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


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On 11/28/2021 at 12:05 AM, Wouter said:

 Before that, Moiraine was clearly somewhat worried it could be Logain, but she ruled him out during their talk.

I wonder what he could have said to make her believe that he might be the Dragon, after all? Presumably, there is some prophecy or something to that end, because we know that she sincerely worried that he might  have been a candidate and only seemed to become certain that he wasn't after their talk. Yea, she'll probably consider Nynaeve now too.

 

On 11/28/2021 at 12:05 AM, Wouter said:

-Nyneave and Steffin. As others have written, I suspect Allana will attempt to save Steffin after Kerene's death.

Regaring Steppin, after looking again at the trailer and IMDB, I think that

Spoiler

it will be signposted that Alanna saves bereaved warders (like Myrelle did in the books), but  he'll reject her offer and kill himself. Because in the trailer we see Moiraine and Lan grieving, but it is clear that she wasn't at all close to Kerene, while Lan and Steppin were very good friends. Nobody else of note died.

This will lead to Moiraine making the arrangements for Lan with Alanna, either in the same episode or the next. And hopefully some conflict between Moiraine and Lan once she reveals to him what she has done.

 

On 11/28/2021 at 12:05 AM, Wouter said:

-Allana and Moiraine (though I wonder how Allana could not remember Siuan and Moiraine were friends, if they play that angle as they seem to go for with the mention that the Amyrlin has it in for Moiraine.

The New Spring made it retroactively impossible for anybody who had been novices and Accepted with them + their Aes Sedai teachers to not know that they had been glued at the hip for years. The books never explained how it could have been so thoroughly "forgotten". I imagine that in the show it will be revealed that they staged a massive public quarrel and maybe even that Siuan ordered some punishments for Moiraine when she became  Amyrlin, to sell the misidrection.

 

On 11/28/2021 at 12:05 AM, Wouter said:

Since Nynaeve is actually stronger than any (pre-Egwene/Nynaeve) channeler in the Tower and she has already been using healing in her "Wisdom" capacity (and she was certainly angry enough), the whole thing just about works as a stretch.

I believe that the show will treat it as her first channeling. They seem to be going for latent channelers having certain passive abilities, like Listening to the Wind, before they ever touch the Source. Which kinda makes sense with what we know about sul'dam.

 

On 11/28/2021 at 12:05 AM, Wouter said:

About Logain being able to see t'averen: there is scene in a teaser where he is in a cage and he laughs.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And of course if Nynaeve is a ta'veren as well, the production folks couldn't confirm what he saw from her until it gets explained in an episode. Poor Siuan, who might have to to hang around Egs and Nyn a lot, if they follow the books with her having this Talent as well, though!

 

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I think they show is going to be much smarter and believable with the girls studying to be Aes Sedai, i.e. we might get a Hogwarts-like arc at Tar Valon featuring them.

IMHO, the best thing they can do is  let  time pass between the end of season 1 and beginning of season 2 , instead of pretending that it was the next day/week/month, etc. It would help so much for the young characters channeling/weapons skills not to feel so arbitrary! Begin with Egs and Nyn having been at Tar Valon for a year, the boys having trained with Lan ditto, etc. Have Elayne eventually be the newcomer to whom things have to be explained, if there is a need for it.

 

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Hence, I think the coup against Siuan should be the point where the show really starts to flesh out the Black Ajah, with the major evil Black Ajah character the show is going to focus on being Alviarin. I'd, of course, also like to see Verin but since she isn't really a villain she doesn't really count as Black Ajah.

Couldn't agree more with the Black Ajah remaining a subtle threat from the shadows, whose presence is felt but not seen, generating a nice sense of paranoia until the coup. I am against the supergirls becoming real AS, though, Valda's rings are there for a reason. Nor does it make any kind of sense, since normally not just channeling skills, but also very thorough general education is required before the candidates are tested for Aes Sedai. I also think it likely that they'll merge Liandrin with Alviarin and possibly Galina.

Oh, and speaking of potential female Dragons, we could totally have Elaida believing that Elayne was one! It would make so much sense in the show canon with her Foretelling about the royal House of Andor!

Verin giving Egwene the Dreaming ring and her seeing  danger to Rand with it's help can be the impetus for the supergirls leaving the White Tower instead of Liandrin leading them by the nose, while retaining BA's involvement in sending them into a trap. This would work particularly well if, as I suspect, Egwene's Accepted test is going to be the only one shown. No need for silly return for a couple of days, just to gallivanate off again, like in TDR, if Falme and Tear are combined. 

 

10 hours ago, Wouter said:

The show can have it so that Rand is revealed to the Shienar army at Fal Dara, but they can also choose to not have him be recognized (as a channeler he could potentially destroy the Trolloc army from sufficient distance or from another position where the Shienarans can't see or at least recognise him). People like Agelmar would have grave suspicions though,

IMHO, the best way to do it would be if Shienarans didn't have a clue what happened. Maybe if the Shadowspawn massed around the Eye and Rand destroyed them, and then  whatever force was gathering at Tarwin's Gap just left. Or they  had reports about the Shadowspawn assembling in the Blight and because of Rand they  won't reach the Gap at all. Remove the silliness of the threat being known for some time, yet no Aes Sedai coming to reinforce Shienar either, and no Greens being there on routine assignment. Yea, yea, the White Tower is fallen and corrupted, yadda, yadda, but Siuan knew that the Last Battle was coming and losing Shienar without lifting a finger to prevent it would be a very poor preparation for it. And you'd think that Borderlander sisters wouldn't sit still for it either. Also, AS in the books are often too comically inept for it to be even remotely believable that they could hold the political power and prestige that they still did, and even exist as an institution, really. If the show could show them as flawed, but still plausible, which it seems to be doing in episode 4, then all power to it. I don't think that Agelmar will be in the show, but in TGH nobody knew what happened either and without Rand actually appearing at the Gap, publicly battling Ishy, etc. nobody without privileged sources of information should really suspect what happened. I hope that Moiraine is going to be a little more circumspect with taking the group to the Blight than she was in the books, too.

 

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yes, there is no way the show is going to depict that. I think if they want to have the Horn there should be an actual hunt for it, not a hunt to get it back ... and it might make sense to have that at a later point, closer to the Last Battle.

Hm, this is actually a pretty good idea. With Tear standing for Falme, it could be Whitecloaks + Aiel and maybe a Tairen uprising against the Seanchan - no ghost army would be needed. 100% agree with what you wrote next, except for

 

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The confrontation at Tear could then just cut Be'lal completely in favor for Ishamael being the only guy waiting for Rand there.

No! Moiraine absolutely needs to gank Bel'al and introduce the idea of balefire. Also, the notion that all Forsaken, not just the  crazy ex Lanfear, often work at cross-purposes. As well as that you don't need to be the Dragon Reborn or  one of the Big Five to stand up to them. I think that Rand will be duking it out with Rahvin  in the last episode of season 3 and balefire has to be thoroughly understood by the audience at that point.  

 

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think the trauma for Egwene from being made damane is also pretty important at that point of the story, so I think you need to find a way to still include that in whatever you do. I don't think that can be pushed back significantly, it needs to be before the Wise Ones.

Very much so. Concerning the Forsaken, they are pathetic, yes, but also they they are used to dealing with the opponents who were in many ways not as familiar with adversity and betrayal as the Third Agers. Combine that with massive arrogance and... well. They still shouldn't have been as useless as they were in the books, sigh. Concerning recycling, I really hope that it is limited to Ishy. Lanfear doesn't really need to die, after all, or maybe even return if she does die.   

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Yeah my comments on them being pathetic and worthy of contempt is an aspect I really like, if that came across as a criticism it wasn't meant that way. I'd like them to be simultaneously threatening because of their age/abilities and power, but still utterly pathetic - they don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they are if you don't do it right.

I like Lanfear as a character and felt like the part that made her entertaining was lost when she got recycled into Cyndane, so I'd vote keep her alive but somehow kept distant from Rand for a season or two, at which point the light is probably capable of keeping her away without the DO enforcing it. Kill her in the final season, or perhaps have her stilled, irrelevant and ignored by Rand - she feels a character that there's a worse fate for so what she deserves.

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It's interesting watching the show with non-book readers. I have to watch what I say, even when they ask questions. During the last episode, they went from thinking Matt was the DR to Nynaeve. 

Also, the scene with Nynaeve's "blazing sun" moment really hit me emotionally. Not even sure why. I felt as in awe as Logain, whose reaction I absolutely loved. I loved the look of realization in his eyes that he was just a candle. And she's not even the DR. 

I did spoil my son's assumption N was the DR. I reminded him that Moiraine had already dismissed her as being too old. (I did spoil that Moiraine was there when the prophesy was made at the moment of the Dragon's (re)birth.) He now thinks Egwene is the DR.

My wife is now fully vested in the show, where she watched the first three episodes mostly because of me.

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I do kind of have to wonder if all the non readers who thought Nynaeve was the DR have ever seen a tv show before? :P If it’s getting revealed in the fourth episode you can usually bet it’s a red herring.

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The episode title was "The Dragon Reborn", so I was wondering if they were going to decide halfway through season 1 was enough. I both like the misdirect (for new viewers) and feel like we're wasting time on it.

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58 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

The episode title was "The Dragon Reborn", so I was wondering if they were going to decide halfway through season 1 was enough. I both like the misdirect (for new viewers) and feel like we're wasting time on it.

I liked the moment, though it was a bit cheesy, but I hope Moraine doesn’t seriously consider her as a candidate now. Probably she’ll just keep her thoughts to herself and leave it as a thing for the viewers. Obviously it’s hard to imagine what you would think in different circumstances but I would’ve thought I’d’ve still absorbed enough tropes, even without being a fantasy reader, to strongly suspect it was Rand at this point.

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50 minutes ago, john said:

I liked the moment, though it was a bit cheesy, but I hope Moraine doesn’t seriously consider her as a candidate now. Probably she’ll just keep her thoughts to herself and leave it as a thing for the viewers. Obviously it’s hard to imagine what you would think in different circumstances but I would’ve thought I’d’ve still absorbed enough tropes, even without being a fantasy reader, to strongly suspect it was Rand at this point.

Some non-book readers I've spoken with definitely think that Nyn is the DR just based on episode 4.  However, if the four candidates are Rand, Mat, Perrin and Egwene, the clues are pretty strong that it's either Rand or Egwene. 

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15 hours ago, karaddin said:

Completely agree on that front, Be'lal gets balefired by Moiraine so he is Perma dead regardless which is part of why I want him to stay.

Aginor and Balthamel? The chumpest of the chump, if we have them then keep them dead. I'd personally drop the green man as well as he feels like part of a different story that never got told.

I guess one can also keep Be'lal, if one wants to, but I'd prefer it if those Forsaken were actual characters if they show up and not just plot devices/videogame bosses who just show up to be beaten up at the end of a given volume/season. That's basically how Jordan uses them - Be'lal isn't a character in a real sense.

That is also the reason why I think they should definitely not kill Lanfear unless she stays dead afterwards (and then they should keep her until the end since she has that strong bond with Lews Therin). Not killing Lanfear would also allow them to not kill Moiraine since her death doesn't seem to make much sense, anyway. In fact, they could simplify/cut the entire transdimensional beings/parallel worlds stuf. That's just confusing and doesn't seem to lead anywhere.

I think there should be at least one Forsaken at the Eye. They could go only with Ishamael, I guess, but I'd like to see Aginor in some form in the show since he is the guy who created the Shadowspawn and could brag about how did that - which is information the audience should get at one point.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

The New Spring made it retroactively impossible for anybody who had been novices and Accepted with them + their Aes Sedai teachers to not know that they had been glued at the hip for years. The books never explained how it could have been so thoroughly "forgotten". I imagine that in the show it will be revealed that they staged a massive public quarrel and maybe even that Siuan ordered some punishments for Moiraine when she became  Amyrlin, to sell the misidrection.

I expect that the show will be both more subtle about the Siuan-Moiraine friendship in flashbacks (if they have them), portraying it as a secret friendship even then, as well as making Moiraine's search appear as a semi-exile/punishment to the public.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

I believe that the show will treat it as her first channeling. They seem to be going for latent channelers having certain passive abilities, like Listening to the Wind, before they ever touch the Source. Which kinda makes sense with what we know about sul'dam.

That could make sense. Also they should drop Nynaeve's entire psychological block nonsense thingy. Have her access her full potential only when she is in mortal danger.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

IMHO, the best thing they can do is  let  time pass between the end of season 1 and beginning of season 2 , instead of pretending that it was the next day/week/month, etc. It would help so much for the young characters channeling/weapons skills not to feel so arbitrary! Begin with Egs and Nyn having been at Tar Valon for a year, the boys having trained with Lan ditto, etc. Have Elayne eventually be the newcomer to whom things have to be explained, if there is a need for it.

It depends how they go with the Dragon Reborn revelation at the end of the first season. If Rand is shaken by that and decides to leave - as I assume he will - then they cannot jump ahead at that time.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

Couldn't agree more with the Black Ajah remaining a subtle threat from the shadows, whose presence is felt but not seen, generating a nice sense of paranoia until the coup. I am against the supergirls becoming real AS, though, Valda's rings are there for a reason. Nor does it make any kind of sense, since normally not just channeling skills, but also very thorough general education is required before the candidates are tested for Aes Sedai. I also think it likely that they'll merge Liandrin with Alviarin and possibly Galina.

They don't have to keep the long training thingy from the books, especially not for super channelers like the girls.

I think Liandrin as portrayed so far might make Elaida a superfluous character, i.e. she might be cut. Then Liandrin would likely be not a Black Ajah but the misguided/stupid Red Ajah Elaida is in the books.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

Verin giving Egwene the Dreaming ring and her seeing  danger to Rand with it's help can be the impetus for the supergirls leaving the White Tower instead of Liandrin leading them by the nose, while retaining BA's involvement in sending them into a trap. This would work particularly well if, as I suspect, Egwene's Accepted test is going to be the only one shown. No need for silly return for a couple of days, just to gallivanate off again, like in TDR, if Falme and Tear are combined. 

The whole dreaming ring thing is also a kind of stupid plotline in the books. They should greatly reduce the dream stuff, in my opinion, especially as a means to gather information.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

IMHO, the best way to do it would be if Shienarans didn't have a clue what happened. Maybe if the Shadowspawn massed around the Eye and Rand destroyed them, and then  whatever force was gathering at Tarwin's Gap just left. Or they  had reports about the Shadowspawn assembling in the Blight and because of Rand they  won't reach the Gap at all. Remove the silliness of the threat being known for some time, yet no Aes Sedai coming to reinforce Shienar either, and no Greens being there on routine assignment. Yea, yea, the White Tower is fallen and corrupted, yadda, yadda, but Siuan knew that the Last Battle was coming and losing Shienar without lifting a finger to prevent it would be a very poor preparation for it. And you'd think that Borderlander sisters wouldn't sit still for it either. Also, AS in the books are often too comically inept for it to be even remotely believable that they could hold the political power and prestige that they still did, and even exist as an institution, really. If the show could show them as flawed, but still plausible, which it seems to be doing in episode 4, then all power to it. I don't think that Agelmar will be in the show, but in TGH nobody knew what happened either and without Rand actually appearing at the Gap, publicly battling Ishy, etc. nobody without privileged sources of information should really suspect what happened. I hope that Moiraine is going to be a little more circumspect with taking the group to the Blight than she was in the books, too.

The best way for the show is to make the Eye thing very much a private 'Dragon revelation + Forsaken battle' scene, with perhaps being Shadowspawn there, in the Blight, attacking the Eye which are then obliterated by Rand in the process.

But there cannot really be big threat + the public Dragon revelation scene we get in the book. If they had that then and there they would basically have to/want to cut both the TGH and TDR of the Dragon revelation plot points because neither Falme nor Tear can have the same impact than what Rand did in the first book.

In fact, if Rand can do what he did in book 1 without Callandor there is also no need for that prop, so they could just as well cut that, too.

7 hours ago, Maia said:

No! Moiraine absolutely needs to gank Bel'al and introduce the idea of balefire. Also, the notion that all Forsaken, not just the  crazy ex Lanfear, often work at cross-purposes. As well as that you don't need to be the Dragon Reborn or  one of the Big Five to stand up to them. I think that Rand will be duking it out with Rahvin  in the last episode of season 3 and balefire has to be thoroughly understood by the audience at that point.  

Does the show really need balefire? You only need that as a plot device for real death if there are immortal Forsaken. If they would not go with immortal Forsaken there is also no need for a balefire, meaning Rahvin and Be'lal (if they are in the show) could be killed in a different manner.

Once the Forsaken are introduced we should get hints that they do scheme against each other to a point ... but that has to make sense, unlike in the books. They are directed by a dark god who does have a plan (presumably, at least).

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34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

A load of blather

So without having read much past the third (?) book, you would cut balefire, Dreamwalking, the Aelfinn and Eelfinn and Callandor, eh?

I got to hand it to you. It's certainly ballsy, making pronouncements like that without a clue to what's coming in the books, but that seems more appropriate to your thread documenting your attempt at reading the books, no? Out here, where people know that Callandor is at the heart of the solution to sealing up the Dark One again, the Finns at the core of Mat's ability to lead the Last Battle, the World of Dreams endlessly important to all sorts of plot arcs, and that Balefire is hardly critical to the story mainly as a way to perma-kill the Forsaken, these suggestions are a waste of time, to put it in the politest terms possible. 

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2 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Does anyone else think "Jenny the dog" was actually Siuan in a mask of mirrors sneaking into Moiraine's room?

This reminded me: they removed the utterly nonsensical "cats only like female channelers and dogs only like male channelers" nonsense from the books. I didn't expect that to come up on the show, but a total obliteration of that nonsense is nice to see. 

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9 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I didn't expect that to come up on the show, but a total obliteration of that nonsense is nice to see. 

What kind of "nonsense" is it, really? It's a fantasy setting where the author literalized various binaries in a turning of the Wheel. It's an innocuous throwaway about how certain (domesticated) animals relate to magic.

I thought it was a shame to lose it. They could have just made it a cat.

More generally speaking, I cannot understand people who have devoted so much time to these books just ripping even innocuous little throwaway details that Jordan puts in there to shreds. It feels weirdly masochistic. But I guess I shouldn't kink shame.

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Rewatching the first episode. The opening sequence is pretty bad, it really smacks of something filmed later to try to fill a perceived gap. Moraine is up on a cliff watching Liandrin gentle some guy (or just kill him maybe, not sure). He’s not the Dragon because Moraine isn’t feeling it even though he’s born at the right time (unlike Logain or Nynaeve). Then she tells Lan they’re going to the two rivers because of ‘rumours’ about ta’averen. What rumours? How does that work? And surely the timeline isn’t right for them to meet the Reds on the road later after having travelled to Ghealdon and fetched Logain. Then there’s a shot of an ancient ruined city in a forest, or something. Don’t recall seeing anything like that again.

Egwene’s almost drowning is a bit daft. Apparently you can genuinely die from coming of age as a woman. Did Mat steal Danya’s bracelet? I missed that the first time, thought it was his mum’s or something he used for the lanterns. What a scumbag! Still, nothing is more important than his sisters and them being able to see light shining through paper on a pond. M+L entering the inn is a fairly cringeworthy scene. Thankfully, I haven’t personally thought any of the show was as clunky as this one and the initial Liandrin scene.

Nynaeve apparently knows all about working iron and working people’s relationships too. Laila is sad. You don’t actually need any motivation to be sad of course irl but this is a tv show, hopefully there is some clarity on this, flashback or otherwise.

Mat’s mum calling her little daughter a bitch, missed that the first time too. Would a young woman flirt with a married man, Mat’s dad, in a small village where everybody knows each other? Maybe she was just trying to fend him off. Rand and Egwene spend some time together. Rand seems a lot more mature and sensible than in the book, he knows what he wants and is eventually understanding when she rejects him, although you do see some of his woolheadedness in later eps. First (intentional) joke of the series, not counting Mat’s poor banter, is about Rand having a berry in his pocket all day.

It’s now important to realise that Moraine and Lan aren’t having sex. In case we missed it it (won’t) come up again in episode 4. Apparently she takes her ring off when going to bed (she put it on in the first sequence) but doesn’t in the bath. The Fade has a quick look at the village and leaves. No hurry to find the DR of course. I guess he might have smelled Moraine and Lan or something, he seems to be scared ‘cause he doesn’t even bother turning up for the fight.

Conversation between Moraine and Nynaeve. Moraine not interested in talking up her sisterhood in response to Nyn’s disdainful attitude. Presumably the old Wisdom just wasn’t very strong in the power. I know Nynaeve is stubborn but I’m not sure how she expects to “protect the village” from a Aes Sedai and warder.

Bit of the the lads bonding. Rand dribbles beer down his chin and wipes it away in a very contrived way to show he’s upset over Egwene. Meanwhile Egwene listens to the wind. It sounds wrong. It’s funny how the power just works in these vague ways when you haven’t learned anything. That’s a lot more useful kind of magic than having to mentally weave all these different elements to produce a desired effect. Apparently the trollocs like to arrange mutilated sheep in a yin or yang symbol (actually it seems to be turned the wrong way round but whatever) smacks of the Others in GoT, was that ever explained? Moraine watches Rand go up the mountain. So they know where the boys are, they know the shadow is about to attack, what are they waiting for? It will be much easier to convince them to leave after the attack, I suppose.

The attack is fine, I don’t know what everybody’s complaining about. Trollocs look good to me. Mat’s long tracking shot is excellent but he does remove his sisters from one place of safety in order to take them across a battlefield to another place of safety. The One power is a bit silly looking but you see M+L working together. Perrin demonstrating berserker fury even before his trauma. Didn’t catch it the first time but it does seem like Laila is about to brain him with an iron tool before he kills her. Huh. The trollocs take Nynaeve, so they were supposed to capture the kids? (of which they have a list of five including Nyn for some reason?). Very bad job they’ve done in that case. Fade needs to write some disciplinary notices.

And off the gang go. Very easy to convince them in the end (oh yeah, we are all 20, knew that couldn’t be a coincidence!) and everyone else just watches them ride out. Luckily the road down the mountain, currently filled with trollocs apparently doesn’t pass through Emond’s Field.

Ok, sorry for long post. Frankly I enjoyed the first episode despite its flaws. I’d have watched it at this level and the show definitely improves as it goes on so it’s all gravy.

 

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21 minutes ago, Ran said:

What kind of "nonsense" is it, really? It's a fantasy setting where the author literalized various binaries in a turning of the Wheel. It's an innocuous throwaway about how certain (domesticated) animals relate to magic.

I thought it was a shame to lose it. They could have just made it a cat.

Well, it is a part of the setting that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is pretty random. Dogs are wolves, they can still interbreed. It makes little sense for wolves to be wary of all channelers, but for dogs to warm up to men.

Above that, if this has to be consistently true, I'm not sure why the White Tower doesn't just use an army of cats and dogs to hunt out male channelers. They know how to control animals with the Power, too, so it can't be a training/discipline issue. 

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

More generally speaking, I cannot understand people who have devoted so much time to these books just ripping even innocuous little throwaway details that Jordan puts in there to shreds. It feels weirdly masochistic. But I guess I shouldn't kink shame.

I defend plenty of details in the books, innocuous or otherwise. I think it's fine for me to rip stuff about the books I'm not particularly fond of, no? This one seemed absurd when it was first introduced, and subsequent re-reads haven't improved my impression of it. It really makes very little sense to me. 

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22 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

So without having read much past the third (?) book, you would cut balefire, Dreamwalking, the Aelfinn and Eelfinn and Callandor, eh?

LOL, man, I read stuff up. I don't have to actually read this series to follow the story, considering how little actual plot there is.

22 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I got to hand it to you. It's certainly ballsy, making pronouncements like that without a clue to what's coming in the books, but that seems more appropriate to your thread documenting your attempt at reading the books, no? Out here, where people know that Callandor is at the heart of the solution to sealing up the Dark One again, the Finns at the core of Mat's ability to lead the Last Battle, the World of Dreams endlessly important to all sorts of plot arcs, and that Balefire is hardly critical to the story mainly as a way to perma-kill the Forsaken, these suggestions are a waste of time, to put it in the politest terms possible. 

I said one could cut Callandor if Rand can do the same kind of shit at the Eye without it than he can do with it - which I don't think will happen.

The show could actually do tell pretty much the same story without 'force strengthening devices' if they just simplified things and had people work together give whatever advantage you get with the angreals and sa'angreals plus people linking up.

I also didn't say we should cut the effects of the transdimensional stuff - just cut it down to 'mysterious beings granting people wishes' and cut the whole 'people can get stuck in other dimensions and have to be bargained out of there' stuff. Also, cut the silly parallel worlds travel stones stuff from book 2. Just jump from Waygates to teleportation.

And balefire is just a stupid concept. People being able to destroy or weaken reality itself is a stupid plot device in any case, but especially when done without much effort and without gigantic preparations/spells. But if Ishamael has the power to burn away reality he would do it. He would never stop using it and he would force his lackeys to do the same.

In the books I know so far it is mainly used to kill evil guys for good. I'm looking forward to the ingenious and complex and great ways the author has people use it in later books ... but I expect nothing of substance, actually.

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31 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Well, it is a part of the setting that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is pretty random. Dogs are wolves

Dogs are domesticated and their behavior is significantly different regarding people than the behavior of wolves. Jordan posited for the sake of his binaries that one side effect  of domestication was that they developed a particular liking for male channelers (and a dislike of female channelers, almost as a counter-effect).

It's just such a minor detail to be happy about seeing changed. But as I said, I'm not going to kink shame.

 

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The dogs and cats liking different kinds of channellers is probably the absolute tiniest level of detail Jordan dropped into the series, and is so far beyond being disposable that it's really not worth getting worked up about.

There are all sorts of details that Jordan - or Tolkien or GRRM in their turns - came up with which are nonsensical if you think about them for more than five seconds, but it's perfectly fine to overlook them because the main thrust of the story/characters/worldbuilding is pretty good. In an adaptation, dropping those elements which even the writers themselves seen to regret is perfectly valid. It's not a change on the order of disappearing Tom Bombadil or changing the Targaryens' eye colour.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, man, I read stuff up. I don't have to actually read this series to follow the story, considering how little actual plot there is.

Read what stuff up? And where? Clearly not particularly accurate sources. 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I said one could cut Callandor if Rand can do the same kind of shit at the Eye without it than he can do with it - which I don't think will happen.

No, even if Rand can do the same level of the stuff with the Eye as with Callandor, you couldn't cut Callandor, because it's role in the story is about more than it's ability to magnify the amount of the One Power it let you draw. Did your reading up not reveal this?

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The show could actually do tell pretty much the same story without 'force strengthening devices' if they just simplified things and had people work together give whatever advantage you get with the angreals and sa'angreals plus people linking up.

This is a fairly incoherently sentence, but if you mean linking can be used in place of angreal and sa'angreal, no, no it cannot, because that requires you to constantly have a certain number of people around you to act as a battery. Since people don't fit into bags or pockets, I think the function and use of angreal and sa'angreal, both in book and as narrative devices, should be fairly clear. 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I also didn't say we should cut the effects of the transdimensional stuff - just cut it down to 'mysterious beings granting people wishes' and cut the whole 'people can get stuck in other dimensions and have to be bargained out of there' stuff. Also, cut the silly parallel worlds travel stones stuff from book 2. Just jump from Waygates to teleportation.

So they grant wishes, but have no rules, and pose no risk? 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And balefire is just a stupid concept.

Sure. 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

People being able to destroy or weaken reality itself is a stupid plot device in any case, but especially when done without much effort and without gigantic preparations/spells. But if Ishamael has the power to burn away reality he would do it. He would never stop using it and he would force his lackeys to do the same.

This isn't Dungeons and Dragons. You don't need to burn a hundred people at the pyre to charge your "spells" because there are no spells to charge. If this annoys you, go read some other series. I see no reason why the story needs to be changed to make it more generic to satisfy you.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

In the books I know so far it is mainly used to kill evil guys for good. I'm looking forward to the ingenious and complex and great ways the author has people use it in later books ... but I expect nothing of substance, actually.

If anything of substance shows up, it will clearly be twisted into not being of substance to satisfy your need to hate the series. But I think it's fair to ask you keep all that to your own hate-wank thread. 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Dogs are domesticated and their behavior is significantly different regarding people than the behavior of wolves. Jordan posited for the sake of his binaries that one side effect  of domestication was that they developed a particular liking for male channelers (and a dislike of female channelers, almost as a counter-effect).

Well, that doesn't work, because in-universe, dogs got domesticated before there ever was a channeler in the first place. 

Now sure, you can say they developed this preference later, but why? As Wert said, this isn't something RJ gives any thought to, so I'm not sure why it bugs you that it's done away with in the show. 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

It's just such a minor detail to be happy about seeing changed. But as I said, I'm not going to kink shame.

 

Not sure what kink that would be, but people who repeatedly claim not to be kink shaming are, in fact, kink shaming, lol. 

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On 11/28/2021 at 11:26 AM, Caligula_K3 said:

 

A few thoughts:

-Episode 1 features the most blatant use of fridging that I've seen in years. I still can't believe that they would give Perrin a wife just for... that.

 

I still can't get my head around this. Just..why? It's like a writer lost a bet.

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