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


Ran

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2 hours ago, Maia said:

Both Altara, right? But throne of Altara is  an equal opportunity thing, that was just currently held by Tylin. There are still several crowns that can only be held by men versus the female-only crown of Andor and, of course, the Amyrlin Seat. And while High Ladies of Tear aren't completely impossible, they are very rare and in the beginning of the series there were none..

And yet, Lan's odd declaration in TGH that few men could stand to be outshone by their wives(!) kinda contradicts this, because if Jordan was consistent in his worldbuilding, it should have been a common situation. Matrilinial inheritance seems to be largely non-existent either, except for the Crown of Andor and in Far Madding, I guess + whatever Aiel have. Do we even have any characters who inherited their family names from their mother, apart from the Trakands? Do we have a social mobility vehicle available to non-channeling women in "Westland", comparable to the military service for men? I am not talking about the Seanchan, here, because Jordan really puts his thumb on the scales for them for some reason.

The city-state of Far Madding is the most matriarchal society of them all, where men literally are second-class citizens. Altara is more towards women, but not by much. Not only is the throne for both, many of the current Altaran lords who pretty much ignore the crown are men.

Tarabon has a clear division between men and women in the leadership: there is a king and the Panarch who is always a woman. But the Panarch is an elected office, and the king has control of the armies except for the Panarch's Legion, so arguably he has more power.

Arad Doman has a king, but he is elected by the Council of Merchants who are predominantly women. 

In general, men are still dominant in military roles. Even in Andor, while the Queen is the supreme ruler, the main commander is the First Prince of the Sword, and if none available, it's the Captain-General of the Queen's Guards. Up until Birgitte, they were all men. In the Borderlands, when a woman rules there is a prince consort or some high ranking male general who leads the armies, whereas when the situation is reversed, the queen has only an advisory role.

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Speaking of Birgitte ...

In the mourning scene, there was a woman standing with the warders. I know there was some mingling of Aes Sedai and warders in the circle, but they looked to be roughly on opposite sides. This woman was near Maxim and I was wondering if they were going to introduce the idea of women being able to be warders. I wouldn't expect there to be many of them, as men are typically going to be better martial fighters, but I kind of like the idea that in this imagining of the world that if a woman had the skills, she could be a warder as well. I don't think it would detract from Birgitte's role.

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3 hours ago, Maia said:

Both Altara, right? But throne of Altara is  an equal opportunity thing, that was just currently held by Tylin. There are still several crowns that can only be held by men versus the female-only crown of Andor and, of course, the Amyrlin Seat. And while High Ladies of Tear aren't completely impossible, they are very rare and in the beginning of the series there were none..

Weirdo and seemingly progressive/woman-friendly marriage rituals do not exactly mean a more gender equal society. It just means that marriage rituals are different.

Most of Jordan't marital/social rules seem to be arbitrary and unrealistic. Marriage itself might no longer be a thing - or be completely transformed - in a world where women actually have more rights.

Basically, any reason the writers of the show give why Liandrin/the Reds don't like men are better than Jordan's own.

3 hours ago, Maia said:

The Darkfriend souls are only connected to the DO until they go into the re-birth pool. If he doesn't snatch them up at the time of death, they are free of him, so nobody is doomed to be his servant over countless incarnations  in perpetuity. It is a better question if the intelligent Shadowspawn have human souls or fragments of such and whether those can be recycled and made whole during the Ages when Shadowspawn doesn't exist.

That then adds only to the impotency of the Dark One. It is also kind of weird that Ba'alzamon tries to steal Rand's soul in TDR and they later consider that this might be a thing they would try again. And he has an army of those Grey Men who also sold their souls to him. How could that happen while he was sealed away?

What exactly the Shadowspawn *are*, metaphysically speaking, I never even asked so far, since I don't think this can much sense. A Trolloc-Myrddraal society could not possibly survive for five minutes without direct guidance by powerful channelers ... and there seem to be any Shadowlords left for most of the time the Forsaken and the Dark One were sealed.

These beings would have destroyed each other long ago without a powerful force to keep them in line.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

What exactly the Shadowspawn *are*, metaphysically speaking, I never even asked so far, since I don't think this can much sense. A Trolloc-Myrddraal society could not possibly survive for five minutes without direct guidance by powerful channelers ... and there seem to be any Shadowlords left for most of the time the Forsaken and the Dark One were sealed.

 

The male Aiel  channellers.

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7 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

In the trailers Mat appears in the shots at the waygate. 

Are we sure about that? I based the reports to the contrary on this (purported)  leak .

The leaker may be mistaken or be lying, but he or she seemed to be right about all the rest (it was posted around nov 10th).

6 hours ago, Maia said:

This. It was just an Easter Egg for the readers and the means of the DR misdirection towards Mat. In truth Logain never stirred. Which probably means that if the talent of seeing ta'veren is still in the show, then gentled/stilled folks lose it. And that it likely was what he saw from Nyn.

I hope that Rafe Judkins clears this up so we can be sure, once the identity of the dragon is out in the show he may be more forthcoming.

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

In general, men are still dominant in military roles. Even in Andor, while the Queen is the supreme ruler, the main commander is the First Prince of the Sword, and if none available, it's the Captain-General of the Queen's Guards. Up until Birgitte, they were all men. In the Borderlands, when a woman rules there is a prince consort or some high ranking male general who leads the armies, whereas when the situation is reversed, the queen has only an advisory role.

It's probably for the better too, given the state of technology and the way (conventional) armies fight in WOT. Women en masse fighting each other with pikes and swords and axes and bows would probably not go over too well (we'll see how the Aiel maidens of the spear work on screen).

In Tar Valon for example, the Aes Sedai unquestionably hold the power (the one power, but also the worldly power), but the vast majority of the warders and probably the entire city watch are male.

In parts of the world where the one power doesn't hold this importance, the consequence of this military power is that men still hold sway in many countries (like Tear, Amadicia, Cairhien, Illian,...). But there are also a lot of female merchants in the world, showing that the power and prestige of Tar Valon does have effects all over the Westlands.

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1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

Here. Make your own conclusions.

It's worth noting they filmed the scenes of them going into the Ways as part of the first, pre-COVID block (they completed all of Episodes 1-6, bar a few pickups, pre-shutdown and I got that from Rafe direct in a Zoom interview we did on Dragonmount, though before the recasting news broke, or maybe even happened). They made a big deal of the Waygate in promo imagery from that shooting block. However, Episode 7 is (based on the title) them in the Ways and emerging, and that was filmed post-shutdown. So if Barney never came back from the shutdown period for whatever reason, that would make sense. In fact, it would make more sense that they filmed the scenes of them all (including Mat) going into the Ways, and then they came back and maybe shot new scenes explaining why Mat isn't there. I don't even rule out them leaving Mat in Tar Valon to recover from the dagger and they're actually going to paint Mat out of the shots we've seen so far.

Think of the (slightly awkward) way they wrote out Anvar in The Expanse and having to write around it with existing footage, painting him out of a couple of scenes and using newly-shot footage (literally from a week before transmission) to paper over the edges, though hopefully this was for a less horrible reason.

Saw an interesting rumour today:

Spoiler

Elyas has been cast for Season 2, and his character has been merged with Hurin. Which is one of those changes which actually makes a lot of sense: the two characters aren't really around at the same time and they can combine them in a way that makes sense, though it suggests that either Perrin will join El-Hurin, Rand and Loial in their GH storyline, since you need Perrin and Nu-Elayas to spend time together.

 

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5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Saw an interesting rumour today:

  Hide contents

Elyas has been cast for Season 2, and his character has been merged with Hurin. Which is one of those changes which actually makes a lot of sense: the two characters aren't really around at the same time and they can combine them in a way that makes sense, though it suggests that either Perrin will join El-Hurin, Rand and Loial in their GH storyline, since you need Perrin and Nu-Elayas to spend time together.

 

Ha! That's one idea from the writer's room that I'm wholly glad for. That's a great idea, merging them. Wouldn't mind if they...

Spoiler

..merged them with Juilin, too.

Of course, whose personality they decide to give to this amalgam will be interesting. I'd rather have Elyas over Hurin.

 

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I’m gonna check back in properly and read through this whole thread but I just wanted to pop by and say so far I’m quite enjoying this. 
 

I’ve never read the books and I don’t know too much about the story at all. Nynaeve is my favourite so far and my least favourite is the boring red head bloke and I just KNOW it in my bones that he’s going to end up being the dragon reborn… 

Nice to have something to wait weekly for though, I miss having a tv show to discuss like that. Haven’t done that since 1st & 2nd seasons of Westworld! 

 

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21 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I’ve never read the books and I don’t know too much about the story at all.

This thread is chock full of spoilers! There is a spoiler free thread to talk about it too.

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14 hours ago, Werthead said:

So if Barney never came back from the shutdown period for whatever reason, that would make sense. In fact, it would make more sense that they filmed the scenes of them all (including Mat) going into the Ways, and then they came back and maybe shot new scenes explaining why Mat isn't there. I don't even rule out them leaving Mat in Tar Valon to recover from the dagger and they're actually going to paint Mat out of the shots we've seen so far.

If they did see I can see all the internet jokes, especially from the non-book readers. They left Mat with the witches and look what they did! They changed his face!!! :P

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1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

Sihtric from Last Kingdom, (Arnas Fedaravicius) plays Mesema (apparently altered spelling of Masema).

Guy Roberts is Uno.

Gregg Chillingirian is Ingtar.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CXJ5w85rA3Q/

 

Happy they cast Ingtar, an important figure for Rand's storyline IMO. That "Mesema" is also cast, points to some version of Rand's book 2 storyline (as in, his interactions with the Shienaran soldiers) probably being in. Even though the destination is probably more likely to be Tear, rather than Falme (maybe the supergirls are lured there and save themselves, as has been suggested).

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24 minutes ago, Wouter said:

Happy they cast Ingtar, an important figure for Rand's storyline IMO. That "Mesema" is also cast, points to some version of Rand's book 2 storyline (as in, his interactions with the Shienaran soldiers) probably being in. Even though the destination is probably more likely to be Tear, rather than Falme (maybe the supergirls are lured there and save themselves, as has been suggested).

It could be Tear, but in the behind the scenes video about costumes and cultures, they thought about Toman's Head. It depends on the budget. Falme would not be a difficult set to create, just another small town.

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It could just be a very rushed Great Hunt arc. There are quite a few travel hops in that they can do, and wrap it up quick. 

 

But that makes me think it's going to be very rushed storytelling again, with character development taking a backseat. Again. 

ETA: interesting casting. Two Rivers doesn't seem to be the only place with a much more diverse looking population, clearly. 

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