But okay!
1) the lack of backstory is Still so confusing. She said it was so frustrating not knowing why xyz was going on. What is the prophecy / why does it matter? Oaths are never really spelled out enough (when i brought up the moiraine thing and why that was a big error). Of course as Katherine pointed out, we have nfc who the heroes of the horn are and at this point that should have been established. Even about the dark one and who what it is. Sealing of the forsaken etc..was very unclear on that.
So i explained about the breaking and taint on saidin the oaths etc (she wasn't getting it at all so I had to say something like imagine a trash can and the dark one is a bean bag and lews therin stuffs it in with the help of his male friends but just before he closes it a bean pops out and taints the male half of the source). But overall to me this is a big mistake for the show to not establish and takes away so much when there's such a rich story in place
2) moiraine and the boats. My initial reaction was just..why do it from such a distance. It felt ..weird. like okay then you're a sniper kind of character. I just didn't get why it was that way though it looks pretty. The point about the oaths is very on point. But i also later felt that if we see the context..the seanchan are shielding the dragon reborn against ishamael. Moiraine at this point in the books doesn't know as much as we know about the seanchan. So her intervention through her eyes can be seen as basically protecting rand. Lan's comment here is valid but yeah..in a broader sense. Now here what my friend said was - well moiraine had already let that taren ferry guy die. So this isn't the first time right?
So again I feel this is such a huge miss in the show because moiraine is THE aes Sedai. They just showed that she was compelled to obey siuan even though she didn't want to. So it seems just ..not trustworthy that means justify the ends to her. It doesn't really put thr oaths in the right context.
3) Mat and the heroes and the context for it. Again it looked cool and as a book reader I liked seeing the visuals. But ohhhh man it has Nothing to do with rands fight. We were laughing about how all that the whole scene did in terms of plot was get rand stabbed by his dagger. Like what was the point of mat showing up at all? He had zero contribution positively.
4) turak was just unnecessary. The character in the show. In the books he provides a kind of rite of passage for the show. Here she was struggling to remember his name and actually i had forgotten too..turak? Tuvak? Turok? Tuvok? (Star trek !) But it's like why even put him there. She said oh he was the guy hungry for the horn. But the thing is he has no idea it was even around. It was some bribe but so what? Like the character could have just been deleted.
5) Lanfear at this point is basically a lightfriend..omg!!! Like seriously. Moiraine and co following her into the ways. In the books lanfear does help rand but it's also always in line with the dark one etc. Here lanfear has helped rand more than any other character I think.
Also what my friend flagged and is probably less egregious to book readers is that this really undermines the egwene / rand relationship. Like one minute it sounds like some maaajor love thing and then next minute he's pretending to be dead and hooking up with this woman he barely knows. And when lanfear says shes the only one who cares about him for him that actually hits home because as far as the show has it that is actually true.
6) a more insidious situation which the lanfear arc is symptomatic of is that there is no difference between good and evil. It's all blurred. Aes Sedai go around murdering innocents. Which really makes lanfear strolling through cairhien randomly killing whoever and setting fires look just Normal. The whole point would be that she's evil, she kils casually. Yet she's there to help rand and moiraine. So then what? What's the difference even? Motivation of darkfriends is a big mess.
One thing my friend flagged was that by the time rand is fighting ishamael, all the good characters seem to have done bad things. Egwene murdering renna is just..understandable but not heroic. Mat is also not really heroic at this point. Perrin is walking around with a cute dog..o..Kay so what.
7) I was actually feeling bad for ishamael. He's on this platform or whatever facing some 7-8 characters by himself. And it just Looks odd. Like the only person who actually fights him is egwene. Which, again, she's damane trained fine but so what??? She's barely trained. She should be nothing to him and he flings her aside I think at the start.
And
Then
Rand
Puts
A
Toothpick
Into
Chocolate
Mousse
That's how easy it is and weird. So i don't get all that. Agree with everything Katherine said about his agency and the banner. Like what is even the point.
The only thing is okay..nynaeve had a big scene in season 1, egwene has one here so maybe rand is being set up for season 3. But it's just ..weird. like I almost wondered if they had changed who the dragon was right at the end.
Anyway all that said I didn't hate the show. It was fun watching and I even rewatched season 1 to remind myself. Some of the plus points for me:
1) egwenes acting is really really good. Very impressed with how she conveys so much without a word. She has to show her joy with the power plus v mixed reactions to renna (fear hatred etc)
2) moiraine not being stilled was yay ..lan figuring it out was beyond silly and borderline Mary Sue ..but oof ok
3) liandrin is overall turning into a very likeable character for me in the sense that she seems to be fleshed out and layered in a way that the books didn't have for most of the major reds
4) there is a lot of foreshadowing and references..I feel that while the overall plot feels odd the individual scene writing is not the worst
5) lan continues to look v cool and is easy on the eyes
6) fight scenes when they do happen are overall decent, especially with the aiel. Not the falme one so much but just overall
7) I like the difference in the way people channel..egwene's weaving style looks different from moiraine's and so on
8) season 2 did an overall better job with the tower and many isolated scenes (barthanes etc)
I think overall it's still been fun and I'm on a wot reread so that is nice! Also for me when I reread now between the game and the show there's a lot more clarity on the books' geography etc so that is nice. And biggest plus is I can now explain some of the game stuff to people who had no idea about wot ..and it's v awesome when they make wheel of time references
