Draghkar were eventually overshadowed as apex predators by the Gholam, but they were terrifying when I first read WoT. Do you think they're less feared because of their likeless to modern vampire myths?
One scene that has stuck with me all these years is from way back in the Eye of the World. Perrin and Egwene running from the ravens, passing the mutilated remains of animals that were killed by the birds. Perrin realizing that he doesn’t want Egwene to suffer that death and deciding that if they’re overcome by the ravens he will kill her quickly with his axe before being torn apart himself. That scene made 14-year-old me pretty queasy.
Yes! It's little moments like that in a book series, that by the end you forget, but when reading the series again, it strikes you as just horrifying, even knowing what they face later, you just stop a minute, and try to imagine the willpower it would take to slaughter a childhood friend, to save them from a date you will then face yourself...
For me I find the most horrifying moment to be when Rand after almost killing his father is sitting at the top of dragonmount contemplating ending all human life, literally breaking the world and the wheel of time using the choedan kal. The reason I find it terrifying is because the first time I read it I kinda wanted him to do it and it felt justified.
@@matthewsmith4647 Anyone who has experienced existential crisis/depression will find Rand to be an extraordinarily empathetic character. He even has the moment of clarity/epiphany that is also often the only way someone can get over a true existential depression. Mr. Rigney must have been another who experienced a complete crisis of meaning/purpose at some point in his life, I can't imagine him being able to write the mind state so well otherwise.
I agree...the almost killing Tam moment is far scarier than the Semiraghe/Min incident. Rand wasn't doing that, that was Seminaries. Rand knows he's not at fault, as awful as it is. He almost kills Tam voluntarily...and then he realizes that he almost murdered his Dad. Thats a mindf*ck and a half.
The thing about that though, it really is a handy way to get information...... Yes, that was indeed horrible, I will hand you that. No, I wont stop making hand puns so just knuckle down and deal with it.
Another bubble of evil: that time someone started spewing bettles from their mouth until all that was left of their body was an empty skin-sack. Pure nightmare fuel.
The one that stuck with me the most is when we first see a character get collared and the torture that came later. Not just a person on person. But a cultural acceptance of it
The most terrifying scenes for me were the psychological scenes where the point of view characters are enslaved/captured. Rand in the box. Egwene with the leashes. Rand leashed. Slavery and shit man. I lost a lot of childhood innocence reading those scenes.
There were times that I hated what Mr. Jordan did to Rand and the others and I became truly angry with him. I had to put the books down several times and take a breather.
Morgase Trakand being compelled by Rahvin is a more subtle but equally fucked up bit in the series. While it's happening, you kinda see it for what it is but after Rahvin's death Morgase opens up more about the compulsion. And even admits she'd still do whatever he asked later on. Truly disturbing.
The moment that really made me sit down and have to contemplate was very early on in the series, when I belive rand is being told about insanity by either a forsaken or Moraine (sorry forget exact one) and he is told of one male channeler who, while insane, was circled by 14,000 Aiel singing in a circle (when they followed the way of the lead). The male channeler killed them all slowly, as they shrunk the circle to fill the gaps, until it was only a few aiel still singing. A remark is made that he listened to the last aiel sing for hours before killing them and himself, seeming puzzled the whole time. That was the moment the idea of the taint on the male source really got to me, and just a generally horrific scene to begin with.
YES!! That scene made me cry when I first read it. It was so BRAVE of the Aiel to do that, and yet so misguided. The destruction of the idealism of the Way of the Leaf. Amazing that the Tinkers still used the Way of the Leaf after all that.
The whole Egwene's time as damane and Aviendha's visions of destruction of the Aiel at her second visit of Rhuidin. Just hate the Seanchan Empire with a very passion of my heart after that.
Possible spoilers: The brainwashed slavery of the Senchan is horrible to imagine. To force powerful people to slavery without hope of escape and brainwash them to think of themself as not being human is terryfying. I also think that the 'turning to the shadow' part is scary. Having channelers and halfmen force you to bend to the shadow in a process that you aren't able to resist in any way is superscary
@@lordofdarkness4204 No known ways to reverse it** I am sure it's possible to reverse a Turning. The Wheel of TIme often talks about balance, light and shadow. If the Shadow can forcfully make someone forsake the light, the Light should be able to forcfully make someone lose the shadow. Like... uhm, just in case, spoilers for the last book... like the fight between Rand and the Dark One, where Rand creates a world that has no shadow in it, and he notices that by completely removing the shadow from people, it is kinda like Turning, you remove their freewill. So that fight somewhat proves that the Light can infact force people to lose any freewill to chose evil.
Ik this is probably too late, but i found the seachan to be an apt contrast to the black tower, weaponization and dehuminazation of channelers, where it becomes apparent just how important the three oaths are to the aes sedai. The oaths are what make aes sedai part of the tower, while originally they weren't part of it, now they are what set them apart from their enemies.
All these moments were absolutely terrifying. The Battle of Dumai's Well has to be one of the most horrifying moments. Row after row of Shaido Aiel being absolutely obliterated and torn asunder by the One Power. Rand breaking free and stilling three Aes Sedai. The Wheel of Time is definitely not PG.
The opening of the Wheel of Time is utter horror as an insane man is given a moment of clarity to realize he has murdered his whole family and everyone else he loved. If done right that will make the Red Wedding look like a picnic
One of the more terrifying moments for me was when Rand sent a messenger to one of the forsaken, sacrificing the messenger to the forsaken's compulsion, then using that messenger to track down where the forsaken was hiding then burning the entire area with balefire, burning hundreds out of existence just to kill one enemy. But worse was the blatant uncaring confirmation that the forsaken had died when the compulsion vanished from the messenger. That was when I realized that there was no PG in this book.
Took you that long? I figured it wasn't PG in prologue of the first book, when the man who killed his entire family turned himself into a searing ray of light.
Not to mention the damane and the utter inhumane pet-like treatment of leashed women. A little more psychological than nightmare type terrifying, but that can be just as damaging.
There are so many moments in "The Wheel of Time" series that if on screen, would come across more terrifying than how it's written. The way weapons from thakan'dar kill those struck by them, the draghkar, the dark hounds, balefire, not knowing who is a dark friend (especially for new viewers of the show), Shadar Logoth, the ways, the battle of the Two Rivers, the dreams Rand has of Ishamael pretending to be the DO, when Tylin is killed, when Rand and Tam are attacked in the "Eye of the World". So many moments are dark and awful. When Rand starts going crazy. When Mat is hung and dies and Rand does CPR to bring him back (yes this does happen).
Perrin’s rage is the reason a wise man’s third fear is a thing. As ‘boring’ and ‘simple’ as Perrin may seem to some... his struggle with power and it’s applications is something he always has had to deal with. Even before his flight away from Edmond’s Field.
7:37 "This is a man so terrifying we watch him torture a Myrrddraal... and it works." That. That is... truly terrifying. I'm still working my way through the series, but the idea that those things could be afraid of anything... damn.
If I'm recalling correctly, it's not even just fear. It's outright TERROR of him. I'm currently listening to it again and am only about 1/2 through the 3rd book, so it'll be awhile before I get back to that.
"Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gnash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams..." Machin Shin, The Black Wind. makes my skin crawl
Yeah it's just so alien and mad, it's horrifying. I completely understand it makes people go insane. I might go insane or at the very least have PTSD if that happened to me, even if there was no additional magical effect...
It's not terrifying but in terms of Rand's life, when an Aes Sedai bonds him to control him it ends up breaking her. Realizing the pain he carries with him constantly, all she can do is cry then ends up being very protective of him.
@@ragesto everyone attributed it to that, but you notice we (never?) got a POV of her during that time. All we ever saw were others speculating it must have been because of her former Warder. In all reality, she bonded Rand, and she should have been getting better with time. Everyone else got better when they lost a Warder, look at Siuan and Leanne, they managed to overcome the loss, and hold themselves together, but one Aes Sedai never really got better, despite her fiery temper and personality. She was the one to bond Rand in that vulnerable time, and never recovered because she at that time was the only person who KNEW that Rand wasn't as hard as they all thought he was. She KNEW (or thought she did) that if the Aes Sedai pushed too hard, his stubbornness wouldn't keep him from breaking. She protected him time and time again by pushing and prodding just hard enough at the others they'd make a mistake. I think Chad Whitfield was right. She was breaking because he was constantly in pain, and constantly an inch from the edge of breaking, and in her vulnerable state, she broke too, but saw it as her duty (he was her Warder after all) to protect him.
It is mentioned many a time how much pain Rand is in. It is one of the things that makes me really upset about people who don't give him some slack on making bad choices. Besides going insane and being in incredible pain, he had some reasons to make some bad choices before he cured the taint.
Horror moments: chock full of it ranging from every aspect of the genre practically. From the very beginning the Dragon is walking over the corpses of his wife, children, and friends that he had just killed. Rand’s initial experience in the forest on the way to Edmond’s Field foreshadowing the attack on his home and his fleeing the Trollocs, crawling over the bodies of their sheep and jumping at shadows the entire trip. Shadar Logoth. The Ways. White Bridge and Thom’s sacrifice and general exodus of the city. Perrin and Egwene’s fleeing the birds and into the clutches of the Whitecloaks. The eye of the world’s confrontation with the first Forsaken and the tree man-ranging from the lust of the flesh for one, to the living death as he’s ripped apart by plant growth. And that’s all just book 1.
Samma N'Sei!!! Spoilers: Oh my god discovering what happened to all the male Aiel Channellers, and they're just this horrific sharp teethed inversion of Aiel culture just freaked me out so bad. Just such a corruption of the Aiel culture from where they originated in the Age of Legends.
When you find out all the male aiel channelers who went to fight the dark one have been been turned by the shadow. The sharpened teeth... still haunts me...
@@thewaterwarrior9817 Or....don't watch a video literally and explicitly dedicated to talking about events happening in the WoT unless you've either already read it, or don't care about spoilers....because yes, spoilers, duh...
Some excellent choices, for me the most traumatizing thing in the series was Avienda's second trip through the pillars, boy did that break me.. but yeah Rand's life is a hellish nightmare! One thing I wanted to point out though, while the series is definitely dark and has lots of mature content, I have always appreciated RJ not going into detail and making it more consumable for younger audiences, I think it shows real talent to be able to write for a wide audience, I don't know if the TV show can find that same middle ground I will understand if they don't but I also find it disheartening when fans demand they go full gore to capture the darker aspects when the books handled it tactfully, the show can do so as well!
Actually, for me, it's the same talent as Frank Herbert in the original series of Dune, whereas his son lacks that skill and killed all the rest for me! FH & RJ are 2 of my fav authors, along with JRR ofc, but also Ken Follet with his trilogy "The Century" that conveyx the horrors of both WW yet never describes anything specific.
For me, one of the most darkest and terrifying moments in the series(my personal favourite moment in the series), Turn over newbies spoilers ahead Rand breaking, after him being forced to torture Min by Semirhage. It's bone chilling. Well, if you watched the entire video you already know about why.
Though Daniel had 1 of the consequences wrong. Min doesn't fear him as she demonstrate later through the bond, she was scared to discover that he had always be right in considering her a liability to him, a "weakness" that his enemy could use against him, exactly as they did! So yes, one of my worse nightmarish moment, if not THE worst.
For me the most terrifying scene was Aviendha vision. It hit me hard, haunted me for days and reminded me of Syria and many other countries that have been destroyed and lives of their people have changed forever and since I'm living in middle east, it scared me that maybe one day my own country faces the same doom
A while ago, in the depths of my mind, I kind of fan-cast Daniel Greene as Rand al'Thor. If Daniel does not at least once in his life cosplay as Rand, can he say he truly lived his life as best he could??
For me, a major event that affected me was during the battle of Dumai's Wells where after weeks (or months) torture, Rand breaks out of his shield, immediately stilling several of the Aes Sedai, then the “Kneel or be Knelt” moment after the battle. To me the stilling alone actually terrifying. I had to put down the book and take a walk.
Oh, and as an afterthought, I'd add that the Questioners truly terrify me. To the depths of my bones, the idea that once they take you, you will never know anything but pain, for what remains of your life, and there is no hope of acquital, you will be tortured, to confession, then killed as a heretic... It's always mentioned, and always danced around, but for this to be such common knowledge, there is precedent, which means in that realm, many people have endured this!
Spoilers of course..... What really got me was that there is even a possibility that someone can be turned evil without consent. I think the concept is mentioned early in the books, and that was horrifying to me, but I thought okay good people can probably resist this. And then you have the horrifying reality of it with Taim and the black tower. That part was very disturbing. And it's irreversible... And what Graendal can do to completely hollow out a person replacing them with a sycophant...that's super horrible too.
Agreed. The involuntary turning freaked me out when I first read the series as a teenager. To a control freak, that irreversible possession of the mind is worst, followed by Graendel’s brain-gelatinizing Compulsion, and the Seanchan adam coming in at a distant third place.
@bigbenhoward It is super super unsettling, which is why I found it so horrifying. I would hope that Good had an equally potent irrevocable weapon...but turning someone good without their choice could be considered evil and it's gets close to taking away people's wills. But does that mean that Evil will always have a leg up over Good since Evil is not chained by morality? I just hope those peoples' turned souls had some sort peace in the afterlife. But I totally agree this left me really uncomfortable (and I thought too much for the story), but that's why I think it's the most terrifying.
Small nitpick, the ways aren't leftover from aol. Theyre from post breaking, thats why machin shin exists (made w tainted saidin) and aol is generally thought to have ended w the sealing of the bore.
I believe the ways are actually AOL, but got corrupted after the breaking. There's mentions of it being used in its pure form in book 1 i believe, mentioning the currumption of them to take place slowly during the Breaking.
Yep, they were built by male Aes Sedai as a thank you to the Ogier for letting them take refuge in the steddings, that's why they're located where they are :).
This is a very fair treatment of the content and tone of the story. I especially like that you recognize that Jordan (not glossed over but) described the points so that they feel like it is less horrific (explicit or other adjetives can go here, too). There were horrors in the book. There were also scantily clad and even nude depictions in the book. I appreciate that Jordan was able to tell the story, painting the picture in a way that the reader knew it was there without describing the details of what was there. I think the film/TV equivalent would be to show almost, but not quite, the explicit content. For example, a view of the shear, almost completely transparent clothing of some of the characters in a way that makes it clear that everything is shown without exactly showing the things that make Rand and his friends blush. Based on what I have heard, so far, I think that production is going a bit further than this, and will get a TV-MA rating on their content. I just feel that Jordan gave the TV-MA story while making it feel like a TV-14 production. Any details that would have made it MA I had to imagine on my own. I expect that viewers of the upcoming production will have less left to the imagination.
One advantage of the written word over that of video is that you can illuminate a path for the imagination to walk down. For video, you generally have to walk down that path and actually make it explicit. It still doesn't have to be gratuitous, but you do have to go a lot further. And you have less room to let different audience members stop at different points down that path - for instance, Daniel Greene's description of Rand attempting to bring the dead kid in Tear back to life is a hell of a lot more visceral than the impression I got when reading that part.
I really loved this video. Hinderstap chilled me to my core, while simultaneously giving me a sick idea for a D&D adventure. Aside from the ones you mentioned, Dumai's Well's left a serious impression. I had this horrific battlefield image in my head and I had to hold back a tear or two while reading it.
The picture you had as myrdraal is not how I picture them. I mean... the myrdraal has been in inns, requesting the whereabouts of Moirane, Rand and company. Also when Mat and Rand is fleeing from whitebridge(?), after loosing Tom, he is on the streets speaking to a dark friend innkeeper. For me, I think of them looking like a pale man, but eyeless. Not the creepy thing in your picture. xD Otherwise, brilliant video. I also feel for Rand, it is such a horrific life.. He stops caring for "life", not only his own. Destroying a whole castle/manor house with balefire.. Using a person under mindcontrol to see if he succeeded.. His arm, that is a scene I will never forget.. And then on top of dragonmount, it all changes. Still horrifying events, but how he sees them has changed, he has changed. It really is the best book series I know of.
So this is literally the first on-line thing I have EVER replied to or added, but I am a HUGE Wheel of Time fan. I have read the series over 20 times in as many years. Although you touched on the terror of the male a'dam, and I agree that the moment with Semirhage, Rand, and Min is horrific, I can't believe you left out the intense slavery aspect of the Seanchan Sul'dam. The first time I read 'The Great Hunt' I almost put the series down because I found their Damane training to be unspeakable. I would even argue that the PTST that Rand and Min went through is nothing compared to losing your ENTIRE sense of self the way that the Damane have. It, to me, is as dark as Ramsey in 'Game of Thrones'. True, they don't dismember them, but for the most part, it is a permanent slavery with next to no hope. It makes my skin crawl when I think about it. Of all the things I would not want my child to see, it would be that. Love your channel. Whoda
It is up there, but I think Compulsion is worse, especially the way Rahvin and Graendal used it. Rahvin was pretty much a serial rapist who enjoyed having his own harem. And from the descriptions we get of Graendal, she makes Rahvin almost look like a healthy role model for sexuality.
It was little moments that stood out to me most in terms of creep factor as I don’t think I was terrified by big world ending stuff. The weird feeling in 4 Kings, when all the food is rotting and filled with weevils, the blood calls blood scene and lastly the moment Rand tries to heal death with the kid and moving it like a puppet corpse.
That last part, the begging. That’s so fucking keen and ruthless. He knew what the aiel feared. Shame. It’s the whole reason those aiel ran from the car’a’carn.
That was f**king brutal. The Aiel wasn't afraid of pain or death, but when Perrin told him, basically, "I'm not going to even let you die...I'm going to make you live as a helpless wretch with no Ji for the rest of your life" That was dark. Maybe not "scary" but dark as hell.
Ive read the books a couple of times, just started re-reading them again. This moment had me sniveling yet again just a couple of days ago.. Tears to my eyes just writing this.. Perrin´s entire family. :'( EXCEPT HIS YOUNG COUSIN!!!!!
Just relived that moment for the third listen through last night, not once with dry eyes. What's captured so amazingly, but not literally spelled out, is that he is in shock. That could have gone so many directions, but the quiet internal sense of disbelief made the scene real.
One scene that really has stuck with me for YEARS is our introduction to Semirhag where she is torturing a blue sister and her warder. Chills. Mental torture is maybe worse than physical
You hit on a lot of the ones I'd consider very dark - and it's interesting how often it's mental/psychological. It makes me very curious to see how Rafe (and Amazon) approaches all of these issues. Torture is present throughout the WoT in almost all its variant forms, but RJ did a masterful job of allowing you to gloss over it if you wished (as many do). Rape is there (male and female victims), sexual assault/harassment, domestic violence, slavery, the horrors of war, PTSD, suicide/suicidal thoughts, depression.. it can be very dark indeed.
I love this list, and it really only scratches the surface of the horror in the series. Are we not gonna talk about Jaichim Carridens family? How he was given the task to kill Rand and for every month he couldn't accomplish this task, Shadar Haran would skin one family member alive? Or, perhaps the scene at Thakan'dar where one of the golems take a baby from a mother's arms, then give it to a little girl to hold, then drag the mother into the forge to be killed, and have her soul harvested to give the blade its corrupting effect? Compulsion, and its ability to rob someone of their entire personality, shaping someone into a sycophant worshipping the channeler, even if that person becomes aware they're being manipulated, they can't stop wanting to worship that person, even when. That person is dead, cut from the pattern completely by balefire, they are not released. Morgase still wants Rahvin... The world of dreams, and it's entirely fucked up propensity to summon the most terrible creatures from people's nightmares, and trap unsuspecting dream walkers in them, causing them physical damage even when they know they're not REALLY in the nightmare? The list goes on, and on and only gets more horrifying. I love this series because RJ didn't point straight to the truly heinous occurrences in the series, but he alluded to them in such a way that after 4 read throughs, I still find something new every time that makes me pause, and try to imagine the horror facing a character!!
I know this is probably not quite in the same vein as the rest of the video, but the "box " was always a terrifying ordeal to me. Maybe because it was so pervasive and harrowing for me as a reader, but it really stuck with me.
I'm here specially for the The Wheel Of Time!!! Hehehe and yesterday on the live session I asked exactly this question - What is the most horrific part of the books? For me is the Hadnan Kadere strangling Isendre and choping her corpse, while remembering his sister... whom he had killed when she found out he was a Darkfriend. This section sounded so quiet and psychotic... I just couldn't...
@@matthewsmith4647 I remember reading something from an interview he'd done about fifteen or so years ago, and he mentioned a photo of him - although he refers to himself in an almost omniscient tone - in Vietnam, eating near corpses. He spoke of how he killed that man before returning to the US.
One thing from the books that somehow got especially stuck in my head is the idea of falling from a Skimming platform. It's said that you will fall in the infinite darkness until you starve or die from terror.
I have to say, the culmination of the overarching themes at the very end of the series was both beautiful and terrifying. Over fourteen books the major conflict morphs oh so gradually from a simple Tolkienien good must defeat evil to this core shattering eternal truth, that is both beautifully simple yet utterly unknowable and literally transcending universes. Reading it felt like elation and despair colliding inside me, and somehow leaving me with a very powerful feeling of contentment. Kind of terrifying in the best way.
This was a great piece to show for aspects of Wheel of Time.... How about for a future one. (if you have not already) to clean the palette in your mind if you will have a post about The most Uplifting Events in the Wheel of Time... like Rand finally healing himself in his mind on top of Dragonmount...I actually teared up big time ...a very cathartic scene for me.... Perrin making the Hammer was another one for me...etc...etc...
A little slow adding to this, but finding out Perrin witnessed Rand on Dragonmount while in the World of Dreams and rooting for Rand to fight the darkness. Very uplifting to know someone witnessed Rand's struggle there.
It's not quite as overt as the moments you mentioned but I find the Worms terrifying the fact that there was an entire type of shadowspawn that could not leave The Blight. And the kicker these horrific monsters are the larval stage of this type of shadowspawn and whatever they grew into was somehow worse.
Yes, I've been reading The Wheel of Time, I only read the first four or so back in the day, and now I'm rereading them. I'm in the middle of "The Great Hunt" right now and I have been surprised by how dark a lot of this is. Much darker than I remember it being, maybe I just forgot, or , as you say, glossed over those parts and characters. Really enjoying it so far. I think now that I'm older, the "wordiness" of Jordan's style doesn't bother me as much as it might have years ago.
I am kind of curious, having read the series since its first release. Why would you look up videos discussing a book series you haven't read if you're worried it might contain spoilers? If I missed a football game and didn't want to know the score until I'd watched the game I'd recorded, I wouldn't turn on sporting news. I'd just watch the game.
@@throatwobblermangrove8510 I didn't "look it up"; I'm subscribed to this channel, and it just popped up on my page. I'm about 3/4 ways through the books. Generally people give spoiler warnings on WOT videos now, since the TV series is being created and this has created a lot of hype. A lot of people have recently started reading the books, and they're at different stages. I've seen other channels present their spoiler warnings like "Spoilers up to book 4" or "the whole series", or whatever. Generally if you don't get a spoiler warning it _should_ mean there aren't any spoilers. Of course some video titles speak for themselves, like "A review of book 6" is obviously going to contain spoilers up to book 6, but some video titles can be a bit arbitrary, you don't know if somebody is going to be speaking generally or talking about specific events. Of course I was probably a bit dumb to just click on it without thinking.
@@JoeBob79569 Although my comment was a response to yours, it was really more of a question out of general curiosity, since I often see people complain about spoilers. It was also not intended as judgmental, although it's easy to get the impression through text, with no tone of voice to set it up. I guess my confusion comes from not having the habit of subscribing to channels that discuss topics I don't want spoiled. My own preference is to hear alternate viewpoints or more in-depth conversation on something I've already read or viewed. But maybe I'm just the outlier here.
@@throatwobblermangrove8510 Yes, it can be easy to take something the wrong way through text, like my quotation marks at the beginning of the last comment, for example, could be construed as being sarcastic, when I meant it more as just an exact term. I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt because of this, which is why I tried to answer in a general way from my point of view as best I could. The whole spoiler thing can be a bit of a dilemma though. I mean, I don't expect every channel to give me a spoiler warning about every single thing, every time; but at the same time I also don't want to be hit with a spoiler out of nowhere. I do avoid a lot of WOT videos that seem like they might contain spoilers but with the TV series coming you sometimes don't know if the video is going to be about the books or the TV series. For example this video could have been about the leaked footage of trollocs or myrddraal, or a spooky location. Yea, I'm a bit of an optimist. I do also use these channels to point me towards new material as well so I'll take a few spoilers every now and again over avoiding them entirely. WOT is a bit of an exception with it being so bloody huge, I'm about 6 months at it now..
@@JoeBob79569 Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of the series. I've always enjoyed it. While it has some problems, as all books do, it's my all-time favorite fantasy series.
This video was too short! Haha I mean just that there are SO many terrifying scenes that it could have went on and on. You touched on a few good ones. Some of the Fain stuff was only brushed upon, but some of his scenes are honestly the most disturbing. Some of the things the Shaido do are utterly horrifying as well. To the point that there was even a moment when I actually felt SORRY for Galina. There were a few more I mentioned in my Twitter comment as well (my handle there is Amyrlin Seat). Ayway, glad to see a Wheel of Time video from you! Those are the ones I am here for. =) Cheers!
That was the best video you have done Daniel. Thought provoking, insightful and utterly compelling. I had heard that a lot of Robert Jordan's knowledge of the darker side of things came from the Vietnam war especially with regards to mental health
Got me tearing up at then end with the Rand/Min scene. It's been a few years since I read/listened to the series (currently doing it now) and that scene always stands out to me so much.
The part that made me realise just how messed up it can get was when Rand, Perrin & Mat were chasing Padan Fain and come across the remains of a village following his massacre with a Myrdrall nailed to a barn door... A MYDRALL NAILED TO A BARN DOOR!
The scene with Rand strangling Min was so terrifying for me because there was this utter helplessness. I just thought: nonono, this can't be happening but how can he stop it? There is no way out!! I totally believed she had to die
The top two terrifying things that comes to my mind is the people that are tied below water by one of the forsaken at one time, secondly and most importantly, the idea of falling off a skimming platform.
A couple of bits you left out. 1 - The gholam also drains its victims of blood. 2 - If a traveller passing through Hindersnap is killed, then they are locked in the curse as well.
Frozen, Perrin stared at the bloody shape wearing the man’s clothes, screaming and thrashing on the floor. Unbidden, his eyes rose to the pale thing like an empty sack that dangled from the ceiling. Part of it was already absorbed by the black strip, but he had no trouble recognizing a human skin, apparently whole and unbroken.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Mashadar from the first book. The scene where he takes the form of a man and what happens when Rand and Mat realizes that he has no shadow is the stuff of nightmares. There's also the dream sequences, which tend to be truly chilling. Remember the time Perrin saw a man skinned alive? And it wasn't in pieces either, the entire layer of skin was ripped off. That was hard to read!
in the EotW the scene with Perrin, Egwene and Elyas running from the terrifying swarm of crows who mutilated dozens of rabbits and foxes on their way to refuge of a steading was always terrifying for me! im not sure way RJ didnt use those swarm of crows more later on in the books...
I can't help but think that anybody who says WOT is PG or family friendly must have just stared at each page for a minute without reading a single word. Really horrifying things happen. A certain character cutting up another certain character to dispose of the body in Fires of Heaven is one that really stands out to me that wasn't mentioned.
I love this video. I can’t wait for more WoT vids. I’m always terrified and creeped out while reading the books. I’m rereading for the hundredth time at the moment and I just got past Perrin’s breaking down in the Winespring Inn and had to put the book down to cry.
For me, the most utterly disturbing part of WoT was Randt talking to Nyneauve about only needing the strength to reach the top of the mountain. Not only is it horribly depressing, but it makes a terrible amount of sense.
wheel of Time has always been terrifying, its one of the things I like about it. When you're lucky you only have to deal with a 10 ft tall genetically engineered killing machine, because everything else is worse, you know you're in for a rough ride. As for other terrifying moment, honourable mentions have to go to: Mashadar: a mist that brings that creeping, inexorable yet mindless death to everything Draghkar: charming crooners who literally steal your souls with a kiss. Tel'Aran'Rhoid: Literally a dream world where you can make anything happen. Just don't die there, or you die for good. Oh, and there are innumerable ways to die.
One of my favorite things about the series is its handling of dark themes, as brilliantly outline in this video and some of the comments. Jordan did an incredible job of using darkness sparingly to ensure maximum impact when things did get gross, and I also think that is an aspect of the series Sanderson adopted well when he took over. Overall, it is like I said one of my favorite things about the series
Not necessarily horror, but definitely some tense passages. Anytime Halima (name?) would meet with Egwene in private and massage her headaches away. The moment there was a male channeler detected among the rebel Aes Sedai had me on edge, and suspicious as hell after seeing what the Dark Lord was capable of. Then when we found out another Aes Sedai close to Egwene at the time was meeting with dark friends had me turning pages anytime shenanigans were going on in that camp.
Rand in the box - being shut in a box for days or weeks is just horrific. I can’t even re-read that part. And Egwene under the leash of the Seanchan in the Great Hunt.the scene when Min is running away from her screams makes me shudder every time
The Ways aren't exactly from the AoL. They were made during the Breaking by the male AS in taking shelter in Steddings. AoL -> Bore -> Fall -> War -> Sealing / Taint -> Time of Madness / Breaking. While we can quibble over when the AoL technically ended (the instant the Bore was Sealed and the Breaking began, sometime during the Breaking, or when the Breaking ended), it's very important to the nature of the Ways that they were not a wonderous creation of the AoL in the way of angreal etc., but a product of a tainted and shattering world.
2:34 They Ways aren't from the Age of Legends. They came about at the beginning of the 3rd Age. If you consider the patching of the Dark One's prison at the end of the War of Shadow and the resultant counterstrike that tainted Saidin as the end of the Age of Legends (as it is presented in the series), then you'll realize this error. The surviving male Aes Sedai who took shelter in the Ogier Steading created and presented the Talisman of Growing to Steading elders before leaving. Since the degeneration of the Ways is linked to Saidin's Taint, it obviously happened after the Breaking, and therefore in the 3rd Age. Mat's talisman made him immune to the One Power, yet Elayne and Nynaeve easily found a way around that by using the Power to assault him with physical objects. The same could be done with a Gholam. Child Byar always struck me as particularly evil, and his malevolent hatred of Perrin was particularly disturbing. While he doesn't represent any supernatural evil, he embodies the ultimate in truly human evil. He's so dedicated to what he considers to be "right", he will perform any act, no matter how heinous. I always looked at his evil as more disturbing because it actually exists in the world, and is something we can really relate to.
I'm a bit late to this one, sorry Daniel! For me the scariest part was when Semirhage has and Ase Sedai (Cabriana Mecandes) and her warder held captive and is torturing them both, the warder with pleasure and the Ase Sedia with pain. The warder ends up dying from biting his own tongue in ecstasy... 😱
How about the Myrddraal’s “sport”? I basically missed that the first time I read the series. Then on second reading it hit me what that actually meant... Also, the added heartbreak of the bond between R and M in The Last That Could Be Done really got me good.
Hinderstap's curse was especially dangerous because it could also trap outsiders in the loop. The reason the ban on outsiders in town after sunset was in place was because, if they were killed by the villagers, they too would wake in a empty bed every morning and be trapped. Some of mats soldiers offer to sacrifice themselves, so they can recruit the villagers for the last battle as suicide squads against the shadow.
For me when the Ashaman are first unleashed at Dumai's Wells was a horror show. You have a medieval world where sure, swords/axes/spears are pretty brutal, but this is the first time both the reader and the characters see true unadulterated carnage. Jordan makes a point of showing that even the most battle-hardened soldiers there are just standing in abject shock and disgust in what they witnessed, not really able to process this monumental shift in how war is waged. Another one for me would when you first see the results of the forced turning happening at the Black Tower. To see a character go from a pretty likable and caring person to this vaguely mad shell of a human is truly unnerving.
I find it notable that not even Damane are shown fighting the way we see Dumai's Wells. They'll do things like target explosions at your feet - which is horrific in its consequences - and in some ways more useful as a weapon due to shrapnel. That, fireballs, bolts of lightning - its all objectively terrifying but still cool for the reader. Dumai's Wells? The front rank of Shaido exploded. There was no other word for it.
@@Wirrn exactly. Maybe it's a saidar versus saidin thing, but the Ashaman were straight up making people explode with the One Power, and that's never seen being used by any other channeler. Hell, even Rand himself uses weaves that go from the outside in.
This is why I kind of laugh when people think WoT won't be as dark and gritty as ASOIAF. R. Jordan's writing wasn't as explicit, so it seems milder. But it WAS all there! Nudity, sex, violence, terror, and madness, just written in a more family friendly manner. A friend who is reading the complete series for the first time (he only got to 5 or early 6 before we had a short falling out) and got to Alanna's "rape" bonding of Rand today. It pretty much horrified him, and to me it's one of the milder scenes as we get further into the books.
Dumani Wells. The best chapter of any book ever written. Rand's cold and vengeful demeanor and the resulting Ashaman's attack on the Aiel. Everything Rand endured leading up to that was so dark, but I saw this as his first major step into the darkness that almost consumed him. Purely terrifying.
![Yeat & Summrs - GO2WORK [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NEFEwfPcXRA/mqdefault.jpg)
What do you think is the most terrifying Wheel of Time moment/feature?
the appearance of the Myrdraal. Yikes O.O
Just started book three, i'd say in book one the fades seemed terrifying. Same with the screaming voice monster dude in the ways.
the gholam and blackwind
Draghkar were eventually overshadowed as apex predators by the Gholam, but they were terrifying when I first read WoT. Do you think they're less feared because of their likeless to modern vampire myths?
The inescapable nature of the Wheel of Time itself.
Moghedian's offscreen rape and torture.
One scene that has stuck with me all these years is from way back in the Eye of the World. Perrin and Egwene running from the ravens, passing the mutilated remains of animals that were killed by the birds. Perrin realizing that he doesn’t want Egwene to suffer that death and deciding that if they’re overcome by the ravens he will kill her quickly with his axe before being torn apart himself. That scene made 14-year-old me pretty queasy.
Yes! It's little moments like that in a book series, that by the end you forget, but when reading the series again, it strikes you as just horrifying, even knowing what they face later, you just stop a minute, and try to imagine the willpower it would take to slaughter a childhood friend, to save them from a date you will then face yourself...
For me I find the most horrifying moment to be when Rand after almost killing his father is sitting at the top of dragonmount contemplating ending all human life, literally breaking the world and the wheel of time using the choedan kal. The reason I find it terrifying is because the first time I read it I kinda wanted him to do it and it felt justified.
Lol R.J. held up a mirror for us more dark inclined readers in that one.
@@matthewsmith4647 Anyone who has experienced existential crisis/depression will find Rand to be an extraordinarily empathetic character. He even has the moment of clarity/epiphany that is also often the only way someone can get over a true existential depression. Mr. Rigney must have been another who experienced a complete crisis of meaning/purpose at some point in his life, I can't imagine him being able to write the mind state so well otherwise.
I agree...the almost killing Tam moment is far scarier than the Semiraghe/Min incident.
Rand wasn't doing that, that was Seminaries. Rand knows he's not at fault, as awful as it is.
He almost kills Tam voluntarily...and then he realizes that he almost murdered his Dad.
Thats a mindf*ck and a half.
That was him almost going full Kinslayer and then being given that moment of clarity by Ishy. Thats the worst possible outcome for the Dragon
Veins Of Gold
One of the most outstanding fantasy chapters ever written.
You say that the hand cutting scene isn't PG, but actually PG here stands for Perrin Goldeneyes
Checkmate, atheists
O M G.......EPICO
well played....
@@Hadrian1616 slap like now
The thing about that though, it really is a handy way to get information......
Yes, that was indeed horrible, I will hand you that. No, I wont stop making hand puns so just knuckle down and deal with it.
In Star Wars the Phantom Menace , Darth Maul was cut in Half and fell into a pit and the movie is still pg
Another bubble of evil: that time someone started spewing bettles from their mouth until all that was left of their body was an empty skin-sack. Pure nightmare fuel.
Or when a room blinks and suddenly literally every single surface is covered with insects
I find it alittle disturbing, it hints that he wants us to refer to him as our "daddy". :P
It's very Prince of Darkness
Most terrifying bubble of evil is when Rands reflections crawls out of the mirrors and attack him.
@@SH-qs7ee 'You're Good Rand. And I'm Bad Rand."
Mellar threatening to cut Rand’s babies out of Elayne always stuck out to me as exceedingly dark and terrifying
The one that stuck with me the most is when we first see a character get collared and the torture that came later. Not just a person on person. But a cultural acceptance of it
The most terrifying scenes for me were the psychological scenes where the point of view characters are enslaved/captured. Rand in the box. Egwene with the leashes. Rand leashed. Slavery and shit man. I lost a lot of childhood innocence reading those scenes.
Yea egwenes first experience with the seanchan was very sobering
There were times that I hated what Mr. Jordan did to Rand and the others and I became truly angry with him. I had to put the books down several times and take a breather.
Morgase Trakand being compelled by Rahvin is a more subtle but equally fucked up bit in the series. While it's happening, you kinda see it for what it is but after Rahvin's death Morgase opens up more about the compulsion. And even admits she'd still do whatever he asked later on. Truly disturbing.
The moment that really made me sit down and have to contemplate was very early on in the series, when I belive rand is being told about insanity by either a forsaken or Moraine (sorry forget exact one) and he is told of one male channeler who, while insane, was circled by 14,000 Aiel singing in a circle (when they followed the way of the lead). The male channeler killed them all slowly, as they shrunk the circle to fill the gaps, until it was only a few aiel still singing. A remark is made that he listened to the last aiel sing for hours before killing them and himself, seeming puzzled the whole time.
That was the moment the idea of the taint on the male source really got to me, and just a generally horrific scene to begin with.
YES!! That scene made me cry when I first read it. It was so BRAVE of the Aiel to do that, and yet so misguided. The destruction of the idealism of the Way of the Leaf. Amazing that the Tinkers still used the Way of the Leaf after all that.
Tower of genji should definitely take on a horror film theme.
Sean Mcguinness dude that could be fucking sweet!
Tell them Jain Farstrider died clean
@@seanmcguinness9587 spoiler!!!
Not really we see it on book 1 and every time we see it we're told it's scary and bad@@timdc4972
The whole Egwene's time as damane and Aviendha's visions of destruction of the Aiel at her second visit of Rhuidin. Just hate the Seanchan Empire with a very passion of my heart after that.
The [sh***] where like a even worse seanchan
omg "A segment Id like to call, 'Rands life'!" Killed me, best line.
Possible spoilers:
The brainwashed slavery of the Senchan is horrible to imagine. To force powerful people to slavery without hope of escape and brainwash them to think of themself as not being human is terryfying.
I also think that the 'turning to the shadow' part is scary. Having channelers and halfmen force you to bend to the shadow in a process that you aren't able to resist in any way is superscary
Ulmo90 yeah and the fact that it can’t be reversed is also terrifying
@@lordofdarkness4204 No known ways to reverse it** I am sure it's possible to reverse a Turning. The Wheel of TIme often talks about balance, light and shadow. If the Shadow can forcfully make someone forsake the light, the Light should be able to forcfully make someone lose the shadow. Like... uhm, just in case, spoilers for the last book... like the fight between Rand and the Dark One, where Rand creates a world that has no shadow in it, and he notices that by completely removing the shadow from people, it is kinda like Turning, you remove their freewill. So that fight somewhat proves that the Light can infact force people to lose any freewill to chose evil.
@@RexusprimeIX agreed one hundred percent. I came to the same conclusion on Turning after my most recent reread.
Did someone say Critical Race Theory?
Ik this is probably too late, but i found the seachan to be an apt contrast to the black tower, weaponization and dehuminazation of channelers, where it becomes apparent just how important the three oaths are to the aes sedai. The oaths are what make aes sedai part of the tower, while originally they weren't part of it, now they are what set them apart from their enemies.
Darkest moment for me was when Rand balefires Graendal's palace. Very horrible thing coming from the protagonist himself.
To be honest for a moment I even though he would turn evil :o
Is it bad that I agreed with his decision? Or at least found it hard to deny the logic of?
That's what was amazing and that scene. It made sense. Even nyneve admitted that it made sense.
Tottaly worth it and Justified!
chickenmonger123 that’s part of what makes it so horrific to me. It was just so logical and casual.
All these moments were absolutely terrifying.
The Battle of Dumai's Well has to be one of the most horrifying moments. Row after row of Shaido Aiel being absolutely obliterated and torn asunder by the One Power. Rand breaking free and stilling three Aes Sedai. The Wheel of Time is definitely not PG.
The opening of the Wheel of Time is utter horror as an insane man is given a moment of clarity to realize he has murdered his whole family and everyone else he loved. If done right that will make the Red Wedding look like a picnic
I'm pretty sure you've secretly joined the Children of Light. That's the only explaination for that opening
Daniel always said he likes Galad...
One of the more terrifying moments for me was when Rand sent a messenger to one of the forsaken, sacrificing the messenger to the forsaken's compulsion, then using that messenger to track down where the forsaken was hiding then burning the entire area with balefire, burning hundreds out of existence just to kill one enemy. But worse was the blatant uncaring confirmation that the forsaken had died when the compulsion vanished from the messenger.
That was when I realized that there was no PG in this book.
Took you that long? I figured it wasn't PG in prologue of the first book, when the man who killed his entire family turned himself into a searing ray of light.
Which book was this ?
@@criticizedreviews1081 The Gathering Storm, during his Darth Rand arc
Not to mention the damane and the utter inhumane pet-like treatment of leashed women. A little more psychological than nightmare type terrifying, but that can be just as damaging.
When Mat says to Tuon "You can channel too, you know", and she's like "I choose not to channel, just like I choose not to be a murderer."
There are so many moments in "The Wheel of Time" series that if on screen, would come across more terrifying than how it's written. The way weapons from thakan'dar kill those struck by them, the draghkar, the dark hounds, balefire, not knowing who is a dark friend (especially for new viewers of the show), Shadar Logoth, the ways, the battle of the Two Rivers, the dreams Rand has of Ishamael pretending to be the DO, when Tylin is killed, when Rand and Tam are attacked in the "Eye of the World". So many moments are dark and awful. When Rand starts going crazy. When Mat is hung and dies and Rand does CPR to bring him back (yes this does happen).
For these reasons and so many others wheel of Time trumps game of thrones so much
Perrin’s rage is the reason a wise man’s third fear is a thing. As ‘boring’ and ‘simple’ as Perrin may seem to some... his struggle with power and it’s applications is something he always has had to deal with. Even before his flight away from Edmond’s Field.
7:37 "This is a man so terrifying we watch him torture a Myrrddraal... and it works."
That. That is... truly terrifying. I'm still working my way through the series, but the idea that those things could be afraid of anything... damn.
If I'm recalling correctly, it's not even just fear. It's outright TERROR of him. I'm currently listening to it again and am only about 1/2 through the 3rd book, so it'll be awhile before I get back to that.
"Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gnash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams..."
Machin Shin, The Black Wind.
makes my skin crawl
Yeah it's just so alien and mad, it's horrifying. I completely understand it makes people go insane. I might go insane or at the very least have PTSD if that happened to me, even if there was no additional magical effect...
It's not terrifying but in terms of Rand's life, when an Aes Sedai bonds him to control him it ends up breaking her. Realizing the pain he carries with him constantly, all she can do is cry then ends up being very protective of him.
I believe most of her weeping was due to the death of one of her warders during the second invasion of the Two Rivers by trollocs.
@@ragesto everyone attributed it to that, but you notice we (never?) got a POV of her during that time. All we ever saw were others speculating it must have been because of her former Warder. In all reality, she bonded Rand, and she should have been getting better with time. Everyone else got better when they lost a Warder, look at Siuan and Leanne, they managed to overcome the loss, and hold themselves together, but one Aes Sedai never really got better, despite her fiery temper and personality. She was the one to bond Rand in that vulnerable time, and never recovered because she at that time was the only person who KNEW that Rand wasn't as hard as they all thought he was. She KNEW (or thought she did) that if the Aes Sedai pushed too hard, his stubbornness wouldn't keep him from breaking. She protected him time and time again by pushing and prodding just hard enough at the others they'd make a mistake.
I think Chad Whitfield was right. She was breaking because he was constantly in pain, and constantly an inch from the edge of breaking, and in her vulnerable state, she broke too, but saw it as her duty (he was her Warder after all) to protect him.
@@Thoron_of_Neto It is quite possible, I will agree, but as you pointed out we never get a pov from Alanna so we cannot really be sure.
It is mentioned many a time how much pain Rand is in. It is one of the things that makes me really upset about people who don't give him some slack on making bad choices. Besides going insane and being in incredible pain, he had some reasons to make some bad choices before he cured the taint.
My favorite horror bit is when Fain nails the fade to a door. That's just downright scary in context.
on my second read and i just came across that part, kind of forgot about it. its pretty creepy to see the dagger start to take effect on him
Yeah the fact that this skinny little peddler could now physically overcome a fade was pretty nuts.
Horror moments: chock full of it ranging from every aspect of the genre practically.
From the very beginning the Dragon is walking over the corpses of his wife, children, and friends that he had just killed.
Rand’s initial experience in the forest on the way to Edmond’s Field foreshadowing the attack on his home and his fleeing the Trollocs, crawling over the bodies of their sheep and jumping at shadows the entire trip.
Shadar Logoth. The Ways. White Bridge and Thom’s sacrifice and general exodus of the city. Perrin and Egwene’s fleeing the birds and into the clutches of the Whitecloaks. The eye of the world’s confrontation with the first Forsaken and the tree man-ranging from the lust of the flesh for one, to the living death as he’s ripped apart by plant growth.
And that’s all just book 1.
Samma N'Sei!!!
Spoilers:
Oh my god discovering what happened to all the male Aiel Channellers, and they're just this horrific sharp teethed inversion of Aiel culture just freaked me out so bad. Just such a corruption of the Aiel culture from where they originated in the Age of Legends.
When you find out all the male aiel channelers who went to fight the dark one have been been turned by the shadow. The sharpened teeth... still haunts me...
I've been through the series a few times but jeez put a spoiler warning on this post!!
@@thewaterwarrior9817 Or....don't watch a video literally and explicitly dedicated to talking about events happening in the WoT unless you've either already read it, or don't care about spoilers....because yes, spoilers, duh...
@@steave435 idk man that's a big one though! I just dont want it spoiled for people!
Some excellent choices, for me the most traumatizing thing in the series was Avienda's second trip through the pillars, boy did that break me.. but yeah Rand's life is a hellish nightmare!
One thing I wanted to point out though, while the series is definitely dark and has lots of mature content, I have always appreciated RJ not going into detail and making it more consumable for younger audiences, I think it shows real talent to be able to write for a wide audience, I don't know if the TV show can find that same middle ground I will understand if they don't but I also find it disheartening when fans demand they go full gore to capture the darker aspects when the books handled it tactfully, the show can do so as well!
Actually, for me, it's the same talent as Frank Herbert in the original series of Dune, whereas his son lacks that skill and killed all the rest for me! FH & RJ are 2 of my fav authors, along with JRR ofc, but also Ken Follet with his trilogy "The Century" that conveyx the horrors of both WW yet never describes anything specific.
For me, one of the most darkest and terrifying moments in the series(my personal favourite moment in the series),
Turn over newbies spoilers ahead
Rand breaking, after him being forced to torture Min by Semirhage. It's bone chilling. Well, if you watched the entire video you already know about why.
Priyanshu Mohanty 100% I was so upset and terrified.
Though Daniel had 1 of the consequences wrong. Min doesn't fear him as she demonstrate later through the bond, she was scared to discover that he had always be right in considering her a liability to him, a "weakness" that his enemy could use against him, exactly as they did!
So yes, one of my worse nightmarish moment, if not THE worst.
For me the most terrifying scene was Aviendha vision. It hit me hard, haunted me for days and reminded me of Syria and many other countries that have been destroyed and lives of their people have changed forever and since I'm living in middle east, it scared me that maybe one day my own country faces the same doom
A while ago, in the depths of my mind, I kind of fan-cast Daniel Greene as Rand al'Thor.
If Daniel does not at least once in his life cosplay as Rand, can he say he truly lived his life as best he could??
...and at the end of his life he will hear a whisper in the wind "I win again Daniel Greene..."
@@eriknormark6085 Comedy GOLD
I could get behind Daniel as Rand.
For me, a major event that affected me was during the battle of Dumai's Wells where after weeks (or months) torture, Rand breaks out of his shield, immediately stilling several of the Aes Sedai, then the “Kneel or be Knelt” moment after the battle. To me the stilling alone actually terrifying. I had to put down the book and take a walk.
For me after multiple re-reads and multiple listenings via audiobooks Dumai's Well still makes me take a moment of contimplation.
@@darhknight1019 battle is evil even when justified.
And the exploding people, can't forget the exploding people
Ashaman KILL.
Remember as well that by this point, Rand had escaped at least one once and killed two warders with his bare hands before being recaptured.
Oh, and as an afterthought, I'd add that the Questioners truly terrify me. To the depths of my bones, the idea that once they take you, you will never know anything but pain, for what remains of your life, and there is no hope of acquital, you will be tortured, to confession, then killed as a heretic... It's always mentioned, and always danced around, but for this to be such common knowledge, there is precedent, which means in that realm, many people have endured this!
Spoilers of course.....
What really got me was that there is even a possibility that someone can be turned evil without consent. I think the concept is mentioned early in the books, and that was horrifying to me, but I thought okay good people can probably resist this. And then you have the horrifying reality of it with Taim and the black tower. That part was very disturbing. And it's irreversible...
And what Graendal can do to completely hollow out a person replacing them with a sycophant...that's super horrible too.
Agreed. The involuntary turning freaked me out when I first read the series as a teenager. To a control freak, that irreversible possession of the mind is worst, followed by Graendel’s brain-gelatinizing Compulsion, and the Seanchan adam coming in at a distant third place.
This. Wow, still makes my skin crawl thinking about it.
@bigbenhoward It is super super unsettling, which is why I found it so horrifying. I would hope that Good had an equally potent irrevocable weapon...but turning someone good without their choice could be considered evil and it's gets close to taking away people's wills. But does that mean that Evil will always have a leg up over Good since Evil is not chained by morality? I just hope those peoples' turned souls had some sort peace in the afterlife. But I totally agree this left me really uncomfortable (and I thought too much for the story), but that's why I think it's the most terrifying.
"Bubbles Of Evil" sounds like a Halloween costume for a PowerPuff Girl. So cute!
Siansonea Orande ah captain Picard
Why is Graendal on top of your list?
Small nitpick, the ways aren't leftover from aol. Theyre from post breaking, thats why machin shin exists (made w tainted saidin) and aol is generally thought to have ended w the sealing of the bore.
thx. I was wondering about that.
I believe the ways are actually AOL, but got corrupted after the breaking. There's mentions of it being used in its pure form in book 1 i believe, mentioning the currumption of them to take place slowly during the Breaking.
they were built during the breaking by the male AS seeking refuge from the taint/madness. so yeah, technically not AoL.
Yep, they were built by male Aes Sedai as a thank you to the Ogier for letting them take refuge in the steddings, that's why they're located where they are :).
There from right after breaking and ended up tainted because they were made with saiden and no one realized the taint would destroy them I believe
This is a very fair treatment of the content and tone of the story. I especially like that you recognize that Jordan (not glossed over but) described the points so that they feel like it is less horrific (explicit or other adjetives can go here, too). There were horrors in the book. There were also scantily clad and even nude depictions in the book. I appreciate that Jordan was able to tell the story, painting the picture in a way that the reader knew it was there without describing the details of what was there. I think the film/TV equivalent would be to show almost, but not quite, the explicit content. For example, a view of the shear, almost completely transparent clothing of some of the characters in a way that makes it clear that everything is shown without exactly showing the things that make Rand and his friends blush. Based on what I have heard, so far, I think that production is going a bit further than this, and will get a TV-MA rating on their content. I just feel that Jordan gave the TV-MA story while making it feel like a TV-14 production. Any details that would have made it MA I had to imagine on my own. I expect that viewers of the upcoming production will have less left to the imagination.
One advantage of the written word over that of video is that you can illuminate a path for the imagination to walk down. For video, you generally have to walk down that path and actually make it explicit. It still doesn't have to be gratuitous, but you do have to go a lot further. And you have less room to let different audience members stop at different points down that path - for instance, Daniel Greene's description of Rand attempting to bring the dead kid in Tear back to life is a hell of a lot more visceral than the impression I got when reading that part.
I really loved this video. Hinderstap chilled me to my core, while simultaneously giving me a sick idea for a D&D adventure. Aside from the ones you mentioned, Dumai's Well's left a serious impression. I had this horrific battlefield image in my head and I had to hold back a tear or two while reading it.
Channellers being forcibly turned to the Dark with a circle of 13 Dark channellers and Myrddraal is pretty terrifying imo
The picture you had as myrdraal is not how I picture them. I mean... the myrdraal has been in inns, requesting the whereabouts of Moirane, Rand and company. Also when Mat and Rand is fleeing from whitebridge(?), after loosing Tom, he is on the streets speaking to a dark friend innkeeper. For me, I think of them looking like a pale man, but eyeless. Not the creepy thing in your picture. xD
Otherwise, brilliant video. I also feel for Rand, it is such a horrific life.. He stops caring for "life", not only his own. Destroying a whole castle/manor house with balefire.. Using a person under mindcontrol to see if he succeeded.. His arm, that is a scene I will never forget.. And then on top of dragonmount, it all changes. Still horrifying events, but how he sees them has changed, he has changed. It really is the best book series I know of.
That bubble of evil that turned a whole (block?) of houses in Tear into dust literally scared the shit out of me.
I still am a bit confused when you refer to us as “your wonderful children”
I love it. Might say a few things about me.
I kinda hate it xD, i might have to skip the first 20 sec of the video from now on.
I agree. That opening is a reason I don't recommend the channel. Daniel even said most of audience is his age or older, so it is not the best sign on.
Maybe he is aes sedia?
I'm not a fan either. I just became a father myself and Daniel's casual use kinda cheapens this
Watching this video just reminds me of how much depth the producers have to cover in the TV series
The audiobook depiction of Machin'Shin is nightmare inducing
So this is literally the first on-line thing I have EVER replied to or added, but I am a HUGE Wheel of Time fan. I have read the series over 20 times in as many years. Although you touched on the terror of the male a'dam, and I agree that the moment with Semirhage, Rand, and Min is horrific, I can't believe you left out the intense slavery aspect of the Seanchan Sul'dam. The first time I read 'The Great Hunt' I almost put the series down because I found their Damane training to be unspeakable. I would even argue that the PTST that Rand and Min went through is nothing compared to losing your ENTIRE sense of self the way that the Damane have. It, to me, is as dark as Ramsey in 'Game of Thrones'. True, they don't dismember them, but for the most part, it is a permanent slavery with next to no hope. It makes my skin crawl when I think about it. Of all the things I would not want my child to see, it would be that.
Love your channel.
Whoda
They do dismember them, hands, feet, tongues, etc.. they don't need them to channel.
" I found their Damane training to be unspeakable," clearly...
It is up there, but I think Compulsion is worse, especially the way Rahvin and Graendal used it. Rahvin was pretty much a serial rapist who enjoyed having his own harem. And from the descriptions we get of Graendal, she makes Rahvin almost look like a healthy role model for sexuality.
@@SH-qs7ee Compulsion is fucking horrific.
It was little moments that stood out to me most in terms of creep factor as I don’t think I was terrified by big world ending stuff. The weird feeling in 4 Kings, when all the food is rotting and filled with weevils, the blood calls blood scene and lastly the moment Rand tries to heal death with the kid and moving it like a puppet corpse.
'a thing about Perrins tortue of the Aiel: he threatened to cut of their hands and feet and leave them to beg - not to cut out tongues or eyes etc.
My memory has failed me.
and it was the threat of being made so lame as to beg and not the physical pain that got to the aiel!
That last part, the begging. That’s so fucking keen and ruthless. He knew what the aiel feared. Shame. It’s the whole reason those aiel ran from the car’a’carn.
That was f**king brutal. The Aiel wasn't afraid of pain or death, but when Perrin told him, basically, "I'm not going to even let you die...I'm going to make you live as a helpless wretch with no Ji for the rest of your life" That was dark. Maybe not "scary" but dark as hell.
I can't wait to see Perrin crush the goblet in the inn. That moment has brought tears to my eyes on many occasions.
That broke me lol
Ive read the books a couple of times, just started re-reading them again. This moment had me sniveling yet again just a couple of days ago.. Tears to my eyes just writing this.. Perrin´s entire family. :'( EXCEPT HIS YOUNG COUSIN!!!!!
Same for when they come back form the ambush and Perrin doesn't realise how bad the wound is. That kills me.
Just relived that moment for the third listen through last night, not once with dry eyes. What's captured so amazingly, but not literally spelled out, is that he is in shock. That could have gone so many directions, but the quiet internal sense of disbelief made the scene real.
Amazon needs Guillermo Del Toro for creature design. That guy knows how to make some visually disturbing monstrosities.
One scene that really has stuck with me for YEARS is our introduction to Semirhag where she is torturing a blue sister and her warder. Chills. Mental torture is maybe worse than physical
You hit on a lot of the ones I'd consider very dark - and it's interesting how often it's mental/psychological. It makes me very curious to see how Rafe (and Amazon) approaches all of these issues. Torture is present throughout the WoT in almost all its variant forms, but RJ did a masterful job of allowing you to gloss over it if you wished (as many do). Rape is there (male and female victims), sexual assault/harassment, domestic violence, slavery, the horrors of war, PTSD, suicide/suicidal thoughts, depression.. it can be very dark indeed.
I love this list, and it really only scratches the surface of the horror in the series.
Are we not gonna talk about Jaichim Carridens family? How he was given the task to kill Rand and for every month he couldn't accomplish this task, Shadar Haran would skin one family member alive?
Or, perhaps the scene at Thakan'dar where one of the golems take a baby from a mother's arms, then give it to a little girl to hold, then drag the mother into the forge to be killed, and have her soul harvested to give the blade its corrupting effect?
Compulsion, and its ability to rob someone of their entire personality, shaping someone into a sycophant worshipping the channeler, even if that person becomes aware they're being manipulated, they can't stop wanting to worship that person, even when. That person is dead, cut from the pattern completely by balefire, they are not released. Morgase still wants Rahvin...
The world of dreams, and it's entirely fucked up propensity to summon the most terrible creatures from people's nightmares, and trap unsuspecting dream walkers in them, causing them physical damage even when they know they're not REALLY in the nightmare?
The list goes on, and on and only gets more horrifying. I love this series because RJ didn't point straight to the truly heinous occurrences in the series, but he alluded to them in such a way that after 4 read throughs, I still find something new every time that makes me pause, and try to imagine the horror facing a character!!
I know this is probably not quite in the same vein as the rest of the video, but the "box " was always a terrifying ordeal to me. Maybe because it was so pervasive and harrowing for me as a reader, but it really stuck with me.
I'm here specially for the The Wheel Of Time!!! Hehehe and yesterday on the live session I asked exactly this question - What is the most horrific part of the books? For me is the Hadnan Kadere strangling Isendre and choping her corpse, while remembering his sister... whom he had killed when she found out he was a Darkfriend. This section sounded so quiet and psychotic... I just couldn't...
I always thought that a lot of the darker stuff came from things that Jim saw in Vietnam.
@@glencullinanan505 bet it did. He saw shit over there, they all did, that would destroy anyone.
@@matthewsmith4647 I remember reading something from an interview he'd done about fifteen or so years ago, and he mentioned a photo of him - although he refers to himself in an almost omniscient tone - in Vietnam, eating near corpses. He spoke of how he killed that man before returning to the US.
"You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention"
Ohcome on. I have to start reading this series NOW!
It still amazes me how people can watch an analysis video before reading the series and then complain about spoilers..like for real..wtf
It's a little silly, right?
One thing from the books that somehow got especially stuck in my head is the idea of falling from a Skimming platform. It's said that you will fall in the infinite darkness until you starve or die from terror.
I have to say, the culmination of the overarching themes at the very end of the series was both beautiful and terrifying. Over fourteen books the major conflict morphs oh so gradually from a simple Tolkienien good must defeat evil to this core shattering eternal truth, that is both beautifully simple yet utterly unknowable and literally transcending universes. Reading it felt like elation and despair colliding inside me, and somehow leaving me with a very powerful feeling of contentment. Kind of terrifying in the best way.
Thanks for the shout out dude!
- Jesse
This was a great piece to show for aspects of Wheel of Time.... How about for a future one. (if you have not already) to clean the palette in your mind if you will have a post about The most Uplifting Events in the Wheel of Time... like Rand finally healing himself in his mind on top of Dragonmount...I actually teared up big time ...a very cathartic scene for me.... Perrin making the Hammer was another one for me...etc...etc...
A little slow adding to this, but finding out Perrin witnessed Rand on Dragonmount while in the World of Dreams and rooting for Rand to fight the darkness. Very uplifting to know someone witnessed Rand's struggle there.
Used the Hinderstap plot on my Dungeons and Dragons crew. They loved trying to figure out what was going on in the town.
Agreed, the Semirhage male adam scene is one of the most disturbing, if not the number one.
It's not quite as overt as the moments you mentioned but I find the Worms terrifying the fact that there was an entire type of shadowspawn that could not leave The Blight. And the kicker these horrific monsters are the larval stage of this type of shadowspawn and whatever they grew into was somehow worse.
Yes, I've been reading The Wheel of Time, I only read the first four or so back in the day, and now I'm rereading them. I'm in the middle of "The Great Hunt" right now and I have been surprised by how dark a lot of this is. Much darker than I remember it being, maybe I just forgot, or , as you say, glossed over those parts and characters. Really enjoying it so far. I think now that I'm older, the "wordiness" of Jordan's style doesn't bother me as much as it might have years ago.
"chops off his hand, and other stuff.. " ahhh, no stop.. (runs away from spoilers!)
I am kind of curious, having read the series since its first release. Why would you look up videos discussing a book series you haven't read if you're worried it might contain spoilers? If I missed a football game and didn't want to know the score until I'd watched the game I'd recorded, I wouldn't turn on sporting news. I'd just watch the game.
@@throatwobblermangrove8510 I didn't "look it up"; I'm subscribed to this channel, and it just popped up on my page. I'm about 3/4 ways through the books.
Generally people give spoiler warnings on WOT videos now, since the TV series is being created and this has created a lot of hype. A lot of people have recently started reading the books, and they're at different stages.
I've seen other channels present their spoiler warnings like "Spoilers up to book 4" or "the whole series", or whatever.
Generally if you don't get a spoiler warning it _should_ mean there aren't any spoilers. Of course some video titles speak for themselves, like "A review of book 6" is obviously going to contain spoilers up to book 6, but some video titles can be a bit arbitrary, you don't know if somebody is going to be speaking generally or talking about specific events.
Of course I was probably a bit dumb to just click on it without thinking.
@@JoeBob79569 Although my comment was a response to yours, it was really more of a question out of general curiosity, since I often see people complain about spoilers. It was also not intended as judgmental, although it's easy to get the impression through text, with no tone of voice to set it up. I guess my confusion comes from not having the habit of subscribing to channels that discuss topics I don't want spoiled. My own preference is to hear alternate viewpoints or more in-depth conversation on something I've already read or viewed. But maybe I'm just the outlier here.
@@throatwobblermangrove8510 Yes, it can be easy to take something the wrong way through text, like my quotation marks at the beginning of the last comment, for example, could be construed as being sarcastic, when I meant it more as just an exact term.
I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt because of this, which is why I tried to answer in a general way from my point of view as best I could.
The whole spoiler thing can be a bit of a dilemma though. I mean, I don't expect every channel to give me a spoiler warning about every single thing, every time; but at the same time I also don't want to be hit with a spoiler out of nowhere. I do avoid a lot of WOT videos that seem like they might contain spoilers but with the TV series coming you sometimes don't know if the video is going to be about the books or the TV series.
For example this video could have been about the leaked footage of trollocs or myrddraal, or a spooky location. Yea, I'm a bit of an optimist.
I do also use these channels to point me towards new material as well so I'll take a few spoilers every now and again over avoiding them entirely.
WOT is a bit of an exception with it being so bloody huge, I'm about 6 months at it now..
@@JoeBob79569 Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of the series. I've always enjoyed it. While it has some problems, as all books do, it's my all-time favorite fantasy series.
The trollocs with Padan Fain in The Great Hunt taking whole villages including the little children basically as cattle to eat really got to me.
This video was too short! Haha I mean just that there are SO many terrifying scenes that it could have went on and on. You touched on a few good ones. Some of the Fain stuff was only brushed upon, but some of his scenes are honestly the most disturbing. Some of the things the Shaido do are utterly horrifying as well. To the point that there was even a moment when I actually felt SORRY for Galina. There were a few more I mentioned in my Twitter comment as well (my handle there is Amyrlin Seat). Ayway, glad to see a Wheel of Time video from you! Those are the ones I am here for. =) Cheers!
That was the best video you have done Daniel. Thought provoking, insightful and utterly compelling. I had heard that a lot of Robert Jordan's knowledge of the darker side of things came from the Vietnam war especially with regards to mental health
I freaking adore this list!!! I have always thought that this series was scary but never could explain exactly why to people.
Got me tearing up at then end with the Rand/Min scene. It's been a few years since I read/listened to the series (currently doing it now) and that scene always stands out to me so much.
The part that made me realise just how messed up it can get was when Rand, Perrin & Mat were chasing Padan Fain and come across the remains of a village following his massacre with a Myrdrall nailed to a barn door... A MYDRALL NAILED TO A BARN DOOR!
The scene with Rand strangling Min was so terrifying for me because there was this utter helplessness. I just thought: nonono, this can't be happening but how can he stop it? There is no way out!! I totally believed she had to die
The top two terrifying things that comes to my mind is the people that are tied below water by one of the forsaken at one time, secondly and most importantly, the idea of falling off a skimming platform.
A couple of bits you left out. 1 - The gholam also drains its victims of blood. 2 - If a traveller passing through Hindersnap is killed, then they are locked in the curse as well.
The Gholam, Aelfinn/Eelfin. Compulsion/mind torture. Def some dark/twisted stuff.
Frozen, Perrin stared at the bloody shape wearing the man’s clothes, screaming and thrashing on the floor. Unbidden, his eyes rose to the pale thing like an empty sack that dangled from the ceiling. Part of it was already absorbed by the black strip, but he had no trouble recognizing a human skin, apparently whole and unbroken.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Mashadar from the first book. The scene where he takes the form of a man and what happens when Rand and Mat realizes that he has no shadow is the stuff of nightmares. There's also the dream sequences, which tend to be truly chilling. Remember the time Perrin saw a man skinned alive? And it wasn't in pieces either, the entire layer of skin was ripped off. That was hard to read!
Paden Fain is scary. The sound of the worm pack. The fallen City of Men, former ally of Manetheren.
in the EotW the scene with Perrin, Egwene and Elyas running from the terrifying swarm of crows who mutilated dozens of rabbits and foxes on their way to refuge of a steading was always terrifying for me! im not sure way RJ didnt use those swarm of crows more later on in the books...
A swarm of Falcons was used in the wolf dream when Perrin rescued Faile at the end of book three
PG only wheel of time: Ashaman Kill
oh the wells
I can't help but think that anybody who says WOT is PG or family friendly must have just stared at each page for a minute without reading a single word. Really horrifying things happen. A certain character cutting up another certain character to dispose of the body in Fires of Heaven is one that really stands out to me that wasn't mentioned.
Yeaj that was fujked up
I love this video. I can’t wait for more WoT vids. I’m always terrified and creeped out while reading the books. I’m rereading for the hundredth time at the moment and I just got past Perrin’s breaking down in the Winespring Inn and had to put the book down to cry.
For me, the most utterly disturbing part of WoT was Randt talking to Nyneauve about only needing the strength to reach the top of the mountain.
Not only is it horribly depressing, but it makes a terrible amount of sense.
wheel of Time has always been terrifying, its one of the things I like about it. When you're lucky you only have to deal with a 10 ft tall genetically engineered killing machine, because everything else is worse, you know you're in for a rough ride.
As for other terrifying moment, honourable mentions have to go to:
Mashadar: a mist that brings that creeping, inexorable yet mindless death to everything
Draghkar: charming crooners who literally steal your souls with a kiss.
Tel'Aran'Rhoid: Literally a dream world where you can make anything happen. Just don't die there, or you die for good. Oh, and there are innumerable ways to die.
One of my favorite things about the series is its handling of dark themes, as brilliantly outline in this video and some of the comments. Jordan did an incredible job of using darkness sparingly to ensure maximum impact when things did get gross, and I also think that is an aspect of the series Sanderson adopted well when he took over. Overall, it is like I said one of my favorite things about the series
Not necessarily horror, but definitely some tense passages. Anytime Halima (name?) would meet with Egwene in private and massage her headaches away. The moment there was a male channeler detected among the rebel Aes Sedai had me on edge, and suspicious as hell after seeing what the Dark Lord was capable of. Then when we found out another Aes Sedai close to Egwene at the time was meeting with dark friends had me turning pages anytime shenanigans were going on in that camp.
Rand in the box - being shut in a box for days or weeks is just horrific. I can’t even re-read that part. And Egwene under the leash of the Seanchan in the Great Hunt.the scene when Min is running away from her screams makes me shudder every time
The Ways aren't exactly from the AoL. They were made during the Breaking by the male AS in taking shelter in Steddings. AoL -> Bore -> Fall -> War -> Sealing / Taint -> Time of Madness / Breaking. While we can quibble over when the AoL technically ended (the instant the Bore was Sealed and the Breaking began, sometime during the Breaking, or when the Breaking ended), it's very important to the nature of the Ways that they were not a wonderous creation of the AoL in the way of angreal etc., but a product of a tainted and shattering world.
The thing that came to mind first was the Blighted lands itself and all the various critters that dwell there.
2:34 They Ways aren't from the Age of Legends. They came about at the beginning of the 3rd Age. If you consider the patching of the Dark One's prison at the end of the War of Shadow and the resultant counterstrike that tainted Saidin as the end of the Age of Legends (as it is presented in the series), then you'll realize this error. The surviving male Aes Sedai who took shelter in the Ogier Steading created and presented the Talisman of Growing to Steading elders before leaving. Since the degeneration of the Ways is linked to Saidin's Taint, it obviously happened after the Breaking, and therefore in the 3rd Age.
Mat's talisman made him immune to the One Power, yet Elayne and Nynaeve easily found a way around that by using the Power to assault him with physical objects. The same could be done with a Gholam.
Child Byar always struck me as particularly evil, and his malevolent hatred of Perrin was particularly disturbing. While he doesn't represent any supernatural evil, he embodies the ultimate in truly human evil. He's so dedicated to what he considers to be "right", he will perform any act, no matter how heinous. I always looked at his evil as more disturbing because it actually exists in the world, and is something we can really relate to.
I'm a bit late to this one, sorry Daniel! For me the scariest part was when Semirhage has and Ase Sedai (Cabriana Mecandes) and her warder held captive and is torturing them both, the warder with pleasure and the Ase Sedia with pain. The warder ends up dying from biting his own tongue in ecstasy... 😱
How about the Myrddraal’s “sport”? I basically missed that the first time I read the series. Then on second reading it hit me what that actually meant... Also, the added heartbreak of the bond between R and M in The Last That Could Be Done really got me good.
Hinderstap's curse was especially dangerous because it could also trap outsiders in the loop. The reason the ban on outsiders in town after sunset was in place was because, if they were killed by the villagers, they too would wake in a empty bed every morning and be trapped. Some of mats soldiers offer to sacrifice themselves, so they can recruit the villagers for the last battle as suicide squads against the shadow.
For me when the Ashaman are first unleashed at Dumai's Wells was a horror show. You have a medieval world where sure, swords/axes/spears are pretty brutal, but this is the first time both the reader and the characters see true unadulterated carnage. Jordan makes a point of showing that even the most battle-hardened soldiers there are just standing in abject shock and disgust in what they witnessed, not really able to process this monumental shift in how war is waged.
Another one for me would when you first see the results of the forced turning happening at the Black Tower. To see a character go from a pretty likable and caring person to this vaguely mad shell of a human is truly unnerving.
I find it notable that not even Damane are shown fighting the way we see Dumai's Wells. They'll do things like target explosions at your feet - which is horrific in its consequences - and in some ways more useful as a weapon due to shrapnel. That, fireballs, bolts of lightning - its all objectively terrifying but still cool for the reader.
Dumai's Wells?
The front rank of Shaido exploded. There was no other word for it.
@@Wirrn exactly. Maybe it's a saidar versus saidin thing, but the Ashaman were straight up making people explode with the One Power, and that's never seen being used by any other channeler. Hell, even Rand himself uses weaves that go from the outside in.
This is why I kind of laugh when people think WoT won't be as dark and gritty as ASOIAF. R. Jordan's writing wasn't as explicit, so it seems milder. But it WAS all there! Nudity, sex, violence, terror, and madness, just written in a more family friendly manner. A friend who is reading the complete series for the first time (he only got to 5 or early 6 before we had a short falling out) and got to Alanna's "rape" bonding of Rand today. It pretty much horrified him, and to me it's one of the milder scenes as we get further into the books.
Dumani Wells. The best chapter of any book ever written. Rand's cold and vengeful demeanor and the resulting Ashaman's attack on the Aiel. Everything Rand endured leading up to that was so dark, but I saw this as his first major step into the darkness that almost consumed him. Purely terrifying.
Trollocs chopping villagers, the Great Hunt. I can never forget
There's also that scene in book 3 where Rand kills that random lady and her followers and makes their dead bodies prostrate to him.
Love that scene, shows a bit of the stress and crazy leak into his mind.
He literally thinks inside his mind that he is a king and people should bow to him