You know in a slightly unrelated vein I used to pronounce Aes Sedai as EZ SE-DEE. It wasn't until I talked to some one of the phone about this that I heard the current pronunciation.
Cape,
It's just a glip. Give it time.
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Is there a logical, in world reason why in Edmonds Field, a place that is isolated and not many people have a reason to go, has such a real world diverse population?
Besides real world social justice pandering, that is.
It is said, repeatedly, in the books that the Two Rivers has been somewhat isolated from the rest of the world only for the last few generations, so maybe 50 years at the lower end and 100-150 at the upper. Before that, the Two Rivers saw tax collectors and there was a trade route and road leading through the area, across the White River and down to Ghealdan (during the days of Manetheren, it went via the old Ogier-built city of Jara'copan), which would have made the area relatively busy (or at least much busier than it is now) at that time.
For whatever reason, the trade routes to Ghealdan fell out of favour (possibly not being worth enough to keep the trade routes through the Forest of Shadows open) and Andor diverted its attention to keeping hold of Baerlon and the mines in the Mountains of Mist, losing interest in the Two Rivers. However, whilst that timespan rivals or expands past a human lifespan, it doesn't extend to the multiple generations it would take to homogenise all ethnic diversity in the region into a common look.
Some people have this view that the Two Rivers has been cut off from the rest of the world since at least the Trolloc Wars, if not the Breaking, which is said precisely nowhere. It was the heart of Manetheren, one of the huge and diverse Ten Nations, and part of Farashelle, a rich and powerful kingdom in its time, before becoming part of Artur Hawkwing's continent-spanning Empire and then the early and much more populous and powerful Kingdom of Andor, and only gradually fell into its current, relatively isolated state.
It's also worth noting that the books themselves contradict the statement that the Two Rivers is an unknown, obscure backwater, with Morgase having met enough people from there to recognise the accent and Two Rivers Tabac being a famous brand known throughout Andor and some of the countries beyond. That would indicate the area's reputation of being totally isolated is a relatively recent phenomenon.
To be honest, Robert Jordan's worldbuilding is quite spotty and often fails to take into account things like how populations move with demand, how trade inspires migration and the sheer mind-boggling size of the landmass; the Two Rivers is about a quarter the size of England, whilst being located at a much more southerly latitude approximately 32 degrees north on the world map, not-coincidentally the same latitude as Robert Jordan's home town of Charleston (or maybe a bit closer to Savannah). That latitude also runs through countries like Algeria, Libya, India and Saudi Arabia, and you're not notably going to find all-white populations along that line for a populace that's been isolated for many centuries. The number of white people in Emond's Field actually works against the idea that the isolation has been in place for a huge amount of time (otherwise everyone would have taken on a north African/Middle-Eastern/Indian subcontinent shade over the course of the near four millennia since the Breaking).
For the TV show they've said screw it and decided to make something more realistic based on the continent's geography and history.
All I know is I want Padan Fain to be Padan Fain. That and Dumai's Well to make the Battle of the Blackwater look like kiddie water slide on fire...
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I'm not sure "more realistic" is the answer.
While the Two Rivers hasn't been cut off from the world, it has been a backwater for centuries.
Again, this is not said in the books. The closest is that it's been a couple of generations since the Two Rivers was regularly visited by Andoran tax collectors (so ~50 years literally, maybe a bit longer colloquially) and enough time has passed for the people in Caemlyn to not put too much mind to the region, which could be as short as a single human lifetime, or less.
Manetheren fell more than 2000 years ago and even Hawkwing's Empire ended a 1000 years back. They certainly trade with the rest of the world, but that doesn't make them a crossroads with a diverse, constantly changing population. Think perhaps of a small pre-modern English village in a quiet county - not completely cut off, but still pretty damn white.
Again, it is not said that the Two Rivers has been cut off from the rest of the world since the Trolloc Wars or even the War of the Hundred Years. That is extrapolation by fans, admittedly not helped by Robert Jordan's own tendency to suggest that almost nothing of interest has happened for hundreds of years since those big marker events.
It is worth noting that multiple characters from the Two Rivers, including Cenn Buie and in one instance, Egwene, are noted for having dark skin (clearly not sub-Saharan African dark, given that Mat is startled by how dark Tuon is, but certainly not lily white English, with a reasonable conclusion of southern European to north African appearance). The Two Rivers is located at a considerably further south latitude (more than a thousand miles further south) than England, in an area that gets much hotter summers, in a country which has a notably diverse population, since Queen Ishara Casalain, the founder of Andor, is noted as being as dark as the Sea Folk.
That they haven't evolved to a darker shade might be unrealistic, but it doesn't take nearly so long for a relatively small population to homogenize unless something is keeping ethnic groups from intermarrying. Also, in a more plot/narrative sense, wasn't Rand supposed to stand out from his neighbors due to his Aiel blood, which wouldn't be nearly as noticeable in a diverse looking village.
Rand stands out from his neighbours due to his skin being unusually fair by Two Rivers standards (reinforcing the idea that most Two Rivers folk are darker in skin colour), extremely tall and having red hair.
The main thing that the TV show has done oddly is by making Mat as fair as Rand and Perrin as tall as Rand, so that two of his distinctive features have been nullified. Fair enough for height - when casting someone you go for actual acting ability, height is the first thing that gets jettisoned from the book description - but given most of the other inhabitants of the Two Rivers are darker in hue, they could have certainly found an actor able to pull off Mat's character. In fact, I was thinking that Kit Young, who plays Jesper on Netflix's SHADOW AND BONE, would have made a perfect Mat.
Rand's unusual features are going to rest on him being a redhead alone.
And if a place like Emond's Field is diverse, the actual major cities and trade centers should be complete melting pots. Which means the visual distinctiveness of the various cultures goes away. Every part of the world is populated by a broad mix of ethnic types.
That is, broadly speaking, correct. A good example of that is that we get a good sense of what many Domani characters are like (with darker skin) but we also meet lighter-skinned Domani as well, with that being pointed out. The big cities are all described as having people from all over the world there.
Rand being a redhead is just the only thing I care about. Well maybe not only... but certainly if we're discussing 'race" since it plays into part of his lineage...
That trailer was hugely more impressive, and showing the Aiel fighting in the snow was a cool decision. There's a really epic vibe in this trailer missing from the other promos. Fal Dara looks really cool.
They continue to hide Loial though (he's in the Waygate scene, just, hiding behind Perrin, but you can't make him out).
QB,
I can't speak to Shannara (since it wasn't as huge a favorite of mine...) but I'm HOPING they only cut stuff from books 8 and 9 and maybe 10.
I do like the trailer and yes, Wert is correct about Aiel in the snow fighting being cool.
What really stood out to me is how they are handling Channeling which is always been tricky I felt.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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As a non reader of the series, I did like the trailer, seemed decently epic if incredibly trope and cliched filled "stop the evil one" "you simple country remote folk are the heroes, because....destiny?". None of that really matters too much if it's well done, but likely will keep it from being ground breaking - I'm fine with solid, good, epic and entertaining.
What I did find odd and amusing (in a not so good way) from the trailer was the opening "I swear never to use magic to make a deadly weapon, or to kill anyone" followed a few minutes later at most by hurling fireballs (which look pretty darned lethal). Whatever good reasons for this don't come through in the trailer, and just makes her seem like a big hypocrite.
But, definitely will watch, even though in the fantasy realm I'm more excited for Witcher Season 2. I'd be happy if I like or even love WoT.
They continue to hide Loial though (he's in the Waygate scene, just, hiding behind Perrin, but you can't make him out).
Probably so the audience can be in Rands shoes when he sees the ogier for the first time
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As a non reader of the series, I did like the trailer, seemed decently epic if incredibly trope and cliched filled "stop the evil one" "you simple country remote folk are the heroes, because....destiny?". None of that really matters too much if it's well done, but likely will keep it from being ground breaking - I'm fine with solid, good, epic and entertaining.
What I did find odd and amusing (in a not so good way) from the trailer was the opening "I swear never to use magic to make a deadly weapon, or to kill anyone" followed a few minutes later at most by hurling fireballs (which look pretty darned lethal). Whatever good reasons for this don't come through in the trailer, and just makes her seem like a big hypocrite.
But, definitely will watch, even though in the fantasy realm I'm more excited for Witcher Season 2. I'd be happy if I like or even love WoT.
Darkspawn don't count. That's the loop hole in the no killing with Magic. Any freaky mutant thing can burn, but if an ordinary human comes at you with a knife.....well they go around with a soul bound bodyguard to deal with those problems. Nothing prevents him from killing people.
thejeff,
I thought there were ter'anagrel that could detect the taint by the Dark One...but I might be mis-remembering. Also as both jeff and Grey said, Darkspawn and ANYONE associated with the Dark One don't count. As for regular humans (like say the Children of the Light who I'm glad to say have accurate costumes AND look pretty much how I always imagined..) Aes Sedai generally let the Warders do the Warding. I mean that's how the Green got shizzle done.
Also a SLIGHT concern, they might be cutting stuff from Shadar Logoth maybe. I dunno but with 6 episode count I am...concerned.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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As a non reader of the series, I did like the trailer, seemed decently epic if incredibly trope and cliched filled "stop the evil one" "you simple country remote folk are the heroes, because....destiny?". None of that really matters too much if it's well done, but likely will keep it from being ground breaking - I'm fine with solid, good, epic and entertaining.
What I did find odd and amusing (in a not so good way) from the trailer was the opening "I swear never to use magic to make a deadly weapon, or to kill anyone" followed a few minutes later at most by hurling fireballs (which look pretty darned lethal). Whatever good reasons for this don't come through in the trailer, and just makes her seem like a big hypocrite.
But, definitely will watch, even though in the fantasy realm I'm more excited for Witcher Season 2. I'd be happy if I like or even love WoT.
Darkspawn don't count. That's the loop hole in the no killing with Magic. Any freaky mutant thing can burn, but if an ordinary human comes at you with a knife.....well they go around with a soul bound bodyguard to deal with those problems. Nothing prevents him from killing people.
Darkfriends also don't count, though it's harder to tell of course.
The actual Oath as sworn in the books: "Never to use the One Power as a weapon except against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn, or in the last extreme defense of her life, the life of her Warder, or another Aes Sedai." They may have just cut it short for the trailer.
Aes Sedai being good at stretching the literal words of their oaths, it's not unheard of for one to put herself in danger in order to be able to use the Power as a weapon.
Hmmm - I wonder how the Darkfriends part works. How sure do you have to be? What if you're wrong? Can you use it as a Darkfriend detector?
I assume that in the book and (hopefully) in the actual show the oath is worded so that it makes sense. But in the TRAILER, it doesn't say that, and it's pretty dumb to woo audiences who aren't familiar with the books with such a hypocritical juxtaposition of "I swear not to" followed by blasting things with fire.
Joel,
I honestly don't recall if they do show the oath or not, but in order to advance from beginner level channeler (IE novice) to full Aes Sedai (expert) you need to take the oath. Of course there's some stuff that come out later on that makes you wonder if the oath is any good anyway...
Jeff,
Regarding Warders in trouble, I mean I don't recall some of the Greens doing much against humans other than enhancing their Warders and/or giving them shields. Of course much of what I remember comes after book 6 and stuff...
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Also a SLIGHT concern, they might be cutting stuff from Shadar Logoth maybe. I dunno but with 6 episode count I am...concerned.
Shadar Logoth is in (I mean, the trailers have all shown it in quite a bit of detail).
Also, 8 episodes per season, not 6. They are dropping the first three episodes on 19 November and then one episode a week until the finale on Christmas Eve.
Oh I must have missed that. Thanks Wert. (That does make me feel a LITTLE better about having more plot from book 1 in this season...)
I also should clarify that I'm not sure we'll get the full contect on Shadar Logoth because I thought there were only 6 episodes.
No reason was given for the Matt recast (which I'm annoyed about. Not the no reason given just the whole recast) but yeah I think an hour run time seems likely.
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The longest episode in Season 1 is 65 minutes. The shortest is about 45 minutes.
Received an invite to the UK premiere on 15 November, so that should be fun.
wait...how the hell did you get an invite and the rest of us didn't??
But okay cool.
Go see it of course! I can afford the plane fare! :p
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wait...how the hell did you get an invite and the rest of us didn't??
Working on the biggest WoT fansite helps ;)
Also living under 2 hours from the venue, so I'm a relatively cheap get (quite a few others are being flown in from the States).
Good deal, Wert. Also which one is the biggest now. Last time I remember there was WoT.com...but that was many moons ago.
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Good deal, Wert. Also which one is the biggest now. Last time I remember there was WoT.com...but that was many moons ago.
Dragonmount. Theoryland is still quite big as well, but Wotmania sadly died many years ago (someone tried to keep it going as RAFO, but that faded away as well).
Ah. Yes I remember Dragonmount. Along with Wotmania.
Cape,
I'd expect we'd hear some on Wednesday. Maybe Thursday. They already have some reviews up for the new live action Cowboy Bebop. So it can't be that far behind.
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So any word on when reviews will start coming out since it starts Friday?
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I attended the premier and saw the first two episodes there in IMAX, followed by the third from a press screener. So my sense (now the embargo is lifted) is as follows:
Overall, pretty good. The immediate takeaway is that, at least over the first three episodes, it's a stronger show than, say, The Witcher or Shadow & Bone (which I found both reasonably entertaining but nothing special), and at times matches the opening three episodes of Game of Thrones' first season (though it pays to remember that GoT S1 didn't really kick off until the end of the fourth episode), but at other times falls short.
In one of the best scenes in the first episode, we learn that Winternight/Bel Tine is a celebration of those who have died, their souls returned to the Wheel, and their inevitable return. The philosophy of the Wheel is simply taken as 100% fact by everyone, seemingly making religion obsolete. It's not massively over-expositioned, and it helps that it's Tam talking about it with the specific example of him and Rand missing Kari, rather than told from on high by Moiraine.
I'm not a massive fan of the changes to Perrin's character arc, mainly because the show seems to lowball the emotional PTSD from it. It doesn't help that no-one apart from Perrin knows what happened in the first three episodes and they rush so quickly from place to place and then into the wolf arc that Perrin seems to have no chance to process it. Given that Marcus Rutherford seems to be a very capable actor (his change from his calm, collected demeanour to almost terrifying rage during the battle scene when he loses control), it's a shame we haven't seen him fully tackle the change to his character arc.
OTOH, the changes to Mat's arc, as much as it annoys Abell Cauthon stans, feels way more organically layered into the story and it builds Mat's character up, making him a tragicomic character from the start. Barney Harris is incredibly on point as Mat throughout.
Josha Stadowski is 100% Rand from the book. Like, he's just stepped right out of the pages and is rolling with it, with Michael McElhatton completely unrecognisable from his Roose Bolton persona, giving Tam al'Thor warmth and depth. Although there are some changes (they live in the mountains rather than the Westwood, and much closer to town), their scenes and storyline are probably the closest there are to the books and least-changed, and also amongst the most-effective, which might be an argument that changing some other things were not as necessary as has been claimed. Josha and Madeleine Madden also have a great chemistry which helps sell their complicated relationship, which fuels a lot character drama in the first two episodes (and fortunately stops just as it could have gotten annoying).
The Winternight battle is intense and has an outrageous amount of stuff going on (the clips released so far are neither the most impressive scenes nor the majority of them). It was overwhelming to watch in IMAX and I need to see it again on a screen that's more sanely sized. But the visual effects are beyond anything I've seen in a TV show before and we get a crash course in the Five Powers (though not named as such) as Moiraine systematically uses fire, wind and earth to wreck carnage on the Trolloc armies. She later uses spirit to heal people after the battle and water during their flight from Taren Ferry. My only complaint here is that Moiraine is a bit indiscriminate in how she unloads on the Trollocs and it feels like some of the stuff she does would have killed anyone standing nearby. There's a sinister moment where she seems to say she can't use the Power to knowingly kill people, whilst the books seemed to register it as that she couldn't use the Power if there was even a vague chance of killing someone, which restricts the general level of carnage Aes Sedai can cause. I'm not sure if that's a subtle change or if Moiraine was able to use the Power mid-battle to sense there weren't any civilians nearby.
The Whitecloaks are an interesting bunch, although Eamon Valda's (now an Inquisitor, making me wonder if he's succeeding Jaichim Carridin's role) pure moustache-twirling villainy is a major character shift. But he plays it with such utter aplomb that it works quite well, especially contrasted with Geofram Bornhald's stiff-upper-lip, honourable-if-misguided vibe. Bornhald and Valda clearly don't like each other, which complicates the Whitecloaks nicely given we have exactly two scenes with them in the first three episodes.
The location footage is breathtaking. Simple shots of the characters travelling with Lorne Balfe's music playing are incredibly effective, and rival anything seen in that fashion since LotR. In particular, the mountain scenes are spectacular and the locations they found for Caralain Grass are genuinely impressive. Emond's Field (never name as such but never named anything else either, oddly, with all references being to the Two Rivers region) and Breen's Spring are fantastic locations as well. The MVP location is Shadar Logoth, which has had far too much money and time spent on it to justify the 15 minutes they spend there. Fully expect to be back, as the books were, in later seasons.
The best scenes in the opening three episodes: most of the stuff in Shadar Logoth, the battle scenes on Winternight, the Lan/Nynaeve repartee and everything involving Rand and Mat in Breen's Spring (including meeting Thom and encountering their first Darkfriend in a brilliant bit of character work), but the kicker is the wounded Moiraine retelling the fall of Manetheren in a single three-minute monologue accompanied only by background music. That's a brave, cynicism-free thing to do in TV writing today and Pike nails it.
The worst scene in the first three episodes: easily Moiraine and Lan's arrival at the Winespring Inn. Not sure why the hell they used that to frontload the marketing for the show. There's a few other clunky scenes and moments, but that's the one that sticks out the most. It feels choppily edited (characters jump around between shots) and like there was more material there they cut out, maybe for the better or worse.
Missed opportunity: there's an amusing bit where Moiraine turns into Columbo, expertly quizzing Nynaeve to find out her age and dismiss her as a Dragon Reborn candidate, and in doing so really pisses her off and helps explain better Nynaeve's later hatred of her. It's a good scene but oddly she doesn't repeat it with the other four (or their parents), which would have likely wrapped up the mystery in like five seconds.
So far the reviews seem to be:
Positive: Decider, TVLine, The Verge (with caveats), IGN, Collider, Radio Times, The Telegraph (paywall)
Middling: Variety, IndieWire, io9 (but trending positive),
Negative: Rolling Stone, The Independent
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Thanks for the input Wert. I wanted to say one thing though.
Clarifying:
Wert,
Ah. Okay. Thanks for the clarifying.
The oath is that you can't use the power as a weapon except to
1) defend your life, the life of a fellow sister, your warder, or their warder.
2) Murderate shadowspawn.
If you are doing one of those things, and there are innocent civilians in between you and the thing you are frying... doesn't matter you're still fulfilling the oath. If that seems like a technicality... well its not the only oath they can tie into knots.