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The Wheel of Time: The Thread Reborn (Book Spoilers)


A True Kaniggit

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12 minutes ago, IFR said:

For me, the stupidity of the novels could almost entirely be attributed to the characterization of people that populated the world, most notably in the gender interactions. Jordan went for the highly exaggerated. He managed a certain charm, too, but for me most of the flaws of the series were because Jordan was not good at writing on the human level.

But his world was solid and mostly consistent.

When I say the totality of stupidity of the show, I am referring to two things: one are the logical consequences of the changes the show has made, which has been discussed to death already. Another is the campiness. Different people find campiness acceptable to different degrees. My threshold for camp is very low. If not for the books I probably would actively hate this series.

You gave the example of the heal bomb. The campiness did not affect your overall appreciation of that scene because you have a higher threshold for campiness. The campiness definitely affected my enjoyment. Furthermore, I am wary of the changes it entailed:

Nynaeve simultaneously healed several people of life threatening wounds, most of whom were several meters aways from her. She did this on her first major channeling episode. She is indicated to be much more powerful than Logain based on his reaction to her feat.

What the ripple effects this change has remains to be seen. Will it demand a complete rewrite of many future scenes where Nynaeve is more limited in her power?

Or is she on the level of Lanfear now? Is she just a hair's breadth away from Rand? Will any of the Forsaken compare to her? Or will the show backtrack on her display if power in later episodes.

We'll see, but I do not like what this change indicates of what is to come, all for one scene that is supposed to be cool. However it goes, when she does Heal Logain in the future, I imagine there will be a lot less tension. Why would it be tense when she would easily be able to keep him shielded?

While I found the Heal bomb leaving me cold, as well, I'm not particularly concerned about the fallout, because:

1. This is Nynaeve doing what she does best: Healing. And that has been called miraculous, multiple times in the books. And where most Wilders figure out how to eavesdrop or do minor compulsion, Nynaeve figures out something much more complex. We do see her doing Healing at this level (not the multiple people, but their individual wounds) fairly soon after she starts channeling consciously.

2. Except for that Logain scene, Nynaeve being at level 3 or level 1 makes no difference to the story. And in either scenario, she should be able to hold Logain, which she in fact does, her lack of confidence and worry aside. She is, in fact, just a hairs breadth from Rand. Graendal is at Nynaeve's canonical level, and even before she got her small angreal, it never seemed to crimp her style. Nynaeve's issue was always her block, and later her indifference to learning weaves that weren't Healing, never strength.

3. The dramatic tension in that scene never was about Logain maybe escaping, and more about the wonder of what Nynaeve had achieved and how world changing it seemed. Hopefully, they can build that up in the show as well. 

4. Healing multiple people was stupid. They could have solved it by having Moiraine, Liandrin and Lan falling in a way that their bodies touched each other. We've seen, in the books, that Nynaeve can Heal multiple people if their bodies are in contact:

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“She is hurt badly, Egwene. I think her skull is broken, and she is barely breathing. Egwene, she is dying as surely as Dailin was.”

“Can’t you do something?” Egwene tried to remember all the flows Nynaeve had woven to Heal the Aiel woman, but she could recall no more than every third thread. “You have to!”

“They took my herbs,” Nynaeve muttered fiercely, her voice trembling. “I can’t! Not without the herbs!” Egwene was shocked to realize Nynaeve was on the point of tears. “Burn them all, I can’t do it without—!” Suddenly she seized Elayne’s shoulders as if she meant to lift the unconscious woman and shake her. “Burn you, girl,” she rasped, “I did not bring you all this way to die! I should have left you scrubbing pots! I should have tied you up in a sack for Mat to carry to your mother! I will not let you die on me! Do you hear me? I won’t allow it!” Saidar suddenly shone around her, and Elayne’s eyes and mouth opened wide together.

Egwene got her hands over Elayne’s mouth just in time to muffle any sound, she thought, but as she touched her, the eddies of Nynaeve’s Healing caught her like a straw on the edge of a whirl pool. Cold froze her to the bone, meeting heat that seared outward as if it meant to crisp her flesh; the world vanished in a sensation of rushing, falling, flying, spinning. When it finally ended, she was breathing hard and staring down at Elayne, who stared back over the hands she still had pressed over her woman’s mouth. The last of Egwene’s headache was gone. Even the backwash of what Nynaeve had done had apparently been enough for that.

I guess the show is implying this can now happen within the same room, even without contact. I have no idea why the felt the need for this, because there was a way for her to insta-Heal three people which would work within the context of the books. 

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13 minutes ago, IFR said:

Or is she on the level of Lanfear now? Is she just a hair's breadth away from Rand? Will any of the Forsaken compare to her? Or will the show backtrack on her display if power in later episodes.

She already was more-or-less. The official power rankings are pretty dumb and mostly not worth being concerned with but Nynaeve is listed as just 2 ranks below Lanfear which is a marginal enough difference as to make none (this puts her 1 rank above Moghedien and in the same bracket as Graendal is listed in). The whole argument inducing nature of "men are stronger but women are more agile so a 'weaker' woman is actually equal to a stronger man" thing seems to have been done away with, but with the power levels adjusted to account for this (such that Lanfear is a peer to Rand and Ishamael in combat potency) Nynaeve was never really far off Rand anyway.

Edit: sniped by Fionwe I see.

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Yeah that’s another overly complicated thing that really has no point to being in the show. I mean the tier list of Power strength is interesting in a way but really is something they can’t really dwell on in a show. Show needs to be about the characters and moving the plot forward. Also glad they’re seemingly getting rid of the sexism in power strength between men and women. Nynaeve for the majority of the books was the most powerful woman so she should be up there with Rand not several steps behind.

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31 minutes ago, IFR said:

Different people find campiness acceptable to different degrees. My threshold for camp is very low. If not for the books I probably would actively hate this series.

You gave the example of the heal bomb. The campiness did not affect your overall appreciation of that scene because you have a higher threshold for campiness. The campiness definitely affected my enjoyment.

Depends on the campiness, i.e. whether it is coherent with the overall plot and themes of a show/movie.

In this case, I think it is. As has been pointed out already, Nynaeve is a remarkable healer in the books. That scene doesn't run counter to the spirit of the source material imho.

31 minutes ago, IFR said:

What the ripple effects this change has remains to be seen. Will it demand a complete rewrite of many future scenes where Nynaeve is more limited in her power?

Not really, because she still has the block. Also, her being remarkable at healing doesn't necessarily make her good at fighting (yet).

I guess we now fall upon the familiar "badass character can only reach their full power in life-or-death situations" trope.
I'm not a huge fan of tropes, but then, this one arguably comes from the books. The show will only exaggerate it a wee bit.

Is this too high a price to pay? I dunno. We'll see whether Nynaeve's struggle with the block is well-done or not. Which would have been an issue anyway imo. So, I count this as a win and a question mark for the show.

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38 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

This is Nynaeve doing what she does best: Healing. And that has been called miraculous, multiple times in the books. And where most Wilders figure out how to eavesdrop or do minor compulsion, Nynaeve figures out something much more complex. We do see her doing Healing at this level (not the multiple people, but their individual wounds) fairly soon after she starts channeling consciously.

Sure, but she healed a large room worth of people in the show. I honestly think it's not worth debating the particulars on this: she's much more powerful in the show. 

38 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Except for that Logain scene, Nynaeve being at level 3 or level 1 makes no difference to the story.

We really don't know that. 

30 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

I mean the tier list of Power strength is interesting in a way but really is something they can’t really dwell on in a show. Show needs to be about the characters and moving the plot forward. Also glad they’re seemingly getting rid of the sexism in power strength between men and women. Nynaeve for the majority of the books was the most powerful woman so she should be up there with Rand not several steps behind

We'll see. If men and women have the same power but men are unable to link without women but women are able to link without men (which they've clearly kept), then it's still a sexist system, only now an unbalanced sexist system. And if men can link, that dramatically changes the future dynamics the Black Tower. We simply do not know how this will be handled down the road.

I have my concerns though.

@Rippounet

We are at a difference of an opinion on these matter, where I think the only path left to us is to agree to disagree. Which is fine, I'm glad you're enjoying the show. 

I mentioned before that I myself am warming up to it, despite my criticisms. I hope it grows on me more with future episodes. One can only wait and see.

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17 minutes ago, IFR said:

Sure, but she healed a large room worth of people in the show. I honestly think it's not worth debating the particulars on this: she's much more powerful in the show. 

Nope. The mechanics of Healing have been tinkered with, sure, but Nynaeve's strength hasn't jumped by much, if at all. Logain seems to be weaker, but then, Verin, for some reason, makes him out to be weaker than Siuan and Moiraine in the Great Hunt. That part is a definite change, though.

17 minutes ago, IFR said:

We really don't know that. 

We do, because all 14 books are out. There is no scene where Nynaeve would have won the day had she just been two levels stronger. Such a thing never happens. 

17 minutes ago, IFR said:

We'll see. If men and women have the same power but men are unable to link without women but women are able to link without men (which they've clearly kept), then it's still a sexist system, only now an unbalanced sexist system. And if men can link, that dramatically changes the future dynamics the Black Tower. We simply do not know how this will be handled down the road.

This imbalance was already in the book. Men and women were functionally equal, but only women could link. Among the Forsaken, we never see any of the women struggle with any of the men. And the top 6 Forsaken, who were the most successful, included Lanfear, Semirhage and Greandal, but did not include Rahvin, Balthamel, etc who are as strong or stronger, functionally. At the Forsaken strength level, it really doesn't seem to matter if you're a few levels up or down, because there are other things like skill and Talents that come into play.

By book 13, Egwene is completely sanguine about facing Mesaana in her rooms. She lays a trap for just that, and has no angreal or sa'angreal with her to aid her. She's very well aware she's weaker. 

This is Sanderson's writing, of course, but this is one of the areas where I've seen his answers show that he's fairly knowledgeable about the series. 

It would be interesting if they make it that the taint prevents linking, or something, if they want to tweak this. That'd keep men from being able to link for a good long while, and then maybe it takes them time to figure it out? 

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Having Nynaeve show such a strong blaze of power isn't a huge issue, because she's hobbled by her block. By book 4, she was going toe to toe with a Forsaken and won. By book 9, she's helping Rand cleanse the male half of the Power.

The blazing sun is a sign of potential, not her current power set.  

ETA: Seeing that they're already at the WT by episode 5, I wonder if they're going to raise N to Accepted right away (especially after her mass healing).

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21 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Nope. The mechanics of Healing have been tinkered with, sure, but Nynaeve's strength hasn't jumped by much, if at all. Logain seems to be weaker, but then, Verin, for some reason, makes him out to be weaker than Siuan and Moiraine in the Great Hunt. That part is a definite change, though.

I don't remember Nynaeve being capable of healing nearly a dozen people simultaneously while they were several meters away.

Can you give an example in the books? Egwene getting a headache cured as a byproduct of healing while she stood nearby isn't remotely on that level.

21 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

We do, because all 14 books are out. There is no scene where Nynaeve would have won the day had she just been two levels stronger. Such a thing never happens

You misunderstood me. We do not know what this portends for the show. The show has clearly diverged from the books. Whatever dynamics were in the books can not be regarded as an indication for the future dynamics of the show.

21 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

This imbalance was already in the book. Men and women were functionally equal, but only women could link. Among the Forsaken, we never see any of the women struggle with any of the men. And the top 6 Forsaken, who were the most successful, included Lanfear, Semirhage and Greandal, but did not include Rahvin, Balthamel, etc who are as strong or stronger, functionally. At the Forsaken strength level, it really doesn't seem to matter if you're a few levels up or down, because there are other things like skill and Talents that come into play.

I recall in the books men were on average stronger than women. This became less relevant as you get to the very top tier channelers, but the average man of the Black Tower would be stronger than the average woman of the White Tower. This was balanced out by giving women the ability to link. This was often mentioned in the books.

At any rate, I'm sure you'll have a response, and so I welcome you to put in any last word that you want. At this juncture, neither of us know how the show will continue to treat matters. I've seen enough that makes me wary for future plot consequences. I'll leave it at that, because this is such an absolutely trivial thing in my overall day to day of concerns that I'm not going to get into a protracted debate.

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17 minutes ago, IFR said:

I don't remember Nynaeve being capable of healing nearly a dozen people simultaneously while they were several meters away.

Huh. I rewatched the scene during the break. They only show the Healing affecting Lan, Liandrin and Moiraine, so that's who I thought was actually injured. The rest fall to the floor, and I can see now that maybe we're meant to think they were Healed too? Unsure, to be honest. 

17 minutes ago, IFR said:

Can you give an example in the books? Egwene getting a headache cured as a byproduct of healing while she stood nearby isn't remotely on that level.

It's not standing nearby. It's contact. And Egwene's headache is from a head wound. The type of Healing Nynaeve uses here, that uses the patient's own strength, isn't selective to the type of wound. Spear through the chest or minor head wound, they all will get Healed, and demand proportional resources from the body. 

That said, now that I've seen the scene again, I agree this isn't a reasonable comparison. 

17 minutes ago, IFR said:

You misunderstood me. We do not know what this portends for the show. The show has clearly diverged from the books. Whatever dynamics were in the books can not be regarded as an indication for the future dynamics of the show.

Well, that's true either way, no? They can screw up the dynamics or be inconsistent regardless of what they did here. I'm merely pointing out that they didn't exactly make Nynaeve all that much stronger here. 

17 minutes ago, IFR said:

I recall in the books men were on average stronger than women. This became less relevant as you get to the very top tier channelers, but the average man of the Black Tower would be stronger than the average woman of the White Tower. This was balanced out by giving women the ability to link. This was often mentioned in the books.

It isn't mentioned, except for Asmodean claiming that men are stronger, and women get linking to compensate, in book 5. Somewhere between then and book 7, RJ changed his mind, because you see it in the dynamics between various men and women, and he additionally started clarifying in multiple interviews that men draw in a higher volume of power, but women are more dextrous with it, so they functionally match what men can do (in type and extent). A lot of people theorized this is because of saidin being a raging torrent you had to fight constantly, whereas saidar was a calm river once you surrendered to it, so you could redirect it with greater ease. This part wasn't ever confirmed, to my knowledge, but the dexterity thing is something RJ repeated in multiple contexts, and in the books, we do see that play out accordingly. 

17 minutes ago, IFR said:

At any rate, I'm sure you'll have a response, and so I welcome you to put in any last word that you want. At this juncture, neither of us know how the show will continue to treat matters. I've seen enough that makes me wary for future plot consequences. I'll leave it at that, because this is such an absolutely trivial thing in my overall day to day of concerns that I'm not going to get into a protracted debate.

Ok...

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14 hours ago, El Kabong said:

What? No. That is such a complete reversal of the core of the character...and that point why even adapt the Wheel of Time? Just make up some random fantasy show and call it The Adventures of Lord Varys, who is clearly much smarter than everyone else including Robert Jordon who has poo poo face. :blink:

Sorry, but Lanfear doesn't have 'a character' in Jordan's books. She is just a walking clichéd moron. If they have her in the show, and if she gets as much screentime in the show as she gets in the books ... then they have to completely revamp her entire character, motivations, lines, etc. And you can expect that to happen.

That doesn't mean she has to have a redemption arc - but if they were blurring the lines between good and evil by adding more grey characters and folks who actually have an arc and character development ... then Lanfear is the character where this could work.

It could also work with Verin, for instance. Since she is Black Ajah she should actually be evil ... and her final return to the light should not be 'Hey there, I was always yours truly triple agent' but rather come after we, the audience, and the characters in the show knew that her allegiance to the Dark One caused her to commit heinous crimes.

In defense of the fridging of Perrin's wife:

I really think this works very fine. I criticized Jordan fridging Thom's young girlfriend in TGH since that was completely pointless as a motivator ... but Perrin isn't motivated to leave the Two Rivers and become part of the larger story, etc. because he killed his wife. He is drawn into all that because the Dark One and the Trollocs are after him and he has to leave with the others to save his home and friends.

The accidental death does establish why Perrin would be reluctant to use weapons in the future, why he loathes his own axe - something that's completely unexplained in the books. Perrin is thrown into a violent world full of Darkfriends and monsters and evil scheming women and demons invading his dreams - defending himself and his loved ones with weapons should come very easily to him.

Even more so after he bonded with a bunch of bloodthirsty predatory animals who cause him to crave not exactly well-cooked meat.

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Episode 5 discourse I suspect is going to be dominated about how well (or not) Loial works for the viewer. Seeing some split opinions by people who've seen the episode early.

6 hours ago, Ran said:

I suspect "most viewed premiere" is a really specific term in this case -- people watching it as soon as it was available in their territory. Which is an interesting metric but admittedly going to be weighted towards something with a pre-existing rabid fanbase like WoT, and can't really be compared to other shows other than Amazon Originals.

I forgot Invincible premiered this year. Haven't seen it yet, but it had an extremely successful first season based on Google Trends. WoT will surely hope to match that end-of-season boost to public interest.

I find the use of Google Trends here interesting. Clarkson's Farm was a major mainstream news story in the UK: it generated national media coverage, numerous BBC stories and endless front pages on the newspapers for several weeks. It raised engagement with the question of domestic farming, the problems of declining subsidies, competition from Australian and American farms etc. Its profile and engagement was absolutely titanic. I can easily imagine all that noise not necessarily translating into actual views of the programme itself, but it put the name of the show out there in an absolutely massive way that the likes of Invincible and Wheel of Time can only dream of, even if they ended up with comparable or greater numbers of actual views.

According to the Google Trend you linked, however, the show effectively does not exist, at all, even on a UK-only scale. Curious.

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Yeah, Clarkson's Farm is weird. The only thought I can make of it is that the audience is largely an older demographic and they don't Google/do social media very much. So it was all legacy media and the BBC and so on, without making much of an Internet stir? Hard to say.

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2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Ok...

Sorry, I did not intend that to come off as harsh, but rereading the passage, it does seem a little mean.

What I meant to convey is that you are clearly very passionate about this series and have an inexhaustible constitution to debate about everything Wheel of Time. I think your back and forths with Lord Varys alone probably have the equivalent of one of Jordan's books in word count, and I'm not sure that's even an exaggeration.

Which is perfectly fine. You are doing something you enjoy. However, I'm not nearly as invested in the series. It's fun to chat about, read the opinion of others and contribute my own opinion, but I don't find Wheel of Time interesting enough to get into an epic debate about it.

We disagree on some matters, and on others more episodes will reveal how things will turn out. We don't have to convince one or the other about who is right. I'm content to leave the issue of disagreement as it is.

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1 hour ago, IFR said:

Sorry, I did not intend that to come off as harsh, but rereading the passage, it does seem a little mean.

What I meant to convey is that you are clearly very passionate about this series and have an inexhaustible constitution to debate about everything Wheel of Time. I think your back and forths with Lord Varys alone probably have the equivalent of one of Jordan's books in word count, and I'm not sure that's even an exaggeration.

Which is perfectly fine. You are doing something you enjoy. However, I'm not nearly as invested in the series. It's fun to chat about, read the opinion of others and contribute my own opinion, but I don't find Wheel of Time interesting enough to get into an epic debate about it.

We disagree on some matters, and on others more episodes will reveal how things will turn out. We don't have to convince one or the other about who is right. I'm content to leave the issue of disagreement as it is.

You're fine. Apparently all this WoT knowledge is still sitting in my head, so it's fun to let it all out. Whatever ends up happening with the show, I'm glad I'm reconnecting with the books, at least. I'm finding them surprisingly fun to read, and I'm finding myself freshly sad that no one took the basic template of WoT and expand on it. I'd love another epic series that uses the creative freedom fantasy can bring, and tries to examine gender in this context. In the meantime, there's still some fun to be mined from these books from the 90s, so I'm spending way more time on them than is probably healthy. 

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On 12/1/2021 at 9:14 AM, Babblebauble said:

I haven't burst out laughing since episode 1, but I thought Nynaeve's healbomb (good name) was the stupidest and most ill-conceived thing yet. 

It made for an effective moment, but yes, I found it problematic. It felt much too soon for her feelings for Lan to be that strong. And healing should require knowledge and focus, not just raw power; instinctively coming up with an area-effect fix-whatever-happens-to-be-wrong weave is a big jump from subconsciously enhancing the effectiveness of specific mundane treatments.

On 12/1/2021 at 9:14 AM, Babblebauble said:

ETA: Actually the Perrin wife thing is still the stupidest thing they did. I mean, how does he not join the Tinkers? With his dead wife it actually seems weird that he doesn't renounce violence in all forms, right?

It certainly makes sense for him to be tempted by the Tinker worldview, but on the other hand, if he hadn't been violent at the time, both he and his wife get eaten by Trollocs instead, and I'm not convinced that would have been a preferable outcome for anyone. Well, except the Trolloc, of course.

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But if they both just tried to run away there's zero chance he'd have murdered his wife with his own hand. I just cannot see how I'm supposed to want this character to go into battle again, let alone cheer on his courage and resolve against evil. The biggest evil in this dude's life is that he killed his wife. 

I mean storytelling 101 is that this guy's happy ending is that he finds a place of peace to put his talents to use and never does violence again, never has to risk hurting anyone else at all. Making him soldier on isn't brave or heroic, it's horrifying! 

 

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