Back to The Wheel of Time
Oct. 20th, 2023 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Wheel of Time - 1.5 Blood Calls Blood
I liked this episode a lot. I liked its structure, bookending it with two different ceremonies for the dead, and the other ceremony – for the ring to be returned to a ring of molten gold, from which presumably a new ring would be made – was striking and moving.
I welcomed that we jumped forward a month and finally got to the White Tower, because the events at the close of the previous episode were epic enough for them all to be feeling the ramifications: watching Stepin and wondering about Nynaeve’s future. (Oh, Moiraine, you didn’t seriously expect her to stay in the room? Also, all this talk of her power mean that if Moiraine didn’t know Rand and Mat had already arrived in the city, she’s going to look like a very poor spy.) It was good to see the tower and its politics and traditions, and that the focus was more on Warder traditions, but also to get a feel for the city, whose name I didn’t take in, in its bustle and variety.
On the one hand, interesting to meet the not an orc (shares some characteristics with an Ent, though. And there I slip and make a LOTR reference, having not commented on the ring or White Tower stuff.) The only other magical beings we’ve come across have been dark and non-speaking, so now we know the world is even bigger (‘we’ being the ones who haven’t read the books.) But the prosthetics and make up were only middling, if I’m honest.
Mat was various shades of peaky and various degrees of clammy and while for a millisecond I wondered if he was just sick and could be healed, obviously not. So Nynaeve who’s long-term aims were unclear, but probably not to be a novice (ah, if I see any Aes Sedai in yellow, they’re healers, got it) agreed to do something Moiraine wouldn’t have wanted with Moriaine’s greatest sceptic. Rand managed not to annoy me this ep! The reveal that his red hair suggests that he wasn’t originally from Two Rivers didn’t surprise me, given what was suggested about his father.
Back at the White Tower, no-one except Lan (?) knows what Moiraine is up to, and they were having a few wordless conversations that mainly seemed to revolve what would happen if she died and he were in Stepin’s position, but also emphasising how they were feeling each other’s emotions. Lots of ambiguity about what the bond means to different Aes Sedai and warders. And not sure what I think about the theory that Nynaeve has feelings for Lan.
Not only did we have some Liandrin vs. Moiraine but the threat of the Big Whatshername coming back to deal with the sisters about what they did to the false dragon, Logain (who definitely had a reaction when he saw Mat or Rand or Mat and Rand during his procession.)
And as if that wasn’t enough, we had the way of the leaf vs the way of the light (the attack on the people linking arms to protect two people they’d taken in was distressing, but it got worse.) The torturer in chief is borderline caricature, but certainly hateable – the forced bathing of Egwene was horrible and then torturing Perrin in front of her. Perrin confirmed that he had stabbed his wife to death (I was only half sure that he had, even with all the previouslies, because it was such a literally dark scene.) I would then be confused about how they managed their escape. Perrin didn’t channel, did he? It was more wolf mastery, right? And did Egwene burn her own rope? Clearly, although she can channel, it’s only a little and she’s not as powerful as Nynaeve, because she was in dire straits. Anyway, Perrin will have to talk about the wolf thing with her – he’s already admitted his biggest secret.
Lots of development, lots of raw emotion – especially at the end, when Lan found Stepin and then at the latter’s funeral, and plenty to chew over e.g. the concept of the Forsaken, and I’m not sure what idol or statue was hidden in Moiraine’s cupboard, and plenty yet to be revealed.
I liked this episode a lot. I liked its structure, bookending it with two different ceremonies for the dead, and the other ceremony – for the ring to be returned to a ring of molten gold, from which presumably a new ring would be made – was striking and moving.
I welcomed that we jumped forward a month and finally got to the White Tower, because the events at the close of the previous episode were epic enough for them all to be feeling the ramifications: watching Stepin and wondering about Nynaeve’s future. (Oh, Moiraine, you didn’t seriously expect her to stay in the room? Also, all this talk of her power mean that if Moiraine didn’t know Rand and Mat had already arrived in the city, she’s going to look like a very poor spy.) It was good to see the tower and its politics and traditions, and that the focus was more on Warder traditions, but also to get a feel for the city, whose name I didn’t take in, in its bustle and variety.
On the one hand, interesting to meet the not an orc (shares some characteristics with an Ent, though. And there I slip and make a LOTR reference, having not commented on the ring or White Tower stuff.) The only other magical beings we’ve come across have been dark and non-speaking, so now we know the world is even bigger (‘we’ being the ones who haven’t read the books.) But the prosthetics and make up were only middling, if I’m honest.
Mat was various shades of peaky and various degrees of clammy and while for a millisecond I wondered if he was just sick and could be healed, obviously not. So Nynaeve who’s long-term aims were unclear, but probably not to be a novice (ah, if I see any Aes Sedai in yellow, they’re healers, got it) agreed to do something Moiraine wouldn’t have wanted with Moriaine’s greatest sceptic. Rand managed not to annoy me this ep! The reveal that his red hair suggests that he wasn’t originally from Two Rivers didn’t surprise me, given what was suggested about his father.
Back at the White Tower, no-one except Lan (?) knows what Moiraine is up to, and they were having a few wordless conversations that mainly seemed to revolve what would happen if she died and he were in Stepin’s position, but also emphasising how they were feeling each other’s emotions. Lots of ambiguity about what the bond means to different Aes Sedai and warders. And not sure what I think about the theory that Nynaeve has feelings for Lan.
Not only did we have some Liandrin vs. Moiraine but the threat of the Big Whatshername coming back to deal with the sisters about what they did to the false dragon, Logain (who definitely had a reaction when he saw Mat or Rand or Mat and Rand during his procession.)
And as if that wasn’t enough, we had the way of the leaf vs the way of the light (the attack on the people linking arms to protect two people they’d taken in was distressing, but it got worse.) The torturer in chief is borderline caricature, but certainly hateable – the forced bathing of Egwene was horrible and then torturing Perrin in front of her. Perrin confirmed that he had stabbed his wife to death (I was only half sure that he had, even with all the previouslies, because it was such a literally dark scene.) I would then be confused about how they managed their escape. Perrin didn’t channel, did he? It was more wolf mastery, right? And did Egwene burn her own rope? Clearly, although she can channel, it’s only a little and she’s not as powerful as Nynaeve, because she was in dire straits. Anyway, Perrin will have to talk about the wolf thing with her – he’s already admitted his biggest secret.
Lots of development, lots of raw emotion – especially at the end, when Lan found Stepin and then at the latter’s funeral, and plenty to chew over e.g. the concept of the Forsaken, and I’m not sure what idol or statue was hidden in Moiraine’s cupboard, and plenty yet to be revealed.
