#jain farstrider

[wot-tidbits]

#wheel of time #wot meme #jain farstrider

[sparklyeevee]

Okay, so

Simple, three letter, single syllable names are very rare in WoT, except for Andoran commoners

Lan Mandragoran is not an Andoran commoner

Yeah technically it's al'Lan, but the al' part is a title, not really part of his name.

The Malkieri were the last holdouts on using bynames (e.g. Jain Farstrider, Cowin Fairheart), and afaict the only Westlands culture confirmed to do so after the War of the Hundred Years, so clearly the notion of a person's name changing throughout their life was not unknown to them.

Malkier was farther north even than the rest of the Borderlands, and firmly located in the mountains, meaning it was likely cold AF in the winter and probably had a relatively high infant mortality rate.

Lan means "prized" or "beloved" in the Old Tongue

Guys, I think "Lan" is a milk name. Something you call a baby until it's old enough for a real name. Isam has an actual name, so I'd hazard they do it at a year old, but Malkieri culture being what it is, it was probably his mother's right to name him, only el'Leanna was dead, and none of the five men who made it to safety with baby Lan felt like it was their place to do so.

#wheel of time #wot #lan mandragoran #wheel of time book spoilers

[highladyluck]

My top Wheel of Time career goals:

Ter’angreal researcher/developer

First new person on the moon in thousands of years

Torm rider

Jain Farstrider

Scrap miner for Age of Legends artifacts

#wheel of time #wot book spoilers #personal #some of these are mutually contradictory #none of these are realistic goals #I’m a farmer or shopkeeper or at best a clerk

[markantonys]

wot 1x05-8 Rewatch Now That I’ve Read The Books thoughts! book spoilers ahead

i was never more attracted to mat than i was in this one scene of him looking evil and sick in his cloak with his hood up. me and rand shaking hands on being into evil men

rand is such a baby when they arrive in the big city awwww

and we get to the greatest betrayal of modern cinema: when rand and mat enter the inn room and it looks like there’s only one bed, but then the camera angle switches to reveal a second bed!!! heartbreaking

haha i love this scene with moiraine and nynaeve where moiraine’s trying to give her advice about the tower. moiraine is such a fond mom and nynaeve is having absolutely none of it.

the glorious momentary ot3 that was egwene/perrin/aram

rand says that egwene thought she was “jain farstrider herself reincarnated” is this just a shaky word order and it actually means egwene thought that she herself was (male) jain farstrider reincarnated, or do we have female jain farstrider in this verse? also, i feel like egwene (even if she was very young and perhaps not fully understanding of how the wheel works at the time) thinking that she could be jain reincarnated implies that jain has been dead for a long long time, thus sealing the nail in the coffin of the chances of noal making it to the show (not that i ever thought he would)

i like the change of it being egwene instead of rand who was obsessed with that book. it fits with egwene wanting to see the world and have adventures but rand being happy with his little farm and his everyday life!

The Cauthor Promise!!! i hope this will come up again in the future now that they know rand is tdr - i could totally see rand asking mat to fulfill that promise and kill him and mat being unnerved by this behavior. i’m also very curious how mat finding out rand is tdr will go down in the show since he’s now the only one of the ef5 who doesn’t know (although egwene, perrin, and nynaeve were too busy fearing the immediate danger to rand’s life to have yet reacted to the long-term implications of him being tdr). on the one hand, i could imagine that mat having spent so long fearing HE was tdr, and knowing that rand feared the same thing and still never considered leaving him, would make him more empathetic towards rand and more willing to repay the favor and stick by his side. on the other, wouldn’t it be a gutpunch if rand said “no matter what happens i’m here” to mat when they thought mat was tdr and then mat reacted completely the opposite way upon finding out it’s rand?

also wondering if mat’s memory loss might come into play here. maybe he forgets being afraid that he was tdr and rand supporting him through it, or maybe he forgets this promise they made to each other. i’m definitely expecting the show to milk mat’s memory loss more than the books did - mat was always complaining about holes in his memory but he never actually seemed to be missing anything important, so i think the show will make his memory loss more impactful and tragic in order to beef up his motivation to mess around with a dangerous object of the Power in order to get his memories back. what if he forgets his sisters???? 😭😭

i say this all the time but boy, will galad joining the show!whitecloaks be a hard sell. they did make a distinction between regular whitecloaks and questioners back in episode 2, and showed that regular whitecloaks are less extreme given that guy’s willingness to tell moiraine to seek out aes sedai healing, but i didn’t really pick up on that until this watch knowing from the books that that distinction exists, so to a show-only viewer it definitely was not enough to override the overall impression that all whitecloaks are like valda. and as you guys know, this deeply colored my opinion of galad in the books!

when egwene was clapping back at valda MAN i saw shades of egwene owning elaida in the dinner scene!!! i can’t wait to see what madeleine madden does in future seasons!

interesting that liandrin notes that while the aes sedai are a super powerful all-women organization, there are plenty of other areas of the world where men are in charge. take that, male readers who insist that randland is a whole matriarchy just because women have more power than men among one small segment of the population (channelers).

one of my favorite examples of “non-readers are more observant than some readers think”: after nynaeve’s story about egwene’s fever when she was young, i was thinking “ooh i wonder if nynaeve healed her with the power then without realizing it” only to go online and see readers complaining that that story was repurposed to showcase egwene’s strengths when in the books it was meant to show that nynaeve had healed her with the power without realizing it. i can’t speak to whether the show truly *intended* people to get that impression from the story, but at least one non-reader was able to make that conclusion based on the information the show had provided up to that point!

time for forsaken speculation! i was hoping to analyze all the statues and see if i could figure out who they all were, but yeah, i got nothing lmao all i know is that there are 8 total and it seems to be 4 men and 4 women. so let’s make some guesses based on those numbers!

the women: i feel pretty confident that it will be lanfear, graendal, moghedien, and semirhage. mesaana's activities would be the easiest to be absorbed by another forsaken or cut altogether, and she simply is far less memorable and iconic than the others. lanfear, graendal, and moghedien are all shown to be talented with TAR, and all of them are alive and have an Activity Gap around the time that mesaana is most relevant. i don’t really think that graendal would vibe with infiltrating the white tower (or maybe that’s just what she would want me to think!), but i could easily see either lanfear or moghedien. and seeing as both of them don’t do much during the last battle and their endgame fates are respectively TAR defeat and seanchan enslavement, it’d be easy to sub one of them in as egwene’s adversary who gets defeated in her pre-last-battle TAR battle (if that makes the show). i could also see making just the black ajah responsible for the strife in the tower and not an actual forsaken.

the men: ishamael ofc, and demandred, sammael, rahvin, and asmodean will duke it out for the final 3 spots. this is harder to say who could be easiest to cut, so let’s weigh our options.

demandred: it would be pretty easy to cut him since he’s only really relevant in AMOL, and they could just axe shara altogether and say that that continent doesn’t even exist in this verse. and then taim could be the one to wreak havoc on the battlefield and kill gawyn, which would make egwene’s killing of taim feel much more like poetic cinema. however, demandred is my favorite forsaken and i don’t want him to be cut! there’s also the real possibility that the show will go for taimandred since the books set it up so perfectly and didn’t follow through, so that would be a good way to keep demandred in the show and bulk up his role in the earlier seasons.

sammael: the most obvious solution would be to merge him and demandred since they have the same personality of being obsessed with/jealous of LTT, and demandred is the gucci to sammael’s walmart in that respect, so if one of them had to go i would want it to be sammael. another reason to cut sammael is that it’s basically just a quicker and less emotionally significant version of rahvin’s defeat. the moridin/balefire thing could happen with rahvin in caemlyn and we could just axe sammael and illian.

rahvin: i think that caemlyn being under control of a forsaken is too crucial to cut, as caemlyn is a Home Base and thus this plotline has tons of significance to a number of main characters, namely elayne, rand, and gawyn. (i do kinda think morgase will actually be killed by rahvin in the show since she doesn’t make any huge plot contributions for the rest of the series, and her actually being dead will give more weight to gawyn’s hatred of rand (i initially typed “rand’s hatred of rand” because my brain was ahead of my fingers and then was like okay that wasn’t actually what i meant but it’s true) as well as elayne’s arc of coming into her own as a leader without relying on her mom. plus the show will probably want to cut down on the number of characters wherever it can for the sake of streamlining/simplifying the story and saving money on actors.) and the forsaken who is holding caemlyn getting balefired by rand also feels pretty important, as that’s his first Real Big Balefire Use and also lays the groundwork for “not even the dark one can bring back a balefired forsaken, so we should balefire all of them,” so this would preclude that forsaken being able to crop up later on in the story and take on someone else’s activities. so i do feel that this plotline doesn’t have leeway like the other male forsaken’s do, and thus rahvin will have to stay.

asmodean: potentially controversial statement, but i think asmodean would be easy to cut. he’s important for only 1.5 books, and the only thing he does is teach rand how to use saidin, which any other male channeler could do. sammael and rahvin are busy at this time, so demandred could teach rand and then disappear mysteriously and reappear later in the series. however, it would be difficult to explain why demandred would be willing to teach rand since he’s not a lame ass coward like asmodean. the other option which i think could really work is that taim enters the story earlier and teaches rand, which would be a natural lead-in to rand giving him control of teaching the asha’man. or rand could just not have a teacher at all until he starts learning from LTT. but it IS a really fun and interesting dynamic to have rand and a forsaken working together ish, and pretty unique in the series, so it would be a shame if this was cut or if the teaching role was given to the ostensibly-not-evil taim. UPDATE: one of the statues has a little guitar, so asmodean has definitely made it into the show.

overall, i would most want sammael to be cut and am leaning towards it as the most likely, but i think demandred is also a real possibility, and asmodean would be easy to cut but they probably won’t since he has such a unique role in the story compared to the rest of the villains.

will anything ever be more romantic than rand pulling a sword he doesn’t know how to use on a full ass aes sedai and warder to protect mat?

if i hadn’t already been spoiled that rand was tdr at this point in my first watch i FULLY would’ve believed they were setting up dragon mat and warder rand. the vibes are there!!!!! rand and lan having a warder faceoff to defend their respective channelers!!!

“bless his heart he tries” rand al’thor: a summary

rand looks like such a confused, scared puppy after the exorcism, i just wanna wrap him in blankets!

i wonder if the rand-moiraine convo was filmed post-barney’s-departure in order to set up the whole “moiraine not trying too hard to grab mat through the waygate since she thinks he’d choose the shadow if he was the dragon and went to the eye” thing. i think it probably had to be, or if it wasn’t, then they unintentionally set that up perfectly!

prayer circle for Elayne Bath Scenes in future seasons. they are an integral part of her character and of my enjoyment of the story!

i love the contrast between rand (and nynaeve) hiding out for days trying to avoid moiraine and keep her from finding out mat has something weird going on vs. egwene telling her all about perrin’s eyes and the wolves as soon as she sees her. really illustrates the different levels of trust they have in moiraine specifically and sets up that growing divide in their levels of trust of aes sedai in general.

no life, no love of one’s own, nothing but the seat.................the amyrlin not being allowed to date in the show verse has fascinating and delicious implications for gawene!! not to MENTION that “a wisdom never weds” and egwene having to choose between her personal and professional desires right off the bat in 1x01 now becomes foreshadowing. i think that this change (if i’m right in interpreting that line as meaning it is Genuinely Forbidden for amyrlins to have romantic relationships?) will be another instance of adding more weight and depth to a character/relationship. i personally always enjoyed egwene and gawyn’s relationship struggles and found both sides sympathetic, but i know most of you think gawyn is just being a brat about his girlfriend having more power than him (but that’s not true okay! it’s HARD to date the wizard pope!), so if this layer were to be added, wherein gawyn is not only struggling with dating the wizard pope but also with the fact that he can only have a relationship with her if he keeps it a secret from everybody, it would bolster up his side of the conflict because that WOULD be a lot for egwene to ask of him. just as her putting her job at risk to have that secret relationship would be a lot for him to ask of her. and so it will be all the more romantic when they both decide fuck it let’s make this work!

ok here ends my homophobic moment of making a moiraine/siuan scene all about egwene/gawyn, sorry everybody (no i’m not, i fucking love gawene man)

egwene looking at the amyrlin seat!!!!!! 😭❤️

still can’t get over the PERFECT acting that is egwene’s face journey during “you’re the strongest channeler we’ve seen in a thousand years..............nynaeve al’meara” djfkgj iconic!! i love her your honor!! and nynaeve is also perfect in this scene!

really curious to see how moiraine’s exile oath will come into play later! that’s the joy of the show inventing new plotlines, we readers still have fun surprises waiting for us! although i suppose moiraine never goes anywhere close to tar valon in the books again, so it may not be relevant anyway.

haha now i can see why people fussed about the oath rod being used for this purpose and wondered what the fuck the teleportation painting is and how it works (a ter’angreal whose original intended purpose is unknown, i assume), but i just do not care about lore/magic system rules and will never mind the show bending rules or inventing new ones, for the most part. i guess the abusing of the oath rod - i.e. it being used for something besides the 3 oaths and only the 3 oaths - does become important later in the books, but christ alive i hope they cut the black ajah hunters subplot from the show.

moiraine going “at first i didn’t trust you, but now that i know you, i...............[changes the subject]” is SO iconic jkdjfgh

me @ certain readers re: the opening of waygates: SHUT UP ABOUT AVENDESORA LEAVES!!! SHUT UP ABOUT AVENDESORA LEAVES!!!

who caaaaaaaaaares if channeling can also open waygates. i literally didn’t even remember about the leaves in the books until i saw people complaining about their absence in the show recently. and waygates are barely relevant after book 2 anyway! plus, rafe did say that the leaves opening waygates is still canon in the show and will likely be shown in s2.

baby rand’s anguished little face when he realizes mat stayed behind!!!! i’ll never get over it!!!!!

and [perrin watching the ferryman voice] he’s gone

even after having read the books, i have 0 problem with mat dipping here. a) the actor left so What Else could they do, and this was a very smooth way to write him out of the last 2 episodes all things considered. they unintentionally set it up really well in earlier episodes with mat wanting to return home to his sisters, especially 3 and the convo with dana. my coworker who watched the show but hadn’t read the books was surprised when i explained this behind the scenes info to him because mat staying behind came off like a planned plot beat to him. b) it will make even more sense if they say in season 2 that mat’s still connected to the dagger and it was drawing him back to tar valon to find it. c) so what if mat isn’t the perfect “hero who says he’s not a hero but always does the right thing” already in s1? this will give him an opportunity for character development! which it sounds like they are indeed going for in s2 based on donal’s comments about mat’s s2 character arc. and d) eotw mat is a little bitchboy who absolutely would have dipped if moiraine and/or rand hadn’t kept him on a toddler leash at all times.

1x07 cold open!!!!! incredible showstopping spectacular!!!!! absolutely the best action sequence of the season and one of the best scenes overall. it sets the bar SO HIGH for aiel as warriors, and i absolutely can’t wait to see more in future seasons. imagine ayoola as aviendha fighting like that...........i am so ready to thirst 🥵

and i love what a repudiation of the Martyred Mother Of The Chosen One trope tigraine is. she is in the books too, i suppose, but actually seeing her fight onscreen and die violently of battle wounds rather than pass away beautifully and tragically in childbirth hits different than reading it.

people who complained about her not being veiled the whole time are so silly. if anything, it’s actually MORE impactful to see that rule broken here - she had her veil off, she didn’t want to fight, she was just looking for a safe place to give birth, and her attackers gave her no choice but to keep on fighting without even having time to pull her veil back up.

rand’s inner Mat Stan #1 comes out in full force!! his “he wants to fuck mat so bad it makes him look stupid” episode! the way this episode served so much cauthor when mat wasn’t even in it! man, rand’s sense of abandonment by mat hurts so good. they trauma-bonded so hard while traveling alone together for all that time and then mat LEFT and rand feels adrift!!!

rand vs. moiraine and egwene re: mat in this episode is literally “you don’t know all the facts” “which are?” “i love him” bless his HEART!!!!!! it’s giving “oh, mat kidnapped you, seanchan empress? well, i’m sure he had a good reason.”

i looooooove the change to machin shin! give me personalized psychological torment that sheds light on each character’s deepest insecurities over generic spooky talk of blood and gore any day! and of course it ends up being a really good vehicle for the reveal of rand being tdr.

egwene gifted child impostor syndrome you are so important to me!!!!!

nynaeve apeshit power blasts you are so important to me!!!!! i’ve watched the season 3 times by now and every single time i tear up both at this one and the episode 4 one.

amalisa’s tower backstory was a great addition! it tells us a bit more about how the tower works, hinting that becoming a full aes sedai is difficult and lots of women try but aren’t cut out for it, and also sets her up to have enough experience to lead the circle in the next episode, but also too little experience to keep from getting power-drunk and burning herself and the other women out.

“there is a man they must find. a boy, really.” you didn’t have to come for mat’s life like that moiraine djkfjg you’re already siccing the red ajah on him! i am SO excited to see where this plotline goes. i think it’s pretty safe to say that mat will have a traumatic experience at the hands of the reds (and we know from descriptions of that scene they’ve been showing at cons that at least part of his time at the tower is spent in a cell and suspecting that liandrin wants to kill him) and this will inform his fear of the power, which is a crucial aspect of his character, but one that i always felt was NOT sufficiently explained in the books, at all. like yeah, the power would be scary to any non-channeler, but no one else makes it a whole personality trait like mat does lmao. bonus points if moiraine sending the reds after him is learned by rand and becomes a wedge of mistrust between him and moiraine, since by the end of 1x08 he has a much more trusting and positive attitude towards her than he ever does in books 1-5.5, and it would probably be important for both character arcs that the mistrust be maintained in the show (tho i would also love if they just did not do that and had them be mentor-mentee besties for the next few seasons. a girl can dream!)

“what is it? mat?” egwene notices that rand’s upset and, despite the fact that they all went through psychological torment an hour ago, her FIRST thought is that he’s upset because of mat leaving 🥺 matrandgwene V (with rand in the middle and sibling-spouses mat and egwene) is SUCH a good polycule actually

min.........................................................

brace yourself for a long rambling section!

min is 10000000000000% my BIGGEST regret about reading the books! she is so cool and funny and chill and respectful of other people’s privacy in the show, and my opinion of her was neutral to positive, and then the books made me despise her! and i’m fairly confident that most of the things i most hate about her in the books will not be a thing in the show (her changing herself for rand and insisting on dressing in a way she finds uncomfortable but thinks he would find sexy (and she never realizes that he already liked her the way she used to dress and behave), her possessiveness of him and unwillingness to share when elayne and avi are totally selfless and onboard, her using her viewing to bully them into letting her have a piece of their pie (to use her own gross metaphor), the way she puts way less effort into setting up the polycule than elayne and avi do yet gets to reap all the rewards while they get almost no time with rand, her utter lack of storyline, character arc, personality, interests, or goals outside of Being Rand’s Girlfriend, etc etc etc) and so i most likely would never ever have had a problem with show!min if i’d never read the books.

that being said, i still don’t have a problem with show!min - when i sit back and enjoy her scenes in a vacuum. but the second that thoughts of book!min start worming their way into my mind, i become arthur clenching fist meme djkfjg luckily, this min is so vastly different from my detested book!min that it’s pretty easy to separate the two *while i’m watching*. once i stop watching and go back to my regularly scheduled programming WOT Thoughts, book!min takes over again and i hate the character again. i’m really hoping that by the time min becomes a bigger player in the show, it’ll have been long enough since i read the books that show!min will be able to take over as my mind’s primary min - show!perrin already went right back to being my mind’s primary perrin (and many/most other characters too, but using perrin as the example since i disliked him in the books but am fond of him in the show), so hopefully the same will happen with show!min when we have her for more than 3 scenes. of course, i had significant enough show!perrin screentime before meeting his book counterpart that he was able to maintain a hold on me throughout, and i never HATED book!perrin like i hate book!min, mostly just found him annoying/boring.

going along with the min and perrin comparisons, i saw a good post once explaining how show!perrin is the person that book!perrin claims to be but isn’t i.e. genuinely thoughtful and slow to act, while book!perrin claims he is but then often blurts out other people’s secrets and flies off the handle, etc. and the narrative doesn’t really feel intentional about this disconnect between How Perrin Sees Himself and How Perrin Actually Behaves in the same way that it does for mat and nynaeve. the same is true for book!min. she claims to be a mature and worldly woman, a jaded city slicker, someone who minds her own business and never spills other people’s business around, someone far too sensible to throw her life away and become a fool for a man. but in reality, book!min is a fairly naive and inexperienced girl from a tiny backwater “city” (large town) who constantly blabs other people’s secrets and shares viewings about a person with people who aren’t that person and starts acting like a 14-year-old with her first boyfriend once she decides to pursue rand and gives up her entire life to follow him around and curl her hair and dress “sexy” for him. and the narrative never acknowledges this disconnect.

show!min, though? she hits every point on the first list in reality, not just in her own head. she is actually a mature and worldly woman from a big city (and she comes off as enough older/more mature than rand that her going “but he’s too young for me!” would actually be believable, unlike book!min who’s like 2 years older than him and way less mature), she’s a jaded and sensible customer service worker who is Done With Your Shit, and there’s no way THIS min would sacrifice every scrap of her own dignity just to get rand to sleep with her. there is also no way that rand will be her first time having sex, that was one of the most unbelievable parts of the books lmao rj’s own No Sex Until Marriage (or until you’re with the person who will end up being your life partner) cultural underpinnings came through too strongly for every single character except mat. anyway, show!min even says “people’s secrets are their business, no one else’s” when the gang goes into the bar in 1x08 to ask her what she told moiraine about rand and then actually holds her ground and succeeds in not telling them anything, and i was like wow book!min could Never!! and unless i’m misunderstanding her later scene with rand, she actually did know that he was tdr (or at least the ~Special One~ moiraine was looking for) in that first scene but DID NOT TELL moiraine and instead waited for rand to come to her on his own so she could tell him in private and let HIM decide what to do with the information. book!min could never!

and the fact that Certain Readers whined about her casting and claimed that she’s ~too old~ and ~not hot enough~ (and not white enough lbr) already tells me that the show is taking her in the right direction, i.e. they’re not just gonna go for Sexy Lamp Hero’s Girlfriend Min using the most conventionally attractive (but still Tomboyish And Not Like Other Girls, In A Sexy Way) actress they could find. and thank god for that!! kae alexander brings so much more personality to min in 3 scenes than she ever had in 14 books, and she is so HOT god! if the show can make ME thirsty for min and make certain book!min lovers complain that she isn’t hot, then you know it’s doing something right!

it’s probably the queer vibes that are turning me onto her and certain straight male book!min lovers off of her, isn’t it lmao book!min is arguably more painfully heterosexual than book!perrin (at least he has the occasional mildly homoerotic moment with rand) but show!min gives off IMMENSE queer vibes. i could definitely see the show making her date elayne and/or avi in addition to rand! (and of course elayne and avi dating each other is basically a guarantee.) i also am 90% sure i remember rafe saying something about “people with no gender” in the context of romance and queer relationships in the show (i think it was the q&a where avi’s casting was revealed) which made me wonder if we could perhaps get canon nonbinary min? although i think she’s referred to as a woman in these episodes. still, maybe she could have a lil arc where being forced to be elmindreda in the tower makes her realize Why she’s so uncomfortable with wearing dresses and being treated as female. who knows! this is just wild speculation on my part, but i so would love to see it.

okay so WHAT IS THIS RAND BABY VIEWING????? that does Not look like a randlayne or avirand baby!!! that better not be a rand/min baby!!! i find it incredibly hard to believe that the show, with its progressive attitudes, would pull THIS level of Babies Ever After, by making one of the few women who doesn’t end up having babies or ever show much interest in having babies in the books (bar a couple “oooooh i wonder if rand will knock ME up too!” comments that always felt forced and ooc to me) end up having a baby. my only hesitation is that if they were to split the polycule up into rand/min and elayne/avi, then maaaaaybe min might get the Dragon Reborn’s Babymama arc? but i do have a very hard time seeing the show go that route (esp since the 3 women viewing and the blueprint of alanna’s polycule and rafe’s comments about polyamory in the show seem to be a preeeeeetty good indicator that he’s intending to keep the polycule, though i won’t FULLY stop being nervous until i see it with my own eyes lmao) and elayne’s pregnancy is pretty important to HER arc, specifically, in large part due to the viewing making her take bigger risks (and one could also argue that her pregnancy is politically important during the succession in that it gives her the stability of having heirs already on the way), so i don’t think they could/would cut that or give it to min instead. but if not a rand/min baby, then what the fuck is that baby viewing all about???? i remember on one of my book recaps somebody speculated that it’s a Metaphorical rand/min baby, i.e. it’s the viewing that tells min she’s going to fall in love with rand, but the baby is just a symbol of their future romantic connection rather than a literal baby that they’re going to have together. i could buy that! though i think if that was indeed the intention, it could lead to a lot of false expectations from viewers that rand is gonna knock up min at some point. or maybe the baby is a metaphorical baby that has nothing to do with any of rand’s love interests? hit me with your baby viewing interpretations!

speaking of min’s viewings, it’s interesting that they seem to be much more abundant here than in the books - she has multiple quips about how she knew someone was about to come into the bar. of course, they could just be quips, but at least one of them (when she says “you’re gonna want to move” to a patron just before the gang storms in in episode 8) does seem to be a genuine glimpse of the future, as that patron has no idea about her gift, unlike moiraine and rand, so she wouldn’t be making a joke to him about it. it could also be just some small, comedic dialogue meant more for the audience, just to illustrate that Hey, She Can See The Future, rather than a real indication that she is actually having THAT many viewings. i will keep an eye on this in future seasons!

and we get to The Fight!!!!! time to pull up the diagram i made upon first watch of that scene, which i still stand by and can’t wait to add to when more characters enter the mix (my only edit is that mat is Definitely in love with perrin, not just maybe a little bit):

marcus rutherford, you did NOT have to get right up in josha’s face and stare at his mouth while saying “the only WOMAN i’ve ever loved was my wife,” but you did and we’re all grateful for it. inspired.

also rand goes to BAT for mat here, damn okay!!! he is like “egwene you’re my girlfriend but you do NOT talk shit about my boyfriend”! he just comes out with a whole ass essay about how wonderful mat is when literally nobody asked! in all seriousness, this is, of course, rand projecting about a hell of a lot of things. but also he loves mat.

on a rewatch, there were definitely signs in 1x01 that perrin had a crush on egwene, although i didn’t pick up on them at all during my first watch. and while i remember being initially disappointed and annoyed that they pulled this twist when i’d been so enjoying perrin and egwene as a rare example of a deep but purely platonic m/f relationship, i think that the fallout of the fight goes on to show that it’s really Not That Big A Deal and wasn’t intended to be. when rand and egwene are making up, they immediately brush the perrin situation aside - it wasn’t even remotely the real reason that either of them were upset during that scene. then in the next episode, perrin shows no jealousy of egwene saying she loves rand and even says that he loves him too, and the two of them have a making up moment that’s just as sweet and platonic as all their past interactions were. at most, i think perrin had a teenage crush on egwene and perhaps was initially with laila to get over her, but grew to truly love laila in a deeper way than he’d ever felt for egwene, but laila still knew about the crush and felt jealous (she does say “i know” when perrin tells her he loves her and to me it felt like she was being truthful, like she really does know that perrin really does love her and she acknowledges that but can’t help feeling jealous anyway), and so of course perrin would feel guilty about it and laila’s death compounded that guilt. tldr: perrin’s crush on egwene did exist at one point or does still exist, but it’s a small background piece of his guilt over laila’s death and on its own is almost as unimportant to him as it is to egwene and rand.

that hysterical and angry and hurt and tearful laugh josha does in this scene? boy oh boy, i can’t wait to see him take on taint-influenced rand!

what’s more iconic than nynaeve stirring up drama between the other three and then peacing out to go get some dick? queen shit! good for her!

hilarious that on first watch i was like “aww i wish it had been a slower burn” when lanaeve slept together and then i read the books and it turns out their eotw pacing makes their s1 pacing look glacial

but i’m glad they fucked and that the show did away with nynaeve’s shame surrounding sex! it broke my heart in WH when she had some thought about how she was too embarrassed to talk to HER OWN HUSBAND about sex or something like that. and the show very much can still do the arc of lan trying to push her away For Her Own Good even though they’ve already had sex - in fact, that will make lan’s guilt over ~giving into temptation~ and giving nynaeve false hope for a future together and nynaeve’s hurt and frustration over him pushing her away hit all the harder.

randgwene my beloveds 😭😭😭 “i will always stand by you, you know that. no matter what happens. no matter what comes.” 😭😭😭😭 i am going to make so many randgwene in s1 vs. later seasons gifsets someday, i just know it.

rand: do you think i’d let someone else be your warder? gawyn:

i love that we never see nynaeve with one fewer stitch of clothing, but the post-coital scene opens on her rebraiding her hair, and for her that’s an even greater indication of past intimacy (and of now putting her walls back up) than seeing her redressing.

obligatory #RandThirstposting for that shot of him getting out of bed

dragonmount is still a fun mystery for show-onlys! or i, at least, was like “rand remembers that mountain so that means he’s TDR................wait but he was a baby??? how does he remember the mountain??” the dragonmount + LTT connection (and the extent to which rand shares LTT’s memories) is still to come!

min was “a kid” when she saw tam in tar valon and had a viewing of him finding baby rand (her first ever viewing), so show!min must be somewhere in the range of 6-12 years older than rand. we love to see it!!! i am always relentlessly asking for more older woman/younger man romances in media (and like i mentioned above, even now when they’re both adults, min does look like/vibe like she’s a fair bit older than him, which i love)

tigraine’s face when tam puts his sword down and offers his hand 😭😭😭😭😭 i choke up every time!!! that actress was so absolutely fantastic without having a single line of dialogue. and i really love the change of tam being there and helping her in her final moments and perhaps giving her reassurance that her baby will be safe, rather than her having to give birth alone and die alone thinking her baby will also die alone in the snow, and tam just stumbles across them later.

and we get the 3 beautiful women viewing, which rand thinks is a joke but we know isn’t. (unless they’re splitting the polycule into 2 monogamous ships and it’ll turn out this line was just a comedic easter egg a la mat claiming he was a horse trader, which his dad actually is in the books but isn’t in the show. but that would be extremely cruel of them, not to mention they would know they were deliberately setting people up to have false expectations for a major plotpoint, so i have to believe it’s a legitimate viewing.) i really hope that min does NOT share this viewing with elayne or aviendha in the show (or rand, tho i don’t think he ever learns about it in the books anyway), or at least not until the 4 of them are already in a relationship and then she can go “haha guys i actually foresaw that this would happen!” and they can all laugh about it. but in the books, as i mentioned above, i hated how it felt like min was using this viewing to bully elayne into letting her make a move on elayne’s boyfriend when she went to caemlyn with the embassy, and in general, i felt the viewing was used as too much of a crutch for rj to get the polycule together. even worse, it wasn’t actually necessary because he already had a much better way to make it happen - one polycule member comes from a culture that practices polyamory and thus can explain the concept to the other members and get them onboard with it - baked into the story and just used the viewing instead, mostly. it would feel so much better if the 4 of them come to an arrangement on their own terms because they actually want to, and because aviendha explained to them that this type of relationship is possible, rather than just because min said fate said so.

on the other hand, min fighting fate re: falling in love with rand is the only semblance of a character arc she has, so they’ll probably keep it in the show (and hopefully do more with it and have her eventual coming to fall in love with rand against her better judgment feel natural, like aviendha’s arc, rather than her just randomly changing her mind one day and deciding to throw herself at rand with all she’s got) and i’m not sure how else they could make the audience aware that min has had this viewing if not by having her tell another character about it. hmmmmm. i guess they could have her complaining about it to unconscious rand like at the end of TGH.

maybe the third beautiful woman is actually egwene, maybe the viewing is about rand’s past and future girlfriends. here’s how min/rand can still lose-

actually now that i say it, egwene in the polycule is a fascinating idea...........i remember that the egwene/rand/elayne vibes were really strong in TGH/TDR! egwene was constantly thinking about how pretty elayne is! and when they met bain and chiad, egwene was all blushy about the thought of sharing rand with elayne in bed! and she has good chemistry with aviendha in TSR/TFOH. and she and mat would be excellent sibling-spouses. and gawyn obviously needs to get fucked by rand. it all works! i feel like the show’s strengthening of randgwene is gonna make egwene/rand/elayne into another “ship i wouldn’t have thought too much about in the books but is fire in the show” next season. i can’t wait!

nynaeve apologizing voluntarily for her own wrongdoing! her and egwene joking about sex! book!nynaeve is shaking!

I’ve Read All 14 Books And I Still Don’t Understand Why Readers Hated 1x08 So Much, And At This Point I’m Too Afraid To Ask

even when people are generously like “oh it was only because it was hindered so much by covid” i’m like i didn’t even notice any sort of quality drop?? it’s just as good as the other 7 episodes to me?? maybe it’s my show-first blinders still on too strongly (i do remember that after the episode aired it felt like there was a sharp divide between most show-onlys loving it and most readers hating it)

lews therin is SO hot!! jesus christ!! no wonder all the forsaken have been obsessed with him for 3000 years! and i love how he has his baby in the room while he’s talking politics with a coworker, you never see that with male characters. i remember seeing a long time ago an excellent post about the show’s commitment to Men As Caretakers (this, mat with his sisters, rand with mat and his dreams of being a stay-at-home dad, lan with moiraine, etc). boy it’s gonna hurt in a future scene when we see LTT realize he killed that baby!

also very interesting to me that in our one scene of him thus far, he’s anchored in his connection to his child rather than to ilyena. this and rand’s own beefed up interest in having kids compared to how he was in the books gives me hope that elayne’s pregnancy will actually affect rand’s life in some way! “guy fated to die any day now finds out that he has babies on the way whom he’ll never get to meet” is probably one of the biggest Wasted Emotional Opportunities in the books (and there are A LOT).

“i love him, perrin” “so do i” ef4 polycule is REAL yall

i love rand asking moiraine if it was hard to leave lan behind, he’s trying so hard to bond with his mom and she shuts him down so fast

ugh daniel and zoe’s chemistry is so GOOD!!! i’m definitely predicting that nynaeve blaming moiraine for rand’s “death” will end up causing strain between her and lan and being one of the things that pushes them apart again for their mutual pining slowburn phase (in addition to lan wanting to push her away For Her Own Good)

ishamael: [reveals his actual face] rand and the audience: oh no he’s hot!

love that he just starts caressing rand’s face within 1 minute of meeting him, that really is the vibe in the books. also him pouting that lews therin is stupid in this age and not even TRYING to be a worthy archenemy! i love this actor so much, he brings a sort of playfulness to ishamael that’s so fun to watch. and that’s the essence of many of the forsaken, sure they’re villains but they’re Fun villains (unlike the whitecloaks and seanchan). can’t wait to see more of him and meet some of the others next season!

IS THIS FAT LITTLE MAN ANGREAL MY BELOVED?????? he doesn’t look especially fat, and moiraine says it’s a sa’angreal, but i’m choosing to believe it’s him!!!! i actually don’t remember at all where rand got him from in the books lmao not like i just read them or anything. did he get fat little man angreal from rhuidean, or was that the choedan kal?

nynaeve being unable to listen to the wind is because of her block oooooh i’m smart and know things now

haha i feel like on first watch i, like rand, didn’t entirely realize moiraine would be included in the “anyone who goes to the eye and isn’t the dragon will die” until they have that conversation now. she just felt invincible to me! i love her fond little “oh my stupid son” look when he tries to tell her to stay behind.

okay so WHAT is the deal with the eye in the show verse???? all along i assumed that the characters are correct in saying this is the dark one’s prison and that the show got rid of shayol ghul altogether and moved the prison here, but then more recently i saw readers all saying that show!eye is actually just a seal and and not the prison itself. so is that true and people in-universe just...........don’t know that shayol ghul exists? bc iirc moiraine pretty definitively says that the eye is the dark one’s prison. how would she not know about shayol ghul??? one instance where i am now MORE confused after having read the books than i was upon first watch lmao

so, okay, it would make sense if they think the eye is the dark one’s prison and they’re sealing it up but it turns out it’s actually only a seal which ishamael tricked them into breaking, and i think they only decided to go to the eye in ep 6 when siuan had a dream saying moiraine had to bring the dragon there, so maybe ishamael planted that dream to trick them into coming to the eye and breaking the seal? but HOW WOULD MOIRAINE NOT KNOW THAT THE PRISON IS ACTUALLY AT SHAYOL GHUL????? i was really gunning for them to have gotten rid of shayol ghul completely (it always felt like a mordor knockoff to me) and made the eye the prison, because it would be such a fabulous full circle moment if rand came back here to fight TDO in the last episode of the last season.

rand’s dream life 😭😭😭 the lighting!! he is such a soft sunshine baby!! hair glowing in a conveniently placed light source!! the lord of the morning!!

and the actual baby is THE cutest baby i’ve ever seen in my entire life oh my god

and rand HOLDING the baby??? smiling at her??? +10000 psychic damage. #RandThirstposting. i think that every season should include rand holding a baby, as fanservice to me specifically. rand holding babies, shirtless rand, and elayne bath scenes are all i need out of this show.

ishamael concocting the most tempting situation for rand he can think of: oh and i’ll make sure he knows specifically that mat is around and an integral part of his life, that’ll do the trick

the real answer is probably that mat’s presence in particular is important to rand right now due to how shaken he is by mat’s abandonment. but also, rand is in love with him and wants him to be his spouse and co-parent right along with egwene. matrandgwene truthers rise!

what do you guys think this dream stuff is? like, how is ishamael doing it? is it some kind of TAR or dreamshard shit (i did not understand dreamshards in the books lmao) or is it like an actual manipulating of the pattern into showing possible futures the way the dark one and rand do in AMOL?

me on first watch: this has felt like such an equal society all along, why would they suddenly decide that only the men are in the army here and the women stay behind to protect the city? so annoying

me on this watch: wow, look at the women actually wearing armor and loading weapons! incredible! the books could never!

it IS still annoying though, i really don’t know why they decided to keep that one relic of book worldbuilding when all the stupid Women Can’t Be Soldiers stuff was eschewed everywhere else in the season.

“how can we sit here and do nothing” “i’m standing” ICONIC!!!!!! top 10 loial moments. actually every single line loial has is a top 10 loial moment.

moiraine cradling rand in her lap a la mary cradling jesus in the pieta statue, except she’s holding a knife to his neck, CHEF’S KISS

people really got pressed when agelmar died? i could not care less about that dude. and i’m all for cutting down on the number of military general characters lmao there’s way too many in the books (i think it should be only bashere and mat in the show, and MAYBE bryne only because he’s important to egwene’s and especially gawyn’s arcs, but NO ituralde)

people getting pressed that a circle of 5 or 6 women, two of whom are extremely strong in the power and one of whom (the one leading the circle) has received a good deal of formal training, were able to take out the entire trolloc army by themselves But having no problem whatsoever with the book version of a single man who has absolutely no clue what the fuck he is doing being able to take out the entire trolloc army by himself - misogyny, plain and simple!

even so, thankfully most people i’ve seen have agreed that it was good that the show split up the eotw final battle stuff so that non-rand characters could have something to do. and rand has many many power blasts in his future, i’m A-okay with him losing this one! especially since it felt like a symptom of rj not knowing exactly where he was going or how many books he was going to write and rand’s power levels/ability thus being repeatedly adjusted and retconned throughout the early books.

i looooooove josha’s acting while rand is channeling, you can see so clearly both the ecstasy and the taint of saidin affecting him (and it makes you believe that he really MIGHT go mad with power and break the dark one’s chains rather than strengthen them)

WHAT ABOUT WHAT SHE WANTS!!!!!!!!!! KING ICON LEGEND STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

the way this perfectly parallels his final book confrontation with the dark one when he gives up a seemingly ideal future because it takes away the agency of the people involved 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 given what a Theme agency and lack thereof is in rand’s overall arc, i love that that seed is planted early on here.

here we have rand giving up his dream life with a wife and a baby and a cozy home because a) it’s not what egwene would want and b) he has a more important duty to the world that must come first. so if the final episode of the show doesn’t end with rand cozy in caemlyn with his wives and babies, finally getting to have that dream life for real now that his duty to the world is complete, i WILL riot!!!!!

back to the circle, which seems to be the most hated aspect of this episode. as i said above, hating that they’re able to destroy the whole army is just plain misogyny. it’s book canon that a circle of multiple channelers is extremely powerful, and amalisa has tower training, and we saw in TGS that a circle of novices led by one trained aes sedai can do serious damage (doubly so when you consider that nynaeve and egwene’s power levels seem to have been bumped up in the show so that they’re unusually powerful for any channeler rather than only unusually powerful For A Girl - and hating that is, again, misogyny - and thus amalisa basically has the power of two nuclear bombs at her disposal).

second, people in the circle can get killed against their will if the leader draws too much from them. this is obviously a change from book lore, and i absolutely love it! circles are super OP in the books yet bizarrely underused, so adding in this huge counterbalance and high risk makes it make sense that channelers don’t just whip out a massive circle all the time to solve all their problems. it will also lend a ton more credence to women being afraid to link with men and vice versa later in the series, and make the level of trust on display when they do link together that much stronger (also, the show had better get rid of “only men can lead mixed gender circles” or SO HELP ME GOD lmao). and just think of how much tenser the cleansing of saidin will be when there’s a real risk that rand might draw too much from nynaeve and kill her and she wouldn’t be able to drop out of the circle to prevent him from doing so!!! and honestly, now that i think about it, it doesn’t even make sense that this isn’t a thing in the books? if anyone can kill themselves by drawing too much, why would a circle create a magic barrier to prevent someone else drawing too much from them, when no such thing exists for somebody channeling on their own?

and finally, egwene healing nynaeve from the brink of death when egwene isn’t supposed to be good at healing with the power. this complaint, i can see now that i’ve read the books, but i still just don’t really care idk it doesn’t bother me. i know this scene was hugely affected by covid restrictions (rafe said that the plan was for egwene to heal nynaeve with herbs/cpr and her wisdom training, and they didn’t find out until the day of shooting that the actresses weren’t allowed to get close enough to make that happen) and so i cut it tons of slack for that, and also, god knows eotw is full of ideas and occurrences that ended up being dropped or contradicted altogether later in the series as rj figured stuff out while he went along, so i don’t mind at all if the show going forward just ignores that this happened haha and they could also explain retroactively that nynaeve wasn’t that badly hurt (her burning makeup IS way less drastic than amalisa’s and the other women’s who were actually killed) and thus it didn’t actually require all that much skill in power healing from egwene. there’s a very clear visual contrast between egwene’s small wisp of power here and nynaeve’s blinding power blast earlier, so little risk of people mistakenly thinking that egwene is just as strong in healing as nynaeve is. egwene’s healing here looks more equivalent to kerene’s, a green with presumably no particular skill/strength in healing.

very interested in how the hunt for the horn will go down! from what little tidbits we’ve seen from s2, it seems it’s just going to be perrin and loial while rand and mat are doing their own thing. i would love for perrin to be the one to blow the horn since he needs more to do and in the books mat doesn’t even blow it at the last battle so what does it matter, but i’m sure they’ll probably find a way for mat to be the one to blow it at falme anyway.

and rand enacts his plan to wander off and let his friends think he’s dead! every time i think of the “babygirl you don’t even know how roads work” world heritage post.

i can’t WAIT to see the others react to this in the next season!!!!! will they believe moiraine, or will they see through her careful phrasing of only ever saying “he’s gone” rather than “he’s dead”? will they think he’s dead for the entire season until they run into him at falme in the finale (at least i’m assuming that will be the structure and tear and callandor will be pushed to a later season) or will they find out within a couple episodes? will mat cross paths with rand before or after learning about his alleged death and him being TDR?

i’m especially curious about the randgwene trajectory. by the end of the season, we’ve had a switch - rand is the one accepting that he can’t have a future with egwene and letting go of that dream, while egwene has decided that she doesn’t want to leave him behind (although i think in their 1x07 convo she’s probably trying to convince herself that being with rand and being aes sedai can coexist but knows that they can’t really). egwene thinking he’s dead and going through that pain will make a Gentle Falling Out Of Love process much more difficult. on the other hand, when she finds out he’s still alive and made her think he was dead on purpose, maybe she’ll be so mad that she’s like “okay we’re broken up for good i’m over you” djkjfg i do think that by the time they reunite it’s likely they’ll go for the angle of, they’ve both changed too much and they recognize right away they don’t fit together anymore and never can, but it will be a much more emotionally complicated breakup than the book version. particularly since according to book timeline, this should be when rand is getting together with egwene’s best friend! what’s gonna happen with randlayne in the show!!!! i would love love love love for elayne to join the waste crew (so much bonding time with rand AND avi!) since the tanchico plotline is mostly about nynaeve vs. moghedien and elayne isn’t strictly needed for that, and then elayne can go to salidar later with egwene and meet up with nynaeve there for the trips to ebou dar and caemlyn, but it feels pretty unlikely that they’d pull her out of the tanchico plotline and make that just a nynaeve solo roadtrip.

also, the implications these randgwene changes have for gawene! i assume they’ll meet at the white tower, which would be the perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork for their romance (an opportunity the books just completely wasted), but egwene grieving rand at the time will complicate that. perhaps in a good way! i could see gawyn being smitten with her right away but keeping it to himself since he knows that’s not what she needs or wants right now and instead choosing to be a good and supportive friend to her. maybe they establish a nice platonic emotional connection next season that will then develop into a romance when they see each other again later on. another couple that definitely needs more time together early in the series but i’m hard pressed to think of a way to make that happen (since gawyn being left behind at the tower and not knowing where egwene and elayne are is a pretty integral part of his arc). i suppose they could dial back their LOC-era romance into only the beginnings of a spark and a flirtation and save their actual getting together for TGS era since they do spend a lot of time together in the last 3 books, and maybe gawyn defecting to egwene’s army will happen a lot earlier in the show if he’s given significant screentime every season rather than only appearing in 1 prologue scene per book (if that) from books 7-11 lmao

i was editing this post right before i went to bed last night and then i had a dream that i was watching s2 and show!gawyn sucked 😭 i don’t remember what was wrong with him but i remember being heartbroken haha manifesting that NOT to happen next season! it will certainly be interesting to now be in the position of anxiously waiting to see how my beloved book blorbos turn out onscreen rather than just tuning in and meeting my screen blorbos fresh with no prior knowledge of them.

SO glad that the girls are ta’veren in the show. “it’s more empowering for their accomplishments to be their own rather than the pattern influencing stuff” and yet somehow a good chunk of the readers who claim that are also the same ones celebrating the boys’ accomplishments at the expense of egwene’s 🤔 and the girls DO have plenty of ta’veren things happen to them in the books, they’re constantly having unlikely coincidences, people blurting out things they wouldn’t normally say around them, etc. i’m curious how ta’veren will be portrayed in the show, i feel like some of the more obvious “ta’veren is just an in-world lore excuse for Everything Happens To The Protagonists” instances could come off kinda corny in the show haha but we’ll see!

so there definitely IS a seal at the eye that cracked, but is that all the eye is? or is that one big seal on the floor just like the Final Boss seal that will progressively get more and more cracked as the small individual seals get destroyed, and the dark one really is imprisoned here at the eye? or ooooh maybe the eye IS a prison, but for the FORSAKEN rather than for the dark one, hence moiraine’s misinformation that the dark one is also imprisoned here?

the seanchan aesthetic here and in the s2 sneak previews is fantastic. i really like how colorful they are, avoiding the “villains all in black” visual cliche and instead going crazy over the top, as the seanchan should be. and the mouth coverings on the damane is a very chilling touch! and i love that they’re speaking a different language, most unrealistic part of the books was the fact that apparently the whole entire world (not only every single country in the westlands, but also seanchan and shara) speaks the same language lmao i do get it for story convenience though, it’s hard to make anything happen if your characters can’t talk to each other. i wonder if it’s the old tongue they’re speaking in the show or a new made-up language. it would kinda vibe if they still spoke the old tongue since they’re so obsessed with preserving hawkwing’s legacy! (if hawkwing was even old tongue times? fuck me if i know anything about wotworld history)

#wot #wot book spoilers

[gunkreads]

#wheel of time #wot #mat cauthon

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch 1x5: blood calls blood

spoilers through season 1 of WoT plus some of the spoilers for the beginning of s2, including the new teaser scene, and through The Fires of Heaven in the books.

I love the bookends here of the two funerals. Just... all of the added rituals make the cultures and world feel more rich and grounded. The ceremonies and how they're tied into the world that we're given. Plus, we see the impact of these rituals on the characters -- Lan and Moiraine here reacting to seeing Stepin's emptiness after they lay Kerene to rest.

Then we get our traveling time-skip, where everyone begins to arrive in/near Tar Valon. I wonder if Moiraine not seeing the White Tower as home is going to be contrasted against Egwene primarily seeing the White Tower as her home after she's been taken away from it.

Poor Mat is looking rough. And him snapping at a kid shows how much worse he's gotten in the last month, along with Rand's clear concern. We also basically confirm that they've been sleeping rough since they left the Grinwell farm, likely worried that they would bring death to anyone else who might host them.

Love the shots of Dragonmount behind Tar Valon; and how noisy and varied the city is.

Rand trying to share his food with Mat. Awww. And not going to the White Tower right away because he's worried about Mat's 'obvious signs' of being a male channeler. And reassuring Mat that he didn't murder that family. Just... everything about how kind and gentle and worried that Rand is over Mat. I suspect that we're going to see echoes of this side of Rand when we catch up with him in S2, going by the spoilers. But it's got a personal touch here.

Moiraine trying to warn Nynaeve but not quite able to connect with her. Nynaeve's green and yellow outfit, I love so much. Our fighty healer. <3

Moiraine's speech here pretty much applies to all the ta'veren, even the ones who can't channel. They're all connected to something bigger and more dangerous, something that has pulled them away from the lives that they led before.

The Tuatha'an are taking the longest to get to Tar Valon out of all of the groups because they are chill and like to take their time. Egwene is so bouncy and has been enjoying her time with the Tuatha'an a lot, but she's also so thrilled to be in sight of the White Tower.

And immediately acting to do their best to protect Perrin and Egwene, but in the way that reflects their own philosophy and culture.

Hi Loial! <3 Anyway, I don't mind the bad reaction to Loial being moved to Tar Valon instead of Caemlyn -- it implies some interesting things about it having been longer since the Ogier have been out of the Stedding than they were in the books. And poor Rand getting his denial poked at. It's Rand's turn again to remind us about the Rand & Egwene relationship here, when he picks up Jain Farstrider and it makes him melancholy.

I can't believe that people got mad at Rand for going after Mat to try to make sure nothing bad is going to happen rather than waiting for Loial. That's his friend that he is justifiably very worried about. He has literally just met Loial.

Oh, hi, Fain! I 100% missed you on my first watch and didn't realize you were in Tar Valon until people pointed it out online. Fain is really the main thing that makes me think Liandrin is probably already a Darkfriend, because I think he's her "friend in North Harbor" that gets mentioned in the next episode, and I think that he got the ruby dagger from her (assuming that Moiraine took it to the White Tower to get safely locked up after she breaks Mat's connection to it, or believes that she breaks it, depending on where s2 takes us on that).

Logain here does, I think, absolutely notice Rand, but Mat's paranoia amplifies his reaction in Mat's mind and focuses it towards Mat (update: confirmed in latest s2 teaser).

This conversation with Mat and Rand! Also, Mat has been very consistent throughout the season in not caring/believing in all the Dragon-related prophecy stuff, but he does worry about hurting people/people getting hurt. (I really hope we get the Mat & Rand reunion in S2 and don't have to wait until S3)

Everything about Stepin is there to give us more knowledge about the Warder bond! Which connects strongly to both Moiraine and Lan, but also gives us a lot of set up for the eventual coup, because now Warders actually have a subculture of their own. It's important!

Feel like we're going to get a similar 'dehumanization' scene for Egwene in s2 with the Seanchan that she got here with the Whitecloaks and it's going to hurt so much. I do think we're doing to get some major Whitecloaks-Seanchan parallels alongside the Darkfriends-Seanchan parallels. I wish Egwene a happy "blow up lots of Seanchan" in the s2 finale.

17. As awful as the Whitecloaks are here, the Seanchan are going to be agonizing to watch on-screen. Egwene does get some useful information here in that she doesn't need her hands to channel.

18. Oof, this stuff is hard to watch. And the Seanchan stuff is going to be even tougher to watch, I imagine.

19. Nynaeve just wanting to help but she can't truly help Stepin. There's so much great stuff in all these White Tower sections for Nynaeve, Lan, and Moiraine.

20. I've said it before and I'll say it again: what Liandrin says here about "much of the world" being controlled by men who are not kind to little girls is true of the books as well, it's just that Jordan didn't realize he was writing it that way half of the time when he did it because it was just steeped into him via his culture.

21. Rand's ta'veren coincidences bring Nynaeve to him and Mat via Loial. This reunion is so sweet (and sad, when he snaps at her) and then sweet again.

22. Rand does believe at this point that it's Mat, because he doesn't have any other explanation for the way that Mat is collapsing in on himself. Nynaeve's moment of reassuring Rand here is a wonderful little moment. Nynaeve reassures Rand, informs about Egwene's strength of character, and is also a hint at Nynaeve channeling when she was younger by doing the miracle healing.

23. Perrin confessing to Egwene because he wants to convince her that he's the one who deserves death and not Egwene -- genuinely so emotional (and we hear wolves in the background!). And Egwene being very clever here, by letting Valda think that she's given in and failing but actually releasing Perrin (so, question: I wonder if Valda thinks that Perrin might be able to channel too?) Wolf-friends helping out! <3

24. Our Forsaken dolls. Much speculation has been spilled over them. Graendal being the tits-out doll does crack me up.

25. Show!Alanna is such a likable character. She's a sweetie.

26. The Stepin storyline is genuinely very sad but it's also incredibly informative. We learn tons of lore through a narrative rather than through an infodump. There are so many lore tidbits that we learn over the course of his short arc.

#wot #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot rewatch #wot book spoilers #wot s2 spoilers #wheel of time s2 spoilers #the fires of heaven

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 36: Web of the Pattern

Pictured, me left, you right. If you don't like spoilers for the whole Wheel of Time series, there's no need to threaten to stab me or whatever. You can just... go somewhere else. Read the books. Watch the show. Get spoiled on a completely different website because boy howdy will the wiki do that to anyone who is even a little behind. If you do like spoilers, also maybe please put the sword down.

This chapter gives us the leaves on the vine chapter icon. As I said back when it was introduced, it's an icon that's often associated with the Ogier, and guess who's being introduced in this chapter? That's right. Hooray!

He kept the story simple, and he kept Trollocs and Fades out of it. When somebody offered help, it would not do to tell them it was all about fables. But he did not think it was fair to understate the danger, either, not fair to pull someone in when they had no idea what they were getting into.

I'm sure that Rand's making the right call here because fate and all, but I do wonder if Gill wouldn't have believed him about Trollocs and Fades all the same. If anything, his connections to Thom and general good-natured practicality might lead him to figuring out the details well before Rand does in the main timeline.

They say she has a way of feeling things, what’s happened, what’s going to happen. They say she can cut right through to what a man wants to hide.

Either this is entirely undeserved reputation and more of the general theme of falsehoods spreading about in place of the truth (her Foretelling being morphed into being a lie detector), or she actually was this canny once and Fain warps it right out of her during his visit. Either way, it's a shame she wasn't actually all she was cracked up to be, she could have been really good.

“All these people, and any of them could be Darkfriends. Master Gill promised to help us awfully quick. What kind of man just shrugs off Aes Sedai and Darkfriends? It isn’t natural. Any decent person would tell us to get out, or . . . or . . . or something.”

Finally, some delightful paranoia from Mat. Dagger's kicking in properly. Maybe it's strengthened by all the people around? Maybe not, but either way, it's very good work on the dagger's part. As soon as someone offers their approval, they're a bad guy because no good person could approve. Thank goodness Moiraine's gonna cure him soon.

The dark-eyed girl had a tendency to twist her skirt and giggle whenever she looked at Rand. She was pretty, but he knew if he said anything to her he would just make a fool of himself. She made him wish he had Perrin’s way with girls; he was glad when she left.

Rand keeps coming back to Perrin as the lady killer and I'm sure that most of it is just that Mat's right there and therefore too obviously not good with girls for Rand's delusions, but I do so wonder what evidence Rand has for his assumption. Did Perrin and Alexandra DeWit- I mean, Laila Dearn get a little flirty once before they decided not to date? Did they almost hold hands or something? What is Rand's standard of measurement here?

Rand hung his things up, watching Mat’s back. He thought Mat had his hand under his coat, clutching that dagger again.

"Dammit man, wait until I'm out of the room or asleep or something!"

Only a few had wooden covers. His eyes gobbled up the titles, picking out old favorites. The Travels of Jain Farstrider. The Essays of Willim of Maneches. His breath caught at the sight of a leatherbound copy of Voyages Among the Sea Folk.Tam had always wanted to read that.

It's so sweet that even here and now Rand is thinking about his dad's interests and hobbies.

It's very nice that we only meet one of these authors, though Willim of Maneches sounds like an interesting guy maybe. He's a philosopher who probably wasn't a Darkfriend, at least! I feel like he might be a reference to some real life guy, but I'm not sure who.

I would not be at all surprised if every detail in Voyages was a complete lie.

“So few of you remember us. It’s our own fault, I suppose. Not many of us have gone out among men since the Shadow fell on the Ways. That’s . . . oh, six generations, now. Right after the War of the Hundred Years, it was.”

Loial! Loial! LOIAL!

Also, if his use of "generations" is anything like how modern humans use the term (to refer to a cohort of people born within 20 years of each other), then Ogier live just slightly longer than the most powerful channelers do.

But anyway, fuck Gill I have a new favorite now! Loial!

My first day in Caemlyn, I could not believe the uproar. Children cried, and women screamed, and a mob chased me all the way across the city, waving clubs and knives and torches, and shouting, ‘Trolloc!’ I’m afraid I was almost beginning to get a little upset. There’s no telling what would have happened if a party of the Queen’s Guards hadn’t come along.

And this folks is why the people of Caemlyn deserve everything that's coming for them, including the unnatural winter that's already here.

“Well, as to that, now. You see, the Stump had not been meeting very long, not even a year, but I could tell from what I heard that by the time they reached a decision I would be old enough to go without their permission. I am afraid they’ll say I put a long handle on my axe, but I just . . . left. The Elders always said I was too hotheaded, and I fear I’ve proven them right. I wonder if they have realized I’m gone, yet? But I had to go.”

I love how Loial is having his own heroic adventure that has nothing to do with all of the major drama in the world. So many characters in this series absolutely could carry their own book and with Loial being in the POV spotlight so consistently we can get a good feel for how it would all play out from his own perspective in a way that's harder for some like Bayle Domon who are awesome but dip in and out more frequently. It's this aspect that I live for in epic fantasy.

You cannot make the land go against itself. Not for long; the land will rebel. You must shape the vision to the land, not the land to the vision. In every grove was planted every tree that would grow and thrive in that place, each balanced against the next, each placed to complement the others, for the best growing, of course, but also so that the balance would sing in the eye and the heart.

Points to Jordan for so effortlessly critiquing everything about modern agriculture and environmental policies so succinctly. I know that his vision of the end of the First Age was nuclear warfare (which was not so unrealistic when he got started on the series), but I can't help but wonder if climate change would have been a better aspect to focus on - both as a cause, and as something the AoL had to build itself to be so strongly against. The arrival of the Ogier being the miracle that spared humankind from complete extinction at the dawn of the second age would be quite appropriate and it's not even like the canonical AoL isn't pretty greenpunky...

Try as you will—and I have read that the Ogier who built those cities truly did try—you cannot make stone live.

With history becoming legend and all that, is it terrible of me to imagine the historical Ogier desperately trying to make robots as a last ditch effort to forestall the technological collapse of the Breaking? The image is hilarious.

But I must go back, eventually. This world is yours, yours and your kind’s. The stedding are mine.

Okay now that I've talked about my own brand of crazy, let's all appreciate how Jordan told us outright here that Ogiers are aliens. There's no metaphor here, the Ogier are from a whole extra dimension and the stedding are the places where they've made their world overlap with ours (and overwrite? or perhaps in Ogierhome there's a bunch of awful regions that any natives left behind avoid because there's just something weird about them?).

“Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.”

I recommend everyone adapt this as their personal mantra, it's very empowering.

And good for you for being so multicultural Loial. Shame that it's falling on deaf ears.

Rand opened his mouth to say that they had come to see the false Dragon—and he could not say it. Perhaps it was because Loial acted as if he were no older than Rand, ninety years old or no ninety years old. Maybe for an Ogier ninety years was not any older than he was.

Loial is such an adorable and wonderful person that when he's in a room with the strongest ta'veren of all time, it's the ta'veren who finds himself saying things he never thought he'd say.

Rand nodded. “I could live on the farm or in Emond’s Field, and that would be a small change. If I wanted to be a king, though. . . .”

Poor dumb Rand has got it completely backwards.

Artur Hawkwing was ta’veren. So was Lews Therin Kinslayer, for that matter, I suppose.

You know, Mr. Jordan, this would have been a perfect opportunity to mention Mabriam en Shereed, the fifth ta'veren we know about (since Lews and Rand shouldn't count as separate) and the only woman. There's a lot we could say about whether or not Egwene or Nynaeve should have been ta'veren as well and it's really one of the least shocking changes the TV show made, but it's very noticeable that in a world that should be gender equal it's mostly the dudes we hear about being special. Ah well, maybe Birgitte is normally a ta'veren when she incarnates and just wasn't this time around because of how weird circumstances were.

“Will you at least talk with me sometimes?” Loial sighed, a bass rumble. “And perhaps play a game of stones? I have not had anyone to talk to in days, except good Master Gill, and he is busy most of the time. The cook seems to run him unmercifully. Perhaps she really owns the inn?”

Jordan really likes this trope too, of the men theoretically being in charge but the women really being in charge. He does at least subvert it a little later on with Lan and Nynaeve's marriage, which is the same dynamic but different, but I feel like his upbringing led him to internalize a very unstable and unlikely dynamic as some sort of universal.

Oh well, at least we have a reference to the game of stones, which is the real life game Go (or very close to it) and has been mentioned before but not by Loial so who cares? Loial is the sweetest boy and all of his interests are way cooler than Rand's road trip drama.

Sadly, instead of spending the next two chapters analyzing them in detail, we'll be cutting to some other POVs as we resolve the situation that the other non-Loials are in. See you then!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #rand al'thor #basel gill #mat cauthon #loial

[alectology-archive]

Still Nynaeve and Elayne had not returned. He [Mat] finally looked over the books in his sitting room and began reading The Travels of Jain Farstrider, though he barely made out a word for worrying. 

oh so mat was worrying worrying about elayne and nynaeve in ebou dar if he was reading to pass the time.

#I'm certain there's another instance of mat reading a book in the series & that it involved rand but I can't find it rip #wheel of time #text #I do know that rand & egwene are very fond of the book but I don't remember if elayne is? I don't think I ever see her read a book on-screen #elayne trakand (secretly also hates books) #assuming I'm remembering right lol

[wheeloftimeofficial]

In this turning Jain Farstrider is a woman, therefore Noal (Noelle?) must also be a woman, and a storied, well traveled one at that. Here’s how Birgitte can still get to Ghenjei

#wheel of time rewatch

[caracarnn-archive]

RAND AL’THOR  ︰   𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑  𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟷    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.    

NAME  :  Rand al’Thor

EYE COLOR  :  blue/grey - ok but his eyes look OLD like he’s so young but looking into his eyes one thinks they’re looking at someone FAR OLDER (thx lews)

HAIR STYLE  /  COLOR  :  red hair, curly at the ends, longer perhaps jsut above his neck (by end of books ok)

HEIGHT  :  6′6 / 198.12 cm

CLOTHING STYLE  :  embroidered, high collared coats (usually red), white undershirts, usually black well made pants, knee high sturdy boots, belt at his waist with a Dragon carved buckle, sometimes he wears black leather gloves to hide the Dragon heads that are part of the markings on his arms on the backs of his hands, heavy black cloak sometimes. LIKETHIS

BEST PHYSICAL FEATURE  :  everyone always talks about his eyes in the books so?

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟸    :    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄.    

FEARS  : SO MANY. failure. losing those he loves. closed in spaces. losing his mind. 

GUILTY PLEASURE  :  idk? lmao he’s a total nerd so? like a HUGE book nerd. he named his horse after his fave character’s horse SO

BIGGEST PET PEEVE  :  oh gosh. those that are so ambitious they hurt others, people who step on other people to survive  

AMBITIONS FOR THE FUTURE  :  uhmmm to save the world but in order to save the world he’s fated to die so he doesn’t have ambitions for the future. 

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟹    :    𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒.

FIRST THOUGHTS WAKING UP  : how much more will happen today?

WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT MOST  : saving the world. trying to convince people to listen to him. dying? the people he loves.

WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT BEFORE BED  : see above tbh

WHAT THEY THINK THEIR BEST QUALITY IS  :  SAIDIN but it is also his worst quality, to him anyways. and also he’s loyal af

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟺    :    𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓’𝐒    𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑?

SINGLE OR GROUP DATES  :  single  

TO BE LOVED OR RESPECTED  :  BOTH PLS

BEAUTY OR BRAINS  :  both also yesgood

DOGS OR CATS  :  HORSES

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟻    :    𝐃𝐎    𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘…

LIE  :  uhmmm only if it’s to protect someone or something

BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES   : DOES HE? not really

BELIEVE IN LOVE  : he does but he’s confused why anyone would love him. THEY SHOULDN’T HE’S THE DRAGON

WANT SOMEONE  : he really does

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟼    :    𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄    𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘    𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑…

BEEN ON STAGE  :  no but there are hardly stages lol but he’s made speeches to his men and nations so?!

CHANGED WHO THEY WERE TO FIT IN  :  no

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟽    :    𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒.

FAVORITE COLOR  : red

FAVORITE ANIMAL  :  horses

FAVORITE BOOK  :   The Travels of Jain Farstrider

FAVORITE GAME  : he doesn’t play games really

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟾    :    𝐀𝐆𝐄.

DAY THEIR NEXT BIRTHDAY WILL BE  :  2 Danu  is his birthday which is the 13th month in the wot calendar SO uhm i’m guessing he’s a winter baby ok

HOW OLD WILL THEY BE  : 23-24

𝙻𝙰𝚈𝙴𝚁  𝟶𝟶𝟿    :    𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇    𝐓𝐇𝐄    𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄.

I LOVE  :  those I’m closest to

I FEEL  : exhausted and restless

I HIDE  :  my pain

I MISS  : the simpler days but I wouldn’t trade it not for what’s at stake

I WISH  : that the end was certain

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘: the flawless @inprometheanfire​​

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆: @tothedevilsshow​ @windtold​ @adversitybloomed​ @malumxsubest​

#.about #.headcanons #hi im crying #its crying about rand al'thor hours

[wot-tidbits]

#wheel of time #spoiler #towers of midnight #jain farstrider #wot meme

[iviarellereads]

Wheel of Time full series spoiler thoughts on EOTW 44-48

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

I really do, unironically, love how the Ways get used like, three times, and one of those is just "make Loial disappear for a while so he can come back as a bit of a surprise", and then are never addressed again. They're almost as bad as the portal stones.

Min saw things indeed, Moiraine. I'm sure Min told her she'd marry Thom one day, because even before she went through the question-door she told the Wondergirls she knew the face of her future husband. (Fix It Rafe, Please God Fix It Rafe.)

And here's probably where Fain makes besties with Machin Shin, since he's already passed through Shadar Logoth and become Faindeth. Two evils to rule them all.

And speaking of the Black Wind, I really like what the show did with it. Again, yes, I know, I'm terribly predictable, and if you think "I liked the show" is controversial I really don't know what you're still doing here. But, this whole "flay and plait the flesh" bit might be really scary to some, but speaking to your personal deepest insecurities? Now THAT is a universal fear.

Agelmar hates to think any Shienaran under his command could be a Darkfriend… with Ingtar just having left the room. HA!

Giving Jain Charin/Farstrider's name here at the end of book 1 is such genius. I know Ali of the Wheel Takes podcast basically pointed right at him in Graendal's menagerie and said THAT'S JAIN FARSTRIDER, NO QUESTION but I'm not caught up enough to know if she guessed that Noal was him as well, sharing his family name and all.

If I have one thing to complain about in the show, I think they did Agelmar dirty. The whole of episodes 7 and 8 are so heavily affected by Covid restrictions and Barney Harris leaving the production (you can see the Mat-shaped hole in the dialogue), and they're using character death to differentiate from the books in a lot of ways, but I genuinely think Agelmar and Amalisa got the worst of it, both dying.

Egg quoting the line about redemption back into the Light, here, just… chef's kiss. Next book we get Ingtar, and in book 12, of course, Verin.

Rand feeling an itchy spot on his back, somehow knowing that Fain can feel him, is watching him through all these walls.

Egg declaring Rand will be her Warder, the rare time RJ has a character say something that doesn't come true in some way. I wonder if he still planned it somehow back here, though, to say it like that, the same way he has people say EVERYTHING ELSE that happens, just not always the way you think.

And, Nynaeve's confession. Oh, those two. I know they'll work it out eventually but oh, my heart in the mean time.

#wheel of time #wot #the wheel of time #twot #wot book spoilers #wheel of time full series spoilers #wot full series spoilers

[hazelcephalopod]

The Great Hunt Ch 31: On the Scent

Cairhien Sun symbol.

Reunions are had and plans are lay what new adventures await our poor little guys and very cool autistic granny?

disclaimer: there will be spoilers, I will tag them but this is a book from 30 years ago that I am desperately trying to finish. I am very ADHD and this helps me do that. Also, it’s my first read thru but I am somewhat familiar with the story and what is going to happen, probably not enough to not be surprised tho. Happy reading! 

All WOT spoilers. 

Rand POV

OH! Verin is the Reader. Well that’s not a Wisdom, but an Aes Sedai kinda is! (Sp: this is wrong)

“Lord Rand of House al’Thor.” Tragic main character disease and a nice coat continues to plague this poor Shepard. 

Oh no he thinks he’s done. Oh you poor sweet dipshit

Love how they do behave like a DnD party but we get the narration that no, NPCs are listening and reacting to this very suspicious and concerning conversations happening in the middle of the street. 

Mat: (summarizes the last few weeks for him)… & where the hell have you been? Rand: Perrins a what?!

Ah. Nvm Verin and the Reader are in fact separate people. Still Verin is here!

Inn found: The Great Tree. Innkeeper: Mistress Tiedra. 

Hurin didn’t smell any Trollocs and tbh I’m not sure there ever were any. Sry Rwnd my guy, I still support most of your wrongs. 

… I don’t think Rand is doing well. Like, this is a lot of suspicion. Which is somewhat reasonable but… idk. This is all a lot for anyone and uh, he’s more than anyone regrettably for him

Warm baths are nice tho aren’t they! 

“…he chose the black coat, to suit his mood…”

Fucking “Selene”… this poor guy (just in general not just her, but also her). 

I almost envy Rand. Got mail? Just burn all of it. No mail. Nor responsibilities. Nor choices to make. Just burn it! It’s flammable! 

“Mat was juggling three boiled eggs and trying to appear nonchalant.” A) how? He’s juggling!; b) who is he trying to nonchalantly impress here exactly? 

Really enjoy Loial having pockets large enough for presumably sizable books. 

Switch POV: Perrin. 

Really appreciate leaning into “who knows what and how do they view those things?” Here. 

I am astounded still that it is book 2(!) and magic portals and different worlds have just been dropped like “yup there’s countless other worlds sorta like ours. And teleportation. Anywayyyy….!”

Verin hearing about “Selene” and the portal stones and shit thinking: this is weird and fucking suspicious. “Hey—”

Mmm delicious meal. Oh and we are back to remembering Mat is dying and other sadness? 

Hey! It’s “The Travels of Jain Farstrider”!

Lord Barthanes… hmm. Familiar…

“There are Darkfriends among the high as well as the low.” -Verin. What an interesting thing to say my beloved autistic granny.  

Barthanes Damodred?! Well of course the rumor would be enough. Tbh if the king was smart he’d have the rumor started for the express purpose of destroying Barthanes. You’d think it would make the king suspicious but I’m not so sure anymore that anyone would care or notice. 

“The more he found out about kings, the less he liked them.” -Perrins thoughts. Yup, a shit for sure. 

Rand like: dammit Hurin how will I burn those letters now! 

It’s like a heist thing! Gotta get in and do the things to the rich guy/s! 

That’s not dignity Perrin it’s fear and discomfort. With a good dash of “I hate this” but because of the former. 

Amazing! Verin: looks at the kings letter “well this is trash” burns it. I love her. 

“People see what they expect to see.” -Verin. Truer words madam. 

5!? These fuckers are obsessed with Rand! Rand! (I mean I think he’s adorable but really?)

Oh oh right. So, uh Barthanes has the horn. That’s what the heist is for. It is a literal heist. I mean, this book has almost everything. We got to a heist, we started with an adventure novel, survival, several other things, and now also a heist. I probably should have mentioned -or tbh realized- this earlier. 

Oh right the giant ass buried statues. Which are apparently the largest of the sa’angreal which can be used by channelers and seem very powerful. The one we’ve seen can only be used by men. There’s two in total. Hmm… I’m sure they couldn’t be important at all. The womens one is on Tremalking. Wherever that is. Apparently they were created as weapons which were never used. So. Probably not important at all. /s

I am sure rn Rand is terrified but this is overpowered by him suspecting the ancient statutes are (somehow) part of the plot to control him and still trying to convince himself he is not the Dragon. Mmm mmm nope. This is all part of the plot to frame him as a false dragon. Nothing else. 

Well what a relief they must be used in tandem to Break the World but one wonders how much damage they could do alone?! /s (the big ass sa’angreal)

… you need to be very powerful to use them. Whose that powerful? No *widely* known man, and several women including Moiriane. No worries until the Dragon proclaims himself. *stares off into the distance suspiciously close to Rand* surely no Aes Sedai would help with that tho right? (Yes sure Verin. Wait did she lie…? No… no I think not)

Perrin, Rand knows less than you think you do. By far. And you admit to not knowing much. I mean technically Rand knows a lot, but tbh I feel like he’s too in denial to actually use that information. 

Another great chapter. Bands back together. Verin is here. They are going to do a heist in a nobles house for the Horn which rests on Rand’s shoulders, and his impeccable half-hated new wardrobe of three very nice coats. More letters were burned. Everyone is loosing it a little bit imo. Absolute a+’s all around. 

#Series of many thoughts on twot #<- block/filter to stop seeing this/these #tgh #the great hunt #tgh spoilers #Wheel of time #the book #wot #wot book spoilers #twot book spoilers

[markantonys]

#robert jordan sure did love pulling Weird Guys out of his hat #in fact you could say that from normal citizens' perspectives RAND is the weird guy who just showed up #wot #the wheel of time #wot book spoilers

[highladyluck]

The Dark One’s Dictionary: Miscellaneous Characters

Selected definitions from "The Dark One's Dictionary", written by various Robert-Jordan-reading members of the usenet discussion group rasfw.

Farstrider, Jain A roving investigative reporter with the uncanny ability to disguise himself as anyone and appear in unexpected places.

Subject of many books and stories, the most notable being an exhaustive travelogue compiled from his notes by Joode Ji'ardelhi titled "Gallivanting About the Glove." Believed to have tailed Moiraine on the way to Baerlon (See TEotW, Cover), and suspected of being a former Warder and wolfbrother, and disguising himself as Silvie in Tel'aran'rhiod, as well as being the true identity of Padan Fain.

Currently believed to be residing in the Mountains of Mist near Eldrene's Veil, though some believe he is currently undercover working on an expose of mistreatment of animals and violation of labor laws disguised as a handsome menagerie owner.*

Hawkwing, Artur Legendary king, Artur Paendrag Billy-Bob Jack Joe Smith. Freshmen class vice president, football team defensive captain, Golden Crane club, ruled the civilized world FY 943-972. Sent armies to squash the rutabaga farmers' rebellion in West Manetheren, but his soldiers were never heard from again. (The military postmaster did receive some odd letters from lovesick sheep, though.) His death set off the War of the Hundred Yards. His sign was a brown pigskin in flight.

Kadere, Hadnan A man who paid the price for selling the wrong knowledge. A man with enormous respect for his friends, holding them as near to his heart as his own sister.

Machera, Elyas A wolf in man's clothing.

Moiraine An Aes Sedai of Cairhienin origin, which is to say worse than a normal Aes Sedai and worse than a normal Cairhienin.

   [CCR: "Proud Mary"]

               Left a good House in Cairhien                Workin' for the Light every night and day,                But I never lost a minute of sleepin'                Worryin' 'bout the way things might have been

               Big Wheel keep on turnin'                Great Serpent keep on eatin'                Rollin', rollin', rollin' through the Ages.

               Cleaned a lot of plates in Tar Valon,                Pumped a lot of water onto my Gaidin                But I never saw the bad side of the Dragon                'Til I walked the rings down in Rhuidean.

               Big Wheel keep on turnin'                Proud Moiraine keep on burnin'                Burnin', burnin', burnin' by the river.

               If you come down to the river                Bet we're gonna find a future to live                You don't have to worry 'bout hurting a woman,                People of the Dragon are happy to give.

               Big Wheel keep on turnin'                Ta'veren keep on pullin'                Weavin', weavin', weavin' the Lace of Ages.

   Proud Moiraine, composed by Blin'da Ay'Bel, performed by Emond's Manetheren Revival, from Songs of the Dragon

*I assume this was written around The Fires of Heaven, and based on what I can tell from actual period speculation on Jain Farstrider’s identity, all these suggestions are obvious jokes- we don’t get a good hint about Jain until Winter’s Heart. But given where Jain Farstrider actually ends up, you can see why I was motivated to double-check...

#third age relics #wheel of time #the dark one's dictionary #the dark one's dictionary part 9 #moiraine #jain farstrider

[butterflydm]

wot reread: lord of chaos (chap 7-chap 9)

spoilers for lord of chaos; some talk about “The Slog” of the mid-late books, though no plot-relevant details past this book

1. My girl Elayne is literally trying to nurse back a literal bird that has a broken wing. I love her. So much. Also, in sad news, songbirds are too small to survive the shock of Healing. She has also successfully made copies of the twisted stone ring ter’angreal, though hers don’t work quite so well as the the original.

2. It has been a month and a half since Moiraine’s encounter with Lanfear, when Egwene was injured, so Sheriam and their circle in Salidar have been meeting with only the Wise Ones in the recent meetings and pass on only tiny bits of information. Elayne thinks about how Min must be over halfway to Caemlyn by now (so it takes two and a half months to get there from Salidar if there are no snows). She worries about Min going to Rand while trying to convince herself that she’s doing no such thing.

3. Interesting that the Dark One’s heatwave is still present in TAR. Elayne thinks “it was more than difficult being a teacher with pupils who thought they knew more that they did and were far more likely to call down the teacher than the teacher was to get away with calling them down”. Elayne and Nynaeve get all the responsibility of teaching but have none of the authority. Tonight they are here to teach the Salidar Six more about TAR.

4. Elayne also gets the feeling that the meetings that were just the Wise Ones and just the Aes Sedai (without them or Egwene) did not go terribly well. From what she has heard, the Aes Sedai had demanded all of the Wise Ones info about Rand, plus a lot of questions about how TAR works. And the very nature of their questions about TAR revealed their massive ignorance to the Wise Ones. Aw, and they were fiercely loyal and guarding their Rand info closely, saying only that he was alive. haha, told them only what they needed to know and the rest was Wise One business, yeah? (it’s funny to me when people reverse that one on the Aes Sedai)

5. Elayne is really good at making peace between arguing factions. She could have been a good Gray sister as well. Gray or Brown, either of them, would have suited her better than Green, which she is explicitly only interested in for the Warder Benefits at this point.

6. So, the Salidar Six, Nynaeve, Elayne, Siuan and Leane all dream themselves to Elaida’s study for some good old-fashioned spying. Leane goes off to check if her Tar Valon agents received her messages. We learn: twice in the past, Alviarin has countermanded Elaida’s orders without apparent repercussions; that Elaida has been demoting Sisters to Accepted as punishment (which is without precedent); the fighting in Shienar and Arafel is dying down; the Blight is quiet; all eyes and ears in Tarabon are silent; aw, Elayne briefly considers reading The Travels of Jain Farstrider as she waits but decides against it, there are 294 Aes Sedai in the Tower; roughly that many in Salidar; and the last third in neither location; and that Elaida has sent emissaries to Rand in Cairhien.

7. That last bit, of course, gets everyone agitated. The sisters worry that Rand might accept Elaida’s support over their own, while Elayne says that they need to warn him and that he would never trust Elaida enough to accept her support. Once again, she just knows him so well.

8. Then the Salidar Six all get trapped in a TAR nightmare trap and Elayne and Siuan work together to try to rescue them by denying the reality of the nightmare and focusing on fixing the location into how it should look without the nightmare. Two aren’t enough to overcome the nightmare, so Elayne suggests they go inside to recruit the others into denying it too, which makes Siuan say she has “a lion’s courage and maybe a fisherbird’s sense”.

9. After they rescue the Aes Sedai from the nightmare (and they’re all battered and bruised and decide to go wake up to be Healed), before she wakes up herself, Elayne moves herself to the royal palace in the dream. When she sees the huge Dragon throne where the Lion throne should be, and the Lion throne up on a pedestal, she worries that Rand isn’t handling the politics well in Andor, because her people are different from the Tairens or Cairhienin. I mean, you did only give him a three-day course on politics before you jetted off to Tanchico. She wishes she could warn him about Elaida’s embassy. She hopes that Min will reach him quickly, to help him, but is jealous of it at the same time. She also worries that the intentions of the Salidar embassy are not as pure as she’d like them to be. And we see that the reason she wants so badly to bond Rand now, at this point, is so that she can have a piece of him that she won’t have to share.

It is revealed at the very end of the chapter that Demandred happened to also be in the Caemlyn throne room in TAR and he sees (and recognizes) Elayne.

10. Oh! Using wards on your dreams does make it so that you can’t reach TAR on your own, so Rand COULD be a dreamwalker in canon and we just don’t get to see it because he’s been heavily warding since dreams since he first took Asmodean as his teacher (I think that was the first lesson he ever got, because he was tired of being spied on). Nynaeve thinks that Rand’s wards are so strong that she thinks even wearing the ter’angreal ring wouldn’t let him reach TAR.

11. Logain’s lie about being deliberately set loose by the Red Ajah (that he is happy to spread for the sake of revenge) is being spread about to some nobles. He’s getting a sense of purpose out of it and is no longer apathetic about life.

12. Nynaeve is incredibly frustrated that the Salidar Aes Sedai seem to be doing NOTHING useful that may help Rand and that the whole reason that she stayed -- to learn healing from the yellows -- hasn’t been taught to her at all. “if any of them knew more than she already did, they were not sharing it with a mere Accepted” and they refuse to even consider the idea that stilling can be healed.

Ah. This is where we hit the first of the ‘slog-time’ storylines. imo, this far into a book series (book six!) we should not have characters doing pointless storylines. If a character has been in a place for months and ends up thinking in frustration that is has been pointless to be there, that is inclined to make me feel like my reading experience has also been pointless. And we are about to hit a whole bunch of books full of false victories and pointless side quests. In addition to that, events simply get stretched out way too much, and I would personally argue that it starts here, with Elayne and Nynaeve having been trapped in Salidar for months and feeling like they could have been more useful literally anywhere else. And they’re RIGHT that they would be more useful with Rand too.

“a morning wasted, added to a string of wasted days”. And the reason she doesn’t leave now is basically the sunk cost fallacy plus stubborn pride -- giving up would mean admitting that they’d wasted all their time here and that she’d been wrong.

13. Oh, we do learn that Thom and Juilin have left for Amadicia. Huh. They’ve been gone for a month, scouting, and are not expected back for days. We end the chapter learning that an emissary from Elaida, a red named Tarna, has arrived in Salidar.

14. Niall (Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks) is pondering the idea of trying to send an assassin after Rand. Ah, we learn that Niall is behind turning the minor defiance in Tear into “real rebellion”. He thinks about sending an assassin for Bashere as well, to remove him as Rand’s general.

15. news from Niall’s (real) spymaster: the Ogier of various Steddings are meeting (reasons unknown); unusual number of Sea Folk ships are just hanging out in southern harbors (reasons unknown); al’Thor has been “reliably reported” as being seen in Caemlyn, Tear, and Cairhien, sometimes in the same day (they don’t know about Traveling of course, so Niall dismisses this); the story about the Red Ajah supporting Logain as a false Dragon has reached Niall’s ears - he decides to start spreading rumors that the Black Ajah holds the Tower.

16. Niall very much wants Elayne and Gawyn found and brought to him. Balwer hesitantly recommends that he press Morgase on his proposal to her (it’s been “more than a month” since their last scene together... oh dear, I think this timeline may be out of sync with the others).

17. Morgase is very much aware that she is a prisoner, though she is aware that she doesn’t look like one from the outside. She has just learned that Galad is a member of the Whitecloaks and quickly gaining rank. She knows that this makes him very vulnerable and the only way she can see to protect him is to make Niall believe that she does not love him the way she loves Elayne or Gawyn. “Galad was a knife to her throat”. So she does her best to pretend that she only sees him as Taringail’s son and not her own.

18. Morgase hopes that Rand’s amnesty is just a rumor but worries for Andor. But she also knows inviting the Whitecloaks in could doom them just as badly.

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #lord of chaos #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers