king of nowhere

No, it was mentioned that the meeting was called with the minimum legal number of 11. So it was 4 against 7, and with a couple aes sedai killed by surprise, it was close to even numbers Because all your attacks with the power were being blocked, a staff can be equally lethal, bypass a weaving of spirit meant to block the power, and be unexpected. I mean, you weren't expecting leane to club a black to death, right? Nynaeve does the exact same thing against moghedien in tanchico, and it worked. The book shows time and again that those who focus solely on the power, dismissing all other avenues of attack, are fools.

indeed, my main worry was that the battle would suck, but no, it's good. loved every minute. loved the feeling of "wtf how many black sisters are there???" though in the books we don't get there until a lot later. i don't understand what alanna thinks she can do alone against a dozen black sisters though. not unless she has a saangreal

Only a solid blow would be incapacitating, a shield still has value. Especially behind a spear wall. That said, nobody ever tried to fight against opponents of superhuman strenght, so there are no tested tactics for that. The closest exammple i know is romans against celts, though: the average roman was 1.65 meters, the average celt was 1.85, and yet despite the difference in size and strenght the shield wall was very effective. So, we don't know what exactly would work best against actual trollocs, and i'm willing to give anything shown some leeway. As a larger point, hollywood tactics worry me a lot, and the show has done poorly in the past but the two river battle is supposed to be dumb brutes against untrained farmers, so if the tactics used are poor, it's only to be expected. they'll have a much harder time persuading me that mat has become a great general, but that won't happen until the next season

haven't looked the other details closely, but i focused on that 1:46 and it looked great to me. those shields look like they were improvised from pieces of dinner tables, and the weapons like they were refurbished farming implements. which is exactly what they are supposed to be

the first three books were hardest to adapt. with them out of the way and the main plot elements established, the show has great potential to come back on track. i am somewhat worried for the white tower battle, it can be great, or it can come off lame as the wizard battle in the witcher, with the giant ring of fire slowly falling from the sky; at least i didn't see anything like that, the ball of fire around liandrin looks like first she was alone and shielded and was being interrogated, and then her colleagues burst in to rescue her. all the scenery is amazing, except for the aiel spearheads, they look made of rubber. which is most likely the case we didn't see much of the age of legends, will have to wait one month for that. all in all, looks very promising

where did you got all those information? i browse this forum to keep up with the news, and i've only seen the 1 minute teaser

that always left me puzzled. i can understand that people who are punished repeatedly want to avoid punishment. with time, it becomes a routine. eventually, they just start to go along with it. they can even form camaraderie with the sul'dam and other damane. but i can't imagine suddenly wanting to protect the person torturing me. torture may change how you act, but not how you feel - except for feeling afraid. which is why i always assumed that the part about reading emotions was a bit of an exaggeration, very vague at best. and, most important, that a general feeling of fear would be acceptable. if the damane is complying because she's afraid, she won't be punished. it will only make her even more afraid. in fact, we even have a rare sul'dam pow with bethamin in WH chapter 20 that was along the lines of "for now they stopped demanding their jewelry back, that's progress, gradually they will adapt". which is why i think that as long as you play along and obey all orders, and the sul'dam will feel you are afraid of them, it should be acceptable behavior.

mat is in tanchico, so most likely they dropped out the whole portal sequence and use him being a hero of the horn to justify his memories. i'm not particularly happy, but it can work.

it probably can cause heart attack, or kill indirectly by other forms of shock, but it's not reliable in any way. i think that the death of your sul'dam is fatal was said in the book, possibly by renna, and she never lied about anything else concerning the a'damn. but i don't remember exact quotes

i mean, the death of a sul'dam while wearing the bracelet. of course, when they retire and eventually die of old age, it has no effect. i think Renna said that whatever the sul'dam feels, the damane feels more, even to the point of death, so a damane must protect her sul'dam in battle even more than herself. but it says nothing of painless conditions, like being incapacitated by a blow to the head. would that cause the damane to fall unconscious too? some drugs kill without pain, one falls asleep and dies; what if it's administered to a sul'dam? we don't have any solid data on any of that - though we can surmise, at least, that poison effects would be shared, as elayne and birgitte could get each other drunk through the warder bond, and the a'dam is not too dissimilar.

iirc, it's ambiguous. it's implied, but never stated for certain. nor is established in any way what would happen with a painless death.

actually, it's pretty well established you can't do those. the cramps prevent your muscles from moving. a cramp happens when a muscle doesn't respond to commands. similarly, weaves meant specifically to open the a'dam fail. egwene tried that, i think.

the problem with adapting beautiful characters is that all actors are reasonably beautiful. i can't talk about male beauty, but lanfear is supposedly the most beautiful woman in the book, and yet i prefer... let me think... almost every other woman in the main cast to her. with galad is going to be the same. just go along with it

no, that's completely wrong. channeling works with some science and reproducibility. what one channeler can weave, others can copy. talents can influence how powerful is the result, but every weaving is reproducible- there isn't a single example contradicting this in 14 books. there is no such thing as a one-off. therefore, if nynaeve was dead, it means resurrecting the dead is possible, and others can figure it out as well. although, to be fair, it seems that channeling is not so well understood that one can predict much of what is possible. it's not like physics "time travel is impossible, here's the math that proves it". it's clear that with channeling, "it's impossible" simply means "people have tried and failed long enough that everyone gave up". so, if somebody discovered resurrection (possibly using a true power weave, as the DO is known to be able to resurrect, or more accurately reincarnate), it would not directly contradict the worldbuilding. but having resurrection in a story creates a huge set of problems that one has to account for. and robert jordan explicitly said it's impossible anyway.

that doesn't mean much, a lot of little details were done to hint things from the book but were actually deprived of any plot significance. for example, they did cast cenn buie and basel gill, but both appear in just a couple of scenes and have maybe one line of dialogues and their names are not given. same for the grinwell. so, i wouldn't draw plot conclusions from a rug design. still, i'd be happy if they managed to keep that part of the plot

so, if you are told that magic can heal people but not resurrect them, and you see someone badly burned on the ground, and magic brought her to her feet again, you have 2 options: 1) clearly, she wasn't dead yet. after all, unless major brain injury is involved, people take some time to die 2) omg she was resurrected even though it should not be possible! they completely broke their rules and ruined the worldbuilding forever. I just wonder why anyone would ever pick 2) when 1) is available full agreement on this one. however, one should not assume that the world building was damaged if there are other perfectly plausible alternatives

well, the central square of rhuidean was littered with items of power, among which the foxhead medallion could easily be placed. mat having access to previous memories due to being a hero of the horn would absolutely justify him picking up a specific one. similarly, moiraine can die for real and not be rescued, as everything she does in the last battle can be done by someone else. and the stuff rand was told through the portal in tear could easily be part of the karaeton cycle. therefore, ultimately, the finns could easily be skipped. i hope it doesn't happen. unlike bryne or morgase, this is a more important story arc, and i'd be much happier if it was included. however, it can be cut without significant ripple effects on the rest of the plot, and i can see how cutting it would reduce the need for exposition.

so, considering all the complains whenever a girl saves a boy and it's not in the book, I was expecting this role reversal would be met more favorably

oh, please. bryne is a personal favourite. i have a soft spot for the quiet helper that keeps things together while the protagonists gobble the spotlight, AND for the badass normal guy that manages to stay relevant in a world of superpowered. but with the huge ensemble of characters, bryne is nowhere near important enough, and his story arc can be cut without any large change to the rest of the story. characters like him are the first to be cut in an adaptation. similarly, i expect morgase to die for real, because her later arc can also be cut. sure, she's instrumental for getting galad to listen to perrin, but really, do you think jordan couldn't have come up with another excuse for it if he wanted? this is the same book saga where a high sea folk dignitary agreed to mat's "bargain" of "do as i say, or I'll carry you by force" under ta'veren effect.

that's a possibility, but i don't find it very convincing. egwene punched her sul'dam, and while it was done in the heat of the action, it was deliberate, not an accident while flailing around. is it possible that the a'dam stops you if you are being thoughtful, not if you act in the heat of the moment? it certainly is, but since the original author died, we'll never know for sure one way or the other. for sure, egwene never thought to hit renna with her bare hands in the books, denying us useful information. but we are told damane have their food cut for them because they can't touch knives, it means the a'dam isn't as discriminating at reading your intent as you may assume. i'm not talking of the show. what the show did with the a'dam is bad and rafe should feel bad (the part with the reciprocal collaring, not the part with egwene blowing up her tower while renna was distracted; that's covered into scenario 2). i'm staying specifically into stuff that's confirmed by book canon. on ryma, they ended up accepting that she was unable to channel in battle. they stopped trying to get her to break the oaths long before. wait, this is scenario 5): have every aes sedai swear and oath that if captured and collared, they will never, ever cooperate with the seanchan. that will make them immune to being turned.

The books make it clear times and again that the a'dam is unescapable. and yet, just because you can't take it off, it doesn't mean you are completely helpless. premise: you are a prisoner. you will be tortured, abused and broken into killing your former friends. this is a fate worse than death. therefore, death counts as victory for you. if you die, it's a good outcome; you are not expecting to come out of this alive anyway. whatever damage you can deal to the seanchan before you die, that's just bonus. premise 2: an experienced channeler could just control your flows, like nynaeve did with moggy. however, the sul'dam are anything but experienced. they do not know they can do that, just like they don't know they can channel. you have that little advantage. with those premises, let's see a few things you could do to foil the empress 1) the martial artist You cannot use weapons while wearing an a'dam. egwene was unable to touch the brooch of water after she thought of hitting renna with it. But! Book canon establishes that you can still use your bare hands. when egwene was first collared, she punched her sul'dam, and nothing stopped the punch. sure, she was disabled by the pain afterwards, but she could deliver one good punch in the process. it's perfectly possible to kill a person with a single well-delivered punch, especially if they are helpless because they are not expecting it. i was thinking a solid blow on the occiput, it's the most frail part of the skull and a strong blow there often results in permanent damage. Sure, if you kill - or even seriously wound - your sul'dam you are going to die of feedback pain, but we established in the premise that's exactly what you wanted. you mercy-killed yourself, you denied the empire a powerful resource, and you managed to bring a hard-to-replace sul'dam with you. you can also try to kill other damane, they are very valuable resources - and whether they are tortured prisoners or willing soldiers, they are legitimate targets in both cases, if for different reasons. killing a damane should be easy, if you can still throw punches and you don't get pain feedback. main disadvantage is, for something like that they are likely to cut your hands, which would prevent you from further exploiting this technique and would make your life even more miserable than it already was. The main disadvantage is that killing someone with a single blow is hard, even if you can deliver a good surprise punch on the occiput, especially if you are a tiny woman. 2) friendly fire go along with enslavement. don't resist. play pretend. if the sul'dam sense that you are not truly tamed, just say "[name] doesn't want to be punished", which is pretty realistic anyway. try to get them with the guard down. eventually, you'll be used in combat. you are expected to channel letal blows in that case. when you form a deadly wave, instead of throwing, release it at your feet. the sul'dam can sense what you do, and can stop you. however, especially if you've been fighting normally for a while, they are extremely, extremely unlikely to be expecting something like that. people have limited concentration, and they tend to get distracted if involved in a monotonous routine. you only need your sul'dam to drop her guard for a second. the disadantage is that it's unreliable. it requires your sul'dam to not be expecting a suicide move, that she'll be too slow to react. and, if you try it first, it's more likely the sul'dam will be attentive; you will have to kill some of your former companions at first. But if it succeeds, you could take upwards to a dozen damane with you, dealing a major blow to the empire. 3) the stoic Just refuse to do anything. they will punish you; keep refusing. by tuon's accounting, ryma was about to die before she was broken by playing good cop. it means it's possible to just deny your captors, and ryma would most likely have died had she not found tuon. it requires a ludicrous amount of willpower, though, if even egwene couldn't manage it. 4) the least amount necessary to kill While it's normally accepted that you can't channel at all while wearing the a'dam, you actually can. during one of her chapters, egwene was doing just that. and she could channel only a tiny tiny trickle of power, and she was getting nauseated, and she could not open the a'dam. but she could still move small objects. and it doesn't really take all that much strenght to kill a person with a needle through the eye or ear canal. make a needle of air, you may just be able to kill a sul'dam that way. or at least to gouge out her eyes, which would still mark her a casualty for the empire. it's even possible you could puncture her eyes, then threaten to kill her if she doesn't release you. if she folds to your demands, you may even potentially survive and escape, but better to not get your hopes up. probably they will find you standing before a dead sul'dam. still, even if they mutilate you, they have no way to prevent you from doing the same again, so they will likely have to execute you anyway. and you may also manage to kill other damane, which are much more valuable resources than sul'dam. in the end, there are several ways to defeat the a'dam. sure, they all require a very strong willpower, and most are chancy. and they all will see you dead in the end. but really, you've been captured and collared, what do you have to lose at this point?

non sequitur. you are trying to bring some examples of bad changes as an argument that all changes are bad by principle. you are trying to bring some examples of unnecessary changes to argue that there is nothing whatsoever that needs changing. which would be like arguing that since a few blokes were hurt by wrong medicine prescribed mistakenly, then all medicine is bad and nobody would ever need any doctor under any circumstances. and you just keep bringing that up instead of bringing up actual arguments. "but if someone has a broken leg, he will need splinting" "then explain why joe was given talidomide". no, whether some changes were unnecessary and/or poorly done is completely irrelevant on whether some changes are necessary, and you are letting your frustration with some changes cloud your judgment on changes in general

I think it's because throwing stones uses air, and women are stronger with air than fire. In general, we see women fighting with air more often

fun fact, i agree on each of those likes and dislikes, but my overall opinion of the show is positive. it all comes down to the glass half full in the end

i wonder if they keep gawyn and galad or if they join them as a single character, as was speculated. the mat fight could work regardless - after all, gawyn went out cold immediately and it was just mat vs galad afterwards. and i wonder if thom merrilin has come back, or if they ended up cutting him from the story - hopefully not, but they could have been forced to do it for reasons outside of their control