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

[Arakasi]

I think that’s a good criticism on the comparison between episode four and seven in power unleashed. Power progression is an annoyance with me this season. My point on the refugees is they probably expect the city to fall too. They’re just trying to buy more of a buffer time between it falling and the refugees getting away. My point on why in the field and not on the walls is they’re not trained and it’s likely going to be some random unleashing of power. It doesn’t make sense to have the first thing it blows up being your own walls. The main reason it likely was that was budget though.

On the fort at the gap one thing kinda makes sense for the walls not being a typical fort and that would be drakhar but I doubt that really went into things.   (Open fort top doesn’t do so well against flying enemies) I’d guess they did that odd thing because they thought it looked cool or budget again. There are whole YouTube channels on the silliness of film fortifications.

[karaddin]

6 hours ago, Trebla said:

Okay finale, some good some bad. I was genuinely pleased with Ishmael, and his untucked shirt should be a dead giveaway that he's not the Dark One. The Dark One tucks his shirt!

You try being stuck in the same tux for 3000 years and keeping that shit tucked in! 

4 hours ago, Ran said:

What war? There's no evidence that any kind of war is going on in the flashback, and looking back on transcripts of all episodes there's no references to a war. 

Oh come on this is just taking the piss. Everything the show has shown is consistent with the war of power having happened, including trollocs and myrdraal existing along with the Forsaken. They're showing that the Capital was still the Capital and the safety there let some people still fall into complacency and think they had time, which is the part that explains the way in which the women were wrong. Yes, book LTT was also reckless and the backlash broke the world, but he also preserved the world in a broken state so it could be fixed later - it would have just been gone if he hadn't, and that still fits the show conversation. If in a few seasons they tell us there was no war of power then feel free to quote me this post and I'll eat my words. Until then there's still plenty of reasonable criticisms without looking to invent more.

50 minutes ago, UnplayableChar said:

Here's a fun thing for you to ponder: how did five channelers who weren't even full Aes Sedai destroy with ease the Trolloc army that was supposed to destroy Sheinar, while like ten full sisters and their warders struggled against about 20 of Logain's LARPers in the woods?

You mean the fight where no AS died, and Logain's army got single handedly taken out by Alanna as soon as everyone else got out of the way so she didn't have to worry about collateral? The only casualty was from Logain himself.

15 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

My point on why in the field and not on the walls is they’re not trained and it’s likely going to be some random unleashing of power. It doesn’t make sense to have the first thing it blows up being your own walls. 

This. If you're intending to go out in a kamikaze blaze of glory you don't want to take out the walls that will be necessary to continue defending the city after you're gone. 

[UnplayableChar]

6 minutes ago, karaddin said:

You mean the fight where no AS died, and Logain's army got single handedly taken out by Alanna as soon as everyone else got out of the way so she didn't have to worry about collateral? The only casualty was from Logain himself.

 

I mean the fight where Nynaeve had to knife an axeman because the Aes Sedai couldn't even clear their lines.

Fuck, I never thought about it, Nynaeve fucking killed a person and it had zero effect on her character.

[Poobah]

Having had some time to digest it all I think mostly I'd characterise this episode, and the series as a whole, in terms of missed/squandered opportunities - or if I were feeling more positive perhaps as a rough diamond badly in need of some polish, but I have to say that in spite of some very strong moments (all the scenes at the Eye itself, the moment between Lan and Nynaeve, and I rather liked Fain's scenes too) this finale did quite a bit of work to sour me and solidify some doubts about Judkins and his team that had been simmering in the back of my mind for a while.

It's so frustrating because there's a lot of good stuff in there. Pretty much all of the cast members have done a great job with what they've been given, Stradowski in particular is really showing some range now he's finally been given some material and I can see a great Rand in there. Pike's Moiraine is Moiraine as far as I'm concerned. I have zero complaints about Fares Fares's Ishamael, and indeed that whole scene was good stuff. I could list off most of the cast and praise their performances but it's always kinda with that caveat "with what they've been given" - and that's really the issue at the heart of it, the writing itself is so variable and when it's clunky or just plain bad it's all the more obvious: the actors trying their best to elevate the material and the great moments that they do manage to hit just highlight the crap by way of contrast (if I were being particularly mean I'd argue that many of the best moments are taken nearly directly from the books, but there have been several wholly show original scenes and moments that have been excellent too).

I don't want to rag too specifically on Judkins overly but when I look at his filmography, and think about where this show feels weak it does kinda feel like it's in that direction of... I dunno what to call it... generic entertaining network TV that you shouldn't think about too hard? I liked Agents of Shield a lot, but I was hoping for something rather more prestige with Wheel of Time. I've said in the past that I haven't noticed the lighting issues but I did check out that video you linked @Ran and there is other stuff that does bother me and just make it feel a bit cheaper - how it's cut, some of the costuming, and particularly some of the logic that the show seems to be running on. I need more than shit that happens with no more thought than because it'll look cool in a show like this. Just by thinking about it for a few seconds I'd have suggested that they have Amalisa with Agelmar or have her on the walls of Fal Dara and then have his death or the imminent fall of the city trigger her over draw/burn out battery drain murder+suicide, how is it that sitting here with a cup of tea I can come up with two much cooler and more plausible ideas that still lead to the same moment that they wanted without making it look like Agelmar died for no reason whatsoever and invalidating his "heroic sacrifice" barely five minutes after it happened on screen when I'm not a professional writer and Amazon had a room full of them?

Also, and I don't know if this is on Judkins in particular or if I should throw in the whole writing team and/or Amazon meddling here but the other area where I'm becoming more sceptical over time is this... interpretation of Wheel of Time - it's not that I was ever one of those expecting, or even wanting, some kind of scene-for scene recreation, actually it's more the little things that as they've built up have just niggled more and more. Over the eight episodes there have been so many little details changed or ignored for no particular or justifiable reason that I can think of. The paralleled opening scene of episodes 1 and 8 in particular really quite annoy me because of how much they seem to have truly missed Jordan's point and ideas in favour of this blanket blaming men/Lews Therin for all the bad that happened - "oh the arrogance!" Despite a good performance from Karim and giving him some humanising elements the way writing pushed Latra as this wise and sensible woman counselling caution and going out of its way to justify her by giving her pretty much exact foreknowledge of what would happen while cutting out any mention of how she bore responsibility for causing a massive rift in the Aes Sedai when they were on the brink of losing the war and the world (indeed the conflict and the desperation that lead to Lews sealing attempt was not mentioned at all) just felt so very stripped of nuance especially when lined up next to the ep 1 opening - men bad, women good. (not to mention calling Lews the Dragon Reborn which to me just feels like an actual writing mistake that anyone with any book knowledge reading the script could have corrected).

I really hope that shiny parts can be polished up and the dirt removed for season 2.

[Lin Meili]

About Amalisa and the others being outside the walls. Yeah, I was initially pissed off that they did the same mistake GoT did by putting the defenders in front of the defenses, but as the scene went on, I could see that Amalisa was making a desperation move. Women are canonically worse at fire and lightning than men, right? And she was just barely trained - probably enough to not burn herself out or be dangerous. I'm pretty sure the Tower wouldn't have trained her in "apocalyptic lightning" weaves. So her decision to go outside is okay to me since there would have been a good chance she would blow the walls up. She's not good at control.

I feel that criticism is totally missing the point. The real point is that it was way overpowered. They had no angreal, but they could destroy a huge trolloc army? Pfft. No fucking way! Not when the Reds could barely deal with some ragtag army of... what? Two dozen people? Maybe the Red were particularly weak for Aes Sedai? Still not good, IMO.

Could it be that the show is giving the girls a huge power up compared to the books? Are they making Egwene and Nynaeve a match for Rand??? Surely not?!

Nonetheless, I'm still definitely gonna watch and enjoy the next season.

*shrugs* To me the show is entertaining. And we'll always have the books.

BTW, one last thing - I was super not pleased that they did the whole "oh noes, who of these five could the Dragon Reborn be?" but anecdotal evidence seems to show that non-book readers were really invested in that storyline, so I guess it worked.

 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Lin Meili said:

About Amalisa and the others being outside the walls. Yeah, I was initially pissed off that they did the same mistake GoT did by putting the defenders in front of the defenses, but as the scene went on, I could see that Amalisa was making a desperation move. Women are canonically worse at fire and lightning than men, right? And she was just barely trained - probably enough to not burn herself out or be dangerous. I'm pretty sure the Tower wouldn't have trained her in "apocalyptic lightning" weaves. So her decision to go outside is okay to me since there would have been a good chance she would blow the walls up. She's not good at control.

I feel that criticism is totally missing the point. The real point is that it was way overpowered. They had no angreal, but they could destroy a huge trolloc army? Pfft. No fucking way! Not when the Reds could barely deal with some ragtag army of... what? Two dozen people? Maybe the Red were particularly weak for Aes Sedai? Still not good, IMO.

Could it be that the show is giving the girls a huge power up compared to the books? Are they making Egwene and Nynaeve a match for Rand??? Surely not?!

Nonetheless, I'm still definitely gonna watch and enjoy the next season.

*shrugs* To me the show is entertaining. And we'll always have the books.

BTW, one last thing - I was super not pleased that they did the whole "oh noes, who of these five could the Dragon Reborn be?" but anecdotal evidence seems to show that non-book readers were really invested in that storyline, so I guess it worked.

 

In the book women are better with Air and Water and men with Earth and Fire. 

My own criticism is that they should have been at the Gap wall with her brother which would have helped the defense immensely and destroying the Trolloc army would have been more believable.

[Ran]

9 hours ago, Arakasi said:

My point on why in the field and not on the walls is they’re not trained and it’s likely going to be some random unleashing of power.

IF they had shown Amalisa's channeling unleashing bolts of lightning behind them and basically all around them with no control, or if that wave of Air that initially destroyed most of the army was shown to blast out in all directions rather than at the army, they would have sold it.

They didn't. The wave goes forward. The lightning bolts all take out trollocs. Nothing suggests she was going to destroy her own city.

I don't see what CG would have done differently if they had been standing on the outer walls to blast the army instead of standing out in the open. The trollocs would be pulped before they reached the walls, and that would have been it.  

I do agree that a more deliberate and slower taking out of the army was not dramatic enough for them and too much VFX work for their budget. Another place where the show is compromised. 

9 hours ago, karaddin said:

Oh come on this is just taking the piss. Everything the show has shown is consistent with the war of power having happened, including trollocs and myrdraal existing along with the Forsaken.

There's absolutely nothing on the screen or in dialog to suggest this was a desperate hour. You're using book knowledge about Forsaken and trollocs and Fades to explain away things the show ought to be laying down in the show to maintain a sense of what the situation actually was. A single line of dialog about how the war was going badly, about how they had lost half the world to the Dark One's forces, a single line from Latra about how the women having a better and safer plan, that's all that was needed. The writers -- Judkins specifically -- chose not to include one.

So from the perspective of someone who has not read the books? "Men are arrogant,  Lews Therin Broke the World for no real reason." 

The complete tonal weirdness of that scene at the start -- a pleasant, sunny place with a babbling baby, two people looking like they're having a polite argument over tea, a beautiful and peaceful city -- is a deliberate choice on their part. My guess is that they have the bright idea of hiding from viewers what the situation was, so that at some point they reveal the truth and they can non-readers to go, "Ooooh, the men were being heroes, not idiots."

[Arakasi]

I agree that even just having it there and having the power be uncontrolled (but still effective) would have been a good choice. The problem with how it’s presented there is it is too controlled in its effect. All they needed to do is a couple lines from Amalisa stating how they’re going to die and this is suicide and then having the power channellers be more wild (Aka a shot of power hitting the fortress as they lose control of it) would have been a hugely positive change for the episode. It would really lean into them needing to go to the tower to get trained. Instead we are not sure if these are a bunch of novices that did really well out of luck or if they should have been used in a more effective situation.

I think the Rand/Moiraine/Ishy parts were great so that would have made two really good parts to the episode. The Perrin/Fain stuff was effective in showing what his passivity has cost them from his fear of violence and just 2-3 minutes more on the girls would have been good. Kinda annoying since I think this was the shortest episode of the year or one of them. It was 4-5 minutes less than 7 and giving say 2-3 to the girls, 1-2 to Perrin and add one more to the prologue to talk about how bad the war was going would I think have worked much better.

[karaddin]

56 minutes ago, Ran said:

IF they had shown Amalisa's channeling unleashing bolts of lightning behind them and basically all around them with no control, or if that wave of Air that initially destroyed most of the army was shown to blast out in all directions rather than at the army, they would have sold it.

There's absolutely nothing on the screen or in dialog to suggest this was a desperate hour. You're using book knowledge about Forsaken and trollocs and Fades to explain away things the show ought to be laying down to maintain a sense of what the situation actually was. A single line of dialog about how the war was going badly, about how they had lost half the world to the Dark One's forces, a single line from Latra about how the women having a better and safer plan, that's all that was needed. The writers -- Judkins specifically -- chose not to include one.

So from the perspective of someone who has not read the books? "Men are arrogant,  Lews Therin Broke the World for no real reason." 

I think these are perfectly reasonable criticisms of the execution failing to show important details. In particular I think your suggestion about Amalisa would have made for a significantly stronger and clearer scene.

The show certainly did not spell out the war of shadow yet, that much is certainly true. I'm willing to accept that may be an intentional choice on their part and wait to see how it plays out longer term, but don't blame anyway for not liking it. I just reject the idea that this in any way indicates their long term plan is to retcon the war of shadow into not happening, which is what I thought you were suggesting.

I'm also stumped by how many are interpreting the show as taking a substantially different position on the rightness of Lews Therin and thinking that this is going with "the women were entirely right and the men were entirely wrong". Yeah, Moiraine had that assertion in the opening narration but the season made a significant point on multiple occasions that the current AS have very incomplete, distorted and self serving records of history. I did not interpret the scene in this episode as saying that at all - it did say he was arrogant, and that he caused the taint, but not that it was wrong to do so. Due to the above issue Ran cites about not making the desperate situation clear yet, I could see them wanting show only viewers to think that at this point but I do not think that's going to be the truth of the setting.

[Ran]

18 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The show certainly did not spell out the war of shadow yet, that much is certainly true. I'm willing to accept that may be an intentional choice on their part and wait to see how it plays out longer term, but don't blame anyway for not liking it. I just reject the idea that this in any way indicates their long term plan is to retcon the war of shadow into not happening, which is what I thought you were suggesting.

I even checked the bonus videos and they don't bring up the War of Power either when discussing the Breaking. It's bizzare.

I'm not convinced either way about what Judkins intends. But it's definitely true that the show has done everything possible to avoid talking about the actual stakes that ended the Age of Legends. Latra seems so casual and so unconcerned about inaction that it's very hard to understand how that fits with the book situation. It really seems more like a philosophical debate than anything indicating urgency. 

[karaddin]

I'd probably weigh that as a point in favor of "they want show only viewers to think the dragon was wrong" as a set up to subverting that later. I can't see what that could actually be setting up, but that's where it comes down to me being willing to give them time and I'll wait and see.

[Darryk]

Moraine's line to Logain "Your power is but a candle next to the raging sun that is the Dragon Reborn", which is so far the only great line of dialogue in the show IMO, really seemed to be foreshadowing Rand doing to the Trolloc army at the gap what he does in the books.

But instead they have five barely trained Aes Sedai wipe out the entire army.

They're putting a lot of emphasis on how powerful Nyneave is, which is all well and good, but it was a missed opportunity to announce the Dragon Reborn in dramatic fashion, and show the audience just why everyone is so afraid of this prophecy.

[Lin Meili]

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

My own criticism is that they should have been at the Gap wall with her brother which would have helped the defense immensely and destroying the Trolloc army would have been more believable.

Agelmar did cite that their tradition is that women stay in the city to defend it. And clearly he doesn't really listen to her, lol. He basically ignored everything she said while she was expected to obey his orders, which she did. I mean he is the ruler, not her so when he says "women stay behind, defend the city" then that's what they do.

Hmm would lightning be Air and Fire?

[Corvinus85]

42 minutes ago, Lin Meili said:

Hmm would lightning be Air and Fire?

Lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge. 

I think it would be just Air. Aes Sedai seem to use it a lot when in battle against Shadowspawn.

[fionwe1987]

Lightning is threads of Air and Fire.

I'm half way through the episode. I keep pausing and doing other things, because I'm so demotivated to finish. 

[Cas Stark]

It was weak.  The pacing was terrible and the characters that were killed didn't get enough screen time for me to care one way or the other.  It also feels like the same thing is happening over and over [the wheel, I know] which is in a pinch, the women all channel and boom, enemy destroyed, every time.  As I said before, I'm sure it feels more fully realized to book readers, but to this non book reader, it seems extremely haphazard and poorly developed.

[fionwe1987]

10 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

 I'm sure it feels more fully realized to book readers, but to this non book reader, it seems extremely haphazard and poorly developed.

To this book reader, it feels the same. The writers room isn't devoid of some decent ideas. But they also seem to delight in taking what nuance there is in the books and obliterating it. Maybe this is with the goal of a later "reveal", but it weakens the story.

[UnplayableChar]

Assuming Loial survives, fakeout deaths in episode 8:

Loial
Moiraine
Rand
Nynaeve
Probably Uno (the actor is contracted for season two apparently)

Is this possibly a TV record?

[Chad Vader]

Out of any of the 5 channelers not being burnt out I would expect it to be Nynaeve as she has such talked about power. Egwene should have been the one to be healed by Nynaeve imo

[SpaceChampion]

Nynaeve should have had a knife and just slit Amalisa's throat after all the Trollocs were exploded.  They could have set that up in Episode 4 with Liandrin drawing too much power after the gentling, and Steppin slapping her down or stabbing her, snapping her out of it.  Then Nynaeve heals everyone.

 

My guess is Mat was the one suppose to be knifed in the finale by Fain, not Loial.  That ought to have infected him once again too.  But then they forgot the point, and knifed Loial instead.