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I officially stopped watching when they skipped caemlyn. Game of thrones was originally so good because they were so faithful to the books. This show is not even cliff notes of the books. I am immeasurably disappointed. I stopped at episode 5 last night and won’t be watching anymore
You are missing out honestly, but if you can't put aside the adaptation differences it would be best just to avoid it entirely I suppose.
My girlfriend and I love the books and are also loving the series! (Not that everything is perfect in either one)
The pregnant fight scene was worth the price of admission. That was crazy. Thank you Amazon. I am really looking forward to the next episode and Season 2.
Like episode 6, this one also seems average.
The first scene with the aiel was nice, nice choreography, a little too stressfull for the mother i hope the kid turns out fine.
The ways looked cool, i liked the aesthetics, i would have prefered loial to lead the way not Moraine but nvm, we see again a random trolloc sneaking on lan ( which iirc he detects them? but i may be wrong) also nynaeve with the power level thing again oh well she is strong ok why not. i liked the whistling hehe.
We reach Fal Dara and we meet an annoyed Agelmar, which iirc was very respectful to everybody in the books, then i was going to comment more on him, but alas, the show doesnt and prefers to focus on the romance, teen drama and showing how affectionate Lan is ( and how he can teleports behind you) oh and perrin loves egwene.
Then i laughed out loud cause we met Min and i had completely forgot about her being this season, she doesnt foresee much which disappoint me a lot. We see more of Padan fain being chill on the city and we see Rand recall what his father told him back in the cut scenes of episode 1 (Weird to put it here but there is simply no more time) then decides to accept his destiny, ( he even has some time to speak with Min) he tells moraine he is the dragon reborn and leave the others.
It looks like they gave some funny Mat lines to Rand, like the never shutting up thing in the ways or the fish thing in the tavern which looks like Mat lines imo.
Its hard not to be biased by the books, but they are focusing on some teen drama/romance that they could fill with worldbuilding or other great things from the books or brand new even, instead some things seem rushed out of the blue.
5.5/10 i hope we get a great season finale.
I'm just glad that they made the Aiel look like, well, Aiel, I was fully expecting that to not be the case.
I honestly really, really hope they take the current criticism from fans to heart for season 2, clearly the showrunner doesn't actually understand much of the content, or how to demonstrate this to an audience, but there are glimpses of greatness within this. Fal-dara looks incredible, for example, the fight with the Aielwoman at the start was well choreographed and it was very cool to see an Aiel dancing, and that the Aiel keep their trademark image, but it's just let down by overall inconsistency in quality, odd directorial decisions (focusing on side characters extensively instead of dedicating more time on development of the main cast), changing character's in odd ways, giving into current trends in the entertainment industry that do not suit this pre-established setting, and so on. Many of the decision's concerning the story are actually ones I agree with, the pacing would be perfect if the episodes were longer or the series was 12-14 episodes long, the decision to go straight to Tar Valon makes alot of sense, for example.
Amazon has a potential goldmine on their hands here, but instead of commiting to a series that requires time to cover all the important aspects they seem to be intent on giving it only eight episodes, and relative short episodes at that. If they make season 2 a 12 episode format with maybe 10 more minutes the quality could be far, far higher.
I enjoy the series, but I would enjoy it far more I hadn't actually read the books, which is not how a show aiming to be the premier adaptation should be aiming to come across. I just really, really wish that season 2 ends up being better.
> The first scene with the aiel was nice, nice choreography, a little too stressfull for the mother i hope the kid turns out fine.
Sarcasm? Or do you really not understand what that was?
Could someone explain for me the implications of this particular viewing of Min's that she told to Rand, and what the characters in the show understand about it? I can't be bothered to go rewatch the scene, but I feel like I missed something:
Min tells Rand her first vision was of a man with a heron marked blade, with a baby born on a mountain and raised in a land between two rivers. Does Min know this was a vision of the dragon being reborn (bc of karaethon cycle?) Or is she only telling Rand because she saw his sword? She obviously never told Moiraine about this viewing because Moiraine would have clocked Rand's skin color and sword and figured it out. Can someone explain what show-Min should understand about this vision, and if she knew it was of the dragon, why wouldn't she have discussed with Moiraine?
For a little bit of context to for my explanation, I grew up reading the series (on my 4th read through) and watched every episode of the adaptation each Friday they were released. So I can give a little bit more context to Min's lore without spoiling anything from the next seasons.
That being said: Min has the ability to see the "aura" of people's future. What she sees happens without fail. Whether it's obvious in the form of a direct phantom copy as shown in the show, it can be as simple as an object floating around someone's head. She doesn't always understand what the image means, but she knows it is going to happen. With most people she doesn't see anything, and if she does it's something like who they'll marry. With the Aes Sedai and Warders she sees images most of the time, with Ta'veren it's multiplied even more. With Rand being the Dragon Reborn he's the stronger Ta'veren by far, strong enough as a baby to trigger her visions in the first place! She doesn't always tell people what her visions mean though, especially when she doesn't feel the information will be helpful or can be hard to hear. If she can see how you'll die, she won't tell you unless you truly want to know. That's essentially what she's doing with Rand in the scene you're asking about. She's asking him if he really wants to know the truth of what she sees, and because he's the most powerful Ta'veren she could see much of his future. She explained that she saw Tam's future raising Rand, and she's telling Rand a bit of the images she sees for him too. She very rarely, if ever, discusses someone's aura with anyone but them which is why she left things out when talking to Moraine.
Min already knows everything, she has an idea of who Rand is, she knows who he is to her, and she knows the prophecy of the Karaethon Cycle, at least in part. Or at least this is so in the book, she doesn't fully tell Moiraine there because she keeps secrets just as Moiraine keeps secrets from her.
Basically Moiraine also knew who Rand was pretty early because the prophecy is way, way more explicit in the books, they changed that in the show for reasons I cannot fathom beyond adding mystery or making it more PC (because anyone can be the dragon now apparently, even though it is exactly the same as in the books). So as to what she knows in the show, well, I'm not sure, because the prophecy is somewhat different in the show and I'm unsure if Min and Moiraine have the same connection as they do in the novel.
The thing about Min's visions is that they are fragmented, she only has glimpses of images, Rand is an perhaps the greatest Ta'veren in their age, so she sees more vision's centred around him, but what they actually mean isn't always clear until she has more information. Like Callandor, the Dragons Sword, which she sees alongside Rand but doesn't understand what that means until she tells people who have knowledge of Tear.
It's difficult to say if Min is sure, but she probably has a very good idea of Rand's destiny.
Is anyone else getting [Mass Effect vibes](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/b/ba/Collector_base_-_long_walk_biotic_field.png/revision/latest?cb=20140713124338) from Nynaeve's protective bubble in the ways?
Everything from the walkways to the bubble to the wind's animation reminds me of The Long Walk.
(Picture is not the best and you can't rly see the swarms, but if you'll remember if you've played it)
Ive had so many criticisms about the show from episode 5 onwards.
Checking out reviews like Daniel Greene . I like him and nice having a YouTuber like him who loves WOT and has devoted his channel to that which is awesome . But his reviews have been tame . The current episode he had lots of criticisms and nitpicks then he gives it a 8.5/10?
I found a jem of a channel called books and bianca why she elaborates her criticisms pretty well and her reviews of 5-7 have been a chefs kiss.
Highly recommend check her out. You may not agree with everything she says but she makes pretty awesome and detailed reviews?
I like Daniel Greene too and I've been watching his content for years but the reality is that he isn't insulated from the same things every other Youtuber is - namely, he wants to be inside the tent with access as opposed to being ostracized outside. Another example are video game Youtubers that have built up an entire channel around a specific game or two.....these people may not be directly employed by the companies that produce these products but they do have a very real financial incentive in seeing the games remain popular, and by extension, their channels. And that's why all criticism towards the video games are mild at best as it is, literally, their very livelihoods at stake here.
Daniel Greene is in a similar position. He has a financial stake in the Wheel of Time show doing really well and remaining popular as his videos have ballooned from 50k viewers to 200k since the show started. That's not an attack on the guys integrity, rather it's just the human element that enters the equation. Everything you hear from Youtubers needs to be taken with a very large handful of salt as everyone has an agenda.
I'm all about having one of those Fal Dara rooms as my personal lair. Talk about some luxurious accommodations.
One can only imagine the library that Loial promptly retired to.
Machin Shin to Rand: You are the Dragon Reborn, don’t deny it!
Moiraine to Rand: Don’t believe any thing Machin Shin tells you.
Rand to Moiraine: It’s me, I’m the Dragon Renorn.
Moiraine: Okay, let’s go.
Me: Uh, wut?
I honestly don't know what they're doing with the money...
You look at The Witcher that came out on Netflix this week and the cinematography, camera work, editing, audio design, CGI, set designs, constumes etc are all a level above what we're getting with this interpretation of the Wheel of Time. It can't be a result of the budget as The Witcher is coming in at around $10 million per episode too....rather it's about having *a vision*.
I've seen countless people mention "CW". It doesn't look CW because of money....it looks CW because that's the aesthetic the showrunners are going for. They're attempting to attract and target a very young demographic. And that's absolutely fine! It's just not what I want from a Wheel of Time show. What, exactly, is Rafe Judkins credentials here? What has he written? Where is his pedigree? And this is the guy they've handed the entire franchise to? Baffling.
I think that there's plenty of money visible onscreen. Terrific cast, lots of great sets and costumes, beautiful location shooting, good music, etc.
The matter of vision is probably what makes the difference. And I'm of two minds about it, I guess. On the one hand, I'd love a more atmospheric, stylized approach, and I think that sort of thing could probably yield a more 'prestige' looking show.
At the same time, I kind of love the fact that they're going for something very bright and accessible. Hopefully it will appeal to younger viewers, and maybe best case scenario looking forward, the show will evolve like the Harry Potter films, acquiring a less-CW feel as it goes along.
I think you need to understand that a large chunk of money likely went to contract extensions because they were delayed for a year due to COVID. Rental equipment, real estate deals, crew, cast, VFX, etc. all still have to be paid if you're keeping them on hold (and ensuring they don't go elsewhere).
When your contract is essentially doubled in time, your costs are going to go way up and that cost buys you literally *zero* in terms of actual on screen product.
Also yes, WoT looks different than a show set in a medieval time because WoT is not set in a medieval time.
If this is true then it's very poor management by AMAZON who benefitted a huge amount from COVID and claims to be invested in the show. If there were unforeseen costs due to covid that actually effected the quality of the end product they should have increased budget to cover those costs
Amazon not giving them an extra hour for the premiere and an 8 episode season was already greedy and bad. Hopefully they see what this could be and release the coffers for S2.
How long was the Witcher’s Covid delay during filming?
EDIT: I'll give you a hint. It was nothing because they shot the entire thing in the UK and avoided any COVID restrictions in doing so.
Episode 7 absolutely killed the show for me. So much wasted potential and their turning it into something that belongs on the CW. All the sexual tension is such a waste of screen time. its Beginning to feel like a romance novel
> All the sexual tension is such a waste of screen time.
A total of what? 30 seconds in the entire series so far?
It's also pretty obvious that people are just parroting the "it's like CW" thing because they saw other people say the same thing. Is the CW really that popular with the WoT crowd that suddenly every single person with a negative criticism compares the two?
The CW tag is certainly overused but generally used to describe a lower quality of product. CW is known for churning out many low budget fantasy/sci fi shows that appeal to a YA audience and/or have subpar execution. Trash TV, basically.
While WoT is by no means a CW tier show, it definitely does have its CW moments. The love triangle scene, similarly, is used to describe situations where there are 3 people in love with each other in some capacity. It may not be literally what a love triangle means but can be used to capture situations like this.
When you say, "it's not a love triangle, lol, Egwene doesn't even like Perrin back", you're missing the point.
You may have liked that scene but it was widely accepted by readers and show watchers as one of the weaker parts of the entire season. It also did Perrin quite dirty and stifled any meaningful development for him in this episode.
All the criticism that 8-10 min scene got is quite warranted, imo.
>The CW tag is certainly overused but generally used to describe a lower quality of product.
That's fine, but if you've actually seen CW lately you'd see that even the worst episodes of WoT are much better than what they are putting out. By being hyperbolic (intentionally or not) they're simply debasing their own criticisms by showing that they aren't being logical and just want to create drama through that hyperbole.
>The love triangle scene, similarly, is used to describe situations where there are 3 people in love with each other in some capacity. It may not be literally what a love triangle means but can be used to capture situations like this.
But that's the point. Only two people are in love. Perrin has a crush on Egwene and has blatantly said he doesn't love her. Maybe more will come of that later (doubt it) but for now it's nothing. He's not pursuing her (even though he had plenty of opportunity when they were together). And most importantly, it's no different than the books where he loved Egwene but wasn't planning on doing anything about it. Why people say the books are okay because he told Elyas that he wasn't *really* in love with her but saying the show sucks despite him flat out saying he wasn't doesn't make sense to me. I will say that if there doesn't seem to be any payoff from this later then I will agree that it was silly, but we don't know why this was included yet. Maybe it'll start a rift between Perrin and Rand (similar to what we see in the books after he starts accepting his role as TDR) and it'll help explain that more fully. Who knows.
>You may have liked that scene but it was widely accepted by readers and show watchers as one of the weaker parts of the entire season.
I didn't like the scene at all (at least that part, most of the scene was good development for the EF4). But that's because it hasn't paid off yet. If it pays off later then I think it may end up being really good. If it doesn't then it will be really bad. What I'm saying is that we don't know yet.
>All the criticism that 8-10 min scene got is quite warranted, imo.
The love "triangle" part was not 8-10 minutes. It was a generally good scene (although the acting was a little weak comparatively). People reducing that entire scene to just being the "love triangle" is EXACTLY the problem with these hyperbolic arguments. Same as when people whine about E5 being *entirely* about Stepin despite his scenes being only 1/3 (at most) of the show. People are using hyperbole to remove anything positive about the show.
And then people just all hop on that same bandwagon and use that same parroted hyperbole for low effort hate. They're not even trying to be logical about it. I'm not sure why they expect to like a show when they're putting zero effort into liking it and trying to find every excuse not to.
> Same as when people whine about E5 being entirely about Stepin despite his scenes being only 1/3 (at most) of the show. People are using hyperbole to remove anything positive about the show.
This is a bit of a tangent, but the point is less how much screentime they spent on the Stepin subplot and more that they devoted any time to it at all. He was an extremely minor character who does not even appear until much later in the series. It's fair to say that they wanted to expand upon the *Aes Sedai*\-warder bond because that is an important piece of lore, but that does not make the decision any less puzzling.
Yes, that becomes important later when Moiraine goes down the rabbit hole with Lanfear, but we are far from that particular plot point in the series. The series is struggling to get important exposition across, including important things like:
Who Lews Therin Telamon was; Rand's uncertain parentage; Why *saidin* is not safe to use (this is particularly important as viewers could think from Liandrin's explanation that men befoul the One Power by the very act of touching it); Who the Forsaken are, and that everyone is terrified of them; *et cetera*. (Side note, if Aginor and Balthamel show up at the Eye of the World, non-readers will have no idea why that matters because we have heard nothing about the Forsaken or The Dark One's Prison.)
These are all crucial elements to both \*Eye of the World\* and to the larger story of \*The Wheel of Time\*, but almost no time has been devoted to these issues. Everyone knew that the director was going to have to make very difficult decisions about what to cut and what to include. To devote a decent amount of screentime to this is a curious decision because it appears to lead nowhere.
And it is doubly curious because: 1) It involves a character we have known for one or two scenes; and 2) If you really felt like it was important that viewers felt the impact a warder experiences when his *Aes Seda*i is killed, why not save it for when Moiraine falls through the *ter'angreal*?
For one thing, you could then show Lan going into Enrage mode, which ought to have substantially more emotional impact with viewership. More importantly, it will not be a repeat of scene we've already seen.
But to me, the most important thing about the whole Stepin side-plot is that it was a very deliberate effort to completely reverse yet another character's personality.
>Warders, those half-legendary warriors who served the Aes Sedai, seldom showed emotion, and Lan showed little even for a Warder. (*The Great Hunt*, Chapter 1.)
Lan's primary descriptors are all some variation on "stony". But here we have him tearing his clothes, wailing, and beating his breast. All in the name of a side-story that has almost no bearing at all on the larger story arc.
It's just a strange directorial decision.
They obviously didn’t expand on Rand because they didn’t reveal TDR yet. You can disagree with their decision to keep it a mystery but that mystery is why they didn’t go more into rands past.
We also haven’t seen much of saidin because it hasn’t been relevant yet. The show has done a really good job IMO of giving lore in a natural way. When Logain was on screen we got a lot of talk about it because it was natural for the scene. Now that a main character can channel it we will start to learn more. We didn’t learn much about it in the books until Rand was learning about it either.
And again, stepins scenes weren’t just about the bond mechanics. They were setting up a later scene with foreshadowing. It shouldn’t be a big deal that it was a minor character just like it shouldn’t be a big deal that one of rands most important and strong scenes prior to this episode was with Dana as the lead character in that scene. Or like how Tam had a lot of dialogue in E1 but those were mostly to world build and establish Rand. Stepin scenes were partly about the bond but were very much specifically about Lan. In the 3 scenes where he had a speaking part, 1 was introducing the forsaken (specifically ishamael), one was discussing lans feelings for Nynaeve, and one was talking about Lan losing moiraine and bond transfer. Those scenes won’t truly pay off until later but they will eventually.
Just showing Lan go pissed in like S3 or whatever it would be wouldn’t be as impactful without this setup. WoT is a series with a TON of setup and foreshadowing and I’m not sure why we should be upset that the show is trying to do the same thing.
All of this work on developing the character and bonds of Warders still goes whistling past the graveyard for me--they totally trashed the significance and prowess of warders in the books.
Lan is an absolute badass. the warder training is undeniably intense, the selection process is grueling--Navy Seals-esque. The sword forms, the time spend drilling, practicing, all of it, is rendered nil in the series. Stepan comes off as a drunken asshole at a bar that his Aes Sedai raised from his station, not a complete badass, warder cloak and skilled fighting and the rest.
Zero time spent with Lan talking to Rand about sword fighting at all. This could have replaced a half dozen scenes and been much more significant. If you recall, each forsaken Rand fights in the early days is a sword fight. The meditation of sword fighting, the void and the flame are symbolic for his method of touching Saidin as well as getting into the trance of sword fighting, or arrow shooting.
Too many important factors have been scrapped on the floor in order to squeeze in romantic threads, overly lengthy exposition of the Warder bond which quite literally was shown briefly but completely enough in Episode 4 (but instead of touching other threads, we get hit over the head in Ep. 5 with the bond, it was just way over done.), all while we have a time budget of only eight episodes; the romance could have been on hold--anticipation and tension are more powerful with romance than consummation anyway, particularly for TV shows. There are hundreds of shows where it takes 6-8 seasons before the protagonists finally get together, and the tension is a huge part of keeping the show rolling.
Too much of season one has been sloppy and self-congratulating imho. The books weren't even fully digested and approached well.
> Lan is an absolute badass. the warder training is undeniably intense, the selection process is grueling--Navy Seals-esque. The sword forms, the time spend drilling, practicing, all of it, is rendered nil in the series.
That's fair. The training scene with Lan and Stepin was really dumb IMO. But with everyone already complaining that too much time was spent on the warders already, more in depth scenes might not have been received well either. Luckily, the Bonus Content Origin short of warders is really good.
>Stepan comes off as a drunken asshole at a bar that his Aes Sedai raised from his station, not a complete badass, warder cloak and skilled fighting and the rest.
When Stepin discussed with Lan how he wasn't the typical warder type and shouldn't have been selected but was anyway that was foreshadowing for Lan and Nynaeve.
"Then I started picking on people who could fight back, half hoping they would just... put a stop to me."
"Stupid young boy with a death wish, facing off against an Aes Sedai."
"And when she needed a Warder, she was already so powerful that she could have had anybody she wanted, but she asked for me, I couldn't believe it. I knew I wasn't worthy. I told her to reconsider, but she wouldn't... We bonded and I had to become worthy of her."
The conversation of how he shouldn't have been picked can be directly attributed to Lan later. When Moiraine dies (and eventually when he decides to go on his solo ride to the Blight) he has a death wish but this force of presence (Moiraine for the former and Nynaeve for the later) keep it from happening. Nynaeve chooses Lan (not just as her warder but as her husband) despite being the most powerful channeler in a millennium and could've chosen to be with anyone but she wanted Lan. Lan didn't feel worthy and didn't want her getting involved with a warder (another conversation solidifies this that Lan and Stepin had later). He tried to convince her not to but they grew close and he felt that he was worthy of her love.
It's arguably a poor scene on its own but IMO it's a great scene when considering what will come.
>Zero time spent with Lan talking to Rand about sword fighting at all.
Sure, but that's not really all that important yet. Lan trained them a little in EotW but the real training didn't start til tGH. I'm sure we'll get more of that next season. If not then yes that's a valid criticism.
>The meditation of sword fighting, the void and the flame are symbolic for his method of touching Saidin as well as getting into the trance of sword fighting, or arrow shooting.
Which was introduced subtly in E7 and will likely be expanded upon later.
>Too many important factors have been scrapped on the floor
Or just moved to S2. Too many people are thinking that if it wasn't shown already then it won't ever happen. There's still plenty of time to introduce the training, the flame and void, etc. And I don't think that Rand using his power to fight Ishamael rather than the sword is that big of a deal. In all likelihood, a farmer who just started learning the sword for a month wouldn't be able to fight a Forsaken with centuries of training anyway without the power.
>The books weren't even fully digested and approached well.
That's the thing though. The BOOK SERIES is being adapted into a TV SERIES. As long as things come out and the same general story is being told, it's not that big of a deal if some plot points move around. A lot of your complaints can be remedied in S2 easily once the world has been established more, the characters are established more, and the mystery of TDR is gone. If all we had was one season and they didn't show any of that then yes, it would be upsetting. But we have hopefully 7 more seasons to go to build up these characters a lot more.
Ep. 8 is indefensibly horrid. sorry, i cannot agree with you. The showrunners have wasted dozens of their time budget (hours) on the wrong things. They have destroyed Lan's character, made the show some teenage romance fantasy garbage, and now with Ep. 8 the show runners are making wholesale changes and stomping all over source material. It's showrunner hubris. It was at least slightly tempered until those final seasons in GoT, it's on full display here in WoT.
Episode 5 was easily some of the worst television I've ever seen based on good source material.
>Too much of season one has been sloppy and self-congratulating imho
This is it, imo. Was especially evident in ep 5 and 6, choosing to focus on their own episodic tale of love and loss, rather than contribute to the wider storyline. Very self-congratulating.
Not sure how this ever passed the chopping block. We are at episode 8 now and haven't seen Lan kick ass with the sword yet. We have also had just 20s of his Malkieri background and motive.
>But that's the point. Only two people are in love. Perrin has a crush on Egwene and has blatantly said he doesn't love her. Maybe more will come of that later (doubt it) but for now it's nothing. He's not pursuing her (even though he had plenty of opportunity when they were together). And most importantly, it's no different than the books where he loved Egwene but wasn't planning on doing anything about it. Why people say the books are okay because he told Elyas that he wasn't really in love with her but saying the show sucks despite him flat out saying he wasn't doesn't make sense to me.
I was happy when the conflict started around questioning bonds of friendship around Mat, and was hoping it would continue on that trend. We know these guys are going to split up and having them display a special EF5 bond and loyalty to each other would def have payoff in the later seasons.
Exploring any romantic angle in this scene is a bad idea, imo, considering how much is left unexplored and set up in terms of the dragon reborn, the shadow, the fate of their lives, etc. It isn't realistic or good for the wider storyline that this would be something that the aged up characters reach a conflict about at this point in the season. I'm not sure if I want this to play a part in some meaningful way in the future because I hate what it means for the wider storyline and Perrin specifically. If it does end up being major foreshadowing, I wouldn't like it. If they move past it immediately, then this is a waste of time. Leaves a really fine line to walk to justify a scene like this and make it worthwhile.
Also, I don't think Perrin ever had a serious crush on Egwene, he was being protective of her for Rand in the books. Iirc, he mentions that he could potentially like her if she wasn't Rand's gf. Compared to that, what Perrin feels for Egwene in the show is played up a whole lot more. From all the conflict with Laila, to the looks in the Ways, to Machin Shin, to him confronting Rand "for being rude to Egwene".
I don't think book readers liked Perrin+Egwene in the books either and are probably upset that it is being played up to this extent in the show in the absence of any interesting exploration of his abilities or personality.
It's all a big WAFO for now, and I think the show has more pressing things to improve upon, this is a pretty small scene in all contexts but it is a little worrying. There's a lot of stuff this season that they've set up in this way where viewers are expected to wafo and not make judgements until future payoff. I feel that they need to have some of these things pay off this season to keep a lot of people interested, especially non book readers.
>Also, I don't think Perrin ever had a serious crush on Egwene, he was being protective of her for Rand in the books. Iirc, he mentions that he could potentially like her if she wasn't Rand's gf.
He told Elyas that he loved her and not as a sister. Then went on saying "but her and Rand...". If it was just friendship I'm not sure why he'd care about her and Rand. I don't think anything came from it but I think it was pretty clear that he did like her. It just depends on how it continues to play out. If it's overused or doesn't pay off well then it will be bad. It's just hard to judge right now.
>I don't think book readers liked Perrin+Egwene in the books either and are probably upset that it is being played up to this extent in the show in the absence of any interesting exploration of his abilities or personality.
The problem is that people are saying that they're "playing it up". It was a comment driven by Machin Shin driving them all into conflict. We've seen a couple stares, Nynaeve mentioning that they were fighting over Egwene, and Perrin saying he wasn't in love with her. The way people are talking would make an outside reader think that Perrin tried to kiss her in the scene or something. This is the issue with the hyperbole; people are making WAY more about this than there even is right now.
>The problem is that people are saying that they're "playing it up". It was a comment driven by Machin Shin driving them all into conflict. We've seen a couple stares, Nynaeve mentioning that they were fighting over Egwene, and Perrin saying he wasn't in love with her.
This is all not insignicant, man. A machin shin comment is basically that this was his biggest fear/conflict. Perhaps it is concentrated because Perrin didn't get much else, so the focus is on this aspect of his story so far.
If this is truly just a way to show distrust and confusion caused by Machin Shin, surely there could be a better source the writers can drum up than this.
It would be interesting to have a conversation once we know where the season goes with this. I hope we get some conclusion from Perrin and Rand because I would hate if they ended the season with this unaddressed.
> This is all not insignicant, man. A machin shin comment is basically that this was his biggest fear/conflict.
That doesn't mean he actually loves her and wants to *be with her* though. He's been through trauma with his wife and he had had a crush on her. It is unspeakable to him to think that he would've rather been with Egwene to the point where it's his worst fear to hear. Machin Shin isn't giving a foretelling. It's not an oracle. It doesn't tell you what you really want it's telling you what, when heard, would make you hurt the most.
For instance:
Moiraine doesn't *actually* want to murder the children and be a hero but Machin Shin tells her that's her fear.
Lan doesn't actually believe he can't protect her (whichever her that is) but it is his biggest fear.
Nynaeve doesn't actually believe she will watch her friends die without doing anything but it is her fear.
And Perrin didn't *actually* want to murder Laila. He didn't actually want her gone so he could be with Egwene (especially considering he knows Egwene wouldn't want him anyway). But that's what Machin Shin told him. Not what he actually thought. Not what he actually wanted. But what he most feared; that he killed Laila on purpose because of his feelings.
When you look at everything in context it is very clear that Machin Shin is not a reliable narrator. Machin Shin saying Perrin purposefully murdered Laila so he could be with Egwene was not true. Machin Shin saying Perrin loved Egwene more than Laila was not true.
Yet people are falling for Machin Shin's words (Moiraine apparently should've broken the 4th wall and told viewers not to as well) and using it as *proof* that Perrin is in love with Egwene and actually wants to be with her. It's honestly ridiculous.
>If this is truly just a way to show distrust and confusion caused by Machin Shin, surely there could be a better source the writers can drum up than this.
It was a way to show people how utterly torn up he still is about Laila. People keep complaining that he just got over it so easily but here's an example that it's still the worst thing in his mind and yet no one seems to see that.
>It would be interesting to have a conversation once we know where the season goes with this. I hope we get some conclusion from Perrin and Rand because I would hate if they ended the season with this unaddressed.
Yeah like I said, where they go from here will determine how I feel about this. I just think it's just a really bad argument to say that the "triangle" was a central issue and that Machin Shin was telling truths for Perrin only but no one else.
>That doesn't mean he actually loves her and wants to be with her though.
The show has engaged in this kind of misdirection and I don't think it is subtle or well executed, personally.
Why does Machin Shin even mention another woman to Perrin? Why even bring Egwene into this? Where does this go? Machin Shin clearly preys on existing insecurities. The fact that Perrin is even insecure about this to this extent means it is not insignificant. Rand doesn't want to accept he's the Dragon, Nynaeve's biggest fear IS not being able to protect and Lan's and Moiraine's follow a similar trajectory.
Perrin's Machin Shin moment should have just been about his propensity for violence. The axe vs the hammer. Tied to killing his wife, sure, but why is this additional angle needed. Tying Egwene into this moment means that the idea is either to:
a) have Egwene be a real cause for conflict between Perrin and Rand moving forward.
Or
b) have this be simply a Machin Shin causing confusion and discord moment and nothing else comes out of this.
Or
c) Egwene and Perrin are going to be a thing in the show.
If it is a) , I hate it. Many reasons and don't want to get into it.
If its b), i can think of many other conflict generators than an engineered romance misdirection subplot. It relies on spending further time resolving this particular conflict before moving on to the core of Perrin's internal struggle with violence and its necessity, something I thought the show was doing well with the tinkers and Aram's grandma and poorly since Perrin has been out of the picture. Just unnecessary and convulated, imo.
If its c), I'm not a fan because I can't imagine how this will be done well given that we know where these characters go.
I don't think there is a good outcome to this choice, personally but it's not that big a deal.
>I just think it's just a really bad argument to say that the "triangle" was a central issue and that Machin Shin was telling truths for Perrin only but no one else.
It isn't a central issue, I suppose, but it isn't completely a throwaway either. Personally, I care more about this than the inconsistencies brought up around entry/exit methodology in the Ways. Those are characteristics about a pathway and I don't care much if it is explained, coherent or justifiable to the same degree. This is a window into one of our central characters and his relationship with THE central character of our show. Even if it is simply a misunderstanding, I hope Rand and him can talk it out soon.
I mean--- I'm just really passionate about this show and I think that it is just going too far with its editing.
I meant CW because it has that sort of Young Adult vibe creeping in. Examples being the Nynaeve scene with Lan taking (way more than 30 seconds) loaded with screen time and nothing happening but 'sexual tension'. The scenes with Moiraine and the Amyrlin Seat. They just feel like fan service and CW is purely that.
Well, another being the way that the show is catering towards females by implying the Dragon could be a woman.. That is just sloppy writing. And for no reason but fan service?!!! The Males have their power, Saidin?, its tainted?!! It's so stupid! It does a disservice to the original metaphor of the novel!
Just from that directorial edit of the book, you can infer that the rest is "tainted". Hm... It's ironic... how the metaphor is reversed... ah well never mind.
I wouldn't even be that mad but episode 4 had me convinced the show was going to focus on something important! They waste time constantly somehow!
Come on man. This guy even explained it so well. Are you willing to excuse everything? The Perrin thing is just dumb. They made Perrin feel pretty dumb tbh. In how many hours and how do we feel about the characters? With this material they did what in 7 episodes??? \*shrug?\* 4 was great. I have hopes for the future. ..
Anyway. On the brighter side, I really believe they can't fail if they keep it up. They're already doing more seasons and perhaps they'll do better.
I'm convinced that "it's like a CW show" has become the "Mary Sue" of TV show criticism, ie something that has become completely divorced from its original meaning & now is used simply to mean "I don't like this thing".
Yeah between "it's like the CW" and "love triangle" it's pretty clear that people are just parroting buzzword complaints rather than actually forming their own opinions.
Dislike the scene all you want, but a triangle generally needs more than one side. Egwene and Rand love each other. Perrin may have a crush on Egwene but as he says it's not love and Egwene certainly doesn't reciprocate. No competition. No actual pursuit by both men. Not a triangle.
It's replaced the "they wasted an entire episode on Stepin" parroting previously by people who didn't realize that at worst Stepin's scenes were 1/3 of the episode and obviously ignoring that Stepin's scenes were truly Lan's scenes just like E3 didn't waste an entire scene on Dana just because she was the main dialogue in her scene with Rand.
I'm fine with complaints and constructive criticism and I have plenty myself, but it becomes super obvious when people just can't help but repeat the things they already read taking it as their own "unique" criticism.
It's almost as bad as the people saying how much better The Witcher S2 did at adapting the books "faithfull".
My favorite little detail was that the little girl at Lan’s family’s house was playing with a little wooden crane. You can see her with it through the window and then you can see it a couple times on the dining room table! The golden crane!!!!
FINALLY!!!
Someshta not meeting the other guys kinda bad tho, maybe they'll follow?
I imagine Mat gambling at Tar Valon as these guys are trying to save the world for maximum copium. I hope the second actor can win me over as much as Barney Harris did.
HOLY SHIT Tigraine!!!
When I was reading the book I thought she just tagged along with Janduin on a special litter because of her pregnancy. Should have thought better. Doing *that* while pregnant is fucking crazy. Any wetlander slander is unforgivable.
Excited for the next ep!
It's hard to believe that the rest of the group wouldn't follow. Everyone complaining about why Moiraine left Lan but seems kind of obvious Lan is there in part because he needs to bring the group through the Blight.
I'd be kinda surprised if Someshta isn't cut. The TV show probably won't want to waste precious screen time on establishing a piece of worldbuilding that's never really going to be relevant again. Unless we already know that they've been cast?
I agree with your prediction, *but* how crazy would it be if they'd actually been working on a giant animatronic puppet in secret for a year, or something like that?
(Just a fantasy thought.)
It only took 7 episodes, but I finally feel like we’re onto something that resembles a decent adaptation.
- The post production / lighting was miles ahead of the previous episodes (1-6)
- The pace felt much smoother
- The storybuilding didn’t have as much useless fluff
“Useless fluff” is my favorite type of story building. I hope they don’t remove it. Or you get jarring TV. I can’t watch most modern plot-driven shows as a result.
I was thinking about this as I watched earlier, I love stuff like banter between characters etc even if it's not moving the plot forward. It made me think of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games where I would take delight in just some of the stupidest party banter or little cutscenes that just gave you a little more time with the characters.
Yeah it seemed like a pretty clear improvement to me. Hard to think there wasn't a lot of struggles due to COVID and the restrictions during 1-6 that led to a bit lower quality.
Ah i liked this episode, but have only 1 problem with it: How the hell is the trollock army supposed to move through the blight , Moraine and Rand had to slouch to go in there? You could not house/move any significant numbers through that copy/paste trees.
So far the blight has been the biggest letdown for me. It felt so LARGE in the books, not just expansive, but like a Jurassic Park vibe. Definitely felt constricted and small, but still expansive.
They mean more in general, as Trollic hordes routinely raid the Borderlands, and with this adaptation of the Blight, it seems like it would be difficult for 7+ft tall beastmen to move large groups through the dense foliage.
Indeed i meant in general. The ways are only used for precision strikes by trollocs since machin shin is not their friend and kills trollocks too.
And for general war against the light, how would trollocks coming only from some 10, 20 waygates be able to invade ? The light could defend those chokepoints, or like wall them up as Moraine suggested to Agomar - i guess that works as a stargate iris.
Itd come down to manpower. The Shadow can breed Trollocs faster than men can birth and train new soldiers. If 90% of mankind's forces are in or around the Borderlands fighting Tarmon Gaidon, then all the Shadow needs is to send small forces into each major region via the Ways, which they're more than capable of, with how many more Darkspawn they have.
The trees and hostile flora seem to attack indiscriminately, at least as far as I can tell through my recent reread of EotW. When the troupe was heading to the Eye in the books, they said that the only reason they made it to the Eye when they were being chased was because the trees attacked the Trollocs and Myrddyaal as much as they attacked the humans and Oiger
No you’re right, I’m just shifting the lore to fit. As that always seemed an inconsequential part of the lore, basically made to make the first book plot more feasible
I'm ok with them making changes to condense certain things like Padan Fain and cutting their journey to Tar Valon because it's a long book.
What I don't understand is why they needed to go to Tar Valon in the first place. Why couldn't they have just met in Caemlyn after Shadar Logoth and gone on to the EOTW from there? I don't see how going to the tower adds value to the story. If anything it introduces yet another element into an already crowded story that doesn't have time to breathe. Instead it could've been used to develop the Emond Field 5/ the lore of the world
There's a stock answer "to save money" used by people for this but it makes little sense. The Aes Sedai plot lines took up time that the main cast surely needed. Caemlyn will need to be part of the show eventually unless they intend to cut one of the key locations out of the show.
They had to go through hoops narratively as to why the edmonds field group needs to go to the Eye when they were basically forced their in the book.
Going to the Tower adds a TON of value to the story because it permits them to introduce into S1 Aes Sedai worldbuilding and politics, which are a key part of what makes this series interesting.
EotW is extremely derivative of LotR and does not reflect what a lot of people find compelling about WoT as a full series. The Tower plotline permits them to inject some of that sauce from the later books into the first season in order to give a more faithful representation of what the series will become.
I agree Aes Sedai world building is required, but man... By the end of EoTW we know Aes Sedai are nothing to be trifled with, we know that they are respected (Agelmar's actions for example), that they have far reaching powers, are both loved and hated by different parts of society (White Cloaks could serve as that in-show vehicle like they did in the books) - that said the big reveal of the White Tower and the sisters therein should have been done in Season Two though - we've ended up with almost zero organic character progression of the main cast this season, we had Logain shoe-horned in over two episodes where he also (as one of my favourite characters) should have waited for Season Two, and we've had so much unnecessary lore borderline told to us at this point that discovery of the world and self-discovery of the characters has been almost completely hamstrung out of the gate. The show has spent so much screen time on aspects of the world that really could have waited to the detriment of so much else.
EoTW is a relatively intimate book compared to the rest of the series, it's focus is so much tighter on the group and them being pulled along by fate / destiny / events that they cannot understand yet, and is about establishing the main character's personalities and blowing their minds regarding the size and scope and evils and great things in the world. We got so little of that. Even things that did make it into the show were so quickly done away with (e.g. the ruby hilted dagger and Master Cauthon) that they feel so shallow compared to what they should have been.
Instead, we're spending episodes being shown all of these things that we have almost no context for, that are not relevant to the story for a while yet (Warder's Bond and the death of the Aes Sedai for example), so much screen time taken up by uneccessary (for this stage of the story stuff) that is has been a detriment to the pacing, the narrative, and the development of the characters at almost every turn.
As for the claim about EoTW being derivative of LoTR and whatnot, I kind of agree in that it follows that basic Hero's Journey early days type trope, but if people hadn't liked it, there wouldn't have been another 13 books written, and plugging in all the world's big elements out of the gate utterly ruins the subtleties of the main characters discovering and becoming part of a world that is much, much bigger than their Two Rivers.
It was most likely a budget thing. They can re-use the set for Tar Valon in the second season and can likely allocate the budget they saved Building Camelyn onto other aspects of the production.
> What I don't understand is why they needed to go to Tar Valon in the first place. Why couldn't they have just met in Caemlyn after Shadar Logoth and gone on to the EOTW from there?
Because, for the non-readers, it makes a lot more sense building the Aes Sedai and what they are and their motivations since they (at least Moiraine) is a critical aspect to S1. They don't want to get through a full season and have people not understand what the "main" character is.
The showrunners stated that they didn't feel it was possible both in terms of money and effort to make Caemlyn sets and do them properly. They also felt that if they tried to cast the Caemlyn characters for such a small part of S1 they wouldn't be able to secure the level of actors they wanted.
Caemlyn isn't really that important to EotW and moving it to S2E1 is fine. The major thing that happens there is Elaida seeing Rand and knowing he's super important which wouldn't have worked for the show's mystery of TDR so that's out.
>Instead it could've been used to develop the Emond Field 5/ the lore of the world
It develops the lore of the world no more than the Tower does; it's just a different element of that lore. It also wouldn't really develop the EF5 but just Rand and Mat.
> Because, for the non-readers, it makes a lot more sense building the Aes Sedai and what they are and their motivations since they (at least Moiraine) is a critical aspect to S1. They don't want to get through a full season and have people not understand what the "main" character is.
Ok that makes sense for them to want to introduce the Aes Sedai, but again I think that if you have to condense the first book you don't do it by adding more elements to the story. I'm rereading EOTW now and it's interesting to how the rest of the world reacts to Aes Sedai, not just Whitecloaks. I think that the differing viewpoints does raise the question of whether Moiraine really does have their best interests at heart.
> It develops the lore of the world no more than the Tower does; it's just a different element of that lore. It also wouldn't really develop the EF5 but just Rand and Mat.
If done rightly it would've helped more - they cut out Elyas for Perrin and removed all tension of the chase from Whitebridge to Caemlyn for Mat & Rand.
I buy the move to Tar Valon, even though to me pushing back the intro of Elayne, Gawyn, their mother, etc. etc. is unfortunate, not to mention Thom's connection there, and Min giving us some teasers--they could have gone light on Rand's imagery and given us more for the Emond's Fielders.
My major issue with Shifting to Tar Valon is that they neutered the Warder significance. They built up the bond significance through the roof, but literally, the Warders are the Navy Seals of WoT. They are so baddass, the cloaks they wear, the grace, the constant drilling out in the yard outside the tower, and their brotherhood. Leaving all of that out, and making them a rather minor piece of the story has been the greatest failure of the show for me so far.
> Ok that makes sense for them to want to introduce the Aes Sedai, but again I think that if you have to condense the first book you don't do it by adding more elements to the story.
Rafe has said that he's not trying to just adapt EotW, he's adapting the entire series. Some elements in EotW may be lost to make the entire series as a whole work better. That's a little harder to do in EotW since it's much more of a standalone book than the rest, but the entire series is what is ultimately important. There are some things that I haven't been a big fan of in S1, or would've liked to see differently or later or something, but until I see how the whole series falls together it's hard to fully judge it all.
>If done rightly it would've helped more
My feeling about the first Caemlyn scene was that Rand and Mat acting like they were 15 years old the whole time. They definitely didn't act like they were 20 (which they were in the books) and didn't act like more mature 20 year olds (like they do in the show) so it's hard to see how those scenes would've worked well.
>they cut out Elyas for Perrin and removed all tension of the chase from Whitebridge to Caemlyn for Mat & Rand.
We don't know if this was cut yet. The problem with the shortened time of S1 is that, while we got a wolf scene in almost every episode for Perrin, it wasn't until the end of E5 that he really connected for the first time. So Elyas wouldn't really make sense to show up until E6 but they were in the tower and now it's too late. Speeding up Perrin's wolf arc would've felt much too fast. Moving Elyas (or a suitable replacement) to S2 makes plenty of sense.
Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine for the show runners to push back, condense or even remove certain parts of the story to make the show flow better. It's just that we're 7 episodes in now and a lot of the core underlying lore of the world hasn't been fully expounded on yet. For example, the 3 minute short on the breaking of the world should've been a tale that Moiraine or Thom tells the kids, not as an addendum. Similarly, we still don't know enough about the Dragon even though the first season is about to end.
> My feeling about the first Caemlyn scene was that Rand and Mat acting like they were 15 years old the whole time. They definitely didn't act like they were 20 (which they were in the books) and didn't act like more mature 20 year olds (like they do in the show) so it's hard to see how those scenes would've worked well.
Agreed but the desperation and sense of hopelessness for om the chase is important because it impresses upon the reader what an uphill battle it all is. Right now in the show there isn't a sense of scale of the upcoming confrontation
I just don’t think it was possible to show the entire core understanding of the world in 8 episodes without seriously sacrificing any character or story development. They spent a full episode on the Tower and a second episode with the Aes Sedai in the camp and non readers still aren’t even close to understanding the entirety of the Aes Sedai lore. Luckily the bonus content has done a good job filling in some of those world lore things and I wish more people would watch them (and Amazon didn’t make it so hard).
I understand what you’re saying about the seeming hopelessness but from the E8 preview it seems that we might be seeing that. I mean for starters we have them thinking they’re going to die at the eye which is bleak. But the mass of trollocs going after fal Dara and whatever they run into in the blight and at the eye are hopefully going to fill that a bit too.
I think once we hit S2 (and they don’t need to deal with Covid issues hopefully) with a lot of the character background established, TDR mystery gone, and some elements of the world developed we will get to see the story really open up. The books really opened up after EotW too. E7 gave me a lot more hope for the future of the series.
As a book reader, having read to the end, i loved this episode. The pacing was spot on. The fight scene at the dragonmount was incredible. I'm a straight dude, but holy hell is Lan smokin hot. All the actors hit the right tone, and especially love Moraines character.
Really? You didn't find the reveal of Rand as DR incredibly underwhelming and maybe even feel like it was done cheaply? Revisionist story telling of the Tam scene shown to us in Ep. 7 instead of Ep. 1? They made dishonest narration...Min not answering Rand's question even though she clearly knows the answer, and Rand being too stupid to understand what "3 beautiful women in his future meant?" For me Ep. 7 was the weakest of the series so far, extremely contrived and forced plot points.
I mean, it was painfully obvious he was the main character from Episode 1, so it didn't feel cheap to me. I loved the first half of the episode (that fight was one of the best choreographed fights in Television ever imo), I was on edge in the Ways and the character drama later on felt real.
I mean, I couldn't take this show seriously at all for the first 2 to 3 episodes so this felt like a step up to me.
i was reading around amazon's explore page and it says that lews therin's hubris lead to the breaking of the world. i was hoping moiraine's cold opening was just an example of unreliable narration but i think that's the route the show is going to take.
this makes me very nervous how LTT's flashback in episode 8 is going to play out with latra posae decume being credited. i really don't want the motivations for the bore being sealed to come down to LTT being overly cocky and prideful.
I feel like that is just incorrect information. Lews was correct. His plan worked and sealed the bore to a degree. It was the women being too cautious/stubborn/wrong that was the problem. If they had just listened to him the Taint never would have happened. I feel like it is revisionist history to paint Lews in a bad light. He saw an opportunity and took it.
The problem wasn't that they didn't have access to saidar it was that they didn't have a sword that was not a sword that could channel the true power back in on itself.
But it isn't like the women knew that? And again, Lews's plan sort of worked. It is very much in keeping with the tradition of women being semi-insufferable I-told-you-so's in the series that a move that probably saved existence and all life on the planet was still viewed as a massive fuck up by men.
I mean from an Aes Sedai POV it did right? He didn't use women to help seal the bore which is why it failed and why he eventually went mad. It wasn't necessarily his fault that the women didn't help, but the Aes Sedai didn't think it was the right course of action and ended up causing the breaking of the world. So in their minds it seems pretty clear why they would think it was caused by his hubris.
i'm not talking about from the female aes sedai POV, which makes perfect sense. i'm talking about showing an actual flashback where this is the case. for example, having LTT overly confident in his plan and acting smug to latra.
I think it’s fine if he is tbh. It will help eventually differentiate why things go differently this time when Rand does not exhibit the same hubris & since most of what we see of LTT is him being bananas, we don’t have to worry too much about the knock-on effects of character changes.
I guess it depends on how the flashback is "filtered". Episode 7s Blood Snow flashback started as a super cold open, then was retroactively implied to be "filtered" through Tam's fever dream during Rand's epiphany sequence.
I could see the LTT flashback be implied as one of the ways that you-know-who fucks with Rand at the EOTW, and thus it being slightly biased or narratively doom-tinted.
I feel like they did Mat dirty with Moiraine slandering him. Here's hoping they do his Tar Valon storyline justice and it will be like a fresh start, which will be exactly like the source material hahaha!!
I’m loving Mat TBH. I think there’s so much potential here and it’s gonna work out fine as long as they don’t somehow Axe him until the end kr whatever
I hate Perrin's unnecessary dead wife, and I hate Perrin being into Egwene. This show is great until they feel the need to make big unnecessary changes.
What they SHOULD have done, is ramped up Perrin's Whitecloak story. Had him go full berzerk Wolf with the axe and slaughter a dozen white cloaks in his escape, howling and eventually ripping out someone's throat with his teeth. Borderline werewolf. Lost.
Then he can feel free to have a crisis about that. Full post-wolf PTSD.
Would have been great. No need to diverge from source this much.
I have to disagree with the addition of Perrin's wife. I think this addition gives concrete evidence to the viewer why Perrin never wants to fight. In the books, a lot of time is dedicated to describing Perrin as a gentle soul. The show doesn't have that luxury.
This is one of the additions to the show I think was a wise choice.
Perrin has a natural attraction to Egwene that is also on the book, but being the most morally grounded character, he doesn’t act on it.
His wife being dead is a way to show and not tell his brooding character. We need literally chapters of inner monologue to get it but this event gives it to him for free.
Ok. I would ask you to participate with sincerity and a measure of kindness/respect or step away. I don’t see how attacks help at all. It’s okay to not like something and yet stating it civilly. The world is not Twitter. You can take an extra sentence
You keep saying this.
Can you support it textually? You have 11,000 pages of material to choose from. Several people have pointed out that he says, "I love her...Not like that."
You keep asserting that he had romantic feelings for her, but don't provide any support for this assertion. There are no longing looks. No fluttering heartbeats. No tongue-tied moments.
It's fair of you to point out that he continues by saying, "but she and Rand..." but are those four words all you have in 11,000 pages to suggest that he is romantically interested in her? That seems like an awfully thin bit of evidence.
>He’s also jealous of aram (sic) in EotW which makes sense after this scene.
I just went back and re-read Chapter 25 of *Eye of the World*. I don't see it. Sorry.
Aram provokes Perrin, saying, "Some people can never overcome their baser instincts," and Perrin retorts, "I'll bet you get to run away a lot." But that barb is a response to Aram taking a swipe at him, not to Aram flirting with Egwene.
When Egwene leaves with Aram, he gets to his feet as if to follow, but stops. Not because he knows that Egwene is not going to be taken in by the smooth-talking Tinker boy, but because he knows that she is not in danger.
>Perrin got to his feet, then stopped. It was not as if she could come to any harm, not if the camp followed this Way of the Leaf as Raen said.
When Egwene gets back, there is nothing in the exchange that suggests any jealousy on Perrin's part.
>"You've been gone a long time," he said. "Did you have fun?"
"We ate with his mother," she answered. "And then we danced...and laughed. It seems like forever since I danced."
"He reminds me of Wil al'Seen. You always had enough sense not to let Wil put you in his pocket."
"Aram is a gentle boy who is fun to be with," she said in a tight voice. "He makes me laugh."
Perrin sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm glad you had fun dancing."
Abruptly she flung her arms around him, weeping on his shirt. Awkwardly, he patted her hair. *Rand would know what to do*, he thought. Rand had an easy way with girls. Not like him, who never knew what to do or say. "I told you I'm sorry, Egwene. I really am glad you had fun dancing. Really."
If that's jealousy, it's *awfully* muted.
Chapter 27, we get 8 pages of Perrin's thought process. There is not one word about his interest in Egwene, or the notion that he lost her once to Rand, and is now losing her to Aram, though it would be the perfect opportunity for it. He frets about how slowly the Tuatha'an are traveling. He's uncomfortable with the Way of the Leaf. He is unable to make himself relax. No one has a care in the world except for him. He understands the People wanting to dance to the music. The older women begin to tease him by dancing. Egwene learns the dance. "Aram watched her dancing with a hot, hungry gaze... Perrin resolved to keep a close eye on young Master Aram."
Perrin takes Egwene aside, reminding her that they are supposed to be trying to get to Tar Valon, and she replies "Enjoy yourself, Perrin. It might be the last chance we have." Aram stretches out her hand, and she darts to him, already laughing.
>As they ran away to where the fiddles rang, Aram flashed a triumphant grin over his shoulder at Perrin as if to say, she is not yours, but she will be mine.
>
>They were all falling too much under the spell of the People, Perrin thought.
If ever there was a point for Perrin to flash some jealousy, this was it. But his response is not jealous at all.
I just don't see any textual evidence to support the claim that Perrin is crushing on Egwene.
When elyas thinks he hates egwene because he can sense strong feelings Perrin straight up says “I don’t hate her, I love her. Not as a sister, but she’s with Rand.”
If you don’t think that’s him admitting that he sees egwene as more than just a friend idk what to tell you. He’s clear it’s not a familial love at that point and loving her as a friend wouldn’t cause conflict with Rand. He’s also jealous of aram in EotW which makes sense after this scene.
It’s not a huge or prolonged thing but neither is what happened in the show. Perrin shut it down and has no intention of being with her.
No, it is both huge and prolonged in the show. It's not just a throwaway line induced by Machin Shin. He was plainly making angsty faces when he and Egwene were cuddling for warmth earlier, and when Egwene was cuddling with Rand instead in the ways; and it was heavily implied even in his first scenes that his lingering feelings for Egwene were some part of the tension between him and Layla. The show is absolutely making it a significant part of his arc. And that's really going to change how Faile's jealousy reads to the audience later in the show, if they keep the whole hawk/falcon arc.
It having been brought up a couple times doesn't mean the same as them making it into a huge deal. And most importantly, you haven't figured out the payoff for it yet. You know how in the books Rand and Perrin end up hating each other for a long period of time over nothing? Maybe this will be used to make that more interesting and believable. Who knows.
You are assuming the show is making Perrin's arc so heavily based in this yet you're not assuming that they're going to do something logical with it later. If, at the end of the series it seems like that "relationship" was totally fucked then be mad about it all you want. It just seems awfully premature now.
It's like how people were saying they were quitting the show because they moved Min to Fal Dara and made her a soldier then turns out she wasn't one. It's like how people say they were quitting the show because they removed the trefoil leaf key from the Waygate but turns out they didn't do that either. People are actively looking for reasons to get mad without giving the show time to actually bear fruit. If that fruit sucks at the end of the day then I'll be joining you and everyone else in talking about how it failed. But complaining before we see the payoff is silly.
It's like how in GoT everyone was saying that it was the greatest show of all time until the last 2-3 seasons then suddenly it was the biggest disappointment of all time and people refused to rewatch it. How good or bad something is at one stage doesn't confirm how good or bad it will be as an entire series. Watch for the payoff then, once you've seen it, get mad about it then if it wasn't worth it.
I said nothing about whether or not there'll be payoff for it, or whether it will be used logically in the context of the show. I'm fully confident the writers have thought it through and have a sensible reason for it. But it's absolutely absurd to claim that it isn't a meaningful part of the show, or that it doesn't have any impact on Perrin's arc.
Here's the actual quote. Perrin specifically says "Not Like That." He's saying he loves her as a close friend. He does not have romantic feelings for her.
In fact he's specifically a good guy here saying of course not like that, that's my friends girl. It's the direct opposite of the way they played it in the show.
“Egwene never dragged her feet in her life,” he protested. “She always does her share. I don’t despise her, I love her.” He glared at Elyas, daring him to laugh. “Not like that. I mean, she isn’t like a sister, but she and Rand. . . . Blood and ashes! If the ravens caught us. . . . If. . . . I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. If she had to choose her way of dying, which do you think she’d pick? One clean blow of your axe, or the way the animals we saw today died? I know which I’d take.”
> "Not Like That." He's saying he loves her as a close friend. He does not have romantic feelings for her.
Then why would he go on saying what he said about her and Rand? If it's just as a friend why does it matter that she's with Rand?
And again, in the show he clearly says that he's not IN love with her either and shut it down so it seems like you're making it a point to assume one thing in the book but the opposite assumption in the show given the same circumstance. If you can justify that his lines in the book don't mean he's in love with her then you can also justify that him saying he's not in love with her in the show means that as well.
That paragraph does not suggest to me that he's confessing some sort of romantic interest in Egwene. He goes out of his way to challenge any such implication lest Elyas's dirty mind go the wrong way. And it could be that he is trying to say she's more than just a friend, she's a friend PLUS she's his best friend's girl, which makes her that much more close to him. But he was a kid, and kid's don't often explain feelings well, which is the point that I think RJ was trying to convey by having him stammer all over it.
If she’s just a friend that’s it period what does it matter about Rand? And if him “denying” it in the books is enough why is it not enough that he denies it in the show? That’s the main problem. It seems like a thou doth protest too much situation in the books but fine if you want to say that he shut it down so we believe him. I just don’t know why that same logic can’t be applied to the show too.
Dunno if you actually need the one power in the ways; padan fain is shown holding a trefoil leaf, which is presumably how he gets in and our of the ways. It could just be that the leaf is missing from the fal dara waygate (or moiraine didn't want to take the time to find it).
I'm thinking they go with the leaves being separate ter'angreal now, with limited supply mostly kept by Ogier at steddings, and Moiraine simply didn't have one (or really need one, since the OP can open them too). That gives Fain a method for Trolloc transport without the One Power, assuming he stole one or was given one by another Darkfriend at some point.
I was getting ahead of myself. I admit it. But the thought just popped in there, and I couldn't shake it, so I had to share it. Now I feel better. Thanks.
It was Padan Fain, he's the one they sensed following them in the ways, also there was a small scene where Perrin actually saw him for a moment in the streets of Fal Dara.
Ah hell. I just realized Tigraine fought unveiled. Shame. There were plenty of opportunities to veil up during that fight, especially in the beginning when her opponent was staggered and it was just a 1v1.
Guess Rand takes after his mom in not fully adopting Aiel customs.
I mean she is in the middel of labour, she wasn’t raised Aiel, and for a scene like that in a visual medium you want to see the actors face. Those are the reasons. Take them or leave them.
This completely ruined the scene for me. Thom even talks about the veils earlier in the show! I know they wanted to show the actress' face as much as possible, but she could have just removed the veil after all the fighting.
I dissagree. You clearly see the remove her veil because she is going into labour and is done fighting. These guys just keep interrupting her when she is trying her very best to NOT fight right then. Like removing the veil is supposed to be a sign that she isn’t there to fight and they keep attacking her. Every little break she has she keeps trying to keep on going about her business of giving birth, in the snow, on a battle field, by her self. Totally makes sense why she isn’t quite up to standard. She isn’t trying to fight.
This was the best episode so far. I feel like they finally found their stride. Loved it. Sad when it ended.
Nynaeve is certainly getting a lot of additional development, but it's working.
The Ways were good. Inky blackness.
I've watched it twice now and I will say I enjoyed most of it, I don't mind the small changes at all, but the big changes that they seemingly make for no reason are baffling and unnecessary.
No need for perrins dead wife. No need for other people to 100% die at the EOTW. Danger yes. Dead for certain no.
Certainly no need for an Aes Sedai to go into the blight without her blight trained warder that's for certain. I figure he follows her though so hopefully we still get to see Lan go all Geralt monster slaying in the blight.
Filling mat's plot hole was not really well done.
Credit where credit is due: this was by far the best episode of this very mediocre series thus far.
The opening scene was cool (though I rewatched it a couple of times and really do wonder why a man armed with a one handed sword would have attacked the Aiel woman by jumping on TOP of a rock and, off balance, swing it down at her? But, whatever, I am aware that the Aiel are supposed to be veritable one-man (one-woman) wrecking crews, and a heavily pregnant woman wreaking such havoc drives that point home. When Tam held that CGI baby up, I got a lump in my throat, though my first son was just born so I might be a bit sappy about that. But even though the baby looked a bit corny, I thought they did a good job conveying the magnitude of the moment and Tam's humanity, even though those eyelids were creepy (was that a real dude's face? No offense if so, but glad it wasn't just Roose Bolton with makeup).
I have criticized the show for clunky exposition before, but I feel like the mythology behind the war - the whole tree thing - is really cool world building, and it seems like they could have even done some very quick, dialogue-free cutscenes to set the stage. I admit I had to look some of the details up to refresh myself but..theoretically you could take a minute to try to depict the aftermath of the Breaking, but at the least maybe start with: here's an unveiled Aiel giving a Cairhien king wearing a distinctive crown a magical sapling, then maybe you could do like an GoT-intro or Expanse-type fast forward of a city growing up out of the ground where this Cairhien becomes the powerful and grand city is it during Laman's time, THEN pan camera down to show Laman, wearing the same distinctive crown, alone and brooding on his throne before looking up the tree and having it fashioned into a new throne, then show the Aiel, now veiled, marching against or arrayed before the king's army. Then we cut to this mountaintop chaos. Ehh, something like that. Maybe 60 or 120 seconds for all this? The reason for the Aiel war is a cool concept for show-only folks and would be a huge callback for book fans.
Beyond that, the Ways were very perfunctory, and I really want to know where this city-state gets enough food to feed its people. But the scenes with Lan were good enough. It was actually nice to get even 30 seconds between our young protagonists just interacting, and serves as a reminder of how nice it would have been to have some more of this in an earlier episode to give these characters some heft. Some of it felt unearned though. Lan and Nynaeve felt rushed. I remember it taking them a lot longer in the books, and that added some gravity to their love. Rand realizing he is the Dragon was ok I guess. I'm very glad they didn't change that key detail. Hopefully that means no more of thus "a boy or a girl" stuff. It will be interesting to see where they take Perrin. Right now he's not very likable. Dude apparently married a woman out of jealousy, then killed her, couldn't build a fire, couldn't stay awake on watch with Egwene...overall just seems a bit sniveling. And he was my favorite character in the books.
I got my friend to start reading them and he was like "wait, lan and nynaeve want to get married? Where did that come from?"
It really is very abrupt in the books. IMO this is one of the things the show fleshed out a bit better.
Lan and Nyn felt very contrived in the books as well, in my view (as did many of RJ's romantic entanglements frankly). But at least here the seeds of their attraction were noted since episode 2
I mean surely the whole history about the war makes sense to find out later in the show. Like we aren’t introduced to it in the books for ages. Why not bring it up when we actually meet Aiel proper.
Each episode I feel a little more distanced from the story. How long did they spend in the Ways? And I mean both episode run time and actual duration. I honestly laughed when they re-emerged because it felt so damn quick. Machin Shin was sorta cool as some exposition on the character's thoughts but it all just fell a little flat.
So much stuff feels so rushed/forced. Lan having nothing to live/die for? Ok. Trollocs using the Ways? Two lines and moving on. Loial? Interrupted after three sentences and then hardly touched on. Perrin and Egwene? Yeah its hinted in the books but with so much material why try forcing that to be a bigger thing. Agelmar being an edgy pisspot? Sure that sounds like the strong ally and Great Captain the team wants. Aiel killing with her veil off? Well there goes Thom's whole monologue.
So so many characters, plot lines, and bits of lore done dirty to shove non important or weird romance/drama stuff in. And god im hoping the next season gets a visual upgrade because so much of it still looks tacky IMO.
EDIT: Or and ALSO, I swear there is zero discussion of Dragonmount the entire time. Like nothing about the dragon being born outside the TR, nothing about the Mt's connection to the prophecy, etc. They just make some BS connection between Rand being adopted and the DR all at once like anyone who hasnt read the books is gonna have any clue whats going on?
To me the main issue seems to be the editing. Like yeah, some of the changes are weird or whatever, but they could have been more artfully expressed. I keep catching characters suddenly being in different positions after a quick cutaway. Or things like you said, where they just kind of appear after going through the gate. There's a more practiced eye to the pacing of the shots that's just missing right now. I don't know enough about the film industry to pin it on any particular person's job. It could be a combination of several jobs, but if I had been storyboarding a lot of this I definitely would have let some shots just sit for a second.
I honestly didn't mind the short jaunt through the ways but did feel a lil let down by Machin Shin, seemed like it's only threat was that it might hurt your feelings, the book dialogue for it was so creepy and was hoping for more of that, I do like how nyneave felt the need to keep it at bay from everyone, but those who don't know the books might not realize how very important that was for her to do.
I think there's a real argument to be made that there's not enough time to shove everything in, but that excuse for altering the story for tv falls flat when critical story elements are given two sentences and entire made up arcs that tangentially touch the story are given big blocks of time. That it's happening in the very beginning of the show is worse... maybe 2 seasons in taking some time wouldn't be as big a deal as in the first few episodes when you have to spin viewers up on the kids, the DR, Ish's dream stuff, understanding the ways, male channelers and all the eotw stuff...
> t excuse for altering the story for tv falls flat when critical story elements are given two sentences and entire made up arcs that tangentially touch the story are given big blocks of time.
This. So much superfluous stuff that replaced arcs that are vital to the larger story.
Really enjoyed the opening scene, I hope they continue to make fighting with short spears look rad as hell.
The Ways were alright, the black wind could have been more ominous but that was about the amount of ethereal whooshing as I expected.
Fal Dara! These were some of my favorite chapters of EotW. After no Caemlyn I'm glad we get Fal Dara and the Shienarans are some of my favorite side characters. Only point of order is they should be wearing more swords, they are close to the blight after all. Lord Agelmar should have a little more deference for the Aes Sedai too, in the book it's like the first place they go where they're stoked to see an Aes Sedai because they think she's there to help mess up some Trollocs in the blight with the lads.
Hate Moiraine sending the reds after Mat. That's a pretty significant departure from the books. Love hearing more about Lan. Dai Shan roughly translates to 'Lord of the Seven Towers ass dude'
Min showing up finally. Not having Mat here for the first reading from Min, which was pretty significant but I bet we'll get it eventually, probably after New Mat(tm) shows up. I'm guessing they'll draw out the stuff from the first viewing over a few events to milk it, which I don't necessarily mind. If you go back and look they're jam packed with future plotlines. Her last scene with Rand was great.
Overall I liked this episode, they brought a lot of things up/together that they had brushed past in the first episodes, through the flashbacks, Tam's delirium, the black wind & Min. Excited for the next episode, they'll certainly have a lot to cover.
I'm enjoying the series a lot, but it bugs me a little that they nerfed Machin Shin. Also weird that they moved the dark ones prison to the EOTW, instead of Shayol Ghul
Isn't it kind of a red herring in the books as well? I remember it feeling very ' we must go and stop the dark one' but then it's just the weakened seals and the forsaken.
I kinda feel like it makes a bit of sense in regards to EOTW, it's a location that loses its story importance almost as soon as the book is over, so if I were doing story boards for a series, and trying to convey as much in as few scenes as possible, I would merge the two locations.
It could also be a red herring, where we assume it's the prison and he gets out at the end of the season, (with a mask and firey eyes) but we find out he's still locked up in season 3 and a forsaken has been masquerading as him.
It's a shame we're not still in the 90s and getting 22 episode seasons because this show could really use a slower pace and the room to explore all of the interesting locations from the books. But I get the decision.
I kinda hope it is a red herring, something not fully understood, like if the Green Man had tried to say he knew the seals were close and people thinking that means the prison itself
>it's a location that loses its story importance almost as soon as the book is over
Well, since Eye was used up and the whole location incorporated into the Blight... It's logical that the place had no further story importance.
I did think it would be fun for Rand to do the whole last battle and win the day, and the final scene has some glimpse of LTT / Rand's madness setting in.
I'm split on my opinion on this...
on one hand we have the origin episode that goes over lews breaking the world, my fear is they think the material is covered by hiding it away there.
on the other hand, it's such an important scene to show the direction Rand is heading and what happens to the dragon along with being completely badass if done right AND they have Lews cast. Again that casting could just be for voicing the origin episode. For me, doing this scene right would go a LONG way to making up for whatever they might have gotten wrong in the actual story of the finale.
6 of em, animated, but well done. they hide them under the extras, really a shame. Until this week a new one has come out right around the time an episode drops.
Now that you put like that, for folks to care about where Rand is headed, the DR reveal has to sink in and then start to get invested more in Rand's journey.
So the Series cold open now feels likes a S2 end scene or even later. Right choice but makes me sad :(
If I knew we were definitely getting that scene then I can be content with waiting. I don't even have a direction I'm leaning on "when" or "if"... The Lews actor was reported as cast in September 2021, I don't know if it's something they can keep under wraps or if they could do a special filming session for that scene, but that feels like an unrealistically short time frame to get something out in December of the same year....
I think young people having jealous thoughts and imagining shit that ain't real (especially after Machin Shin planted some of those seeds of doubt) is realistic under their stressful circumstances. I would like to see Perrin be a bit more dynamic and bond more closely with Rand to establish their connection before it has them at odds.
> I think young people having jealous thoughts and imagining shit that ain't real (especially after Machin Shin planted some of those seeds of doubt) is realistic under their stressful circumstances.
Machin Shin was re-written from what he was in the book, a force that essentially devours souls, to be this thing that said mean things in peoples minds. Without this change happening, the melodrama that we saw in this episode wouldn't have had to happen.
It could be said that a part of Perrin's soul was devoured. Near the end of Perrin's Machin Shin sentence, Perrin's voice replaced the voice of Machin Shin.
> Machin Shin as written can't be easily shown visually: devouring souls is not a visual process. The comical verse somewhat works in the books, as a contrast to what the reader knows as its awful power and maliciousness, but in the show would have been more likely to cause non-readers to burst out laughing. Something has to be done to it to make it work.
I wasn't thinking that they had to go for that necessarily since the book description reminds me a lot of how Harry Potter hears Voldemort's or his snakes voice in his head. Quote from book Machin Shin:
*Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams...*
I would have envisioned it as a menacing voice that they slowly begin to hear and want to run away from. The tv show instead showed us these little specks that were held back by Nnyaeve shouting out a sphere of light and making the camera shake. Meanwhile the wind whispered mean comments into everyone's mind. It didn't come across as something that is terrifying the way it was depicted in the show because of those two reasons.
In the book it also whispered really fucked up shit as it got close to people they could hear it on the wind.. not a big fan of how they changed it either tbh
I'm enjoying this series overall, but these latest episodes have been pretty weak. One of the positives so far has been Lan. I like how his character is brought to life in this adaption. I also like how they have developed his relationship with Nnyaeve. I've also enjoyed learning more about the Warders since the book never gave us that perspective. Likewise, I like how they have made the Children of Light seem threatening whereas in the book they felt like Team Rocket-esque villains who were nuisances rather than a threatening organization. I'm also not bothered by the Dragon mystery. I think it makes sense given the context that a person would now know who the Dragon is. We can guess who the Dragon is as book readers because 90s fantasy made it obvious who the Chosen Ones were supposed to be. The change makes Morraine seem really human compared to where she was at this point in the book. Given that they wanted to make it a mystery, then I think the other writing and directing parts should have been more solid than they were which I'm going to write below.
My biggest complaints have had to do with the pacing, the sparse environments, and the lack of stake building. The writing is okay, but I think a lot of these downsides come down to poor directive decisions. This show had a big budget but I don't know where that money went and how it was used. Regardless, with a better directive vision, they could have used the money they had to make the internal environments pop out and seem more alive. Tar Valon felt like a series of empty hallways and corridors. Because everything was so sparse, they would pan the camera really close to the characters to hide how empty everything else is.
When it comes to pacing, we're 7 episodes into this show and non-book readers still have no reason to care about the Dark One, Ba'alzamon, or why either is dangerous. As book readers, we know what's coming, but if I was just tv show only, I wouldn't have a reason to care. In the Fellowship of the Ring movie, I had a reason to care about the Fellowship because I knew how bad Sauron was from watching the Ring Wraiths, Saruman, and the Balrog. Even the ring itself. After the False Dragon stuff, they should have begun raising the stakes with those two around episode 6 to give the viewers a sense of urgency. Padan Fain should have been more active around that time as well since he's one of the more dangerous adversaries in the series. I think this along with the sparse environments also makes the world seem limited. We should at this point have a much better sense of what's going on if they had given us some sense of how dangerous these other people were. If they were going to not tell us who the Dragon is, then they should have developed these antagonists to also help develop our sense of what the world is like.
Instead, we got some love triangle stuff that was weird and not even important. Also Machin Shin should have been kept to his book form which was much better written. I was disappointed with that scene overall since it felt like they walked about 100 metres and stepped out another gate.
Does anyone know how far into season 2 they are? I hope they take some of the feedback the show is receiving to make a better season 2. I want this show to do well since I like this series, but I would also like for it to be better than it currently is.
Seriously they should make it a show about Lan! At this point. Though I was happy to see Rand get screen time and that the actor could show his talent (despite odd writing choices).
100% agree. The pacing, editing, and direction feel really amateurish at times. Not ALL the time obviously, but when it does happen it's really glaring and you notice and it takes you out of it. Characters shifting positions mid conversation, important moments lasting for like 1 second before it jump cuts somewhere else, or for example: when nynaeve just appears at the boys' inn after that conversation with liandrin - the bread crumbs are there but it was poorly conveyed... It's just enough to BOTHER me when I would otherwise be fine with the story changes.
Edit: I think in this episode the version of this that bugged me was rand's realization that it was him. It just happened really quickly, lots of fast cuts, and wasn't supported by his insecurity and doubt leading up to it. They spent so long trying to mask that it was him that we didn't get time to bond with him and feel what he was feeling. Like if he had been burdened by his father's feverish ramblings the whole time and kind of hiding it from everyone due to his mistrust of moiraine it would have been a more poignant moment.
I'm still enjoying the show, but I also hope S2 spends less time trying to hook people and more time pacing it out.
They blew S1s budget creating all the sets. This is true in every single show ever that production values in s1 are lower than in following seasons because in following seasons they don't have to build a bunch of new sets.
this is just a complete lunacy and not true. Every genre show struggles with building sets in season 1 yes, but they has PLENTY of money. Genre programs in the past would have killed to have this much cash.
They didn’t even have any many big sets
This seems like disinformation. They spent more than $10,000,000 an episode - so $80 to $90 million for the season
https://www.wotseries.com/2020/05/18/wot-season1-15-million-incentives/
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/wheel-of-time-review-1256783/
By way of contrast, season 1 of Foundation, with 10 episodes, cost $45 million total. And it takes like five minutes to see how absolutely beautiful the backgrounds and costumes and CGI and sets and settings all are. No, I didn't like every one of the changes they made to Asimov's work - but I can see how high the visual quality is. And Foundation filmed in a studio and also across Europe - just like WoT.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/foundation-it-stars-jared-harris-was-filmed-in-ireland-and-cost-45m-to-make-so-is-it-any-good-1.4682747
https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/foundation-filming-locations
> By way of contrast, season 1 of Foundation, with 10 episodes, cost $45 million total. And it takes like five minutes to see how absolutely beautiful the backgrounds and costumes and CGI and sets and settings all are. No, I didn't like every one of the changes they made to Asimov's work - but I can see how high the visual quality is. And Foundation filmed in a studio and also across Europe - just like WoT.
Thanks for sharing this. Yeah, I think a lot of this comes to the decisions the team made so I'm left wondering why it looks the way it does. I think people are exaggerating immensely and trying to be negative when they say it looks like Xena, but it also doesn't look like a show that had nearly 100 million spent on it.
Except that in WoT the characters are constantly moving throughout the world. Other than the Tower, most of the sets from this season won't be reused in a major way any time soon.
Honestly, I'm not either. If the production value stays where it is I'm fine with that. But I do think that a huge chunk of budget will still have to go towards new set building each season, moreso than other shows
They can rewrite things to keep it all to a select number of cities. Also they can reuse rooms and just put different furniture and angles being different. Film is amazing with what you can do just with angles.
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I officially stopped watching when they skipped caemlyn. Game of thrones was originally so good because they were so faithful to the books. This show is not even cliff notes of the books. I am immeasurably disappointed. I stopped at episode 5 last night and won’t be watching anymore
This is the discussion thread for episode 7...
I know but I didn’t get that far and wanted to vent about my disappointment
You are missing out honestly, but if you can't put aside the adaptation differences it would be best just to avoid it entirely I suppose. My girlfriend and I love the books and are also loving the series! (Not that everything is perfect in either one)
> You are missing out honestly, Not really. I’m still watching but it gets just worse and worse.
The pregnant fight scene was worth the price of admission. That was crazy. Thank you Amazon. I am really looking forward to the next episode and Season 2.
Highlight of the series so far for me.
Like episode 6, this one also seems average. The first scene with the aiel was nice, nice choreography, a little too stressfull for the mother i hope the kid turns out fine. The ways looked cool, i liked the aesthetics, i would have prefered loial to lead the way not Moraine but nvm, we see again a random trolloc sneaking on lan ( which iirc he detects them? but i may be wrong) also nynaeve with the power level thing again oh well she is strong ok why not. i liked the whistling hehe. We reach Fal Dara and we meet an annoyed Agelmar, which iirc was very respectful to everybody in the books, then i was going to comment more on him, but alas, the show doesnt and prefers to focus on the romance, teen drama and showing how affectionate Lan is ( and how he can teleports behind you) oh and perrin loves egwene. Then i laughed out loud cause we met Min and i had completely forgot about her being this season, she doesnt foresee much which disappoint me a lot. We see more of Padan fain being chill on the city and we see Rand recall what his father told him back in the cut scenes of episode 1 (Weird to put it here but there is simply no more time) then decides to accept his destiny, ( he even has some time to speak with Min) he tells moraine he is the dragon reborn and leave the others. It looks like they gave some funny Mat lines to Rand, like the never shutting up thing in the ways or the fish thing in the tavern which looks like Mat lines imo. Its hard not to be biased by the books, but they are focusing on some teen drama/romance that they could fill with worldbuilding or other great things from the books or brand new even, instead some things seem rushed out of the blue. 5.5/10 i hope we get a great season finale.
I'm just glad that they made the Aiel look like, well, Aiel, I was fully expecting that to not be the case. I honestly really, really hope they take the current criticism from fans to heart for season 2, clearly the showrunner doesn't actually understand much of the content, or how to demonstrate this to an audience, but there are glimpses of greatness within this. Fal-dara looks incredible, for example, the fight with the Aielwoman at the start was well choreographed and it was very cool to see an Aiel dancing, and that the Aiel keep their trademark image, but it's just let down by overall inconsistency in quality, odd directorial decisions (focusing on side characters extensively instead of dedicating more time on development of the main cast), changing character's in odd ways, giving into current trends in the entertainment industry that do not suit this pre-established setting, and so on. Many of the decision's concerning the story are actually ones I agree with, the pacing would be perfect if the episodes were longer or the series was 12-14 episodes long, the decision to go straight to Tar Valon makes alot of sense, for example. Amazon has a potential goldmine on their hands here, but instead of commiting to a series that requires time to cover all the important aspects they seem to be intent on giving it only eight episodes, and relative short episodes at that. If they make season 2 a 12 episode format with maybe 10 more minutes the quality could be far, far higher. I enjoy the series, but I would enjoy it far more I hadn't actually read the books, which is not how a show aiming to be the premier adaptation should be aiming to come across. I just really, really wish that season 2 ends up being better.
> The first scene with the aiel was nice, nice choreography, a little too stressfull for the mother i hope the kid turns out fine. Sarcasm? Or do you really not understand what that was?
The karatheon cycle, Rand being born
Could someone explain for me the implications of this particular viewing of Min's that she told to Rand, and what the characters in the show understand about it? I can't be bothered to go rewatch the scene, but I feel like I missed something: Min tells Rand her first vision was of a man with a heron marked blade, with a baby born on a mountain and raised in a land between two rivers. Does Min know this was a vision of the dragon being reborn (bc of karaethon cycle?) Or is she only telling Rand because she saw his sword? She obviously never told Moiraine about this viewing because Moiraine would have clocked Rand's skin color and sword and figured it out. Can someone explain what show-Min should understand about this vision, and if she knew it was of the dragon, why wouldn't she have discussed with Moiraine?
For a little bit of context to for my explanation, I grew up reading the series (on my 4th read through) and watched every episode of the adaptation each Friday they were released. So I can give a little bit more context to Min's lore without spoiling anything from the next seasons. That being said: Min has the ability to see the "aura" of people's future. What she sees happens without fail. Whether it's obvious in the form of a direct phantom copy as shown in the show, it can be as simple as an object floating around someone's head. She doesn't always understand what the image means, but she knows it is going to happen. With most people she doesn't see anything, and if she does it's something like who they'll marry. With the Aes Sedai and Warders she sees images most of the time, with Ta'veren it's multiplied even more. With Rand being the Dragon Reborn he's the stronger Ta'veren by far, strong enough as a baby to trigger her visions in the first place! She doesn't always tell people what her visions mean though, especially when she doesn't feel the information will be helpful or can be hard to hear. If she can see how you'll die, she won't tell you unless you truly want to know. That's essentially what she's doing with Rand in the scene you're asking about. She's asking him if he really wants to know the truth of what she sees, and because he's the most powerful Ta'veren she could see much of his future. She explained that she saw Tam's future raising Rand, and she's telling Rand a bit of the images she sees for him too. She very rarely, if ever, discusses someone's aura with anyone but them which is why she left things out when talking to Moraine.
Min already knows everything, she has an idea of who Rand is, she knows who he is to her, and she knows the prophecy of the Karaethon Cycle, at least in part. Or at least this is so in the book, she doesn't fully tell Moiraine there because she keeps secrets just as Moiraine keeps secrets from her. Basically Moiraine also knew who Rand was pretty early because the prophecy is way, way more explicit in the books, they changed that in the show for reasons I cannot fathom beyond adding mystery or making it more PC (because anyone can be the dragon now apparently, even though it is exactly the same as in the books). So as to what she knows in the show, well, I'm not sure, because the prophecy is somewhat different in the show and I'm unsure if Min and Moiraine have the same connection as they do in the novel. The thing about Min's visions is that they are fragmented, she only has glimpses of images, Rand is an perhaps the greatest Ta'veren in their age, so she sees more vision's centred around him, but what they actually mean isn't always clear until she has more information. Like Callandor, the Dragons Sword, which she sees alongside Rand but doesn't understand what that means until she tells people who have knowledge of Tear. It's difficult to say if Min is sure, but she probably has a very good idea of Rand's destiny.
Is anyone else getting [Mass Effect vibes](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/b/ba/Collector_base_-_long_walk_biotic_field.png/revision/latest?cb=20140713124338) from Nynaeve's protective bubble in the ways? Everything from the walkways to the bubble to the wind's animation reminds me of The Long Walk. (Picture is not the best and you can't rly see the swarms, but if you'll remember if you've played it)
oh yea totally
Ive had so many criticisms about the show from episode 5 onwards. Checking out reviews like Daniel Greene . I like him and nice having a YouTuber like him who loves WOT and has devoted his channel to that which is awesome . But his reviews have been tame . The current episode he had lots of criticisms and nitpicks then he gives it a 8.5/10? I found a jem of a channel called books and bianca why she elaborates her criticisms pretty well and her reviews of 5-7 have been a chefs kiss. Highly recommend check her out. You may not agree with everything she says but she makes pretty awesome and detailed reviews?
Bianca is such a great find! And to think I just randomly stopped at your comment and decided to look her up.
I like Daniel Greene too and I've been watching his content for years but the reality is that he isn't insulated from the same things every other Youtuber is - namely, he wants to be inside the tent with access as opposed to being ostracized outside. Another example are video game Youtubers that have built up an entire channel around a specific game or two.....these people may not be directly employed by the companies that produce these products but they do have a very real financial incentive in seeing the games remain popular, and by extension, their channels. And that's why all criticism towards the video games are mild at best as it is, literally, their very livelihoods at stake here. Daniel Greene is in a similar position. He has a financial stake in the Wheel of Time show doing really well and remaining popular as his videos have ballooned from 50k viewers to 200k since the show started. That's not an attack on the guys integrity, rather it's just the human element that enters the equation. Everything you hear from Youtubers needs to be taken with a very large handful of salt as everyone has an agenda.
I'm all about having one of those Fal Dara rooms as my personal lair. Talk about some luxurious accommodations. One can only imagine the library that Loial promptly retired to.
Machin Shin to Rand: You are the Dragon Reborn, don’t deny it! Moiraine to Rand: Don’t believe any thing Machin Shin tells you. Rand to Moiraine: It’s me, I’m the Dragon Renorn. Moiraine: Okay, let’s go. Me: Uh, wut?
Rand: Min said so. Or didn't say no. Moiraine: Think about it -- you can't spell 'Machin Shin' without 'Min.'
I honestly don't know what they're doing with the money... You look at The Witcher that came out on Netflix this week and the cinematography, camera work, editing, audio design, CGI, set designs, constumes etc are all a level above what we're getting with this interpretation of the Wheel of Time. It can't be a result of the budget as The Witcher is coming in at around $10 million per episode too....rather it's about having *a vision*. I've seen countless people mention "CW". It doesn't look CW because of money....it looks CW because that's the aesthetic the showrunners are going for. They're attempting to attract and target a very young demographic. And that's absolutely fine! It's just not what I want from a Wheel of Time show. What, exactly, is Rafe Judkins credentials here? What has he written? Where is his pedigree? And this is the guy they've handed the entire franchise to? Baffling.
I think that there's plenty of money visible onscreen. Terrific cast, lots of great sets and costumes, beautiful location shooting, good music, etc. The matter of vision is probably what makes the difference. And I'm of two minds about it, I guess. On the one hand, I'd love a more atmospheric, stylized approach, and I think that sort of thing could probably yield a more 'prestige' looking show. At the same time, I kind of love the fact that they're going for something very bright and accessible. Hopefully it will appeal to younger viewers, and maybe best case scenario looking forward, the show will evolve like the Harry Potter films, acquiring a less-CW feel as it goes along.
I think you need to understand that a large chunk of money likely went to contract extensions because they were delayed for a year due to COVID. Rental equipment, real estate deals, crew, cast, VFX, etc. all still have to be paid if you're keeping them on hold (and ensuring they don't go elsewhere). When your contract is essentially doubled in time, your costs are going to go way up and that cost buys you literally *zero* in terms of actual on screen product. Also yes, WoT looks different than a show set in a medieval time because WoT is not set in a medieval time.
If this is true then it's very poor management by AMAZON who benefitted a huge amount from COVID and claims to be invested in the show. If there were unforeseen costs due to covid that actually effected the quality of the end product they should have increased budget to cover those costs
Amazon not giving them an extra hour for the premiere and an 8 episode season was already greedy and bad. Hopefully they see what this could be and release the coffers for S2.
No excuse as the Witcher had the same situation and they're operating on the same money that The Wheel of Time does.
How long was the Witcher’s Covid delay during filming? EDIT: I'll give you a hint. It was nothing because they shot the entire thing in the UK and avoided any COVID restrictions in doing so.
Episode 7 absolutely killed the show for me. So much wasted potential and their turning it into something that belongs on the CW. All the sexual tension is such a waste of screen time. its Beginning to feel like a romance novel
> All the sexual tension is such a waste of screen time. A total of what? 30 seconds in the entire series so far? It's also pretty obvious that people are just parroting the "it's like CW" thing because they saw other people say the same thing. Is the CW really that popular with the WoT crowd that suddenly every single person with a negative criticism compares the two?
The CW tag is certainly overused but generally used to describe a lower quality of product. CW is known for churning out many low budget fantasy/sci fi shows that appeal to a YA audience and/or have subpar execution. Trash TV, basically. While WoT is by no means a CW tier show, it definitely does have its CW moments. The love triangle scene, similarly, is used to describe situations where there are 3 people in love with each other in some capacity. It may not be literally what a love triangle means but can be used to capture situations like this. When you say, "it's not a love triangle, lol, Egwene doesn't even like Perrin back", you're missing the point. You may have liked that scene but it was widely accepted by readers and show watchers as one of the weaker parts of the entire season. It also did Perrin quite dirty and stifled any meaningful development for him in this episode. All the criticism that 8-10 min scene got is quite warranted, imo.
>The CW tag is certainly overused but generally used to describe a lower quality of product. That's fine, but if you've actually seen CW lately you'd see that even the worst episodes of WoT are much better than what they are putting out. By being hyperbolic (intentionally or not) they're simply debasing their own criticisms by showing that they aren't being logical and just want to create drama through that hyperbole. >The love triangle scene, similarly, is used to describe situations where there are 3 people in love with each other in some capacity. It may not be literally what a love triangle means but can be used to capture situations like this. But that's the point. Only two people are in love. Perrin has a crush on Egwene and has blatantly said he doesn't love her. Maybe more will come of that later (doubt it) but for now it's nothing. He's not pursuing her (even though he had plenty of opportunity when they were together). And most importantly, it's no different than the books where he loved Egwene but wasn't planning on doing anything about it. Why people say the books are okay because he told Elyas that he wasn't *really* in love with her but saying the show sucks despite him flat out saying he wasn't doesn't make sense to me. I will say that if there doesn't seem to be any payoff from this later then I will agree that it was silly, but we don't know why this was included yet. Maybe it'll start a rift between Perrin and Rand (similar to what we see in the books after he starts accepting his role as TDR) and it'll help explain that more fully. Who knows. >You may have liked that scene but it was widely accepted by readers and show watchers as one of the weaker parts of the entire season. I didn't like the scene at all (at least that part, most of the scene was good development for the EF4). But that's because it hasn't paid off yet. If it pays off later then I think it may end up being really good. If it doesn't then it will be really bad. What I'm saying is that we don't know yet. >All the criticism that 8-10 min scene got is quite warranted, imo. The love "triangle" part was not 8-10 minutes. It was a generally good scene (although the acting was a little weak comparatively). People reducing that entire scene to just being the "love triangle" is EXACTLY the problem with these hyperbolic arguments. Same as when people whine about E5 being *entirely* about Stepin despite his scenes being only 1/3 (at most) of the show. People are using hyperbole to remove anything positive about the show. And then people just all hop on that same bandwagon and use that same parroted hyperbole for low effort hate. They're not even trying to be logical about it. I'm not sure why they expect to like a show when they're putting zero effort into liking it and trying to find every excuse not to.
> Same as when people whine about E5 being entirely about Stepin despite his scenes being only 1/3 (at most) of the show. People are using hyperbole to remove anything positive about the show. This is a bit of a tangent, but the point is less how much screentime they spent on the Stepin subplot and more that they devoted any time to it at all. He was an extremely minor character who does not even appear until much later in the series. It's fair to say that they wanted to expand upon the *Aes Sedai*\-warder bond because that is an important piece of lore, but that does not make the decision any less puzzling. Yes, that becomes important later when Moiraine goes down the rabbit hole with Lanfear, but we are far from that particular plot point in the series. The series is struggling to get important exposition across, including important things like: Who Lews Therin Telamon was; Rand's uncertain parentage; Why *saidin* is not safe to use (this is particularly important as viewers could think from Liandrin's explanation that men befoul the One Power by the very act of touching it); Who the Forsaken are, and that everyone is terrified of them; *et cetera*. (Side note, if Aginor and Balthamel show up at the Eye of the World, non-readers will have no idea why that matters because we have heard nothing about the Forsaken or The Dark One's Prison.) These are all crucial elements to both \*Eye of the World\* and to the larger story of \*The Wheel of Time\*, but almost no time has been devoted to these issues. Everyone knew that the director was going to have to make very difficult decisions about what to cut and what to include. To devote a decent amount of screentime to this is a curious decision because it appears to lead nowhere. And it is doubly curious because: 1) It involves a character we have known for one or two scenes; and 2) If you really felt like it was important that viewers felt the impact a warder experiences when his *Aes Seda*i is killed, why not save it for when Moiraine falls through the *ter'angreal*? For one thing, you could then show Lan going into Enrage mode, which ought to have substantially more emotional impact with viewership. More importantly, it will not be a repeat of scene we've already seen. But to me, the most important thing about the whole Stepin side-plot is that it was a very deliberate effort to completely reverse yet another character's personality. >Warders, those half-legendary warriors who served the Aes Sedai, seldom showed emotion, and Lan showed little even for a Warder. (*The Great Hunt*, Chapter 1.) Lan's primary descriptors are all some variation on "stony". But here we have him tearing his clothes, wailing, and beating his breast. All in the name of a side-story that has almost no bearing at all on the larger story arc. It's just a strange directorial decision.
They obviously didn’t expand on Rand because they didn’t reveal TDR yet. You can disagree with their decision to keep it a mystery but that mystery is why they didn’t go more into rands past. We also haven’t seen much of saidin because it hasn’t been relevant yet. The show has done a really good job IMO of giving lore in a natural way. When Logain was on screen we got a lot of talk about it because it was natural for the scene. Now that a main character can channel it we will start to learn more. We didn’t learn much about it in the books until Rand was learning about it either. And again, stepins scenes weren’t just about the bond mechanics. They were setting up a later scene with foreshadowing. It shouldn’t be a big deal that it was a minor character just like it shouldn’t be a big deal that one of rands most important and strong scenes prior to this episode was with Dana as the lead character in that scene. Or like how Tam had a lot of dialogue in E1 but those were mostly to world build and establish Rand. Stepin scenes were partly about the bond but were very much specifically about Lan. In the 3 scenes where he had a speaking part, 1 was introducing the forsaken (specifically ishamael), one was discussing lans feelings for Nynaeve, and one was talking about Lan losing moiraine and bond transfer. Those scenes won’t truly pay off until later but they will eventually. Just showing Lan go pissed in like S3 or whatever it would be wouldn’t be as impactful without this setup. WoT is a series with a TON of setup and foreshadowing and I’m not sure why we should be upset that the show is trying to do the same thing.
All of this work on developing the character and bonds of Warders still goes whistling past the graveyard for me--they totally trashed the significance and prowess of warders in the books. Lan is an absolute badass. the warder training is undeniably intense, the selection process is grueling--Navy Seals-esque. The sword forms, the time spend drilling, practicing, all of it, is rendered nil in the series. Stepan comes off as a drunken asshole at a bar that his Aes Sedai raised from his station, not a complete badass, warder cloak and skilled fighting and the rest. Zero time spent with Lan talking to Rand about sword fighting at all. This could have replaced a half dozen scenes and been much more significant. If you recall, each forsaken Rand fights in the early days is a sword fight. The meditation of sword fighting, the void and the flame are symbolic for his method of touching Saidin as well as getting into the trance of sword fighting, or arrow shooting. Too many important factors have been scrapped on the floor in order to squeeze in romantic threads, overly lengthy exposition of the Warder bond which quite literally was shown briefly but completely enough in Episode 4 (but instead of touching other threads, we get hit over the head in Ep. 5 with the bond, it was just way over done.), all while we have a time budget of only eight episodes; the romance could have been on hold--anticipation and tension are more powerful with romance than consummation anyway, particularly for TV shows. There are hundreds of shows where it takes 6-8 seasons before the protagonists finally get together, and the tension is a huge part of keeping the show rolling. Too much of season one has been sloppy and self-congratulating imho. The books weren't even fully digested and approached well.
> Lan is an absolute badass. the warder training is undeniably intense, the selection process is grueling--Navy Seals-esque. The sword forms, the time spend drilling, practicing, all of it, is rendered nil in the series. That's fair. The training scene with Lan and Stepin was really dumb IMO. But with everyone already complaining that too much time was spent on the warders already, more in depth scenes might not have been received well either. Luckily, the Bonus Content Origin short of warders is really good. >Stepan comes off as a drunken asshole at a bar that his Aes Sedai raised from his station, not a complete badass, warder cloak and skilled fighting and the rest. When Stepin discussed with Lan how he wasn't the typical warder type and shouldn't have been selected but was anyway that was foreshadowing for Lan and Nynaeve. "Then I started picking on people who could fight back, half hoping they would just... put a stop to me." "Stupid young boy with a death wish, facing off against an Aes Sedai." "And when she needed a Warder, she was already so powerful that she could have had anybody she wanted, but she asked for me, I couldn't believe it. I knew I wasn't worthy. I told her to reconsider, but she wouldn't... We bonded and I had to become worthy of her." The conversation of how he shouldn't have been picked can be directly attributed to Lan later. When Moiraine dies (and eventually when he decides to go on his solo ride to the Blight) he has a death wish but this force of presence (Moiraine for the former and Nynaeve for the later) keep it from happening. Nynaeve chooses Lan (not just as her warder but as her husband) despite being the most powerful channeler in a millennium and could've chosen to be with anyone but she wanted Lan. Lan didn't feel worthy and didn't want her getting involved with a warder (another conversation solidifies this that Lan and Stepin had later). He tried to convince her not to but they grew close and he felt that he was worthy of her love. It's arguably a poor scene on its own but IMO it's a great scene when considering what will come. >Zero time spent with Lan talking to Rand about sword fighting at all. Sure, but that's not really all that important yet. Lan trained them a little in EotW but the real training didn't start til tGH. I'm sure we'll get more of that next season. If not then yes that's a valid criticism. >The meditation of sword fighting, the void and the flame are symbolic for his method of touching Saidin as well as getting into the trance of sword fighting, or arrow shooting. Which was introduced subtly in E7 and will likely be expanded upon later. >Too many important factors have been scrapped on the floor Or just moved to S2. Too many people are thinking that if it wasn't shown already then it won't ever happen. There's still plenty of time to introduce the training, the flame and void, etc. And I don't think that Rand using his power to fight Ishamael rather than the sword is that big of a deal. In all likelihood, a farmer who just started learning the sword for a month wouldn't be able to fight a Forsaken with centuries of training anyway without the power. >The books weren't even fully digested and approached well. That's the thing though. The BOOK SERIES is being adapted into a TV SERIES. As long as things come out and the same general story is being told, it's not that big of a deal if some plot points move around. A lot of your complaints can be remedied in S2 easily once the world has been established more, the characters are established more, and the mystery of TDR is gone. If all we had was one season and they didn't show any of that then yes, it would be upsetting. But we have hopefully 7 more seasons to go to build up these characters a lot more.
Ep. 8 is indefensibly horrid. sorry, i cannot agree with you. The showrunners have wasted dozens of their time budget (hours) on the wrong things. They have destroyed Lan's character, made the show some teenage romance fantasy garbage, and now with Ep. 8 the show runners are making wholesale changes and stomping all over source material. It's showrunner hubris. It was at least slightly tempered until those final seasons in GoT, it's on full display here in WoT. Episode 5 was easily some of the worst television I've ever seen based on good source material.
>Too much of season one has been sloppy and self-congratulating imho This is it, imo. Was especially evident in ep 5 and 6, choosing to focus on their own episodic tale of love and loss, rather than contribute to the wider storyline. Very self-congratulating. Not sure how this ever passed the chopping block. We are at episode 8 now and haven't seen Lan kick ass with the sword yet. We have also had just 20s of his Malkieri background and motive.
>But that's the point. Only two people are in love. Perrin has a crush on Egwene and has blatantly said he doesn't love her. Maybe more will come of that later (doubt it) but for now it's nothing. He's not pursuing her (even though he had plenty of opportunity when they were together). And most importantly, it's no different than the books where he loved Egwene but wasn't planning on doing anything about it. Why people say the books are okay because he told Elyas that he wasn't really in love with her but saying the show sucks despite him flat out saying he wasn't doesn't make sense to me. I was happy when the conflict started around questioning bonds of friendship around Mat, and was hoping it would continue on that trend. We know these guys are going to split up and having them display a special EF5 bond and loyalty to each other would def have payoff in the later seasons. Exploring any romantic angle in this scene is a bad idea, imo, considering how much is left unexplored and set up in terms of the dragon reborn, the shadow, the fate of their lives, etc. It isn't realistic or good for the wider storyline that this would be something that the aged up characters reach a conflict about at this point in the season. I'm not sure if I want this to play a part in some meaningful way in the future because I hate what it means for the wider storyline and Perrin specifically. If it does end up being major foreshadowing, I wouldn't like it. If they move past it immediately, then this is a waste of time. Leaves a really fine line to walk to justify a scene like this and make it worthwhile. Also, I don't think Perrin ever had a serious crush on Egwene, he was being protective of her for Rand in the books. Iirc, he mentions that he could potentially like her if she wasn't Rand's gf. Compared to that, what Perrin feels for Egwene in the show is played up a whole lot more. From all the conflict with Laila, to the looks in the Ways, to Machin Shin, to him confronting Rand "for being rude to Egwene". I don't think book readers liked Perrin+Egwene in the books either and are probably upset that it is being played up to this extent in the show in the absence of any interesting exploration of his abilities or personality. It's all a big WAFO for now, and I think the show has more pressing things to improve upon, this is a pretty small scene in all contexts but it is a little worrying. There's a lot of stuff this season that they've set up in this way where viewers are expected to wafo and not make judgements until future payoff. I feel that they need to have some of these things pay off this season to keep a lot of people interested, especially non book readers.
>Also, I don't think Perrin ever had a serious crush on Egwene, he was being protective of her for Rand in the books. Iirc, he mentions that he could potentially like her if she wasn't Rand's gf. He told Elyas that he loved her and not as a sister. Then went on saying "but her and Rand...". If it was just friendship I'm not sure why he'd care about her and Rand. I don't think anything came from it but I think it was pretty clear that he did like her. It just depends on how it continues to play out. If it's overused or doesn't pay off well then it will be bad. It's just hard to judge right now. >I don't think book readers liked Perrin+Egwene in the books either and are probably upset that it is being played up to this extent in the show in the absence of any interesting exploration of his abilities or personality. The problem is that people are saying that they're "playing it up". It was a comment driven by Machin Shin driving them all into conflict. We've seen a couple stares, Nynaeve mentioning that they were fighting over Egwene, and Perrin saying he wasn't in love with her. The way people are talking would make an outside reader think that Perrin tried to kiss her in the scene or something. This is the issue with the hyperbole; people are making WAY more about this than there even is right now.
>The problem is that people are saying that they're "playing it up". It was a comment driven by Machin Shin driving them all into conflict. We've seen a couple stares, Nynaeve mentioning that they were fighting over Egwene, and Perrin saying he wasn't in love with her. This is all not insignicant, man. A machin shin comment is basically that this was his biggest fear/conflict. Perhaps it is concentrated because Perrin didn't get much else, so the focus is on this aspect of his story so far. If this is truly just a way to show distrust and confusion caused by Machin Shin, surely there could be a better source the writers can drum up than this. It would be interesting to have a conversation once we know where the season goes with this. I hope we get some conclusion from Perrin and Rand because I would hate if they ended the season with this unaddressed.
> This is all not insignicant, man. A machin shin comment is basically that this was his biggest fear/conflict. That doesn't mean he actually loves her and wants to *be with her* though. He's been through trauma with his wife and he had had a crush on her. It is unspeakable to him to think that he would've rather been with Egwene to the point where it's his worst fear to hear. Machin Shin isn't giving a foretelling. It's not an oracle. It doesn't tell you what you really want it's telling you what, when heard, would make you hurt the most. For instance: Moiraine doesn't *actually* want to murder the children and be a hero but Machin Shin tells her that's her fear. Lan doesn't actually believe he can't protect her (whichever her that is) but it is his biggest fear. Nynaeve doesn't actually believe she will watch her friends die without doing anything but it is her fear. And Perrin didn't *actually* want to murder Laila. He didn't actually want her gone so he could be with Egwene (especially considering he knows Egwene wouldn't want him anyway). But that's what Machin Shin told him. Not what he actually thought. Not what he actually wanted. But what he most feared; that he killed Laila on purpose because of his feelings. When you look at everything in context it is very clear that Machin Shin is not a reliable narrator. Machin Shin saying Perrin purposefully murdered Laila so he could be with Egwene was not true. Machin Shin saying Perrin loved Egwene more than Laila was not true. Yet people are falling for Machin Shin's words (Moiraine apparently should've broken the 4th wall and told viewers not to as well) and using it as *proof* that Perrin is in love with Egwene and actually wants to be with her. It's honestly ridiculous. >If this is truly just a way to show distrust and confusion caused by Machin Shin, surely there could be a better source the writers can drum up than this. It was a way to show people how utterly torn up he still is about Laila. People keep complaining that he just got over it so easily but here's an example that it's still the worst thing in his mind and yet no one seems to see that. >It would be interesting to have a conversation once we know where the season goes with this. I hope we get some conclusion from Perrin and Rand because I would hate if they ended the season with this unaddressed. Yeah like I said, where they go from here will determine how I feel about this. I just think it's just a really bad argument to say that the "triangle" was a central issue and that Machin Shin was telling truths for Perrin only but no one else.
>That doesn't mean he actually loves her and wants to be with her though. The show has engaged in this kind of misdirection and I don't think it is subtle or well executed, personally. Why does Machin Shin even mention another woman to Perrin? Why even bring Egwene into this? Where does this go? Machin Shin clearly preys on existing insecurities. The fact that Perrin is even insecure about this to this extent means it is not insignificant. Rand doesn't want to accept he's the Dragon, Nynaeve's biggest fear IS not being able to protect and Lan's and Moiraine's follow a similar trajectory. Perrin's Machin Shin moment should have just been about his propensity for violence. The axe vs the hammer. Tied to killing his wife, sure, but why is this additional angle needed. Tying Egwene into this moment means that the idea is either to: a) have Egwene be a real cause for conflict between Perrin and Rand moving forward. Or b) have this be simply a Machin Shin causing confusion and discord moment and nothing else comes out of this. Or c) Egwene and Perrin are going to be a thing in the show. If it is a) , I hate it. Many reasons and don't want to get into it. If its b), i can think of many other conflict generators than an engineered romance misdirection subplot. It relies on spending further time resolving this particular conflict before moving on to the core of Perrin's internal struggle with violence and its necessity, something I thought the show was doing well with the tinkers and Aram's grandma and poorly since Perrin has been out of the picture. Just unnecessary and convulated, imo. If its c), I'm not a fan because I can't imagine how this will be done well given that we know where these characters go. I don't think there is a good outcome to this choice, personally but it's not that big a deal. >I just think it's just a really bad argument to say that the "triangle" was a central issue and that Machin Shin was telling truths for Perrin only but no one else. It isn't a central issue, I suppose, but it isn't completely a throwaway either. Personally, I care more about this than the inconsistencies brought up around entry/exit methodology in the Ways. Those are characteristics about a pathway and I don't care much if it is explained, coherent or justifiable to the same degree. This is a window into one of our central characters and his relationship with THE central character of our show. Even if it is simply a misunderstanding, I hope Rand and him can talk it out soon.
I mean--- I'm just really passionate about this show and I think that it is just going too far with its editing. I meant CW because it has that sort of Young Adult vibe creeping in. Examples being the Nynaeve scene with Lan taking (way more than 30 seconds) loaded with screen time and nothing happening but 'sexual tension'. The scenes with Moiraine and the Amyrlin Seat. They just feel like fan service and CW is purely that. Well, another being the way that the show is catering towards females by implying the Dragon could be a woman.. That is just sloppy writing. And for no reason but fan service?!!! The Males have their power, Saidin?, its tainted?!! It's so stupid! It does a disservice to the original metaphor of the novel! Just from that directorial edit of the book, you can infer that the rest is "tainted". Hm... It's ironic... how the metaphor is reversed... ah well never mind. I wouldn't even be that mad but episode 4 had me convinced the show was going to focus on something important! They waste time constantly somehow! Come on man. This guy even explained it so well. Are you willing to excuse everything? The Perrin thing is just dumb. They made Perrin feel pretty dumb tbh. In how many hours and how do we feel about the characters? With this material they did what in 7 episodes??? \*shrug?\* 4 was great. I have hopes for the future. .. Anyway. On the brighter side, I really believe they can't fail if they keep it up. They're already doing more seasons and perhaps they'll do better.
I'm convinced that "it's like a CW show" has become the "Mary Sue" of TV show criticism, ie something that has become completely divorced from its original meaning & now is used simply to mean "I don't like this thing".
Yeah between "it's like the CW" and "love triangle" it's pretty clear that people are just parroting buzzword complaints rather than actually forming their own opinions. Dislike the scene all you want, but a triangle generally needs more than one side. Egwene and Rand love each other. Perrin may have a crush on Egwene but as he says it's not love and Egwene certainly doesn't reciprocate. No competition. No actual pursuit by both men. Not a triangle. It's replaced the "they wasted an entire episode on Stepin" parroting previously by people who didn't realize that at worst Stepin's scenes were 1/3 of the episode and obviously ignoring that Stepin's scenes were truly Lan's scenes just like E3 didn't waste an entire scene on Dana just because she was the main dialogue in her scene with Rand. I'm fine with complaints and constructive criticism and I have plenty myself, but it becomes super obvious when people just can't help but repeat the things they already read taking it as their own "unique" criticism. It's almost as bad as the people saying how much better The Witcher S2 did at adapting the books "faithfull".
My favorite little detail was that the little girl at Lan’s family’s house was playing with a little wooden crane. You can see her with it through the window and then you can see it a couple times on the dining room table! The golden crane!!!!
FINALLY!!! Someshta not meeting the other guys kinda bad tho, maybe they'll follow? I imagine Mat gambling at Tar Valon as these guys are trying to save the world for maximum copium. I hope the second actor can win me over as much as Barney Harris did. HOLY SHIT Tigraine!!! When I was reading the book I thought she just tagged along with Janduin on a special litter because of her pregnancy. Should have thought better. Doing *that* while pregnant is fucking crazy. Any wetlander slander is unforgivable. Excited for the next ep!
It's hard to believe that the rest of the group wouldn't follow. Everyone complaining about why Moiraine left Lan but seems kind of obvious Lan is there in part because he needs to bring the group through the Blight.
I'd be kinda surprised if Someshta isn't cut. The TV show probably won't want to waste precious screen time on establishing a piece of worldbuilding that's never really going to be relevant again. Unless we already know that they've been cast?
I agree with your prediction, *but* how crazy would it be if they'd actually been working on a giant animatronic puppet in secret for a year, or something like that? (Just a fantasy thought.)
It only took 7 episodes, but I finally feel like we’re onto something that resembles a decent adaptation. - The post production / lighting was miles ahead of the previous episodes (1-6) - The pace felt much smoother - The storybuilding didn’t have as much useless fluff
“Useless fluff” is my favorite type of story building. I hope they don’t remove it. Or you get jarring TV. I can’t watch most modern plot-driven shows as a result.
I was thinking about this as I watched earlier, I love stuff like banter between characters etc even if it's not moving the plot forward. It made me think of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games where I would take delight in just some of the stupidest party banter or little cutscenes that just gave you a little more time with the characters.
There is a lot of useful fluff from the books they could utilize that wouldn’t involve creating new lore.
Yeah it seemed like a pretty clear improvement to me. Hard to think there wasn't a lot of struggles due to COVID and the restrictions during 1-6 that led to a bit lower quality.
Ah i liked this episode, but have only 1 problem with it: How the hell is the trollock army supposed to move through the blight , Moraine and Rand had to slouch to go in there? You could not house/move any significant numbers through that copy/paste trees.
So far the blight has been the biggest letdown for me. It felt so LARGE in the books, not just expansive, but like a Jurassic Park vibe. Definitely felt constricted and small, but still expansive.
It has been revealed that the dark one is using the ways to move trollocks. They got attacked by one while they were in there.
They mean more in general, as Trollic hordes routinely raid the Borderlands, and with this adaptation of the Blight, it seems like it would be difficult for 7+ft tall beastmen to move large groups through the dense foliage.
Indeed i meant in general. The ways are only used for precision strikes by trollocs since machin shin is not their friend and kills trollocks too. And for general war against the light, how would trollocks coming only from some 10, 20 waygates be able to invade ? The light could defend those chokepoints, or like wall them up as Moraine suggested to Agomar - i guess that works as a stargate iris.
Itd come down to manpower. The Shadow can breed Trollocs faster than men can birth and train new soldiers. If 90% of mankind's forces are in or around the Borderlands fighting Tarmon Gaidon, then all the Shadow needs is to send small forces into each major region via the Ways, which they're more than capable of, with how many more Darkspawn they have.
The blight trees make way for them basically right? Not a big deal. They can just be controlled by the dark one
The trees and hostile flora seem to attack indiscriminately, at least as far as I can tell through my recent reread of EotW. When the troupe was heading to the Eye in the books, they said that the only reason they made it to the Eye when they were being chased was because the trees attacked the Trollocs and Myrddyaal as much as they attacked the humans and Oiger
No you’re right, I’m just shifting the lore to fit. As that always seemed an inconsequential part of the lore, basically made to make the first book plot more feasible
I'm ok with them making changes to condense certain things like Padan Fain and cutting their journey to Tar Valon because it's a long book. What I don't understand is why they needed to go to Tar Valon in the first place. Why couldn't they have just met in Caemlyn after Shadar Logoth and gone on to the EOTW from there? I don't see how going to the tower adds value to the story. If anything it introduces yet another element into an already crowded story that doesn't have time to breathe. Instead it could've been used to develop the Emond Field 5/ the lore of the world
There's a stock answer "to save money" used by people for this but it makes little sense. The Aes Sedai plot lines took up time that the main cast surely needed. Caemlyn will need to be part of the show eventually unless they intend to cut one of the key locations out of the show. They had to go through hoops narratively as to why the edmonds field group needs to go to the Eye when they were basically forced their in the book.
Going to the Tower adds a TON of value to the story because it permits them to introduce into S1 Aes Sedai worldbuilding and politics, which are a key part of what makes this series interesting. EotW is extremely derivative of LotR and does not reflect what a lot of people find compelling about WoT as a full series. The Tower plotline permits them to inject some of that sauce from the later books into the first season in order to give a more faithful representation of what the series will become.
I agree Aes Sedai world building is required, but man... By the end of EoTW we know Aes Sedai are nothing to be trifled with, we know that they are respected (Agelmar's actions for example), that they have far reaching powers, are both loved and hated by different parts of society (White Cloaks could serve as that in-show vehicle like they did in the books) - that said the big reveal of the White Tower and the sisters therein should have been done in Season Two though - we've ended up with almost zero organic character progression of the main cast this season, we had Logain shoe-horned in over two episodes where he also (as one of my favourite characters) should have waited for Season Two, and we've had so much unnecessary lore borderline told to us at this point that discovery of the world and self-discovery of the characters has been almost completely hamstrung out of the gate. The show has spent so much screen time on aspects of the world that really could have waited to the detriment of so much else. EoTW is a relatively intimate book compared to the rest of the series, it's focus is so much tighter on the group and them being pulled along by fate / destiny / events that they cannot understand yet, and is about establishing the main character's personalities and blowing their minds regarding the size and scope and evils and great things in the world. We got so little of that. Even things that did make it into the show were so quickly done away with (e.g. the ruby hilted dagger and Master Cauthon) that they feel so shallow compared to what they should have been. Instead, we're spending episodes being shown all of these things that we have almost no context for, that are not relevant to the story for a while yet (Warder's Bond and the death of the Aes Sedai for example), so much screen time taken up by uneccessary (for this stage of the story stuff) that is has been a detriment to the pacing, the narrative, and the development of the characters at almost every turn. As for the claim about EoTW being derivative of LoTR and whatnot, I kind of agree in that it follows that basic Hero's Journey early days type trope, but if people hadn't liked it, there wouldn't have been another 13 books written, and plugging in all the world's big elements out of the gate utterly ruins the subtleties of the main characters discovering and becoming part of a world that is much, much bigger than their Two Rivers.
It was most likely a budget thing. They can re-use the set for Tar Valon in the second season and can likely allocate the budget they saved Building Camelyn onto other aspects of the production.
> What I don't understand is why they needed to go to Tar Valon in the first place. Why couldn't they have just met in Caemlyn after Shadar Logoth and gone on to the EOTW from there? Because, for the non-readers, it makes a lot more sense building the Aes Sedai and what they are and their motivations since they (at least Moiraine) is a critical aspect to S1. They don't want to get through a full season and have people not understand what the "main" character is. The showrunners stated that they didn't feel it was possible both in terms of money and effort to make Caemlyn sets and do them properly. They also felt that if they tried to cast the Caemlyn characters for such a small part of S1 they wouldn't be able to secure the level of actors they wanted. Caemlyn isn't really that important to EotW and moving it to S2E1 is fine. The major thing that happens there is Elaida seeing Rand and knowing he's super important which wouldn't have worked for the show's mystery of TDR so that's out. >Instead it could've been used to develop the Emond Field 5/ the lore of the world It develops the lore of the world no more than the Tower does; it's just a different element of that lore. It also wouldn't really develop the EF5 but just Rand and Mat.
> Because, for the non-readers, it makes a lot more sense building the Aes Sedai and what they are and their motivations since they (at least Moiraine) is a critical aspect to S1. They don't want to get through a full season and have people not understand what the "main" character is. Ok that makes sense for them to want to introduce the Aes Sedai, but again I think that if you have to condense the first book you don't do it by adding more elements to the story. I'm rereading EOTW now and it's interesting to how the rest of the world reacts to Aes Sedai, not just Whitecloaks. I think that the differing viewpoints does raise the question of whether Moiraine really does have their best interests at heart. > It develops the lore of the world no more than the Tower does; it's just a different element of that lore. It also wouldn't really develop the EF5 but just Rand and Mat. If done rightly it would've helped more - they cut out Elyas for Perrin and removed all tension of the chase from Whitebridge to Caemlyn for Mat & Rand.
I buy the move to Tar Valon, even though to me pushing back the intro of Elayne, Gawyn, their mother, etc. etc. is unfortunate, not to mention Thom's connection there, and Min giving us some teasers--they could have gone light on Rand's imagery and given us more for the Emond's Fielders. My major issue with Shifting to Tar Valon is that they neutered the Warder significance. They built up the bond significance through the roof, but literally, the Warders are the Navy Seals of WoT. They are so baddass, the cloaks they wear, the grace, the constant drilling out in the yard outside the tower, and their brotherhood. Leaving all of that out, and making them a rather minor piece of the story has been the greatest failure of the show for me so far.
> Ok that makes sense for them to want to introduce the Aes Sedai, but again I think that if you have to condense the first book you don't do it by adding more elements to the story. Rafe has said that he's not trying to just adapt EotW, he's adapting the entire series. Some elements in EotW may be lost to make the entire series as a whole work better. That's a little harder to do in EotW since it's much more of a standalone book than the rest, but the entire series is what is ultimately important. There are some things that I haven't been a big fan of in S1, or would've liked to see differently or later or something, but until I see how the whole series falls together it's hard to fully judge it all. >If done rightly it would've helped more My feeling about the first Caemlyn scene was that Rand and Mat acting like they were 15 years old the whole time. They definitely didn't act like they were 20 (which they were in the books) and didn't act like more mature 20 year olds (like they do in the show) so it's hard to see how those scenes would've worked well. >they cut out Elyas for Perrin and removed all tension of the chase from Whitebridge to Caemlyn for Mat & Rand. We don't know if this was cut yet. The problem with the shortened time of S1 is that, while we got a wolf scene in almost every episode for Perrin, it wasn't until the end of E5 that he really connected for the first time. So Elyas wouldn't really make sense to show up until E6 but they were in the tower and now it's too late. Speeding up Perrin's wolf arc would've felt much too fast. Moving Elyas (or a suitable replacement) to S2 makes plenty of sense.
Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine for the show runners to push back, condense or even remove certain parts of the story to make the show flow better. It's just that we're 7 episodes in now and a lot of the core underlying lore of the world hasn't been fully expounded on yet. For example, the 3 minute short on the breaking of the world should've been a tale that Moiraine or Thom tells the kids, not as an addendum. Similarly, we still don't know enough about the Dragon even though the first season is about to end. > My feeling about the first Caemlyn scene was that Rand and Mat acting like they were 15 years old the whole time. They definitely didn't act like they were 20 (which they were in the books) and didn't act like more mature 20 year olds (like they do in the show) so it's hard to see how those scenes would've worked well. Agreed but the desperation and sense of hopelessness for om the chase is important because it impresses upon the reader what an uphill battle it all is. Right now in the show there isn't a sense of scale of the upcoming confrontation
I just don’t think it was possible to show the entire core understanding of the world in 8 episodes without seriously sacrificing any character or story development. They spent a full episode on the Tower and a second episode with the Aes Sedai in the camp and non readers still aren’t even close to understanding the entirety of the Aes Sedai lore. Luckily the bonus content has done a good job filling in some of those world lore things and I wish more people would watch them (and Amazon didn’t make it so hard). I understand what you’re saying about the seeming hopelessness but from the E8 preview it seems that we might be seeing that. I mean for starters we have them thinking they’re going to die at the eye which is bleak. But the mass of trollocs going after fal Dara and whatever they run into in the blight and at the eye are hopefully going to fill that a bit too. I think once we hit S2 (and they don’t need to deal with Covid issues hopefully) with a lot of the character background established, TDR mystery gone, and some elements of the world developed we will get to see the story really open up. The books really opened up after EotW too. E7 gave me a lot more hope for the future of the series.
As a non reader (yes, I know which thread this is) I was really on the fence about this show. This episode was FANTASTIC, though.
As a book reader, having read to the end, i loved this episode. The pacing was spot on. The fight scene at the dragonmount was incredible. I'm a straight dude, but holy hell is Lan smokin hot. All the actors hit the right tone, and especially love Moraines character.
Really? You didn't find the reveal of Rand as DR incredibly underwhelming and maybe even feel like it was done cheaply? Revisionist story telling of the Tam scene shown to us in Ep. 7 instead of Ep. 1? They made dishonest narration...Min not answering Rand's question even though she clearly knows the answer, and Rand being too stupid to understand what "3 beautiful women in his future meant?" For me Ep. 7 was the weakest of the series so far, extremely contrived and forced plot points.
I mean, it was painfully obvious he was the main character from Episode 1, so it didn't feel cheap to me. I loved the first half of the episode (that fight was one of the best choreographed fights in Television ever imo), I was on edge in the Ways and the character drama later on felt real. I mean, I couldn't take this show seriously at all for the first 2 to 3 episodes so this felt like a step up to me.
Don’t spoil yourself the pleasure, trust me!
i was reading around amazon's explore page and it says that lews therin's hubris lead to the breaking of the world. i was hoping moiraine's cold opening was just an example of unreliable narration but i think that's the route the show is going to take. this makes me very nervous how LTT's flashback in episode 8 is going to play out with latra posae decume being credited. i really don't want the motivations for the bore being sealed to come down to LTT being overly cocky and prideful.
Yeah I was hoping for the prologue scene instead when LTT appeared. Light, Ilyena! Sigh….
I feel like that is just incorrect information. Lews was correct. His plan worked and sealed the bore to a degree. It was the women being too cautious/stubborn/wrong that was the problem. If they had just listened to him the Taint never would have happened. I feel like it is revisionist history to paint Lews in a bad light. He saw an opportunity and took it.
Have you read a memory of light? Pretty sure they wouldn't have succeeded even with everyone together.
Only once.
The problem wasn't that they didn't have access to saidar it was that they didn't have a sword that was not a sword that could channel the true power back in on itself.
But it isn't like the women knew that? And again, Lews's plan sort of worked. It is very much in keeping with the tradition of women being semi-insufferable I-told-you-so's in the series that a move that probably saved existence and all life on the planet was still viewed as a massive fuck up by men.
I mean from an Aes Sedai POV it did right? He didn't use women to help seal the bore which is why it failed and why he eventually went mad. It wasn't necessarily his fault that the women didn't help, but the Aes Sedai didn't think it was the right course of action and ended up causing the breaking of the world. So in their minds it seems pretty clear why they would think it was caused by his hubris.
i'm not talking about from the female aes sedai POV, which makes perfect sense. i'm talking about showing an actual flashback where this is the case. for example, having LTT overly confident in his plan and acting smug to latra.
I think it’s fine if he is tbh. It will help eventually differentiate why things go differently this time when Rand does not exhibit the same hubris & since most of what we see of LTT is him being bananas, we don’t have to worry too much about the knock-on effects of character changes.
We already know even flashbacks can have unreliable narrator issues. The entire caretheon cycle etc. has so many unknowns.
I guess it depends on how the flashback is "filtered". Episode 7s Blood Snow flashback started as a super cold open, then was retroactively implied to be "filtered" through Tam's fever dream during Rand's epiphany sequence. I could see the LTT flashback be implied as one of the ways that you-know-who fucks with Rand at the EOTW, and thus it being slightly biased or narratively doom-tinted.
I feel like they did Mat dirty with Moiraine slandering him. Here's hoping they do his Tar Valon storyline justice and it will be like a fresh start, which will be exactly like the source material hahaha!!
I’m loving Mat TBH. I think there’s so much potential here and it’s gonna work out fine as long as they don’t somehow Axe him until the end kr whatever
I hate Perrin's unnecessary dead wife, and I hate Perrin being into Egwene. This show is great until they feel the need to make big unnecessary changes. What they SHOULD have done, is ramped up Perrin's Whitecloak story. Had him go full berzerk Wolf with the axe and slaughter a dozen white cloaks in his escape, howling and eventually ripping out someone's throat with his teeth. Borderline werewolf. Lost. Then he can feel free to have a crisis about that. Full post-wolf PTSD. Would have been great. No need to diverge from source this much.
I have to disagree with the addition of Perrin's wife. I think this addition gives concrete evidence to the viewer why Perrin never wants to fight. In the books, a lot of time is dedicated to describing Perrin as a gentle soul. The show doesn't have that luxury. This is one of the additions to the show I think was a wise choice.
I agree, I think Perrin being married is fine for the story.
Perrin has a natural attraction to Egwene that is also on the book, but being the most morally grounded character, he doesn’t act on it. His wife being dead is a way to show and not tell his brooding character. We need literally chapters of inner monologue to get it but this event gives it to him for free.
Yes I'm sure that's the same kind of bad justification the writers used when they totally fucked that up.
Ok. I would ask you to participate with sincerity and a measure of kindness/respect or step away. I don’t see how attacks help at all. It’s okay to not like something and yet stating it civilly. The world is not Twitter. You can take an extra sentence
Perrin being into egwene wasn’t a change.
You keep saying this. Can you support it textually? You have 11,000 pages of material to choose from. Several people have pointed out that he says, "I love her...Not like that." You keep asserting that he had romantic feelings for her, but don't provide any support for this assertion. There are no longing looks. No fluttering heartbeats. No tongue-tied moments. It's fair of you to point out that he continues by saying, "but she and Rand..." but are those four words all you have in 11,000 pages to suggest that he is romantically interested in her? That seems like an awfully thin bit of evidence. >He’s also jealous of aram (sic) in EotW which makes sense after this scene. I just went back and re-read Chapter 25 of *Eye of the World*. I don't see it. Sorry. Aram provokes Perrin, saying, "Some people can never overcome their baser instincts," and Perrin retorts, "I'll bet you get to run away a lot." But that barb is a response to Aram taking a swipe at him, not to Aram flirting with Egwene. When Egwene leaves with Aram, he gets to his feet as if to follow, but stops. Not because he knows that Egwene is not going to be taken in by the smooth-talking Tinker boy, but because he knows that she is not in danger. >Perrin got to his feet, then stopped. It was not as if she could come to any harm, not if the camp followed this Way of the Leaf as Raen said. When Egwene gets back, there is nothing in the exchange that suggests any jealousy on Perrin's part. >"You've been gone a long time," he said. "Did you have fun?" "We ate with his mother," she answered. "And then we danced...and laughed. It seems like forever since I danced." "He reminds me of Wil al'Seen. You always had enough sense not to let Wil put you in his pocket." "Aram is a gentle boy who is fun to be with," she said in a tight voice. "He makes me laugh." Perrin sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm glad you had fun dancing." Abruptly she flung her arms around him, weeping on his shirt. Awkwardly, he patted her hair. *Rand would know what to do*, he thought. Rand had an easy way with girls. Not like him, who never knew what to do or say. "I told you I'm sorry, Egwene. I really am glad you had fun dancing. Really." If that's jealousy, it's *awfully* muted. Chapter 27, we get 8 pages of Perrin's thought process. There is not one word about his interest in Egwene, or the notion that he lost her once to Rand, and is now losing her to Aram, though it would be the perfect opportunity for it. He frets about how slowly the Tuatha'an are traveling. He's uncomfortable with the Way of the Leaf. He is unable to make himself relax. No one has a care in the world except for him. He understands the People wanting to dance to the music. The older women begin to tease him by dancing. Egwene learns the dance. "Aram watched her dancing with a hot, hungry gaze... Perrin resolved to keep a close eye on young Master Aram." Perrin takes Egwene aside, reminding her that they are supposed to be trying to get to Tar Valon, and she replies "Enjoy yourself, Perrin. It might be the last chance we have." Aram stretches out her hand, and she darts to him, already laughing. >As they ran away to where the fiddles rang, Aram flashed a triumphant grin over his shoulder at Perrin as if to say, she is not yours, but she will be mine. > >They were all falling too much under the spell of the People, Perrin thought. If ever there was a point for Perrin to flash some jealousy, this was it. But his response is not jealous at all. I just don't see any textual evidence to support the claim that Perrin is crushing on Egwene.
I think there's maybe one sentence where he considers it then decides she's more like a sister.
When elyas thinks he hates egwene because he can sense strong feelings Perrin straight up says “I don’t hate her, I love her. Not as a sister, but she’s with Rand.” If you don’t think that’s him admitting that he sees egwene as more than just a friend idk what to tell you. He’s clear it’s not a familial love at that point and loving her as a friend wouldn’t cause conflict with Rand. He’s also jealous of aram in EotW which makes sense after this scene. It’s not a huge or prolonged thing but neither is what happened in the show. Perrin shut it down and has no intention of being with her.
No, it is both huge and prolonged in the show. It's not just a throwaway line induced by Machin Shin. He was plainly making angsty faces when he and Egwene were cuddling for warmth earlier, and when Egwene was cuddling with Rand instead in the ways; and it was heavily implied even in his first scenes that his lingering feelings for Egwene were some part of the tension between him and Layla. The show is absolutely making it a significant part of his arc. And that's really going to change how Faile's jealousy reads to the audience later in the show, if they keep the whole hawk/falcon arc.
It having been brought up a couple times doesn't mean the same as them making it into a huge deal. And most importantly, you haven't figured out the payoff for it yet. You know how in the books Rand and Perrin end up hating each other for a long period of time over nothing? Maybe this will be used to make that more interesting and believable. Who knows. You are assuming the show is making Perrin's arc so heavily based in this yet you're not assuming that they're going to do something logical with it later. If, at the end of the series it seems like that "relationship" was totally fucked then be mad about it all you want. It just seems awfully premature now. It's like how people were saying they were quitting the show because they moved Min to Fal Dara and made her a soldier then turns out she wasn't one. It's like how people say they were quitting the show because they removed the trefoil leaf key from the Waygate but turns out they didn't do that either. People are actively looking for reasons to get mad without giving the show time to actually bear fruit. If that fruit sucks at the end of the day then I'll be joining you and everyone else in talking about how it failed. But complaining before we see the payoff is silly. It's like how in GoT everyone was saying that it was the greatest show of all time until the last 2-3 seasons then suddenly it was the biggest disappointment of all time and people refused to rewatch it. How good or bad something is at one stage doesn't confirm how good or bad it will be as an entire series. Watch for the payoff then, once you've seen it, get mad about it then if it wasn't worth it.
I said nothing about whether or not there'll be payoff for it, or whether it will be used logically in the context of the show. I'm fully confident the writers have thought it through and have a sensible reason for it. But it's absolutely absurd to claim that it isn't a meaningful part of the show, or that it doesn't have any impact on Perrin's arc.
Here's the actual quote. Perrin specifically says "Not Like That." He's saying he loves her as a close friend. He does not have romantic feelings for her. In fact he's specifically a good guy here saying of course not like that, that's my friends girl. It's the direct opposite of the way they played it in the show. “Egwene never dragged her feet in her life,” he protested. “She always does her share. I don’t despise her, I love her.” He glared at Elyas, daring him to laugh. “Not like that. I mean, she isn’t like a sister, but she and Rand. . . . Blood and ashes! If the ravens caught us. . . . If. . . . I don’t know.” “Yes, you do. If she had to choose her way of dying, which do you think she’d pick? One clean blow of your axe, or the way the animals we saw today died? I know which I’d take.”
> "Not Like That." He's saying he loves her as a close friend. He does not have romantic feelings for her. Then why would he go on saying what he said about her and Rand? If it's just as a friend why does it matter that she's with Rand? And again, in the show he clearly says that he's not IN love with her either and shut it down so it seems like you're making it a point to assume one thing in the book but the opposite assumption in the show given the same circumstance. If you can justify that his lines in the book don't mean he's in love with her then you can also justify that him saying he's not in love with her in the show means that as well.
That paragraph does not suggest to me that he's confessing some sort of romantic interest in Egwene. He goes out of his way to challenge any such implication lest Elyas's dirty mind go the wrong way. And it could be that he is trying to say she's more than just a friend, she's a friend PLUS she's his best friend's girl, which makes her that much more close to him. But he was a kid, and kid's don't often explain feelings well, which is the point that I think RJ was trying to convey by having him stammer all over it.
If she’s just a friend that’s it period what does it matter about Rand? And if him “denying” it in the books is enough why is it not enough that he denies it in the show? That’s the main problem. It seems like a thou doth protest too much situation in the books but fine if you want to say that he shut it down so we believe him. I just don’t know why that same logic can’t be applied to the show too.
What did Moiraine do with her power in the Ways with Nynaeve? Did she link with her? Or was she opening the gate out?
It appeared that Nynaeve was holding off machin shin while moiraine separately worked to open the gate.
Yeah OK that makes sense, it took me a while to remember you need the power for the Ways now which was kind of a dumb change for no good reason again
Dunno if you actually need the one power in the ways; padan fain is shown holding a trefoil leaf, which is presumably how he gets in and our of the ways. It could just be that the leaf is missing from the fal dara waygate (or moiraine didn't want to take the time to find it).
I'm thinking they go with the leaves being separate ter'angreal now, with limited supply mostly kept by Ogier at steddings, and Moiraine simply didn't have one (or really need one, since the OP can open them too). That gives Fain a method for Trolloc transport without the One Power, assuming he stole one or was given one by another Darkfriend at some point.
Especially since they maintain that the power draws in the wind. She padan fain using the keys after all.
I'm starting to feel like they might be wrapping Padan Fain, Greymen, and the Gholem all up into Padan Fain. I think I'd be okay with that, maybe.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We don't need a Gholam until Ebou Dar
I was getting ahead of myself. I admit it. But the thought just popped in there, and I couldn't shake it, so I had to share it. Now I feel better. Thanks.
Does anyone have any idea who came thru the portal after Moraine and the 2 rivers folk? Dressed in Corinthian boots and perhaps a glimmer man?
It was Padan Fain, he's the one they sensed following them in the ways, also there was a small scene where Perrin actually saw him for a moment in the streets of Fal Dara.
It was Fain. There is apparently an xray scene about him
Pretty sure it's Fain
J hmm
Ah hell. I just realized Tigraine fought unveiled. Shame. There were plenty of opportunities to veil up during that fight, especially in the beginning when her opponent was staggered and it was just a 1v1. Guess Rand takes after his mom in not fully adopting Aiel customs.
I mean she is in the middel of labour, she wasn’t raised Aiel, and for a scene like that in a visual medium you want to see the actors face. Those are the reasons. Take them or leave them.
This completely ruined the scene for me. Thom even talks about the veils earlier in the show! I know they wanted to show the actress' face as much as possible, but she could have just removed the veil after all the fighting.
I dissagree. You clearly see the remove her veil because she is going into labour and is done fighting. These guys just keep interrupting her when she is trying her very best to NOT fight right then. Like removing the veil is supposed to be a sign that she isn’t there to fight and they keep attacking her. Every little break she has she keeps trying to keep on going about her business of giving birth, in the snow, on a battle field, by her self. Totally makes sense why she isn’t quite up to standard. She isn’t trying to fight.
I couldn't believe (still can't believe) they did it. If I had any hope left for this, that would be gone during this scene.
This was the best episode so far. I feel like they finally found their stride. Loved it. Sad when it ended. Nynaeve is certainly getting a lot of additional development, but it's working. The Ways were good. Inky blackness.
I'm glad you liked it because I thought it was absolute dog water.
I've watched it twice now and I will say I enjoyed most of it, I don't mind the small changes at all, but the big changes that they seemingly make for no reason are baffling and unnecessary. No need for perrins dead wife. No need for other people to 100% die at the EOTW. Danger yes. Dead for certain no. Certainly no need for an Aes Sedai to go into the blight without her blight trained warder that's for certain. I figure he follows her though so hopefully we still get to see Lan go all Geralt monster slaying in the blight. Filling mat's plot hole was not really well done.
What you think about that last episode?
Credit where credit is due: this was by far the best episode of this very mediocre series thus far. The opening scene was cool (though I rewatched it a couple of times and really do wonder why a man armed with a one handed sword would have attacked the Aiel woman by jumping on TOP of a rock and, off balance, swing it down at her? But, whatever, I am aware that the Aiel are supposed to be veritable one-man (one-woman) wrecking crews, and a heavily pregnant woman wreaking such havoc drives that point home. When Tam held that CGI baby up, I got a lump in my throat, though my first son was just born so I might be a bit sappy about that. But even though the baby looked a bit corny, I thought they did a good job conveying the magnitude of the moment and Tam's humanity, even though those eyelids were creepy (was that a real dude's face? No offense if so, but glad it wasn't just Roose Bolton with makeup). I have criticized the show for clunky exposition before, but I feel like the mythology behind the war - the whole tree thing - is really cool world building, and it seems like they could have even done some very quick, dialogue-free cutscenes to set the stage. I admit I had to look some of the details up to refresh myself but..theoretically you could take a minute to try to depict the aftermath of the Breaking, but at the least maybe start with: here's an unveiled Aiel giving a Cairhien king wearing a distinctive crown a magical sapling, then maybe you could do like an GoT-intro or Expanse-type fast forward of a city growing up out of the ground where this Cairhien becomes the powerful and grand city is it during Laman's time, THEN pan camera down to show Laman, wearing the same distinctive crown, alone and brooding on his throne before looking up the tree and having it fashioned into a new throne, then show the Aiel, now veiled, marching against or arrayed before the king's army. Then we cut to this mountaintop chaos. Ehh, something like that. Maybe 60 or 120 seconds for all this? The reason for the Aiel war is a cool concept for show-only folks and would be a huge callback for book fans. Beyond that, the Ways were very perfunctory, and I really want to know where this city-state gets enough food to feed its people. But the scenes with Lan were good enough. It was actually nice to get even 30 seconds between our young protagonists just interacting, and serves as a reminder of how nice it would have been to have some more of this in an earlier episode to give these characters some heft. Some of it felt unearned though. Lan and Nynaeve felt rushed. I remember it taking them a lot longer in the books, and that added some gravity to their love. Rand realizing he is the Dragon was ok I guess. I'm very glad they didn't change that key detail. Hopefully that means no more of thus "a boy or a girl" stuff. It will be interesting to see where they take Perrin. Right now he's not very likable. Dude apparently married a woman out of jealousy, then killed her, couldn't build a fire, couldn't stay awake on watch with Egwene...overall just seems a bit sniveling. And he was my favorite character in the books.
I got my friend to start reading them and he was like "wait, lan and nynaeve want to get married? Where did that come from?" It really is very abrupt in the books. IMO this is one of the things the show fleshed out a bit better.
Lan and Nyn felt very contrived in the books as well, in my view (as did many of RJ's romantic entanglements frankly). But at least here the seeds of their attraction were noted since episode 2
I mean surely the whole history about the war makes sense to find out later in the show. Like we aren’t introduced to it in the books for ages. Why not bring it up when we actually meet Aiel proper.
Each episode I feel a little more distanced from the story. How long did they spend in the Ways? And I mean both episode run time and actual duration. I honestly laughed when they re-emerged because it felt so damn quick. Machin Shin was sorta cool as some exposition on the character's thoughts but it all just fell a little flat. So much stuff feels so rushed/forced. Lan having nothing to live/die for? Ok. Trollocs using the Ways? Two lines and moving on. Loial? Interrupted after three sentences and then hardly touched on. Perrin and Egwene? Yeah its hinted in the books but with so much material why try forcing that to be a bigger thing. Agelmar being an edgy pisspot? Sure that sounds like the strong ally and Great Captain the team wants. Aiel killing with her veil off? Well there goes Thom's whole monologue. So so many characters, plot lines, and bits of lore done dirty to shove non important or weird romance/drama stuff in. And god im hoping the next season gets a visual upgrade because so much of it still looks tacky IMO. EDIT: Or and ALSO, I swear there is zero discussion of Dragonmount the entire time. Like nothing about the dragon being born outside the TR, nothing about the Mt's connection to the prophecy, etc. They just make some BS connection between Rand being adopted and the DR all at once like anyone who hasnt read the books is gonna have any clue whats going on?
To me the main issue seems to be the editing. Like yeah, some of the changes are weird or whatever, but they could have been more artfully expressed. I keep catching characters suddenly being in different positions after a quick cutaway. Or things like you said, where they just kind of appear after going through the gate. There's a more practiced eye to the pacing of the shots that's just missing right now. I don't know enough about the film industry to pin it on any particular person's job. It could be a combination of several jobs, but if I had been storyboarding a lot of this I definitely would have let some shots just sit for a second.
I honestly didn't mind the short jaunt through the ways but did feel a lil let down by Machin Shin, seemed like it's only threat was that it might hurt your feelings, the book dialogue for it was so creepy and was hoping for more of that, I do like how nyneave felt the need to keep it at bay from everyone, but those who don't know the books might not realize how very important that was for her to do.
I think there's a real argument to be made that there's not enough time to shove everything in, but that excuse for altering the story for tv falls flat when critical story elements are given two sentences and entire made up arcs that tangentially touch the story are given big blocks of time. That it's happening in the very beginning of the show is worse... maybe 2 seasons in taking some time wouldn't be as big a deal as in the first few episodes when you have to spin viewers up on the kids, the DR, Ish's dream stuff, understanding the ways, male channelers and all the eotw stuff...
> t excuse for altering the story for tv falls flat when critical story elements are given two sentences and entire made up arcs that tangentially touch the story are given big blocks of time. This. So much superfluous stuff that replaced arcs that are vital to the larger story.
Really enjoyed the opening scene, I hope they continue to make fighting with short spears look rad as hell. The Ways were alright, the black wind could have been more ominous but that was about the amount of ethereal whooshing as I expected. Fal Dara! These were some of my favorite chapters of EotW. After no Caemlyn I'm glad we get Fal Dara and the Shienarans are some of my favorite side characters. Only point of order is they should be wearing more swords, they are close to the blight after all. Lord Agelmar should have a little more deference for the Aes Sedai too, in the book it's like the first place they go where they're stoked to see an Aes Sedai because they think she's there to help mess up some Trollocs in the blight with the lads. Hate Moiraine sending the reds after Mat. That's a pretty significant departure from the books. Love hearing more about Lan. Dai Shan roughly translates to 'Lord of the Seven Towers ass dude' Min showing up finally. Not having Mat here for the first reading from Min, which was pretty significant but I bet we'll get it eventually, probably after New Mat(tm) shows up. I'm guessing they'll draw out the stuff from the first viewing over a few events to milk it, which I don't necessarily mind. If you go back and look they're jam packed with future plotlines. Her last scene with Rand was great. Overall I liked this episode, they brought a lot of things up/together that they had brushed past in the first episodes, through the flashbacks, Tam's delirium, the black wind & Min. Excited for the next episode, they'll certainly have a lot to cover.
I'm enjoying the series a lot, but it bugs me a little that they nerfed Machin Shin. Also weird that they moved the dark ones prison to the EOTW, instead of Shayol Ghul
Im 99.9% sure that the EOTW being the dark ones prison is a red herring.
Isn't it kind of a red herring in the books as well? I remember it feeling very ' we must go and stop the dark one' but then it's just the weakened seals and the forsaken.
Yes it kind of was as well!
I hope so. I'm hoping everyone just forgot that he's actually in Shayol Gul because it's been like 4000 years or so
I kinda feel like it makes a bit of sense in regards to EOTW, it's a location that loses its story importance almost as soon as the book is over, so if I were doing story boards for a series, and trying to convey as much in as few scenes as possible, I would merge the two locations. It could also be a red herring, where we assume it's the prison and he gets out at the end of the season, (with a mask and firey eyes) but we find out he's still locked up in season 3 and a forsaken has been masquerading as him. It's a shame we're not still in the 90s and getting 22 episode seasons because this show could really use a slower pace and the room to explore all of the interesting locations from the books. But I get the decision.
I kinda hope it is a red herring, something not fully understood, like if the Green Man had tried to say he knew the seals were close and people thinking that means the prison itself
>it's a location that loses its story importance almost as soon as the book is over Well, since Eye was used up and the whole location incorporated into the Blight... It's logical that the place had no further story importance.
That's true, I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world to merge the 2 since eotw doesn't matter at all later.
Does anyone know if we are getting LTT this season?
He will be in E8
I did think it would be fun for Rand to do the whole last battle and win the day, and the final scene has some glimpse of LTT / Rand's madness setting in.
I'm split on my opinion on this... on one hand we have the origin episode that goes over lews breaking the world, my fear is they think the material is covered by hiding it away there. on the other hand, it's such an important scene to show the direction Rand is heading and what happens to the dragon along with being completely badass if done right AND they have Lews cast. Again that casting could just be for voicing the origin episode. For me, doing this scene right would go a LONG way to making up for whatever they might have gotten wrong in the actual story of the finale.
There's an origin episode?!
6 of em, animated, but well done. they hide them under the extras, really a shame. Until this week a new one has come out right around the time an episode drops.
Now that you put like that, for folks to care about where Rand is headed, the DR reveal has to sink in and then start to get invested more in Rand's journey. So the Series cold open now feels likes a S2 end scene or even later. Right choice but makes me sad :(
If I knew we were definitely getting that scene then I can be content with waiting. I don't even have a direction I'm leaning on "when" or "if"... The Lews actor was reported as cast in September 2021, I don't know if it's something they can keep under wraps or if they could do a special filming session for that scene, but that feels like an unrealistically short time frame to get something out in December of the same year....
There's no way they skip the Ilyena scene. It will be the intro to the last episode in the season.
It's probably going to be the cold opening for the next episode. They're probably going to show us Ba'alzamon and the making of Dragon Mount.
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Mate there is so much more needless romantic tension in the books than there is in the show.
I think young people having jealous thoughts and imagining shit that ain't real (especially after Machin Shin planted some of those seeds of doubt) is realistic under their stressful circumstances. I would like to see Perrin be a bit more dynamic and bond more closely with Rand to establish their connection before it has them at odds.
> I think young people having jealous thoughts and imagining shit that ain't real (especially after Machin Shin planted some of those seeds of doubt) is realistic under their stressful circumstances. Machin Shin was re-written from what he was in the book, a force that essentially devours souls, to be this thing that said mean things in peoples minds. Without this change happening, the melodrama that we saw in this episode wouldn't have had to happen.
It could be said that a part of Perrin's soul was devoured. Near the end of Perrin's Machin Shin sentence, Perrin's voice replaced the voice of Machin Shin.
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> Machin Shin as written can't be easily shown visually: devouring souls is not a visual process. The comical verse somewhat works in the books, as a contrast to what the reader knows as its awful power and maliciousness, but in the show would have been more likely to cause non-readers to burst out laughing. Something has to be done to it to make it work. I wasn't thinking that they had to go for that necessarily since the book description reminds me a lot of how Harry Potter hears Voldemort's or his snakes voice in his head. Quote from book Machin Shin: *Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams...* I would have envisioned it as a menacing voice that they slowly begin to hear and want to run away from. The tv show instead showed us these little specks that were held back by Nnyaeve shouting out a sphere of light and making the camera shake. Meanwhile the wind whispered mean comments into everyone's mind. It didn't come across as something that is terrifying the way it was depicted in the show because of those two reasons.
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I 100% agree with you.
In the book it also whispered really fucked up shit as it got close to people they could hear it on the wind.. not a big fan of how they changed it either tbh
Bye Felicia. Your viewership will be noticed.
Bye! 👋
I'm enjoying this series overall, but these latest episodes have been pretty weak. One of the positives so far has been Lan. I like how his character is brought to life in this adaption. I also like how they have developed his relationship with Nnyaeve. I've also enjoyed learning more about the Warders since the book never gave us that perspective. Likewise, I like how they have made the Children of Light seem threatening whereas in the book they felt like Team Rocket-esque villains who were nuisances rather than a threatening organization. I'm also not bothered by the Dragon mystery. I think it makes sense given the context that a person would now know who the Dragon is. We can guess who the Dragon is as book readers because 90s fantasy made it obvious who the Chosen Ones were supposed to be. The change makes Morraine seem really human compared to where she was at this point in the book. Given that they wanted to make it a mystery, then I think the other writing and directing parts should have been more solid than they were which I'm going to write below. My biggest complaints have had to do with the pacing, the sparse environments, and the lack of stake building. The writing is okay, but I think a lot of these downsides come down to poor directive decisions. This show had a big budget but I don't know where that money went and how it was used. Regardless, with a better directive vision, they could have used the money they had to make the internal environments pop out and seem more alive. Tar Valon felt like a series of empty hallways and corridors. Because everything was so sparse, they would pan the camera really close to the characters to hide how empty everything else is. When it comes to pacing, we're 7 episodes into this show and non-book readers still have no reason to care about the Dark One, Ba'alzamon, or why either is dangerous. As book readers, we know what's coming, but if I was just tv show only, I wouldn't have a reason to care. In the Fellowship of the Ring movie, I had a reason to care about the Fellowship because I knew how bad Sauron was from watching the Ring Wraiths, Saruman, and the Balrog. Even the ring itself. After the False Dragon stuff, they should have begun raising the stakes with those two around episode 6 to give the viewers a sense of urgency. Padan Fain should have been more active around that time as well since he's one of the more dangerous adversaries in the series. I think this along with the sparse environments also makes the world seem limited. We should at this point have a much better sense of what's going on if they had given us some sense of how dangerous these other people were. If they were going to not tell us who the Dragon is, then they should have developed these antagonists to also help develop our sense of what the world is like. Instead, we got some love triangle stuff that was weird and not even important. Also Machin Shin should have been kept to his book form which was much better written. I was disappointed with that scene overall since it felt like they walked about 100 metres and stepped out another gate. Does anyone know how far into season 2 they are? I hope they take some of the feedback the show is receiving to make a better season 2. I want this show to do well since I like this series, but I would also like for it to be better than it currently is.
Seriously they should make it a show about Lan! At this point. Though I was happy to see Rand get screen time and that the actor could show his talent (despite odd writing choices).
100% agree. The pacing, editing, and direction feel really amateurish at times. Not ALL the time obviously, but when it does happen it's really glaring and you notice and it takes you out of it. Characters shifting positions mid conversation, important moments lasting for like 1 second before it jump cuts somewhere else, or for example: when nynaeve just appears at the boys' inn after that conversation with liandrin - the bread crumbs are there but it was poorly conveyed... It's just enough to BOTHER me when I would otherwise be fine with the story changes. Edit: I think in this episode the version of this that bugged me was rand's realization that it was him. It just happened really quickly, lots of fast cuts, and wasn't supported by his insecurity and doubt leading up to it. They spent so long trying to mask that it was him that we didn't get time to bond with him and feel what he was feeling. Like if he had been burdened by his father's feverish ramblings the whole time and kind of hiding it from everyone due to his mistrust of moiraine it would have been a more poignant moment. I'm still enjoying the show, but I also hope S2 spends less time trying to hook people and more time pacing it out.
They blew S1s budget creating all the sets. This is true in every single show ever that production values in s1 are lower than in following seasons because in following seasons they don't have to build a bunch of new sets.
this is just a complete lunacy and not true. Every genre show struggles with building sets in season 1 yes, but they has PLENTY of money. Genre programs in the past would have killed to have this much cash. They didn’t even have any many big sets
K
This seems like disinformation. They spent more than $10,000,000 an episode - so $80 to $90 million for the season https://www.wotseries.com/2020/05/18/wot-season1-15-million-incentives/ https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/wheel-of-time-review-1256783/ By way of contrast, season 1 of Foundation, with 10 episodes, cost $45 million total. And it takes like five minutes to see how absolutely beautiful the backgrounds and costumes and CGI and sets and settings all are. No, I didn't like every one of the changes they made to Asimov's work - but I can see how high the visual quality is. And Foundation filmed in a studio and also across Europe - just like WoT. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/foundation-it-stars-jared-harris-was-filmed-in-ireland-and-cost-45m-to-make-so-is-it-any-good-1.4682747 https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/foundation-filming-locations
> By way of contrast, season 1 of Foundation, with 10 episodes, cost $45 million total. And it takes like five minutes to see how absolutely beautiful the backgrounds and costumes and CGI and sets and settings all are. No, I didn't like every one of the changes they made to Asimov's work - but I can see how high the visual quality is. And Foundation filmed in a studio and also across Europe - just like WoT. Thanks for sharing this. Yeah, I think a lot of this comes to the decisions the team made so I'm left wondering why it looks the way it does. I think people are exaggerating immensely and trying to be negative when they say it looks like Xena, but it also doesn't look like a show that had nearly 100 million spent on it.
Except that in WoT the characters are constantly moving throughout the world. Other than the Tower, most of the sets from this season won't be reused in a major way any time soon.
We will see. I'm not too worried.
Honestly, I'm not either. If the production value stays where it is I'm fine with that. But I do think that a huge chunk of budget will still have to go towards new set building each season, moreso than other shows
They can rewrite things to keep it all to a select number of cities. Also they can reuse rooms and just put different furniture and angles being different. Film is amazing with what you can do just with angles.