5 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Interesting to see that even a lot of non book viewers are picking up on how it makes no sense for the Whitecloaks to be operating just outside Tar Valon.

 

I love that we have "Book Expert" Sarah telling us how hard they worked to make sure the changes made sense not just now but all the way down the line and yet even people who haven't read the books are able to pick up on how the Whitecloak's position in this episode makes no sense.

 

Except at the beginning of TDR the WC are indeed harassing the villages outside TV. They're still there in TSR to rope Galad into their zealotry. Heck, even in TEotW Andor is fair teaming with them, and Andor is both powerful and a strong supporter of the Tower.

16 hours ago, JenniferL said:

We've been listening to the new audiobook narrated by Rosamund Pike. It’s really nice to be able to enjoy both versions of the story in parallel like this. The show is giving me new appreciation of the details of the book. 

Wow, I didn't realise that was a thing. I've never liked audiobooks (WoT or otherwise), but I may have to give that a whirl.

I meant to do a sequential re-read, but I've mostly been reading chapters (or entire plotlines... and all of NS... and most of ToM) after looking up references from the show. I read most of TEotW last year, so perhaps I'll just pick up there.

6 hours ago, RhienneAgain said:

I think the Seafolk will be cut but I'm actually a bit sad about this. I don't care for them at all in the story but it could have made for some beautiful scenes. I wonder if Bowl of the Winds could be cut entirely to?

 

I think the Wondergirls hunt for the Black Ajah may be reduced to a hunt for Moghedian.

It might be possible to merge these two plot arcs. The Bowl could be among the ter'angreal Liandrin steals from the Tower. The BA hunt in Tear/Tanchico kind of peters out, and the search for the Bowl begins with Elayne using Need in T'A'R, which would be extremely hard to depict on screen.

3 minutes ago, RextheDog said:

they could also achieved it by fleshing out his character in subsequent series and leave him to be that silent stoic character, that would work, that would build him, but as you say, that would shelve a main character for this season, and they've already half done that with Rand for the purpose of....well, we all know why.....

Yeah, there are lots of ways they could have approached it, but it's all a matter of taste and opinion. In a slower-paced series with more drama and less action I might have made both Moiraine and Lan more enigmatic and only revealed their real personalities in scenes when they're alone. What's great for political drama, however, is awful for action-adventure.

I agree on Alanna and Myrelle. The overt relationship between the show version of Alanna and her warders is also much closer to Myrelle in the books.

I don't expect Siuan and Moiraine's relationship will change much--in the books they were making an effort to downplay their friendship to protect the DR search. To me the show's talk of them being enemies plays into that.

Books are not TV shows; TV shows are not books. What works for one medium doesn't necessarily translate well to the other.

The Lan of the books is less a character than he is an extension of Moiraine, particularly in TEotW; that simply would not work on screen. You can't just have an actor be stoic and taciturn and expect a viewer to sympathise with or even comprehend him. Even Geralt and Din Djarin showed emotion, depth, and nuance.

Were I writing the adaptation I might make different choices, but I would definitely have fleshed out Lan's character in one way or another.

Regardless of what they keep and what they change, I think the model to follow is that of TSR, TFoH and LoC. Those three books hit the sweet spot of being past any early instalment weirdness, had enough plot complexity to be interesting, yet not so many different threads as to bog the story down.

So, 2-3 main plot threads at once, with perhaps occasional glimpses of other happenings.

Not an enviable job, but not an insurmountable one either. When you boil it down to major plot events, there really aren't that many in the latter half of the series. For example, After LoC Rand cleanses saidin, goes insane, gets better, and seals the DO. Mat escapes Altara, rescues Moiraine and commands the armies in the Last Battle. Perrin rescues Faile, accepts leadership and does a bunch of wolf-dream shenanigans. You can make similar short lists for Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve.

A really big case is the Seanchan. Aside from being a looming threat for the post-TG world, they don't contribute much to the core plot. I think they were supposed to be the Cersei Lannister of WoT--a non-supernatural distraction when the end of the world was nigh--and, in that, they failed. Take the Seanchan out entirely (though I don't necessarily suggest doing that) and not a lot has to change.

Much as I enjoy the slower pacing in the later books, there's a lot in them that won't (and shouldn't) survive the portal-stone jump to TV adaptation.

5 minutes ago, Agitel said:

 

Loial was going to point out 

  Reveal hidden contents

that Jain isn't dead yet, or at least was seen alive after Egwene was born.

 

This is what I felt they were going for. Along with a dash of Loial taking what Rand says a bit too literally.

Valda!Byar!Asunawa is horrid in the best way possible. Given what happens with Morgase, the fact that he basically had Egwene bathed and brought to his tent was particularly squick.

Damn but Liandrin!Toveine!Elaida gives me the creeps, too.

Loial works well. Very hard to make that character work, but I was sold once most of his lines involved rambling tangents.

I expect the suggestion that Siuan is Moiraine's enemy is misdirection, which goes with what they were cultivating in the books to keep the search a secret. Perhaps the woman in Moiraine's painting is Siuan?

My only real criticism is I felt the final mourning scene was unnecessary and actually detracted from the tragedy of Stepin's death. Agitel mentioned above that it was to book-end the episode with two funerals, but I don't think it worked particularly well.

Oh, and why did Rand and Mat approach TV from the North-East? (I jest. I get that Dragonmount behind TV is a cool shot even if it does't make sense geographically.)

3 minutes ago, Mailman said:

I had no problem with her tracking him (she does also point out that Baerlon was the only real next place they could go).

 

The real issue was her being able to get close enough to Lan unaware to put a sword to his throat.

Sure it's exaggerated for the show, but Nynaeve does sneak up on him and Moiraine in the books after they flee Shadar Logoth. She's also shown to be skilled at tracking when scouting the area before they use the Bowl of the Winds.

zMUD... wow. I definitely remember that, though I didn't use it much. After some digging, I think gmud was the client I used the most. Amazing some of those are still going.

26 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

I'd imagine a Male Forsake weaving would look weird to a normal male because of the protection, but... Well, that's not likely to come up.

There's no mention of that in the books. The closest is that Rand sometimes senses black wires extending away from the male FS (Ishy and Asmodean), but that only happens in close proximity and in extreme situations.

Except for knowing more, the FS weaves looked the same as those from anyone else, male or female.

There are different ways to form a weave with the same/similar effect (e.g. Aviendha's original discovery of the Travelling weave).

Also, a weave made by a man using saidar can look odd to a woman (e.g. Rand's weave during the cleansing), and the reverse is likely true as well.

Weaves of the TP can't be seen or sensed by anyone but the user, but that's something else entirely.

The world was completely shattered during the breaking, so analogues to present geography are pretty futile.

That being said, many of the nations have loose correlations to Eurasian regions: Andor = Britain; Cairhien = France; Tear = Spain; Illian = Italy/Greece; Tarabon = middle east. The details of the people and accents are very much a mish-mash, though.

IIRC, the only accent specifically compared to present-day is when RJ once characterized the Seanchan drawl as "Texas".

4 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

A question for the AS weave experts. Did the BA weaves look normal to other AS?

In the books there was never anything special about the BA channelling. Of course, they likely had a few secret weaves, like the other Ajahs. Not to mention a penchant (and opportunity) for using nastier stuff.

Eliminating Caemlyn makes sense from a production standpoint since it's not a major location until the end of book 5. Tar Valon, however, is a location they'll need much sooner, so it makes sense to build the sets for it early on. So, if you can relocate where they meet Loial, and Elayne doesn't appear till season 2, then there's no reason for them to go to Caemlyn until much later.

Aside from cool foreshadowing, Min doesn't serve much purpose in the early books, and it really doesn't matter where they meet her or where she's from. Put her in Fal Dara and she can bolster whatever is driving the plot at that point. Next season she can travel to TV with Egwene and Nynaeve.

So they meet Loial in Tar Valon, he tells them about the Eye (information that other Aes Sedai are ignoring because of Logain), Moiraine freaks out and they use the ways to leave and get to Shienar quickly. The meet Min, she says creepy stuff, and they head for the Eye.

There are some rough edges but, as a back-of-the-napkin plot, it works out fairly well given limited time and budget.

3 hours ago, Mailman said:

Nynaeve does study Logain before healing him at range but thats more delving than actual healing and she is in contact when she heals.

Sometimes healers use touch, sometimes they don't. When Flinn heals Rand in ACoS he touches the wound for delving, but not when actually healing.

Quote

"I hope nobody minds if I talk," he said, beginning to move callused hands above Rand's side. "Talking seems to help a mite." He squinted, focusing on the injuries, and his fingers writhed slowly.

 

-- Blades, A Crown of Swords, pg. 573

27 minutes ago, MasterAblar said:

Honestly making so many people ta'veren weakens the whole point of ta'veren in my opinion. Besides Rand, Mat, and Perrin have very specific things happen to them because they're ta'veren. Having to introduce that concept into other characters' plots is cheap in my opinion.

I agree to a point, however ta'veren was really RJ's handwave solution for forcing the plot direction. Don't get me wrong--it was a novel solution to an annoying problem. However, Like a few other things, it was never integrated particularly well into the world building. (See the 100s of pages of arguing over relative channelling strength for another example.)

Even with the changes the central idea is still there: there are multiple ta'veren around the Dragon when everyone expects only one.

If a soul can be reborn male or female it truly puts

I'm still going with the notion that what we see of Nynaeve in ep. 4 is due to Logain's ability to see ta'veren, and is meant to imply that the number should have been 5, not 4. It matches the descriptions we get from Siuan in TGH and Nicola in LoC.

There's often been discussion of whether Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve were also ta'veren, if not as strongly so as Rand, Mat and Perrin, so it's not really that much of a stretch.

I'll 15th the interactions between Lan and Nynaeve--that was poorly telegraphed in TEotW. Actually, Lan's whole personality is fleshed out better. In TEotW there was some early instalment weirdness in that he never seemed fully on board with Moiraine's quest.

I think they went a bit too far, but reducing the Shire-like qualities of the TR was a good call.

Perrin's set-up is somewhat hamfisted, but it does tie in extremely well with his long-term character arc. Tropes like this are fine by me when they're used effectively.

The overall aging up (in personality) of Rand, Mat, Perrin and Egwene works well. I actually think they acted too childish for their ages in the books. This could also help contrast Egwene and Elayne in the future.

While it's not necessarily better, The Red Ajah summarily gentling men who can channel recently (not just 20 years ago) makes them far more immediately dangerous, and will likely tie in nicely to the Tower plot arc.

No, I mostly stuck to the theory and analysis forums. I got all the WoT RPing out of my system playing MUDs in university ?

Some thoughts in no particular order:

I continue to like the depictions of madness.

Decent depiction of Aes Sedai and Warders. My only complaint is the colour-coded dresses are a bit much.

The shawls would have been nicer.

Not too keen on Liandrin. In the books she has a strong mix of sinister and petulance. This version is more like Toveine. The actress does a great job, though.

Interesting use of Kerene. I had to crack open New Spring to see if she was who I thought she was. Likely just a re-use of a cool name and/or easter egg for the fans. Too bad she died--I really liked the character.

"That woman is a snake." *snerk*

All of Lan and Nynaeve's interactions were well done. Arguably better build up than in TEotW.

I do not like the design of the great serpent rings.

I'm fine with Nynaeve's healing circle. Sure it's a bit silly, but no more so than half a dozen other things. She got angry, healed Lan without really knowing what she was doing, and had such lousy aim she hit everyone else in the room.

I don't think Logain saw Nynaeve channelling--as others have mentioned, I think it's meant to imply she's also ta'veren. It goes with the whodunnit nature of the TV story, and with the DF including her in who the DO is after. There's been occasional speculation for years (well, decades) that Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve were all ta'veran, just not as strong as Rand, Mat and Perrin.

The Fade scene was very well done.

Moiraine's puppy was weird.

Regarding shielding: per the books they're supposed to have six sisters holding shields on any man who can channel--since no one would be strong enough to break through that man shields. And they're not supposed to be linked since one sister melding the flows could be a weak point.

Tinkers are still annoying, but I like how Perrin's situation ties in so well here.

Alas, poor Else. Your little sister was cooler than you.

I'm very pleased with the casting choices--especially those for Perrin, Nynaeve and Thom.

I'm also reasonably happy with the channelling VFX, which was always going to be an absolute headache to depict in live action.

Finally, while some things may be a bit contrived or compressed, thus far I think the plot and character changes more-or-less fit with the longer-term characters arcs from the books.

Hello all,

Seems like all you need is a TV series and old accounts come alive like re-hydrated seamonkeys. It's nice to see it still works--IIRC there was a great purge around 2007-2009 that killed my old-old account.

-- dwn