And Moirane and Thom had something cooking didn’t they?

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I would've liked Moraine to go deeper into Perrin's Wolfbrother power. And are we sure Eamon Valda is dead? We saw him stabbed in the shoulder and the wolves chewing up the White Cloaks. But we never actually see the dead boy, kind of feels like we're going to see him again.

And Mat, his action or inaction at the end could be the least surprising part of the episode.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Yea, I don't remember if their bond was physical, but they definitely had an emotional connection.

I'm pretty sure; I don't know what else it would have been. The room had a sort of weird quality to it if you looked at the windows and door edges.

 Valda isn’t dead. We’ll see him again.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

You saying bi sexual people don't exist in the wheel of time?

Yeah, I thought it was unnecessary too and even Sanderson has talked about how he feels they're trying to keep up with GoT.

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~Brad

It's funny; as I was typing that I'm like "I bet some would just call me 'too traditional' !!" haha

It's all good. Super tongue in cheek

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~Brad

It almost seems like the show is substituting sex for a tl;dr explanation of the deeper relationship the characters share.

Egwene and Rand
Siuan and Moiraine

Who next?

I agree. It's a shortcut.

Has anyone else watched the Origin extras. They are animated shorts that explain the background of WoT. I watched them with my wife who has never read the series and it helped her a bunch understanding. I'm not sure why Amazon is kinda hiding these.

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~Brad

Did you watch the latest one?

I think the best one so far.

And you get your Tam and Rand talk the night of the Bel Tine attack. Very brief but there.

I really really liked this one!

I think that they could have depicted the Ways a little better.

On the other hand, they did a really good job with the Aiel Maiden of the Spear fighting the soldiers.

Yeah that’s fair. I liked the far away shot they did that showed their little spot of light in all the darkness. What was with the “lightning” though?

Min did mention the three women to Rand so I guess we will see Elayne?

I liked how they showed the “Dragon” channeling. In the book a persons first time channeling was many times to help a friend or loved one.

No idea why they got rid of their horses though? Just easier to film without them?

I like how they portray the blight. Maybe a little “thicker” than I imagined.

By far, the best cold open of any of the episodes. I like how they rendered the Aiel maiden and hope the hold true to them.

The rendering of the Ways was lackluster.

The Rand/Egwene/Perrin love triangle drama was not needed.

Hard to believe we only have one episode left and we basically have no emotional investment or really care about or know Rand.

I don't like how they're downplaying Moirane's strength and keep pumping up Nynaves into these hero moments...it's a bit too early for that for her.

I get the feeling Rosamond Pike might only give us one season. They are accelerating the Nyn-Lan relationship a lot, prepping her to bond him sooner rather than later.

ETA:. Also did not like at all that Moirane sent the Red Ajah after Mat. Moirane would have never ever done that. Especially after Rand revealed himself as the Dragon just 12 hrs after that.

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True, but still think that is way out of character for her. At any rate, once Rand revealed himself, she should have immediately cancelled the Red hit in him. We shall see....

Or it could be a set up plot device that will help explain the transformation of the current Mat actor into whoever the new guy will be next season.

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Moirane has said a couple times in the last two episodes that Mat has an evil in him and the dagger was feeding off him as much as the other way around. This supposed imbedded evil is a change from the book.

My bet is they added that late into the story after they lost the Mat actor. I think Mat will go through another purging which will have a side effect of changing his appearance. All of this written into the story to deal with the actor loss.


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I was not aware of the "making of" videos. Very cool to see how they filmed the Aiel fighting scene using the Bolt camera. They put a lot of effort into it, it took them 5 full days to finish it.

I am not a big fan of CGI but it would have been the right choice for rendering the Ways. I was expecting to see suspended platforms, bridges, and stairs with no visible supports. CGI would have made all this possible.

Season finale I thought was a mess. Worst episode of the season. Looked and felt unfinished. Bad writing and strange (not in a good way) moments and scenes.

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(spoiler alert)

Just finished this, figured I'd watch the whole season before forming an opinion. Also started re-reading the books when this series was first announced, currently on book 11 (books 9 and 10 were sloooooow going, but it's picking up again now!).

Relaxed about most of the "woke" changes - making all 5 of the core characters ta'veren makes sense, and leaving the Dragon open to being a woman isn't a big deal (though glad they didn't actually switch the Dragon or try and split the Dragon amongst all 5 of them). The Siuan and Moiraine relationship was hinted at plenty in the books. Making the whole world diverse (apart from the Aiel apparently) did lessen the impact and epic worldbuilding of introducing new peoples and places for me, but the alternative of making the Two Rivers white and then having diversity from other nations in supporting roles wouldn't really fly these days, so can see why they did it. Might have been fun if they'd simply made the Two Rivers ethnically homogeneous (apart from Rand) but not white though!

Other than the above they played very fast and loose with the story and characters from the books. A lot of story changes and cuts are necessary to get it on TV, but I didn't like a lot of the character changes. Mat in the books is a loveable rogue but after he's cleansed of the Shadar Logoth taint he's never a bad guy, in the series he seems to be getting set up to turn to the Shadow, think they'd be better off sticking to the books and keeping him as a more fun character. Lan and Moiraine are far too emotional for me - they're supposed to be tough as nails and show about as much emotion as a stone, certainly in the first few books. Wish they'd kept Loial as being 10 foot tall and not just an oversized man, and given how quickly they killed him off (assuming he is actually dead and isn't just going to be the 3rd person in the series to be miraculously brought back to life) I'm not sure why they bothered introducing him at all. (pet peeve - the White Tower is supposed to be a graceful spire, they've made it look more like a giant grain silo).

Changes might annoy fans of the book but wouldn't matter if the show was good enough. For me it wasn't. It's not bad, but just feels like very generic and forgettable fantasy fare. Even with the cuts they moved so fast that it was difficult to have much connection with any of the characters outside the core cast, which lessened any impact there was from killing off those characters. Casting some more established actors might have helped make some of the supporting characters more memorable. I think the only actors I recognised are Moiraine, Siune and Tam, and I watch a LOT of movies and TV (while training indoors for that sport that we don't talk about in here). Contrast with GoT which was absolutely stacked with great actors in everything from core roles like Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey and Charles Dance through to cameos from the likes of Ian McShane. They need to throw some money at getting Damian Lewis as an Aielman for Season 2!

Also far too many deus ex machina moments. Apart from bringing people back from the dead, having 5 linked women (3 of them too weak to be Aes Sedai) able to basically vaporise 10,000 Trollocs without even an angreal is just waaaay overpowered (and also makes the deaths of all the soldiers at the Gap pretty meaningless). If the One Power is that strong then Trollocs, Myrddraal, the Blight, etc aren't really a threat at all, the White Tower could just wipe them out whenever they chose. Again can see why they wanted the female characters to play a bigger part instead of the book narrative where Rand does everything pretty much singlehandedly, but at least with the books that level of power was a one-off thanks to the Eye of the World which was then finished and couldn't be used again. With the Seanchan at the close of the final episode being able to use the One Power to create a tidal wave (to threaten an empty beach with one young girl on it for some reason) it seems they've just turned the dial straight to 11 with the One Power which doesn't bode that well for subsequent seasons where they're either going to have to dial it back or keep trumping it with more and more overpowered feats.

On the plus side, the battle scene with the pregnant Maiden was absolutely awesome. They need a lot more of that going forwards. Don't think I'll be tuning in for the next season but might give it another chance as sometimes these sort of things hit their stride in later seasons.

I spoke to a friend who had not read the books but was watching the series. I think he stopped watching because he just couldn't really figure out what was going on.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

This was sort of the divide/issue my wife and I had watching Season 1. She hasn't read the books and often had no clue what the hell was going on, and I have read the books (admittedly a LONG time ago for the first couple) but remembered just enough to be a little annoyed at some of the changes (Mat's character change I didn't like)

Obviously you make some concessions for TV... but whereas GoT made concessions in walking you through history of every "important" event, they fairly delicately removed what wasn't absolutely essential (like you could have watched GoT and never read/deep dived on the Targareans, Robert's Rebellion/etc at all and been fine) WoT has a harder time leaving some of those things on the cutting room floor because they are absolutely essential to what is happening in the present. Just randomly seeing Lews Therin towards the end my wife was like "Who is that?" which meant we had to pause the show and I had to go on a rambling 10 minute deep dive. Similar with Logain and why being a "False Dragon" was a big deal..etc.

Overall it was entertaining enough, we'll watch season2... but I think in the rush to make the next GoT they've not yet quite got the recipe right for satisfying the die hards while still appealing to the casuals... Still plenty of time to grow however.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

That figures, think they've fallen between two stools. Made so many changes to the source material that book fans won't be happy, but still crammed so much in that anybody who hasn't read the books is going to struggle to know what's going on. Don't think I've heard a single person mention this show who hasn't read the books, whereas after the first season of Game of Thrones lots of people who wouldn't normally be into that kind of thing were already talking about it.