I also have a show favorite, but it would be a spoiler at this point.
I finally caught back up this weekend. Agree with @Maphistos_Sidekick that the last episode laid a lot of important groundwork.
With the WGA strike over, the showrunner and the chief book consultant are allowed to do show promotion stuff. They apparently had a Q&A session over on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
This is one of a few YouTube videos recapping that session (spoilers after a spoiler warning).
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So the big thing this week was… Moraine got back her access to T1P!!! Yeah!
As a show watcher only, the friction between Moraine and Suian doesn’t seem to be explainable. Are they on the same side or aren’t they? If they are and only want everyone else to think they aren’t then why so much conflict at the waygate? The show seems to imply that after 20 years of planning their tutelage of TDR (“Randy” Randal Thor) that they don’t agree on what the hell they are doing with him now. That makes them seem like idiots.
The whole situation with Moraine’s sister & nephew was over too quick. I now conclude that WoT will never live up to GoT in my esteem, but WoT has a lot of the problems of GoT season 8 - things that need to happen do happen but it so rushed and not explained that the “story telling” isn’t happening. The actress that plays the sister was also an important character in HBO’s “Rome” and she had some really great scenes, so I know she is capable of bringing more to the screen. I DO NOT think that many of the other WoT actors are as capable. Her efforts seem underdeveloped here.
Procedural question, spoilered in case you have not seen ep 2.07 yet: "Which suldan did Nyneave and Elayne capture with the A’dam? I will assume that gives them control of that suldan’s damane too? And I presume they will use that to free some or all the damanae - but there’s no need to comment on that, as I think it will happen in 2.08
Wife and I decided to wait a week and watch the last two episodes back to back. So I’ll read through your post after that 
This answer similarly spoils S2E07, as well as spoiling book material that will probably be addressedin S2E08
I need to rewatch the episode to be certain, but I think that in the show, Nyneave and Elayne just captured a random sul’dam. In the books, they collar Renna, Egwene’s sul’dam.
In the books, it’s relatively easy to access the kennels, but they presumed it would be difficult to free Egwene and escape with her. Thus they were going to use a stolen a’dam as part of their escape. They ended up putting an a’dam on Renna. Obviously, the show is treating this part of the story somewhat differently.
One thing the show hasn’t yet addressed: In the books, the a’dam only work on women who can channel. Since the Seanchan are supposed to be ruthless in identifying every woman who can channel in territory they control and making them damane, the fact that the a’dam works on Renna is…interesting.
Probably a good idea. S2E7 was perhaps the weakest of the season, in my opinion. The showrunners and writers had a lot to do to get arcs advanced and characters moved around to prepare for what we expect to happen in Episode 8. This is the episode where the limitations of an 8-episode season really show.
Potential S2E07 spoilers
This was a significant change from the books.
I think where the showrunners are going is:
- Moiraine has been off doing secret Moiraine things. In the books, this was a significant source of friction between Moiraine and the Aes Sedai in general. Siuan was in the loop somewhat, but she was a little frustrated when things with Rand advanced in ways they hadn’t expected, and which Moiraine couldn’t keep Siuan up with given the limitations of their communications abilities.
- Siuan was hurt that Moiraine didn’t alert Siuan to her having been “stilled”.
- Given that, and given that Lan had to inform Siuan of what Moiraine was doing/going through, Siuan no longer trusts Moiraine or their plan of finding the Dragon Reborn…
- … and that led to Siuan doing what she did
S2E7 and book spoilers, and S3 leak
I’m not certain that it’s over.
While in the books, Barthanes is a darkfriend, he doesn’t really have anything to do with Moiraine.
The whole interaction between Aunty Moiraine and Nephew Barthanes, or the existence/involvement of Moiraine’s sister are new things created for the show.
Similarly, Lanfear’s attempts to separate Rand from Moiraine are also things that weren’t in the book. Moiraine was mostly absent from Books 2 and 3, but her and Lan’s story line in Season 2 seems to be something the showrunner felt they had to do to justify having cast Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney in the first place. Like Game of Thrones, I wonder if the story is suffering more in places where the need to put out a show are causing them to deviate more from the source material (c.f. GoT Season 8).
I think that the entire mess within Moiraine’s family was an attempt to reconcile the revelation that Barthanes is a darkfriend, continuing to explore the darkfriends’ motivations (something that was mostly lacking in the books…a weakness of the books, tbh), and advancing whatever’s up with Lanfear’s desire to separate Rand from Moiraine.
(Yes, Lanfear is being jealous of Rand, wanting him for herself, and wanting him to embrace his destiny – that part was definitely in the books – but there’s a nuance here that hasn’t yet been explained in the show. Since it’s also not in the books, I can only speculate.)
It has been leaked that Moiraine’s sister plays a role in Season 3 (which is currently filming), so I’m guessing that that family situation is going to be left as something to be revisited/clarified later.
I’d agree that this episode suffers some of the problems that existed in Season 1. The showrunner is currently working with restrictions by Amazon that the seasons be 8 episodes long, and each episode be no more than an hour (although that’s been slightly relaxed, due to the feedback from Season 1.)
People familiar with the books have a pretty good idea of what generally has to happen in Episode 8…and there was a lot that had to happen after E6 to set up for E8.
The recent Q&A that I referenced yesterday makes reference to deleted scenes that would clarify some things, so I wouldn’t be surprised if several key deleted scenes came from their attempts to edit down this episode.
If the showrunners had had the freedom to go for 10-12 episode seasons, I think the show would work better. However, Amazon’s relying on data collected from other shows watched on Prime, and apparently their modeling is showing that 8 episodes/season and 1-hour episodes are optimal for maximizing viewership.
…except that I heard a rumor that the disappointing performance of their LOTR show (which has received a LOT more money and resource) has them questioning the 8 episode/season formula. Apparently bingers faded on the LOTR series after the first six episodes, and the ratings for WoT S1E7 and S1E8 also weren’t great.
So, it’s rumored that if Amazon re-ups WoT for Season 4, they might only greenlight a 6 episode season, which will create some huge headaches if they’re still aiming for covering all the books in 8 seasons.
But once a suldam has a linked damane, aren’t they effectively able to channel? It seems in the scene where Egwene made the big dust devil boom boom that Renna was effectively channeling through Egwene? Renna certainly had swirlies in that scene, at least around the gauntlet (wristband)
Here's what we know of the nature of damanae and sul'dam as of S2E7 and the equivalent point in the books; the additional context might possibly be considered a spoiler
As far as show viewers know at this point: The Seanchan believe that all women who can channel are to be collared and kept as damanae.
In the books, it is said that back in Seanchan there are village festivals when sul’dam and damane visit and test all the women to see if they are capable of channeling the one power (and thus are to be collared as damanae), or if they have the talent to become sul’dam. Not every woman can be a sul’dam…and the nature of what that talent is is unspecified at this point in the books.
As far as we currently know at this point in the books, the damanae are the channelers, and the sul’dam simply control them. The little test they ran in the show doesn’t exist in the books…but the way they framed it, where the sul’dam took control and the damane didn’t have to do anything other than just stand there might cause folks to wonder if there’s something else going on with the sul’dam.
In the books, when Renna is collared by Nynaeve, the reaction initially is “well, that’s not going to work, since the a’dam only works on women who can channel, and if she could channel, she would have already been made damanae.”
So, the fact that, in the show, a random sul’dam has been collared by Nynaeve/Elayne should be odd and interesting. If the show follows the books on this subject, then I would expect that when Nyneave and Elayne take their captured, collared sul’dam to rescue Egwene, Egwene will offer up a theory as to what’s going on.
Personally, I’d have chosen Aviendha, but I respect the choice of Lanfear given how she’s portrayed in the show.
Same.
You are asking the right questions.
Summary
I was originally of the opinion that the added dust wave test scene was only to point out how strong Egwene is. It does now seem a convenient way of alluding to some of the answers Maphistos points out as well though.
S2E7 spoiler
Egwene’s training as damanae lasted several chapters in the books. The show isn’t going into that level of detail – they can’t given the goal of telling the story in 64 episodes. I’m 99% sure that they added the dust test scene to replace a couple of clues they omit by skipping over the damanae training chapters.
Reminder of something mentioned earlier in the series that may help connect the dots
BTW, remember that in an earlier episode, I’m pretty sure it was mentioned that channelers can be subdivided into two groups.
First you have people “born with the spark”. They’re going to eventually channel, whether they want to or not. In the show, we see Egwene and Nyneave in this group. Also, the male channelers whom the Reds hunt, and the Dragon Reborn fall into this category.
Then you have people who can learn to channel. In the books, many/most of the Aes Sedai fall into this category; I don’t recall the show having made clear what the proportion is.
Summarizing what we know, to further assist in connecting the dots, as I expect will happen in S2E8 (i.e. this is effectively a significant spoiler)
So, to summarize what we know from show and books:
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Seanchan believe that women who can channel are dangerous animals, who must be collared and controlled.
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According to the books, in Seanchan territory there are festivals where women of certain ages are tested to see if they can channel (and thus must be collared as damane), or if they can control damane through the a’dam (and thus can be sul’dam). We are told that in Seanchan territory, they are 100% effective in identifying women who can channel and making them damanae.
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In the books, it is mentioned that there are more sul’dam than damanae, and that sul’dam eventually develop an “affinity” for what the damanae are doing. In the show, we saw sul’dam doing stuff through their damanae, without needing the damanae to actually do anything.
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In the books, in Randland, it is said that only a very few women anymore are born with the spark / will automatically channel without training. Most women training in the tower had to be taught how to channel. The show mentioned this segmentation in passing, but I forget whether it’s remarked on the relative numbers.
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According to the books, a’dam only work on women who can channel. If you put an a’dam on someone who can’t channel, they’re likely to be insulted and can beat you up without any of the ill effects the a’dam would impose if they could channel. Presumably, in the show, all the special effects of the collar attaching itself to a woman and turning into the full piece only happen when it is “aimed” at a channeler.
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In S2E7, Nyneave and Elayne were able to collar Seta, a sul’dam. (I previously referred to her as “a random sul’dam”. Her name is Seta, and she’s a minor sadistic character in the books. Presumably the show’s using the name as an easter egg for book fans.)
One other detail about a'dams from the book that may become relevant in a future season of the show
I’ll take this opportunity to mention something else that has so far been skipped by the show.
In the books, it is said that the Seanchan Empress sometimes likes to torment male lords in her court by asking them to put on an a’dam. Most men experience no ill effects, aside from embarrassment and fear of what might happen. However, a few men who are collared instantly have a fit and go mad and must quickly be put out of their misery.
The implications of this are left as an exercise for the reader.
Someone made an 11-minute video dissecting the 90 seconds of previews released for S2E8.
(Spoilers and speculation, obviously. You’ll need to be familiar with the books to understand some of the speculation.)
That was unfucking belivable.
Truly epic.
I’ve seen a range of opinions. Some folks thought it was epic, while I’m in the camp of it could have been better.
I enjoyed it, but I don’t think it was the best of the season. I think the criticisms I’ve had of the show this season really apply:
- There were several things that didn’t make sense, or didn’t have the intended impact, unless you know the story from the books. I had hoped that some of the explanations would have been made clear through the show’s storytelling…but they aren’t allowed enough show time by Amazon to do that well.
- The show needs more than 8 episodes in a season; at least they were allowed to go longer than an hour for this episode, but they could have used a couple more episodes for character development and to communicate some of the knowledge that book-readers have.
- While this season they’ve struck a pretty good balance of deviating from the plot of the books to better tell the essential story on screen…when they stray too far, there’s a risk of the writing suffering too much.
In particular, I found Rand and Matt’s rapid transition from zero to hero (as someone online put it) a little annoying and distracting. I had been wondering how they were going to develop, given a few of the other decisions that have been made in adapting the books to a show given the 8×8 hour constraint currently on the show; I guess I have part of my answer.
(Show/book spoilers follow)
I’m a little sad that they didn’t reveal Ingtar being a darkfriend: his struggle with why he swore to the Dark, and his redemption.
Rand finally earning the heron-mark on his sword in an epic sword battle with Turok would have been great to see…but squeezing that in would have forced them to rush other parts of the show even more.
Hopper’s death could have been more impactful. There’s possibility to forge the audience’s bond to Hopper as the series moves on…but I don’t know that future Hopper scenes will translate well into show format, and therefore they’re at risk of not making the cut.
Nyneave’s impotence in the show is starting to grate on me. Admittedly, she isn’t the easiest character in the book to empathize with, and the show could be taking a tack on her character development that could be interesting. However, after seeing Rand and Matt turn into badasses this episode, I’m anxious as to what that means for Nyneave’s story.
Matt’s encounter with the tea in episode 7 now makes more sense to me. What he did with the dagger suggests how they might handle a portion of Book 4 I was expecting they’d cut out. However, I think folks unfamiliar with the books needed more than the exclamation of “I remember now!” to explain what was going on. Also, they haven’t had time in the show to set up some of the lore of Randland that would have made the appearance of the Heroes of the Horn more significant? (And Uno being one of the heros? Glad to have him back – he’s a fun character – but folks only familiar with the show have to be confused by that.)
And the significance of Rand’s “who are you” comment and the responding look given by Elayne is quite a bit more subtle than how their introduction went in Book 1. I can guess where they’re going to take that in future episodes, but I’m still at a loss as to whether/how they’ll bring a couple of other folks into that story.
I loved the cold open, which rounded out Ishamael’s story nicely, and Moghedien’s introduction in the final scene was very cool.
I wish the next-to-last scene had been handled a little differently; it was a little cheesy. Granted, the equivalent run up to the end of Book 2 would have been even cheesier/unbelievable if they had tried to retain it in the show, and they had to do something given the various compromises made by combining Books 2 and 3 for Season 2. But, in fairness to the showrunners…the alternative ideas that have come to my mind probably wouldn’t have been any better.
Still, there was a nice sense of epicness, and they definitely did what they had to to set up for certain plot points further on in the series. After spending the season wondering how they were going to lay that groundwork for future seasons, it’s cool that they pulled that off in ways I didn’t anticipate.
I didn’t hate it, and it was still better than Season 1. Considering the restrictions imposed by Amazon, it’s probably the best they could have done, and in the grand scheme of things, it was good. But especially after Episode 6 I had probably unrealistically high hopes…and they weren’t met.
I’m looking forward to Season 3. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another 2 years to get it!
I wonder if Director’s cut versions of Amazon shows that struggle to fit into parameters will eventually appear. Maybe not, if they are harder to monetize than a new DVD, but maybe if they see the click rate on “extras” is high.
Shhhhhhhh, I haven’t seen it yet!!!
…I’ve read the book tho so I mostly know. Looking forward to watching!
I was thinking that the whole season 2 finale was just kind of dumb.
It seemed everybody was too overpowered. Fight scene bewteen Rand and Turak & Turak’s commandos? Over in 6 seconds. It was kinda cool to see at first but then I said, wait a minute, we were deprived a scene. SImilarly, Moraine laying waste to a whole fleet of Seanchan all at once. OK, that was anticlimactic. The whole battle on the tower scene was just so predictable.
And then there was this recurring theme of the heroes all doing bad bad villainous things, like:
- Moraine plainly admitting that she’d kill 1000 innocent people to allow Rand a chance at living.
- Nyneave torturing the suldam for information
- Egwene flat out killing a defenseless Renna.
- Perrin killing a helpful (?) guy on his side, over his wolf’s killing sort of in the confusion of melee
I don’t know if they’ve heard about this before, but in the movies and TV, good guys don’t senselessly kill defenseless NPCs
Is Eleyne the one that Moraine’s nephew was supposed to marry? 'Cause clearly, Rand has some seed to sow there…IYKWIM
Show and book spoilers that haven’t already been posted in the clear will be behind spoiler tags.
That was part of the “zero to hero” element I mentioned before. As skilled and powerful a channeler as Rand is destined to become, that quick finish would eventually be expected. And as to that being tantamount to excessively killing NPCs…later on in the books Rand will become “Darth Rand”. However, that really starts in Book 6. At this point in the books, Rand is just fumbling around with the power; it isn’t until Lanfear secures him a teacher at the end of Book 4 that book-Rand starts working on proficiency. Show-Rand has found proficiency seemingly out of nowhere.
Rand being ready to fight for the light at the Last Battle is the almost only thing that matters to Moiraine. That being said, in the books the Aes Sedai are strictly limited by the Three Oaths in the circumstances when they may use the One Power as a weapon. I’ll need to rewatch that scene to see how they’re justifying her actions in the show…or whether the show has added an odd twist to Moiraine’s character. I wonder if they’re opening the door to her being a darkfriend. Or, in the books, prolonged shielding wouldn’t have broken the bond between Aes Sedai and warder; if in the show being shielded that long breaks the bond, maybe it breaks being bound to the Three Oaths?
They took that from the books. However, in the books Nyneave was disgusted at what she had done. She thought leaving Renna and Seta to be found while wearing collars to be better justice than being tortured by the a’dam.
In the books, having been collared and kept as damanae effs Egwene up a bit, and she acts recklessly a few times as a result. That scene in the show is consistent with Egwene’s new character, although the show could have done a better job of communicating that little bit of crazy now present in Egwene’s mind.
This is an agglomeration of a couple of scenes from the books, and an example of one of the things that makes sense to book readers, but which the show didn’t do a good job of laying the foundation that would have explained it.
Book spoilers to provide context for the scene, plus a leak/rumor about Season 3
In Book 1, after having been introduced to the wolves, Perrin, Egwene, and book-Elyas are camping when a troop of Whitecloaks approach. They hide and the Whitecloaks set up camp. Then the Whitecloaks get sight of a few wolves, start suspecting a darkfriend plot is afoot. Stuff happens resulting in the Whitecloaks fighting wolves.
Perrin gets sucked into the collective psyche of the wolves and gets a little too involved, feeling it when Hopper is killed by a Whitecloak. He goes insane and kills a couple of Whitecloaks. Perrin and Egwene are captured and are carted off and abused for a while by the Whitecloaks.
(Hopper will go on and eventually coach Perrin about his wolfbrotherness in his dreams, making Hopper a favorite among book readers.)
Fast forward to the big battle scene in the latter part of Book 3: Like in the show, there is a big battle where the Whitecloaks ride in to do battle with the Seanchan, with Matt, Perrin, and Rand caught in the middle. Matt sounds the Horn, it gets foggy, and the Heroes of the Horn appear.
Bornhald Sr. dies in the battle. A different Whitecloak, who had been around when Perrin killed the two Whitecloaks in Book 1, thinks he saw Perrin in/around Falme, and for reasons not entirely clear to the reader, is convinced that Bornhald Sr’s death is Perrin’s fault. He communicates that to Bornhald Jr, setting the stage for a rivaly between Bornhald Jr and Perrin that forms one of the arcs in the series.
In the show, Bornhald Jr’s referring to Perrin as “Two Rivers” is probably significant in explaining something that rumors/leaks say will happen in Season 3.
They have, but one of the themes in the Wheel of Time is that there are elements of good and bad in almost everybody. I wasn’t kidding about my “Darth Rand” reference. He does some horrible things roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the books
In the show, Moiraine’s nephew Barthanes is supposed to marry Queen Galladrian.
In the books, Elayne is an nth cousin of Barthanes (her great-uncle is Barthanes’ grandfather). And as far as your speculation on Elayne and Rand goes, your choice of terms is extremely appropriate; it would have been even better, however, if you had made some reference to those seeds finding fertile soil… To make matters worse, in the books, that seed-sowing is vicariously experienced by the rest of his harem. I did mention previously that Rand ends up being a bit randy, didn’t I?
I was looking forward to an epic swordfight that never happened. In fact, there is zero swordsmanship from Rand in the show, which is annoying for many reasons.
spoiler of a spoiler?
Am I wrong here?:
Jr was the one present at Avienda’s freeing from the cage, thus the recogniztion.
Finally watched 7 and 8. I enjoyed watching them back to back. I think they were ok, but I did miss some things like the sword fighting. I was really hoping that S1 or S2 would show Lan teaching Rand how to sword fight (and essentially be a man), and then he was supposed to finally earn the heron blade against Turak.
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