1:10 – Says Ghealdan. Looks like a Logain flashback. Or at least it had better be a Logain flashback since there is absolutely no other reason to set more of this show in Ghealdan, given the enormous amount of material they don’t have time to cover.

1:49 - Interestingly the flows of the Power wielded by a man are white tinged with black. Not sure if the difference is the taint or saidin.

2:42 - “What does a crown mean to the Dragon Reborn?” This is kind of good, because it’s a lesson Rand did not learn until late in the series. Not that he was hungry for crowns or misused the one he did take, but although he’s probably doing so out of arrogance, Logain is articulating something about the job that Rand (and especially Moiraine) did not get. Rand was not born to govern but to lead and to inspire.

2:59 - The Spanish-type accents and Muslim-looking helms and armor give Ghealdan a sort of Andalusian character, which is a nice sort of world-building thing, even if better reserved for Taraborn or Tear. I am also uncertain about the king’s realization that Logain truly believes he is the Dragon Reborn. Logain almost certainly knew he was not born on Dragonmount. I’m also reserving judgement on the voices until we find out more about them.

5:05 - I think I like him healing and recruiting the king. There is a bit of an issue with the fandom swooning over Logain early on and being predisposed to think the best of him, when he’s actually kind of a jealous dick when it comes to Rand and a war-criminal and terrorist who started a conflict over a title he had no right to. But he did try to cause as little harm as possible.

8:15 - Your healing is crap, Kerene. Nynaeve would have done way better. On the other hand, good job on staying alive 20 years longer than you did in the books.

8:55 - “Only Alanna, Liandrin and (Kerene) are strong enough to shield (Logain).” OK, show, you had better be careful with ANY other Aes Sedai names you use for this party. If any of them are canonically stronger than Alanna, who is the weakest of that trio, I believe, some friends of mine, and fionwe1987 (kidding), will have words. Pretty sure Liandrin is a tick below Moiraine who is the top tier of active living sisters before Egwene is fake-raised or Cadsuane comes out of retirement. Although, come to think of it, since she had hunted down Logain, why’d she fuck off leaving the party short of strength? Even though her given strength is controversial, the fact that she is almost as strong as Egwene and Elayne would probably put her around 9 or 10 and Kerene is 11, I’m pretty sure.

9:03 - Alanna has enough of a likability problem given her future crime against Rand that we don’t need her being passive-aggressive.

9:27 - Porcelain doll, my ass. Is that tangle on the side of her head supposed to be Liandrin’s trademark multiple honey-colored braids?

9:41 - Proclaiming oneself the Dragon Reborn is apparently a symptom of delusional madness. In the books it’s always referenced as ambition or power-hunger, in keeping with the theme of everyone having agendas and motivations. There isn’t even any real mention of false Dragons going mad, at least not the famous ones, since it seems like it would be an impediment to the kind of efforts that make them notorious, like gathering large followings and effectively fighting back against the Tower and armies sent against them.

I also miss Liandrin’s SS dominatrix accent.

10:08 - I kind of feel like Moiraine would not be volunteering for these side projects when she’s lost track of her charges.

10:19 - I will defer to the Power experts in our community, but I think what they are describing with the shields works. I have always thought that the description of a shielded man we get from Rand’s PoV does not fit the description of a link, especially with each shielding sister individually tying hers off. It is also mentioned that when holding a shield, you are supposed to use all your strength, according to law or custom, which is not actually possible, or up to the individuals, in a link. So I’ll give them this one.

But I’m watching you, show!

11:09 - The relative strengths, as pertains to shielded and shield-holders, I am less sure of.

11:40 - I am assuming the reference to Siuan’s enmity toward Moiraine is for public consumption only.

11:58 - Why would an axe-man be going through the same kata or progression of forms as a swordsman. Especially one with two axes, to one sword. And the axes are much shorter, and double-edged.

12:05 - Lan would not badmouth a woman to another person. Even obliquely.

13:01 - This scene is good establishing Moiraine and Lan as being reticent and stand-offish from their colleagues, alluding to the male channeler pogrom and the slipping of the Amyrlin’s authority as well as demonstrating the dynamics of typical Warder-sister relationships. Kerene’s acting, I think, saves some of her dialogue from verging on GoT-esque clunkiness.

14:22 - “If either of us feels like we should go, we go.” Who are you and what have you done with Egwene? Setting aside interpretations of her character, this is in direct contrast to how her relationship with Perrin played out during their journey together, with both Elyas and the Tinkers.

14:46 - “…if you’re bandits, you’re not very good ones.” This is stupid formulaic TV writing, intended to be iconoclastic or deconstructive or something, but it just makes people look stupid. You become a bandit because you’re broke and have no other recourse for income or survival. Also, there is a thing as a shill or spy, who acts as the inside man. This is the second or third appearance of the Tinkers and a very good set-up line for them to FINALLY articulate the Way of the Leaf! Perrin asks “how do you know we’re not bandits?”, and a Tinker says something about accepting whatever comes and offering hospitality to everyone in need, even a pack of hungry Ogier when your supplies are tapped, because leaves.

15:15 - They’re really trying to get the Tinker wagons right, with the garish colors, but it’s just not coming through in the dingy lighting.

16:10 - Rand is suspicious of Thom, while Mat, who is carrying the Shadar Logoth dagger, reasonably points out that Thom saved their lives, and makes a joke when Rand implies maybe it was a ploy.

16:25 - When Mat first said “…the five of us. You, me, Perrin, Egwene. Who else?” the natural impulse of a book reader is to say “Forget about Nynaeve?” but of course, Mat would not know she is any more significant than Daise Congar or the villager he stole jewelry from, because as far as they know she’s dead. Because of a pointless and unnecessary change from the showrunners that watered down her characterization.

16:30 - Ohhh. And cut to Logain. Tell me why we’re entertaining this delusion? Setting aside the choice to make it a mystery which of the Emond’s Field crew is the DR, why would a WoTnovice who has ever watched another movie or show think Logain is the legit Dragon?

17:15 - Is Alanna working around to calling Siuan a bitch?

Seriously, though, what do we get by the dog story? It doesn't establish their relationship - it could be affection, good-natured teasing or subtle mockery & belittlement.

18:34 - Interestingly in the books, the strength Logain manifested had sisters believing he was considerably weaker than he really was, with Verin claiming he lacked the strength to use the Choedan Kal. OTOH, she also seemed to think it required a maximum level sister, like Moiraine, Elaida or Siuan to handle it. The only other two named sisters Rand has met at that point (Leane and Liandrin), were only slightly below that level, and did not make it into Verin’s list, even though she was nearby for his encounters with both.

19:12 - Alanna sounds like a Daniel Greene-level idiot fan who thinks of the Ajahs as specializations, rather than sororities. Greens are not combat specialists and the Reds are not responsible for gentling men. In fact, the Amyrlin by law does all the gentling and she has not been Red in 1000 years. Greens and Reds simply believe that the purpose of Aes Sedai is to protect people from enemy channelers and prioritize different threats. The main Greens we see in the series are a scholar, the best living male channeler hunter and a politician. The most effective combatants are a Blue and a Yellow. The first Green we see in combat action doesn’t perform notably better than her Brown companion. Saying the Greens are better at combat or the Reds are responsible for gentling is like saying Michigan natives are all industrial workers and better at it than Texans. All Aes Sedai do all sorts of stuff. They gravitate toward Ajahs based on personality and inclinations, not skillsets.

19:50 - If you like braids, why don’t you wear one or some, like your book character, Liandrin?

19:52 - No, it’s not Nin-Ayv, it’s Ny-neev, which Robert Jordan implied was a pet peeve of his at a book signing my brother attended.

20:25 - Liandrin lets a non-sister talk smack to her. Totally in character.

21:30 - Handling a bow incompetently is not an indicator of lack of resolve, or of intent, to kill!

21:59 - More “TV writers attempt to demonstrate competence” tropes. AHA! There were other archers behind them all along! Never mind that as this scene is blocked, it was absolutely impossible for the woman and boy to get into position that fast, let alone without making any noise as they are both standing on a pile of leaves. Even the stipulated intent to show Rand catching flies with honey has him do so by belittling the other person’s shooting and offering a faulty logical proposition supposedly proving his lack of hostile intent.

22:13 - Liandrin, or any Aes Sedai, would not gossip about a sister to an outsider! Ever. The only possible rationale would be if she’s aware of Nynaeve’s strength or potential and wants to get her on her side, but setting aside the Tower’s canonical disdain for any channeler not raised to sisterhood, that would make her a wilder, which Liandrin hates like they have a Y chromosome.

22:35 - Lan addresses an Aes Sedai in public without the honorific Sedai, which so far we have seen the show lean toward excessive use of, rather than insufficient. Kerene uses it when speaking to her warder while alone. Lan would not fail to do so unless he was married to Nynaeve and Liandrin was clearly snubbing her in some way, rather than being way nicer to her than any book Aes Sedai would. Lan is the one who told off Perrin’s assumption about Red sisters, that they are fighting the Dark One in their own way. This sort of thing makes it stick out more that he helped Rand for his audience with the Amyrlin.

23:18 - Lan’s assertion that they can better look for the missing TR folk from Tar Valon only makes sense if they are taking GoT’s approach of aggressive indifference to geography. It looks more like a weak rationalization of a plot divergence to introduce the Aes Sedai in general.

23:56 - FINALLY. Four scenes of Tinkers before we so much as hear about the Way of the Leaf. For the Tuathan it’s like being non-cis/het or a eunuch on GoT – they tell people about it every chance they get.

24:30 - Aram’s underlying dissatisfaction with the Way is rather on the nose. It was done more subtly in dialogue ITB where Perrin showed up his posturing of moral superiority.

24:55 - Ila’s pointed remark about the axe is similarly heavy-handed, especially with her jumping right to “axe” as his weapon of choice. Also, Perrin doesn’t have the axe, which represents his conflict with personal violence. I also feel that conflict might have been better served without that nonsense of his accidentally killing his wife. SHE’S the one who surprised an armed man, after all.

25:08 - And in the books, Perrin’s beard symbolizes his maturation. tDR was a coming of age story for Mat, Egwene & Perrin, where they each learned an aspect of maturity. In the next book, he is growing a beard and begins a leadership arc, where before he was always in the company of a “grown-up” type character, like Moiraine, Elyas or Ingtar or doing very poorly.

And this caravan is moving south or southwest.

26:08 - Not sure how I feel about the dagger making him puke up blood, or that the blood is tainted, but I suppose it’s going to be easier, going forward, than trying to make him look visibly wan and scrawny.

27:25 - That’s an OK way to introduce Birgitte as a legendary hero, although an explanation that it’s more than a doll’s name will hopefully be forthcoming.

28:30 - “He’s not an idiot” says no one who know Mat. That being said, while the channeling diagnosis is pretty quick on Thom’s part, that’s kind of par for the course with this show’s pacing so far. It could be a halfway decent way of illustrating how paranoid people in this world are about men channeling. I wonder if a WoT novice is going to agree or go right to the dagger he picked up in a city where he was told not to touch anything. The black stuff in his puke looked a little like Logain’s channeling.

29:25 - No one would know about the malaise that afflicts women, because the Tower is no more keen to advertise weakness or fallibility than any sensible power-seeking group. You can use the exposition excuse, but considering one of the three storylines is currently following a group of Aes Sedai, it would be more appropriate to have one of them drop a mention that both men and women fear losing their ability to channel. Especially when a major subject in that plotline is holding a man shielded and taking him in for gentling.

30:33 - Is there some massive gleeman conspiracy? Are the gleemen subtly manipulating the powerful while passing as harmless? First of all “there is nothing as dangerous as a man who knows the past” is script-writer bullshit they think makes them sound clever, and nerd-pandering to the conceit that liking to read is a superpower. If you actually want to be witty, people who DON’T know the past are way more dangerous. Secondly, knowledge of the past is not remotely relevant to the topic of their discussion. Male channelers are very much a right-now problem.

31:01 - Male warders cuddling! Now there’s not going to be any complaints about Rand’s love life! All the junior feminists whining about the lack of Aiel polyandry have been silenced!

31:19 - Do they even realize they have all the warders laughing at Lan being tracked by a guuurl? Nynaeve’s tracking comes up in the books as something that earns her respect, it’s not something she thrusts forward into a discussion teasing Lan. But as I have said, Clever TV Dialogue TM consists of belittling people and tearing them down. All humor and fun must be at someone’s expense.

31:38 - What exactly is Green Oriental Sister doing with the group, since we have not seen her taking a shift with Logain, nor does she look like she’s going to anytime soon?

32:00 - ITB Formulaic salute from Warder to Aes Sedai “Honor to serve, Aes Sedai.” WoTshow Warder “We don’t (serve Aes Seda).”

32:46 - Apparently Owein has been replaced by Maksim in Alanna’s group of warders.

33:10 - Yay. Polyarmory fan service. Just what WoT is really all about.

33:36 - If neither Moiraine or Alanna is shielding Logain, who is?

33:57 - Ahh. They’re hanging around to check if Logain is the actual DR. And Lan pointing out that’s kind of stupid from a Watsonian sense doesn’t make this guessing game any less so from a Doylist one.

35:02 - I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that Lan’s just making a joke and they aren’t trying to say that a warder bond feeds back on the Aes Sedai. It’s unique to a female-female bond, which was the whole point.

35:56 - So 50% of the Tinkers’ distinctive belief system is just a superstition or fairy tale? What is their point then, if they are not seeking the Song? Why are they wandering around with Ila and Raen? This sounds like more post-modern scoffing at fantasy elements, which is very weird, because a LOT of the fandom took the idea of the Song seriously at face value, no matter how often the more perspicacious of us tried to clarify that it was an example of the power of belief and legends, even when they are misunderstood and garbled over time! The fact that the Tinkers are wrong about the Song does not change the importance of that belief to a central thematic concept to the whole story! Having Aram sneer at the idea and Egwene offer a Hallmark-worthy comeback is the show trying to be clever and superior at the expense of servicing the story!

36:36 - Taika Waititi is really going to town on them bongos. Like a chimpanzee. That’s the way you do it.

37:00 - I have zero faith that the ensuing conversation will produce anything particularly relevant to the plot or Perrin’s characterization.

37:19 - I suppose it’s good that Perrin’s powers of observation are being revealed, but “don’t look peaceful” should reference their actions, not be an assumption that they are somehow falling short of the Tinkers’ Way based on their appearance! Especially since absolutely nothing about non-resisting pacifism suggests you will never acquire scars, which are done by OTHER violent people!

38:03 - This conversation is dumb and pointless. Watching Perrin be instructed on the novel concept of principles mattering more than results adds nothing to the story. This is junior high philosophy!

38:31 - Aaand we’re excising Aram’s mother. Who never appeared on screen, so it’s not like we’re sparing the casting budget, but whose death was his catalyst for abandoning the Way of the Leaf.

39:12 - Ila would not refer to taking up the spear to seek revenge as an act requiring courage.

39:26 - Perrin sees no difference in actions and desires. Ila, who, it has been established, did NOT act against her principles and Way, is guilty of acting in a manner that “does not sound like the Way of the Leaf.” I said this discussion was junior high philosophy, but by 3rd grade we had already learned the difference between having sinful desires and acting upon them! I guess junior high is still way above Perrin’s competency level.

39:33 - THIS MAKES NO SENSE! Perrin chides Ila for desires that go against her principles, and she responds by rationalizing her principles as fulfilling those desires! They are not actually responding to what the other person is saying, not in any coherent or congruent manner.

40:04 - I should like this better, given how closely it tracks with my recent theory where I argued that adhering to principles even at great personal cost makes the world a better place to be reborn into. But for this character, why not go with Ila’s ITB answer that violence harms the soul of the one who commits it? This is the 21st century, and we have been fighting a war for all but 8 months of it. PTSD is a household term. This should not be hard to get across.

40:16 - Robert Jordan, criticized more often for excess verbiage than any other fault, did not find it necessary to have a single on-page conversation between Egwene and Aram, not least because adolescent interactions are insipid and banal. There is no way this SECOND on-screen conversation is going to add anything more than Ila’s & Perrin’s did (and ITB, it was Egwene who had long conversations with Ila).

40:51 - Okay, are Rand and Egwene broken up or not? Either way, I’m rooting for her to move on and have some fun with Aram. Like do SOMETHING to establish her actual characterization, please?

41:02 - Tuatha’an rumspringa?! Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?!

41:10 - “Some farm, some set sail”. Chubby nerd film major who’s probably never done manual labor in his life thinks those are jobs you can just pick up at 20, after growing up wandering around in wagons, or that you can join a collective enterprise as a distinctively-clad member of a despised and mistrusted group of cosmopolites. And what does this detail have to do with the subject of Egwene’s missing boyfriend? Or girlfriend, because this is the kind of show that would make a point of not making assumptions.

41:46 - WHAT did we gain from EITHER of those conversations? How does Tinker Rumspringa expand our knowledge and understanding of anything? And why are they all from Murandy? What does Ila’s sorrow at the death of her daughter add to her character? The real contention against the Way of the Leaf is the question of addressing the need for revenge, but of preventing evil. That IS the first thing Perrin brought up after hearing about it ITB. And it has even less to do with his experience on screen, where the signal act of violence in his life has been the friendly fire death of his wife. In which case, there is a real conflict, because taking up arms in defense of himself, his home and his family led directly to Laila’s death. You can DO something with this. That’s why I was intrigued in the first episode. But they seem to have forgotten that datum, since nothing Perrin says is informed by that singular experience of violence.

42:20 - There are a hundred fan-fiction writers right this moment hard at work composing luridly elaborate descriptions of ass-piracy all pretentiously titled some variation of “When the Candle Went Out”

42:50 - The scary thing Ba’alzamon does in their dreams is talk to them! Not jump scares or acting like a monster! How is this supposed to get them on Team Shadow?

43:08 - Well, shit. Dagger-possession escalated rapidly.

43:49 - That scene was so quick, you barely notice the Myrddraal disappearing into and out of the shadows. We’re so used to this genre being shot in darkness, that it seems like it just backed out of sight and ran down the stairs. Also the implication is that Thom’s knife knocked it back. There should have been some indication that it would have hit, but the shadow-thing moved the Fade out of the way.

45:13 - Doll-shots are the most pretentiously trite thing ever.

That was crap. We have one conversation with Thom that is not entirely exposition, barely get to know him, he never meets the rest of the Fellowship and likewise, are barely told anything about the Myrddraal or its powers and abilities. We have no lines indicating that a Warder and Aes Sedai failed to bring down the one that attacked the village, no real demonstration of the threat it poses. I noted in my analysis of the trailer that the sandworm mouth might work to convey its wrongness and inhumanity, but going with that, rather than attempt to convey its shadow affinity or unnatural strength and speed, or mentioning how it paralyzes you with terror or controls the Trollocs by fear … that just undermines the peril Thom faced. The show has given us no reason to suppose this thing is any more formidable than Narg, who at least had size and power going for it. We have not seen it kill a single person on this show! Thom kicks it across the room! How tough can it really be, catching daggers or not?

So why are we supposed to assume that Thom died, or the boys were right to run, rather than try to fight and improve his odds? Thom has not even been there to see that the Shadow is hunting them and that they need protection. If Rand is to be taken seriously with his noting that he could have killed Dana to ingratiate himself with them, well, the same goes for an off-screen fight with the Myrddraal.

You might not even realize that the Myrddraal killed the Grinwells, rather than Mat, driven by the dagger.

But this is why they changed Else from a flirtatious young woman, which demonstrated Rand’s attractiveness and incompetence with regard to the opposite sex, as well as the way ta’veren change people’s lives, to a too-cute-for-this-world child. Who dies tragically, of course. Though if the names were mentioned, I don’t recall. I got that from the subtitles & X-Ray feature.

I have also just now realized that it was not blood, it was Mashadar-like manifestations. Which is not a bad way to indicate the actual source of his odd behavior, but hard to notice with the dark lighting every time we’ve seen it.

45:26 - If holding Logain is as difficult at Kerene said earlier, and as Liandrin is claiming now, as the crux of her argument to gentle him, why is Liandrin doing it alone?

45:34 - The Three Oaths have nothing to do with why they have not gentled Logain. It was established in a prior scene in this very episode that it’s orders and Tower policy. The Three Oaths apply to all sisters, including the Amyrlin, so if gentling violates the Oath to not use the Power as a weapon, how do they gentle him at all, without a procedure that entails both lethal danger and considerable sophistry?

45:47 - Nice sentiment, Kerene. I’ll let that one stand. But ITB

46:00 - I like the assumption that most Reds would follow the law, and that this is Liandrin’s personal animus, not a characteristic of her much-slandered Ajah.

46:50 - Yay. More invented rituals. /sarcasm
How did Lan get to be one of the most rabidly loved and admired characters in the series, when Jordan was too stupid to have him doing any of this crap?

FWIW, ITB, Lan does not believe Malkier shall rise again. He intended, before being bonded, to commit suicide by Blight to prevent any Malkieri from getting killed uselessly trying to bring it back.

47:31 - I’m pausing to look up the Old Tongue dictionary for this. “Dead People Blood Must Pass Through World and Our Memories Will Of Tied to Your heart.” Flipping pages back and forth is hard with a Kindle Paperwhite. (Dear Amazon; Please don’t sue Ben. Thanks)

47:49 - That was some pretty precise recitation for someone who does not know the Old Tongue. Speaking as someone who prays in a dead language, that’s not how it works, unless you read it a lot, too. And, then, unless you’re a total idiot, you should be able to figure out some of it from familiar words. Like “Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctifcatur nomen tuum.” You can make a reasonable guess at least three words in there. I wrote that line from memory, BTW, so any spelling errors only prove my first point.

48:40 - “We shall go into the land, so our children can always hold us and will never be alone.” I guess context is critical in the Old Tongue. Maybe when that’s the closest approximation you can get with the extant Old Tongue dictionary, drop the unnecessary dialogue, hmm?

50:55 - I’ll give Alanna that one under the Three Oaths. She just dropped the arrows. Not her fault the soldiers ran under them. She dropped them forcefully to quickly get them out of the way, that's all.

52:10 - I’m glad Nynaeve is not using a weapon in all this, but now I’m afraid this is going to turn into her big moment of revelation by channeling to destroy the army when everything appears lost.

52:28 - Ugh. Now it’s Moiraine stepping up to Logain. Like a Boss. Yay. Snap. Snap.

52:41 - Did she sabotage the shield?!?

53:30 - This is like in GoT, where they had Tyrion in the first season toss off a line that basically summed up Jon Snow’s plot arc and character development for books 2 & 3. Except Logain is here stating as a given the lesson that Rand takes the whole series to learn and the realization of which pulls him back from the brink of his self-destructive despair. Assuming the series even gets that far, aren’t observant fans going to miss the significance of that, when Rand starts repeating Logain’s delusions?

I’m not sure how I feel about the voice of the Dragons thing as a set-up for LTT’s voice.

53:40 - This is sort-of in character for Moiraine to miss the philosophical point by nitpicking semantics, as she did with Perrin in Book 3. But it also feels like the “we know all metaphysical belief is dumb, aren’t we so clever?” writing that pervaded the latter seasons of Game of Thrones. What even are prophecies and the point of the Dragon or ta'veren if "the Wheel doesn't want anything"?

I feel compelled now to start searching through promotional material fr this show, because I'm pretty sure there's been something that quoted Moiraine saying "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills." As she often does ITB, especially to cover her own ignorance or mistakes.

54:19 - Moiraine’s comparison of Logain’s strength as “a pinprick of candlelight against the sun” compared to the Dragon Reborn is interesting considering he’s “one step below Rand” according to the Companion.

54:56 - Okaaaay, show clearly does not get how shields work. They don’t trap the Power in with you, they keep it AWAY from you.

57:00 - And because Kerene’s warder stuck his axes through the shield, Logain was able to grab them and break them? What even is this?

57:32 - Logain making those saidin wings just like he did before Healing the King of Ghealdn sort of undercuts the peril here. You’re halfway waiting for him to do it again and sway everyone back to his side. That probably does not seem as ridiculous to WoT Novices as it does to book readers.

Anyway, I say this because the obvious thing to do here is have Nynaeve Heal people as her big moment of channeling revelation.

57:59 - I like that we saw her Healing Liandrin, so it’s not a thing that she was driven to Heal Lan out of Twoo Wuv.

58:12 - Just because men can sense women channeling does not mean they are aware of their strength, or in any position to compare one’s power to “a raging sun”. And again, let’s remember that Logain is canonically stronger than Nynaeve, whose full potential (unreached late in the series) is short of even the second step for women, let alone men. All Logain should notice is that she Healed some people. Only two we can tell for certain on screen.

58:30 - For the record, “nature itself” is A. never anthropomorphized in the books and B. does, in fact, wish Logain to channel since it gave him the inherent ability. The taint is Unnatural and the work of the Dark One.

59:02 - And Logain’s gentled, so that’s that.

Interestingly, the writer of this episode is credited as Dave Hill, whose sole other credited work is Game of Thrones. He is listed as “assistant: David Benioff & DB Weiss, LA” in seasons 2 through 4, staff writer in season 5, story editor in season 6 and is credited with writing one episode in each of the last four seasons. You know, the shit ones? What a shocker. So if you're trying to make a new fantasy TV show, based on a series of doorstopper novels, why would you hire a guy who fetched coffee at the Hollywood office ("LA" suggests he was not on the set in Ireland or Malta or wherever) during the good part of the show, and saw it go into a downturn when he was promoted to writer. And incidentally, started writing around the time the show stopped writing off of existing books.

And regarding Thom, how about that run? Thom showed up at the very beginning ITB, he was the voice of the author in describing the changing of history and fact into different stories, on more than one occasion. He was an intermediate character between the ignorant hicks and Moiraine & Lan, who are operating at the preternatural level. While they exposited the paranormal levels of the story, Thom guided the kids into the wider world at a more human level. While Moiraine's One Power lectures and Lan's weapons instruction didn't come into play until much further down the road, Thom helped give Rand and Mat skills to help them survive in the immediate, relatable crisis of being lost and alone with no resources. He got them passage on the ship, and a roof over their head in Caemlyn and gave them the means to earn their way there. And he threw himself in front of a monster to save them. There's only the bare bones of that here. Nothing was done to establish any real rapport between him and the boys. He's the one to finger Mat as a potential channeler and tells Rand they have to keep him clear of the Aes Sedai. That barely fits with his actions and intentions ITB, where, like any sensible person he is resigned to the fact that you can't do anything in that case. When he thinks Rand is cleared of suspicion in channeling he says not to tell him which of Mat or Perrin it was. He mostly wants to protect the boys from getting chewed up and spat out by White Tower machinations. Protecting a male channeler from gentling is basically a lost cause, a fact which is only obscured from WoT Novices by a lack of clarity about the details of channeling.

Now it's starting to look like Logain is a bigger part of this section of the story than Thom. Logain was pure background and setup in "The Eye of the World" through "The Shadow Rising." He was basically a McGuffin for Siuan and Nynaeve to act upon in the next two books. And Thom actually interacted with the main characters and influenced Rand significantly in the first two books. He served as sidekick and mentor to various characters throughout the series and he's Moiraine's love interest, for crap's sake!

Except, you know what? There's a significant portion of the newer fandom on social media, especially the half-assed feminist posturing sort, who worships Moiraine and thinks Thom is unworthy of her and/or ships her hard with Siuan. And all too many of the changes or additions to the show seem to be the sort targeted exactly at that segment of the peanut gallery. The possibility that the Dragon can be, and has been, a woman, the shallow LGBTQ nods, forefronting Moiraine, swapping Raen for Ila as leader of the Tinkers - it's all the sort of thing they're panting for, as well as the chance to posture and virtue-signal their embrace of the non-white cast.

The problem is not which fans they are trying to appease, but that they are coming at this with the attitude of trying to "fix" the story, and trying to 'update' it. How often has that ever panned out? The successful genre adaptations tend to have in common fidelity to the source material. "Lord of the Rings" was almost religiously so and "The Hobbit" took a great many more liberties and was much more poorly received. "Game of Thrones" is generally considered to have worked when it was faithful to the books and not when it struck out on its own. It's worth noting that the 5th season is much more reviled than the subsequent 6th or even 7th, even though they were still more or less covering established book material in the 5th. But in that season, they felt more at liberty than previously to deviate and repackage the story. They swapped out characters and moved carelessly from one plot-point to the next with little care for keeping the storyline coherent and the progression logically or fitting in with the established setting.

And those are problems I am seeing the beginning of on this show. Thom's arc feels like they're just hitting line items on a checklist. Thom shows up, we establish the Owyn backstory (actually, that might explain renaming Alanna's warder), and having him disappear fighting rearguard against a Myrddraal. Check and check. When we bring him back, we'll just have Rand be happy to see him and that's all we need to do. They look like they're doing the same thing with the plot in general. Trolloc attack, check. Shadar Logoth, check. Tinkers, check. What about Elyas? Eh, just have some wolves show up here and there.

There's hints they seem to be missing the significance of a lot of elements in the story, like Perrin's conflict with the wolves or what Shadar Logoth represents as a cautionary fable. Or the mechanics of channeling. Nothing is more promising to the prospects of an adaptation than making up a new magic system on the fly. And of course, the whole central premise of perspective as it relates to knowledge, of which there has not been the slightest sign.

My brother, a book fan, sat down with his wife who doesn't read fantasy, to watch the show, and she gave up because she has no idea what's going on and has no attachment to the story. She did not, needless to say, have that problem with Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings.