30 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

Who are the male channelers shown in Amazon? Logain and "Young Man." Neither of them show those symptoms. I will listen again to whether Owyn scared animals, and was physically ill. But his main clues to channeling were throwing a rock without his hands and being mad. Matt scaring a horse was underplayed since he rode the horse between the town and the farm without any difficulty, and he was certainly not mad, until after the scene in question. Look, for some reason, the Amazon writers wanted Thom to think Matt was a channeler. I don't even know why. But, they didn't do an adequate job, for me, to believe that Thom had any reason to think so. Thom could think Matt was a rogue, or needed guidance, or was a hale fellow well met or under the weather--but that he was a channeler? Naah. (And, although this is not important, that's not in the Book.) 

Thom is telling us Mat reminds him of someone he knows who was a male channeler. I'm not sure why you aren't trusting Thom. He literally says Mat is acting like Owyn did when he started acting strange right before he threw that rock. He's going to be wrong here but under normal circumstances he would likely be right. It just so happens Mat entered SL and picked something up. Probably the only human to ever do that since it fell. And his symptoms are similar to what Thom saw in his nephew, otherwise he wouldn't suspect he's a male channeler. I think you're overcomplicating things.

32 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

People get sick, a horse can rear once, and Thom and Matt haven't been together long enough for any noticeable evolution. Heck, I know he has the Dagger, and I didn't notice anything until he reached the farm. Even then, nothing about those issues imply that he was channeling, which is the reason Thom told the story about Owyn and warned about the AS.

I think you're requiring too much here, especially in a TV show. And in the TV show, we don't know exactly what type of sickness a male channeler goes through. It may be that in the TV show, the major symptoms are nausea and having animals scared of you which is happening with Mat and which at least one of happened with Owyn.

There is also clearly something going on with these boys, what with a dark friend chasing them across town, then instead of just killing them herself, she calls in a fade to come take them. It isn't out of character at all for Thom to see that something fishy is going on here, and when it comes to men, channeling is one of the major options there. And he's likely to be extra sensitive to the possibility that he's dealing with a male channeler due to what he went through.

Thom definitely meant Aes Sedai. When he is referring to the "women" he means the Red Aes Sedai he just spoke of to Rand.

He has only known one male channeler presumably. He may not know what the exact symptoms are for all male channelers. He took Mat's sickness and the horse being scared of him to mean he could be the same as Owyn. Additionally he knows a fade is after them - he may have heard the mention of the Dragon also.

3 hours ago, LordyLord said:

Have you watched Shadow and bone show? Cause there is a reason why Critics reacted better to it

There is a lot more to it than that. Shadow and Bone has sold fewer than 3 million English copies. That means there are far fewer book purists to give the show bad ratings.

Additionally I assume it doesn't suffer from appearing like a LotR rehash in the beginning. WoT also has been reviewed as "generic" by some critics through no fault of its own, seeing as the source material for the show was written 30 years ago and WoT is at its least unique point in the books while they are running from trollocs.

The problems the critics have with it for the most part have nothing to do with changes from the source material. The problems the regular reviewers leaving 1-star reviews have with it mostly have to do with nitpickiness, racism, or sexism.

And finally, Shadow and Bone is 358 pages.

Egwene and Perrin are captured by the WC. They are rescued by some combination of Egwene channeling, wolves, and Aram sneaking into the camp.

The Aes Sedai won't leave Nynaeve alone, and we find out she can't channel whenever she wants. I feel they need to establish this right away or everyone will constantly wonder why she doesn't use her superpowers all the time.

Moiraine may sense there's something between Nynaeve and Lan.

There's a funeral for everyone who died during the little battle including Kerene.

Rand and Mat make it to Tar Valon and stay in Basel Gill's inn where they meet at least 1 of the strange faces; Loial.

I like that in Rand's dream he is seeing all of his friends and worrying about them.

1 hour ago, flinn said:

 It is mostly my own theory, but it holds up.

 

 Lets start with how to properly seal the bore.. we know it requires all 3 powers.

 In order for the bore to be patched, one (or two) of those have to be missing.

 

 So let's go through those scenarios.

 

 1. Men without women and true source, men get tainted.

 2. Men with women without true source, both get tainted.

 3. Women without men and true source, women get tainted.

 

 To avoid the taint, they would have to use the true source as the buffer. So highly unlikely that the Dragon would have access to the true source that really not point in going into all the reasons why not.

 

 

 Now we get into the DR, who grows up in the age of "chaos", where they would grow up uneducated, just coming into their powers, and only 2-3 years to "conquer the world" prepare for the last battle, and learn everything necessary to make it happen. The only way that is possible is access to the memories of the previous Dragon. The DR gets that through the madness caused by the taint. Now you can say, but other ways, but, we go back to how the patch was made. One of the powers had to be missing which causes the backlash, which causes the taint, which continues the cycle.

 

 

I think you meant true power in your list

1 hour ago, flinn said:

 It will not happen so it is a moot point, but no doubt about it, if Rand was not the DR, I would quit watching the moment it was revealed.

This doesnt even need to be said though. The idea that it ever would’ve happened was always crazy. 

Releasing weekly keeps people talking about it and keeps people coming to back to Amazon and seeing their product ads. I would think Amazon's tactics could potentially be a lot different than any other streaming service. They are not just making money off of TV and movies.

And mistake or not I'm glad they did it. Even though part of me wants to watch it all now, it's nice to theorize about what's going to happen next each week.

2 hours ago, Oldest said:

On the teaser, after we see Alanna channeling in the forest, there is a shot of bright Saidar been channeled. I dont think it belongs to the same scene, you can kinda see a kneeling figure in the center. I bet is Nynaeve healing with the power for the first time. 

I think you're right... it looks like Nynaeve's silhouette:

35 minutes ago, melsnitker said:

I have never posted to this forum before, although I have lurked often, off and on over the years. I have enjoyed the analysis, discussion, and debate found here.

 

I am neither an expert on literary analysis, nor on adaptation of books to an audio/visual medium. I have, however, read and loved the books repeatedly. I definitely don't like all of the changes, even as I make a good faith attempt at understand the reasoning behind them. Having established that caveat, I am still quite enjoying the show. 

 

All of that said, I think it is reasonable to step back and look at a few numerical comparisons to the adaptations of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones:

 

LotR: movies run between approximately 9 and 12 hours, depending on which version you're watching. The books of the main trilogy are approximately half a million words.

 

GoT: 73 episodes, approximately 73 hours runtime. The currently published novels are approximately 1.7 million words. In this case I do have to acknowledge that the show had to account for the fact that the source material is unfinished (hence the season 8 trainwreck), since Martin seems in no hurry to finish. Nevertheless, still 6 times the runtime, and thus breathing space for adaptation compared to LotR.

 

WoT: If we get 8 seasons of 8 episodes, that would be 64 episodes, approximately 64 hours of runtime. The books are approximately 4.9 million words (including New Spring). That would be less screen time than GoT for over twice the words. (I recognize that much of WoT is highly descriptive writing, often repetitively so.) Granted the runtime here is purely speculative. 

 

As I said above, I don't like every change made, but I do think it's reasonable to step back and acknowledge the sheer magnitude of the task of adapting the source in the time and budgetary restraints imposed.

 

 

Very good point. I'm hoping the show is successful enough in seasons 1 and 2 that they will allow 10 episode seasons after that, and maybe 10 seasons.

Just now, TheDreadReader said:

There's also a moment in Caemlyn when Verin and Alannah are taking them to the Tower.   They meet up with Rand, he loses his temper and goes a little mental and channels around them.

Oh ya, that was pretty good.

12 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Like my experience with ‘The Office’ (American version). So many people told me how awesome it was. I gave it an honest effort and watched 3 episodes. Didn’t see what the hype was all about. Didn’t think about it for a couple years until someone else convinced me to watch it again. Now I’ve streamed the entire run twice. One of my favorite comedy series ever. 
 

But less emotional investment than WoT. So we’ll see. Next episode in a few hours…

I didn't get hooked on season 1 either. Can't remember why I tried again. It's good on rewatches but Season 2 is where it becomes great. I can't count how many times I've watched it. I used to watch it while I did homework in college. Since it's moved over to Peacock I haven't watched it. I thought it would be nice to wait a few years for once. I basically have the show memorized now.

1 hour ago, Agitel said:

We might not see Bode go to the Tower at all. Things get cut. Or, since TV shows sometimes say "one season is one year", next time we see Bode she'll be four years older than she was in episode one. Or recast and older.

So... I've read these books loads of times but not in 8 years, and I don't really remember what Bode does other than act annoying around Egwene after she's raised to Amyrlin. Oh and did she help turn the bridge to cuendillar? I think that was her...

In other words, I don't think Bode needs to make another appearance in the show.

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

The begonning of the show is a bad time to introduce ta'veren. I agree it was a thinly-veiled excuse to get L&M there. With luck, they will explain it in a satisfying way later. Else, it will be a mild plot hole

It would have been fine to have that scene and not mention ta'veren. Just do the old blood line. There are enough words in the show already ?

8 hours ago, Ryan al'Thor said:

That's Coplin talk...or maybe Abell talk now.

This person hasn't replied to me yet so I can't tell them women is the plural for woman.

Also they cast someone born female. If Min was trans they would have cast a trans woman.

These can be answered pretty easily I think.

I highly doubt this is ever how the Questioners catch Aes Sedai - meeting them face to face when the Aes Sedai knows they're there, and is in a party other people other than her warder. They would not be so confrontational so as to ask whether she's Aes Sedai unless they were prepared to defeat her in that moment. He probably suspects she is Aes Sedai but wouldn't want her to know for sure that he thinks she is.

Logain may not be featured in S2 much, but I can see them having Nynaeve talk to him and start to study him. It needs to make sense in S3 or S4 when he escapes with the others.

9 minutes ago, Maximillion said:

 

Yes it's out of 100.

I actually agree that 'leading' critics are often the least reliable, but the point was more that they reach so many people with their reviews that it still matters, whether they are right or wrong, biased or honest.

 

As for the general audience ranking, well IMDB has it as a 7.4/10 which places it nowhere even close to the top 250 TV shows. Early days, but that is a little disappointing.  GoT is there as #13

 

 

It isn't disappointing to me (yet) because I know a lot of those are book nitpickers or racists complaining about it being "woke garbage" giving it 1/10. If the show is considered good TV the rating after 8 episodes have been released will improve.

25 minutes ago, ManetherenTaveren said:

Perhaps both of them make their own entry into tel'aran'rhiod? One within a wolf dream and the other as a dreamwalker stumbling across some wise ones. 

It would be nice if in the show we see more communication in T'A'R. I know it was a theme of the books that they didn't communicate or they had miscommunication, but they could do some fun stuff with that.

3 minutes ago, Aluudren said:

In what way?

You joined this forum for the first time just to whine about the show

Just now, Aluudren said:

Because it was bad.

I think a lot of the positives just come from seeing the series being dramatized.

Just the opening sequences are bland, flat, and poorly executed. If you didn't know what the story is about I expect it'd be entirely confusing. 

Except non readers seem to like it and are intrigued.

And no it isn't bad. Not even close.

3 minutes ago, Aluudren said:

Hate it, with hate and vitriol.

Rating it as it's own show, as-if unrelated to WOT, I would still rate it poor. Even the color grading is bland.

 

IMO, the series needs a Peter Jackson type visionary and at least a 7-season commitment to tell it well. The producers of this version didn't think big enough.

This is weird.

Great stuff, and what he's saying about getting out of the more typical fantasy stuff that people have seen before onto what makes WoT unique makes a lot of sense. Lots of people have been talking about that also. Bringing the Aes Sedai in early was a really smart move to try to separate this from LotR, imo. And making Logain a bigger character. I think the next episode will do a lot to show this is its own story.

On 11/22/2021 at 1:55 PM, AdamA said:

Liandrin is clearly meant to be a villain. From Kate Fleetwood just looking evil to her clearly enjoying causing that guy pain to the way she greets Moiraine, she's being set up as an antagonist from the beginning, and it didn't seem to me like we were supposed to take her comments about men causing the taint seriously. That clearly can't be in-universe canon as it would make the ultimate resolution impossible, or any resolution, since they can't prevent more male channelers from being born.

 

As for the additional content, I think it's wrong. I don't know if it's meant to be in-universe canon or just the view of the Aes Sedai with their limited knowledge (saw this a lot with Game of Thrones histories and lore and even the entire Fire and Blood book series being based on what maesters had recorded, which was limited and largely incorrect, but still the only view we get). I was in an actual military. The way real militaries work is you execute the plan of whoever the commander is. That was Lews Therin. The female Aes Sedai should have been there at the sealing, executing the plan of their commander. The fact that the plan failed (partially) isn't due to Lews Therin's hubris. It's due to insubordination on the part of his Army, half of which didn't follow his orders.

 

I don't think it's necessarily "hubris" on the part of the female Aes Sedai, either. I always took the point of that backstory to be that a world without war just wasn't ready. Forming a military on the spot without the history of fighting, losing, and sometimes winning wars in the past, is difficult and unlikely to work. Any society's first crack at a military with no history of violence is going to be worse than a military with an actual history behind it. A people who don't know evil are not equipped to deal with it when it reveals itself. Thus, it was necessary that a real defeat of the Dark One couldn't happen until the third age, because the people of the second age weren't ready yet.

The failure of the plan is not due to the female Aes Sedai not following LTT's orders. That would have doomed saidar as well.

Doing nothing wasn't an option either, though.