karaddin

He's the chosen one in an ensemble cast. He's the most important in universe, but he's not the main character for the perspective of the story we read.

I'm with Gertrude on Dark, I thought it stuck the landing and all came together nicely. Also really strong exploration on being appalled by your future actions but the events changing who you are to the point that you will eventually do them without undermining or challenging free will.

I think we have fundamentally different interpretations of the story if you think Rand is the main character and the others are side characters. The mystery was also resolved for show only audiences well before we see him become a mass killer and it's clearly still a theme that's going to be explored. Given the intent of most changes (or at least most changes that aren't necessary for budget/practical constraints) is to set up things that happen later in the story, I'd expect their ability to adapt things more directly from the books will continue to increase as the series goes on since you no longer need to set them up once they're already happening.

The part I'm questioning is more

How I feel about that final choice is really going to depend on what happens at the start of the next season. I agree with Ran on everything leading up to that point though.

I think everything so far is travel that takes time in the story, but we simply aren't being told about that passage of time because its not overly relevant. Rand etc depart Tar Valon and their trip to the waste takes a bunch of time, so that plot line is now significantly ahead of the group still in TV. The group in TV however was leaving Tanchico which can probably take a similar amount of time so we catch up with them again once they're there and they'll be almost caught back up to Rand etc in the timeline, then we'll spend ep5 catching up with them and it will probably sync back up. Similarly the two rivers will have its conflict with the Whitecloaks, then presumably a skip forward as things get more established in Emond's Field. It's only when something moves from one plotline to another in close to real time without any capacity to assume travel time that it would be explicitly breaking the travel time. Surely they're not going to do that when we're half a season from forms of traveling solving that problem for this story anyway.

Pretty sure Australia pulls this shit as well. Border control has been one of the thin edges of the wedge getting more openly fashy over the last couple of decades because people are anti immigration. Even as it results in border control eating their own face they still support it. At this point I'd only take a wiped device with me on international travel due to avoiding dealing with my own country on return.

Yeah if the block isn't resolved this season its going to feel very stretched out and contrived. All I was meaning is that she needs someone stilled as the justification for her to be working on it so I'm confident there will be someone besides Logain in need of healing from it.

Isn't she only looking at him because she's investigating trying to heal SIuan and Leanne and heals Logain almost by accident? Or at least, does it before she's realizing what she's doing and then shits herself when she realizes she's healed him and he's stronger than her again.

Yeah I think Siuan still gets away from the tower. The lingering look between her and Moiraine after M saves her from the falling building in episode 1 does nothing new compared to their parting look in Cairhien in season 2 if they don't meet again, they wouldn't have wasted time on that if it was pointless like that. Nyn does need someone stilled to heal but the above suggestion about that being Moiraine instead might work. Probably would feel a bit redundant to do it with her though after her season 2 plot lol. I think the most likely approach is sticking with the book. Verin is at the tower when she's not in the book so I think she's the one that gets them away.

I think you're going down the wrong path with Oct 7, but simply because that's a bad example. The ones you should actually be looking at are things like Kyle Rittenhouse and that fucker who strangled the guy on the NY subway. Those guys are not only heroes to many on the right but they were also found not guilty. It's hardly surprising that people immersed in a culture where that happens would see a health insurance executive, someone they see as committing legal mass murder, get shot and decide that's an incidence of this that they can get behind. As for what his legal team are going to latch onto - the cops searching his backpack at the Maccas and not finding the gun while he's obstructed from seeing what they were doing, then searching it again at the station and suddenly finding the gun looks is certainly something to work with. I believed he had done it as well, but when they somehow can't find a firearm in a backpack initially then do later it introduces reasonable doubt that they've planted it. I assume that was actual incompetence but what the fuck at that level of incompetence with something like this.

My guess at the moment is that it's a ter'angreal that helps control her foretelling or something along those lines.

I saw a theory that Helly is going to murder James with the glass Mark S head desk ornament which feels like a pretty nice visual parallel to Miss Huang having to use a Kier bust to smash her game. It's kind of wild that Cobel saying "she's one of Jame's" at the entrance the the birthing lodge is only the second creepiest Jame thing in this episode, being comfortably beaten by him saying "I wish you'd take them raw" to his daughter while weirdly watching her eat a boiled egg.

Yeah that was my interpretation as well. My biggest criticism of the 3 eps is repeating the one about the music, especially for the sweeping countryside shots. It felt like they were trying to do the tourism NZ money shot from Fellowship of the Ring 3 times in the second episode. Wherever they were filming one of them was still beautiful enough it made me gasp even as I was laughing at it though. On the Morgase scene The modern language doesn't bother me at all, I'm taking it as part of setting it apart from typical medieval styled fantasy. I am, unsurprisingly, loving Shoreh as Elaida and she's already elevated a book villain I had very little time for. Continuing to love the Forsaken in this as well. Was a nice touch When she's so entertaining, largely being helpful to Rand, and damn attractive you need to remind the audience she's genuinely evil regularly or people will start making apologia for her. Also agree with it being a nice touch on Rahvin, I thought it was pretty clear for a book reader audience what was going on but was surprised they didn't keep the show only audience in the dark for longer. Also appreciated Galina being introduced nice and early for people to get to recognize her before she makes an impact. My final criticism is that it's feeling rushed and I wish they'd be given a 10, or better yet 12, episode season to work with. The 1st episode could have easily been 2 and some of those beats came so early in the premiere they simply couldn't build to them in a way that emotionally lands. Having most of an episode to build up to the meeting with Liandrin in the hall would have let them ratchet up the tension so you knew it was going to go wrong but not how instead of dashing straight into it. That's not at the show runners though, they can only work with the 8 eps they get.

They're by a NZ author Tamsyn Muir Gideon the Ninth Harrow the Ninth Nona the Ninth Alecto the Ninth (not out yet) You might have seen them referred to previously as the space necromancer series, they're not for everyone but I absolutely adore them.

Wildly off topic but while we're talking audiobooks I want to plug the Locked Tomb series audiobooks done by Moira Quirk as a phenomenal performance and really adds to the experience.

It's not even close to that ^ bad, but the DOE laying off 50% of it's staff is pretty bad and that's "where we're already at" rather than at the bottom of the slope. The CDC stuff is too bad to even let myself dwell on.

Preferential voting in the style that Aus uses would work for the US electoral system. Still don't see it happening though. On another note the US making trade deals with Hungary is an awful weird look - dealing with a sub body when you should be dealing with the larger organization is the move of a bit player, not the world #1. Still can't wrap my head around how fast he's moving the US towards openly and explicitly being part of the Russia bloc.

Trump's target of the day (or at least one of) is Japan for not pulling their weight on defense, despite their lack of proper military being a requirement imposed by the US. That militarization speculation is feeling pretty solid. Also apparently going to close European consulates. I've been one of the most pessimistic people here about what Trump would do to the US, but he's far surpassing what I feared on the "doing everything Putin wants" front and there's clearly no line which will ever lead to Republicans becoming concerned. Power is their one and only belief.

No, just deport them - the to Russia part was part speculation part absurdist response to this shit. Reporting on the first part was from Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plans-revoke-legal-status-ukrainians-who-fled-us-sources-say-2025-03-06/

Seeing it reported that he's going to revoke the legal status of Ukrainians that fled the war. At the speed he's going I half expect him to deport them Russia to be conscripted.

Ah yes, listing some clearly proves that everyone will follow.

See you're using the phrase "gender ideology" and you're describing a perspective that dismisses the legitimacy of trans identities, but you're still refusing to actually own that you're anti-trans (lets skip the scary phobia word here, obviously I emphatically disagree with you but I'm being descriptive not judgmental here). I'm not going to waste any more of everyone's time making them read us arguing the same shit for the 20th time, but I do want to note for anyone that genuinely doesn't know much about the issue or care - despite HoI arguing like he's conveying the objective and settled reality its not remotely true. There is no widespread rejection of transgender healthcare among western healthcare, even the Cass review (which he loves to cite) did not recommend the measures that have been taken by the UK government and is far from universally respected and accepted.

Then please do explain what you're saying because you just wave at trans people and declare that you're so glad the world has rejected ultra left wing idiocy. Is the below meant to refer to a single specific thing? Like bathrooms or sport?

You used to pick specific things to scaremonger over as well, like bathrooms and sport but now the argument is just that trans people generically have somehow untenable as a position. Its weird to be a non-person. Lets ignore that not even the shit you claim supports your position goes anywhere near what you're claiming, but Donald won in the US so I guess the whole world must bow to that world view. If it gets as bad as we fear, this shit will be a big part of why.