#egwene i can only think of things specific to the tower

[ofthebrownajah]

I've been wondering about something. So you know how in the books it's the three ta'veren that are essential to the Dragon winning at the last battle? So Rand obviously has all the prophecies about him. But Mat and Perrin are also mentioned in the prophecies. The Wolf King and the fox that makes the ravens fly. Showwise they made Nynaeve and Egwene ta'veren too so will they have prophecies about them now? And if so, what might they be? 🤔

#wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot on prime #show speculation #nynaeve it could be something with healing what can't be healed and a fallen kingdom #egwene i can only think of things specific to the tower #but the tower didn't exist when the prophecies were written #maybe something about being an influential leader #rand al'thor #perrin aybara #mat cauthon #nynaeve al'meara #egwene al'vere

[butterflydm]

looking towards s3

I'm going to be doing a bit of wild speculation for s3, here, after going through the various book narratives and moments to check off what the show has already covered (including some speculation about certain plotlines having been subbed in for other ones) and so what's likely next for them in s3. Contains book spoilers through Knife of Dreams and casting and location spoilers for s3.

(for a more thorough "what's already been done", @sixth-light has one here: what's in and what's out: characters; worldbuilding)

The Eye of the World:

I think we can probably all agree that the one big thing from EotW that hasn't been covered yet is the introduction of the Caemlyn-related characters, other than Elayne -- namely Elaida, Gawyn, Galad, and likely Morgase. We know that this will happen in s3, at least to a certain extent.

They came in clutch at the last minute with giving us Elayne taking care of her 'bird with a broken wing' aka her meet-cute with Rand.

The Great Hunt:

Pretty much everything narratively important about TGH was covered this season. Some of it was remixed (Rand's 'Fal Dara' encounter with Siuan and the Aes Sedai happening in 2x7 in Cairhien instead of at the start of the arc) but pretty much everything important has been done.

And Siuan being much harsher with Rand in the show than in the books makes it understandable why Rand is not willing to trust Aes Sedai (with a handful of exceptions). imo the change in Siuan's plotline was done for three reasons: a. to set-up Rand's increasing wariness around the White Tower and Aes Sedai; b. to have a narrative reason why none of our main characters are going back to the White Tower next season; c. to set up a character arc for Siuan in s3+. Obviously, time will tell on whether or not I'm right, but those were the reasons that came to mind immediately after 2x7 and I still think they're likely reasons.

re: 'flicker-flicker' - the most important thing coming out of flicker-flicker is that Mat is determined never to 'betray' Rand, like it's implied that he did in some of the flicker worlds, and Mat has absolutely made that emotional commitment due to the events of this season.

The only important minor character from bk2 specifically that we don't get introduced to is Egeanin, I think, and again, that's a case of "if we have her, we want to introduce her when she's more narratively relevant", which would be either s3 or s4 in this case, for Nynaeve and Elayne's storyline. We also still have Egwene's introduction to Gawyn being held in reserve for when he enters the story.

The Dragon Reborn:

Elements pulled from TDR into s2:

Perrin (and thus viewers) getting introduced to Aiel culture (though through Aviendha rather than Gaul, combining two separate elements of bk3 into one introduction).

Mat being trapped in the White Tower and then released back out into the world.

Our introduction to Moiraine's spy network.

I think that Elyas being more human-apathetic plus Ishamael telling Perrin that "the more wolf you are, the more you're mine" may have subbed in for Noam and his loss of connection to humanity, driving Perrin to be wary of the wolf-connection.

Moiraine threatening Lan with a forced bond-change because she's trying to push him away.

Rand being hounded in his dreams and being lured to a site of prophecy by one of the Forsaken in an attempt to rescue Egwene.

Rand's moment of killing people and them kneeling to him (in the books, he actually sets them up to kneel; I liked the show's approach much better)

We also witnessed Mat having an actual reason for his Old Tongue memories and his fighting prowess and the show also may tie his luck into him blowing the Horn, given that he said his battle-cry, so I feel like the "archetype" he has in the Heroes is the Gambler (which I think the 'finn call him?). I really loved that all of Mat's random stuff has kinda been consolidated (and the Horn scene might be my favorite scene of the whole series thus far).

Rand being recognized as the Car'a'carn by Aiel searchers.

Elements that were not used but will happen next season: Perrin meeting Faile. I also think it's likely that Perrin will start going into TAR next season (which could give us either Birgitte or Uno | Gaidal Cain in a re-occurring role). Elayne and Nynaeve becoming Black Ajah Hunters (I'm unsure if Egwene will or if she's going to go straight to her bk 4 plotline; I suspect that she's going with Rand), which is also their bk4 plot. I do think we'll get both Perrin (via Hopper) and Egwene (via the Wise Ones) learning TAR.

Things I'm not sure we'll get:

I'm doubtful that we'll get Egwene & Elayne's Accepted tests at all:

Egwene may come across as an even better patsy/figurehead to Salidar if she's a novice

2x7 really makes me feel doubtful that The Dragon Reborn's friends will be able to waltz into Tar Valon and then waltz back out again (unless they are returning specifically to spy out the mood in TV re: the Dragon and Moiraine?)

Egwene choosing over and over to abandon Rand in the Tests feels like it would directly contradict her character arc in s2, where her motivation for working so hard in the Tower was to give herself the strength to protect the ones she loves.

@sixth-light suggested the idea that Egwene might get her "what is to come" vision in Rhuidean and I like that idea a lot -- if she goes with Aviendha to the silver rings and catches glimpses of her potential futures!

I feel like Aludra might not get introduced until very soon before we need to take the Stone of Tear (or potentially not until after Ebou Dar, when she's needed to create the dragons).

I also suspect that we'll skip Thom's storyline from this book just like we skipped his storyline from bk2 and go straight into his post-Tear bk4 storyline, since Rand is going to be doing Aiel politics and not Westlands politics next season. So my current suspicion is that Thom is going to be part of Elayne & Nynaeve's storyline (and then once Elayne and Nynaeve come back into Rand's storyline, that could be when Thom helps Rand).

This is also the book when balefire first appears (Rand uses it on Darkhounds; Nynaeve uses it for the first (and only?) time; and Moiraine uses it twice). Not sure when the show will introduce it, because I feel like it's going to be The One Way to actually kill Forsaken, so it may be held back closer to when one of them dies. I suspect we'll see Lanfear get doorway'd in s3, but I don't think any of the Forsaken will get killed off until s4 (Rahvin, if he exists) at the earliest. If Rand kills Rahvin with balefire in s4, that gives the rest of the Forsaken a reason to back off and keep their distance (especially if Moridin shows up in s5 to take the reins back over on prioritizing corrupting Rand over killing him).

What might happen in s3 but might be reserved for s4: the convergence on Tear and the various roads people take there. I feel like Tear is likely to come after the Waste and maybe even after Cairhien (Tear may be where Sammael is instead of Illian, but then Rand fails to kill him there and he flees to Illian?).

Also, as I keep noting in my reread posts (which is where I'm getting this info from) Mat is much less anti-Rand than fandom agreement had led me to believe/remember was happening in the books at this time. He dislikes The Dragon Reborn (TM) but his thoughts about Rand as a person tend to be more regretful or frustrated than fearful. So the show is doing fine there, since they've dealt with the The Dragon Reborn (TM) issue by having the whole "who is the Dragon plotline?" in s1.

The Fires of Heaven-A Crown of Swords:

I think we already covered "oh no someone else may get Lan's bond" and he'll go directly from Moiraine to Nynaeve, because Alanna has a more important forced bond to take (probably in s4). I am wondering if we'll see Nynaeve bonding Lan much earlier than in canon, maybe even at the end of s3 if Moiraine goes through the doorway and Nynaeve ends up in the same city as Rand & co.

Crossroads of Twilight-Knife of Dreams:

Guess who just got murdered! So... no Renna and no Seta. And maybe no more Suroth. The show has been ruthless with the Seanchan (not a complaint). The show is also leaning much more heavily on the friendship of the Two Rivers Five (plus now Elayne), so Mat doing any of the bullshit that he does in CoT & KoD feels less likely because this Mat doesn't have the excuse of dagger-sickness to forget what happened to Egwene in Falme. After the show made such a (beautiful! spectacular!) show of Mat being a good person at heart, even being a Hero of the Horn, which he wasn't in the books... yeah, they are not doing the book version of Mat & Tuon (thank fucking goodness). They may do a version of Mat & Tuon, but I think it will be very different from the books, if it happens.

One of the new interesting changes that the show appears to have done (from what Egwene said in 2x8) is make sul'dam extremely weak channelers instead of being learners. I think this has some fascinating implications re: Tuon because it means that a collar would 100% work on her. In the books, the sul'dam get tested along with all the other women to see if they are damane and if any of them have sparked, they end up caught.

It's only over long years of use that they develop their 'affinity' with their damane and this is when the collar would work on them. So, per book canon, it's entirely possible that putting a collar on Tuon during any of the books would fail to do anything, because she's still quite young and also is not 'complete' as often as many other sul'dam because of her high status. But in show canon? That collar will work 100%, because they use the Searchers to find marath'damane instead of testing every woman in the Empire every year (until they turn 25, I think it was). If the show is working backwards to decide on these changes, then it's entirely possible that this change in the way finding marath'damane is done was 100% specifically for Tuon's potential storyline down the road.

Also, I love that it means that Tuon is a weak-ass channeler, because that was always my head-canon for her anyway.

The Shadow Rising:

Elements already pulled from TSR+ into s2: Rand knows that Selene is Lanfear and Lanfear is offering to protect him from the other Forsaken and wants to work with him. And Rand also knows that "the Dark One" is actually Ishamael and the rest of the Forsaken are now out in the world. We've also learned about ji'e'toh already. TSR is also when Moghedien was introduced.

What likely won't happen in s3: I think Tear itself will be held back until after the arc in the Waste. They've already done some of the related character-work from the start of bk4 in s2 already, with Lanfear and Rand, and most of the other stuff (the 'finn doorway) could be moved to Falme if need be. Or, since we have the all characters going east, maybe it'll be in Caemlyn when the characters split up to their various plotlines (which would give us Elaida's Foretelling for Rand and Egwene meeting Gawyn) and then they wouldn't have needed to have Falme as a location shoot for s3 at all.

I do suspect that the Rand & Elayne relationship is being pushed to a later season and we'll likely get the beginnings of Rand & Aviendha instead (which makes me suspect that Elayne's storylines would get adjusted in a later season to actually give her time with Rand).

What likely WILL happen in s3: the Tower coup and Elaida taking over as Amyrlin; Rand & co going to the Waste and Rand becoming Car'a'carn while Mat gets his medallion and Egwene gets Wise One training; Elayne and Nynaeve (and Thom?) going Black Ajah hunting (or specifically after Liandrin?). Potentially we will see Rand and Aviendha catch feelings for each other as Rand and Egwene fall apart (and Lanfear stalks Rand from the sidelines, since she's not supposed to be interacting with him). And Perrin defending the Two Rivers, of course.

I don't think that we'll get Tuon this early, though we may get the prophecy (and the dread from the audience that Mat is destined to marry one of these horrible slaver people, because the Court of the Nine Moons has already been mentioned).

In addition to being a big book for Rand & Lanfear developments, TSR is wonderful for Rand & Mat as well. There are so many amazing moments for them in this book. If the show hits even a handful of these beats, s3 will be great for the Cauthor side of fandom. Especially with how Josha and Dónal are playing Rand & Mat as very handsy friends who are comfortable with physical touch.

So, what are some potential ways they could go with s3?

(I promise that any and all speculation with be at least 85% inaccurate and may be as much as 100%; does contain some casting and location spoilers for what we know about s3 so far)

Starting place in 3x1:

Option One: Falme subbed for Tear

We do Tear-stuff in Falme (doorway; maybe bubbles of evil) and then the characters split up for separate journeys.

Pros: making the most out of our current location! the characters are already there!

Cons: Have to pay a location fee for an additional season when they could instead use a s3 location.

Option Two: Caemlyn subbed for Tear

We know that Caemlyn is going to be in s3 and they might want to get the most out of their new location.

Pros: Might get Elaida's Foretelling of Rand. Egwene meets Gawyn without needing to go to the White Tower. Mat could do his 1v2 quarterstaff battle against Elayne's brothers. Means that everyone has already traveled significantly to the east during the break between seasons but they're all still together as a group, meaning we won't need as big a timeskip after this. And Elaida's Foretelling could even be the trigger for Rand & co needing to flee the city.

Cons: can't think of any but I'm sure they exist; this genuinely seems like such a good option to me that I am 100% marking it down to potentially write as a fic, if I ever get the time (I continue to collect plot bunnies at an alarming rate in this fandom!)

Option Three: Hurrying through BK3's ending (aka Tear is Tear)

This seems more expensive than it's worth, but maybe they got more money for s3!

Pros: bk3 Tear will be done, I guess?

Cons: expensive set piece and location that is then promptly abandoned so that everyone can go somewhere else

So, we've done our set-up episode and now we've moving on to: everyone goes somewhere else!

Where do they go?

Stop, Wait... Option Four: There Isn't A Set-Up Episode

This is the option for not having any set-up at all and just jumping into everyone's individual journeys.

Pros: Faster to get into the main story

Cons: No bonding time for the group as a whole; fewer character interactions; would probably make me sad

Well, we've either done our set-up or we haven't, so where is everyone going?

Perrin -> The Two Rivers

I mean, we all know it. Perrin is kinda the reason that I think we won't start with everyone already at their destinations, because I don't think Perrin's storyline in the Two Rivers is meaty enough to be stretched out over eight entire episodes.

Wondergirls -> ???

A White Tower stop-over seems fairly unlikely to me after 2x7, though there's a chance. I think it's more likely that we'll get them splitting up to go into their bk4 plotlines.

(If the Wondergirls do go to the White Tower, what is Rand doing during this time? How does Egwene reunite with Rand for her bk4 plotline?)

Verin burned her bridges with Siuan & Leane, potentially (she COULD probably talk herself out of being viewed as Black Ajah... maybe... but it's hard to see how she could talk herself out of being viewed as breaking Tower law) which implies to me that SHE isn't going to return to the Tower, and she is the one who introduces Dreaming to Egwene in the books. Which makes me lean towards the idea of Doing Tear (and the White Tower plots) in Caemlyn.

They could take some of the characters back to Tar Valon in s3 but... but that bridge between Moiraine and Siuan is so scorched right now that it's difficult to see Siuan being willing to let any of them leave the White Tower if they go there again.

Mat -> Rhuidean

Mat didn't touch the dagger, so he has no need to go back to the White Tower literally ever, especially since one of his Hero friends put the Horn away into an interdimensional pocket for later.

Rafe has implied that we will see Mat's quarterstaff battle at some point (unless he just meant that we would see Mat wielding a quarterstaff against two opponents at once, which definitely happened in 2x8), which leads me further to think about s3 starting in Caemlyn, because after that, Gawyn and Galad go off into separate plotlines.

If we assume that Caemlyn takes the place of both Tear and the White Tower for book 3 & early book 4 events, then everyone would go to their book 4 plotlines from here -- Perrin would go west to the Two Rivers; Rand & co would go to the Waste; Elayne & Nynaeve would go to do some Liandrin-hunting. We would only need five main locations for the season, at least two of which are pre-existing -- Caemlyn, the Two Rivers, Tar Valon, the Aiel Waste/Rhuidean, and whichever city Elayne & Nynaeve go to in order to hunt Liandrin (and if it's Cairhien, then they already have the location/set).

Events that I'm Pretty Sure we'll get in s3:

Rhuidean. Rand's walk through Aiel history and Mat's encounter with the foxes. Rand saving Mat's life. <3

Asmodean becomes Rand's teacher.

I do think we'll likely get Couladin proclaiming himself as the Car'a'carn and the chaos of Alcair Dal, because Mat killing Couladin is really what creates the BotRH and cements him as the leader.

The White Tower coup.

Nynaeve faces off against Moghedien... or maybe this season she will still be focused on Liandrin?

The Battle of the Two Rivers.

I think we will start to get Rand & Aviendha in this season, but slow-burn. But if they plan to do the Moiraine & Lanfear show-off at the end of the season, then you'd want the Rand & Aviendha relationship to begin to flower. And then Lanfear is out of the picture (as far as Rand knows), which would let him worry less about her killing any woman that he's attracted to.

Things that we Might Get in s3 (depending on pacing):

We might get either Cairhien or Tear at the end of the season. That really depends on pacing and I don't know how fast they plan to move through the arc in the Waste. There are really only two big Events in the Waste in bk4 -- Rhuidean and Alcair Dal; though there's also visiting Cold Rocks Hold and the attack there.

Moiraine and Lanfear's encounter with the doorway. The reason that I'm thinking this might happen in s3 is because someone (was it Rafe?) teased about a "big cast change" at then end of s3 that book readers would be familiar with. Losing Moiraine right as he gets a Forsaken as a teacher would be very intriguing.

If we are going to do the polycule (*crosses fingers hard*), then there needs to be a decent stretch of time where Elayne is actually allowed by the plot to spend time with Rand. We got our meet-cute and it was beautiful, so I have high hopes. There is also a new tor.com interview where Rafe says that Elayne and Rand have a 'huge arc' together.

For now, I think the time period after her book 4 plotline and before she gets involved in Ebou Dar seems like the best time (as opposed to just wandering the countryside for weeks because Nynaeve can't remember the word 'Salidar'). So after Rand has returned to the wetlands. I am going to speculate that s3 ends with the Battle of Cairhien while, at the same time, Elayne and Nynaeve go to Cairhien for their own story reasons. Because they've already done their book 4 plotline, and maybe part of their book 5 plotline, there's no need for them to hurry off right away. And Elayne spends most of s4 with Rand (and Aviendha) (and Mat). Elayne can help Rand navigate politics in Cairhien, and they can fall in love while being big ol' workaholics. We also could have Dumai's Wells happen here so that Rand can get rescued not only by Perrin but also by Mat, Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve, & Aviendha. Which would just be nice.

I do think, based on the Power of Friendship vibe that we had in the s2 finale, that the show is going to be bringing our characters back together a lot more often than the books did (and I'm happy about that).

So, based on that idea... a tentative outline for s3 (I am not expecting this to end up being at all accurate, lol, just feeling some things out about a potential way things could go based on what we've see so far in terms of how quickly the plot moves and how the show seems like it's more willing to reunite all the characters, so I am going to try to get everyone to Cairhien by ep8 so that they can reunite again; we also might be doing Tear instead at the end of the season):

ep1: The opening of the season is supposed to start with a 'bang'. Would they do the Tower coup this early in the season? Siuan ended s2 in a terrible political position, having the Dragon in her possession and then losing him. And if anyone finds out that she was conspiring with Moiraine for twenty years... otoh, would they want to show us Elaida in Caemlyn first, before taking her to the Tower for that plotline?

I'm not sure how much of a time-jump we'll get, though probably a bit of one, but I'm hoping we'll get to see all the characters together in the same location, as happened in Tear in the books. This may take place either in Falme or in Caemlyn, but our characters will have a chance to regroup and mingle. We may get some of our action from the start of book 4 here -- the bubble of evil, getting rumors of trouble in the Two Rivers. If the opening episode is in Caemlyn and not Falme, it may also feature: Mat vs Gawyn & Galad; Egwene and Rand (at least) meeting Gawyn and Galad. Rand meeting Elaida and getting a version of the Foretelling. This might also have our characters meeting up with Verin and Alanna in Caemlyn, and we may get our Verin & Egwene scenes and a certain gift of a twisted stone ring.

perhaps spurred by Elaida's Foretelling, our group scatters to their future destinations. Since they are much closer to the Two Rivers than they were in the books at this time, it might be that Loial leads Rand's group through the Ways to Rhuidean, rather than leading Perrin to the Two Rivers. Egwene meets the Wise Ones in TAR and decides she also needs to go to Rhuidean with Rand.

ep2: Perrin arrives in the Two Rivers and we get a look into that situation; Elayne and Nynaeve get interrogated by a woman who is definitely not secretly Moghedien. Rand and Mat ask permission to go to Rhuidean. In order to make it so that all the characters are heading in to the same place, maybe Elayne and Nynaeve went to Cairhien to investigate Liandrin's disappearance? Since all the 'known' Seanchan were killed off in the Battle of Falme, the show may have the Seanchan take s3 (and s4?) off as they regroup before their next offensive.

ep3: They've put a pretty heavy-hitter in as ep3 in s2 and it seems likely they would try to do the same in s3 because of the way that Prime drops shows, so let's call ep3 the Rhuidean episode, where we learn about the Aiel's past and Mat finds a doorway. Moiraine goes through the silver rings, learning about what will happen to her in the future, and writes some letters (alt: Moiraine goes through the doorway in Rhuidean as well and learns it there?).

ep4: Rand & co travel towards Alcair Dal (skipping Cold Rocks Hold); If the White Tower Schism didn't happen in ep1, maybe it happens here. I'm going to tentatively put the Coup here. Rahvin arrives in Caemlyn, if he exists?

ep5: Alcair Dal & Rand trapping Asmodean as a teacher (with Lanfear's help). Couladin announces that he's the Car'a'carn and decides to march on Cairhien, and Rand already feels guilty about getting Lanfear to help him escape in 2x7 and her torching the city, so he's extra motivated to stop him.

ep6: Battle of the Two Rivers, so that Perrin will be able to start his cross-country road trip to meet back up with everyone else by the end of the season? Maybe including the 'trap' for Faile that happened in TDR and it makes Perrin realize that he has feelings for her, which he feels guilty about. Asmodean begins teaching Rand.

ep7: Nynaeve and Moghedien have a confrontation in Cairhien and Nynaeve manages to defeat Moghedien, causing her to flee (or maybe this is Nynaeve defeating Liandrin? We might want to keep Moggy scary for the moment). At the end of the episode, the Shaido Aiel have arrived to lay siege to the city.

ep8: Battle of Cairhien - Mat kills Couladin and forms the Band of the Red Hand; Lanfear finds out that Rand and Aviendha have... slept together? kissed? have feelings for each other? And Moiraine and Lanfear have their appointment at the docks when Lanfear loses it as she realizes that after all her work, Lews Therin/Rand is never going to love her the way that she wants him to.

Then, in the name of 'letting the characters spend more time together', Rand's friends maybe actually get to hang out with him in s4 before people split up again, giving us a situation where the whole group gets to reassemble to save Rand at Dumai's Wells? Hard to guess without knowing how much will get covered in s3. They've done a great job pulling in plot lines from various books so far.

s2 did an amazing job of having a handful of themes that they explored through multiple characters and storylines, so I expect that s3 will also have some themes that they will be using. Not sure what it might be yet though once we get our s3 trailer (in, like, a year or a year and a half, lol) we'll probably have a better idea, because Halsey's "Control" being used for the s2 trailer was INCREDIBLY accurate for some of s2's themes -- "who is in control?" and the idea of fear and control and trying to own someone's power were very much at play in s2.

So what character arcs might we see in s3?

I think we're going to see Moiraine & Lan firmly established as mentors to Rand throughout the season, doing their best to prepare him for the future. And then Rand is potentially going to lose both of them at the end of the season (since I think that the show might bring all the characters together at the end of the season again, we might even see Nynaeve "bonding Lan to save his life" at the end of s3).

In general, there's just... honestly gonna be so much Rand stuff that I will be absolutely overwhelmed (in a good way). TDR-TSR-TFoH are my favorite run of the books and there are just so parts of TSR that are SO good (and a lot of them are Rand).

Theory for Mat's arc in s3: I wonder if we're going to start with him choosing to take a bodyguard-type role for Rand (because of his guilt over the stabbening) and transition to taking a general/captain-role at the end of the season (which would involve more independence in the future when he needs to leave Rand's plotline) as the Maidens take over as Rand's bodyguards. TSR is such a good book for both Rand and Mat in general, so I'm really looking forward to what the show does because the show has invested so much in their relationship already.

I am so so curious about what dynamic will be established for Rand & Asmodean and how many of the other characters might know the truth about him. In the books, Moiraine reveals in her letter to Rand that she knew who he really was but agreed with Rand that perhaps there was no choice but to work with him, because she agrees that Rand needs the training.

I do think we'll see some vibes between Rand and Elayne in the first episode, but that they won't act on them. But Rand was clearly struck by Elayne tenderly healing him with the sunlight in her hair and I do think we'll get some follow-up on that moment in ep1.

We'll also be getting Rand and Egwene pulling away from each other as romance partners (but perhaps settling into being trusted friends?). And I agree with @markantonys that it makes the most sense to have Rand & Aviendha as Rand's first established romance post-Egwene, because of the way the plotlines are set-up (Aviendha is actually going to be around Rand all season) and because she comes from a culture that leaves space for adding additional partners, so you don't need to use the misunderstanding loophole for Elayne and then Min to be added to the relationship in the future.

Perrin is going to come face-to-face with his guilt and grief over his wife's death when he goes back to the Two Rivers. Especially when he begins to catch feelings for Faile. We'll also see him training in TAR with Hopper. We'll see the continuation of his struggle with Dain. I do wonder if Dain might die at the end of s3, for similar reasons to why Renna, Seta, & Suroth died at the end of s2, leaving room for Galad to become the main Young Whitecloak figure in the future. Because the Whitecloaks spend several books not really being relevant in the middle part of the series.

Given how Nynaeve struggled with her block this season and it's been a real obstacle for her, one that she can't handwave away by doing the Bruce Banner "I'm always angry" thing like she kinda does in the books, I think that her main struggle this upcoming season is going to be trying to break her block and that they might even have her succeed at the end of the season against Moghedien -- much like s2 featured Egwene, Mat, & Moiraine coming into their powers (or back into their powers for Moiraine), s3 may see Nynaeve, Rand, & Perrin doing that.

The fact that Siuan disagreed so strongly with Moiraine in 2x7 makes me feel that it's more likely that she will survive the coup, because now she has tons of space for a character growth arc once she's struggling with actually dealing with her own stubborn Two Rivers person in the form of Egwene.

This will be Elayne's first season as an established member of the group -- one of the reasons that I think we'll get a set-up episode at the start of the season is that it makes sense to establish what her place is within the group. And then if Thom is in her storyline, we'll be able to explore a lot of her feelings about being the Daughter-Heir and her relationship with her mother, even if Morgase isn't shown on-screen.

Given that we killed off* all the 'known' Seanchan, I wonder if that means that we'll be taking a break from them in seasons 3&4, and then have them return at the end of s5(?), after Mat, Nynaeve, Elayne, and Lan have all gone to Ebou Dar (maybe Egeanin's plotline is shifted to Ebou Dar and we see that being explored at the start of s5 before the bulk of the Seanchan attack at the end?).

(* well, Suroth might not be dead, since we didn't actually see her die and she might have gotten rescued from the water, so she might be existing in a quantum state -- dead if they can't get the actress back later on but alive if they can)

We had a LOT of plotlines in s2 -- five major plotlines (Rand, Mat, and Perrin each got their own, while Egwene & Nynaeve and Moiraine & Lan did some sharing) plus we had the villain plotlines.

I’m guessing that we’ll only have three main plotlines in s3, which will give them all a bit more breathing room — we’ll have Rand & co in the Waste; Perrin & co in the Two Rivers; and Nynaeve & co doing a version of Tanchico. I think that the White Tower coup is likely to be a plotline for one-three episodes rather than something that spans the entire season.

And now, just for fun, a WoT s2 speculation scorecard! How well did I do?

I'll go backwards in time, so starting with my most recent speculation (that I did based on the 2x8 trailer that aired post 2x7).

That shot of Rand asking "who are you?" would be to that lovely shot of Elayne with sunlight in her hair: Correct!

Lanfear and Ishamael will fall apart while the Two Rivers kids stick together: Correct!

Elayne and Nynaeve will have to separate due to only have one sul'dam outfit: Wrong!

Hopper is going to die; Perrin will kill Daddy Bornhald in retaliation: Correct!

I had, like, three different guesses for the Horn situation so I'm not giving myself any credit there, lol

Turok will die by channeling, not by sword: Correct!

Moiraine and Lan will free damane as their plotline for this episode: Wrong!

Speculation for 2x7 made after trailer that came out after 2x6:

I do a lot of vague spec, the first firm thing I say without as much waffling is that Rand will be put under 'house arrest' by Siuan: Correct!

Mat saw Rand get taken by Lan & co: Wrong!

Lanfear and/or Ishamael arranges the fire in Foregate to free Rand from his 'house arrest' by the Aes Sedai: Correct!

Egwene gets to socialize with other damane: Wrong!

Speculation for 2x6-2x8 based on imdb listings for the last three episodes:

again, I do a lot of waffling and 'maybe this, maybe that', my first solid spec is that Liandrin's son would die in 2x6: Correct!

I did think we would get the royal wedding, so I will mark that: Wrong!

Natti Cauthon would appear as part of Ishy messing with Mat: Correct!

I thought the White Tower would be a location in these last three episodes: Wrong!

Yacissa will get killed by the Black Ajah: Wrong! (very happy to be wrong; I LOVE her)

Lanfear will help Rand out as his presence creates a wedge between Lanfear and Ishmael: ...kinda? I mean, she was Team Rand the second she learned Rand existed, lol.

Rand will leave Cairhien via Waygate: Correct!

Maigan will be Pura: Wrong! (no one is Pura, at least not now, and Maigan is very dead)

Loial will get to visit Egwene in the 'kennels': Wrong!

Egwene won't be freed until 2x8: Correct!

The 2x8 cold open will focus on LTT & Ishamael: Correct!

Ishamael will experience a painful reversal of expectations in 2x8 as his plans fall to pieces: Correct!

I also speculated here that Perrin would kill Bornhald in this version but I already counted that one above.

Uno will reappear as one of the Heroes of the Horn: Correct!

Speculation for 2x4 based on the first three episodes:

Moiraine doesn't already know Rand is in Cairhien: Wrong!

Lan will show the Lanfear poem to Alanna & co: Wrong!

Liandrin will tell Nynaeve that Perrin & co were captured by the Seanchan: Correct!

Logain was deliberately placed in Cairhien to lure Rand there: Correct!

Before we got the episode titles but after the trailer came out:

Siuan's trip to Cairhien occurs in episode 6: Correct!

Rand will still be wandering around the countryside when he meets Selene: Wrong!

Moiraine and Lan will be researching at Verin's in 2x1: Correct!

Rand and Selene's main episode will be ep2: Wrong!

The shot of Lan on Mandarb in the woods will be in Nynaeve's Accepted Test: Correct!

Nynaeve's Accepted Test will happen in ep3: Correct!

Moiraine and Rand reunite in ep4: Correct! (wrong about how/why though)

Perrin meets the Seanchan in ep5: Wrong!

Perrin meets Aviendha in ep5: Correct!

Rand meets Logain in ep6: Wrong!

"We get the New Spring flashback scene, see Moiraine & Siuan happy and young, then hear Gitara's Foretelling": Close! (I guessed it for ep6)

Verin will be in Perrin's plotline: Wrong!

Liandrin will be confirmed as a darkfriend in ep6: Close! (it was ep5)

Egwene, Nynaeve, & Elayne will spend the first 5 episodes in the White Tower and the last 3 in Falme: Close! (it's more 4 in WT; 1 traveling; 3 Falme)

I did a huge post of How Does Mat Get To Falme, which ended up being hilariously incorrect as "Lanfear has him bonked over the head and then Travels him there" was not on my radar, lol. But my favored method included him reuniting with Rand in Cairhien, so I'm glad that part still happened.

Anyway, I didn't do so awful in my predictions, I think.

(In terms of 'accidental predictions', I did write a fic involving Rand being tied to a bed in Cairhien by his lover literally months before we had any clue it would be happening in the show, - and while I'm talking about randomly accidentally being a Prophet in my fics: in Voice, I had Lanfear (who we had not yet met in the show) giving solid relationship advice - "That's fear talking, not fact" & I had this line for Mat: "Maybe Mat was destined to be a failure and a disappointment, like his father. But he wouldn't just lie down and let it happen." which is essentially what it feels like we just got from him in 2x8.)

#wot s3 speculation #wot speculation #butterfly watches wot #wot #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot show spoilers #wot prime spoilers #wot s2 spoilers #wheel of time s2 spoilers #wot 2x8 spoilers #wot book spoilers #knife of dreams #wot speculation scorecard

[markantonys]

I've seen so many comments re Rand "he didn't do anything the entire season, He was just dragged around by other people the entire season, he's not even a character in the show, he's a plot device, he was just an observer in his own story" and I feel like I watched an entire different show than those people. Like even with the being dragged around by other people argument he's still actively making his own decisions this season whether that's getting information from Logain and learning some things from him, the cat and mouse game he has going on with Lanfear, etc.

i've seen a bunch of comments like that too and am equally baffled! just because he isn't yet a Channeling Master doesn't mean he did nothing all season and is a plot device rather than a character? lmao, i'd argue that if the show had focused on making him blow stuff up with the power or win swordfights against blademasters despite no training rather than on exploring who he is as a person and how the specifics of his personality affect him and the other characters and the story, THAT would be making him a plot device rather than a character!

rand's entire storyline this season centered around who he is as a person: someone who will do anything to protect the people he loves. moiraine had to seek him out because of this specific aspect of his character. lanfear and ishamael used this specific aspect of his character to manipulate him. he went to falme and got publicly declared TDR because of this specific aspect of his character. so many plot points would not have happened if not for this specific aspect of rand's character. that means he is a fleshed-out character who drives the story and makes things happen, regardless of how often he gets trapped or tricked or shielded or how often he needs help to get out of situations.

and like, yes, he IS largely being bossed around by other characters at this early stage...............which is the point! he is the most powerful and dangerous figure in the world, and he doesn't yet know how to use that power, but everyone around him sure does have plenty of ideas of how THEY want to use his power! moiraine's trying to drag him in one direction, lanfear in another, ishamael in a third, the tower in a fourth, etc etc. that's The Point of this early stage of rand's arc and something that is thematically huge for him throughout the series, and book readers should know this. i can give show-onlys who don't yet know the full trajectory of his arc more leeway, but even then it's pretty obvious that all our young heroes are in the process of growing into their roles and figuring out how to be independent and that they're still EARLY in that process, and that as the story goes on we will see them take charge of their own destinies more and more.

and like you say, rand absolutely IS making his own decisions this season! he's getting dragged around by people and factions who are as of right now stronger than him, but that doesn't make him a cardboard cutout who doesn't affect the story. half the stuff in this season was caused by HIS decision to wander off alone and let everyone think he was dead! he got a whole-ass job and worked his way up the ranks all on his own, all because he was motivated to get to logain to ask for channeling help! he's trying to take control of the lanfear situation, and sure she's usually out-manipulating him seeing as she has 3000 years of experience at her disposal compared to his 21, but he's also very aware of the leverage HE has over HER and has been taking advantage of it! HE was the reason they all went to falme, it wasn't moiraine forcing him to go, HE wanted to go on his own to help egwene! even if lanfear pulled strings by making him aware of egwene's situation in the first place, it was still HIS decision!

#anonymous #answered #wot show spoilers #wot book spoilers #(mildly so just in terms of Themes)

[highladyluck]

Season 2, Episode 4 Liveblog

Teaser:

Selene is so sanguine about her entire livelihood going up in smoke! It’s almost like this has happened before

Werewolf Perrin rumors have been crushed!

The problem with the Forsaken Ski Chalet is that there’s a Myrdraal infestation in the basement

It is a personal insult that the subtitles just say [chanting] when Ishy is clearly dialing up Lanfear (also if anyone can overwrite the audio for this scene with the dial-up modem sound I want to see the clip)

DARK PROPHECY IS A GO

Awww she’s an amateur artist

Dollars to donuts that ‘older sister’ is an Aes Sedai

It has to be so painful coming back home

Selene is so sanguine about her entire livelihood going up in smoke! It’s almost like this has happened before

How long, Selene? Exactly how long has it been?

I’m gonna need fanart/fanfic of the Forsaken Ski Chalet up near Kinslayer’s Dagger

Awwwwwwwwwww

The Accepted sleeves look AWESOME I know I keep saying that but it’s true! They’re little embroidered ombre flames

Alanna is like ‘I don’t do therapy, I only do sex advice’

Hmmmmm, that doesn’t sound like stilling aftermath, another point in favor of ‘shielded’

It’s good that they are namedropping Cads this early; she came out of nowhere in the books.

DARK, Alanna. Also I bet I know what that change in Moiraine was; the timeframe is right for it to be when Gitara died & she got her quest.

Moiraine is on the case!

Ooooooooooooh this is going to be FUN

DAMN so that’s why she wanted that specific red wine. This feels very on par with the books- Moiraine a step behind but trying desperately to stay in the loop and get Rand what she thinks he needs

Moiraine, damn

Yeah, no point letting him destroy himself until all value has been extracted from him :/

Elayne like ‘she’s been promoted’ lmao she would think it was just that

Oh Egwene, you have not even begun to feel like shit

Ooooh someone gave Liandrin her marching orders

FORESHADOWING

Awww it’s Hopper! Hi Hopper

Werewolf Perrin rumors have been crushed! It’s ok he is a werewolf in my heart, the way Rand is a ghost in my heart and Mat is a vampire in my heart. And by ‘in my heart’ I mean ‘in the subtext’

Huh, interesting thing with the visions

Perrin like ‘excuse me, why did I not get an instruction manual and personal tutoring, this is a shitty apprenticeship so far’

None of the Tower’s fucking business honestly (this is also why info about the Power doesn’t get shared but whatever)

Lmao Selene you lie about more than that

Her face when Rand says ‘you’d be surprised’ lmao, that’s a Lanfear Face (TM)

Oh honey you haven’t even broken the world yet

“[dice rattling]” IT’S MY BOY!!!

Is Min gonna have Mat kidnapped by the Seanchan and taken to Falme? I am INTRIGUED

I’m glad the show explores the rift in families created by the long lives of Aes Sedai

Liandrin says ‘Rescue mission! You love a rescue mission!’

Alanna does not like Dark Prophecies written in blood, I guess?

Ooooh there’s that Damodred spirit (political maneuvering)

“This is my room.” - Elayne

“didn’t ask, don’t care” - Nyneave

Egwene no no no you already have enough trauma you don’t need to go to Falme

Uh oh, always a bad sign when Ishy shows up in your dreams (I love that the non-ta’veren are getting Ishy dreams!) also at this point it should be obv to everyone that Liandrin is bad news bears, even if you missed the lying

Oooooh interesting, what IS In Cairhein?

The problem with the Forsaken Ski Chalet is that there’s a Myrdraal infestation in the basement

Lmao like she didn’t know

Selene doesn’t know anything about being seen as a monster, nope

Oh ok that bit about her soul is great

Rand is vanilla

What the hell

Wow that is the most awkward thing I can imagine happening between Rand and Moiraine, you’re gonna give him a complex about… killing… women… I see

I cannot wait to see Lanfear do some horror movie shit

YEAH

AVI NEXT EP!!!

#wheel of time #wot on prime #wot book spoilers #wot on prime s2 #WoT on prime spoilers #WoT on prime s2e4

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 24: New Friends and Old Enemies

Spoiler alert: I don't know who made this. Eugene de Blaas definitely did most of the work, but I found this as a reblog of a now-dead account "laurientius" so... yeah. Also spoiler alert: My reread has spoilers for the entirety of the series. Don't keep reading if that's going to be a problem.

A second chapter in a row with the Flame of Tar Valon, which again is a reflection of us exploring the White Tower.

Egwene curtsied, then stuck out her tongue at the Accepted’s retreating back.

Egwene has a weird problem with authority sometimes. I suppose Pedra must have an unpleasantness in her voice, though we know from later on that she's not really that unpleasant.

“My name is Elayne,” she said. She tilted her head, studying Egwene. “And you are Egwene. From Emond’s Field, in the Two Rivers.” She said it as if it had some significance, but went right on anyway.

The significance is of course primarily that she's already met someone from the Two Rivers and not specifically that Egwene is her subject. Elayne's not awful like that.

Also: yay! Elayne!

From now on, you will be at training at this hour every day, as a matter of fact. From breakfast until High, then again from dinner to Trine. If you are especially quick or especially slow, they may take you from supper to Full, as well, but that is usually for more chores.

All the chores and training sounds like a particularly grueling schedule, though I suppose the average gal in this setting would probably find it relaxing since they'd be working all day at the farm or store anyway.

“You saw it around me?” she said excitedly. “I saw it around you. Sheriam Sedai said I would, eventually. This was the first time. For you, too?”

How can they not be fated to be bestest buds at this point? In a more sapphic novel this is the part where they'd kiss. Well, think about it anyway.

Abruptly Egwene found herself remembering a tale Rand had told, a tale she had not believed, about falling off a wall into a garden and meeting. . . . “You’re the Daughter-Heir of Andor,” she gasped.

Shoulda believed that poor boy.

“She keeps a willow switch on her desk. She says if you can’t learn to follow the rules in a civilized way, she will teach you another way. There are so many rules for novices, it is very hard not to break some of them,” she finished.

Elayne probably hasn't been spanked much before this. Considering the schoolgirl approach to the Tower training, the switch being present is probably some of the least eyebrow raising physical punishment we see in the series, but again it's important to note these things so we can discuss the more egregious examples later on.

But we are children. The Aes Sedai, the full sisters, are the grown women. The Accepted are the young women, old enough to be trusted without someone looking over their shoulders every moment. And novices are the children, to be protected and cared for, guided in the way they should go, and punished when they do what they should not.

In fairness to the Aes Sedai way of thinking here, novices are unlikely to be a tenth of the way through their natural lifespan at this point and Accepted only barely past that. The long life makes for longer periods of initiation.

Egwene, there are only forty novices in the Tower. Only forty, and no more than seven or eight will become Accepted.

Yeah those numbers are outright atrocious. Without change, the White Tower won't be able to last as an institution past the current number. By the time they've died of old age, there won't be enough Aes Sedai left just to train the new generation.

But the Tower will not . . . cannot . . . lower its standards.

Elayne is correcting herself here to be diplomatic, but she was right the first time, as Egwene shows. There's plenty of ways the Tower could have high standards without doing all the crap it does. And Sheriam badmouthing the current state of affairs is just so perfect. As a Black she's encouraging novices and accepted to despair at the current state of affairs while seeming to be arguing for something that would only hinder the Blacks and thus keep her above suspicion.

Elayne paused, and then said, “Is Rand well?” Egwene felt a sudden stab of jealousy—Elayne was very pretty—but over it came a stronger stab of fear.

Egwene just ain't used yet to Rand being off the table, but her heart's in the right place.

Anyway, I’ve not seen her since the day we arrived, with Whitecloaks dogging our trail. They are still camped on the Dragonmount side.

What delightful foreshadowing.

“Men,” Egwene muttered. “I dance a few dances with a nice boy, and Rand goes around looking like a dog with a sore tooth, but he—”

But he didn't dance with anyone and barely flirted except with Elayne. Calm down girl. Hypocrisy is your worst look.

The man rumbled a bitter laugh. “With two or three of you watching my every move? You’re just afraid I’ll find a knife.” At the look in the Accepted’s eyes, he laughed again. “For myself, woman. For myself. Lead me to your garden, and your watching eyes.”

Poor Logain. Elayne's quite wrong. At the moment he's less dangerous than most other men.

“Do they always have to be gentled?” she asked. Elayne stared at her, mouth agape, and she quickly added, “It is just that I’d think the Aes Sedai would find some other way to deal with them. Anaiya and Moiraine both said the greatest feats of the Age of Legends required men and women working together with the Power. I just thought they’d try to find a way.”

Good cover, Egwene. And honestly the kind of question that, even though you are asking it as a ruse, shows your potential and keen mind.

“I know you,” Egwene said. “You worked at the inn in Baerlon.” A light breeze riffled the water beneath the bridge, and graywings warbled in the trees of the garden.

You can see why people think Egwene should be ta'veren, though I'd say all these meetings are more about her being at the place that is the current fulcrum of the world than anything inherent to her.

She said I’d have to share my husband with two other women, and I’d never put up with that. She just laughs, and says it was never her idea of how to run things, either.

It's a little bit of a shame from a drama perspective that there's never any real fallout when Elayne realizes that Min knew she was one of the other two women all along. It's also sad for Min that it's quite clear she dislikes her destiny and never comes to terms with it.

“A white flame, and. . . . Oh, all sorts of things. I don’t know what it means.”

The White Flame is obviously the Amyrlin Seat itself - surprising no one makes this connection early. I expect she sees the lights she saw last book, more swallowed up now that Egwene is comparatively alone (though Elayne may be another person who has this image). She probably sees something about Gawyn in specific that she doesn't want to share in front of Elayne.

“One of the things she said she saw looking at me was a severed hand. Not mine, she says. She claims she does not know what it means, either.”

This would have been Rand's severed hand back when he was going to lose it by royal decree but I have no clue what it's about now. Maybe it's got something to do with the Band of the Red Hand?

She tried to settle herself, to think of Rand. He’s so . . . beautiful. She gave a jump, half afraid she had spoken aloud.

Galad's getting extra attention in this first meeting is probably an artifact of when he would have ended up with Egwene after Gawyn died. Still kinda works to subvert the first meeting of fated lovers kinda thing though.

I have met all sorts of people, and they’ve met Rand al’Thor. Some do not even know his name, but the description could not be anyone else, and he’s shifted every one of their lives. There was an old farmer who came to Caemlyn just to see Logain, when Logain was brought through on his way here; yet the farmer stayed to stand for Mother when the riots started. Because of a young man off to see the world, who made him think there was more to life than his farm.

We're going to hear a lot more about the lives Rand changes. It's funny that it's Gawyn who first really highlights it, considering how negative his obsession ends up being.

“We three are tied together,” Min said, “and we cannot let any man get in the way of that. Not even him.”

Min, when after this book is the next time you even see Egwene? Maybe in Caemlyn for a bit? You and she have almost less time together than you and Mat and that's saying an alarming amount.

“In Caemlyn, child, I am councilor to the Queen your mother, but this is the White Tower, and you, a novice.”

I mean yeah Elaida's being a bit stuck up here but is she wrong? I bet if Sheriam overheard Elayne not say "Sedai" to Elaida she'd have her horsewhipped before Elaida could get two words in. The whole point is to leave old connections behind, even if the Tower is hypocritical and wants the princesses it teaches to rise to power.

Behind them, Egwene heard the Aes Sedai begin, “I am given to understand, girl, that you were brought here by Moiraine Sedai.”

Does Min see the White Flame around Elaida? Does she see Fain? The vanity tower? The Black Ajah hunters? The a'dam?

She looked over her shoulder to make sure the Aes Sedai was not following her, but Elaida was nowhere in sight.

Dammit narrative I want my questions answered and here you are cutting in only when it's too late! It's frankly a bizarre choice at this point, as Min gets only the tiniest bit of POV and only to establish that she's pissed at Moiraine too. That could have been done in Egwene's perspective I think.

Next time: The House of the Rising Sun!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #egwene al'vere #pedra #elayne trakand #logain ablar #min farshaw #galad damodred #gawyn trakand #elaida do avriny a'roihan

[liptonrm]

The summer got away from me and then I went camping for a couple days and now WoT season two is only, like, a day away! And I've still got 3 more episodes to rewatch!

Anyway, time to pop some bottles because it's episode six and Moiraine x Siuan is about to go canon.

Watching Siuan being forced to leave her father is heartbreaking.

There was an interesting meta about patriarchy and patriarchal violence in the Wheel of Time books and, while so many leaders are world leaders are women and the Aes Sedai, the most powerful people in that world, are all women, there's still a bunch of in-world gendered stereotypes and violence that seem to stem more from our world's sensibilities than that world's. Which, yes, I'm sure a bunch of it did come down to some of RJ's unconscious biases.

BUT the show is doing an interesting job of highlighting the push-pull of power and trust. In the last episode we had Liandrin talking about how little girls are still hurt, even though the Aes Sedai exist, like one doesn't negate the other. Also in that episode we had the Whitecloaks, through Eamon Valda, talking about how no one with that amount of power can be trusted, regardless of whether the power is corrupted or not.

Now we see tiny little Siuan being sent away, not because her father doesn't love and trust her, but because the people around her don't. If she's going to live, she has to leave. Which is just heartbreaking. No wonder so many Aes Sedai only trust their sisters in Saidar.

Practicing knots and practicing weaves. Basically the same thing, really.

He knows he'll never see his daughter again.

You ever think about how lucky we are that Rosamund Pike decided to champion this series? Because I do, every time I watch.

I want to think the costumers, productions designers, and VFX artists who made Tar Valon look so fucking cool.

Women in the Tower Guard is an excellent touch. Four for you, R2J2.

They're giving so much texture and depth to Logain. I love to see it.

Aaah, Liandrin grandstanding, throwing Moiraine under the bus. This scene is an excellent way to introduce Tower politics.

The Hall did not consent to be apart of Siuan and Moiraine's roleplay.

Though Liandrin's definitely enjoying it.

Oh man, it's the tea shop. Where's the meme, woman drinking tea, thinking about getting railed by Siuan Sanche.

Bless Rand's heart.

I'm really curious to see what the angle's gonna be re: Mat and the dagger in season two.

Moiraine really doesn't have the patience for Tower politics. I do not blame her.

Omg, I didn't remember that Maigan mentioned travelling to investigate the Seanchan. That's, ummmm, not a great idea.

Egwene is vicious and righteous. Perfection.

Plots within plots. Schemes within schemes.

Omg the way Moiraine smiles with Lan says "Giver her my love." She's so excited to see Siuan. 🥹🥰

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. 🍾🍾🎉

The both started wearing whte and now Siuan is wearing Tairen paisley and Moiraine is in a matching wrap. Excellent touch.

🐡

Nynaeve not bowing and the way Egwene looks at her lololol.

The way that Nynaeve is terrified and barely holding it together and Egwene is ready to fight the world. Everyone making this show understood the assignment.

What color is the stone in Siuan's ring? It wasn't blue, but I couldn't tell what color it was. Maybe gold?

Seriously, the Hall did not consent to your roleplay.

The way their fingers touch while Moriaine swears the oath. 😢😭

And the way Moiraine changes the oath. 1) She so dramatic I love her. 2) So smart to swear to Siuan specifically. 3) They're definitely married now.

They're all so happy to see each other! My babies.

I know that Mat doesn't go with them because reasons but, you know, I really don't blame him. Just cut loose from unspeakable horror to venture back into it? Yeah, hard pass.

I do wonder how Mat's story in the finale would've gone, as originally planned.

I do really like that Egwene is the first of the EF5 to step into the Ways. She is so brave.

#wheel of time #wot rewatch #wot book spoilers #will i finish the last two before three am on friday? here's hoping

[damn-oh-dread]

Some, frankly ridiculous, over-analysis of 3 pages in chapter 15 of Fires of Heaven:

I honestly did not think there was going to be a scene specifically about Moiraine reacting to the idea Siuan could be dead. I kind of assumed it would be an implied conversation or something along the lines of Egwene going “Moiraine guess what,” with a response something like “I know.” So anyway, these whole 3 pages were really fun! Thank you, Robert Jordan, for doing this one thing for me. To celebrate the fact this exists I’ve decided to completely over-analyze it!

So, we enter Moiraine’s tent to find that she is still eavesdropping on Rand and probably everyone else while shes at it and I personally find it hilarious that Egwene is surprised she is still doing this. Girl, Moiraine has been eavesdropping on everyone ever since she learned how to channel, you think she would stop now? Because someone asked her not to? Moiraine never once told anyone she would stop eavesdropping actually. She just mentioned that they should “allow Rand some privacy” which does not specifically mean privacy from her. The way she speaks so much through implication and what she keeps unsaid is *chefs kiss* she is just so fascinating!!! And when she says “goals, which may not be those of the Tower” ??? I am hysterical. Because, on one level, yes she is correct. The Wise Ones do not have the same goals as the Tower but really what I think she means to say is that they don’t have the same goals as her and Siuan. Moiraine has spent only a handful of days at the white tower in 21 years, she is not around enough to really be apart of the white tower action. Moiraine is not working for the white tower. Like yes she is working with the Amyrlin but not because the Amyrlin seat is the number one authority, she is working with the Amyrlin because they're besties.

Brief interlude about Egwenes dreams:

Rand sitting down in a chair, and somehow she knew that the chair's owner would be murderously angry at having her chair taken; that the owner was a woman was as much as she could pick out

Me frantically writing down all the women rulers in Randland: So, Caemlyn? 👀

Every time he moved closer to Perrin it was as if a chill of doom shot through everything

(sidenote: is perrin just not in this book? Where is he? where are you girl?)

Mat throwing dice with blood streaming down his face, the wide brim of his hat pulled low so she could not see his wound

Okay the only thing I can think of that would bleed and also be covered by Mats hat would be if he got some injury on the top half of his face so like, sexy pirate look? Scar over the eye? I think mat could pull off an eye patch. Can not wait for Mat's sexy pirate era as he deserves! 🤩

Thom Merrilin put his hand into a fire to draw out the small blue stone that now dangled on Moiraine's forehead

You know, everything in this book so far is really making me think that RJ is gonna kill her off. Rip the mentor character, you guys are always my favourite. 😔 How would Thom get her kesiera though? He watches her die? She dies in a fire? He takes her kesiera from the fire and keeps it in hopes he will meet her in another life so he can figure out which Aes Sedai to kill to avenge his nephew? Sorry guys I literally have no ideas for this one. TLDR, Moiraine probably dies and Thom for some reason has feelings about that. I mean he is kinda horny for her in book 4 so I could see him being a little sad in a “oh no that girl I thought was sexy is dead, you win some you lose some I guess” kind of way. Which can not fault him, Moiraine is super hot. Have you guys SEEN Rosamund Pike???

ANYWAY MOVING ON

The fact there is an arrest warrant for Moiraine because she's helping the dragon reborn is hilarious to me for the reason that yes, she has indeed been helping the dragon reborn and that is a no-no but she has also been doing so many other illegal things. If Elaida, somehow, wasn't aware that Moiriane was also looking for the Dragon Reborn she still could have gotten Moiraine thrown in White Tower jail for so many other reasons. And Elaida decided to get her for treason? Bo-ring.

Just off the top of my head, a list of (what I assume would be counted as) crimes Moiraine has committed:

Knowing how to cast balefire

CASTING BALEFIRE

killing another Aes Sedai

being in cahoots with the Amyrlin

being married to the Amyrlin

Lowkey stealing a sa'angreal (yes I know that Siuan gave it to her but I think overall this is generally a thing that makes them both look very bad)

Just generally doing what she wants at all times

Elaida could have gotten her for SO MUCH.

Next point,

"Is that all you can say? I think Siuan was your friend once, Moiraine. Can't you shed a tear for her?"

Egwene, even if Moiraine was super upset about Siuan, why would she break down in front of you? It has already been proven many times that Moiraine can stay straight faced through some intense stuff. You are not one of the two people that Moiraine has ever been vulnerable for!!! So, sorry Egwene. Like what were you expecting bestie???

Secondly, Moiraine responding to Egwene with, “I have no time for tears,” is just peak characterization right there!!!!! Yes girl!!! I love how that one line both further establishes Moiraine’s frankly insane sense of duty but also implies that if she did have the time to let herself grieve she wouldn’t be able to keep going to complete her mission. At this point she is staying with the mission to honour Siuan and the history that they have together. To stop now would be to dishonour her and her legacy. If Moiraine ever stopped for a second to think about literally anything that has happened to her and the people she cares about since starting her quest searching for the dragon reborn it would be very difficult to keep going I think. Moiraine can not slow down!

“We were friends once.”

Hey babe, quit telling everyone I’m your ex-girlfriend because we got married. Okay jokes aside I do really like this line because I think it speaks a lot to the depth of their relationship. Moiraine is a character that leaves much more meaning unsaid so you really need to read between the lines with her. Here she says that in the past they used to be friends. And yeah, because they were. After almost 21 years of working together in this cause they are so much more than just friends though! They were working together in an environment where if either of them were even suspected of being in cahoots it would have spelled disaster for them both. And the stakes are even higher when Siuan is raised to the Amyrlin Seat. It could have been so easy for either of them, driven by paranoia or fear or jealousy etc, to betray the other to save themselves. And yet they never did! Even when it would have been safer to be apart and work separately and never speak again, they still work together and stay really good friends throughout it all! So like yes they were friends once, but time and a shared purpose have tempered their relationship into something much stronger than the early friendship and comradery they shared as novices.

There is a saying in Cairhien, though I have heard it as far away as Tarabon and Saldaea. 'Take what you want, and pay for it.' Siuan and I took the path we wanted, and we knew we would have to pay for it eventually."

Take what you want and pay for it, is such a banger saying. But yeah, Moiraine and Siuan decided 21 years ago that they wanted and more importantly felt they needed to be the ones to find the Dragon Reborn and now they are both paying for that choice. The price they payed just happened to be the highest amount they could have been charged. They both knew they could die on this mission and so Moiraine has no choice but to move on and not think about it ever. They really did take what they wanted and then paid for it.

Now is a good time to introduce my two theories on what is going on in Moiraine's mind at the moment of this conversation.

Theory A)

Moiraine knows that Siuan has just been stilled either from the creepy fae people or from her crazy Rhuidean adventure. So obviously Moiraine would be worried, but knowing that Siuan is still alive would decrease that worry a little bit. That's why when Egwene gives her the news about Siuan, since she already knows about Siuan's fate, it allows her to take it with a straight face cause shes already expecting it.

Theory B)

The more agonizing of the two theories for sure: Moiraine is just as in the dark as everyone else, and assumes that the worst has happened to Siuan. From there, she is just holding herself back an insane amount after this news like a crazy person. Maybe she takes it with a straight face and then is sad about it when Egwene is gone.

I’m leaning more towards Theory A because there is no way after seeing every future in Rhuidean she doesn’t know generally what Siuans fate is. And! This entire book she’s been super on edge. What more could put you on edge than knowing your bestie has been through it and you won’t be able to be there for them??? And in the conversation where she and Lan talk about worries and how Moiraine is so worried lately she thinks about Siuan. Coincidence? I think not. And if Moiraine really was in the dark I feel like she maybe would have flinched, or there would have been a tiny reaction, even if it happened to be one that is quickly gone. You can’t react to the news your friend might be dead without a tiny reaction unless she already knew and was ready for it.

Do you expect me to be happy that the White Tower has split apart?

No, because it makes your life harder since you won’t be immune to tower politics anymore.

I gave my life to the Tower long before I ever suspected the Dragon would be Reborn in my lifetime.

You literally weren't even Aes Sedai yet when you learned the Dragon was reborn. Chill out drama queen damodred.

I could almost wish that every sister had sworn to Elaida, whatever happened to Siuan."

Okay but almost wishing for something is different than wishing for something. I do understand where she is coming from though. It would be much easier to manipulate or stay away from the tower if it was acting as a single entity. Now that it is fractured this spells massive trouble for Moiraine, especially because she is already on Elaidas hit list. The fractured tower is a huge headache for her and makes her plans so much more complicated. BUT! She doesn’t actually wish that (as much as it would help her) because a) Elaida is a huge bitch, a fact which Moiraine knows about quite personally and b) Moiraine is probably absolutely livid towards Elaida right now for hurting someone that she cares about. (Reading about what happens to Siuan made me livid so I'm doing a bit of projecting here BUT I think it is a fair thing to assume) Therefore, she wishes for Elaida to have the worst time possible regardless for how much harder it makes her goals!

But you forget that only thirteen sisters linked can shield any man from saidin, and even if they do not know the trick of tying flows, fewer can hold that shield.

Yeah Egwene, you forget that Aes Sedai don’t need to be working together to fuck shit up.

I mean to deal with the world as I find the world, for as long as I can

Okay this is starting to turn more into Elizabeth reacts to 3 pages in chapter 15 but I just really like this quote a lot. This is just, so Moiraine. This is her as a character. Someone who deals with the world and keeps going until the very end.

"With luck," the Aes Sedai went on, "we will not have to worry about Lanfear."

OKAY WHAT IS HAPPENING TO LANFEAR?!?!?!? I know Moiraine has been ease dropping on Rand right? So she probably just assumes that Lanfear and Rand are working something out. Right? RIGHT? Plot twist: Moiraine has actually been planning an elaborate scheme to somehow take Lanfear out this whole time.

"They may be strong in many ways, but they are sadly lacking in others"

MOIRAINE YOUR HAUGHTINESS IS SHOWING ASDFJASDIEWFN

Even Nynaeve doesn't think it is right.

Nynaeve is so obsessed with Moiraine, I love it. Like, sorry to break it to you Nynaeve but in order to hate something you do need to care about it and what happens to it.

well, anyway

that is it. That is all my thoughts.

If you read this far, thanks for sticking around!

#e reads fires of heaven #wheel of time book spoilers #wheel of time #moiraine damodred #moiraine x siuan #god the amount of times I misspelt amyrlin when typing this out #I have a normal amount of feelings about this chapter #I am totally normal about this book series

[cozcat]

I've seen a few different theories about what the show will do with Liandrin, given that you don't hire Kate Fleetwood for that plot. And the more I think about it, the more I think that Liandrin is going to die. Rafe promised us death, so about death shall I theorise. And I have thoughts on why, that I won't subject your dash to, as they got a bit long.

Liandrin does sod all after her subjugation. She's one of those stellar examples of Jordan being mostly unwilling to kill women, which the show has already proven with Amalisa that it will not be following in the fashion of. But she's pretty much done by The Fires of Heaven, and her later appearances do nothing but go "wow, yep, her life is still shit, no changes, moving on".

So, instead, kill her.

The two most popular theories I've seen are that they'll merge her with Alviarin or Galina. By merging her with Alviarin, the subjugation doesn't work - and that is something I feel is vital. (Plus, a few more prominent Black sisters who aren't Red is a very good thing.) And I wouldn't be surprised to see the plots Galina is involved in get so pared down that she's written out. (I'm expecting the Shaido plot on the whole to look ridiculously different.)

(A disclaimer: I can definitely see one of those merges happening anyway.)

With regards to plot, too, it makes sense. She's thus far the shadiest Aes Sedai we've met. She'll be the Big Bad of the White Tower, she'll sell Egwene into slavery, she'll flee with that little collection of Black Ajah and sow chaos. And then she meets her fate by Moghedien's hand.

A book can get away with loose ends in a way the show can't, and death is a clean and quick confirmation that that end is no longer loose. If they leave her alive, there is that thought of her coming back in some twisty way. (For this same reason, I don't think she will be the only person whose fate changes for that specific reason.)

She's also a reasonably well known face. If you've seen her in something, you remember her - you're never forgetting those cheekbones. Killing off someone recognisable always spices things up, and raises the stakes.

We need Moggy to be dangerous. And Moggy's subjugation of Liandrin already shows that - but as I said earlier, it leaves Liandrin as a loose end the show can't afford. Liandrin has been, until this point, broadly pretty successful in her nefarious doings. So Moggy killing her effortlessly drives home how dangerous she actually is.

And as a fun way of killing her, and flipping her fate in the books on its head - I can see Moghedien compelling Liandrin to kill herself, in some way that no person would even be able to kill themselves, in front of the rest of the Black Ajah. I'm picturing her forced to wring her own neck, all the while begging for her life. It makes Liandrin's arc nice and finished, it drives home how dangerous Moggy is (which is vital!), and it means we get to see Kate Fleetwood be fucking spectacular in her character's final moments. And honestly, seeing Kate Fleetwood be fucking spectacular is what I live for.

#wot #wot book spoilers #winter's heart #liandrin guirale #mywot

[youaremysunshine-court]

In lieu of the season finale, I'd like to talk about something that has been pointed out to me multiple times (specifically by cishet males). I'd like to preface this by saying this isn't a criticism because I'm pretty sure it's intentional (and if it's unintentional, the show should work on either dialling it back or making it a plot point). But I want to talk about feminism and the empowerment of women in WoT.

Don't get mad just yet, I'm on your side!

Just a few times I've seen men shown as less powerful than women, or "weaker":

Logain in Tar Valon: he comes in, he's all big and bold and sasses the Amyrlin Seat, and then at a few words from her, he crumples. He's led away in tears, kicking and screaming, not great for his honor...

Rand in the Blight: saying it was meant to be Egwene, even though canonically the Dragon can only be male. And moiraine not refuting that.

The Aes Sedai: come on, the White Tower is a huge threat to any male, like they have Warders that they can bond (non-consensually in the books) and the trainees who'll eventually become Warders, but otherwise its completely female-run.

The Seanchan: look at that boat from episode 8. The men were clearly just there as guard dogs, and it was the d*mane that held all the power.

Every single ruler: has an Aes Sedai whispering in their ear. That's a lot of power for women to hold. Are you starting to see a pattern? Good.

Min and Dana(sp?) : both shown as strong women who take no shit from men, who can clearly hold their own. They look cool, they act cool, they may be "barmaids" but they can and will kick your ass. (Yes, she was a darkfriend. She was cool before we found that out.)

Moiraine: she has a man who follows her around like a puppy and never questions her. He appears to be around for her to order around, and to protect her and that's about it. (Shh, no moiraine bashing here, that's how the world was built)

Lan: when he does get his own story, it's falling in love with a powerful woman who (as far as we know) doesn't need anyone. (Yes, his arc expands later, but let's focus on this season.) She makes all the moves in the relationship, and yet he's the one spouting his feelings for her, asking her to stay the night, etc. (We love the Lan speech! It's adorable and the first time I read it I cried)

Now, take all those instances and swap the genders. Thank you. Doesn't it look a lot like our modern world, when you swap the genders? Yeah. Makes you wonder why so many of my friends and YouTubers* online are spitting mad about women being in power. And yet they don't bat an eye when they see it in the real world.

*the amount of videos I've watched that are like oh warders can't fuck each other, oh women have so much power, oh there aren't any sexualised prostitutes (cough cough witcher), oh women are shown as human beings not objects... sorry, I'm a little mad about this.

Now I don't know if this was a conscious choice that the people in charge made. And I cannot tell you whether it's a good or bad thing, because I, as a book fan, am terribly biased. And also you have critical thinking skills for a reason. You come to your own conclusions.

All I can say is, if people are feeling uncomfortable at the amount of power imbalance. If people think that women are abusing their power in certain situations (as we shall see very soon). If people are wondering why men aren't given the "respect they deserve" and why they're "crying" and "having feelings", then I would like to ask how they missed it all in the books. Women had just as much power in the books, maybe more.

But now that the show has explored that facet just the slightest bit, people are up in arms about it being feminist and modern and catering to women. Okay then, sorry to burst your bubble but the real world is patriarchal and backward and catering to men. So if the power imbalance in WoT makes you uncomfortable, why doesn't the power imbalance in the real world make you uncomfortable?

#wot #wheel of time #jay watches wot #wot on prime #wot meta #robert jordan #wot show spoilers #wot book spoilers #wot book vague #rand al'thor spoilers #rand al'thor #egwene al'vere #nynaeve al'meara #al'lan mandragoran #perrin aybara #matrim cauthon #moiraine damodred #siuan sanche #spoilers in tags #cant wait for them to reach the aiel and be like A MATRIARCHAL SOCIETY absolutely imposible lord save us from this heresy #omg the aiel men can COOK the HORROR #genuinely people can be strong whether or not they show emotions and im so glad they gave lan less stoic and nynaeve less anger #just because Theyre actualy 3d human beings #ugh okay im sorry i needed this off my chest #hi im jay and this has been a rant #look this is passive aggressive but if u ignore that theres actually a point to this rant pls see that #i just dont know how to translate anger to calm words #also to my irls if you see this it is absolutely me bashing u for being a bigot no apologies for you no sirree #oh yeah and pls argue with me in the notes i fully expect a better interpretation from someone

[bgmoth]

so I finished The Eye of the World last night and honestly, and I can finally say with certainty that for the life of me I can’t understand what the big deal about changing some of the story for the show format is... except probably for the very end where I feel the changes might bring more serious consequences later. all the other changes I think benefit the story: the substance stayed the same, the timeline was moved along nicely while keeping most of the key events in, the ensemble was made more of an actual ensemble than the barely sketched support characters they are in the book (so the weight of the storytelling doesn’t feel lopsided). it was actually made better, with all the caveats of pacing and other screenwriting-specific problems. spoilery rambly thoughts behind the cut 

I was very curious about some of the changes that were most reviled by whatever passes for “OG fans” on reddit and fb. Mat’s story? stays pretty much the same, characterisation and all, and I think they’ll find a way to use the recast mess and him not going through the Ways as a way to retroactively introduce some of the characters from the skipped Caemlyn journey. 

Egwene and Nynaeve, and the “any of them can be the dragon” thing - this gets a little murky with the canon description of saidin, but overall it doesn’t harm the story as their abilities and place in the storyline don’t really change, and as characters at this point in time both Egwene and Nynaeve are much better in the show than in the book. book 1 Egwene is persistantly written as the easily swayed by romantic notions damsel in distress stereotype, and Nynaeve is the stoic, caring “mother friend” of the group. honestly, like 90% of her lines are about the boys’ wellbеing, checking them for injuries and making sure they’re fed. another stereotype that’s at least partially mitigated in the show. 

Perrin I think got a much better part in the show, even if his backstory was changed. it gives us a chance to see his struggle with the nature of violence from a more direct perspective than his early journey as a Wolfbrother gives us in the book. 

the inserted Tar Valon episode that introduces more of the Aes Sedai and the White Tower politics is necessary not just for the points it makes about Moiraine and Lan’s bond and its fate, but also because it gives us more context into the world that most of the main characters will be involved in in the future - something that Caemlyn I think only touches on by introducing future key players but not really giving us the context of the actual Tar Valon schemes and tension. 

and the end scene, the one where changes have the most significance imo, kept the actual dynamic of the battle; it didn’t matter that much that the others didn’t go with Moiraine and Rand, because they were practically sidelined in the “final” book battle - it was as if they weren’t there anyway. splitting the glory between Rand and basically Egwene and Nynaeve might be a mighty faux pax for some, but to me it actually makes for a better story than the one-man show Rand put on in the books. 

so yeah. can’t say the reading of this one went smoothly but it kept me in so I’ll give the next one a try and see how it goes 

#wot books #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #I don't have a book tag

[karatam]

Was Min's vision of Moiraine something from the books? If not, what do you think this means for Moiraine and Siuan in the show?

it was just for the show.

as far as I can recall, Min never had a viewing for Moiraine at all (though she featured in viewings for other people)

book spoilers under the cut

Okay, so Min's viewing for Moiraine is:

"I see the Amylin Seat and she's wearing full regalia, and....She's going to be your downfall"

The big thing to keep in mind is that it refers specifically to the Amyrlin Seat, not to Siuan herself. And as we know, Elaida will become Amyrlin Seat in the not too distant future, so it's very likely that the viewing is referring to Elaida.

Now, I guess they'll have to move stuff around, bc I don't recall Moiraine being all that present at Siuan's fall and the start of Salidar

The downfall bit is likely going to be a show-specific thing, bc in the books Moiraine and Siuan don't really interact anymore after Moiraine leaves the tower (which is BULLSHIT, but whatever), and neither do Moiraine and Elaida for that matter. In the books, Elaida is much more concerned with Egwene and Siuan (and the Seanchan), and then Moiraine is off galivanting with Rand (and then dying).

So it could refer to a number of things

Elaida revealing Moiraine and Siuan's relationship to the Hall (which would be show-only)

Elaida revealing Moiraine and Siuan's plans involving the Dragon Reborn (which would just be book canon)

Elaida somehow interfering with DR stuff (maybe kidnapping Rand, maybe somehow being involved with the Lanfear stuff and the doorway)

Siuan herself doing something that causes Moiraine's death (don't really see how this would play out, because Siuan will be in Salidar with Egwene while that is all happening in Cairhien, I think?)

Moiraine feeling the connection (through the Oath Rod) to Siuan be cut as Siuan is stilled by Elaida and takes it to mean that Siuan is dead, and so does something reckless (though again, the timing would be weird)

something else that I haven't thought of

Basically, I have no idea lol

#the wheel of time book spoilers #the wheel of time #the wheel of time spoilers #moiraine damodred #ask #anonymous

[everybodylovesrand]

Rafe Judkins answered some questions....

Rafe Judkins: To celebrate this first look at the Heron Mark Blade from #WOTonPrime I'll answer 10 questions in the next 30 minutes about production design on the show in general and how we're approaching it :) Just reply to this post with your question.

Eri (Geeky): What balance are you striking between recreating what's in the books word for word and letting the artists have creativity?

Rafe Judkins: What's really important to me is that when we're diverging from the books, that we KNOW we're doing it. So, every piece of production design from shoes to swords to the White Tower itself begins with pages of quotes from the books about that place/thing. The designer then takes it from there to build something that makes sense in our world, with our production concerns, our cast, our aesthetic, etc. But at the end of the day, it all stems from that first document and it's something we can always go back to.

Nakomi: Have you filmed any of the preproduction, design, manufacturing of props etc for a behind the scenes program. I have to say I really hope so!

Rafe Judkins: Of course!  An amazing team has been picking up as much as they can of the process so that after the show's aired you can see all the work and love that went into creating these details large and small :)

Maso: Since we are on the topic of swords, what are some of the inspirations for armor design? Is there quite a bit of variation between the Andorran and Shienrnian armor??

Rafe Judkins: Yes.  Our costume team, lead by the amazing Isis Mussenden, started by building a map of the entire Wheel of Time world, carving out what each nation/culture looked like to make sure they're differentiated (and honoring what's in the books) and then diving back into Two Rivers.

coldwitch: How do you decide what needs to be physically made (like the sword) and what's going to be effects?

Rafe Judkins: I want things to be as real as possible, so in any place that we possibly can, we've built things instead of trusting to effects. Our show could be all green screen, all CGI, but I think you'll be surprised by how much of it was actually built, and touched and held by our actors.

maɪk: Weapons and their individualistic characteristics are integrals to particular characters, especially with Mat, Rand, and Perrin. Will the show give a similar focus or will the weapons mostly just be *there*

Rafe Judkins: You can not even imagine the number of hours that goes into each person's weapon. I was in at least 20 meetings about the dagger that Egwene has, and that's not even a major weapon in the books. There's a whole team of people (and we have a few BIG book fans on the props team) looking at every item held by an actor on the show.  I'd be shocked if less than 10,000 woman/man hours were spent on the design and creation of the Heron Mark sword.

al'Lan Mandragoran: Will there be different styles of swords and heron marked swords? Or all of them will be in katana style?

Rafe Judkins: many, many different styles

Natro: Will Moiraine still have a staff at the outset? I know she says it helps her to "focus," but seeing as how she just tossed it aside after it was charred coming out of the Ways and she never replaced it, it doesn't really seem necessary.

Rafe Judkins: We're approaching this as an adaptation of the entire series, not just each book individually, so hopefully Season One will feel more like the entire book series of Wheel of Time than it does like Eye of the World. With that in mind -- no Moiraine staff. Let chaos ensue, ha.

Jack Fogarty: How is the set for the Two Rivers designed architecturally? It would seem easy to make it homely and Medieval, but because of it's location and history are there any other inspirations coming into play?

Rafe Judkins: When the books came out they felt so blazingly fresh and different and new, so we want that same thing to be true of the show, and if you see us leaning away from certain elements in the books, often times it's because audiences have now seen them before! Unfortunately sometimes even in cases where the book-to-screen adaptations are from books that cribbed it from WoT! ha

Lucky Mandragoran: The music, how is that related to the show? Did we just get a glimpse of a theme?

Rafe Judkins: This is not music from the show itself.  When it is, I'll make sure you know it, and it will hopefully feel very uniquely "Wheel of Time" :)

Kevin: How are the sword forms going to be presented? Is the style going to be pulled from a specific region of sword fighting, or are they going to be spread out over many regions?

Rafe Judkins: We have a fight time and swordmaster on the show who has built a fighting style unique to each weapon and culture. So, if you see a Borderlander fight with a heron mark blade it may feel different than a Seanchan.  That's merely hypothetical of course ;)

Rafe Judkins: Oops!  I thought I'd only answered 9, but I've actually done 10 already.  One was a bit cheap though, so whichever of these responses is the most liked at the end of the day, I'll answer that question as well. Be forewarned you may get wafo'ed if the question demands it :)

#Wheel of Time #WOTonPrime #Rafe Judkins

[butterflydm]

wot reread: towers of midnight (chapter 20-26)

spoilers for towers of midnight

Nynaeve goes through her testing to be Aes Sedai. Nice to see this Yellow Ajah Sister actually being kind and welcoming to Nynaeve. It was always somewhat disappointing how unwelcoming it felt like the Yellow Ajah in Salidar was towards her. Even when she literally performed feats that no one ever had, it didn't seem to earn her any respect.

2. We're reminded again here that the testing to become Aes Sedai is created in part by the Aes Sedai who are overseeing the test -- which was established in New Spring -- I remember that Moiraine thought her test focused a lot on trying to shame her out of completing the weaves (in addition to things like physical danger). I wonder if this was some kind of VR game back in the AoL, and maybe the traditional weaves to go into it involved some kind of 'safety net' that the currents ones don't.

3. The interesting thing for me here is that Nynaeve IS different from 'most Aes Sedai', though not in the way that Rand meant, lol. Most Aes Sedai NEED to find a certain element of serenity and calmness in order to embrace saidar, so it makes sense that requiring calmness is part of the final test for Aes Sedai. But Nynaeve learned to channel when she was feeling intense emotional turmoil (specifically anger and frequently righteous anger over people getting hurt or facing injustice) -- and that was the only way she could channel for months (maybe over a year?). And it kinda feels like the way she ends up dealing with this test shows that she is now capable of accessing saidar either way -- through serenity or through intense emotions. When she initially starts channeling new weaves in the test (in addition to the traditional 100 weaves), it's done in the spirit of that righteous fury that she initially needed to use in order to channel at all.

4. Ultimately, even knowing that this is a test, Nynaeve makes the conscious decision that she will not abandon Lan -- that she will choose her people over the White Tower, if they force her to make that choice. And I like that she has to come to the edge of that decision and make it. The whole reason that Nynaeve left the Two Rivers in the first place was to protect her people. One of the Black Ajah hunters back in... CoT or KoD, I think, thinks about how the White Tower becomes everything to most sisters because they are going to outlive all the people they love, but when you are dedicated to a community and not just the individual members, that's not necessarily true (and this is true of Elayne in similar ways that it is to Nynaeve).

And I do think Egwene -- though she herself identifies with the White Tower as her home -- realizes that asking every channeler to pick the White Tower over their home is not emotionally realistic. Nynaeve is much better suited to, essentially, being like a Wise One or the Windfinders -- channeling in order to help the people that she loves and chooses to protect. Nynaeve has never fallen in love with the White Tower the way that Egwene has. So her making this choice, her saying -- I will happily be Aes Sedai but if you force me to choose between the White Tower and my people, then I will choose my people -- feels like it does tie into and complete the character arc that was set out for her from the beginning.

5. Saerin speaks very strongly about how the measures to which Nynaeve was pushed in her test was much more extreme than the normal testing while other Aes Sedai defend how harsh the test was for Nynaeve. Ah, Egwene believes that Nynaeve's practice in TAR was letting her bend the 'rules' of the test, which should have been enforced magically, so in her (unofficial, privately offered to Nynaeve) opinion, Nynaeve proved that she's already gone past what the test is capable of testing. One neat tie-in to New Spring (that Nynaeve doesn't know of course) is that, like Moiraine, Nynaeve determines that her goals in life can still be accomplished if she is not allowed to become Aes Sedai.

6. After she has been ~formally~ raised as Aes Sedai, she goes to Myrelle and tells her to hand over Lan's bond.

...Myrelle is right outside the Black Tower, currently being refused entry by the Asha'man. NYNAEVE is currently right outside the Black Tower.

*insert minor rant about how Nynaeve should have been involved in the Black Tower plotline because of how involved she has been in literally EVERY OTHER STEP about re-integrating male channelers back into the world. honestly it feels so weird that Nynaeve is so close to the Black Tower here and then just... leaves*

But Nynaeve has Lan's bond now! So that's very reassuring for her. <3

7. Perrin taking a moment to shudder at the idea of "damane" and Wise Ones being at war: the damane would not be 'at' anything, they are SLAVES, Perrin. It would be the BLOOD making war. Also, you handed two hundred more 'weapons' over to the Seanchan, you almighty hypocrite to shudder now at the idea of the Seanchan using the weapons that YOU gave them. The utter lack of accountability.

8. I can't believe that Perrin is STILL planning on sending the soldiers home to their nations at this point. The LAST BATTLE is coming, Perrin. Please stop reassuring him that he's a good leader, Faile, because he is NOT.

9. Edarra says that, by Aiel law, the captured Wise Ones can be held by the Seanchan for a year and a day, but after that, they will be gai'shain no longer and there will be need for blood feud against them (even allowing that much is stretching Aiel custom considerably to allow for Seanchan cultural differences, as Wise Ones are not normally eligible to be taken as gai'shain). This is a fundamental culture clash between how Seanchan think of channelers (subhuman) and how Aiel think of channelers (irreplaceable parts of their community).

...also, I wonder if the Seanchan are prepared to 'train' damane who potentially appear completely docile and obedient for the first entire year of their slavery and then just stop obeying because their time as gai'shain has been completed. Aiel are very stubborn and used to 'embracing' pain as part of their everyday lives, so several of the slave-breaking tools that the Seanchan use seem less likely to work on them.

10. Perrin super casually mentions that whole thing about how one of the Forsaken had set up shop in Caemlyn and forced the queen to fall in love with him before killing her, thus upending Morgase's reality. She knows! In the worst possible way that she could find out, probably, because this is Perrin lol, but she finally knows! Sulin confirms that the man named Gaebril was a channeler and that Rand fought and killed him, and Edarra mentions that Gaebril was using weaves to twist people's minds.

...Perrin has just seen someone's entire understanding of her life get flipped upside down and his biggest concern is that she dropped the tea tray and now he won't be getting his tea. Wow, you'd think his wolf nose would have given him some ounce of insight into the turmoil that Morgase is going through? But nope. Oblivious. Cares more about his tea than how clearly overwrought Morgase was (but she's a ~servant~ so I guess her feelings aren't important and should have waited until she was done serving the tea. Perrin really IS a lord these days).

11. Everyone points out to Perrin that most of the people following his banner actually DO want to fight in the Last Battle and not just go home and wait for other people to fight their battles for them. Literally how many times does he need to hear this before he'll believe it?

It's just... weird how Perrin is so far behind everyone else in actually BELIEVING that the Last Battle is happening: Elayne, Mat, Rand, Egwene, and Nynaeve are all actively working to support the Last Battle and believing that it will happen very soon (though they don't all agree on the details) but Perrin is trying to SEND PEOPLE HOME. What is wrong with this boy? Like, I complain about some (many) of Mat's choices, but he got Aludra to Caemlyn to help build weapons for the Last Battle, he made certain to make it clear that the Band of the Red Hand is available for Rand at the Last Battle. Meanwhile, Perrin is actively trying to send away people who have flocked to his banner and want to help.

(there is a large amount of irony in the fact that Perrin and Galad were about to just fight a big battle -- might no longer happen now that Morgase knows the truth about Rahvin; we'll see. I do NOT remember lol -- even though they are BOTH theoretically committed to fighting TLB, yet they are about to fight each other instead)

12. Once the meeting is over, Perrin lets himself think about "Maighdin's" behavior and wonders if it's a sign that she's being influenced by the Dark One. Wow. What keen insight into human emotions and behavior your wolfbrother nose has given you. (seriously, you'd think that he'd have some compassion here for a person in obvious emotional distress but Perrrin's compassion seems to be limited to only his wife).

13. Perrin is SUCH a bad leader! He tells his spymaster that he doesn't want ANY MORE INFORMATION about the Whitecloaks because Balwer talks about them too much. Also, Perrin getting annoyed at other people for being obsessed about something is very hypocritical, considering how many books (and lives) were spent on rescuing Faile. Perrin does find out here that Rand is attempting to make peace with the Seanchan. He doesn't think about the way he sold the Shaido Wise Ones into slavery here, but this is exactly why I frustrated me that Jordan had all three of the main male character simultaneous having their own "we gotta make nice with the Seanchan" 'arcs' in CoT/KoD because it means that none of them can call each other to account for selling out to slavers.

14. While Perrin is wasting time facing off with Galad, Ituralde and his army are facing the first wave of the Last Battle. Putting Ituralde in the middle of all of Perrin's dithering just makes said dithering look so much worse. The saddest thing about this little section to me is that Ituralde keeps thinking back to Rand's promises to him.

15. Morgase has gone out alone into the woods, to process the information that she had been under the thumb of one of the Forsaken. Tallanvor shows up in the middle of this to tell her that he's leaving (he doesn't end up actually leaving). I don't care about Morgase x Tallanvor, but I do feel like it's there's heavy indictment of Perrin here because Tallanvor is specifically planning on leaving so that he can go to Tear to join some people who are actually planning on fighting in the Last Battle. Implied: he feels like Perrin isn't interested in doing that.

16. Gawyn's thoughts here about the White Tower are very poetic. "At night, Gawyn couldn't see the White Tower's wounds." He's doing something of an unofficial patrol, since he doesn't have any real official purpose right now, though he desperately wants one. I was talking about foiling in the last reread (Elayne being foiled by Tuon) -- Gawyn is definitely one of Mat's foils, though I find Gawyn's reasons for abandoning the Younglings and seeking to help, aid, and protect Egwene much more understandable than the mess that Jordan made out of the Mat & Tuon 'courtship' in CoT & KoD. But: both young leaders who created a band of soldiers while not actually trying to do that at all; both of them are in ~relationships~ with active world leaders and have conflicts of interest regarding whether their allegiance lies with their family/people or with their romantic interest's people.

The main difference between Mat and Gawyn is that, of course, Gawyn's situation is logistical and not moral -- logistically, Gawyn can't both be in Caemlyn AND in the White Tower but morally, Elayne and Egwene are on the same team. Mat's issue is BOTH logistical and moral -- Tuon is both far away from his other responsibilities and also, you know, a slaver who would torture and otherwise hurt the rest of his loved ones. For Gawyn, it's only his heart that is at play. Mat, otoh, has to actively repress his own sense of ethics in order to 'pick' his ~slaver wife~. He knows that Tuon is morally wrong but has convinced himself that he can ~change her~ by trying to teach her that it's not evil for her to be a channeler and then believing that her own innate sense of morals (that he chooses to believe exist) will led to her dismantling the damane system on her own. I find the likelihood of this working to be extremely slight, but opinions will vary, of course.

17. Despite Egwene ordering him away from guarding her, Gawyn can't resist, and he ends up getting wrapped in the trap that had been meant for the potential assassin that she was leaving herself out as bait for.

18. We go from Gawyn directly into Mat. In this transition, I think I'll talk about how Gareth's advice to Gawyn was very similar to Thom's advice to Mat (way back in LoC, about Egwene & Elayne) -- you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Both Gawyn and Mat are in the mindset of wanting to 'help' someone in a way that they don't want to be helped -- Gawyn wants to act as Egwene's Warder before he's proven that he can be trusted to listen to her; Mat wants to help Tuon out of the cultural mindset that she has no interest in abandoning. (again, the difference here is that Gawyn and Egwene don't have any fundamental differences -- they have a difference in HOW to approach their problem but they agree on what the problem is and they even want the same solution at the end, of Gawyn being Egwene's husband and Warder -- but Mat and Tuon have goals that conflict with each other: Mat and Tuon both want to fundamentally change the other person. Mat and Tuon have the most pure form of "irreconcilable differences" that I've seen in media in a long time, lol).

19. Mat thinks about how he feels naked without his medallion and it really makes me think about how the gholam plotline feels like it was meant to exist alongside Mat learning to be less afraid of Aes Sedai. Just... think about the symbolism of how Mat is required to fight the gholam -- he has to remove his protection from the One Power, and the gholam is a creature that was created explicitly to hunt channelers. Mat has to be willing to make himself vulnerable to Aes Sedai/channelers as a choice to protect them. Or that's what it SHOULD mean, narratively and thematically. There's a hint of it in his recent fight against the gholam, with Teslyn able to save his life with the One Power, but I do not recall if that carries through into the rest of the plotline.

With Mat so tightly tied into the Seanchan storyline and in a way that had him more sympathetic to the ex-sul'dam than the ex-damane, it feels more like the gholam has just been turned into a personal enemy against Mat, rather than a narrative device that can be used to show that Mat is choosing to defend and protect Aes Sedai/channelers now instead of always assuming the worst about them.

That really remains my biggest complaint about the characterization swerve for Mat in CoT & KoD -- everything that his narrative had previously been building up to in the previous books was suddenly null and void (because any and all development for Tuon gets put on hold to wait for the outriggers that will never happen), and we're just floating in narrative freefall with him. All his build-up just vanished in those two books and while Sanderson has been trying to put some narrative meaning back into Mat's story, it's needed to be slightly different because Jordan took several elements off the table entirely with what he did with Mat and Tuon. It's frustrating!

idk, we'll see where the gholam storyline goes from here.

20. ...how on earth has "Prince of Ravens" filtered into the rumors about Mat already? I guess it must be the Band of the Red Hand being horrible gossips but... yikes? It doesn't sound like people actually know what "Prince of Ravens" actually means, tho. It's just a random fancy title like "Lord of Luck" (which I'm guessing is also the Band's fault).

21. Strike eight-point-three. Mat notices a pretty serving girl's ankles and smile. For, uh. Talmanes. He has yet to actually mention any of these women to the men that he's supposedly noticing them 'for' btw. Side note: book!Mat finds beards "a torture" and has already shaved off the one that he'd tried growing to hide the shape of his face. Anyway, Mat is meeting Noal and Thom here to make plans about the Tower. We get another mention here that the only way to win against the 'Finn (in Snakes & Foxes) is to cheat. You gotta find a loophole. It really does feel, thematically, like Mat should have been able to find at least one loophole in the prophecies that he got out of the Eelfinn as well.

22. Also to note here: Mat thinks here that he did not tell Noal and Thom the specific questions that he'd asked/answers that he was given, so Thom presumably does not know that Mat married Tuon for a prophecy. Honestly, Mat's behavior in CoT & KoD has to look SO BIZARRE and erratic from an external PoV (which is maybe part of the reason we're almost entirely in Mat's PoV for the journey, so that the reader isn't jarred out of the 'romance' by the reminder of how bafflingly weird it must be for all Mat's companions).

It occurs to me that there may be something else going on with Thom's opinion of Mat. Maybe our 4D chess player Thom might have a couple of different theories about what's going on with Mat. One of them would lose Mat Thom's respect, as I was theorizing earlier, but another of them would definitely not.

Let's set up the situation that Mat's followers are aware of from WH-KoD:

a. Mat plans an escape from Ebou Dar, reworking his entire plan because he's determined to rescue the Aes Sedai from the Seanchan in addition to escaping himself (this is the part of the story that Thom told, I can only assume, that made Mat look "heroic" to Elayne).

b. On the night of the escape, Mat is accosted by one of the Seanchan High Blood, randomly says that she's his wife (Thom may or may not know about this part, depending on if Leilwin née Egeanin told him), and then kidnaps her.

c. He ignores his captive for roughly a week and, during that time, he abruptly starts treating the Aes Sedai (that he literally just rescued!) and the sul'dam as if he can't tell the difference between them.

d. Then he starts a full-court press public wooing of his captive High Blood, even while he is keeping secrets from her about weapons that he is planning to use against her people.

e. Culminating in the Seanchan High Blood declaring that he is her husband, making him royalty and a Very Important Person in the Seanchan Empire.

f. And yet he is still secretly (from her) encouraging the creation of weapons to use against said Empire, even after he has sent his former prisoner/now wife back to her people.

So, yes, without knowledge of the prophecy (and without knowledge of the extreme cognitive dissonance happening in Mat's brain), it may look like Mat is flirting with being a turncoat and slaver-sympathizer because he wants to sleep with Tuon that badly and she won't do it without a marriage in place...

Or Thom might think that Mat is pulling some undercover spy shit, seducing Tuon so that he can place himself within the Seanchan Empire and take it down from the inside (another possibility for Jordan's original intentions before he thought of the outriggers?).

And that's another reason for Thom to behave the way he's behaved around Elayne. Maybe Thom himself isn't sure which of Mat's brains he's thinking with when it comes to Tuon, and so he's hedging his bets. idk. I'm going to keep a very close eye on Thom's behavior in the near future.

Mat also points out here that the 'Finn KNEW that he would be coming to get Moiraine even when he asked them his questions way back when (which ties into my speculation re: Tuon being a punishment for Mat). Mat figures that the reason they still answered his and Moiraine's questions despite knowing he would come after Moiraine is because they want Mat.

23. A minor note here: Mat wishing for his medallion and then acknowledging that it would be no protection against the 'Finn anyway.

24. Yikes at having Mat wish for Tuon to be there to call him the name that he was given because he was being treated as Tylin's (sex) Toy. I talked a lot a little while back about how it felt like Tuon used slave-breaking training on Mat, and this moment here really reminds me of that -- he DESPISED that she called him 'Toy' and tried on multiple occasions to get her to call him by his real name (and the preferred version of it), but it feels here like he's accepted that Tuon will never respect him like a person? That the most he can wish for is to be a beloved object instead of an abused one. What a nightmare marriage. #LetMatGetDivorced #PutMatInThePolycule #Yikes

... side note that Mat would rather be dismissively called 'Toy' as opposed to being called 'Matrim' tho.

25. Birgitte hates the theater, apparently. That feels like a weird piece of characterization, but okay. Anyway, she's angsting over her memories fading from her. I feel like I can understand her controlling behavior towards Elayne more when I view it in the context of how out of control she feels over her own life, with her memories steadily leaving her. It doesn't excuse her behavior, but it helps me understand it. Elayne is attending this play partly as a political move to firm relations with one of the women who had been her rivals during the succession. Elayne is literally just sitting there quietly while Birgitte goes on a whole internal rant about how difficult it is to keep her alive. She's just watching a play! Chill out!

26. "Some said you could judge a monarch by the way he treated those who served him." Birgitte thinks this in passing when she's thinking about how well set-up and cozy the servants' quarters are in the royal palace, but it feels worth separating out.

27. If a man is foolish enough to get trapped in the Tower of Ghenjej, just leave him, but if it's a woman, then saving them is heroic, apparently. ??? (saving men who are in dire circumstances is also heroic, Birgitte) Also, even though I can never recall this mentioned before in anyone's PoV, Birgitte thinks here that Mat is always "slapping the backside" of the serving girls and that it's weird that he doesn't do it here. We've had plenty of non-Mat PoVs that would have pointed this out if it were happening before? I think this is supposed to be the reader going "oh well if Mat is only leering and not actively sexually harassing the serving staff, this is another 'tell' that he thinks of himself as a married man now" but... I don't think it's ever been said before that Mat does this, so it feels more like it's in line with the "gotta try to make Mat as gross as rapist Tylin and slaver Tuon so that the reader believes that he 'deserves' to suffer through relationships with them" angle that Jordan took in the later books.

(iirc, it was NALESEAN who was sexually harassing serving maids and getting in trouble for it back in ACoS, not Mat)

28. Birgitte DOES accurately say that Mat is "as bad" as Elayne here -- they're both risk-takers but ones who are very capable of handling themselves in a pinch. They are very similar characters, though Elayne tends to get much more hate for being a risk-taker than Mat does, even though Mat has literally died as a result of his impulsive actions and Elayne has not.

29. Elayne is examining the foxhead ter'angreal, suspecting that the base metal used to create it was silver, though it is not silver any longer. She's tried creating copies but all her copies have been flawed -- they will deflect less powerful weaves but not the most powerful and channelers cannot still channel when wearing them. Elayne wishes that she had more time with the medallion, immediately quashing the temptation to give Mat back one of the copies instead of his original. But she does worry about leaving him without his protection from the gholam. Elayne thinks here that she has been taught that queens must be 'hard' enough to allow torture but she is not certain she'll willing to allow it under her watch and she's uncertain if she actually believes it will result in usable information anyway. Good for her. Keep thinking on that, Elayne. She continues to be the best leader in WoT-verse (how you treat your enemies is relevant to how you are as a leader!).

30. I will note again that BOTH Mat and Elayne base their risky plans on knowing that they have a supernatural edge that should keep them safe (Mat's luck vs Elayne's viewing from Min), yet Elayne's risk-taking is viewed much more harshly by the general (online anyway) readership than Mat's is, despite the fact that it is HAMMERED INTO US that Min's viewings never fail while Mat's luck DOES fail sometimes. Anyway, I love Elayne's plan to pretend to be one of the Forsaken in order to try to trick information out of the Black Ajah Sisters that they are keeping prisoner and MAYBE if Birgitte were LESS CONTROLLING, then Elayne wouldn't have been relieved that she weren't around when Elayne came up with the plan.

31. And before things go south, Elayne gets some useful information here, about the Shadow wanting to assassinate Mat and about there being a plan in the works to invade Andor with a rapidly-approaching deadline (though not the details). She learns that Darkfriends have been giving information to the Black Ajah Sisters in captivity, which means that she has information leaks (she soon finds out that one of them was Sylvase's secretary). Mat's medallion really helps Elayne out here as well.

32. This is also the scene where Elayne gets stabbed in the side, which the show has foreshadowed/echoed in happening with Rand's mom during the Blood Snows. Elayne is also clever enough to use the flaws of her copy of Mat's medallion against the Black Ajah Sisters here. And also note: Elayne takes care of this entire situation by herself. Mat and Birgitte show up AFTER she has already survived, and with no permanent injuries! Mellar does get away with one of the copies of the medallion (damn his plot-armor) but she gets Mat's medallion back.

33. Egwene and Gawyn have another clash of opinion, and when he leaves afterwards, the guard-captain shows him the knife that was left behind by the assassin -- a steel blade with three bits of "blood-colored rock" inlaid into the center. Since it almost killed him, Gawyn claims the blade for himself, to study later. Gawyn decides that since Egwene does not seem to want him as a Warder, it's time to visit his sister in Caemlyn.

34. Lan gains more men following his cause, plus they brought supplies! lol, these little Lan segments are short but I really enjoy them whenever they pop up. That's your wife, looking out for you! Trying to make sure that your death wish doesn't get you killed! (also: Lan is an example of a character who really DOES have a death wish, or at least a complete willingness to walk into his certain death, and one reinforced since he was a child, so he's a great counterexample to both Elayne & Mat, who are definitely risk-takers but do NOT actually have a death wish of any kind, despite the accusations).

35. Elayne notes here that both Birgitte and Mat are the same in that they are showing their concern with her through their actions but not at all through their words. And here, in contrast to how Birgitte's PoV said Mat acted around women, Elayne notes that he respectfully keeps his eyes covered until she says she's dressed again and he can look (her wound was being examined). I will note that though Birgitte's annoyance at Elayne is more front-stage, she DOES still basically call Mat an idiot for being reckless too (in his life in general). Elayne gives Mat back his medallion here and he wants to talk over a plan about the gholam with her. Hmm, maybe this plotline will live up to its themes after all (and then probably get undermined by Mat's Seanchan story lol).

Yeah, we're in Elayne's PoV and we haven't found out the results of ~the dinner~ where Elayne was planning on getting the full story (including the story of Mat's marriage) out of Thom and Mat. But neither Mat nor Elayne are behaving as if Elayne has learned that Mat is married to a slaver, so either the dinner never happened or Mat was able to convince Thom not to tell Elayne the truth (or Thom is just teasing Mat and doesn't plan on telling Elayne anything right now because he believes Mat is trying to honey trap ~Fortuona~ and he doesn't want to interfere with Mat's plan). Much as Mat is holding back info from Elayne, she holds back info from him too, about what she learned from the Black Ajah about a potential invasion of Caemlyn in the near future.

36. We are reminded in Ituralde's PoV that the reason that the Borderlands couldn't handle this assault is because the rulers all decided to go on walkabout with the majority of their armies to go hunt for Rand. Ah, and they left the Borderland leaders back at home with the impression that they are hunting for a FALSE Dragon too, which is why the Saldaeans have been so reluctant to shelter Ituralde.

37. Honestly, it does feel really weird that Galad went from "we must ally even with Aes Sedai if it means facing the Last Battle together" in KoD to "we can definitely take a pause from marching to help in the Last Battle in order to hold a trial and/or battle" here in ToM.

38. Perrin considers here the idea that perhaps he has reversed cause and effect when it comes to being a wolfbrother -- that perhaps it is who he is as a person that made him become a wolfbrother rather than it being something outside him that is changing him. Hopper teaches him more about how to travel around in the dream, and then one of the wolves runs across Slayer and is killed, and Perrin finds him. Brief, inconclusive encounter and then Perrin wakes up and broods some more on the upcoming battle with the Whitecloaks that he's decided pm. I feel like we went over that already, lol. I feel like the non-wolf Perrin scenes have managed to be repetitive even in this short amount of time!

(the problem is that Perrin really does need the wolf-dream teaching that Hopper is giving him, but real world time needs to pass while that is happening, so he's essentially been given the 'busy work' of prepping for a battle that is not going to happen. Perrin's wolf training should have been happening slowly over the course of the series, like everyone else's was, but instead he kept running away from them)

39. Rand talks about how the people in Ebou Dar were ~happy and well fed~ (in comparison to the starvation that's going on in Arad Doman). Did you check out the damane 'kennels' to see how they were doing? Did you investigate the da'covale?

Also it makes no sense that the people in Ebou Dar would be 'well fed'? They're experiencing the same Dark One food rot as everywhere else. Perrin's slaver BFF Tylee literally complained in her prologue back in TGS how bizarrely quickly food spoils ~on this continent~, so we know that the Pattern hasn't given the Seanchan an anti-food rot shield. Are we supposed to believe that the Seanchan can just conjure fresh food from thin air?

This is all obviously just more justification for why we all need to hold hands and sing songs of peace with the slavers, so I don't know why I'm spending so much time on it. But it annoys me that it isn't logistically consistent with how the Dark One is affecting the world. We know that the Seanchan's food is rotting too! Tylee told us! Where are the Seanchan magically getting this food that they are stuffing down the throats of the people they have invaded and enslaved?

40. I actually do love most of what Rand is experiencing in this chapter -- choosing to face what he did to Bandar Eban by abandoning it -- but the Ebou Dar comparison makes me roll my eyes because it makes no sense. Where is the food coming from! They obviously aren't going to take food away from the Blood or the soldiers, and they haven't been there long enough to harvest crops (which would just rot in the fields right now anyway due to the Dark One's touch), so where is the Seanchan's magical and endless food supply coming from? An army travels on its stomach... unless it's just undergone a sea voyage and then I guess the soldiers can just live on air and ~selfless donate~ all their food to the people that they've invaded and enslaved.

I mean there is another way that there could be enough food, I guess -- if the Seanchan slaughtered enough of the city when they invaded that they are working with a much lower population than normally lived there, so there is more than enough food for the currently-depleted population even with everything rotting around them. But that does not speak highly of the Seanchan in MY eyes.

41. Min being so important because she ~reminds Rand of who he is~ is one of those things that could have been a touching moment if I didn't also remember all the past Min moments when she so clearly had no clue who he was. This is the woman who assumed that Rand would get off on having three women to ~dandle on his knee~ and come running to him when he snapped his fingers. This is the woman who changed almost everything about herself to better pander to the desires that she imagined that he had (without ever even checking to see if he already liked her as she was). But Rand has always believed that Min understood him much better than Min ever actually appeared to understand him in her own PoV chapters, where she's frequently made wild and off-base assumptions about his thought processes.

And Rand saying that Min 'thinks clearly' genuinely made me laugh out loud, because of how little it reflects reality. Fingers crossed that the show will give us a Min who lives up to being the person that the books kept telling us that she was but never actually showing on page. I liked what we saw of Min in S1 of the show.

42. It's so strange how the narrative sees the damage that 'outside conquerors' caused in Arad Doman, yet we're supposed to believe that Altara being conquered by the Seanchan is a ~net positive~ (plus side: you will get magic food from thin air! minus side: maybe your daughter gets dragged off in the middle of the night and you never see her again but, hey, you probably didn't like her anyway, right?). Here in Arad Doman, Rand can see that the answer is to put the power back into the hands of the Domani people yet that is somehow... NOT the solution in the lands that have been taken by the Seanchan? This conclusion would, again, be much more understandable if Rand were saying that he couldn't see a way to free Ebou Dar/Altara without causing too much destruction for an already-devastated people to handle because the Seanchan have already embedded themselves too deeply into the infrastructure. You can have Rand decide that it's necessary to ally with the Seanchan without whitewashing their behavior and pretending that the ends are good enough that they justified the means of invasion and slavery.

43. Min sits down and watches as Rand organizes the city. You aren't... you aren't planning on helping? Nope, I guess one quick pep talk to Rand was all that Min needed to do and after that ~exhausting work~ has been done, she's just gonna rest while everyone else works. lol, Rand was really blowing smoke up her ass a page ago when he told her ~she could be a queen, if she wanted~.

She DOES yell at someone who is doing his best to keep people from dying from eating spoiled food because how dare they make Rand feel guilty over *checks notes* abandoning the people in this city after he promised to help them. Anyway, now that Rand is here, the rest of the food on the ships is good and can be used to help the people of the city.

44. Perrin, I am just as baffled as you are that all these people trust you to lead them. I guess we will just blame it on you being ta'veren. The funny thing about Jordan giving Perrin the whole ~lord of the Two Rivers~ thing is that it just suits him so poorly and yet the narrative is SO committed to it. Perrin was thinking in his recent wolf-dream chapter how much more natural being part of the pack was when he was bounding along with the wolves than when he's leading people and it really is bizarre that the narrative keeps forcing him to be a leader of men. He's bad at it AND he doesn't like it. Why do we all have to suffer through it? I feel like the focus on his plotlines should have been the wolf stuff all along. We are getting MORE wolf stuff now than we were getting under Jordan, for sure, but I still feel like there's just way too much Bad Leader Perrin that I am forced to suffer through, lol.

45. Perrin has a hammer vs axe epiphany (hammer is creation or destruction while the axe is only destruction) and decides to try one last time to settle things peacefully with the Whitecloaks.

46. Galad's insta-lust for Berelain here is actually the first time any man on the page has actually reacted to her the way that the narrative was constantly telling us that men were supposed to be reacting to her (which was the justification for why Every Wetlander Woman Hates Berelain).

Galad's thoughts here about Elayne being impulsive are annoying but he doesn't say them out loud at least, lol (unlike Perrin, Galad understands that some thoughts don't need to be spoken). Out loud, he just says she can do what she likes (re: potentially marrying Rand, which Perrin has just said without any reason because even after all this time, he loves sharing Rand's private business around to randoms).

Perrin really is so randomly just an asshole about Rand pretty much all the time, lol ("if she can pull him away from whatever realm he's conquering").

I'm halfway through rereading ToM and I'm baffled that Perrin's managed to get painted as a better friend to Rand than Mat is in the general fandom memory. I guess Mat's harsh reaction to learning Rand could channel really left a scar, despite all of his loyalty afterwards.

47. lol, it cracks me up that Perrin is more open about being a wolfbrother with Galad than he ever was with Mat or Rand.

48. Galad and Perrin are unable to come to terms... but then the tea that Perrin has ordered for everyone arrives, and Morgase and Galad see each other. He's so happy and stunned, touching her face in disbelief and then hugging her tightly. Awwwww. Galad publicly names her, she admits that it's her but says that she has officially renounced the throne of Andor. Anyway, she'll be the judge of the trial about that time that fully-trained Whitecloaks cornered two scared kids and two of the Whitecloaks died. In three days time.

Much as the ~battle set-up~ stuff was fairly boring for me, I loved the reunion between Galad and Morgase! Morgase has Suffered Enough and deserves Good Things.

#wot #wot reread #towers of midnight #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #wheel of time #nynaeve al'meara #perrin aybara #mat cauthon #elayne trakand #the wheel of time

[markantonys]

Shielding and caging the Dragon being Tower law changes a lot but it does set up early how the Tower doesn't view Rand as an actual person but as a weapon.

yeah it's an interesting change! it's also interesting to think about because of course we viewers who know and love rand are indignant about people wanting to treat him like that, but when you really think about it........................doesn't this actually sound like the best possible Official Policy the tower could come up with? i mean, the last dragon caused the apocalypse and nearly gave the whole world over to the shadow, and female channelers were basically the only line of defense and the only reason the world didn't completely fall. of COURSE the surviving aes sedai would make a policy of "when the dragon is reborn, we'll keep him in custody to make sure he can't go rogue and break the world again, and that way we can ensure he fights for the light at the last battle." of COURSE they want to set things up so that they'll be in control of the situation from the getgo next time and won't have to scramble to keep the world from falling apart like they did last time. they have no idea of what kind of a person the next dragon will be, they can't predict what he might do when the last battle arrives (especially with the taint on saidin still in play), so of COURSE their Official Policy would be to take control of the situation themselves rather than cross their fingers and hope for the best. (and this applies to siuan specifically too: she DID try the "hope for the best" approach for 6 months only to discover that it completely did not work, so at that point she thinks their best option is to start playing by the book and following the Official Policy.)

and it all comes down to the Series Theme about people needing to take a leap of faith and trust each other to work together, rather than a bunch of individuals all fighting each other for total control of a given situation (and rand himself needs to learn this lesson, and does when he trusts elayne and egwene and the generals to take care of the larger-scale battle while he focuses on his confrontation with the dark one).

it's also a good parallel/foiling situation, because yeah, most aes sedai view rand as a tool rather than a person, and yeah, the tower policy is to cage him, but then we also have the seanchan viewing female channelers as tools rather than people and collaring and enslaving them in order to use them. and that foiling was particularly apparent in this episode with rand & egwene both in captivity, and some people took it as "look, the show is showing us that aes sedai are just as bad as the seanchan!" (🙄) but i took it as "look, the show is showing us that things aren't all sunshine and roses for female channelers either and they too are oppressed!" another Series Theme: male and female channelers have more commonalities than differences and should band together to support each other! which i hope the show will do more with than the books did, since the books basically executed this concept by saying "the world is better when women work under male leadership" rather than "the world is better when women and men work together as equals"

#anonymous #answered #wot book spoilers #wot show spoilers

[highladyluck]

Wheel of Time 01x08 liveblog

Teaser:

The R.O.U.S.es are a myth, but the Man-Eating Fungus is very real

ooops, the dark one's prison broke the nice china

HOLY SHIT [this response encompasses everything from 'that armor is awesome' to 'they really did ball gag the damane' to 'that tidal wave sure is symbolic']

I love hearing the Old Tongue!!! [in my notes I wrote "One Power" XD but this is what I meant]

Interesting... Latra Posae Decumae is Tamyrlin?

Oh, that hurts, LTT trying to make the world safe for his kids.

This is the crystal spires and togas I was promised! It gives me Star Wars vibes.

The R.O.U.S.es are a myth, but the Man-Eating Fungus is very real

An Educational Field Trip With Moiraine Sedai

I'm shipping Perrin/Rand again I'm so sorry

Moiraine cutting Rand dead in the Fire Swamp like "we're not friends"

I love that we get Nyneave's tracking skills

Oh that is a cool effect (of Ishy's fireface zooming into his eyeball)

Ishy is kinda sexy

Wow that is extremely homoerotic

This is very Star Wars- first the AOL, then the dream confrontation in the swamp

Holy shit, Rand. Suicide to wake up? hooooo boy

lol I see they know how sa'angreal were made in this turning XD (oh interesting... is that a saidin one? How would the tower know? I guess there is precedent for sa'angreal that use both halves of the OP.)

Nyneave's block appears to be... sort of a thing?

I feel like Rand and Moiraine both walk into traps deliberately

loool, that you, Elaida? Moiraine had a block? ooooof Moiraine :(

bad things afoot for Nyn (or she will explode again)

is Lord Yakota supposed to be Ingtar? Are we getting Ingtar?

COOL love a decorative pit

ah, the beginning of Rand's Complex

glad we got the shot of Lan and Malkier

Oh dear. Is... Lord Agelmar the darkfriend? or just... that specific brand of Borderland Masculinity? So hard to say

Darkfriends... in... the White Tower libraries? Are you going to unpack that statement, Moiraine? BLACK AJAH Y'ALL

my HEART when Rand touches the Ancient Aes Sedai symbol

lotta babies in this ep

YESSSSSSSS FLICKER FLICKER

ok, she got shielded, only shielded, phew... hopefully

I prefer this defense of Fal Dara to the book version (although I have to ask... are they cribbing from @asha-mage‘s work again? because this reminded me of parts of Of The Mountain Home.)

great music

Nyneave's significant glance at the Malkieri woman, heh

Perrin & Loial having a heart to heart

Rand like "this characterization is bad, Egwene would never give up her career"

Rand is so clever, but Ishy knows what's in his head

Moiraine is a stabby bitch and I love her

Wtf is buried under the throne?

ooof I hope the darkfriend isn't Amalisa

and this is where Rand is like 'shit, the list of people who can teach me channeling is very small and one of them might be the Dark One'

Ishy, tuck in your damn shirt

Aaaaaaay it's Fain

What? The fucking horn is there?

Circles!

Oh damn, Perrin the Hornsounder? They wouldn't... would they?

Saidin is clean! oh wait... oh, Rand

Amalisa, I hope you know what you are doing and that it isn't evil

Ok, that is some cool shit ...but Amalisa has gone power-mad, whoopsie Love how it kinda parallels the battle in Rand's head rn

This Rand drinks his respect women juice (for now, anyway)

awww sweetie

oh no, are they gonna make Perrin stab Lady Amalisa?

SHIT Padan Fain daggered Loial & Nyn is... hopefully not burned out

aaaaaaay it's gonna be the Hunt for the Horny next season

NO MY BABY MAT, stumbling drunkenly in a dark alley with a stab wound [like, typical, but not what I want for him, you know?]

Rand is off to brood and maybe grab Mat

Perrin is losing at head games, as per usual

Moiraine is staring at the pretty rocks & lying for her boy

SHIT. I was afraid of [her being stilled]. Nyn better be ok, because who else is gonna heal stilling? [Spouse thinks she's just got a tied-off shield since Lan isn't showing signs of the bond being actually broken]

Damn look at Egg with the fancy fixing [eyes emoji]

ooops, the dark one's prison broke the nice china

that's so many [ships] JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

THE SEANCHAN THEME

HOLY SHIT [this response encompasses everything from 'that armor is awesome' to 'they really did ball gag the damane' to 'that tidal wave sure is symbolic']

Post-show, me discussing how I wasn't expecting the taint: "I mean, the corruption. We can't call it the taint anymore." My spouse, immediately: "The Seanchan call it the taint."

#wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot on prime #wot on prime spoilers #wot on prime s1e8 #wot on prime liveblog

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 46: Fal Dara

Another day, another spoiler warning. Do not read this reread if you don't want the entirety of Wheel of Time to be spoiled for you. The revelation that the seven seals are the fragments of Lews Therin's childhood sled Rosamund needs to be experienced within the text itself, not blabbed on some internet blog. Block the tags and move on!

This chapter has the tree at night icon, which is interesting since this chapter takes place in the day and the journey the heroes undergo isn't the main thrust of the chapter. Perhaps it reflects Fain? Or maybe Jordan couldn't think of a good fit for this chapter but didn't want to make up a whole new icon just for one single one.

Rand shook his head. Trees bursting? And that was during an ordinary winter. What must this winter have been like? Surely like nothing he could imagine.

As a young lad growing up in Alaska, I could only laugh at Rand's naivety. Really, there were almost no winter scenes that could impress me in fantasy worlds. Shit's cold, y'all.

“Curtains.” Perrin chuckled. He immediately wiped the smile off his face when the two women raised their eyebrows at him. “Oh, I agree with you. There wasn’t enough rust on that scythe for any more than a week in the open. You should have seen that, Mat. Even if you missed the curtains.”

Perrin, don't mock Egwene for having pretty decent Sherlock Holmes deductions. You can't even hide your supernatural powers from everyone else. Why is the people ta'veren so bad at subterfuge?

“So many?” Perrin said. “The stories say the Green Man is hard to find, and no one can find him twice.”

When I first read this bit, I was immediately put in mind of The Neverending Story's Childlike Empress, who (at least in the books) operates on similar rules. More on that in a moment.

If you boys . . . you men, can do what has to be done when you’d rather do almost anything else, why do you think I will do less? Or Egwene?

Isn't Nynaeve wonderful? She's got every reason to beat Rand over the head with a stick for this suggestion - and let's be real, that's absolutely her habit - but instead she sticks with complimenting Rand and insisting at staying by his side.

“I only danced with Aram, Rand,” she said softly, not looking at him. “You wouldn’t hold it against me, dancing with somebody I will never see again, would you?”

Was Egwene being super possessive about all of this because she thought Rand would behave the same way? Just trying to beat him to the punch because he's been so consistently shitty during this adventure? It seems like a better explanation for her behavior than anything else, and lets us move past this, right? We're never bringing this up again book, RIGHT????? PLEASE?

It's such an annoying subplot...

A number of others shouted, “Glory to the Builders!” and, “Kiserai ti Wansho!” Loial looked surprised, then a broad smile split his face and he waved to the guards.

Poor Loial, wasting all of his time in the south where people think everything interesting is all snarks and grumpkins instead of going to the North where the people know that all the myths are true. The Ogier stoneworking probably has done more to forestall the fall of the west than any specific person.

From one of the gate towers an armored man called down, “Welcome, Dai Shan.” Another shouted to the inside of the fortress, “The Golden Crane! The Golden Crane!”

This chapter is also our first taste of just how wildly popular Lan is in the Borderlands. It's probable that he gets the most love here in Shienar, since presumably most of the diaspora ended up here and the countries used to be neighbors, but he gets plenty of respect everywhere else too. It's a shame his relationship with his people and supporters is so tenuous at this point.

“Things are never as bad as they appear, Dai Shan. A little worse than usual this year, that is all. The raids continued through the winter, even in the hardest of it. But the raiding was no worse than anywhere else along the Border. They still come in the night, but what else can be expected in the spring, if this can be called spring. Scouts return from the Blight—those who do come back—with news of Trolloc camps. Always fresh news of more camps. But we will meet them at Tarwin’s Gap, Dai Shan, and turn them back as we always have.”

Good on Ingtar for being so optimistic. Shame it's all a damned lie and he genuinely thinks that it's only a matter of time before the Trollocs finally overwhelm humankind and drive them to extinction. It makes him a rather funny contrast to Lan, who as we've established is not remotely optimistic about anything but is completely faithful in his service to the Light.

“Ninte calichniye no domashita, Agelmar Dai Shan,” Moiraine replied formally, but with a note in her voice that said they were old friends.

The sheer amount of Old Tongue being thrown at us in this segment is a bit annoying because most of it is just nonsense at this point. (And really later on too.)

I am so sad that we'll never get to know how Moiraine and Agelmar became old friends. They must have crossed paths many times in her twenty year search for such a relationship, which makes me wonder: why? What Black Ajah schemes was Moiraine trying to thwart? It's still a damn shame we never got the other two prequel novels.

Agelmar hesitated, pulling a map from the tangle on the table. He stared unseeing at the map for a moment, then tossed it back. “When we ride to the Gap,” he said quietly, “the people will be sent south to Fal Moran. Perhaps the capital can hold. Peace, it must. Something must hold.”

I have to note though that Jordan's having the Borderlands in this kind of state so early on in the novels really hurt the overall momentum of the story. In just a few books - a year and a half of in-universe time - the Blight will be unnaturally quiet and the monarchs of the land utterly derelict in their duties. The later quiet does make a good deal of sense (the Shadow is holding everything it has back for the Last Battle), but the overall arc isn't strong as a result and the monarchs look incredibly stupid for having forgotten what just happened and being unable to connect the dots even as Maradon comes under siege.

When he raised his head his blue eyes burned with a fierce light, but his voice was calm again, and flat. “I am a Warder, Agelmar.” His sharp gaze slid across Rand and Mat and Perrin to Moiraine. “At first light I ride to the Blight.”

In a way, this moment must be something of Lan's last temptation. He's offered what he wants, a suicidal but honorable battle in the Blight. Further, from here on out, his path is set: Moiraine arranges for him to be handed him off to Myrelle next book so there's no way for him to truly leave, and then of course Nynaeve plays interception and keeps him alive until the end. For all the tragedy of Lan's upbringing, it is good he never gave way to this option and that he doesn't now; all he would have accomplished is the loss of too many good fighters in battles that didn't matter.

Rand abruptly realized the Lord of Fal Dara assumed it was Nynaeve and Egwene who with Moiraine would fight against the Dark One. It was natural. That sort of struggle meant using the One Power, and that meant women. That sort of struggle means using the Power. He tucked his thumbs behind his sword belt and gripped the buckle hard to keep his hands from shaking.

I like how subtle Jordan has been about Rand's firm denial about what's happening to him. Even here, it's not immediately apparent that he's forcing down the revelation about what Moiraine's quest means.

“You have seen the Green Man, Moiraine Sedai?” The Lord of Fal Dara sounded impressed, but in the next breath he frowned. “But if you have already met him once. . . .” “Need is the key,” Moiraine said softly, “and there can be no greater need than mine. Than ours. And I have something those other seekers have not.”

The exact mechanics of how Moiraine pulls this off are technically obscure - she's probably right about need, but surely there's more to it than that since the Green Man decides and apparently never helped anyone twice before but...

There was a reason I mentioned the Childlike Empress, whose "once per customer" logic had a single, strange loophole. Visitors from our world were able to see her as many times as they wished, because each time was the first time. I can't help but wonder if Rand's ta'veren made it so that to the Green Man and his magic, something like this was going on as the party approached.

“The Trolloc Wars left nothing but memories, Loial, son of Arent, and people to build on them. They could not duplicate the Builders’ work, any more than could I. Those intricate curves and patterns your people create are beyond human eyes and hands to make. Perhaps we wished to avoid a poor imitation that would only have been an ever-present reminder to us of what we had lost. There is a different beauty in simplicity, in a single line placed just so, a single flower among the rocks. The harshness of the stone makes the flower more precious. We try not to dwell too much on what is gone. The strongest heart will break under that strain.”

I hope that when the Last Battle is done and the Blight is gone, the Borderlanders can embrace intricate and soft beauty again. They're not wrong in their aesthetic, stark and simple can be truly great, but there is something tragic in their being forced into it by the Shadow when they're clearly a far more poetic people than circumstances permit.

“Your pardon, Aes Sedai, but I must see to this. Perhaps he is only a pitiful wretch with his mind blinded by the Light, but. . . . Two days gone, five of our own people were found in the night trying to saw through the hinges of a horse-gate. Small, but enough to let Trollocs in.” He grimaced. “Darkfriends, I suppose, though I hate to think it of any Shienaran. They were torn to pieces by the people before the guards could take them, so I’ll never know. If Shienarans can be Darkfriends, I must be especially careful of outlanders in these days. If you wish to withdraw, I will have you shown to your rooms.”

Again with that beautiful hypocrisy. You probably do know, Ingtar. You might very well have been the man who set them to it, thinking and hoping that a fast and painful battle yesterday might lead to a retreat today, with more men spared to fall back in the capital and forestall the end just a little while longer.

Or maybe not. Darkfriends do operate in cells and this one might have been entirely beyond Ingtar's reach.

“He made me his hound! His hound, to hunt and follow with never a bit of rest. Only his hound, even after he threw me away.”

And since Ingtar has proven false, I wonder a great deal about the other major Darkfriend in this chapter. Is he playing up the Smeagol act so that they'll underestimate him, maybe even try to set him on a path to redemption so that they can all be corrupted or killed faster? Did the merger he just experienced with Machin Shin leave him pretty traumatized in an immediate sense? Is he really experiencing spells that have him alternating between the Smeagol and the Gollum, possibly as a result of all the different forms of evil running through him? Will any of this matter after book seven or so?

“Great Lord, your might is unquestioned, but can it stand against the Dark One forever? Do you not often find yourself pressed to hold? Forgive my temerity, Great Lord; he will crush you in the end, as you are. I know; believe me, I do. But I can show you how to scour the Shadow from the land, Great Lord.”

This seems to be the Shadar Logoth surfacing but getting all mixed up with the Darkfriendliness along the way. I feel like calling anyone in the Borderlands "Great Lord" is a hell of a way to make enemies.

Stopping behind Mat’s chair, Moiraine put a hand on his shoulder and bent to whisper in his ear. Whatever she said, the tension went out of his face, and he took his hand from under his coat.

I suspect that when Mat loses a great deal of his memories, this particular moment is one of the ones that goes out. Again we do see that Moiraine can be a human, caring mentor figure, she's just not very good at it.

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #rand al'thor #loial #nynaeve al'meara #perrin aybara #mat cauthon #lan mandragoran #moiraine damodred #egwene al'vere #ragan #ingtar shinowa #agelmar jagad #padan fain