Samt

The way the Egwene rediscovers traveling through a better understanding of Tel suggests that gateways are connected to Tel or some other alternate plane of existence. The way it works in my head cannon is that gateways are actually a portal to an alternate plane where distances are all very short followed by another portal out of that plane. These two portals are slightly and precisely offset in the other plane and due to the scaling of that plane this leads to them being in very different places in the real world. The scaling in that plane is so extreme that even traveling across the entire world is fractions of an inch in that plane and thus the two portal seem to be in the same place. As to why shadowspawn can’t go there, it has to do with the nature of their souls. Perrin and Slayer gain the ability to go to Tel at will due to the dual nature of their souls. Shadowspawn don’t even have souls that are connected to their bodies in the traditional way. The dark one has made a twisted connection, but this connection is unnatural and thus cannot persist across planes of existence. Therefore, taking shadowspawn from the real world into another destroys the connection to their souls and thus kills them. This does raise questions about the ways, but in my head cannon I decided that the ways are not another alternate plane but rather a folding of reality to make distances different. The ways don’t actually leave our plane. All just head cannon, but it makes sense to me.

I’d like to point out that your poll has two questions with potentially opposite answers, but the response options don’t reflect that.

Like you said, I'm not sure that makes as much sense for fireballs as it does for lightning bolts. The book descriptions seem to suggest that fireball attacks do actually form from near the channeler and travel from him or her. Of course, that fireball can ignite a mundane fire, but I think it's logical to assume that the fireball itself is still sustained by the power as it travels. There aren't, after all, natural fireballs flying around the world in the way that lightning naturally occurs. This does open a bit of a can of worms as to what constitutes the power directly affecting the holder of the fox medallion, and what is just a secondary effect that results from the power doing something. Holding with air or suffocating him by removing the air could be argued to just be controlling the air and then Mat is affected by the air and not by the one power directly. Perhaps if the channeling is maintained then the medallion protects against it. But if the channeling has already stopped, the secondary effects that remain are not affected by the medallion.

I’m obviously quite ignorant on the subject. The movie looks like a desert.

So after I searched up that clip, YouTube thinks I am really into learning about the Zulu. And today I learned that “wash the spears” is a Zulu phrase meaning to wash your spear in the blood of an enemy.

I'd always assumed that the amulet doesn't protect him in Caemlyn because the lightning doesn't directly target him. It's not clear to me, though, exactly what that means. (I think the assumption that the amulet doesn't protect him against Saidin is incorrect and just a result of the unreliable narrator). Lightning attacks using the power appear to be just regular lightning that is caused by the power. Visually, I think they don't come from the channeler but rather from the air (ie. it's not something like force lightning from the star wars universe that literally emanates from the hands of the force user). Regular lightning is caused when a large electrostatic potential builds up between two clouds or between a cloud and the ground. I assume that one power lightning is the same thing except that the electrostatic potential build-up is caused by the power. The lightning itself is caused by the buildup, not by the power. It's a bit like using the power to roll a rock up a hill and the letting it fall down on someone. I'm not sure if anyone ever uses a lightning attack indoors. Thus, I would suspect that Mat is vulnerable to lightning in general, but I'm not sure if this is contradicted elsewhere in the series. Alternately, I believe that when Rahvin attacks in Caemlyn, there is some general destruction of buildings. The rubble from the destruction might have also hit Mat.

Here it is. It starts out like a chant, but turns into a sort of eerie sounding tribute.

The Aiel seem to have significant influence from the Zulu (or at least the western perception of the Zulu). They are a society of warriors from a desert area that use a shield and a brace of short handled, long bladed spears that can be thrown or used hand to hand. In the movie Zulu, the final scene is rather iconic and concludes with the Zulu warriors singing a tribute song that is rather melodic. This scene is probably not historically accurate, but may have influenced RJ's perception of the Zulu and their culture and music. Perhaps an interesting influence to consider if trying to bring Aiel music to life. Of course, that isn't a battle song so much as a post battle song, so it may be very musically different.

I find it hard to believe that longer season gaps is a choice that was made intentionally to increase viewership. I think only committed fans will put in the time for a re-watch. Casual viewers won't want to re-watch something, but also will be put off by not remembering the previous seasons well enough to understand without a re-watch.

I think a lot of long time fans don’t remember reading the prologue without context. I recently started listening to the audio books with some family members who have very little context and they frankly had no idea what the prologue was about. Of course, it works as a sort of teaser that creates some mystery, but I think that is actually harder to pull off in a TV show. It’s hard to remember the prologue the first time because there is no reference point to ground it in your memory.

I think a whole season would not work. They need to introduce the major heroes in the first (or maybe second) episode. And NS just doesn't have enough to carry a whole season. It's great for worldbuilding and backstory, but the plot and climax are not what season 1 needs. I'd agree that there's more than half an episode though. After an initial bit of NS at the beginning, I think you could have some flashbacks interspersed throughout the first season where they work. Particularly, you could have some flashbacks to explain the Moiraine/Siuan relationship and also the Moiraine/Lan relationship. You would just need to make sure that you have a clear visual cue to the audience to make it clear which parts are 20 years ago.

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I’ve long thought that starting with more New Spring content would have been excellent and actually solved many problems. I mean, they wanted to make Moiraine the center, jump more into the Tower quickly, introduce Aes Sedai, include some Lesbian sex, tell us about the bond, and generally give the story a more epic scale right away. If only there was a prequel that literally did all of those things. I’m not saying that it needs to take a ton of time or that we want to see the BA hunt in the border lands or anything like that. But I think that using NS content for the first half episode would have done a lot for making it work better. Then a 20 year jump.

Having the big 3 meet up would have been a major feel good moment. However, I think it would also interfere with the story. Although the justification for not meeting is very different, I think that neither Dark Rand nor Zen Rand would arrange this meeting just for personal reasons, so we would need a pretext as to why it was necessary for them to meet to fulfill the larger plan. I think that the fact that they implicitly trust each other completely without meeting is a big part of the story. Also, although it would feel like they have a lot to tell each other, the reader would already know everything. As such it might actually fall flat when written out, even if it feels like it should be good. (Another pretext for a recap couldn't hurt though, right?) There would need to be an emotional payoff where they get to tell each other something that they weren't able to tell each other before so that we can see some type of personal or relationship growth. And although we want to see them together, I can't put my finger on something in particular that was left unsaid between them.

It's a bit of a twist, but it isn't really turning polygamy on its head. It's still one man with multiple wives. It just that the women retain a lot of autonomy and control in the relationship. Biologically and socially from a reproductive standpoint, one man-multiple women relationships make more sense than the reverse. If anything, I would say that RJ was trying to make polygamy more pragmatic and functional, not less.

A lot of Aiel culture is just shown through examples and the reader is left to guess what the general case is or how common different things actually are. However, I don't think there is any textual support for the suggestion that sister-wives have romantic relationships with each other.

I hadn't thought of this before, but some quick googling of mythological leg wounds says that the Fisher King was wounded in the thigh in Arthurian legend. Wikipedia explains/speculates that a thigh wound is actually often a euphemism for being wounded in the genitalia. Not sure if this is related, but the Fisher King is definitely related to WoT lore, so maybe. Of course, I think Rand is more related to the Fisher King that Perrin, so maybe not. The character that is often related to Perrin is Thor, but I don't believe that Thor is wounded in the leg. Hephaestus, the Greek blacksmith god, (as well as his Roman counterpart, Vulcan) is lame. This lameness is sometimes attributed to a birth defect while other times it is associated with a fall from heaven/olympus due to some type of dispute with Hera and/or Zeus. Hephaestus is married to Aphrodite (and Vulcan to Venus), but she cheats on him with Ares (Mars). Not sure any of this is relevent, but it feels like maybe some of it is.

What are the apostrophes in the old tongue supposed to mean? Are they guttural stops, pauses, omitted vowel sounds (if so, which ones), or something else? Are they just added to make it look fantasy? How do you pronounce them when reading? Personally, I just read the words as if the apostrophe weren't there and assume that they are sort of added for "flavor." But I'm not sure that is the intention. Thoughts?