WoT on Prime Episode 4 SPOILERS

[Thalia]

Holy fuck. They really sold it this episode. I'm hooked. I pretty much loved it all. A little speechless actually, haha. My husband is also really enjoying it (according to him it's better than GoT). I personally am loving more and more that I know the story but not what's going to happen.

The tinkers were super garish. I really loved Ila's speech about why she follows the way of the leaf. I don't think it was ever put that way in the books (I might be wrong) but it really hit home. I love the tinkers, but it always seemed a dumb way to live. They made it make sense.

I didn't think Aram seemed creepy, just super enamoured of Egwene. My interpretation of that is because she's an outsider. He said at 20 they were allowed to go travel and live life a bit, so I wonder if the tinker children are a lot more sheltered in the show. He seemed a lot more innocent and less slick than book Aram.

I loved the Mat stuff. The way his horse was skittish and afraid of him. The creepy blackness (guess we know why Mashadar wasn't a fog now). His conversation with the kid tugged on my heart (changing Elsie to a child really worked). I may have squee'd when she said her doll's name was Birgitte. And oh man, when she was left behind at the end *cries*


Mat is so likeable it's painful watching him go through the dagger's grip.

So THAT Grinwall scene. My jaw dropped. The Fade was awesome. I'm not actually convinced it wasn't Mat, though -- he was bloody and the little girl, at least, had a *blade* wound very clearly in her back (and she was outside not inside with the fade and the rest of the family). It definitely felt ambiguous to me. I know the dagger was supposed to cause festering black wounds, but I wonder if they wanted the ambiguity of did he didn't he -- for both the audience and Mat himself. In Rand's dream we see Perrin using a hammer to hit a body (his wife I guess) and Mat staring at his bloody hand. Aside from that being a rather nice nod towards the Band of the Red Hand, I wondered if it was indicative of the fact the dagger's curse *did* make him kill the family, or at least the girl. They're literally all seeing fears, but more than that, they're fears that have happened  for Perrin and Rand (Rand's being Egwene's loss). Makes sense that it might be the case for Mat too. Betrayer of Hope, indeed.

Plus Mashadar making Mat do something like that to a little girl would be really, truly evil.

The fact Thom suspects Mat has channeling madness works *perfectly* for the who is the DR changes. I thought it was a clever way to mention Owen in a poignant way too. It's an improvement to the dagger storyline imo. I might be misremembering, but didn't Rand at least notice he had the dagger and how Mat coveted it in the books? It was so obviously a BAD thing to the reader (not to mention one he's told not tot take) that I always found it frustrating how it played out. Also, Thom's line about there being nothing more dangerous than a man who knows the past was perfect.

Asc, I so felt the same about the Aes Sedai camp! The campfire scene was *chef's kiss*. I cant wait for ep 6 and the Tower. I loved Moiraine and Alanna's rapport (the story about the dog), and how many characterising details we get just from that one little anecdote. I would have loved more of just watching all the dynamics to be honest, haha. I did think they managed to fit in a shit-ton of worldbuilding too, certainly my husband seemed to keep up with how the AS, warders and ajahs seem to work (in as far as we've seen in the show so far).

I like that they slipped in about Suian not liking Moiraine and threatening to haul them back to the tower, yet when Moiraine was dying of trolloc poison it was Suian's name she whispered *grin*

Also loved the "I shouldn't have had a drink, you always get emotional" scene.


I really enjoy Lan and Nynaeve's snippy chemistry, their dialogue often makes me chuckle (you can share our fire if you promise not to shove anyone in it). Loved Nynaeve stubbornly sitting on her own before that. The old tongue scene was very sweet -- you could see how anxious Nyn was about saying yes when he asked if she wanted to know what the words meant, and I thought it played very well against their scene in the previous ep where she tells him to ask his question, he does, and she refuses to answer. They're handling the romance far better than RJ imo. Drawing parallels between Nyn being orphaned and Lan being the last of Malkier worked well for me.

Also, I was laughing so much when Liandrin commented on the mispronunciation of Nyn's name that I had to pause and explain why.

I also kinda love Liandrin, Kate Fleetwood is doing an excellent job, and I like that Reds are not being portrayed as baddies. As far as viewers are concerned, she's essentially the hero of the piece -- if they'd gentled Logain like she wanted none of that would have happened.

So, Logain's escape! I didn't guess it would be Moiraine (figured on Liandrin) but it makes a lot of sense -- I suppose this is what she'll be punished for at the Tower. In the books she and Suian were taking huge risks hunting down and protecting the DR, but it always felt very much that the reader was encouraged to just see the rest of the Tower as being in the wrong because the prophecy was ironclad. This really makes it far more grey -- just look at the destruction that's followed Moiraine so far. I really like the uncertainty about the prophecy's details for this. Love Pike's portrayal of Moiraine more and more, the little smiles she does sometimes -- usually when she's getting close to new info on the DR, make her seem almost fanatic in her hunt. She reacted the same when the kids had the bat dream -- excited that she was on the right path, not showing any care for the kids themselves. Juxtapose that against the times we see her softer/more human side (teaching Egwene to embrace for instance, or her scenes showing her connection with Lan) and you can really get a sense of how driven she is. Pike really makes Moiraine's 'I will sacrifice anything for this' attitude very believable, and it's nice to see it presented with more consequences. She literally got a sister killed, and very nearly herself and her warder. I think Suian is going to make her publicly reswear on the oath rod to prove she's not Black and maintain their public facade of hating on each other.

I assumed Logain's cage was physical, it's the same one he was transported in on the wagon thing. When he broke free of the shield he melted it.

I liked the intro a lot, I'm glad we got to see him pre-gentling and get a sense of what kind of man he was. In such a tiny scene they did a fab job of showing both his madness and how he was able to amass such a large and loyal following. Interesting that he sets the stage for the DR hearing the voices of previous dragons. My first thought, given the way it was presented, was that this might have been our first subtle intro to the Forsaken. That would be an interesting twist on saidin's corruption, if they are able to influence through the taint. But I'm not sure that's workable for Rand, unless LTT provides protection from their influence and replaces his own brand of crazy in the process. Haha. Crackpot theory I know.

Logain's performance was really strong. His gentling was emotive. I found his realisation that he was a false dragon quite heartbreaking.

I LOVE Nynaeve. That last scene was epic and beautiful and gave me all the feels (literal goosebumps). My husband was distraught when Lan was bleeding out, he's his favourite character.

The battle was my only real complaint. The AS kicked ass but the warders felt a little redundant.

But my biggest complaint is that we have to wait a whole week for the next episode.

There's probably more, I'm still on a bit of a high. 

I'm interested to see how they're going to maintain interest/raise the stakes in the Egwene/Perrin segments. I have to admit them traipsing across the Caralain Grass the past few eps has been my least favourite part, and while I personally enjoyed seeing the tinkers, there's not a lot of story pull there. At the moment it all just feels like set up for Perrin's inner conflict to have its next test when the Whitecloaks arrive. It might just be feeling weak because Rand and Mat have already had the danger of Dana and now the introduction of the dagger, though... while they've literally just been wandering followed by some weird wolves, and now they've found some pacifists.

EDIT to add, I really wish they didn't hide the origin animations in xray, I keep forgetting to watch them. I like that some of them take the format of an Aes Sedai teaching novices. Today's was literally on the differences between saidar and saidin.