#I do love that we get a lot of moiraine in the dragon reborn

[deeplyridiculouslyinlove]

Not sure why but this week in particular I am in my feels about how much I miss Rosamund/show! Moiraine. Truly I am DESPERATE for Season 3. Please bestow on us a trailer or something soon, we deserve it 🥺🥺

[butterflydm]

Wheel of Time 3x04 Deep Dive (show spoilers)

We have so much to talk about. Spoilers through 3x04 of the show.

We start with Lan training Rand with the sword, while Moiraine keeps a watchful eye on them from afar.

This conversation does a lot to set up the heritage exploration that we're about to get in this episode, by Lan asking Rand about his feelings about the Aiel, and about his (adopted) father who raised him. It's great to get a check-in on Rand's headspace and we also see here what Rand explained to Moiraine back in 3x02 -- he talks to Lan because Lan actually listens to him. To him, the person Rand al'Thor, not to the idea of the Dragon Reborn. When Rand talks about his father and his feelings about his home, Lan doesn't try to tell him that he needs to stop caring about that. He listens. He encourages Rand to use the lessons of his father to help him in his current journey (the flame and the void) just as much as he encourages Rand to open himself up to the idea of finding home among the Aiel.

This conversation sets up several things about the past that we're going to see Rand dip into, that will allow him to emotionally connect with the journey of his ancestors -- Rand's love of the land and of doing things with his own hands (which will be echoed in Charn), that Rand was raising learning how to use tools that can be used as weapons (the bow) but not weapons that only exist as weapons (his father's sword) - this is echoed in Lewin declaring that he will use a bow or a spear, but not a sword.

This becomes more obvious later on, but Moiraine and Rand are clothing-matching again -- they are both wearing the pale top with the darker trousers/skirt. Meanwhile, Egwene (who echoed Moiraine in s1) is in an outfit that more resembles what we've seen Lanfear wearing in TAR in s2 than anything that we've ever seen Moiraine wear. As Bair says later this episode, Egwene's path no longer aligns with Rand's (and Moiraine's) and it's time for her to seek out her own path. Lanfear is a master of TAR and we've learned that Egwene also has a talent in that direction. There's also the romantic similarities, in that they are both still firmly attached to Rand at this point.

Lan really does such a good job connecting with Rand here. He asks a question, gets an answer, gives Rand positive feedback for being open with him, and asks another question that's on a related topic, leading to yet more open vulnerability from Rand. The contrast between Lan's conversations with Rand in this episode vs Moiraine's with Rand are striking. I am very interested to see how that might change in 3x05, as Moiraine and Rand process the traumas that they went through (separately but, in some ways, together).

Because of this, we learn about the flame and the void, a concentration trick that Rand's father taught him when teaching him how to use the bow (and if you go back and watch 1x07, Rand is definitely using it there as he processes his feelings about admitting to himself that he's the Dragon Reborn). We learn that Rand feels some emotional uncertainty over how much he doesn't know about his father. He'd known that his father was a soldier, but not what it meant. His father raised him to understand their life in the Two Rivers, not to be a warrior. We are allowed to sink into his love for his home in a way that Moiraine didn't allow him to do when he tried to share this with her.

And Lan gently encourages Rand to think about the present, after letting him talk himself out about the Two Rivers first.

Rand's little metaphor about the lamb is great. Much like Siuan's constant fish metaphors, it shows how deeply he was marked by the way that he was raised, but it also shows that he understands the situation that he's in. He was the lamb marked by their new parents. He was accepted and loved by the Two Rivers. The world of the Aiel is not the world that he knows or understands.

And Lan asks an important question: does Rand want to be part of the Aiel?

Rand essentially side-steps the question - "There's so many things I can't be. It would be nice to find something I can."

He is looking for some sense of belonging and home, since he's been told he can never go back to the Two Rivers. But he doubts he can find it among the Aiel. But... it would be nice.

When Rand smiles this season so far, it's pretty much always because someone is treating him like a person and not a prophecy or a pawn -- Mat and Perrin in 3x01; Elayne in 3x01; at Lan here when he calls Rand "sheepherder" and at Aviendha at the end of the episode when she's still calling him "wetlander" even though she knows he's the Car'a'carn now. All Rand really wants from people right now is that they treat him like a person (and like a grown man and not a boy, looking at you, Moiraine). Lan does such a good job of being a mentor here without treating Rand like a child.

We shift from Lan treating Rand like a person to Moiraine watching him like he's a bomb that could go off at any moment.

Though she and Siuan came to different conclusions about what to do about the Dragon Reborn in 2x07, I think they still thought of him in a similar way -- as the most powerful weapon that the Light has against the Dark One, a weapon that can potentially turn in their hands and be used against them. Though Moiraine has come to trust Rand (to a certain extent), she still tries to manipulate him into doing what she believes is best for fulfilling his destiny.

Moiraine and Ishamael had the exact same approach to Rand in s1/2 -- if he can be on my side, that's great. Otherwise, I should kill him because if he's not with me then he's my most dangerous opponent. Ishamael at the Eye of the World definitely had a game recognizes game moment with Moiraine. Which might be part of why he only shielded her instead of killing her.

Moiraine and Egwene have dinner with Bair and Melaine, and get themselves some information about the Aiel -- "water and shade, freely given" tells us what is valuable to the Aiel. "All here are welcome as first-sisters are welcome" tells us that first-sisters are a marker of closeness and trust.

Egwene asks after what appear to be servants, asking if they are restricted to the Wise Ones, and we learn about gai'shain -- something I'm wondering is if gai'shain existed before Rhuidean was established, or if this is a custom that the Wise Ones and clan chiefs put into place after they learned their heritage and the paths of their ancestors. A way to allow their people to honor the old ways without learning about those ways in detail.

If you're able to touch your enemy without hurting or killing them, then that enemy is bound to you, to serve you peacefully and do no harm. I feel like someone who has just been traumatized by living through their past generations might come up with an idea like that.

I'm not going to get too into some of the Wise One-related stuff here, because what with Aviendha becoming an apprentice and Egwene learning Dreamwalking from them, I assume that we'll get more detail in 3x05. And we just get tastes here -- Bair says they have ways of seeing the future but doesn't go into detail.

"We did not see Egwene at all."

I do think this is part of why Bair dismisses Egwene as being relevant to Rand's path -- it seems clear that however they saw the future here, whether by the rings or some other means (we know of two others -- Foretelling, as practiced by Elaida and Gitara; and Min's viewings), it was focused on Rand.

And Egwene wasn't there.

She wasn't relevant to Rand's journey into Rhuidean (bit of self-fulfilling prophecy, since we can assume part of the reason Bair says that she wouldn't say 'yes' to Egwene is because they didn't see her there but the reason she wouldn't be there is because Bair wouldn't say yes... etc) and so Bair thinks that it's best for the two of them to adjust to that idea as quickly as possible.

"It was no more than an even chance that the young man who calls himself Rand al'Thor would come." "If he did not, it was certain he would die, and the Aiel too."

What this tells Moiraine (whether or not she listens to it or believes it is up to her) is that if Rand had listened to her, he would have died. If Rand's guess is correct that the Forsaken are waiting for him at Callandor, if it's a trap... then the Aiel believe him walking that path would have killed him. Moiraine's belief in her interpretation of prophecy was wrong. Lanfear's drive to get Rand more power was wrong.

Rand's instincts to stay away from Tear and Callandor were right, as was his decision to listen to Elayne's advice.

"If he survives Rhuidean, at least some of the Aiel will survive. This we know."

A comfort and a burden. To know that the end of your people approaches, and yet you can save some small fraction of them. Unknown how many, but every clan chief knows that the Aiel have survived some pretty sharp population bottlenecks in the past. They will survive this one. As long as Rand survives Rhuidean, at least some Aiel will survive.

Melaine also mentions that if Moiraine hadn't come, she would have died. If Lan hadn't come, Moiraine would have died. If she doesn't go to Rhuidean...

And Bair chastises Melaine for saying too much. At least it's not just Rand who doesn't get told the details about his trial! But we learn from what Bair and Melaine say that the reason they didn't want her to know is because they'd always seen her as asking them first, without being told, so that might also be why Rand isn't supposed to know too much as well.

So far, it doesn't seem essential to Moiraine's survival that Lan is here in the Waste, but he's, you know, pretty useful, so I'm sure we'll understand what that means by the end of the season (I wonder if that's a path where Lan decided to stay with Nynaeve in the Tower).

Aviendha picking fights with Rand and then with Lan. In context of what's about to happen, her annoyance at Rand is very shaded with her feelings about herself. He is not following the Aiel way -- she is also defying the Aiel way by not attending to her duty to become a Wise One.

Aviendha puts Rand on the ground pretty easily but he also seems too startled to even think of fighting back. This moment with Rand and the echoing moment we get at the end of the episode, when Rand has seen why Aiel have their laws about swords... it's so good.

Aviendha and Lan have a good round and are ready for a second when Melaine and Bair interrupt to tell Aviendha, "it is time".

I'm glad that Aviendha was able to get a last good fight in before she has to give up her spears.

Rand (and Lan, and Moiraine, and Egwene) all learn here that Aviendha has been avoiding her duty. She was called to be a Wise One but instead "went across the Dragonwall in search of the Car'a'carn".

"You cannot run from what you must be." And we can see Rand in the background of Aviendha's shot here! Perfect! Yes, that does apply to both of them. They have this in common -- a duty to the Aiel people that they are expected to perform.

It's so difficult for Aviendha to give her spears away. Baby!

So, echoes of the White Tower Accepted Test in this conversation (or maybe they're both echoing older rituals). Like Leane told Nynaeve and Egwene, Bair tells Aviendha that she also first refused when called. And we have the three rings vs the three arches -- fears vs futures. The tests that people face helps shape the society that they live in.

"I learned my duty. My obligation to the people." But she dreams of still being a Maiden of the Spear when she visits TAR by herself. She knows her duty, but still misses what she used to have.

Another shot of Rand behind Aviendha on that second line. They both have an obligation to the Aiel people.

Rand sees Aviendha's ritual request to enter Rhuidean here, and the copies it the next day when he asks leave himself -- Couladin says that Rand asked "like a woman", so presumably the ritual to request to become a clan chief differs from this one, and Rand did the wrong ritual.

Melaine does give Aviendha a last bit of reassurance before she leaves -- "a strong mind and a strong heart are your weapons now."

Moiraine comes over for a chat with Rand, telling him that he doesn't need to go through with this dangerous ritual yet, accusing him of arrogance, and refusing to say that she's willing to trust him to carry out his own plans without interfering. So. You know. Doesn't go great.

I do understand Moiraine's point of view. She has been doing this for twenty years (well, twenty-one now) and Rand has only been consciously working towards this for... well, less than a year, because for at least six months, he thought the Dark One had already been killed and he was just resigning himself a short life where he was destined to go mad and die early. But there's a reason why Rand listened to Elayne. There's a reason why he listens to Lan.

Both of them offered him advice but neither of them tried to force or manipulate him into taking that advice, and also didn't beat him over the head with it for a month. Moiraine also was apparently giving Rand the silent treatment for a portion of their journey towards the Waste because she was mad at him for not going to Tear.

Verin warned her about this in 3x01 -- she does not have the ability to control Rand. He is not isolated and under her control. He is free-ranging in the world and he is going to make his own choices. All that she can do is offer advice and support, if she wants. If she tries to make his choices for him, he will resist (and all of this can also be applied to Rand & Lanfear, though Lanfear has already started trying to change her tactics to be more effective).

Verin asks Moiraine to think about whether or not she can trust Rand al'Thor -- the person, not the figure of prophecy that she's been chasing. Not the weapon that the White Tower can use against the Shadow. Can she trust Rand to make the right decisions?

Right now, she doesn't. She trusted him to break the seal that Ishamael put on her, but she doesn't trust him to make the right choices when it comes to his path. She sided with Lanfear over Rand when it came to what Rand should do next (perhaps because Lanfear helped Rand fulfill his part of his destiny at Falme, while Rand went for personal reasons instead of going to proclaim himself as Dragon?).

Rand doesn't snap at Moiraine here. He doesn't lose his temper. He speaks calmly and clearly. This is what I need from you in order to trust you -- can you give it to me? No? Then I am not willing to trust you with my plans for the future.

Rand is very very clear with Moiraine on exactly what he needs from her. He reaches out towards her multiple times in the early episodes to try to share something with her and she never reaches back. Contrast him talking about home with Lan vs how Moiraine shuts down the conversation in 3x01. Contrast this scene of Moiraine trying to find out what he's thinking vs Elayne being able to successfully give him the advice to go to the Waste instead of going to Tear. There are ways to reach Rand and he doesn't even try to hide them from Moiraine. Tell me that if I trust you with my plans, you won't work to undermine them. Say it plainly, so I know there are no loopholes.

She can't. And until she can, she and Rand are at an impasse.

She doesn't know him because she has been unable to relax her grip enough to get to know him. She accuses him of arrogance when he's expressing an acceptance of what he must do. Again, echoes of Lanfear, who believes that Rand shares her dream of a large life because she's projected that onto him, not actually listening to what he's told her about what he wants out of life.

"You've never tried to help me, Moiraine." Me, Rand al'Thor. Not the Dragon that you've been building up in your head for the last twenty years. Trying to sweep someone along to follow the path you've designed for them is not 'help', though Moiraine believes that it is.

This is such a fantastic conversation.

"It's not good enough, Moiraine."

She has to meet him where he is. That's what being an advisor is about. But she never actually learned how to be an advisor. All those years of chasing, and the Dragon Reborn ended up being a stubborn young man who is a person and not an idea. She can't mold him. It's too late for that. But she needs to admit that to herself before she can do anything different than what she's been doing.

"Chiefs can only speak of the city to others who have been." It really is fascinating how Latra set up this division between the leaders who know the truth about their past, and the general population, who have been left in the dark. We have not yet been told in the show how many clans there are (and thus how many clan chiefs) but it is still a very small percentage of their people either way.

We get a glimpse of the dragon on Rhuarc's arm here, confirming to Rand that he made the right choice in coming here -- these are the People of the Dragon and he needs them before he goes to Tear. His instincts were correct to avoid Tear, and to listen to Elayne's advice. That must have been a nice internal reassurance for him to trust his instincts!

And now we meet the Shaido. So... the Shaido. I am going to share my theory about Aiel bloodlines.

@sixth-light made a post about this, but it's interesting to think about which of Rand's ancestors (if any) is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all Aiel. I am going to poke at that idea a bit as we go backwards in time. We know that all the Aiel shared some common experiences, but how many bloodlines came down from the time of Charn, before the Breaking of the World? Did multiple bloodlines survive over the course of the last three-thousand years, or was it only his? We see the Aiel bottleneck pretty sharply over the course of Rand's journey backwards through time, but there are also hints that other bloodlines might have survived to the present day.

I'll go over those once we get to Rhuidean, but this is my general theory (it is show-specific) -- I think that each of the different Aiel clans is from a different bloodline going back to the days of the Bore, and that's why the Taardad Aiel are the ones who seem the most keen on searching out the Car'a'carn*. They were the ones gifted with the sa'angreal. They were the ones who successfully brought their chora tree to the place that would become Rhuidean. They were the ones who spoke with Mierin Sedai before she broke open the Pattern and released the Dark One.

(*I will say that there is a caveat to this but it is spoilers beyond what I have marked down, and we may learn it via the show in the next couple of episodes)

That's the theory that I have prior to rewatching the related scenes. Now I'll see if the evidence supports it or if I need to adjust it.

Now, the counterpart to that theory is that the Shaido clan chiefs went through similar events but through a different ancestor, one who traces back to an original Aiel who wasn't Charn. Of course, right now, that point is somewhat moot, as the Shaido are currently lacking a clan chief entirely, with the old one dead and a new one not yet having survived the Trial of Rhuidean, but it's something that would impact the way that their clan has been shaped over the generations. And if they really are the ones who killed that caravan of Tuatha'an (like Rhuarc suspects after Lan says he thinks that the wounds were spear wounds disguised to look like sword wounds), then they were shaped very differently than the Taardad were.

Sevenna's outfit cracks me up. That's amazing. It's perfect. The second I saw her, I knew exactly who she was. Couladin is also perfect. I love how it feels like he can barely even stand to look at the 'wetlanders' and he keeps his body turned away from their direction for most of the scene (until he goes to attack Rand).

Two Wise Ones are needed to allow entrance to Rhuidean. This scene also implies that Sevenna is not a Wise One, but simply a clan chief's wife and that the two do not necessarily go together.

Rand interrupts the conversation to make his request to enter Rhuidean (the same way that Aviendha did thus "like a woman" as Couladin says), and is given permission by Bair and Melaine.

"My mother was Aiel." "Your father, yes, but your mother..."

Couladin interrupts here, but we will hopefully get the rest of that conversation in the couple of episodes. After Rand gets permission from both Bair and Melaine, Couladin attempts to attack him and gets put down by Bair sending the One Power at him (probably Air), revealing to us and our characters that at least some of the Aiel Wise Ones can channel (and are not bound by the Three Oaths of the Aes Sedai). Also, I didn't notice this the first time, but Rhuarc had a knife out, so he would have stopped Couladin if Bair hadn't acted first.

Egwene wants to go with Rand to Rhuidean, and Bair puts the idea down first -- "If you ask, we will not say yes. Your paths do not align."

When Moiraine asks leave to enter Rhuidean here, it must feel to Rand like she's trying to undermine his plans, or work around him somehow, since he didn't hear her conversation with the Wise Ones the previous night. But then he learns in the rest of the conversation that the Wise Ones told her that they 'saw' her asking, which... might have made him feel better about it? Difficult to say.

"Those who move with too much knowledge of the future find disaster, whether from complacency at what they think must come or in their efforts to change it."

So now we have two contrasting approaches towards knowing the future -- we have Elaida in the last episode, who has a handful of strong Foretellings that she shapes her life around; and we have the Wise Ones and their thousands of alternative life paths that give them a general sense of what should and what should not be for their lives. Min is going to try out Elaida's path for a while. Is that going to be a good thing for her and for Mat? We will find out.

Moiraine's path - to see a thousand-thousand turnings of the wheel and learn to know, without doubt, that some things must be for her and some that must not.

Rand's path - to walk the footsteps of his blood ancestors, because they believe that a leader needs to understand their past in order to be able to lead

I do think that the way the Wise Ones talk about it here, they know what happens in the trial of the columns, even if the show hasn't said that they also go through them.

"You must go to Rhuidean unarmed to honor the last true Aiel."

The true Aiel -- those who both still followed the Way of the Leaf and who did not abandon the charge given to them by the Aes Sedai. In our scene with Mandein and Latra, she mentions that the last of the true Aiel have died. Now, there are only those who call themselves Aiel (Melaine also said "the young man who calls himself Rand al'Thor" when talking about him to Moiraine in the Wise Ones' tent).

This scene also makes it very clear and obvious how match-matchy Moiraine and Rand's clothes are.

Great framing on when Bair says "if you return" - one of the spears lines up right under Moiraine's throat (and we saw her throat get slashed how many times in her visions? a lot)

We get the view here of the long wall of spears, left behind by those who never returned from Rhuidean. It's... a lot.

Rand leaves his sword (this is the one that Lan lent him, now that Lan is using the sword of the Malkieri kings), and Moiraine leaves her daggers. We have seen her using daggers frequently in the show -- one of the early shots is of her sheathing her Rand-killing dagger when she's about to set out on her quest -- and I expect this is also meant to speak to her level of paranoia after being shielded so long in s2. It does make her a bit of a hypocrite for twitting Rand over sword training with Lan, but she was feeling generally salty anyway during that time because she felt like Rand had abandoned his 'real' duty by choosing to go to the Waste instead of Tear.

I really love the ritual here -- they leave their weapons to take them back up when they return and now they are officially 'dead' unless they make it through their trials and return to the land of the living. I mean, looking at all the weapons that are still there, a lot of people never come back.

"Rhuidean belongs to the dead" has another meaning as well -- it is the city that was built by the "true Aiel", who never broke their oaths. And they're all dead now. Only their protectors remain (another way that the Aiel learn that they have failed, when they go through the columns -- the protectors survived, while the ones they sought to protect all died).

"Begone from among the living and do not haunt us with memories of what is lost." Ooof. Imagine being the generations of Wise Ones who developed this ritual. How once you've grown through the columns, you understand what those rituals words truly meant.

"Speak not of what the dead see." Another part of the ritual of Rhuidean is that the truths found inside are kept secret, known only to those who survive the trial.

I love how Rhuidean feels haunting in a completely different way than Shadar Logoth did -- they are both dead cities, but they are dead for very different reasons. Shadar Logoth ate itself up with paranoia, while Rhuidean exists to test and to teach. Here is where the Aiel learn the truth of what the Three-Fold Land is -- it exists to shape them (to be the People of the Dragon), to test them (to weed out the leaders who can't handle the truth about their past), and as punishment for their sins (breaking their oaths of non-violence).

Moiraine notes that she can see threads of the One Power flickering in the fog (guessing this is what leads her to sa'angreal later).

The journey of Avendesora begins! Here, it is the only remaining one of its kind known -- the "tree of life". Rand learns that the entire reason behind the Aiel War was because the Aiel had entrusted a sapling of Avendesora to the Cairhienin people, and then her uncle King Laman cut down that tree to make his throne. And the threads of the Pattern pull and tug, to place Rand where he needs to be born in order to fulfill the prophecy of the Dragon Reborn. How many other threads have been tugged over the course of the last three-thousand years? Being under the tree gives a sense of peace.

"To kill him for destroying the tree, and the pledge of peace along with it."

Because they know how precious peace is, and how precious keeping Oaths are, because in order to survive to become a clan chief, you have to learn how your people betrayed both of them. Nature through nurture -- every Aiel who goes through the columns has grown up in the Aiel culture, and so they bring that lens to what they interpret through the memories. Which is likely part of the reason why the Car'a'carn -- why the Dragon -- why Rand... needed to be raised outside the Aiel Waste. He needed to bring a different context to the memories than he would have had if he'd been raised Aiel.

It's interesting that after realizing how connected he and Moiraine have been, how her family helped create the circumstances of his birth, he tells her, "You shouldn't have come here."

Is he worried about her? He worried about her in 1x08, when he realized that she believed she was signing her own death warrant by coming along with him to the Eye, and he told her to turn back then, too.

I love how it kinda feels like the city is breathing but almost... almost mechanical. idk, it's neat.

Rand walks towards the columns and sees that Muradin is already in there, and then he takes another step forward and we are inside his first memory.

So, we didn't get this memory in the books, but I am so glad that they added it. I think it really gives Rand a visceral connection to the memories as a whole and to his own bloodline, because he is witness to the moments after his birth, after he (the baby Rand) has been taken away. He sees the aftermath. His mother's body and his father's grief. It would also almost certainly trigger memories from his own life -- we know that his mother died when he was relatively young but he would remember her death, and his father's grief. Tam al'Thor never remarried. Plus, I think it was also helpful for the show audience, to give them something that they'd already seen one part of (Rand's mother giving birth to him) and show them what happened afterwards.

Information this scene gives us: Rand's blood father (Janduin) is the person who killed King Laman.

Our next memory is Mandein, one of the first clan chiefs to go to Rhuidean (in fact, we see Rhuidean get filled up with its magic fog in this scene). He leaves behind the first spear at Rhuidean's edge. His wife also seems to be a Wise One Dreamwalker, like Bair and Melaine, and she tells him that he must agree to what "Latra Sedai" requests of him -- that all of her sisters shared the same dream. Any Aiel who fails to go to Rhuidean and agree to Latra's terms will have their names die out. In both this memory and in Janduin's, we hear the same endearment that we heard with Rhuarc and Bair -- "shade of my heart".

Latra Sedai (last seen in the 1x08 cold open) is the person who created the fog of Rhuidean, and the glass columns. She may have created the rings, or they may have been brought by someone else. From inside the tree, Latra pulls out the sa'angreal and uses it to have enough strength to accomplish her tasks. The tree was planted and is thriving (and now I'm thinking of the Two Rivers burial rite of the Aybara family) and has gotten fairly big around, though not anywhere near as huge as it is when Rand and Moiraine see it.

We see six people here to meet with Latra, which is potential bottleneck for how many ancestral lines might have come from this time period for the clan chiefs.

"The last people who were truly Aiel, they are all dead now. ... the people who built this city, who planted this tree."

And that is why Rhuidean belongs to the dead.

She questions them on why they don't carry swords and their answer shows that they don't know why. It's simply forbidden because of long passed-down custom. "There is too much you do not know."

Ah, what Latra says here does imply that the Wise Ones also go through the columns at some point - she says that "chiefs and Wise Ones both" must learn where their ancestors came from and why they do not carry swords.

"Who cannot learn will not live."

She tells them here the requirements for how they will know the Car'a'carn, the ones that Bair shared with us at the end of 3x02.

Similarities that Mandein shares with Rand: a wish that these Aes Sedai would please just speak plainly.

Also, I get the vibe that the clan chief who is mostly in black is probably the one that the Shaido are descended from because color schemes, baby!

This is our initial "bloodline" trail -- six chiefs came to Rhuidean in response to the Wise Ones' dreams, and the clans that we currently have are based out of those six bloodlines (so if there are more clans than that, one of the bloodlines created more than one clan, etc). Or those who survived, which might not have been all six.

"Know who you were and what you are. Know why we Aes Sedai call you oathbreakers."

It gives me chills.

We're now with Lewin, and Avendesora -- the tree of life -- is small and enclosed in a pot, traveling in a wagon. Lewin has two friends that are definitely meant to visually remind the audience of Perrin and Mat. We're told here that the tree is a 'chora' tree and that it's from before the Breaking of the world. We can also see the sa'angreal resting in its branches.

This is the event that makes Muradin claw his eyes out. So, then the question becomes -- are the six chiefs who came to Rhuidean in Mandein's time all descended from either Lewin or Alijha (the Mat-friend) or do some of them only descend from Aiel who defected from the Way of the Leaf later on?

Even if we go with the most restrictive choice (that all Aiel clan chiefs witness this specific formative event from either Lewin or Alijha's PoV), it means that we have two different bloodlines being followed, and only one of them leads back to Charn (it is not implied that Alijha is related to Adan, who is the only surviving member of Jonai's bloodline, only that Lewin is).

We meet "old man Adan" here, and he's Lewin's grandfather. We don't share Adan's PoV directly but he lets us mark some time out -- he's a grandfather here and the next time we see him, our next step into the past, he's the young grandson of our PoV Randcestor, Jonai.

But we're still with Lewin now. As the boys exit the wagon, we can see that they're living in a very similar caravan set-up to what we've seen before, among the Tuatha'an. This group of Aiel have kept their Oaths -- they are not Lost Ones -- but we are now in the inflection point of their history when they break the oath that is even older than their oath to the Aes Sedai to carry their chora tree to a place of safety. They break the oaths that make them Aiel, and begin the process that ends with the death of the 'true' Aiel, leaving only those 'who call themselves' Aiel.

From the perspective of their history.

The boys are giggling and light and happy... until they learn from Lewin's mother that two of the girls from their caravan were kidnapped (Lewin's sister, Maigran, and one other girl named Colline, who Alijha seems to know well), when they were doing the washing down by the stream. The Aiel way, as taught and enforced by Adan, is to leave them behind and continue on. Their oaths have to matter more than any one of their lives. That tree matters more than any of them (which is a heartbreaking misinterpretation of what Latra's original request was; it is clear when she speaks to the Aiel that she valued their lives and their way of life and them).

"Old man Adan says we came to the desert to build a city. A city of peace, of Aiel, and that's where we'll plant [Avendesora]." As we see in the previous memory, they did that. They built the city and planted the tree... and then died, leaving no descendants of those Aiel who had kept both of their oaths.

(and yet, the Aiel survived, as a remnant of a remnant - and as we see from Melaine in the previous episode, one of the ways that some (potentially most) Aiel react to seeing the memories is to believe, fiercely, that Lewin and Alijha made the morally-correct choice when they picked up weapons to defend their people. again, we're all marked by the cultures we grew up in!)

Josha does an amazing job with all of his Randcestors, but something about the innocence (that gets broken) of Lewin really gets to me. He manages to look so young.

"All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well," Adan says here, when he's telling the boys that no one is going to be going after the girls to try save them. This is the first (last) occurence of this phrase, which will make its final (first) appearance in Rhodric's time, I believe. It's a mantra that the Aiel hold onto during the time of the Breaking and gets carried until we reach this point in history, when Lewin and Alijha decide that they cannot simply continue on and say that all will be well as long as they carry out their duty. All is not well, and they feel the need to act on it. They cannot trust to the Pattern, to peace, to the Way of the Leaf.

They need to do something.

They don't plan to do violence. They don't want to. But when the moment arrives, they find that they are capable of it. And they learn that it works. It saves the kidnapped girls (at a cost; the life of one of their own).

And it makes them oathbreakers. This is the sin of the present-day Aiel, that they turned away from the Way of the Leaf, as judged by Latra Sedai, who first sent them out on their journey.

The Aiel, as a whole, feel a deep obligation to their people -- we've seen several examples of that so far. They also hold their honor extremely seriously - ji'e'toh. Honor and obligation. The cornerstones of their way of life.

And violence is woven deeply into their culture. Even their kissing games are violent.

Going into the columns shows them that the fabric of their society is at odds with the obligations that their ancestors had carried, and thus breaks their own honor. And yet... they cannot undo hundreds of years of social growth and change. It was already too late by the time Latra opened the doors of their past to them. They are who they are, and they work within the confines of that culture and interpret what they see in the columns through the lens of their current culture.

This era is the point, I suspect, when most prospective clan chiefs who do not make it through the columns fail, as Muradin also fails at this point. This is when they learn that they are not "true" Aiel and that they failed to uphold the most deeply-held oath of their ancestors.

"Mercy of the Light, be with us," Alijha says, once the violence has ended and the cost of it settles in -- they've done violence and had violence done to them -- their friend Charlin was killed by one of the bandits.

And Lewin makes rules. They broke the most important rule that they've ever had, the foundational text of their lives, and Lewin creates a new rule to replace it -- instead of "no violence" it's "no swords". The desperate rationalization of a scared young man who suddenly has thin air under his feet instead of the solid ground of the Way of the Leaf.

So it follows that it's Lewin and Alijha (and the Aiel who follow in their footsteps) who would create the new way of life that the Aiel end up following in the future, a patchwork of rules to fill in the gaps of what they've lost, that is later codified and refined into ji'e'toh.

And I would say that the beginnings of the first Aiel society is created here when Lewin and Alijha are bonded further together by the events of the night.

Such a heartbreaking homecoming.

"They tried to kill us. They did kill Charlin." "You killed?" "They took Maigran, grandfather. They hurt her. What else could we do?" "We bury our dead and we go on. What else is there? You... are no longer Aiel. Strangers. Oathbreakers."

This moment here feels like it might be the moment that makes Aiel like Melaine disdainful of the Tuatha'an (and feel that they aren't even worth burying). From her perspective, she may feel that Lewin, Alijha, and Charlin did the right thing -- they protected their people. And she's supposed to believe it's better to leave the girls for dead and move on?

This is the big philosophical & moral schism -- the "true" Aiel (and the Tuatha'an of today) believe that any violence is never worth it. The present-day Aiel, and Lewin and Alijha, decided that some violence may be necessary to preserve what matters most in life.

And, of course, the present-day Aiel were all shaped by the culture that Aiel like Lewin and Alijha created, because the "true" Aiel all died out.

"Who are you that calls me Mother? Hide your face from me, stranger. I had a son once with a face like that. I don't want to see it on a killer. Hide your face."

Heartbreaking.

And we get the origins of why the Aiel veil when they kill, which also must come as a big shock to the Aiel who undergo the Trial of Rhuidean.

Yeah, this is about when Rand catches up to Muradin, and begins to pass him.

I like the way they use Moiraine's scenes here to give the revelations of the last memory time to sink in, and we follow Moiraine following the threads of the One Power and locating the sa'angreal where Latra left it, after creating the columns centuries ago. And she straight up steals this hidden important artifact because she can sense how powerful it is, girl, what are you doing? That's not yours! You didn't go through the columns! You don't know it was left there by an Aes Sedai!

(it's very book-accurate behavior for her)

I love the vibe of Rhuidean, how it is almost still, but not quite. I love how when Moiraine steps into the fog, she slowly vanishes.

Moiraine finds the rings and sees Aviendha already suspended inside, screaming in misery or agony -- Moiraine doesn't know, not yet.

And she steps through.

I do love the 'turnings of the wheel' spinning camera choice that they made here. It really feels like it fits in with the vibe of the rings.

Inside, she finds a constant drumbeat of all the ways that she could fail in her mission, starting with the most unlikely turns of the wheel and then focusing in on the most likely (imo):

She could fail by having never started her mission at all, instead becoming Siuan's fishwife in Tear, thus dooming the world by not doing her part in helping Rand.

She could fail by bringing the Dragon Reborn to the halls of the Tower, and having him killed there. Rand also says "Egwene" here, so this is Egwene as Keeper and Moiraine as Amrylin. Rand clearly also knows Moiraine, so Moiraine still went to the Two Rivers in this turning and met Rand and Egwene.

She could fail by releasing Lan from his bond as a Warder and leaving him behind.

She could fail by bonding Rand as a Warder (and it looks like he's gone through the formal training, because he is wearing a "Warderish" outfit) - given that Moiraine is wearing the same outfit in both of these, this might be the same turning -- releasing Lan and then bonding Rand.

She could fail due to being in the White Tower with Lan when an attack happens. Failure because she stayed in the White Tower instead of going out hunting for the Dragon Reborn, perhaps. I think the person attacking them might be Moghedien. The silhouette seems baggier than what Lanfear usually wears. This might be a turning where Rand accidentally released Moghedien instead of accidentally releasing Ishamael.

She could fail because Rand dies due to her being Amyrlin.

She could fail because she and Lan kill Rand (and she is also Amyrlin; which always seems to mean bad news bears for the world, so no matter what happens with Siuan in the future, the rings imply that Moiraine and Siuan made the right choice about which one of them should try to become Amyrlin).

She could fail by not finding Rand until after he has been through the columns and become the Car'a'carn.

What's interesting to me about this set of viewings is that there's no Lanfear, so these are all turnings based on events that happened before Lanfear was released by Ishamael (assumption on my part). Maybe all turnings where Rand never went to the Eye of the World and released Ishamael.

We return to Rand, who has officially passed Muradin (who is busy clawing his eyes out, perhaps realizing that his people used to be pledged to the Way of the Leaf and were not always warriors).

Backwards again and, before, we were with Adan's grandson, Lewin.

Now, we are with Adan's grandfrather, Jonai.

This is the bottleneck of Charn's line, imo. The lineage of Charn among the Aiel narrows down to Jonai and Adan (and I don't think Jonai had any more kids after this point, so it's all Adan), then they cross the Spine of the World and discover other Aiel who made it to the desert, who had daughters who also had the same dream that Jonai's daughter had, of a city in the desert, a city of Aiel, and city of peace.

(it is possible that more of Charn's descendants do exist... among the Tuatha'an.)

And here we have the splitting off of the Tuatha'an -- the Lost Ones -- from the Aiel. They abandon their mission. We hear the traditional Tuatha'an greeting words here, this time said as Jonai and Adan split from the those who will become Tuatha'an -- and these Tuatha'an are not in search of the song, but in search of a place of safety that is easier to get to than across the Spine of the World. They want to set down the task given to them by the Aes Sedai and find their own way to peace and safety, now that the Breaking of the World is officially ended, with the death of the last man who can channel.

"You remember the song?" is a mournful statement, not her actually trying to find it -- she knows it too, passed down by their ancestors. Eventually, the knowledge of the song fades from the Tuatha'an people, because it was of no use to them, and now they believe that they need to find it again, that the world would be peaceful if only they had the song. But the song itself does not bring peace -- it was a product of a world that was largely peaceful. These current Aiel who split off here want to find a place to settle so they can sing the "songs of harvest". But they never do settle, and they forget that the song wasn't a song of peace, but of harvest.

The Tuatha'an chose peace over the mission. Our present-day Aiel chose the mission over peace. And those Aiel who tried to keep to both all died out.

And we see that the words that Adan spoke to Lewin in the modern tongue are spoken by Jonai in the Old Tongue - we bury our dead and go on. - and then, in the modern tongue - what else is there?

Adan merges the two statements over the course of his lifetime. What Jonai said to keep himself going, to keep himself focused on the mission that was handed down to him by his ancestors, becomes the way that defines Adan's entire life.

"The others will come. They'll meet us across the spine. My daughter dreamed that."

So of this particular wagon descended from Rhodric & thus Charn, only Jonai and Adan both survived and chose to continue on instead of splitting off, but we have this confirmation from Jonai that other Aiel make it across the spine of the world as well (but, I suspect, only Jonai got his chora tree across, because there's only one chora tree mentioned in Lewin's memory).

"Always will our fires welcome you," Jonai tells the others as they leave. "Go now in peace. The Way of the Leaf is peace."

And Adan defines his entire world by what his grandfather teaches him, and his own determination never to break his oaths. Adan is tested twice in his lifetime, and stays a "true Aiel" both times.

"We bury our dead and we go on. What else is there?"

Jonai and Adan have their oaths of peace and they have their mission, and they have each other. And that's all they have.

Jonai's daughter dreamed of Rhuidean -- a city in the desert, a city of peace. It did come true, though not the way she would have imagined, I don't expect.

"A place we Aiel can go and be safe. With no one to hurt us." There are no weapons allowed in Rhuidean. The peace of Rhuidean be upon you.

We see that the present-day Aiel have maintained the burial traditions that came down from Jonai's time -- traditions that were perhaps formed when the world was breaking, and it was easiest and safest to bury your loved ones in rocks. Like a leaf fallen to the ground and covered over by what comes after.

"How will we get across the Spine?" "Together."

I teared up.

We step backwards again, and into Rhodric's well-polished shoes. The Breaking has, perhaps, only recently begun, but the Aes Sedai are realizing exactly how devasting it will be for the world.

While Jonai only spoke scattered fragments of the Old Tongue, it is the only language that we see Rhodric speak. He is put-together and 'professional' and extremely dedicated, both to his way of peace and to the Aes Sedai he serves.

There are fires on the horizon, and Latra Sedai and the others have made the decision that in order to save the Aiel and the chora trees -- two symbols of the peace that defined their own era -- they must scatter them out to the winds.

10,000 saplings sent out on wagons and, of those saplings, only one survives to be planted and to grow.

The saplings and wagons are all ready to go, but Latra stops Rhodric before he leaves, and entrusts the strongest female sa'angreal in the world to him. To the Aiel. To peace.

(we also get another mention of Callandor, with affirms that it's probably our next big plot point for Rand after the Aiel Waste)

So. Interesting to me. We've seen female Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends dressing in white. We've seen the male Aes Sedai dressing primarily in black. The Aes Sedai here with Latra is wearing both white and black. Is it in honor of the brothers that she's been forced to kill because they went mad?

And this is what has survived of what Mierin did -- the Aes Sedai know that she "tore open the Dark One's prison and took the name Lanfear" and worry that someone like her might collaborate with the male channelers who have gone mad.

"Keep moving until you have found a place of safety, where no one can harm you."

Rhodric is very formal, but there is so much sincerity in him when he tells Latra that it was an honor to serve her (and it really reminds me of how the Warders talked about serving their Aes Sedai when Nynaeve challenged them over back in s1) -- I wonder, since his ancestors worked for Mierin Sedai, if there's a particular dedication in him because Latra still trusted their family after Mierin released the Dark One.

Then we get our reveal that Rhodric was queer, which made me very emotional at the time and is still making me emotional.

The chora tree is so tiny! The wagons are so 'modern'!

And we learn the origin of "All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well" -- it was a mantra against fear. When they are afraid, the Aiel trust to the future and to themselves, to the workings of the Pattern, and the Way of the Leaf.

The final memory. And the reason that the Dragon Reborn needed to be born of Aiel blood. So that he could have knowledge of the true extent of the conflict that he is facing. So hat he could learn how it all began, in this turning of the Wheel.

Charn is more like Rand-of-the-Two-Rivers than any of the other Randcestors are. He smiles easily and likes to work with his hands. He is part of a settled community of people who share his values and who live together in peace. He is friendly and good-natured and open.

We (and Rand) learn here that Mierin's goal was to breach the thinnest place in Pattern (success!), release an incredible source of power (success), so that the world would be a better place (...um, about that...).

Mierin can't imagine why Charn and his family might enjoy working with their hands instead of using the One Power to bring the harvest in, even though he tries to explain it to her.

Charn's bow to Mierin here is much less formal than the bow that Rhodric gives to Latra later on in the timeline.

"There's nothing more important than holding on to the people you love."

Once again, we have Lanfear giving stellar love-related advice (when it comes to mutual relationships and NOT when it comes to stalking your ex! it's bad advice when you make it about stalking your ex!), like she did back in s2, when she told Rand that he needed to give someone the chance to love all of him. Great advice, awful execution on her part, where she's doing her best to twist Rand into someone who can love her despite her being the sort of person who likes to pop people's heads off and sew their mouths shut.

Rand does deserve to have someone love him for his whole self! He definitely does deserve that. But she's saying that because she wants him to overlook her murders and casual cruelty. The motivation and intention is kinda important.

So. While we're here, let's talk about Mierin and Lews Therin (show-only, not bringing in any other knowledge or lore).

Mierin seems to already be broken up with Lews Therin in this scene - the way she talks about searching for a source of power that isn't limited to "Lews Therin and the Aes Sedai". The way she talks about the importance of holding onto the ones you love, and yet we see her completely by herself and it feels like she's sad.

There are four sets of things in the show that can give us information about Lanfear, and about her relationship with Lews Therin:

legends that have grown over time (via Moiraine)

what Lanfear (and Ishamael) tell Rand

what the Forsaken say among themselves

what Selene tells Rand about her ex back in early s2

Those are our primary sources of information. For various reasons, I feel like we can get the most truth about what Lanfear actually believes in item #4 -- the things that Selene told Rand about her ex who broke her heart. That is most likely to be Lanfear's own personal recollection (which still doesn't make it the truth - she has a very specific point of view and agenda at all time).

So. What information do we get?

Moiraine tells us two things about Lanfear as a person that we've seen verified on-screen -- she's a master of Tel'aran'rhiod, and she exhibits casual cruelty. Makes sense that legends about both of those things would survive relatively intact, since those would have been the last things that Lanfear would have been actively engaging in before she was locked up. We're also told that the legends say that Lanfear turned to the Shadow to try to get Lews Therin back after he broke her heart, which feels like a weird choice for her to make, but I think I understand why the legends would claim this, and I'll go over it in a bit.

We are also told (by Moiraine in 2x08) that Ishamael, Lanfear, and Lews Therin were known as "best friends" before Ishy and Lanfear turned to the Shadow, but so far we don't really have a timeline for that.

Ishamael and Lanfear blame Rand for them turning to the Shadow... however, this is done explicitly because Ishamael is trying to create a sense of doubt and despair in Rand, so that he will turn to the Shadow. Because we know the motive behind their words, I feel like this is the least reliable of our stories.

The other Forsaken seem to look down on Ishamael and Lanfear for their feelings about the Dragon. Moghedien says that Lanfear and Ishamael were always "too close" to the Dragon, implying that they weren't willing to be as ruthless as she believes they needed to be with him. And Sammael straight up calls Lanfear out as desperate for the Dragon's affection (you'd have stretched out at his feet if he'd said "Rug"), basically calling her pathetic in how she behaved towards him.

Then we have what Selene tells Rand, when she is potentially trying to trigger Lews Therin's memories in him. I think there is likely a lot of truth in her words, but it is truth that is deeply shaded by Lanfear's bitterness and her own perspective.

From 2x02: "You know, there was someone that I loved once. When he left, I was shattered. But I knew no one else could ever have that power over me again. What's left to hurt if he still has my whole heart? When I'm with you, I can pretend you're him. I can pretend I'm... whole again. You can't imagine what a gift that is. It's so much more than I've had in a very long time."

Lanfear is able to express her love about Lews Therin right to his face without him knowing it. When you left me, I was shattered. No one else has ever had that power over me. You still have my whole heart. When I'm with you, I can pretend that we're still together. I can pretend you didn't fall in love with someone else.

"You help me remember and I help you forget." He's her do-over Lews Therin, currently away from any potential competition.

From 2x04: "I used to come with a man. The one before you. He was the first man I ever loved. The only, actually. Powerful. Confident. Arrogant, really. With eyes that could fix everything in its place."

Now in this scene, we can also see that Rand is notably more jealous over the man that Selene loved than he was in 2x02, so his feelings about her have deepened since 2x02 (just in time to find out that she's one of the Forsaken! My poor boy).

Anyway, poor Rand's upcoming broken heart is not the issue here, but what Lanfear says about Lews Therin. What she focuses on. What she loved. The very first thing she notes about this man that she loved is that he was powerful. And she urges Rand towards claiming power -- first with declaring himself the Dragon Reborn in Falme, and then trying to convince him to go to Tear to claim Callandor.

"We used to get away as much as we could. We were always better when we were alone, without the world pulling us in every direction. We used to joke about never coming back down. But we always did."

This bit feels especially telling to me. What has Lanfear's primary action always been with Rand? Isolating him away from anyone else who might care about him, from "the world" that might pull him away from her. That's what she did when she found Rand in Cairhien. That's what she did when she made a deal with Moiraine to try to drive away Rand's friends.

I am also going to note that Rand specifically tells 'Selene' in this scene how much he loved being a homebody and living a rural country life and she did not hear a damn word of it, too busy losing herself into her Lews Therin fantasy (as we see in s3, when she tells Rand that he craves a bigger life the same way that she does)

"Nothing and no one ever gives you want you want. If you want something, you have to take it." (which is essentially what she is trying to do here by training Rand into being her do-over LTT who will never leave her and fall in love with another woman, because she will lock him in before he has the chance)

"You are the first woman whose ever seen me as a man. I didn't want you to see me as a monster." This line is so heartbreaking - but Lanfear's reaction is also very interesting and may be why we don't see Lanfear treating Egwene as serious competition in s3 (though this may change in 3x05 once she realizes that Egwene is learning TAR - then she may become competition in a very different way). Because Rand already told her that he doesn't think Egwene saw him and loved him 'as a man' (and Lanfear does make the correct inference that Rand believes that Egwene loved him 'as a boy', because she talks about how his Two Rivers ties are keeping him attached to 'the boy he used to be' when she's talking to Moiraine in 3x01). She's obviously still hurt and jealous that Rand is in this relationship, but she views it as something childish that he needs to outgrow as opposed to being genuine romantic competition.

Okay, more Lanfear and Lews Therin talk!

"What you did, it's part of your nature. You shouldn't hide it. I did that once. Turned my soul to him like a mirror, reflecting only what he wanted to see. Leaving the rest of me in darkness. But one day he looked too long. Too carefully."

Mierin hid the ugly parts of herself from Lews Therin (maybe the 'casual cruelty' that Moiraine mentions as part of her legend was always in her, even before she swore to the Shadow) and once he saw her for who she really was, he was turned off by it and he broke up with her. It sounds like there was a specific event that happened that made him look at her with new eyes and reexamine what he knew about her, and he did not come to a conclusion that he liked.

We also see that whenever Rand is being particularly determined and pushing back hard against either Lanfear or Ishamael, they tell him he's acting like Lews Therin. It's always Rand's moments of stubbornness against them trying to twist him into a particular course of action that seems to trigger that memory for them -- Rand standing up against Lanfear in 2x07 and not letting her kill Moiraine; Rand standing up against Ishamael in 2x08 and telling him that Rand will never turn to the Shadow and never has, not in any of his past lives. His determination and his integrity being what reminds them most of Lews Therin, and those also being the parts of Lews Therin that mean he won't turn to the Shadow.

For both Lanfear and Ishamael, it feels like there is a part of them that is trying to justify their own choices by getting Lews Therin to co-sign them. If he can turn to the Shadow too, it justifies that they turned to the Shadow. As an added bonus for Lanfear, Lews Therin can hardly keep judging her for her darkness if she's managed to get him to believe that his own impulses and desires are just as dark as hers.

Proposal (based entirely on show information):

Lews Therin broke up with Mierin because he saw something in her that made him uncomfortable about being in a relationship with her (as per Selene's comments about her ex in s2). Contextually, it sounds like Mierin was hiding things from him because she suspected that he wouldn't approve, so she was doing her best to pretend that she was the kind of woman that he would fall in love with (basically, Selene wasn't the first time she played that kind of role to get herself into Lews Therin's bed).

He met and fell in love with the woman who would become his wife, while Mierin threw herself into her work.

Mierin accidentally cracks the world open while searching for a source of power that would level the playing field, and releases the Dark One.

Mierin gets tempted by the Dark One, perhaps in a similar way that Rand was tempted by Ishamael at the end of s1 -- a vision of something that she'd put away and tried to ignore -- "you can create the version of the world that you most desire". Lews Therin is there, loving and respecting and adoring her in the way that she wishes he'd done in reality.

And so when she makes her Oaths to the Dark One, they are done with the intentional purpose of getting Lews Therin back, and getting him to admit that she's the right woman for him.

No matter what it takes.

She's convinced herself that the fault isn't in her, and it's not in Lews Therin either. It's the world's fault for getting between them. If only it were just her and Lews Therin in an isolated bubble (like they were in the dream that the Dark One gave her?), then everything would be perfect and he would love her and fix her back into her elevated place in his eyes. No "doe-eyed cows" drawing his attention away from her. No outside voices telling him not to trust her.

Only her, and him, and the two of them together, for eternity.

So, yeah. That's my current Lanfear and Lews Therin theory.

Charn goes out to the harvest with his family, and then Mierin succeeds. She punches a hole through the Patter and discovers what the power on the other side was -- the Dark One.

In some ways, this is the counterpoint to what Ila says in s1 -- that the way to achieve peace is for everyone, everywhere to stop using violence. But that only works until someone brings violence back into the world, as Mierin does here. Much like Lewin & Alijha when they broke the Way of the Leaf, she is not intending to introduce violence into the world.

But once it arrives, she learns that she's very capable of using it.

The way that they showed the Bore really hits that "cosmic horror" vibe. In s1, Rand believed that the Dark One could just be a very scary guy. Now, he sees what it truly is. A hole in the fabric of reality, and the darkness on the other side of reality.

Rand makes it through and out the other side of the columns, and we see the dragons burn themselves into his skin, etching from the inside out. It looks fantastic. They really do look like they have texture.

He finds Aviendha, who is still recovering from her own ordeal in the rings, and she sees that he's the Car'a'carn. They have a moment of connection here, where Rand reaches out to her to let her know that he, at the very least, now understands how little he understood her people before now. And she reaches back by giving Rand what we've seen him always want from the people around him -- to treat him like a person and not an idea. He's still "wetlander" to her (but said softer and kinder than before) not the Car'a'carn.

Aviendha goes back to the tents, while Rand rests under the branches of Avendesora and waits (for two more days) before Moiraine finishes her own trial.

Speaking of Moiraine! She's not been having a great time, and now we're on to the failures that are more closely related to the current turning of the Wheel and what might happen in her immediate future. These all seem based on turnings that happened after Lanfear was released by Ishamael.

Moiraine can fail due to:

Lanfear and Moghedien turning Rand, Perrin, Mat, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne all to the Shadow.

Seducing Rand and becoming his lover.

Being tricked and seduced by Lanfear before Lanfear kills her. This might be the same turning as the previous one, because it looks like the same bed and the same slip on Moiraine.

Lanfear in her outfit from 2x07, killing Moiraine in the Hall of the Tower while Rand watches.

Lanfear killing Moiraine on the streets of Tar Valon (maybe Moiraine refused to make the deal to sit idly by while Rand and his friends were attacked?)

A lot of Lanfear killing Moiraine in the desert while Moiraine wears the fancy blue dress and the chestpiece (okay, theory -- the orb becomes a chestpiece after it's been 'activated', thus making it the armor to foil Callandor's sword)

I love the shot of the moon starting this scene with Lan and Egwene and then transitioning to the rising sun as Rand brings Moiraine out of Rhuidean.

We learn that it's been a week, and we also really see Egwene feeling the need to be Rand's protector (his Warder, basically). If Rand feels guilt over moving on and letting himself all in love with "Selene" while Egwene was suffering, Egwene clearly still feels guilt over the idea that she wasn't able to protect Rand when he needed it. Because she and Rand have never talked it all out.

I do wonder if we're going to see a counterpoint to 1x01 and 3x01 in the next episode -- Egwene goes through a trial and tells Rand that she can't speak of the details to him. Will she ask him about Rhuidean and, if she does, what will he say?

Final theory about Aiel bloodlines -- okay, after rewatching the episode, I think we have two primary bloodlines, because of the inflection point that essentially 'created' Aiel as they exist today -- there is the bloodline of Lewin, which stretches back to Charn. And we have the bloodline of Alijha, whose parents were unrelated Aiel who crossed the Spine of the World separately (losing their chora tree in the process) and joined up with Jonai & Adan on the other side. Jonai says that his daughter "dreamed" that they would find other Aiel after they crossed the mountains, and I'm assuming that relates to the dreams that Mandein's wife speaks about in the second memory -- she and her sisters all dreamed the same dream, and that's how they knew it was important and true. So that makes me feel like at least one other caravan of Aiel made it over the mountains, but they would not be related to Adan, to Jonai, to Rhodric, to Charn. They would be involved during the same scattering that Rhodric went through, but a different wagon.

But it really does show the Pattern at work -- 10,000 wagons with chora saplings sent out, but only one of those wagons contained the sa'angreal that Latra would need to use hundreds of years later in order to create Rhuidean's trials, so that Rand could learn the memories of the past and see the emergence of the Dark One from the Bore. And that wagon survived, through everything -- the Breaking of the World and the breaking of the Aiel.

That single tree survived. One single tree of life, of peace. One last remnant from the Age of Legends.

"It hurts and comforts me to see how her tree has thrived in my absence."

Of course, we know that Latra had some means of looking into the future (the Car'a'carn prophecy), so it is potentially no accident of fate that placed the sa'angreal into the one family line that she was certain would survive until she would see it again. Based on all the examples that we've seen of seeing the future, her vision of the future would be fragmentary and incomplete, but it might be enough.

A remnant of the remnant -- perhaps Latra made the same choice back then that the Aiel Wise Ones are making now, when they allow the Car'a'carn to take the Trial of Rhuidean. They can only save a fraction of the Aiel, but if they don't make that choice, then all will perish.

Better to save a fraction than to save none at all.

[shutupineedtothink]

More Moiraine & Lan (and the Bond) thoughts, because I really just can’t help myself.

Just thinking about how we know every Aes Sedai and Warder share the Bond, but we don’t see any other AS/Warder teams using it as a form of communication NEARLY as much as Moiraine and Lan do.

Like these mofos are having full conversations with head tilts and tiny eyebrow raises and 3 seconds of eye contact from the jump. Sometimes not even looking at each other. And it’s extra great if you’re a show only like me because you only realize it when you go back later after all the stuff with the Bond is explained in 1x04/1x05. Like I remember thinking when I was first watching the pilot ‘wow, these two are really in sync, clearly they’ve known each other a long time,’ but it’s so much more than that obviously.

Now, one easy explanation for this is that we’re just seeing them the most, they’re main characters, and s1 especially does a lot of work hyping up the Bond and how important it is so that we get the full impact of them being cut off later. Makes sense.

But… idk like even Alanna and Ihvon and Maksim, who are actually in a romantic relationship, don’t seem to prefer the Bond as a way to communicate. We even see them have their little diplomatic discussion before Ihvon goes to follow Tomas. It’s an actual conversation. Maksim even prefers the Bond masked, so I guess in that way they kind of have to talk to each other.

Verin and Tomas are pretty quiet in general, but still it’s not emphasized that they use the Bond to communicate that much. Perhaps this is also highlighted by Tomas’s advice to Lan that the Bond isn’t the only common language they share with their Aes Sedai.

Except for Moiraine and Lan, it’s like AT LEAST 80%. It’s the primary way they communicate. Because 1. they’re both so naturally reserved on the outside (but feel very deeply on the inside), and 2. I imagine it comes in handy to be extra good at it when you’re on the road searching for the Dragon Reborn and you don’t want everyone around you to know what you’re about.

Then there’s Stepin’s comment from s1 to Kerene, “Can you imagine their dinners?” Which is funny but also very telling. To all the other Aes Sedai and Warders, Moiraine and Lan seem pretty cold and distant, to everyone else and each other. But again, that’s by design to protect their mission. They’re just having conversations no one else can see, even other Bonded pairs. It’s like most AS and their Warders use the Bond as insurance, a fail safe even, to understand and communicate with each other, with normal human communication (i.e. TALKING) as the primary method. But for Moiraine and Lan it’s the other way around.

My POINT BEING, that this adds weight to their storyline in S2. Like they are REALLY struggling because on top of everything else, this fundamental piece of their relationship and communication is just gone. And it opens a door for Moiraine to push Lan away, when she NEVER would have been able to before, practically or emotionally. And he reels from her attacks because he’s just not as good at understanding her without the Bond, when he would have seen right through that shit before, just from feeling alone. So Tomas can say to him, you need to really listen, but 20 years of shared emotional mind reading is not that easy to bypass. You don’t learn normal person communication skills overnight. Certainly not when there’s this gaping hole in your head/heart where another person you probably knew better than yourself should be but isn’t.

Anyway, I think it just adds even more credence to why they’re both so lost throughout most of S2, especially Lan. And what makes them so badass with the Bond but so absolutely uncoordinated without it. And why every other Aes Sedai/Warder thinks they’re fuckin weird. And why we love them, because who doesn’t want to be so fundamentally understood like that? Who doesn’t want their own secret language with someone that no one else really gets, but that person gets you on a level so real it can’t be replaced? That’s what we’re all reaching for, and that’s what they have with each other. For better or worse.

[midniteowlet]

The Wheel of Stagnation

I’ve had one year and some change to process season two of The Wheel of Time and while I enjoyed my second viewing more than the first I’m still frustrated by its inconsistent character development.

Season one, for better or worse, revolved around Moiraine’s quest to find the dragon reborn - which sees her playing governess to five unruly twenty-somethings hellbent on reenacting middle school drama while trying to save the world. Conversely, season two largely focuses on Rand the Bland and Nynaeve Al’do-anything-I-damn-well-please Meara. The shift in focus, from Moiraine to Rand and Nynaeve causes the story to drag even while the writers sprint through an eight-episode arc. They didn’t have time to squander character development, but squander they did.

The most glaring issue is that Rand and Nynaeve persist in being stubborn to the point of stagnation. When we meet up with Rand in Cairhien it becomes obvious he spends most of his time shacked up with Lanfear and slumming about bars. He’s not shown to have a particular goal in mind nor does he express an urgency to become the dragon. I get it. I would rather spend time with the sinfully dressed Lanfear than the hobo-gone-loco Loghain too. That said, he acts like he has all the time in the world to become the prophesied hero he is meant to be. I know that his stagnation becomes a central plot point, but I could easily argue that this is bad writing because we still don’t know who he is after 16 episodes.

While Rand sightsees in Cairhein, Nynaeve is shown to be stubbornly tolerating the Aes Sedai at the tower. She stagnates by rejecting magical training (something most children dream of being able to do) to drink sewer water. That’ll teach your instructors a lesson! Don’t cleanse your water of impurities, give yourself a parasite or hepatitis! She then stubbornly stagnates in the gates to live with an alternate reality Lan and his baby child only to nearly be trapped there forever. Then she stubbornly stagnates to leave the tower with Egwene and is duped by Liandrin and delivered to the enemy Sul’dam. So, if we’re keeping score, thus far she’s made zero good decisions. And then because she refused training at the tower, she accidentally alerts the Sul’dam to her location when she attempts to channel which leads to the death of a warder and the capture of a sister. FFS.

Moiraine is the best character on this show even though she was on the same journey as Rand and Nynaeve in season two - one of stubbornness and stagnation. The difference is that it killed her to stand still. And so it broke my heart when she lost access to the source, and did the best she could to control affairs from afar, all whilst dealing with the most petulant young adults I’ve ever encountered in fiction. I can only imagine the seismic sigh I’d have heaved in my blue dress while angrily leading this lot through the countryside listening to them talk about how they’re trying so hard while doing absolutely nothing that I have asked them to do. This woman possesses the patience of a saint.

And then, to be accused by the woman she loved of lying after twenty years of affection, adoration, and honesty across vast distances. Blasphemy. Am I frustrated that Moiraine didn’t write Siuan and explain why she wasn’t training Rand? Yes. But even Lan, a man tortured by Moiraine’s dismissal of him this season, knows her heart is good and always in the right place. He performed his duty to her and put her first in all ways. Moiraine didn’t make it easy, but relationships never are. Siuan though? How do you not give Moraine the benefit of the doubt when she cannot lie and is standing before you swearing that you know more than anyone else? When she swears she would never lie to you while tears form in her eyes? To ignore all of their past and violate Moraine’s free will by forcing her to obey an oath is unforgivable. You cannot love a slave.

Let's stop pretending this show is about Rand.

[markantonys]

So regarding Ishamael obsessing over Mat and Perrin. Like I have been thinking about how he probably does that because if Lews didn’t take away his death from him he would have been reborn with them, so he’d be one of the boys. Do you think that he sees himself in Mat (“Mat will be mine” etc)? Or do you think that he might recognize their past selves? Because he has been VERY gentle with them.

Series!Ishamael IS a very gentle person and his basic idea is that he is very depressed, Lews doesn’t love him and now he only wants to commit murder suicide with the entire world, but only if Lews consents. But like. He doesn’t kill for fun and neither is he particularly impatient with people, but Mat and Perrin are definitely getting the special “we could be friends and maybe even lovers” treatment. Not on the levels that Rand is getting (a dream where Rand sits like a good boy in Ishamael’s bed and waits for him??? Bruh……..)

Like the whole scene where he is just making Mat his “tea”? Like that’s a very intimate scene. “No it’s not about the sex” wow, why do casually intimate then?

oooh this is a very interesting line of thought!! just yesterday @butterflydm was pointing out some mat-ishamael foiling too (ishy being the dragon's best friend but then becoming "betrayer of hope"; mat being the dragon's best friend and being called "rand's only hope" by perrin in 2x08)

ishamael definitely wants MAT to think the two of them are similar as a manipulation tactic to get him over to the dark side, but i can totally see ishy himself also genuinely thinking they're similar and seeing some of himself in mat. it's telling that mat is the only emond's fielder for whom he uses his own reason for joining the shadow as a tactic: for perrin he preys on his fear of the wolf, for rand he preys on his fear of hurting his friends, but for mat, ishy lays out his own philosophy because he thinks that will work with mat - because he thinks mat is similar to him.

and with moiraine's line in 2x08 making an explicit link for the audience between the LTT-ishy-lanfear friendship and the ef5 friendship, i wouldn't be surprised if ishy and lanfear themselves maybe see a bit of that echo too and feel a little wistful or resentful or jealous. there's lots of Mess tangled up with that trio and it's fascinating!

[moghedien]

I am considering reading the books but I've seen it said that Rand is the protagonist of the book series and that characters like Moiraine and Egwene who are basically my favourites have significantly less to do in the books, with Moiraine being absent for chapters and chapters at times. I'm also not a big Rand fan (i love a disaster man and Mat is right there, come on) so I'm wondering would you reccomend the series to me? What are the big differences between it and the adaptation?

so #1 advice for anyone regardless of where they're at with wanting to read the books: If you're already watching the show, don't start reading the books until after this season is over. There's a lot of rearranging and changing of stuff in the books and I think that can get confusing if you're trying to consume the show and the books at the same time.

Ok so regarding Rand, yes, he's the main character and is the vast majority of the POVs in the first book. Its extremely obvious who the dragon reborn is in the book and its never really presented as a mystery. As the books go on, it becomes much much more of an ensemble type story and Rand will be almost entirely absent for long periods of time, but he's still largely the main character. but there are 148 different POV characters in the books, so its far from a Rand-only story

Regarding Moiraine and Egwene, while I wouldn't really say that Egwene has a significantly lesser role in the books (at least after the first book), Moiraine's role is definitely beefed up for the show. We don't get her POV until a few books in (well there is a very brief POV in book 1), and she's largely missing from book 2. She is a much more (emotionally) distant figure and definitely the sort of Gandalf/mentor role in the books rather than the main character. But if you like Egwene, there is plenty of Egwene content for you in the books, do not worry.

As for differences, the main difference between the books and the show is the first book is not the first season. There are definitely elements there, but the first book is best viewed as an homage to the fantasy genre that Robert Jordan had to make a certain way to get it through publishing. Its not *bad* but its definitely a Lord of the Rings-y story that follows that kind of formula. The show made sure there was a lot more worldbuilding and future plot threads established in season 1 than there was present in book 1. It doesn't start becoming truly its own thing until book 2, imo, and it's a common sentiment where books 4 and 5 are really where it starts becoming the Wheel of Time and holding its own ground. Like as much as some people do complain about it and as much as I do like the Eye of the World, it would have made a terrible on screen experience if it were told entirely faithful to the book

So I wouldn't say absolutely to read it or not. obviously I do want people to read and enjoy the books, but its also a commitment, and if you're coming to them off of the show, its best to be aware that's its going to be different going in. You're not going to see some of the things that happened in season 1 at all, but you're going to get a much more detailed account of the story and it might give you better context for some of the things going on in the show, even if its not how it happened in the books.

So if you're ok with the fact that its different, I say try it once the season is over. If you don't want to finish it or continue on with the series, then there's no harm in trying and you can always keep watching the show even if the books aren't for you

[mass-convergence]

I’ll be honest with you - in season 1 of WOT:

I didn’t exactly love what I’m calling the Main Character Squad (Rand, Egwene, Perrin, Mat, Nynaeve). Like don’t get me wrong - I didn’t hate them. I just thought they were … idk … boring? And this may warrant a rewatch, I’ll admit I was not in the best place emotionally while watching the season. But I just felt like they were kind of flat with maybe the exception being Mat and Nynaeve who I was kinda like 👀 what’s going on. Mat had that whole corrupted by darkness thing going on with him and Nynaeve was just a fucking badass and seemed highly motivated to protect her friends from the get go. But idk Rand felt like he was just kinda …… there? Same with Egwene and Perrin.

(This is ending up turning into an essay so I’m gonna put shit below a cut)

They were cool characters and I obviously was rooting for them to get reunited and stuff but I was like “eh???” Until maybe the very end when things started falling in place and the plot became a lot more sticky (as my friend describes plots that suddenly have a lot of competing motivations all coming together)

So I think my main issue was with their writing rather then the characters themselves. I’m coming at this as a complete outsider to WoT - never read the books and even if I did, I believe an adaptation must be able to stand on its own. And what I think happened was that season 1 like *had* to catch everyone up on the lore of the world, why Moiraine was so hellbent on finding the Dragon, what the hell the Aes Sedai were, etc. etc.

And it may have somewhat put characterization on the backburner until the end when they were like “we caught you up to speed now here’s the plot”. I guess they felt passive, like the plot was just happening to them instead of them driving the plot. Like we got hints of stuff - I was confused about what was going on with Perrin, then really intrigued towards the end when the wolves attacked the White Cloaks camp. And then of course the whole Eye of the World thing and Ishamael being released and him cutting Moiraine off from the One Power.

But idk, most of that season just fell flat to me.

The second season however, whooooo boy did I get fucking invested in those crazy kids. I was like “why can’t Nynaeve deliberately channel? [Insert Spiderverse “can’t do it on command” meme here]”, “oh fuck how is Egwene going to get out of this and also fuck you Renna”, “Rand please don’t go crazy”, “Perrin is like spiritually connected to wolves??? I need to know more about how that is a thing”, “Mat I swear to god you better not be evil because I’m like rooting for you”.

And of course I was really invested in the supporting characters - like Moiraine’s journey, Liandrin’s betrayal, Lanfear’s … everything (god I love her).

And oh god was it almost empowering to see their arcs play out.

- Rand struggling with the fact that he is indeed the Dragon Reborn and that male channelers tend to go batshit and kill everyone they love.

- Perrin becoming more familiar with his wolf-powers (I forgot what they were called or if they even had a name I’m sorry) … and being caught between his humanity and his wolf side. RIP Hopper, I’m glad you were avenged almost immediately.

- Egwene first off like: struggling with the fact that Nynaeve was kind of distant (because Nynaeve was obviously dealing with her own issues) but sticking with her friend. And then getting fucking captured and enslaved and like thrown into one of the most disempowering positions one can get into… and she fucking still held her own and never gave in. God I think her arc is like my favorite one this season. Fuck you Renna I’m glad you fucking got what you deserved.

- Mat dealing with the aftermath of the dagger and just having this darkness inside of him. He had been pushed down and kicked all his life, people viewed him as a loser, and he had that attitude towards himself as well. I felt like a connection to him because yeah, that boy is just a touch depressed, and as someone who’s dealt with their own mental health issues and ADHD absolutely making me feel like I’m constantly failing everyone including myself …….. good lord did his arc make me feel some feelings. Like he took that darkness - namely the dagger - and he used it to fight his way out. And then he’s a fucking hero of the horn. That is unironically super fucking inspiring to me.

- Nynaeve not being able to channel on command, being almost afraid of the power she can wield (I think that’s the angle they’re going for at least - though it also does seem to be very attached to her emotions). Out of all the main character squad: I liked her the most in the first season. She was very much motivated to protect her friends. Like I do see her kind of as the mother figure of the group (and not in a derisive way - like she will absolutely fuck a person up if they hurt her friends as we saw in season 2 with that sul’dam), the “heart” in the five man band. Like *almost* like Katara in a way and I really loved Katara so there you go.

- honorable mention to Moiraine because she thought that she had to handle this shit on her own. She had to figure out what Ishamael and the Dark One were planning while protecting Rand and also dealing with the aftershocks of her being cut off from the One Power. Something that Verin very much analogized to being assaulted or raped. And Moiraine just kept trucking, carrying the burden of what she felt like her own responsibilities like she carried those fucking buckets up the hill. The season was her realizing she could rely on others and she didn’t have to be as closed off as she was being. And oh my god once she got the One Power back she (a woman who was already plenty fucking badass during this entire season) like went to fucking S-tier levels of badass. God I fucking love her.

Basically: I’m saying that I loved season 2 very very much and I’m now rooting for these crazy kids to fuck shit up and save the world.

Also I love every single woman in this show who’s not Renna or the Seanchan because fuck those slavery loving assholes.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 22: The Price of the Ring

Everyone always wonders why heroes in fantasy stories are so reluctant to get the cool magical artifacts and stuff. This chapter justifies why you should be a little cautious around free doodads, especially when they're enchanted! Anything else would be spoilers though, and if you don't want spoilers for the whole Wheel of Time series, you shouldn't keep reading.

This chapter has the Flame of Tar Valon icon because we're seeing the Accepted ritual again and because Egwene is going to be the Flame of Tar Valon for a hot minute or two. Also the Amyrlin's voice is heard at the end. Lots of meaning, this chapter icon.

But Sheriam seemed to have dismissed the papers from her mind as soon as she asked.

Since the first word out of Egwene's mouth was "Verin," Sheriam probably dismissed them for that reason. She either knows Verin's allegiance or buys the cover that she's a distracted old wmoan.

“I listened to the lectures,” Egwene protested, “and I remember them, but . . . can’t I have a night’s sleep first?”

It's funny to consider that when Egwene gets raised next time, she'll spend a night traveling through the world of dreams.

An Aes Sedai sat cross-legged on the bare rock before each of the spots where arches joined ring, all three wearing their shawls. Alanna was the sister of the Green Ajah, but she did not know the Yellow sister, or the White.

Sadly, we don't know them either. I wouldn't at all be surprised though if they were significant players though, since Sheriam, Elaida, and Alanna all are too.

“She should not be given this chance.” There was iron in Elaida’s voice, and her face was scarcely softer. “I do not care what her potential is. She should be put out of the Tower. Or failing that, set to scrubbing floors for the next ten years.”

Elaida's just bitter that Moiraine has outmatched her in recent all-star recruitment. Cute that their animosity starts so early.

She sounded as if she had said this many times. There was a light of sympathy in her eyes, but her face was almost as stern as Elaida’s. The sympathy frightened Egwene more than the sternness.

If a member of the BA is feeling sorry for you, you know your life is about to suck hardcore.

“There is some sort of—resonance.” She never took her eyes from the arches. “An echo, almost. I do not know from where.”

Two T'A'R access points conflicting with each other?

“Then let her face what she fears.” Even in its formality, there was a note of satisfaction in Elaida’s voice.

Already Elaida thinks Egwene can't survive the punishments coming her way. And already she's wrong. A remarkably pig-headed woman.

Of course Rand was her husband—her handsome, loving husband—and Joiya was her daughter—the most beautiful, sweetest little girl in the Two Rivers. Tam, Rand’s father, was out with the sheep, supposedly so Rand could work on the barn but really so he could have more time to play with Joiya. This afternoon Egwene’s mother and father would come out from the village. And probably Nynaeve, to see if motherhood was interfering with Egwene’s studies to replace Nynaeve as Wisdom one day.

Egwene's first archway takes her to the closest equivalent of a fluffy high school/coffee shop AU that the setting can allow. A true hell for Egwene, who needs shit to do.

Egwene knew—she thought she knew—Whatever it was, was gone.

Egwene's Seanchan trauma is so strong that she can almost recall it across timelines. I think the only reason she doesn't spend any of the three arches in the damane collar is because she's already faced that fear as thoroughly as possible.

When Rand’s head hurt, strange things happened soon after. Lightning out of a clear sky, smashing to bits that huge oak stump he had been working two days to root out where he and Tam were clearing new field. Storms that Nynaeve did not hear coming when she listened to the wind. Wildfires in the forest. And the deeper his pain grew, the worse what followed.

Huh. After my migraines we get sudden thunderstorms and those cause forest fires. Am I the Dragon Preborn? I fucking hope not, though getting channeling as a reward for suffering through the headaches would be fucking fantastic.

But three times now, Egwene had cured someone Nynaeve had given up for dead. Three times she had sat to hold a hand through the last hour, and seen the person get up from a deathbed. Nynaeve had questioned her closely on what she had done, what herbs she had used, in what blending. Thus far, she had not found the courage to admit that she had done nothing.

It's interesting to note that in a world where the EF5 never leaves town, Egwene eventually becomes more capable at Healing than Nynaeve. It might just be that their blocks are different, I suppose, or that Wilders are prone to implausible feats in the initial period that they can't necessarily replicate after the fact, though Rand's channeling outbursts are things he'd do quite easily later.

She halted, looked back at Joiya gurgling in her cradle, at Rand still pressing hand to his head and looking at her as if wondering where she was going. “No,” she said. “No, this is what I want. This is what I want! Why can’t I have this, too?”

Fucking Wheel, making women choose between families and careers no matter what position it's in. How depressing.

She stiffened her back and kept walking, but she could not keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. Rand’s groans built to a scream, drowning Joiya’s laughter. From the corner of her eye, Egwene saw Tam coming, running as hard as he could.

Really the fact that Joiya is laughing hysterically while her dad is having a horrible meltdown is good evidence that these possible timelines aren't entirely real but are specifically designed as a trap.

“Every woman I have ever watched come out of there has asked that question. The answer is, no one knows. It has been speculated that perhaps some of those who do not come back chose to stay because they found a happier place, and lived out their lives there.” Her voice hardened. “If it is real, and they stayed from choice, then I hope the lives they live are far from happy. I have no sympathy for any who run from their responsibilities.”

And what about your responsibilities to not be an evil witch, Sheriam? Pretty hypocritical of you to judge the women trapped in the ter'angreal when you aren't even a true believer but only joined for political power!

She stared down at her dress, blue silk sewn with pearls, all dusty and torn. Her head came up, and she took in the ruins of a great palace around her. The Royal Palace of Andor, in Caemlyn.

This is of course foreshadowing the eventual destruction of Caemlyn as the central location of the Last Battle that never does quite come to pass under Brando Sando's work.

Once she stepped on a woman’s arm, sticking out from under a mound of plaster and bricks that had been an interior wall and perhaps part of the floor above. She noticed the arm as little as she noticed the Great Serpent ring on one finger. She had trained herself not to see the dead buried in the refuse heap Trollocs and Darkfriends had made of Caemlyn. She could do nothing for the dead.

It's for the best that real Egwene never quite has to steel herself in this way.

“The madness, Egwene. I am—actually—holding it—at bay.” His gasping laugh made her skin prickle. “But it takes everything I have just to do that. If I let go, even a little, even for an instant, the madness will have me. I won’t care what I do then. You have to help me.”

A lot of people think that Egwene judges Rand way too harshly in later books and while I definitely don't think she's as good as a friend as she should have been, I think we can blame this vision for some of it. The Rand of later books becomes more and more like this madman, laughing at inappropriate, mood swinging violently, not always able to channel reliably or effectively. Egwene gets to see the end of the road before everyone else does and even though he's still relatively stable in LOC, she's definitely seeing him take the first steps down it.

“If they take me—the Myrddraal—the Dreadlords—they can turn me to the Shadow. If madness has me, I cannot fight them. I won’t know what they are doing till it is too late. If there is even a spark of life left when they find me, they can still do it. Please, Egwene. For the love of the Light. Kill me.”

While the arches do seem to be psychologically manipulative, they are also great teaching tools. This scenario is clearly built out of Egwene's fear of Rand's channeling ability, but it has to up the stakes even beyond that and so pulls more facts for her to learn from.

It is a thing not done, so far as I know—Light send it has not been done!—since the Trolloc Wars. It took thirteen Dreadlords—Darkfriends who could channel—weaving the flows through thirteen Myrddraal. You see? Not easily done. There are no Dreadlords today.

But there are members of the Black Ajah, who are Dreadlords in all but name. And Sheriam can lie. But like I said, she's not a true believer, she did it for the opportunity. Is she being truthful to Egwene here, both in that the technique has not been done in two thousand years and in that she hopes it has never been done? Is that one of the reasons she holds her position, to recruit naturally and hope that things never turn to filling out the numbers in a different fashion?

Egwene stared into the standing mirror, and was not sure whether she was more surprised by the ageless smoothness of her face or the striped stole that hung around her neck. The stole of the Amyrlin Seat.

Like Nynaeve, Egwene's third vision is of a very similar future to the fate she actually gets. Is that common to all of the women who go through these arches, or is it just that their fates are so firm there's nothing to pull from but the truth?

There was an Aes Sedai at her elbow, a woman with Sheriam’s high cheekbones but dark hair and concerned brown eyes, and the hand-wide stole of the Keeper on her shoulders. Not Sheriam, though. Egwene had never seen her before; she was sure she knew her as well as she knew herself. Haltingly, she put a name to the woman. Beldeine.

"Not Sheriam, though." Fun foreshadowing for Egwene's first Keeper and her removal, that.

That thought shook her. Not that she had been Green Ajah, but that she had to reason it out.

Another question is whether the ring broke this vision but not the other two because of repeated exposure, or if the future-predicting aspects of both ter'angreal was the thing that let the resonance grow out of control?

That seemed an odd thought, too. Part of her remembered something called the Great Purge. Part of her was sure no such thing had happened.

A much less important question is if the Great Purge of this timeline was more or less successful than the main timeline, considering how things turned out.

The Flame of Tar Valon lay centered in the floor, surrounded by widening spirals of color, the colors of the seven Ajahs. At the opposite side of the room from where the ramp entered, a high-backed chair stood, heavy and ornately carved in vines and leaves, painted in the colors of all the Ajahs.

Our first look at the hall, even if it is fake. Note the emphasis both in-text and in-universe on all seven Ajahs. Even though there's definitely some problems and changes to come, all are consistently treated as an integral part of the Tower until the breaking.

One of the Red Sitters stood. Egwene was shocked to recognize Elaida. At the same time she knew that Elaida was foremost of the Sitters for the Red, and her own bitterest enemy.

Lucky of Elaida to not get taken by the Seanchan. Perhaps the arches neglected that detail specifically to fuck with Egwene more, or perhaps it was an inevitable consequence of whatever butterfly effect we're dealing with here.

One of the Green Sitters was on her feet, anger bright through her calm. “Shame, Elaida! Show respect for the Amyrlin Seat! Show respect for the Mother!”

Obviously this could be virtually any non-Black Green, but I like to think it's Farnah specifically. Could be Faiselle though if it's one of the three actual Sitters Egwene gets, probably not Rubinde since she's an Elaida loyalist in the real timeline.

As Egwene opened her mouth, Beldeine moved beside her. Then the Keeper’s staff struck her head.

No surprise that Beldeine, one of the women who will be sent to box Rand, would betray Egwene to Elaida even as her Keeper.

The pain in her head made thinking difficult, but it seemed important to count them. Thirteen.

Would being 13x13ed here have truly changed Egwene, I wonder? Was Sheriam hoping it might and trying to play towards it, or is this entirely of the resonance and thus not an outcome she could have predicted?

Flames burst from Myrddraal skin, ripping through black cloth as if they were solid daggers of fire. Shrieking Halfmen crisped and burned like oiled paper. Fist-sized chunks of stone tore themselves free of the walls and whizzed across the room, producing shrieks and grunts as they thudded into flesh. The air stirred, shifted, howled into a whirlwind.

Either Egwene is able to throw around way more power than she should be able to (our girls will later find out that setting Halfmen on fire is actually a rather bad choice, all things considered), or the arches are just playing along with her.

Egwene’s mind put a name to the face. Gyldan. Elaida’s closest confidante, always whispering together in corners, closeting themselves in the night.

We do not ever meet a Gyldan in the main timeline. She may be a real Black who just doesn't get up to much in reality, or perhaps the real Gyldan is even more unremarkable and in this timeline Mesaana replaces her, not the Brown (in which case, good on you for punching her out Egwene!). Perhaps she doesn't exist at all, though Beldeine certainly does.

It was unnerving, trotting through empty hallways. The White Tower no longer held the numbers it once had, but there was usually someone about.

Consider that the White Tower is already at its lowest membership count ever and that in this timeline we have no evidence of the reforms that lead to the Rebels having a larger roster. It may well be that with the Blacks mostly purged (or victims mostly purged, since obviously 13 are still running around), the Tower has virtually no one left at this point.

“What would you have done? What? Nothing! There’s nothing you can do. But they said they could give it back to me, with the power of . . . the power of the Dark One.”

So apparently Nynaeve never cured stilling in this timeline. She and Elayne, and really a wide variety of Aes Sedai who you'd think would be a bit sympathetic to our girl here, all seem to be gone. Has the resonance up and put Egwene in a T'A'R nightmare, is that why things are so incoherent? Can she not remember what happened not purely by glitch in the system but because there's no logical way to arrive at this scenario, so there's no memories to give her?

“More than anyone suspects,” Egwene said. “I never held the Oath Rod, Beldeine.”

This of course should technically be another bit of early installment weirdness where Jordan hasn't decided that the Oath Rod is what causes the ageless look, not channeling as a whole, but since we're in a resonance cascade or whatever it might as well be just another mismatched puzzle piece in the mystery that is this timeline.

It would need to be done quickly; there was no point if Rand was gentled while she was still wrapping Warders in Air. Even Warders would break if she loosed the lightnings on them, and balefire, and broke the ground under their feet.

I love how balefire isn't even the final option here. "I'll shoot them with lightning, and if that doesn't work I'll retroactively remove them from existence, and if THAT doesn't work I'll stick their legs in a rock because if they refuse to be balefired they obviously can't be killed, only slowed down."

Twelve Aes Sedai surrounded him, and another—who Egwene knew had to be wearing a seven-striped stole, even though she could not distinguish it—stood before Rand.

You've got to hand it to Elaida. Very few people have a destiny so set in stone that it comes true in an alternate timeline that isn't really even a timeline, but dammit every variation of her that has ever existed is going to usurp the Amyrlin Seat, and that includes nightmare versions.

Thirteen Aes Sedai. Twelve sisters and the Amyrlin, the traditional number for gentling. The same number as for. . . .

No Egwene, focus on that thought. Sure it's really only because of the metaphysics that everyone's arrived on the same number, but what does it say about the White Tower that its court system is only a mirror image of the Black Ajah's most despicable ritual?

There on the tower top, tilted to sit flat against the sloping tiles, was a silver arch filled with a glowing light. The arch flickered and wavered; streaks of angry red and yellow darted through the white light.

Are they having troubles keeping the door open because of the resonance alone, or because Egwene's scenario is so far off the map it's not normally where the arches point to? I know we'll never know, but both answers provide such rich potential for how the arches work at all. Alas.

Light plucked her apart fiber by fiber, sliced the fibers to hairs, split the hairs to wisps of nothing. All drifted apart on the light. Forever.

Pardon the math joke, but isn't that being a bit hyperbolic, Egwene?

Next time: Egwene recovers from her sorority hazing!

[torashisama]

WoT about: "The writers keep giving time to plots that aren't bad, but do nothing to actually serve the story".

Disclaimer : As always, it's long.

Alll of these comments are from a discussion I had with a book reader in the comments of a post on S3E01 being written by S1E06 and S2E07 writer: Justine Juel Gillmer. Basically, the original poster was celebrating more Siuan (however it might be) and/or a possible Siuanraine reunion in S3.

Book Reader 1:

In a story about the potential end of all things, I can't honestly say that I care about Suianraine. Side romance plots are fine, but they're not what WoT is really about. I hope they give a little ship time to those who are craving it, but they really need to work on the Nerf Reborn. He's way weaker in the show than he is in the books. We need a Rocky montage to put the Dragon back on track.

Book reader 2 :

One of my biggest issues with this show. The writers keep giving time to plots that aren't *bad*, but do nothing to actually serve the story.

Moiraines family scenes? Well written and acted, but that's 30-40 minutes that we could have had in Falme, or building up the Horn, or generally building the legend of the dragon.

Book reader 1 :

Yep. The show wastes precious time on things which aren't central to the plot.

Torashi :

That mostly has to do with the fact that the show is not about Rand but about Moiraine and specifically about Moiraine's Quest which is something that most book readers seems to have overlooked and that's the most important and fundamental change from the books yet it's overlooked when it comes to understanding how and why everything plays out the way it does.

If we had to choose a character and declare them the main one for the show, it would be Moiraine. That's the main difference that explains most of the complaints bookcloaks and book readers may have with the show.

The books are about Rand. Here, it's about "Moiraine's Quest", and it gives the show more room to explore the characters deemed as side characters and one of the most interesting group of people in this universe in my opinion: Aes Sedai's and their warders.

Both are telling the same story but not from the same POV, and that changes a bunch of things and it includes what gets showed or not.

Book reader 1 :

I certainly didn't overlook that the show is focused on Mo. That is the biggest problem, as you say (pre post edit: I did not say that the the Mo focus was a problem, never had actually) . Book Mo isn't anywhere near a main character after TEOTW, so it's a very questionable decision to promote her to a main, outside of real world "politics". Pike is the most recognized actress **and** she's a producer.

While I get that non-readers don't mind it, I and millions of other readers waited 39 years for the books to be turned into a show.

We weren't waiting on Siuan and Moiraine.

Torashi:

I'm not saying that you're overlooking this but that those who did read the books tends to do so and fail to realise( pre post edit: or recognise really) that the things they're complaining about usually makes sense as Rand is not the main character anymore.

The pov's are mostly Moiraine's, and while it's different from the books, it doesn't mean that it's not good. The story is just told differently, and a lot of you guys fail to realise that while it's not what you hoped for, you at least get to experience the same story told another way and in the same world you grew up loving but on screen.

I understand that it's disappointing as it's probably not what you guys imagined and expected the show would be if you ever got to see it, but Rand, as the main character, probably wouldn't have worked as needed exactly because it's been so long since the books.

The classic hero trope is not as appealing as it used to be for TV, and switching the focus and putting it onto the Gandalfs of the WoT world probably was better so it ended up as the Moiraine's Quest show and not as the Randland show. It's also probably because it's usually better if most actors in a fantasy show are unknown so that their reputation and previous roles do not taint the ones they'll have in the show.

( pre post edit : in case some people don't get why I'm comparing them, it's to emphasise that all of these fantasy shows have 1 or 2 of their main cast and characters as the biggest stars so that they don't have to rely only on the existing fandom but can also count on their main celebrity to bring a wider audience (advertising aside) which allows for the rest of the cast to be lesser known or straight-up debuting and/or unknown actors)

For ex, Matt Smith and Paddy Considine probably are the most recognisable actors of HOTD (HBO) and they're brothers in the show and have a close relationship ( in case you didn't see it, Matt is Daemon and Paddy is King Viserys)

WoT (Prime) has Rosamund Pike and Sophie Okonedo as their biggest star, and they have a close relationship.

(Fun fact : Sophie wasn't even supposed to be in the show and probably wouldn't have accepted if she was offered the part but Rosamund specifically wanted her to play her love interest and Sophie had to be written to personally by Ros so that she would accept the role ( anyone who knows or follows Sophie's work knows that her playing Siuan was as probable as a WoT + GoT crossover episode) )

The Witcher( Netflix) they really just needed Henry Cavill as he actually is a mainstream celebrity and was at the prime of his career when he took the role.

Good Omens (Prime) : David Tennant and Micheal Sheen, they lead and are close. ( they really could have been fine with David here. Actually, he probably has one of the most dedicated fan base I've seen because of his performance as the doctor ) ( they also have benedict cumberbatch but I'm sticking to mains biggest star + they're closest relationships )

Carnival Row (Prime and original so a lil different): Cara delevigne and Orlando Bloom, biggest stars + close relationship.

Good Omens is focused on the gandalfs ( Crowley & Aziraphale) again btw and it's one of amazon most successful adaptations.

The Witcher is also focused on the Gandalfs of their world: Geralt & Yennefer (by extension)

WoT switched it to be the same : Moiraine & Siuan (by extension).

What i'm saying is that basically most of the complaints are related to missing things from the books, the cast diversity, things people wish they could have seen or wishing Josha's (pre post edit :Rand) or Daniel's (pre post edit : Lan) characters where depicted as in the books or it's blaming the show (pre post edit: or really mainly and mostly Rafe and sometimes the rest of the writers) for spending time on things that actually makes sense when you recenter yourself in what the show is actually doing which is telling the story from Moiraine's POVs.

Siuan is important so she gets time, Lan is important so he gets time (pre post edit : mainly referencing the Aes sedai + Warder focused episodes of S1, from Ep4/5 to Ep6).

Liandrin is a problem and has a grudge against Mo that leads her to be a threat not only because she's a red and black ajah but also because of an ulterior reason so she gets time and is developed, Moiraine is pushing everyone away even the only 2 people she could allow herself to be close to during her mission because of her depression and allow herself no other choice but to go to Cairhien alone which happens to be her hometown so we get a family reunion and see how much her quest for Rand impacted her and her family too and how unusual it is even for an Aes sedai( Alanna's scenes with her family).

The main problem isn't that the story is being told through Moiraine's POV but that they only get 8 episodes of approximately 1 hour each to tell a story that required 14 books to finish, they clearly need more or longer episodes per season to include more of what they initially intended to put in each season. ( pre post edit : in case you didn't know Lan was supposed to start training the boys from s1. you can check here )

For reference, GOT had 10 episodes for each season until S7 for 8 season out of 10 initially planned, each episode falling anywhere between 1h and 1h22 max, and it's only 5 books out on 7 planned.

There, we have 8 episodes falling anywhere between 54 minutes to 1h10 min max each, planned to have 8 seasons for 14 books.

(Pre post edit : so far, and yes i went to check the longest ep so far was 1h10 min and it's s2 finale in case you were wondering)

Original poster reaction :

OMG!!! I wish I could give you gold for this comment. I am getting tired of when I post something about the show, instead of people focusing on the show, they wanna bring the "but but but the books did this and that and it is nowhere to be found on the show", like I don't care, let's focus on what's happening in the show and can we only talk about that? You should make another main post pointing this out and that for the sake of productive conversations, this sub should stop complaining about what isn't on the show from the books and more on what we actually get, if it works or not let's stick to that!

Torashi :

I understand, but I totally get their reaction, too. It's been so long for them that it's probably hard to accept anything else than what they expected or wished they had.

(pre post edit :

While i do understand the frustration, i do not understand why you think it makes it fine to ruin (or tarnish) the experience of genuine show only fans by complaining and shitting on the show for missing things or not doing it the way you wanted it to be instead of going:

"That's cool i wish they had room for this or that, in the books there's this or that and whatever, you should check the books."

"The story is so much more richer even though the focus is not on the guide in the books. It could be interesting for you to see it from another PoV too"

You'd actually make show-only fans want to read the books. You guys have been tainted by so much display of lack of respect and gratitude towards those making and/or enjoying the show that I think that you're actually deterring show only fans from the books by dividing the fandom as much as S8 divided GOT fans and by making people afraid to read them before the show ends because of how ugly your reactions are and have been. (You guys are literally associated to Whitecloacks).)

Torashi:

What's infuriating me, though, is that most of the books things they wish they saw when that's what they're complaining about are things that had to be cut because they were details and did not impact the rest of the story as much and instead of complaining about the show having an insane amount of episodes, episode's length and planned seasons for 14 books each individually as big as an encyclopedia they blame Rafe who actually loved the books and is a fan too, that's literally why the books got approved to be on screen. Rafe he's a book fan that got lucky the same way Brandon Sanderson was a book fan that got lucky back then. He probably wish he could put more things in there too.

Instead of complaining about the real problem, they should be battling against, its straight up hate (from bookcloaks) and endless complaints about things that does not matter as its really just "yes but in the books" for choices that does makes sense when they stop being Rand centric while watching a show that isn't about the hero's journey but about the Quest itself.

(Pre post edit thoughts:

Robert made a mistake by calling his books: The Wheel of Time ,to then make most of the pov's and most of the story revolve around a single character. He should have called it "The dragon Reborn" or something along those lines, because most of book readers' new complaints I've seen so far, really are just about it not being ridiculously focused on Rand's story or like the books when they know that this is not a "Randland" show but specifically one that corrects this major flaw from the books by using the only character close enough, interesting enough and refreshing enough to tell this story trought a different lense that allows more freedom to explore other "z-list"/ side characters who actually plays a role in all of this, it's actually painfull to see so many book readers fail to realise that Moiraine really is just the best character to tell this story as she actually knows what's going on behind the scene whereas Rand is just clueless.)

E.g: Rand apparently being powerless (or rather not as powerful as they wished he would be already).

Even though he was alone and in hiding for the last 6 months and only ever channelled because he lacked control and only got to Logain once, because he stayed close but still ignored him for as long as he could. Until he left with Selene to then be found by Mo, he still kills Ishy, Turak and his guards, takes the shield off Egwene (pre post edit: who's struggling btw) and looks like he doesn't even break a sweat.

Yet, all some book readers allow themselves to see is him being "powerless" because he didn't get a flashy 1vs1 against the bad guy even though it wouldn't makes sense with his current development (that was impacted by what ? Cuts because of time/budget constraints ) and Egwene literally is the strongest and most experienced of them all right now because of the Sanchean (pre post edit : the bright side of being a damane lol ) and is one of the most developed character of s2 from EF5 because of what needs to happen with Siuan at some point in S3 and where her (really theirs) story might be going.

(more on this topic here)

This ends here, feel free to share your opinion on this.

[lioness-of-the-seas]

My thoughts on WOT Prime so far

SPOILERS; WOT PRIME AND EYE OF THE WORLD BOOK

I was sceptical upon my first watch. The pacing is a bit off, and they've cut out a lot of elements I really liked in the first book. The world building too is a little info dumpy, but I guess it's an inevitability.

I feel like Moiraine's introduction in Two Rivers I'd weird. We have already seen her on screen, so why is she getting a grand reveal? It is supposed to evoke a sense of mystery, but we already have met this character, and we know what she wants. It kind of annoyed me that they found out she was Aes Sedai straight away too, as it again takes away this air of mystery. Moiraine at least has a civil conversation in the books with the boys before she is later revealed to be Aes Sedai. Other than that, I thought the performance was amazing. She does have an air of mystery to her, a sense of wisdom and knowledge, whilst being powerful and sure in herself.

Rand, gosh my smol boi. I honestly feel like they are spending less and less time on him because they want to keep the suspense. I felt in the first episode he was pushed to the back, but I guess it's because the entire of Winternight takes place from his point of view. I am a bit upset Tam didn't hand him the blade, and that we didn't see Tam's feverish mutters. Rand's big battle, after the trauma in Winternight, is dealing with the fact that he may not be who he thought he was, beyond being the Dragon Reborn. We don't see much conflict in him, only his reluctance to follow an Aes Sedai (which to be fair was well done).

Mat stole my heart in the first episode. Running out to protect his sisters in the middle of a blood bath? That's a real bloody hero. Do better Rand.

Perrin I do like. His wife I do not. There is conflict. I hate that it's the tragic trope of the dead wife (like John Wick), but then I really like that he kills her. He's in a stupor, and you can see he's doing all he can because he wants to protect the ones he love. He's so zoned out that he ends up striking her instead- blood and ashes. There is the fact that the wife is not developed at all and is just used as a tragic backstory; considering this is a story that has an element of empowerment in it, it's kind of disappointing we see her as nothing more than a prop rather than an actual character. She might have been interesting to actually explore, rather than just have her death part of Perrin's trauma. We don't see them together properly, we don't see them as a couple, so we don't know for sure what Perrin can be feeling. Though in the moment we feel for Perrin, we don't actually feel the pain ourselves.

One thing that kind of annoyed me was Moiraine straight up giving the history of Manetherian to the Emond's fielders just felt weird. It went on for too long and honestly didn't really add much. The song was fine, and if Moiraine needed to give some background, she should've really shortened it or not told it at all. I just felt there could've maybe been more character moments rather than her explaining Two Rivers history.

Moving to more positive things...

I didn't know I needed another reason to have Nynaeve as my favourite character, but episode 3 gave it to me anyhow... Probably my favourite scene so far was her fighting that Trolloc.

Also Lan and Nynaeve are actually brilliant. Knife to the throat trope? Check. Kinda sceptical but into each other? Check. Lan being challenged in his Warder skills? Check. I see what you're doing, Amazon. Though a lil put off by the tying up situation, the rest I approve. Lan looking simultaneously annoyed and attracted is what I needed from this show.

Egwene is great. She and Nynaeve have literally been lifted right from the books and onto screen, because their portrayals are immaculate.

Overall I'm enjoying it. Good fights and decent dialogue. I am hyped for the next episode!!

[cinaja]

I first got into wheel of time through the show but am now about 3/4 through Eye of the World and I love both show and books, but I have to say that while the show changed a lot from the books, I think they made good calls on most of their changes? (Except for the obvious fridged wife issue.) This might just be the first time I ever say that about an adaption, but I think they did the right thing in straying from the books in several areas. This is not to say that the plot points the show changed were bad in the books, just that I think that the books, much as I enjoy them, are impossible to make into a successful TV show without significant changes.

I get wanting an adaption to include all of the beloved scenes from the books, but I honestly can't see myself (or many others who hadn't read the books yet) enjoying the show that much if it had stuck extremely closely to the books. Mostly because the start in the books is just incredibly slow and even for me who was already hooked from the show, it took some effort to get through it. Most of the really interesting worldbuilding is revealed only gradually. The characters spend a good proportion of the book just being dragged along by the plot (in the form of the bad guys chasing them and Moiraine and Lan telling them what to do) more or less willingly. Besides, none of the characters start out especially unique or interesting. They all have their unique personalities, of course, but there's nothing that really sets them apart from other fantasy protagonists. What does exist in the books is a sort of implied promise that there will be stuff happening with them, that there is more than we see, that we'll just have to stick around and watch them because there will be something interesting coming there. (All of which is legitimate for the books and even works for a large part because of the subtle ways narration and POV keep tension up and keep readers interested. Besides, the massive scale of the series goes hand in hand with a slow start and anyone who starts reading knows what he's signing up for. But that doesn't work for a TV show with a much bigger audience that will not happily sit through several episodes before things really kick off, or wait around patiently for the main characters to fulfil their promises of becoming interesting.) Not to mention that in our time (which is several decades after the books were published), the Ordinary Farmer Fantasy Protagonist is a bit of a cliché and "Wait for the not overly unique white guy with a crush on the girl from his village to get Super Special Powers" is... not really the promise that will draw people in.

I think centering Moiraine and Lan so much in the series was a brilliant decision. As a non-book reader, they were what hooked me to the story immediately when I started the series. There were two characters who were interesting right off the bat, who provided the story with the very concrete goal of finding and protecting the Dragon Reborn (and proceeded to work for that actively, which made the entire protagonist-side feel much more active because the people doing the protecting were as much the focus as the ones being protected) and also immediately introduced the unique bits of the worldbuilding. The focus on them was what gave the Edmond's Field kids the time to develop and grow on me as the viewer. And if some of the mystery surrounding Moiraine and Lan in the books was lost in the process... well, it's honestly a small price to pay. And I think the show's "We know we are looking for the Dragon Reborn, but we don't know which of these five it is" works just as well as the books' "We don't know what the dark wants with these three, but it's pretty clear to the reader that Rand will be The One".

Similarly, I think cutting down the amount of travel scenes made sense for the show. Don't get me wrong, I adored the travel scenes following Shadar Logoth, that was when the books really started to draw me in on their own, without the show needed as back-up, but I still think they wouldn't work for a TV show. A lot of what makes these scenes work in the book is the narration, the constant sense of fear and being chased, as well as the worldbuilding and all the questions that keep being brought up. But that type of thing just doesn't translate well into movie format, and watching the show, I don't think I would have appreciated episodes of travel scenes where I am constantly introduced to new characters who all only get brief appearances before disappearing again (and apparently reappear later on, which is brilliant in a book series and something I am looking forward to a lot, but would probably have overwhelmed me hopelessly in a show) and the several run-ins with various servants of the Dark that worked well in the books would probably have felt repetitive quickly in the show.

[jackoshadows]

Wheel of Time/WOT spoilers and WOT book spoilers for the finale.

BOOK SPOILERS - LOOK AWAY IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS

------------------------------

So, I liked that episode. I was a bit nervous hearing a lot of folks hated it based on leaked spoilers, but surprisingly I did end up liking it.

First, the WTF moments in the episode....

- Moiraine got Stilled? WTF!!

- Egwene healed death? And that too unknowingly? WTF!!

- What the hell was happening with the hints about Mat’s darkness? Where are they going with Mat’s character!!

I liked LTT and Latra Posae’s prologue in the nursery lol. I love the casting for LTT. I absolutely loved that glimpse at the futuristic Age of Legends. I wouldn’t mind a sci fi/fantasy spin off of the Age of Legends. But Latra is now the Tamyrlin? Why was that change needed?

I do get where a lot of fans are coming from with regards to Rand and Tarwin’s gap. Yes, after downplaying Rand all season, this was the moment they should have decisively demonstrated the power of the Dragon Reborn and why Rand is the Dragon Reborn - and Rand taking out the Trollocs at Tarwin’s Gap like he does in the books would have done that.

But, I also liked the way they did this here.

Rand Vs Forsaken (Ishamael?) and the Aes Sedai/Fal Dara soldiers taking on the Trollocs at Tarwin’s Gap was well done IMO. We will get another chance of Rand Vs Forsaken plus Rand aiding in battle at Falme - more or less a repeat of the Eye of the World battle, so we can see Rand’s power there. Plus Eye of the World Rand is just a beginner - he doesn’t understand his own power. So what we got makes sense IMO.

I also loved that Rand’s ‘Battle’ with Ishamael is tied to Eastern philosophy/Buddhist philosophy. The Buddha having said that - ‘Desire is the root cause of all evil’ and it’s fitting that the Dark One tempts Rand with desire. And Rand’s choice is rooted in giving importance to what Egwene wants. Feminist Rand is awesome. I liked that his battle is not just a lot of CGI weaves and lightning but is about being human and our needs and wants. Plus, I thought that Josha Stradowski did an amazing job and I am excited to see what he can do moving forward.

I am not really worried about Loial when they have Nynaeve to do the healing. I am guessing that since Mat is healed, and Padan Fain stole the horn and the dagger, they will be chasing after him to help Loial instead of Mat.

That said, how did Fain get the dagger? Last we saw Moiraine had it.

I hope the show/Rafe Judkins know what they are doing with Mat’s character. That’s a fan favorite/very popular character and the masses will be coming for Rafe Judkin’s head if he messes Mat up.

Also a bit disappointed with Perrin. He got to do nothing in the finale. Why did Padan Fain let him live if he’s so important?

Death can be healed by channeling? Which means we are not going to get that poignant scene of Rand trying to bring to life that little dead girl and Moiraine telling him that not even the DR can heal death... Apparently on the show he should now be able to.

Nynaeve sends Lan to bring back Rand ❤️❤️❤️

We got the Lan/Nynaeve dialogue from the books ❤️❤️❤️

Loved Agelmar and Amalisa’s last stand against the Trollocs. I loved the Aes Sedai linking and using the power against the Trollocs. And that even with Nynaeve’s massive power source, they all got burnt out - meaning there is a cost to their use of the power taking out that massive horde of Trollocs.

Loved Amalisa’s armor. And I noticed a Malkieri/Borderlands Aes Sedai with a Bindi on her forehead and got all excited. The Battle at Tarwin’s Gap was short but not too bad.

I am guessing they are going to advance/bring forward Nynaeve’s arc in the  books with respect to being able to heal stilling next season.

All in all, a decent finale. I enjoyed it - Especially the Rand/Moiraine scenes and the fight at Tarwin’s gap.

[geek-and-destroy]

This is a Verin Sedai simp blog now - Wheel of Time Read

This is post 11 in The Wheel of Time Read - see the previous post - covering chapters 18-42 of book 2.

A few days ago, I started reading The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan’s sprawling fantasy series. And - you know what skip this intro shit, I have some explaining to do.

So. I usually like to go like 5-10 chapters before I post an update to this thing. I had midterms this week so I thought I wouldn't get enough time to read or write. But guess what.

Like the excruciating allure of saidin, the book called to me. I'm pretty sure I flunked an exam or two in the process, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. (Yes, I have now started using this phrase as a way to skirt personal responsibility. No, I will not stop.)

Robert Jordan, I feel, is making full use of the ungodly amount of pages at his disposal to slowly dissect every aspect of the sprawling world he's laid out. I have to say, the 'I have won again, Lews Therin' part with the glimpses of different AUs was well fucking done. Has to be one of my favourite parts of this series so far, along with Moiraine's Manetheren speech way back in book one.

And it was so great getting there, too! SO! MUCH! STUFF! First, there was the big statue that activated Rand's saidin, (another well-written scene btw) then you had the whole thing with Rand being treated as a lord - growing into it, even - and Daes'daemar. I love how Rand just doing nothing played into his supposed mystery, getting major clout just by sitting on his ass. Well, he didn't really sit around the whole time in Cairhien. He went and met Thom! (side note: I was kinda disappointed he didn't stay dead, honestly - an impactful death is yet to occur in WoT - but the character has much more in him than that. Guess what, though. The one real, impactful death has been Thom's protege girl, who was kinda fridged tbh. There's only so much fridging you can avoid in such a huge series, I suppose. Some characters exist solely to further another character's story, it's just like that sometimes.) The feast at Barthanes' mansion, Machin Shin, Barthanes' death, the stedding!! Loial is the hottest, most valid Ogier ever, he must be protecc at all costs. The Portal Stone to Toman Head, way out in the west. It's a lot.

... Rand's going to be blamed for Galldrian's death, isn't he? Since he went to prime rival Barthanes' party over Galldrian's. Whenever he declares himself/is outed as the Dragon Reborn, that is. Oh, well. I'm willing to bet Thom had a hand.

There were also exotic Domon and Fain POVs showing an entirely different culture from the one we've seen so far. Even Shienar was similar to the mainland civilization. I'm soorta iffy about the whole damane thing. It's interesting, changing the power dynamics of channelers, but with an adaptation being made, I'm worried about its potential fetishizability. At least Turak dude seems like an interesting character. And guess what? Another matriarchy! Again, with patriarchal systems and trappings intact, but hey. Will we get to meet this Empress? I hope so.

Meanwhile, Egwene and Nynaeve! In Tar Valon!! Meeting Elayne and Min! They don't hate each other! Delightful Aes Sedai lore galore! empty boi Logain strolling around, making me pity him. Nynaeve choking the Amyrlin was also great. Rage-activated magic, is Nynaeve the Hulk? She wears green in the show, too - is Hulk-coding a thing now? Anyway, I am gushing over all of these dynamics.

All except two, that is. Firstly, every young woman is still inexplicably attracted to Rand. I suppose I'll have to live with it. Rand certainly isn't a wish-fulfilment character, so that's a bit better. A bit. But I really don't like MC attraction syndrome that plagues much of fiction. And secondly - man, I so didn't imagine Liandrin to be an actual Darkfriend. She was an antagonist, definitely. But I thought she would be the 'good intentions + zeal' type antagonist who realizes how her methods are helping the Dark One rather than defeating him and then dies in a heroic sacrifice. Her being a Darkfriend somehow takes away from her villainy. She becomes a less interesting villain this way. Bleh.

But enough about those others. It's time for the real best character.

I love her, your honour.

Verin, you fucking beaut. You non-good-looking, sharp, amazing wise beaut. If Robert Jordan (or Sanderson) kills her, I will lose it. Moiraine who? Nynaeve who? I only know Verin. Whoever underestimates her or calls her book smart can kindly die mad about it. Fuck off please, we don't need you here. That includes you, Moiraine and Siuan Sanche. You give her all the respect in the world or you will suffer.

I'm really glad to know that the whole 'Brown Ajah wouldn't survive five seconds in the real world' stuff was from the characters as opposed to the narrative. At least that's the case for Verin. Even though she hasn't faced Darkfriends and/or Trollocs directly yet, (in front of our characters, that is) she's shown great real-world smarts and none of the characters would survive without her. Plus, she understands the value of keeping Rand's secret, and chides him when he uses too much of saidin. In most stories, she would've been the 'curious to the point of madness' type one who would encourage Rand to channel just to study it, but nope, not Verin. Also:

"And what I learned after nearly being caught by the snows in the Mountains of Mist and freezing my way across Almoth Plain – was absolutely nothing."

Oh, she's definitely been places, seen things. I can't wait to see her in action and absolutely steamroll Moiraine and anyone else in terms of efficiency and conflict resolution. No, she probably won't be using big, flashy magic, but everyone will be safe as well as closer to the goal. I'm a Verin simp now. Deal with it.

(Moiraine also had an interesting little side quest with the bits of prophecy, but I don't remember much of it rn, so yeah. Hopefully, we'll see her on Toman Head.)

[primeideal]

Wheel of Time Episode 8: The Eye of the World

Okay well...that was certainly...an episode that happened. (Book spoilers, though hopefully not major.)

Old Tongue scene! Props to the conlangers, who are they? Jordan left behind a pretty extensive glossary for the Old Tongue afaik that made it into one of the new encyclopedias, but not much in the way of grammar/syntax. Is there an equivalent of David Peterson and Dothraki out there? (Nerd cred, I don't really care about Game of Thrones, but I've met Peterson in person and he is just as delightful as his internet persona would indicate.) Huh, I got the impression that the baby was Latra's because she was saying "I can't condone the risk of attacking," with a subtext of "I've got a future to live for, we can't destroy the world." But no, it's Lews'. Lews and Latra aren't together in this timeline, are they? That would kind of undercut the "men and women need to work together platonically sometimes!" vibes. Lews is the "Dragon Reborn," not just the "Dragon." How far back does this name/identity go? Flying cars and cool architecture! Love this Age of Legends glimpse. "Don't touch anything here" How well did that work for you last time, Moiraine? Yesss, we got the Lan/Nynaeve scene! Although I feel like even Lan is smart enough to realize that Nynaeve specifically wants him even if she goes to the White Tower? Dream within a dream, creepy. And Ba'alzamon's face is a squick :( "Burn their goat-kissing hides" It's Uno, hello Uno! Or is he not supposed to be part of the cast until season two? If so, who's the one-eyed potty mouth dude? How has Lan never picked up on Moiraine's tell in 20 years? (I get that he's not looking, but still.) Lan and the seven towers, awww. Parallel universe scene! This isn't how things go down in EotW, but it ties into enough cool "now we are looking at what things could be like in a parallel universe" scenes in the books that I don't mind. Where are the Emond's Field people when this battle stuff is going down? ...oh here they are (a few moments later) "I'm standing" :D Loial! Moiraine with her knife at Rand's throat ayyyyy that's our girl, and by our girl I mean our adult independent magic woman, but still, characterization win! The Horn of Bloody Valere is buried under the throne of Fal Dara to be used at the Last Battle which, based on the Shienarans' limited knowledge, this probably is!!! Hahaha, I had wondered when they started digging, but this is a fun twist. Rand using Egwene's autonomy and respect for her own decisions to recognize the illusion! Is this...character development for our boy??? Padan Fain holding the Horn and monologuing to Perrin makes me wonder if Perrin is going to get some of Mat's book plotlines. Five ta'veren? Um...so...that happened. I actually think the changes to Rand's plotline, while a departure from the books, make sense. Like, the Dark One trying to lure him into a trap via a parallel universe, and Rand recognizing the limitations of the parallel universe via other people's agency, is covering a lot of ground thematically, but it works for Rand.  Also, the fact that the baby is named "Joiya" is the kind of detail that would have been so easy to do whatever, put in the prop designer's name because she's awesome--the fact that Judkins and co. picked that out shows that they do have an attention to detail and are fans doing a labor of love. 

But. With everything else, I'm a little underwhelmed, and share some of the cynicism expressed on Reddit. Lan miraculously finds Moiraine just because Nynaeve showed him how? Perrin just watches Padan Fain run away with the Horn and is so easily taunted out of fighting back because violence bad? Egwene being able to miraculously resurrect Nynaeve would make no sense in terms of power creep for future stuff, but I'll give the writers some credit and assume that Nynaeve just tried to sacrifice herself but her magic was just that strong that she wasn't completely dead and bounced back, tbh, from Nynaeve, I'd buy it. But like...how are any of these people getting back together next season? And then "meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, war was beginning"? Like, if I wasn't a book fan, I think I'd be pretty annoyed at that ending.

[thebookwormdaydreamer]

Wheel of Time Episode 4 Review

Contains spoilers for the show.

The show just keeps getting better and better. Episode 4 is where we start to see the world get bigger, see beyond the Two Rivers kids and get a glimpse of what the larger world looks like, and more of the Aes Sedai. Episode 4 also showcases more of WoT’s approach to fantasy: lots of showy magic and powerful people.

The title of this episode is The Dragon Reborn. No, the Dragon Reborn isn’t revealed yet. The show insists on obfuscating their identity until Episode 7, if IMDB is to be trusted. I think the show is quite successful in doing this, with a lot of red herrings and moments that make you think that one person might be the DR. However, I do think that it comes at the cost of the real DR’s characterization, more on this later. The title of the episode is The Dragon Reborn because we get more lore about the Dragon, what it means to be the Dragon, and a little more broadly, about what it means to be a man who can channel. In this episode, we’re introduced to Logain, a powerful male channeler and False Dragon.

Logain’s role is expanded in the show. We actually get to see him in Ghealdan where he comes from and where he first proclaims himself as the DR. We see a conversation with his king and in this sequence, we actually see a lot of foreshadowing for what might happen when the real Dragon comes. As a side note, I got a little excited when we saw Ghealdan. The world of the Wheel of Time is vast and populated with many peoples and cultures and I’m very excited to see how they show them. Logain is portrayed a bit like a cult figure, a charismatic man able to recruit followers, even enemies. However, we also see the “taint” on the male half of the One Power, a corruption that causes any man who wields it to go mad. A lot of what happens to Logain in the books are implied, but the advantage of the show is being able to show us how powerful he is, how difficult it was to contain him, and the madness that comes with men wielding the One Power.

Thom’s conversation with Rand echoes that last point. Men go insane because of the corruption which is why the Red Ajah would “gentle” them or cut them off from being able to use the One Power. However, it comes at the cost of them losing the will to live. Power in the show is depicted as somewhat grandiose, it looks incredible and you can feel that for the people who wield it, doing so must feel incredible. But, the costs of doing so are great and even more for men.

The Aes Sedai get more of a spotlight in the show. We meet the Red Ajah again, a group of Aes Sedai who track down rogue channelers and male channelers, as well as the Green Ajah, or Aes Sedai who specialize in battle. We see more of the factionalism between the Aes Sedai, but we also see how they work together when push comes to shove. These are powerful women with a lot of experience, but we still see that they have to work as a unit when faced with the kind of power Logain has. The Red Ajah also get a more nuanced portrayal from what we see in the cold open of the first episode. When Moiraine says that he is like a flickering candelight in front of the raging sun that is the Dragon Reborn, you have to wonder how powerful the DR is going to be. I like how we see more of the relationship between Aes Sedai and their Warders besides Moiraine and Lan. The Green Ajah in particular, are known for their love of men and the fact that they take multiple warders (often necessary considering that they are the Battle Ajah). The portrayal of polyamorous relationships is a welcome one.

Lan and Nynaeve get some relationship development and bond a little bit. They have so much chemistry and work together really well. Nynaeve gets an incredible moment at the end of the episode that will leave jaws dropping. This is only the fourth episode so I really can’t wait to see what they do for the other epic moments in the books, or new moments they might add to the show. Nynaeve is a person with a lot of rage within her, but above all, a desire to care for people, to heal others. It comes out so well and naturally, like yes, this is Nynaeve.

One of the things I like about this adaptation is that it’s not a scene by scene adaptation. In fact, this episode diverges a lot from the books while capturing the spirit and essence of The Wheel of Time. It’s an example of the whole series being adapted, not just one book. Thus, we see things that were previously implied and it keeps things fresh for book readers.

I like Egwene and Perrin’s arc this episode. I reread the first book recently and thought their arc there was a bit weak. It’s much better here and you get to see the culture of the Tuatha’an and The Way of the Leaf which is a non-violent philosophy that the Tuatha’an follow. The Way of the Leaf is sold much better in the show and you understand more why some people may follow it. Making it more personal rather than philosophical adds such a human touch and really helps me understand it more.

The adventures of Mat and Rand also continues, this time with Thom. Mat is having some problems. He’s going through things and changing, becoming broody and paranoid. Thom thinks he might be able to channel and advises Rand to keep him away from the Aes Sedai. Rand reassures Mat he’s there for him and says that he’ll still be there even if Mat goes mad. I think that this sequence is so good and you see how much Rand cares for his friends. We also see Mat have a moment with a little girl who probably reminded him of his sisters. Mat in the show is shown to be more vulnerable and I really enjoy his characterization.

Overall, it’s a great episode, easily the best of what we’ve got so far. Some book purists might get mad but I like the expansive feel. It helps set up the world more and more lore and hints get dropped. A whole lot of foreshadowing and easter eggs too which book fans might enjoy.

Lastly, I just want to talk about my complaint regarding the Dragon Reborn. Right now, a lot of hints are being dropped regarding different characters. In the books, it’s immediately obvious who the DR is, but not in the show. This is not a bad thing. My complaint is that by spending as little time as possible with the DR, their characterization is harmed. I don’t know, maybe I’m a little impatient to see the flashback scenes we’re promised, but right now they seem a little bland without the crucial scenes that establish their character. I hope future episodes make up for this because the DR is one of my favorite fantasy protagonists.

That’s it for this episode. As usual, the bonus origin story- this time explaining the two halves of the One Power, saidin and saidar- is great. The show keeps getting better and better (especially after rewatching) and I can’t wait to see the rest. If the first three episodes weren’t enough to sell you this story, watch this episode.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 12: The Amyrlin Seat

I hope you weren't expecting me to take a long break and come back with a long chapter, because this entry is shorter than Moiraine! And yet I still manage to casually drop spoilers for late in The Wheel of Time, so you probably shouldn't keep reading if that's a problem.

This chapter starts with the Flame of Tar Valon icon because it's a POV of the very flame herself: Siuan.

For the hundredth time since being told that Verin had returned, she readjusted her stole on her shoulders without realizing what she was doing.

It's funny that it no longer quite fits her now that her successor Egwene is in the Tower. IIRC, her other successor is present as well...

A small Tairen rug lay in front of the table, woven in simple patterns of blue and brown and gold. A single drawing, tiny fishing boats among reeds, hung above the fireplace. Half a dozen stands held open books about the floor. That was all. Even the lamps would not have been out of place in a farmer’s house.

Siuan parallels with Rand quite well here, two leaders of the world who came from low places and prefer simple lives.

The tall Aes Sedai, as tall as most men, was second only to the Amyrlin in the White Tower, and though Siuan had known her since they were novices together, sometimes Leane’s insistence on upholding the dignity of the Amyrlin Seat was enough to make Siuan want to scream.

On the other hand, we get hints that Siuan isn't a perfect leader. Considering that Egwene's arc is all about upholding the dignity of her position even in the lowest of circumstances - and that it ends specifically on "belief and order lend strength", Siuan's chafing against Leane's respect is something of a mark against her.

“Begin where you will,” Siuan said. “These rooms are warded, in case anyone thinks to use childhood tricks of eavesdropping.” Verin’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, and the Amyrlin added, “Much has changed since you left. Speak.”

A little foreshadowing of how badly things have gone offpage.

Mazrim Taim is in the hands of our sisters in Saldaea, and the poor fellow in Haddon Mirk, the Light have pity on his soul, was taken by the Tairens and executed on the spot. No one even seems to know what his name was. Both were taken on the same day and, according to rumor, under the same circumstances.

I love the lampshading, poor Tairen bastard. I suspect that the suddenness of the falls of these False Dragons has a great deal to do with how poorly this particular iteration of the Third Age is doing against the Shadow: barely enough time for fate to squeeze them in even though at least Taim is necessary to the Pattern and as soon as Rand gets moving reality literally tosses them aside. In other turnings of the Wheel, the falls of the last False Dragons probably happen a little slower than the speed of causality.

“What do you mean? He is to fight Tarmon Gai’don. The Horn is to summon dead heroes from the grave to fight in the Last Battle. Has Moiraine once again made some new plan without consulting me?”

We see again how communication is breaking down among the light; Moiraine has made very few plans except when she's been desperately trying to patch the main plan together while Rand and the Shadow are busy tearing it apart. Yet still Siuan blames her due to the distance and time separating the pair of them.

“So long as Mat lives,” Verin went on, “the Horn of Valere is no more than a horn to anyone else. If he dies, of course, another can sound it and forge a new link between man and Horn.” Her gaze was steady and untroubled by what she seemed to be suggesting.

Of course, just because Siuan isn't a perfect Amyrlin or fully trusting of Moiraine doesn't mean she's evil either. It would be a lot easier for the Tower if Mat were to die that very day - and under the circumstances, few would even think it a deliberate failure of the Aes Sedai. But Siuan keeps Mat alive just the same.

“An apt metaphor, Mother, the lionfish. Once I saw a large shark that a lionfish had chased into the shallows, where it died.”

Verin wasted her life researching the Black Ajah. She should have taught Egwene how to tear Siuan's fish metaphors to shreds instead.

“That is already causing us trouble, Verin, and will cause more as the stories spread, and grow with the spreading. But I can do nothing about that. I am told these people are gone, Daughter. Do you have any evidence otherwise?”

This is another big mistake of Siuan's, as the Seanchan will indeed return very quickly, take a huge chunk of the inhabited continent, and enslave plenty of Aes Sedai and other channeling women before things are over.

But we're nowhere near that yet. Next time: Siuan interviews the Wondergirls!