Wheel of Time TV Show 7: And There Shall Be Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

[Gigei]

Posting as I watch:

Episode 1 - slow start, locations looks great, clothes good, actors are okayish but I'm not blown away. I'm not a fan of the opening and closing narrations. Very watchable nonetheless, just don't expect too much. Surprisingly good chemistry with Moraine and Lan. Matt's actor is the best of the three wonder boys. Not sold on either Egwene or Nyn. Awesome part: the ending was good enough that I was really motivated to watch the next episode.

I'm satisfied so far.

[3CityApache]

Three episodes in and I'm pretty much sold. I like the dynamics between four main characters, like the visuals, I like Rosamund Pike. I didn't read the books, so at least I don't have to bother with "why did they change this, and didn't include that" stuff, which ruined The Witcher for me.

[Gigei]

Posting as I watch:

Episode 2 - It's weird that the Whitecloaks are in white robes. They aren't Heralds from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. Why do they have one armored arm? It looks bad. The horses' chanfrons (the bit over their faces) are okay though. Uh, why didn't the Yellow Sister channel to save herself? Egwene had a nice scene with Moiraine this time. A bat? What?

If the Questioners can question people, why didn't he just ask "are you Aes Sedai?" and she wouldn't have been able to lie. Horrible acting in a Rand scene. I literally winced when he said "I could never hate you" and his face was blank like he was reciting from a script.

It seems cold. Wouldn't they be better off huddling together when they sleep?

OMG Shadar Logoth! I'm hyped! The city looks great. Loved the sequence when they ran from the Machin Shin.

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, Gigei said:

If the Questioners can question people, why didn't he just ask "are you Aes Sedai?"

Good point. It's not an issue in the books because an Aes Sedai has nothing to fear from a Questioner, generally.

Okay, one can argue that in this turning of the Wheel, the Children don't belive the Three Oaths are real...

... but wouldn't it behoove a Questioner to just test it and ask and see what happens?

On a separate note, discovered that Brandon Sanderson has been commenting extensively on Reddit on the first two episodes, commenting on things he didn't like, why certain changes happened, and things he did or tried to do to make things a bit more faithful to the books. 

He, too, felt Abell Cauthon had been done dirty, and generally isn't too happy with the sense that they've made some of the characters and their backgrounds "grittier" or more "grimdark", but is understanding.

One of he more interesting comments was on that "11,000" notes thing, which he said Judkins confided to him and found overwhelming. He also drew attention to the fact that there's a lot of producer credits on this show, implying there's maybe too many cooks in the kitchen to the detriment of the show.

He does reiterate that he's happy with it, after again noting:

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And it's why I've said, for months now, I view this as a new turning of the wheel. It's not an adaptation of the books to me; it's an adaptation of the NEXT time these people are living this story.

 

[Gigei]

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

Good point. It's not an issue in the books because an Aes Sedai has nothing to fear from a Questioner, generally.

Okay, one can argue that in this turning of the Wheel, the Children don't belive the Three Oaths are real...

... but wouldn't it behoove a Questioner to just test it and ask and see what happens?

It seems like a plot hole to me.

Quote

 

On a separate note, discovered that Brandon Sanderson has been commenting extensively on Reddit on the first two episodes, commenting on things he didn't like, why certain changes happened, and things he did or tried to do to make things a bit more faithful to the books. 

He, too, felt Abell Cauthon had been done dirty, and generally isn't too happy with the sense that they've made some of the characters and their backgrounds "grittier" or more "grimdark", but is understanding.

One of he more interesting comments was on that "11,000" notes thing, which he said Judkins confided to him and found overwhelming. He also drew attention to the fact that there's a lot of producer credits on this show, implying there's maybe too many cooks in the kitchen to the detriment of the show.

He does reiterate that he's happy with it, after again noting:

 

 

Yes, I have Sanderson's Reddit thread on episode one and on episode two saved. I'll read it after I finish. I'm on episode 3 now.

[Darzin]

On 11/20/2021 at 10:19 AM, karaddin said:

Personally I really enjoyed these first few episodes a lot. The casting nails the characters well enough and that's what I needed for now. My personal opinion is that most of what felt clunky was a heavy handed way of bringing the audience up to speed on a lot of things in a pretty efficient way and that in the long run this clunkiness will be a distant memory that doesn't weigh on the story.

That's pretty much where I am at especially since a lot of the clunkiness at least for me was in episode one and things seem to be trending better as the story gets more room to breathe.

[fionwe1987]

The Whitecloaks don't believe the Three Oaths are real/binding in the books either. They'd hardly give it credence by asking a woman if she's Aes Sedai, because they believe she'd just lie. 

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

The Whitecloaks don't believe the Three Oaths are real/binding in the books either. They'd hardly give it credence by asking a woman if she's Aes Sedai, because they believe she'd just lie. 

Sanderson disagrees, heh. He actually flagged that and tried to get them to change things -- suggesting Moiraine take something to knock herself out and let Lan explain she was injured by trollocs, etc. -- but he understood why they didn't do that and sideline Pike for the scene.

[Corvinus85]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

Sanderson disagrees, heh. He actually flagged that and tried to get them to change things -- suggesting Moiraine take something to knock herself out and let Lan explain she was injured by trollocs, etc. -- but he understood why they didn't do that and sideline Pike for the scene.

In that case Sanderson doesn't know enough of the books. 

[fionwe1987]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

In that case Sanderson doesn't know enough of the books. 

Yeah. The Whitecloaks mock the "vaunted Three Oaths" that the Aes Sedai "prate" about and so on. There's no way they'll advertise to the world that they believe the Three Oaths work by asking random women if they're Aes Sedai. 

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[Ran]

Rand and Sevanna are the ones who say anything of "vaunted Three Oaths".

In TDR, Padron Niall actually doesn't initially believe the claim that Aes Sedai attacked the Children at Falme specifically because of the Three Oaths. It's only when the man reporting insists (truthfully believing only Aes Sedai could have done it) that Niall comes to believe that the Three Oaths must have been a lie all along. Which means up until that point, he may have suspected it was some elaborate con, but he didn't have proof and all experiences he and other Children had had with the Aes Sedai seemed to show that they did adhere to them.

Definitely agree with Sanderson that if the Whitecloaks were confident they could kill Aes Sedai, they'd ask suspects point blank if they were or not. In the books, of course, an Aes Sedai generally has nothing to fear from Whitecloaks if they're facing off, so much good it would do them.

[fionwe1987]

Niall merely thinks the Seanchan are proof that the Aes Sedai Oaths were lies. The idea that he believed them and that the Whitecloaks would spread that belief, which clearly undermines their case against the Aes Sedai, is nonsense.

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Niall nodded grimly. There had been no male Aes Sedai since the Breaking of the World, but the women who still claimed that title were bad enough. They prated of their Three Oaths: to speak no word that was not true, to make no weapon for one man to kill another, to use the One Power as a weapon only against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn. But now they had showed those oaths for the lies they were. He had always known no one could want the power they wielded except to challenge the Creator, and that meant to serve the Dark One.

He's not shocked the Oaths are lies. He just sees confirmation of what he's always believed. 

[SpaceChampion]

Was that an angreal that Mat picked off the dead Aiel in ep 3?  Little figurine of an animal, might have been a wolf.

 

One thing I miss from the books is Lan looking out for Rand in a bit of big brother / fatherly way, knowing this journey to becoming the Dragon Reborn is going to be hard, and treating him like a human being rather than an instrument in their war against the Dark.

[Ran]

23 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

The idea that he believed them and that the Whitecloaks would spread that belief, which clearly undermines their case against the Aes Sedai, is nonsense.

Again, he did not believe it could be Aes Sedai because whatever his suspicion or belief the actual facts he had were that they did, indeed, seem to adhere to them -- no Child ever heard an Aes Sedai tell a provable lie and no Aes Sedai turned the One Power on the Children or other men except in defense of their life, etc 

Using the Oath against them would provide ready fodder to prove that it was all a lie far earlier. 

 

 

 

[IFR]

The increased threat of the Whitecloaks is an interesting approach, and I'm not sure I'm a fan of how it is handled so far.

Spoiler

It hasn't been addressed yet, but if Whitecloaks were actively mutilating and burning Aes Sedai, one would expect there to be some kind of response by Tar Valen and its allies. I'd imagine Whitecloaks would be straight up outlawed in places like Caemlyn. I couldn't see the White Tower not encouraging allied nations to heavily embargo Amador and pressuring other nations to do the same. I wonder if all out wars are regularly occurring over this issue? The institutional effort to torture and murder Aes Sedai is a big deal. Harassment with occasional death, as portrayed in the books, is one thing. Effective terrorism is an entirely different scenario.

It also seems like it would introduce a nebulous issue with the three oaths, too.

[Werthead]

If the Children went around asking people if they were Aes Sedai, I'd imagine the White Tower would counter with some kind of ceremony saying, "In Tar Valon you are always Aes Sedai but in the wider world beyond, you are or are not as needed," giving them a semantic on-off switch to say if they are Aes Sedai or not. That seems to be how Moiraine can say she has a sister in Whitebridge; by the Aes Sedai declaring that all Aes Sedai are sisters even though they're not literally sisters.

Presumably that only works with semantic concepts, they can't say, "you can call your horse an ostrich if you want," and that gives them permission to lie about their horse's immutable genetic status.

[Gigei]

Posting as I watch:

Episode 3 - I feel like Lan is a lot smaller and less intimidating than I imagined him, but I'm okay if Lan is more of a speed/skill blademaster than a big, muscular guy. I like how they took time to show Nyn making an herbal poultice.

Erm. Thom played to the crowd perfectly. Nice. I imagine he would have picked a more courtly song if he was singing for nobles. However, it seems out of character for him to take Matt's coins. The guy is a good actor though, I already like him. 

I'm afraid Rand isn't doing it for me. He looks perfect for it, but his acting isn't there yet. The tavern girl is a better actor than him, which is a pity because he's one of the main characters. Let's hope he grows into the role.

Yeah, this time Egwene and Perrin do huddle up for warmth. I mentioned that last time.

Overall, I'm happy with the series so far.

WoT has a metric fuckton of Mirror Worlds anyway so I'm fine with the adaptation being different from the books.

 

[Gertrude]

If a Whitecloak asks a woman if she's Aes Sedai and she says yes, you've just given her warning to prepare herself and cause to use deadly force. They don't know how strong the woman is and they had better be damn prepared for the consequences. Or imagine that they ask this question around civilians and the general populace watch the Whitecloaks get humiliated by an air wedgie on the regular. That's basically how I'm head cannoning that.

[Ran]

26 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

If a Whitecloak asks a woman if she's Aes Sedai and she says yes, you've just given her warning to prepare herself and cause to use deadly force.

Yeah, but Valda was searching her in case she had her Great Serpent ring hidden on her person. What would have happened if he had found it? He seems to think it'll be okay!

[Gertrude]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yeah, but Valda was searching her in case she had her Great Serpent ring hidden on her person. What would have happened if he had found it? He seems to think it'll be okay!

Again, I'm having to head-cannon this, but I'm wondering if he uses this time questioning to decide if it's worth keeping a closer eye on them instead of a direct confrontation. He wasn't searching thoroughly, so it's not hard to extrapolate that he wasn't searching all that hard, just trying to get them off balance. He noticed her hand, looking for a ring indentation - say he saw one, I still don't think he would double down on the search, I think he'd just let them think they passed the screening and then follow them to wait for an opportunity to take them down - however it is that he does it. I doubt he's collected so many rings by relying on luck that the Aes Sedai he's just confronted wasn't powerful enough to hand him his ass.