#and jordan doesn't narratively challenge her on that

[butterflydm]

I was skimming the books for fic-research reasons and just had to be baffled all over again at how the Seanchan invasion gets treated CoT-onward. The Kin were the spine of the Wise Women of Ebou Dar, who are, like THE people who are respected by everyone in the city. They all had to try to flee the area because of the Seanchan and any who didn't successfully flee but were Kin (and thus could channel) would have been instantly enslaved by the Seanchan. And yet we have that fucking weirdness in Mat's (fucking weird overall) first chapter in A Memory of Light where the Ebou Dari people are all "lol, why would a brutal invasion bother us in the slightest; we're too super-casual for an invasion to bother us".

I mean, that's all tied into the logistics problems that plagued all things Seanchan-related in the later books (they have infinite soldiers and infinite food & supplies and generally don't have to abide by the economics & logistics that Rand's side is required to follow) but it just really stood out to me because I was reading about how respected the Wise Women are (even in places like the Rahad) -- but the Seanchan's coming would have completely gutted them as a society and that should have an impact on how the Ebou Dari feel about the Seanchan. And it just ties into my overall feeling that Jordan stopped treating the Seanchan realistically starting in CoT and then Sanderson continued the trend when he took over the writing of the books.

But, yeah, one of the big things that I hope for from the prime show is that the Seanchan get treated with narrative consistency and we don't get an abrupt 180 on how the narrative treats them at the two-thirds point. Because what the Ebou Dari should be feeling (and what they were feeling in Winter's Heart!) is a lot of fear and paranoia and the desire to rebel, because the Seanchan are Always Watching and will Randomly Steal and Enslave People for reasons that the non-Seanchan people are not going to understand!

I am really curious about how much Seanchan Presence we're going to have in s3, because s2 made some bold choices in where it went with the Seanchan storyline and I am intensely curious about what kind of follow-up we'll have in s3. I've said a lot in the past that Tuon needs to be introduced sooner than she was in the books (Jordan waited way too late to introduce her! He should also have introduced her while she was still in Seanchan, imo, so that we actually could have seen her interacting with the rest of the Imperial family so that we would have a baseline of Seanchan Imperial Behavior to potentially contrast her against later -- but Tuon feels like another case where Jordan valued the surprise of the wham! line over giving a lot of detail and background) and I would absolutely be a fan of her being introduced in s3.

[butterflydm]

Once you get to rereading with Tuon I'd love your thoughts on how they could improve her, her storyline and her relationship with Mat for the show. I'm just on Knife of Dreams and I think she could be a better character in the show's turning of the wheel.

Yeah, the main issue that I have with Tuon (and the Seanchan) isn't her starting point but her ending point. Because I think Jordan realized that he didn't actually know HOW to Solve the Problem of the Seanchan narratively and that's why he punted it off to the outriggers (that never happened) but that also means that Tuon feels like an unfinished and narratively unsatisfying character (and the Seanchan feel like an unfinished and unsatisfying arc). He made her someone who was so completely fixed in her own worldview that he couldn't think a way out of the writing trap that he'd created for himself.

And, tbh, I think it would have remained an issue even if he had been able to finish the books and start on the outriggers, because he did create Tuon as a character so resistant to change. I seriously doubt three novels (which was the number I'd heard floated around), even WoT length novels, would have been long enough to untangle the knot he created for himself.

What they need to do (and TV shows & movies love to do this anyway) is give her a character arc. Literally any character arc at all. Because what she does in the books (from what I remember) is constantly look like she's about to have a character arc and then hastily back away from the edge so that she doesn't have to challenge any of her fixed opinions about the world.

The issues with Mat and Tuon... I think some of them are embedded in the way that the characters are introduced to each other. If Tylin weren't in the picture and if Tuon's initial nickname for Mat weren't based on what Tylin does to Mat, that would already create a better beginning for them. But making 'Toy' how Tuon thinks of Mat and what she calls him puts such a bad taste in my mouth from the beginning of their 'courtship'.

But, yes, I am sure that I will have... tbh, so many opinions about Tuon once I get there in my reread, lol.