make it so I don't have to explain every little detail.

One thing that always bugged me was they seemed to always mistrust Moiraine yet seemed more willing to believe the man with fire eyes in their dreams.  I understand mistrust of Aes Sedai and wondering what Moiraine's motives might be sometimes, but at times they seemed way too willing to accept the evil man showing up in their dreams version.

I still think they didn't need to add the still/shield angle as a way to give them more time or expand on their relationship.  You saw in Book 2 RJ gave them some remembering stuff when Moiriane was searching for information.  They easily could have kept with that angle instead of the unecessary can't channel thing.

I accept Rand will probably once again get the short end of screen time.  

On 8/16/2022 at 9:15 AM, DojoToad said:

Will be interested to see how much more changes.  Probably going to be a lot further from the books - some folks will be okay with that, others won't.

 

Given Amazon limits on season length, even if they attempted to stay close to the books there absolutely would have been plenty left out - and that was without the new stuff added by RJ2.

 

I didn't like a lot of stuff RJ2 changed.  But now I'm beginning to think that even had he done it the way I wanted (more in line with the books), he wouldn't have been able to pull it off well.

 

Then again, LotR (movies) stayed fairly true but had major cuts/changes - and I loved it.  So I'm not a purist, I can live with change.  Guess I just have to like it - which is what it comes down to for all of us in the end...

 

S1 wasn't for me.  Still hoping S2 will be, but not holding my breath (well, maybe a little bit 😁)

That is the big issue, many fans liked the LOTR movies yet the Tolkien family hated them and made sure Amazon couldn't make a series connected to those.

You can't just make city wide trap to kill any male channeler.  Rand knew Sam would have wards in place to detect mail channelers, hence the plan to confuse him.  Don't forget as a male channeler himself Sam can't make ward to kill any male who channels in the city except himself.  Rhavin is a good example, he warded the city and as soon as his wards went off that a male channeled then he attacked.  Rand did learn, by having multiple males channeling at once he made sure Sam couldn't blast him on the spot.  The other goal was to have Sam hopefully tire himself out with his constant attacks on Rands army and the Aiel.

I just always worry since some already compared WOT to GOT and how things were done in GOT.  Just seems like to me if LOTR is a huge hit there are going to be the inevitible comparisons on what WOT could have done differently.

6 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Eight episodes, or do we know that yet?  Main characters being:

• Nynaeve
• Egwene
• Mat
• Rand
• Perrin
• Moiraine
• Lan
• Thom

Or is it someone else?

Lan and Moiraine could be combined and Eg and Nyn could be combined since it seems likely most of their stories for awhile will be with the other.

The fight appearing was the Pattern announcing the Dragon was back.  I think Taim mentioned seeing it right before he was thrown off his horse and captured.  And that was in Saldea.  So it could be in a place Ishy made but the pattern doing it's own thing to announce the Dragon.  I suspect as Andra said that it was a connection to the Horn being sounded and the heroes coming back that did it.  It must be a first time thing since the Rand and Falme fights are connected.  But you don't see this when the Horn is sounded for the second time at the Last Battle where just the heroes return.

I'm a bit worried about season 2.  I think there are just too many plots going on for them to spend the needed time on them.  You have Rand going off alone, Elayne and Avi being introduced, Mat returning, Perin, the Seanchen, they are expanding on the Lan and Moiraine relationship, Egwene and Nyv, I think it was mentioned Logain getting more time and I think Morgase and, Gwayne getting some time.   This is a lot to cover in 8 one hour episodes., especially if they make Season 2 cover more than just book 2.    

I was sort of surprised they didn't ask Brandon to do it.  I'm sort of worried because I've never heard of the guy writing this.

The mystery will be solved in November.  On Amazon you can preorder the Origins of the Wheel of time book,  Here is some of what it describes as being in the book:

Explore never-before-seen insights into the Wheel of Time, including:
- A brand-new, redrawn world map by Ellisa Mitchell using change requests discovered in Robert Jordan's unpublished notes
- An alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the World
- The long-awaited backstory of Nakomi
- 8 page, full color photo insert

Rj said the World of the Wheel of Time book aka the Big White Book, was meant to be written from a scholar/historian POV.  There are some intentional mistakes (as if a historian makes some guesses, assumptions or misinterprets some information) and some unintentional mistakes in the book.  It would have been nice had a new book of been made towards the end of the series also.

I know a comparison might not be fair considering LOTR has a $250 million a year budget and the Tolkien family had put restrictions on Amazon such as mostly only allowing the series to be based mostly on the appendices of the LOTR and refusing to allow it to be a continuation of the Hobbit and LOTR movies.  Since they were mostly using the appendices there are some strict limits on what they could do but it also frees them from the main WOT complaint about changes being made to the books.

Considering there is a division among fans about if WOT was good or not, would it be bad for the future of WOT if the LOTR was a huge success?  Will every WOT be compared to the LOTR now?  Well LOTR got this right etc why couldn't WOT and such?  Or if LOTR ends up as a disaster, will it make people appreciate WOT more?

Brandon confirmed no prequel novels.  RJ had planned at least three prequel series.  Tam finding Rand, Tuon and Mat recovering her homeland, and I if I remember right how Moiraine/Lan ended up in the Two Rivers.  Brandon said all RJ left were a few sentences starting the book for Mat and Tuon going to reunite Senchean.  It was Perin on a ship heading somewhere thinking how he hoped he wasn't going to have to kill a friend (or something like that).  Brandon mentioned wasn't going to do anything since he would have to make up 99% of story since there wasn't alot to go on in RJ's notes.  And simply making it all up might be totally opposite of what RJ was planning.  At least one prequel might have been a possible had RJ left more notes.   

Rand knew the Forsaken would have to spring their trap before he united the Aiel.  I have no idea how he was planning to stop/counter it.

I was never clear how Lanfear was going to get Rand to accept Asmo training.  

Asmo being a selfish Forsaken who is out for himself develops the plan to cause chaos for Rand with trolloc attacks and the Shaido in order to distract Rand.  I assumed Asmo learned that the statues were in Rhudean from talking to Mat and Couladin,  He needs both Rand and Lanfear to be distracted so he can jump at his plan to get the statue or he risks Lanfear finding out and stopping him.  Not to mention we see him studying the god around Rhudiean in the dream world.  He needed a time to study and figure out a safe way into the city.  Asmo jumping off the plan so quickly is believeable since like all Forsaken he thinks of himself first.  Not to mention he doesn't trust Lanfear with all of her flirting and playing with Rand in the dream world.  So when the chance came up, he did his own thing for a chance at getting something to give him power and protection from a pissed off Lanfear. 

The big difference is simple  When RJ made WOT he didn't envision it being a TV series at the time, when GOT was written the author had already planned for it to be a series one day.  Making it much easier to adapt.  Had RJ thought/wanted WOT to be a TV series one day he probably would have made some changes to the book so it would be easier to adapt.