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Maia

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  1. I can't really judge myself, but people on reddit offered some pretty compelling arguments for why that wouldn't be the case. Laws of conservation of energy and such. Naturally, the positioning would be off, but they'd need to wait only a couple of years for the planets to be properly aligned again. They'd have to dismantle and replace Helios, though, and also the heist should have raised huge security concerns. As it happened, the plotters weren't actually terrorists, but bringing the asteroid into Earth orbit, as well as success of the heist might have inspired some to actually try to crash it on their less favourite part of the world or use the threat of doing so as blackmail. It would be more plausible if these secondary considerations ultimately prevented further attempts to move it, IMHO. How long are we going to hide spoilers for the finale? In any case, I didn't like how they tarnished Dani this season, so that we wouldn't completely lose sympathy for the heisters. Not that I think that she is perfect and without flaws, but they had her behave in out of character ways and presented the whole worker struggle in a frankly bizarre light, so that there would be some kind of equivalency between her and Ed's actions.
  2. So, Dani, Ed and Margo all have huge death flags - but who will actually bite it? I suspect that while Ed makes the most sense as the oldest, because he has been treated as the main character throughout the series, the show-runners were afraid to drop him, so it is going to be one or both of the women. Also, it would subvert expectations to deny him the final blaze of glory which he craves. Margo spent so much time staring at windows this season, that I expect a defenestration in her future. After she helps to deflect the asteroid to Mars while keeping Aleida out of it somehow. Dani, I dunno. They kinda tarnished her character a bit in the last few episodes and she is not on the Ranger, so while there are overwhelmingly strong death omens around her, I am not sure how it might happen. In a subversion vs Ed _she_ should be the one to getting that blaze of glory that she doesn't want, but the means elude me. I do think that either the whole asteroid or parts of it are going to impact on Mars, so maybe there is going to be a quake that damages the base? In fact, Dev may be secretly planning to crash the asteroid, since it might still be removed from Mars orbit in a couple of years otherwise. How most of the important characters involved in the heist are going to avoid prison and remain relevant in the future is a puzzle, though.
  3. I liked this episode. Nice catharsis 3.5 seasons and 30 timeline years in the making. I have checked on reddit and it was definitely Svetlana's own file. Not sure what it's significance was. I think that this theory about Danny's ultimate fate may be plausible. Not sure why Ed was blaming Poole, though - wasn't _he_ the one who came up with the exile to the capsule? And Danny certainly would have been a danger to the rest of the crew, if allowed to return. OTOH, he may have been burning some extra calories, out there in the cold. I really enjoyed Baldwin finally getting called out on his BS, but I fear that they'll let him off the hook and have him save the day and go out in the blaze of glory, proving him "right". He is also pretty likely to engage in even more open sabotage now. Shouldn't they have regular medical checks of the pilots, though? Was he bribing the doc for the last couple of years? Kelly taking a sick kid into the dangers of space seems fairly dumb, but I guess that they are destined to become the first permanent Mars colonists or something. I continue to be confused by the astro/kosmonaut vs grunt divide, with the base maintenance supervisor suddenly manning the controls of an asteroid-capture space craft and Sam being back on the mission as an EVA specialist. Is it actually government employées vs Helios? If so, why are there Soviets among the latter? Other watchers say that her name was on the memorial to the victims of the bombing, though I didn't notice it myself. Aleida and Bill seem to know that she has been a traitor, as does CIA, presumably. But Aleida also appears to believe that she is dead. I wonder if they really physically meet eventually or if Aleida recognizes Margot's style in engineering documentation, or maybe sees her handwriting. I suspect that Margot is going to betray the Soviets in order to save the asteroid mission and will get killed for it.
  4. They are a bit trapped between trying to keep things recognizeable and relateable and with what the consequences of all the changes _should_ have been. Yes, maybe oligarchs, maybe statistics were somewhat massaged, but given the unprecedented level of cooperation with the West and much cheaper energy, things should have looked different. Like, there should have been all the western cars and consumer products around that did appear in late 80-ies and early 90-ies, which iRL were far from prosperous Yep. In this season so far, really, not just this episode. Though, thankfully, the conflicts themselves are more interesting than the Stephens boys- related ones in the previous one. I don't see why they needed to make Vasiliy a relative of somebody important - surely Svetlana's open opposition to the new regime + deadly assault on someone who was an ardent supporter of the same would have been more than enough. It would have fit the "grunts vs elites" narrative much better, too. Oh, Svetlana is totally getting grabbed by the USSR. Though I have to say that I have little sympathy with her - she was supposed to be a highly trained professional operating in a deadly environment and she is guilty of manslaughter at the very least. She'll probably get executed, though. I somehow thought that it was her file on the table - but if it was somebody else's, then that's indeed a hint. Is the new head of Roskosmos Sergei's ex-wife? I remember that when he had been first introduced, he was supposedly married, but later it never came up again. Pretty sure that she would have done it anyway - his other pal was worried too. But yea, more feelings...
  5. I am not really sure why, if USSR was prosperous and powerful through space exploration/cooperation, people would want to go back? It seems to be more of a comment on RL situation and history than anything that makes sense in this alternative time-line. They also play fast and loose with the whole "grunts vs elites" thing - a nephew of a party bonze now counts as a grunt? Really? And he was working for Helios, despite his ultra-nationalism and their not-so-great-pay, too? It already didn't make sense with Samantha and late Parks(?), who had to be highly qualified and rare specialists to participate in the EVA part of the very important asteroid capture mission, but they just keep piling the absurdity up. Margot's narrative was pretty good, though. And thankfully there was finally some push-back against Ed. Hopefully, Dani also replaces him as a pilot for the second attempt at capture - he really shouldn't have been doing it in the first place at his age.
  6. As chance would have it, I am currently almost finished with listening to "Dune: Messiah", the second book in the series. I do think that it is interesting, but it tries very hard to seem more profound and complex than it is and feels somewhat bloated as a result. It also became clear to me that I don't remember the "Dune" novel as well as I thought I did, so maybe these criticisms apply there too? IIRC, more happens there, but it is also more than 2 times longer, so perhaps it is similarly ponderous? Of course, it introduces all the worldbuilding, so maybe not. I do think that "Messiah" is still a worthwhile listen, though and intend to go on to "Children of Dune" after refreshing the first book in my memory. I was a bit shocked by the... commonalities between WoT and this book, though. Jordan always denied having read Dune, but I just can't believe it.
  7. Well, I liked these 2 episodes, they are very much elevated by the absence of the Stephens brothers! Speaking of Danny, it was strongly hinted that he didn't survive his solitary confinement on Mars. I am not sure why they claim that Parks and that woman belong(ed) to the lowly maintainance grunts, though. Surely work that they did on the asteroid was very prestigious and required highly qualified people? That's why Kuznetsov was also involved. Looks like they are going to do the fall of USSR after all, though with much better economy in this alternate timeline it doesn't make that much sense. I disliked Margot's survival and defection in the previous season, but she works pretty as well as "fish out of water" viewpoint here.
  8. Well, if she had returned earlier, it would have mattered and could have sparked off a very much needed plotline of the overthrow of the strength hierarchy among the AS. If Sanderson had chosen to make her, rather than Cadsuane the post-TG Amyrlin there could have still been a hint towards that happening... But nope. It presumably also affected her life-span and slowly depleting her power was a means for the Finn to make her suffer. Without an angreal her return would have been even more lacklustre, if possible, because she'd have had even less to contribute. But the weird similarity between the fates of Moiraine and Siuan - both de-powered and matched with crusty old men, Morgase's ex-lovers, likely stems from them having been initially conceived as a single character - a female Merlin, not Gandalf and then split. Yes, that was very underwhelming. "Remnant of the remnant will he save and they shall live"? Pfft, vast majority lives. I know that Rand somehow surviving was established early with the prophecies, cryptic utterances of the Finn, etc, but for me it felt like cheating, and even more so that none of the 3 superboys died. If not Rand or Mat, who had to stay around because of the Seanchan, then it should have been Perrin. Much as I love Lan, he should have died too. Funny how sheathing the sword is never actually terminal. And Cadsuane?! She should have been toast. Don't start me on the Seanchan, who haven't even been seriously strained by the Last Battle. Or the fact that the Shadow didn't attack everywhere to make people want to rush back and fill them with despair. Sadly, the ridiculous survival rates among the main cast can't be blamed on Sanderson, since it was Jordan's intention. The 3 boys all being his self-insert really screwed up the ending of the story he envisioned, IMHO. But he was also considering to have Egwene burn out while being pregnant with Gawyn's child and subsequently marry Galad, so it doesn't seem like he intended to kill anyone important. IIRC the few deaths that happened were all from Sanderson. Re: Uno, I am not a fan of him being a Hero of the Horn, though I understand that they wanted to demonstrate how it all works, but in the books we were told that not all lives the Heroes lived had to be extraordinary. P.S. Frankly, in the show I doubt that they can have Moiraine return in such a way that it doesn't feel cheap. There just aren't enough episodes. Besides, she has already been de-powered, going back there would feel repetitive.
  9. Said stash being Turak's extensive collection of curiosities, which has been name-dropped previously. The first redstone frame could be part of it, even, if they chose to include it. Which is why I hope that they have the guts to let Moiraine and Lanfear die for good if they implement the ter'angrial dive. IMHO, their returns didn't actually amount to much in the series and were ultimately disappointing - let Moiraine's sacrifice and achievement stand! And yes, I know that she is a main character in the show - but it is still possible to kill one when it makes sense in the post-GoT era. In fact, I wish that more main characters had died in WoT so that the dangers felt real. Ishy, OTOH, should be an exception. It was genuinely frightening when tDO's ability to bring back FS was revealed in the books - and while it was ultimately a waste for everyone else, it worked beautifully for Ishy/Moridin.
  10. Where to begin? First of all, there are just complete ass-pulls when people other than Rand just channel whatever complex weaves "instinctively". Like Nynaeve randomly whipping out balefire or Avi Travelling. Or when people come up with "impossible" channeling applications right, left and center. Which are first explained by the 3rd Age channelers ignorance and hide-boundness, but then this also extends to the AoLers. It is clear that for all the pretense that channeling was a science back in AoL, no understanding of theory is needed to come up with new discoveries. Just instinct, grit, and other euphemisms for arbitrariness. But the greatest culprit is, of course, the difference between female and male channeling. For 8 books we have been told how fundamentally different their weaves were, to the extent that even thinking about how the other gender did certain things makes channelers uneasy ... and then it turned out that it is actually trivial for people in a link to weave the opposite half of OP. In fact, they learned it far quicker than channeling with their native power! Gates that are done so differently between men and women? A piece of cake to make one in a mixed link, using both halves of OP. Etc. And to be clear, I am talking about channelers other than Rand here. Travelling - introduced as a lost Talent, then turned into something that anybody strong enough could learn and some people could do instinctively(!), but required the user to spend some time familiarising themselves with their starting point, then that people too weak to use it normally could still learn and use it with links and angreals, then they didn't even need to "learn the ground" to Travel within their line of sight, then Travelling to a spot let you automatically "know ground" and immediately open another Gate, then people too weak to use it could still learn the weave and teach it to others. So having lost practically all it's initial limitations how could this skill so useful for survival have ever become "lost", huh? It is similar with the a'dam - in TGH Egwene and other damane are the ones required to embrace saidar and actually channel - hence brutal "training", so that they would obey immediately and without question. But in KoD (or CoT?) when Tuon briefly collared the 3 AS she didn't need their cooperation to either make them embace saidar or weave, she did it all herself. Oh, and BTW, Egwene in TGH was able to channel independantly a little even with the collar on, when sul'dam wasn't wearing the bracelet. But wasn't it a very silly scene in the book? Why did Ishy, and AoL channeler with TP at his fingertips duel Rand with a _staff_?
  11. My understanding is that if an AS swore to herself not to do something and then was driven to attempt to do it by torture, it would kill her unless her torturers relented. Like what happened when the BA hunters tried to force a Salidar mole to say something that she knew to be a lie. When the AS swore to serve Rand, they were clearly forced to follow through, even though the wording left them loopholes for personal interpretation what it entailed, exactly. If one wanted to bind herself with an airtight oath, though, she could do it, IMHO.
  12. Yes, having Maigan, or at least an extra with similar enough hair-cut to make us think that it was her, on the tower was a completely unforced mistake. Yes, they kinda shot themselves in the foot by having Lan bring up this unnecessary argument about innocents. A lot of "but what about civil contractors on the Death Star?" energy there. Moiraine had every reason to think that Seanchan were an army of Darkfriends, seeing how they were led by a Forsaken, and should have been free to nuke them on that premise. I guess that she has a loophole of still being confident that there were Darkfriends on these ships, particularly among the leadership and can justify her attack as being aimed at them? Regarding your arguments about channeling rules or the use of a'dam being consistent in the books, though, this is absolutely not the case. Jordan was pretty much constantly whipping out whatever he wanted for his current plots, pre-established rules be damned. In no way was WoT magic system "hard", though it pretended to be such. I always thought that it should have been possible to circumvent some of the a'dam's cohersive function through mental discipline. The Flame and the Void removes all emotion and blocks physical sensation even when used by a non-channeler, right? There was no reason why women couldn't learn it, except for RJ's view that men and women were different species and his general propensity to have female channelers get perfectly enslaved. IIRC, there are at least 3 different ways he made it happen in the books. Maybe that's what happened in this scene - Egwene made her mind empty, convinced herself that the collar was not a weapon and was able to put it on Renna. Then, once they both were collared and wore respective bracelets, they seemed to be on a level playing field vs each other and Egwene was able to overcome compulsion of her a'dam and hurt Renna directly. Frankly, with the way Renna's and Seta's plots went nowhere in the books, nothing was lost when they were both just killed in the show. Egwene would have totally killed Renna in TGH, had Nynaeve not stopped her, for fairly spurious reasons. P.S. Forgot to mention something that has been bothering me for a long time - shouldn't the AS have been able to employ their First Oath to prevent being used by Seanchan and even to commit suicide? Any oath an AS makes is binding, so if they swore not to channel while collared, not to share any information, not to break, etc, as long as the wording was airtight nothing could have overcome it, right? Never made sense to me that it didn't occur to any of them. Here is to hoping that in the show it does. P.S.S. My brother, who is not a reader, loved this season and even the finale. He was lukewarm on the first one.
  13. I am pretty sure that Demandred will be fused with another FS and his name won't be used. Even readers found the similarity of Darmoded - Demandred confusing back in the day. Additionally, he, Sammael and Bel'al have practically the same motivation for turning - namely jealousy of LTT.
  14. So, I really liked this season on the whole, most new material included, but I feel that they fumbled the finale a bit. It was OK, but could have been better. What got me was that she pushed the arrow through without breaking off the fletching, nor did she wrap up the wound. This made her look totally incompetent as a conventional healer too. I am OK with the block being a real hindrance to her, though. I liked Perrin's set-up with the Whitecloaks... except for how Valda suddenly forgot that he wanted to kill him, once Bornhald dispatched Hopper. Or for how his own men stopped Dain from attacking Perrin for killing his father, when they could have made a Seanchan attack separate them instead. This felt pretty clumsy to me. There was generally a lot of awkward staging for action scenes, IMHO, and of course I understand the challenges, but I feel that with a few small changes, like the one I mention above, they could have felt less cheesy. I think that Fain still may be involved with Perrin's TR plot in the next season, Dain just has a much better motivation than in the books. Nothing speaks against Callandor being in Rhuidean instead and getting merged with the male sa'angreal of Choedan Kal. They clearly made it so that Mat doesn't have to return to the White Tower for healing, so I am not sure why Egwene would. Nynaeve and Elayne might, or they could go to Caemlyn to warn Morgase and tangle with the BA and FS there. It seems that Mat doesn't need to visit Rhuidean for his memories now, so maybe he escorts them? Since the fight against Gawyn and Galad was teased by the showrunner, though personally I don't care about it. I wonder if they are going to expressly connect the dagger with the Finn - IIRC there was a lot of speculation that Mordeth visited them and that whatever power he got from them contributed to the formation of Mashadar. I didn't like either, but the last one is particularly egregious. Why are we supposed to be afraid of the FS if she could do that and she isn't even the most powerful 3rd Ager? Couldn't she have disrupted Rand's shield instead? For the record, I am perfectly OK with Rand Indiana Jonesing Turok. Or with him needing help. Just not like this. Ishy's "death" was very anti-climactic too. It is not final, of course, or at least it shouldn't be - if the FS could have been properly killed with OP in the show canon, AoLers wouldn't have bothered sealing them. I thought that Egwene used Maigan's a'dam on Renna? At least, the dead woman had the same hair. But yea, if so there was a lot of the Third Oath breaking going on between that and Moiraine. I really hated that they decided to purposefully deny Moiraine a loophole of believing that Seanchan are an army of Darkfriends, which she had every reason to do. Just why? We already knew that she is prepared to be ruthless in the service of her mission, no need to reiterate it again, and break established show worldbuilding. I am OK with changing things for the show if necessary/convenient, but it has to be consistent. OTOH, it made sense to me that sul'dam and damane didn't stop shielding Rand, even as Moiraine attacked their ship - they are conditioned to obey orders onto death. Of course, Seanchan should have had many more damane after finding several in that village alone. I guess that poor Ryma got shipped out before any of this happened? It is a smoke screen, they sent boys with smoke censers ahead of the charge - you can briefly see them through the mist. But another stupid thing was how Perrin with armed Aiel in tow just openely entered through the gates.
  15. If they want to include it in some form, they might just send Egwene through the apprentice ter'angreal in Rhuidean, along with Moiraine and Avi. It would have even more gravitas. Also, IIRC in the books they were falling out of love - if their relationship was supposed to be that - even before her test. In the show, Egwene has mentally buried Rand, and he needs to keep her at arm's length because of Lanfear. Frankly, the girls returning to the Tower just to leave again immediately didn't work that well even in the books. In the show they already have the rings for their impersonation and if season 3 is mainly TSR, then Egwene needs to be in the Waste.
  16. Continuing the discussion from back on page 13 - I didn't have time to properly respond until now: Verin and Caire aren't actually weak channelers, they are on the level of the upper 25-30% of the WT. And yes, Verin did create the Compulsion weave in a way that most weaves should have been invented, really, rather than strong channelers just making them up on instinct. She is a big exception and a precious unicorn, as always. Caire had learned and practiced the lore and skills of using the Bowl her whole life - well, it was nice that she wasn't immediately superseded by some über-powerful whipper-snapper, as usually happens in WoT. So, I concede - it happened a couple of times that above average, but not exceptional channelers did something of importance with OP. But I wanted more! I wouldn't say nothing. Egwene is still among the strongest female channelers in the series. And IIRC Nynaeve's Healing was once described as using so many flows that Elayne or maybe Egwene couldn't follow them, so we don't really know if she can't do as much. Maybe Egwene splitting the flows more than Rand is an elusive expression of female dexterity in weaving? However, I am pretty sure that it was mentioned when Egwene was thrown off the boat by the Sea Folk that most female channelers can't even split the flows 4x? And while, having learned to do so because of her strength she can still do it when weak, we certainly never saw anyone who was inherently weak being capable of anything remotely similar, despite centuries of practice. That's the problem I have with the cult of raw strength in the OP in WoT - practically every aspect of channeling is tied into it, bar Talents, which are also inborn. Regarding application of Trolloc Wars strategies and tactics to Tarmon Gaidon - widespread Travelling and mixed circles ditto should have fundamentally changed what was practical and limited the usefulness of normal troops and their positioning. No, men didn't live for more than a few decades while saidin was tainted. If madness didn't get them, the rotting sickness did. And frankly, while the idea of a city in the Blight was cool, it doesn't make sense that turned Aiel channelers could have been kept there without it getting destroyed before Ishamael was freed from the Bore, 15 years before the series start. Like, why would evil channelers sit idle for decades twiddling their thumbs and waiting to go mad or rot alive? And how could a localized mini-Breaking have been prevented once they inevitably went mad? Now, I expected a reveal that Ishamael had been recruiting male channelers since his return and that some of Taim's cronies and he himself, if not Taimandred, were such, but having them there during Isam's childhood doesn't seem to fit. There not being any Darkfriend WOs worked for me, because their ter'angreal tests seem better designed to weed out people so inclined. And Ishy didn't take them seriously, while he concentrated on sabotaging the White Tower. I thought that Sharans eventual involvement was somewhat hinted at? But in connection with Graendal, who had their rulers in her harem and Sammael, because he was allied with her and was a general in need of an army with channelers. I certainly expected them to show up, but yes, giving them to Demandred seemed random. Very much agree. In fact, I expected to see something like that as a run-up to the Cleansing - figuring out how it all works, since so much was supposed to be so very different. But nope, they could just do it. I don't think that the Second Oath would have prevented the AS from making large shields, like the ones the Legion of the Dragon uses. Anything can be ultimately used as a weapon - but not everything would be considered a weapon by an AS. And circles of powerful novices should have allowed Leanna and Bode, at the very least, to produce a good number of shields and armor. Just have them made from very thin metal or foil prior to transformation to reduce the weight. Yes, they can't be destroyed, but so what? The retcon is that in EoTW Moiraine wanted to bring the boys to Tar Valon, in TGH Siuan seemed not entirely convinced that the Black Ajah actually existed, in TDR she was surprised that the BAs could break the Three Oaths, and in TDR and TSR both she and Moiraine thought that as the Amyrlin she would be able to unite the countries in support of the Dragon Reborn. Also, Siuan's security precautions in TSR were non-existent and she was completely surprised and shocked by the coup. None of which makes any sense in view of them being fully aware of what happened to Tamra and her searchers and Moiraine's encounter with Merean.
  17. Yes, and Ishy is one of these people who get glimpses in the books, since he is a Dreamer. Wasn't knotting known, but rare and possibly a Talent in the early books? To then become common-place by the mid-books, which, BTW, made perfect sense unlike other power-inflations like Travelling or inverting the weaves. I am OK with it being a forgotten skill in the show, though. It never sat well with me how the 3rd-Agers were able to learn everything that the Forsaken had mastered in their multi-centuries lifetimes of channeling in a few weeks/months. The wonder girls have no reason to go back to the White Tower when even Siuan can't be relied upon and they know for sure that the Black Ajah exists. Mat has to go with Rand to the Waste, so won't need an escort there. Maybe Elayne and Nynaeve travel to Caemlyn instead, to warn Morgase? And become involved with the Forsaken and BAs there. Elayne's absence from the WT during this season would still trigger Elaida's sacking and Gawyn's involvement in the coup. In which, after this episode, I am more certain than ever that Siuan will get murdered or executed. And that they'll try to force her to order Moiraine back and she'll heroically refuse. It does look like Anvaere's actions must have outed Liandrin as a Darkfriend too, so she might be involved with whatever FS is going to be in Caemlyn. I am very unsure where Min could fit in, though. On the whole, I am withholding judgement. Some of the changes worked quite well for me, others very much depend on the finale. I like how they have positioned Alanna as very sympathetic and helpful to Rand, so that her eventual betrayal hits all the harder. Also, her and Verin's involvement in his escape gives them a good reason to make themselves scarce and head to the Two Rivers. Not sure why they gave a younger Siuan desire for simple life, rather than the one of adventure and maritime exploration, but whatever.
  18. Well, my impression was that Thrawn didn't like the presence of Baylen and Shin, due to them having their own agenda, as well as the general unpredictability of Force users and intially sent them after Ezra and Sabine with the intention to remove them from equation by stranding them. It is only after Ahsoka showed up with the declared mission of stopping him, that he chose to commit his own resources, and again the goal was mainly to delay the protagonists, though actually killing them would have been a bonus. Ezra hasn't been a problem while Thrawn had no way back - just a potential risk factor. Hard disagree that it would have been the _only_ reason. There were rumblings among the Imperials about him coming back - which needed to be investigated. Forewarned is forearmed. And of course she wanted to find Ezra and bring him home, but it makes perfect sense for her adult character to strand him if the alternative was Thrawn's immediate return and civil war going hot. She clearly didn't expect Morgan's enterprise to be as advanced as it turned out to be. I also don't see why she should have gone after Moff Gideon - it is a big galaxy and a single person can't be everywhere and do it all. Particularly since with the fall of the Empire and splintering of it's loyalists there aren't single points of failure anymore either. I may be easily amused, but I liked most of this episode. What stuck in my craw was the kangaroo court, which was a combination of idiot balls and gaslighting the audience. It should be painfully obvious even to children that there was more than enough evidence and a crowd of witnesses for what happened. Just so unnecessary.
  19. I don't get it. IMHO he could have set it up so that the cat was publicly out of the bag if the situation became desperate enough during the Last Battle that experienced sul'dam had to start channeling to save the day. Personally, I was expecting it. I thought that that's where the plot with captive sul'dam entrusted to Elayne, as well as Seta/Betamin was going. Would have been a good exit for Siuan if she had been involved in convincing the sul'dam to pitch in before getting cut down. It would have still left things open for the outriggers (honoring Jordan's intention, I guess?), since the Seanchan in Randland would have had to come to terms with it and of course there would have been the whole mainland culture to contend with. It is utterly ridiculous that Tuon didn't even return people kidnapped from the WT after her agreement - and Egwene didn't even ask for them! How could intentions of Seanchan have been trusted if they didn't even do the minimum to smooth over things with the new allies after their completely unprovoked attack? I guess that Sanderson didn't want to deal with Elaida again, but that's not a good excuse.
  20. Did they do anything of particular importance to the plot? Did their skills and personal discoveries contribute in some significant way? No. It would have made sense, for instance, to have weak, but skilled channelers lead circles, since they are used to doing more with less and might have really improved efficency of the OP use with them, but it didn't happen either. And outside of Egwene versus Rand, did we even see any example of weak channelers, who are particularly good at splitting their flows? Learning to do this also seemed to be mostly connected to the strength in OP, though IIRC Siuan and Leanne didn't lose whatever facility they had with it after getting downgraded. IRL famous people get to break conventions, taboos and even laws all the time. She might have even got a special dispensation from the Hall/an Amyrlin in the past or something. And it isn't like douchebag sisters met outside the Tower would have been able to force her to do anything, due to her *angreal set and general competence. But as I have already written, IMHO rigid strength hierarchy introduced in LoC was a mistake. Before that it has been clear that it was an important factor in an AS's standing among her peers, but not the hard limit, and it fit better with the whole constant manoeuvring for advantage against each other. The attention that RJ lavished on his strength charts could have been better used elsewhere too. Since the importance given a sister's opinion is weighted by her strength and weaker sisters usually aren't even allowed to voice theirs, it is wholly unbelievable that they would have been able to rise politically on the strength of their other competences. Yes, non-interference clause would allow them to work on their personal projects, but the results, if they chose to share them, would also be viewed through the same lense. Not to mention that leadership skills need to be built up through practice, so a weaker channeler , through some implausible quirk of fate suddenly finding themselves in position of authority after a life-time of deference, should be set up for failure for the most part. Etc. Concerning Talents - yes, they can be refined through practice, but it is a minor improvement, compared to having one in the first place and it's strength, both of which is in-born. Which again ignores actual competences and ensures that the strongest channelers will end up on-top eventually, barring excessive recklessness, because they also live the longest. The Windfinders are shackled to another person's success, which is also not great, though having to periodically go back to the basics has certain benefits for keeping the overall perspective straight. WOs "strength of personality" often felt like bullying to me, but I guess that they are the most functional? Sucks for weaker channelers who don't vibe with the Aiel way of life post-TG, I guess. But catching and aprehending channeling miscreants is going to be a nightmare in the immediate post-TG future, with each organisation having different standards of what is allowed and being protective of it's members and prerogatives. Not to forget the Black Tower and it's very problematic culture... My memory of the tPoD battle is that the Asha'man still tried to capture sul'dam/damane, while those had no compunction about killing them in return. Also the OP weirdness was more dangerous to the men, since damane can't over-channel due to collar being a perverted link. And didn't Rand kill a few of the Asha'man when he lost control? Regarding KoD - if the Shadow had many orders of magnitude more Shadowspawn than the quarter of a Mil destroyed there, then how much use should normal armies have been? IIRC, the channelers were exhausted, but nothing a good sleep wouldn't fix, and they could have Travelled away at any time. The Last Battle as written didn't work for me - along with suddenly and drastically reduced numbers of channelers involved, they often arbitrarily didn't use beneficial skills and tactics that they had employed in the previous books. Also, it just wasn't desperate enough and IMHO should have been happening on a number of battlefields concurrently throughout, rather than ultimately in one place. Forsaken, though, I am happy to say, did lead circles, however, though not to the degree that they should have. Why wouldn't they? In fact, it is a plot-hole that they didn't do so sooner. I like the OP being wide and varied, but RJ has been hammering on the huge, drastic differences of saidin and saidar usage for books and books - to then make it trivially easy to weave with the opposite half of OP against one's natural instincts, felt very cheap to me. And it was unneccessary and even detrimental in the end, IMHO. The reason why Sanderson likely felt that he had to jettison 9/10 of previously recruited channelers was that the Light seemed to have such a huge advantage in numbers of OP-users, that their victory looked like a slum-dunk. IIRC there have even been discussions about it back in the day. Well, the FS having the benefit of mega-circles, while the Light didn't, would have counter-acted this perception. Also, it would have been easier to give normal soldiers something important to do without massive contrivances. Ditto curbing of Travelling by some means, so that holding a position would mean something and be actually believably feasible. YMMV. Glad that we are on the same page about the Seanchan - it is not just the damane system either, they enslave normals too and it is hereditary. Slavery in this world was literally introduced by the Shadow during the War of Power. And while we have seen a couple of privileged slaves, who were content with their situation, as well as blindly devoted to their owners, this changes nothing about the horror of the institution. Nothing was done to lift automatic death sentence for the male sparkers either. I can't understand how Sanderson and McDhougal could have decided that it was an acceptable conclusion to this plot-line, when the climax is all about choices. But then again, I don't understand why Jordan decided that he needed to pivot from Seanchan in Randland being shaken up and needing to change for the Last Battle to them remaining largely as is, once he intended to write the Mat-Tuon sequel. There would have been more than enough conflict between them and the main culture anyway. Obstacles block the weaves in the books, though. Cuendillar wouldn't negate kinetic force of the weave, but it should block the purely elemental effects, not to mention normal weapons. Large shields are considered to be a useful and innovative piece of kit for the Legion of the Dragon and Band of the Red Hand. How much better if they were made of cuendillar? Being able to produce cuendillar should have given the WT army a significant defensive advantage, even if it is only partial protection against OP. Excellent point about balefire, BTW. Regarding training of women channelers - being a battery in a circle and watching a weave performed repeatedly would indeed have helped them to learn the weave, unless a rare Talent was required for it. But even if not - athletes train their specific skills, but also have overall conditioning training. Well, this would have been an equivalent. Practicing new weaves safely could have been done by women linking in pairs and trading control. This would have allowed them to train much more intensively _and_ much more safely than the traditional WT method where novices channel alone, supposedly only under supervision, but everyone secretly does it on their own too, and linking isn't even taught until they make Accepted. I wished the strength hierarchy to get abolished prior to the Last Battle, because of prior incompetence of the White Tower, particularly in military matters and general fumbling buffonery of the prominent sisters. Putting previously disregarded, but capable people in charge could have been a plausible way to quickly improve it's effectiveness. Rand's ta'veren influence on the Pattern could have made it easier, like it made discovering and learning new things easier. Anyway, now that I got it all off my chest: Honestly, the ret-cons of "The New Spring" made them look pretty foolish in the books as well. Before it was published their early plans had seemed quite reasonable from what they knew. I also disagree that Moiraine has been "doing nothing" - she unmasked Lanfear (who just outed herself for no reason in the books) and brought Rand and Logain together. I also like the deeper dive into what it costs to be an AS in general and to pursue her mission in particular. Her family drama sets upcoming events in more meaningful ways than the books did, too. Poor Lan though... yea.
  21. Well, that's one of the things why I love the Etrian Oddyssey games - they do random encounters right. You have an indicator for how likely one is to happen, for instance, and for some steps after a fight you are completely safe. There are also skills and items that can stop them for a time if they become annoying. But you want to fight them for the most part because of the materials they drop and levelling. They are also not trivial during first exploration, but can be auto-fought once you out-level them. Anyway, this Wizardry re-master doesn't sound appealing. They should do the last one instead - I played a little of that and I seem to nebulously remember that it was much more fleshed out.
  22. Great episode. I thought that the first season was OK until the last couple of episodes and was even on board with some of the additions, including the deep dive into warder-AS relationships, etc. But this season is so much better so far. Here is to hoping that they don't fumble the conclusion. After this episode I feel fairly sure that Barthanes is (along with Anvaere?) a DF here. Previously, I thought that they'd mix it up and he is going to be an innocent victim. They sure intend to heap lots of (too much?) heartbreak on Moiraine, given what must happen with Siuan in season 3. I expect that she'd get straight-up killed, too, since there is no room for all the wandering, etc. Also, much of her plot post-coup theme of retaining agency and pursuing goals without OP has been re-purposed for this season. Isn't Siuan suddenly changing her plans in order to visit a disgraced AS far too blatant? I mean, sure she can pretend that it is about the wedding, but didn't she demand to see Moiraine immediately? Also, she shouldn't have been traveling with just a couple of guards on her return from Caemlyn - surely they could have afforded a few extras. I continue to be not a fan of Lan's plot. I wish that RJ hadn't been so obsessed with OP strength in the books - his strength charts remind me of Tolkien's preoccupation with and repeated changes to the minutiae of his world, while what I would have so badly wanted him to do with his time is creating a meaty 1st and 2nd Age plot for Galadriel and ditto for Gil-Galad. I have been so sure that this would be in Silmarillion, when I first picked it up, sigh. Nearly all of important and innovative channelers initially being on or near the top of OP strength for their organizations was just so boring. Sanderson's Androl may have been a too-late over-correction, but I have always disliked how skill and creativity in channeling seemed to be mostly tied to strength in RJ books. It was needed for Rand and the super-girls, of course, but it didn't have to be so ubiquitous. Cadsuane would have been far more interesting and worthy of respect if she had been a mid AS, who had managed to become so famous that she could safely ignore conventions, rather than yet another "strongest in a millenium", who even gets her level upgraded from being under El and Egs to being over them. Zzzz. For that matter, the strict strength hierarchy among the AS doesn't even fit with them constantly manoeuvring and plotting for advantage against each other. Jordan does make a few half-hearted attempts to expand from it in the later books with weak channelers having really powerful Talents - but that's just another in-born trait that a person has no control over, so not much better. And there seemed to be some build-up for the strength hierarchy getting overturned, which, along with sharing of secret weaves might have made the AS drastically more effective... but nothing comes of it. And it may be Sanderson failing to deliver on it, but Jordan himself had abandoned quite a other few set-ups in his books previously, so we'll never know. There is, though - witness the sound beating that just 50 Asha'man backed by a small army deliver to the Seanchan in TPoD. And they are often even trying not to kill the damane, since many have a weaker version of chivalry syndrom. Naturally, they also have an advantage of being free channelers who can make their own decisions and the damane being unpracticed at fighting trained male channelers, in addition to all the other benefits that men get over women, which is OK. But they are very much superior. And no, violence isn't depicted as cool in WoT, but it is shown as necessary. Also, professional military and generals, who specialize in violence, are depicted with sympathy and respect. I don't see how letting female channelers fight capably as well and help determine military strategies would have been toxic. RJ didn't have to inflate the destructive potential of OP as much as he did either, or he could have come with better ways to counter-act and limit it in battle. That attack on the farm in KoD where a group of channelers, yes, including Rand, but also explicitely noting that Logain wasn't much weaker than him, mowed down a quarter million Shadowspawn was absolutely unnecessary. Nor did he have to make it so easy to lead mixed circles and weave with the opposite half of OP, when it should have been by an order of magnitude harder than doing what comes naturally. The only one who really needed to be able to on the side of Light was Rand and he had LTT for that. It would have also given the FS an edge and made them more menacing. How you fight evil absolutely does matter - particularly in WoT where fighting the DO has strong metaphysical aspects concerning agency and free will, which is why having Seanchan fighting on the side of Light in pretty much unchanged state shouldn't have worked. Speaking of "psychopath production factories". I expected that at the very least at some point in the Last Battle the situation was going to become so desperate that experienced sul'dam would have to begin channeling to save the day. But nope. And I wish that I could blame Sanderson for it, but Jordan began pivoting away from sul'dam having channeling potential being a smoking gun and a general feeling that Seanchan in Randland would have to change and adapt substantially in order to keep their gains to "but they are so orderly and well-organized that we'll just have to arrange ourselves with them" a few books earlier, when he decided to write a sequel series about Mat and Tuon. I don't see how forcing is different from basic training the soldiers go through, which is aimed at quickly increasing their fitness and endurance. It has been shown repeatedly that AS artificially slow down the training process in favor of indoctrination, "character-building" and education. Ditto the WOs. And the supergirls skipping almost all of that is shown to be right and neccessary in view of the desperate existential threat that they are facing. So why be hypocritical about it with rank-and-file? Particularly if linking allows them to quickly increase in strength safely, without the risks that the protagonists had to take? Egwene recruited the 2K women specifically in preparation for the TG - they were supposed to fight in it, so wouldn't it have made sense to make sure that they'd have the best chances of doing so successfully? Sure, try to instill them with values and so on, but all the rest can come later - if there is one. Learning to fight and to heal should have had absolute priority. Ditto with the WOs et al. There is a lot of useful work that could have been done with channelers working linked with powerful, but untrained recruits too - I expected them to start producing cuendillar armor and shields around the clock to increase the defensive capability of the White Tower army in the Last Battle , but of course re-invention of cuendillar merely served to get Egwene captured... The Oaths don't do what they are supposed to do and are borderline useless. Even more so with so many channeling groups becoming independent of the White Tower, which has been previously able to keep a lid on any public mis-use of OP through intimidation. Catching and punishing channeling miscreants was bound to become a massive quagmire as a result and normal people wouldn't have been able to distinguish the differences of allegiance and blamed the AS anyway, further eroding the already miniscule trust. RJ was so invested in kicking the WT, that he didn't think it through. Yes, the Black Tower was massively borked, but not because Asha'man were trained to fight competently, but because it was lead by a Darkfriend and all it's members had a terminal condition. In fact, it should have been much worse than shown in the books as a result. The whole "absence of hope"and "ticking clock" aspects wouldn't have existed for female channelers, just as it doesn't for normal soldiers. Etc.
  23. They want to get the hell out of dodge and Thrawn, with his ship and his connection to Elsbeth and her resources is their ride. It is more of a question why Morgan worked for and wants the return of the Empire, given what happened on Darthomir in the CW. Or why Palapatine didn't snuff her out, ditto. I am enjoying the show, it is the best of non-Andor SW ones, IMHO.
  24. Likely even more than that, given the circumstances. Also, prior to and during the Trolloc Wars there were AS living in the kingdoms of the Compact of Ten Nations rather than being all cooped up in the WT - like Eldrene. They also had the Ways at their disposal for quick transport. However you look at it, Mat should have had memories of military channeling tactics and strategies of the period. But he doesn't that we have seen. This doesn't track, though - US, where weapons, equipment and troops were produced, was safe. Like the heartland of the side of Light was safe according to Rand's ancestral memories, where an Aiel boy first saw soldiers on the day the Bore was sealed. And DFs everywhere fulfill that uncertainty without people being able to gate in and commit massive destruction anytime anywhere, as really should have been the case with unrestricted Travelling. So what? Aiel have good training methods for their normal soldiers, they couldn't figure out one for their female channelers, once they knew that Tarmon Gaidon was coming? With the additional info they had from their ter'angreal tests and after TSR whatever *angreal were found in Rhuidean? Not to mention all the stuff that Egwene shared with them later, which also included AoL channeling knowledge. As to the fundamentals, didn't they say that they don't coddle apprentices and also taught them to Avi very quickly? OK. But the dexterity thing was mainly to explain why female FS could still be dangerous to the males and weren't apriori under their thumb. Also, maybe to reconcile contradictory statements about Lanfear's power level, who was supposed to be second most powerful FS after Ishy in the early books, but then got dumped under most male FS in raw power, IIRC. It never came into play in Asha'man versus female channelers comparisons or their respective effectiveness on the battlefield - there OP strength was pretty much everything. Also in Travelling. Normal Asha'man's Gates are as big as those of the supergirls. But the real inequality is in the rules of who gets to lead which links. The most basic level of cooperation is 2 people working together - and of course only men can be in charge there. Which means that a man and a woman can never be equal channeling partners. Etc. None of it was necessary. Lesser strength for ability to initiate links is actually a decent trade-off and it would have been OK if that was all. Of course, as I mentioned before, women also aren't allowed to shine in the areas where they supposedly tend to be superior - men can do everything they do, except for starting a link, but better and quicker, while also fully utilizing their many additional advantages. Yea, but it doesn't fit a world with his premise at all. And often leads to incredibly patronizing treatment of women by the narrative. It is very different. Airspace can be effectively interdicted and only relatively small detachments can be transported by planes at once - with Travelling one can easily move entire armies, if one uses circles. Nor does one even need to send anybody through, necessarily, one could just open a gateway and blast through it anything anywhere. Which is why wards preventing travelling in an area should have been essential for the War of Power to make sense and later parts of the series proper ditto. Rand's ancestral memories even suggest something like this - when the Aiel leave Paaran Disen, nobody is worried that the madmen might just gate in - instead the AS can estimate the time of their arrival. Given that reckless Travelling can present mortal danger to random bystanders, it makes sense that it would have been suppressed in the cities of AoL even before the war too. Yea, no. The conquest of Illian demonstrates the absurdity introduced into military strategies by widespread Travelling. Oh, no, the eminent general Sammael would never guess that Rand intends to again use the very same trick that has already been successfully employed by him and his followers twice and will surely get distracted by a slow-moving conventional army instead. His warning wards were so useless that I fully expected the whole thing to be a feint to make Rand believe that he won, while Sammy went to Shara to prepare his real army, laughing at the DR's gullability. I still believe that it would have been a better plot. YMMV, of course. Not to mention how Travelling and Skimming being restricted to only a few individuals on the side of Light would have made Perrin's, Egwene's and Elayne's post ACoS plots feel more legitimate, rather than like annoyingly contrived make-work. Which plots couldn't have worked without wide-spread Travelling? As far as I can see, nearly all would have been greatly improved without it. I thought that they just found and inducted every sparker and didn't know how to test for potential? Which is why they had 6x WT's numbers. Or was that the Sea Folk? They surely don't teach every woman with potential though - so with TG looming and the prophecies about how Aiel have to give their all for "a remnant of a remnant" to survive they should have trained everyone who could learn, even if they hadn't been interested in becoming WOs previously. There absolutely was room to drastically increase their numbers. And yes, Egwene shared weaves with them, but as we have established, AS suck at combat weaves and are stuck in the mindset of using their weakest powers for fighting. The WOs, some of whom are former military women, should have been able to come up with something better. I also don't think that there should have been _that_ many Aiel male channelers for them to fight, since madness and rotting would have taken their toll on them and likely not every one could have been taken alive, but yea. They were made into barely an inconvenience, too. I do think that Ishy additionally collecting other male sparkers since his return 15 years prior to TEoTW and stashing them somewhere for use in TG would have made sense, though. Would have explained why so few were found during that time period. Ah, no. They use weaves for construction, Damer Flynn is as good a healer as Nynaeve, they are as good at the lesser battlefield healing as the AS, they Travel better, they have invented the wife bond and the perfect Compulsion addition to it, etc, etc. All in a few months, BTW. Of course it is, but given how dangerous forcing is supposed to be, their losses were surprisingly small, and given what is at stake, should have been entirely acceptable for organizations that subject their initiates to mortally dangerous ordeals anyway. However, women should have had the advantage of being able to force their recruits completely safely, through linking. That's how it was with Egwene, a'dam being a perverted link. And she never had any negative effects from the forcing itself, only from the surrounding abuse. WOs and the rebel Tower should have jumped at this opportunity - naturally they didn't. Because it would have made too much sense. I fail to recall any all female organizations described as functional in fiction, so... I also feel that WoT underplays difficulties that channelers who are not isolationist should have faced - the temptation of using their powers to elevate themselves, their country or their descendents ("a man will do for his children what he would never do for himself"), being open to blackmail via their families, being even less trusted to be impartial, etc. For instance, it seems plausible that most of the AS that Hawkwing managed to kill were those embedded in their communities, who could be forced to give themselves up so that their families/people close to them would be spared. Taim and his DFs also should have attempted to seize families of the Asha'man to blackmail them into fighting for the Shadow/submitting to the turning. With their bonded wives horrifically experiencing the turning through the bond. Etc. Naturally none of that happened - and RJ almost certainly wouldn't have gone there either, because Asha'man having families was sign-posted as the right thing as opposed to AS not having them being wrong. The Shadow always had human troops too, particularly in the War of Power. Also one doesn't need to send troops to do massive damage through one.
  25. To Jordan's credit, he himself didn't see his world as a matriarchy, but as one of gender equality. Which is also not really the case, but still. I don't have the link to his quote anymore, sorry. I never understood why RJ suddenly decided to make Travelling widely available and completely drop the more restrictive Skimming and Portal Stones in the bargain - shouldn't it have been clear from the start that it would cause massive problems? Transporters were at least baked into the very basis of Star Trek for very practical and necessary reasons. He wasn't under any such constraints, though. Jordan could have also introduced anti-Travelling wards from AoL to curb it in later volumes, since he wanted conventional armies, their manoeuvres and their generals to be important. Honestly, history of the War of Power doesn't even make any sense without them. How could one speak of "holding territory" if non-Shadowspawn enemy forces could gate in anywhere at any time? Why didn't anybody use Travelling in Rand's ancestral visions? Etc. Yes, Sanderson does something like that with the Dreamspike, but it was far too little and too late. I am 100% OK with it, but couldn't they have found a larger breed? I can understand how them being so little, but played up as scary, might strain suspension of disbelief. Why would you assume equal distribution? The Reds and the Greens were the largest Ajahs even in the "modern" times, I bet that during the Trolloc Wars they made up at least 3/4 or so of all AS, with the greens predominating. Back then Shadowspawn couldn't use the Ways, IIRC, and other quick travel means had been forgotten. It was also mentioned in the text that they raised sisters quickly during that period and I imagine that the rejects were allowed to fight too, if they so chose. I think that the books hinted that one of the Oaths may have been introduced due to Hawkwing? Something along the lines of "between the Trolloc Wars and War of the Hundred Years we have adopted these Oaths?". Not looking up the exact quote. The AS were supposed to be offensive weapons against Darkfriends and Shadowspawn - at least the Greens were. But let's forget the WT - it has born the brunt of Ishy's sabotage over the millenia. Let's consider the Aiel WOs instead. And the role that Aiel as a people were supposed to play in the TG according to their prophecies. They had more time to turn themselves into offensive weapons and bulk up their ranks with learners than the Asha'man, because they already knew what was coming as early as TSR. Did they do so? Of course not, because wimmin. They were too busy lounging naked in sweating tents, sipping tea, haranguing Rand and making their apprentices waste time digging holes. Asha'man went from zero to outstripping all female channelers in a couple of months, because in WoT men are just naturally better at nearly everything. It is what it is. Not this old canard again. Do you seriously claim that an unarmed man taking out a dozen of these trained, armed and armored warriors like in the book would be any less silly? Or Perrin after a couple of hours of combat instruction being able to mow them down ditto? Not to mention that while it is a man in this scene in the books, Aiel women fighters are super-soldiers, who can take on superior numbers there too, though maybe a little less egregiously. Also, armor mostly functions on stormtrooper rules in WoT - the more somebody wears, the easier they are to defeat. I have noticed over the years that some parts of the audience tend to happily lap up any kind of unrealistic silliness and find it bad-ass - as long as these feats are being performed by a man or a boy. As soon as it is a woman size, muscle mass and the whole unreality of the situation gets loudly, tediously and repeatedly brought up and accusations of Sueism fly. Something to think about, perhaps?
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