#wot 1x08

[aflawedfashion]

Moiraine Damodred | The Wheel of Time 1x08

[markantonys]

readers for 20 years: wheel of time doesn't really start feeling like wheel of time until books 2 and 3. book 1 is more of a run-of-the-mill LOTR knockoff that isn't the most interesting or unique story.

readers when season 2 is more interesting, unique, and wheel-of-time-y than season 1:

[qqueenofhades]

Finished s1/started s2 of WOT, thoughts as follows:

1x08 truly was just the LOTR Lite Power Hour, including Helm's Deep

I will say that the bit at the start, where they reveal that 3000 years ago was an advanced sci-fi society, was the most interesting and original plot thing they've done so far

2x01 did feel more interesting and better paced overall; I am hopeful it will indeed be better than s1, which was fun but really nothing particularly special

I am aware that they get together in the book, but I'm still getting nothing from Lan/Nynaeve? They looked at each other meaningfully a few times in s1, they were then in love, or something

Zzzzzzz

Lololololololol poor Lan, tried to be emotionally available and have a nice dinner and then immediately nearly died

GODDAMN IT GOTTA RUN OUT AND FIGHT SOME RINGWRAITHS BECAUSE MOIRAINE DONE DID SOMETHING DUMB AGAIN

I don't ship him and Moiraine exactly (because I like them being platonic lifemates and also I obviously like Moiraine with Sophie Okonedo's character) but I also don't NOT ship them, it's confusing

Rand now has the Buzzcut of Angst, he can talk to Flint in Black Sails s3 to find out how that usually goes

Hint: it's usually Not Good

Me at the end of s1: yeah there's 14 more books in this series, that was definitely not the Last Battle

And indeed, Dark One Guy is back, we suspect this likewise won't go well

I am excited for the arrival of my Hot Evil Eyeliner Wife

[pillowfriends]

WoT men ranked by hotness by a random ace lesbian (me)

(mostly going off the show)

LEWS. THERIN. TELAMON. who allowed this. from the books I was picturing him as some crusty old white man and then I started 1x08 and GASPED. he took my breath away. I was twirling my hair like a 14 year old all through his serious conversation in the Old Tongue. I literally turned the show off bc I was so stunned. I would let this man do anything to me fr

al'Lan Mandragoran. it's about the devotion. it's about the stoicism and the hidden softness. also the long hair ngl. and also the fantasy that someone is bonded to me and would know how I felt and what I needed without me having to voice it. and also he's just really pretty ok I have eyes

Logain Ablar. sorry about this one he just has crazyman swag and a cute cardigan in season 2 and long hair. his nose is kissable. I would cuddle him and he would probably snap my neck

um......... list canceled I don't think any of the other men are hot. ig Perrin is sort of good looking but I feel fond of him like a parent would be fond of their child lmao. have a nice day

[moiraineology]

Hi! I've recently become a fan of WoT after watching the series and I'm absolutely obsessed with Moiraine and Lan (platonic soulmates forever!) and I'm super appreciative of your awesome blog, your doing God's work, thank you🙏

Anyway, I was rewatching the series and I was just wondering, do we know how Nynaeve could actually track Moiraine and what she showed Lan? what is Moraine's tell? Was it ever hinted anywhere else?

I just came up with a headcanon that perhaps Moiraine unwantedly leaves hair strands on branches and that's how Lan could track her through the Blight in 1x08.

Hello!! I am so stoked to receive this question! First off, thank you so much for saying that about my blog. I'm glad someone is enjoying it as much as I am.

Second, yes, yes, YES to your headcanon. I'm not the most meticulous viewer (except for when it comes to Certain Scenes) so it's entirely possible that I missed some information about Nynaeve's tracking abilities somewhere. However, I fully accept your idea about Moiraine's strands of hair being her tell. Probably also her footprints, horse hoofprints (when she's on a horse), or even threads from her clothes? But especially hair. Yeah, I love that a lot.

[birgittesilverbae]

1x08 the eye of the world + reductress headlines

[marvelfanlife]

Malkier was taken by the Blight so long ago

The Wheel of Time | Episode 8 | ‘The Eye of the World’

[moirainessuspenders]

[lunamond]

Okay I have a bunch of thoughts for the Wot Finale.

Warning! Show Spoilers for the whole season and Mild Book spoilers mostly for comparing characterisations between book and show (no plot)

This was probably the episode that left me with the most mixed feelings. However, I definitely think that my viewing is strongly coloured by my reading of the og story as a book reader.

I watched the entire show twice once with a non-reader friend and my non-reader parents. And while they do have some critiques they were very engaged and overall enjoyed the finale, so te season was definitely as success.

I personally enjoyed quite a lot of the changes and additons. Some personal favourites include the Moiraine stilling/shielding, Amalisa as a trained but weak channeler harnessing the power of wilders Egg, Ny and turning the Eye into a trap by Ishy in which he tries to tempt Rand.

However, there a lot of small things that definitely bothered me. This includes the Fake-out Nyneave, Loial and Uno death, Egwene's wonder healing, basically having all the men of Fal Dara die just for the woman to completely destroy the trolloc army (like I get the need for dramatic stakes, but why couldn’t the channelers join them at the fortress?), also Lan needing to be told Moiraine's "tell" seemed very silly (like he is a master tracker and traveled for decades with her... but he couldn’t follow her?)

Ultimately though these minor issues didn’t truely detract from my enjoyment of the episode.

However, I finally realized why I personally can't enjoy this adaptation as much as I wanted to. And most of this comes down to Rand's characterisation.

(He and Nyneave are my favourite characters, though so there is a clear bias here)

This whole season has reduced a lot of focus on Rand's character journey for the benefit of the other 4 Emond's fielders. This I actually really liked as the show has much less time to set them all up as main characters and definitely benefited from giving each of them more to do early on. This of course meant they had to streamline Rand's journey for it to still work on Tv.

To do this they decided to focus on Rand's relationship with Egwene, and while they definitely improved this relationship by a lot, it ultimately always felt like one of the least interesting beats in Rand's journey to me.

While they did touch on Rand's relationship with Tam, his friendship with Mat and his Aiel looks, these things never really came up during his big moment in the finale episode. In the end his big test came down to not taking away Egwene's free will and recognising that her ambitions are bigger than a simple farm life.

Which is fine I guess, but Rand pretty much let her chose her own fate already in Ep1 and reaffirmed her decision to become an Aes Sedai in Ep 7... which made this whole moment feel kinda hollow to me.

This, to me at least, is just much less interesting than his struggle in the books, where he feels alienated and isolated due to always having been set appart physically coupled by his discovery of his adoption and that he ethnically belongs to a group of people that are feared/hated in his community.

This made me personally really connect with his character as this is definitely something I can relate to a lot.

This whole struggle is of course a lot harder to portray on screen, but I feel that if they had used Ishy's temptation in the last episode a little more cleverly they could have shown us this identity struggle. Maybe by bringing in Tam and letting Egwene leaving him behind for bigger things play into his feeling of alienation.

Added to that I wish they had given Rand something to demonstrate not necessarily his power but the utter destruction that he could cause, as his fear of his own potential madness and the danger this represents is central to his character arc (at least to me).

Ultimately, I think a lot of this comes down to different interpretations of the books. Rafe has said multiple times that he intense to preserve the characters and their essence. However, the issue is that what makes up these characters is still highly subjectiv. So this probably means that what made me attached to Rand's character wasn’t what the writers saw as vital to him and that is fine. It doesn’t mean that it is bad adaptation or that Rafe and his team didn’t respect the books. It just means that their vision isn't mine.

[aflawedfashion]

Moiraine Damodred | The Wheel of Time 1x08

[readingaway]

They went the sci-fi route! The true meaning of sci-fi/fantasy.

[markantonys]

i'll be interested to see if this holds true for WOT s3 since the s1 finale had so many extenuating circumstances and can't really be included in the comparison, but based off of the s2 finale, i believe that season finales tend to bear the brunt of "It's Different From The Books!" ire because they are the culmination of all the smaller changes made throughout the season.

this turned into a bigger analysis post than i expected lmao par for the course with my blog! read on for exploration of how the 2x08 conclusion of each season-long arc is the the most emotionally satisfying conclusion and/or the most thematically appropriate conclusion possible based on the show's particular version of the story, plus a bonus tangent on the nature of adaptation.

for a finale episode, the writers' prime concern 100% has to be "wrapping up all the season's arcs in a way that feels satisfying with everything that's happened in the first 7 episodes, using the book version of the finale event as the framework" rather than "recreating the book version of the finale event exactly as it is with all the same scenes and themes". the nature of storytelling inherently means that every single person who tells the same story will focus on different themes (just think of how many versions of the hades & persephone story there are), and a good adaptation knows that being internally consistent with its own Emphasized Themes is more important than copying-and-pasting scenes from the source material without making any changes to account for the specific way this adaptation is telling the story.

(but a lot of people can't even get past this first point because they don't understand that this is how adaptations - how storytelling in general - work. like, person B literally cannot tell the exact same story that person A told without putting their own spin on it. it's not possible! unless they're simply reading out the exact words that person A wrote, which can't be done when putting 14 massive books into maximum 64 hours of tv. so many readers like to meet this point with "but why does the books' version of the story need to be changed at all?" which is just a non-starter because a) medium differences require a ton of changes, and b) even if no changes were *required*, they would happen anyway because that is human nature when it comes to storytelling. when it comes to story-listening too! ask a hundred different book fans what WOT is about and you'll get a hundred different answers. rafe & co can't possibly make an adaptation that captures every single reader's idea of What WOT Is About, and nobody in the world could ever re-tell the story of WOT in the exact same way that RJ told it, not even the most die-hard book fan; all rafe & co can do is focus on making sure the show honors the core of the books' story while also telling a good story in its own right, independent of the source material.)

i was a classics major, okay? it gets to me! anyway, corralling myself back on topic.

for 2x08, it's very telling just how far Minority Reader Opinion deviates from the general audience opinion. general audiences fucking LOVED this episode (it's the highest-rated on imdb out of the entire show, currently at a 9.0; most episodes are in the 7-8 range), but a bunch of readers call it disappointing and one of the worst episodes of the show. if it was actually a poor quality episode of television, the general audience ratings would reflect that too (as they do for 1x08, currently at a 6.4 (i personally think 1x08 gets way more hate than is deserved and i thoroughly enjoy that episode, but i accept that's just me)), but they don't.

so what does that mean? to me, it means that 2x08 is objectively a very good episode of television which general audiences found satisfying, but which some readers disliked because it prioritized the emotional & thematic needs of its own version of the story over the exact nature of the falme events in the source material. which is exactly what a good adaptation should do! if you forget the books and just look at the show (which the vast majority of viewers are doing), then every resolution that happens in 2x08 is the most satisfying resolution possible and/or the only resolution that was thematically permitted for that particular season storyline.

egwene: her season arc was about learning to stand on her own two feet and not cling onto her mentor figures or compare herself unfavorably to others. thus, her freeing herself from the a'dam is the most satisfying possible conclusion to her season arc. nynaeve and elayne freeing her in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut egwene's Overcoming Impostor Syndrome arc to go "yeah actually it's true that she's not good enough on her own and when it comes down to it she does always need nynaeve to help her out". that version worked in TGH where she didn't have an Overcming Impostor Syndrome arc, but it wouldn't have worked in the show where she did. (but, yes, egwene learning in 2x08 that she doesn't have to rely on others is a double-edged sword, which nicely sets up her later-series struggles with trying to shoulder too much herself and not letting even her friends or partner help her.)

rand: his season arc was about learning to lean on others and not isolate himself or try to protect his friends by withholding his burdens from them. thus, him failing to defeat ishamael until all his friends come to lend aid in various ways is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. rand defeating ishy singlehandedly in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut his Learning That Strength Is In Numbers arc to go "yeah actually it's true that rand is capable of winning his biggest battles all by himself and thus it's no problem for him to push his friends away". given the themes that s2 emphasized for rand, the only appropriate finale outcomes were either success with his friends' help or total failure on his own, and they chose the former. (that being said, rand pushing his friends away is a continuous issue for him throughout the series, so i doubt he's perfectly learned his lesson after 2x08; we shall see!)

interesting to note that rand and egwene have inverse arcs in a way (foils!) and that some elements of their book falme climaxes were swapped, and that the way the show has done it subverts the expected gender roles. typically, men are expected to be Lone Wolves and women to be Team Players, and the WOT books absolutely play into these stereotypes throughout the series (sometimes intentionally as social commentary, sometimes unconsciously as an accepted truth of the world), but 2x08 and s2 more broadly did the opposite with our yin-and-yang co-protagonists. it's egwene who has the arc about learning to be a Lone Wolf and rand who has the arc about learning to be a Team Player. and imo these subconscious gender role expectations are a part of why some readers (esp reddit) got SO heated about "how come egwene can succeed by herself but rand can't", because it feels Wrong to them and Not How Things Are Supposed To Work (they've never questioned why rand can succeed by himself but egwene needs her friends' help in TGH, or all the other times in the books when men succeed by themselves and women succeed by relying on each other). but it's a totally apples-to-oranges comparison because egwene and rand had totally different season arcs and focal themes (but many paralleling & foiling moments within that), and so they each get a conclusion tailor-made to their individual stories.

mat: his season arc was about realizing he's a good, worthy person, finding the inner strength to overcome his worst impulses and temptations, and coming through for his friends after leaving them at the waygate. thus, him getting his Big Damn Hero moment with the horn of valere, getting validation that he is literally a hero, and overall spending the episode doing all he can to support his friends is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. (but stabbing his bff just as he was flying on a confidence high and trying to save the day was a downer note to end on, so we've complicated his relationship with heroism and set up some more internal issues for him to wrestle with next season.)

perrin: his season arc was about learning to acknowledge his inner wolf but also coming to regard it with fear and to believe that wolf & human sides can't coexist and he must Choose One (.......suddenly being struck by the bisexuality metaphor of it all. nice!) thus, him giving into violence to murder a human to avenge a wolf is.....well, it's pretty upsetting for him and serves to reinforce his growing belief that his two sides can't coexist, but thematically, it's fascinating and sets him up for some really great internal (and external) conflicts in s3. he's just gotten what he thinks is pretty strong evidence to corroborate ishy's claim that embracing his wolf side means embracing the shadow, so he's set up for a season 3 of deep-diving into his relationship with violence and his inner wolf. it's also a neat parallel with 1x08: there perrin's avoidance of violence allowed fain to escape, whereas here his embracing of violence has traumatized him (again), so our poor guy is really feeling conflicted in the pacificism-or-violence question because both sides seem wrong to him right now. huh, i guess perrin's full-series arc is about finding a middle ground rather than one extreme (pacifism/tuatha'an/human) or the other (violence/aiel/wolf). i feel like i've just had an epiphany lmao this is why i love the show! it tells the same story as the books, but tells it in a different way that makes me think about it differently and gain new insights!

nynaeve: her season arc was about learning that she, on her own, as she is today, is not enough to protect her loved ones. this is a tough pill for both her and the audience to swallow! but it's needed for her character, and we see it in the books too. nynaeve has an incredible amount of power, but she's terrified of having that much power and wants to pretend it doesn't exist. she's resistant to change, she's used to being in charge, and she's very "my way or the highway". these are all things she needs to grow out of (or moderate, at least) in order to be able to step up and do her part for tarmon gai'don. she has to learn how to embrace her power instead of being afraid of it or being too stubborn to let other people guide her and teach her, so s2 shows her what happens if she doesn't, first hypothetically in the accepted test (everyone she loves dies because she's blocked and refused channeling training) and then for real in falme (she couldn't help elayne fully or rand at all because of her block). so her 2x08 conclusion being Total Failure is not emotionally satisfying, no, but it's thematically exactly what she needed and will goad her into facing her block head-on next season. thematically, like rand, nynaeve only had 2 options for falme: break her block and succeed, or retain her block and fail, and it was too soon for the former (we gotta let her cook a while longer, plus the story will become too easy if nynaeve, or rand, reaches supernova capability too soon), so it had to be the latter. if the show had gone with a third option of her succeeding without breaking her block, then that would've taught her and the audience that it's fine to leave the block in place and she doesn't need to challenge herself to grow as a person, because when it TRULY matters she can always get around the block.

other characters get appropriate resolutions too! moiraine and lan get to work together to succeed after being at odds and failing on their own all season (rand foils!). elayne gets validation that she is an essential and trusted part of the friend group after feeling like somewhat of an outsider earlier in the season. ishamael getting vanquished and lanfear betraying him only to be betrayed by him in turn is exactly where their mutual mistrust was leading them (and it shows us why it's so important that Team Light be able to work as a team rather than as self-interested individual operators; the contrast between ishy & lanfear looking at the seals together while plotting to betray each other vs. rand standing on the tower with all his friends behind him makes me cry your honor. imagine hating that ishy's defeat was a team effort, could not be me!)

(it's also worth noting that the characters who had the least individual success/victory in 2x08 (nynaeve, rand, perrin) are the ones who will have the biggest individual storylines in s3 (tanchico & moggy, waste arc, two rivers arc), whereas the characters who had the most individual success/victory (egwene, mat, moiraine, lan) are the ones who will be taking a bit more of a backseat (of course they all have their own stuff to do, but none of them is *the* lead character of their TSR/s3 traveling group). this is intentional!)

so there you have it. 2x08 is adored by the general audience, and it's because of this: it gives us some damn satisfying conclusions to all the season arcs (and some exciting and visually stunning battle sequences to boot), and all the viewers who AREN'T beleaguered by "But The Books!", which is most of them, recognize that for the good storytelling it is. i for one will always care far more about the show telling a good story within itself than the show being identical to the books, and rafe & co will too, as they should.

the only downside to the episode is that, yes, it is quite cramped for time because there are a lot of arcs to wrap up. this should be less of an issue in future seasons when the season finale isn't "every single major storyline converges in the same place at once". for example, judging by the "goldeneyes" episode title it seems s3 might split it up so that perrin's conclusion in the two rivers is in 3x07 while other conclusions in other locations are in 3x08, giving each more breathing room. whereas 2x08 had no choice but to stuff everything in that episode into that specific episode because it's not like perrin could just do his falme stuff an episode early and take a nap while everyone else was doing THEIR falme stuff in the next episode, nor could the full falme sequence have been split into 2 episodes since that would have disrupted the flow of the story. the only solution would be for 2x08 to be extra long, which is nice to imagine, but we all know that streaming shows almost never deviate from their set episode lengths and so there isn't much point sighing about "this episode should have been 90 minutes long!" because that just is not on the table, never has been, and never will be. the first step to being able to jive with an adaptation is making peace with the limits of its particular medium!

plus, the only things i might deem "missing" from 2x08 are non-essential (ingtar darkfriend reveal - that is NOT important fight me, it's only important in the books as our first example of a morally-gray shadow-aligned person but the show has already been doing that in spades) or will likely be included in 3x01 (the gang spending some time together to breathe and process and catch up). at the end of the day, the show is always going to need to be paced very very tightly with not as much breathing room as those of us accustomed to entire books dedicated to reacting to the previous book might expect. and 2x08 did manage to pack in a LOT of character work amidst all the action and did a good mix of resolving s2 arcs while leaving some unresolved to carry into s3 and introducing some new arcs/issues/conflicts, all within 70 minutes, which i find pretty impressive. in conclusion, 2x08 my fucking beloved <3

[moiraiinesedai]

Props to whoever designed the Eye of the World and to whoever shot this scene because it literally looks like someone’s Retina.

[cairhienin]

moiraine’s packing list for her super secret mission to the eye of the world:

1. sa’angreal for rand

2. knife in case she has to kill rand

3. trauma story so she can comfort rand

4. snack for rand

[birgittesilverbae]

Moiraine's little ':)' before they go down to the eye has the same vibe as her “hey come on down to the docks”. she's just... amused by the ‘fact’ that she's not coming back from this alive

[marvelfanlife]

What about what she wants? And as much as I love her, as much as I want this, I know that she doesn't. That woman... who doesn't care about being a Wisdom… being an Aes Sedai... that's not the woman I love.

THE WHEEL OF TIME | Episode 8 | ‘The Eye of the World’