#have arguments with Egwene about Rand

[squirrelwrangler]

OOooh, another theory on the whole Bryne plotline (aside from he falls for Leane, hyper-competent support battle couple). Because his role as Rebel Aes Sedai General is necessary for at least some dude to be there in that position, even if it's not big.

Gawyn doesn't stay in the Tower loyal to Elaida, but instead joins the Rebel Aes Sedai and gets hired by Egwene to lead their army. This gives them interactions together, since they have yet to meet in the show- and in fact would give them more time together than in the books. He's with her throughout Salidar and the Siege. It makes Gawyn less of a Failure, so it's a bit OOC for him sure, but the audience would root for him and Egwene as her more natural second-love.

[butterflydm]

Wheel of Time 3x06 - Shadow in the Night

Spoilers through 3x06 in the show. Book spoilers through Winter's Heart.

A list of things Rand was not aware of about Lanfear, as of the start of 3x06:

That time she turned a man's head into fine mist (even though he was literally trying to help her)

That time she sewed a woman's mouth shut

Threatening to kill Rand if he ever leaves her (in his dream that he didn't know was really her)

Encouraging him to channel in his sleep (ended up burning down her inn and thus feeding into Rand's guilt complex)

Burning down parts of Cairhien (Rand saw a tiny sliver of this, but not the full extent)

Torturing Egwene in her sleep for over a month, doing her best to keep Egwene's PTSD active so that she gets triggered by people touching her

Launching an attack against Rand and his friends that ends up with Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve all attacked (and only Nynaeve was stabbed by an outside intruder -- Perrin and Egwene would have ended up badly hurt even if Moghedien's Gray Man hadn't shown up)

It's a lot! Like, there is a lot of shit that's been going on that Rand has had no way to know about.

There are a couple of things where he might have figured out the pieces of himself but he's been through a lot and she's been actively manipulating him every night in his dreams, so I don't blame him if he didn't pick up on any of that either.

Anyway, Egwene finally did talk to him part of the way through the episode (after doing her best to avoid the conversation for most of it) and that was a huge relief. Now Rand at least knows about the nightly torture.

...Moiraine, otoh, has passed up yet another chance to be honest with Rand. We even had him reaching out to her yet again, saying, hey, we haven't talked since Rhuidean, maybe we could touch base? And she was absolutely a useless communicator. Book accurate, yes. But frustrating, also yes. But if the show can restrict the godawful communicators only to Moiraine and Egwene, it will be doing much better than the books, lol.

So. I think we can officially declare Randgwene permanently done, yes? (Please?)

I have been impatient for this to happen, as the heavy focus on Randgwene was making me sad about the show not exploring relationships dynamics from the TSR book that I, personally, found more engaging than Rand & Egwene (especially with having no s4 renewal confirmation yet and thus no guarantee that I will ever see those dynamics explored) and because the way the show was playing it was leaning towards taking what had been a 'no bad guys' situation in the books and twisting it to be more of a 'Rand is the bad guy in the break-up' angle, which I was not thrilled about.

But all the interviews that Josha, Maddy, and Rafe did about the relationship implied that the actual break-up was going to fall more into the 'no bad guys' category where both Rand and Egwene realized they were going through the motions of the relationship due to nostalgia and the need for comfort, but that they would realize this and be able to still be friends after the breakup.

In summary, the Randgwene situation was a change that I was pretty nervous about because I wasn't sure of the purpose or the direction of the change.

So, how do I feel about Randgwene post-3x06?

I feel like they did thread the line fairly okay -- the way that Egwene approached the conversation made it clear that "Rand kissing another girl" wasn't exactly the most important issue to her. I definitely want to evaluate more closely over a rewatch but at first viewing... they didn't do any of the things during the conversation that I would have disliked the most, and the actual concluding argument made it pretty obvious that the issues in their relationship are the same ones that made their relationship fail back in 1x01. And Egwene's quick leap to "Rand must have gone mad!" was... that sure was a thing that she did.

I will say, Egwene's attempts to avoid having a conversation with Rand for most of the episode so that she could handle it all herself did contrast extremely sharply against Perrin and Faile, who are bonding emotionally like wild. There was so much honesty! It was so sincere! It was in such stark contrast to the gaping lack of emotional intimacy that the Rand & Egwene relationship has featured all season but especially in the last two episodes! (also! The change in Faile's backstory was heartbreaking!)

I was pretty sure that Alsera wasn't long for the world after we got another cute scene between her and Rand, but I'm still very sad about it. She was very adorable in her scenes with Rand.

I was glad that the Cauthon sisters got to heal Alanna! I was thinking that they would, but it was a touching moment. I'm glad that they got to do something that was unalloyed good with their channeling and Alanna got to go back to her roots as a teacher of novices. <3

The Tanchico storyline was also very good.

I will note that the show has continued to not have Min and Elayne interact in any significant way.

And we got the line. The line from "The Hills of Tanchico" that made me blink when I first heard it -- "One's not enough; three's too many. Two brings a man to his knees." Back when I first listened to the soundtrack, I mentioned to @markantonys that if Elayne actually sang that line during the show, it would feel like a strong foreshadowing that only two of Rand's "beautiful women" would actually be his future love interests (aka I feel like the show is strongly signalling that the future plan is Avirandlayne, not Aviminrandlayne). Three's too many!

And on my other shipper side of things, we did see that Elayne and Mat get along much better when they aren't confined together in a small cabin for two weeks. They got along pretty well here, and had a good dynamic with Thom as well. (speaking of! Nice to see you, Thom! I was glad that Rand was brought up during that reunion)

Moghedien was super effectively creepy. Well done. That Compulsion scene was even more creepy than in the books, seeing Nynaeve and Elayne smile and nod and give Moghedien what she wanted (as well as seeing Nynaeve resist her!)

Also, it cracks me up that the Black Ajah has managed two friendly fire incidents in a same episode! Liandrin takes out Nyomi, and I think that Moghedien may have killed Ispan as well? Team Light may be having communication issues but at least they aren't straight-up murdering each other!

So, yeah, I enjoyed it. I think I'll enjoy it more on a rewatch when I'm not constantly wondering when Rand and Egwene will finally have their big blow-out, lol.

EDIT: It is definitely interesting to me that there were no Rand & Lanfear scenes in this episode, just as there were no Rand & Lanfear scenes in 3x01. They've really been very sparing with those.

[highladyluck]

Wheel of Time, Season 3, Episode 2 (second watch) Liveblog

Elayne like "This is the largest gay bar in the world, please don't take me away"

Emotionally Intelligent Lan never fails to jumpscare me lmao

I already said this but I do need to reiterate: Galad would not fuck

I like that we see Morgase's accepted ring like, first thing. Also those maid headdresses that look like approximately one-fourth of a swan has been applied directly to the entire head? They're very good. Very intimidating. Very high fashion.

I'm now watching to see if Elaida has the bracelet this early- hard to tell tho.

So. I was not a huge fan of the Lannister lean-in thing they did with Morgause on first watch. But I've seen some commentary that has reconciled me a bit more to it- one is that people were going to make the comparison between Andor's whole vibe and Game of Thrones anyway, so they called it to mind deliberately but contrasted it with Morgase's slightly more strategic/principled(?) motivation. This is the kind of thing that RJ did with the first 200 pages of EotW and The Fellowship of the Ring- deliberately echoing the more familiar property before going in a different direction with it- so it's not like that's a new-to-WoT tactic. The other bit of commentary that has influenced me is the argument that it sets up some really juicy stuff for Elayne to work with later in her succession plot.

Elayne is so cute when she lies through her teeth

Siuan waiting a very precisely calculated amount of time to let them in lmao

Siuan is WEIRDLY smiley re: Lord Gaebril considering her mood moments before…

This is obviously because of the letter Elayne sent, but I honestly don't know why Elayne told Morgase she was kidnapped if she didn't want to get hauled home. Maybe to drive home the Seanchan threat?

I forgot who I first thought the people in the ways were, but I was totally wrong. As we find out later, it's Alanna and Maksim, but yeah, wtf are they doing in the Two Rivers in this turning? Still hunting for novices?

Yeah that was a significantly long pause for Elayne before she acknowledged Gabril

Mat looks good in green :)

If only we had someone who could fix mind diseases! [thinks about Mat in Graendal's clutches] NEVERMIND NO ONE NEEDS THERAPY

The implication of 'honorary great serpent ring' is that Morgase didn't have to go through the Arch(es) but honestly since they don't require channeling and are a character/commitment test similar to [SPOILERS FOR LATER IN THE SEASON] I've always headcanoned that Daughter-Heirs of Andor who went to the Tower actually took the test. But maybe it's seen as too risky for them to actually take it? I'd certainly buy that in this universe.

Elayne like "This is the largest gay bar in the world, please don't take me away"

Emotionally Intelligent Lan never fails to jumpscare me lmao

I love the contrast between the Aiel 'save and destroy' and the WT 'save or destroy' here; it's less of a stark contrast in the books but I think it's a really interesting nuance to dwell on and fits with the overall themes of encoutering different perspectives and the subjectivity of history/prophecy. Also I love Avi talking duty with Egwene and Moiraine, just like, on principle.

These landscapes holy shit

At least we know that Marin is the kind of person who would hide people in her attic

Alanna, Perrin used to live here. What the fuck are YOU doing in the Two Rivers?

lmao once you get an Elaida infestation it's hard to get her out

ooof. I bet Siuan is thinking in terms of another Darkfriend attack on the Tower re: Min's visions.

Mat, you absolute dumbass [derogatory]. That said, Clara is super hot. "I think everyone is into this kind of thing, Mat" - excellent line delivery Nyneave

Awwwww is Nyneave wearing Lan's ring around her neck? Or her great serpent ring?

"And is the Lion Throne under threat?" damn Nyneave is killing it this episode

Rand you cheating ho

I already said this but I do need to reiterate: Galad would not fuck

I knew immediately that someone was gonna catch Elayne vamping with the crown and I was preemptively embarrassed for her I hate that Gaebril is charming I hate it I hate it (it's very good) Galad is always serious oooof not Gareth Bryne :( High-Functioning Alcoholic Elayne T_T I buy it but it hurts me

THE MAT AND SIUAN SCENE IS PERFECT. Also it sounds at the beginning like she's got him as a guest on her early morning tv show/interview podcast and that always makes me laugh. I really hope that she and Mat get to meet again because they were so fun to watch together.

And now for another scene of masterful manipulation! GO GO ELAYNE

Elayne: "My path will always lead back to Andor." Me: '-through the circus.'

Lan listens but you aren't fucking talking, Rand

Lmao I'm enjoying the barely veiled threats in this Morgase & Siuan confrontation

[technoturian]

Do you think Egwene and Rand can still be together as a couple?

No book spoilers:

I hope not? I think the show has been fairly good from the beginning at spelling out that these two are doomed. We knew that before we even knew Rand was the Dragon or that Egwene could channel. The first thing we find out about them is that they're in love, they're together, they're breaking up and they want different things out of life.

I think exploring how they continue to be intertwined by fate and the plot while no longer being together is much, much more interesting than trying to drag out their relationship any more. I don't think they can come back from this and I don't think they should.

I don't really like how they broke up because I felt like they could have addressed the *actual* issues with the relationship -- that they'd both almost fully pulled away from each other emotionally while still relying on each other's proximity because it was comforting and familiar -- rather than having the same argument from season one, which doesn't give me faith if this continued for another season that it would go anywhere satisfying.

I want to see who Egwene is when she's no longer being held back by her regrets about Rand and feeling like she owes him a relationship she doesn't want. I want to see who Rand is when he's no longer pretending he can have a life with Egwene in the Two Rivers and then blaming her when reality intervenes. I look forward to them both finding the support in others that they couldn't give each other.

I hope they still love each other in the end, I hope it doesn't end with them hating each other. But they were never meant to be.

[asha-mage]

WoT S3, Episode 2 Assorted Thoughts

Camelyn opening? Morgase! Elaida! Toddler Galad! Baby Gawyn! Aughaguha!

"But that war is over now....because I won it." YEAH THAT"S MORGASE ALRIGHT

......Baryn, Asnhar and Caern are...interesting choices for this bit. I know I'm one of like nine people who liked the Succession plot in the books but this means that Morgase is directly responsible for the ascenson of three people who become HUGE headaches for Elayne later- Lir Baryn (who ices his sister here I suspect), Karind Anshar, and maybe most dangerously Naesin Caeren- the senile and unstable old man who is latter killed by his own grand daughter.

If I am remembering correctly Morgase explicitly wishes that she had not needed to pardon those three houses specifically, and all three keyly are the first supporters of House Marne during the succession war. Food for the 'future turning of the wheel' theory for sure.

Awwww yeah Elayne centric episode incomeing.

Ohhhhhh booooy. I have some THOUGHTS about this.

Galad being 'Of House Trakand' but Gawyn being 'First Prince' is some SPICY SHIT.

Everyone's side eye as Elaida waltz in, even her own Red Sisters is G O L D E N.

'Gaberil' being Prince Consort already is...interesting. I wonder if he's Rahvin still, or just a Dark Friend, or just an asshole. In theory his role is one that might be able to be stripped down from it's Forsaken or even Darkfriend parts.

Morgase vs Siuan is so so DELICIOUS.

This is what it must have been like to watch Charlemagne and the Pope get into arguments during the early middle ages.

Oh man I was holding out for Ogier singing to open the gates in the show, but I do appreciate the return of the leaf (and it is a plot point in this bit in TSR).

Ohhhh Galad. That brutal honesty in full swing still I see.

God that they convey without ANY exposition exactly what Gaebril's relationship is to the rest of the family (i.e second husband political match/awkward step dad) is so well done.

And on that note, if Gaebril IS Rahvin, it's going to be way more messed up for the Trakand's to cope with since apparently he has a decent rapport with them this time around.

RYMA YOUR OKAY AND I'M SO GLAD!

Morgase is a character they could have so easily messed up and I'm glad their doing her well. Commanding, strong headed, shrewd- but deeply loving and caring underneath it all.

I do like that their capturing Avi's mixed feelings on Rand so well so early. I'm still not sure how I feel about removing the element of their relationship where she is 'looking after him' for Elayne- as I've talked about before it's one of the load bearing pillars of their relationship. We'll see when we get to the Rings and their aftermath.

Chiad and Bain having more of a friendship with Perrin then Faile to start continues to be such a CHOICE. Man I hope Gaul is hanging around with Faiel so he can be her wingman.

Hi Alanna! You are looking....not to great girlie! And also you don't have your bestie Verin to help this time! Worrying!

Oh boy. Duel time!

I'm glad they found a way to include this scene.

Gawyn you absolute LOSER blowing a kiss to the crowd.

On the one hand, RIP Gawyn and Min's comedy duo set. On the other hand, long live Min and Mat's friendship.

Ohhhhh, no duel scene. Still really good.

God, the paranoia, the suspicion- it's all captured SO WELL

Egwene and Rand's drama continues to delight, as does the extreme pettiness of Lanfear- their really is such a simmer furious rage behind so many of her actions, she tries to cloak it constantly, but it's always their.

Oh man, Gawyn and Galad hoeing it up in the White Tower. Deeply unsafe behavior boys.

Gareth Bryne mention!

God, if Gaebril IS Rahvin, him being a evil mentor to Elayne is actually...kind of weirdly delightful to me? Rahvin is one of the flatter Forsaken in the series to be honest.

Siuan playing Mat like a fiddle is DELIGHTFUL.

"I'm no hero." HE SAID THE THING.

Morgase and Elayne's relationship is so well written, they really capture Elayne's central character conflict so well.

Ohhhhhhh. First proper look at the Wise One costume. I like it. Not quite the classic image I had in mind, but this is VERY MUCH digging this Amys.

[markantonys]

Someone on Twitter: Rand was such an asshole in s1. They handled his character's stubbornness much better in s2. You're calling him an asshole? Based off one episode? I am a s1 Rand defender

this is the worst take!!!! the only difference in rand's stubbornness in the two seasons is that in s1 all the trauma and upheavals are extremely fresh and also he still has some hope that he can get his life back, and so he's more argumentative and hot-tempered, whereas in s2 he's hopeless and downtrodden and so he's too tired to argue as much. in s1 his entire world was turned on its head, but by s2 he's had 6 months to settle into the new status quo, which is a shitty status quo even before he finds out he didn't actually defeat the dark one, so when moiraine does come to tell him that, he's more like "[deep sigh] you know those days where you're like, this might as well happen". the reason he doesn't try and fight her in s2 is because he's long accepted he can't go back home again, not because he was an asshole in s1 but is written differently/better in s2. (also, it's almost like coming-of-age stories involve the heroes becoming more mature and better at managing their emotions as the story progresses. imagine that!)

it really is insane how harshly s1 rand is judged for having normal human emotions re: getting dumped and being led away on a life-threatening quest by an extremely shady wizard. i'm sure many of the haters would handle all that way worse than rand did if they were in his shoes! (plus when you look at the other kids: mat and perrin have painful memories in the two rivers (childhood trauma & laila) and so are not that opposed to leaving, while egwene is interested in becoming an aes sedai and so not that opposed, so naturally rand has the most reason to dig his heels in and resist being taken away.)

i think it kinda stems from our human tendency to see all conflicts as A Bad Guy vs. A Good Guy. rand & moiraine both have valid and understandable reasons for clashing (rand is scared and doesn't want to leave home; moiraine is acting for the good of the world) as do rand & egwene (rand is hurting over the breakup and upset that egwene's trying to act like nothing happened and get back with him now that her first choice of being a wisdom fell through; egwene is scared and wants to cling to the comfort and familiarity of their relationship after her whole life was overturned). but people's instinct is to make someone the bad guy in every argument, and so they give that title to rand. we see that time and again in the books too - WOT is really quite good about having the heroes disagree and have conflicts with each other even though they share the same broad goals, but fandom always simplifies it down to "X character is Right and A Good Guy, Y character is Wrong and A Bad Guy". (rand & egwene with the seals: egwene is the bad guy. rand & elayne with the dragon banners: elayne is the bad guy. egwene & gawyn with their TOM relationship negotiations: gawyn is the bad guy. mat & the wondergirls constantly: the girls are the bad guys on reddit, but mat might be the bad guy if you ask some people on tumblr.)

in conclusion, i will leave you with some of my earliest thoughts on rand as a show-only. he immediately came off to me as a walking green flag, and that opinion only strengthened as the season went on! him getting angry and having emotions never soured my opinion of him, it just made him feel real and human! so the haters can suck it, their experiences are not universal.

(i think this was from only about halfway through the season, because he did become my #1 favorite by the end of the season!)

[hxans]

Kept thinking I got plany of time until S3 of WoT drops on March 13, right up until this weekend when I realised it's fucking March already. If I wanna do my rewatch of the first two seasons, I need to get on it.

So I watched the first two eps. I have a few scattered thoughts, but I'm not planning to do deep dive analysis, just... casual observations that might be a bit disjointed and over the place.

- kinda love how Nynaeve's first time seeing Lan she's already prepared to cut a bitch if she has to.

- love the framing when Moiraine looks around the inn at our various characters: Nynaeve, watching suspiciously from behind Lan, Mat seperate from the others, Egwene with Rand and Perrin behind her.

-I really do hope we get a better parallel journey of Egwene and Perrin's tel'aran'rhiod studies (tho a lot of that wolfbrother stuff might be what they give time to if/when the show covers TFoH and he's absent on his honeymoon in the books)

- watching the by-play between Nynaeve and Perrin & Egwene, Perrin and Laila, etc, does make me wonder about how much village social/romantic lives Nynaeve has been an inadvertent witness to as a mediator.

- I don't remember anything being said explicitly, but a couple gestures and stuff makes me feel Perrin and Laila might have been expecting? But it was early days yet, maybe? I do wish we'd got more conversation between those two, to get a proper feel for Laila's personality.

- Mat, "She'd piss in your mouth and call it rain" evocative language as ever.

- I also love how much time he spends trying to keep the peace/the mood up, etc. Given his home situation it feels like he becomes very used to anticipating moods of others to avoid the arguments his parents must have.

- and the way he doesn't hesitate to run back into the carnage to find his sisters

- thank the gifmakers that let us notice the little nooses in the background of his conversation with Fain

- when Moiraine says the trollocs and her are there for the same reason, "You." And it goes directly to Rand (who looks somewhat unsurprised/resigned) before she clarifies the four of them. Homeboy already suspects even if he's in denial.

- please please please let us skip what Valda does to Morgase in the books (it's very bad optics if they do in this) but still let us have the face off with Galad for the atrocities

- Lan gives his longest speech ever to the kids, doesn't answer questions, and follows with an admonishment to touch nothing and eat only the rations they brought themselves. Feels like rules to deal with certain Other Worlds as well, tbh

- Nynaeve gets to pull and Arwen-sneaks-up-on-Aragorn with Lan, love that for her.

[cannoli-reader]

Watching the Wheel of Time show, Season 2, episode 2

Originally posted on readandfindout.com on 9/2/2023

2:00 Rand’s shacking up with someone. And they’re making prostitution jokes, because I guess that’s another concept our feminist writers forgot does not exist in WoT.

3:56 Okay, the “Previously On” had Rand asking if it was true that male channelers go mad and kill everyone they ever loved and Moiraine indicating it is. ITB, that was Lews Therin’s thing. Most male channelers kill pretty randomly or indiscriminately. And Book!Rand’s plan to avoid this, was to disappear into the wilderness where there would be no one around to hurt. This version is not only not doing that, he is living in one of the largest cities in the world. And in anticipation of the Show defenders’ argument that in this medium he is more worried about killing his friends and other people are not in danger, I guess that means he’s just using the woman in his bed as a masturbation aid, and has absolutely no affection for her? Because that describes Rand in any way at all?

And if it is, how and why are we supposed to be invested in him, at all?

Also, if all male channelers have to do is stay away from their loved ones, why have they been eliminated? Why does the Tower hunt them down? Why not just keep them sequestered and use them? How did the Breaking happen? Were the male Aes Sedai super attached to the geographical features of their day?

4:01 Please tell me this is not an insane asylum for male channelers.

4:42 Lan and Moiraine in their Borderland retreat, with its palm trees.

10:40 Of all the stuff to adapt near-perfectly from the books, they chose that scene?

13:55 Rand is learning swordsmanship from a mental patient’s description of the moves. Okay, sure. Why not.

15:18 So the Aes Sedai use Healing combined with herbs. Just fixing them every which way, aren’t we?

19:32 What is with the singing in the background?

19:34 If we knew ANYTHING about the White Tower, aside from the contents of some utterly irrelevant novels, we might have a clue about the significance of furniture in the hallways. Are they cleaning out Moiraine’s room? Opening one up for Nynaeve in the Accepted quarters? Or some made-up bullshit for the show that they think is unique or interesting?

19:44 There was a woman wearing red and white, to whom Egwene gave a funny look, that I assumed was the show’s inept attempt at courtesy to a sister. But now there are a bunch of red cushions. Is this Elayne moving in?

20:05 Her mother trained at the White Tower, there is no way Elayne should be under any illusions she would be allowed all the trappings of her outside life. It’s amazing how much you have to break in the characterization or worldbuilding, because you could not be bothered to introduce her in the first season, so that there would be some way for Egwene to figure out who Elayne is without this rigmarole that makes her look spoiled, changes her family history or messes with the Tower’s fundamental attitude toward the outside world.

20:42 You know how often this happens to Elayne ITB? Never, because she was raised to master courtesy and social situations and is extremely diplomatic.

21:20 The name is Treh-KAND. I always pronounced it TRACK-and.

21:45 Cadsuane Melaidhrin had a close friend with whom she formed a legendary pairing of Aes Sedai. Ok, totally tracks. In normal circumstances, I might find it funny, considering that over the course of the series, Elayne is part of a pairing that in just a couple of years utterly blows any three Aes Sedai’s accomplishments out of the water, but not with her next-door neighbor novice, or even a woman with whom she shared a novitiate in any way.

22:32 Why are Warders a part of this conversation?

23:09 Yeah, duh. I was confused, because everything Alanna just said seemed to be arguing to put Nynaeve through the test.

23:54 All the yammering about the emotions you feel through the bond, why would they need to peer at her face for emotional cues?

25:00 Now what critical information is Nynaeve about to learn thanks to incredibly incompetent security precautions on Liandrin’s part?

29:12 I know this line from Verin about Oaths having loopholes one can exploit is meant to invoke her ultimate fate in the books. Which was stupid and unnecessary in the book, and stop trying to remind us of books you can’t be bothered to adhere to. You don’t get to draft off of characterizations you’ve violated every which way you can.

Also, according to Verin, Moriaine brought the boys to the Tower in the autumn. Which means that after the festival celebrating the beginning of spring in episode 1, it took five months to travel to Shadar Logoth, and then scatter to the point where Rand & Mat flee the Fade Thom is fighting, Nynaeve heals the casualties of Logain's followers' attack, and Perrin & Egwene meet the Tinkers. Then another month to get everyone to Tar Valon, so that Verin's assertion that Moiraine brought the boys there in the autumn, can be true. Exactly what in season 1 indicated this passage of time?

30:13 Is this supposed to be the colorful Foregate?

30:41 Is Rand’s stare supposed to denote an outside-looking-in regret that he no longer has the company of his best friends? Because it looks a lot more homicidal.

30:47 He’s on the move. Maybe it’s because that guy used the word “bastard” in a setting that is dominated by women and thus has no concept of illegitimate birth status, and Rand is instinctively acting to eradicate the Patriarchy in its cradle.

31:53 Is Rand going to explain why he mugged that guy, or is he just going to whine about spontaneously channeling?

32:00 Wow. Lanfear actually got him in bed. The writers just do not give a crap about anything but sex. They will ruin anything, overwrite any character trait, in order to insert a sex scene.

Another, even worse, possibility is a Lanfear redemption arc. There seems to be a segment of the fandom who are obsessed with her, and her combination of beauty and channeling capacity and are constantly wishing she was a good guy or at least was closer to Rand than she was ITB. Given what other elements the producers seem to be pandering to, it would not surprise me in the least.

33:14 Elayne should have had her servants and special furnishings out on the lawn before her first conversation with Egwene was done. The Aes Sedai should not be addressing her as Daughter-Heir. This is just basic common sense! What is the point of assimilating her into your organization if you are constantly sending the message that her external birth rank is more important, and takes precedence over her status in the Tower? How are you even supposed to mold her into a properly obedient and disciplined novice?

33:38 Sheriam is finally getting around to what they should have been prepared for before she ever arrived, but why, if Elayne is just another novice, did an Aes Sedai just address her as “Daughter-Heir” a moment ago?

34:07 The correct answer, Sheriam, was “Both”. And you don’t give up on getting the name! Whether you need it or not, you asked for it, so Elayne has to give it to you, or you suck as Mistress of Novices. What is the point of removing her trappings of wealth and power and driving home that she’s just another novice, if you let her get her way in the argument?! A new recruit loses every argument or debate and the same rule should apply to people who are being trained to wield the Power that Broke the World. She has to learn that the Tower’s way is the only way that counts. She does not get to withhold anything. Sheriam has to make her give up the name, and then punish the person who is guilty extra and make sure Elayne knows it is because of her recalcitrance!

The really gross thing is Book!Elayne would readily agree with me, which is why the only time she gets tripped up in that manner is in her personal relationship with an Aes Sedai that predates her joining the Tower. And given the very minor degree of her offense, I think Elaida was also trying to make that point by sending her to Sheriam for her familiarity without a warning.

34:24 It’s just a cherry on top of the shit sundae, but going through Egwene to get to Nynaeve only reinforces their old hometown ties that the Tower is, or should be, interested in breaking up. By treating them as a unit, they encourage Egwene and Nynaeve to see their relationship as having significance.

35:32 What was the thought process for Nynaeve to follow Liandrin all day and into the night? And how incompetent is Liandrin that after Moiraine flubbed her blackmail threat so bad last season, concerning this very man, she lets herself be followed all over the city by a woman making no believable efforts to conceal herself, while wearing a solid, pristine white dress?

36:56 Still don’t care about Liandrin, not at all curious what’s in this mystery box, and I am wondering how Book!Nynaeve with her Healing vocation stumbled into this show.

37:25 I don’t care that Liandrin has an elderly son, grandson or nephew (for the record, she’s in her thirties in the books). It contributes nothing to her characterization or anything I can imagine for the plot.

39:00 This is the first time I saw that Mat’s digging tool is a spoon. Which means that Liandrin is also inept in handling a prisoner, because she can’t be bothered with something as basic as counting the utensils.

Also, making a hole into the other, occupied, cell only doubles their chances of discovery, while providing no benefits other than knowledge of each other’s appearance. They should have immediately replaced that brick.

39:21 Everything on this show has to be about sex. Elayne and Egwene are probably scissoring back in the Tower.

39:38 Save “New Spring” for a spin-off, please. I don’t want to sit through a badly phrased oral version.

39:51 Is it me, or do they all look embarrassed for Adeleas? I can’t give the show credit, because the writers are like that creepy “cool mom” or wine aunt who thinks their sex talk makes them cool, so they have no business characterizing Adeleas as weird and out of touch. Adeleas did not make them write Alanna last episode or have Min’s first question to Mat be about sex.

40:14 We certainly could not let that not-relevant detail about Lan’s sexual abuser be omitted from the story.

40:22 I don’t think the writers read anything out of “New Spring” other than “Malkier has a cool sexy custom where teenagers lose their virginities to a cougar!” Are they even remotely aware that the relevant part of the story was that Edeyn Arrell basically statutorily raped a barely-pubescent boy with no parental figures, in order to control and use him to bolster her political standing among the expatriate Malkieri community? This is one of the reasons why Lan was riding to the Borderlands to die at the outset of the story, because as a living man, it was clear he would always be the focus of political conflicts or impossible quests to reclaim the lands of Malkier, any of which might fatally divide or weaken the Borderlands. He sought to fulfil his duty to his people and his country by dying as an example of the Malkieri commitment to fight the Shadow, and giving them a dead legend to admire, rather than a flesh-and-blood man they can use. His carneira had everything to do with his outlook and how his Malkieri heritage was a burden and a constraint, and nothing at all to do with how he came to meet and work with Moiraine.

Everything else aside, why would you mention any word indicating anything sexual in the hearing of this gross, leering woman? The very image at this timestamp looks like a dictionary illustration of the word “sleazy.” She makes Rhavin and Graendal seem tasteful, restrained and temperate.

41:37 What can they possibly gain from moving between their cells, except, again, increasing the chance of getting caught? Now, if someone comes, they have a lot more bricks to put back in place, assuming they can get Min back to her room quickly. They are not one iota closer to getting out, and are only endangering whatever they gain from having contact with each other, by making it very likely that they will be caught and separated.

44:13 Eh, so what? The only notable visions we have had from her were pointless anyway. Are we really supposed to believe that Mat is going to kill Rand, or be upset at the prospect of Min being frightened off from a friendship with a man with whom she never speaks in all of Robert Jordan’s books?

44:28 This is her third scene, and we have no characterization of Selene yet, aside from “sleeps with Rand.”

46:13 I guess this counts as character building, even if it actually is just set up for the reveal of Lanfear and Lews Therin.

46:44 Elayne not having any friends before the Tower is generally accepted by readers, because it can be inferred, but it’s not something she ever says. She does not pity herself and only mentions the restrictions on her growing up, in the context of an activity coming up that she had never been allowed to do before, or to explain her ignorance in a particular situation.

48:23 This is accurate to book characterization, but of Egwene, not Nynaeve. It is definitely a thing that Egwene completely misses her friends’ struggles, or fails to understand the cause of their discontent, and that she perceives them getting advantages and special treatment (e.g., Liandrin’s mentorship, Rand’s vacation among the Aiel), when the reality is much less pleasant for them.

Meanwhile, also in the books, Egwene, far more than Nynaeve, got extra advantages and circumvented the rules, usually by breaking them and disobeying her mentors. This looks like Egwene-stanning writers expressing their opinion of Nynaeve, with close to a decade of channeling experience under her belt, being allowed to skip being a novice and go right to Accepted, and never mind that they have failed to actually show us Nynaeve prospering and getting away with anything. She’s still a novice with a block.

48:30 “Egwene, I know we’re just getting to know each other, so I hope you’ll forgive me when I say…” 'I would much prefer Nynaeve as my partner. She sounds totally badass, and you’re kind of a drip.'

48:38 Are they calling Egwene out!? And using Elayne to do it! Also canonical!

49:03 She said “Egwene” so it can’t possibly be Egwene out there. Liandrin? Sheriam come to punish her? Moiraine and Lan looking for somewhere to crash without having to listen to Adeleas being gross? Probably Liandrin. Come to make up and be friends and then Egwene, in turn, will witness their amicable interactions and stalk off all butt hurt.

49:13 What a shock.

49:23 Ah, she’s still pissed, but she’s taking Nynaeve for the Accepted test.

50:42 Not having Nynaeve take the test naked does not make up for the scripting of every Aes Sedai whose name begins with “A”.

51:29 If the bond is not functioning, how was Lan supposed to sense the Myrddraal? Lan does not do the self-pity, false modesty or taking blame that is not his.

51:44 Moiraine knew she wanted Lan for a Warder right away. What possible purpose can be served by altering the backstory for this anecdote?

53:07 Gee, if only you had given a little less screentime to Steppin the Tragic Warder and Dana the Dumpy Darkfriend, and a bit more to Thom, the audience would know what a gleeman is, and Moiraine could use a proper simile for the setting, such as “like a gleeman pulling birds out of his sleeves”.

55:15 If Moiraine’s loyalty is to the Dragon Reborn alone (and it never was, ITB, or rather it was to her own idea of the Dragon and what he should be and do; she herself verbally asserted the Tower was a higher loyalty, even after she swore obedience to him, at a time when her truthfulness was not in question because her status wrt the Power was not a big mystery)… if her only priority is the Dragon, she should be taking Lan along, because she’s more effective with him at her back.

Just about everything out of her mouth is nonsense. She took pains to sneak away from the house without Lan, and without him, she would never have survived until Verin & co arrived. To say he failed her is ridiculous. But is she shielded or stilled? If the former, how can she believe some of the crap she’s spewing and if the latter, why Is Lan experiencing nothing like Steppin?

56:32 Why are they dragging him? The funky helmets makes me think Seanchan, and who cares about geography.

56:38 Oh, right. This is the woke channeler-stan show. Their view of any group is wildly distorted to focus on the sins according to their enthusiasms or worldview. Thus the Children of the Light go from an over-zealous group hunting Darkfriends, to a cult of channeler hunters, and now the focus on the Seanchan is all going to be slavery, so that’s the introduction to the Seanchan, dragging people off to enslave, according to the most lurid fantasies of social media anti-slavery activists.

58:20 The badass Shienaran is going to be Maseema, I bet.

59:45 How is this at all an effective method of transporting slaves?

1:00:55 So no real depiction of the Seanchan, just Rule of Cool stuff. Tuon wore a veil, let’s cover their current leader’s face, that will look cool! Never mind what that face covering meant in Seanchan.

1:01:24 So Rand mugged that guy to get his job. Is he going to meet Logain here?

1:01:52 Of course. Game of Thrones style plotting. “Narratively it made sense, because we wanted it to happen.” (The Game of Thrones writers’ excuse for twisting a couple of storylines unrecognizably to make Tyrion and Daenerys meet as soon as they could get away with it) It makes no sense for a rebel leader to be put in any sort of place that is as easy to get someone in to see him as Rand finds it here. Even if he can’t channel, he could still be used as a symbol and rallying point. Dress him in fancy clothes and parade him in front of an army and he can still be used to gain support for a cause, without his own pesky ideas or agenda getting in the way. That Rand is here to see him is proof of how bad this is from a security perspective. This makes no sense that it is possible, but the writers want to put Rand and Logain together, so it’s going to happen.

1:02:28 Liars!

This episode was a little less dumb, and then the Seanchan and Logain turned up. What is Lanfear even doing with Rand in this plotline? How is what we’ve seen in service to her goals, and how is she incompetent at getting her way if it’s not? We got to waste two episodes on Aes Sedai bullshit, proving they learned nothing from Steppin and Kerene last season and Nynaeve still has not taken her Accepted test. The only progress in the whole Tower storyline was the introduction of Elayne who has not been ruined as much as everyone else, and if you squint, might pass for the same character. Meanwhile, the image of the Aes Sedai is plummeting to Galactic Empire in “Obi-Wan Kenobi” levels of ineptitude. Pretty clear the Seanchan are going to be the narrative whipping boys for most of this season.

[jaqobis]

sorting out some finale impressions after sleeping on it

it's like.

moiraine being able to burn the ships despite the oaths; the protracted scene of renna's murder; perrin going into a rage and killing bornhald senior; rand one-shotting turak etc; mat stabbing people left and right with the dagger; nynaeve torturing the sul'dam but that plot coming to nothing (returning to that in a moment). like i read the interview, i know what the rand scene referenced. i can imagine the perrin scene was buildup for fear of the wolf. it's not that i just don't get it.

but like did dain necessarily need Valid Reason to hate perrin lol. again, i can see what they're doing. but What If The Whitecloaks Were Here To Fight The Seanchan -- which, yeah, they do oppose the seanchan in the books. but the specific framing of them to help and whatever, when no one else was willing to. specifically also throwing siuan under the bus bc allegedly the amyrlin also got a letter about this. even if this turns out to be a lie, this is the standing narrative for now, and in combination with everything else they did with siuan this season, yikes.

i read the interview, i know what the rand thing was referencing, but also that's a scene of rand acting in self-defense against darkfriends that were literally about to murder him. if he'd struck a second later, or waited, they might have succeeded. more importantly that's where he's in a situation where people have been trying to murder him literally day and night for, like, months. he hasn't slept in as long. the context is totally different. there is also a rand scene in TFOH where he talks about how it feels unfair to use saidin against non-channelers. you can just as easily argue that he Wouldn't do this.

i actually, personally, think it's very important for the egwene/rand parallels that her friends were there to save her from the seanchan, and that he later has to save himself from the box. i also think it was important for her development that she could know she has friends who would and do come for her. i also personally find that narrative much more satisfying, cool as her Moment was. i'd been spoiled about her killing renna going in, and like we can discuss morality whether rj was Right to ask if revenge is justice or if it's More Right for egwene to kill renna, we'd be here forever. i'm not really looking to comment on that. it is kind of a weird vibe to remove a meditation on violence, however, in a series that is anti-war, in a finale that seemed to make a lot of choices to depict and make this battle Cool, etc. that had us watch renna die for quite a long moment. renna certainly got what was coming to her, but idk.

Violence Is Cool. Traumatic Experiences Lead To Empowering Moments. that's the vibe it's giving.

lan continued to be used just to prop up moiraine and explain how she's feeling and talk about how good she is. at least daniel henney got a pretty cool fight scene!

tbf leaning on the whitecloaks and ishamael as sad and sympathetic has sanderson written all over it

making the sul'dam weak channelers seems to lose some of the hypocrisy central to the seanchan empire; losing some of the hypocrisy and deep societal rot undercuts the commentary on institutional-level change needed to remove the damane system. combined with the deaths of both collared sul'dams, that secret also goes lost.

(they certainly might bring it back and address it later, but arguing that It's 100% Coming, Shut Up & Stop Whining is just as much of a bad faith argument as claiming the show sucks bc hurin isn't in it. i can only comment to what exists now. also, frankly, i've been told things i was criticising previously were OBVIOUSLY going to be addressed in the finale and. weren't? so like.)

nynaeve really was allowed to accomplish nothing useful huh. no speech about justice, no part of the successful figuring out how to uncollar, no healing, no protecting her friends from forsaken, nothing. for all that elayne was immediately walking around everywhere after her dramatic wound, they could've just. let nynaeve do that.

like i obviously understand that they're showing the block is a real problem, which it is, but this is a choice that was made.

also not a single mention of ryma after her big sacrifice huh. it would add approximately 5 seconds to runtime for the wondergirls to talk about saving egwene and ryma at any point.

loial's speech about them all being heroes + mat's hero of the horn thing + crowds cheering (yes i remember the end of tdr) + etc etc really building up this idea of Heroism As Cool. could be something they'll work to subvert later but it's certainly an element that existed in the books at this point. that they've stripped out.

also like why even bother destroying the heron mark sword without the buildup of why it matters to rand or why its destruction was narratively impactful. unearned. rand saying he won't serve ishamael in a thousand lifetimes, unearned. there were plenty of other moments that didn't feel earned to me that escape me now, which. a shame!

i've already rb'd a post that laid out my feelings about rand thus far pretty well so i'll mostly spare y'all but. it's an incredible disservice to his character to take a scene where he tries to sacrifice himself for egwene/his loved ones, knowingly opens himself up to terrible pain, and thereby gets the wound that gives him chronic pain for the rest of his life and kills him, and make it...a mistake of mat's. like. yes, we've seen him try to sacrifice himself at the eye. there's nothing wrong with repeating this beat? it's called a consistent character trait. it was already a subversion of the conceit of a 1v1 op heroic battle. they tried to fix something that didn't need fixing, to make a point it was already making. also rand just immediately up and about after getting this wound, even with healing, where he was out for days in the book. it just doesn't bode super well for depiction of chronic pain sufferer rand al'thor. i don't doubt they intend to show us the wound breaking open etc etc but you're also undercutting significance on multiple levels out the gate. it bothers me! but i'm chronically ill with chronic pain so i'm not going to pretend this is some coldly logical clear-eyed opinion.

also perrin killing bornhald sr the same way he killed laila. except it's not even an immediate heat of the moment in the same way, he had to go out and find bornhald sr and stab him repeatedly and be held back. like i love hopper too (another death that felt really. gratuitous in handling.) but christ's sake. it's sure a Look.

tl;dr the themes??? ? ? the themes ???? ? ? and then i remember the sanderson of it all and i understand lmao.

[wexpyke]

last week i finally picked up the fires of heaven again and i’m proud to say i’ve now finished it. i have some thoughts and they will be scattered, but here they are:

god i love mat cauthon

i also love aviendha and moiraine and elayne so much. and egwene, too, though she wasn’t as present in this book i felt like

the older far dareis mai caring for rand… so special to me

i miss perrin… where was perrin this entire book?! his arc in the previous book was SOOO good (i love him and faile sm)

the couladin/shaido plot was quite boring, iwl. though that ending with mat was cool, i guess

i am so, so tired of the “women are from venus, men are from mars” argument that’s so pervasive ALL THE TIME. like at least twice a chapter. i am SO tired

also nynaeve… girl… i really cba with her most of the time. i want to like her so badly but she’s so infuriating, oh my god

robert jordan will catch these hands beyond the grave for how poorly he writes female characters most of the time

he will also catch my hands for the fucking three wives thing. feels like wish fulfilment and just makes me feel icky. i really hope the show (if it gets that far) skips it, because… 💀

AND FOR THE ELAYNE AND THOM THING?! that was so grim. freud would be happy, probably, but i’m fairly certain he’d be the only one. i’m glad they moved on from that, because fuck me

the world-building is good, i enjoy the bigger storyline, even if i’m sad at the way rand is changing - but the pacing… it’s so slow sometimes, god

WHOOOO ELSE WAS IN CAEMLYN?! damn. i actually kind of liked asmodean. and i was expecting lanfear to be around longer tbh…

i will not speak about moiraine. i cannot speak about moiraine. as soon as my bf came home from work i started crying about it lmao

confused about lan. would’ve appreciated a reminder, seeing as whatever oath moiraine made him make was… 1,000 pages ago if not more, in a different book, but all right

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Okay, so, I see your "honor the fallen section", and I am here to plead my case for putting Rand al'Thor from the Wheel of Time back in the bracket.

Rand is incredibly divisive among the fandom, not only for being the protagonist and reluctant chosen one of a classic fantasy series, but also because his character arc is literally designed to go through extreme highs and lows and there are ENTIRE BOOKS where he's insufferable. And depending on which books people like most/read more/didn't finish, people form REALLY strong opinions about Rand.

Wait! Hear me out!! *me frantically picking my scattered notes up from the floor to run after you as you leave your office, unimpressed by my Milo Thatch presentation.*

The Wheel of Time is one of the biggest names in fantasy with over 2,700 named characters across 15 books and 4.4 million words (that's a lot of words!!!), and I'm pretty sure the only other WoT characters submitted were Egwene and Nynaeve. While the two of them are maybe the most divisive characters in the fandom, their vastly altered TV show portrayals (and by virtue of being female characters on tumblr) means they're skewing heavily towards "love" which is contrary to the prevailing sentiment from the fandom over the past 30 years.

*sweating nervously as you tap your foot while you wait for your valet to fetch your car* T-therefore, (re)including Rand, who is not only a divisive character but also a divisive male character (and thus exempt from what we will call "Girlboss Bias"), will be more likely to split the votes because people have such polarizing thoughts and feelings about him.

*me, dropping to my knees in the 1920s street, face splattered with mud churned from the wheels of your dismissal* And! And! You just started the R's, and he's, like, right there. He goes right there! you can put him back and no one will notice!!

There's three characters from Twilight!!! *the credits roll as my last wail of despair fades into the distance.*

... plz add rand

You drive a hard bargain anon. I like this impassioned essay and I’ll let him back in

but tbh the strongest part of this argument is you saying there are only 3 total wheel of time characters making me realize that I think I removed him by accident while removing the jojo character who was alphabetically right above him

[butterflydm]

WoT trailer thoughts

Okay, I gotta run off to work soon, but I wanted to poke at the trailer some more first.

After consultations with @markantonys, who is better at recognizing people who Change Their Hair And Clothes (how dare they!), I now know that it is Josha in the river scene and Alanna in the orchard scene with Perrin and Not Elayne (and thus Morgase) in the Lion Throne scene.

So, thoughts on the season ahead of us...

Though I want more than one episode with everyone together, if Rand & co are going to the Waste on foot, they might want two 'travel' episodes to let time pass in the other plotlines, so it might be both Rand's group (via land) and Perrin's group (via the Ways) who leave at the end of the first episode. I'm currently leaning this way because it doesn't look like Egwene is in the scene where Galad fights Gawyn (and which is likely to lead into the Mat vs the princes fight) and the only reason I feel like she wouldn't be there is if she is already on the way to the Waste.

Hopefully Rand & co will leave in the middle of ep2 and we get some more time with everyone together! And Egwene & Gawyn could at least meet each other, lol.

The implication from some of the marketing is that Rand is going to try to tempt Lanfear to the Light while she's trying to tempt him to the Shadow. They've really set up "Rand only lives if I die" with Moiraine in the marketing and the trailers, so I also lean towards us getting the Moiraine & Lanfear confrontation at the end of this season. And Rand seeing past!Lanfear in the glass columns could lead him down the path of believing I Can Fix Her, while she is continuing to try to weave her manipulation around him.

So in the first episode, we're going to get Liandrin & co busting out from the White Tower, Egwene's Accepted Test, a bit of the new group all bonding together, and Egwene meeting Amys Bair in TAR. Ihvon is probably dying in ep1. I do think that the show probably originally planned on killing off Maksim but when they had to recast Ihvon for s3, it made more sense to keep the actor that the audience will know than the brand-new one. We see Maksim in shots of the Battle of the Two Rivers, so we know he lives (at least that long).

I think long-haired Rand in the river is probably from Egwene's Accepted Test, because his coat makes me think of Rand-as-Dragon type clothes. He basically has book!Rand hair. I'm guessing this is paired with the Wondergirls in their fancy clothes on horses.

I think we'll get the bubble(s) of evil in the first episode and it might be what makes Rand realize he needs to get moving and not stay in Tar Valon.

And then ep2 might focus on the White Tower and meeting the Caemlyn Crew, with subplots in other places -- so we'd get Mat fighting the princes, us seeing Elayne with her family. Maybe a flashback to Elaida becoming Morgase's adviser and showing us her 'talent' at Foretelling (her saying that the Andoran royal line is key to winning the Last Battle only a couple of episodes before we learn that Rand is of the previous Andoran royal line).

Ep3 could focus on Perrin in the Two Rivers -- finding out his family is dead and/or visiting Laila's grave. Maybe meeting Faile and Luc. Alanna and Perrin talking about grief, since she would have recently lost one of her Warders, and this might be the moment where we see Perrin let Laila go.

Ep4 then focuses on the Waste plotlines -- Rand in the columns, Moiraine in the rings, Egwene learning TAR.

Ep5 could focus on Tanchico and Moghedien (interrogation scene, etc). And, if my speculation (along with @markantonys) is correct, also the introduction of Tuon. It just seems like a good season for introducing end-game love interests to each other! And one of my big arguments re: Tuon is that she needed to be on the board so much sooner than Jordan put her there, so that she would have time to get a character arc.

And I think I might place Ep6 as the White Tower Coup, because in the new trailer, we have both Moiraine and Egwene bringing up points about the Tower being divided being bad and how Rand will need the White Tower for the Last Battle. Feels like set-up for the coup happening this season.

Ep7 as the Battle of the Two Rivers and wrapping up Perrin for the season. I think that Tanchico might be saved for Ep8, especially if we do get a little doorway action for Mat as well and Moiraine, and he potentially ends up in Rhuidean (I will only let this speculation go when it is proven untrue lol).

Mat is wearing a cord in the new poster, so I feel like that implies we're getting snakes and/or foxes this season, so that he can get the medallion (or he gets the medallion in the Tanchico museum, but our hints about having a special character in the final episodes who was a collab between practical effects department and make-up makes me lean towards the 'Finn).

Ep8 is then left for Rand announcing himself at Alcair Dal, Couladin getting in the way, and the Moiraine & Lanfear confrontation, plus the Nynaeve & Moghedien confrontation in Tanchico.

Then it leaves Elayne & Nynaeve in a position at the end of s4 where they can either merge up with Rand's storyline or they can go to Salidar first, depending on how many seasons Rafe feels like we're going to get (this idea first floated by @markantonys! it makes so much sense).

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 33: Within The Weave

People who save perfectly good images as ".webp" should be kept in cages like this. People who post spoilers for the whole Wheel of Time series underneath the Keep reading line below should be allowed to do whatever they wish.

This chapter starts with the Wheel icon both for the metaphysical discussion he and Moiraine have about the Pattern and because Perrin's about to meet one of his closest companions and greatest supporters, and also Faile.

If dogs had been able to make footprints on stone, he would have said it was the print of a large hound.

Poor Perrn, still sheltered enough to go "Yep, there couldn't possibly be any kind of evil dog out there that leaves marks in the stone." How stupid of him.

Perrin only shook his head. There was no way to explain to Loial that he did not dare sleep soundly, that even his lightest sleep was full of troubled dreams. Like that odd one with Egwene and Hopper in it.

This helps clarify the timeline, something I meant to be paying more attention to but haven't been in awhile. Tragically, the best WoT timeline on the internet has become rather hard to dig up on search engines of late.

Bedraggled townspeople said a lantern dropped in a barn had started it, and then the fire seemed to run wild, and everything went wrong. Half the buckets that could be found had holes in them. Every last burning wall had fallen outward instead of in, setting houses to either side alight. Flaming timbers from the inn had somehow tumbled as far as the main well in the square, so no one could draw more water from it to fight the fires, and houses had fallen right on top of three other wells. Even the wind had seemed to shift, fanning the flames in every direction.

At this early point in the story, the Pattern is keeping Rand's ta'veren balance as a matter of course; one village gets blessings so the next is cursed. Yet later on it shifts, paying the bad karma off exclusively so it can pay off all the good in the final hours. Note that this outcome is easily as bad as some of those later events now that his mindstate is about as bad though, with the sleep deprivation absolutely catching up to him by this point.

Three more untouched villages had been followed in quick succession, all in one day, by Samaha, where every well in town had gone dry just the night before, and people were muttering about the Dark One; then Tallan, where all the old arguments the village had ever known had bubbled to the surface like overflowing cesspits a morning earlier, and it had taken three murders to shock everyone back to his senses; and finally Fyall, where the crops this spring looked to be the poorest anyone could remember, but the Mayor, digging a new privy behind his house, had found rotted leather sacks full of gold, so none would go hungry.

If my theory that at least part of Rand's ta'veren effects are tied up into his mood, we can assume that his own journey on foot through these villages was rather tumultuous. Probably the boy felt relief for evading captors sometimes, and exhaustion at others.

That is evil, Moiraine. I can’t believe Rand is evil. The Pattern may be shaping itself around him, but how can the Pattern be that evil? It makes no sense, and things have to make sense. If you make a tool with no sense to it, it’s wasted metal. The Pattern wouldn’t make waste.

Perrin has a rather childlike worldview here, one that his own experiences thus far should have disproven. The Pattern makes waste all the time, every bad project out of the smithy is as much a part of the Pattern as the successes. But I don't really blame him for this confusion, living in an era with the Dark One makes it easy to blame all evil on him and assume that without his presence things would always work out.

“I care,” he muttered softly. “Light, I do care.” Moiraine glanced back at him, and he fell silent. He was not sure what the Aes Sedai cared about, beyond Rand.

Likewise, Perrin's deflection of his own potential means he doesn't appreciate that the Pattern making him a ta'veren means it does care to some degree - otherwise it could have picked someone else - and his sheltered upbringing means he doesn't know that the Land and the Dragon are one and that Moiraine, for all her failings, cares about the fate of the whole world.

Remen looked like any of a dozen towns to Perrin—it was full of man-made aromas and man smell; with a strong smell of the river, of course—and he was wondering what Lan could have meant when the hair on the back of his neck stirred as he scented something—wrong. As soon as his nose took it in, it was gone like a horsehair dropped onto hot coals, but he remembered it.

Again, Perrin is scenting a Grey Man. Since he hasn't noticed it since Jarra, it probably has been following Rand exclusively. Lucky for Perrin!

A tall man dressed all in grays and browns sat in the cage, holding his knees under his chin. He had no room to do otherwise. Three small boys were pitching stones at him. The man looked straight ahead, not flinching when a stone made it between the bars. More than one trickle of blood stained his face. The townspeople walking by paid no more mind to what the boys were doing than the man did, though every last one of them looked at the cage, most of them with approval, and some with fear.

If my start to this chapter hasn't clued you in to how I feel about Gaul, my hopes that each and every one of these villagers ends up in a bubble of evil during Tarmon Gaidon and dies horribly should clarify things for you. Gaul is simply the best.

The sign over the door of the inn Lan led them to, nearer the river, read Wayland’s Forge, which Perrin took for a good omen, though there seemed to be nothing of the smithy about the place except the leather-aproned man with a hammer painted on the sign.

Probably used to be a smithy long ago. I wonder if Tuon would say this was a good omen or not.

He could make out a little of what they were saying, about the virtues of ice peppers over furs as cargo and what the troubles in Saldaea might have done to prices.

So are ice peppers plants that are well-adapted to winter conditions, or did those wacky AoL people decide that spice was actually evil and breed peppers that made menthol instead of capsaicin?

The innkeeper himself met them just inside, a plump, bald-headed man with shining brown eyes in a smooth pink face, bowing and dry-washing his hands.

Again, we can infer that he's a good guy solely because fat doesn't stick to evil people. Slides right off.

Moiraine’s voice calmly accepted the title Furlan gave her. It was far from the first time the Aes Sedai had gone under another name, or pretended to be something she was not.

It actually is pretty far from any of those times, Perrin, because Moiraine is a Cairhienien noblewoman. Another way his sheltered upbringing has absolutely not helped him, since virtually anyone else would recognize actual nobility when they saw it.

Hunters for the Horn of Valere, set out from Illian for adventure. And adventure they found, Lady, here in Remen, or just a mile or two upriver, fighting wild Aielmen, of all things. Can you imagine black-veiled Aiel savages in Altara, Lady?

Yeah it's pretty freaking incredible and really would probably be cause for mass panic if people understood what was up and/or there weren't like sixteen causes for mass panic already.

The plump man gave a start when his study reached Perrin’s face, as if, with a Lady and an Ogier present, he had just now noticed Perrin’s yellow eyes. “He would be your servant, Master Andra?” he asked cautiously.

Perrin is not remotely class concious at all and it's adorable.

Lord Orban and Lord Gann faced twenty wild Aielmen with only ten retainers. Ah, fierce was the fighting and hard, with many wounds given and received. Six good retainers died, and every man took hurts, Lord Orban and Lord Gann worst of all, but every Aiel they slew, save those who fled, and one they took prisoner.

Most battles tend to end with everyone dead except those who escaped or were taken prisoner, just saying. This is a good, subtle hint to the readers who might not yet appreciate Aiel prowess that the story is BS.

Men from this very village marched to the Battle of the Shining Walls, when the nations gathered to throw them back. I myself suffered from a twisted back at the time and so could not go, but I remember well, as we all do.

I said the innkeeper was a good guy but you'll note I never said he was a GREAT guy.

The bandaged man muttered something under his breath—under his breath to any ears but Perrin’s—about waiting on a farmwife “throwing her litter” and something else about being “sewn up like a sack of meal.”

I hate to keep dunking on Perrin when it's not his fault half the time but I can't help but feel that since most people don't usually actually mutter quietly enough to make inaudible noise that in fact everyone in the room heard this and Perrin just thinks he's special. Also, fuck Lord Orban. I don't like any of the bit characters in this chapter.

“You lost six, and took one prisoner.” From Lan’s voice, it was not clear if that was a good exchange or a poor one.

But this is why I have to keep dunking on this boy. Perrin. Six is a lot bigger than one and Lan has already all but said, "You didn't fight twenty Aiel and if it weren't for the one in the cage I wouldn't think you'd fought any at all." What part of this can possibly be confusing for you?

The bandaged man frowned as if unsure exactly what Lan meant, then rounded on the innkeeper again.

No Perrin, he frowns as if he's completely sure Lan means, "The Whitecloaks won't find the Aiel, because the Aiel are the best fighting force in the known world and the Whitecloaks, who are probably thirdbest behind the Borderlanders who fight Shadowspawn all the time, don't come close to measuring up, and also Hunters for the Horn aren't anywhere on Lan's top 100 fighting forces list and the known world isn't big enough to have 100 fighting forces!" but he just doesn't want to acknowledge being dunked on because he knows Lan will make him look even stupider if he says much else.

“Our rooms.” Moiraine did not raise her voice, but her words cut the innkeeper short like a sharp knife. “Andra did arrange rooms, did he not?”

Moiraine here knows EXACTLY when the local NPCs have run out of new topics and it's time to go.

At the top, Perrin paused to look back. He heard the murmurs of “Lady” and “Ogier” down there, could feel all those eyes, but it seemed to him that he felt one pair of eyes in particular, someone staring not at Moiraine and Loial, but at him.

Points to Perrin for immediately deploying his "Hot Singles in Your Area Want to Meet" powers instead of whining about them.

He could not quite decide whether she was beautiful or not.

For those in the audience who were confused or blindsided about Thom/Moiraine, this sentence right here is all the evidence you need that these two are destined to FUCK. Learn to ambiguity.

Anyway, next time: Perrin and Gaul become bestest buds.

[divorceblogger]

wot s2 final episode today and I'm so glad that the last episode was bad enough to cure me of illness about episodes 5&6

the way people responded to siuan's treatment with fierce defence (of the show) and insisted that her treatment was canonically accurate was so vile and frankly very annoying. multiple users were manufacturing posts that gained a lot of traction saying it was completely in character for her when no, it really wasn't, and they were ignoring her purpose in the narrative to shoehorn her character into stupid and irrelevant stereotypes about her belief in the aes sedai etc especially when in this half of the series you're playing her off against elaida and the black ajah not egwene. I also think lots of assumptions about how the show is doing Everything Right or Capable of Doing Everything Right is a frankly irritating position to occupy when you're trying to analyse media. I'm not interested in engaging with such commentary or such fandom spaces. every paranoid shoehorning of criticism into bookcloak rhetoric is kind of stupid actually. and maybe it says something that lots of people were also lacking in confidence about the position they occupied on the compulsion scene because they were simultaneously calling it a tragedy and trying to rationalise it by subscribing to the compulsion theory. lol. on the other hand people were complaining about others bestowing harsh criticism on compulsion!siuan and not doing the same for rand and moiraine just because they were working with a forsaken. like. that already canonically happened in the books 👍 L + ratio + moiraine was aware that rand was working with asmodean even if he never admitted it and trusted him to do his best + asmodean and moghedien didn’t go through all of that for you to dismiss them so flippantly.

"trust the showrunners" is also one of those insane pieces of advice that seems to be floating around a lot that mean absolutely nothing to me. I don't "trust" any writer. I didn't even trust RJ to do a lot of things right. I analyse something for the merit that it has and if anything I've been frankly very generous with the show because it's not very good, and I say that because the mere quality of the dialogue is very poor a lot of the time, and not necessarily because I don't think it's a bad adaptation (although so far it's brought nothing to the table that the books haven't and it instead handles a lot of themes a lot worse when it bothers to remember those Themes).

all this to say I've been very quiet about the show these past few days because of some of the absurd arguments on my dash. in fact, a refusal to engage with complex motivations of the characters (especially where characters like galad are concerned) are basically what made me stop posting a lot about the books for a couple months or so, and there's nothing that can kill the enthusiasm to engage with the text harder than to be involved in fandom spaces that can't tolerate nuance or criticism of the show. I don't really intend to wot post often after this, and really I think I lingered so long only because I read the books at a time when I was just really vulnerable and needed the escapism or something but I'm no longer mentally ill and thank god for that. and the beautiful wot mutuals that I have you guys did nothing wrong.

anyway! at least we have lanfear played by natasha o'keefe.

[asha-mage]

              “We can’t go north.” Rand said finally.

              Mat hesitated before responding. “Padan Fain could have kept on south towards Cairhien while we were in the mountains- assuming that was where we would be headed.” But Rand was shaking his head before Mat had finished speaking.

              “Even if he has, he'll soon realize his mistake and run us down before we can reunite with Ingtar. Remember what Moiraine said? He was…remade to hunt us. He can track us, and that’s before you consider the…” Rand trailed off but Mat knew how that sentence ended. Even before you consider the dagger. Not to mention Mat’s connection to Mordeth. Realizing Mat understood Rand pressed on past the point. “There's no chance Ingtar has managed to close the distance between the two of us already- so if we had north we’ll just be reversing our positions from before. Running desperately while Fain tries to bring us down.” Rand shifted as he spoke leaning back but not taking his eyes from the chest.

              “But if he has headed south then we’ll be riding right into him.” Mat pointed out. He kept his hands on his own knees, trying to resist the urge to pluck at his pants or sleeves. His mind itched like it had been littered with scatter heads. He knew why, but he refused to give in.

              Rand nodded. “Yes. But he’ll also have to go more carefully. The closer we get to the city, the more farms and towns we’re sure to come across- just like the trek to Camelyn. You can go days without seeing anyone between the Erinin and Kinslayer’s Dagger according to Ingtar, so a few dozen Trollocs and some darkfriends don’t make much of a sight. But with soldiers and traffic on the roads, Fain will have to go by night and stay away from the main highways, or anywhere else he might get caught out. Whatever is going on in Cairhien, the King won't ignore a band of Trollocs in his backyard.”

              “Maybe.” Mat said shrewdly. “But there is another way. We could go west along the mountain range towards-“

              “No.” Rand’s response was immediate and firm, and his voice flat.

              “We don’t know that there was any truth to what Adelaid was saying.” Mat said, voice exasperated. “She could have misunderstood her mission, or gotten it from some Red sister who knows too much. The oaths could be fiction afterall, or Light, she could be Black Ajah for all we know. If the Amyrlin wanted me dead then she had plenty of chance in Fal Dara and-“ Mat cut off as Rand tore his eyes away from the chest to stare him right in the eyes.

              “No Mat.” Rand’s knuckles had turned white. “We’re not risking it. I’m not risking you.”

              His voice brooked no argument and Mat bit his tongue. Well, he didn’t really want to go to Tar Valon anyways. Just the thought made his skin crawl, even if it was the surest way to get the horn to safety. Mat wasn’t as certain about Siuan Sanche as he would have liked. To say nothing of that strange Brown Sister both she and Moiraine seemed to trust. He wasn’t eager to put himself, or to put Rand for that matter, back in Aes Sedai hands.

              “It will have to be you, then.” Mat said quietly. Rand’s face contorted and the bond flared with a mix of emotions so violent Mat couldn’t pick any single one out from the others.

              When Rand spoke he sounded hoarse. “Egwene and Nynaeve. Maybe if their training advances enough, they could…” He trailed off, gulping down. Mat said nothing. If their training advanced that far…would they even be willing to help Mat and Rand anymore? Or would they be as ready to try tying strings to Rand as the rest?

              By then, would they even be ready to snip Mat’s thread out of the pattern if he threatened the Tower’s plans?

              Not Nynaeve. Mat thought stubbornly. Never Nynaeve. She’ll always be the Wisdom no matter where she goes or what the Aes Sedai try to do to her. She’ll be ready to bandage our hurts and call us fools all the while.

              But Egwene? Mat was less sure. Whatever Egwene did, she did with her whole heart. She committed with all she was. Mat did not think the Tower would be any different.

              “They might be able to help.” Mat said finally. Might. It was a thin word to hang their hopes on. “But even so…”

              “I know.” Rand said softly.

              They lapsed back to silence after that, both their eyes drifting to the chest. Faintly, Mat could hear Hurin snoring the distance, the crackle of a few bugs somewhere in the brush, the faint babble of water streaming by.

              “Do you want me to open the chest?” Rand asked finally, not looking at Mat.

              Mat hated that his breath caught at the question, hated that his head spun to stare up at Rand. He hated the naked hunger that flared in his gut, no doubt plain in his eyes and his jaw. The yes was already half formed in his tongue when he bit down on it to stop the word from coming out.

              Arguments immediately sprang together fully formed in his head- so fully formed that he realized he must have been mulling them over in some corner of his mind for a while.

             The Aes Sedai warded you so you can’t spread the evil of it. You’ll die if you go too long without it and no telling if just traveling with it in the chest will be enough. It could be damaging the horn for all you know

              You might need Mashadar’s power to protect Rand.

-- Sworn, Chapter 17: Chasm

[markantonys]

Seeing a few arguments that while s2 is the stronger season it's also less coherent/cohesive narratively and thematically than s1. In the sense that s1 had a specific goal of them getting from point a to point b, so s2 feels messier for some people cause it was more complex in the amount of plot threads being covered. I do wonder if some people are feeling that way cause they adapted two books rather than one and not enough time to cover everything? I don't necessarily think it's bad that some plot threads aren't resolved though cause that's something that happens in the books too, plots and character arcs spanning multiple books (and it's not like the books are cohesive all the time either so it is on brand for WoT 😂)

people deigning to praise an aspect of s1? now that is a fresh take! i get where they're coming from (it's undeniable that s1 has a much simpler & more straightforward plot structure than s2 because it basically is just 1 plotline for the whole season rather than several different concurrent plotlines). but it's just the nature of WOT, and of many ensemble stories, that we kick off with a small contained story and expand it more and more with each installment. numerous plot threads all over the continent is a hallmark of WOT! so if it's show-onlys making this complaint, fair enough, but if it's readers, they do not have a goddamn leg to stand on because this is literally what WOT is and has always been.

and i think s2 was still pretty cohesive. most of the arcs follow the basic structure of "characters start off dealing with the consequences of s1, learn more about their powers and encounter new threats, and head to falme for their own reasons that ultimately all end up coinciding with each other." rather than "every main character shares the same objective for the season", the story of s2 is instead "every main character has different objectives which all end up intertwining with each other". that's a cohesive story too, just a different format than the one s1 told!

and the vast majority of plot threads were resolved, with only a few left hanging because of course you need to leave some hooks to get viewers to come back next season.

moiraine & lan bond arc: resolved

rand accepting his duty as the dragon reborn: immediate arc resolved, but with a continuation teed up for s3

egwene overcoming impostor syndrome and learning to stand on her own two feet: resolved

perrin hunting for the horn and learning more about his wolf powers: immediate arc resolved, but with a continuation teed up for s3

mat proving to himself that he's a good person and a loyal friend: resolved

nynaeve breaking her block: not resolved, but teed up to be a major focus of s3

maybe the difference is that for a lot of these arcs, the objective is something internal (character undergoing growth) rather than something external like a quest, as was the case in s1. perrin is the only one who's like "i need to accomplish this specific external thing" in 2x01 (retrieving the horn), maybe moiraine too with her research, whereas the others have a series of smaller external goals (for example mat: escape cell -> get to cairhien -> go with rand to help egwene -> escape kidnapping -> help friends) with their overarching season-long goal instead being an internal one (that they aren't aware of; it's the narrative's goal rather than the character's). but, again, that's just a different type of story structure, because either way, the narrative does have coherent season-long goals that it's working towards and ultimately resolves.

but what especially makes s2 feel cohesive to me is the thematic aspect of it! every single storyline deals with at least one of the following themes and many of them more than one: isolation vs. togetherness, power & helplessness, control & leashing, duty & responsibility, and probably a bunch more if i were to think about it for more than 30 seconds (these were just the Top S2 Themes that immediately jumped to mind). there is a very very strong Thematic Cohesion across all the plot threads in s2, so i'm surprised to hear that anyone feels otherwise.

(as for 2 books in a single season, sure, there wouldn't have been time to tell 2 books in 1 season if that's what the show was trying to do, but it isn't. instead of saying "okay the first 4 episodes are TGH and the next 4 are TDR", the show put TGH & TDR in a blender and distilled it down to a single season's worth of story per character, and there WAS enough time to cover that 1 season's worth of story.)