WOT on Prime

[Thalia]

Oh, a peek at Perrin's wolf brother eyes today! They are really ramping up the marketing now. I kinda want to stop watching things now but I can't help myself. I read this article today too: https://deadline.com/2021/11/the-wheel-o...234870995/

I didn't notice that either Asc, what a cool detail!

[Thalia]

https://youtu.be/m0wUFlpS0TQ

Interview with Rafe about bringing the books to the screen. Worth a watch.

[Thalia]

Okay, one more interview link for anyone interested https://gizmodo.com/adapting-the-wheel-o...1848026456

Towards the end there's some answers about gender and female dragons.

[Marcus DuBois]

I admit it. I'm hooked. I love all the stuff coming out. I was thinking about the last post. It makes sense that the mystery is who is the dragon reborn. And that it could be any of them, including egwene, is interesting. It might show the difference between Rand and Egwene in that she NEVER shied away from moving on toward more power. That she is not reluctant where he is. (Having souls divorced from gender doesn't really break much. Arangar is the only difficulty and given that the DO did that, it could a function of the special circumstances. A soul was captured by the DO and still had its connection to the power (Saidin) so the body it went into still channeled that power.)

I like the idea that the dragon is built up as a terrifying figure who will save or destory (or both) the world. Color that with demonstrable danger from a false dragon like Logain (and hopefully they lean heavy into talking about the madness so the idea of someone with that kind of power going man really gets across) and you really have a season that emphasizes that the savior of RJ's story is NOT one that has been hoped for., 

There are no prophesied angels the herald his birth. No downtrodden looking to shelter under him. No hopes of a better life. Nope. In RJs world, the dragon was, at most, the one who would save you from the Dark One. And the world might just break in the process of that salvation.

RJ once said that one of the inspirations for his story was the idea of what if someone tapped you on the shoulder and told you you were the savior of the world. Most people would find that overwhelming and run from it. Couple that with the legacy of the last dragon and the breaking of the world (unfairly blamed on LTT, but there all the same), well...

It puts a lot more of the emotional weight on Rand, when it becomes clear it is him. His desperate attempts to fight that destiny in book 2- driving matt and perrin and loial away, being pushed by nynaeve to accept his destiny, Fain and his barbs...only make the collar snapping around his neck more clear and terrifying. OF COURSE he snaps in book 3 and runs off, trying to bring an end to it once and for all, with Baalzamon hounding him in his dreams. Now it is clear why Rand left and why he is desperate to get to Tear and end it once and for all.
 
I love the emotional setup that makes all of that stand out sharp and clear., Rand really was a boy in books 1-3 before he finally accepted his destiny., And then began act 2. So making the mystery of the DR a central part of the first season works for a number of reasons as it fully lays out why no normal person would EVER want to be the DR.

How they actually lay out the storylines, otherwise, IDK. Still no hint on the eye of the world or the green man. I think thal is right that it will likely be pruned (little pun there for ya.) The hunt for the horn is pivotal, as are the seanchan. hopefully they have all that mapped out as those things from book 2 run through the rest of the series.

But I am excited. (I guess I never learn).

[Thalia]

In one of the trailers Suian says something like, "in every prophecy the DR will either save the world or *join* the Dark One" to which Moiraine replies she will kill them before she lets that happen. It certainly seems like they'll play up that angle. I wonder if they will tie that into Mat and the dagger, given he will presumably still be a candidate for DR at that point. There is quite a lot of horror in WoT so it'll be cool to see more of that angle in a fantasy show (if that's what they decide to do). Am I right in thinking in the books the Dragon was supposed to save the world AND break it (not "or") which was why he was so feared, or was it just the Aiel who believed the Dragon would save and break them?

I think they've said they have everything mapped, in a vague sense (room for expansion but the core is there). I'm sure I recall that Rafe pitched it as an 8 series thing originally, and it certainly isn't being done as a book per season. Recently execs have spoken about wanting to do 10 seasons -- in an ideal world I'm sure. And there's an unconfirmed rumour that season 3 will be greenlit as actors have had contracts renewed. Even for s2 to have jumped into filming so soon after s1 wrapped up suggests they have a strong plan for going forward.

The first soundtrack album released today! I really like it. Parts of a couple tracks are recognisable from the various teasers (the two I noticed were: the intro of the Winespring Inn clip is from Goldeneyes, and Dragon Reborn is the music from the logo reveal). The Whitecloak theme is actually called In the Light. They all still have Old Tongue names by the way, I just can't remember them yet.

The track called Moiraine Sedai is surprisingly discordant/creepy -- without context, you'd definitely assume it was a villain piece by the intro. I like that it suggests they will set up her up as a questionable mentor character.

I don't have a favourite track yet, but there are several standouts. Bringers of Death would be an amazing experience in spatial audio.

I remember the green man sequence thoroughly confusing me when I read EotW as a kid. Like I had no idea what was going on at all. There are a few little bits that come across as experiments in that book that Jordan subsequently dropped. I don't think it'd suffer from being pruned tbh (love the pun) although I'd love to see what Someshta looked like on screen. The trollocs look great.

[Thalia]

Actually, in thinking about the 'who is the DR' mystery they are framing in the marketing, and about your post about Rand's character journey CK, I wonder if the show's DR reveal will be quite early -- like by the end of episode 3. By which point the viewer will be invested in the break or save question of the prophecy, will have fallen in love with Rand's character, and will come back for each weekly episode drop on the strength of seeing that story play out. Either that or it'll come in ep 4 (quite literally called The Dragon Reborn), and ep3 will end on the kind of cliffhanger that makes it clear the reveal is soon -- but leave a week for water cooler conversation. It isn't unreasonable to think that the marketing is intending to push the 3 episode drop (after which the show will sell itself) and isn't necessarily indicative of the entire season's focus.

[Armande]

So the phrase "save AND destroy" feels accurate- and yet I couldn't be sure that it said it anywhere in the prophecies. Was it an example of the mandala effect? I did a quick search. The phrase is use directly in tFoH, Chap 2, p. 56. referring to Rand's being marked as both Car a Carn and Dragon Reborn "in both cases prophesied to unite, save- and destroy." [emphasis mine]

The prophecies of the dragon and of Rhuidean appear to say the same thing without using the exact phrase:
"In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people,
and he shall break the world again by his coming,
tearing apart all ties that bind."- Kareathan Cycle


"For he shall come like the breaking dawn,

and shatter the world again with his coming, and make it anew."- Kareathan Cycle

"Of the blood, but not raised by the blood, he will come from Rhuidean at dawn and tie you together with bonds you cannot break. He will take you back, and he will destroy you."- Prophecy of Rhuidean

"He shall spill out the blood of those who call themselves Aiel as water on sand, and he shall break them as dried twigs, yet a remnant of a remnant shall he save, and they shall live."- Prophecy of Rhuidean


Still, as we saw, these might ultimately have been metaphorical. His breaking was tied to loyalties, oaths, and so forth. Dragonsworn and all that. And of course, he did break the Aiel by revealing the truth.

So yeah, the conventional belief (valid, at least in term of how the prophecies word it) is the the dragon will save and destroy the world.

I have always liked the idea that the best hope they had was that the DO would be defeated. That was it. Anything after that was gravy. A breaking was coming. No way in hell a sane person would want to be the dragon reborn.


But that's a good catch about 'or'. It's a slight change and I'm not sure if I like the either or. Moiraine's comment is awesome, though. She told the Emond's fielders that very thing, that she'd kill them before letting the DO have them. That's seriously hardcore. 

Brilliant comment on Matt. Having him appear to go dark because of the dagger (and his maybe being the DR) is an awesome angle to take.

I love that they mapped out storylines and then tried to figure out how to do the season breaks. It gives hope that they didn't get rid of the seanchan because they were crucial. Seeing the seanchan and the damane in action will be amazing/horrifying (my first reaction when I saw them).

Going to check out soundtrack album now. Curious as to the variety.

[Armande]

It's an interesting question. In the 1st book, it all came out at the Eye. The green man calls him child of the dragon (which, when I 1st read it, I didn't get as a reference to teh Aiel. I thought it was an indicator that he was the DR. Perhaps RJ wanted that mental association as well to nudge the reader in the right direction.) It becomes obvious when Rand channels pure saidin.

Im trying to remember my 1st read. i confess, it was a bit confusing the way it all went down. How Rand began to channel the pure saidin from the Eye, siphoning away from Aginor. How he somehow ended up in what we later found out was the world of dreams facing and burning baalzamon (After destroying the shadowspawn at Tarwins gap.) It was a massive jumble of stuff that happened (similar to book 3's climax with Rand and Baalzamon, as I recall.)

In the end, after it is all done, Moiraine listens in to Rand telling someone (Egwene?) he is leaving and will never channel again. And she is looking at the dragon banner and saying "the dragon is reborn."

It's a climax that occurs at the end and because of facing down a big bad. If I had to guess, the question of who the DR is will need to occur at some climax. It doesn't HAVE to be the Eye (if they cut it) To be honest, of all the RJisms in the early book, it is the most inconsistent. RJ was still nailing down his world and the magic system. Things in the EOTW feel the most...soft magic (akin to LOTR) rather than the much more concrete stuff later. (Even book 2 has some 'magic' that doesn't fit later depictions. The battle over Falme and the connection between Baalzamon and the Seanchan armies- when he fell back, they did, when he surged, they did. RJ later sort of retconned it and called it a Pattern Level Event, that it was the quickest and most efficient way to declare Rand the dragon and to eliminate Taim and the other 2 false dragons. That feels retcon to me. I suspect he didn't flesh out TR until book 3- just opinion.)

The eye primarily made it clear who the dragon was, hid the banner, a seal and the horn. Those can be taken care of with another climax that still feels appropriate. But I don't think it will be ep 3. That's too soon. I think ep 3 will make it clear that one of them is the dragon and give the lore and backstory that make it all the more terrifying. They might use the last ep to accomplish an Eye ending. But that leaves a lot of heavy lifting for season 2 to move throught he storylines that involve at least book 2 and 3. (I know the 1st season has storyline elements from the 1st 3 books as well as New Spring).

Again, it makes me curious how they will dole out their climaxes and revelations with short seasons. Hopefully, they get longer orders so they have room to flesh them out. Realistically, 10 seasons is like 12 years in the actors lives. Thats a lot of time and a lot will change in them. Saw a video yesterday commenting on how innocent and scared Rand looks. And it will be interesting to mark that to check in a few years when Rand has become iron.

I am looking for the soundtrack. is it on youtube?

[Thalia]

I've either seen an interview or read an article with Rafe that said the DR reveal would be before the end of the season, but that might just mean it's obvious by that point in the same way it was in the book. Ep 3/4 is pure speculation on my part though. I don't think it would be too early though, given the trailers it's going to be clear from the off that one of the kids is the DR -- Moiraine's "one of you" line has to be before they all split up?

Could the seanchan's arrival potentially be part of the season finale?

I think most of the stuff we've seen has been from early episodes. I'm looking forward to seeing the AoL stuff.

Yep, the soundtrack is on YouTube. There's a playlist on Lorne Balfe's channel. It's also on Spotify and all the other usual streaming places.

[Thalia]

Okay, sorry to double post AGAIN. Did you see the announcement today? Animated shorts on WoT history!