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

[Corvinus85]

21 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Oh no. I hate it when you find out people you liked say things that you disagree with and lose a little respect for them.

Shad, of Shadiversity Youtube fame is a medieval enthusiast who puts out a  lot of information videos. I found them interesting. He is also reviewing Wheel of Time with friends and he, and mostly his friend, dislike the show for reasons I don't respect. (hint: the words "woke" and "agenda" are used liberally). I can respect reasoned criticism while also disagreeing, but criticizing something without examining why a change might be made and blaming the strawman of woke Hollywood agenda and "them" for all that's bad and making Lan a pussy, sorry - can't get on board. Also borrowing trouble from the future show and being upset that Elayne and Aviendha might be bi is worth throwing a fit over right now! To be fair, Shad himself doesn't quite go to the 'woke' well, but he skirts it and really sets it up for his friend (who hasn't read the book) to hit the softball out of the park and then they laugh together, so he's not really pushing back a lot. Shad is more along the book purist lines and will call out the things he likes, but he really gives his friend free reign to be an ass.

I've known this about Shad since he criticized Captain Marvel along similar lines. And he does like to blab in his videos quite a lot, so I much prefer to watch other, better researched history enthusiasts.  

[fionwe1987]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The claim is that if the Dark One were free in one world, he would destroy/remake all the others as well as the one he is free in, meaning the very fact that our guys aren't dead/non-existent but continue their fight against the Dark One and win is proof that he was never freed - and will never be freed - in any possible world.

The claim is more complicated than that. The idea is if he is free in one world, he is free in all, but if he is bound in one world, he is bound in all, too. But you need to read the precursor paragraph for context first:

Quote

With one finger, Verin drew a number of parallel lines across the area she had cleared, lines clear in dust atop the old beeswax. “Let these represent worlds that might exist if different choices had been made, if major turning points in the Pattern had gone another way.”

“The worlds reached by the Portal Stones,” Egwene said, to show she had listened to Verin’s lectures on the journey from Toman Head. What could this possibly have to do with whether or not she was a Dreamer?

“Very good. But the Pattern may be even more complex than that, child. The Wheel weaves our lives to make the Pattern of an Age, but the Ages themselves are woven into the Age Lace, the Great Pattern. Who can know if this is even the tenth part of the weaving, though? Some in the Age of Legends apparently believe that there were still other worlds—even harder to reach than the worlds of the Portal Stones, if that can be believed—lying like this.” She drew more lines, cross-hatching the first set. For a moment she stared at them. “The warp and the woof of the weave. Perhaps the Wheel of Time weaves a still greater Pattern from worlds.” Straightening, she dusted her hands. “Well, that is neither here nor there. In all of these worlds, whatever their other variations, a few things are constant. One is that the Dark One is imprisoned in all of them.”

This is the context where Verin speaks of the Dark One being bound in all worlds.

But nowhere in there is she saying that the Worlds of If, reached through the Portal Stones, and the crosshatched worlds are all there is. These are just worlds people gain some access to. They have some constants to them: the Creator, Tel'aran'rhiod, and the Dark One being imprisoned in them. 

You can call the sum total of these worlds "Creation" if you like. But none of this says no world can fall to the Dark One. All we're being told is that for a world to be a part of Creation, the Dark One needs to be imprisoned. 

We already know the Dark One would completely remake any world where he is free. I see no reason why Portal Stones or other human technology should be able to reach those worlds. They have been unmade, after all. Perhaps there is just nothing to reach. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

If he was freed in a possible future he would also unmake all the pasts, i.e. also the one in which our guys are still struggling.

Not at all. That isn't how it works.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

If the Dragon had been turned could then Lews Therin and Rand even exist? Or would he have sold himself to the Dark One for good, i.e. like Ishamael and the others? Could he even be a force for good in the next incarnation if he joined the Dark One? As Mr. Evil the Dragon would be another Forsaken, after all.

There is no "for good" here. If you're born again, you can be anything. You're not destined to be a Forsaken in every birth. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I for one don't buy Ishamael's weird claim that Rand ever served him or the Dark One in the past. That is, so far and to my knowledge, just this evil madman's claim. Is there any indication that the Dragon was ever a Darkfriend/Forsaken.

None, except the knowledge that there are infinite Patterns over infinite ages where every choice has branched to create another possible world. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The Dark One being outside time exists. He perceives stuff somehow. From the moment he directly touched time he would, at the timeless place where he is, experience everything he can experience in the world at the same time. Meaning from the moment the Bore connected him to the world he would have known and perceived how Lews Therin would seal him away and how/that Rand would seal him away for good.

Even in the hypothetical that the Dark One is outside of time, you're mistakenly thinking the Dark One only experiences this turning of the Wheel, this Pattern, of this set of choices, no? But it should be able to experience it all, so why would it care about any given world? 

Of course, there's just this slight problem with this hypothesis in that the books completely contradict it:

Quote

THE CHOSEN DWINDLE, DEMANDRED. THE WEAK FALL AWAY. WHO BETRAYS ME SHALL DIE THE FINAL DEATH. ASMODEAN, TWISTED BY HIS WEAKNESS. RAHVIN DEAD IN HIS PRIDE. HE SERVED WELL, YET EVEN I CANNOT SAVE HIM FROM BALEFIRE. EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME. For an instant terrible anger filled that awful voice, and—could it be frustration? An instant only. DONE BY MY ANCIENT ENEMY, THE ONE CALLED DRAGON. WOULD YOU UNLEASH THE BALEFIRE IN MY SERVICE, DEMANDRED?

So let's move on from the hypothetical. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

No, wheel just creates patterns. If you burn all the threads then it wouldn't do anything anymore and it wouldn't bother. It isn't sentient.

Uh... Where did I claim it was? I said it's "goal" is survival. Not unlike how evolution is about survival and propagation. There's no sentient driver of evolution either. But evolution selects for survival and reproductive fitness. That's a mathematical process.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

We have metaphysical speculation (Wheel of Time, patterns, etc.) explain/determine/justify political and social realities.

It is not speculation. It is something they can and have tested, and something they can manipulate. It is the scientific truth of their world.

But it's never used to justify social or political reality. Rand uses the choice to become a king as a big change that the Pattern may not accept. But there's no guarantee of it not accepting such a thing. And you haven't given thought to how it wouldn't accept such a thing. Any random farmer trying to declare himself a king is going to be up against historical and structural forces. That is pretty much exactly what the Pattern is. But just as those forces can be pushed through, so can a person in the world of WoT push for big changes. You don't even have to be ta'veren to do it. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, you don't seem to understand free will in a philosophical/theological context. The idea is that in a world where there are good and evil deities (or demons) you are free to choose between good and evil. You cannot be forced to be evil by a powerful demon/god. That's also basically the core of Christianity - neither god nor the devil can force you to be good or evil against your will.

I won't claim excessive knowledge of Christianity, but how does, say, demonic possession play into this? Or witchcraft? 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

If this weren't so you are not responsible for your sins and evil deeds.

You definitely are till you get Turned, though, right? 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Jordan's concept of 'free will' is at least inconsistent but I'd actually say he never much bothered with such elaborate concepts. I mean, there is no afterlife in this world, apparently, no god who bothers rewarding good guys, so why bother with anything, really?

I have no idea what you mean by that. Souls aren't constantly reborn. There is an interim between births. We don't know much about it, but in the Age of Legends, they were actually able to entice souls from the soul pool into constructs they created, giving rise to entities like the Green Man. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The compulsion thing is one of the things were Jordan tried to stay within a Chrisian framework. Bad guys can push you to do evil, but they cannot take you over, cannot really force you. We get this in detail in Liandrin's POV when she explains to us that she cannot really force people to do they bidding but she is very good and convincing them, anyway.

Again, dude, you've read three books and make ludicrous claims. Liandrin sucks at compulsion. That you swallowed her nonsense for the actual limits of Compulsion and decided that has value to this discussion is pretty bizarre. Graendal can compel you to do anything at all, including highly subtle forms of Compulsion where you think it is your idea, even as you're doing completely awful things. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

But when you can also twist somebody into a Darkfriend/Shadowlord via the One Power + Myrddraals then you change that person on a fundamental level. You rewrite their mind and preferences so that they no longer have the choice to not serve the Dark One. And that's a completely different concept.

It is not. That is Compulsion, as well, except where you need exceptional Talent with compulsion to achieve that, any 13 channelers can turn someone using the method Semirhage invented. Incidentally, that turning process can be resisted, to varying extents, by people. Not everyone gets turned right away. 

1 hour ago, IFR said:

I view this as a semantic difference. In all the countless realities, in all the countless spinnings of the Wheel, the Pattern has not been destroyed. Odds that low can be considered effectively zero.

But that implies our reality is indestructible too. It survives, so it will continue to survive isn't a particularly reasonable conclusion, for our world or the WoT world. 

We know there are many realities where the Dark One is still bound. But the presence of even infinite such realities isn't proof that no reality can have the Dark One free.

Put another way, just because infinite worlds exist with certain conditions being true, that isn't guarantee this infinite set of worlds isn't a subset of a larger infinite set, where other subsets may meet different conditions. That's basic set theory, which RJ almost certainly was aware of.

1 hour ago, IFR said:

I don't recall anywhere in the books suggesting there are realities where the Dark One is freed.

The Verin quote above implies it. She talks about the level of difficulty in reaching alternate worlds. In some of those worlds, we do see the Dark One's forces have won, and almost all life is destroyed. These worlds feel "washed out looking" (to quote Loial) to people who visit them. In world's where he has fully one and destroyed, would humans even be able to visit? Would they survive such an attempt to visit? If such worlds are outside their ability to visit or observe or in any way interact with, it doesn't "exist" as far as they know, but they've just reached the boundary of what they can observe, not of what is.

1 hour ago, IFR said:

Rand is moments from destroying the Pattern...yet doesn't. And never has. Hence the appearance of free will. It doesn't matter what goes on in your mind when you make an inevitable decision, all that matters is that the decision is inevitable.

We don't know that he never has. Verin talks of Patterns withing greater Patterns, and even more complex Patterns overlaying it all from the many possible worlds. Here's Loial talking about the World of Ifs:

Quote

'If a woman go left, or right, does Time’s flow divide? Does the Wheel then weave two Patterns? A thousand, for each of her turnings? As many as the stars? Is one real, the others merely shadows and reflections?’

 There are many Patterns. Infinitely many, composed of the aggregation of choices of each thread in that world. This is RJ literalizing Feynman's "Sum over Histories" concept, but applied to human choices and actions. So the continued existence of this Pattern, this reality where the Wheel still turns, proves nothing about others where different choices were made. 

1 hour ago, IFR said:

Ultimately, I would argue that evidence of inevitable events is sufficient to say everything operates on predeterminism, regardless of the existence of less clear prophecies. Particularly when dealing with a timescale like the eternal turning of the Wheel, or the breadth infinite other worlds.

I don't think it is right to say the events are inevitable. Rather that some events, some nexus or confluence of factors is critical/most likely for continued survival. In those worlds where those conditions aren't met, for various reasons, the Dark One wins, and that reality ceases to be part of "Creation", ceases to be accessible, ceases to be. 

But this doesn't mean alternate choices aren't possible. They just have consequences, which can include total annihilation and the victory of the Dark One. 

1 hour ago, IFR said:

Events always lead up to the Dragon not freeing the Dark One or destroying the Pattern (whether because he's killed or decides not to or is incapacitated). That means that every external factor, including decisions of "free will", related to the Dark One must comply with this path that leads to the Dark One not being free.

Again, not sure where you get always from. 

1 hour ago, IFR said:

If low probability events do not occur in an infinite timescale over infinite dimensions, then the sense of these events having an associate probability loses meaning.

Well, that isn't true in physics, so I don't know why it should be true of human action. Mathematically, very very low probability events are meaningfully different from impossible events. Whatever the probability of the Dark One's victory, it isn't impossible. 

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, El Kabong said:

They actually announced that before the show even premiered but they are, wisely IMO, not bringing it up at the moment.

Also, I've been saying Aes Sedai correctly all these years! Everything else.. not so much.

They seem to be sticking very close to the suggested pronunciations from the appendices 

[IFR]

44 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

But that implies our reality is indestructible too. It survives, so it will continue to survive isn't a particularly reasonable conclusion, for our world or the WoT world.

Earth has had a mere few billion years, which doesn't match an infinite timescale.

44 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

The Verin quote above implies it. She talks about the level of difficulty in reaching alternate worlds. In some of those worlds, we do see the Dark One's forces have won, and almost all life is destroyed. These worlds feel "washed out looking" (to quote Loial) to people who visit them. In world's where he has fully one and destroyed, would humans even be able to visit? Would they survive such an attempt to visit? If such worlds are outside their ability to visit or observe or in any way interact with, it doesn't "exist" as far as they know, but they've just reached the boundary of what they can observe, not of what is.

That's an interesting postulation. My memory is that the Dark One is a delocalized entity that exists in every reality, just as the Creator does. If the Dark One is free, then he'll unmade the Pattern. Are you suggesting that in the books the Dark One has unmade the Pattern in some realities, while the rest are buffered from the damage?

Really, the rest of the discussion hinges on that idea. If there are no inevitabilities, if in some realities the Dark One unmakes the Pattern, and if in some realities the prophecies have no predictive power and are completely wrong, then I would concede that there's free will.

It isn't what I recall from my reading. I don't remember any of that being suggested. I don't see it being suggested in the passages you quoted either.

Quote

Well, that isn't true in physics, so I don't know why it should be true of human action. Mathematically, very very low probability events are meaningfully different from impossible events. Whatever the probability of the Dark One's victory, it isn't impossible. 

There's a non-zero chance that you can quantum tunnel through your floor. But the odds aren't good even if there were a trillion of you and you lived until the heat death of the universe. It is effectively impossible. And that's just within one reality and on a non-infinite timeline.

[Myrddin]

Episode 5 is up at 7pm EST. Same time as last week, so plan your weeks accordingly. For me it means Thursday nights is after dinner WoT Time.

[fionwe1987]

41 minutes ago, IFR said:

Earth has had a mere few billion years, which doesn't match an infinite timescale.

I'm not talking about Earth. I'm talking about our reality. 

41 minutes ago, IFR said:

That's an interesting postulation. My memory is that the Dark One is a delocalized entity that exists in every reality, just as the Creator does. If the Dark One is free, then he'll unmade the Pattern. Are you suggesting that in the books the Dark One has unmade the Pattern in some realities, while the rest are buffered from the damage?

No. Any reality can be destroyed by the Dark One. The ones that survive are the ones that managed to resist whatever strategies he used to break in. 

41 minutes ago, IFR said:

Really, the rest of the discussion hinges on that idea. If there are no inevitabilities, if in some realities the Dark One unmakes the Pattern, and if in some realities the prophecies have no predictive power and are completely wrong, then I would concede that there's free will.

There are definitely no inevitabilities, and the Prophesies even in the reality the characters inhabit are not resistant to the Dark One's victory. None of the Prophesies say the Dragon will win, anyway, so I'm not sure how the Dark One's victory is supposed to be inevitable based on Prophesies.

41 minutes ago, IFR said:

It isn't what I recall from my reading. I don't remember any of that being suggested. I don't see it being suggested in the passages you quoted either.

Of course it is. Verin is talking about greater Patterns, and the Wheel weaving a Pattern of multiple worlds, some of which are easier to reach than others. Clearly, there are realities/worlds that are harder to reach than others. And based on Rand's jaunt to one world that felt "washed out", the Dark One can have various degrees of victory in even the worlds that can be reached. So how can you conclude there is no world where he hasn't won?

41 minutes ago, IFR said:

There's a non-zero chance that you can quantum tunnel through your floor. But the odds aren't good even if there were a trillion of you and you lived until the heat death of the universe. It is effectively impossible. And that's just within one reality and on a non-infinite timeline.

And yet, I don't see us all running around claiming there's no free will in our reality...

[Corvinus85]

Episode 5 was weaker in terms of the plot than the previous, but it still had interesting parts.

Spoiler

Moraine uttering the Borderlander words for the dead - universal in the show or was Kerene a Bordelander? Her last name, Nagashi, suggests yes. I don't remember if she was a book character.

Tar Valon looks pretty good. Not sure why they decided to move Dragonmount on the other side of the river, but it's not a critical change. Rand saying blood and ashes. Yes! 

I liked the actor playing Loial, but the show made it ironic to have so little time devoted in the episode to the introduction of a non-human, speaking character. While Loial's words about his time in the city were pretty much taken from the book, I frowned at their usage. People in Tar Valon would not chase away an Ogier. The writers should have thought better on that. Also they missed to have Loial remark about "an Aielman with a sword". I suppose that could come later. Too bad we didn't get Basel Gill. I thought an actor was cast. 

I pity the ironmaker who had to construct another identical cage for Logain.  Nice misdirect with Mat and Logain.

Madeleine and Marcus delivered good performances in the scenes with Valda and I really liked the part with the Tinkers trying to resist in a non-violent manner. I like that the wolves came to help, but they shouldn't have had to. This happened in sight of Tar Valon. A serial Aes Sedai hunter is camped nearby and no Tower Guard, no Warders to chase him away? What is the Tower's influence within sight of the city itself.

I think the episode spent too much time on Stepin's suffering. While it was a good connection point to what may happen between Moiraine and Lan, there few other plot points needed more covering. Why isn't Moraine keeping a closer eye on Nynaeve? All this talk about eyes-and-ears, and Nynaeve is the one to find Rand & Mat, and it seems Moiraine is oblivious to the fact. There was a lot of talk about Tower politics but so far too few characters to show it. All Liandrin, Moiraine, and Alanna. I suppose we'll get Siuan and more Aes Sedai next episode. 

Interesting for a religion to have carvings of the devils for worshippers to pray against them directly. But then again real religions can be even weirder. At least that confirms that we're likely to get several Forsaken at some point.

 

[Werthead]

Dedicating an episode to the PTSD suffered by Warders is an interesting choice, but I think effective considering the Moiraine/Lan situation. The Whitecloak story was odd: if Valda thought Egwene could channel, why leave her alone in the room she could presumably escape from at will, even given his belief that Aes Sedai-trained channellers can't channel with their hands bound?

Reasonable realisation of Tar Valon, though I don't like the fact that the city is so much smaller than in the book (and the Tower correspondingly relatively larger and more comically phallic). It looks like they redressed the Shadar Logoth set, but it was quite well done.

Loial, thankfully, works much better in action than he does in the stills, which made me concerned for the idea. I get they can't have a main-focus character who requires constant CGI, but it feels like they could have done more prosthetic work as with the Trollocs. Most importantly, the actor nails the performance, though the bit about an Ogier being mistaken for a Trolloc in Tar Valon is weird, given the apparent regularity with which they visit the city.

Bit of a reset episode after 4, but again strange that we didn't get to meet Basel Gill given he'd been cast. I'm assuming they were trying to save money, and he'll show up (with Siuan Sanche) next week.

Based on the guide, the inn is now called the Light's Blessing rather than the Queen's Blessing, and yes, Kerene is Kandori.

Ooh, subtle-ish appearance by Padan Fain. Easy to miss.

[IFR]

Episode 5 continues the trend set by episode 4 as a decent enough episode.

All these changed are expected at this point.

Spoiler

Did anyone catch how Rand and Mat can afford an inn at Tar Valon, considering they have no musical or juggling abilities to bargain with?

 

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

I'm not talking about Earth. I'm talking about our reality

Haha, OK. Our reality has had a mere few billion years, which doesn't match an infinite timescale.

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

So how can you conclude there is no world where he hasn't

I mean, Verin's quote which you have been referencing explicitly states: "Well, that is neither here nor there. In all of these worlds, whatever their other variations, a few things are constant. One is that the Dark One is imprisoned in all of them."

Perhaps we have different definitions of imprisoned, but if someone is free I wouldn't call them "imprisoned".

Verin's quote suggests that these realities that are the warp to other realities' woof are cosmological more difficult (not impossible) to access. It's not suggested from the passage that the difficulty in accessing them is due to the realities having been destroyed by the Dark One.

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

And yet, I don't see us all running around claiming there's no free will in our reality...

Plenty of people believe there is no free will in our universe. I'm one such individual.

I'm not sure what your point is?

To sum up this conversation, I responded to Ser Scot regarding the contradiction of people having free will within the Pattern while having to comply with the Pattern. I noted that it indeed seem like a contradiction, and it only was not by authorial fiat, similar to how one can have free will when designed by an omniscient God only by saying "you just do."

You responded by noting there is free will, and prophecies are merely estimates of what may occur, and that nothing is inevitable, so there is free will.

I allowed that I may have misremembered the nature of prophecies, but the Dark One being confined across the eternity of the spinning of the Wheel, and the infinite realities is an indication that there are inevitablities. That is, notionally, people have the ability to free the Dark One if the decision is made, but given an infinite number of decisions, the Dark One has never been freed.

You then disagreed, using Verin's words to indicate that the Dark One has been freed. 

I disagree with that interpretation of the passage.

At any rate, this is the kind of debate I wanted to avoid. Like I said, this kind of back and forth isn't nearly as thrilling for me as it is for you.

So I'll once again say that we should agree to disagree, and exercise caution in the future not to quote you to make a retort, for fear of being led down the neverending chasm of debate.

[Corvinus85]

41 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Ooh, subtle-ish appearance by Padan Fain. Easy to miss.

Where?

[Arakasi]

Talks about the wheel or about the specific intricacies of the power to me are like technobabble in Star Trek. Sometimes it’s interesting but in the end it’s not what makes the story it just makes the background to it. Jordan likely spent 100s of pages over the books having internal monologues about this stuff but I don’t really think it has much place for that level of detail in the show. Find the things that are the most important (mostly characters and plots that let the actors be the characters) and focus and flesh out those. The rest can be ignored so long as the background of the story doesn’t contradict it.

On the matter of scale all fantasy series suffer from this. WoT was hugely epic in scale so they’re never going to have battles with hundreds of thousands of people or massively huge scenes. Budget is a reality and there is only so much CGI can do.

[Gertrude]

37 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Where?

There was his whistling in one of the Mat scenes in the city. I'm not sure exactly where, but I noticed it.

[fionwe1987]

52 minutes ago, IFR said:

Episode 5 continues the trend set by episode 4 as a decent enough episode.

All these changed are expected at this point.

  Reveal hidden contents

Did anyone catch how Rand and Mat can afford an inn at Tar Valon, considering they have no musical or juggling abilities to bargain with?

 

Haha, OK. Our reality has had a mere few billion years, which doesn't match an infinite timescale.

I mean, Verin's quote which you have been referencing explicitly states: "Well, that is neither here nor there. In all of these worlds, whatever their other variations, a few things are constant. One is that the Dark One is imprisoned in all of them."

Perhaps we have different definitions of imprisoned, but if someone is free I wouldn't call them "imprisoned".

Verin's quote suggests that these realities that are the warp to other realities' woof are cosmological more difficult (not impossible) to access. It's not suggested from the passage that the difficulty in accessing them is due to the realities having been destroyed by the Dark One.

Plenty of people believe there is no free will in our universe. I'm one such individual.

I'm not sure what your point is?

To sum up this conversation, I responded to Ser Scot regarding the contradiction of people having free will within the Pattern while having to comply with the Pattern. I noted that it indeed seem like a contradiction, and it only was not by authorial fiat, similar to how one can have free will when designed by an omniscient God only by saying "you just do."

You responded by noting there is free will, and prophecies are merely estimates of what may occur, and that nothing is inevitable, so there is free will.

I allowed that I may have misremembered the nature of prophecies, but the Dark One being confined across the eternity of the spinning of the Wheel, and the infinite realities is an indication that there are inevitablities. That is, notionally, people have the ability to free the Dark One if the decision is made, but given an infinite number of decisions, the Dark One has never been freed.

You then disagreed, using Verin's words to indicate that the Dark One has been freed. 

I disagree with that interpretation of the passage.

At any rate, this is the kind of debate I wanted to avoid. Like I said, this kind of back and forth isn't nearly as thrilling for me as it is for you.

So I'll once again say that we should agree to disagree, and exercise caution in the future not to quote you to make a retort, for fear of being led down the neverending chasm of debate.

Look, I have no issue with you not wanting to debate. I do have an issue with you actively participating in a debate and then somehow trying to attach some blame to me for it. I sometimes don't even connect who I'm replying to. With the exception of people like Lord Varys, where the content now is a clear give away to his identity, I'll sometimes be deep into composing a reply before even knowing who specifically I'm replying to. In this case, I'd plain forgotten it was you who said you didn't want to go into weedsy WoT debates. 

 

I'll try to remember in the future, but if I forget, the simplest solution would be to just ignore my reply, if you want to avoid the debate. I'd appreciate not having to go through a few cycles of discussion to then be told, by implication, that my interest or passion in the series is blame-worthy and is causing you to waste your time. 

Coming at the end of a very detailed reply that does show some passion on the subject for your own part, it is also just plain weird. Doesn't the paragraphs of detailed discussion you just type indicate that you are, in fact, thrilled in some way to have this discussion? No one made you do it. You clearly want your opinions on the matter heard. Have the courtesy to accept that others may want that too. 

[Corvinus85]

I guess the show has forgotten about Perrin's leg wound.

[fionwe1987]

28 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I guess the show has forgotten about Perrin's leg wound.

Wolf spit has magical powers, didn't you know? Whatever they lick gets sent to Tel'aran'rhiod, where you imagine it better. Or something like that. 

[Leofric]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I guess the show has forgotten about Perrin's leg wound.

I got the impression they had been traveling for weeks with the Tinkers, plenty of time for it to heal.   Rand tells Nynaeve when they meet up in the city that he hasn't seen Egwene for a month.  

[Argonath Diver]

Loial was definitely my favorite character as a teen. I didn't really think much prior to this episode how they'd adapt a 9 foot tall buffalo librarian. I hope this TJ Maxx  Beauty and the Beast version appeals to me more over the rest of the season, as I'm currently disappointed completely.  I'm happy they used practical effects instead of CGI, to be sure, but I was wincing from the get go. Looks like a 80s B movie monster, with piss poor voice modulation to make the actor sound more... ogre-ish. None of his immediate stoic charm in his first scenes from the books. Comic relief?  Yeesh.

I liked a lot of Ep 5, and am adjusting to the general vibe of the show so far, so I hate to be negative.  But man they're gonna have to work hard to get me to come around on my main man. 

 

[TheRevanchist]

8 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Episode 5 was weaker in terms of the plot than the previous, but it still had interesting parts.

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Moraine uttering the Borderlander words for the dead - universal in the show or was Kerene a Bordelander? Her last name, Nagashi, suggests yes. I don't remember if she was a book character.

Tar Valon looks pretty good. Not sure why they decided to move Dragonmount on the other side of the river, but it's not a critical change. Rand saying blood and ashes. Yes! 

I liked the actor playing Loial, but the show made it ironic to have so little time devoted in the episode to the introduction of a non-human, speaking character. While Loial's words about his time in the city were pretty much taken from the book, I frowned at their usage. People in Tar Valon would not chase away an Ogier. The writers should have thought better on that. Also they missed to have Loial remark about "an Aielman with a sword". I suppose that could come later. Too bad we didn't get Basel Gill. I thought an actor was cast. 

I pity the ironmaker who had to construct another identical cage for Logain.  Nice misdirect with Mat and Logain.

Madeleine and Marcus delivered good performances in the scenes with Valda and I really liked the part with the Tinkers trying to resist in a non-violent manner. I like that the wolves came to help, but they shouldn't have had to. This happened in sight of Tar Valon. A serial Aes Sedai hunter is camped nearby and no Tower Guard, no Warders to chase him away? What is the Tower's influence within sight of the city itself.

I think the episode spent too much time on Stepin's suffering. While it was a good connection point to what may happen between Moiraine and Lan, there few other plot points needed more covering. Why isn't Moraine keeping a closer eye on Nynaeve? All this talk about eyes-and-ears, and Nynaeve is the one to find Rand & Mat, and it seems Moiraine is oblivious to the fact. There was a lot of talk about Tower politics but so far too few characters to show it. All Liandrin, Moiraine, and Alanna. I suppose we'll get Siuan and more Aes Sedai next episode. 

Interesting for a religion to have carvings of the devils for worshippers to pray against them directly. But then again real religions can be even weirder. At least that confirms that we're likely to get several Forsaken at some point.

 

Karene is actually a book character. However, she appears only in A New Spring sequel, and I believe she briefly meets Moiraine. She was Captain-General of the Green Ajah, and somewhere between the prequel and the first book, she was killed by the Black Ajah.

Anyone worried that they might be merging Leadrin with Elaida?