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The Wheel of Time: Jane Farstrider Herself (Book Spoilers)


Ran

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41 minutes ago, IFR said:

CW shows

What does this even mean?

37 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

Bad writing, clunky dialogue, [...] , atrocious pace

If you believe Lord Varys that would make this the 100% faithful adaptation you want. Though honestly it was clear from previous threads that much like Varys and his engagement with the books you were never going to enjoy this show and were determined to hate it from the off.

7 minutes ago, David Selig said:

instead of going to the White Tower for some silly reasons.

I felt it was made pretty clear that they don't want to go to the White Tower because they're afraid that Mat can channel and don't want bad things to happen to him at the hands of the Aes Sedai.

7 minutes ago, David Selig said:

But the worst thing was the Whitecloak which made no sense whatsoever. A notorious killer of Aes Sedai is hanging out with a tiny group of his buddies just outside of Tar Valon and doesn't seem to fear any reprisal from the White Tower. He captures someone he suspects of being a channeller and just dares her to blow him to pieces. Just WTF was this nonsense...And the dialogue in this scene was hilariously bad.

I agree that this is pretty egregious and questionable unless there's something more going on with Valda. That said it isn't too far from actual book canon - a whole bunch of Whitecloaks (lead by Valda) follow/harass the caravan bringing Logain (and Elaida plus the Trakands) all the way to Tar Valon and then lurk around on the outskirts for ages without reprisals; some of their people harass Verin and the wondergirls on the way in in book 3,  and they seem to be distributing pamphlets or something because at some point they convert Galad (Valda himself gives Galad a copy of their founder's book sometime in book 4).

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@Poobah

The difference between the Children in the books and the show is that Valda isn't just a Whitecloak, he's an Aes Sedai killer with seven Great Serpent rings as trophies. Seems a huge risk for him to be anywhere in the area, if the eyes-and-ears network gets wind of it and informs the Tower.

Making the Whitecloaks far more dangerous to Aes Sedai (somehow -- I still have no idea how) while also making them behave in the same way they do in the books, re: hanging around Tar Valon is definitely egregious.

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3 hours ago, Ran said:

The whole idea that the world is largely ruled by men in the Westlands is probably one of the biggest changes they've done to the setting, by the by.

Eh, wasn't there a hellish town that Rand and Mat came through, where women feared to walk the streets due to the ever-present  danger of being assaulted by men? And it was in Andor, one of the arguably most "matriarchal" countries outside of Tar Valon and Far Madding (which was introduced very late into the series). There are, of course, the Children of Light. Certainly, Amadicia, Tear and arguably Illian are patriarchal. Book Liandrin's native Tarabon shouldn't be, particularly, but who is to say that the show version is still from there or that she couldn't still have been  abused by men, particularly since the book version came from povetry? 

Anyway, I liked the episode, though I am not sure about the last mourning scene. It was necessary to establish Nyn and Lan's relationship and it's drama in a believable way, something that the books completely failed at. And it is important. Ditto the tensions of Moiraine-Lan-Nynaeve triangle, Moiraine's contraversial decision about what to do with the bond, political tensions in the Tower, etc. I also really enjoyed the fleshing out of warders, which are just ciphers in WoT. I liked that they apparently bury the colored Ajah stone with the sister, but bring the ring back to the WT and melt it, with the new rings presumably being cast from the same metal.

Valda seems to have a ter'angreal like Mat's foxhead or maybe whatever Cadsuane had if it didn't require channeling. I guess that his victims didn't figure out alternative courses of action quickly enough when their weaves failed against him. And that he didn't move against Moiraine because Lan was right there, prepared to cut him down and he also suspected Egwene of being a second AS with warders. Once it became clear that she was not, he pegged her for a novice recruit, which is why he was so casual with her and gave her so much leeway. OTOH, these ropes weren't at all convincing - couldn't they have been leather straps or something? Most of  his ring collection appears to have belonged to the Reds, logically, but there was at least one Green too and of course the unfortunate Yellow.

Logain's laugh seems to have been a fake-out and entirely due to Mat's insanity. Hm... I guess the money for the inn came from selling the stolen horses and they mostly lived off the land during their travels. Rand's bow should have come handy. I would have liked a campfire scene to depict this. I liked Loyal - yes, animatronic ears would have been nice, but the actor seels the character, so I am not dying on that hill.

Some nitpicks:

I am not usually one who demands that the outfits be dirty, but the boys cloaks looked jarringly clean when compared to the rest of their clothes and appearance and they really shouldn't have been, after sleeping outside for a month.

Nyn-Loial- Rand cut was rough, there was a missing connective tissue there.

From the trailers where the AS bow to the Amyrlin and Moiraine kisses her ring, I really hoped that we would see appropriate expressions of deference in the show. But the novices scampered by Liandrin and Moiraine without as much as a respectful nod! This also bugged me in GoT - IIRC nobody knelt or bowed after the first episode or so.

P.S. Almost forgot - horses placidly standing there during the wolf attack. They really should have been going mad with terror and running away, particularly with that one wolf (Hopper?) standing really close but I guess that the budget couldn't stretch for more animal action.

Some questions:

Are they dropping channeler longevity? Because Steppin's story seems to suggest that Kerene wasn't very much older than him. Sure, they couldn't implement the ageless look, but they could say that the AS look 40-iesh for a couple of centuries?

 Is Liandrin supposed to be Moiraine's ex?

Why is Siuan's position already so shaky that some people would like  to replace her with Moiraine(?!), of all people?

Predictions:

Siuan won't be coming to Fal Dara in the next season, so Moiraine will arrange the passing of the bond to Allanna in the next episode, which will lead to tension with Lan.

Valda won't be allowed to enter Tar Valon and proselitize to Galad. Will Galad even be a thing in the show? I somehow suspect that he and Gawyn will be combined in one character.

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1 hour ago, Maia said:

Eh, wasn't there a hellish town that Rand and Mat came through, where women feared to walk the streets due to the ever-present  danger of being assaulted by men?

There are also countries where women decide who their husband gets to marry if they predecease them, and women are presumed to be justified in killing any man unless proven otherwise...

It's a very blanket statement about a world where in fact there's many places outside of Tar Valon where women hold substantial power equal to or as often as not superior to men. 

Again, they're making the world more like ours rather than less. It seems an odd choice, but it's one they have now done several times.

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First impression, I blew a giant raspberry when the credits rolled. 

I don't know, it may be a me problem but even though it's a Fantasy, the direction and plausibility of this episode stretched credulity too far.

 

i. all trails lead to Tar Valon, something something  

ii. mounted Whitecloaks coming out of nowhere

iii. the torture scene so close to tar Valon [and those knife wounds were deep given how much of the blade was concealed by Perrin's flesh in passing]

iv. the Steppin stuff was important I suppose, to establish the Bond, yet even a few shots of similarly impacted Aes Sedai mourning their respective Warders could've moved that along leaving more room for plot

v. the make up design of Loial looked terrible, from the nose to the inarticulate rubber finger extensions

 

Like, I'm not hater, but I'm really not impressed. Huge step back this episode, in my view.

 

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1 hour ago, Poobah said:

What does this even mean?

CW is an American network that specializes in producing extremely bland programming that is designed for 14 year olds. The shows have a reputation for being mindless, generic, extremely campy, and generally nonsensical.

I think the most famous CW show is Rivervale. There's also The Flash, Batwoman, and Supergirl, among others. Generally the shows have all the quality of background noise - inoffensive and forgettable.

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I've been barely hanging onto the show as I just find it SO boring (though I really like Morraine's actress--and anytime she's on screen, I'm more or less interested. It was a good move to shift the focus to her).

But, when I saw Loial yesterday, I erupted into a fit of laughter. You all don't understand. I never laugh. I never smile. I never feel joy of any kind, but the entire design of Loial was so bad I couldn't do it anymore. I laughed myself to sleep, and I think I'm done with the show.

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just accept they have a different take on a story 

no doubt. MCU's infinity gauntlet story for instance is trash from a puristic perspective, but is fine cinema regardless. i recall just enough of the novels here to note that they are different, but am fine with that. some of the jordanian excess needed trimmed. we don't need inexplicable sorceral emissions in every little town along the way; just the once is enough to raise the brow.  but even were jordan's prose tight and perfect, a different interpretation is the reason to have a performance.

am not concerned about the rand & mat daily financial problem.  regarding procurement, they've demonstrated that rand is a hard-working hunter/gatherer and that mat is an effective lumperproletarian. these stories depoliticize economic questions--ubermensches do not work to maintain their own existence, and it should be definitional that they will have sufficient funds; it might be a rule of the genre that the class struggle is abated within their ambit, the true meaning of ta'veran. rather, they are liberated from the material flow of history in order to fight non-economic ahistorical evil.

the editorial jump from loial/rand to loial/rand/nynaeve indicates the show expects us to keep up. that's giving credit to an engaged audience.

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1 minute ago, sologdin said:

just accept they have a different take on a story 

no doubt. MCU's infinity gauntlet story for instance is trash from a puristic perspective, but is fine cinema regardless. i recall just enough of the novels here to note that they are different, but am fine with that. some of the jordanian excess needed trimmed. we don't need inexplicable sorceral emissions in every little town along the way; just the once is enough to raise the brow.  but even were jordan's prose tight and perfect, a different interpretation is the reason to have a performance.

am not concerned about the rand & mat daily financial problem.  regarding procurement, they've demonstrated that rand is a hard-working hunter/gatherer and that mat is an effective lumperproletarian. these stories depoliticize economic questions--ubermensches do not work to maintain their own existence, and it should be definitional that they will have sufficient funds; it might be a rule of the genre that the class struggle is abated within their ambit, the true meaning of ta'veran. rather, they are liberated from the material flow of history in order to fight non-economic ahistorical evil.

the editorial jump from loial/rand to loial/rand/nynaeve indicates the show expects us to keep up. that's giving credit to an engaged audience.

I was just coming to say the exact same thing. 

Took the letters right off my fingertips.

Prolelumberate and all that... Of course, of course.

:closedeyes:

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oooh - I saw someone comment on how the Tinkers linking arms was mirroring a similar thing happening in the glass columns - linking arms to try and contain and sooth a male Aes Sedai by singing (and giving others time to get away while sacrificing themselves). That's a nice detail to pull out.

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So I'm getting to the episode late, and just got to the Loial scene.

Definitely better than I imagined, but I think what makes it stick out so bad is the hair. It looks really really badly done. The actor still manages to sell it, at least in this quick scene, but doing Loial off would have paid off, I think, and their failure here is sad.

1 minute ago, Gertrude said:

oooh - I saw someone comment on how the Tinkers linking arms was mirroring a similar thing happening in the glass columns - linking arms to try and contain and sooth a male Aes Sedai by singing (and giving others time to get away while sacrificing themselves). That's a nice detail to pull out.

Yes, this is a callback to the 10000 Aiel linking hands to buy time for the citizens of Tzora to escape. That was always something I hoped we'd see, and it's good to see the Tinkers show similar resolve, though the scene could have used some breathing room to emphasize the point.

Generally, I feel the Whitecloak threat could have been increased but in intelligent ways. I'm baffled that rather than take the many in-story avenues they could have taken to make this make sense (forkroot, shedding, even blindfolds), they act like Aes Sedai cannot destroy a bunch of Whitecloaks in a few moments, and since the Whitecloaks are very obligingly threatening the Aes Sedai they presumably capture, nothing should hold them back.

Perhaps we're meant to think Valda is the first Whitecloak to have this level of success? But if so, they should be emphasizing it more. 

 

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Ok, now the Heal bomb looks even dumber if we're to buy that that is Nynaeve's first time channeling. Also, that makes Rand's (and Egwene's, but that's at least ok) first channeling look way weaker. 

I have no idea why they changed this. It really didn't have to be her first time. 

And that last scene went way overboard. I'm fine with this being a quieter episode. I'm also fine with exploring the Warder bond more. But Lan screaming thrice and all that chest thumping... It just doesn't work.

In concept, this could have been a good episode. In execution, I don't think it really works. 

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I kept telling myself that the warder grief ritual they did was one in which the selected person had to enact the grief of everyone there or something, so that Lan was to some degree acting out a ritualized role rather than conveying his personal feelings.

I doubt that's what they were thinking, but nothing contradicts it. Call it my personal head canon for the show, to try and keep TV-show Lan a bit closer to the stoic character from the novel.

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1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

Ok, now the Heal bomb looks even dumber if we're to buy that that is Nynaeve's first time channeling. Also, that makes Rand's (and Egwene's, but that's at least ok) first channeling look way weaker. 

I have no idea why they changed this. It really didn't have to be her first time. 

I'm just going with first time knowingly channeling. Easier to buy given her "listening to the wind" and healing skills and all.

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20 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I'm just going with first time knowingly channeling. Easier to buy given her "listening to the wind" and healing skills and all.

I took the story of Egwene recovering from the 100% fatal breakbone fever to have been Nynaeve's first time channeling, but being unaware.

I'm pretty sure i's also been confirmed that listening to the wind (as Nynaeve does) is channeling.

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2 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

I took the story of Egwene recovering from the 100% fatal breakbone fever to have been Nynaeve's first time channeling, but being unaware.

I'm pretty sure i's also been confirmed that listening to the wind (as Nynaeve does) is channeling.

That's what happened in the books. I forgot if she told that story in the show.

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