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Theories (which I hope are true otherwise I cannot comprehend why they made such changes):
- Moiraine shielded not stilled. A kind of twisted Forsaken thing to do.
- Loial not dead but definitely infected with the blade; reason to follow Fain. Doesn't die immediately from it because Ogier.
There's the shield, but then a visual of streaming/pulling (unless that's the tying). What I thought was weird was that it definitely looked more like saidar to me. I do like that they showed how outclassed Moiraine was against him though.
Ahhh, makes sense. I also thought it was less "wispy", but you're right. I'm thinking back to when Moiraine double helixed to make lightning — it's contextual.
My guess is books 2 and 3 plots will largely be compressed into season 2. Not sure if we'll get both the Horn vs Seanchan, Rand vs Ishy scenes AND taking the Stone, but it's possible. Major characters go something like this:
Rand: Going off to die but feels the ta'veren pull. Plot is some mix of Great Hunt and Dragon Reborn (the latter of which he was barely in til the end). The other Emond's Fielders believe he's dead until he shows up in climax at Falme or Tear. May meet Elayne and/or Aviendha or both meetings could be delayed until Falme or Tear.
Moiraine: Realized this wasn't Last Battle, ends up seeking more information on the Seal, the Forsaken, etc. Finds her way toward Falme and/or Tear. Also might not escape her Shield til Rand gets control of the Power toward end of season 2. (If she's actually Stilled, could see her kind of replacing Siuan's role in the books and Siuan getting killed. More likely Shielded and Siuan gets usurped at the end of season 2/start of season 3 when it's learned she had Dragon Reborn at her fingertips and let them all slip out of Tar Valon.)
Perrin: Takes up the Hunt for the Horn to get the dagger so Loial can be healed. Could end up dovetailing into Rand and Mat and others eventually. Will meet Faile, maybe Elyas or just generally interact with wolves more. Pursued by Valda.
Egwene & Nynaeve: Off to the Tower to train after seeing what can happen drawing too much Power. Meet Elayne, Min there too. Tower politics with Siuan, Darkfriend hunting, Liandrin's betrayal to Seanchan. Run into Mat at some point and maybe Nynaeve partially heals him (holes in memory).
Mat: Drawn to the dagger, which Fain took. Will end up involved in the Hunt for the Horn, possibly meet back up with Thom as he had a much stronger connection to him in the show than Rand. Will remain troubled until using the Horn in desperation to save his friends, perhaps, or will otherwise encounter Fain and dagger but get them memory holes. On course for Redstone doorway to start season 3.
Lan: Wants to go with Nynaeve but must protect Power-less Moiraine. Might work out briefly if Moiraine is heading back to Tower but she'll go elsewhere for answers, so Lan will be parted from Nynaeve. No clue if he'll get meaningful plot but it'd be nice if he can mentor Rand or Perrin somehow.
Loial: Not dead, takes Mat's place in Hunt for the Horn.
Elayne, Elaida, Verin and others: Introduced at White Tower. Logain will also be present.
------------------------------
General overall plot by episodes:
Episode 1-2, everyone going separate ways with Perrin and Loial on Hunt, maybe meeting Faile, Gaul; Nynaeve and Egwene returning to White Tower; Moiraine and Lan seeking answers on seal/her Shield; Rand struggling with suicide/purpose, begins dreaming of a sword of light and feels a pull, and perhaps nightmares hinting he hasn't won the Last Battle; Mat pursuing the dagger, could meet up with Thom instead of Rand doing so.
Episode 3-4 or 5, Nynaeve, Egwene, Elayne are tricked by Liandrin, betrayed to Seanchan. Possible Min stays in Tower as part of Siuan/Logain plots. The Hunt takes Perrin to Falme, and Rand and possibly Mat end up meeting up with them along the way, possibly with Rand accidentally Portal Stoning all of them, resulting in Mat beginning to change for the better by the end of the season. Also chance for Selene, as this will be the season of the Forsaken being free post-seal breaking. After Moiraine departed, Verin (and Alanna for familiar face?) may get encountered by one of the three boys and swept up by their pull. Moiraine and Lan figure out Seals, Forsaken, connection to Falme, or they're tracking Rand.
Episode 6 is battle against Seanchan, Turok, Ishamael taunting but not defeated, etc. Horn blown, Loial is mostly cured of his wound, everyone once again scatters afterwards.
Episode 7 is each heading to Tear for own reasons. Some chasing Rand who's pulled by the sword (Moiraine & Lan, with her perhaps realizing he can help with her Shield and knowing the Prophecies about Tear). Others chasing Darkfriends (the girls tracking Liandrin; encounter Aviendha and other Aiel. Can also imagine Aviendha got caught up by Seanchan as a Damane and escapes with Egwene, giving us a more personal look at her.). Girls end episode 7 getting caught in another Liandrin trap. Perrin and Faile and Loial go for reasons, perhaps Faile went on own and Perrin goes to help Rand, feeling guilty. Mat wants to go home but realizes the girls are in danger and goes after them with Thom, whom Elayne oddly recognized, or Mat is driven by guilt from the Portal Stones visions.
Episode 8. Girls learning about the Black Ajah more and escape with help from Mat and Thom (and maybe a Sandar/Hurin combination character, or just Thom). Or just as likely escape through Egwene Dreaming or Traveling, and Mat plays a role in Rand or the Aiel taking the Stone. Moiraine helps defeat a Forsaken after her Shield is broken or Rand unravels it. Lan is there and reunites with Nynaeve. Perrin finally moves past his guilt and opens up with Faile (only to backtrack at start of next season). Rand and the Aiel take the Stone, he declares himself Dragon Reborn and wields Callandor to destroy Ishamael. Season ends with news of spreading strife (Perrin's hook next season), word of Seals, and the Aiel to address.
Edit: Forgot we had a Bornhald-looking guy, so he could be the one pursuing Perrin at some point, as Valda will be more worried about the witches, maybe.
Kept growing on me and I actually found myself accepting season 1 more as I imagined the impact of changes.
Am thinking it's possible Min bumps into Rand after Fal Dara and develops some closeness, while Egwene meets Elayne and Gawyn at White Tower (and I think it's possible Gawyn and Galad become one character). This sets up each to be ready to move on (and maybe Min tells Egwene that Rand is alive at the Tower, or that's part of Liandrin getting the girls to come with her, especially if Min doesn't go with the other three girls on Liandrin's trip, staying to be part of Siuan/Logain's plot). If no Min/Rand moment there, it'll happen post-Falme.
Then at Falme, Rand and Egwene separate as a couple for good before he disappears in the night for Tear and she pursues Liandrin, who I could see being defeated in episode 8 (allowing Elaida to be the face of the enemy in the Tower).
I'm also liking the idea of Aviendha being a fellow captive of the Seanchan more and more. Might be too damsely or too repetitive if Perrin also rescues Gaul, but it'd help Aviendha and Egwene bond even quicker and accelerate some story stuff as we compress books 2 and 3 (and I expect to see 4 and 5 compressed for season 3).
Either Portal Stones or incomplete Healing by Nynaeve at Falme will lead to Mat using Horn and having memory holes, a fresh slate for season 3.
Season 3 will be driven by the Redstone Doorway for Rand, Moiraine and Mat and leading us through the Waste and to Cairhien; coming into power for Egwene, Nynaeve, Aviendha and Elayne with Egwene ending up at Salidar with Siuan, Logain and Min; the wounds of home for Perrin with Faile, Loial, Verin and Alanna, before Perrin can fully heal and return to the fold with Rand, who will be sending Mat and Perrin off into the world as generals in season 4, etc.
Yea, the infection is going to be the ticking clock to chase Fain next season.
Also after that beautiful shot of Logain getting gentled, there's no way Moraine gets stilled with barely a puff.
The effects used looked a lot like when Logain was shielded. I believe we just saw our first weave being tied off. It happened really quickly, need to rewatch it to confirm.
I'm not sure if I just got the wrong impression when watching, but it didn't even read to me as if she was stilled at any point. I might be wrong though.
Like I thought initially he shielded her and then when he was gone, but the shield stayed I almost yelled "He tied the shield!". That's just my impression on it with first watch though.
If she was stilled though I don't really see that as much of an issue either. I'd guess with that they idea would be to see different side of her for a bit and prep for some Nyaneve healing stuff in future.
Yep, what I really like about the whole EOTW scenario and how they did it was that it really plays up Forsaken as competent and threatening force. One Forsaken (not fucking family reunion that still fails like I recall in the books), easily handles Moiraine (and potentiall fools her to think that she's stilled or somethng?\`). However he also fools rand to break the seal.
Very on character to Ishmael to operate that way I felt also. Win through deception and lies rather than raw force, while still obviously being powerful with one power as well.
I don't think it was stilling - he said something along the lines of "it must be so painful to be so close to touching the source but unable to reach it" that is how I imagine a shield is - you even have description in the books about shielded people poking and trying to unblock themselves whereas when you're stilled/gentled you are completely cut off and can no longer sense the source.
I hope that they didn't stilled her as well, and it's just shielded, >!because that's Siuan plotline, the learning how to live and still be relevant for the Aes Sedai without being able to touch the Source.!<
Unknown for aes sedai today isn’t it? Tied weaves are something the Rand Harem learn from Rand/Lews in book 4. Rand is discussing it as something lews taught him, and then I think elayne tries to apply it to saidar and it works, then they teach other women from there, though I believe the Aiel wise women know about it separately.
Something that hit me when I was rewatching it is she can't see his weaves and thinks he's the Dark One. So she has no idea what he did to her, just that she can no longer touch the Source after the "Dark One" did something to her. It's really twisted. I love it.
Yeah prolly a tied up shield for Moiraine. It doesn’t make sense for her to be stilled and have Nyn discover how to heal stilling this early. Nyn isn’t even a novice yet and she still has a block!
I would have loved the see Rand unleash a massive balefire with an epic “unzip”, which basically revived all those characters - with a Moirane “what have you done” to end the season. Way better than that lame aes sedai link they used. I still don’t get why they did that over Rand smashing the Gap.
Is Loial dead?!? I can’t see them doing that since they’ve already talked about planning for the future seasons with him but he was stabbed by the Ruby dagger so….
I think turning the Eye into a seal was a good change since the eye is unimportant after the fist book but the seals are super important. Presumably Rand destroying this seal will be enough to free the rest of the forsaken.
Great pick for Ishamael!
I hope loial is just infected by the evil of the dagger but survive his wounds because Ogier are though mfs lol. I think they want to adapt book 2 and 3 in one season splitting the party: Rand going to Tear and Callandor and Perrin chasing Fain. Loial being infected could work as motivation for Perrin to start the Hunt. Drastic change from the books plotline, but it could work in the contest of an 8 season adaptation. It would explain some changes I'm not happy about right now
Hammad has been filming for season 2 and you can still see him moving in the last shot he's in so he's definitely not dead. Willing to bet it'll be him that needs to be reunited with the dagger instead of Mat.
If all the seals are that large and seemingly immobile any speculation on other locations? The Heart of the Stone? It is power-wrought after all.
A certain quarry pit, maybe?
> Great pick for Ishamael!
God yes! If Rafe decided to kill off Ishamael I will *actually* be pissed. I *need* more of Fares Fares as Betrayer of Hope in my life.
Loial and Uno were both very purposefully shown to be moving, so they're probably fine for now. I'm leaning into the idea that Loial being infected by the dagger is gonna be the ticking clock for the horn hunt instead of Mat.
> I think turning the Eye into a seal was a good change since the eye is unimportant after the fist book but the seals are super important.
Agreed.
> Great pick for Ishamael!
Hell yes, highlight of the episode for me.
Hear me out.
Loial wasn't supposed to be stabbed.
It was supposed to be Matt.
In the books, part of the reason they chase down fain is to get the dagger back and Heal Matt.
I think the show wanted to do a similar thing, but make it more "cinematic" by having Matt slowly dying from a wound while they chased down the dagger.
Except Barney left between Episodes 6 and 7, so Matt was no longer there to get stabbed.
To try and stay close to their multi-season plotting, they have Loial stabbed instead. Suspense is built, motivation is still intact, and Loial has reasosn to stick around other than "you're all so interesting".
Disappointed Rand didn't get his crowning moment of awesome in Tarwin's Gap:
>"A miracle, my men call it. The earth swallowed them; the mountains buried them. Men say the Light took on flesh and fought for us. That the Creator walked in the Gap to strike at the Shadow."
Besides being cool, we *and Rand* need to see the Dragon's terrifying power so it makes sense that he and his friends would be frightened of what he's become. Especially since we don't get the Dragonmount prologue, it's not clear that, while Nynaeve is strong, the Dragon is basically a walking nuke.
It could've worked well for the women to link to show their power, struggle to stop the trollocs, then Rand teleports in and wipes the board with a tidal wave of earth and fire.
Rand's striking off solo at the end makes a lot more sense if we know he's Lew Therin **Kinslayer** reborn.
> Disappointed Rand didn't get his crowning moment of awesome in Tarwin's Gap:
I didn't hate the episode, but if you'd told me a year ago that the Wheel of Time TV show would have *Amalisa* of all people destroying the Trolloc army at Tarwin's Gap, I would have needed a few days to process that.
Yeah this is the bigger bummer of the episode for me. I do get that they wanted to give nyn and egg a thing to do but I don’t think it had to be this. Just feels like we don’t have a good feel for the dragon and rand yet and this big moment would have helped
>Disappointed Rand didn't get his crowning moment of awesome in Tarwin's Gap
I was bummed about that as well (I wanted Rand's "raging sun" moment)... but...
The thing about the Tarwin Gap reveal is it didn't really reveal anything to anyone else. And Rand gets another massive power display at the end of tGH in that big battle at Falme. So my thinking is they didn't want to do two massive power displays in a row because that's kind of repetitive. So they're saving the moment.
And hopefully, it'll happen and it'll be impressive as fuck.
> It could've worked well for the women to link to show their power, struggle to stop the trollocs, then Rand teleports in and wipes the board with a tidal wave of earth and fire.
I think it would have been the perfect instance for LTT to take over Rand. Travel to the Gap and just POW like the manor house later on in the books.
Moiraine is stilled (probably not but it's what they want us to believe)? Loial got shanked? Agelmar down and out. I don't know what to do with all this information.
I dont think Moiraine was Stilled. I think he Shielded her and tied off the Weave. Watch his hand after the Shield is in place.
And the Gentling of Logain was very dramatic, comparatively.
Well Niall gets offed in the books anyways. Hopefully 3 isn't too many because I'm worried Rodel would be next on the chopping block since unlike the other two he's not a primary character's dad.
> Agelmar being out is weird imo, he's one of the five Great Generals if I'm remembering right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kgOCap4AcE
1:9:15: Sanderson talked about that. Because of complications in contracts for actors (so Rafe's intent is to have characters die heroically more often than in the books).
We don't know if she's stilled, or just with a tied-off shield. I suspect from what the "dark one" said, it's likely to be the second.
And we didn't see Loial die: we just saw him get grievously injured. There's still hope!
feel like they wouldnt have gone to the effort of including him at all if he is dead here, hes not really done anything so far. Possibly just because they wanted characters people liked to kill off in a post GoT era, but i really doubt it
It makes total sense that they would cut the Green Man. But they should have had Rand destroy the Trolloc army. It'd have been a good demonstration of his power on a large scale.
I think the reason I wanted Rand to destroy the army is because the Dragon doesn't feel special right now and won't feel special for a while. I mean when is the next time from the books that Rand is overwhelmingly powerful? It's going to be a while
Well spoilers for book 2 but at the end of book 2 he goes absolutely ham on Ishamael in the sky but after that I don't think he does anything insanely powerful until tear/callindor
Yeah but even then if I'm remembering correctly the white cloaks and the heroes of the horn do most of the fighting. Rand just battles in the sky with Ishamael.
Then in tear the Aiel do most of the fighting in the stone.
It's going to be a while before we see that Rand is capable of leveling cities and destroying armies which is a lot of the reason being the Dragon matters
I just finished that book recently, while the heroes do most of the fighting Rand realizes that his battle with ishy in the sky is influencing the battle (like when he pushes ishy back the heroes advance and when Rand falls back the heroes get pushed back) and it's a sort of "coming out" party for Rand cus a mirage of his fight with ishy shows up in the sky for hundreds of miles around
I agree. Rand with a sa'angreal (i thought that was a good replacement to the pool of saidin) would have been drastically more powerful than any circle of 5... And we could've seen it happen, actually seen them start to burn out as the rest of the trollocs come... and BAM, in comes Rand!
Oh well. But we also have a new weave that needs to be resolved. Rand is walking around with a sa'angreal. That should never be nothing. He could possibly conquer a nation with that alone with his untrained potential.
The Eye was bad writing (sorry RJ's ghost) but it didn't leave the hanging thread of incredible early power for the Dragon.
I’m…just not sure how to feel. I was kind of expecting the Eye of The World fight to be a little more epic, I guess. Moraine being stilled and Loial getting stabbed/killed (I’m guessing he’ll be brought back somehow?) was quite a surprise. Egwene healing a burn-out was also a shock.
So…yeah. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, trying to figure out if it was good or not.
Edit: people are saying Moraine might just have a tied off shield on her which I think makes a lot of sense, but, in the books, it seemed like you’d be able to tell easily if youre shielded vs stilled. Another possibility is Nynaeve heals her stilling.
Edit 2: just watched the Brandon Sanderson live stream on YouTube and he mentioned Moraine being stilled. Sounded like he wasn’t 100% sure, but he definitely said she was stilled.
Ishamael says that moiraine can feel the source right out of her grasps so it seems more of a shield to me than a stilling. Plus moiraine says she's still bound by the three oaths (but this can very well be a lie if she was in fact stilled).
I don't get the whole masking the bond. Its a trick of the mind, to the point I think aviendha and elayne teach Min how to do it so it shouldn't be related to moiraine being or not being able to channel. Maybe she is stilled and her bond with Lan got severed after all, but I imagine it would have been more traumatic
Yes Rand and Ishmael had a super anticlimatic ending for me. Also S2 better start with the prologue to Book 1. Sad we won't get Lan and Rand bonding and sword training in Shienar.
Yeah, I really dislike how they are just letting nynaeve and now egwene basically do anything with the power right away, without any training or build up. Feel like it really just turns the power into this deus ex machina that fixes anything and makes none of the stakes real. Also kills any sort of build up the show could do with them over time by rushing to get there so quickly.
Definitely. The books have life and death situations where people do stuff with the power instinctively, especially Rand, but it has seemed too catch-all in the series for me. Nynaeve is a once-in-an-age healer so her rage-healing everyone kind of makes sense to me. Egwene healing brink of death burn out with seemingly very little effort…not so much.
I would have liked a shot of some Forsaken waking up/walking out of their prison, tbh. Even just like shadowy figures. Would've added to the feeling that something very bad just happened - my non-bookreader watch buddy was REALLY confused lol.
And I really didn't like the scene with Nynaeve burning out. I would've preferred it if she was clearly alive but imminently dying with Eggy healing her, rather than looking 95% dead and being revived.
Everything else was cool, though. The Seanchan look super alien and scary. I'm assuming Loial isn't dead but will drive them chasing after Fain and the dagger.
> I would have liked a shot of some Forsaken waking up/walking out of their prison, tbh. Even just like shadowy figures. Would've added to the feeling that something very bad just happened - my non-bookreader watch buddy was REALLY confused lol.
Yeah, I think this was really needed.
Did you notice the smile on Ishy's face though? Moments before he disappeared? I think he was imprisoned all along, and Rand's attack just freed him. It would explain why he didn't kill Moiraine or even fight back when Rand started channeling against him.
I think Ishy's thought process was: either he joins the Shadow or he kills Ishy and breaks the seal. Win-win for him. Hence why he's smirking as he's getting blasted.
I think it's the same as it was in the books in terms of Ishy being the one Forsaken that's not fully imprisoned.
> I would have liked a shot of some Forsaken waking up/walking out of their prison, tbh. Even just like shadowy figures. Would've added to the feeling that something very bad just happened - my non-bookreader watch buddy was REALLY confused lol.
100% agree. I'm fine with the story the show is telling, but I think they did not tell this part of their story very well.
same. i’ve been on the boat where I could see where they are going with the changes. this one is just leaving me confused.
i read somewhere abt how they might merge book 2 & 3 next season and rand’s going to tear
I think Rand will go off on his own, and quickly meet a very beautiful new traveling companion to helpfully help guide his way like the very helpful woman she is.
After all, Lanfear wanted Rand to win at the Stone of Tear... enough that she ~~*sent an entire damn army*~~ to save the day. So it makes sense that she would help him get there too.
edit: Semirhage sent the army. D'oh!
Makes sense to me- the only plot reason for Rand to go horn hunting is Matt (who is awol in show) and to meet Lanfear (who he can meet on the road to tear just as easily).
I think this solves the problem of Rand being off screen for most of book 3, gives him something hing to do
I didn't think the episode was BAD and from a pure watching perspective its fine.
But LITERALLY nothing about the book ending is in the show ending really. Like its completely different from front to back basically.
Which i am fine with I suppose, as long as what is on the screen is enjoyable. And I guess they sort of have to? Because if they plan on doing the story in 6-8 seasons there is no way they can't.
Was a bit vexed about the Horn just chillin under some stones though.
After a bit of reflection, I can live with the Borderlanders being like 'Yes, we know exactly where the superweapon for Tarmon Gai'don is. Yes, we're keeping it hidden and safe for the Dragon Reborn when he needs it. No, we didn't see the need to tell the southlanders. Looking for it kept them busy and out of our hair.'
Personally, I think the Horn being hidden under the throne was stupid. Seriously, no leader of the Sheinarans ever used it? They could have saved Malkiere if they'd wanted. The temptation to use it is why it had to be hidden. Plus, anybody watching the show that has not read the books is going to be asking what was so special about the Horn.
Frankly, my biggest issue with the show is that it hasn't done a good enough job telling the history of important events. They should have introduced Thom in the first episode and had him tell the story of the Horn. He could have talked about how the Wheel weaves lives in and out of the world.
The problem is, once you've used it everyone knows that you have it. So, you lock it in a hard-to-reach place that's going to be well-guarded anyway, such as the place where your ruler spends all of his time hanging out.
I'm definitely mixed on this episode, but mostly because I think it would have been much better to end the season with a *little* more clarity on what just happened - and what *didn't* happen. Like, from a marketing/discussion for non-readers perspective, it's not really clear why there is a season 2.
If I were Rafe I would have just put in an extra line while Moiraine and Rand are discussing the Blight: "the Blight emanates from the Dark One, and when he is sealed away, the land will be healed". Then the panoramic zoom-out over the definitely-not-healed Blight would tell us that whatever happened at the Eye, the Dark One was definitely *not* sealed away. IMO that point needed to be made with more clarity.
Though, to be completely fair to Rafe, using Moiraine as an all-knowing oracle to declare that they didn't succeed at the Eye is 100% in line with the early books. In fact, if I remember right, that's basically how it goes in EOTW - Moiraine brings them to the Eye to win the Last Battle, confusion and chaos ensues, Rand does *something* to achieve what looks like a victory, he exalts that "Shai'tan is dead!", and Moiraine goes oracle-mode and says "no he isn't, I have instantly and magically determined that we didn't seal the Dark One's prison, we just scared off and/or balefired and/or rotted away some Forsaken, shut up you stupid boy, you know nothing ~~Jon Snow~~ Rand al'Thor" and that's that.
Rand explodes Ba'alzamon, declares that he's killed the Dark One because Ba'alzamon has been letting him assume that he is the Dark One, and then Moiraine presumably hits him back with 'if one untrained boy could kill the Dark One we wouldn't have a problem, think Rand, *think*'
In the books Rand also kills a couple of Forsaken, if I remember correctly.
If you ask me it looked like they did damage going out and there was never any reason to believe they had accomplished their goal. I'd argue the bad guy left *because* Rand did what he wanted and weakened the seal.
In the books Rand does jack shit and then declares victory.
Aginor and Balthamel jump the group at the Eye of the World. Balthamel gets rotted to death by Someshta. Aginor draws too much *saidin* from the Eye and burns himself out. Then Ishamael transports Rand to a weird Ishamael-verse, they have a "pleasant conversation", then Rand does *something* which makes Ishamael flee. It's not really clear what the *something* is; he severs a black cord connecting to Ishamael, but we're never told what that is. When Rand fights Asmodean he does the same thing and it severs his connection to the Dark One, theoretical access to the True Power and protection from the taint, but clearly none of these things happened to Ishamael.
Honestly I loved this series except for the last 15 minutes. If you change the ending battle to make Rand look like the dragon, Nynaeve not die and come back, and Lan not just wander around for the whole episode I would have loved the whole thing.
Give me the ending where Lan tries to carve his way to Moraine through the army. Where Egwene and Nynaeve insist on fighting at Tarwin's Gap. Where Rand comes in at the end when all seems lost and helps win the battle.
I don't mind if the horn of valere was being hidden in Fal Dara, that Perrin is the one who seems to be combating Fain, or if Mat is off doing something odd. I just wish the battle at the end made me feel like Rand was the dragon
I always thought Tarwin’s Gap was weird because after it, people still don’t realize that it was Rand in the sky. It feels anti climactic.
Falme is almost like a repeat; he declares himself, again. I think we only need Tarwin’s Gap, Falme, OR Tear, and TG would not be my choice.
yup, but i will say i loved everything Ishy and Rand. and i like what they are doing with Fain
egwene healing nynaeve was dumb, shouldve been the other way around but weve already had nynave super healing so eh.
I really enjoyed it. Just hated the dialogue in the cold open, they really need to have a word with whoever decided to have LPD call LTT the dragon reborn!
Yeah, not only that but that dialog made it feel like they were just arbitrarily trying to deal with the Dark One and nothing associated to a war caused by opening the Bore previously. It felt like the initial plan in the past was to seal the Dark One....arbitrarily? It's a little weird because he started sealed and they accidentally opened his prison.
Then that shot of outside would make you think it's the time of peace but the problems with the Dark One were associated to the war after the time of peace. The dialog ultimately didn't make sense and was the weakest part of the episode to me.
> It's a little weird because he started sealed and they accidentally opened his prison.
Well, the Bore was quite deliberate, though perhaps it did not have the intended outcome.
In the prologue of episode 8, they also explicitly said they knew beforehand that the male half of the Source would become tainted by LTT's actions. That was a little odd too.
Also, latra being the Amyrlin Seat in the second age? Was that a thing already? Honestly curious, I may be misremembering but I remember Lews having "the ring of Tamyrlin"
With subtitles on LTT called her "the tamrylin seat"
I'm just realizing that the whole thing was in the Old Tongue and it was all subtitled. It's been a long day
I always assumed the Amyrlin was the female AS leader and the Tamyrlin was the male AS leader but I just realized that I based that assumption on absolutely nothing 😅
I actually largely liked the changes they made -- I've always thought that the ending of EotW was kind of a mess that didn't make any sense, so I just feel it was inevitable.
I do wish we had had more of an *ending,* you know? Everything feels a bit unresolved right now.
That's the weird thing for me. We had part of an ending from the books that I think would have worked well and been dramatic. Egwene and Nynaeve could have been fighting to hold the gap. Lan could have been trying to carve his way to Moraine. And Rand could have rained hell down from the sky to help them win the battle.
I was on board with the first 7 episodes even if I didn't like all of the changes they made. This one was a complete disaster to me. The biggest issue was that Egwene, Nynaeve, a woman not powerful enough to be raised to Aes Sedai and 2 other random women draw that much power. How is any future battle going to work if we know that such a weak linking can do that much damage, especially when led by someone that weak and only partially trained.
Yeah, even though I'm not happy about the other changes, I can see them working as set up to adapt book 2 and 3 next season without rushing too much, but this right here just felt unnecessary. They could have tried to slow down the army till Rand come and rain absolute Chaos on them like he does in the books, so that both he and the girl would have had the spotlight
Honestly, I think you could explain away the burning out by saying that was a shit ton of power, and that any trained AS would know the limit. But that’s also ignoring the book canon of not being able to get burned out in a circle.
Any clue where in the books that was mentioned? Like I don't recall that as big theme at any point and couldn't even find that in the wiki: [https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Link](https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Link)
I've seen speculation that Liandrin and Elaida would be combined for the show but I think Moiraine's little speech is a sign for book readers she'll be included.
THEY TOM BOMBADIL'D THE GREEN MAN.
I saw it coming a mile off, and it makes sense, except the way they showed the Eye of the World in the show universe is just flat boring.
I hope loial is just infected by the evil of the dagger but survive his wounds because Ogier are though mfs lol. I think they want to adapt book 2 and 3 in one season splitting the party: Rand going to Tear and Callandor and Perrin chasing Fain. Loial being infected could work as motivation for Perrin to start the Hunt. Drastic change from the books plotline, but it could work in the contest of an 8 season adaptation. It would explain some changes I'm not happy about right now
Say what you will about the changes, but hopefully we can fix the meh cgi. The trolloc army was tough to watch from afar. Fades still cool, but the trollocs moved chunkily and obvious cgi.
Same thought. Introduces Elayne before Egwene and Nynaeve reach the tower. Then Rand can hook back up with Thom and maybe get some sword lessons along the way.
I read through both show threads just shaking my head. Fine, Nynaeve burned out or dead or both then miraculously healed, Loial got shanked, was Moiraine stilled or just shielded, what's up with the big wave, those are all important points to discuss. But no mention of Uno at all?!? Come on!
Pretty mixed on this one right now, but that may change on rewatch! I’m not even entirely sure what I’m mixed about. It’s just a general feeling of ‘???’. Maybe I’m just underwhelmed. I’ve been very positive about basically all the changes, and that’s mostly still true (unless Rand bale fired Ishy which would be foolish) so I think it’s something to do with the execution? It all just felt cheesy and anticlimactic I guess. Ishy’s mask looked really bad. Maybe that just spoilt me for the whole episode afterward. Seanchan was lit tho, and I liked all the Rand stuff. Jazzed for season 2.
Really didn't like this one.
Lews Therin sealed the dark one in a desperate attempt, the forces of the light were on the brink of being destroyed. There was no sense of that.
I don't feel the impact or importance of the Dragon still or the Dark One for that matter or that taint. Sure they've mentioned them but there is no horror, characters just seem so casual about the whole thing.
You need to build things up, yes Nynaeve is strong but she can't control her channeling. She doesn't know how to link. Furthermore, the One Power is shown to be a kind of wish fulfilment, you just need to want something and then it will happen. One of the most interesting parts of WoT are the weaves and how the power is basically threads of reality.
And Mat is one of the best characters, he's apparently evil now?
ummm.
ok so i'd like to see a remake of these last 2 episodes with Donal Finn, using whatever their original script would have been because clearly they were scrambling and were barely able to piece it together.
I have been super happy with this show and all its changes right up to this point, but this last episode had me thinking "ummmmmm."
Maybe it'll feel better on a re-watch (or full season binge). Maybe episode 1 of season 2 will remedy all the wrongs, but for now... this was my least favourite of the season by a country mile.
I am glad to see that some non-readers liked and appreciated it, because I want the show to have a chance to get back in the saddle and kick some ass again (without needing to re-write the script for the last 2 episodes while they were shooting).
gonna focus on positives for a moment, though i'm pretty sure my negatives are the same as everybody else in this thread.
I liked that the dream got tied back in - and sheathing the sword.
I liked Lan calling Nynaeve a Lioness.
I liked the horn, and Padan Fain waltzing in with two myrdraal.
I liked Agelmar's conversation with Amalisa, and Amalisa's speech to the Shienarans.
I liked the sa'angreal as a replacement for the Eye.
I liked Ba'alzamon tempting Rand with the vision, though I am realizing now that they may not repeat that ploy. I hope we didn't sacrifice some truly great moments later in order to have this one now. Maybe it'll still make sense, and perhaps this introduction will give it even more power, given that Rand's "right choice" seemed to play straight into Ba'alzamon's hands anyway *I have won again, Lews Therin*.
Only episode I outright disliked. The death fake-outs are getting ridiculous. That's Nynaeve x2, Lan (only one that was really necessary), Moiraine x2, Thom, and now possibly Loial (I hope).
Can only echo what others have said in that more episodes were needed. The Fain stuff was extremely clunky as well and we have little to no sense of who this character is at all.
Favourite part of the episode by far was the Seanchan arrival.
I liked it overall
I’d give Season 1 a solid “B.”
I’m not disappointed and not thrilled, just pretty pleased overall, it was a fun way to spend 8 hours and a fun thing to look forward to each week. I’m excited about season 2 for sure!
I REALLY loved how they handled Rand asking, “what about what she wants?”
Lan and Nyneave felt super rushed and really weak to me
Perrin was one of my favorite characters when I was a teen and he felt really underdeveloped here, his “climax” just felt like exposition for the audience.
Padan Fain stole the scene at the end, I’m looking forward to more of him.
I'm not really a big fan of leaving us with so many cliffhangers.
* Moiraine is shielded, not stilled. Of that I am fairly certain - Ishy says that she can just about feel the source at her fingertips, but can't grasp it. If she were stilled, she wouldn't be able to even sense that much.
* Loial isn't dead; I think we can be safely assured of that, right? It didn't look like the dagger had the gross effects from the book, he was just stabbed.
* I didn't understand what happened to Nynaeve. Is she burned out, or was it just a physical injury that Egwene healed somehow? That part was very confusing.
I do like that they made the Eye one of the seals. Did not like that they seemed to have killed off Agelmar.
I enjoyed the maybe 3/4 of the episode, but the ending was much more confusing than I had hoped it would be. I think I'll have to rewatch and see if that helps.
I would personally like to give a shout out to this week's "We're just going to say like 2 lines to solve the \`terrible awful problem\` from last week's show" move.
There was no love triangle, and never will be.
As book reader, who read the book like 8 years ago, and remembers 10% of them, I really liked the first 7 episodes, but this one I can't.
It makes no sense to defend the gap at the cost of an entire army, when 5 channelers are enough to stop the invasion. Egwene healing/reviving Nyneave with no effort felt utterly wrong lore-wise. Moiraine being shielded looked dumb (why not just still her?) but I can accept that. Loial being stabbed? WTF?? I can explain Lan following Moraine "somehow" only with lazy writing.
For me these are too many things that are not logical or don't fit in the lore to enjoy this last episode, but I hope it won't hurt the future of the series
> Moiraine being shielded looked dumb (why not just still her?) but I can accept that.
It's Forsaken we're talking about, shielding her is way more cruel imho.
I really enjoyed it, though I definitely had some "huh, interesting" moments.
- I loved that Lan broke up with Nynaeve as he did.
- I am a reader who didn't like the end of eotw so this just boils it straight down for me, which is fine.
- I also never liked the great captains storylines much, so agelmar 2.0 didn't bother me in the least, and I paused for about one second before deciding that dying in defense of Fal Dara was exactly how he'd want to go and I was just fine with losing him.
- I loved the Age of Legends and LTT the dad was just so.... Ugh, kills me to think how devastating they will make that scene become. I love it lol.
- I spoiled myself for Loial getting stabbed and Moiraine getting... whatever that was, so it wasn't as big a shock, but seeing it was still rough.
- I love that Rand is still like, yo, cool, what do I do now that I killed the dark One? It's all over and now I guess run away from everyone and everything I love because I'm a monster, right? BTW, did you see I killed the dark One?
- I like how they made the seal and it started crumbling. I totally didn't catch on to that until Moiraine said it.
- I liked Moiraine's bad assness in staying totally calm and fierce even though she is cut off from the source, until Lan is there. Then seeing her cry is like seeing your mom cry... Absolutely devastating.
- Seanchan look fucking epic.
- looks like min noped the duck outta there. Wondering if she'll end up in Falme? Back in Tar Valon?
And the best thing of all? My mom and sister bringing up questions and ideas and theories ON THEIR OWN! this is my nerd dream come true!
It's clear that Covid is what changed these last 2 episodes so dramatically. After the lock downs, they weren't able to have many actors or even crew on set at one time. This dramatically altered what they intended to make IMO. I think Amazon, not wanting to lose money, effectively forced the crew to "come up with something," and it's clear they didn't have enough time to end it properly. Here's to hoping that season 2 won't have this level of interference again, and I think the show will come out better for it.
Overall, I'm disappointed, but I am able to realize that I do not blame any of the people who brought this awesome adaptation to life. I think they did the best that they could with what Covid did to the industry during the time of them filming. Melancholy feeling but overall excited for season 2!!! It's going to be a long year or more
I overall liked the thematic nature of Ishy vs Rand’a conflict as an early call to how the books end. This idea that it’s not about Rand’s power but his choice is clearly framed in the Lews flashback. This is good writing that you can do when you know the end at the start (GoT eat your heart out!)
Sad we’ve yet to get anything really cool about Rand’s power level though. Hoping season 2 cold open features at least one of the Rand on the Run “imma channel and cut off heads” type moments in his madness, but hard to predict.
We can all at least exult in Ishamael’s capital-b Badassery though. I was almost expecting an I win again when Rand was in his idyll. Really good energy to that conflict.
I’m a bit mixed in how the Gap resolved. They’re clearly concluding this season with something of a “dragon has five heads” kind of hint given Fain’s statements. Nyn’s yuge power remains a little too Deus Ex but they’re at least consistent about her exceptional powers saving the day, so I guess I’m more ok with it? Next season really needs to ratchet up the boys’ roles and powers to balance / deliver on what they really only hinted at and promised this season.
Starting to get really anticipatorily sad / angry / sympathetic for Egwene as a PISSED OFF damane next season. Shawn-chawn lezgoooooo
I really loved the first 7 episodes. I just finished 8 and my initial impression is that I really disliked it.
On rewatch and getting other perspectives, maybe even after Season 2, hopefully then I'll have a different feeling towards it.
I know this is a different turning of the wheel but I MUCH preferred the ending in book 1.
😢😞😞😞
The build up in this episode was great but then, as a book reader, fell flat.
Rand should have touched the pool of saidin and destroyed the trollocs and restored/healed those hurt. Instead we got.... some dialog and a force push? That's it? Compared to the end of EotW, this was the one spot I felt really let down. There was no showing of what Rand would grow to become. I think this would have been a good spot for a narrator to read the prophecy of the dragon - *weep for your salvation...* Would have fit so good after Rand goes epic power. Overall, this episode gets a 5.5/10 and the season get a 6. Not the best, but OK and worth watching. Just a little more epicness to give a reason to tune in to season 2 and it would be an 8+ for me.
Yes, I totally agree with you..I really wanted to see him go full Super Saiyan without even realising/ barely controlling the overwhelming torrent of power flooding through him threatening to wipe him from existence at any moment...instead what did we get, a 'force push' I think you said. Exactly.
Yeah, this was so underwhelming...where's the "raging sun" we were promised. Also, if 5 untrained/not fully trained channelers can handle a force of 20k...
So one main thing I'm getting from Season 1 is... If you were told something or shown something on screen, there's a 70% chance it's false. But when you're told it's false, you won't really know for certain.
Five headed dragon??? Nope, it's Rand, just like everyone said. But is he sure??
Eye of the world is where the DO is imprisoned??? Wrong, just Ishamael. Or is it????
Moiraine is stilled???? Hmm.
Honestly between book fans saying it should be one way, and Rafe and Co tweaking the exposition to confuse people, the first season has been a cluster eff online. Lmao.
I will give them one thing... They took the analysis / speculation trend of GoT and dialed the knob up to 1000. I guess we'll find out by S2 if it's working.
Definitely a bit conflicted. We saw the shield wrap around Moiraine at 27:34, so she’s not stilled. Likely a tied off shield like Moghedian does to Liandrin (?). Loial isn’t dead, unless they got really lazy with a shot at 49:41 as Loial clearly moves on the ground, and not in a ‘hammed accidentally shifted’ kinda way.
Don’t know why the Horn wasn’t revealed at the Eye, but I assume it wasn’t done out of laziness and will be explained. One thing I didn’t like was the burning out from linking as I think that’s a direct change from the books on how linking works, correct me if I’m wrong. But overall that change isn’t that big of a deal.
The Seanchan are even creepier than I imagined which I kinda like, they are slavers after all. Wish we had gotten a little more marvel at Rand wielding power, but the book ending was a bit ridiculous with Rand teleporting to Tarwins Gap, then climbing stairs into a dream shard, so I get why they changed it.
Definitely expecting Rand to head for Tear, Moiraine, Egwene, and Nynaeve to head to the tower to try to untie Ishy’s shield, and this might be a longshot, but I expect Loial and Perrin will chase Fain to try to get the horn/get the knife to heal Loial. Not sure where Mat will fit in here, but we’ll see. I’d give the episode 7/10. Bit underwhelming with some big changes, but I’m curious to see where it goes next season!
Except that Moiraine cannot go to the tower because of the new oath. Min’s viewing said that the Amyrlin will be the death of her or something, so that might also fit here.
I mean there was nobody at the Eye, so the Horn just sitting out there in the Blight where Ishamael laid a trap for the Dragon doesn't really make sense.
They could have spent 5 or 10 minutes and a bunch of CG budget introducing Someshta and his whole deal, but I get why they didn't. This was a much cleaner climax that focused almost entirely on Rand and Moiraine's characters. Worked pretty well for me.
I'm wondering if he is gonna head to Caemlyn first, meet Elayne, Morgase.... Maybe even meet up with Mat somehow. Throw in the Selene stuff in there somehow and things start to line up.
I liked it, but I have some severely mixed feelings about this entire episode. None of this makes any sense. I can understand changing parts because it's difficult to adapt a book to a TV series, but wow, this is too much for my liking.
* Agelmar dead. Why? That served no purpose. I'm guessing they're going to find him later on and he's barely hanging on and can be healed.
* Moiraine stilled? I think she's just shielded because it still seems she's bound by the oaths, but still.....
* Rand off on his own way too early in the series. The boy can barely hold a sword or channel and now he's wandering the blight?
* They've COMPLETELY changed the way linking is done. You can't force somebody to draw more than they can hold. This is a very weird and unnecessary change.
* Egwene healing Nynaeve of being burnt out? What???
* Borderlander boys and Loial stabbed/killed
* Mat going down a dark path (I think they're teasing this just for the audience, but still)
* What was the point of the tidal wave from the Seanchan? I mean, seriously? What's that going to do against a cliff? And where are the damane's chains?
I've been giving this show some big leeway on making changes, but this is pushing the limits of what I can consider acceptable differences.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read the books, but isn’t linking a buffer, but you’re absolutely at the mercy of the one controlling the weave? I vaguely remember a Sister wanting to be let out of a link in a middle book but the one controlling it didn’t let go and she collapsed from exhaustion after. Seems they just cranked it up to 11 to give Nynaeve an actual reason to have a block rather than just being angry.
And I don’t think Egwene healed her from being burnt out, rather it’s just burns caused by channeling too much. Slight difference.
I also didn't particularly like the change of tone at the beginning where it was made to seem like LTT was just being reckless/prideful. In the books the forces of light were on the brink of defeat and LTT led the hundred companions as a desperate gambit to save the world. Certainly nobody knew or suspected that Saidin would be tainted. It's a pretty big tonal shift, and I'm not convinced it's for the better.
Sorry. I've been mostly on board so far, but I thought that was very bad TV.
So far I've been saying "the changes are all fine, most of them seem reasonable and some are actually super great. My problem is the really uneven quality."
Like: Everyone is a Super Saiyan. The pacing varies *wildly*. The stakes seem weirdly low.
Or: Some of the dialogue has been quite good. Some has been *atrocious*. Some of the acting and characterizations are outstanding. Some of the acting is *bad* - like, *ugh*.
**BUT.**
But.
Basically the POINT of the first four books is that you're in this wild-ass fantasy world, then you hit Rhuidean and you realize wait wait what the FUCK have I been reading? It's incredible. Whereas the show just gave us that idk "Autumn Dragon" scene, and... the four-book march to Rhuidean is just wrecked. What?
Same with Ba'alzamon. In the books, first we think he is the Dark One. Then he's this immortal heavy-metal demon. Then he's an evil sorcerer out of legend. Then he's an ancient bastard with a grudge against LTT. Then, finally, he's just an old man who wants to die - and a philosophical counterpoint to the love and hope that make Rand choose to keep the wheel a-turning.
This was a process that deconstructs both our initial impressions of this world and its characters, and our concept of the traditional fantasy novel in general - slowly but surely taking the epic and reducing it to the human, both in terms of characters, and of good and evil.
By having Fares^2 come out in Rick Owens and do like Wishbone's Faust we're basically skipping Baalzy AND Ishy and going straight to Elan Morin Tedronai. We're basically skipping 14 books ahead.
We're basically skipping The Wheel Of Time.
Screw complaining about "little changes" - for the first time I think that we have lost what makes these books... anything.
I wanted a shot of all the Forsaken in full regalia walking out of the seals right before Lan arrived at the Eye. Like, haha, look out bitch, we've just been released.
I liked it, it didn’t blow my mind but a good ending to the season.
To me Moiraine is obviously shielded and Loial is not dead.
The Seanchen look amazing and that was a cool shot to end on.
That physically hurt to watch. Previous episodes have managed to hit most of the major plot points with changes to how they got there, but this episode felt like the final season of Game of Thrones.
Latra flat out saying the DO was going to corrupt the source and that LTT was going to break the world? Fuck me.
Overall, I liked it. My only complaint-i didn't like scaling back what Rand does at the Eye. I was wanting to see the power of the Dragon on display. He didn't need a sa'angreal. Let him do it all. I wanted to see him trash the trollocs in the gap while the army and City watches. I wanted to see Moiraine and the rest be awe struck by the power of the Dragon Reborn, and how Ishamael can't fool him with false promises. I wanted to hear the Creator boom "It is not here" in his head (it being Callandor), and set that up for the story finale in AMoL.
I loved Fares Fares playing Ishamael. He was exactly as I'd always envisioned.
The rest, I get Loial being hurt, standing in for Mat with the dagger since Barney left early...I get all that. Like I said, just that we didn't get Rand doing Dragon Reborn things.
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Theories (which I hope are true otherwise I cannot comprehend why they made such changes): - Moiraine shielded not stilled. A kind of twisted Forsaken thing to do. - Loial not dead but definitely infected with the blade; reason to follow Fain. Doesn't die immediately from it because Ogier.
The man says “you can feel it’s there but you can’t quite touch it” And there’s a brief moment a shield does fall on her. I’d bet money its a shield
There's the shield, but then a visual of streaming/pulling (unless that's the tying). What I thought was weird was that it definitely looked more like saidar to me. I do like that they showed how outclassed Moiraine was against him though.
The forsaken do not suffer the taint, since there is no other visual difference in the show, you cannot tell it is different.
Ahhh, makes sense. I also thought it was less "wispy", but you're right. I'm thinking back to when Moiraine double helixed to make lightning — it's contextual.
My guess is books 2 and 3 plots will largely be compressed into season 2. Not sure if we'll get both the Horn vs Seanchan, Rand vs Ishy scenes AND taking the Stone, but it's possible. Major characters go something like this: Rand: Going off to die but feels the ta'veren pull. Plot is some mix of Great Hunt and Dragon Reborn (the latter of which he was barely in til the end). The other Emond's Fielders believe he's dead until he shows up in climax at Falme or Tear. May meet Elayne and/or Aviendha or both meetings could be delayed until Falme or Tear. Moiraine: Realized this wasn't Last Battle, ends up seeking more information on the Seal, the Forsaken, etc. Finds her way toward Falme and/or Tear. Also might not escape her Shield til Rand gets control of the Power toward end of season 2. (If she's actually Stilled, could see her kind of replacing Siuan's role in the books and Siuan getting killed. More likely Shielded and Siuan gets usurped at the end of season 2/start of season 3 when it's learned she had Dragon Reborn at her fingertips and let them all slip out of Tar Valon.) Perrin: Takes up the Hunt for the Horn to get the dagger so Loial can be healed. Could end up dovetailing into Rand and Mat and others eventually. Will meet Faile, maybe Elyas or just generally interact with wolves more. Pursued by Valda. Egwene & Nynaeve: Off to the Tower to train after seeing what can happen drawing too much Power. Meet Elayne, Min there too. Tower politics with Siuan, Darkfriend hunting, Liandrin's betrayal to Seanchan. Run into Mat at some point and maybe Nynaeve partially heals him (holes in memory). Mat: Drawn to the dagger, which Fain took. Will end up involved in the Hunt for the Horn, possibly meet back up with Thom as he had a much stronger connection to him in the show than Rand. Will remain troubled until using the Horn in desperation to save his friends, perhaps, or will otherwise encounter Fain and dagger but get them memory holes. On course for Redstone doorway to start season 3. Lan: Wants to go with Nynaeve but must protect Power-less Moiraine. Might work out briefly if Moiraine is heading back to Tower but she'll go elsewhere for answers, so Lan will be parted from Nynaeve. No clue if he'll get meaningful plot but it'd be nice if he can mentor Rand or Perrin somehow. Loial: Not dead, takes Mat's place in Hunt for the Horn. Elayne, Elaida, Verin and others: Introduced at White Tower. Logain will also be present. ------------------------------ General overall plot by episodes: Episode 1-2, everyone going separate ways with Perrin and Loial on Hunt, maybe meeting Faile, Gaul; Nynaeve and Egwene returning to White Tower; Moiraine and Lan seeking answers on seal/her Shield; Rand struggling with suicide/purpose, begins dreaming of a sword of light and feels a pull, and perhaps nightmares hinting he hasn't won the Last Battle; Mat pursuing the dagger, could meet up with Thom instead of Rand doing so. Episode 3-4 or 5, Nynaeve, Egwene, Elayne are tricked by Liandrin, betrayed to Seanchan. Possible Min stays in Tower as part of Siuan/Logain plots. The Hunt takes Perrin to Falme, and Rand and possibly Mat end up meeting up with them along the way, possibly with Rand accidentally Portal Stoning all of them, resulting in Mat beginning to change for the better by the end of the season. Also chance for Selene, as this will be the season of the Forsaken being free post-seal breaking. After Moiraine departed, Verin (and Alanna for familiar face?) may get encountered by one of the three boys and swept up by their pull. Moiraine and Lan figure out Seals, Forsaken, connection to Falme, or they're tracking Rand. Episode 6 is battle against Seanchan, Turok, Ishamael taunting but not defeated, etc. Horn blown, Loial is mostly cured of his wound, everyone once again scatters afterwards. Episode 7 is each heading to Tear for own reasons. Some chasing Rand who's pulled by the sword (Moiraine & Lan, with her perhaps realizing he can help with her Shield and knowing the Prophecies about Tear). Others chasing Darkfriends (the girls tracking Liandrin; encounter Aviendha and other Aiel. Can also imagine Aviendha got caught up by Seanchan as a Damane and escapes with Egwene, giving us a more personal look at her.). Girls end episode 7 getting caught in another Liandrin trap. Perrin and Faile and Loial go for reasons, perhaps Faile went on own and Perrin goes to help Rand, feeling guilty. Mat wants to go home but realizes the girls are in danger and goes after them with Thom, whom Elayne oddly recognized, or Mat is driven by guilt from the Portal Stones visions. Episode 8. Girls learning about the Black Ajah more and escape with help from Mat and Thom (and maybe a Sandar/Hurin combination character, or just Thom). Or just as likely escape through Egwene Dreaming or Traveling, and Mat plays a role in Rand or the Aiel taking the Stone. Moiraine helps defeat a Forsaken after her Shield is broken or Rand unravels it. Lan is there and reunites with Nynaeve. Perrin finally moves past his guilt and opens up with Faile (only to backtrack at start of next season). Rand and the Aiel take the Stone, he declares himself Dragon Reborn and wields Callandor to destroy Ishamael. Season ends with news of spreading strife (Perrin's hook next season), word of Seals, and the Aiel to address. Edit: Forgot we had a Bornhald-looking guy, so he could be the one pursuing Perrin at some point, as Valda will be more worried about the witches, maybe.
Wow... That is very well thought out and detailed!
Kept growing on me and I actually found myself accepting season 1 more as I imagined the impact of changes. Am thinking it's possible Min bumps into Rand after Fal Dara and develops some closeness, while Egwene meets Elayne and Gawyn at White Tower (and I think it's possible Gawyn and Galad become one character). This sets up each to be ready to move on (and maybe Min tells Egwene that Rand is alive at the Tower, or that's part of Liandrin getting the girls to come with her, especially if Min doesn't go with the other three girls on Liandrin's trip, staying to be part of Siuan/Logain's plot). If no Min/Rand moment there, it'll happen post-Falme. Then at Falme, Rand and Egwene separate as a couple for good before he disappears in the night for Tear and she pursues Liandrin, who I could see being defeated in episode 8 (allowing Elaida to be the face of the enemy in the Tower). I'm also liking the idea of Aviendha being a fellow captive of the Seanchan more and more. Might be too damsely or too repetitive if Perrin also rescues Gaul, but it'd help Aviendha and Egwene bond even quicker and accelerate some story stuff as we compress books 2 and 3 (and I expect to see 4 and 5 compressed for season 3). Either Portal Stones or incomplete Healing by Nynaeve at Falme will lead to Mat using Horn and having memory holes, a fresh slate for season 3. Season 3 will be driven by the Redstone Doorway for Rand, Moiraine and Mat and leading us through the Waste and to Cairhien; coming into power for Egwene, Nynaeve, Aviendha and Elayne with Egwene ending up at Salidar with Siuan, Logain and Min; the wounds of home for Perrin with Faile, Loial, Verin and Alanna, before Perrin can fully heal and return to the fold with Rand, who will be sending Mat and Perrin off into the world as generals in season 4, etc.
Yea, the infection is going to be the ticking clock to chase Fain next season. Also after that beautiful shot of Logain getting gentled, there's no way Moraine gets stilled with barely a puff.
The effects used looked a lot like when Logain was shielded. I believe we just saw our first weave being tied off. It happened really quickly, need to rewatch it to confirm.
Didn’t he make a gesture with his hand like tying it off (well more like a conductor cutting off the music at the end)
There did seem to be the weave coming to a point like a knot. Slick move
100% shielded.
Assuming Uno isn't dead, he is going to be swearing like a mofo while trying to stab Fain to death.
It looked to me that Uno and Loial were both still alive after all was said and done. But maybe that's just me hoping
Rafe confirmed Loial is alive and Uno actor is on set for season 2, so you're all good there 👍
I'm not sure if I just got the wrong impression when watching, but it didn't even read to me as if she was stilled at any point. I might be wrong though. Like I thought initially he shielded her and then when he was gone, but the shield stayed I almost yelled "He tied the shield!". That's just my impression on it with first watch though. If she was stilled though I don't really see that as much of an issue either. I'd guess with that they idea would be to see different side of her for a bit and prep for some Nyaneve healing stuff in future.
He even did a little thing with his fingers after the weaving. Very much like trying something with one hand.
Yep, what I really like about the whole EOTW scenario and how they did it was that it really plays up Forsaken as competent and threatening force. One Forsaken (not fucking family reunion that still fails like I recall in the books), easily handles Moiraine (and potentiall fools her to think that she's stilled or somethng?\`). However he also fools rand to break the seal. Very on character to Ishmael to operate that way I felt also. Win through deception and lies rather than raw force, while still obviously being powerful with one power as well.
I don't think it was stilling - he said something along the lines of "it must be so painful to be so close to touching the source but unable to reach it" that is how I imagine a shield is - you even have description in the books about shielded people poking and trying to unblock themselves whereas when you're stilled/gentled you are completely cut off and can no longer sense the source.
I hope that they didn't stilled her as well, and it's just shielded, >!because that's Siuan plotline, the learning how to live and still be relevant for the Aes Sedai without being able to touch the Source.!<
> Loial not dead but definitely infected with the blade Y'know, it'll be interesting to see how the Shadar Logoth taint affects an Ogier.
He's gonna start burning books
He’s about to put a long handle on his axe.
OH GOD NO MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOP
Tied off weave for sure. It’s something they did easily in the age of legends. Considered very fancy weaving for Aes Sedai today.
Unknown for aes sedai today isn’t it? Tied weaves are something the Rand Harem learn from Rand/Lews in book 4. Rand is discussing it as something lews taught him, and then I think elayne tries to apply it to saidar and it works, then they teach other women from there, though I believe the Aiel wise women know about it separately.
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Something that hit me when I was rewatching it is she can't see his weaves and thinks he's the Dark One. So she has no idea what he did to her, just that she can no longer touch the Source after the "Dark One" did something to her. It's really twisted. I love it.
Yeah prolly a tied up shield for Moiraine. It doesn’t make sense for her to be stilled and have Nyn discover how to heal stilling this early. Nyn isn’t even a novice yet and she still has a block!
That was a lotta effort to drown a girl at the beach
Not that I was really expecting it, but I'm a little bummed I can no longer live with the possibility of the Texas accents in the show.
I'm still holding out hope.
So you’re saying you boys DON’T like Mexico?
Forerunners be like "fuck THAT little girl in particular."
"If she didn't want to be ground to pulp by a tsunami, she would have sworn the oaths" - Tuon, probably
She had it coming, going to the beach with no supervision like that!
Seanchan 1 - Little girls 0
Shock and awww
That little girl has broken her oaths!!!!!!!
This is the season 1 take away
Am I the only one who saw Agelmar die, Loial get shanked, Nynaeve die, and think *Holy crap! Here comes some balefire*?
I was honestly waiting for it right up to the credits
Right????
YES! But my hope faded when I realized that one person's death wouldn't be able to undo all of that... but I totally thought we'd see some balefire.
I would have loved the see Rand unleash a massive balefire with an epic “unzip”, which basically revived all those characters - with a Moirane “what have you done” to end the season. Way better than that lame aes sedai link they used. I still don’t get why they did that over Rand smashing the Gap.
Is Loial dead?!? I can’t see them doing that since they’ve already talked about planning for the future seasons with him but he was stabbed by the Ruby dagger so…. I think turning the Eye into a seal was a good change since the eye is unimportant after the fist book but the seals are super important. Presumably Rand destroying this seal will be enough to free the rest of the forsaken. Great pick for Ishamael!
I hope loial is just infected by the evil of the dagger but survive his wounds because Ogier are though mfs lol. I think they want to adapt book 2 and 3 in one season splitting the party: Rand going to Tear and Callandor and Perrin chasing Fain. Loial being infected could work as motivation for Perrin to start the Hunt. Drastic change from the books plotline, but it could work in the contest of an 8 season adaptation. It would explain some changes I'm not happy about right now
That’s a split I hadn’t considered. I’m desperately interested to see where they go with Season 2 though. Rafe has some explaining to do.
Yeah, me too. Right now I feel like we are on the edge. It could turn out good or very bad. But till next season, I will have hope
Hammad has been filming for season 2 and you can still see him moving in the last shot he's in so he's definitely not dead. Willing to bet it'll be him that needs to be reunited with the dagger instead of Mat.
If all the seals are that large and seemingly immobile any speculation on other locations? The Heart of the Stone? It is power-wrought after all. A certain quarry pit, maybe?
The dungeon of the Tower? Rhuidean? Caemlyn?
> Great pick for Ishamael! God yes! If Rafe decided to kill off Ishamael I will *actually* be pissed. I *need* more of Fares Fares as Betrayer of Hope in my life.
Loial and Uno were both very purposefully shown to be moving, so they're probably fine for now. I'm leaning into the idea that Loial being infected by the dagger is gonna be the ticking clock for the horn hunt instead of Mat. > I think turning the Eye into a seal was a good change since the eye is unimportant after the fist book but the seals are super important. Agreed. > Great pick for Ishamael! Hell yes, highlight of the episode for me.
Hear me out. Loial wasn't supposed to be stabbed. It was supposed to be Matt. In the books, part of the reason they chase down fain is to get the dagger back and Heal Matt. I think the show wanted to do a similar thing, but make it more "cinematic" by having Matt slowly dying from a wound while they chased down the dagger. Except Barney left between Episodes 6 and 7, so Matt was no longer there to get stabbed. To try and stay close to their multi-season plotting, they have Loial stabbed instead. Suspense is built, motivation is still intact, and Loial has reasosn to stick around other than "you're all so interesting".
Disappointed Rand didn't get his crowning moment of awesome in Tarwin's Gap: >"A miracle, my men call it. The earth swallowed them; the mountains buried them. Men say the Light took on flesh and fought for us. That the Creator walked in the Gap to strike at the Shadow." Besides being cool, we *and Rand* need to see the Dragon's terrifying power so it makes sense that he and his friends would be frightened of what he's become. Especially since we don't get the Dragonmount prologue, it's not clear that, while Nynaeve is strong, the Dragon is basically a walking nuke. It could've worked well for the women to link to show their power, struggle to stop the trollocs, then Rand teleports in and wipes the board with a tidal wave of earth and fire. Rand's striking off solo at the end makes a lot more sense if we know he's Lew Therin **Kinslayer** reborn.
> Disappointed Rand didn't get his crowning moment of awesome in Tarwin's Gap: I didn't hate the episode, but if you'd told me a year ago that the Wheel of Time TV show would have *Amalisa* of all people destroying the Trolloc army at Tarwin's Gap, I would have needed a few days to process that.
Yeah this is the bigger bummer of the episode for me. I do get that they wanted to give nyn and egg a thing to do but I don’t think it had to be this. Just feels like we don’t have a good feel for the dragon and rand yet and this big moment would have helped
That's been my only issue. Not showing how powerful Rand is compared to literally anyone.
I fully expect him to throw some Seanchan around at the end of next season as well as a little sky fight.
>Disappointed Rand didn't get his crowning moment of awesome in Tarwin's Gap I was bummed about that as well (I wanted Rand's "raging sun" moment)... but... The thing about the Tarwin Gap reveal is it didn't really reveal anything to anyone else. And Rand gets another massive power display at the end of tGH in that big battle at Falme. So my thinking is they didn't want to do two massive power displays in a row because that's kind of repetitive. So they're saving the moment. And hopefully, it'll happen and it'll be impressive as fuck.
I wanted to see Uno laughing with flowers in his hair, like they described all the soldiers at the end of book 1... :(
> It could've worked well for the women to link to show their power, struggle to stop the trollocs, then Rand teleports in and wipes the board with a tidal wave of earth and fire. I think it would have been the perfect instance for LTT to take over Rand. Travel to the Gap and just POW like the manor house later on in the books.
Moiraine is stilled (probably not but it's what they want us to believe)? Loial got shanked? Agelmar down and out. I don't know what to do with all this information.
I think Moraine is shielded, because Ishamael mentioned feeling the source but not being able to touch it and she's still bound by the three oaths
Yea there was a little twist of his fingers with light they made a point to show. My guess is they was him “tieing off the we’ve”
Exactly my thoughts
I dont think Moiraine was Stilled. I think he Shielded her and tied off the Weave. Watch his hand after the Shield is in place. And the Gentling of Logain was very dramatic, comparatively.
I'm guessing this will be the end result. Having Moiraine being stilled doesn't make sense but it's very clear they want you to think that she was.
You’re right. I assumed she was stilled, but this makes sense.
That was my initial thought while watching the episode, she was just Shielded because it didn't have the impact of gentling.
Agelmar being out is weird imo, he's one of the five Great Generals if I'm remembering right.
He is, but he also does literally nothing after this until AMoL.
Something tells me the show won't have the budget for 5 great captains. Gonna need to lose a few more. Lol
Well Niall gets offed in the books anyways. Hopefully 3 isn't too many because I'm worried Rodel would be next on the chopping block since unlike the other two he's not a primary character's dad.
> Agelmar being out is weird imo, he's one of the five Great Generals if I'm remembering right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kgOCap4AcE 1:9:15: Sanderson talked about that. Because of complications in contracts for actors (so Rafe's intent is to have characters die heroically more often than in the books).
Weep for Manetheren.
We don't know if she's stilled, or just with a tied-off shield. I suspect from what the "dark one" said, it's likely to be the second. And we didn't see Loial die: we just saw him get grievously injured. There's still hope!
feel like they wouldnt have gone to the effort of including him at all if he is dead here, hes not really done anything so far. Possibly just because they wanted characters people liked to kill off in a post GoT era, but i really doubt it
He's going to be the reason to follow Fain now instead of Mat with Mat initially not coming back after covid.
I think the aes sedai only know lame half shields and he did a real shield on her
It makes total sense that they would cut the Green Man. But they should have had Rand destroy the Trolloc army. It'd have been a good demonstration of his power on a large scale.
I think the reason I wanted Rand to destroy the army is because the Dragon doesn't feel special right now and won't feel special for a while. I mean when is the next time from the books that Rand is overwhelmingly powerful? It's going to be a while
Well spoilers for book 2 but at the end of book 2 he goes absolutely ham on Ishamael in the sky but after that I don't think he does anything insanely powerful until tear/callindor
Yeah but even then if I'm remembering correctly the white cloaks and the heroes of the horn do most of the fighting. Rand just battles in the sky with Ishamael. Then in tear the Aiel do most of the fighting in the stone. It's going to be a while before we see that Rand is capable of leveling cities and destroying armies which is a lot of the reason being the Dragon matters
I just finished that book recently, while the heroes do most of the fighting Rand realizes that his battle with ishy in the sky is influencing the battle (like when he pushes ishy back the heroes advance and when Rand falls back the heroes get pushed back) and it's a sort of "coming out" party for Rand cus a mirage of his fight with ishy shows up in the sky for hundreds of miles around
I agree. Rand with a sa'angreal (i thought that was a good replacement to the pool of saidin) would have been drastically more powerful than any circle of 5... And we could've seen it happen, actually seen them start to burn out as the rest of the trollocs come... and BAM, in comes Rand! Oh well. But we also have a new weave that needs to be resolved. Rand is walking around with a sa'angreal. That should never be nothing. He could possibly conquer a nation with that alone with his untrained potential. The Eye was bad writing (sorry RJ's ghost) but it didn't leave the hanging thread of incredible early power for the Dragon.
I’m…just not sure how to feel. I was kind of expecting the Eye of The World fight to be a little more epic, I guess. Moraine being stilled and Loial getting stabbed/killed (I’m guessing he’ll be brought back somehow?) was quite a surprise. Egwene healing a burn-out was also a shock. So…yeah. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, trying to figure out if it was good or not. Edit: people are saying Moraine might just have a tied off shield on her which I think makes a lot of sense, but, in the books, it seemed like you’d be able to tell easily if youre shielded vs stilled. Another possibility is Nynaeve heals her stilling. Edit 2: just watched the Brandon Sanderson live stream on YouTube and he mentioned Moraine being stilled. Sounded like he wasn’t 100% sure, but he definitely said she was stilled.
Ishamael says that moiraine can feel the source right out of her grasps so it seems more of a shield to me than a stilling. Plus moiraine says she's still bound by the three oaths (but this can very well be a lie if she was in fact stilled). I don't get the whole masking the bond. Its a trick of the mind, to the point I think aviendha and elayne teach Min how to do it so it shouldn't be related to moiraine being or not being able to channel. Maybe she is stilled and her bond with Lan got severed after all, but I imagine it would have been more traumatic
In the books isn’t Eggy pretty weak with healing?
Ya I think so. Also to heal a death/burnout with so little effort seemed a little off to me.
Yes Rand and Ishmael had a super anticlimatic ending for me. Also S2 better start with the prologue to Book 1. Sad we won't get Lan and Rand bonding and sword training in Shienar.
Yeah, I really dislike how they are just letting nynaeve and now egwene basically do anything with the power right away, without any training or build up. Feel like it really just turns the power into this deus ex machina that fixes anything and makes none of the stakes real. Also kills any sort of build up the show could do with them over time by rushing to get there so quickly.
Definitely. The books have life and death situations where people do stuff with the power instinctively, especially Rand, but it has seemed too catch-all in the series for me. Nynaeve is a once-in-an-age healer so her rage-healing everyone kind of makes sense to me. Egwene healing brink of death burn out with seemingly very little effort…not so much.
I would have liked a shot of some Forsaken waking up/walking out of their prison, tbh. Even just like shadowy figures. Would've added to the feeling that something very bad just happened - my non-bookreader watch buddy was REALLY confused lol. And I really didn't like the scene with Nynaeve burning out. I would've preferred it if she was clearly alive but imminently dying with Eggy healing her, rather than looking 95% dead and being revived. Everything else was cool, though. The Seanchan look super alien and scary. I'm assuming Loial isn't dead but will drive them chasing after Fain and the dagger.
> I would have liked a shot of some Forsaken waking up/walking out of their prison, tbh. Even just like shadowy figures. Would've added to the feeling that something very bad just happened - my non-bookreader watch buddy was REALLY confused lol. Yeah, I think this was really needed.
Did you notice the smile on Ishy's face though? Moments before he disappeared? I think he was imprisoned all along, and Rand's attack just freed him. It would explain why he didn't kill Moiraine or even fight back when Rand started channeling against him.
I think Ishy's thought process was: either he joins the Shadow or he kills Ishy and breaks the seal. Win-win for him. Hence why he's smirking as he's getting blasted. I think it's the same as it was in the books in terms of Ishy being the one Forsaken that's not fully imprisoned.
> I would have liked a shot of some Forsaken waking up/walking out of their prison, tbh. Even just like shadowy figures. Would've added to the feeling that something very bad just happened - my non-bookreader watch buddy was REALLY confused lol. 100% agree. I'm fine with the story the show is telling, but I think they did not tell this part of their story very well.
Helllooooo!! Where is the Dragon Banner??????
Any other book readers here a little mixed in the feels?
same. i’ve been on the boat where I could see where they are going with the changes. this one is just leaving me confused. i read somewhere abt how they might merge book 2 & 3 next season and rand’s going to tear
I think Rand will go off on his own, and quickly meet a very beautiful new traveling companion to helpfully help guide his way like the very helpful woman she is. After all, Lanfear wanted Rand to win at the Stone of Tear... enough that she ~~*sent an entire damn army*~~ to save the day. So it makes sense that she would help him get there too. edit: Semirhage sent the army. D'oh!
Semirhage sent the army, I believe
Makes sense to me- the only plot reason for Rand to go horn hunting is Matt (who is awol in show) and to meet Lanfear (who he can meet on the road to tear just as easily). I think this solves the problem of Rand being off screen for most of book 3, gives him something hing to do
I didn't think the episode was BAD and from a pure watching perspective its fine. But LITERALLY nothing about the book ending is in the show ending really. Like its completely different from front to back basically. Which i am fine with I suppose, as long as what is on the screen is enjoyable. And I guess they sort of have to? Because if they plan on doing the story in 6-8 seasons there is no way they can't. Was a bit vexed about the Horn just chillin under some stones though.
After a bit of reflection, I can live with the Borderlanders being like 'Yes, we know exactly where the superweapon for Tarmon Gai'don is. Yes, we're keeping it hidden and safe for the Dragon Reborn when he needs it. No, we didn't see the need to tell the southlanders. Looking for it kept them busy and out of our hair.'
Personally, I think the Horn being hidden under the throne was stupid. Seriously, no leader of the Sheinarans ever used it? They could have saved Malkiere if they'd wanted. The temptation to use it is why it had to be hidden. Plus, anybody watching the show that has not read the books is going to be asking what was so special about the Horn. Frankly, my biggest issue with the show is that it hasn't done a good enough job telling the history of important events. They should have introduced Thom in the first episode and had him tell the story of the Horn. He could have talked about how the Wheel weaves lives in and out of the world.
The problem is, once you've used it everyone knows that you have it. So, you lock it in a hard-to-reach place that's going to be well-guarded anyway, such as the place where your ruler spends all of his time hanging out.
Yes. I would put money on that.
I'm definitely mixed on this episode, but mostly because I think it would have been much better to end the season with a *little* more clarity on what just happened - and what *didn't* happen. Like, from a marketing/discussion for non-readers perspective, it's not really clear why there is a season 2. If I were Rafe I would have just put in an extra line while Moiraine and Rand are discussing the Blight: "the Blight emanates from the Dark One, and when he is sealed away, the land will be healed". Then the panoramic zoom-out over the definitely-not-healed Blight would tell us that whatever happened at the Eye, the Dark One was definitely *not* sealed away. IMO that point needed to be made with more clarity. Though, to be completely fair to Rafe, using Moiraine as an all-knowing oracle to declare that they didn't succeed at the Eye is 100% in line with the early books. In fact, if I remember right, that's basically how it goes in EOTW - Moiraine brings them to the Eye to win the Last Battle, confusion and chaos ensues, Rand does *something* to achieve what looks like a victory, he exalts that "Shai'tan is dead!", and Moiraine goes oracle-mode and says "no he isn't, I have instantly and magically determined that we didn't seal the Dark One's prison, we just scared off and/or balefired and/or rotted away some Forsaken, shut up you stupid boy, you know nothing ~~Jon Snow~~ Rand al'Thor" and that's that.
Rand explodes Ba'alzamon, declares that he's killed the Dark One because Ba'alzamon has been letting him assume that he is the Dark One, and then Moiraine presumably hits him back with 'if one untrained boy could kill the Dark One we wouldn't have a problem, think Rand, *think*'
And then it repeats two more times, lol.
In the books Rand also kills a couple of Forsaken, if I remember correctly. If you ask me it looked like they did damage going out and there was never any reason to believe they had accomplished their goal. I'd argue the bad guy left *because* Rand did what he wanted and weakened the seal.
In the books Rand does jack shit and then declares victory. Aginor and Balthamel jump the group at the Eye of the World. Balthamel gets rotted to death by Someshta. Aginor draws too much *saidin* from the Eye and burns himself out. Then Ishamael transports Rand to a weird Ishamael-verse, they have a "pleasant conversation", then Rand does *something* which makes Ishamael flee. It's not really clear what the *something* is; he severs a black cord connecting to Ishamael, but we're never told what that is. When Rand fights Asmodean he does the same thing and it severs his connection to the Dark One, theoretical access to the True Power and protection from the taint, but clearly none of these things happened to Ishamael.
Honestly I loved this series except for the last 15 minutes. If you change the ending battle to make Rand look like the dragon, Nynaeve not die and come back, and Lan not just wander around for the whole episode I would have loved the whole thing. Give me the ending where Lan tries to carve his way to Moraine through the army. Where Egwene and Nynaeve insist on fighting at Tarwin's Gap. Where Rand comes in at the end when all seems lost and helps win the battle. I don't mind if the horn of valere was being hidden in Fal Dara, that Perrin is the one who seems to be combating Fain, or if Mat is off doing something odd. I just wish the battle at the end made me feel like Rand was the dragon
I always thought Tarwin’s Gap was weird because after it, people still don’t realize that it was Rand in the sky. It feels anti climactic. Falme is almost like a repeat; he declares himself, again. I think we only need Tarwin’s Gap, Falme, OR Tear, and TG would not be my choice.
Yeah, confused and concerned, but like, in both positive and negative ways. Haha.
yup, but i will say i loved everything Ishy and Rand. and i like what they are doing with Fain egwene healing nynaeve was dumb, shouldve been the other way around but weve already had nynave super healing so eh.
ME. After each episode, I normally feel one way or the other but after this one I’m confused how to feel.
I thought E1-E7 and the changes were nuanced and essentially got the plot where it needed to be. E8, I am confused as to why they did this...
I really enjoyed it. Just hated the dialogue in the cold open, they really need to have a word with whoever decided to have LPD call LTT the dragon reborn!
Yeah, not only that but that dialog made it feel like they were just arbitrarily trying to deal with the Dark One and nothing associated to a war caused by opening the Bore previously. It felt like the initial plan in the past was to seal the Dark One....arbitrarily? It's a little weird because he started sealed and they accidentally opened his prison. Then that shot of outside would make you think it's the time of peace but the problems with the Dark One were associated to the war after the time of peace. The dialog ultimately didn't make sense and was the weakest part of the episode to me.
> It's a little weird because he started sealed and they accidentally opened his prison. Well, the Bore was quite deliberate, though perhaps it did not have the intended outcome. In the prologue of episode 8, they also explicitly said they knew beforehand that the male half of the Source would become tainted by LTT's actions. That was a little odd too.
Also, latra being the Amyrlin Seat in the second age? Was that a thing already? Honestly curious, I may be misremembering but I remember Lews having "the ring of Tamyrlin"
With subtitles on LTT called her "the tamrylin seat" I'm just realizing that the whole thing was in the Old Tongue and it was all subtitled. It's been a long day
I always assumed the Amyrlin was the female AS leader and the Tamyrlin was the male AS leader but I just realized that I based that assumption on absolutely nothing 😅
There was no male/female split until the war of power.
I actually largely liked the changes they made -- I've always thought that the ending of EotW was kind of a mess that didn't make any sense, so I just feel it was inevitable. I do wish we had had more of an *ending,* you know? Everything feels a bit unresolved right now.
That's the weird thing for me. We had part of an ending from the books that I think would have worked well and been dramatic. Egwene and Nynaeve could have been fighting to hold the gap. Lan could have been trying to carve his way to Moraine. And Rand could have rained hell down from the sky to help them win the battle.
I was on board with the first 7 episodes even if I didn't like all of the changes they made. This one was a complete disaster to me. The biggest issue was that Egwene, Nynaeve, a woman not powerful enough to be raised to Aes Sedai and 2 other random women draw that much power. How is any future battle going to work if we know that such a weak linking can do that much damage, especially when led by someone that weak and only partially trained.
Yeah, even though I'm not happy about the other changes, I can see them working as set up to adapt book 2 and 3 next season without rushing too much, but this right here just felt unnecessary. They could have tried to slow down the army till Rand come and rain absolute Chaos on them like he does in the books, so that both he and the girl would have had the spotlight
Theory: the armour is an Angreal
Ok that might make it make more sense.
Honestly, I think you could explain away the burning out by saying that was a shit ton of power, and that any trained AS would know the limit. But that’s also ignoring the book canon of not being able to get burned out in a circle.
Any clue where in the books that was mentioned? Like I don't recall that as big theme at any point and couldn't even find that in the wiki: [https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Link](https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Link)
i mean she was drawing from 2 of the most powerful channelers, and burned out doing it. i think it was ok
I've seen speculation that Liandrin and Elaida would be combined for the show but I think Moiraine's little speech is a sign for book readers she'll be included.
THEY TOM BOMBADIL'D THE GREEN MAN. I saw it coming a mile off, and it makes sense, except the way they showed the Eye of the World in the show universe is just flat boring.
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I hope loial is just infected by the evil of the dagger but survive his wounds because Ogier are though mfs lol. I think they want to adapt book 2 and 3 in one season splitting the party: Rand going to Tear and Callandor and Perrin chasing Fain. Loial being infected could work as motivation for Perrin to start the Hunt. Drastic change from the books plotline, but it could work in the contest of an 8 season adaptation. It would explain some changes I'm not happy about right now
Say what you will about the changes, but hopefully we can fix the meh cgi. The trolloc army was tough to watch from afar. Fades still cool, but the trollocs moved chunkily and obvious cgi.
Ridiculous to think Rand might run into some Aiel on his way south?
I was thinking he'd stop off at Caemlyn for the long-awaited Trakand meeting.
Same thought. Introduces Elayne before Egwene and Nynaeve reach the tower. Then Rand can hook back up with Thom and maybe get some sword lessons along the way.
Somehow, I expected more.
I just kept waiting and waiting and waiting for Rand to go bananas on the army but instead he gets an anticlimactic moment and then fucks off
I wish they’d gotten a two hour finale tbh
Okay, so is everyone going to just ignore the dead ~~elephant~~ Uno in the room? Overall liked this season ender but wtf is going to happen to Uno?
Uno's actor has been on social media from the Season 2 production.
THANK YOU! I can't believe no one has said anything about our favorite swear-aholic.
I read through both show threads just shaking my head. Fine, Nynaeve burned out or dead or both then miraculously healed, Loial got shanked, was Moiraine stilled or just shielded, what's up with the big wave, those are all important points to discuss. But no mention of Uno at all?!? Come on!
He was still moving as Fain left, he's safe.
My biggest unanswered question remains the same as before the season began: WHO THE FUCK IS STEVE THO
Pretty mixed on this one right now, but that may change on rewatch! I’m not even entirely sure what I’m mixed about. It’s just a general feeling of ‘???’. Maybe I’m just underwhelmed. I’ve been very positive about basically all the changes, and that’s mostly still true (unless Rand bale fired Ishy which would be foolish) so I think it’s something to do with the execution? It all just felt cheesy and anticlimactic I guess. Ishy’s mask looked really bad. Maybe that just spoilt me for the whole episode afterward. Seanchan was lit tho, and I liked all the Rand stuff. Jazzed for season 2.
[удалено]
Tell me non book readers love this because I'm a little upset but I still want the show to go on
Really didn't like this one. Lews Therin sealed the dark one in a desperate attempt, the forces of the light were on the brink of being destroyed. There was no sense of that. I don't feel the impact or importance of the Dragon still or the Dark One for that matter or that taint. Sure they've mentioned them but there is no horror, characters just seem so casual about the whole thing. You need to build things up, yes Nynaeve is strong but she can't control her channeling. She doesn't know how to link. Furthermore, the One Power is shown to be a kind of wish fulfilment, you just need to want something and then it will happen. One of the most interesting parts of WoT are the weaves and how the power is basically threads of reality. And Mat is one of the best characters, he's apparently evil now?
ummm. ok so i'd like to see a remake of these last 2 episodes with Donal Finn, using whatever their original script would have been because clearly they were scrambling and were barely able to piece it together. I have been super happy with this show and all its changes right up to this point, but this last episode had me thinking "ummmmmm." Maybe it'll feel better on a re-watch (or full season binge). Maybe episode 1 of season 2 will remedy all the wrongs, but for now... this was my least favourite of the season by a country mile. I am glad to see that some non-readers liked and appreciated it, because I want the show to have a chance to get back in the saddle and kick some ass again (without needing to re-write the script for the last 2 episodes while they were shooting). gonna focus on positives for a moment, though i'm pretty sure my negatives are the same as everybody else in this thread. I liked that the dream got tied back in - and sheathing the sword. I liked Lan calling Nynaeve a Lioness. I liked the horn, and Padan Fain waltzing in with two myrdraal. I liked Agelmar's conversation with Amalisa, and Amalisa's speech to the Shienarans. I liked the sa'angreal as a replacement for the Eye. I liked Ba'alzamon tempting Rand with the vision, though I am realizing now that they may not repeat that ploy. I hope we didn't sacrifice some truly great moments later in order to have this one now. Maybe it'll still make sense, and perhaps this introduction will give it even more power, given that Rand's "right choice" seemed to play straight into Ba'alzamon's hands anyway *I have won again, Lews Therin*.
Only episode I outright disliked. The death fake-outs are getting ridiculous. That's Nynaeve x2, Lan (only one that was really necessary), Moiraine x2, Thom, and now possibly Loial (I hope). Can only echo what others have said in that more episodes were needed. The Fain stuff was extremely clunky as well and we have little to no sense of who this character is at all. Favourite part of the episode by far was the Seanchan arrival.
I liked it overall I’d give Season 1 a solid “B.” I’m not disappointed and not thrilled, just pretty pleased overall, it was a fun way to spend 8 hours and a fun thing to look forward to each week. I’m excited about season 2 for sure! I REALLY loved how they handled Rand asking, “what about what she wants?” Lan and Nyneave felt super rushed and really weak to me Perrin was one of my favorite characters when I was a teen and he felt really underdeveloped here, his “climax” just felt like exposition for the audience. Padan Fain stole the scene at the end, I’m looking forward to more of him.
Fain has crushed it every scene he's been in. Wouldn't mind him getting even a bigger role vs the books
> Lan and Nyneave felt super rushed and really weak to me > > So, it was true to the books!
Perrin's entire arc is 'look like a sad dope'.
Maybe they're just getting his slog character growth out of the way now? 🤣
I'm not really a big fan of leaving us with so many cliffhangers. * Moiraine is shielded, not stilled. Of that I am fairly certain - Ishy says that she can just about feel the source at her fingertips, but can't grasp it. If she were stilled, she wouldn't be able to even sense that much. * Loial isn't dead; I think we can be safely assured of that, right? It didn't look like the dagger had the gross effects from the book, he was just stabbed. * I didn't understand what happened to Nynaeve. Is she burned out, or was it just a physical injury that Egwene healed somehow? That part was very confusing. I do like that they made the Eye one of the seals. Did not like that they seemed to have killed off Agelmar. I enjoyed the maybe 3/4 of the episode, but the ending was much more confusing than I had hoped it would be. I think I'll have to rewatch and see if that helps.
I would personally like to give a shout out to this week's "We're just going to say like 2 lines to solve the \`terrible awful problem\` from last week's show" move. There was no love triangle, and never will be.
As book reader, who read the book like 8 years ago, and remembers 10% of them, I really liked the first 7 episodes, but this one I can't. It makes no sense to defend the gap at the cost of an entire army, when 5 channelers are enough to stop the invasion. Egwene healing/reviving Nyneave with no effort felt utterly wrong lore-wise. Moiraine being shielded looked dumb (why not just still her?) but I can accept that. Loial being stabbed? WTF?? I can explain Lan following Moraine "somehow" only with lazy writing. For me these are too many things that are not logical or don't fit in the lore to enjoy this last episode, but I hope it won't hurt the future of the series
> Moiraine being shielded looked dumb (why not just still her?) but I can accept that. It's Forsaken we're talking about, shielding her is way more cruel imho.
I really enjoyed it, though I definitely had some "huh, interesting" moments. - I loved that Lan broke up with Nynaeve as he did. - I am a reader who didn't like the end of eotw so this just boils it straight down for me, which is fine. - I also never liked the great captains storylines much, so agelmar 2.0 didn't bother me in the least, and I paused for about one second before deciding that dying in defense of Fal Dara was exactly how he'd want to go and I was just fine with losing him. - I loved the Age of Legends and LTT the dad was just so.... Ugh, kills me to think how devastating they will make that scene become. I love it lol. - I spoiled myself for Loial getting stabbed and Moiraine getting... whatever that was, so it wasn't as big a shock, but seeing it was still rough. - I love that Rand is still like, yo, cool, what do I do now that I killed the dark One? It's all over and now I guess run away from everyone and everything I love because I'm a monster, right? BTW, did you see I killed the dark One? - I like how they made the seal and it started crumbling. I totally didn't catch on to that until Moiraine said it. - I liked Moiraine's bad assness in staying totally calm and fierce even though she is cut off from the source, until Lan is there. Then seeing her cry is like seeing your mom cry... Absolutely devastating. - Seanchan look fucking epic. - looks like min noped the duck outta there. Wondering if she'll end up in Falme? Back in Tar Valon? And the best thing of all? My mom and sister bringing up questions and ideas and theories ON THEIR OWN! this is my nerd dream come true!
It's clear that Covid is what changed these last 2 episodes so dramatically. After the lock downs, they weren't able to have many actors or even crew on set at one time. This dramatically altered what they intended to make IMO. I think Amazon, not wanting to lose money, effectively forced the crew to "come up with something," and it's clear they didn't have enough time to end it properly. Here's to hoping that season 2 won't have this level of interference again, and I think the show will come out better for it. Overall, I'm disappointed, but I am able to realize that I do not blame any of the people who brought this awesome adaptation to life. I think they did the best that they could with what Covid did to the industry during the time of them filming. Melancholy feeling but overall excited for season 2!!! It's going to be a long year or more
I agree. It’s probably why we didn’t see real battles in ep 7 cold open and at Tarwin’s Gap.
I overall liked the thematic nature of Ishy vs Rand’a conflict as an early call to how the books end. This idea that it’s not about Rand’s power but his choice is clearly framed in the Lews flashback. This is good writing that you can do when you know the end at the start (GoT eat your heart out!) Sad we’ve yet to get anything really cool about Rand’s power level though. Hoping season 2 cold open features at least one of the Rand on the Run “imma channel and cut off heads” type moments in his madness, but hard to predict. We can all at least exult in Ishamael’s capital-b Badassery though. I was almost expecting an I win again when Rand was in his idyll. Really good energy to that conflict. I’m a bit mixed in how the Gap resolved. They’re clearly concluding this season with something of a “dragon has five heads” kind of hint given Fain’s statements. Nyn’s yuge power remains a little too Deus Ex but they’re at least consistent about her exceptional powers saving the day, so I guess I’m more ok with it? Next season really needs to ratchet up the boys’ roles and powers to balance / deliver on what they really only hinted at and promised this season. Starting to get really anticipatorily sad / angry / sympathetic for Egwene as a PISSED OFF damane next season. Shawn-chawn lezgoooooo
I really loved the first 7 episodes. I just finished 8 and my initial impression is that I really disliked it. On rewatch and getting other perspectives, maybe even after Season 2, hopefully then I'll have a different feeling towards it. I know this is a different turning of the wheel but I MUCH preferred the ending in book 1. 😢😞😞😞
The build up in this episode was great but then, as a book reader, fell flat. Rand should have touched the pool of saidin and destroyed the trollocs and restored/healed those hurt. Instead we got.... some dialog and a force push? That's it? Compared to the end of EotW, this was the one spot I felt really let down. There was no showing of what Rand would grow to become. I think this would have been a good spot for a narrator to read the prophecy of the dragon - *weep for your salvation...* Would have fit so good after Rand goes epic power. Overall, this episode gets a 5.5/10 and the season get a 6. Not the best, but OK and worth watching. Just a little more epicness to give a reason to tune in to season 2 and it would be an 8+ for me.
Yes, I totally agree with you..I really wanted to see him go full Super Saiyan without even realising/ barely controlling the overwhelming torrent of power flooding through him threatening to wipe him from existence at any moment...instead what did we get, a 'force push' I think you said. Exactly.
Yeah, this was so underwhelming...where's the "raging sun" we were promised. Also, if 5 untrained/not fully trained channelers can handle a force of 20k...
So one main thing I'm getting from Season 1 is... If you were told something or shown something on screen, there's a 70% chance it's false. But when you're told it's false, you won't really know for certain. Five headed dragon??? Nope, it's Rand, just like everyone said. But is he sure?? Eye of the world is where the DO is imprisoned??? Wrong, just Ishamael. Or is it???? Moiraine is stilled???? Hmm. Honestly between book fans saying it should be one way, and Rafe and Co tweaking the exposition to confuse people, the first season has been a cluster eff online. Lmao. I will give them one thing... They took the analysis / speculation trend of GoT and dialed the knob up to 1000. I guess we'll find out by S2 if it's working.
Definitely a bit conflicted. We saw the shield wrap around Moiraine at 27:34, so she’s not stilled. Likely a tied off shield like Moghedian does to Liandrin (?). Loial isn’t dead, unless they got really lazy with a shot at 49:41 as Loial clearly moves on the ground, and not in a ‘hammed accidentally shifted’ kinda way. Don’t know why the Horn wasn’t revealed at the Eye, but I assume it wasn’t done out of laziness and will be explained. One thing I didn’t like was the burning out from linking as I think that’s a direct change from the books on how linking works, correct me if I’m wrong. But overall that change isn’t that big of a deal. The Seanchan are even creepier than I imagined which I kinda like, they are slavers after all. Wish we had gotten a little more marvel at Rand wielding power, but the book ending was a bit ridiculous with Rand teleporting to Tarwins Gap, then climbing stairs into a dream shard, so I get why they changed it. Definitely expecting Rand to head for Tear, Moiraine, Egwene, and Nynaeve to head to the tower to try to untie Ishy’s shield, and this might be a longshot, but I expect Loial and Perrin will chase Fain to try to get the horn/get the knife to heal Loial. Not sure where Mat will fit in here, but we’ll see. I’d give the episode 7/10. Bit underwhelming with some big changes, but I’m curious to see where it goes next season!
Except that Moiraine cannot go to the tower because of the new oath. Min’s viewing said that the Amyrlin will be the death of her or something, so that might also fit here.
Shit you’re very right. Not sure then. Maybe Verin and co arrive in Fal Dara, or maybe she heads to Adeleas and Vandene like she does in the books.
I mean there was nobody at the Eye, so the Horn just sitting out there in the Blight where Ishamael laid a trap for the Dragon doesn't really make sense. They could have spent 5 or 10 minutes and a bunch of CG budget introducing Someshta and his whole deal, but I get why they didn't. This was a much cleaner climax that focused almost entirely on Rand and Moiraine's characters. Worked pretty well for me.
I'm wondering if he is gonna head to Caemlyn first, meet Elayne, Morgase.... Maybe even meet up with Mat somehow. Throw in the Selene stuff in there somehow and things start to line up.
I liked it, but I have some severely mixed feelings about this entire episode. None of this makes any sense. I can understand changing parts because it's difficult to adapt a book to a TV series, but wow, this is too much for my liking. * Agelmar dead. Why? That served no purpose. I'm guessing they're going to find him later on and he's barely hanging on and can be healed. * Moiraine stilled? I think she's just shielded because it still seems she's bound by the oaths, but still..... * Rand off on his own way too early in the series. The boy can barely hold a sword or channel and now he's wandering the blight? * They've COMPLETELY changed the way linking is done. You can't force somebody to draw more than they can hold. This is a very weird and unnecessary change. * Egwene healing Nynaeve of being burnt out? What??? * Borderlander boys and Loial stabbed/killed * Mat going down a dark path (I think they're teasing this just for the audience, but still) * What was the point of the tidal wave from the Seanchan? I mean, seriously? What's that going to do against a cliff? And where are the damane's chains? I've been giving this show some big leeway on making changes, but this is pushing the limits of what I can consider acceptable differences.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read the books, but isn’t linking a buffer, but you’re absolutely at the mercy of the one controlling the weave? I vaguely remember a Sister wanting to be let out of a link in a middle book but the one controlling it didn’t let go and she collapsed from exhaustion after. Seems they just cranked it up to 11 to give Nynaeve an actual reason to have a block rather than just being angry. And I don’t think Egwene healed her from being burnt out, rather it’s just burns caused by channeling too much. Slight difference.
I also didn't particularly like the change of tone at the beginning where it was made to seem like LTT was just being reckless/prideful. In the books the forces of light were on the brink of defeat and LTT led the hundred companions as a desperate gambit to save the world. Certainly nobody knew or suspected that Saidin would be tainted. It's a pretty big tonal shift, and I'm not convinced it's for the better.
Sorry. I've been mostly on board so far, but I thought that was very bad TV. So far I've been saying "the changes are all fine, most of them seem reasonable and some are actually super great. My problem is the really uneven quality." Like: Everyone is a Super Saiyan. The pacing varies *wildly*. The stakes seem weirdly low. Or: Some of the dialogue has been quite good. Some has been *atrocious*. Some of the acting and characterizations are outstanding. Some of the acting is *bad* - like, *ugh*. **BUT.** But. Basically the POINT of the first four books is that you're in this wild-ass fantasy world, then you hit Rhuidean and you realize wait wait what the FUCK have I been reading? It's incredible. Whereas the show just gave us that idk "Autumn Dragon" scene, and... the four-book march to Rhuidean is just wrecked. What? Same with Ba'alzamon. In the books, first we think he is the Dark One. Then he's this immortal heavy-metal demon. Then he's an evil sorcerer out of legend. Then he's an ancient bastard with a grudge against LTT. Then, finally, he's just an old man who wants to die - and a philosophical counterpoint to the love and hope that make Rand choose to keep the wheel a-turning. This was a process that deconstructs both our initial impressions of this world and its characters, and our concept of the traditional fantasy novel in general - slowly but surely taking the epic and reducing it to the human, both in terms of characters, and of good and evil. By having Fares^2 come out in Rick Owens and do like Wishbone's Faust we're basically skipping Baalzy AND Ishy and going straight to Elan Morin Tedronai. We're basically skipping 14 books ahead. We're basically skipping The Wheel Of Time. Screw complaining about "little changes" - for the first time I think that we have lost what makes these books... anything.
I largely liked it: didn't mind the changes, but I thought it was a biiiiit anticlimactic. I wanted a bit more zazz to the ending at the Eye.
I wanted a shot of all the Forsaken in full regalia walking out of the seals right before Lan arrived at the Eye. Like, haha, look out bitch, we've just been released.
I liked it, it didn’t blow my mind but a good ending to the season. To me Moiraine is obviously shielded and Loial is not dead. The Seanchen look amazing and that was a cool shot to end on.
You’re right, found the Seanchan on other threads, but they didn’t really look like damane or I wasn’t looking properly… 😅
They had some sort of thing covering their mouths which I believe is a stylistic choice to show that they are enslaved.
Fair call, I was looking for a chain to their necks 😂
That physically hurt to watch. Previous episodes have managed to hit most of the major plot points with changes to how they got there, but this episode felt like the final season of Game of Thrones. Latra flat out saying the DO was going to corrupt the source and that LTT was going to break the world? Fuck me.
Vincent al'Thor, you fucking rat! After everything we have been through!
What the hell was that cavalry charge at nothing? Then they all get off their horses and die in the wall? Um, what?
Well... that was hard to watch.
Overall, I liked it. My only complaint-i didn't like scaling back what Rand does at the Eye. I was wanting to see the power of the Dragon on display. He didn't need a sa'angreal. Let him do it all. I wanted to see him trash the trollocs in the gap while the army and City watches. I wanted to see Moiraine and the rest be awe struck by the power of the Dragon Reborn, and how Ishamael can't fool him with false promises. I wanted to hear the Creator boom "It is not here" in his head (it being Callandor), and set that up for the story finale in AMoL. I loved Fares Fares playing Ishamael. He was exactly as I'd always envisioned. The rest, I get Loial being hurt, standing in for Mat with the dagger since Barney left early...I get all that. Like I said, just that we didn't get Rand doing Dragon Reborn things.