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


A True Kaniggit

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43 minutes ago, Ran said:
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Mat does in this episode, claiming Moiraine said it. That is the scene I’m complaining about, since Moiraine never does. They made the line four,  not five, in the first episode.

 

Spoiler

Rand: "Dana said there were Darkfriends everywhere..."

Mat: "She said the Dragon could be one of the five of us."

He's referring to Dana in the last episode, not Moiraine in the first two.

Also, that wouldn't make any sense. Moiraine said four in the original edit and they dubbed it to five in the trailers.

Anyway, very good episode. Reminded me of GoT's first three episodes being promising but inconsistent and then the fourth episode smashed it (maybe not coincidentally, both episodes are heavy on exposition but in an entertaining, well-acted way with a dramatically intense ending).

Spoiler

They found a great way of doing "show, not tell" to show that Nynaeve could channel but something was wrong with her ability, and by spending a whole episode on Logain and his powers they showed the dangers of men who can channel, along with a ton of foreshadowing. They also showed how shielding and linking work, which are hard concepts to get across visually. The companion minisode also confirms how saidin and saidar work, stopping the weird speculation that the distinction had been eliminated in the show.

Nynaeve drinking with the Warders was also a fun scene and Peter Frantzen has a great "grizzled fantasy voice," and they found a good way of humanising Lan without weakening him. Also, Show Aram is waaaaaaaay less annoying and punchable than in the book, and Alanna is far more fun and likeable. I also liked how she was chill and fun-loving for most of the episode and the second she needed to go full Battle Ajah, she just unleashed.

 

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I don’t think we know what was originally planned, whether that line was shot several ways and then for whatever reason they vacillated over what to so regarding Nyn.

I found the exposition dumps were generally inelegant and signaled themselves a bit heavily, but what are you going to do? There’s a lot of world building that needs to be explained.

It’s a better episode than the first, though, certainly.

Spoiler

I do wish Lan didn’t have that line about hoping to return to Malkier. He really should be fatalistic about it, that his patrimony is a war that he fights alone and knows he can never win. 


 

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Well, I loved this episode. Yes, the "army" was just a token 3 dozen people and it is unclear how Alanna and her Warders would have been able to hold it back, by themselves, when the whole group was having a hard time doing so, but I am willing to suspend my disbelief.   I guess that they'll be merging Alanna with Myrelle? I mean, she does seem friendly with Moiraine in the show and the next episode will likely show what happens to a Warder if his Aes Sedai dies

 

Spoiler

so it can efficiently establish her special talents in saving them.  Nynaeve must be a ta'veren too, presumably, and that's why Logain was seeing her light up? And gentling won't eradicate this Talent, which is why there will still be a scene of him laughing when he sees Rand while being paraded through a city.

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6 minutes ago, Maia said:

Well, I loved this episode. Yes, the "army" was just a token 3 dozen people and it is unclear how Alanna and her Warders would have been able to hold it back, by themselves, when the whole group was having a hard time doing so, but I am willing to suspend my disbelief.   I guess that they'll be merging Alanna with Myrelle? I mean, she does seem friendly with Moiraine in the show and the next episode will likely show what happens to a Warder if his Aes Sedai dies

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so it can efficiently establish her special talents in saving them.  Nynaeve must be a ta'veren too, presumably, and that's why Logain was seeing her light up? And gentling won't eradicate this Talent, which is why there will still be a scene of him laughing when he sees Rand while being paraded through a city.

I think Alanna was holding fire to avoid friendly fire, and once everyone else had left to go to the cave, Alanna was able to cut loose without interference. That last wall of explosions is something she couldn't have done earlier when the fighting was more chaotic and she couldn't tell at a glance where all her allies were.

I also liked the fact that the Greens seemed much better-trained to fight with the One Power in a battlefield situation (however chaotic) and the Reds were not as effective (one even got feathered with arrows), but the Reds were good at the surgical use of the One Power to gentle Logain.

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Going against the grain on this one. I enjoyed the first three episodes but did not like this.

First, it felt like how I imagine a low-budget Marvel/superhero affair would look with all the channeling, all the Aes Sedai in their colored uniform and the pathetic 'army' (how much can a few additional extras cost, really) supposedly sneaking up on them and only discovered thanks to some Aes Sedai wards. Jesus.

The time spent with the Tinkers was very dull and the dialogue just painful. But then dialogue was not great this episode overall - a lot of characters explaining things to other characters to inform the audience. The Warders by the fire another example of that.

I really only liked the opening with Logaine. But then he turns out to be a moron - having twice escaped his shackles, he happily hangs around just so he can be bound again.

Would have liked to see more of Thom/Rand/Mat.

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4 hours ago, Ran said:

I don’t think we know what was originally planned, whether that line was shot several ways and then for whatever reason they vacillated over what to so regarding Nyn.

So you're basically mad at something that didn't happen but you imagined.  And doubling down on it as a reason to keep being mad.

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1 hour ago, Darzin said:

I didn't mind the paltry army. I took them for diehard remnants rather than the full force. I also like how the king of Ghealdan became a true believer. 

Yeah I really liked that. The opening scene with the two of them really sold Logain as a charismatic leader who could attract all these kinds of followers.

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1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

So you're basically mad at something that didn't happen but you imagined. 

We talked about the fact that Moiraine said "five" in the teaser, a line that was clearly dubbed from "four" for some reason. I'll grant that it was not a continuity error, since the continuity error started in the previous episode rather than this one :P

No one knows what was going on with that, but it's a pretty funny coincidence that everything was "four" in the first episode (except for that teaser that said "five") and after that everything is "five". Hmm...

From the reporting and Judkin's own remarks, I think we're seeing the seams in the uncomfortable compromises that were made to the show at Amazon's behest. 

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Did see the Saidin and Saidar animated thing is very much exactly like what one expects. It's explicitly described in the way the books do it, in terms of the surrender vs the struggle, the gentle river vs the raging torrent, two half of the same source, etc. The "stone" bit of it was very tenuous, OTOH, but I guess it alliterates.

Has anyone given thought to the idea that Amazon might try spinoffs if they decide the show is successful enough? New Spring as an animated miniseries showing young Moiraine Sedai and Lan first meeting and the like would probably work. Or something about Tam's adventures when he left the Two Rivers and joined the Companions.

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I though they'd bring up the Stone of Tear and "stone" was a reference to that, but nope.

I'm not sure there is any continuity error. Moiraine and Lan arrive in the Two Rivers and immediately hit on five candidates: Nynaeve, Egwene, Mat, Perrin and Rand. Moiraine then immediately eliminates Nynaeve because she's 5-6 years too old. However, no-one else is privy to that information, so the Darkfriends assume it's still five possible candidates. Rand and Mat's confusion is that they still think Nynaeve is dead, whilst we (and the Dark One) know she's not, so five is still on the table.

I do find it odd that the Shadow didn't send spies low-key into the Two Rivers first to get intel, especially if Padan Fain is indeed one of their operatives. They could have probably cleared up who the Dragon is in about five hours.

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2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

immediately hit on five candidates:

They got to the TR to look at four ta'veren, not five. Then they seem to eliminate  Nynaeve  as one of the four ta'veren because presumably her age means she can't be the Dragon and the Dragon must be a ta'veren. 

But then it's five people that everyone is concerned about after that first episode. It's all very odd, especially given the conspicuous dub of the teaser. As I said, I think there was some sort of push-and-pull with Amazon over this part of the story, and it's been imperfectly stitched together. And all for the sake of one season's misdirection. Meh.

You know, something else that comes to mind thinking back to the first episode... are we supposed to assume something interesting happened after Nyn killed the trolloc? She should have been able to make her way back to the village by daybreak, given that it can't be more than a couple of hours between that "sacred pool" and the village, yet she inexplicably doesn't show up there again until after everyone has left. Or is this a plot hole not to be looked at? Came to mind after finishing my The Boys watch and spotting how one of the Supes kept showing up places with no sense of how they could have gotten there just when they did.

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This one was better than the first three episodes, but it does suffer from the same shortcomings. Clunky writing throughout, with the clunkiest during the exposition scenes that act as info-dumps. Enjoyed the start of the episode in Ghealdan and the actor who plays Logain.

The battle was a bit so-so, but based on what we've seen thus far I think it will always be like that.

Can't believe what they did with Lan and Nynaeve, especially this early in the series. And the massive Deus Ex Machina moment at the end really killed it for me.

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Álvaro Morte is apparently a big star off of Money Heist (La Casa de Papel). Never watched it, but I can see why he's so popular. He's not quite the book Logain -- too old, too mad -- but he strikes a chord on the screen the way few others have done so far. 

Spoiler

I do wonder if the King of Ghealdan seemingly abandoning his crown to run around leading a ragtag horde to try and save the "Dragon" might indicate that Logain Compelled him and didn't merely win him over with his oratory. Logain might not necessarily be aware of it, delusional enough in his madness to lie to himself about what he's doing... That would work rather better for me, but I suppose it's a moot point with the king now dead. I guess we'll hear more about that in the future.

Re-watching the last fifteen minutes or so, I do have to say that the battle sequence was really not well-choreographed, which is why the editing butchers it a bit. I'm guessing they stretched for more spectacle than they could afford. 

 

 

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Really liked the episode.

Couple of thoughts, from a perspective of setting up who is the DR.  I did think they played up Mat’s corruption as a possible channeler well.  I think they may have missed an opportunity with Shadar Logoth by not explaining that it’s evil was opposed to the DO’s evil.  Could have been a nice set up for Mat finding the Myrdraal. :dunno: 

With Nynaeve and Logain; (book spoiler incoming!) this interaction with him seeing her as a raging sun could be interesting when she heals his gentling.  Also in terms of his strength in the books; wasn’t his strength jumped ahead drastically when he was healed?

The shielding being something that takes some time seems like it will be problematic in some of the channeler on channeler fights later where much of it depends on being able to shield someone from the source quickly.

I also thought it was interesting that when Corinne was hearing Moiraine; the power seemed to come from her.  When Logain was channeling in the opening; the taint seemed to come from a “tether” running off screen.

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10 minutes ago, Rhom said:

 

 

With Nynaeve and Logain; (book spoiler incoming!) this interaction with him seeing her as a raging sun could be interesting when she heals his gentling.  Also in terms of his strength in the books; wasn’t his strength jumped ahead drastically when he was healed?

 

Logain was healed back to his old strength in Salidar, because his gentling was healed by a woman.  Siuan and Leane are healed of their stilling by Nynaeve, but because that's a woman healing another woman, they are much weaker in the One Power after their healing.

 

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I thought a better episode than previous ones - as others have pointed out, the attack at the end by Logain's supporters looked very disjointed and disconnected (where were all the archers after the first volley?  The cave where they were keeping Logain seemed to be either a short or a long distance from the AS camp). 

The AS who died is was listed in the credits as Kerene (I think), who was one of the AS in New Spring sent out to hunt for the Dragon Reborn.  Guess here they are recycling names. 

Alanna's Warders (unnamed I think in this episode, Owein and Ihvon in the books) seem to have a little something something going on.  Perhaps fitted in their to satisfy the perceived lack of same sex relationsships in the books, but also to perhaps balance the whole idea of sister-wives amongst the Aiel when we get to that point.

We haven't yet got to the thorny issue of ranking of strength in the Power, who is stronger than who, etc etc - but I did like the depiction on Nynaeve using saidar for the first time, and the amount of it she can access.  Given the fact that Logain can see what she is doing, I wonder if the show will sidestep the whole issue of men and/or women being able to detect other women/men channeling.

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6 minutes ago, Arataniello said:

I thought a better episode than previous ones - as others have pointed out, the attack at the end by Logain's supporters looked very disjointed and disconnected (where were all the archers after the first volley?  The cave where they were keeping Logain seemed to be either a short or a long distance from the AS camp). 

The AS who died is was listed in the credits as Kerene (I think), who was one of the AS in New Spring sent out to hunt for the Dragon Reborn.  Guess here they are recycling names. 

Alanna's Warders (unnamed I think in this episode, Owein and Ihvon in the books) seem to have a little something something going on.  Perhaps fitted in their to satisfy the perceived lack of same sex relationsships in the books, but also to perhaps balance the whole idea of sister-wives amongst the Aiel when we get to that point.

We haven't yet got to the thorny issue of ranking of strength in the Power, who is stronger than who, etc etc - but I did like the depiction on Nynaeve using saidar for the first time, and the amount of it she can access.  Given the fact that Logain can see what she is doing, I wonder if the show will sidestep the whole issue of men and/or women being able to detect other women/men channeling.

 

moiraine said in the episode she cannot see logains weaves, so it may be possible that men can see womans weaves/strength in this turning of the wheel, or she is ta'veren and he is seeing her as ta'veren

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