#cyndane

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

I don't think they'll do the whole Cyndane thing with Lanfear on the show. Having characters change bodies in a book is fine as you're not changing actors and I doubt they'll want to replace Natasha especially since there was never any narrative need for Lanfear to get a new body. I think they'll take Lanfear off the board for a season, probably have her badly injured after her confrontation with Moiraine and in need to recuperate. I can see Mesaana's storyline going to her to give her something to do in the latter half of the series, since she does very little as Cyndane, and keep the Tower as a central location with many of the main characters gone due to the schism. Moggy could also get it, but I think it would work better with Lanfear since they're already setting up a rivalry between her and Egwene.

[orbit-of-eternity]

Lanfear now Cyndane: I'm a changed woman

Everyone:

[anira-naeg]

Lanfear and Cyndane

[noybusiness]

Wheel of Time Casting Thought with Winchesters Cast

You know, it just occurred to me almost out of the blue that, funnily enough, Drake Rodger and Meg Donnelly (John Winchester and Mary Campbell on The Winchesters) would be physical fits for the way Moridin and Cyndane are described in the Wheel of Time books (the new forms of the Forsaken formerly known as Ishamael and Lanfear after the Dark One brings them back to life in the later books), should the TV series ever get enough seasons for them to be cast. Now that would be ironic casting.

Moridin - tall, athletically built, handsome black-haired young man, with particular emphasis on being of the same height and build as the series's hero Rand al'Thor

Cyndane - petite, pretty blonde young woman; silver-haired, actually, which Meg has had before on Z-O-M-B-I-E-S.

[reliquiaen]

Summarising S3E4 to a friend as 'hot physicist is bitter that fellow scientists aren't giving her enough credit, starts apocalypse'.

We stan Mierin Eronaile in this house.

[kunosoura]

anyway tangential to sanderson but one of my favorite parts of wheel of time that most wheel of time fans hate is the part in one of the later books where Perrin and Faile meet with Elayne to discuss the future of the two rivers. and Perrin (and a lot of the audience (wheel of time fans(idiots))) thinks "wtf why is she demanding loyalty. Andor never cared about the Two Rivers before. this is bullshit and elayne is a bitch". meanwhile when you look at the two people in the scene who know what's going on (elayne and faile) and pay attention to them you see exactly what's going on: two smart and politically savvy women who have to play their roles (A queen meeting with an unsanctioned, possibly rebellious lord and a noblewoman dealing with a stronger power censuring her) while also coming to a compromise where they both leave happy.

Elayne can't allow them to declare themselves independent because it would set a bad precedent for her sovereignty in the rest of the realm, even though she realizes the Two Rivers has been independent in all but name for centuries and she has nothing to gain from forcing their allegiance. Faile can't capitulate to having the Two Rivers rejoin Andor, because the people would riot at having to kneel to the laws and taxes of a kingdom that hadn't protected them from the trollocs or the whitecloaks, and Perrin likely wouldn't keep his position. They both know that neither full annexation nor open rebellion is an acceptable outcome, so they work together to come up with an alternative: the Two Rivers is declared land of the Dragon because Rand grew up there (which doesn't set a precedent that can be followed), independent from but allied to Andor (keeping the peace between them), with Perrin as the steward of the lands (allowing him to remain in power as a local leader with widespread support). and perrin (the PoV) is oblivious to all of this and just thinks huh why is my best friend's fourth favorite girlfriend being such a bitch. oh well at least my wife fixed things ^_^

[asha-mage]

I know I've talked about this before, but I think something they've captured extremely effectively about Lanfear's character from the books is that she is always putting up a facade, even to herself.

Lanfear is obsessed with controlling the way others view her, but she very pointedly does not care if they view her in good or bad lights, only that their understanding is what she wants it to be. This is why she delights in disusing herself as Keille or Silvie as much as 'Selene', and why being transmigrated into Cyndane is such a punishment- because it takes away her control over how others view her, something Moridin clearly delights in reminding her as part of that punishment.

And that's because if Lanfear can present a sufficiently perfect front, she can convince everyone including herself, that the parts of herself she hates don't exist- Her envy, her rage, her desperate love for someone who can not love her back. All the terrible mundane human flaws that she buries beneath different fronts.

This is also why, in her pivotal final scene with Rand she can't bring herself to truly let him into her dream shard- because it would require letting him bare witness to all the unvarnished truth of her, and take away any chance she has of pretending to be this powerful ancient sorceress always in command and control that she wants him to see her as.

She can not willingly let herself be seen as human, because humanity is the thing she cast aside in exchange for becoming Forsaken- she has to scorn it, it has to be shameful and worth nothing, because if it's not that means admitting she made a mistake all those years ago in the Collam Daan, when she swore herself to the Shadow.

[veliseraptor]

i was curious so i decided to make a chart of forsaken survival duration during the third age. counting the date of their release from the start of the series (which may or may not be accurate), and using the calendar/timelines from a combination of websites/encyclopedias

aginor: 1.5 months (as aginor), 4 months (as osan'gar)

balthamel: 1.5 months (as balthamel), 7 months (as aran'gar)

ishamael: given wakeup date of 982, about 17 years (as ishamael), timeline of moridin resurrection unclear but max 26 months (dating from moridin's first on-page appearance, 2 months)

be'lal: 13 months

rahvin: 17 months

asmodean: 17 months

lanfear: 17 months (as lanfear), max 15 months (as cyndane)

sammael: 19 months

graendal: 25 months (as graendal), survives (as hessalam)

semirhage: 25 months

mesaana: 26 months

demandred: fuzzier because branderson wasn't as strict on timelines but between 28 and 31 months

moghedien: survives!

obviously moghedien wins the prize here for living through the whole series without dying once though sir not appearing in most books demandred did pretty good himself. pretty sure aginor/osan'gar wins the no-prize for shortest total time alive (5.5 months in total).

in conclusion:

[briannysey]

I'm imagining a game of cat and mouse between the Daughter of Night and the Daughter of Nine Moons kidnapping Mat back and forth as he tries desperately to keep his head and the Band of the Red Hand all in one piece.

Lanfear could create a public persona that acts as adjutant or maybe ruling lady of the Band while the Seanchan and Band skirmish all along southwestern nations as the Seanchan push deeper into the continent.

My toxic trait is that I need to know exactly where and when the canon divergence first started in even my crackiest, most goofy AU, even if it never comes up in the actual fic.

[chosenasmodean]

Forsaken Week Day Thirteen: Lanfear

I mainly referenced bridal dresses for her outfit, though she also ended up with a bit of a 1970s feel.

Spoilers under the cut to Winter's Heart.

Cyndane's outfit is based off of an Edwardian walking dress. From my recollection it sounds like Moridin makes both Cyndane and Moghedien wear the same thing, so I wanted it to have a uniform feel.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Can't help but laugh at Moridin thinking the worst thing he could do to punish Lanfear was to make her short, but still hot and with great boobs.

[bigskydreaming]

Oh I am definitely here for this take on Moghedien. One scene and she's already 100 times more compelling than she ever was in the books.

LOL at Lanfear's victorious stroll as she thinks she's just successfully dealt with Ishamael and now will rid herself of all her rival Forsaken in one stroke, and her face the second she sees Moghedien's already out and about, and Ishamael ALREADY freed all the others and they've scattered to the winds.

The irony of her commenting just earlier that very episode about how well she and Ishamael know each other, scheming besties, always two parts of the trinity that was them and Lews Therin.....of course he knew she was gunning for him and planned accordingly.

I was hoping that they would go a slightly different route with his character, since I worried (given that they already cut the Forsaken down from 13 to 8) that they weren't gonna use Moridin later on, and so at least we got more of a presence from him before the battle at Falme then he had in the books....but then again, now that I think about it, I do think they still HAVE to use Moridin at some point at least. They might not go the whole Lanfear/Cyndane route, I suspect that will be cut out, but Moridin pretty much has to come into play or we'll have a MASSIVELY different Last Battle and outcome.

Well. Hmm. Then again, maybe not. There's actually nothing fundamentally essential to the Moridin and Rand face-off at the Last Battle....just the final resolution. But if they're not actually intending that to be the actual ending of the show (and I could see them wanting to explore an alternate ending for Rand), then they don't actually need Moridin. Huh. Guess we'll see.

But so far all three of the Forsaken we've seen have been excellently cast and had perfect energy for their characters. Lanfear is everything I wanted from her character, Ishamael was way more charismatic than he was in the books, and Moghedien is already sooooo much more interesting than she's ever been on the page. Can't wait to see what they do with Graendal, Rahvin, Asmodean & Sammael. (Still don't care about Demandred and I never will. I stand by that one).

[anira-naeg]

Sindane (+ sketch of Semirhage)

[elfcow]

What I will say is the new Liandran stuff absolutely rules. Fantastic fucking depth to a nasty piece of work. Much more human in the show, and excellent braiding into the scene with Suroth.

I also really love that we're getting to follow Ishamael and Lanfear around. The writing and acting is fantastic for them.

... It makes me kind of hope that the whole Moridin and Cyndane thing lets them keep the same actors instead? I really hope we get that route but I csn understand if we don't.

[cannoli-reader]

T(en of t)he Forsaken (including all five female) are not thousands of years old, in any sense relevant to their appearance. They were put on pause, stopped aging. Their bodies are in the low hundreds, which is young for powerful channelers, as Moghedian pointed out.

Even more egregious is the way certain people (especially the show writers) cite their chronological age in a way that conflates it with experience. They emphatically do not have thousands of years of experience or accumulated skill.

Furthermore, most of their experience and skill is utterly irrelevant to the current situation of the story. Aginor's genius is pointless, because he no longer has access to genetics labs and biological workshops. Bel'al's legal training is defunct, because the world uses radically different governing systems & codes of law. Moghedian no longer has a financial market to manipulate, no one plays Sammael's sports, and the scientific community Lanfear & Mesaana aspired to join is extinct. Yes, they have their channeling mastery and experiences in the War of the Shadow, but that was a mere ten years, with a few decades of civil unrest preceding. Aran'gar scorns a modern general of his lack of resources, but no one else has the resources Balthamel and company were accustomed to using either. In a war against a modern general, they would be suddenly plunged into the darkness in which he has been navigating all his life. And Bryne has over forty years service in the Queen's Guards of Andor. Davram Bashere and Agelmar Jagad have been fighting for decades along the Blightborder. And Alivia and many other damane blow the Forsaken out the water in combat channeling experience. Cyndane had far and away the best performance of the Forsaken at the Cleansing, because she actually managed to land a significant hit against a much more formidable opponent, without even the benefit of her enemy having been known to actually do something stupid, as in the case of the kills Graendal & Aran'gar scored. If Alivia had been leading either of the circles that opposed them, instead of a pair of criminally incompetent academics, the Forsaken in question would likely be dead.

What it boils down to, is contrary to their own vainglorious opinions of themselves, the Forsaken are not god-like in their supremacy, they are basically people from a highly technical civilization who have been dumped into the Middle Ages, with nothing to indicate any of them have the know-how of a Connecticut Yankee to actually bootstrap their new society.

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[ao3feed-lanaeve]

The Balance of Darkness and Light

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/cTg7tEi by LiskaFly "Once upon a time, he was but a man. A man in love with a woman who could light up his world like a thousand fireworks. A woman he would call the light of his life. He was desperately in love with a woman, who could never return his feelings. A woman, who could never be his. And once he realized that, everything about him changed, slowly, until he lost even the last spark and turned completely to the dark." Words: 352, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: The Wheel of Time (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: F/F, F/M Characters: Moiraine Damodred, Lan Mandragoran, Siuan Sanche, Rand al'Thor, Lanfear | Cyndane, Egwene al'Vere, Nynaeve al'Meara, Elayne Trakand, Mat Cauthon, Perrin Aybara, Alanna Mosvani, Liandrin Guirale, Leane Sharif, Verin Mathwin, Logain Ablar, The Dark One | Shai'tan (Wheel of Time), Original Characters Relationships: Moiraine Damodred/Siuan Sanche, Moiraine Damodred & Lan Mandragoran, Nynaeve al'Meara/Lan Mandragoran, Rand al'Thor/Egwene al'Vere read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/cTg7tEi