raspberryandsilverwitches

[raspberryandsilverwitches]

Thom: Ah, yes, I remember you, boy, you left me to die fighting a Fade on my own

Mat: Yes! :D That's me! :D Friend :D <3

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remember to always be an annoying feminist killjoy bitch. do not stop.

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This really was the Empire Strikes Back of season endings. Like, we are all fucked.

Rand has secured the army that he absolutely needs -- and the Aiel found their chosen one -- but the Aiel have had their worldview shattered and Rand as a person is deteriorating with no sign of rescue in sight.

Egwene followed her own moral compass out of the Tower and into the Aiel Waste, and I hardly need to recap how that's going for her. Aviendha is duty-bound to a leader whose worst failings she's seen in far too personal a way (and she might've fallen for romantically at the same time). Back in Two Rivers, Perrin protected his loved ones -- but now his life is in the hands of a legal system he knows to be unjust.

Moiraine and Lan, again, I hardly need to summarize. Technically, they accomplished everything they set out to in this finale, that being "protect Rand from Lanfear or die trying." Now Moiraine wishes she was dead. And Lan's duty is perhaps heavier on him than it has ever been.

Wondergirls (Y Mat!) failed so badly in Tanchico that they actually wound up collecting two of the three artifacts and delivering them right into the villains' hands. Despite having some personal breakthroughs along the way, the best they managed to do in their mission was escape with their lives (and this DILF they found). Oh and Mat is cursed again by some new shit we've never even heard of before, because of course he is.

So now they're sailing away... towards the discovery that things are even worse. Up till now there was one person on the Light side with geopolitical power. Reinforcements, a physical safe haven, a hub of hard and soft power in the world at large. But all that power turned out to be a house of cards, and she fucking DIED.

The good guys who came out of this finale with the lightest burden were Siuan and Melindhra, because they fucking DIED. Siuan fought all season and lost everything but her integrity, her love -- her soul, both figuratively and literally. Melindhra quite literally lost her soul itself for one dying act of heroism.

From out here, we can see how hollow the triumphs of the antagonists are. Liandrin, completely lost as a human being, foreswearing even her love for her child. Elaida, dictator of an empty palace, feeling so righteous as she unwittingly elevates the Black Ajah and murders the real hero of the Tower. But however empty it is, they still do control the horizontal and the vertical. Everything is in question. The next safe harbor is unknown. We stand on the deck of the Rebel medical frigate Seafolk ship and look to the sky -- which doesn't have any answers either.

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Me when it's thursday and there is no new episode

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I'm obsessed with the fact that before they entered the panarch palace, Nynaeve told everyone that whoever finds the collar should leave immediately and not wait for the rest of them. Then when she was the one who found the collar, she was impatiently and nervously waiting for all of them. She could have followed her own orders, but of course she didn't. She's the mama bear after all🥺.

[raspberryandsilverwitches]

STOP no more live-action remakes. We're going the other way now. Animated Casablanca. Animated The Godfather. Animated Oppenheimer. Animated Fight Club.

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I am so in love with the type of fantasy the Wheel of time chooses to be.

Perrin wins by sparing the bad guy's life; Loial sacrifices himself not by fighting but by destroying his people's work; those not fighting are essential for saving lives and preserving the Two Rivers' legacy (in a stunning parallel to the Fall of Manetheren where the past lived on because some people didn't fight but fled to carry on life in the Two Rivers.)

Warriors and armies are important but those who made the difference here are the ones who pointedly didn't fight.

This gives me so much hope for the boys' and Lan's later arcs because it seems the show is leaning more into strength not being raw power and existing in different shapes.

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wheel of time continues to serve beautiful visuals

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How far into the development of agriculture do you think people got before someone made the first "good soil is like a good woman" -joke?

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One of my controversial takes is that I kind of hate the term "rejection sensitive dysphoria" wrt adhd because it's so clearly the same thing as being anxious and insecure in relationships w trauma based disorders but people talk about it like it's just an intrinsic part of your brain that you're simply Too Sensitive & not, like, a consequence of every neurodivergent person alive being bullied as a child. Like that thing of how there aren't any non-traumatized autistic people to study

[raspberryandsilverwitches]

Okay but Siuan saying "it's not power or symbols of power that make you who you are it's you and what you choose to do with power/yourself" like, basically you choose to be good or bad, to stand in the Light or not? That you, person have the agency and therefore the power to change the world for better or worse? And how when she asks "what will you do?" she's not only talking to the women around her, but to the audience too?

You can disagree with a lot of the stuff they chose to do for the finale, but I think that her speech was pretty on point.

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I’m obsessed with the way show Siuan approaches conversations, ESPECIALLY that scene with Mat. She’s so affable and kind to start all those interactions, especially the informal ones in her study, and then she starts really working the power plays. Like when she let Mat start their conversation with his braggadocios showboating moment and was just indulging him while they sit together until the point where she flips the conversation on him and, still being extremely kind and affable, stands up to change their positional dynamic in her favor before she politely informs him how fucking idiotic he’s been flaunting the horn of Valere all over the place and gets him to give it to her for safekeeping.

Just a masterclass in daes dae’mar all the time with her.

AND OF COURSE the back and forth power games she was playing with Morgase that whole episode AUGH Siuan Sanche the woman that you are!!! Obsessed!!!!!!!

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i do like the express mention of the hollowness of elaida's title. the fact that she had to send basically all the sisters away to achieve her goal. she's presiding over a shell, self-satisfied as she watches her office decorated as if the amyrlin seat is made by how it presents. something like a halo on her head as she sits but no shots of any other sister as siuan makes her point. she might have plans for the dragon but she never talks about the last battle. she's still clad in mostly red because what matters is she won.

she really does stand for nothing. her triumph is made futile by that fact alone.

[raspberryandsilverwitches]

One thing imma say is that actors’ schedules have been noticeably a problem this season even before Siuan. It’s the reason why Ihvon was killed instead of Maksim. It’s the reason why Tam and Bran and Abell didn’t show up in the Two Rivers when they absolutely should have. And it’s not something I blame the actors for or necessarily even production. Like no one should or could be expected to make room in their work schedules for years in advance for a show that might not even be picked up for additional seasons. Of course actors will take other jobs and of course production can’t plan for that when they don’t even know when they would be needed for filming again because the show isn’t being green lit and funded in a timely manner. People can’t just start allocating their time and resources and schedules if Amazon isn’t greenlighting until production has been wrapped for a year. You can’t expect people to commit time for a project that has huge gaps in between when they’ll actually be working.

And sadly this is just kinda the state with television now not a WoT specific thing. Look at another very successful on Prime, Fallout, which came out a literal year ago and is only just filming its second season now. It was extremely successful and always gonna get additional seasons but it’s gonna be at least another year before the second season is out. Are all of those actors expected to keep their schedules blank for the next three years just in case they need to film season 3 in 2027? Like it’s ridiculous that every show is just like this now. It’s absolutely not gonna happen for that show and it’s not gonna happen for WoT.

And I’m not saying people shouldn’t be angry about it. Absolutely be angry and upset and complain about how these shows are made. And like I wanna say “but do it where these companies will see your complaints” but in honestly not sure they care. Probably better trying to get their attention than doing nothing tho

[raspberryandsilverwitches]

I adore this scene in the books, it’s what my Laneave-loving heart had been waiting *ages* for. But for Nynaeve to do it all on her own, in the setting of finally trusting herself, is such a triumph.

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Not a popular opinion on tumblr I know but I would argue character death is good for stories, actually, and often a death with long narrative consequences is much better use of a character than having them linger with no more important plot beats to hit.

Character death isn’t writers being mean to viewers or something characters don’t “deserve,” it’s an important part of narrative and plotting to give stories stakes and emotional beats. The work making you have an emotion is in fact the point, not something to avoid.

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still coping and still not trying to make people feel like they need to be ok with the decision, but it does feel nice that it at least seems like the Salidar Aes Sedai will be more focused on avenging Siuan and holding her up as hero rather than like...how they actually treated Siuan in the books