The Wheel of Time: The Wheel Weaves as Jeff Bezos Wills (Book Spoilers)

[SpaceChampion]

I think the implications are Rand going to the Aiel Waste now are huge and simplifies the story without reducing the major beats, and allow a much shorter telling than 14 seasons.

Presumably, Rand is going east to the Waste at the end of this season, he's going to spend one season learning about the Aiel and becoming the Cara'carn, and seeing the Aiel history.  Mat and Moiraine going through the Rhuidean ter'angreal can happen in a latter season.

The Seanchan meanwhile, are either defeated by the Heroes of the Horn and Egwene (and presumably Mat), or not kicked off of Toman Head at all.  Instead they just conquer Amadicia, Altara, maybe skip Illian, and invade Tear.

Rand brings the Aiel over the Spine of the World, and instead of invading Cairhien through the Jangai Pass, he comes through the more southern pass into Haddon Mirk (near Stedding Shangtai), and rescues Tear from the Seanchan, gets Callandor etc.

So in those two seasons, they've done several books.

I think it is possible the rest of the Forsaken were not freed at the Eye.  It could be just the Black Ajah that are the main threat the Wonder Girls deal with, until another Seal is broken (maybe in Tear) that frees the remaining Forsaken.

[Chad Vader]

Season 1 did have some good points. The magic effects couldnt be better, just as I imagined it to be if not better. Most of the casting has been spot on (not sure about the Senachan yet). However, in speaking to people who have watched the show but have not read the books there seems to be a lot of confusion about what exactly is going on in a way Game of Thrones never had.

[john]

I definitely soured on it across the series, I enjoyed the first half and enjoyed the second half much less. My main ongoing complaint was the lack of incident, the writing was not good enough to feature so many conversations. However the finale had plenty of incident and it was disappointing too. They clearly decided at the beginning that all the main cast were going to have their own stories in each episode and that in particular was very noticeable in an episode that should have focused on Rand, and I’m not saying that as a book fan, I’m saying it as a tv fan.

[Cas Stark]

13 minutes ago, Chad Vader said:

Season 1 did have some good points. The magic effects couldnt be better, just as I imagined it to be if not better. Most of the casting has been spot on (not sure about the Senachan yet). However, in speaking to people who have watched the show but have not read the books there seems to be a lot of confusion about what exactly is going on in a way Game of Thrones never had.

The casting doesn't seem that great to me.  A lot of the leads are devoid of any charisma at all, which you really need actors with good presence in a fantasy story where many viewers won't absorb the plot details.  Egwene and Perrin are especially bland and Rand is also on the bland side, but he distracts me because he looks like a red haired Ryan Phillippe...I even thought at the beginning he must be RP son.  

[Chad Vader]

25 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The casting doesn't seem that great to me.  A lot of the leads are devoid of any charisma at all, which you really need actors with good presence in a fantasy story where many viewers won't absorb the plot details.  Egwene and Perrin are especially bland and Rand is also on the bland side, but he distracts me because he looks like a red haired Ryan Phillippe...I even thought at the beginning he must be RP son.  

Lol, I just finished Macgruber season 1. I knew Rand looked familar lol.

[Lord Varys]

Those complaints about there being no war back in the Age of Legends are ridiculous. Remember the Rhuidean flashback from TSR? There folks were happily hanging out with the Ogier and the Aiel who were singing to plants and there was not the slightest indication that a war was going on or society was crumbling. The sole 'expection' may have been the Green Man's injury but that's not 'war'.

Also, of course Lews Therin is 'the Dragon Reborn'. He is a reincarnation of himself, the previous iteration of Rand al'Thor and whoever else this particular soul was during the earlier turnings of the Wheel. And if the morons during the main series can figure out whose reincarnation Rand is ... then Lews Therin, with the resources and powers he had at his disposal, would also have figured out who the hell he was ... although, apparently, only after the Bore.

The show's decision to do away with the weirdness of the finale of the first book - a lake of power, the Green Man, the rotting Forsaken - was pretty good.

Also, the idea to have different characters shoulder the stuff worked well in principle although not necessarily in execution.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

There folks were happily hanging out with the Ogier and the Aiel who were singing to plants and there was not the slightest indication that a war was going on or society was crumbling.

 

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He could see the next field, lined the same way, beyond the soldiers with their shocklances sitting atop armored jo cars. A hoverfly buzzed overhead in its patrol, a deadly black metal wasp containing two men. He was sixteen, and the women had decided his voice was finally deep enough to join in the seed singing.

The soldiers fascinated him, men and Ogier, the way a colorful poisonous snake might. They killed. His father's greatfather, Charn, claimed there had been no soldiers once, but Coumin did not believe it. If there were no soldiers, who would stop the Nightriders and the Trollocs from coming to kill everyone?

 

[Lord Varys]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

 

Yeah, but this isn't very prominent, is it? Why should we see soldiers standing at attention in Lews Therin's living room?

And how would soldiers in the background send the message to the audience that a devastating war was going on?

If they wanted to establish that they would also have to talk about it ... which, at this point, they clearly don't want to do. Either because they want to cut it or because they want to establish it later. Which would be my guess since they first mentioned/showed Lews Therin in the season finale.

It also seems as if Moiraine was completely wrong about 'the Eye of the World' being the Dark One's prison. The implication is that Rand didn't remember that place from Lews Therin's attack but rather because it was an important building of the Aes Sedai once, no?

I cannot see them cutting Shayol Ghul.

[UnplayableChar]

The show is literally incoherent. From basic stuff like Moiraine telling Rand not to touch anything only for them to lay against some trees moments later, to Lan teleporting through the Trolloc army, to Perrin spotting Fain, following him, only to return to find Fain in the goddamn throne room, another teleporter.
The writers’ inability to keep track of their own nonsense is incredible. Last episode they added a reveal that Min saw Tam carrying Rand from Dragonmount. This episode he flips his shit at Ishamael suggesting that Tam is not his father. What the fuck. You concluded that subplot an episode ago. Do you not read your own scripts?
Or Siuan telling Moiraine this was their opportunity to destroy the Dark One (insane, but alright), and then when Rand asks her what she wants him to do, she tells him she wants him to imprison the Dark One (so sudden and inexplicable change of motivation), and then when they reach the Eye of the World she tells the “Dark One” she knows he’s imprisoned and his only way out is through Rand?? So you brought the only way to free “Dark One” into the “Dark One’s” reach, because you wanted to imprison him, when you know he’s imprisoned. I want to know who proofreads their scripts.

[fionwe1987]

Yes, the whole plot for why they head to the Eye is utter nonsense in the show. In the book, the clues coming together is clearly tied to Rand, Mat and Perrin being ta'veren. It was a cool moment to see the concept in action, disparate pieces of news from strange sources converging by "chance". 

This makes Moiraine realize all three boys were ta'veren, makes her wonder if the Dark Ones touch is at play at letting all this information get here, and point out that the presented probelm came wrapped in a solution, Loial, to get them swiftly to the Eye.

It allowed the Tinkers and the Dreams to play into the main thrust of the rest of the story, tying a bunch of disparate threads together.

The show just wrecked this. Completely. They could have streamlined it but kept the thrust of it essentially intact. There was no need for them to meddle with the motivation for going to the Eye at all.

 

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[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Those complaints about there being no war back in the Age of Legends are ridiculous. Remember the Rhuidean flashback from TSR? There folks were happily hanging out with the Ogier and the Aiel who were singing to plants and there was not the slightest indication that a war was going on or society was crumbling. The sole 'expection' may have been the Green Man's injury but that's not 'war'.

That wasn't the war, that was the Collapse. After the Dark One's prison was breached by Mierin and Beidomon, there was a gradual, 100-year disintegration of society from the peace and glory of the Age of Legends. Violence became more common, bloodsports came back into favour, there was a sudden explosion of criminality*. But the War of the Shadow only began when Ishamael led an army to try to free the Dark One and Lews Therin formed an army to stop him, which marked the beginning of outright, organised conflict between the two sides. The war then lasted ten years. So between the drilling of the Bore and Lews Therin's strike on Shayol Ghul there were 110 years in total.

By the time of the strike on Shayol Ghul, the majority of the planet was in the hands of the Dark One's armies, Paaran Disen had been attacked several times, the death toll was beyond calculation and large parts of the world was a burning wasteland, with entire megacities scoured from the face of the Earth with balefire. Reality itself was crumbling in those areas. You certainly couldn't miss that there was a war going on.

Of course, there are some indications that RJ forgot about the "ten years!" line from Eye of the World when writing The Shadow Rising, and the Collapse was a hasty retcon to keep both indications (the war lasted ten years, the disintegration of society lasting decades) true.

* Side-note, but I always felt that there was a disturbing undertone to the Age of Legends, where it seems like even the vaguest type of non-conforming behaviour was "treated" with Compulsion and people forced to "behave" in a manner deemed acceptable to society. This is the only way such a civilisation could come about, and it suggests why the Collapse happened, if Friends of the Dark channellers simply started unweaving the bonds of Compulsion and letting humans' darker nature back into the world.

[UnplayableChar]

19 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Yes, the whole plot for why they head to the Eye is utter nonsense in the show. In the book, the clues coming together is clearly tied to Rand, Mat and Perrin being ta'veren. It was a cool moment to see the concept in action, disparate pieces of news from strange sources converging by "chance". 

This makes Moiraine realize all three boys were ta'veren, makes her wonder if the Dark Ones touch is at play at letting all this information get here, and point out that the presented probelm came wrapped in a solution, Loial, to get them swiftly to the Eye.

It allowed the Tinkers and the Dreams to play into the main thrust of the rest of the story, tying a bunch of disparate threads together.

The show just wrecked this. Completely. They could have streamlined it but kept the thrust of it essentially intact. There was no need for them to meddle with the motivation for going to the Eye at all.

 

 

Just so we're clear my problem isn't even that the plot is stupid, it's that the writers literally can't keep track of their own stupid plot.

[Ran]

24 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Side-note, but I always felt that there was a disturbing undertone to the Age of Legends, where it seems like even the vaguest type of non-conforming behaviour was "treated" with Compulsion and people forced to "behave" in a manner deemed acceptable to society.

Interesting thought. I think crime was obviously something that still happened, re: Semirhage and the true purpose of the Oath Rod, but I can definitely see the AoL seeing light Compulsion as being more or less like giving people anti-depressants or Brave New World-style Soma to make them behave the way they would want to behave if they were well... and this having the insidious effect of creating a conformist society that looks like Utopia but has a dark side to it.

[fionwe1987]

I have no idea why there needs to be light compulsion.

I definitely think there was an underbelly, but that's very plain to see: in a post-scarcity world, the only way to get "advancement" was to get a Third Name. It's clear getting one got you additional benefits, and there was hunger for this kind of recognition, which is why you have so many of Lews Therin's generals turning on him. 

Status obsession would have been immensely easy for the Dark One to manipulate. That's why you see so many Forsaken being folks who were not quite the best at what they did, and turned to the Shadow to make themselves an ally who would help them become the best.

And the most effective and scary Forsaken are the ones who were recognized experts before, and chose the Dark One for more philosophical reasons. 

 

 

[jurble]

14 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

And the most effective and scary Forsaken are the ones who were recognized experts before, and chose the Dark One for more philosophical reasons. 

Isn't Ishamael the only one philosophically motivated?  The rest of them legitimately think they're going to be kings and lords and rulers of the world.  He's the only, afaik, that understands it's the end of existence and the rebirth cycle.  Poor guy's a Bodhisattva trying to lead everyone to Nirvana, since existence is suffering.

I never really thought of it that way, since he's not very enlightened in demeanor.  But he's almost an evil-Buddha. 

edit:  Even more of a stray thought - is season 2 already done filming?  I wonder if it will air at the same time as House of the Dragon, that'll be an interesting contrast...

[Ran]

18 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I have no idea why there needs to be light compulsion.

If all the "science" of the AoL is One Power based, surely this goes for the psychotherapy and neuropharmacology fields as well. Graendal was a famous healer of minds, after all.

 

[Werthead]

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edit:  Even more of a stray thought - is season 2 already done filming?  I wonder if it will air at the same time as House of the Dragon, that'll be an interesting contrast...

No. I think they wrap around February or March, and I suspect will air in November once Lord of the Rings: The Second Age (or whatever it's called) is finished, since that debuts 2 September.

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If all the "science" of the AoL is One Power based, surely this goes for the psychotherapy and neuropharmacology fields as well. Graendal was a famous healer of minds, after all.

Not all the science is One Power-based. A lot of is genuine science (well, science fiction). The hoverflies use anti-gravity technology and science unrelated to the Power, and they use infinitely renewable energy sources, so I assume solar and maybe fusion power are things as well. The One Power was used for a lot of other things (like Treesinging for agriculture, and the Bowl of Winds and its several dozen or hundred sister-ter'angreal were weather control devices) but not everything.

I think maybe RJ's original conception of the First Age ending in WWIII required a purely One Power-driven Age of Legends, but in the books as published where the apocalyptic ending to the First Age is either downplayed or just removed in favour of a smoother evolution from our time period to the Age of Legends, it became a mixture of One Power-driven stuff and normal science-driven advancements.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

That wasn't the war, that was the Collapse.

I meant the flashback taking place at the day when Lews Therin's raid took place, i.e. at a time when 'the good guys' should have been at their worst ... and there is literally nothing in that particular flashback indicating that they have been fighting a desperate war for years and decades ... aside from the fact that soldiers are standing around in the background.

The one truly ugly thing in that flashback scene - and the thing that sticks with you - is the pointless murder of the grandfather from the final flashback scene. The guy who originally worked with Lanfear before she became Lanfear and was killed by some people because he insisted that she hadn't been *evil* all the time.

The Collapse is another flashback - the one where the Aiel get the stuff they are supposed to keep safe. But even there things are pretty good where they are ... they only get reports about men running amok, etc.

That whole Aiel journey also seems to be kind of forced. If you know that things are going to be fucked - and the women do know that - then why not reach out to all the not-yet-madmen Aes Sedai and establish a safe zone. Say, an entire continent or large island where only women are allowed, so the Breaking of the World shouldn't affect that place to the same degree. Sure, madmen running amok might still go there and all, but for that you could station many female Aes Sedai there to guard the place.

The idea that people who follow the Way of the Leaf could guard precious magical objects during a time of anarchy is pretty weird.

Regarding the nature of the AoL society:

In the final flashback we get the scene from immediately before the Bore and the whole behavior of the guy who bumped into the Aiel and behaved like a prick until he realized he had bumped into an honored Aiel ... which causes him to apologize. This indicates that this society isn't exactly 'a paradise' in any real sense, but a society where you follow rigid rules which seem to allow you (or demand) to use different standards for different people.

Meaning this is neither utopia nor a paradise on earth.

That said - we cannot cite the future Forsaken and whatnot for 'problems' in the AoL since they only turned evil after the Bore. And then the Dark One touched the world and fucked with everyone, even the so-called 'good guys'.

That quite a few of Lews Therin's buddies betrayed him, etc. seems to go back directly to that general influence of the Dark One. Something that didn't exist in the pre-Bore world.

The perversions of Graendal and Lanfear and Aginor all seem to have become *really prominent* after the Bore.

Unless we have knowledge to the contrary.

As for tech:

It is not really conceivable that folks would agree to give up conventional science and tech just because some people could use magic and create magical tech. So few people can channel that most people would want to control their own lives with the means they could use and were comfortable with. Even more so if we buy the implication that the World of the Wheel is 'our world' ... and the Aes Sedai never actually formed the world government.

[Ran]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

he hoverflies use anti-gravity technology and science unrelated to the Power, and they use infinitely renewable energy sources, so I assume solar and maybe fusion power are things as well.

I think it was all One Power. Yes, the Worldbook states that they used antigravity tech, but ....

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With so few people able to channel, the Power had to be used selectively. Aes Sedai were not expected to maintain or energize machines, for instance, but rather concentrated their efforts on designing and creating the technology for them. Technicians and other skilled non-channelers could then handle the construction and repair; after that, anyone could operate them. The process that enabled the great Sharom, or floating sphere of Collam Daan, to hover high above the university was discovered and refined through the use of the One Power, but the sphere was built by normal people and suspended through use of the world's own magnetic and gravitational fields.

    One often-mentioned benefit of Power-based technology was a very clean, aesthetically pleasing environment. Pollution from refining, transport, and industry was unknown, since waste by-products could be dispersed on a sub-molecular level.

This suggests that "transport" like hoverflies and jo-cars are ultimately One Power-based tech, so ultimately whatever the anti-grav tech is for transportation it has its basis in some sort of engineered One Power mechanism. Like a One Power standing flow receiver (the broadcast energy system they had) attached to a One Power anti-grav super conductor that normal people can operate and swap parts out if they fail to replace with something else or what have you.

That's my take, anyways.

[jurble]

With regards to the One Power and anti-grav, the WoT wiki says this 

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In The Dragon Reborn, Ishamael demonstrated the ability to float above the ground using the True Power, another feat that is said to be impossible with the One Power. 

which would imply that anti-grav cars wouldn't be using the One Power directly