1:23:50 The Horn and who the heroes follow... All the way to the end of the series ("A Memory of Light"), it is revealed by one of the Heroes of the Horn that they will only fight for the light... Prior to that, Aes Sedai and other lore believe it to be the case that if a Dark Friend blows the horn, the heroes will fight for the dark... In reality, history/historians/Aes Sedai got it wrong. They will only fight for the light.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Hello I'm not sure if you have already addressed this but will the avatar last airbender live action reviews be continued?
Egwene not being collared when caught is so bad. She can channel in Turak’s court, she is a Marath-Damane, she can’t be trusted in the court of the high lord without being collared! 😂
@@jsbrads1 I was willing to overlook this in the show since it wasn't specified, and since they showed her being restrained with the one power. Would have been better if they showed that she was being shielded or something, though.
@@christianrapper5 that makes sense to a certain extent, but for the Seanchan that isn’t enough, they say multiple times that a marath Damane needs to be collared. There was no reason not to collar her when she was caught. 🤷
@@SirBlaze75 making the original collars leashless also causes problems later in the story. I can imagine the leashes causing a problem in filming. They could be made with a pinching friction connection that pulls out without pulling hard on the gals and nothing breaks, just squeeze it back into the pinching friction catch.
The part where Moiraine tells Rand that Lanfear only went to the Dark after the Dragon broke her heart is just another moment where the show made deliberate changes to the story to imply that the man was somehow the root cause of something bad/evil that happened. One or two times might still be coincidences, but the show really made a pattern of this and it really rubs me the wrong way. In the books Lanfear was always hungry for power above anything else, which is what caused both their break up and her swearing herself to the Dark One.
Ok thats true-ish, and its implied Lanfear was the one who drilled the bore to begin with in the books. BUT trying to pretend a story of a woman being so irrational that some boy broke up with her, that she swore herself to the literal devil, is some sort of story of female empowerment at the cost of men is just silly. Its not a good look either way.
@@JayAshkevron It's not a story about female empowerment and I never claimed that, it simply shifts the blame from the woman to the man and excuses the woman's evil actions because now she was "wronged" and the man's actions were the reason she went to the Shadow and not her own hunger for power. The show is trying to whitewash an evil character because she is a woman.
One thing that bugged me about the Turak/Ishamael dynamic is that the servant wakes Ishamael to request an audience for Turak. They did this last season with Moriaine bringing the girls to meet the Amyrlin, saying that the Amyrlin had requested an audience with them. That's not how it works. The higher-ranking person does not REQUEST an audience with a lower, he summons them to an audience. The Amyrlin or the leader of the Seanchan does not request an audience of anyone, because there is no one they acknowledge as superior. Others request audiences with them. The only way Turak would request an audience with Ishamael is if he is openly subservient to Ishamael, but if that is the case, why is he bothering working through Suroth, when her boss is so cowed by Ishamael that he requests audiences?
A funny thing about wedding rings in WoT - in book 7, Nynaeve mentions a custom she has heard about, where a man gives a woman a ring as a sign of betrothal, and does not expect the person she is speaking to, to believe her. Also, regarding Bornhald, he is the guy Rand confronted on the streets of Baerlon, who then tried to stop the group from leaving town, so Moiraine grew into a giant to intimidate him. His father is the officer who captures Perrin & Egwene, and then commands the Children at Falme. Later, Bornhald is the guy who confronts Verin & the girls as they return to Tar Valon in book 3. To whit - Two Rivers people 1. mocked Bornhald in the street when he was doing nothing to them, and then 2. appeared to try to pick a fight. Then 3. they were caught trying to leave town illegally in the middle of the night, by stealth, while an inn was burning. 4. One of them murdered two Children of the Light under his father's command for the crime of defending themselves when a wolf attacked them. 5. That same one reappeared in suspicious circumstances in proximity to his father's death and 6. another Two Rivers woman attacked him and his companions with the One Power, using lethal force, in defiance of their organization's public disavowal of such things. In spite of this, he stood his ground and told them off when his companions fled. Rafe Judkins read this guy's story and thought "These guys are such assholes. Let's have them arrest Egwene for no reason other than 'I saw you on two different occasions.'" Also amusing is the fact that a large number of Questioners arrested Aviendha and caged her. In the books, the other Children are contemptuous of the Questioners, because they "never face an enemy who is not already in chains." Rafe & co are trying to rewrite the Children of the Light to make them utterly contemptible but keep accidentally making them more heroic and their opposition worse, while flipping the script on what they actually are, from an anti-Darkfriend watchdog group, to witch hunters and making their main witch hunter highly successful and at the same time utterly incompetent when on the screen. It's the same thing with their depiction in the finale, where the show does not seem to realize how despicable Perrin's actions are when they are trying to adapt his conflict with the Children by merging the two inciting events (Perrin lashing out at the Children out of sympathy for Hopper, and Dain Bornhald blaming Perrin for his father's death) for, I assume, narrative economy. I mean, we needed a whole episode to establish Dana the Dumpy Darkfriend, who is literally the last Darkfriend to have ANY effect on the main characters' plot on the show, and Steppin the Irrelevantly Tragic Warder, who, contrary to all good faith expectations from season 1, did not serve any purpose in foreshadowing or laying groundwork for Lan's & Moiraine's estrangement this season. With two whole episodes given to those crucial new characters, plus invented & pointless womanhood trials and love triangles, there just was not time for Perrin to have his wolf introduction and initial conflict with the Children set up properly.
26:20 - Moron to Randy Al'Throbbing - "You did not defeat the Dark One at the Eye of the World. *You* set his strongest leftenant free." Because, of course, in THIS show... it's Rand's fault. Which explains Ishy's smirk as he... left... and the broken seal at the end of S1E8.
@@Nyet-Zdyes Haha! Rand should have come back with, "I have no idea what the Dark One looks like. I just did exactly what you told me to do, so it's technically your fault!"
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, but, you don't think that THESE writers would actually let a MAN say that... to a woman, do you? And especially not to Moron.
Horn of Valere, in the books, Turak says he would never blow the horn because the Empress, may she live forever, would see it as an attempt to grab power and she would have him killed. Turak figured out how to open the box when others couldn’t and the motions are more subtle so no one could see the “combination”. Fain brings Turak the box and meet Turak alone. The Ruby Dagger was inside the box, Fain wanted it, Mat still needed it to be part of his healing process.
@jsbrads1 Yes! Thank you for the reminders. I've actually skimmed book 2 again since these recordings, and, while I was editing this, I kept cringing at all the stuff I couldn't remember. But I wasn't about to re-record again. 🤪
In the Books, Ishamael was insane because he was stuck between the Bore and the real world. He believed himself to be The Dark One because he'd gone mad. That's why he's called B'alzamon in the books.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS you have to read further in the books to find out what is going on with Ishamael in the show. That’s one change that I liked. You don’t want this spoiled so be careful.
@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS oh yeah, it's a serious issue. In fact, they don't even say the name B'alzamon once in the series. It's a strange ommission.
@@GrahamDayFortressofGeek it’s not a strange omission. They already know that he isn’t the dark one and know that he is Ishamael. In the books Rand didn’t know who Ishmael was until book 3.
@christianrapper5 not including that name is important to the lore and is strange. Especially since, up until book 3, he's usually called by that name.
Wow, there really is no element of this adaptation that is faithful to the books, is there? Not a single character that is who they're supposed to be. Not a single faction of group of people, either. Even the world itself is like a parody of Jordan's work, look at these Seanchan. Hell, look at these Forsaken.
@@bigjonS4 I feel like it's arrogance at the core. You would be hard pressed to find a more suitable setting if what you wanted to portray is a great variety of peoples, cultures, strong women etc. all that jazz. What it feels like is parasitic writing. It's not trying to adapt anything, it's trying to take something someone else made and make it theirs. Too bad the mark they left is brown and stinks. Checking the boxes that float around in their heads without humility, talent, or respect for what they're dealing with.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Funnily enough, i had gotten so riled up about this show that i'd started writing a comparative video script for a show vs book kind of thing (inspired by your work, really), ideally ending by scripting how a proper adaptation could have been handled. Book in hand, i went scene by scene with the show and ran the numbers. In Episode 1 of Season 1, there are about 9:25 minutes that i could describe as 'on book', however loosely. That's at least scene accurate, if not the contents of the scene. Out of an approximate 51:20 minute runtime, that's 18.34% of the first episode that's book accurate. There was never any hope.
@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS It was just fine. I enjoyed your insights. While I didn't like the whole family being added and taking valuable time away from our main characters that are woefully underdeveloped, I do admit that these parts were well written. Thats one of my big complaints. They have created some amazing side characters but neglected the main characters and botched them. It truly comes across as fanfiction.
You are totally correct about the Horn, anyone who blows it will summon the heroes of past and they will fight for them. That's why it was so important to get it back from Padan Fain. The Horn will be tied to the person who blows it for life.
@@Mcgiver699 Spoilers: Sorry but it is confirmed, Matt being unlinked has nothing to do with anything. There’s a conversation with a hero where they flat out say they would not fight for dark one.
@@Mcgiver699 no they say they fight for the dragon regardless of who blows the horn. I suppose the hero could just simply be misinformed but I highly doubt it. Edit to explain my doubt: the conversation takes place in the last book after the battle and to declare a falsehood to the reader at this point would serve no narrative purpose I can see and I’d question why the author chose to add the conversation at all if it weren’t true as why change the readers perspective on how the horn works at the conclusion.
@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS The time and effort you put in your reviews for a show with a marked "that'll do" attitude is amazing. Your comments over the whole series have given me things to watch out for in my own writing.
When you said, "This episode was actually well written," I felt like I was taking crazy pills. But then you followed it up with, "I just didn't care." At that point, my sanity was restored.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I was kind of shocked when you said that, and went back to my own notes, which I had posted on a message board on now all-but-defunct fan site (from the days when the series was still ongoing), back when the season was first airing, and I did note the much better ways the Seanchan scenes were written, even if the Moiraine stuff was down on Disney Star Wars levels of verisimilitude & plot consistency. There is a website, The Fandomentals, which got very critical of Game of Thrones when the writing started getting really misogynistic in Season 5 and several writers on the site went back and analyzed the early episodes and found the flaws of the later seasons to be present much earlier than anyone remembered, once you analyzed them objectively without the halo effect of the good stuff and the Shocking! moments. I remember in particular, an episode early in Season 4, which was the last one written by George RR Martin, the books' author, and there were quite a few places in the script where they can see his care for the characters and attention to detail coming through, but many others where the sins of prior episodes and seasons were still manifest, suggesting that even an excellent writer, tasked with writing an episode after a bunch of bad ones, can't do much to turn the ship around.
I’ve loved your reviews so much, the show itself is such a travesty. Raif has no interest in retelling the story itself and even threatened views who were critical of how he was portraying Perrin that if they kept complaining he would have the writers make him gay. He even said he read the books last in the 90’s. Brandon Sanderson confirmed Amazon just wanted their own Game of Thrones. There’s so much changed and just badly written there’s no way they can tell things that happen later in the books and have it make sense.
@@alex-gc5fv Thanks for the love 🥰 Yeah, I'll never understand how any current writer in Hollywood could assume they are better than one of the most famous modern fantasy writers of all time.
The feeling that I got and Sanderson said as much on another video out on RUclips where he sat in review of the season 2 finale is that they just don’t care and don’t really think much of what happens from episode to episode. So many characters just destroyed for the sake of drama equal to a terrible show you’d see on a show on the CW. Aviendha is just this episode’s example of a great character just broken by terrible writing. They force so much for just the sake of drama and see what sex scenes or sexy comments that they just lost all sight of what their books were and it’s painfully obvious they just don’t care, they have Amazon money behind them, they’re doing the bare minimum to get as much of their cut as they can.
I feel sorry for Sanderson I'm willing to bet that they offered him a Mistborn (or other) series if he helped, and Wheel of Time already has legal injunctions preventing the people involved from criticizing the IP So he's stuck between the legal rock and the hard place of yet another attempt to get his books adapted
@bigjonS4 WoooHoo! Thank you! 😊 This really is so helpful! I hope I can keep up making videos you like.... but, sorry... 😬... I won't be skipping eps 6 and 7. 🤪
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I've been following you since before the first wheel of time review and although I can't afford patreon (middle aged full time student), I wish I could. You've never failed to disappoint. Keep up the great work, you're fantastic
The show clearly hates Nynaeve. In the book, she is introduced as a powerful and influential person in the village, and even people who don't like her are impressed with her abilities, while people who resent someone so young wielding her authority, nonetheless are bowled over by her force of personality. We get to see that despite her coming on strong, the political opposition in the Mayor & Village Circle nonetheless defend her position and authority and do not think she's wrong. She demonstrates great competence in the aftermath of the Trolloc attack with her handling of the wounded, and then tracks the gang to Baerlon. She provides medical help to Moiraine when asked, tells Moiraine exactly what she is giving her for medicine and reassures Lan of her patient care ethics. Then she sneaks up on Moiraine & Lan after they are separated. Lan compliments her wood craft, is surprised by her sneaking up a second time and then recruits her for the rescue op based on his belief in her skill. Nynaeve rewards that faith by expanding intelligently on her assignment, and procures horses for the rescued kids to ride. She affirms the boys by recognizing that their willingness to face the Dark One in his dreams and go to the Eye of the World to save it makes them worthy of being recognized as men. We see her dancing at the inn in Baerlon to the surprise of her neighbors who never saw her dancing back in the village, implying she WOULD dance, but sacrifices that to the dignity of her office. When she discusses their feelings for each other with Lan, Lan refuses a relationship, saying that she is awesome and deserves better, and he can't be a proper partner to her. More than once, Lan is caught between his duty to Moiraine and his feelings for Nynaeve. When a Forsaken grabs her, Mat & Perrin ignore self preservation to charge to her defense. There is also a story about how Egwene was sick as a child, which is the revelation of how Nynaeve first channeled, and reveals to the readers how much she cares about her fellow villagers - the feat Moiraine said was something she wanted more than anything in the world, was to make a sick girl well. In the second book, she is suspicious of Liandrin, while Egwene is jumping at the chance to accept the Black sister's invite to leave the Tower. When they arrive and the Seanchan come to take them, in mere seconds, Nynaeve recognizes the danger, channels to defend herself and escapes. She reassures Elayne who has a crisis of self-confidence over her own flight, then determines to follow the Seanchan to Falme. When the sheltered princess innocently wonders how they will afford to buy local garments to fit in, Nynaeve has a plan to trade their finery for more practical clothing, demonstrating a confidence in her ability to negotiate with the locals. They infiltrate the town, where Nynaeve studies the Seanchan while managing to pass unnoticed and eventually figures out how to open the a'dam. Then, she builds on Min's introduction to a disgruntled ship captain and convinces him to make a run for freedom in exchange for her protection. Next, she uses Min's knowledge of the facilities to plan and carryout an infiltration to rescue Egwene. When Egwene wants to murder her captors, driven by her trauma, Nynaeve talks her down, asserting the difference between violence and justice. On the show, Nynaeve participates in a single, invented ceremony, with no obvious point. She does not lead the village in say, their prayers for the dead, doing her own prayers off by herself. The innkeeper's wife makes a speech to start the party, not Nynaeve, though she is present. Moiraine questions Nynaeve's supposed leadership by observing the lack of anything resembling leadership in her duties. During the Trolloc attack, Nynaeve tries to protect Egwene, but is ineffective, needing Moiraine's channeling to save them. Mat is more effective at protecting his sisters, Perrin & his wife are more effective at protecting the people sheltering in their place, and the Aybarras, al'Thors and the town drunk, Daise Congar, all do a better job of fighting back. (in the books, Daise Congar tore her husband a new one in public for daring to question Nynaeve) Nynaeve tries to help a villager, but he dies and she is dragged away from helping a second one, by a Trolloc. Her big accomplishment in the early episodes in killing a Trolloc, taking advantage of her familiarity with The Sacred Pool to get the drop on it. So we needed the Scrubbing the Sacred Pool scene to establish Nynaeve's familiarity and explain her advantage. Nynaeve has lived in the village more than 20 years. Did we NEED an explanation for how she knows the area better than an invader? The show writers clearly think Nynaeve is so loathsomely & idiotic that no one would believe she could do this, unless they set up an explanation in advance. Nynaeve is absent for a bit while the young people snark at what a disagreeable companion she would be if she were with them. When she rejoins the story, Nynaeve does so by drawing a weapon on Lan while he tries to tend an unconscious Moriaine. Lan quickly gets the drop on her and ties her up and gags her, LOL no one wants to listen to this bitch. Then she withholds her medical expertise, refusing to help Moiraine until Lan does what she wants, and she spitefully refuses to tell him what medicine she is giving his companion, while baiting him to ask so she can refuse. Her aid is of marginal utility, because Lan finds Aes Sedai while looking for her herbs and they cure Moiraine. He shows no respect for her tracking skills, instead demanding to know how she did it, with the implication being that there must be some explanation. Nynaeve simply being competent is just not possible. Her tracking Lan comes up again while chatting with the warders, as another thing to mock Lan over. He is such a goober. He tries to train a horse and ends up getting dunked in a trough and he lets a guuurl track him! Haha! That is literally how it plays out. They ask how Nynaeve ended up travel with him, she says "I tracked him" and they all laugh like it's a punchline. Nynaeve Heals several people after a fight, purely by accident in a spontaneous act of channeling. When she reaches Tar Valon, she defies Moiraine's suggestions for her safety, Loial finds her and brings her to see Rand & Mat, she arrogantly thinks she can handle Mat's dagger problem and tells Rand the story about Egwene being sick as a child. Only now, Nynaeve's channeling is nowhere to be heard of. The focus of the story is about how strong-willed and invincible Egwene is. Nynaeve is just a witness testifying to her awesomeness. Then Moiraine arrives to handle the Mat problem. They go through the Ways and Nynaeve again, spontaneously drives off the Black Wind, which has been similarly made less impressive than the books. This is not an act of determination or courage or willpower or intuition, it's just a thing that happens to Nynaeve, like a seizure. In the borderlands, she is seen whining ineffectually in the background while Rand, Perrin & Egwene fight and ignore her She stalks Lan, invading his privacy until he teleports out of a house to invite her to come in for supper. She barges into his room later that night to have sex with him. Lan uses a similar speech to his book speech about why he can't be the man she deserves and will not pursue a relationship with her, only this time, the basic subtext is wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. Not sufficiently humiliated, she reveals that he was right all along, she is nowhere near good enough to track him, she was actually tracking Moiraine. Then, when Amalisa, an amateur channeler conscripts the Two Rivers women, Nynaeve stands there, mute while Amalisa watches her brother & their army be slaughtered, than kill all her companions with her ineptitude. Nynaeve holds out long enough to save Egwene, explaining that she was motivated to save Egwene because of the unity of their braids as fellow Two Rivers women. Not because saving lives is an inherent good. So Egwene returns the favor by Healing her, meaning Nynaeve's special skill from the book is not uniquely hers. In season 2, she is petulant and recalcitrant student of the Aes Sedai until she is sent through the Accepted test so the plot can happen, and is utterly incompetent, accomplishing nothing and needing the sheltered princess to give her several reality checks when they get there. If you complain about Nynaeve, you are racist, because she is played by a black actress. When you compare the books and the show, the only way I see racism coming in to play here, is that a Klansman was hired to plot her show arc, and he saw she was being played by a black woman, so he gutted her of everything that made her great.
How does Lanfear know the area well enough to be running a business in the city, and know the way to her isolated mountain cabin, and also have no idea where the adjacent major road goes, when it goes to the largest city in the known world and the center of power in this society?
1:13:10 and another cut. We'll call this cut 1,257 (since this show is already dead to me). She expected Liandrin there hours ago... Who says that in their day and Age? They travel by horses. They communicate by carrier pigeon. Communication across that distance takes weeks - and Liandrin would have arrived before any messenger could have. The only explanation is that she went to sleep *after* knocking out the girls, before taking them into the Ways (which is super risky) hoping that Ishy would also be asleep and she could communicate with him directly then. Suroth isn't the least bit intimidated by seeing a rift in reality open into a world of darkness right in front of her - just wants to know why Liandrin is late. But the only reason she would know Liandrin was even on her way was through Ishy. And why would Ishy tell her a specific time to be at the gate by? And even if he did, he would tell Suroth to be there then, not tell her when Liandrin would be there and let her decide when to arrive. Once again, nitpicky, but when there's so much to nitpick, it's hard not to.
I like to think what passed through Moiraine's head during the pause was "this is... Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo, no they'll never believe that. Guy Incognito? Damn it!"
So a couple of things: You're spot on with what the Black Ajah is (they don't have to follow the 3 oaths) Gaul is actually pretty important. Replacing Gaul with Aviendha has MASSIVE ramifications later on in the story. Both Gaul and Aviendha are relatively important characters and the way they've messed with what is essentially their origin in the story is not good. The reference to dancing is important to Aiel culture which you will learn about later. The Aiel taking out multiple other wetlander(The Aiel term for the people who don't live in the waste) is a constant in the books. The Aiel are incredible skirmishers and work particularly well against basically anything other than large organized calvary charges. They are universally respected as incredible warriors. (That's a big aspect of why Rand's mom in the flashback scene at the end of Season 1 was actually pretty true to form for the books.) Tying off a shield doesn't require the channeler to maintain it (in the books), but tying off a shield runs with it's own risks. Basically, a lot of the stuff that they use they don't ever explain, but if you read the books you understand, but if you read the books you aren't interested in the show because it stopped being an adaptation so long ago and became just fan fiction.
Fiction from people who aren’t fans 😂 also Gaul becomes Perrin’s close friend, helps him many times as the story progresses. Do they expect Avienda to follow and help him going forward? Also changing Gaul to Avi, will the Nynaeve and the gals help the Maidens too later and become friends, or are they erasing that whole thread.
@jsbrads1 careful with Spoilers friend. Pretty sure tSatPR hasn't read past book 5 or 6. And if I had to guess, I think they want to remove another major female character from Perrin's story and replace her role with Aviendha, which screws up a ton of other plot lines for the Aiel layer on.
Avienda is obviously big. But I didnt know that Gaul was, too. I haven't gotten to that yet. It really is a head-scratcher. Who were they making this show for? You can't understand the show, unless you read the books, but they change so much from the books that it has basically become its own thing. Ugh!
The main question of season 2 is who had the dumber plan: Moiraine, whose plan included a “never sleep again” phase, or Lanfear, who sent Bayle Domon to Moiraine so Moiraine would go and stab Lanfear through the heart… ?
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS maybe... maybe Lanfear never thought Moiraine would stab her through the heart/slit her throat, and then run away, because she would always be able to get revenge in the dream world. and making a plan with a "never sleep again" phase is just ridiculous. no one could be that stupid.
The Horn thing is misdirection... the good guys believe that the horn controlls the Heros. But you find out at the last battle from the heros that...of course they cant be compelled.
Glad to hear you're still enjoying the books, my worry was that the TV show would put you off. As always thanks for your service, watching this show for us
1:22:43 so the Horn of Valere in the books - they don't clarify what the situation is with them being summoned until much later when the stakes are super high. But regardless, the good guys need the Horn or else they have no chance of winning the Last Battle. It's in the prophecies that they'll blow the Horn, and if any prophecy isn't fulfilled then all hope is lost - that's a massive difference between the show and books. Turak believes he's supporting the empress (may she live forever) in defeating the dark one. So his thought with the Horn is that they can unite all of the nations that side of the Aryth Ocean under the Seanchan to fight with a unified force against the Dark One. In the books he doesn't blow the Horn because he believes it needs to be gifted to the Empress for her to decide when and where to blow it, and for her to decide who is allowed to blow it. In the show that's not made clear. Nor is it made clear why Ishy didn't just open the box himself and blow it. How would Turak have knowledge of an object from the Age of Legends that Ishy wouldn't?
In the book, the heroes summoned by the horn will only follow the trumpeter if they're on the side of Light. They make it sound like it has to be blown at the last battle for the Light to win, but the Dark One wants to get a hold of it so perhaps he can corrupt it somehow? The Seanchan is technically on the side of Light so the heroes would probably fight under their command if they blew the horn. In any case, if the Dark can keep it hidden then it's an advantage for them. As to how it works in this TV series... I doubt the writers have spared it a thought. It'll work in whatever way is convenient for the scene it's in.
I’m super late finishing this. The whole time watching through your S2 reviews, I just wish with all my heart that S1 had built a stronger foundation. From what I’ve seen of S2 (mostly all from your videos) they’ve put more resources into the costumes and locations and world-building, and put more into making it interesting to watch, but how can it ever correct away from some of the silly needless changes to the fundamental story and to the characters? Super glad to hear that you’re feeling better by the way Amber ❤
The girls get caught subplot in the books is really quite simple. Liandrin tells them that she needs to take them (Egwene and Nynaeve) somewhere to help Rand with something. Since they care about Rand and Elayne overhears it through the wall, and Min is a friend, she and Min come along, and basically force Liandrin to bring them as well. They travel through the ways with Liandrin mostly keeping to herself (not being interested in getting to know them at all). When they leave the ways, they basically walk straight into an ambush arranged by High Lady Suroth (who is second in command of the Forerunners, the Seanchan who have landed in the area), where anyone who knows what he/she is hearing will learn enough to recognize both Liandrin and Suroth as darkfriends - and as allies by necessity who despise working together. However, since the ambush only expected to capture two channelers they're thrown off by the presence of a third (Elayne), allowing Nynaeve and Elayne to get away. This plot highlights the naivety of the main girls at the time, and serves as a wake-up call to them that they shouldn't just trust everything people say to them, even if those people are Aes Sedai. EDIT: The explanation that the Seanchan respect the one power so much is SO off compared to the books! In Seanchan, the women who called themselves Aes Sedai used the power to dominate other people. The Seanchan empire started because one of the Aes Sedai schemed in a way that involved giving the would-be-empress an A'dam and explaining how it works. The empire started off the back of that, with the idea that touching the One Power is basically evil and that anyone who does it is a dangerous animal that must be controlled with a leash for her own good (men just get killed) (guess how the woman who provided the not-yet-empress with an A'dam ended up?). This isn't respect for the one power. It is fear of its wielders.
28:26 - "... to show us just how incredibly powerful they (the Forsaken) are, and what they are capable of..." So we see a bit of that with Lanfear... but none of it from Ishy... who takes a fair heaping dose of disrespect from Suroth a bit earlier in the same episode. That might have been a good time to have Ishy demonstrate their relative differences, and natures (ie, NOT good), by coming down hard on her disrespect, instead of being so mild-mannered and civil. (I'm thinking of something like how Vader responded to disrespect.)
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS a force choke is the weakest channeling in the wheel of time.I didn’t mind Ishy being uncover, that would probably work better with the Seanchan and the book depicted that later in the series also Fain was undercover.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, something like that... or what Lanfear did to the horse she rode to make it go faster when she was chasing Randy and Moron. There's just no way that a person like Ishy would tolerate that kind of disrespect. It's a zero sum game, what they are doing. Suroth's disrespect makes her look st up id, in the intent to make her more bossy. It's basically the same thing that they've done to Moron and Nynaeve.
@@jsbrads1 But Suroth and Ishy were in private when she disrespected him... "The Dark One's most powerful lieutenant." We learned that Ishy is the one who provoked/caused The Return. It just doesn't make any sense that *either* of them would tolerate that kind of disrespect from anyone weaker than them. Ishy is not a mild-mannered law-abiding citizen. This was a missed opportunity to show that Ishy is both powerful, and evil. A person like that would not respond so passively.
1:22:50 i just started book 4, so i dont know if this is stated otherwise later on, but the horn will summon the heros for whoever uses it, that is why they are in such a hurry to get it when the myrddraal stole it on the great hunt
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS i don't remember the scene exactly, but didn't he said "we fought alongside countless times" or something like that and then prompted him to raise the banner? as to say they recognized him as the dragon or lews? i didn't pick up that they will only fight for the light but read it at the beginning of this year so i might be wrong and im too lazy to look for it lol
That is the legend that everyone in-wprld believes, but I believe they say later in the books that they come at Mat's call and obey him because he fights for Rand/the Light
I seem to recall it being said that whoever blows it gets the heros. However, once the Heroes arrived, they wouldn't fight without Rand and the banner. So... it just seems that the accepted myth had some flaws.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, but I don't think you are supposed to know that yet... but it's not really a big spoiler, either. Just remember that, for some time yet, some of the characters still think that all they need is the Horn itself, so it affects their thinking.
The problem isn't that it's different than the books, the problem is that in the books the sisters are highly intelligent and cunning players of the game and in the show they come off as not so bright.
This episode is one of the ones where I realised I was enjoying season 2 and looking forward to watching the next one. I liked the bickering between the dark friends, and I liked Liandrin releasing the girls in a petty revenge. Aviendha was a favourite in the books and so I was disappointed with her portrayal to begin with. However, listening to this video in the background, whilst playing a game, I found myself actually changing my mind and finding the actress does do a good job with her. Gaul was a character I enjoyed as well though, and his bromance with Perrin was one of my favourite relationships in the books and so losing that is upsetting. I do wonder what they are going to do with her character and whether certain things get changed... From this meeting and the dialogue between them, I would not be totally against them putting a torch to Perrin's relationship with Faile and having Aviendha take Gaul's place at his side, leading to more. This despite Perrin and Faile being my favourite relationship in the books and the one I became most invested in. I believe a lot of people dislike Faile, but I always loved her as a character. I too enjoyed the scenes between Morainne and her sister. For once it looked like she was letting herself be human. But what stole the show for me was Lanfear. I think the actress does a really good job with her, and despite not being the Lanfear from the books, it does appear that a lot more thought and care has been put into her scenes to create a believable villain. A shame I cannot say the same for Ishamael. I hate watching him pop up everywhere. He must be the most hard working dark friend out there, learn to delegate man. Having him behind every plot is just boring and unbelievable for me. I know Semirhage is not released yet in the show, but you don't need to have a chosen sitting on your shoulder the whole time to do your evil deeds. Her meeting up with Liandrin and mentioning their dark lord, like they do in the books, is enough to let us know she's a dark friend and leave it at that. Ishamael is just over used in my opinion. Allow others their own autonomy, their own purpose. In this show it appears that if someone stubs their toe, Ishamael was behind it. But yeah, all in all I too liked this episode and started to garner hope for the rest of the show so long as I gave up entirely on it ever following the books. Although the last episode killed all that good will.
The Seanchan are not actually very trusting, it's just that oaths carry more weight in their society, and also, they have an extensive police/spy institution, which means uncovering treason or security breeches is a lot more possible for them. They are more like a modern society in that regard. They don't have as tight security as the locals are used to, because their people are less likely to be a problem and because they are VERY confident of their ability to find, catch & deal with transgressors. The idea of their trusting nature comes from Min's (unreliable due to her own lack of perspective) assessment that "the Seanchan trusted everyone, until they broke a rule". Some readers also see the ease with which Rand & co penetrate Turak's HQ to get their hands on the Horn & dagger as proof Seanchan being trusting, or super-arrogant, overlooking that the High Lord and his guards are waiting there for them, and that he has been suspicious of Fain, since the man who was supervising him disappeared. They got in easily, because Turak had prepared a trap to catch Fain in the act. He needs some sort of proof, vis a vis the suspicions if he looks too ambitious. If he whacks the guy who brought him the Horn, the Empress is going to have some questions, so he needs to catch Fain in the act of trying to steal from him. And he probably can't hide the whacking, because of the secret police. Min's own perception of the Seanchan as trusting comes from her own awareness of her society, that foreign conquerors would be keeping a tighter lid on things, not letting the newly conquered citizenry walk around armed, and to come and go freely. In this case, it's simply that the Seanchan have nothing to fear from them. They have a much more professional military system than anyone else in the known world, with high levels of discipline, standardized training and centralized logistics and intelligence. The local nations are rather backward from a military perspective (note that their world has small clocks that are sufficiently common that the keeper of a tiny inn in a backwater village can afford one, and has printing, but no gunpowder - in the real world, gunpowder & cannon were being used in Western Europe decades if not a century before those other inventions), and are barely organized at all. This was hinted at in Eye of the World & The Great Hunt, when people note how seldom the Queen's Guard (or officials like tax collectors) of Andor is actually able to make it out into the hinterlands, so that the Two Rivers are not even aware they are part of that country, and Ingtar talks about rulers being unable to actually control the territory they claim on a map. Meanwhile, the Seanchan have sufficiently advanced logistics and bureaucracy to raise, arm, supply & transport an expeditionary force across the ocean. NO country in the main lands of the series could actually manage any of that. Except for the fact that they are all using muscle-powered weapons, and have the same level of technology, the Seanchan outclass the locals on a similar scale of European colonial powers to third world natives in the 18th-19th centuries, when comparing the resources and capabilities at their disposal. Plus, their flying creatures and combat-trained monsters like grolm and elephants, and, of course, the damane, give them comparable advantages to the technology gap of the real world colonialists. ANYWAY, the point of this digression is that the trusting nature of the Seanchan is due to misconceptions held by many readers, which the show writers appear to have taken as the truth, that the Seanchan, with their impractical clothes and rigid society and indifference to "proper" security procedures, are rather incompetent, and depict them thus, rather than think about what a power statement the impractical clothes or "trusting" nature actually are - they wear impractical clothes, because you can't make them run or sweat. They are so powerful that they can wear long fingernails, because there is ALWAYS someone who can do whatever they wish and they are never inconvenienced by their fashions. They are so powerful that they can leave their new subjects relatively unguarded, because there is no way they can seriously hurt the Seanchan, who will see any revolution coming a long way off and crush it easily.
Very well said. An excellent explanation. And it makes total sense. Sorta reminds me of the formations used by the British, and how the Americans won by hiding behind trees and picking them off one at a time. By many standards, the American revolutionaries were using disorganized and sub-standard tactics, but they used the British ways against the British, themselves.
@@waltt69 At this point, if I keep sweating the small stuff, I'm gonna shrivel up and die. 😋 he has maybe 4 lines in the whole season, so whatever. I give up Lol 🤦🏻♀️
You are so on point! It's just so hard to care about these characters or anything they do now. I feel like the show is just going through motions now. Note: i didn't say "the motions" because the story isn't nearly following WoT. The worst part is I WANT TO CARE.
With one notable exception: The Aiel are Scottish At least they're described with bright hair (red being notable) and extremely pale skin I always loved how Jordan made his desert people be completely biologically unsuited for the desert. Gave them an extra layer to their durability when it comes to their survival Too bad the show didn't bother with any of that
It was also to deliberately contrast with the stereotype of "brown desert barbarians" that had popped up in the wake of Dune. Most characters in the books' skin colors aren't explicitly commented on, but given how the Aiel stand out and are white, we can probably infer that the "civilized" people are some shade of brown. It's a deliberate, subtle inversion of the stereotypes of the time (and, frankly, of today). And for all of season 1's faults, this is something they mostly got right: most of the people we meet are various non-white races, except our white redhead Aielman Rand. And then they cast a black woman to play the most prominent Aiel character, and a white woman to play the daughter-heir of the central kingdom. _sigh_
@@dowolf I will say, the mainlanders can't be that different After all...Spoiler gap Rand blends in after a bit of tanning. At best most people around Andor and Caernhein (not good at spelling) are Mediterranean, bronzish. But they can't be too much off-white or Rand would have been instantly noticed I do think the Domani and...who was it next to them? were darker skinned. The Seanchan always struck me as Asian inspired (mostly through armor choices though. When I hear Insectoid helmet, my mind goes to the traditional Samurai design)
I don’t mind Moraine’s sister giving her advice, when someone is in a situation an outside perspective can help. Also recall that Moraine lived 40 yrs as a powerful Aes Sedai, Moraine’s recent powerlessness is not something she is used to. This was described in the POV of Siuan who actually was Severed in the book.
Good catch! I was mostly put off because the AS are supposednto be so strategic and thoughtful. It would seem to me that the motives and actions of an adversary would be something she considers.
Forget explaining the sealing of the Forsaken, how about the show explain just WTF a Forsaken IS!? The mentions in the show include Steppin the Tragic Warder doing his little stupid, made-up, pointless, waste of time bullshit incense ritual, and just some name-dropping and now Lanfear being identified as their leader, who cannot be killed with a weapon, but will regenerate a fatal injury. Someone who believed they are deities, or spirits or demons would not find any contradictory evidence in the script, all the way through season 2! There is NO mention of them being merely ordinary human Aes Sedai who went over to the Dark One's side. FFS, I don't think that at any point, they established that Ishamael was one of them and not the Dark One. I don't think they explained what the DARK ONE is! Again, a show-only audience might very well think the Dark One is just a dramatic name for some old enemy of the Dragon.
Lol. You're right! The show really hasn't explained this. It's so confusing. I don't know what the goal of the show writers was supposed to be? Did they write this for book fans only? But then why warp and twist the characters, world, and story so much? They were making this for an audience that does not exist.
@TheSwordAndPenREFLECTIONS Jordan said that the Aiel were based on the Bedowin of our world the desert nomads of the midle east n north africa (ergo their reverence for water) , but thought it would be ironic to give them the looks of the Irish hence taller and a lot of redheads , The biggest problem with Aviendha's looks is how the hell does everyone think rand looks like an Aiel when he looks nothing like Aviendha .As for the Horn of Valeire, the assumption the world has is that the hero's would fight for whomever blows the horn, and it is somewhat implied that this maybe the case with 2 exceptions, 1 the dragon is nearby 2 the dragon banner is nearby then they will serve the banner holder /dragon,
Re Rand & Aviendha looking similar: that's been broken since Episode 1. Jordan described Rand as looking different from the rest of the Two Rivers folk due to his mother being an outsider, yet the show depicted the town as being a haven of diversity. Growing up in a small town 80 miles from the nearest city myself I experienced a diversity of 2 main people/ cultures @ about a 2:1 ratio w/ a small handful of others thrown into the mix over the years. Now if one were to place that small town 80 miles past the far side of nowhere as the Two rivers is one would expect the population to be fairly homogenous. (For the record I also lived for a short time north of the arctic circle & can confirm that geographic isolation does not contribute to a very diverse population). But no... the show had to push DEI bullshit. Ironically when the trollocs attacked the town (you know, the monsters that Jordan DID describe as being diverse w/ no two looking the same) I counted 2, maybe 3 variations. At that point along side of certain casting choices I had already given up hope of seeing the show portray any of the characters "correctly" as Jordan described them.
@@TheFreeBass yes and no to rands looks, the big main differences that was pointed out was his eyes which he was really selfconcious of, they being Grey, and he was the tallest in the villiage but there were others quite tall too so he wasn't that put out with that one, and he wasn't all that selfconcious of his hair, meaning that there were other redheads in the village though not named ones, or at least it wasn't uncommon a sight for it to be a talking point, But when you get to the greater world, those things = Aiel when combined. as for growing up in low diversity areas, i grew up in a town that when we moved there had 12,000 people when i left it had i think 30k, i met my first person of colour 6 years after i moved there in highschool, the primary school of 700 kids all white, and i lived all of 100k's from nearest city so yeah i understand what jordan was going for and agree that the show screwed up there and they could of had a lot of diversity and more than was in the show by making people from other areas people of different races, I mean i always took the Shireans as being Asian, the Ebudarians as being middle eastern, The Aiel were Irish, Cairhiens french, So yeah also with the population of the entire 2rivers area after a few thousand years Homogenious population would arive, i argued this with the Blue men of Kentuky that took only 150 years to make a main stay and then only 2-3 generations to disapear.
Haha! And the Fremen were also modeled after the Bedowin, I believe. It's not necessarily copying an idea. It's a logical place to take the culture of a desert people.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS absolutely, but yeah Jordan specifically named those 2 cultures as the inspiration for the Aiel ergo me passing on that info :)
I just want to say I like your videos and your analysis a lot but this show was absolutely so painful to watch I could barely get through season one. I read the books and it just...it just hurts too much to watch this. I loathe this show. Anyway, I can only get through part of your video, I just can't watch more but good on ya for powering through it all.
I feel like it's worse than that. Moiraine and Rand were waiting in the woods for Lanfear to ride by. The only way that makes sense is if she killed the horse somehow knowing Lanfear was going to get another. There are faster ways for Lanfear to Travel, but the only way Moiraine and Rand hiding in the woods works out is she gets a horse.
1:16:20 hold up... I'm so confused with this moment! Liandrin cuts Nynaeve's bindings... But Nynaeve can't channel because of her block. Egwene tells Nynaeve to do something... Even though she's been intentionally training to channel without the use of her hands so she's capable in a situation like this. Elayne is the one who actually does something... Even though she's the one who is still tied up *and* hasn't trained how to channel without the use of her hands. And she goes all out with explosions even though she has no idea how to make them. And all three were shielded - did the writers forget about that? And the Damane they have with them don't shield all three girls why? And as you called out, why did they leave them there in the first place? None of this makes any sense whatsoever. It's like they intentionally refuse to allow Nynaeve any agency, and Egwene is almost as stunted - and she's the *only* one who does something worthwhile in the finale.
Wow, I managed to find something I disagree with you on Amber! Re: switching of "roles" between Nynaeve and Elaine. Sidenote, nothing to do with the books (its been 20+ years since I read them) I like the switch (mind you, based only on how you presented it in this video, didn't eatch the show) because, although N is older, she is also from "the sticks" whereas E is a noble, probably very observant of markings, political affiliations, geography, etc. so I find it more plausible that she, as a city girl as well, would be the "smart one" in this situation. For her shorter years of life, she is almost certainly more worldly and overall better educated than N. Just my two cents! Cheers, love your breakdowns as always, and glad 1) you are feeling better and 2) the show isn't taxing your mental health as much! Oh, and that requested emoji: 😊
I could get behind that if they didn't see Seanchan soldiers walking around the city. Did she not notice what the guards looked like from those bad people who were chasing her? And also, Elayne explains the reasons they need to be discrete, and Nynaeve still tears off. She's not acting like she is in a foreign city and was just nearly captured by scary-looking bad guys. 1) yeah, I'm feeling way better. Still not 100%, though. 2) Haha. The show is just boring, at this point. The expense is mustering up the energy to be anything more than bored.
I'm really enjoying your recaps, especially since I stopped watching the show after season 1. It looks to have changed so much that I can look at it almost as a different story to the books. Definitely a better episode, in terms of interesting actions and character behaviour. Did they change the writers for this episode? In the books, whoever blows the Horn of Valere will summon the heroes of past ages to fight FOR them, making the fact that it is now in the hands of the Seanchan catastrophically bad. The whole Aiel / Fremen comparison is apt, but I think they're different enough. In the books, those who become Clan chiefs are made aware of what the sin is, when they take the test at Ruidean(sp?). Anyway, great recap, keep up the good work and I'll look forward to seeing the next livestream afterwards 🙂
Thank you! I do my best. Yeah, the Horn is something the show has yet to explain. Lol. I think I've just realized that no one in the show has said what it does.... or did I foeget?
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I'm kind of like you in that I've forgotten if it got mentioned in the show. In the book, they mention Artur Hawkwing and the heroes of old being called back by whoever calls the horn.
Slaughtering a spare horse… you tie it off so you can rotate it on a long ride… killing it makes someone think there’s some other plan or that the person who kills it is an idiot.
Just noticed from a clip, they are depicting the Damane as motivated and evil. The books describe Damane as compliant and supportive of leashing at most.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS yes, the young blonde girl. She also seems too young to be a trained Damane. At no point was a teen depicted as a trained Damane. They are captured as teens, but their training is probably not rushed, they are only depicted as working as adults.
Notice, that in the books first thing that is evident about actual Aiel, is that they are well-spoken and reasonable people, despite living by very different customs. And there is a hint that they spared Royal Library while razing Cairhien. Compare this with... that.
Oh no, i had forgotten those nails. Those nails described as being about an inch long.. They had a bunch of us wondering how Turok was capable of wielding a sword to face Rand. Guess the joke was on us, eh? As awful as the Seanchan can be, even they deserved better than this..
I have actually theorized that the reason we don't have a sword fight (though I'll believe it's because they still haven't found a choreographer or their actors can't actually do it because pretty much all of the fight scenes except the silly one with pregnant Tigraine have been washed out so you can't see what's going on) is that they gave them freakishly long nails not thinking about having to have fight scenes and then got to that and had to do something, so they "fixed" their costume error by having Rand do multiple precision strikes with the One Power after having spent all season building a narrative about how he can't find anyone to train him with the One Power. The whole show really feels like they make up what they're doing on every frame with no thought to the next one.
23:40 I wonder if Moiraine has been feeling this same feeling of urgency and desperation (over the end of the world and everything, more conceptually) when she's done annoying things previously? or perhaps that was one of the writer's intent, but it got lost among other writers doing stuff/producers/whatever. they mention how she feels the urgency of things in S1, but i don't remember FEELING that so much (but it's been a while since i've seen an episode of this show tbh)
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS haha that's for sure. the theory doesn't really hold up there (and in a bunch of other places, i'm sure). i'm trying to reason with how they portrayed her, but that may be a silly quest in itself lol regardless, they could've given her a sense of ruthless urgency while still making her likable. even with the stable scene, which was more understandable for viewers, they still could've had her leave a pouch of money or something (as you mentioned). it sucks because i like the book character and i adore the actress... i wanted to love her tv version so bad :(
@no_i_dont_want_no_slugs don't try to figure out the reasoning. They have repeatedly broken logic, so you'd just be tying your brain in knots. It's always hard to separate writing and directing from performances, but I'd say the writing is what's really crappy in 95% of this portrayal kf Moiraine. The actress is fine. I've loved her in other stuff. She would be a great Moiraine.... if she had a great Moiraine to play 😋
Talking of the heroes journey reminded me of this series I read where in the first book the hero went around gathering his heroes to go tackle the big bad. The usual story of early fantasy. You grew to love all these people. They got there and entered her domain. They got separated and everyone but the main character got turned. So he escaped at the end, so despondent that he had to start all over again. He had already picked those he thought were the best. And with the next group have to fight these people we learned to love and root for. I can't remember what the series was called and maybe if someone does they should put a whole bunch of spoiler space because this could be almost any hero group epic journey book. Definitely not where I expected this hero journey to go.
1:10:50 the "I've broken many more than that" line was intentionally confusing just to pretend Liandrin is a threatening baddie. Almost every line from all of our villains that are threatening sound like they're coming from children trying to sound threatening. It's like they don't have any idea how to intimidate, or how someone who is threatening would actually act in those situations.
@jeremyvanneman8112 In this particular case, I felt like she was being self-reflective. But it was a weird thing to say, because it didn't make any sense. Why not say, "I've done far worse than breaking the three oaths."
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS that would have totally fixed it. Simple changes to avoid confusing and pointless flaws. Just a single editor in the room who knew how to do their job at all could have made this show potentially watchable despite the differences.
It's kind of ambiguous as to whether or not Ishamael believed himself to be the Dark One. If you pay attention throughout the first three books, Baalzamon never once refers to himself explicitly as the Dark One, and always refers to the Dark One in the third person. A lot of the stuff Ishamael was doing as Baalzamon was not with the One Power, but rather power specific to the Shadow. So when he is telling Rand that the Great Lord cannot be defeated in their final duel, he is not saying "I can't be defeated, I am the Dark One" but rather "The Dark One has my back, I can't lose."
Ishamael definitely let others believe he was the Dark One, certainly the Fades and Trollocs. Rand believed it thru the first three books. Ishamael is later said to be somewhat mad because he experienced all 3000 years he was imprisoned, he guided the Fades and Trollocs, maybe even entered the dreams of the Black Ajah and Darkfriends.
@@jsbrads1 But he never claimed it himself. The fact that, if he was intentionally letting them believe he was the Dark One, he was careful never to directly claim it, indicates that he was of sound mind, and therefore, not delusional about his own status. We also don't know what he let the Trollocs & Fades believe. If they can identify a Forsaken by the Dark One's link to the Chosen, they might not know the difference between ANY Forsaken and the Dark One, or else they would certainly sense that Baalzamon is marked as a Chosen. In the books, Baalzamon is stated to be BELIEVED to be the Trollocs' name for the Dark One. It isn't ever confirmed, because we never get a PoV of them. It's just that experts or observers of Shadowspawn note them using the name Baalzamon and assuming from context that they are referring to the Dark One. So Baalzamon is believed to be a name for the Dark One, by people with bad information. It is said more than once that not even the Forsaken dare to lie about anything connected to the Dark One. Ishamael would never impersonate the Dark One unless he was far from his right mind. But his language is too careful to be that of a deluded nutjob who thinks he really is the Dark One. If he did believe that, he would have just said so, but he never does.
@@Gunleaver all true, but when a person is present, they know if that person is a Forsaken, the flickering image outside of Shadar Logoth in book 1, they wouldn’t be able to sense the person’s Forsaken status.
1:12:53 here's another good example of a subtle flaw that's in literally every moment of this season just as much as the last. It's the death by a thousand cuts. The Seanchan have to unload the girls... But Liandrin had to load them up herself one at a time? And how did she knock them out so easily? The one power? What about machin shin? And if she did it physically, did none of the girls think to even attempt to overpower her? How did she know exactly when they would wake up (and how did she know she wouldn't kill them with yet another blow to the head so soon? Speaking of which... Three times being knocked unconscious by the end of this episode with very little time conscious... How do Elayne and Nynaeve not have concussions? And as far as writing goes, it seems like you're trying to find things to enjoy so these reviews aren't as painful, but it's so lazy for these writers to quite intentionally and directly take away all agency from their main characters. They walked into a hallway with Liandrin of their own free will (last episode), and tried to escape the Seanchan a few days later - but literally everything else was something beyond their control that happened to them. Perrin might spend all his time walking, but at least he had three significant moments of agency. Rand had none - he just did what Moiraine told him to - after she blamed him for doing something horrible when all he did was what she told him to. Mat wasn't even in the episode. Our main protagonists are just along for the ride I guess - no need for agency when the writers just need you to get to the right spot and have a conversation before something else happens to you.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I finished! Gonna keep it short but Moraine's family is not like that. Her father is actually a good man who shuns corruption; one of the few in fact. There is no nephew, but a female cousin who plays a key role later. The showrunners are pure evil. Robert Jordan loved horses, and they are official characters. Ask me who is best girl? Bella, the horse. He would never allow such cruelty to horses in his books. (Battles and one-power results aside.) I'm afraid the animal abuse is another intentional departure meant to slight the author. Perrin is supposed to meet his Aiel BFF in the cage, not Avienda. (All Aiel who enter the sacred city learn about their past in a terrangreal. So her line is dead wrong.) Major consequences in plot now. Add the oaths and oath rod being messed up, Uno getting killed, most characters not in the correct spot- "You ruined it!" (You aren't wrong about the Horn assumptions you made. The author wrote it that wayThe pserson who said you were wrong is half-spoiling, because there is a catch.)
I should mention that more-or-less every non-reader review or watch along seems to think that Ishy and the Dark One are the same person;. You're right, the show does basically nothing to distinguish them. The whole point of him calling himself "Ba'alzamon" was to indicate his madness and create that confusion for *the characters*; every book reader knows about the Forsaken from the end of the first book, and for absolutely sure by The Dragon Reborn.
I watched your video on The Wheel of Time and tolerance for bad writing and I really enjoyed it. Your approach, that of a book editor, is rather unique and I liked it a lot. You did an excellent job of pointing out some of the serious flaws in the show. Then, I watched a couple other Wheel of Time reviews you did and it quickly became obvious that although you are reading the series, you don't know it well enough to compare the tv series to the books. You get too many things wrong and "I don't remember and I don't care" really doesn't make for an engaging TV show review. (You also need to understand that the show writers are not trying to adapt the series book by book. That is impossible. Instead, they are trying to adapt the series as a whole. And I'm not saying saying they will do that successfully.) For instance, there are some things that happened in the first book that we are apparently going to see in season 3. I hope this doesn't sound overly critical. I just think that for the time being, your reviews would be better if you refrained from comparing the show to the books and just evaluated the show on its own.
For the most part, that's what I'm doing, now. There are still some comparisons that can be made, considering the cuts and combinations we are seeing in the show. For instance, I'm about 1/5th of the way through the books, at this point.... Spoilers Rand is a commander of a large group, is meeting with the Aiel, has acquired the Sword of Callandor, the girls are well underway in their hunt of the black aja, Perrin has a girlfriend and has returned to the 2 rivers, Thom has been hanging out with Rand and the lords and has agreed to a mission for Moiraine, and there has been a coup at the White Tower, in which Siuan has been stilled and Logain has joined forces with Min and Siuan. The show has really only covered events from book 1 and 2. The pacing of the show is not ideal, unless they are aiming for 14 seasons. The show should be much further along in it's story if it really does intend to compress and adapt the whole series. The greatest criticisms that can be made, however, are to the major foundational changes being made, as well as the sloppy writing from scene to scene. Season 1 was definitely worse, but screwing up the start is extremely hard to recover from later on down the road.
Re the Whitecloak recognizing the ring as Two-Rivers' work. That's a bit sus. At least in the books, yes, The Two Rivers is secluded and fairly isolated. However, peddlers (like Padan Fain) did visit and buy things. The Two Rivers was known for 2 exports, Wool and Tabac (Tabacco). One thing they get right is Bornhald and Valda were together, but not in Falme. They were over beseiging tar Valon. Bornhold's Father was the one to capture Perrin and Egwene. Bornhold's father is the one to lead the legion to attack the Seanchan at Falme (which does happen in the show). Bornhold's father tells one of his lieutenants, Child Byar, to watch and report what happens. This is how Child Bornhald (the son) learns of his father's death and through Byar's fanatical assumptions, blames Perrin and chases after Perrin for the rest of the books.
It would be a spoiler to explain what the "sin" is , but it is book accurate on that point. It is not common knowledge to the Aiel. There is also a book reason that they do not know.
Yes... and she (S&PR) is getting VERY close to learning that reason... Last I heard, in her reading progress, she was reading where they were at Rhuidean.
I may be late to the party and I apologize if this issue has already been addressed. That being said: Yes, it's established within the books that it's a common practice amongst the Aes Sedi to tie off weaves. Case in point: Moraine sets multiple warding weaves (then ties them off) during the flight from the Two Rivers to protect the encampment. Most notably in Shadar Logoth. Another example (of significant importance) is the tied off warding weaves that protect Callandor from being wield by anyone aside from the Dragon Reborn. Despite the fact that the people who created that weave being dead for approximately three thousand years, the weave still held.
That's one of, if not the major points of contention in this episode that irritates me...Maybe it shouldn't. I honestly can't remember if the ability to ward your dreams was taught to Rand by Moraine or (Spoiler). To be honest, it's been at least fifteen years since I've read the books.
@caleba5748 I know she told the boys to always resist the dark one in their dreams. To deny him. Rand always did this, even before he got those instructions.
Ah! Now I remember! Moraine was capable of protecting the group from The Dream World via "dream" wards for the males within her proximity but unable to teach them how to do that themselves due to the stark contrast between Saidar and Saidin (forgive the possible/likely misspelling, I'm spitballing here). It took (Spoiler) to teach Rand how to do that in book five.
I agree with you 100% that this show is broken. They have broken too many rules that govern the world of the Wheel of Time and made too many big changes. What's the point if you can bring the dead back, what's the point if one that uses the one power can heal himself/herself, what's the point when they've killed off key support characters. The butterfly effect of these changes would mean endless changes in the future. Kind of like when someone lies to cover something up, then they have to lie again to cover that up, then another and another. Before you know it, the whole world is completely different from the original.
You asked how Two Rivers work is recognized but that's literally how trading works. The people from a certain region don't have to leave that area in order to trade goods prevalent in that area. There's plenty of towns nearby to sell to and peddlers to take their goods farther still. Just look at the silk trade in our own history. People in Europe have never seen China or silkworms, but they still recognized the craftmanship and design from there. Same with any other traded goods.
It wasn't the fact that their work is recognized. It's that it has happened twice, now, as if their work in metal craft and rug weaving is world famous. If that was the case, there are much better ways to present that. For Elayne, I could see her having been educated in this sort of thing. Plus, it was a woven blanket, which could easily be very distinct... like the difference between a Persian rug and a MExican blanket. But for Bornhold, recognizing the designs on a simple silver band (ring) that he wasn't holding in his hand to look at more closely, I didn't believe it. I mean, when most people look at a jacket, they aren't able to recognize the difference between a Chanel and an Armani. Communication is much better in our real world, and probably 90% of the first world civilians know that Chanel and Armani are fancy designers, but only a small percentage can tell the difference between the two just by looking at them.
This dropped JUST as I was going to bed, so I am late for this, but this: 17:14 is exactly what I was worried about from the beginning. Because of how intricately woven Robert Jordan's series here is, any deviation will make the story hard to follow for the books' fans, and potentially ruin the experience for viewers with no context. A lot of the fine details you get are foreshadowing and hinted at clues for later, much larger events that are simply not present in the amazon series. These are very essential parts of story telling because it sells the lie that immerses us in these worlds. It's a psychological trick. You have that euryka moment when you see the plot unfold and all the little cogs you've noticed fall in place. Then magnified when you revisit the story and notice all the even finer details that show you the signs were there from the beginning. Without these the story has no depth, becoming 2 dimensional and flat. It's essentially a trace out of a more magnificent painting. It becomes a series of "And thens" that move the "heroes" along a path to victory. I could go on about how these changes are bad for the show, but then much of that would get into spoiler territory. Suffice to say, these show runners have already changed, altered, and injected too much into what was otherwise a near perfect outline for a series if done correctly. I am going to get back to watching now. I just had to stop here because The Court of the Nine Moons was probably one of my favorite plot points in the books. This is one of those examples I have of things not being apparent till you revisit, because it was foreshadowed in book 2 if I recall. Maybe book 3. Something so early and so subtle it took me 3 reads to pick up on it back then. Edited for 21:00 this is stated in the book as impossible to do with the magic system Jordan works with. Casters CANNOT use the power on themselves in this way. Any caster can only heal other people and cannot reverse death. Being able to use the power in this way breaks the rules in a way that breaks story elements like Warders. If casters can now heal themselves from mortal wounds, what's the point of Warders? 45:30 The problem here is that the actress is not only very good at her delivery compared to everyone else in this show, but her speech patterns and word choice are all out of place. The problem is SHE is book/period accurate and no one else is. If anyone remembers the show Spartacus: Blood and Sand, that show is a good showcase of actors understanding the goal. Everything about their speech down to word placing and cadence was tailored for their period. If even 1 person spoke modernly, they would seem entirely out of place in that show. This scene is showing you the same thing but in reverse.
Oh! I like that observation about the Verin actress being period, when no one else is. Makes perfect sense. And you are so right about the casters not being able to heal themselves. Someone in some past comment suggested it was some other thing.... bit I don't know what that other thing is, and it might be a spoiler.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS It is a really jarring contrast to see what it could have been, right next to what it is, all in the same frame. I know what they are referencing, and I had that thought as well. It would still break the rules, and also put forth new plot holes on top of it. I am leaning to it not being the case though, simply because that would require the show runners to have not just read the entire series, but also understood everything well enough to slip this in. So far I don't feel that's the case. Regardless, it shouldn't even be possible yet. For reasons.
I don't think the show succeeds as much with Moiraine and her desperation, this is really just shallow depictions that they are not thinking through. If Moiraine is confident enough to wield the sword to kill a horse, why not chop up Lanfear? It should take her at least a little more time to heal if you have tossed her head onto the roof. Secondly, Moiraine clearly had no idea that the stable was even there, so she is taking Rand in an unfamiliar direction, which is really dumb, or she did know it was there, and did not bother to secure a transportation. Moiraine came on foot, and approached the cabin on foot. This is clearly not a situation where "every second counts" because she had to know that they have been alone together in this cabin for hours. The odds of a delay to acquire horses ahead of time causing her to arrive too late to save Rand from Lanfear, are vanishingly small. And in any event, the delay to secure horses is better placed before she attacks Lanfear, rather than after, when the Forsaken will be chasing them. So if she came near the stable, she should have had horses ready. And if she did not pass near the stable on the way to the cabin, she was an idiot for running off in a direction she did not know, and does not deserve any credit for surviving thanks to blind luck. This is a thing people think of all the time in the real world, except they do so with cars, etc. "How am I going to get there/back?" is the first thing on anyone's mind when they go out to do a task. It's just not what lazy writers think when moving their characters around, because they will just teleport them to wherever they need them to be. Robert Jordan, for example, in Book 1, when rescuing Perrin & Egwene from the Children of the Light, has Nynaeve thinking about their number of horses and the number of people who will need to ride, once she realizes that Egwene is here as well as the boy Moiraine has magically tracked. She alters her mission to secure extra horses for Perrin and Egwene, because that's sensible. Also, Moiraine cutting the horse's throat was REALLY stupid, because horses are not motorcycles, contrary to what lots of shitty fantasy writers think. They get TIRED. That's why people with the resources had this concept called REMOUNTS. And if she knows that Lanfear can regenerate mortal wounds, how does she know that Lanfear cannot resurrect the horse she kills? Taking the horse solves both problems. And let's talk about this stable in the middle of nowhere. Why would a stable be there? Because people often come by with horses, often stop there and need a place to keep the horses! It's very likely someone else will be along, and that this area is not at all too remote for Lanfear to find other transportation options.
I think they are going to get five seasons, max. I wouldn't be surprised to see it canned before season 4 though. This means that the huge (HUGE) plot holes they are creating for very cheap dramatic effect probably won't matter to the overall story.
I’ve seen a few snippets of your reviews here and there. Watched all of season 1. And the more I see the more I’m disappointed at the number of *fundamental* changes to the basic world building and story of The Wheel of Time that have been made.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Exactly. The entire story was laid out right there- all they had to do was follow it and not screw it up and they couldn’t even manage that. I understand that some changes need to be made for a tv adaptation but what’s happening here is way beyond that.
1:10:10 the whole "the girls are shielded and unconscious in the Ways with horses" nonsense is why there's no chance I'll be coming back to the show. It's the perfect storm of directly contradicting what they've established earlier and for absolutely no reason. In the books there's no problem with horses being in the Ways, and Liandrin doesn't reveal who she is until they get there - so it all makes sense. In the show horses can't go into the Ways... Because of budgetary restrictions?... And Liandrin can shield the three and tie it off, but they couldn't do that to Logain last season because...? And she got them all onto horseback, out of the city, up steep stairs on horseback, and partway into the Ways, took them off the horses herself (because she couldn't channel them down due to machin shin), and then they woke up? And she was going to continue to load them herself why? And they were going to go with her why? And if they were going to go with her willingly (because she's the only way out unless they remembered how Moiraine opened the Ways) then why handcuff them and make her job so much more difficult? It's just a series of questions and logical flaws solely because they wanted the reveal to happen too soon... Just so they could have this dumb back and forth with Liandrin to make her more likeable - at the expense of Nynaeve looking even more dumb and unlikeable. These writers just have things they wish they could change from the books and do it regardless of how little sense it makes or how much it screws everything up because they think it'd be "interesting" or "cool" to do it that way. Nothing is earned, nothing is built up, nothing is exciting... It's just a series of hopefully enjoyable individual scenes that are irrelevant in context.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS yeah, and I've noticed it more in the second season than the first. It's like they want the books to be canonical at any given moment, then change them from the books when it's convenient. But they forget when they've done it in the past and what that'll mean for context within the show itself.
To clarify, in the books, Lanfear and Lews had broken up long before she became a darkfriend. They broke up, I think it was decades, before The Dark One was released at all. Making it out that he callously broke her heart and that drove her evil does a disservice to both their characters. Above all else, even above Lews, Lanfear loved power. That was her driving motivation. Yes, she would love it if Lews fell to the Shadow and joined her, but if made to chose between her power and her love, she would choose her power every time.
My reading of the "And I know why you swore your oath to the Dark" line is that it's important because the Dark One only tells Chosen (Forsaken) about people's oaths. They have a very strict hierarchy and he's at the top of it. So she's saying he's not of the Blood so he serves at her pleasure because she's so important and he's saying he's one of the 13 (in the books) most powerful servants of the Dark One and doesn't care. There are a bunch of problems with this, though. First, the show never tells us the only way he could know that is to have been told by the Dark One directly and thus have pretty much ultimate access and power within the Darkfriends. More importantly, though, why did she grant him so much access and deference so far if she didn't know where he stood among the Darkfriends? The Seanchan also have a very rigid hierarchy (which they do show) and her elevating someone who isn't Seanchan and probably wouldn't have sworn fealty to the Empress to be her right hand man and dictate her actions is politically only makes sense if he has something else over her, which this scene makes me think he didn't until this instance (unless she somehow forgot that he's a demigod who can kill her at any point with no repercussions)
@christophercraig3907 Oh okay. They hierarchy thing makes sense, now. But, yeah.... why did she do anything for him if she didn't know what level he was? 🤪
@Trintron46 Haha! While you're at it, ask them to mark ALL copyright violations in a single upload, instead of just one at a time. If they would just do that one thing, it would save me days of work.
That's the most frustrating thing; there are bits and pieces of this show that work, but it's ruined immediately by another mistake, glad you're feeling better, and hopefully the remaining 3 episodes won't make you want to break anything important in your house.
Hahaha! Yeah, the show didn't do the greatest job with consistency and continuity. Really frustrating to get an episode done well that had poor setup and even poorer followup. SHM
Im not 100% sure but, i think that a tied-off weave would still attract Machin Shin in the Ways. In the books, any use of the One Power in the Ways, including tied-off weaves, can attract Machin Shin. The Black Wind is drawn to the presence of the One Power itself, not necessarily to the act of channeling. Therefore, even a tied-off weave would still pose a risk of attracting it
In the books, Ishamael was not fully sealed away and it's heavily implied in the first or second book that he was involved in the creation of the Seanchan and that he orchestrated the return to take place close to the Last Battle. I like the actor for Ishamael but he reminds me a lot of Nandor from What we do in the Shadows and it's kind of distracting. Also, Suroth looks a combination of Feyd from Dune 2 and the Red Wizard from the Dungeons and Dragons. Also, the changes they made with the Forsaken doesn't make sense. In the books, the Forsaken are not unkillable and there actually used to be like almost 100 Forsaken. The 13 Forsaken in the books were sealed along with the Dark One in a desperate gambit. Changing that causes all sorts of problems because if they had been able to capture the Forsaken separately, then there shouldn't have been a need to seal them. They could have executed the Forsaken using balefire. Unless the show also changed that. But even assuming the Forsaken can regenerate from balefire, then what's to stop them from chopping the Forsaken into 10,000 pieces and spreading the pieces across the world? They can't regenerate if their heads are chopped up into bits and buried under the oceans and mountains or thrown into space.
I think it might have been answered, but just in case.. the legend of the Horn says that it summons the Heroes to fight for whoever blows it. At the end of Book 2, we learn that the Heroes are bound to the horn, but they fight for the Dragon (or they follow the Dragon's Banner), and since you've read book 3, it is there that we learn from Siuan (i believe) that it is bound to the blower of the Horn for life.. The general population does not know these parts about who the Heroes fight for or being bound for life... presumably, neither to the Forsaken, since their lackies thought the horn could be useful to them.
Someone suggested the Dark One might have wanted it to figure out a way to taint it somehow. I like that idea. But the show didn't come up with it, so..... 🤷🏻♀️
The fact that halfway thru season 2 viewer still had barely any idea about what exactly the problem with the Dark One or wha it is, and who are the Forsaken... for me it says that showrunners and writers had no idea of what is the main conflict of the story and what differentiate good guys from bad guys.
The heroes of the horn can only fight for the light. But that is not revealed until almost the end of the last book by the heroes themselves. Up until that point basically everyone believes that they could be called to fight for the shadow if a darkfriend were to blow the horn.
Oooh! Ouch! I'm not sure I like that. Sort of like... "surprise! You guys were never in any real danger all along!" 😬 But it was strongly hinted at in the end of book 2, when the Heroes are waiting for the banner to be flown.
The idea that they somehow combined Aviendha, Gaul, and Faile is a horrifying thought. I could buy it if it was Gaul and Faile. Still weird... but maybe. But throwing Avi into the mix just messes with too many things in my head to even begin to unwind.
As for the Horn of Valere confusion: In the books, so no idea how it will be in the show, the Heroes say they fight for the light and follow the Dragon's banner. It seems like they are under no compulsion to fight for the horn-sounder unless their goals align. However, no one alive really knows how it works so they assume that if Evil gets the Horn they get control of the Heroes.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Oh I am aware, I bowed out after I realized there was no hope of me enjoying it. Trying not to spoil too much since I know you are still reading, but part of my issues with it are that Gaul/Faile and Aviendha are almost never in the same place for long. Gaul and Faile merged would be... odd but I dont know how you would handle Avi's stuff with them.
This is probably my least funny review of WoT. But at least it's finally out. Ugh! I hope you get some amusement out of it.
Don't worry. Whenever it IS about this awful show your reviews are Always entertaining
@kaludgo5811 awww.... thanks 😋
1:23:50 The Horn and who the heroes follow... All the way to the end of the series ("A Memory of Light"), it is revealed by one of the Heroes of the Horn that they will only fight for the light... Prior to that, Aes Sedai and other lore believe it to be the case that if a Dark Friend blows the horn, the heroes will fight for the dark... In reality, history/historians/Aes Sedai got it wrong. They will only fight for the light.
@@andrewfrank7222 Gah! SPOILERS!
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Hello I'm not sure if you have already addressed this but will the avatar last airbender live action reviews be continued?
Egwene not being collared when caught is so bad. She can channel in Turak’s court, she is a Marath-Damane, she can’t be trusted in the court of the high lord without being collared! 😂
@@jsbrads1 I was willing to overlook this in the show since it wasn't specified, and since they showed her being restrained with the one power. Would have been better if they showed that she was being shielded or something, though.
She probably was shielded.
@@christianrapper5 that makes sense to a certain extent, but for the Seanchan that isn’t enough, they say multiple times that a marath Damane needs to be collared. There was no reason not to collar her when she was caught. 🤷
I so disagree with how they did the collars too they need to have a physical lead with them that is needed for them to work, not a channeled link.
@@SirBlaze75 making the original collars leashless also causes problems later in the story. I can imagine the leashes causing a problem in filming. They could be made with a pinching friction connection that pulls out without pulling hard on the gals and nothing breaks, just squeeze it back into the pinching friction catch.
The part where Moiraine tells Rand that Lanfear only went to the Dark after the Dragon broke her heart is just another moment where the show made deliberate changes to the story to imply that the man was somehow the root cause of something bad/evil that happened. One or two times might still be coincidences, but the show really made a pattern of this and it really rubs me the wrong way. In the books Lanfear was always hungry for power above anything else, which is what caused both their break up and her swearing herself to the Dark One.
Ok thats true-ish, and its implied Lanfear was the one who drilled the bore to begin with in the books. BUT trying to pretend a story of a woman being so irrational that some boy broke up with her, that she swore herself to the literal devil, is some sort of story of female empowerment at the cost of men is just silly. Its not a good look either way.
@@JayAshkevron It's not a story about female empowerment and I never claimed that, it simply shifts the blame from the woman to the man and excuses the woman's evil actions because now she was "wronged" and the man's actions were the reason she went to the Shadow and not her own hunger for power. The show is trying to whitewash an evil character because she is a woman.
One thing that bugged me about the Turak/Ishamael dynamic is that the servant wakes Ishamael to request an audience for Turak. They did this last season with Moriaine bringing the girls to meet the Amyrlin, saying that the Amyrlin had requested an audience with them. That's not how it works. The higher-ranking person does not REQUEST an audience with a lower, he summons them to an audience. The Amyrlin or the leader of the Seanchan does not request an audience of anyone, because there is no one they acknowledge as superior. Others request audiences with them. The only way Turak would request an audience with Ishamael is if he is openly subservient to Ishamael, but if that is the case, why is he bothering working through Suroth, when her boss is so cowed by Ishamael that he requests audiences?
They don't understand hierarchies.
Just one of many things that they don't seem to understand.
A funny thing about wedding rings in WoT - in book 7, Nynaeve mentions a custom she has heard about, where a man gives a woman a ring as a sign of betrothal, and does not expect the person she is speaking to, to believe her.
Also, regarding Bornhald, he is the guy Rand confronted on the streets of Baerlon, who then tried to stop the group from leaving town, so Moiraine grew into a giant to intimidate him. His father is the officer who captures Perrin & Egwene, and then commands the Children at Falme. Later, Bornhald is the guy who confronts Verin & the girls as they return to Tar Valon in book 3.
To whit - Two Rivers people 1. mocked Bornhald in the street when he was doing nothing to them, and then 2. appeared to try to pick a fight. Then 3. they were caught trying to leave town illegally in the middle of the night, by stealth, while an inn was burning. 4. One of them murdered two Children of the Light under his father's command for the crime of defending themselves when a wolf attacked them. 5. That same one reappeared in suspicious circumstances in proximity to his father's death and 6. another Two Rivers woman attacked him and his companions with the One Power, using lethal force, in defiance of their organization's public disavowal of such things. In spite of this, he stood his ground and told them off when his companions fled.
Rafe Judkins read this guy's story and thought "These guys are such assholes. Let's have them arrest Egwene for no reason other than 'I saw you on two different occasions.'"
Also amusing is the fact that a large number of Questioners arrested Aviendha and caged her. In the books, the other Children are contemptuous of the Questioners, because they "never face an enemy who is not already in chains." Rafe & co are trying to rewrite the Children of the Light to make them utterly contemptible but keep accidentally making them more heroic and their opposition worse, while flipping the script on what they actually are, from an anti-Darkfriend watchdog group, to witch hunters and making their main witch hunter highly successful and at the same time utterly incompetent when on the screen.
It's the same thing with their depiction in the finale, where the show does not seem to realize how despicable Perrin's actions are when they are trying to adapt his conflict with the Children by merging the two inciting events (Perrin lashing out at the Children out of sympathy for Hopper, and Dain Bornhald blaming Perrin for his father's death) for, I assume, narrative economy. I mean, we needed a whole episode to establish Dana the Dumpy Darkfriend, who is literally the last Darkfriend to have ANY effect on the main characters' plot on the show, and Steppin the Irrelevantly Tragic Warder, who, contrary to all good faith expectations from season 1, did not serve any purpose in foreshadowing or laying groundwork for Lan's & Moiraine's estrangement this season. With two whole episodes given to those crucial new characters, plus invented & pointless womanhood trials and love triangles, there just was not time for Perrin to have his wolf introduction and initial conflict with the Children set up properly.
26:20 - Moron to Randy Al'Throbbing - "You did not defeat the Dark One at the Eye of the World. *You* set his strongest leftenant free."
Because, of course, in THIS show... it's Rand's fault.
Which explains Ishy's smirk as he... left... and the broken seal at the end of S1E8.
@@Nyet-Zdyes Haha! Rand should have come back with, "I have no idea what the Dark One looks like. I just did exactly what you told me to do, so it's technically your fault!"
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, but, you don't think that THESE writers would actually let a MAN say that... to a woman, do you? And especially not to Moron.
Horn of Valere, in the books, Turak says he would never blow the horn because the Empress, may she live forever, would see it as an attempt to grab power and she would have him killed.
Turak figured out how to open the box when others couldn’t and the motions are more subtle so no one could see the “combination”.
Fain brings Turak the box and meet Turak alone. The Ruby Dagger was inside the box, Fain wanted it, Mat still needed it to be part of his healing process.
@jsbrads1 Yes! Thank you for the reminders. I've actually skimmed book 2 again since these recordings, and, while I was editing this, I kept cringing at all the stuff I couldn't remember. But I wasn't about to re-record again. 🤪
In the Books, Ishamael was insane because he was stuck between the Bore and the real world. He believed himself to be The Dark One because he'd gone mad. That's why he's called B'alzamon in the books.
The problem is.... the show has not explained this... or even properly hinted at it. Lol.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS you have to read further in the books to find out what is going on with Ishamael in the show. That’s one change that I liked. You don’t want this spoiled so be careful.
@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS oh yeah, it's a serious issue. In fact, they don't even say the name B'alzamon once in the series. It's a strange ommission.
@@GrahamDayFortressofGeek it’s not a strange omission. They already know that he isn’t the dark one and know that he is Ishamael. In the books Rand didn’t know who Ishmael was until book 3.
@christianrapper5 not including that name is important to the lore and is strange. Especially since, up until book 3, he's usually called by that name.
Wow, there really is no element of this adaptation that is faithful to the books, is there? Not a single character that is who they're supposed to be. Not a single faction of group of people, either. Even the world itself is like a parody of Jordan's work, look at these Seanchan. Hell, look at these Forsaken.
It's definitely a fanfic, at this point.
Yeah, but they have to have the ethnic diversity and strong female characters that the books just don't have. Oh, wait...
@@bigjonS4 I feel like it's arrogance at the core. You would be hard pressed to find a more suitable setting if what you wanted to portray is a great variety of peoples, cultures, strong women etc. all that jazz. What it feels like is parasitic writing. It's not trying to adapt anything, it's trying to take something someone else made and make it theirs. Too bad the mark they left is brown and stinks. Checking the boxes that float around in their heads without humility, talent, or respect for what they're dealing with.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Funnily enough, i had gotten so riled up about this show that i'd started writing a comparative video script for a show vs book kind of thing (inspired by your work, really), ideally ending by scripting how a proper adaptation could have been handled. Book in hand, i went scene by scene with the show and ran the numbers. In Episode 1 of Season 1, there are about 9:25 minutes that i could describe as 'on book', however loosely. That's at least scene accurate, if not the contents of the scene. Out of an approximate 51:20 minute runtime, that's 18.34% of the first episode that's book accurate. There was never any hope.
@@bigjonS4 🤭
SWEET! Just getting ready to put my phone up and zonk, and this pops up. Guess sleep can wait lol
No no! Go get sleep! This one is not my sharpest.
@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS It was just fine. I enjoyed your insights. While I didn't like the whole family being added and taking valuable time away from our main characters that are woefully underdeveloped, I do admit that these parts were well written. Thats one of my big complaints. They have created some amazing side characters but neglected the main characters and botched them. It truly comes across as fanfiction.
@@toddjackson3136 They can never again complain that they have to cut stuff from the books because of time constraints.
You are totally correct about the Horn, anyone who blows it will summon the heroes of past and they will fight for them. That's why it was so important to get it back from Padan Fain. The Horn will be tied to the person who blows it for life.
*spoiler alert*
This is what everyone seems to believe but is confirmed in AMOL to be untrue.
@@bigjonS4 It is not confirmed, you forgot Matt got unlinked to the Horn after Rhuidean in TSR.
@@Mcgiver699 Spoilers:
Sorry but it is confirmed, Matt being unlinked has nothing to do with anything. There’s a conversation with a hero where they flat out say they would not fight for dark one.
@@smwad7103 That's the problem they can say whatever but they are bound to the horn blower. How do they know if the horn blower is a forsaken or not?
@@Mcgiver699 no they say they fight for the dragon regardless of who blows the horn. I suppose the hero could just simply be misinformed but I highly doubt it.
Edit to explain my doubt: the conversation takes place in the last book after the battle and to declare a falsehood to the reader at this point would serve no narrative purpose I can see and I’d question why the author chose to add the conversation at all if it weren’t true as why change the readers perspective on how the horn works at the conclusion.
1:23:04 Yeah that's right. The heroes will fight for whoever blows the horn. But it does gets attached to whoever blows it.
@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS The time and effort you put in your reviews for a show with a marked "that'll do" attitude is amazing. Your comments over the whole series have given me things to watch out for in my own writing.
When you said, "This episode was actually well written," I felt like I was taking crazy pills. But then you followed it up with, "I just didn't care." At that point, my sanity was restored.
Haha! The episode WAS written better... but that doesn't fix the fact that the all the characters and events are broken.
Written better in comparison. Not a high bar to clear.
lol agree here
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I was kind of shocked when you said that, and went back to my own notes, which I had posted on a message board on now all-but-defunct fan site (from the days when the series was still ongoing), back when the season was first airing, and I did note the much better ways the Seanchan scenes were written, even if the Moiraine stuff was down on Disney Star Wars levels of verisimilitude & plot consistency.
There is a website, The Fandomentals, which got very critical of Game of Thrones when the writing started getting really misogynistic in Season 5 and several writers on the site went back and analyzed the early episodes and found the flaws of the later seasons to be present much earlier than anyone remembered, once you analyzed them objectively without the halo effect of the good stuff and the Shocking! moments. I remember in particular, an episode early in Season 4, which was the last one written by George RR Martin, the books' author, and there were quite a few places in the script where they can see his care for the characters and attention to detail coming through, but many others where the sins of prior episodes and seasons were still manifest, suggesting that even an excellent writer, tasked with writing an episode after a bunch of bad ones, can't do much to turn the ship around.
@@Lunarectic no. It is not a high bar at all 🤦🏻♀️
I’ve loved your reviews so much, the show itself is such a travesty. Raif has no interest in retelling the story itself and even threatened views who were critical of how he was portraying Perrin that if they kept complaining he would have the writers make him gay. He even said he read the books last in the 90’s.
Brandon Sanderson confirmed Amazon just wanted their own Game of Thrones. There’s so much changed and just badly written there’s no way they can tell things that happen later in the books and have it make sense.
@@alex-gc5fv Thanks for the love 🥰 Yeah, I'll never understand how any current writer in Hollywood could assume they are better than one of the most famous modern fantasy writers of all time.
The feeling that I got and Sanderson said as much on another video out on RUclips where he sat in review of the season 2 finale is that they just don’t care and don’t really think much of what happens from episode to episode. So many characters just destroyed for the sake of drama equal to a terrible show you’d see on a show on the CW. Aviendha is just this episode’s example of a great character just broken by terrible writing.
They force so much for just the sake of drama and see what sex scenes or sexy comments that they just lost all sight of what their books were and it’s painfully obvious they just don’t care, they have Amazon money behind them, they’re doing the bare minimum to get as much of their cut as they can.
I feel sorry for Sanderson
I'm willing to bet that they offered him a Mistborn (or other) series if he helped, and Wheel of Time already has legal injunctions preventing the people involved from criticizing the IP
So he's stuck between the legal rock and the hard place of yet another attempt to get his books adapted
@@joesmutz9287 ugh.... I really hope that's not the case.
Thanks!
@bigjonS4 WoooHoo! Thank you! 😊 This really is so helpful! I hope I can keep up making videos you like.... but, sorry... 😬... I won't be skipping eps 6 and 7. 🤪
"it will be written across the sky" hahaha. Oh man, I had forgotten. so bad..
rawr.... am I right? 🤦🏻♀️
I can’t wait for you to get to the finale of this season. It was so bad I started just laughing half way through the episode
Strap in lads, it's go time
Lol... Not my best work. But at least it's done and I can move on.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I've been following you since before the first wheel of time review and although I can't afford patreon (middle aged full time student), I wish I could. You've never failed to disappoint. Keep up the great work, you're fantastic
@mordyth Thank you 😊 and just having a viewer that watches the whole thing helps a lot!
The Austin Powers edit got a good laugh out of me, well done! 😂
Hurray! At least there was one laugh in the audience! 🥳
The show clearly hates Nynaeve.
In the book, she is introduced as a powerful and influential person in the village, and even people who don't like her are impressed with her abilities, while people who resent someone so young wielding her authority, nonetheless are bowled over by her force of personality. We get to see that despite her coming on strong, the political opposition in the Mayor & Village Circle nonetheless defend her position and authority and do not think she's wrong. She demonstrates great competence in the aftermath of the Trolloc attack with her handling of the wounded, and then tracks the gang to Baerlon. She provides medical help to Moiraine when asked, tells Moiraine exactly what she is giving her for medicine and reassures Lan of her patient care ethics. Then she sneaks up on Moiraine & Lan after they are separated. Lan compliments her wood craft, is surprised by her sneaking up a second time and then recruits her for the rescue op based on his belief in her skill. Nynaeve rewards that faith by expanding intelligently on her assignment, and procures horses for the rescued kids to ride. She affirms the boys by recognizing that their willingness to face the Dark One in his dreams and go to the Eye of the World to save it makes them worthy of being recognized as men. We see her dancing at the inn in Baerlon to the surprise of her neighbors who never saw her dancing back in the village, implying she WOULD dance, but sacrifices that to the dignity of her office. When she discusses their feelings for each other with Lan, Lan refuses a relationship, saying that she is awesome and deserves better, and he can't be a proper partner to her. More than once, Lan is caught between his duty to Moiraine and his feelings for Nynaeve. When a Forsaken grabs her, Mat & Perrin ignore self preservation to charge to her defense. There is also a story about how Egwene was sick as a child, which is the revelation of how Nynaeve first channeled, and reveals to the readers how much she cares about her fellow villagers - the feat Moiraine said was something she wanted more than anything in the world, was to make a sick girl well.
In the second book, she is suspicious of Liandrin, while Egwene is jumping at the chance to accept the Black sister's invite to leave the Tower. When they arrive and the Seanchan come to take them, in mere seconds, Nynaeve recognizes the danger, channels to defend herself and escapes. She reassures Elayne who has a crisis of self-confidence over her own flight, then determines to follow the Seanchan to Falme. When the sheltered princess innocently wonders how they will afford to buy local garments to fit in, Nynaeve has a plan to trade their finery for more practical clothing, demonstrating a confidence in her ability to negotiate with the locals. They infiltrate the town, where Nynaeve studies the Seanchan while managing to pass unnoticed and eventually figures out how to open the a'dam. Then, she builds on Min's introduction to a disgruntled ship captain and convinces him to make a run for freedom in exchange for her protection. Next, she uses Min's knowledge of the facilities to plan and carryout an infiltration to rescue Egwene. When Egwene wants to murder her captors, driven by her trauma, Nynaeve talks her down, asserting the difference between violence and justice.
On the show, Nynaeve participates in a single, invented ceremony, with no obvious point. She does not lead the village in say, their prayers for the dead, doing her own prayers off by herself. The innkeeper's wife makes a speech to start the party, not Nynaeve, though she is present. Moiraine questions Nynaeve's supposed leadership by observing the lack of anything resembling leadership in her duties. During the Trolloc attack, Nynaeve tries to protect Egwene, but is ineffective, needing Moiraine's channeling to save them. Mat is more effective at protecting his sisters, Perrin & his wife are more effective at protecting the people sheltering in their place, and the Aybarras, al'Thors and the town drunk, Daise Congar, all do a better job of fighting back. (in the books, Daise Congar tore her husband a new one in public for daring to question Nynaeve) Nynaeve tries to help a villager, but he dies and she is dragged away from helping a second one, by a Trolloc. Her big accomplishment in the early episodes in killing a Trolloc, taking advantage of her familiarity with The Sacred Pool to get the drop on it. So we needed the Scrubbing the Sacred Pool scene to establish Nynaeve's familiarity and explain her advantage. Nynaeve has lived in the village more than 20 years. Did we NEED an explanation for how she knows the area better than an invader? The show writers clearly think Nynaeve is so loathsomely & idiotic that no one would believe she could do this, unless they set up an explanation in advance. Nynaeve is absent for a bit while the young people snark at what a disagreeable companion she would be if she were with them.
When she rejoins the story, Nynaeve does so by drawing a weapon on Lan while he tries to tend an unconscious Moriaine. Lan quickly gets the drop on her and ties her up and gags her, LOL no one wants to listen to this bitch. Then she withholds her medical expertise, refusing to help Moiraine until Lan does what she wants, and she spitefully refuses to tell him what medicine she is giving his companion, while baiting him to ask so she can refuse. Her aid is of marginal utility, because Lan finds Aes Sedai while looking for her herbs and they cure Moiraine. He shows no respect for her tracking skills, instead demanding to know how she did it, with the implication being that there must be some explanation. Nynaeve simply being competent is just not possible. Her tracking Lan comes up again while chatting with the warders, as another thing to mock Lan over. He is such a goober. He tries to train a horse and ends up getting dunked in a trough and he lets a guuurl track him! Haha! That is literally how it plays out. They ask how Nynaeve ended up travel with him, she says "I tracked him" and they all laugh like it's a punchline.
Nynaeve Heals several people after a fight, purely by accident in a spontaneous act of channeling. When she reaches Tar Valon, she defies Moiraine's suggestions for her safety, Loial finds her and brings her to see Rand & Mat, she arrogantly thinks she can handle Mat's dagger problem and tells Rand the story about Egwene being sick as a child. Only now, Nynaeve's channeling is nowhere to be heard of. The focus of the story is about how strong-willed and invincible Egwene is. Nynaeve is just a witness testifying to her awesomeness. Then Moiraine arrives to handle the Mat problem. They go through the Ways and Nynaeve again, spontaneously drives off the Black Wind, which has been similarly made less impressive than the books. This is not an act of determination or courage or willpower or intuition, it's just a thing that happens to Nynaeve, like a seizure. In the borderlands, she is seen whining ineffectually in the background while Rand, Perrin & Egwene fight and ignore her She stalks Lan, invading his privacy until he teleports out of a house to invite her to come in for supper. She barges into his room later that night to have sex with him. Lan uses a similar speech to his book speech about why he can't be the man she deserves and will not pursue a relationship with her, only this time, the basic subtext is wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. Not sufficiently humiliated, she reveals that he was right all along, she is nowhere near good enough to track him, she was actually tracking Moiraine. Then, when Amalisa, an amateur channeler conscripts the Two Rivers women, Nynaeve stands there, mute while Amalisa watches her brother & their army be slaughtered, than kill all her companions with her ineptitude. Nynaeve holds out long enough to save Egwene, explaining that she was motivated to save Egwene because of the unity of their braids as fellow Two Rivers women. Not because saving lives is an inherent good. So Egwene returns the favor by Healing her, meaning Nynaeve's special skill from the book is not uniquely hers.
In season 2, she is petulant and recalcitrant student of the Aes Sedai until she is sent through the Accepted test so the plot can happen, and is utterly incompetent, accomplishing nothing and needing the sheltered princess to give her several reality checks when they get there.
If you complain about Nynaeve, you are racist, because she is played by a black actress. When you compare the books and the show, the only way I see racism coming in to play here, is that a Klansman was hired to plot her show arc, and he saw she was being played by a black woman, so he gutted her of everything that made her great.
Cook!
How does Lanfear know the area well enough to be running a business in the city, and know the way to her isolated mountain cabin, and also have no idea where the adjacent major road goes, when it goes to the largest city in the known world and the center of power in this society?
That’s what I was wondering about the forsaken in the books. She probably just scouted the area after she was released and bought an inn from someone.
Hmmm.... not knowing where leads the main road of the stable is a problem, for sure.
The Seanchan should all be saying "may she live forever" everytime they say the word empress.
@@bobc538 Very much like ancient Chinese court.
Thank you for your videos, I always feel like you are explaining it to me personally and I love that:)
@charleshalvorson806 Haha. Sometimes I'm explaining it to myself, also. 😋
1:13:10 and another cut. We'll call this cut 1,257 (since this show is already dead to me). She expected Liandrin there hours ago... Who says that in their day and Age?
They travel by horses. They communicate by carrier pigeon. Communication across that distance takes weeks - and Liandrin would have arrived before any messenger could have. The only explanation is that she went to sleep *after* knocking out the girls, before taking them into the Ways (which is super risky) hoping that Ishy would also be asleep and she could communicate with him directly then.
Suroth isn't the least bit intimidated by seeing a rift in reality open into a world of darkness right in front of her - just wants to know why Liandrin is late. But the only reason she would know Liandrin was even on her way was through Ishy. And why would Ishy tell her a specific time to be at the gate by? And even if he did, he would tell Suroth to be there then, not tell her when Liandrin would be there and let her decide when to arrive.
Once again, nitpicky, but when there's so much to nitpick, it's hard not to.
I like to think what passed through Moiraine's head during the pause was "this is... Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo, no they'll never believe that. Guy Incognito? Damn it!"
🤣🤣🤣🤣 I should have dubbed that in.
So a couple of things:
You're spot on with what the Black Ajah is (they don't have to follow the 3 oaths)
Gaul is actually pretty important. Replacing Gaul with Aviendha has MASSIVE ramifications later on in the story. Both Gaul and Aviendha are relatively important characters and the way they've messed with what is essentially their origin in the story is not good.
The reference to dancing is important to Aiel culture which you will learn about later. The Aiel taking out multiple other wetlander(The Aiel term for the people who don't live in the waste) is a constant in the books. The Aiel are incredible skirmishers and work particularly well against basically anything other than large organized calvary charges. They are universally respected as incredible warriors. (That's a big aspect of why Rand's mom in the flashback scene at the end of Season 1 was actually pretty true to form for the books.)
Tying off a shield doesn't require the channeler to maintain it (in the books), but tying off a shield runs with it's own risks.
Basically, a lot of the stuff that they use they don't ever explain, but if you read the books you understand, but if you read the books you aren't interested in the show because it stopped being an adaptation so long ago and became just fan fiction.
Fiction from people who aren’t fans 😂 also Gaul becomes Perrin’s close friend, helps him many times as the story progresses. Do they expect Avienda to follow and help him going forward?
Also changing Gaul to Avi, will the Nynaeve and the gals help the Maidens too later and become friends, or are they erasing that whole thread.
"Fan fiction" is a rather generous description
@jsbrads1 careful with Spoilers friend. Pretty sure tSatPR hasn't read past book 5 or 6.
And if I had to guess, I think they want to remove another major female character from Perrin's story and replace her role with Aviendha, which screws up a ton of other plot lines for the Aiel layer on.
@@jsbrads1why would you put spoilers in this?
Avienda is obviously big. But I didnt know that Gaul was, too. I haven't gotten to that yet.
It really is a head-scratcher. Who were they making this show for? You can't understand the show, unless you read the books, but they change so much from the books that it has basically become its own thing. Ugh!
Machin Shin was attracted to Liandrin's weaving but then it saw her Jaw and said Nope.. Nope
🤣🤣🤣 She does have a magnificent jaw.
The main question of season 2 is who had the dumber plan: Moiraine, whose plan included a “never sleep again” phase, or Lanfear, who sent Bayle Domon to Moiraine so Moiraine would go and stab Lanfear through the heart… ?
Wait... Lanfear sent Bayle Domon in that first episode?
No.... they didn't say that, did they?
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS it’s revealed in the last episode, when Lanfear meets Master Domon in Falme.
@@bookcloaks oh! Right!....
But then... yeah... why????!!!!
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS maybe... maybe Lanfear never thought Moiraine would stab her through the heart/slit her throat, and then run away, because she would always be able to get revenge in the dream world. and making a plan with a "never sleep again" phase is just ridiculous. no one could be that stupid.
@@bookcloaks 🤣🤣🤣 no one could be that stupid 🤣🤣🤣
The Horn thing is misdirection... the good guys believe that the horn controlls the Heros. But you find out at the last battle from the heros that...of course they cant be compelled.
1:19:19 "she's so stupid! Thankfully a guy comes along and knocks them both out" 😂💀
Glad to hear you're still enjoying the books, my worry was that the TV show would put you off. As always thanks for your service, watching this show for us
Haha! You are very welcome! And yes. I'm enjoying the books much more than the show.
You are correct; whoever blows the horn will summon the heroes
1:22:43 so the Horn of Valere in the books - they don't clarify what the situation is with them being summoned until much later when the stakes are super high. But regardless, the good guys need the Horn or else they have no chance of winning the Last Battle. It's in the prophecies that they'll blow the Horn, and if any prophecy isn't fulfilled then all hope is lost - that's a massive difference between the show and books.
Turak believes he's supporting the empress (may she live forever) in defeating the dark one. So his thought with the Horn is that they can unite all of the nations that side of the Aryth Ocean under the Seanchan to fight with a unified force against the Dark One. In the books he doesn't blow the Horn because he believes it needs to be gifted to the Empress for her to decide when and where to blow it, and for her to decide who is allowed to blow it. In the show that's not made clear. Nor is it made clear why Ishy didn't just open the box himself and blow it. How would Turak have knowledge of an object from the Age of Legends that Ishy wouldn't?
In the book, the heroes summoned by the horn will only follow the trumpeter if they're on the side of Light. They make it sound like it has to be blown at the last battle for the Light to win, but the Dark One wants to get a hold of it so perhaps he can corrupt it somehow? The Seanchan is technically on the side of Light so the heroes would probably fight under their command if they blew the horn. In any case, if the Dark can keep it hidden then it's an advantage for them. As to how it works in this TV series... I doubt the writers have spared it a thought. It'll work in whatever way is convenient for the scene it's in.
I’m super late finishing this. The whole time watching through your S2 reviews, I just wish with all my heart that S1 had built a stronger foundation. From what I’ve seen of S2 (mostly all from your videos) they’ve put more resources into the costumes and locations and world-building, and put more into making it interesting to watch, but how can it ever correct away from some of the silly needless changes to the fundamental story and to the characters?
Super glad to hear that you’re feeling better by the way Amber ❤
The girls get caught subplot in the books is really quite simple. Liandrin tells them that she needs to take them (Egwene and Nynaeve) somewhere to help Rand with something. Since they care about Rand and Elayne overhears it through the wall, and Min is a friend, she and Min come along, and basically force Liandrin to bring them as well. They travel through the ways with Liandrin mostly keeping to herself (not being interested in getting to know them at all). When they leave the ways, they basically walk straight into an ambush arranged by High Lady Suroth (who is second in command of the Forerunners, the Seanchan who have landed in the area), where anyone who knows what he/she is hearing will learn enough to recognize both Liandrin and Suroth as darkfriends - and as allies by necessity who despise working together. However, since the ambush only expected to capture two channelers they're thrown off by the presence of a third (Elayne), allowing Nynaeve and Elayne to get away.
This plot highlights the naivety of the main girls at the time, and serves as a wake-up call to them that they shouldn't just trust everything people say to them, even if those people are Aes Sedai.
EDIT: The explanation that the Seanchan respect the one power so much is SO off compared to the books! In Seanchan, the women who called themselves Aes Sedai used the power to dominate other people. The Seanchan empire started because one of the Aes Sedai schemed in a way that involved giving the would-be-empress an A'dam and explaining how it works. The empire started off the back of that, with the idea that touching the One Power is basically evil and that anyone who does it is a dangerous animal that must be controlled with a leash for her own good (men just get killed) (guess how the woman who provided the not-yet-empress with an A'dam ended up?). This isn't respect for the one power. It is fear of its wielders.
Love your breakdowns!
Thank you 😊
My favorite Aiel sating is "Shade of my heart"
28:26 - "... to show us just how incredibly powerful they (the Forsaken) are, and what they are capable of..."
So we see a bit of that with Lanfear... but none of it from Ishy... who takes a fair heaping dose of disrespect from Suroth a bit earlier in the same episode.
That might have been a good time to have Ishy demonstrate their relative differences, and natures (ie, NOT good), by coming down hard on her disrespect, instead of being so mild-mannered and civil. (I'm thinking of something like how Vader responded to disrespect.)
@@Nyet-Zdyes I would have loved a force choke on Suroth!
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS a force choke is the weakest channeling in the wheel of time.I didn’t mind Ishy being uncover, that would probably work better with the Seanchan and the book depicted that later in the series also Fain was undercover.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, something like that... or what Lanfear did to the horse she rode to make it go faster when she was chasing Randy and Moron.
There's just no way that a person like Ishy would tolerate that kind of disrespect.
It's a zero sum game, what they are doing.
Suroth's disrespect makes her look st up id, in the intent to make her more bossy.
It's basically the same thing that they've done to Moron and Nynaeve.
@@jsbrads1 problem is, by now Fain should be batshit insane and decrepit(at least for now)
@@jsbrads1 But Suroth and Ishy were in private when she disrespected him... "The Dark One's most powerful lieutenant."
We learned that Ishy is the one who provoked/caused The Return.
It just doesn't make any sense that *either* of them would tolerate that kind of disrespect from anyone weaker than them.
Ishy is not a mild-mannered law-abiding citizen.
This was a missed opportunity to show that Ishy is both powerful, and evil.
A person like that would not respond so passively.
It's here 🎉
1:22:50 i just started book 4, so i dont know if this is stated otherwise later on, but the horn will summon the heros for whoever uses it, that is why they are in such a hurry to get it when the myrddraal stole it on the great hunt
At the end of book 2, the Heroes give strong indication that they would only fight for Rand. So I've picked up on some of that.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS i don't remember the scene exactly, but didn't he said "we fought alongside countless times" or something like that and then prompted him to raise the banner? as to say they recognized him as the dragon or lews? i didn't pick up that they will only fight for the light but read it at the beginning of this year so i might be wrong and im too lazy to look for it lol
@ilikecheese1415 I meant that I deduced this information. They seemed to be waiting on the banner.
Horn of Valere is discussed in the beginning of the books as fighting for who blew it.
Oh... excellent answer! Well done. (not sarcasm)
That is the legend that everyone in-wprld believes, but I believe they say later in the books that they come at Mat's call and obey him because he fights for Rand/the Light
I seem to recall it being said that whoever blows it gets the heros. However, once the Heroes arrived, they wouldn't fight without Rand and the banner. So... it just seems that the accepted myth had some flaws.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Yes, but I don't think you are supposed to know that yet... but it's not really a big spoiler, either.
Just remember that, for some time yet, some of the characters still think that all they need is the Horn itself, so it affects their thinking.
@@Nyet-Zdyes ok. Gotcha.
Y'know y'know y'know...i love your videos😂
@@DeadOfMind ugh.... I was not feeling well for 2 out of 3 of these recordings. Just pretend I was eloquent 😋
Bringing Avienda into the show this early and pairing her with Perin make absolutely no sense to me!
@@Raven9940 Time for all of us to "shut up and *enjoy* the show," I guess 😮💨🤪
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I miss logic 😭
The problem isn't that it's different than the books, the problem is that in the books the sisters are highly intelligent and cunning players of the game and in the show they come off as not so bright.
This episode is one of the ones where I realised I was enjoying season 2 and looking forward to watching the next one. I liked the bickering between the dark friends, and I liked Liandrin releasing the girls in a petty revenge. Aviendha was a favourite in the books and so I was disappointed with her portrayal to begin with. However, listening to this video in the background, whilst playing a game, I found myself actually changing my mind and finding the actress does do a good job with her. Gaul was a character I enjoyed as well though, and his bromance with Perrin was one of my favourite relationships in the books and so losing that is upsetting. I do wonder what they are going to do with her character and whether certain things get changed... From this meeting and the dialogue between them, I would not be totally against them putting a torch to Perrin's relationship with Faile and having Aviendha take Gaul's place at his side, leading to more. This despite Perrin and Faile being my favourite relationship in the books and the one I became most invested in. I believe a lot of people dislike Faile, but I always loved her as a character.
I too enjoyed the scenes between Morainne and her sister. For once it looked like she was letting herself be human. But what stole the show for me was Lanfear. I think the actress does a really good job with her, and despite not being the Lanfear from the books, it does appear that a lot more thought and care has been put into her scenes to create a believable villain. A shame I cannot say the same for Ishamael. I hate watching him pop up everywhere. He must be the most hard working dark friend out there, learn to delegate man. Having him behind every plot is just boring and unbelievable for me. I know Semirhage is not released yet in the show, but you don't need to have a chosen sitting on your shoulder the whole time to do your evil deeds. Her meeting up with Liandrin and mentioning their dark lord, like they do in the books, is enough to let us know she's a dark friend and leave it at that. Ishamael is just over used in my opinion. Allow others their own autonomy, their own purpose. In this show it appears that if someone stubs their toe, Ishamael was behind it.
But yeah, all in all I too liked this episode and started to garner hope for the rest of the show so long as I gave up entirely on it ever following the books. Although the last episode killed all that good will.
The Seanchan are not actually very trusting, it's just that oaths carry more weight in their society, and also, they have an extensive police/spy institution, which means uncovering treason or security breeches is a lot more possible for them. They are more like a modern society in that regard. They don't have as tight security as the locals are used to, because their people are less likely to be a problem and because they are VERY confident of their ability to find, catch & deal with transgressors.
The idea of their trusting nature comes from Min's (unreliable due to her own lack of perspective) assessment that "the Seanchan trusted everyone, until they broke a rule". Some readers also see the ease with which Rand & co penetrate Turak's HQ to get their hands on the Horn & dagger as proof Seanchan being trusting, or super-arrogant, overlooking that the High Lord and his guards are waiting there for them, and that he has been suspicious of Fain, since the man who was supervising him disappeared. They got in easily, because Turak had prepared a trap to catch Fain in the act. He needs some sort of proof, vis a vis the suspicions if he looks too ambitious. If he whacks the guy who brought him the Horn, the Empress is going to have some questions, so he needs to catch Fain in the act of trying to steal from him. And he probably can't hide the whacking, because of the secret police.
Min's own perception of the Seanchan as trusting comes from her own awareness of her society, that foreign conquerors would be keeping a tighter lid on things, not letting the newly conquered citizenry walk around armed, and to come and go freely. In this case, it's simply that the Seanchan have nothing to fear from them. They have a much more professional military system than anyone else in the known world, with high levels of discipline, standardized training and centralized logistics and intelligence. The local nations are rather backward from a military perspective (note that their world has small clocks that are sufficiently common that the keeper of a tiny inn in a backwater village can afford one, and has printing, but no gunpowder - in the real world, gunpowder & cannon were being used in Western Europe decades if not a century before those other inventions), and are barely organized at all. This was hinted at in Eye of the World & The Great Hunt, when people note how seldom the Queen's Guard (or officials like tax collectors) of Andor is actually able to make it out into the hinterlands, so that the Two Rivers are not even aware they are part of that country, and Ingtar talks about rulers being unable to actually control the territory they claim on a map. Meanwhile, the Seanchan have sufficiently advanced logistics and bureaucracy to raise, arm, supply & transport an expeditionary force across the ocean. NO country in the main lands of the series could actually manage any of that.
Except for the fact that they are all using muscle-powered weapons, and have the same level of technology, the Seanchan outclass the locals on a similar scale of European colonial powers to third world natives in the 18th-19th centuries, when comparing the resources and capabilities at their disposal. Plus, their flying creatures and combat-trained monsters like grolm and elephants, and, of course, the damane, give them comparable advantages to the technology gap of the real world colonialists.
ANYWAY, the point of this digression is that the trusting nature of the Seanchan is due to misconceptions held by many readers, which the show writers appear to have taken as the truth, that the Seanchan, with their impractical clothes and rigid society and indifference to "proper" security procedures, are rather incompetent, and depict them thus, rather than think about what a power statement the impractical clothes or "trusting" nature actually are - they wear impractical clothes, because you can't make them run or sweat. They are so powerful that they can wear long fingernails, because there is ALWAYS someone who can do whatever they wish and they are never inconvenienced by their fashions. They are so powerful that they can leave their new subjects relatively unguarded, because there is no way they can seriously hurt the Seanchan, who will see any revolution coming a long way off and crush it easily.
Very well said. An excellent explanation. And it makes total sense.
Sorta reminds me of the formations used by the British, and how the Americans won by hiding behind trees and picking them off one at a time. By many standards, the American revolutionaries were using disorganized and sub-standard tactics, but they used the British ways against the British, themselves.
I'm about to crash but like and comment. Will watch tomorrow!
What is up with the weird look for Turak? There was nothing in the stories that indicated he had such an odd look.
@@waltt69 At this point, if I keep sweating the small stuff, I'm gonna shrivel up and die. 😋 he has maybe 4 lines in the whole season, so whatever. I give up
Lol 🤦🏻♀️
You are so on point! It's just so hard to care about these characters or anything they do now. I feel like the show is just going through motions now. Note: i didn't say "the motions" because the story isn't nearly following WoT. The worst part is I WANT TO CARE.
Haha! Going through motions.
That it is. It's certainly doing.... stuff. 😅
Yup, Robert Jordan was inspired by the Fremen in Dune for the Aiel... Heavily inspired.
@@nyxian_grid I felt that. 😋
With one notable exception: The Aiel are Scottish
At least they're described with bright hair (red being notable) and extremely pale skin
I always loved how Jordan made his desert people be completely biologically unsuited for the desert. Gave them an extra layer to their durability when it comes to their survival
Too bad the show didn't bother with any of that
@@joesmutz9287 So many missed opportunities like this in the show. They didn't see the juxtaposition of Scotts in a desert.
It was also to deliberately contrast with the stereotype of "brown desert barbarians" that had popped up in the wake of Dune. Most characters in the books' skin colors aren't explicitly commented on, but given how the Aiel stand out and are white, we can probably infer that the "civilized" people are some shade of brown. It's a deliberate, subtle inversion of the stereotypes of the time (and, frankly, of today). And for all of season 1's faults, this is something they mostly got right: most of the people we meet are various non-white races, except our white redhead Aielman Rand.
And then they cast a black woman to play the most prominent Aiel character, and a white woman to play the daughter-heir of the central kingdom.
_sigh_
@@dowolf I will say, the mainlanders can't be that different
After all...Spoiler gap
Rand blends in after a bit of tanning. At best most people around Andor and Caernhein (not good at spelling) are Mediterranean, bronzish. But they can't be too much off-white or Rand would have been instantly noticed
I do think the Domani and...who was it next to them? were darker skinned. The Seanchan always struck me as Asian inspired (mostly through armor choices though. When I hear Insectoid helmet, my mind goes to the traditional Samurai design)
I don’t mind Moraine’s sister giving her advice, when someone is in a situation an outside perspective can help. Also recall that Moraine lived 40 yrs as a powerful Aes Sedai, Moraine’s recent powerlessness is not something she is used to. This was described in the POV of Siuan who actually was Severed in the book.
Good catch! I was mostly put off because the AS are supposednto be so strategic and thoughtful. It would seem to me that the motives and actions of an adversary would be something she considers.
40 years?? If I recall correctly there was that thing with Gitara Moroso in an office when Moraine was an Accepted ...
@@cobba42 the TV show decided to make moraine 60 or more, then the old woman is her younger sister…
@@cobba42 I believe you are correct.
Forget explaining the sealing of the Forsaken, how about the show explain just WTF a Forsaken IS!? The mentions in the show include Steppin the Tragic Warder doing his little stupid, made-up, pointless, waste of time bullshit incense ritual, and just some name-dropping and now Lanfear being identified as their leader, who cannot be killed with a weapon, but will regenerate a fatal injury. Someone who believed they are deities, or spirits or demons would not find any contradictory evidence in the script, all the way through season 2! There is NO mention of them being merely ordinary human Aes Sedai who went over to the Dark One's side. FFS, I don't think that at any point, they established that Ishamael was one of them and not the Dark One. I don't think they explained what the DARK ONE is! Again, a show-only audience might very well think the Dark One is just a dramatic name for some old enemy of the Dragon.
... and Ishy is so meek and mild-mannered. Really, he's such a sweet rug.
Lol. You're right! The show really hasn't explained this. It's so confusing. I don't know what the goal of the show writers was supposed to be? Did they write this for book fans only? But then why warp and twist the characters, world, and story so much? They were making this for an audience that does not exist.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Ah yes... "the modern audience"!
@@Nyet-Zdyes I don't get it. People still read WoT and love it just as it is. Changing something so loved makes no sense.
You are correct about the horn 1:23:26
Sweet! Thanks. 😊
@TheSwordAndPenREFLECTIONS Jordan said that the Aiel were based on the Bedowin of our world the desert nomads of the midle east n north africa (ergo their reverence for water) , but thought it would be ironic to give them the looks of the Irish hence taller and a lot of redheads , The biggest problem with Aviendha's looks is how the hell does everyone think rand looks like an Aiel when he looks nothing like Aviendha .As for the Horn of Valeire, the assumption the world has is that the hero's would fight for whomever blows the horn, and it is somewhat implied that this maybe the case with 2 exceptions, 1 the dragon is nearby 2 the dragon banner is nearby then they will serve the banner holder /dragon,
Re Rand & Aviendha looking similar: that's been broken since Episode 1.
Jordan described Rand as looking different from the rest of the Two Rivers folk due to his mother being an outsider, yet the show depicted the town as being a haven of diversity.
Growing up in a small town 80 miles from the nearest city myself I experienced a diversity of 2 main people/ cultures @ about a 2:1 ratio w/ a small handful of others thrown into the mix over the years. Now if one were to place that small town 80 miles past the far side of nowhere as the Two rivers is one would expect the population to be fairly homogenous. (For the record I also lived for a short time north of the arctic circle & can confirm that geographic isolation does not contribute to a very diverse population). But no... the show had to push DEI bullshit. Ironically when the trollocs attacked the town (you know, the monsters that Jordan DID describe as being diverse w/ no two looking the same) I counted 2, maybe 3 variations. At that point along side of certain casting choices I had already given up hope of seeing the show portray any of the characters "correctly" as Jordan described them.
@@TheFreeBass yes and no to rands looks, the big main differences that was pointed out was his eyes which he was really selfconcious of, they being Grey, and he was the tallest in the villiage but there were others quite tall too so he wasn't that put out with that one, and he wasn't all that selfconcious of his hair, meaning that there were other redheads in the village though not named ones, or at least it wasn't uncommon a sight for it to be a talking point, But when you get to the greater world, those things = Aiel when combined.
as for growing up in low diversity areas, i grew up in a town that when we moved there had 12,000 people when i left it had i think 30k, i met my first person of colour 6 years after i moved there in highschool, the primary school of 700 kids all white, and i lived all of 100k's from nearest city so yeah i understand what jordan was going for and agree that the show screwed up there and they could of had a lot of diversity and more than was in the show by making people from other areas people of different races, I mean i always took the Shireans as being Asian, the Ebudarians as being middle eastern, The Aiel were Irish, Cairhiens french, So yeah also with the population of the entire 2rivers area after a few thousand years Homogenious population would arive, i argued this with the Blue men of Kentuky that took only 150 years to make a main stay and then only 2-3 generations to disapear.
Haha! And the Fremen were also modeled after the Bedowin, I believe. It's not necessarily copying an idea. It's a logical place to take the culture of a desert people.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS absolutely, but yeah Jordan specifically named those 2 cultures as the inspiration for the Aiel ergo me passing on that info :)
@@SirBlaze75 👍🏻 I gotcha.
I just want to say I like your videos and your analysis a lot but this show was absolutely so painful to watch I could barely get through season one. I read the books and it just...it just hurts too much to watch this. I loathe this show. Anyway, I can only get through part of your video, I just can't watch more but good on ya for powering through it all.
Moraine could have taken the third horse.
This is unnecessary Darkness to make the world darker.
She definitely could have taken it. Great point!
I feel like it's worse than that. Moiraine and Rand were waiting in the woods for Lanfear to ride by. The only way that makes sense is if she killed the horse somehow knowing Lanfear was going to get another. There are faster ways for Lanfear to Travel, but the only way Moiraine and Rand hiding in the woods works out is she gets a horse.
1:16:20 hold up... I'm so confused with this moment!
Liandrin cuts Nynaeve's bindings... But Nynaeve can't channel because of her block. Egwene tells Nynaeve to do something... Even though she's been intentionally training to channel without the use of her hands so she's capable in a situation like this. Elayne is the one who actually does something... Even though she's the one who is still tied up *and* hasn't trained how to channel without the use of her hands. And she goes all out with explosions even though she has no idea how to make them. And all three were shielded - did the writers forget about that?
And the Damane they have with them don't shield all three girls why? And as you called out, why did they leave them there in the first place?
None of this makes any sense whatsoever. It's like they intentionally refuse to allow Nynaeve any agency, and Egwene is almost as stunted - and she's the *only* one who does something worthwhile in the finale.
Wow, I managed to find something I disagree with you on Amber!
Re: switching of "roles" between Nynaeve and Elaine. Sidenote, nothing to do with the books (its been 20+ years since I read them)
I like the switch (mind you, based only on how you presented it in this video, didn't eatch the show) because, although N is older, she is also from "the sticks" whereas E is a noble, probably very observant of markings, political affiliations, geography, etc. so I find it more plausible that she, as a city girl as well, would be the "smart one" in this situation. For her shorter years of life, she is almost certainly more worldly and overall better educated than N. Just my two cents!
Cheers, love your breakdowns as always, and glad 1) you are feeling better and 2) the show isn't taxing your mental health as much!
Oh, and that requested emoji: 😊
I could get behind that if they didn't see Seanchan soldiers walking around the city. Did she not notice what the guards looked like from those bad people who were chasing her? And also, Elayne explains the reasons they need to be discrete, and Nynaeve still tears off. She's not acting like she is in a foreign city and was just nearly captured by scary-looking bad guys.
1) yeah, I'm feeling way better. Still not 100%, though.
2) Haha. The show is just boring, at this point. The expense is mustering up the energy to be anything more than bored.
I'm really enjoying your recaps, especially since I stopped watching the show after season 1. It looks to have changed so much that I can look at it almost as a different story to the books. Definitely a better episode, in terms of interesting actions and character behaviour. Did they change the writers for this episode? In the books, whoever blows the Horn of Valere will summon the heroes of past ages to fight FOR them, making the fact that it is now in the hands of the Seanchan catastrophically bad. The whole Aiel / Fremen comparison is apt, but I think they're different enough. In the books, those who become Clan chiefs are made aware of what the sin is, when they take the test at Ruidean(sp?). Anyway, great recap, keep up the good work and I'll look forward to seeing the next livestream afterwards 🙂
Thank you! I do my best.
Yeah, the Horn is something the show has yet to explain. Lol. I think I've just realized that no one in the show has said what it does.... or did I foeget?
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I'm kind of like you in that I've forgotten if it got mentioned in the show. In the book, they mention Artur Hawkwing and the heroes of old being called back by whoever calls the horn.
@@davidrobertson5996 yup. I remembered the conversation with the heroes in book 2 😋
22:36 - "They probably did it to give Moron opposition..."
Yep... they were in the full throes Moron being a boss-b.
@@Nyet-Zdyes It was not at all needed. We understood the urgency already.
Slaughtering a spare horse… you tie it off so you can rotate it on a long ride… killing it makes someone think there’s some other plan or that the person who kills it is an idiot.
@@xeno-andrew yup. Keep one horse less tired. But.... no brains....
Just noticed from a clip, they are depicting the Damane as motivated and evil. The books describe Damane as compliant and supportive of leashing at most.
@@jsbrads1 Which clip? The one where the girl is pointing? I sorta thought that, too.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS yes, the young blonde girl. She also seems too young to be a trained Damane. At no point was a teen depicted as a trained Damane. They are captured as teens, but their training is probably not rushed, they are only depicted as working as adults.
Notice, that in the books first thing that is evident about actual Aiel, is that they are well-spoken and reasonable people, despite living by very different customs. And there is a hint that they spared Royal Library while razing Cairhien. Compare this with... that.
Oh no, i had forgotten those nails. Those nails described as being about an inch long..
They had a bunch of us wondering how Turok was capable of wielding a sword to face Rand.
Guess the joke was on us, eh?
As awful as the Seanchan can be, even they deserved better than this..
Also, perfect quote @1:07:35
"I have no idea what they're doing with this."
Basically sums up the entire show's process.
Lol. Yeah. It would be super hard to do ANYTHING with your hands with those nails. They couldn't have a swordfight. It would have been ridiculous.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS You need to WAFO what they did with the 'sword fight'...
@bigjonS4 oh no... I know. I've seen it.
🤦🏻♀️
I have actually theorized that the reason we don't have a sword fight (though I'll believe it's because they still haven't found a choreographer or their actors can't actually do it because pretty much all of the fight scenes except the silly one with pregnant Tigraine have been washed out so you can't see what's going on) is that they gave them freakishly long nails not thinking about having to have fight scenes and then got to that and had to do something, so they "fixed" their costume error by having Rand do multiple precision strikes with the One Power after having spent all season building a narrative about how he can't find anyone to train him with the One Power. The whole show really feels like they make up what they're doing on every frame with no thought to the next one.
23:40 I wonder if Moiraine has been feeling this same feeling of urgency and desperation (over the end of the world and everything, more conceptually) when she's done annoying things previously? or perhaps that was one of the writer's intent, but it got lost among other writers doing stuff/producers/whatever. they mention how she feels the urgency of things in S1, but i don't remember FEELING that so much (but it's been a while since i've seen an episode of this show tbh)
Well... she didn't seem to be feeling it when she was washing her clothes in her bath. Lol.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS haha that's for sure. the theory doesn't really hold up there (and in a bunch of other places, i'm sure). i'm trying to reason with how they portrayed her, but that may be a silly quest in itself lol
regardless, they could've given her a sense of ruthless urgency while still making her likable. even with the stable scene, which was more understandable for viewers, they still could've had her leave a pouch of money or something (as you mentioned). it sucks because i like the book character and i adore the actress... i wanted to love her tv version so bad :(
@no_i_dont_want_no_slugs don't try to figure out the reasoning. They have repeatedly broken logic, so you'd just be tying your brain in knots.
It's always hard to separate writing and directing from performances, but I'd say the writing is what's really crappy in 95% of this portrayal kf Moiraine. The actress is fine. I've loved her in other stuff. She would be a great Moiraine.... if she had a great Moiraine to play 😋
Talking of the heroes journey reminded me of this series I read where in the first book the hero went around gathering his heroes to go tackle the big bad. The usual story of early fantasy. You grew to love all these people. They got there and entered her domain. They got separated and everyone but the main character got turned. So he escaped at the end, so despondent that he had to start all over again. He had already picked those he thought were the best. And with the next group have to fight these people we learned to love and root for. I can't remember what the series was called and maybe if someone does they should put a whole bunch of spoiler space because this could be almost any hero group epic journey book. Definitely not where I expected this hero journey to go.
1:10:50 the "I've broken many more than that" line was intentionally confusing just to pretend Liandrin is a threatening baddie. Almost every line from all of our villains that are threatening sound like they're coming from children trying to sound threatening. It's like they don't have any idea how to intimidate, or how someone who is threatening would actually act in those situations.
@jeremyvanneman8112 In this particular case, I felt like she was being self-reflective. But it was a weird thing to say, because it didn't make any sense. Why not say, "I've done far worse than breaking the three oaths."
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS that would have totally fixed it. Simple changes to avoid confusing and pointless flaws. Just a single editor in the room who knew how to do their job at all could have made this show potentially watchable despite the differences.
It's kind of ambiguous as to whether or not Ishamael believed himself to be the Dark One. If you pay attention throughout the first three books, Baalzamon never once refers to himself explicitly as the Dark One, and always refers to the Dark One in the third person.
A lot of the stuff Ishamael was doing as Baalzamon was not with the One Power, but rather power specific to the Shadow. So when he is telling Rand that the Great Lord cannot be defeated in their final duel, he is not saying "I can't be defeated, I am the Dark One" but rather "The Dark One has my back, I can't lose."
@@Gunleaver I picked up on some of that. But not all. But from Moiraine's perspective, it was uncertain, I seem to recall.
Ishamael definitely let others believe he was the Dark One, certainly the Fades and Trollocs. Rand believed it thru the first three books.
Ishamael is later said to be somewhat mad because he experienced all 3000 years he was imprisoned, he guided the Fades and Trollocs, maybe even entered the dreams of the Black Ajah and Darkfriends.
@@jsbrads1 But he never claimed it himself. The fact that, if he was intentionally letting them believe he was the Dark One, he was careful never to directly claim it, indicates that he was of sound mind, and therefore, not delusional about his own status.
We also don't know what he let the Trollocs & Fades believe. If they can identify a Forsaken by the Dark One's link to the Chosen, they might not know the difference between ANY Forsaken and the Dark One, or else they would certainly sense that Baalzamon is marked as a Chosen. In the books, Baalzamon is stated to be BELIEVED to be the Trollocs' name for the Dark One. It isn't ever confirmed, because we never get a PoV of them. It's just that experts or observers of Shadowspawn note them using the name Baalzamon and assuming from context that they are referring to the Dark One. So Baalzamon is believed to be a name for the Dark One, by people with bad information.
It is said more than once that not even the Forsaken dare to lie about anything connected to the Dark One. Ishamael would never impersonate the Dark One unless he was far from his right mind. But his language is too careful to be that of a deluded nutjob who thinks he really is the Dark One. If he did believe that, he would have just said so, but he never does.
@@Gunleaver all true, but when a person is present, they know if that person is a Forsaken, the flickering image outside of Shadar Logoth in book 1, they wouldn’t be able to sense the person’s Forsaken status.
@@jsbrads1 Who says?
You pointing out the flaws of the show just makes me like it more😭!
Haha! Glad to make the show more enjoyable!
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Light protect!✌️👌
1:12:53 here's another good example of a subtle flaw that's in literally every moment of this season just as much as the last. It's the death by a thousand cuts.
The Seanchan have to unload the girls... But Liandrin had to load them up herself one at a time? And how did she knock them out so easily? The one power? What about machin shin? And if she did it physically, did none of the girls think to even attempt to overpower her? How did she know exactly when they would wake up (and how did she know she wouldn't kill them with yet another blow to the head so soon?
Speaking of which... Three times being knocked unconscious by the end of this episode with very little time conscious... How do Elayne and Nynaeve not have concussions?
And as far as writing goes, it seems like you're trying to find things to enjoy so these reviews aren't as painful, but it's so lazy for these writers to quite intentionally and directly take away all agency from their main characters. They walked into a hallway with Liandrin of their own free will (last episode), and tried to escape the Seanchan a few days later - but literally everything else was something beyond their control that happened to them. Perrin might spend all his time walking, but at least he had three significant moments of agency. Rand had none - he just did what Moiraine told him to - after she blamed him for doing something horrible when all he did was what she told him to. Mat wasn't even in the episode. Our main protagonists are just along for the ride I guess - no need for agency when the writers just need you to get to the right spot and have a conversation before something else happens to you.
@jeremyvanneman8112 It's certainly difficult to get attached to characters who don't choose to do things. Lol.
So much for going to sleep. Let's get this popsicle stand on the road.
@christiansorensen7567 oh gosh! No!. Get sleep. Watch later.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS I finished! Gonna keep it short but Moraine's family is not like that. Her father is actually a good man who shuns corruption; one of the few in fact. There is no nephew, but a female cousin who plays a key role later. The showrunners are pure evil. Robert Jordan loved horses, and they are official characters. Ask me who is best girl? Bella, the horse. He would never allow such cruelty to horses in his books. (Battles and one-power results aside.) I'm afraid the animal abuse is another intentional departure meant to slight the author. Perrin is supposed to meet his Aiel BFF in the cage, not Avienda. (All Aiel who enter the sacred city learn about their past in a terrangreal. So her line is dead wrong.) Major consequences in plot now. Add the oaths and oath rod being messed up, Uno getting killed, most characters not in the correct spot- "You ruined it!" (You aren't wrong about the Horn assumptions you made. The author wrote it that wayThe pserson who said you were wrong is half-spoiling, because there is a catch.)
I should mention that more-or-less every non-reader review or watch along seems to think that Ishy and the Dark One are the same person;. You're right, the show does basically nothing to distinguish them. The whole point of him calling himself "Ba'alzamon" was to indicate his madness and create that confusion for *the characters*; every book reader knows about the Forsaken from the end of the first book, and for absolutely sure by The Dragon Reborn.
I watched your video on The Wheel of Time and tolerance for bad writing and I really enjoyed it. Your approach, that of a book editor, is rather unique and I liked it a lot. You did an excellent job of pointing out some of the serious flaws in the show. Then, I watched a couple other Wheel of Time reviews you did and it quickly became obvious that although you are reading the series, you don't know it well enough to compare the tv series to the books. You get too many things wrong and "I don't remember and I don't care" really doesn't make for an engaging TV show review. (You also need to understand that the show writers are not trying to adapt the series book by book. That is impossible. Instead, they are trying to adapt the series as a whole. And I'm not saying saying they will do that successfully.) For instance, there are some things that happened in the first book that we are apparently going to see in season 3.
I hope this doesn't sound overly critical. I just think that for the time being, your reviews would be better if you refrained from comparing the show to the books and just evaluated the show on its own.
For the most part, that's what I'm doing, now. There are still some comparisons that can be made, considering the cuts and combinations we are seeing in the show. For instance, I'm about 1/5th of the way through the books, at this point....
Spoilers
Rand is a commander of a large group, is meeting with the Aiel, has acquired the Sword of Callandor, the girls are well underway in their hunt of the black aja, Perrin has a girlfriend and has returned to the 2 rivers, Thom has been hanging out with Rand and the lords and has agreed to a mission for Moiraine, and there has been a coup at the White Tower, in which Siuan has been stilled and Logain has joined forces with Min and Siuan. The show has really only covered events from book 1 and 2. The pacing of the show is not ideal, unless they are aiming for 14 seasons.
The show should be much further along in it's story if it really does intend to compress and adapt the whole series.
The greatest criticisms that can be made, however, are to the major foundational changes being made, as well as the sloppy writing from scene to scene. Season 1 was definitely worse, but screwing up the start is extremely hard to recover from later on down the road.
Re the Whitecloak recognizing the ring as Two-Rivers' work. That's a bit sus. At least in the books, yes, The Two Rivers is secluded and fairly isolated. However, peddlers (like Padan Fain) did visit and buy things. The Two Rivers was known for 2 exports, Wool and Tabac (Tabacco). One thing they get right is Bornhald and Valda were together, but not in Falme. They were over beseiging tar Valon.
Bornhold's Father was the one to capture Perrin and Egwene. Bornhold's father is the one to lead the legion to attack the Seanchan at Falme (which does happen in the show). Bornhold's father tells one of his lieutenants, Child Byar, to watch and report what happens. This is how Child Bornhald (the son) learns of his father's death and through Byar's fanatical assumptions, blames Perrin and chases after Perrin for the rest of the books.
Yeah, this stuff the show definitely deviates from.
It would be a spoiler to explain what the "sin" is , but it is book accurate on that point. It is not common knowledge to the Aiel. There is also a book reason that they do not know.
Yes... and she (S&PR) is getting VERY close to learning that reason...
Last I heard, in her reading progress, she was reading where they were at Rhuidean.
I believe I just completed this section in book 4. But I recorded this before then.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS So you now know the history of the Aiel? Which by the way are two of my favorite chapters in the entire series.
Omg yeeeees!!!
😅 Reel in that enthusiasm... this one is... not the best.
I may be late to the party and I apologize if this issue has already been addressed. That being said: Yes, it's established within the books that it's a common practice amongst the Aes Sedi to tie off weaves. Case in point: Moraine sets multiple warding weaves (then ties them off) during the flight from the Two Rivers to protect the encampment. Most notably in Shadar Logoth. Another example (of significant importance) is the tied off warding weaves that protect Callandor from being wield by anyone aside from the Dragon Reborn. Despite the fact that the people who created that weave being dead for approximately three thousand years, the weave still held.
I definitely recall her setting wards and protecting their dreams.
That's one of, if not the major points of contention in this episode that irritates me...Maybe it shouldn't. I honestly can't remember if the ability to ward your dreams was taught to Rand by Moraine or (Spoiler). To be honest, it's been at least fifteen years since I've read the books.
Ah, yes. Now I remember her guarding their dreams within her proximity. Fair point.
@caleba5748 I know she told the boys to always resist the dark one in their dreams. To deny him. Rand always did this, even before he got those instructions.
Ah! Now I remember! Moraine was capable of protecting the group from The Dream World via "dream" wards for the males within her proximity but unable to teach them how to do that themselves due to the stark contrast between Saidar and Saidin (forgive the possible/likely misspelling, I'm spitballing here). It took (Spoiler) to teach Rand how to do that in book five.
This episode of been actually pretty good shocking
Haha. By "good", I mean that it was better than the trash we've had in the series before it. So.... take from that what you will.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS admittedly the standards of the show of pretty low so it wasn’t hard to achieve a good status.
@@bryanmcclure2220 truth!
I agree with you 100% that this show is broken. They have broken too many rules that govern the world of the Wheel of Time and made too many big changes. What's the point if you can bring the dead back, what's the point if one that uses the one power can heal himself/herself, what's the point when they've killed off key support characters. The butterfly effect of these changes would mean endless changes in the future. Kind of like when someone lies to cover something up, then they have to lie again to cover that up, then another and another. Before you know it, the whole world is completely different from the original.
Exactly.
It's not only reached the point where Frankenstein has no more human parts, but jt also can't walk or breathe. It just doesn't work anymore.
You asked how Two Rivers work is recognized but that's literally how trading works. The people from a certain region don't have to leave that area in order to trade goods prevalent in that area. There's plenty of towns nearby to sell to and peddlers to take their goods farther still.
Just look at the silk trade in our own history. People in Europe have never seen China or silkworms, but they still recognized the craftmanship and design from there. Same with any other traded goods.
It wasn't the fact that their work is recognized. It's that it has happened twice, now, as if their work in metal craft and rug weaving is world famous. If that was the case, there are much better ways to present that. For Elayne, I could see her having been educated in this sort of thing. Plus, it was a woven blanket, which could easily be very distinct... like the difference between a Persian rug and a MExican blanket. But for Bornhold, recognizing the designs on a simple silver band (ring) that he wasn't holding in his hand to look at more closely, I didn't believe it. I mean, when most people look at a jacket, they aren't able to recognize the difference between a Chanel and an Armani. Communication is much better in our real world, and probably 90% of the first world civilians know that Chanel and Armani are fancy designers, but only a small percentage can tell the difference between the two just by looking at them.
This dropped JUST as I was going to bed, so I am late for this, but this: 17:14 is exactly what I was worried about from the beginning. Because of how intricately woven Robert Jordan's series here is, any deviation will make the story hard to follow for the books' fans, and potentially ruin the experience for viewers with no context. A lot of the fine details you get are foreshadowing and hinted at clues for later, much larger events that are simply not present in the amazon series. These are very essential parts of story telling because it sells the lie that immerses us in these worlds. It's a psychological trick. You have that euryka moment when you see the plot unfold and all the little cogs you've noticed fall in place. Then magnified when you revisit the story and notice all the even finer details that show you the signs were there from the beginning. Without these the story has no depth, becoming 2 dimensional and flat. It's essentially a trace out of a more magnificent painting. It becomes a series of "And thens" that move the "heroes" along a path to victory.
I could go on about how these changes are bad for the show, but then much of that would get into spoiler territory. Suffice to say, these show runners have already changed, altered, and injected too much into what was otherwise a near perfect outline for a series if done correctly. I am going to get back to watching now. I just had to stop here because The Court of the Nine Moons was probably one of my favorite plot points in the books. This is one of those examples I have of things not being apparent till you revisit, because it was foreshadowed in book 2 if I recall. Maybe book 3. Something so early and so subtle it took me 3 reads to pick up on it back then.
Edited for 21:00 this is stated in the book as impossible to do with the magic system Jordan works with. Casters CANNOT use the power on themselves in this way. Any caster can only heal other people and cannot reverse death. Being able to use the power in this way breaks the rules in a way that breaks story elements like Warders. If casters can now heal themselves from mortal wounds, what's the point of Warders?
45:30 The problem here is that the actress is not only very good at her delivery compared to everyone else in this show, but her speech patterns and word choice are all out of place. The problem is SHE is book/period accurate and no one else is. If anyone remembers the show Spartacus: Blood and Sand, that show is a good showcase of actors understanding the goal. Everything about their speech down to word placing and cadence was tailored for their period. If even 1 person spoke modernly, they would seem entirely out of place in that show. This scene is showing you the same thing but in reverse.
Oh! I like that observation about the Verin actress being period, when no one else is. Makes perfect sense.
And you are so right about the casters not being able to heal themselves. Someone in some past comment suggested it was some other thing.... bit I don't know what that other thing is, and it might be a spoiler.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS It is a really jarring contrast to see what it could have been, right next to what it is, all in the same frame.
I know what they are referencing, and I had that thought as well. It would still break the rules, and also put forth new plot holes on top of it. I am leaning to it not being the case though, simply because that would require the show runners to have not just read the entire series, but also understood everything well enough to slip this in. So far I don't feel that's the case. Regardless, it shouldn't even be possible yet. For reasons.
@@RndmBad figures they would possibly make it something else, but still screw up rules.
I don't think the show succeeds as much with Moiraine and her desperation, this is really just shallow depictions that they are not thinking through. If Moiraine is confident enough to wield the sword to kill a horse, why not chop up Lanfear? It should take her at least a little more time to heal if you have tossed her head onto the roof. Secondly, Moiraine clearly had no idea that the stable was even there, so she is taking Rand in an unfamiliar direction, which is really dumb, or she did know it was there, and did not bother to secure a transportation. Moiraine came on foot, and approached the cabin on foot. This is clearly not a situation where "every second counts" because she had to know that they have been alone together in this cabin for hours. The odds of a delay to acquire horses ahead of time causing her to arrive too late to save Rand from Lanfear, are vanishingly small. And in any event, the delay to secure horses is better placed before she attacks Lanfear, rather than after, when the Forsaken will be chasing them. So if she came near the stable, she should have had horses ready. And if she did not pass near the stable on the way to the cabin, she was an idiot for running off in a direction she did not know, and does not deserve any credit for surviving thanks to blind luck.
This is a thing people think of all the time in the real world, except they do so with cars, etc. "How am I going to get there/back?" is the first thing on anyone's mind when they go out to do a task. It's just not what lazy writers think when moving their characters around, because they will just teleport them to wherever they need them to be. Robert Jordan, for example, in Book 1, when rescuing Perrin & Egwene from the Children of the Light, has Nynaeve thinking about their number of horses and the number of people who will need to ride, once she realizes that Egwene is here as well as the boy Moiraine has magically tracked. She alters her mission to secure extra horses for Perrin and Egwene, because that's sensible.
Also, Moiraine cutting the horse's throat was REALLY stupid, because horses are not motorcycles, contrary to what lots of shitty fantasy writers think. They get TIRED. That's why people with the resources had this concept called REMOUNTS. And if she knows that Lanfear can regenerate mortal wounds, how does she know that Lanfear cannot resurrect the horse she kills? Taking the horse solves both problems. And let's talk about this stable in the middle of nowhere. Why would a stable be there? Because people often come by with horses, often stop there and need a place to keep the horses! It's very likely someone else will be along, and that this area is not at all too remote for Lanfear to find other transportation options.
But, Moron HAD to delete the 4th horse! 'Cause she's such a boss, don't you know?
Bahaha! You pointed out so many silly things the show got wrong. How the hell Moiraine got to this cabin is a big one. Lol.
Moiraine is hardly in books 2 & 3. Big problem with casting your 'star' in a relatively minor book role.
I hope someday you find a show to review soon that is worthy of your attention and efforts. I feel like you’re better than some of these shows.
Changing who perin saved from the cage and who he goes off with is another big change that will cause ripples far forward
I suspected it would be. SMH
I think they are going to get five seasons, max. I wouldn't be surprised to see it canned before season 4 though. This means that the huge (HUGE) plot holes they are creating for very cheap dramatic effect probably won't matter to the overall story.
@bigjonS4 My bet is no S5. I will be amazed if we get an S4, but there's no way we get am S5.
I’ve seen a few snippets of your reviews here and there. Watched all of season 1. And the more I see the more I’m disappointed at the number of *fundamental* changes to the basic world building and story of The Wheel of Time that have been made.
@tinyfishhobby3138 It just gets worse and worse at deeper levels. This is a casestudy in what NOT to do in adaptations.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Exactly. The entire story was laid out right there- all they had to do was follow it and not screw it up and they couldn’t even manage that. I understand that some changes need to be made for a tv adaptation but what’s happening here is way beyond that.
1:10:10 the whole "the girls are shielded and unconscious in the Ways with horses" nonsense is why there's no chance I'll be coming back to the show. It's the perfect storm of directly contradicting what they've established earlier and for absolutely no reason.
In the books there's no problem with horses being in the Ways, and Liandrin doesn't reveal who she is until they get there - so it all makes sense.
In the show horses can't go into the Ways... Because of budgetary restrictions?... And Liandrin can shield the three and tie it off, but they couldn't do that to Logain last season because...? And she got them all onto horseback, out of the city, up steep stairs on horseback, and partway into the Ways, took them off the horses herself (because she couldn't channel them down due to machin shin), and then they woke up? And she was going to continue to load them herself why? And they were going to go with her why? And if they were going to go with her willingly (because she's the only way out unless they remembered how Moiraine opened the Ways) then why handcuff them and make her job so much more difficult?
It's just a series of questions and logical flaws solely because they wanted the reveal to happen too soon... Just so they could have this dumb back and forth with Liandrin to make her more likeable - at the expense of Nynaeve looking even more dumb and unlikeable. These writers just have things they wish they could change from the books and do it regardless of how little sense it makes or how much it screws everything up because they think it'd be "interesting" or "cool" to do it that way. Nothing is earned, nothing is built up, nothing is exciting... It's just a series of hopefully enjoyable individual scenes that are irrelevant in context.
@@jeremyvanneman8112 Contradicting their own changes is probably the most baffling and sloppy inconsistency of them all.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS yeah, and I've noticed it more in the second season than the first. It's like they want the books to be canonical at any given moment, then change them from the books when it's convenient. But they forget when they've done it in the past and what that'll mean for context within the show itself.
To clarify, in the books, Lanfear and Lews had broken up long before she became a darkfriend. They broke up, I think it was decades, before The Dark One was released at all. Making it out that he callously broke her heart and that drove her evil does a disservice to both their characters. Above all else, even above Lews, Lanfear loved power. That was her driving motivation. Yes, she would love it if Lews fell to the Shadow and joined her, but if made to chose between her power and her love, she would choose her power every time.
I like this explanation. And it sounds much more like Book Lanfear than Show Lanfear.
First time I've been this early... "posted 2 minutes ago"...
The early bird catches the early reply! Well done 😋
My reading of the "And I know why you swore your oath to the Dark" line is that it's important because the Dark One only tells Chosen (Forsaken) about people's oaths. They have a very strict hierarchy and he's at the top of it. So she's saying he's not of the Blood so he serves at her pleasure because she's so important and he's saying he's one of the 13 (in the books) most powerful servants of the Dark One and doesn't care. There are a bunch of problems with this, though. First, the show never tells us the only way he could know that is to have been told by the Dark One directly and thus have pretty much ultimate access and power within the Darkfriends. More importantly, though, why did she grant him so much access and deference so far if she didn't know where he stood among the Darkfriends? The Seanchan also have a very rigid hierarchy (which they do show) and her elevating someone who isn't Seanchan and probably wouldn't have sworn fealty to the Empress to be her right hand man and dictate her actions is politically only makes sense if he has something else over her, which this scene makes me think he didn't until this instance (unless she somehow forgot that he's a demigod who can kill her at any point with no repercussions)
@christophercraig3907 Oh okay. They hierarchy thing makes sense, now. But, yeah.... why did she do anything for him if she didn't know what level he was? 🤪
My notification was 30 minutes late.
Imma write youtube a formal complaint
@Trintron46 Haha! While you're at it, ask them to mark ALL copyright violations in a single upload, instead of just one at a time. If they would just do that one thing, it would save me days of work.
Oh! Good catch on the higher rank requesting. Definitely not a thing in these scenarios.
That's the most frustrating thing; there are bits and pieces of this show that work, but it's ruined immediately by another mistake, glad you're feeling better, and hopefully the remaining 3 episodes won't make you want to break anything important in your house.
Hahaha! Yeah, the show didn't do the greatest job with consistency and continuity. Really frustrating to get an episode done well that had poor setup and even poorer followup. SHM
Im not 100% sure but, i think that a tied-off weave would still attract Machin Shin in the Ways. In the books, any use of the One Power in the Ways, including tied-off weaves, can attract Machin Shin. The Black Wind is drawn to the presence of the One Power itself, not necessarily to the act of channeling. Therefore, even a tied-off weave would still pose a risk of attracting it
That was my thoight, too.
In the books, Ishamael was not fully sealed away and it's heavily implied in the first or second book that he was involved in the creation of the Seanchan and that he orchestrated the return to take place close to the Last Battle.
I like the actor for Ishamael but he reminds me a lot of Nandor from What we do in the Shadows and it's kind of distracting. Also, Suroth looks a combination of Feyd from Dune 2 and the Red Wizard from the Dungeons and Dragons.
Also, the changes they made with the Forsaken doesn't make sense. In the books, the Forsaken are not unkillable and there actually used to be like almost 100 Forsaken. The 13 Forsaken in the books were sealed along with the Dark One in a desperate gambit. Changing that causes all sorts of problems because if they had been able to capture the Forsaken separately, then there shouldn't have been a need to seal them. They could have executed the Forsaken using balefire. Unless the show also changed that. But even assuming the Forsaken can regenerate from balefire, then what's to stop them from chopping the Forsaken into 10,000 pieces and spreading the pieces across the world? They can't regenerate if their heads are chopped up into bits and buried under the oceans and mountains or thrown into space.
Bahahahaha! I had a WWDITS clip in my erased version of this episode. I'll be putting it in the next one, I think.
That show is underrated.
I think it might have been answered, but just in case.. the legend of the Horn says that it summons the Heroes to fight for whoever blows it. At the end of Book 2, we learn that the Heroes are bound to the horn, but they fight for the Dragon (or they follow the Dragon's Banner), and since you've read book 3, it is there that we learn from Siuan (i believe) that it is bound to the blower of the Horn for life.. The general population does not know these parts about who the Heroes fight for or being bound for life... presumably, neither to the Forsaken, since their lackies thought the horn could be useful to them.
Someone suggested the Dark One might have wanted it to figure out a way to taint it somehow. I like that idea. But the show didn't come up with it, so..... 🤷🏻♀️
The fact that halfway thru season 2 viewer still had barely any idea about what exactly the problem with the Dark One or wha it is, and who are the Forsaken... for me it says that showrunners and writers had no idea of what is the main conflict of the story and what differentiate good guys from bad guys.
The heroes of the horn can only fight for the light. But that is not revealed until almost the end of the last book by the heroes themselves. Up until that point basically everyone believes that they could be called to fight for the shadow if a darkfriend were to blow the horn.
Uh... spoiler warning?
Oooh! Ouch! I'm not sure I like that. Sort of like... "surprise! You guys were never in any real danger all along!"
😬
But it was strongly hinted at in the end of book 2, when the Heroes are waiting for the banner to be flown.
There is no reason to kill the horse. It makes no sense. Take it as a remount.
That would have been the smartest thing to do. Lol.
The idea that they somehow combined Aviendha, Gaul, and Faile is a horrifying thought. I could buy it if it was Gaul and Faile. Still weird... but maybe. But throwing Avi into the mix just messes with too many things in my head to even begin to unwind.
As for the Horn of Valere confusion:
In the books, so no idea how it will be in the show, the Heroes say they fight for the light and follow the Dragon's banner. It seems like they are under no compulsion to fight for the horn-sounder unless their goals align.
However, no one alive really knows how it works so they assume that if Evil gets the Horn they get control of the Heroes.
I am making this prediction now.... there will be more love triangle drama.
Ugh
.......
@Deladus the show doesn't do anything even close to what happened in the books. It's really very sad.
@@TheSwordAndThePenREFLECTIONS Oh I am aware, I bowed out after I realized there was no hope of me enjoying it.
Trying not to spoil too much since I know you are still reading, but part of my issues with it are that Gaul/Faile and Aviendha are almost never in the same place for long. Gaul and Faile merged would be... odd but I dont know how you would handle Avi's stuff with them.
@@Deladus ah. I see.
I guess we will all have to wait and see what the show does with them.