1:16 I burst out laughing. Not because it’s happening to Egwene. Slavery, and especially via the violation of one’s personal agency by something as invasive as the a’dam, transcends personal dislike. I am Team Egwene when it comes to her coping with Seanchan captivity. But what the heck were they thinking? First of all, dragging people is not easy. I am the eldest child of seven. I have experience in this regard. And yet, this is an Empire of experienced slavers, whose most important characteristic ITB is NOT slavery, but organization and institutional adaptation. The Seanchan learn and adapt and do so on a large scale, surprisingly quickly. They would have figured out a LONG time ago that the best way to transport a reluctant captive is not by dragging them. Also, damane are very valuable. You don’t want to damage it.

And, of course, they can compel pain and do so with new damane in order to make them understand the need for compliance. They would be brain-tazing her to make her walk.

1:22 How did they make her flip over, by tugging on a chain to her neck? That’s not how you physics or anatomy.

1:27 That is a solid collar, not a noose. It would not have been choking her, especially with all the vocalizing she has been doing until now. The rule of thumb is that if you can complain about being choked, you are not being choked seriously.

1:43 Between Lanfear in the dream sequence and Darth Bangs in Ahsoka, I have to ask are raccoon eyes the new symbol of preternatural power? Did anyone tell the show runners that unlike Lanfear or Darth Bangs, sul’dam are not tapping into an objectively evil energy source?

2:41 No Seanchan believes in cultivating a friendship between sul’dam and damane, because damane are not people. What’s more, the power imbalance and compulsory aspects of the relationship make friendship a hypocrisy. Renna was many things, but not a hypocrite. She did believe in being indulgent with her damane, but as to an obedient pet.

I think the show is more about demonizing the Seanchan and sul’dam, than developing real characters or telling a coherent story. Because they are stunning and brave in their defiant opposition to an institution that no white people anywhere, or primary speakers of the a decent language actually support, and no non-shithole countries actually practice.

3:35 Why are all rooms on this show so huge? Why is the kennel of a single damane so big? Back in the Tower, it took me a couple of episodes to realize that Liandrin was not keeping Mat locked up in her own bedroom, but a prison cell, because the size made me think the former. The hotel room a couple of indigent farmboys could afford in Tar Valon, after a month of travel depleting their purses (and no entertainment skills to replenish them) was cavernous (and had a balcony! ). The novices’ quarters look to have room to practice gymnastics.

5:18 Are we supposed to take her even a little bit seriously? I, personally, do not have any sort of bondage fetish, corsets and collars and leather and whatnot don’t do anything for me (also the whole goth thing, which to me seems to be a personal statement rejecting objective conventional standards of beauty, generally because the people in question cannot meet them), so maybe I am missing something here? That light, I should also add, does nothing for her looks, seriously calling into question her casting as impossibly beautiful.

Also the cut of her … dress … for lack of a better word, makes it look like she, in WoT parlance, does not have lot to fold her arms over?

5:34 Because no one trusts clowns, Lanfear.

For the record, Lanfear is, objectively, a clown and an idiot. The other Forsaken do not take her seriously, except, perhaps the equally pathetic Semirhage, and everyone she tries to manipulate in the books blows her off and runs their own game, generally to her detriment. I have yet to see any evidence that the writers of this show are aware of that, since the first time her name was spoken, it was in close proximity to a description of her as the most dangerous of the Forsaken. Which she is, only in the sense of her generally unhinged mentality, not because of any level of competence.

5:54 Stop giving us wind sounds in the background, while she is wearing something that looks like she should be about to take off flying like Sally Field as a nun.

6:07 Lews Therin was pushing people away to protect those he loved in his last life? Why? How? And since the only thing we know about his relationships with the people in his life was that he killed every single one of them … wouldn’t that statement be the most credibility-damaging thing she could say for both the audience and a person in the Third Age? Like, the guy’s name is Kinslayer. There is a mountain range named after him. Everyone should automatically know that he killed family members, suggesting either that he was right to push them away, or that Lanfear is talking out of her ass. Which for all I know, she has a special part of the dress for that purpose.

6:42 ITB, Moiraine has basically done nothing but try to deceive or control Rand since they met. Show!Moiraine, not so much. Or at least to the point that her methods of control are not tremendously obvious, as they were to Rand in EotW. Moiraine told him he was the Dragon Reborn and rubbed his nose in it, and did it in such a way as to catch him off guard. On the show, Rand went to her with the news that he was the Dragon Reborn and could channel, and she acceded to his request to let everyone believe he was dead. She Healed Tam unasked and told the gang straight out that she was looking for the Dragon Reborn and it could be one of the kids in town. She told him, honestly, as the viewers know and Rand has no reason to doubt (recall his brilliant line “nothing an Aes Sedai says is optional” ) about all the ramifications and the potential danger of the plan to go to the Eye of the World. She was not the one to lead the gang into Shadar Logoth, nor did she give them roofie trackers. She saved him from a sexual partner who was deceiving him as to her identity and nature.

7:27 He does not actually want to work with you, Lanfear! He just presented a condition for you to earn his trust! This is just more of the show’s typical characters talking past one another, instead of having a conversation. Now, it is not out of character for book!Lanfear to ignore what he is saying and only hear what she wants and have the conversation that matches her view of reality, but even if the writers are aware of it, they have botched so many other conversations that this one is a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day, rather than actual characterization.

7:58 Why is he acceding her condition? First of all, trying to isolate someone and make them dependent on you is the mark of an untrustworthy person who likely does not have your best interests at heart (of course, in the books, that was much more Moiraine’s MO than Lanfear’s). Secondly, it’s just sending a message that he can be manipulated. Rand ITB did not let Lanfear know that he cared about anyone, specifically to prevent her targeting them. He would cite their utility or feign indifference. He did NOT respond to threats toward them. Also, it is proving her right in her claim that he always tries to push people away to protect them. Third, the best way to handle two persons of dubious trustworthiness, and competing agendas, is to play them off each other. Bounce what Lanfear says off Moiraine and vice versa, which is something Rand understood long before he even realized he could channel (everyone discussing the first season of the show made a big deal about aging the characters up and also their having sex lives as evidence of that maturity, but they are so much less mature or sophisticated in so many ways than the book versions, that I don’t see the point) Finally, the only way to protect Moiraine at all for certain is to stick close to her.

8:13 Setting aside Moiraine’s motives, I would have serious questions about HOW she moved Logain. See, in the books, Rand knew she was in cahoots with Siuan. He’s never even seen the Amyrlin on the show.

8:46 I can barely see anything in this episode not set in a dream desert. I can barely see that Mat is reacting to stuff and not what he is reacting to.

9:01 Min looks like Prax Meng from The Expanse. Which is kind of ironic, because he was a male character, whose parents didn’t know that Praxidice was a female name.

What should her new name be, Prax Min, or Meng Farshaw?

10:06 We are 14 episodes and a 1.75 seasons into the show before we learn that A. Two Rivers Wisdoms have a raiment of office, B. Nynaeve has been wearing it this whole time and C. the White Tower let her keep the belt during her training? This is not how you indoctrinate people and the books made a point, for the stupid among us, in the case of Nynaeve in particular, of showing the Aes Sedai denigrating her skills and other artefacts of her experience as a Wisdom, that none of that matters next to her studies in the Tower. Part of Nynaeve’s identity conflict was holding onto that stuff in the face of the Tower’s efforts to fit her into their own mold.

10:45 Really, Elayne? Liandrin broke “every single one” of the Three Oaths? Tell us please what weapon she made for one man to kill another? What word did we ever hear her speak that is not true, for that matter? I am legit asking that latter one, because Book!Liandrin was very careful to adhere to the letter of the Oath until her allegiance was exposed> She did so with Amalisa, and when inducing the girls to leave with her, and I don’t feel like going back to check all her show!dialogue to see if it was technically true. Also, we don’t know of her even breaking the Oath against using the Power as a weapon, because she did the same thing to Nynaeve in the kitchen as a lesson, which is more or less transposing what Siuan did to her ITB. So either they have weird ideas about what constitutes a weapon, or Nynaeve is an idiot for not catching it the first time.

11:53 So Aes Sedai don’t ward their dreams. They are probably going to have to explain at some point why the Shadow doesn’t take advantage of that …

12:04 “You hate men” says Lanfear to a woman in a room whose only other occupant is the only known person that woman loves. And is a man. The question is why Liandrin serves a man, when she hates men … which makes no sense, because serving is not loving, and Darkfriends serve the Dark One, with Ishamael as a mere intermediary. And they do it for power or immortality and like most people, don’t really give a shit where the power or immortality comes from if they can actually get it. Also, the Shadow is not big on free consent or willing service, so it’s not like quitting at the sight of the boss’ facial hair is an option.

12:18 Aludran might be a legit Taraboner name, since one of the most important Taraboner characters is Aludra.

13:18 What kind of a world IS this?! Wheel of Time is a world where the only women forced to marry anyone are those the Tower wants to use for some purpose. The most visibly patriarchal Borderland culture considers an 18-year-old woman too young to marry without her mother’s permission. There is not the slightest evidence of prepubescent girls being forced into marriage! This is a world where ruthless Darkfriend war criminals legitimately deplore rape, where teenage males consider practical skills to be of comparable importance to physical beauty among the appeal of a woman, there is no such thing as prostitution, and marriage as an institution is entirely under the control of women wherever the subject comes up.

What is the point of taking a feminist approach to WoT if they are going to undermine the ways the setting is under female influence at every turn?

13:27 “You swore your oaths to the Dark, not to Ishamael” says the woman who questioned why Liandrin served Ishamael. First of all, until very recently, Ishamael was the only path to serving “the Dark.” Which sounds utterly stupid, for the record. It’s the Shadow or the Dark One, not “the Dark”.

Secondly, the notion that service to their side encompasses something higher than obedience to the Forsaken, is not a point any one of them has an interest in making.

Also, let’s take a look at Lanfear’s recruitment pitch. “You don’t just serve Ishamael, you serve the Shadow as a whole, and there are many paths to walk through the night. You can choose whether to serve the guy who preserved your son’s life or me, who killed him.” I thought she was going to heal Aludran to alleviate his pain to reinforce her point about men sucking and showing how she is a more beneficial mistress. Because I have a functioning brain and a modicum of human empathy. Lanfear was so solipsistic ITB that she had difficulty persuading or manipulating people, but she was miles ahead of this moron.

14:50 Why is this the first demonstration of Loial’s abilities? I thought they had forgotten it. The Seanchan are bring out the best in their slaves! Was this written by a Florida textbook author?

15:16 Suroth is also being very egalitarian with her slaves, now that we established in a prior episode the significance of speaking to people directly. Also, ITB she was a competent villain. This one we have only seen getting humiliated by Turak and now acting like a twit. Are we really supposed to be afraid of her or her capacity to oppose the heroes?

15:45 How does Loial always find Two Rivers women? How on earth would they have any idea she was a captive? Why would Ingtar, if he is remotely the same person as ITB, give the slightest shit about Egwene, much less follow through on Loial’s request to find her? “Sorry, no luck there, let’s concentrate on our universe’s equivalent of the Holy Grail for the time being,” is what he would and should be saying, after having made only the most desultory, if that, attempt at locating her. Also, when you are enslaved and trying to escape with the Holy Grail equivalent prize, every little thing you do to break cover, or draw attention to yourself, like poking your nose into damane matters, has to be weighed against your chances of succeeding at the important thing. This is not like Rand’s and Ingtar’s argument ITB, where they were free, armed and mobile.

It's also worth noting that the Seanchan honor was about status among the aristocracy. Their lack of conventional security methods spoke to the extreme level of control they had, and the power at their disposal to rectify breeches. They could let civilians come and go in their conquered lands, because it upheld their image and because people posed no threat. They have the most elaborate intelligence and police apparatus, and a draconian system of punishment to deter transgressions, which is why certain things appear lightly guarded to the eyes of wetlanders. They can catch lawbreakers more effectively and efficiently than preventing crime in the first place. They don't skimp on guards because of their honor. Of course, on TV, honor is dumb and makes you vulnerable to smart people.

16:14 The debate about Egwene could have been much better handled by including the point that a channeler could be very useful in effecting their escape with the Horn. If you are too dumb to think of that, you could read the books, where Nynaeve uses that as incentive to get Bayle Domon to take them out of Falme. Loial has to be aware that Egwene was part of the force that left a lot of Trolloc carcasses outside Fal Dara, and he was the one who let her and Nynaeve know about the call to arms issued to channelers in the city.

16:19 I thought Ingtar said “they call it the kennels” to humanize him, to show that even though he prioritized the Horn over and above her plight, he was appalled at how the damane are treated, but Loial is responding as if he is arguing that there is no point in trying to rescue her, because if they call the barracks a kennel, it must mean the residents are broken to the leash.

And of course, he has to praise her to the skies, because Egwene. First, why would Loial call her sweet, when most of what he witnessed were arguments with her putting down her fellow villagers or complaining that they don't cook for her? Second, ITB, her very close friends, who had spent far more time in her company than Loial, were extremely worried about the effect her captivity would have on her, and saw a need to get her out ASAP. Every female character is so awesome, so badass, so indestructible that there cannot be any real stakes in threats like this, because she is just too awesome to be beaten, so there is no real urgency.

16:44 This better be a dream, or the whole thing is bullshit. Either the a’dam is pathetic or Egwene’s strength of will has been taken up to Mary Sue levels.

16:51 It kind of says something about the show that the better of two options to expect is extreme predictability, rather than outright stupid impossibility.

17:00 The best way forward is for the prior sequence to be what Egwene wanted to do, and now we see the canonical result.

17:09 Okay, apologies, and so forth. But I still stand my ground on the basis of their shitty writing lowering my expectations.

17:50 And the last punch was just stupidity. But I don’t think the writers know that, I think they believe she is being admirable.

19:27 That’s mostly book dialogue, but first Renna talked about Egwene’s strength, then cited her strength in the Power, and then said that the strongest damane are the hardest to break. She makes no distinction between strength in the Power and strength of will or character and thus gives the impression that to whatever degree Egwene manages to hold out from being broken to the leash, it will not be because of any sort of fortitude or moral fiber or sense of will, but by the fortuitous circumstance of being born with a degree of power.

20:28 Even in the closest thing to good light she has been in all episode, I could barely see Egwene’s nosewart, even looking for it. Are they using makeup to minimize it this season? Did Madden have a procedure done?

Come on, Maddy, that was our thing!

20:36 Why did we need such a long exterior shot of the kennels? Why not zoom in through the window to Egwene, after transitioning from Loial & Ingtar discussing where she was, if we need to be able to recognize the kennels from the outside for the rescue attempt?

21:27 So Min is a Darkfriend because she wanted to get rid of her viewings. That’s it. There is no going on with her. She has to die or be an enemy or at least stuck with the status akin to that of Asmodean, always on the periphery, never to be trusted, having to prove her use and value to buy her life anew every day. I don’t care what they call it. She admits to, in her words, making a deal with the Shadow. That’s being a Darkfriend. Period, full stop.

21:46 What makes this a good place to stop? And why phrase it like that, when it gives the impression that Alanna DGAF about anything other than her desire for tea? Which is entirely in keeping with her self-indulgent behavior to date, and in the absence of any knowledge about this random spot in yet another scene in the dark, the only possible interpretation. Edit from the future: Okay, there was a ruined building there, not that you could tell in all the darkness.

21:51 WHY?!?!? Why do they have temples to the Forsaken? What the hell is a Forsaken, anyway? According to a bunch of irrelevant novels, they are Aes Sedai who went over to the Dark One and were his most powerful servants in the War of the Shadow. On the show, the name has only been referenced in respect to their being reverenced by the people of the world, including a Warder, openly in the White Tower, along with the tidbit that they are apparently impossible to kill. There is nothing on the screen to date suggesting they are human beings, instead of spirits or divinities.

22:10 Lan can’t return to the Tower, because the Amyrlin’s banishment applies to him, until his bond with Moiraine is formally removed from the Tower records.

Just

What

I

Fuck it.

This show.

22:48 “Generals in the Dark One’s army” does not clarify the matter of my previous question one bit. And, as it typical for the show, Lan speculates about their repertoire of powers and Ihvon responds by citing their moral threshold or lack thereof, and Alanna, in turn, seems to be excusing them or suggesting that Aes Sedai could stoop as low.

And making a case for moral relativism that is a teensy bit problematic in an episode focusing so heavily on the evils the Seanchan inflict on their captives. But it’s also the episode that reveals Min is a Darkfriend, clarifies the terms of Liandrin’s service to the Shadow, and in the barely-covered conflict between arguably the two main characters of the show, calls into question Moiraine’s tactics in handling Rand, and their contribution to the possible rift Lanfear is creating between them.

So Alanna’s line touches on the closest thing to a theme or through-line in this episode. Is she justifying Min’s turning to the Shadow to be relieved of her viewings, Liandrin to help her son and Moiraine’s transgressions in dealing with Rand? If an argument can be made for all those things, then too, the same moral principle must be extended to the concerns of the Seanchan in dealing with the Power that Broke the World, and has largely been wielded for evil on the show thus far. Can we blame the Seanchan for preferring to lock the perps up rather than put their faith in something like the White Tower, which lets people like Liandrin run around wielding authority and abusing it for the Shadow’s agenda, while teaching girls the so-important skills of filtering water and pervert sex? Whose sole contribution to the eternal fight against the Shadow on the show was to ignore the threat to the Blightborder defenses while tossing potential Dragons Reborn into the Eye of the World and hoping that will make the Last Battle go away?

I don’t agree with the Seanchan solution, because I am an unapologetic moral absolutist.

But Alanna has been portrayed as a voice of reason to this point, and she's being all relativist.

22:58 The one canonical instance of Green sisters camping in a tent, in the whole book series, included Alanna, and made a note of them sitting up late outside the tent chatting with their warders every night.

23:25 WTF is this? Lan is not bonded to Alanna, so far as we know. He has sworn no oaths to her, and has just now stated that legally, he is still Moiraine’s warder. So why are they being all menacing about him leaving. Because the way this group has been depicted so far on the show, the strong subtext here is “We might not have got to rape Steppin, but by the Light, you sure as shit are not getting away.”

Actually, I want to restore Lan’s established proficiency by watching him open a can of whoop ass on these tiresome freaks.

23:36 Sigh. Nightmare. Warders’ dreams are also apparently no longer protected. Not that Sanderson remembered this either…

24:41 Wait, is this actually really happening?

25:08 Fuck this shit. Lan would die before admitting that. And a big huge chunk of this is on Moiraine, for all her shenanigans pushing him away for no discernable reason.

26:27 Why would Rand believe for a moment that Lanfear did anything more than dispel an illusion of her own making?

28:45 “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to talk to one woman about another” – spoken by the far and away nicest and most accommodating of all the women to legitimately love Rand, who encourages his relationships with other women. Because anyone with common sense knows you don’t do this. Rand slipped up and drew that comment, because, as he says, he was not thinking of Min as a woman, much less romantic competition for Elayne or Aviendha. For someone who has actually slept with Rand and is openly asserting her romantic interest in him, this is an utterly moronic request or demand. Book!Rand would view this level of desperation as a fatal weakness that could get a woman he cared about killed. He’d pursue the inquiry with affected skepticism, questioning what she just showed him and fishing for more information. Because that’s what we see him do when Lanfear reveals Elayne’s mother’s situation.

I think the writers are so bound and determined to show the male characters as emotional and not toxically masculine that they are going to do so, whether or not it makes the slightest bit of sense.

30:42 Egwene seems to think, on absolutely no basis whatsoever, that the words she is hearing are a damane repeating what her sul’dam as told her, instead of a sul’dam instructing a damane. If she is actually hearing the latter, she could end up in a lot of trouble for trying to encourage the subject of her teaching.

31:39 Why can an Accepted and a novice say this stuff to Aes Sedai? Do the writers think (No) this makes their characters look smarter or more capable to just repeatedly refuse orders like petulant children and the supposed authority figures give way? Book!Nynaeve would “Yes, Aes Sedai/Mother” her to her heart’s content and then figure out a way to do what she needed to anyway.

Also, why would you send a novice and Accepted, who would automatically be suspected as runaways making up wild stories to excuse their transgression, with the news of Liandrin, instead of an Oath-bound sister reporting it herself? And it’s not my book analysis predicting they would be seen as runaways, that is the conclusion that Ryma leapt to on finding them!

Also, also, pursuant to my first point, having Ryma believe the truth simply because Our Heroines told her so robs them of development by squandering an opportunity to demonstrate or discover powers of persuasion. Most importantly, it utterly violates the most important themes of the series!

But at least the writers don’t have to work so hard.
Not that they had to in the first place, since keeping close to what Jordan already worked out for them would take even less effort.

32:13 How many accomplishments are they going to take from Nynaeve?! Instead of figuring out on her own, with no help, in incredibly adverse circumstances, at great risk to herself and her companion, how to open an a’dam, and then obtaining one to use to infiltrate the kennels, an Aes Sedai Ex Machina just hands her an a’dam in a safehouse she has already prepared and brought them to, after finding them on her own. And not for nothing, but in lab conditions like this, Elayne is the more natural one to figure it out, making Nynaeve’s primary contribution to this part of the story being “I’m not pacing, I’m investigating!”

32:27 If they can speak English, why can’t the write with the actual alphabet? Or just have Moiraine do a voice-over instead of making us read?

32:57 Moiraine has been stilled, she is not shielded, she is not stuck with her bond to Lan on mask. So what does stilling even mean in the arbitrary congruence of show rules for the Power to those of the books?
In the books, it means Moiraine is freed of the Three Oaths, and her bond to Lan has been broken with traumatic effects not much less than her death would inflict. Actually, in the books, there are at least two cases of Warders dropping dead when their bonded sister is stilled, and not nearly as many instances of them doing so at her death. For instance, none of the five warders of the sisters who die in the house on Full Moon street died from the bond, nor Kairen’s at her murder, but Irgain’s and Martine’s did when they were stilled by Rand and burned out, respectively.

So what does being stilled mean for Moriaine? How is this going to be fixed, to wrench her plot closer to the real story? (especially since it seems that they are ignoring what actually happened in Season One, and basing this season’s scripts on the events of Eye of the World instead, on more than one occasion) Because Nynaeve only figured out how to Heal it after a lot of essential build up, ITB, and not until well after Moiraine had become irrelevant to the plot.

33:11 Buttering both sides of the bread just makes a mess! How are you supposed to pick up a sandwich where you do that? And for the record, the sandwich was named after a man who was born in 1719. Well after any equivalent time period in this world. Why did we think it would be cute to have this overgrown child bringing Moiraine a sandwich and referencing his old habit of doing so? What does this do for anything other than forcing their Moiraine slice-of-life backstory fan-fic down our throats? It’s not going make the reveal of him being a Darkfriend more shocking, if that’s the way they go, nor make us regret his death in the Cairhien civil war that may or may not break out (the same political pressures would seem to be in place). The show hasn’t exactly made me invested in seeing what sort of role he plays in the politics of the series going forward, either.

We had interminable and numerous scenes of Moiraine being cold and dismissive toward Lan earlier in the season. And if we were going to give a damn about her relationship to anyone, it would be him. This weenie with a 1920s women’s haircut doesn’t come close.

34:16 Moiraine was busy! Also, sending word to the White Tower does not mean she got it! Remember, show, because I do, that you said she was never in the White Tower! Home was her saddle and the brooding man by her side! We know and Moiraine knows, that she was trying to stop the apocalypse and she has shown not one iota of sentimental attachment to Anvaere or the rest of her family. Since we know that she was really fucking preoccupied with the apocalypse, how are we supposed to take Anvaere’s whinging seriously? Why are we supposed to think Moiraine does?

34:35 On the last two shows I saw Lindsey Duncan on, she waged a covert war of attempted assassinations against a rival woman, tried to cast magic curses on her and her family, seduced her rival's daughter and persuaded the girl to seduce her own brother, and eventually committed suicide, on her rival's doorstep, just because this person spread gossip about her affair with married politician who dumped her as a result. Among the results of her machinations were the assassination of the head of the nation, which was thrown into civil war and her only son killed in battle. On the other show I saw, she advised her boss, the Prime Minister of the UK to commit porcine bestiality live on national TV. Both of these women seemed more reasonable than Anvaere.

Anvaere professes to know and emphatically asserts, that Moiraine loved their father. And yet she keeps demanding “What was so important” that Moiraine was not there for his death. By her own admission, by the facts as she cites them, it would have to be something incredibly important or Moiraine would have come! Why does it matter? You ask this sort of question because you don't believe there was anything important, you ask it rhetorically to accuse the subject of not caring, except she is vehement that Moiraine did care! Either she’s wrong that Moriaine cared a great deal about Dalresin, or it was something so epically important that Moiraine prioritized it over her beloved father! And if it’s that important, why on earth does she think Moiraine will reveal it to someone for whom she has never cared?

Because the writers want to justify Moiraine stupidly blurting out the truth, or want us to feel weally weally bad for her.

35:10 We don’t care what you think about Moiraine, because we know she is trying to save the world and has suffered an unimaginable loss, that, if we are to go by the show’s intermittent bothering to mention it, will also permanently estrange her from the love of her life. Just shut up and get out of the room, Anvaere. Sorry, but the writers dealt you a really shit hand. I was hoping to see you playing Daes Daemar with all the aristocratic cunning Duncan is capable of portraying, but we’re just getting low stakes family drama distracting us from the prophesied champion of the apocalypse and a group of characters suffering or in danger of enslavement.

35:22 Among the numerous female characters assassinated by this adaptation is Moiraine and Anvaere’s mother, a scholarly woman Moiraine loved enough that Dalresin begging her to come to her was a challenge in her test for the shawl. To the extent that Moiraine and her sisters were better or more decent people than Dalresin’s other child, Tarangail, the implied factor is their mother, as Tarangail was born of a political marriage and got the full share of Damodred qualities. But according to Anvaere, their Damodred father was the nice one and the greatest insult, her final parting shot at Moiraine, is that she is just like their mother.

Progressive feminism FTW! If you don’t like the show, you must be racist!

36:44 Are we to take from the letter with the broken seal next to the one Moiraine was trying to compose, that Siuan is publically sending letters to a woman she exiled from the Tower? Only thing I can think is a repeal of her banishment, which would explain why she is trying to write a letter revealing what happened.

I am also curious how Lan’s confession to Alanna got him Siuan’s itinerary and permission to go to her. Where was she, where was he and the Pervert Trio? What are timelines again?

37:45 You know, maybe I should take back what I said about making the characters actually compose a persuasive argument. I don’t think the writers are capable of it. And in spite of this, they put the characters in situations where they need to, and fail, but get what they want anyway. All they had to do was have Logain reluctantly acquiesce to Rand’s demand, because we know Moiraine has already made that bargain with him. Fine, Logain is trying see if he can weasel something else out of Rand. He’s a dick, that’s canon. But now you have Rand making this nonsensical appeal to his legacy, and an intelligent steelmanning of this scene has Logain mentally rolling his eyes, and going along with this idiot bumpkin, because he really doesn’t have any other choice and has already made his deal with Moiraine.

The end result of this whole exchange is Our Hero looks like a chump.

Again.

I know there are theories that this is on purpose in the case of the men, but they are clearly doing it by accident to the women, so who can even tell which they are trying to do and which are they doing by incompetence.

38:18 Are they going to have the women surrendering to the Power as in canon, now that they have established that a male channeler must seize the Source and take control?

And how can Logain tell Rand is taking too much? He also claimed to have sensed Rand’s ability to channel, a month after Logain himself had been gentled.

Remind me again what it means that Moiraine has been stilled?

39:03 So now Rand, determined to avoid all his friends for their own protection, turns around and walks down the street to where he hears Mat’s voice.

Since we’re being all consistent and stuff, Mat was not formally told of Rand’s death, because he was imprisoned in Tar Valon, but also Liandrin was reading the letters from Perrin to the girls which IIRC implied as much. But we know Liandrin was editing them, and we know Mat’s supposed to be at least a little clever in his approach to breaking out, even if Liandrin was on top of it, so how much does he trust what she read him? He showed no real interest in saying goodbye to the girls when he left.

I have no idea what it means that Rand and Mat are about to reunite. They spent most of their travel time belittling, and arguing with, one another, but then Rand took his part in the arguments about him in Fal Dara.

39:14 Who or what is this “God” one of the gamblers just invoked (and the captions confirm he said)?

39:34 I guess this is another case of “Eh, fuck season 1, just go with EotW.”

39:46 Who or what is this “Light” you are each invoking? Might a potential “God” be annoyed at your apostasy?

39:58 I guess Mat didn’t believe anything Liandrin read, since he seems to think everyone would be hanging around with Rand, instead of training in the White Tower or writing letters to friends in the Tower that imply Perrin believes Rand is dead.

40:16 Genitalia are invoked pejoratively. Because sex is icky in our progressive new setting.

40:26 +Sigh+ Okay, now why can only “some” of their damane sense when a woman is channeling, and not all of them, as every woman who can channel can? Hell, every person who can channel can sense when a woman is channeling! Or did they mean sul’dam instead of damane ?

41:44 How did Ryma get the ring of the Blue Sitter who was collared? And what exactly were the logistics of getting their hands on an a’dam, with two sisters getting killed and another collared, while Ryam managed to escape with a collar she does not know how to open? Just how well can an Aes Sedai fight when they are aware the Seanchan are not interested in killing them, and thus, combat against the Seanchan does not remotely count as “the last extreme in defense of my life”? Plus they would have had to dismember the damane wearing that collar. The answer is, they almost certainly forgot.

45:18 How do the writers of this show not understand the properties of water? First Alanna has trouble believing that ice was once water, and now Renna tells Egwene to turn steam into fire. Steam is water. It is not fire. They are the exact opposite, from a classical elements, or Five Powers, perspective.

47:00 Overall, that was a pretty decent scene. Up until the end, when Renna started whaling on Egwenefor no reason. Again, the deal with the Seanchan is that they are very competent, and have established procedures and protocols that they follow, because these are proven methods. Having Renna just lose her shit and beat her damane physically, rather than use the a’dam to give her pain, not to mention visibly getting agitated, is incompetent training.

But there are a lot of elements in the fandom for whom any depiction of the Seanchan as competent, even to build them up as antagonists to the heroes, grinds their gears.

47:21 “Why are you risking everything for someone you barely know?”
“Well, you see, Nynaeve, there just aren’t that many women out there who will take my retarded brother off my hands…”

49:06 This is almost book!Mat. Except he wouldn’t put it like that, he’d be complaining about Rand making him go.

49:23 Up and at ‘em Prax Min! You’ve got some traveling to do. This is such a better story than her doing her best to comfort a friend in captivity and facilitating her friend’s escape plan by bringing various people she knew together.

What is our investment in a Darkfriend again?

51:25 Okay, Mat is clever, but how did he get all that from Prax Min saying she saw him kill Rand in a viewing?

51:50 Are us readers supposed to infer “If you love him stay away” is why Prax Min isn’t joining them? Or does her viewing last season of “three beautiful women” exclude her by definition?

52:43 By marrying an established, ruling queen, Barthanes, whose family was so recently in such ruin that his mom had to beg for leftovers, takes over the country as jure uxoris king. This setting just gets more and more feminist every day.

There is the outside chance that king merely means a consort instead of ruler, as queen does in real life, but they have done none of the work to establish that, or make us think so for any but metatextual reasons.

53:08 Powerful people do not ask, request, or demand audiences with social inferiors, much less their professional subordinates. Not WoT lore, human interactions and the English language.

53:21 Did we just drag every Aes Sedai with lines out of the Tower for this scene? How much time has elapsed while Moiraine finished that letter, that the Amyrlin would make a detour to Tar Valon, pick up all these sisters last seen there, and then travel overland to Cairhien? Because we cut from Moiraine addressing her latest draft, to Lan intercepting Siuan on the road. Seriously. What are timelines?

And what is the purpose of this? Is it all about Twue Wuv?

53:36 Okay, so they came from the Tower to meet Siuan in Cairhien. I guess she was equidistant to the city from them, or far enough away to get to a point equidistant from the city by the time word got from her to Tar Valon. Just very impressive coordination without any form of telecommunications. Not sure if it’s better or worse then a detour.

Also, does Liandrin have a loose hinge in her neck, swiveling it around like that? It’s like she’s a cat following a laser pointer while trying to talk to Siuan.

54:12 Why does Mat have such blind faith in Min’s viewings? No one except maybe Rand or Elayne would react this way to Min seeing their own actions, however counterintuitive. And they’d ignore the warning, because both of them trust her viewings and don’t believe they can evade them, so why avoid their friend or loved one when it won’t make any difference?

57:03 So the dismemberment of Rand’s leadership arc from tGH is that Perrin gets the setup with Ingtar, but exercises no leadership over anyone at all, and Nynaeve gets the “it’s up to you, now” parting scene, but with Ryma, and with no setup that gave Rand & Ingtar’s moment such weight.

57:08 Got nothin’ to say to that cracka bitch.

58:10 Just a suggestion, have the Warder lie low, so that he can lead the rescue party to her location once she’s taken, hmmm? ITB Egwene encounters Ryma in captivity, so it might actually help them find her, too.

58:07 Maybe it’s seeing Prax Min, but in that last shot, Basan looked like Fred Johnson.

58:45 Nope, Basan’s just going to die pointlessly. Which undermines the otherwise nice characterization going on here with Ryma.

59:04 Was that a trick or just bad direction? Basan takes a near-miss from a fireball the damane shot, then suddenly he is behind Ryma, walks around in front of her and they make One Power eye contact. Is this an illusion or something to keep him alive?
Based on what comes next, incompetent fight direction.

59:30 How is this at all productive? How does hanging Egwene get her to obey or break her of her hostility?

59:41 Dying on your feet instead of living on your knees for a few days, knowing that a rescue op is in the offing, and there are other victims your survival could help save, is not remotely cool, badass or principled, Ryma.

1:00:19 Wow, she’s even worse. She got Basan killed, futilely, rather than suffer to help someone else.

1:00:41 Ryma, allegedly bound by the Three Oaths, is killing a woman she knows to be a victim, to prevent herself from being taken alive. This. Should. Not. Happen.

And her shrieking emotional outburst does not make her look cool or pitiable, just contemptible, for killing someone so brutally, for something that’s more or less all her fault.

1:03:19 Hey remember last season, when they totally destroyed Nynaeve’s backstory anecdote, all to repurpose it in order to demonstrate that Egwene is “indestructible”? How’d that work out? Looks kind of destructible right here…

I know in the conventions of modern genre adaptations and sequels, women start out awesome and stay that way, and the story is a progression of people realizing and accepting this as she gains accolades, titles and accomplishments, without ever learning anything other than how powerful she always was, but there is a reason that it has traditionally been preferable to build a character up to their ultimate state, rather than simply asserting it exists when they have barely heard the Call to Adventure.

1:03:57 See! We can’t even go a whole minute without someone reaffirming how awesome Egwene is.

I mean, based on what we see of them in the books, I would not take bettering a Sitter for the Blue Ajah as much of an accomplishment. Rank does not equate to character, either.

1:04:09 Liars!

Two episodes to go. What's the story of this season? Besides Egwene, what the arcs of the actual main characters from the series? Perrin gets to wolfbrother, but what about all the other episodes? Mat ... exists. Rand had a channeling lesson. He hooked up with Lanfear and now it looks like he has a makeup date for his audience with the Amyrlin that never happened. And what mechanic are they going to use to get Mat back into the plot? Is he going to help Rand get away from the Aes Sedai or something? Are we going to get another month-long time jump for the two of them to get to Falme? What are Nynaeve and Elayne going to do all that time if they do?

It's not like there is any point really in speculating. They generally don't feel constrained by such arbitrary standards as logical character progression, coherent story development, the books, or making sense.