I don't even know. As its own thing that episode was bad. As a WoT episode, it was really bad. I liked Loial's lines? Keeping on at Rand while he walked away, great.

But if you're going to cut loads of stuff from the early books, why the hell are we replacing it with the funeral of some rando? Why not have Lan develop his arc in a useful way? Interacting with the ta'veren? Forcing Rand to obsess about mountains and feathers? The Whitecloaks and Egwene etc...it reeks of the forced misery that I hate in modern tv shows.

We need more time with the main cast interacting. I want to care about them on their own merits, but right now we just haven't seen enough.

 

Idk. This episode didn't seem completely awful. It's the worst so far, as I don't care about the warder at all. It does seem rather a waste though given there are only 3 episodes left. Maybe they accelerate some people's deaths and warders being at least passively suicidal is important sooner than later?

The Egwene and Perrin, and Mat/Rand/Loial parts were fine enough. Nothing great but nothing terrible.

I've read the books a couple of times, and I don't really remember any fancy warder funerals, but it has been awhile. I mostly remember warders just going on suicide missions though, not outright committing suicide.

 

Ye lads, I'm gonna break down this episode so you troglodytes can understand what you cannot comprehend.

There are three major plot lines involving the Warder bond in Wheel of Time. There may be more. These are in no order of importance, Moiraine and Lan, Alanna and Rand, The Dragon Riders and Rand. Their climaxes are Moiraine's death and compulsion-through-bond of Lan, Alanna releasing the bond in the Pit of Doom (also Rand surviving the slash from Ordeith's dagger), and the Dragon Riders enjoining their love with Rand.

The Steppin mini-arc is for the show audience to see wtf the consequences were if those had not happened. i.e. Lan should die, so Moiraine betrays him. Lan should die, but Myrelle saves him. Lan should die, but he ends up with Nynaeve. i.e. Rand might lose the last battle because Alanna dies, but she knows how to release the Warder bond. The show foreshadows her knowing how to release a bond. The Dragon Riders give Rand love, and we know it's true love because of how the Warder bond works. Those moments do not work unless we see there are real consequences and real connections.

Now you fuckles, if you think 20 minutes of Steppin is irrelevant, and slow, and downright bad writing. Fuck me you read Wheel of Time's 14 books where this shit was explained over 300 pages. The show explaining it in 20 minutes, in 4.2% divided by 8 seasons, that's 0.5% of the entire shows runtime. If you think that's expensive or a waste of screen time, my God show me a better script, show me better writing this concise.

Ye lads. What else. Oh, yeah, you can't have every episode be an escalation. It's not how narrative works. It's not how the Wheel of Time worked. There were lulls and slow points and rests. It's episode 5 of 8. This is the eye of the storm.

p.s. anyone else catch the taint already effecting Rand? He channeled once(?) in episode 3, and he's already getting impressions of Lews Therin. He inconceivably remembered Dragonmount. It feels like clunky dialogue if you were a virgin book reader, but as a chad show enjoyer I'm gonna go cringe myself to sleep after writing this.

 

I'm enjoying it and no one can stop me.

 

That makes no fucking sense. LTT killed himself with the One Power and that was how Dragonmount came to be.

It is far more likely this is from him being being born there rather than the LTT incarnation of himself.

 

They skipped so much for this...how can you be this incompetent?!

I don't know if it was gallows humor or something else, I laughed more in this episode than in any other. When the Tuathan build their human chain, I just expected the White Cloaks to just walk around them, because they blocked nothing. You are not on a normal street where the street is bordering houses, but on a dirt track in the woods. They can literally just walk around you to get to them. The cloaks don't want your shabby wagons, but some people far behind.

And finally I now know the true reason for Laila, Perrin's new wife. It is just so that Egwene, the Unbreakable, can tell him it will all be fine. Just for this moment.

But the best part of this episode was the ending. I just thought, now they are doing the Wolf of Wallstreet. You gotta pump up those numbers! Huhum Hai Hai! Huhum Hai Hai!

You have 8 episodes for season 1, limited time, and instead of focusing on the main cast some random no-name gets more time than Thom, whose impact on the main cast was far more important than Stepin or the Warder. Considering how they trimmed down so many plot lines, reduced the subtlety of the setting and butchered character arcs, foreshadowing any Warder content seems an utter waste. Since the start they have been more than liberal with the lore, but this is the point that demands such attention. Cut the bullshit!
They have taken away from the character moments needed to establish the main cast and their relationships, to do this is simply a bad decision. You can show the same with less content by simply having some talk about Warder following their women into death. Have Stepin simply jump after the ring scene. Or have it just directly told to the audience, like they do for so much more important things.

Honestly, this episode puts every remark they made about time constrains, pacing and other troubles they had in adapting the book into a series to shame. These were lies, either born from ignorance, incompetence or malice.

The Egwene favoritism reaches it current height in this episode. Suddenly making her the fan of the gender changed Jain Farstrider and having her "backstory" told instead of giving any limelight to Mat and Rand's travel or some foreshadowing for Rand speaks a clear language. She is slowly taking more and more characteristics of a black hole sue. Sucking all good lines from other characters to get her own moments. Perrin was hit the most till now, because he has spent the most time with her. What these hacks did to him...every great moment was taken from him. Instead of him admonishing Egwene for her questionable behavior, she shows concern for him and is his emotional crutch. Or how Nynaeve's first channeling, a moment of anger, defiance and heartbreak over not being able to help someone to then spontaneously healing them is turned into Egwene the Unbreakable. And they don't even have the decency to have her do her own shilling, they misuse Nynaeve's own mouth for it. This is worse than what they did to Ron all these years ago! For Hermione, they at least stopped with him, instead of also going after Harry.

Personally, I think Teen Wolf had better Wolf eyes than they did and if someone says that crappy show had a bigger budget years ago...but wigs, right? This aspect continues to be a disappointment.

But the worst thing is that there are moments, small moments, where you can see how it could have been. Mat and Rand in this episode are great, maybe just because the rest is subpar, but still I wanted more of that. Nynaeve talking with Rand and worrying about Mat. I liked that. It is an utter shame that these moments are sprinkled between so much bad stuff.

Lastly, the Logain scene was such a joke. Instead of him seeing Rand and laughing, it is alluded to be Mat with Rand deliberately taken out of the picture to then just seem like a hallucination by Mat. They have to know the book scene and butchered it in such manner intentionally.

 

This is fine and completely misses why I (and I think many others) didn't like the episode.

First, like I've said before the set design/costuming sucks. The Whitecloaks look like something that came out of the back of my cats. They aren't even wearing proper cloaks - this continues as a theme like the unnecessary leather and fur trim etc. That brings down every episode thus far because it's a stupid trope that needs to die in a fire in any show.

Second, this episode specifically, yes 20 mins of Steppin sucks. The foreshadowing is actually fine and good. But fuck me, we have had so much thrown at us already we need to see more of the main cast. Which brings me to my next point, not everyone needs a huge arc/set up in season 1. Perrin for example already fully into am I man or monster - except we've barely seen anything and they slammed in a fridging to make it work (and the Wolves look like derpy Alsatians just done so badly), it's fine to take a bit of time. Same with Thom, he appears and vanishes in a really short time. Take a bit of time please.

If Lan must have an arc about what happens when an Aes Sedai dies do it in the Blight. That is where Lan will go to die. That's...even better. Moiraine can talk about how letting him die there will be a victory for the Dark One and talk about passing the bond or something else there. Boom foreshadowing and it also brings in Malkier and shows what makes a great warder and how Lan was so set up to be one; he was sworn to the oath of protection in the crib and because it had already failed, he sought death at every turn. That's why he is the best of the gaidin. There to protect and die on a glorious spree against the shadow if he fails because only his Aes Sedai matters.

Add to that Steppin was so obviously doomed the second he appeared I couldn't care he died, and I can't empathise with Lan because of that. Best friend of the mysterious master warrior drops in? Come on, the only thing that could make his death more sure was being 3 days from retirement.

 

The issue is that Steppin is fully irrelevant and we spent almost half an episode on him, when we could have accomplished the same dramatic arc far more adeptly in maybe 5 minutes.

• Step 1) Show that Stepin is grieving intensely and have a conversation between Lan and Stepin about duty/bond.
• Step 2) Have Lan wake up and find the dead Aes Sedai's ring on his bedside table. He rushes to find Stepin only to find he committed suicide.
• Step 3) Have Lan and Moiraine have a talk about their own bond and what might happen if she dies.
• Step 4) Cue Lan dropping the ring in lava circle.
• Optional step 5) funeral scene.

Done.

 

I really liked episode 5, and I honestly think that it was the best one yet. We got a proper feel for internal Aei Sedai and Warder politics, and I enjoyed Perrin and Egwaine's time with the White Cloaks. The special effects are just getting better and better, and I think that the actors really got a chance to shine with less time on the move.

The one thing that I didn't like at all was Logain looking at Mat while he was laughing. The showrunners are sending off so many obvious red herrings, while confirming to people who've actually read the books that Rand is still the Dragon (Him recognising the mountain and reading the Karaethon Cycle.). What I just don't get is why. If I hadn't read the books before, Rand is the last character I'd expect to be the Dragon, and I'd feel cheated and confused when they eventually revealed it.

(I don't really care how accurate they are to the source material, I just want good story telling tbh. Also, the costume designs are bangin.)

 

The favoritism is only going to get worse. The showrunner's favorite character is Egwene, a massive red flag for anyone who read the books, and he's going to keep making changes to prop her up. Most likely at the expense of the other characters.

Like others have said, episode 5 was bad on its own, terrible if you consider the wider context. They have 8 episodes for a season and they waste their time on this? Whitecloaks are ridiculous, Valda has been butchered from what he was in the books (a blademaster), Rand, Mat and Perrin are paper thin characters, because every moment has been taken from them in the show.

Where's Rand and Mat's road to Caemlyn arc, which would have been to Tar Valon in the show? Where the viewer would have been introduced to there being darkfriends everywhere. Rand's and Mat's character growth is missing, because that section is missing. In the show they just teleport there after Thom. We get 1 chubby darkfriend, who chases the boys around and spouts what Ishamael thinks. What a joke.

Instead we get melodramatic scenes about some inconsequential warder, Lan wailing and screaming, when in the books, he gets only red rimmed eyes from Moiraine's death. So much time wasted. If there's any hope for the tv show, it's if Rafe and his writing buddies get kicked of the project and some actually competent people, who actually like the books get hired. This will not happen though.

 

Genuine question here, how and why? Because to me, Lan is baby's first samurai, the Whitecloaks don't have any armor or proper cloaks, the show generally hates colour (seriously the Tinkers should be bright, hell traffic cone orange and neon green was popular in the 14th century so it's super possible) and for some reason all the wholesome farmboy characters seem allergic to white shirts? Plus the weird cast iron broach and huge fur cuffs for Perrin...

It's all super generic. The Aes Sedai dresses are better admittedly - but still not perfect like Liandrins inexplicably huge leather belt.

 

How else would viewers know that he's a furry blacksmith?

 

Then the broach should be nicer because he made the damn thing and is a blacksmith. As for the fur, I don't necessarily object to it being there (for him, Nynaeve's dress is a travesty), but the sheer amount. There's just so much. Motifs are great, but please, do them well.

 

He'll be important later on because...

Spoiler

He will meet Perrin, in the World of Dreams, as a wolf.

A Steppin Wolf.

I'll just show myself out.
(Still a better plot than the show.)

 

Re-listened to episode 5, Liandrin outright lies. She's the one that directed Nynaeve to the gardens to see Loial (her hint that there's something at the persimmons worth seeing), and so she knows that Nynaeve has left the Tower with him.

She says to Moiraine "I would assume still in her room."

Also, that means the Darkfriends know where Rand and Mat are?

 

Eh. I wouldn't call that an outright lie.

She never saw Nynaeve leave the hall to go. And she could assume Nynaeve would still be in her room....if Nynaeve listened to Moraine.

 

Also

Spoiler

she's Black Ajah, which removes the binding from the Three Oaths

 

This is a link to Brandon Sanderson's podcast, where he talks in a mostly non-spoiler fashion about the show up to episode 4. There's a good few interesting points about the nature of adaptations and the books in general raised.

 

Episode 6 was definitely the strongest so far. Dialogue improved drastically. It hit story beats with a good rhythm and the Siuan/Moiraine dynamic was surprisingly tasteful. Nothing cheesy or melodramatic, just realistic conversation and affection.

Editing and effects are still ass, but that was the first episode that I can say I had no real problems with.

 

I this episode had some great high points and low points. I think my favorites were the dynamics with Moraine and Loial. The part I specifically disliked was:

Spoiler

the healing of Mat in terms of the follow up. There are so many dynamics in play that follow his healing at the tower, up to and including the Horn. Him trouncing Galad and Gawain is possibly my favorite thing in the books so the thought we might not see it is very saddening.
I don’t have a problem with it as far as Maureen being the one to heal him it does almost make light the power of the dagger. Took nearly a full circle to heal him if I remember. That was also when he started hearing the dice and his luck changed. I want my wild night at Tar Valon dammit.