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


Ran

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41 minutes ago, Darryk said:

The  Siuan / Moiraine stuff was strong, making them lovers (they were just good friends in the books, right?) does make the relationship more poignant.

They were lovers (pillow friends) as Novices and Accepted, and some time after they were raised to the shawl. 

41 minutes ago, Darryk said:

This sidelining of Rand, which I'm guessing is intentional because they're trying to maintain the mystery, is in danger of backfiring on them as it seems it's resulted in a lot of viewers not liking the character, which could be an issue going forward.

Yeah. If someone is unlikeable in the first three books, it is Mat. They kinda reversed that here, though who knows if that lasts with the change in actors for Mat.

41 minutes ago, Darryk said:

 

 

41 minutes ago, Darryk said:

So the Eye of the World is the Dark One's prison now? Maybe they thought Shayol Ghul was too similar to Mount Doom from LOTR? The Eye seems like a much less dramatic location for the prophesied Last Battle to take place though.

I watched that scene again. She says see saw the Dark One at the Eye of the World, not that the Eye of the World is his prison. 

I wonder if they just missed a line that this would be enormously concerning to her, because it'd imply he's free. In the books, that partial freedom (as Moiraine perceived it then) is what alarmed the heck out of her, and pushed her to bypass Tar Valon and go to Fal Dara braving the Ways. In fact, it's the justification she gives Loial for using the Ways.

Maybe in the next episode she'll do the same to the whole group, and then we'll learn the Eye isn't his prison?

41 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Also why would Moraine think that the Dark One can be stopped this early on? Surely she'd be aware from the prophecies that the Dragon has a long way to go before he's ready to face the Dark One?

Uncertain. The Prophesies, even in the books, are vague..some big signs exist, like the taking of Callandor. But all of them are vaguely worded enough that it could just be misinterpretation, if things went another way. 

41 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Also what's this with Siuan's dreams about a three-headed dragon? Was that in the books? Or are they getting their WoT and ASOIF prophecies mixed up?

I wouldn't put it past them to have used the five headed Dragon as a deliberate callback go GoT. After all, this is a tale a gleeman told Moiraine. I think she's mocking it, and we're meant to get a callback go GoT, just like aSoIaF references WoT a few times. 

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1 minute ago, fionwe1987 said:

I watched that scene again. She says see saw the Dark One at the Eye of the World, not that the Eye of the World is his prison. 

Later at the Waygate:

Quote

Moiraine: The fastest road to the Eye of the World.

Egwene: And what's there, at the Eye?

Moiraine: The Dark One's prison.

 

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9 minutes ago, Ran said:

Later at the Waygate:

 

Thanks, I missed that. So they're at the same location, even if they aren't the same thing. My bad. 

I imagine the Eye is going to not be the Seals, right? Those will likely still be separate, otherwise they have nothing for Egwene and Rand to fight about at the end. 

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2 hours ago, Darryk said:

Also why would Moraine think that the Dark One can be stopped this early on? Surely she'd be aware from the prophecies that the Dragon has a long way to go before he's ready to face the Dark One?

 

Also what's this with Siuan's dreams about a three-headed dragon? Was that in the books? Or are they getting their WoT and ASOIF prophecies mixed up?

It was a many-headed dragon, IIRC. Probably an intentional call out to Game of Thrones, as well as support for the "power rangers" split dragon theory.

In the books, Moiraine also went to the Eye of the World for a confrontation with the Dark One. Though the Eye wasn't well defined in the books, especially not beforehand.

I'm guessing that Ishamael has been manipulating Siuan.

Overall, I liked this episode very much, best of the season for me. Lots of lovely little touches, starting from the glimpse of the Stone of Tear. The Moiraine-Siuan scenes were generally very well done (still no mention of Elaida, though Elayne wasn't mentioned either). Egwene and Nynaeve were perfect. We may not have seen much of the EF5 and especially not of the boys, but their personalities are spot on for me.

Pity about Matt, but we know that's because of Barney leaving the show. Hopefully they can pin the character's refusal on him "feeling" the corruption of the ways, post-dagger.

We shouldn't be surprised that Moiraine is the focus of the first season. This approach works for me, generally.

I hope/think Rand will get more focus in ep.7 and ep.8.

 

Edit: regarding Siuan's and her father's fishing hut being torched - people in the neighbourhood probably already knew about/suspected the girl could channel and took their chance when they were away. May even have been ordered by a high lord, given the way channelers are treated in Tear at this point in the story.

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16 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:


So looks like they’ve made Siuan a Dreamer? How’s this going to intersect with the Wise Ones? The meeting spot with Moiraine was, I thought, the World of Dreams, or a vacuole, which is very similar. Gateways leading to either are a very plausible kind of ter’angreal, and likely not easy to move around.

I'd agree tha Siuan's hut seems like Telaranrhiod, but what am I missing that it makes Siuan a dreamer? She has the same terangreal in her room as Moraine has in hers (well, slightly different, it didn't look like the same picture behind the door, though I wasn't looking hard).

Surely they just visit the real world site where Siuan's dad (or someone else) rebuilt his hut, and the hut is there in dreamworld

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19 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

I'd agree tha Siuan's hut seems like Telaranrhiod, but what am I missing that it makes Siuan a dreamer? She has the same terangreal in her room as Moraine has in hers (well, slightly different, it didn't look like the same picture behind the door, though I wasn't looking hard).

Surely they just visit the real world site where Siuan's dad (or someone else) rebuilt his hut, and the hut is there in dreamworld

Siuan said she’d been having dreams about the Eye of the World. That sounds like a dreaming talent but yeah, she had the little picture so she’s apparently not using the talent for meeting Moraine.

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3 minutes ago, john said:

Siuan said she’d been having dreams about the Eye of the World. That sounds like a dreaming talent but yeah, she had the little picture so she’s apparently not using the talent for meeting Moraine.

Thanks, I'd missed that it was through dreams, not other intel.

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Yeah it's the Dream Intel that makes her a Dreamer, to me, because she's basing her actions on this Dream.

If they completely ignore that Aes Sedai Ward their dreams and make it that Ishamael is manipulating her, it makes no sense she wouldn't wonder if that's what is happening, if she wasn't a Dreamer. The Aes Sedai are fully conversant with the concept of dreams being manipulated, in the show. Moiraine warns the TR kids about it. 

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Definitely better than the last episode, but I'm still just not sold on the show. It feels so thin, everything feels so rushed, and the story has been sacrificed to the sake of this stupid "who is the DR" mystery. I understand how moving Caemlyn to TV caused issues that needed to be unraveled in the plot, but I don't think they dealt with it particularly well. Just so much camp and cheese and bad writing. Egwene in particular had some real clunkers this ep, and Nynaeve's "smoke up our ass" stood out as well. 

I did like the shot of Egwene preening at praise from Siuan only to discover it's actually Nynaeve. But all of these storylines and plots are suffering from the rushing. No chance to Egwene and Nynaeve to share their discoveries with one another. No discussion of joining the WT. We get a "you're not dead!" and a hug and off we go. The boys are obviously being shortchanged, they get even less screentime than the Wonder Girls.

They've really nailed Nynaeve being a huge PITA. I'm remembering how much I disliked her on my first couple reads!

I keep watching these episodes hoping they'll win me over. C'mon episodes 7 and 8!!

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I think all the depth you want for the EF5 will come, and personally I'm really appreciating the greater focus on Moiraine and Lan - that's something I was hoping to see before it started - along with a bunch of the Aes Sedai feeling much more like people. Also liking that the eyes and ears networks are looking competent and real. 

I do agree it's been rushed and there have been quite a few times it's felt like there was meant to be more to a scene or additional scenes in between. Things like the bodies after the battle with Logain all being at ground level, presumably they were sunk into the ground with the power, Rand and Mat having money for the Inn, Nynaeve meeting Loial in the gardens... I think we were meant to see these and they needed to be cut for time and budget.

The reason it's not bothering me to the same extent as most of you is that I'm enjoying most of what we are getting, where a lot of you feel like it's filler that should have been dropped in favor of the parts we missed.

I think a lot of those complaints would have been resolved by a 10 episode season, and if you were not being annoyed by what's missing it might be easier to enjoy the additions which are there. I hope Amazon decide to at least add on a couple of episodes for subsequent seasons now it's looking pretty successful in terms of getting an audience.

ETA: Other than the "you" in the first sentence, the rest of the post is just directed generally at everyone that's feeling the frustrations I'm talking about, not specifically Starkess. Wasn't clearly written so just wanted to clarify.

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Gotta nitpick something here: the Tower Guard costumes are nearly as bad as the Whitecloaks. Where is the armor? There are a few shots of Guardsmen people armed with polearms and swords, no helmets, no indication that there might be some mail underneath those oversized coats. Unless they're Shaolin warriors with those weapons, they won't last long in a fight. I swear, the costume department was given money for cloth, lots and lots of cloth, and some leather, but barely any metal. sigh... I guess we'll see some of the Illianer Companions in the next or final episode. Maybe some proper Shienaran warriors, too.

On the subject of Moiraine's relationship with Siuan, I wonder if this means that a future relationship from the book is not in the show plans. Jordan did go out of his way to give every major character a partner or three.

Did any of the other book readers here think that the visuals of Moiraine's removal of the evil of SL from Mat were meant to foreshadow the cleansing?

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55 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Did any of the other book readers here think that the visuals of Moiraine's removal of the evil of SL from Mat were meant to foreshadow the cleansing?

The darkness drawn out of him and wrapped around her weave certainly had a lot of similarity to how the taint was shown on saidin with Logain

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7 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

it makes no sense

Do you really think a Dreamer would Dream that the Dark One could be destroyed by the poor woman's Fellowship?

Since we know the DO is not going to get killed, it has to be manipulation, right? Unless it's a case of mistake identity, where they've done that "Ishamael masquerading as the DO faces off against Rand" thing quite early... though the idea that a Balthamel-like Ishamael who has been "ground" down might actually welcome being killed so that the Dark One can resurrect him in a fresh body ... I guess that might be what they're doing, since we don't know how many Forsaken are going to be featured on the show and I expect some will fall by the wayside.

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Maybe some proper Shienaran warriors, too.

From trailers and leaks... sorry, man, but no.

The Ghealdanin guards are the heavy infantry of the Westlands, apparently.

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4 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think all the depth you want for the EF5 will come, and personally I'm really appreciating the greater focus on Moiraine and Lan - that's something I was hoping to see before it started - along with a bunch of the Aes Sedai feeling much more like people. Also liking that the eyes and ears networks are looking competent and real. 

I do agree it's been rushed and there have been quite a few times it's felt like there was meant to be more to a scene or additional scenes in between. Things like the bodies after the battle with Logain all being at ground level, presumably they were sunk into the ground with the power, Rand and Mat having money for the Inn, Nynaeve meeting Loial in the gardens... I think we were meant to see these and they needed to be cut for time and budget.

The reason it's not bothering me to the same extent as most of you is that I'm enjoying most of what we are getting, where a lot of you feel like it's filler that should have been dropped in favor of the parts we missed.

I think a lot of those complaints would have been resolved by a 10 episode season, and if you were not being annoyed by what's missing it might be easier to enjoy the additions which are there. I hope Amazon decide to at least add on a couple of episodes for subsequent seasons now it's looking pretty successful in terms of getting an audience.

ETA: Other than the "you" in the first sentence, the rest of the post is just directed generally at everyone that's feeling the frustrations I'm talking about, not specifically Starkess. Wasn't clearly written so just wanted to clarify.

So I agree with you that if you fill in the gaps in their storytelling, the changes they make hang together reasonably well.

My problem is that this only keeps getting worse. I rewatched this episode, and there's way too many scenes where Moiraine is abruptly in another place. We're supposed to get that time has passed, but nothing, from the lighting to the editing to the conversation indicates it. It's like a bunch of disconnected scenes with Moiraine jumping around the city.

That kind of stuff just feels like bad TV, period. 

Also, on a rewatch with a friend who hasn't read the books, they pointed out that there were an unusual number of scenes which is just Moiraine silently looking somewhere, Moiraine drinking tea, bathing, riding a horse, waiting by the Waygate... Way too many in one episode.

Some of that time, at least could have gone to Perrin, Rand and Mat? Or to give us the connective tissue between the chopped up scenes, like Egwene and Perrin meeting Loial, or a better explanation of the Eye, or any number of other things. 

I can't help but feel that we have a well meaning but somewhat amateur production team, which, mixed with the corporate goals and interference of Amazon, is shortchanging the show quite a bit. 

I haven't in good faith been able to recommend the show to anyone who hasn't read the books, and for those who have, my recommendation is heavily caveated and basically boils down to "lots of issues, mixed with some signs of potential that I hope they capitalize on in future seasons".

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