Jaysen Gore

Superheroes keep losing their masks, too...it's a Hollywood trope, or a contract obligation, or a lack of faith that audiences can't tell people without seeing their faces. Either way, this fits into the "hate it, but let it go" category for me

So the first thought I had after watching this is that if this episode does not hook the audience long term, the show is doomed. In terms of capturing the essence of the Wheel of Time, this episode was its Red Wedding - a wonderful 1 episode of everything WoT has to offer. In a show that has cut maybe a book's worth of content so far, and covered 2,000 pages of story in 19 episodes, we got a whole episode dedicated to about 50 pure pages (2 1/2 uninterrupted chapters) Prior to the trip, we got so many small things - the Shaido introduction, The Flame and The Void, intro to dreamwalking, foretelling, Wise Women channeling, Rand's lineage - that speak to both him, and the world, And then with the trip, aside from 4 very small changes (Lan vs Avi; the time alignment of the 3 going to Rhuidean instead of spread out; finding the Sarkanen instead of the Choedan Kal key, Visuals for Moiraine instead of her spoken summary) and a bunch of pure excisions (Mat's presence, millions of people during and after the Breaking, the water gift, the Ogier, etc.) this has got to be the single most faithful episode they've done. - dialogue matched, visions matched. It really effectively showed that the Aiel are not the Fremen, coming from a different place, and driven by different things; both with the Shaido conflict, and the visions. Most importantly though, it demonstrated Josha's range as an actor, and showed that he can play the emotional range he's going to need for the rest of the series. While it is nowhere near my favourite part of the series, everyone speaks to The Shadow Rising as the heart of the series, and these chapters are the heart of that book. So here we are. Embrace it or not. And while I know I'm gushing about this, I also know

Spoiled, because i can't remember the book spoiler position on this board.

Later books Mat was not what i would describe as a coolly rational genius..

I'm positive it will be Asmodean; the musician statue is too much of a clue for it not to be him. But I have a slightly different hot take:

I don't much like this idea - having Forsaken behind every group of antagonists simplifies the world entirely too much. Having the Shaido, and the Whitecloaks, and Elaida and for the most part the Seanchan (I mean, really, how important was **** to them?) be different flavours of villains is important to the complexities of the world. Similar to the Morgase discussion, good people can do evil, evil people can do good, and no one can walk so long in the dark that they can't come back to the light. But if it is everyone against our heroes are agents of the Shadow, then it's too clean.

I'd be curious to see if you think The Sword of Shannara is an adaptation of the Lord of the Rings, and thus subject to infringement lawsuits.

On the adaptation debate: If you look at the 4 major components of story (Character, Plot, Setting, and Theme), in my opinion, an adaptation needs to leverage at least 2 of those in the re-telling of the story to count. If it’s only one, there is a strong possibility of convergent evolution in story telling, moving it into a “based on” or “inspired by” situation without being an actual adaptation. Expanded universe story telling is making this more difficult to distinguish though; as they are no longer adapting plots wholesale but instead stitching together their own plots from other people’s plot elements using the same characters and settings. Avengers Endgame is not an adaptation, even if all the ingredients are the same. In my experience, theme is the most vulnerable to loss during adaptation. You can undercut the original themes of a story simply by changing the delivery of dialogue, or minor plot points, while leaving the other story elements completely unchanged. There’s been a fair bit of that in WoT so far, but Starship Troopers is hands down the most egregious example of this I can think of. Doesn't mean it's not an adaptation, though. The Star Wars as adaptation of the Arthurian mythos argument does not meet my standard; the hero’s journey plot is not unique to either of them (and predates them both by a lot) and none of the other elements align – the plot even ends differently. So, while I can see that Arthur was an inspiration for Star Wars, it’s not an adaptation. That would be like saying the Eye of the World or The Sword of Shannara is an adaptation of LoTR. Inspired, yes, maybe even heavily, but it’s not an adaptation. And to show that it can be an adaptation that changes character and setting, The Magnificent Seven is obviously an adaptation of Seven Samurai, even though the names and setting have changed. Battle Beyond the Stars is certainly derivative of them both, but is it an adaptation? Probably. And the last thing I’ll put out there is that unless a creator says they’re intentionally trying to retell / redo a story by Shakespeare, I’ll assume it isn’t intended as an adaptation. Shakespeare is so pervasive in western civilization, the stories so relatable and timeless that it is way too easy to replicate plot elements, or key themes without expressly intending to do so. So prevalent in fact that it’s a key argument in the fact that Shakespeare himself was mainly adapting older works lost to time for his audience.

While I don't agree with this change, I can see how book Morgase would have done this - she made it perfectly clear in the books how far she would go to prevent Daes Daemar from taking root in Andor, they were in the middle of the Aiel War, and she was about to bring a Daughter-Heir into the World. Her throne was vulnerable, and she needed stability for the good of the country. So yes, I can easily see how the leaders of the opposing houses in a civil war will end up dead at the end of it. You can forgive the average soldiers, and even some of the advisors and have peace. But the leaders have to swing; exile and prison just create rallying points for future insurrections. As is in fact demonstrated in the books with the Lords and Ladies of Tear. And, to be frank, this change does - IMHO - retroactively fix something about her in the books; namely that her behaviour was so far out of character that people around her should have been acting like she'd lost her mind and been looking for an outside source. Now, we know she does have this inside her, and so Rahvin is better protected. Realistically, though, I expect it's simply some edginess for the GoT crowd

If you combine the Mirror of Mists with Graendal's general radiation of compulsion, you get there.

Stargate's props, costuming and sets were mostly off the rack, lower quality and repeated. And while I haven't seen it broken down, it wouldn't surprise me of the S-FX budget for just channeling on WoT exceeded all of Stargate's non-actor budget.

My major complaints as an avid book reader (and while I understand most of them, I think they're real) - lack of attention to time, space, and geography. Walking from TV to Rhuidean would be a months long trek with mounts and packhorses. And getting from Falme to TV by boat makes no sense, especially if both Moiraine and Lanfear wanted Rand in Tear - Both Black Ajah events were way, way, way too public. In the books almost none of the general public even knew the tower broke, or that the BA existed. - The power up of Aes Sedai is a problem, especially with healing. By book logic, Liandrin died at least twice in the first 10 minutes of the episode, as should have Siuan, Leane, and Alannah. This breaks the stakes of the show in a big way, and will impact dramatic quality going forward - The Galad change (banging the novices) is small, but really impactful - it makes him just another hypocritical neoconservative and let's the audience dismiss his arguments out of hand. - Moraine and Lanfear collaborating to isolate Rand. Setting aside even the book logic of this, earlier in the series, Moraine slit Lanfear's throat, and Lanfear threatened to kill Moraine. I would expect that if they were interacting this much, Lanfear would have give Moraine the Dark Willow "Bored Now" treatment Most of these changes fall under rule of cool, or edginess for ratings, or visual story telling, but for a book fan, they could be big problems.

Episode 3 thoughts - While I did like the cold open, and the scheming, I hate that they revealed Gaebril in this fashion. It kills the terror discovery for the audience along with Elayne. I'm fine with the Gray Man changes (after all - no Aginor) Mostly WIN. - I love the wedding destruction by the BA sisters, except that it is too brazen; they will stand out too much in the community to have that kind of mass murder done. It would draw a lot of attention. Likely the necessary kind without Juilin to find them, but still...Even - I so wish there had been more witnesses for Mat and the boys besides Nynaeve, but we got it, and it was really well choreographed, and I liked the prefight mental prep from Mat. Kudos to all. Big WIN - Mat and Min making up, on the boat to Tanchico, and he's gonna swing. so while one of my favourite Mat moments are being broken (more on that in a second), the big points are being brought back in. WIN - Lan and Melhindra. Nervous about this, especially with the Ring of the Malkieri kings handed over earlier. I expect this is going to turn the "Dark One's own luck" moment into one of a spurned lover. And if they give Lan the blanket toss, that will be a long way out of character. Not win - we've had 7 of the 8 Forsaken namechecked, with the 8th being obvious (tune in next week?) and with Taim on the board, we know the end game of the major villains. Also love Nae'blis chat, since that means the DO is still a player in their games. WIN - oh boy, where to begin on Zarine Bashere. We got the Mandarb joke - though without the horse - and the new name (though we never got Min's prophecy, so I don't know if Berelain exists). But the main thing for me is in my head, Faile was an immature child who ran away as a Hunter as a lark, who had to grow up to be worthy of being a queen. This woman is not that - this woman is adult, world weary with hard edges, and professionalism. So we'll get sparks with Perrin, but it's possible we just lost her character arc. So we'll see

My episode 2 thoughts - I like the changes to Morgase's character, it will help with making later developments more believable (assuming we get them). Her changes will no longer be so far out of character - if this is only about episode 2, who is this Rahvin y'all are speaking about? The lovable consort of the queen, concerned about his step daughter? - the boys were note perfect for TV, although I agree Galad's behaviour afterwards was out of character. Another Hollywood trope that people can never be as good as they appear to be, it's just a mask for moral turpitude. Although I do appreciate the fact that the Whitecloak view of Justice versus Mercy is really tough to do, especially when it's a D plotline, at best. - happy to see them have the WG's show agency and figure out the Tanchico thing, but with them on the road already, I wonder if we're going to get enough time at the tower to set up what's happening.

And we're back - hello Dragonmount... My quick thoughts on Episode 1 (although I did binge all 3 yesterday, so I may get a little mixed up): - I think the acting from the main cast took a big step up; Rand is less wooden, Perrin less moody, and Mat more Mat. And Major PTSD for Egwene, which is cool - the big action set piece is one of those Hollywood logic defying fight scenes. In the moment, it was cool, but falls apart under even a little rational thought. and I was very surprised at which warder they killed, even though he's the one who ends up dead in the books. - Speaking of Hollywood logic defying, we once again have a show ignoring time, space, and distance to get characters to be where they need to be when they need to be there. And another big nitpick - even with an Aiel guide, one does not simply walk into the Waste as if they are going for a Sunday stroll. - the Aes Sedai healing thing is a big problem; I suspect that one of the post-series rip apart exercises is going to be go back and count how many times our heroes died. Not plot armor surviving, but bad S-FX / writing surviving. - I'm fairly sure i predicted the Avi / Elayne swap for modern sensibilities. We'll see if it lasts, or it was just a "college phase" for Elayne I'm still glad i have the books, and I prefer the books, but this was better than most of last year, and gets us closer to what I expect. So it's a win.

I'm fine with this approach, since whoever's POV we'd be watching that entrance from (probably Siuan's), we can be sure it wasn't Gaebril's, and he's the only one who could see the weaves in that room.