#'i bet this is a lifelong bookcloak making a fake account to pose as a show-to-book person'

[markantonys]

I came across a Twitter thread that said the set up for the docks when it comes to the Warder bond between Lan and Moiraine was handled much better in the books cause in the show they feel like the mechanics of the Warder bond was too vague/not explained well in the show that they weren't able to connect with Moiraine and Lan's emotional conflict in s2 because of it. And I am a bit confused cause honestly I don't think the books explain how the Warder bond works at all from what I remember. Just making a lot of wild claims about how everything about the books are better and how the show is fumbling when they haven't even read half the series yet (show first to book reader). Just this trend to shit talk every choice the show makes when you don't even know the full complete story is wild to me

haters: the show hasn't done enough to explain how the bond works

all the screentime across 2 seasons the show has dedicated to showing how the bond works which the haters kept complaining was a waste of time better spent on rand having swordfights:

like literally what do they want lmao some people will never be satisfied!

but the mention of the "mechanics" of the bond is interesting to me because i think we may be hitting upon 2 different types of viewers here: the minority of lore enthusiasts who need to understand every single detail about how things work or else they will be upset and lose immersion, and the majority of audiences who are content with a general understanding of how things work and don't get hung up on details, or will at most go "hmmm i'm not sure if this makes sense, but it's a cool story beat so i'm happy to shrug and move on".

the former category were going "but what weaves is moiraine doing now? did they actually unbond and now she's remaking it from scratch? i thought the bond was only masked? this is such a plothole, it doesn't make sense, i can't concentrate on anything else about the scene" during the 2x08 moiraine & lan beach scene, and the latter category were thinking "what a beautiful and emotionally satisfying moment of seeing them come back together!" and that's it. and probably similar for the rest of the season. if somebody felt unable to connect with the emotional aspects of that storyline, i would bet it's because they felt too unclear about the mechanics of the state of the bond and couldn't let go of that confusion enough to sink into the emotional aspects. (which is really more of a personal thing; my show-only mom was definitely keyed into the emotional aspects of this storyline and didn't get bothered about some mechanics being left vague. in fact, i think she would've just gotten confused if they'd tried to explain the mechanics in more detail djkfjg bless her.)

undeniably, the show does not explain magic mechanics in as much depth as the books do. but that is because it's banking on the very fair assumption that the majority of audiences don't need to have this level of detail in order to enjoy and understand the story (and may get more confused than they need to be if they ARE given this level of detail). i'll admit that s2 was a bit muddled on What Exactly Is Going On with moiraine and lan's bond, and i found myself a bit confused by the mechanics at times, but that never impeded my appreciation or understanding of the emotional aspects of the storyline because i'm someone who is happy to shrug and move on if the mechanics of how something is functioning in a fantasy story aren't making total sense to me.

also, moiraine & lan at the docks won't happen until the end of s3 and it's very very possible we might learn even more about bond mechanics earlier in s3 via elayne and birgitte (who will be good candidates for explaining some New Bond Basics that it wouldn't make sense for moiraine and lan to talk about since they've had theirs for 20 years), so like..........maybe they should just Watch And Find Out.

it's also very interesting that this is coming from someone in the show-to-book pipeline because i honestly would not be surprised if a lot of their base knowledge for how warder bonds works was absorbed..........from the show. and they just don't realize it. granted, if they started with new spring it might be different because i'm assuming new spring goes into a lot of depth about how warder bonds work (though i don't know for sure, i haven't read it). but if they only read EOTW-TFOH, they sure as shit are not gonna have gotten much info about bonds *from the books* because we barely spend any time with characters who are part of a bond during those books. we get, what, maybe a couple chapters total of moiraine or lan pov and then start diving into it a tiny bit more in TFOH with elayne and birgitte, but it's really not that much from what i can remember - and i can't remember very well, because i went into the books already having a very solid understanding of the concept of the bond thanks to all the work s1 put into showing it. i do not remember learning anything significant about the bond in the first 5 books that i didn't already know from s1.

it's also so strange to me in general to see people start with the show, then go to the books, and then start hating on the show because as a show-to-book pipeline person myself, all going to the books did was make me go "wow thank fuck for the show, it will fix X, it will fix Y, it's already fixed Z" basically constantly. it made me 10000x more grateful for and appreciative of the show and the way it's choosing to tell the story!

#i won't lie a part of me is always like #'i bet this is a lifelong bookcloak making a fake account to pose as a show-to-book person' #whenever i see people claiming that they started with the show and then read the books and now prefer them djkfgjg #i know everyone prefers different things in stories and the show's priorities align way more with my personal ones than the books' do #and not all people will feel the same way. but it's just such an incomprehensible take to me as a fellow show-to-book person! #anonymous #answered #wot book spoilers