Jump to content

karaddin

Members
  • Posts

    10,489
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by karaddin

  1. I think newly raised Chosen is the best fit for Rafe's comment on "can't confirm or deny if there are 8" combined with what we've already seen.
  2. My philosophy on watching media is to try and enjoy it on its merits. I'm not always good at doing that, but I'm decent at it now (to the point of getting into arguments on here with people that can't see anything good at all about a variety of shows) and I went to see TRoS with my brother who has mastered that attitude for 15-20 years. We walked out, half laughed at some detail and silently agreed it was terrible and didn't talk about further. The only thing I can on that level of bad I've seen in the last 5+ years was the second season of Gen:lock which shared the issue of throwing it's previous installments completely under the bus.
  3. The new boss was very unimpressed with how much some of their shows had cost compared with how successful they had been. I think it was RoP and Citadel that were specifically called out. RoP was just so obscenely expensive it's hard to see them continue to pour that much money into something I thought was losing audience by the end of season 1 instead of gaining. Doing something else that cost less with the rights is possible.
  4. Not replying to the rest of it as things that annoy you are things that annoy you and there's not really any point arguing about personal preference like that, but this is unfair - it was quite good character writing using details established in the first episode of the show. The braid is a symbol of solidarity between the women of the two rivers - touching it is a reminder that you're never alone and both Nyn and Egwene have continued to touch their hair as they need that reminder. Renna is aware of the feelings that Egwene gets and the sources of good feelings - already demonstrated in episode 6 with burning the tree. She's now desperate not just to get Egwene in line but to do it without making it clear to any other Sul'dam that Egwene isn't behaving right, cutting off her tongue would make it clear to everyone that she's not actually top of the class. So she cuts off the thing she knows Egwene cares about but won't mean anything to anyone else. It doesn't work the way she wants though.
  5. Superhero landing was so hard to get before - it was my last one. Level scaling would have made it even harder unless the revamp makes it do more damage as well.
  6. I think the show might be well positioned to pick up additional support from Amazon if the audience numbers are improving and Rings of Power gets shit canned - which I very much expect after it's second season.
  7. They're just curled up really tight into a fetal position. Obviously the smallest one is Sammael.
  8. I believe she's in the background on the ship with Suroth (I've seen that said, didn't see her myself) so I don't think that bodes well for her. --- I've been thinking about some of the other visual story telling the show has done with the weaves and I think there's some nice choices going on that complement what we've seen primarily from the Forsaken this season. One question mark I've seen a few times was whether Moiraine should have been capable of destroying the ships at that distance and I was struck by how elaborate and drawn out her movement were for directing the flows and I don't think it's unrelated - she's using very large "threads" of the elements when doing that, it's slow and it leaves her quite vulnerable while she's doing it and it's in keeping with what we've seen from her going back to the first episode of season 1 (which included her getting hit as a result of that vulnerability). Contrast that with all the highly effective one on one weaves we've seen this season - they're all small, finely controlled with minimal body movements required to focus. We saw that from the Forsaken, we saw that from Siuan both shielding Rand and her defensive blades, and we see it from Rand cutting down Turak and again when he steps up after he's unshielded. Needing thicker weaves makes sense, at least visually, for long distance effects and it makes sense they're much harder and thus slower to weave - think of it as trying to weave with a fine thread vs a rubber hose, the hose will take more strength to bend and requires a greater radius when twisting. So it feels to me like the show is telling us Moiraine is better than the average Aes Sedai at those high volume long distance weaves, while Siuan has better than average control and speed and is probably more dangerous as a result. Rand will need to do things that are long distance later, and we'll probably see how much easier it is for him than Moiraine at that time. But for now the most impressive channeling isn't the overwhelming power - it's the really fast, well controlled weaves that surprise the enemy and don't do a bunch of collateral and that's exactly what he did here. ETA: in my size analogy here the size doesn't have to perfectly correlate with the amount of power flowing through it either, the flow rate and pressure within a smaller hose can result in more liquid passing through it than there is through a thicker hose. The idea is just that a thicker one can be projected further without dissipating and does have a higher "minimum power" requirement
  9. I'm not familiar with the comics but they found a way to bring that in. And it's fucking hilarious.
  10. The Seanchan were weakened by having their strongest established damane pulled out of the fight and dedicated solely to shielding Rand including the one I think will turn out to be Alivia. If they'd been on the tower as well the catapult shot wouldn't have gotten through and I think you see the damane turn the tide of the battle (if you take the main characters there out of the equation - just talking about the performance of the EVA). I know there's something about writer remuneration in the new WGA contract that increases pay at the 66 minute mark, I wouldn't be surprised if the old contact had something similar and omitting the credits kept the episodes under that number but that's just complete speculation as there were a couple of other episodes that hit the same 69 minute run time. Maybe it's residuals to the company that did the title sequence. I'm assuming it's evil corporation screwing artists at some point lol. I think the raken will remain in but the rest of the creatures take the hit of being too expensive and weird. We've already got the dark spawn eating CGI budget and they're the most important for that. I'd rather the Ogier pressed into service as fighters having the budget spent on them rather than the nightmare creatures.
  11. Rewatched it just now and you're right, good catch. In that case yup, Renna's dead. Woman of her word I guess lol.
  12. Maybe the Holy Grail (the.. Horn of Valere? Lol) catches them up on modern language https://youtube.com/shorts/IGKz1CBIJOk?si=b-j2efpBOSMDZXMn
  13. It's wild seeing just how salty people are getting on this stuff, it worries me seeing that shit creeping out of the fringe where it's been previously. Mat was the hero of this episode as far as I'm concerned and you're sounding pretty delusional to me if you think this is so clear it's a guarantee Rand will never get to shine.
  14. I think it's pretty safe to say the show regards that as a major fuck up on their part which happened in the end of season 1 scramble to deal with Barney leaving and the pandemic. It was completely ignored this season because it's lose/lose once you've made a mistake like that - trying to address it and fix it just wastes more time on something you shouldn't have done, so you can just ignore it and hope the audience rolls with ignoring it too. It's certainly fair to ding the show for that retcon, but given they seem to know it was a mistake you'll enjoy the show if you can just give them the retcon and move on. Just pretend it was a normal dagger.
  15. 1st - but much like the lying it's dependent on her perception - if she truly views the threat to Rand as an imminent threat to her then it's ok. Throw in her being able to convince herself that there are also people on the tower that qualify as Aes Sedai and that's plenty for her to work with. 2nd - it can drop off if Egwene released it, that's exactly why hers fell off - Renna released hers. Again I don't think that's what happened, the obvious interpretation is that she just killed Renna. But both fit what we saw. In one of the conversations between Rand and Alanna's warders (that apparently everyone but me and my wife hated lol) Maksim told Lan that Alanna keeps the bond with him masked most of the time. I think it was justified under him not loving how intense her love for Ihvon feels through the bond although I might be misremembering that, but if that's just an excuse that allows him to do darkfriend shit (as well discussed on the basis of the stuff in ep7) then its seeded nicely.
  16. That clip reel of Tek Knight with the subsequent call backs had me in stitches. This is great.
  17. I don't see Moiraine as breaking the oaths, just tip toeing right up to them. If the Dragon is killed or gentled it puts the entire world in danger, she believes that to be true so that gives her the leeway to sink the ships. Skirting the edges of the oaths is one of the most Aes Sedai things there is. I also feel like the objection to Egwene delaying Ishy treats it as her being much more effective than she was. She's just stone walling with no attacks of her own, it doesn't last long and he's already breaking through - all this while he's already used a lot of energy breaking the seals on the other 6 Forsaken. I think a lot of the more minor issues you have are reasonable, I think Rafe's technical skill improved significantly this season compared to season 1 but there's still plenty to learn and hope he improves as much into the next one. Personally I'm ok with taking the questionable parts of the Perrin stuff in exchange for getting a much more legitimate grudge against him on the part of Dain - obviously getting that improvement without a trade off would be even better though lol. I also winced at the fletching still being on the bolt.
  18. Mulling things over a bit more - the revelation that Lanfear sent the broken seal and poem to Moiraine in the first place had me wondering how she was so across the relationships of the kids+Moiraine/Lan and where Moiraine was located to give her that push. Then I remembered that it was heavily implied in episode 7 that Verin was taking orders from Lanfear, and that Moiraine was staying with Verin for months between seasons. So that actually fits together really nicely. Obviously Verin is actually on the side of the light but she's playing her deep cover very carefully and I think would provide enough of the details to cover what I had question marks over.
  19. Sorry to go the triple post but saw this suggestion so rewatched the last scene to confirm - Moggy's trap for Lanfear pulls her into a dream. She's walking along and the light looks warm and normal then suddenly the light is cold, the fire has no warmth and the candles barely give any light at all. Moggy doesn't channel to contain Lanfear, it's dream manipulation and when she vanishes it looks nothing like traveling and the light snaps back to normal and warm. Very nicely done.
  20. Also I was entirely satisfied with the way they had Min's vision about Mat come true. Ticked every box I was looking for in paying it off, and it wasn't one of the ones Min understands.
  21. I think a number of the smaller things people are unhappy with, such as Ingtar, are simply casualties of the necessary plot rewrite and only getting 8 episodes. I actually liked Nyn's block having genuine impact rather than being able to Hulk her way around it whenever it's important. It felt like prioritizing the character moment of her accepting her impotence in the moment as a step to breaking her block in the near future. I also really liked Rand dealing with Turak. It's not swordplay lessons from Lan but "put the mission first, you can't risk the world just to engage in a stupid duel" feels entirely in keeping with what Lan was trying to tell them all in ep7. And it's right, it's absolutely dumb for Rand to do that. It also showcased him using the same weaves that Ishy uses battering down Egwene's shield and we haven't seen anything like it from the other channelers - it's the dexterity with weaves rather than raw power and it's probably Lews providing AoL weaves. The closest we've seen from modern channelers is Siuan's crown of daggers (and on the subject - she's been portrayed as significantly faster than most of the other Aes Sedai). Also noteworthy that it's the first time Rand intentionally kills other humans - he's lagging behind the others on that lol. I'm definitely not assuming this early that the Finn/doorways are out, and I really doubt this is actually Mat's permanent weapon - the dagger is evil and dangerous, I think it much more likely that will be addressed next season and he still gets his proper one. I'm not actually 100% that Egwene killed Renna - that's the obvious implication but it's possible she released the Adam at the same time Renna passed out. I'm assuming she did kill her, but there's enough ambiguity that if they want to have Renna dealing with the whole Suldam can channel thing it's not a retcon. I noticed early in the fight that the damane we had seen the most - the blonde one - wasn't on the tower and when Ishy said Suroth was to have her strongest on the ship in reserve I'm now 100% convinced that's Alivia. She was also the one that was finding the women the could channel to collar. Ishy and Lanfear were perfect - he never doubted for a second that she was going to betray him, yet he was still caught off guard by how thoroughly she fucked up his plans - everything turned out exactly as she wanted except the other Forsaken being released, which itself was an excellent "fuck you" back to her. Also not buying for a second that Ishy is dead and we're done with Fares Fares. The father of lies seeming to die immediately following one illusion of himself being revealed right before yet another illusion is used by someone else... There's a lot of misdirection going on there. And if there's an explanation for why a heated sword stabbing his heart would make him turn to ash and blow away I missed it. He barely even defended himself as soon as Rand is up - a couple of years darts that Rand swats aside then watches as Rand takes 3 steps to get to him and stabs him without lifting a hand.
  22. If they want to stick to smaller scale stories for the games (like V fighting to survive) then maybe they want to cover the next Corpo war, that's very likely kicking off after the events of everything except the devil ending and possibly even still then, in the TV series and then the game can have it's smaller scope against the back drop of the war going on without needing to focus on it.
  23. Hadn't actually thought to check for people talking about it, but did just now and this comment seems a likely explanation If it's just messed up with the decimal point in the wrong spot it's an easy bug to understand and hopefully to fix.
  24. Yeah I'm thinking there's not a happy end for them lol.
  25. I think that looks terrible to every other Aes Sedai, but Siuan heard Lanfear about to kill her and be stopped by Rand, and that there's nothing any of them can do to stop Lanfear taking Rand at that point if she chooses to. I think she's pragmatic enough to think that keeping by Rand's side to protect him is understanding if she's convinced Moiraine isn't black due to the stuff I said. If she's still convinced Moiraine lied then yeah, that's not going to look good lol.
×
×
  • Create New...