[Book Spoilers] Wheel of Time 3: Black Ajahpaloosa

[IFR]

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Are we really back to the "Who is the UBERSwordsman?" days? Lan is about as impressive in the show as he is in the books, at this stage. 

As for Nynaeve killing Trollocs, the women of Two Rivers stand against an entire horde, fairly successfully. 

This is a baffling argument, honestly. Lan is the best swordsman because he knows to stand his ground, take a hit, not give up, and keep on. The books show this, only, I dunno, a gazillion times? Lan is not the fastest. The strongest. The youngest. He's just all about not giving up, whether it's in New Spring or all the way in the end fighting Demandred. 

Come on. Lan went from a Geralt type character in the books to the weepy warrior with the trembling lips and the soulful eyes you see in the show. Every time he appears it's whiny Lan and his counseling session with the sensitive warders, who are either patiently listening to Lan talk about his problems or having threesomes with Alanna. So a bit different than the books. In the books, Lan would have occasional outbursts, but otherwise was very reserved. In the show, the outbursts are his character. Which I can't get enough of. Stephanie Meyer Lan is the best.

The fact that he needs Nynaeve to help him track Moiraine, and that his effectiveness in combat with a sword is only a slight bit better than a stilled woman with only a dagger really drives home that Lan perhaps is more in his element as a counseling patient than on the battlefield.

11 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Am I a bad person for enjoying the absolute anger certain youtubers are expressing over the show? The ones who wanted a drastically more faithful adaptation and use words like 'woke' and 'agenda'. 

Certainly not wrong here.

The criticisms, even if they apply terms that immediately associate them with hostile ideology in your mind, are correct. The show is "woke", if we define woke as prioritizing message over story. I don't want to go into details of how to define the message commonly understood by both sides as what "woke" is supposed to touch on, because I think everyone here is pretty familiar with the broad strokes - that usually isn't what is debated: whether the content being present is positive or not or whether its presence affects the story is what tends to be debated. 

The show has dramatically altered plotlines and the mechanics of the world reality in the books in order to facilitate a more progressive plotline and world mechanics. This is indisputable. (I think these changes have rendered the world and the general plot nonsensical, which I'm sure people will dispute.) Whether this is a positive thing is up to the viewer.

My criticism is that the show is not woke enough.

Think about it. What is the problem with this world? Humans. There aren't any Darkfriend bunnies as far as I understand it. The Dark One focuses its efforts into affecting higher sentient beings. Solution: everyone's gay. Just like that, humans die out, the Dragon and its antithesis cannot be reborn, and the Dark One has no agent to destroy reality, and the cycle of life and rebirth can continue peacefully. Lews Therin Telamon's real mistake wasn't to seal the Bore with only men. His mistake was to not immediately suggest that everyone should legally be gay.

Rand can have Mat and Perrin in his harem, and they can join the warders who would be overjoyed to have people who are into polyamory as much as they are. 

Everyone wins while the Dark One howls in rage at being eternally thwarted. Hopefully the show makes the necessary change to the end and lets the characters propose the obvious: the solution to the world's problems is to be gay.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

BTW, as regards the show, I really appreciated the fact that it had  Fades use their "travelling through shadows" in a fight, when they illogically never did so in the books, IIRC.

Ironically, if it had attacked her head on it would have presumably stood a better chance. I say presumably because I can also see Moiraine showing her skill with the dagger and disarming the Fade before striking it. But maybe the showrunners are saving that thrilling sequence for the future.

Edited September 14, 2023 by IFR

[Ran]

The Aiel have women fighting too.

I took his view on the matter in Randland being due to a female-dominated slant driven by the existence/influence of the White Tower and the Aes Sedai that basically men were seen as useful as soldiers but were also more expendable. You can see this attitude again and again among the Westlands women.

The Seanchan didn't have that influence (indeed, became led by a group that had a reactionary opposition to the Aes Sedai), and the Aiel have a very different culture.

[Gertrude]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

I took his view on the matter in Randland being due to a female-dominated slant driven by the existence/influence of the White Tower and the Aes Sedai that basically men were seen as useful as soldiers but were also more expendable. You can see this attitude again and again among the Westlands women.

Interesting take. I can see where that would fit, I just don't think it's really born out in the text, though, They never frame it that way. That would still leave room for female tacticians, just not their foot soldiers.

[fionwe1987]

Some of the most famous battle tacticians in the Westlands include women. RJ is very comfortable writing historical women who led big battles. He just wasn't able to conceive of female characters except Cadsuane and Elayne as able to take charge of a battle. That's why female warriors tend to be from other cultures, or deep in the past. 

That said, RJ did do a lot of work to explain why, especially over the past 1000 years, we've seen women leadeing armies go down. Andor's history is a huge part of that, as is the Tower's substantial weakening after Artur Hawkwing (who had women among his top generals). 

Its not a limitation the show should bother to keep, honestly. Its about as believable as the complete absence of gay men in the books. You cannot argue they don't exist, homosexuality is very rampant in this world... if you're a woman. Its just RJ's limitation as a writer (and person) that he could barely acknowledge the existence of male homosexuality.

As for the channelers in battle argument, no, we didn't really get cavalry charges and renaissance battle tactics left intact after LoC. Mat designs the Band, and the Legion of the Dragon, with Bashere, based exactly on what went wrong at Dumai's Well's. Channelers are immensely deadly when concentrated and faced with an approaching line of soldiers. The battles in against the Seanchan in Altara, Ituralde's battles against the Seanchan in Tarabon, Mat's northern Altara campaign, the Tower's standoff... all show the non-channeler commanders making alterations to their tactics to account for channelers. The best thing you can do is not allow them to concentrate, and thheir best strategies are all about taking out the armies divided. Ituralde also does the coolest thing: herds the battle towards an abandoned Ogier Stedding to neutralize the channelers. 

Anyone saying the post LoC books don't reckon with channelers and how battle must evolve in response simply didn't read the books very well.

The show has a tough job. This is the end of the world, the big final battle. If it is a buch of channelers trading CGI weaves, that totally take away from the viewer getting any sense of urgency.

What they should do is have the channelers go back to the tactics used by the Tower in the Trolloc Wars, which was to have a complement of channelers with each unit, integrated into that unit. I think Sanderson totally botched the Last Battle by not having it happen. There were certainly signs before that we were leading up to this, especially with Perrin's battles. Then it all went nowhere.

 

 

[IlyaP]

11 hours ago, IFR said:

My criticism is that the show is not woke enough.

So you...want it to be more aware and alert to racial prejudices and discrimination? I suppose that is an angle that could be analysed in WoT. Though it's been so long since I've read the books, I don't know what the best angle could/would be for something like that. On this, I will defer to @Ran, who clearly knows the books better than I. 

[SpaceChampion]

Lots of worldbuilding this ep.

[Corvinus85]

Interesting episode, much better than the previous. I do have criticisms, of course, but I thought there was enough good in this one to outweigh the bad.

I will start with Ishamael (and Fain)

Spoiler

At first I was WTF when Suroth was giving him attitude despite knowing what he is. A different take from the book. Book Ishamael pretty much would have summoned a couple of Fades to deal with Suroth. But here he asserts his dominance with a quiet line. Interesting, and not bad. And he was more menacing with Lanfear.

I don't know why the show decided to have him influence the Seanchan, and now directly Turak, instead of Fain. This episode reinforces what I said previously about Fain - he is still just a Darkfriend and maybe only the dagger will corrupt him in time. Or they may have decided to greatly reduce Fain's role for the rest of the seasons, leave him a medium-level DF, give more of his stuff to Ishy, and the part with the wound on Rand is given to Mat as per Min's vision. I don't know that I like that. And speaking of...

Mat has been in this season little enough, now totally absent from an episode. Come on show, what are you doing?

Lanfear

Spoiler

Really, no Travelling? The actress must love riding horses. She did a good job, too, in her scene with Ishy, but I was not a fan of her outfit at the end - that was more Graendal + Mesaana. Speaking of...

All the Forsaken - I guess we will only have three female Forsaken, and likely 5 male. hmm...

Perrin (and spoiler). I agree with whomever else said that Perrin's actor is not good. He's just not the guy to carry important scenes. I also don't understand why they nerfed his rage, considering what he did in the beginning. 

Spoiler

He should have tore through those Whitecloaks like he did in the book. Sure, Aviendha was always going to be the one doing the "heavy lifting" in that fight scene, like Gaul in the book, but come on. What is it with this show nerfing so many of the male warrior characters? At least he finally has his axe.

I liked Aviendha, even if the actress is a little short.  However, her declaring she has toh towards Perrin made me wonder how things will go down once Rand enters the picture.

Interesting that they made Dain a pleasant guy, but that's actually not really breaking book lore.

I've decided I don't like how we're given Perrin's wolf sight. Why the CGI apparitions, when they could have easily put actual shots, fast moving and such, but with a different background color to signify he's seeing through wolf eyes? And I really need to strongly hold on to my suspension of disbelief whenever those small dogs are around Perrin. 

Rand and Moiraine - I don't really have much to say. Some changes to other Cairhienin characters that setup things differently, but still with promise. My biggest criticism for Rand is that I still haven't seen any obvious ta'veren powers. I don't even recall the show explaining what a ta'veren is, despite dropping that name right away back in season 1.

The girls and Liandrin - I am shocked that out of all the book characters, Liandrin has been made into such a sympathetic one. I'm OK with it. Plenty of time to get other Aes Sedai who are just psychos and power-hungry tyrants. Slightly disappointed in the writing for Nynaeve in this episode - are the writers afraid to allow her to give into anger more often? Granted, I believe Elayne was the one to act right away in the book, too, and it was fine to give her the chance to shine. Sadly to little of Egwene, but...

Spoiler

her leashing scene was quite good. I guess the "collars" don't look so bad after seeing the installation process, and they literally put a leash on her. And then they cut away. sigh

The Seanchan have also been somewhat nerfed, but for the most part I've liked them, especially the part with Turak and Suroth. 

Spoiler

They can't hold much beyond Falme? They got driven out from a village by Whitecloaks? An Aes Sedai is still able to hide from them in the city? Maybe this last one isn't merited, maybe the show has made the average Aes Sedai more capable than Jordan did, because the Seanchan easily caught all the AS in Falme when they arrived.

Does Turak not have a solar or something? He's still holding court outside at night. How silly.

There are camels in Randland. Some nice varied worldbuilding.

And lastly, and certainly not the least at all, Verin. All I can say, well done show, Verin FTW. And nice to see Katie Leung (Cho Chang from Harry Potter) here. Given she is still using her Scottish accent, I assume her character is from Illian.

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Corvinus85

[SpaceChampion]

30 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

The Seanchan have also been somewhat nerfed,

It's only the Forerunners so far.  That they can only take Toman Head or just Falme seems consistent with the books to me.

[Corvinus85]

51 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

It's only the Forerunners so far.  That they can only take Toman Head or just Falme seems consistent with the books to me.

In the books Tarabon and Arad Doman sent armies against them to drive them out and got thoroughly smashed.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Corvinus85

[Gertrude]

I feel like they set us up for disappointment with their episode titles. Last week was Daughter of the Night and we barely got any of Lanfear. This one is called Damane and it was one of the shortest arcs in the show. What we got was good and impactful (the reveal, the collar) but damn :p

I love Verin. I think they did a decent job of portraying her as sharp, but keeping her casual and not someone you'd expect to be on the ball at all times. Having her be lost in the clouds might take too much screen time to get across properly. It's not exactly right, but close enough that I don't care. Also some confirmation that the switching won't get used as liberally as the books :p

Perrin and Aviendha: I suspect that Avi will save Perrin's life at some point and decide her toh is met. In the meantime, I enjoy how they set that up. Love that Dain got in a jab at Valda "there are no wolves here." I saw the axe, but didn't see them take it - I'll have to check.

Lanfear was appropriately scary. I was very taken aback at the ending of the last episode, but I do think they covered it and I am much more comfortable with this interpretation for the reasons we all talked about. They are mortal, just given great gifts from their master and one of them is that connection. Cool, I can buy that.

As for Traveling, Sure, she could get to Tar Valon quicker, but she couldn't track the horses that way and we see that being in TV would have done her no good. Her and Ishy's convo was good - I like how they introduced us into TAR. Can't wait for future scenes with more forsaken. So I'm pretty sure Stepin's statues showed 4 women, but I can forgive that if they decided to change things up at some point. I'm guessing the boys are Demandred, Asmodean, Samael and Rhavin. Could explain why we're seeing Caemlyn next season. (ok, I checked the statues here and the one people were thinking was a woman could be a man wearing a funky headdress (last photo). It does look vaguely feminine, but not enough that it matters.)

Moiraine dumping Rand into the middle of her family was kind of funny. He was just mildly confused the whole time. I do like that they brought in Moiraine's family and I think this is an interesting facet of Moiraine to see, and interesting for Rand to see as well. Barthanes seems like a right twat and something is going down at this wedding, right?

Where's Mat?!? I'm getting impatient with this. I don't know what I would cut, but come one - give us more Mat. I'm begging you. Elayne's Hermione energy just keeps going up. I get it, she's well educated, but they really are just giving her the all the exposition dialog, aren't they? I do like how we are seeing the beginnings of their dynamic - Nyneave expecting to be in control and Elayne calmly laying down the law and showing her why she's being stupid. I expect to see Egwene going through some shit next week. I hope they keep the tone of brutality combined with training a mischievous pet.

I'm also wondering what the connective thread between the cold opens is. Last season it was backstory - all in the past. This time it seemed like perhaps each one started in Dreams or an altered state of reality, but then this one broke it. Shame, I kind of liked the way they did the cold opens last season. It would have been nice if they at least kept to a pattern each season.

I was speculating that it would be Perrin introducing us to TAR this season - I had totally neglected to take Lanfear into account. Stupid me.

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Gertrude

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

All the Forsaken - I guess we will only have three female Forsaken, and likely 5 male. hmm...

I'm going to jump off into speculation here as I think we got enough to get a pretty good idea of some of the long term changes now...

So we now have Ishamael, Lanfear, Moggy, Graendal hard confirmed and Asmodean soft confirmed along with 3 other boys (assuming the 8 number is solid, which I'm taking as given now we know 2 of the women are cut). The show seems to be playing up Lanfear and sadism so I think she's going to absorb some of Semirhage up to that critical climax in TGS. I think this makes it extremely likely the Moiraine and Lanfear confrontation and "deaths" are cut or drastically changed

37 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I'm guessing the boys are Demandred, Asmodean, Samael and Rhavin. Could explain why we're seeing Caemlyn next season. (ok, I checked the statues here and the one people were thinking was a woman could be a man wearing a funky headdress (last photo). It does look vaguely feminine, but not enough that it matters.)

Moiraine dumping Rand into the middle of her family was kind of funny. He was just mildly confused the whole time. I do like that they brought in Moiraine's family and I think this is an interesting facet of Moiraine to see, and interesting for Rand to see as well. Barthanes seems like a right twat and something is going down at this wedding, right.

I think that's probably on the money for the rest, although Rahvin doesn't really have much to him - you could swap names with someone else and if he's still in Caemlyn I'd consider that Rahvin anyway. I'm still holding out hope for Taimandred, but if they don't do that I think Taim could be promoted to Chosen earlier in the story and have that play a political role within the Forsaken so that there's value out of him not being Demandred.

I'm also loving Verin. I like that Sheriam had a real "oh fuck, this isn't going to be a fun conversation" face on when Verin slid into her office.

[Gertrude]

Rahvin doesn't last long anyway, so in and out in Caemlyn is fine for me. The only important thing he does is drive Morgause away to clear the way for Elayne. If he's in, we get a reason to be in Caemlyn as well as seeing Morgause's plot (which should be cut to the bone - just getting her out of the city is all we really need). I would love a Taimandred, honestly, I was never satisfied with his surprise role at the end. Too out of the blue for my tastes. He was also pretty absent in the books, and if he is going to play a role, he needs something to actually DO. So while I can see reasons for and against Taimandred, it really depends on how they see the end of the series playing out.

[Gertrude]

Just had a thought - we had book spoilers in the thread title for the last thread. Shouldn't we have them here too?

[Arakasi]

I think that’s the best episode of the series. Really strong stuff this year. Great acting and the plot moved along nicely.

[karaddin]

Another subtle detail I liked here is that Liandrin seems to know how to tie off weaves. I don't think Machin Shin is responsive to the DO? So channeling inside the Ways should be a nono, but given we were with Nyn's point of view we also should have seen them if she was actively holding the shields anyway.

[karaddin]

Apologies for double posting, also wanted to give props to the actor for Dain. As soon as he appeared he was oozing "Whitecloak" and I spent the rest of the time he was on screen worrying about Hopper.

[SpaceChampion]

I imagine they'll smooth out the Perrin/Whitecloak conflict over the whole series instead of making it relatively absent in the middle slog.  I can't see them killing Morgase because she is the most appropriate judge for his trial, but I imagine modifications to it so she's not quite so removed from everyone else's storyline for so long.  Perhaps she'll end up under Seanchan rule as da'covale or something, quietly trying to start a resistance.

Edited September 15, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[Arakasi]

One thing just comparing this to Witcher is casting. Lanfears actress here would have made a much better Yennefer than what we got. Not that the Yennefer actress was bad but she was just too young. You need someone for these characters to be a more mature adult and I’m happy they didn’t make the Lanfear actress super young.

[Werthead]

That was a strong episode, covered a lot of ground, introduced a bunch of important characters (Barthanes, Turak, Aviendha), had some of the best channelling scenes to date (Lanfear just bopping the guy's head off instantly without any of the swirling lights for several seconds first we've seen from modern channellers). Some weird elements, like making Moiraine's sister such a big thing (but any excuse to see more of Lindsay Duncan, who damn doesn't look to have aged a day since Rome, almost twenty years ago), but not too bad.

It's not going to win any Emmies, or seriously challenge House of the Dragon, but it's become pretty solid.

[Corvinus85]

I noticed there was some snow in Cairhien. I wonder if the show intends to do the DO's influence on the weather subplot. I think about the end of book 3 the DO starts the global warming scheme, if I recall.

And Toman's Head is at least at the same latitude, but its geography includes palm trees and it looks warm.