The Wheel of Time TV Show 4: The Budget Rising [BOOK SPOILERS]

[Which Tyler]

1 minute ago, Corvinus85 said:

No, but the showrunner said there will be elements of books 2 and 3 in the first season. I believe in an interview a while ago, he said that they are not necessarily going for the formulaic match seasons to books approach, and will craft the story organically, meaning they may pull in some stuff from later books earlier, and maybe push stuff from book 1 later. 

I think they've said all of that recently too.
And it makes perfect sense - they've got the whole tapestry in front of them to pace and select ahead of time. They then had a year or so of various lockdowns where they had not much more to do than pace out and start writing future seasons

[karaddin]

 

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

Back to actual discussion, someone mentioned Ilyena, and I think in general, having more scenes in the Age of Legends would make sense. It'll just be expensive AF CGI, but I think they should do it. But I'd hold back till Rand gets to see the history of the Aiel. You don't want the past Age to be too familiar to viewers. I enjoyed seeing how much more technologically advanced they were, in book 4, and it really brought home the utter chaos and destructiveness of the Breaking, and it makes the fear male channelers induce in everyone clear and understandable. 

That was me and I entirely agree with not starting on it too early. I'm thinking that having Rand starting to become somewhat unstuck in time is a potentially good way to depict his weakening hold on sanity AND bring in some characterization for long people that nonetheless are an important part of the context. So much of our view of his madness in the books is tied to being in his head and reading Lews Therin ranting, so they've got to adapt it to more tv appropriate methods.

[fionwe1987]

Advancing and deepening White Tower politics early on is something they seemed to have done, and that's good. In the books, we know this is going on, and we even get hints of it, but till the Tower coup, we never get to see the inner workings, because Siuan is a sparingly used PoV till then.

It looks to me, from the way we see Moiraine entering the Hall, answering to the Hall, etc, that they took what was merely a proposal to reprimand her in the books and made it into a proper political challenge for Siuan and her to face.If they stick to the books broadly, it boils down to

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Spoiler

the Hall digging into Moiraine, which cannot be afforded, because what that would reveal is a 20 year conspiracy between Siuan and Moiraine to secretly find the Dragon Reborn, away from the eyes of the Hall, because they alone know that even the most powerful of Sisters, even the Amyrlin, have been murdered by the Black Ajah, who are also hunting the Dragon Reborn.

Moiraine's freedom to do this is owed entirely to Siuan's political machination, and we know from later in the books that even members of her own Ajah were perplexed and unhappy with some of her actions which made no sense to them.

Of course, she was dead right to play things close to the chest, given that her no. 3 in the Tower ended up being a senior member of the Black, and another Blue sitter was also a Black sister, as well as a Green sitter. 

She correctly assessed the danger of exposing her plans, but also the costs to her from following through, and she pays them. That's good drama there, and they should make it happen on screen instead of just be implied. It ups the stakes, uses intrigue we know was in the books, just off screen, and complicates the story in ways that we couldn't see when constrained just to the perspective of the Emond's Field characters.

[Corvinus85]

Now I'm wondering how the show will portray Darkfriend motivations. I've always found it a bit flimsy that 99% of Darkfriends are basically just hungry for power, and the other 1% being just murderous psychopaths or having some ideological quirk that made them join up.

If WoT follows in the tradition of most SFF stories that allude to real world issues there is room here to make Darkfriends more varied in their motivations. Not to get political in this thread, but there is stuff this show can exploit. There could be Darkfriends who have been duped in believing the Dark One will make an equal world, so they joined up because they wish to bring down the establishment, i.e. monarchies, nobility, the Aes Sedai. Or some joined up because they believe Aes Sedai are evil (like the Whitecloaks do) and only the Dark One can get rid of them. Or there could members of the Black Ajah who see the continual regression of the world as being the fault of humanity, and only the DO can restore the glory of the Age of Legends. etc. etc.

[Myrddin]

When I read the first prologue, I didn't picture a future setting. I just imagined a wrecked hallway that was closer to "fantasy" era, stone or plaster walls, carpets, gilded picture frames. Well, shattered versions. "Showing" us the prologue would be distracting until we see the time jumps in Rhuidean. Hopefully, LTT will just be a voice until after this point in the show. Then if Rand sees flashbacks or something, they can show us the scene from the prologue.

 

Until then, we will always have Billy Zane's master class.

(no, I will not stop until the joke has been run into the ground in all three ages, past and future) 

[Slurktan]

8 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

When I read the first prologue, I didn't picture a future setting. I just imagined a wrecked hallway that was closer to "fantasy" era, stone or plaster walls, carpets, gilded picture frames. Well, shattered versions. "Showing" us the prologue would be distracting until we see the time jumps in Rhuidean. Hopefully, LTT will just be a voice until after this point in the show. Then if Rand sees flashbacks or something, they can show us the scene from the prologue.

 

Until then, we will always have Billy Zane's master class.

(no, I will not stop until the joke has been run into the ground in all three ages, past and future) 

An issue for me if they show the prologue early is that would be showing Ishamael who would presumably be the same actor playing Ba'alzamon later on giving that away.  I'd hope they are still doing the dreams from book 1 where he is sending them to all three instead of just Rand.  For TV's sake you could also have all 3 be in the dreams together.

[SpaceChampion]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the intent. The intent was to say that this is literature I don't think people with considerable reading experience - especially in the genre we are talking about - are likely to get invested in if they first read it in their later years. Because then you are invested in other things ... and you have a more sober view of things in general.

No, all sorts of people of all ages read WOT.  Before the internet we had Usenet and things like Compuserve to connect with other fantasy fans.  It was the well educated, 20, 30 and 40 year olds and older that were active on Usenet that created the rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan group that was responsible for much of the original fandom.  I was an 18 years old nerd that annoyed those people by saying absurdly stupid things, in backfiring attempts to sit with who I perceived as the cool kids.  It was the older fans who built the community, built the r.a.s.w.r-j FAQ which was where I first saw many of the theories rampant in those days, and eventually spinoffs like Theoryland, Dragonmount, etc that emerged later when the web was born.  It was a large and dynamic community, and the younger folk were outnumbered as far as I could tell.

[Myrddin]

Agreed, Slurktan. That's a second reason not to show the prologue.

I do hope they keep the dreams too. It'll add a nice horror element and continuing feeling of dread and pursuit even when the Trollocs aren't around. 

[fionwe1987]

The dream stuff in general is too good as TV material for them to waste, so they hopefully won't. What's more interesting to me is how they handle Dreamwalking, down the line. I always felt it a very well described and interesting world, one that's fairly easy to translate to screen, too, while making it obviously not reality, because everything is going to move around, flash in and out of existence, including clothes and personal appearance, except for the skilled Dreamwalkers, who can stably maintain their reality. I think it can make for great visuals, if done right. 

[Werthead]

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From what I've seen of fan and licensed artwork, which primarily focused only on characters, it seems the AoL had a strong late 19th century vibe combined with more advanced technology in a few areas. A lot of the advanced tech they had seems to be directly linked to the One Power. In terms of that the show may display, for budget sake they could easily show a modern city and add in One Power special effects. They did film in Prague, right? A city that combines modernism with older architecture. 

The Age of Legends was a full-blown science fiction utopia, complete with holographic TV, space travel, the implication of fusion power (at least clean and inexhaustible, green energy), super-skyscrapers, flying cars (the 100% sure sign that utopia has been reached) and, when the War of the Shadow began, directed energy weapons. The One Power was on top of all of that and improved on it, with some Aes Sedai being employed effectively as teleport-directors.

The Collapse and the War of the Shadow did mess that up and society had lost some of the technology and the way things functioned, but they were still more advanced than we are.

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The titles of the episodes seem to imply that the first season will cover more than one book - which might be a good thing. Does anybody know how far the plot will advance in the first season?

Season 1 is Book 1 with some Book 2 (and possibly Book 3) characters introduced early, like how The Expanse introduced Avasarala early. The primary storyline will not extend much past Book 1 in the first season.

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Now I'm wondering how the show will portray Darkfriend motivations. I've always found it a bit flimsy that 99% of Darkfriends are basically just hungry for power, and the other 1% being just murderous psychopaths or having some ideological quirk that made them join up.

If WoT follows in the tradition of most SFF stories that allude to real world issues there is room here to make Darkfriends more varied in their motivations. Not to get political in this thread, but there is stuff this show can exploit. There could be Darkfriends who have been duped in believing the Dark One will make an equal world, so they joined up because they wish to bring down the establishment, i.e. monarchies, nobility, the Aes Sedai. Or some joined up because they believe Aes Sedai are evil (like the Whitecloaks do) and only the Dark One can get rid of them. Or there could members of the Black Ajah who see the continual regression of the world as being the fault of humanity, and only the DO can restore the glory of the Age of Legends. etc. etc.

I do think there's an argument that should have been worked in better where some Darkfriends are educated philosophers who see the cyclical nature of the Wheel of Time being an elaborate prison on their souls.  The Dark One promising to break the cycle of souls and provide for a linear time experience is legitimately a question that should be asked.  Would the world be better off?  

[fionwe1987]

15 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I do think there's an argument that should have been worked in better where some Darkfriends are educated philosophers who see the cyclical nature of the Wheel of Time being an elaborate prison on their souls.  The Dark One promising to break the cycle of souls and provide for a linear time experience is legitimately a question that should be asked.  Would the world be better off?  

Well, that's Ishamael. I really don't think having multiple philosophers with the same worldview would help things any, though. Except make WoT more Malazan like and give us slightly different philosophical takes on why the Dark One should win. 

The only other Forsaken with something approaching a philosophical reason to side with the Dark One was Graendal. It's interesting that the two most successful Forsaken in the series are the ones who had non-personal-ish reasons for joining. Wonder if RJ meant for that to be a subtle point or not...

But I don't see what's so odd about the Darkfriends. The Dark One has always claimed to want to build the world in his image. People discontented with society and wanting a new regime aren't that bizarre, are they? 

On top of which, being a Darkfriend gives you access to secrets and power and networks of people you can use to direct your mundane political and power goals. That's what most Darkfriends seem to be in for, with the thought that the Dark One will never actually be free in their lifetimes, so there's no real destruction of reality for them to face.

That worked for 3000 years, and then it suddenly didn't, but how were they to know, the poor souls?

[Jace, Extat]

19 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I do think there's an argument that should have been worked in better where some Darkfriends are educated philosophers who see the cyclical nature of the Wheel of Time being an elaborate prison on their souls.  The Dark One promising to break the cycle of souls and provide for a linear time experience is legitimately a question that should be asked.  Would the world be better off?  

Did you learn nothing from Cable Seadreamer's muted doom, man! Such powers as these are not to be bestirred. The Arch of Time must be preserved.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

Did you learn nothing from Cable Seadreamer's muted doom, man! Such powers as these are not to be bestirred. The Arch of Time must be preserved.

Nice Donaldson reference.

Man, imagine if someone got it into their head to adapt Covenant to TV...

[Gertrude]

nm, don't want to continue this line of conversation

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

No, all sorts of people of all ages read WOT.  Before the internet we had Usenet and things like Compuserve to connect with other fantasy fans.  It was the well educated, 20, 30 and 40 year olds and older that were active on Usenet that created the rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan group that was responsible for much of the original fandom.  I was an 18 years old nerd that annoyed those people by saying absurdly stupid things, in backfiring attempts to sit with who I perceived as the cool kids.  It was the older fans who built the community, built the r.a.s.w.r-j FAQ which was where I first saw many of the theories rampant in those days, and eventually spinoffs like Theoryland, Dragonmount, etc that emerged later when the web was born.  It was a large and dynamic community, and the younger folk were outnumbered as far as I could tell.

Oh, perhaps I should have been more clear. I think back in the 1990s it makes sense for older folks to be invested in WoT. There aren't (m)any mult-volume fantasy series out there, and the entire sub-genre of gritty 'adult fantasy' has yet to be created. Not to mention that it was an on-going series back then and you couldn't just read summaries of the entire plot and decide whether that's something you are interested in or not.

The point was that it is much harder for an older person now who has read a lot of contemporary fantasy to get into WoT because the flaws jump you in the face ... and you also know where everything is going because you have read a lot of the authors who were influenced by WoT. I mean, folks today may have read the Malazan Book of the Fallen before turning to Robert Jordan. And then chances are not that big that things click if what you want in fantasy is complex far-reaching plots, complex characterization, etc.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Season 1 is Book 1 with some Book 2 (and possibly Book 3) characters introduced early, like how The Expanse introduced Avasarala early. The primary storyline will not extend much past Book 1 in the first season.

That sounds like a smart thing to do. Unless I'm mistaken they do not go to Tar Valon in the first book, no? The show can only profit from key characters and places being introduced earlier.

And thinking about that - unless I'm misrembering they should really tweak the ending of the first book in the show. Isn't the thing written in a manner that implies that the fight is over and everybody can go home now? So that, in case there wouldn't be a book series the book could also be read or interpreted as a standalone novel? That's how I interpreted the finale of the first volume, and that started that tendency that they have to search for the plot at the beginning of the next novel and it takes pages and pages until things start going again. Unless I'm misrembering it is pretty much the same with the second and the third book.

2 hours ago, Rhom said:

I do think there's an argument that should have been worked in better where some Darkfriends are educated philosophers who see the cyclical nature of the Wheel of Time being an elaborate prison on their souls.  The Dark One promising to break the cycle of souls and provide for a linear time experience is legitimately a question that should be asked.  Would the world be better off?  

While good motivations always make sense in villains, I'm not sure the Wheel is all that much of a problem to the average guy in this world. I mean, the rules are basically that everything returns at one point in 'the future' but neither you nor other folks remember any of that, so it is basically as if you are always living your first life ... and the idea that there is a Wheel of Time is basically a metaphysical theory, anyway, nothing that you actually *know*.

Why would you think the guy everybody says is evil is actually your friend?

1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

I did read it, but I wasn't in love with the writing. I also hope that major structural changes are made to shore up its weaknesses. I do (not so secretly) agree that if I started it today instead of as it was coming out, I wouldn't get very far before giving up on it. Like you, I think the premise is good - there are some really good ideas and worldbuilding happening. Some good characters that aren't written well in some cases. So you're not alone and I wasn't offended, and frankly, it's not an uncommon opinion I find among fantasy readers I find around me that aren't on message boards. I don't think it's a matter of age, however, just taste. Most of my friends who also dropped it dropped it early while we were still in our 20s.

Well, thank you very much for that. I knew I wasn't the madman ranting in the darkness ;-).

I think with WoT the dropping may be encouraged by you having already read a considerable amount of better/more adult fantasy. And that certainly can also be the case with younger folks these days. Where the age factor comes in, I think, is with actually emotional investment in a big series. That needs a kind of a blank slate. You have to be receptive and open for a deep emotional investment. First to actually continue reading the series (which is much easier if you start reading it while it isn't finished yet) and then all the way to the point where you post on or even found message boards and the like. And that's not all that likely to happen with WoT if you read it after you already got invested in a couple of (much) better written series.

I mean, these days WoT would be blatantly branded and marketed as 'Young Adult Fiction' (and I think the re-releases were actually marketed as such).

Thinking about it, I also just realized that I liked the idea of the Whitecloaks. Those religious fanatics were fun. And I actually think Jordan may have gotten the broad strokes of the character development for the gang right. There was considerable development in that department in the books I know, although I'd say the execution of that is very much lacking ... especially with the female characters.

[Werthead]

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Oh, perhaps I should have been more clear. I think back in the 1990s it makes sense for older folks to be invested in WoT. There aren't (m)any mult-volume fantasy series out there, and the entire sub-genre of gritty 'adult fantasy' has yet to be created. Not to mention that it was an on-going series back then and you couldn't just read summaries of the entire plot and decide whether that's something you are interested in or not.

There was plenty of gritty fantasy out there; Robert Jordan's wife edited the Black Company books just before she started editing his books and David Gemmell was around for a good few years..

Multi-volume fantasy was commonplace, but it was mostly long series divided into three or five-book sub-arcs (like Belgariad, Shannara, Riftwar etc). WoT was one of the first to simply be a lot longer than a trilogy, though again not the first (the underrated-bonkers Amtrak Wars series got to six volumes just as WoT started).

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The point was that it is much harder for an older person now who has read a lot of contemporary fantasy to get into WoT because the flaws jump you in the face ... and you also know where everything is going because you have read a lot of the authors who were influenced by WoT. I mean, folks today may have read the Malazan Book of the Fallen before turning to Robert Jordan. And then chances are not that big that things click if what you want in fantasy is complex far-reaching plots, complex characterization, etc.

Given the miniscule number of people who've read Malazan (total worldwide sales: 3.5 million) compared to WoT (total worldwide sales: 100 million or just under), I think that's a very unlikely scenario.

Malazan is undeniably more original and much better-written than WoT in terms of prose and ideas, but it's also vastly less accessible, somewhat more variable in tone and generally less coherent as a series and in worldbuilding than WoT, quite deliberately on Erikson's part, but that seems to have turned off more would-be readers than attracted them.

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I mean, these days WoT would be blatantly branded and marketed as 'Young Adult Fiction' (and I think the re-releases were actually marketed as such).

They started to, but they stopped when books like A Crown of Swords (with its charnel-house levels of gore opening) and Winter's Heart (with a decidedly unpleasant, rapey storyline) came out, since they realised to make it YA would require rewrites and editing.

WoT is milder and less gritty than ASoIaF or Malazan or First Law, but it has its moments of darkness and disturbing content, and is definitely more adult than, say, Belgariad, Shannara, Dragonlance or early Riftwar.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Nice Donaldson reference.

Man, imagine if someone got it into their head to adapt Covenant to TV...

I don't think the pitch would survive a summary of Episode 1, without taking out the pivotal early moment that the series revolves around.

Still, apparently the TV/movie pitch for a Prince of Nothing adaptation made it to several meetings before it was finally shot down (helped by the director's Golden Compass movie bombing), so maybe TC would get further in comparison.

[Lord Varys]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There was plenty of gritty fantasy out there; Robert Jordan's wife edited the Black Company books just before she started editing his books and David Gemmell was around for a good few years..

Multi-volume fantasy was commonplace, but it was mostly long series divided into three or five-book sub-arcs (like Belgariad, Shannara, Riftwar etc). WoT was one of the first to simply be a lot longer than a trilogy, though again not the first (the underrated-bonkers Amtrak Wars series got to six volumes just as WoT started).

But it wasn't as commonplace back then as it is now, no?

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Given the miniscule number of people who've read Malazan (total worldwide sales: 3.5 million) compared to WoT (total worldwide sales: 100 million or just under), I think that's a very unlikely scenario.

Malazan is undeniably more original and much better-written than WoT in terms of prose and ideas, but it's also vastly less accessible, somewhat more variable in tone and generally less coherent as a series and in worldbuilding than WoT, quite deliberately on Erikson's part, but that seems to have turned off more would-be readers than attracted them.

Oh, it was just an example. I could also have used ASoIaF. The point is just that Jordan is not all that likely to hold up with better written stuff. And to reference my own infantility here: I also tried to read Malazan twice. I got through 1,5 books twice but it never clicked with me either. It might be too complex or disjointed for me ;-).

Although in general my view of WoT may be a little bit warped. I'm not sure it was that successful here in Germany. Here they really pushed Tad Williams as a great fantasy novelist whereas Jordan's series was published in paperback hacked in 2-3 volumes per original novels and with very ugly covers - very much like ASoIaF, in fact.

That he sold so many copies worldwide is something I actually first learned from you. That actually came as pretty big surprise to me.

Although we are not really talking big numbers here, anyway. The number of people who are avid fantasy readers aren't the numbers who determine whether something becomes a bestseller or not. The casual fantasy reader who has read Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings might very well still enjoy Robert Jordan be he or she 16 or 66.

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

They started to, but they stopped when books like A Crown of Swords (with its charnel-house levels of gore opening) and Winter's Heart (with a decidedly unpleasant, rapey storyline) came out, since they realised to make it YA would require rewrites and editing.

WoT is milder and less gritty than ASoIaF or Malazan or First Law, but it has its moments of darkness and disturbing content, and is definitely more adult than, say, Belgariad, Shannara, Dragonlance or early Riftwar.

Never got as far as that ... but it is good to know that things seem to get a little bit more serious further down the road. Are there any true surprises in the later volumes? Part of the things that started to vex me in the earlier books is that tendency that the secret/hidden villains are so easily recognized by the reader and then it takes ages until the other folks realize what had been obvious from the start. That is a pretty big letdown.

The Young Adult part I meant more in relation to this being a kind of 'chaste coming of age' thing. Unless folks lied to me we do not *really* get explicit sex scenes throughout the books, at least no scenes involving the gang. Which is doubly weird in light of the Rand harem Jordan apparently gives us in the later volumes.

[fionwe1987]

Something I put up on Reddit about how I'm thinking they'll incorporate Siuan in the first season, and why that seems the right choice:

We all know Moiraine's heroism and role in finding the Dragon Reborn and his co-heroes from Emond's Field and tossing them on into the world stage and setting the chain of events in motion that culminated in the Last Battle.

We also get significant insight into Siuan and her role in shaping one of those co-heroes into an Amyrlin Seat who rescues the Tower from irrelevance and places it squarely at the heart of the Last Battle: Egwene.

But what we don't really get to see is how much of Moiraine's success is down to Siuan pulling strings in the White Tower. This is a deliberate choice, of course. RJ shows us the world from the perspective of the Emond's Field five, early on. They barely understand Moiraine and her motivations, and they're completely in the dark about her conspiracy with Siuan.

I say conspiracy because that is what it was. Siuan and Moiraine conspired to secretly find the Dragon Reborn and ready him for the world, away from the eyes of the Hall of the Tower and other Aes Sedai. They did this for one major reason: they knew more than most sisters the power and reach of the Black Ajah.

In New Spring, they get incontrovertible proof that the Black Ajah infests the highest echelons of power in the White Tower, and has access and power enough to kidnap, torture, then murder the Amyrlin Seat: twice. The most powerful of Sisters are also kidnapped, put to the question and killed.

Over the course of the next few years, Siuan is, we know, instrumental in first discovering the Black's conspiracy to find and kill all young men who are deemed too lucky, as they may be channelers, and hence, the Dragon Reborn. They manage to recruit the Red Ajah in this, as well.

We know her sharing of her suspicions with Saerin Vayu led to Chesmal Emry (who announced the death of Tamra Ospenya, btw, and likely got noted as a potential suspect by Siuan) instigating the Red to assassinate Saerin (likely by poison). 

Marith Jaen put paid to the pogrom. We know Red Sitters were all unchained and sent to permanent penance, while plenty of Reds involved, including Elaida (who had Thom's nephew killed), escaped clean. The Black basically left the Red holding the bag, and escaped completely.

What role Siuan played, as likely head of the Blue Ajah eyes and ears network at this time, we don't exactly know. She almost certainly used her network to feed information to Marith, which probably played a huge role in the pogrom being stopped.

We also know this is the period when Siuan got drawn deeper and deeper into the politics of the Tower. And since the major political action at this time was stopping the pogrom and punishing the Red, we can be reasonably certain Siuan was involved, though very much from the shadows. But her work got noticed enough that when Marith dies, she's proposed as a spoiler candidate for Amyrlin, and gets elected.

It's highly unlikely the Red and the Black were completely unaware of her involvement in these events, but even if they were, in the spotlight as Amyrlin, Siuan still worked to allow Moiraine the freedom she needed to find the Dragon Reborn. 

We know of some of the politics from the Great Hunt, where Siuan informs Moiraine that a Green Sitter (almost certainly Talene, who was actually Black) proposed that she be reprimanded and given over to the care of the Red for her penance, in reaction to her involvement with a powerful ta'veren. The Black almost certainly figures out this must be the Dragon Reborn, and it seems clear they work hard from then on to box in Siuan. 

 The other surprise Ajah involved in this scheme were the White, which makes sense since Alviarin, who even came to Fal Dara, was head of the Black and was likely wielding influence on her Ajah from the shadows. Between them, they almost have Moiraine arrested, and Siuan blocked from going to Fal Dara to see Rand. From then on, they worked to get her unseated, and Elaida proved to be a useful patsy to get them what they wanted.

What's fascinating is that Siuan knew the risks. This demonstration of old alliances with the Greens and the Whites failing out of the blue (pun intended) had Siuan scared, understandably, that the whole enterprise was at risk. But once Moiraine gives her the info on the Forsaken, she correctly let's Rand and co. go free, rather than risk the Blacks accessing him in the Tower, where their original plan called for taking him.

As we all know, she eventually pays the price for that. The manner of it may have surprised her, but the risk was something she knew from the beginning, and she pays the price with her eyes open.

It looks to me like the show is planning to show this front and center. Rather than have Siuan be a remote character who's PoV we rarely see, and so barely get any sense for Tower politics till many books later, the trailer makes it clear that the intrigue in the Tower, with the Blacks and the Reds against the Blues, is something we'll get to see play out in detail, with the additional background of Logain's capture, and what looks like his army helping him nearly escape (which borrows from Taim's story as well as from Guiare Amalasan's). That near escape will almost certainly complicate the politics for Siuan, and it looks like the threat of Moiraine's arrest in book 2 to answer to the Hall will become a real thing in Season 1.

I think the foregrounding of Aes Sedai politics and the Black Ajah from the get go is a good call. It shows us the impossible conditions under which Moiraine and Siuan were working, and their heroism in pushing forward regardless of those risks. It allows people to get a sense for Tower politics, which complicated the "good vs evil" nature of the journey to the Eye of the World, as we realize that competing political interests make the work of the heroes a lot harder, and will continue to do so.

Most importantly, it gives depth and screentime to the crazy risk taking and heroism displayed by Moraine and Siuan, and their against-all-odds success in their lonely mission, and gives weight to the prices they pay in the process.

[Gertrude]

Oh, yeah. I saw that post and am arguing with you about Siuan’s failure to root out the BA

BuIt overall, yeah I agree. I think it’s smart to show what Siuan is doing and especially the inner workings of the Tower politics early to make sure we feel how devastating a blow her deposition is.