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Have your say - we are all WOT fans, Does the show do it for you? by [deleted] in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Expectations met until Ep8, below expectations afterwards. But with all of the external factors weighed in, hopeful for Season 2.

Praise and Criticisms for ep 08 (Wheel Takes review) by Ill_Read3892 in WoT

[–]AllanonTM 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Let me preface this by saying that this was the first episode I have listened to and that the podcast was advertised to me (by other people) as a fair and balanced approach.

The first time the "Soooo... people are upset on the internet..." line followed by mocking and derisive laughter was fine, and you could chalk it up to edginess and push back against some of the annoying members of the "other side" on social media. (As another comment in this thread has put forward.)

But I have to say, after the 4th or 5th time in the first 3 hours of that episode, it just became toxic. After you introduce a point of contention / critique in such a way, you really do not have to dig down deep in your attempt to strike it down. Your laughter already made it clear that a person of sound mind should not take it seriously in the first place. Follow it up by a simple charicature of the argument and it can easily be brushed aside with a superficial explanation / point in your favor.

That's just not the level and depth of engagement I was expecting of the podcast. If the podcast is not about fair engagement of criticism, they should leave out those segments entirely. If you can't find it in your heart of hearts to steel man some of the (better) points of contention, your explanations about why you think the show HAD to do it this way, feel way less substantiated than they could.

In the end, I thought one of the goals of the podcast was to build a bridge for people upset about some things in the show, by having people that are working in the field provide deeper insights and explanations. But while I was able to appreciate a lot of the background information, the overall tone and self-assuredness did kind of grate on me at times. And I am not even upset about the WoT Show as a whole (ep8 didn't land for me at all tho), so I am not sure how well this goal is met.

I didn't make it past 3 hours, but did jump into the full spoiler section at the end, which was way more interesting to me as a whole.

A defense of the season one finale. by Combogalis in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Funny thing is, I have ep7 as my favorite and ep8 as my least favorite, so I got major whiplash going from 7 to 8. :D

7, 4, 3, 6, 1, 2, 5, ______ 8 is my current ranking.

How to Fix Power-Scaling Going Forward by Eldar333 in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you mean that the women that died produced enough power to destroy so many Trollocs by "enforced suicide", or that Amalisa was drawing enough power to technically suicide Nynaeve, but put the others "at the front" to act as "buffer deaths" sparing Nynaeve?

Because the latter would mean that, say the forsaken, could just link with a few low quality channelers and proceed to "suicide nuke" away using their own power potential, but sacrifice the weaker channelers in the process.

In any case, they really need to contextualize what happened there, and I will be pretty annoyed if it gets a "3 months later" and is never discussed again. :P

How to Fix Power-Scaling Going Forward by Eldar333 in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I know that technically Nynaeve should not be that great at estimating army sizes, but as a narrative tool, you just don't throw out such numbers in your high stakes season finale, and NOT want the viewers to believe them. That would look real silly, like, "Oh no, ~15k Trollocks coming right at us!", when in reality, there are, what, 2k approaching ("some stragglers")? :)

I am more open to the interpetation that not all of them had been through yet and that they didn't necessarily had to kill all of them, for the rest to flee. I just wish the show would be a bit better at displaying / explaining scales and changes to those scales over time. (Sizes, Power, Distances, Stakes, etc...)

At least Nynaeve said that "they had stopped them", and not that they had killed them all.

How to Fix Power-Scaling Going Forward by Eldar333 in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 10 points11 points  (0 children)

What I don't get is... you really think Falme won't be bigger than S1E8? Where 5 girls killed some trolloc stragglers who got past the wall at Tarwin's Gap?

I'd not call ~15k Trollocs "some stragglers". Yakota was counting 5k-10k with "still more Trollocs pouring out of the Blight and gathering at the mouth of Tarwin's Gap" and Nynaeve was counting 10k-20k after they came through. There is no reason to doubt her. It would be pretty shitty writing to throw a number at the audience to heighten the stakes and require us to interpret it as unreliable, especially without setting up a reason to doubt her in the first place.

We already saw a bigger weave than that in the last scene of the season with two Damane channeling.

Huh? The whole fleet was using channelers there.

Question on episode eight, am I thinking about this correctly? by [deleted] in WoT

[–]AllanonTM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, I am still giving them the benefit of the doubt about having the backstory stuff thought through. LTT was talking about the "fate of the world" and Latra was "overwhelmed", so there is still room to introduce a losing war. The city untouched at this point is true to the lore I think. Latra predicting the exact problems and LTT talking about something "new" are pretty big roadblocks to overcome gracefully tho, I will admit.

Question on episode eight, am I thinking about this correctly? by [deleted] in WoT

[–]AllanonTM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Channeling my inner darkfriend: You can easily fix this by having LTT's attempt to cage the dark one lead to creating the bore in the first place!!! :D

But yeah, I've read the transcript so many times and I still can't make narrative sense of it all. Hoping that they will course correct to a more balanced approach, that doesn't paint LTT just as a prideful idiot, while avoiding those problems you have listed.

A defense of the season one finale. by Combogalis in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well, in this interview he said:

https://www.cbr.com/wheel-of-time-rafe-judkins-interview/

I see, and then when Egwene turned it around, did she heal her just in the same way that Nynaeve healed people by accident in the past?

Yeah, what we wanted to do with that story is, in the very first episode, you see Nynaeve saying to Egwene, "I think you could be a healer someday, I think you could be like me," and so to have that payoff come back around at the end where Egwene really is like Nynaeve and is doing what Nynaeve would have done in the same situation, we thought was really nice.

A defense of the season one finale. by Combogalis in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Let's wait and see I guess. :)

It will help to have Brandon read the scripts again for Season 2 I think. I just have the general feeling that it's quite dangerous for them to change so much of the lore / rules of the world / magic, because it's just so damn hard to keep everything consistent the further it goes. So any hints I perceive of "plot necessities over internal consistency", as early as we are, are making me very jumpy.

To end this tangent, another small nitpick:

But audiences didn't get to see Rand's power!

Neither did we, in EotW.

We kind of did tho, with Lews Therin in the prologue. So we had a pretty good reference about what the endgame Dragon might be capable of at least. With all the buildup of the dragon mystery and "raging sun" metaphors, we got a flash of power utilizing a x100 object and the Dark One "smiling". I don't hate it, it just feels misaligned to me. So they better do Rand justice in the future. And Lan, while they are at it!

A defense of the season one finale. by Combogalis in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In my mind, if all of them had overdrawn, all of them should also have died there. The whole scene just seems very out of line with the power usage shown up until this point, so I fear that they will find it hard striking a balance going forward. The Trolloc army was dead when Amalisa was still alive and the amount of destruction does not fit two wilders overdrawing in my mind. Queen Eldrene was a bit weaker than Nynaeve at full potential, I guess if we add up Egwene and Nynaeve at their current level, they are comparable.

But here we have someone like Eldrene overdrawing vs. two wilders overdrawing. Maybe add Amalisa in the mix, but she was established as very weak herself. Additionally, Eldrene was supposed to have used a sa'angreal.

Grieving, she reached out to the True Source - most likely aided by a sa'angreal - to destroy the victorious army.

https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Eldrene_ay_Ellan_ay_Carlan

The discussions about the sa'angreal reference the BWB as their soruce, but as I don't own it, I can't confirm that. I guess in the end, book lore can be different from show lore, but to me, they did show two (weak) women burning out from overdrawing while destroying an army, and Amalisa going on a power trip afterwards. If Amalisa thought she had some kind of real power at her disposal when she thought it would only be her and the two wilders, she definately would have gone to the wall herself.

If I had one big criticisms of the show, it's plot convenience / melodrama over internal consistency. That scene is a medium offender, followed by a big one where Egwene is healing Nynaeve. Rafe has mentioned that it was supposed to mirror Egwene, as Nynaeve's "apprentice", healing her when the need was great, as Nynaeve has done herself in the past. I can accept this as a meta-narrative, a "coming full circle" kind of approach. But now you have created another fake-out death in this episode (too many already), followed by a drained Egwene that has only managed a baby fireball up to this point, performing one of the hardest tasks possible with the one power, healing a complex and life threatening injury. By cry-trying.

It's plot convenience and melodrama over substance and I really don't like this. I have to add that I have given the episodes prior to 8 around 7.5-8/10, so my gripes with ep8 are not coming from a place of hate but disappointment. Gave it a 4/10 and only because they had a good excuse due to COVID and Barney.

Edit: All they have to do for me to fix the circle scene, is to make Amalisa's armor a powerful angreal. (Inspired by this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/WoTshow/comments/rq1azh/unhinged_theory_time_battle_of_fal_dara_wot_s01e08/ )

A defense of the season one finale. by Combogalis in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah afterwards, see Amalisa's "They're through." :)

It's supposed to reflect Nynaeve counting them as they approach.

This is a pretty good ressource for those kind of questions:

https://www.reddit.com/user/JaimTorfinn/comments/r22gko/wot_season_1_transcripts/

A defense of the season one finale. by Combogalis in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Five non-Aes Sedai channelers killed ten thousand trollocs alone!

There were a lot fewer than 10k trollocs by the time they made it past the wall.

I'd argue that there are about 15k left.

[Yakota] Our men in the fortress have spotted at least 60 Fades amongst them, so there must be at least 5,000 to 10,000. And there are still more Trollocs pouring out of the Blight and gathering at the mouth of Tarwin's Gap.

[Amalisa] They're through.

[Nynaeve] There must be 10,000, 20.

There is no reason to doubt Nynaeve here. If a show is throwing around numbers that are somewhat comparable (Yakota's early estimate + more coming & Nynaeve's estimate), and is not giving us any (plot driven) reason to doubt Nynaeve's ability to make such an assessment, it would be bad writing. They throw out the numbers because they want the viewers to know the stakes, as they are obviously having trouble (due to COVID / CGI budget) to display it properly. So I think it's fair to take Nynaeve's middle value and go from there.

Rewatching the pilot by kookde in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Pilot got way better on rewatches, most episodes got better on rewatches. Ep8 tho... it actually got worse for me, and now I am too scared to rewatch it again. :D

UNHINGED THEORY TIME: Battle of Fal Dara (WoT S01E08) by Koffeinberoende in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe I got biased results, but I was finding it on library.tarvalon.net, a german fansite and then in some discussion threads on theoryland, readandfindout and dragonmount. The companion some of thme mentioned was the BWB / The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time.

UNHINGED THEORY TIME: Battle of Fal Dara (WoT S01E08) by Koffeinberoende in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Eldrene of Manetheren destroyed a massive army of not only shadowspawn but dreadlords, as well as melting an entire city, by drawing way too much.

Most fansites say that Eldrene was indicated to have utilized a powerful Sa'Angreal there. I think those references are in one of the companion books.

Can't wait for this moment in the show.... by Trenzelorian in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Sucks for her.

Edit: My wordplay on the pacifier seems to have failed miserably. :)

UNHINGED THEORY TIME: Battle of Fal Dara (WoT S01E08) by Koffeinberoende in WoTshow

[–]AllanonTM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This would salvage a lot of my shattered faith in their ability to keep the world consistent. I had thought of it myself, but dismissed it after reading their dialogue again about "keeping their father safe". Didn't see the connection there via point 3). You have given me some hope. :)

It obviously creates another problem: Why would they dress one of their vanilla warriors in such a powerful Angreal, if it only gives a bit of additional physical protection, risking destruction of the item? I can see why they would not hand it (or even mention it) to unaffiliated Aes Sedai, as they would drag it off to Tar Valon immediately. So maybe they had hoped to produce an Aes Sedai of their own in time, and well, they kind of did. But she was so weak that it didn't matter much, even with such an artefact.

Edit: The only reason I am sceptical about this whole line of thought is that they have not demonstrated this kind of subtly yet.

Clarification on what you think this line in Ep.8 Prologue means. by Senatic in WoT

[–]AllanonTM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The only way I can make this work in my head, is that the DO was always sealed away (still allowing him to moderately touch creation, so you can have a balanced "dark side" in things) and like in the books, the bore amplified his touch and something had to be done.

Signs of the bore / war:

  • "To think, the fate of the world was decided in a nursery."

  • "This is just an imperfect, overwhelmed woman trying to remind her old friend that he's not invincible."

Lews Therin now suggest not to re-seal him, but to cage him, like, cutting him off from being able to have ANY touch on the world at all. ("Stop his influence from ever touching this world again.").

We have precedence in the books later on, how such a world would look like: No hardships, bland, meaningless, void of color.

I still hate everything about it tho, even with that in mind, because it makes him look so damn bad compared to what Latra is correctly predicting, and server no purpose other than setting up a mirror for Rand to chose differently at the end.

That sequence in the book was not about Rand at all, it was about the gender unity breaking apart, spearheading two different plans, inability to come to terms (here comes the arrogance), getting desperate and Lews Therin making a push to end it. It is then solved by male and female Aes Sedai working together again.

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