WoT on Prime episode 5 SPOILERS

[Thalia]

Thanks.

I have to admit they all just look like little blobs so I might not be useful to this discussion haha.

Graendal is clearly the boobalicious one. Asmo has his guitar. Lickle squat sasquatch is Sammael (so cute). Why does Ishy look cuddly?

The one with the lips (the one you thought might be female I would guess) looks like it could be Demanded or Rahvin. He looks whiney and self important, but also pretty. Maybe they will combine these two instead?

I think long neck is Semhirage because she's the only one who looks genuinely terrifying to me.

I agree diamond lady is probably Lanfear. She's the most outwardly feminine in a demure way.

Triangle face is Moggy I would assume, though her general motherliness would lend itself to Mesaana. Maybe that's another folded character. It was about Mesaana's most interesting characteristic. It does look a little spiderlike too.

I did see someone suggest the Lanfear one as Moggy though, because the triangle she's holding resembles a spider. Lanfear could be the long-neck one if we assume the neck rings she has are a sign of beauty. She does look scary though. And if that were the case, it just leaves triangle head. I wish you could see what's carved on her little round belly.

Ohhh, Sammael's one reminds me of the squat guy in Disney's Mulan (animated version). That's why he looks so adorable.

The other thing I was thinking is that if Stepin warded away Ishy in order to think clearly, what do the others represent?

EDIT: okay, I think Ishamael's one is supposed to resemble his Ba'alzamon face, the lines look like the mask, and it ties in with Stepin calling him the Father of Lies. It does still look a little like a teddy bear to me though.

[Thalia]

Did you guys see the scene sneak peek for next week?? The Amyrlin's Seat! The Aes Sedai outfits! LOGAIN!!

https://www.facebook.com/TheWheelOfTimeO...528468933/

Starts about a minute in for anyone interested. There's an interview with Rosamund Pike and Alvaro Morte too.

Does it look like Leane will be Grey Ajah?

EDIT: actually, no, it's not grey it's green. The ones to the side of the amyrlin. There's an empty seat so i guess they will scrap her changing from blue to green? Interesting that the keeper looks like she's still one of the sitters though, unless alanna or one of the other greens should be there, and either there is a seat for the keeper i didn't see or she just doesn't sit during hall meetings (which seems like it might be likely now i think on it) *ponders*

suian is so beautiful!

EDIT 2: oh gosh, maybe the empty green seat belongs to kerene. duh. that makes far more sense. i'll stop editing now (and posting before i've thought everything through XD)

[Mikhail]

I haven't watched it. I am trying to stay away from any spoilers for next episode. Futile, but there it is.

BTW, the analysis continues.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/ra...he_dragon/

Funny how DESPITE the focus not being on Rand, he is now the frontrunner. They do a pretty good job of listing each piece of evidence for all 5 episodes. And despite the massive Nynaeve thing in ep 4 and even awesome Egwene in 5, they don't get a real bump in this episode. It says something of how the mathematical analysis works that even with something like Nynaeve's massive reveal in ep 4, the little clues about Rand seem to keep him ahead.

If nothing else, it show that the showrunners are doing a good job keeping it a mystery, but that they are definitely dropping clues. I love that once the season is done, every Rand clue will be screaming loud.

I think your analysis of the forsaken works. I like Moggy as triangle lady. Interesting that the one I thought was female could be a self important male. Curious that the one that could be Rahvin/Demandred are short like presumably sammael when Ishy and Asmo are tall. Maybe Belal will be one of the dominant ones instead. Could be merged with Rahvin. Make him more than just a seducer.

[Thalia]

I haven't watched it. I am trying to stay away from any spoilers for next episode. Futile, but there it is.

BTW, the analysis continues.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/ra...he_dragon/

Funny how DESPITE the focus not being on Rand, he is now the frontrunner. They do a pretty good job of listing each piece of evidence for all 5 episodes. And despite the the massive Nynaeve thing in ep 4 and even awesome Egwene in 5, they don't get a real bump in this episode. It says something of how the mathematical analysis works that even something like Nynaeve's massive reveal in ep 4, the little clues about Rand seem to keep him ahead.

If nothing else, it show that the showrunners are doing a good job keeping it a mystery, but that they are definitely dropping clues. I love that once the season is done, every Rand clue will be screaming loud.

I think your analysis of the forsaken works. I like Moggy as triangle lady. Interesting that the one I thought was female could be a self important male. Curious that the one that could be Rahvin/Demandred are short like presumably sammael when Ishy and Asmo are tall. Maybe Belal will be one of the dominant ones instead. Could be merged with Rahvin. Make him more than just a seducer.

I thought the Demanded/Rahvin one looked tall so maybe we are not talking about the same one, or I am remembering it wrong. I assumed the one you thought was female was the one with feminine lips. It has spirally patterns on the hair.

I understand about wanting to avoid spoilers. When I woke up Friday I checked socials before really thinking about it, the wot discussion groups are all muted but DM isn't and they'd posted a pic of Loial. Was just unlucky that it happened to be the first thing that popped up. I'd really wanted to see him first in the ep. Not anyone's fault of course, it's aired by the time I wake up (and I won't stay up until Thursday midnight, I wouldn't enjoy it that way).

I hope what I posted about what the scene contained was not too much, and apologies if it was.

[Thalia]

I rewatched with my husband, and like with episodes 1-3 I enjoyed it so much more the second time round. I don’t think my critical brain turns off very easily during a first watch. Even the sets looked better to me this time XD

The only thing I’m not 100% on still is Loial’s facial prosthetics. Not what they look like, but that it doesn’t look like the actor can really move his eyebrows. I think I’ll get over that though.

All of the small details in the dialogue and exposition consistently blow me away. This time I noticed that when Moiraine warns Nynaeve to stay away from the sisters they travelled with she specifically means the Reds, which is why she’s put her in the warder quarters -- a place they won’t go. By the way, is Liandrin STILL pronouncing Nynaeve’s name wrong? It might just be the way the actress says it (it always annoyed me that everyone pronounced Arya differently in GoT, even members of her own family). But I hope it’s intentional, it’s such a quirk of ignorance to refuse to learn how to say someone’s name properly.

I love the detail that the novices both glance at Moiraine (I’ll bet there was some gossiping when they got out of earshot).

Anyway, my husband was mostly quiet during this episode. During Loial’s introduction I asked him if he remembered what an Aielman was and he did remember the “dead ginger guy” from the scene with Thom. It didn’t seem to prompt him to wonder any more about it though.

He was excited that Perrin can “channel” wolves. I love that he’s picking up on the show’s terminology even if he’s using it wrong lol.

I also asked him if he still thought Egwene was the dragon and he said no. He thinks the show is spending too much time trying to convince us it’s one of the kids, so now he thinks it’s Lan. That’s the biggest twist apparently, that he and Moiraine have spent 20 years looking and it turns out to be one of them…

I think he just REALLY likes Lan. But is also just done with guessing now and wants to know the answer -- and see what actually happens once we know who the dragon is. He said to me that he doesn't see how they're going to finish the season in 3 more episodes, which is interesting since he, uh, doesn't know anything about the book's plot. It made me wonder if they need to kinda get to the point soon -- we know Moiraine came to find the dragon, and that they might be a good or bad thing, but that's really it. We don't even know what she plans to do with him.

Funnily enough given that analysis, he has never ever even mentioned Rand.

[Nox]

Well to be fair Rand in the TV is kinda boring. I mean what fantastical has he done at this point? He knocked down a inescapable wooden door that could have been pure exaggeration of the Dana's part. He didn't help Bela in their sprint out of town, he hasn't gotten deathly sick, everyone had the same dream about the bats. He hasn't done anything interesting.

Mat is sick. Egwene has channeled a little. Nyna had an explosive 'first' channeling experience. Perrin called wolves. Rand?

[Thalia]

Well to be fair Rand in the TV is kinda boring. I mean what fantastical has he done at this point?  He knocked down a inescapable wooden door that could have been pure exaggeration of the Dana's part.  He didn't help Bela in their sprint out of town, he hasn't gotten deathly sick, everyone had the same dream about the bats.  He hasn't done anything interesting.

Mat is sick.  Egwene has channeled a little.  Nyna had an explosive 'first' channeling experience.  Perrin called wolves.  Rand?

Oh, absolutely. They've really underplayed Rand. I was commenting on Ck's analysis link about Rand being the forerunner in new-viewers guesses for the dragon. It's surprising because I would have thought my husband's complete dismissal of Rand would have been more common, for exactly the reasons you've said. He is pretty boring right now.

[Nox]

But how many new viewers haven't already googled things? If I didn't know I think my guess would be Nyna at this point. She doesn't fit the 'age' but if the dragon can be reborn female what else is wrong with the prophecy?

[Thalia]

That's true. I don't think I'd think Nynaeve at this point only because Moiraine still seems determined to find the others, and that means she's not convinced its Nynaeve despite the display of power. If Moiraine's not convinced, I'm not. But I'm not sure who I''d think. Egwene probably.

[Mikhail]

Oh, yeah. Completely agree about Rand. I think Josha has done a great job with what he has been given *as Rand*. But as far as things he has done....nah. Other than the door, nothing makes him stand out. As I said, it's interesting and surprising that the analysis by non book readers going off just the clues has Rand slightly ahead. 

Their full data table (with each new piece of evidence) is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/ra...&context=3
The idea is that with each new episode, new facts are introduced that would make them more, likely, less likely or the same as the previous. The number of episodes also factors. For example:

Similarly, we didn't really see anything new from Nynaeve in this episode. In fact she's also getting a small downgrade. Looking back over the season so far, we think there's been very strong evidence that her main skill will be healing - something which we haven't factored-in at all until now. I.e., so far we haven't really accounted for the fact that she was the wisdom/healer of 2 rivers, she helped heal Moiraine in episode 3, power-heals everyone in episode 4, gives medicine to Stepin, tries to take care of Mat in episode 5, and is basically super-protective of everyone she cares about. We also learned that there is a faction of Tar Valon dedicated to healing (see the incredibly illuminating 5th episode of the animated shorts). We strongly suspect that all of this is setting Nynaeve up to be a totally OP healing character, but not likely the Dragon. At least not by herself (the Power Ranger hypothesis is still very much alive). As a result, we're taking all of this 'healer' evidence into account now to apply a small downgrade to the probability that Nynaeve by herself will be the Dragon Reborn. She drops 3 points from 11% to 8%.

But this is sort of what I mean about Rand being significantly down played. The bayes' analysis of the minutia holds up (and these people have no clue Rand is the DR) but that is DESPITE the fact that a casual viewing/impression pushes Rand lower. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but is interesting all the same. (I DO love that power rangers Dragon is a theory that has some support. I think it's hilariously clever and not at all expected in something like this. Too bad it doesn't work...)
So there are 4 male forsaken. Ishy is already names. Shorty is likely Sammael or a Sammy merging. The other two are tall guy with guitar and short guy. The tall guitar guy is likely Asmo, which means we have another shorty in the bunch. So it could be interesting if Demandred (slightly shorter than LTT, hook nosed, almost 'everything') is portrayed as short.
of course that is assuming the statues are visual cues as to their identity. Case in point, Ishy as baalzamon with a face that looks like a mask. And yet, in world, no one knows Ishy is Baalzamon with the mask. Still, at least 3 of the female forsaken bear some visual clues that they are based on in-world (at least from the AS perspective) knowledge. So it's curious.
Loial's actor is phenomenal. I really dislike his hair. And his prosthetics look a bit...rubbery. Still, I think I won't notice it much. He captures his rambling bumbling self.

Your husband is clever re Lan. If we didn't know for sure, that would have been a great twist.