what fan event entitled you to see 301 early?
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Basically, an Amazon Prime link was circulated through various fan media (I shared it here). You signed up, and you got to watch a stream that included “Behind the Scenes” videos for S1 and S2, then they showed S3E1, and they wrapped up with a quick live Q&A from the in-person fan event in London.
S3E1 is different in details than the book, but it keeps with the spirit and overall story. Folks bothered by the deviations from the books will continued to be bothered. It was my second-favorite episode so far. The episode where Egwene is broken after having been collard is still my favorite, although S3E1 is by far the best so far in terms of action (as you might expect from the cold-open teaser).
The opening scene is not the only action scene in the episode. We get the first “bubble of evil” scene from the books as well, although the cause will be different.
I should also mention that IMDB has apparently been updated with a lot of S3 cast information. I can’t find a link of a social media post that summarized the highlights of what was learned…but a few of them resolve questions about “will [ x ] happen this season” or “will [y] be in the show” that have been floating around.
Looks like the embargo on official reviews has been lifted today too. Plenty of stuff out there if you want to whet your interest before Thursday night.
Folks are pleading that if you want a Season 4, please watch the first 3 episodes as soon as practical, and perhaps even watch them on repeat. Rumors are that Amazon is ready to greenlight S4, but Sony Pictures needs more convincing.
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Looks like Amazon’s releasing new episodes at midnight Pacific on Wednesday nights this season.
Episodes 1-3 are out. I know what I’m doing after today’s to-do’s get done.
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Watched the first three episodes last night.
It’s shaping up to be an EXCELLENT season.
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Episode 4 dropped last night. Better than my head-cannon for a key couple of chapters in Book 4, although you do have to overlook a few changes made to fit with the show.
This isn’t strictly show-related, but TIL there’s a subdivision in South Carolina with some interesting street names.
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Watched episode 4 over the weekend (ok, I have like 10 minutes left, I’ll finish it this morning). I thought it was a great episode. I liked how they portrayed Rand going through the trial of Rhuidean, it was really cool to see that all played out.
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I imagine for those unfamiliar with the story, they had absolutely no idea what was happening. I loved it.
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That’s me.
Randal Thor was getting visions going backward generations. And it’s “the backward Seinfeld episode” about how Lanfear messed things up, touching T1P first, and leading to the A-Eels getting kicked out of polite society, and something about how spears are better than swords because they have a purpose of hunting in addition to killing people in melee combat. And there’s a couple of super-duper magic items: some cup for girls and Excalibur (ok, a sword called “the Calendar” locked in a stone) for guys.
Moraine was getting thousands of visions of what might happen going forward, and a lot of those ended up with Lanfear slicing her up.
But Randal Thor ended up being the CARA-CARA (apologies to SAMCRO) because he got TWO gold arm tats.
AMICLOSE?
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Spelling aside, this is actually a pretty good summary 
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Well, I didn’t read the books so I have little idea on how things are spelled.
I will point out that I think G.R.R.R.R. Martin did his storyline a favor by having simple names for people, places, and things.
Jon Snow.
Ned Stark
Jamie Lanister
Winterfell
The Vale
The Wall
Think about this sentence: “Jon Snow took his sword Ice from the Wall to the capital of King’s Landing.”
Now this:
“Rand Al’Thor the Cara-carin’ took his tan’gre’al (or is it a san’gre’al) called the Cal’al’endar from the sacred city of Roo-hid-ee-an, but he’s really trying to avoid contact with Alayda doo Avrinny a’Row-i-han.”
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Not quite.
Callandor, “the sword that is not a sword”, is in a mountain fortress in the coastal city of Tear.
In the show, he hasn’t yet been to Tear. (He goes to Tear before Rhuidean in the books.)
In the show, I don’t think he yet knows who Elaida is. In the books, he had an encounter with her early on, and immediately knew he wanted to avoid her in the future. In the books, she will cause him some significant grief, and there’s been some foreshadowing that that event will also occur in the show.
Callandor is a sa’angreal, a widget that allows the wielder to use more of the One Power than they could unaided. In the books, it has added significance because many ordinary people know that the Dragon Reborn will be known when it is drawn.
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Tolkien gets a pass. He wasn’t making up new words – he actually made new, plausible languages, with an attempt to have consistent etymologies and rules of grammar.
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The big reason I never got through The Inheritance Trilogy The Inheritance Cycle was all the made up names of dwarves and dwarven places made the story just too irritating to continue. ( I do think I am slightly dyslexic, and that makes things like this harder for me to read)
Just caught Episode 5 over lunch.
Slower, but they can’t all stay at the same pace.
Apparently show Sea Folk are more modest than book Sea Folk. And apparently one should use care when peeking into one’s SO’s dreams.
There are several buildups to things that I thought might happen this episode but didn’t, so somewhat disappoint, but from a writer’s perspective I get it.
Also can’t recall that last scene happening in the books? If so I don’t remember it. If not, it rapidly accelerates some things that won’t have to be so drawn out over the next 17 seasons.
Regarding the last sequence…it’s part of is based on the books where Egwene was encouraged by the Wise Ones to learn to look in on the dreams of other people, as part of her training as a dreamer. In the books, it’s described as floating through a void filled with balls of light, and she has to learn to differentiate the various balls of light. Presumably that wouldn’t translate to TV/streaming format very well.
The last part of the sequence is different because the relationship between the parties involved is different in the show than in the books. I don’t recall Egwene ever encountering Rand and Lanfear interacting in the dream, but Egwene did have one shocking encounter with Rand in the dream that almost resulted in her death…although the details of when/where and whether it was in Rand’s dream or in telaranrhiod are blurring in my mind.
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Ok yeah, that’s what I remember as well. Thanks!