re: Wheel of Time - Season 1 - Amazon - NOW A BOOK READERS THREAD

Cool, don't watch.

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Did Egwene wrong.

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Agreed.

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If we're talking about the mole on her nose... I thought it was a piercing, a stud or something, at first.

None of the cast "does it" for me. Something about Rosamund Pike's face just looks off in this. Harsh, witchlike, I can't quite put my finger on it. It's almost like her head narrows at the forehead or something.

Now that there's an allowance of book stuff in this, let me ask a simple question:
is there a generic synopsis of what's supposed to be going on here? You don't have to spoil much, just-

where are we, what were the trollocs or whatever, what is the general state of the world we're in, stuff like that. People refer back to the GoT episodes, 1st episode we got Stark, Lannister, King on the Iron Throne, the North, the Wall.
I'm not sure what we have in this yet, other than Moiraine is a witch called "I'sedi" (spelling), women can do magic, and one of the youngsters is "the Dragon" whatever that is. zero context. You don't have to spoil the series, but someone lay out the basic premise if you can. Thanks

FYI, also some of that was explained already, you just weren’t paying attention or had so much thrown at you you didn’t absorb it.

Regardless SPOILERS


Trollocs are evil creatures that are beasts of the Dark One. Think Sauramon in LOTR or the devil.

The dragon was a man that went mad and destroyed the world thousands of years ago after defeating the Dark One. She explains this in the first minute of episode 1. She believes his soul has been reborn. Hence why she is trying to find him. She believes one of them is The Dragon Reborn.

That is the plot.

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Now that there's an allowance of book stuff in this, let me ask a simple question:
is there a generic synopsis of what's supposed to be going on here? You don't have to spoil much, just-

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Here's 2 minute the synopsis I gave my wife before we started last night... so SPOILERS, but not anything from the episode:

Typical dark ages/ high fantasy world.

Ominous Sauron/Voldemort evil entity exists that can't ever really be killed, just contained. Called the Dark One Has a lot of followers that remain loyal, even after he's defeated. Trolloc, eyeless dudes on horses, and humans.

World used to be very advanced. Men and women both used magic. That magic was called touching the source or the one power. Bad guy realized that he could reach out and affect that source of power, while still imprisoned. He poisons it, and men that used the power would go insane. The main male magic user was named Lews Therin AKA the Dragon (just a name not an actual dragon,) he uses the power, goes insane and kills his family and friends. All the other male magic users go insane and it "breaks the world." Mountains appear, volcanoes, rivers dry, cats and dogs get along. Basically takes them from an advanced civilization to the dark ages.

Women magic users (called Aes Sedai) decide that men can't use any more magic, so they start killing or gelding male magic users to make sure they can't go insane again. Guy in the opening scene was being chased by the Aes Sedai. Him imagining a friend running with him was a sign he was crazy. A lot of those Aes Sedai also have male protectors called Warders.

They also have enemies called the white cloaks (obviously dudes in white in the second episode) or Children of the Light who try to isolate and kill Aes Sedai or any other Darkfreinds. Think of them as cult members who think anybody that's not with them is against them.

Prophecies say that the Dragon will be reborn and a male Aes Sedai will come and defeat the Dark One for good. Moraine (Pike) believes it's somebody from the Two Rivers. Some of the Aes Sedai don't believe that and will never let a male use magic again. So if she identifies whoever it is, she will have to protect them non only from the Dark One's henchmen (darkfriends,) she'll also have to protect them from the Aes Sedai.

She gets to the Two Rivers and realizes that there are a few kids there that were born around the time that the prophecy says the Dragon Reborn was born. She absconds with them to protect them.

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guess i always kinda pictured a moderately advanced society (not like futuristic, just bright and clean) bombed back to the stone age with the breaking of the world. medieval/dark ages is probably being too simplistic.

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Yeah, but that was 3000 years ago.

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FYI, also some of that was explained already, you just weren’t paying attention or had so much thrown at you you didn’t absorb it.

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I was paying attention, got some ultra vague stuff... was trying to get a feel for the actual context of it.

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Trollocs are evil creatures that are beasts of the Dark One.

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Ok... they were pretty clearly evil. Seemed like the villagers didn't know WHAT they were, like they had never heard of them conceptually.

Yet in the 3rd episode, the bartender said she wanted to see trollocs (amongst the many things she'd never seen). So that means people DID know of them, right? -and then she attacked them, wanted to turn them in, because she was on the side of the Dark One.
Wanted to curry his favor, so there's a camp that at least thinks the Dark One doesn't want to destroy everything, just rule it. That's the way I took that.

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the Dark One. Think Sauramon in LOTR or the devil.

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THAT'S kinda confusing... unless you mean Sauron.
Seems like you wrote Saruman (or meant to), who I'd NEVER associate with the Devil.

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The dragon was a man that went mad and destroyed the world thousands of years ago after defeating the Dark One. She explains this in the first minute of episode 1

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Stating it in exposition without context, doesn't do much for me. Not trying to be difficult here, just trying to grasp it.

So... Dark One is the Ultimate Evil, not just an opposing faction, right? Threat to existence, will wipe out all life?
We talking a demon-from-hell level, or a sorcerer here? I'm getting the sense of demon.

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The dragon was a man that went mad and destroyed the world thousands of years ago after defeating the Dark One

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That doesn't really tell me much.
What does "destroyed the world" even mean? There's obviously life present, is this supposed to be post-apocalyptic?

If the Dark One was defeated, and yet is exerting power still...
LOTR analogy time. Frodo in Hobbiton knows the name of Sauron, but is operating under the assumption he is gone. Gandalf tells him (and us) that he is NOT, that he can arise because of the Ring, and that's what is happening.
Context for the overall story.

I either missed why the Dark One is defeated but still around, or they have yet to explain it. I would assume it's got something to do with the Dragon going mad, ... but I wouldn't call Isildur's claiming of the Ring "destroying the world". So the Dragon seems to have done something else.

It's ok to have some context of the world we're in, that alone shouldn't spoil the tale.

In this, I just don't see any footing to get started with. Not trying to be difficult, trying to get some gist of things.
Is this a post-apocalyptic world? A flat-earth tale? A totally different universe? Where are we?

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Here's 2 minute the synopsis I gave my wife before we started last night... so SPOILERS, but not anything from the episode:

Typical dark ages/ high fantasy world.

Ominous Sauron/Voldemort evil entity exists that can't ever really be killed, just contained. Called the Dark One Has a lot of followers that remain loyal, even after he's defeated.

World used to be very advanced. Men and women both used magic. That magic was called touching the source or the one power. Bad guy realized that he could reach out and affect that source of power, while still imprisoned. He poisons it, and men that used the power would go insane. The main male magic user was named Lews Therin AKA the Dragon (just a name not an actual dragon,) he uses the power, goes insane and kills his family and friends. All the other male magic users go insane and it "breaks the world." Mountains appear, volcanoes, rivers dry, cats and dogs get along. Basically takes them from an advanced civilization to the dark ages.

Women magic users (called Aes Sedai) decide that men can't use any more magic, so they start killing or gelding male magic users to make sure they can't go insane again. Guy in the opening scene was being chased by the Aes Sedai. Him imagining a friend running with him was a sign he was crazy. A lot of those Aes Sedai also have male protectors called Warders.

They also have enemies called the white cloaks (obviously dudes in white in the second episode) or Children of the Light who try to isolate and kill Aes Sedai or any other Darkfreinds. Think of them as cult members who think anybody that's not with them is against them.

Prophecies say that the Dragon will be reborn and a male Aes Sedai will come and defeat the Dark One for good. Moraine (Pike) believes it's somebody from the Two Rivers. Some of the Aes Sedai don't believe that and will never let a male use magic again. So if she identifies whoever it is, she will have to protect them non only from the Dark One's henchmen (darkfriends,) she'll also have to protect them from the Aes Sedai.

She gets to the Two Rivers and realizes that there are a few kids there that were born around the time that the prophecy says the Dragon Reborn was born. She absconds with them to protect them.

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OK, THANK YOU

this gives me enough context to enter the story. Call me silly, I like to have SOME idea what's going on... at least contextually. I didn't know if we were in a "pre-history" like Conan, an "alternate reality" like Tolkien, or what.

It also isn’t Logaine.

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this gives me enough context to enter the story. Call me silly, I like to have SOME idea what's going on... at least contextually. I didn't know if we were in a "pre-history" like Conan, an "alternate reality" like Tolkien, or what.

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i gave that primer to my wife before we started and it greatly reduced questions in the first two episodes. she was more, "oh are those the white cloaks?" than "who are these guys?"

i feel like they asked the watchers to go in pretty blind.