#shaido

[iliiuan]

The Shaido plotline gets a lot of flak, but I started thinking what the alternates would be. First, let's realize the setting:

Perrin is in Murandy/Amadicia with his odd assembly of armies. The Shaido are roaming around thanks to Sammael. The Seanchan are in Amadicia, pushing East and gathering forces for the assault on the White Tower. Galad's Whitecloak army is marching to Tarmon Gai'don. Masema is wreaking havoc with his (seriously misnamed) Dragonsworn.

Given all of this, an encounter with the Shaido was inevitable, perhaps especially when the ta'veren was off to visit Masema. (Now that I'm thinking about it, that actually justifies the timing.) So, what are the possible encounters and their likely outcomes?

A small group of Shaido comes across Perrin's army camps, leading to the death and capture of many, plus the dispersal of the rest.

A small group of Shaido comes across a small group of Perrin's allies, leading to their capture. (This is what happens in-story.)

A large group of Shaido comes across Perrin's army camps, leading to the capture or death of everyone.

A large group of Shaido comes across a small group of Perrin's allies, which triggers a scouting party who find the rest and now we have #1 with extra steps.

Perrin's scouts find evidence of Shaido and everyone goes into Very Careful Mode.

Some scenarios that wouldn't happen include Perrin's armies kicking Shaido ass on first encounter and the Shaido ignoring Perrin's group.

Now, Faile's capture forms the basis for both Perrin's and her character growth arcs. She transitions from being a spoiled brat runaway princess into an actual leader. Perrin finally grows into a leader of his people, accepting his role and filling his duties.

I understand where people are coming from when they criticize the plotline for placing Faile as a damsel in distress. If we look at it a different way, however, Faile is a prisoner of war. All of the things she endures are things that POWs endure. They are helpless, but we don't read their stories and think, wow, let's be angry because this strong character is helpless. Rather, we think, wow, that situation was shit. And yes, male POWs also have to deal with sexual harassment and rape.

Another aspect of the story as told involves Perrin making poor choices and over focusing on Faile's rescue. It's not just because she's his wife; she's the only family he has left. Even as he rescues her, he watches her take charge of the other prisoners and revels in her competence. Yes, someone had to rescue her, because that's the nature of being a POW, but it didn't rob her of awesome.

[brutalhonesttruths]

The worst part abt Ilia getting the pcs he gets is that its unecessary. He would win on BV+GOE+consistency and has clearly been working on components but now instead of appreciating the good things we gotta react to his score as if he skates like grassl

[justnotkrikkit]

"the cup of china men's short went really well" chat do we all remember nhk

[rondocapri]

There’s no way in fucking hell im watching pairs it’s at 3 in the mornin

[birgittesilverbae]

tdr ch 39

loc ch 26

Dailin ends up on Rand's list despite having died before any of the Aiel ever met Rand -> Aviendha told him about her cousin dying in the search for him

[staledirt87]

I'm loving Mat and Rand's random battle and political knowledge from ages ago. Give me more

[iliiuan]

People: The Seanchan are evil slavers and I hate them.

Also People: The Shaido are just Confused.

Cannoli: No, assholes. The Shaido are also evil slavers. In fact, they're worse than the Seanchan. Get your heads out of your asses.

Me: What cannoli said. And also Mat didn't "lose his morals" by marrying Tuon. He is actively working towards freeing damane THE ENTIRE CIRCUS ARC. He is thinking DURING THE LAST BATTLE about how he might engage Tuon effectively to convince her to stop the damane program. But sure. Let's paint him as complicit in slavery. That totally makes sense.

Wait! Which man is Seanchan royalty?

[markantonys]

my hot take is that i think 6 would be the ideal number of seasons for wotshow! i know everybody gasps and clutches their pearls anytime i suggest that less than 8 seasons could actually work and be good and be plenty of time haha and for that reason i will make this unrebloggable, mostly just musing to myself over here, not looking to start an argument! but if we put s4 finale as dumai's wells, which is a big turning point in the series.........i honestly struggle to imagine 4 full seasons' worth of story for most of the main characters after that point. most of them kinda only have 1 major story arc between dumai's wells and last battle prep, tbh, and the rest of the pagetime in all those books is made up of either cuttable sidequests (ebou dar, far madding, etc) or cuttable minor characters and their cuttable subplots eating up an absolutely inordinate amount of pagetime while the mains tread water and take 4 books to accomplish something they should've been able to do in 1. it's also worth noting that stuff often takes less time to do in the show than we might assume; for example, a lot of people might assume mat's moiraine rescue heist should take up half of an episode since it's important, but it's actually not that long of a sequence and i bet they could do it in like 10-15 minutes.

now for a layout of how each main character could do 6 seasons!

rand: s4 dealing with caemlyn and maybe also cairhien with anvaere as colavaere, finale dumai's wells leaving him ready to downward spiral into a dark place next season; s5 darth rand as the season-long emotional arc with smaller plot beats like the cleansing and semirhage peppered throughout (cairhien could also be placed here), finale epiphany; s6 loose ends (like bonding with his partners, which i feel could work great as a post-epiphany narrative reward rather than being crammed in before he starts going downhill) and last battle

egwene: s4 going to salidar and being raised amyrlin maybe as the midseason climax, then second half of season heading for tar valon with finale cliffhanger being kidnapped; s5 tower arc, finale seanchan battle; s6 loose ends (gawene, TAR battle with mesaana's substitute unless that somehow gets folded into the seanchan battle) and last battle

perrin: s4 maybe masema is dealt with early to fill up perrin's TFOH absence, finale dumai's wells; s5 faile kidnapping arc married to his TOM whitecloak alliance storyline by having galad's whitecloaks be his devil-deal for rescuing faile rather than the seanchan (and maybe it's the seanchan who kidnap faile, thus letting the shaido be done with after dumai's wells and ensuring all the main characters are narratively connected to the seanchan during s5); s6 loose ends and last battle

mat: s4 forming the band and maybe leading them at dumai's wells as the culmination; s5 some kind of storyline that covers his tuon and seanchan involvement, though i imagine the circumstances would have to be fairly different from canon if ebou dar is indeed cut (maybe he absorbs ituralde and leads campaigns against the seanchan on rand's behalf, which brings him into tuon's path, though idk how it would play out after that since he wouldn't abandon his own army to haul her off on a solo roadtrip, unless maybe something happened to force him to); s6 loose ends (moiraine rescue - i think it would make more sense as an early-season event in the final season, and in the penultimate season finale all we get is a cliffhanger tease that moiraine might be alive) and last battle

nynaeve: barely has any story to speak of after ebou dar besides being a cheerleader for rand/lan/elayne, so even for a 6-season model they'd probably have to make stuff up for her (i still like my previous suggestion of rand having sent ALL his partners away during darth rand time, which here would be s5, and so nynaeve is the one he almost kills during the collaring incident, and this causes him to send her away too, to the black tower where she and logain basically replace pevara and androl in cleaning up that mess, thus ensuring this important storyline is in the hands of a main character, neatly paralleling egwene's efforts to clean up the mess at the white tower during the same season, tying out nynaeve's connections with logain as the one who healed him AND in showverse as someone who also witnessed his gentling and whom he was impressed by, and being a poetic conclusion to the show's flirtation with the idea of nynaeve joining the red ajah by having her instead be a key figure in *helping* men who can channel)

elayne: s4 rejoins the waste crew to get folded into avirand's relationship and work with rand on retaking caemlyn; s5 succession arc; s6 loose ends (cairhien throne maybe) and last battle

the main issue here is that that's putting a whole bunch of major climactic events in the s5 finale (rand's epiphany, egwene vs. the seanchan, perrin's battle of malden, elayne's battle that makes her queen), but i'm sure they could spread these across two different episodes like s3 is doing (perhaps elayne & perrin in ep7 and egwene & rand in ep8). and there also isn't a great way to *not* have all these late-series climaxes coincide unless some characters have their single late-series storyline stretched across 2 seasons, which i'd say is a big no-no for TV.

so, yeah! i'd never say no to 7 or 8 seasons of course, but when *i* game it out, 6 is the number i naturally land on, although i know i'm much more merciless about cutting stuff than a lot of readers are! hell, even rafe is taking s3 at a slower pace than i'd initially proposed back before we knew anything. 6 also has the advantage of being a pretty reasonable and realistic number to hope for in today's television landscape (WOT's sister-show ROP is slated for 5, so reasonable to imagine WOT might land somewhere around that number too). 5 seasons would be tight but doable, 7 or 8 would be luxurious, but i would be extremely pleased to get 6 even if that's less than rafe's max possible number.

my final note is that i suspect we are now around about the Decision Point where amazon has to let rafe know how many total seasons he'll get so he can plan out s4 accordingly, and thus i also suspect that s3 will leave everyone pretty much exactly in their TSR ending spots, which would make them all well-positioned to pivot into different things in s4 depending on the future plan. (for example, say elayne and nynaeve are still in tanchico at the end of s3. this way, if it's decided there will be 7 or 8 seasons, they can head off to salidar in s4 and take time for a sidequest, whereas if it's decided there will be 5 or 6 seasons, they may have to scoot straight over to rand & co right off the bat in s4 to get ready to launch into the caemlyn arc.)

[butterflydm]

Now that the interviews are dropping, I am torn between wanting to know All The Things and not wanting to know too much! Conflicted, for sure! Time needs to pass more quickly so that I can see the episodes. It also sounds like the interviewers had seen the first two episodes, so that's why they were asking questions about things that hadn't been shown yet in the teasers or the cold open.

Some stuff that I've seen in the various interviews so far that I'm poking over in my head (because things once known cannot be unknown lol):

I don't know how deep into the season that these spoilers go! Be wary!

It does sound like Rand & Egwene's relationship dissolution will be way more drawn out in s3 than it was in the books. On the one hand, it makes sense, given that it was always kinda silly that Jordan had them break up and then immediately go on a roadtrip together. But I do have that (irrational! I admit that it's irrational because Elayne's my girl) concern that Rand-Elayne-Aviendha will end up feeling like consolation prizes rather than strong romances in their own right. Again, I admit that this worry is irrational especially since I was saying during s2 that Rand & Elayne would probably not happen until s4 and probably no romance in s3 for them (though that was before the very romance-coded intro that the two of them had at the end of the season!). Plus the show has been very good at being efficient and yet effective with their emotional moments (the Cauthor in s2 was so unexpected but amazing). But, yes, it sounds like Randgwene and Randfear will be Rand's two romantic focuses this season (maybe with surprise Avirand sneaking in with the steel chair at the end of the season, but maybe that will be s4 instead).

It does make me wonder if some of Mat & Rand's interactions in book 4 will get shifted to Egwene & Rand instead, since even though Rand & Egwene are technically on a roadtrip together, they don't really interact that much in book 4, with her spending most of her time with Moiraine & the Wise Ones instead.

Also given this, Rand still sleeping with Egwene might end up being Lanfear's breaking point, and both Aviendha & Elayne are held off until s4. As someone who still reverts to thinking of Randgwene as "like brother-sister" due to the books, it is somewhat jarring to me every time the show avoids breaking them up for good, lol! show vs books!

We did get confirmation that Tear & Callandor are still planned but scheduled for after the Waste instead of before. This makes a lot of sense to me and I've been speculating it for a while. Again, if Mat isn't pulled back into Rand's plotline via other means, I imagine that they might reunite in the show the same way as the books -- they're all infiltrating the Stone of Tear for their own reasons (actually that would make for a great 'big boom' opening, much like s3's cold open is) and end up in the same place. So that would give us some Mat-Rand interactions, and the Rand-Elayne-Aviendha interactions.

If we're still doing Randgwene deep into the season, then potentially no hints of Egwene-Gawyn yet. If Tear and Cairhien get combined in s4 (the Shaido go to Tear instead of Cairhien, maybe trying to fulfill the Car'a'carn prophecy), then the White Tower embassy might get sent to Tear, and that's when Egwene and Gawyn meet again.

In terms of 'doing late things now', it kinda sounds like they're leaning into some of Perrin's book feelings about not wanting to deal with the Last Battle here in s3 instead (which I am a fan of -- yes, please, deal with that early and then move past it!). In the interview I transcribed, it sounds like Perrin might not even have heard any rumors about the Two Rivers and is just going back home because he wants to put aside adventure. He's Refusing the Call (if that interview answer was correct). Meanwhile what Donal said about Mat learning about how 'heavy is the head that wears the crown' was a very fascinating answer.

We might actually get Mat going to Caemlyn (how do they have time for that? But the show does move way faster than I expect at all times, so there's that! I keep assuming that they will need to skip things for time and then the show goes 'nah, we can still do that') because Rafe talks about 'doing Mat's book three plotline' and 'catching up with the girls'. And we know he's not talking about Tear, since that's been pushed off to post-Waste. It is really interesting that Donal focused on Mat's moral convictions and seeing that he could be a good person in one of the answers that he gave, and that implies some interesting things about his storyline (though I do mourn that we aren't going to get much of Rand and Mat interacting during the section of the books that are the most Cauthor-heavy!).

It sounds like Elayne & Aviendha are potentially going to bond very strongly in the first episode, which could be a great gateway into our poly relationship in s4, if we get renewed. (I do think not knowing for sure if we have s4 or not is probably affecting my feelings about Randgwene - I want my poly relationship on-screen, lol!)

Rosamund talks about 'suffering' happening in the inn in Tar Valon due to the bubbles of evil, and Moiraine watching it happen because she wants Rand to be separated from his friends. Very book accurate to how she behaves in Tear! So I wonder if Rand will get blamed for the bubbles of evil (or blames himself?) and thus head off on his own with just Moiraine, Lan & Aviendha, and Egwene stays in the Tower (meeting Gawyn & Galad in ep2) and then speaks to Bair in TAR and rushes off to catch up with them (or maybe Rand even leaves without any of the Maidens, and it's Aviendha who escorts Egwene and that's part of what makes her continue to take against Rand, because she dislikes him slipping off like that).

So it feels like some of the speculation that @markantonys and I have had about the show bringing and keeping Elayne into Rand's plotline in s4 rather than having her wander the continent feels more likely. Because if there's no hints of romance at the start of s3, because we're still deep in Randgwene, but they are planning on still doing Rand's canon romances, then it has to happen sometime and they need to spend a substantial portion of time together, especially since the audience has spent so long with Randgwene.

All that said, it's actually pretty rare for a show to focus on the slow dissolution of a relationship. I might finally get the chance to use the song "Broken Strings" in a fanvid edit.

[iliiuan]

My pick:

Hannah Waddingham as Sevanna of the Shaido Aiel.

[toastandjamie]

Things about the band of the red hand that I think about on the daily:

-all the nobles in the Band competing to be Mat’s Favorite Noble(the answer is Talmanes but no one tell them that)

-after the battle of Cairihan, Talmanes and Nalesian putting aside their differences to defend Mat’s honor from the perceived slight of him not getting a parade

-Talmanes clearly knowing Mat is trying to ditch them and proceeding to insist on going with Mat literally everywhere until Mat gave up

-every noble in the band preening over being on Mat’s short list of “tolerable nobles” they are very proud of this fact and will brag about the fact that Mat willingly interacts with them

-Mat, half delirious from pain, teaching the band Jak’o’shadows and immediately regretting it as the band begins to sing it at every given opportunity and adds an entirely new verse dedicated to him

-while Mat was stuck in Ebou Dar every member of the band that was not with him simultaneously feeling the Ta’veren pull like a Spiderman esque sixth sense for knowing their general is in trouble

-upon feeling the Ta’veren pull, Talmanes immediately guilting Egwene into telling him where Mat is

-the band collectively deciding that their Olver’s cool uncles and teaching him to gamble, flirt with women, use weapons, and steal horses. You know, like responsible adults.

-when Mat is at the tower of genji, Talmanes being left in charge of Olver like the worlds most reluctant babysitter

-after seeing Mat refuse Aes Sedai healing every single member of the band deciding that they to would heal the old fashioned way

-a large portion of the band going out and getting tattoos together after they officially became the Band of The Red Hand

-Mat making one off hand mention of the original Band of the Red Hand from Manethran and the Band deciding that that was now the name of their mercenary band despite Mat’s protests

-the band deciding that No, they will not serve the Dragon Reborn, instead they’ll enlist into the service of the guy who Does Not Want Them

-the band deciding that Mat was a lord on principle because he’s just that good at fighting battles

-not a single member of the band was ever revealed to be a dark friend, they all just genuinely wanted to follow Mat with no ulterior motives

-every member of the band being willing to die for Mat at any given moment

-when Mat initially showed up to warn the army that they were walking into a Shaido ambush, Talmanes calling Mat’s bluff and getting him to begrudgingly agree to leading a portion of the army

-Mat effectively death glaring the bands nobles into a meritocracy

[amemoryofwot]

The Melindhra angle is such a wild card in this. I’m supposing they want her in the scene before TFoH Shaido split sort of timeline, so if she’s still a Darkfriend perhaps they’re going for a multi season reveal. I can see for simplicity/budget a lot less of showing the Shaido (and having them be fully defeated at Dumai’s Wells) but the Shaido were still there outside of Rhuidean so why change clan? Especially with making her background not Aiel, and looking at Tigraine and Rand, are the Taardad being set up as the only clan receptive to outsiders?

With Malkier specifically being her background and Lan coming to the Waste, I’m guessing they’re trying to fill us in on the fall of Malkier without having Agelmar info dump at us? Although I’m curious how this is going to come up organically and not just an exposition dump. I would absolutely love for Lan to grapple more with the political machinations behind Malkier’s fall which I think is a glaring omission in the books and the cause of a lot of stagnation for his character. In New Spring he’s really dismissive of Malkieri that have had to adapt into other cultures to survive so perhaps seeing another Malkieri pushed into such extremes will help us see his conflict with what he thinks his duty is versus what others see it as.

[reploidbuddy]

Here are the major gods from my upcoming one-shot, in order of most powerful/older god to the "weakest". None of them are weak because as major gods they're the most powerful of all of them, but there's still an order.

Gods are wished into existence and grow their powers by mortals’ wishes and prayers. If a god cannot answer too many prayers due to a growing need, another god may be wished into existence to share the load.

Designs of the two main mortals (Espio and Silver) here

Details about each god under the cut <3

Banira was the first ever god and for the longest time, the only one. She is nature, weather, night and day, inner peace. At first, she was everything, but other gods came with time. She’s still the most known and widespread prayed god, though she is usually prayed to for gentle winters, plentiful hunts and gathers, and sometimes to help with inner turmoil, though the last one isn't quite widespread and only used in clans who mainly worship her.

Rozu is about all kinds of love and following one's heart. She's rarely if not never a tribe or clan's main god, but most if not all people have at least once prayed to her to solve a dispute, get the courage to talk to someone, to have a pregnancy go well, and all these prayers people don't quite admit to make her the second most powerful god.

Shiruba is the last of the four to have appeared, as a mix of all three existing gods (Shaido is the third oldest technically and also not, more on that later) with protection and justice. Wishing for a clan's survival in winter, for someone to fight off an illness while another goes to get their medicine, for someone lost in the forest to return safely, these used to be handled by other gods, but went into Shiruba's territory. He's surprisingly often a clan's main god, but usually more for the protection part than the justice. One could say he's the god of karma.

Shaido's case is rather unique, as his purpose has changed. He was "born" as the god of strength and power... But then he fell. A god can fall and become a mortal by accident when they go into the mortal realm directly to answer a prayer, and that's what happened to Shaido (it was the first time this happened). After thirty years in the mortal realm, tragedy hit, and as it triggered the return of Shaido’s godhood... Strenght and power felt like such useless things, his mind never considered these. And with his mortal years changing him and the tragedy hitting and making him know of such painful visceral emotion as loss and despair... He became the god of loss and grief. Disappearing for so long and changing his purpose kinda cancelled a lot of the power he had since he didn’t get the prayers and all, which made him weaker for a moment, but mortals sure know of loss, so it didn’t take long for him to become a major god again, though his purpose being "younger" and the slight reduction of the amount of prayers he gets keeps him as the fourth major god for now. He is prayed to at funeral ceremonies, and often after one's death, or just any situation where one needs to grieve. His connection to mortal emotions has made him a lot more empathetic, and he's the god that has gone into the mortal world for direct intervention the most, usually for someone so grief-striken they're unable to get better despite their best effort (the most well-known case of a mother who had lost her very young child). He cannot take the grief away, but sometimes his answers give the last boost needed to start the road to recovery. Anyone who has seen Shaido (and therefor had a direct intervention from him) report an overwhelming sense of comfort and warmth.

[rondocapri]

Guys i was reading fanfic and they gave a character, who has no canonical last name, the last name “shaidorov” ITS FATE 🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮

[megamuscle885-blog]

God I fucking forgot how absolutely insane Dumai's Wells is.

Imagine being a Shaido Aiel. You've got barely any honour, but fuck the other Aiel. You're conquering shit with the rest of your clan. Sure you don't have a clan chief after some gambler cut off his head, and the most influential wise one of your clan can't channel and hasn't been to Rhuidean, but that's fine. Nobody has the right to tell you that you have no honour or pride. They don't understand. You are the only true Aiel. The only ones who haven't sold themselves to a wetlander king.

And now we get to take the so-called Car'a'carn for ourselves. We just need to take him from the Aei Sedai. The wise ones can handle them.

Then the fucking grass explodes into wolves, arrows punch into your backs from 300 paces, a huge cavalry charge slams into your flanks and fresh lightning and fire suddenly surround you, people's skulls just explode like ripe melons or burst into flames with zero impact at all. This was supposed to be easy. Some mad bearded fucker is hacking through you all with an axe, and a tinker of all things is swinging a sword at you. Then the chest at the center of the copse of trees explodes violently. A woman is screaming her soul out at the epicenter. The Dragon Reborn is free. Then the man to your left is split in half by a string of light that widens into a doorway, and out of that doorway steps a man who turns your whole body into shredded meat as soon as he looks at you.

You don't even have time to scream in pain.

[asha-mage]

Robert Jordan finished WoT AU 😈

[Send me a potential AU and I'll answer with five things from that story!]

ahahaahahaha, you bait me so zorpi! This is more a 'things I reasonably can guess from my many read through the series' more then anything else, but-

Based on Perrin's portion of the Jordan written ending their was clearly meant to be a moment where Perrin had to choose between Faile's safety and the fulfillment of his duty- and choose his duty, trusting in Faile to protect herself and make her own choices. This is also pretty clearly what Malden and the battle with the Shaido was meant to set up: Perrin realizing that his obsessive desire to protect/love Faile was as much flaw as virtue, and that true love would be trusting her strength and courage. In Jordan's ending I would guess that this would likely have manifested having a choice between leaving the Two Rivers force at the front lines to go rescue Faile, who is carrying the Horn to Mat, or else stay with the Two Rivers Forces and trust Faile- choosing the later. Thus his racing through the battlefield in the aftermath, and finding Faile still alive in the carnage, would be his arc reaching it's conclusions, being rewarded for his trust and faith in her.

Mat was, I suspect, supposed to play a much larger role in the negotiations to get the Seanchan into the coalition against the Shadow, serving as leverage and pressure to get Tuon to the table and to agree to the terms- I also suspect based on his reticence regarding the Empire from when he and Tuon part in KoD, he was supposed to be a lot more reluctant/put off on the idea of commanding the Seanchan forces, and it was originally supposed to be Tuon's idea and/or part of her compromise- she'll join, but her army will follow Mat, not the Dragon appointed supreme commander.

I think we would have gotten a lot more Gabrelle, Toveine, and Logain as our Black Tower PoVs/the counter coup against Taim- Toveine was already being set up in this role in KoD and prior, and it would make sense as a means for her to 'redeem' herself of the Vileness, and it fits with Jordan's usual 'closing of the circle' that one of the Red Sister who helped with the slaughter of the men who could channel, would be one of the first and strongest converts to the Black Tower's cause.

I think we where supposed to also a get bit more thematic conflict/contrast between Graendal and Rand in Arad Doman. In general the political situatuion in Arad Doman feels very....off from how Jordan normally works politics. I think the broad beats (destruction of Natrin's Barrow, failure to stabilize the region, Rand abandoning Bandar Ebon to starve at his lowest moment) would be the same, but it feels very strange things like the merchant council politics and Graendal's broader parallels to Rand (especially in that moment- as she /also/ crumpled under impossible standards and failure to live up to perfection as Rand is currently inthe process of doing) would be far more dug into.

Finally, I think we would have had a least one major reunion scene with the original Emond's Field 5- I know this is something Sanderson wanted to do and tried very hard to manage but didn't quite fit in, which I think is sad. It really feels like their is a missing moment in there, where Mat, Perrin, Rand, Egwene and Nynaeve where all supposed to sit down and reflect on how far they've come and how before the final battle. It especially feels like something that would have been appropriate from either Nynaeve and Rand's perspective.