WOT on Prime

[Armande]

well if they are going to get a part of 2 in the 1st season, then having Rand appear as the Dragon is indeed not too soon. I am excited at the thought of seeing the seanchan. For some reason, it feels like if I see that, i will know it is really happening. dumb but there it is.

I am excited about the AOL stuff. Maybe we see a flashback to the AOL and the sealing of the bore as part of building the mythos of the dragon. So far we have
LTT: Alexander Karim 
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0992562/

Latra Posae Decume: Katie Brayben 
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5040782/

also
Tigraine:  Magdalena Sittova
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8961713/

https://www.wotseries.com/2021/11/11/hug...st-update/

[Thalia]

It's not dumb. Again, I'm just making wild guesses. Imagine the Seanchan's arrival as the final cliffhanger scene? There's nothing been announced so far to support it of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if the EotW climax isn't where season 1 ends.

The animated shorts are part of amazon x-ray, so additional content that can be accessed while you're watching the ep. That's pretty freaking awesome.

How expansive they seem to want the world to feel is really quite exciting. I wonder how they'll weave in the flashbacks, or if we'll just be an omniscient viewer. Latra being cast is another nod to forward planning? Running with the Egwene parallels to draw on later perhaps. Wouldn't ever have guessed we'd get AoL stuff in season 1.

Let me know when you've had a chance to listen to the music. Web of Destiny and Goldeneyes are probably my favourites so far. I also really like On Your Knees. Mashiara is constantly stuck in my brain this past week. I'm not an expert or a musician at all, but to me it sounds like a blend of folksy and quite tribal stuff, with some middle-eastern influence, and a dash of country twang. Such an odd combination, possibly a bit marmite, but I really like it. Every time I hear the intro to Old Blood it reminds me of Johnny Cash's version of Hurt.

edit: here's the link for the animated shorts announcement. That's Thom's actor doing the voice-over I think. And one of the shorts mentions Saidin and Saidar so they can't be getting rid of the names

[Armande]

Ok, seriously, that animated shorts things is fucking amazing. I love it. 

The Seanchan's arrival as a cliffhanger could work. I haven't seen any forsaken casting so I am curious as to how they are handling them. We may not see Aggy and Balthy in this (or at least at an Eye.) So I wonder what the revelation climax will be.

So the music. Jeez, this is so cool. The diversity and style reminds me of Battlestar Galactica a bit in that it is not afraid to use percussive and rock sounds and rhythms and styles. It doesn't try to play in the high western classical we have associated with fantasy for so long (LoTR or GOT, for example.)

sample:



MordoSheen is freaking wierd and amazing. Creepy as fuck. The OT chanting is awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbr6s0cbk5M

I like Goldeneyes. interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8piwluJoZlE

Dragon Reborn...I need to listen to it more. Unsure of how I feel about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52WP7dW38NM

The Web of Destiny- yeah really like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exkvAfb-zvo

old blood: i do like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeUIzF8BY4U

doing the others now.

[Thalia]

I think they're keeping forsaken casting under wraps. Rafe has said something, and I can't remember the exact quote, but it gave the impression they (some of them at least) are there somewhere. Maybe in the AoL parts? He's definitely on record as being a big forsaken character fan so I would expect we'll see backstory... at some point anyway. They hide in the books so perhaps the show will try and recreate that with misdirection.

Mordero'sheen is very much an experience, that's the one I think will be amazing in spatial audio (which is coming apparently). There are parts where the chanting is almost spinning around the listener. The only words I could pick out were Shaitan.

I'm also really glad it doesn't lean on western fantasy sounds. I love that style of music but it's old. The fact there is a lot of guitar ties in with Thom having a guitar in the show instead of flute and harp too.

I really hope they release the lyrics soon!

Apparently if you listen on Spotify and get an ad, you can play a mini game that uses your music preferences to tell if you're on the side of the light or dark.

So my husband was watching football on one of the UK's main TV channels. It was a national game, I think something to do with the world cup (can you tell I enjoy sport) and the wot trailer played during one of the ad breaks

[Thalia]

So they released a lyric video for Mashiara. The first word is Ashandore, not Ashandarei. There are two translations depending on which dictionary resource you use. 'Ashan' = sword or guard and 'dore' = dancer or mountain. I had a go at translating the rest, but there are some of what I'd guess are contractions, as well as some words I have no idea what they mean. Ck, you're good at languages and stuff, do you have any ideas?

I think the song goes something like:

Ashandore soufrait,
No‘ma (mi) cuebiyar,
Me, the guarded and strong of mind and (my) heart (or possibly, Me, the guarded and strong of mind, my heart). That's assuming the "No'ma" is "Me, the" because it could also be "but I give you" ... in which case it might mean something like "Guarded and strong-minded but I give you (my) heart"
Avrunya fel ravid fonnenye
My best guess is "avrunya" is a contraction of calling (aven) and runyat (weight). Fel is "our", ravid = ?? and fonnenye could possibly be something to do with place (fonnai). Best guess is it's something about being weighted with the calling of their rightful places.
Punia tawele
Gadhavya fel maranya
Punia is "may" and ta can denote something to do with the Pattern. No idea about wele. Gadhavya is probably something to do with "thread" (gadhat + ya denoting possession) and maranya possibly something to do with destiny (maral is destiny so it's a bit of a reach).
Kiseri trewele
No’noup mah
Kiseri I think could be "honourable/glorious one", Suian calls Loial Kiseran so perhaps it's a female equivalent. Kiserai is glory. Tre could be three. There's that wele again. Noup is "only" and my best guess is mah is "seek", so the last line is probably "I only seek"

The last bit is a little easier, and the only bit I'm fairly confidant on:
Domash
Kutya a’asa
Ellis sheikar
Fel mashi tasu
is basically "You make me feel warm, our love is as bright as the sun"

[Ascendancy]

I am so excited I just can't take it.
I thought about seeing if we could organize a sort of 'watch party' and go through and watch it together, but I think I need time to take this in on my own in my own little bubble to process everything.

[Armande]

I love how excited everyone is. And yes, I know there will be changes we may individually don't care for. But all the same, I don't think anyone truly expects perfection. As long as the spirit of the people is the same -at those points in the book I might add. Mat wasn't really all that cool until book 3. Up till then he was mostly kind of annoying and stupid. Going exploring in Shadar Logoth? How dumb are you? Maybe funny in brief moments, but not the badass he later became.

I would like to say I will try to space them out and savor them. Let each one sit with me for a while. Maybe see the online stuff to enjoy the speculation and theorizing.

Maybe we can have a thread for each individual episode, Asc. And locked threads that will be opened the next day (or 2nd day or whatever) so that we can post and theorize and comment. These would be spoiler free threads.

That could let us marinate. Then each new thread unlocks each week for each new episode.

Btw, great job Thal with the translating. The song is beautiful for knowing the words. And I love they took the time to craft it in the old tongue.

Yeah, asc, I am too excited. I should be cautious and keep expectations low...I should. But I'm not....dumbass...

[Ascendancy]

I'd love to get @"Giovanni Cavelli" 's take on the soundtrack!

[Aiden Finnegan]

Just watched the first two episodes at the Chicago premier screening!

Non-spoilery thoughts.... I will try to be as vague as possible and avoid any hard details...

• The cold open for episode one was the only thing I disliked. It's been released online already.
  
• The acting is amazing. You can tell who is who without names and none of them feel cheesy or inauthentic. 
  
• I'm not a huge fan of Mat normally (unpopular opinion.) But I am very upset Barney won't be reprising his role as Mat after seeing him as the character. 
  
• There is a point where I thought to myself 'Oh, I cannot wait to see him as Darth Rand.' Josha was fantastic.
  
• There are slight changes to a few character backstories, but they all work and I can see why they played around with those details.
  
• Episode two was better than episode one, but all the reviews I've read say each episode is better than the previous one. I liked episode one, but episode two was better lol.
  
• The scene of Moiraine and Lan on Winter's Night is much longer, obviously, in the first episode and they didn't even show you the best parts of it in the clip they released. I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE BIG BATTLES WITH CHANNELING! OH MAN!
  
• The Trollocs and the Myrddraal.... holy fuck. They fucking nailed that one, guys.
  
• Get ready to have all of your pronunciations challenged.
  
• Costuming is on point. The White Cloaks... I hated the pictures of their costumes, but I liked them way more after seeing them in an episode. I don't know what I think of Eamon Valda yet. I definitely hated him as a character, but he felt a little too villainous at times? More in the way the actor is portraying the character than what his character gets up to. I'm waiting to judge him until I see more.
  
• Liandrin... I cannot wait to see more of her. I really can't wait to see her with Moghedien.
  
• There is some lore that is changed. I don't hate the things that were changed, but there was one bit that caught me off guard.
  
• The world just feels huge and the locations they chose are breathtaking.
  
• There was a scene in the Two Rivers where I just found myself marveling at the screen. They really went all-in with the design aspect of the show. I wanted to be there with them, just because it looked so awesome.
  

I'll stop there, anything else is gonna skirt the line of spoilers. I'm confident you guys will like what you see. I haven't stopped smiling since I left the theater.

edit: I also really liked the opening credit sequence. Shadar Logoth felt sufficiently creepy and threatening. You will get much more than a well-turned calve and it's glorious <_<

[Aiden Finnegan]

Also, I’m not sure because I was too busy staring at the animations, but I think Web of Destiny is the opening song. They didn’t play the opening sequence for episode one, so I’m not totally sure lol. Parts of it are still a blur.

Edit: now that I’m listening to the other tracks again, I think the OP was Moiraine Sedai, not Web of Destiny.