Belatedly, The Wheel of Time
Jan. 25th, 2025 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Wheel of Time - 2.1 A Taste of Solitude
I always intended to get back to The Wheel of Time and then sort of decided that I would once I’d finished getting through The Rings of Power. I suspect I won’t be done by the time the third series arrives. Anyway, I still haven’t read the books, and haven’t been much spoiled.
I was much more interested in the ladies/Aes Sedai past, present and future, then Perrin (although, DUDE, just talk to the guy with the same eyes and, it looks like, abilities as you) than recast!Mat and shorn!Rand, so the focus felt right for me. I could have done without the opening involving the Dark One expanding on his relativistic view of the world, although I’m now wondering if the little girl was the one who Perrin and the tracker ‘saw’ escape, but whatever.
It took its time to get around to everyone and reveal that this was five months later. The casting scouts must have had fun. I feel very strongly for Moiraine, but also her pushing Lan away and his frustrations seemed very real. Her going away on her own at night to investigate that poem was stupid, though. On the one hand, the older people they were staying with were intriguing and balanced them out well (I was amused at the older lady basically ogling shirtless Lan), but while she was fine (and I loved her hair) Meera Syal is one of those actresses who makes me go ‘ooh, that’s Meera Syal’, rather than buying her as her character. The reveal that she could weave at the end was nice. I feel like I know who the actor playing her warder is but couldn’t remember who exactly he was. (IMDB is not helping me with this.)
Also, I enjoyed the sea trader’s accent and that even in her current state Moiraine was perfectly capable of dealing with him.
At the tower, Egwene and Nynaeve were novices and basically servants, which – SHOCKINGLY! – Egwene was more chill about. Although I still find Nynaeve and all the chips on her shoulders annoying – and it was such a valid question to ask why she’d signed up to this if she was struggling so much with it. And if the answer is to stay with Egwene, that’s pathetic – they got me to sympathise with her block from accessing the One Power. Liandrin’s methods were not to be approved, and there’s another one whose attitude I side-eye. Very interesting reveal that fewer girls are coming to the tower and that the Aes Sedai are slightly desperate when it comes to Nynaeve’s power. Still, I was more in charity with Egwene, who had remembered the significant Two Rivers holiday (like the others), even if my attitude towards her grief towards Rand is ‘He’s not worth it, love.’
Turned out that Mat was closer than the girls thought. Don’t really remember why Liandrin has him under lock and key. Will have to wait and see whether the recasting makes me care even less about him.
I do care about Perrin, and his struggles with his anger and finding a new attitude towards violence, revenge and conducting oneself from the soldier were interesting, given what he went through in the first series. Also, Loial was there.
There were plot developments for the battle between light and dark as everyone dealt with the ramifications of the end of the first series, (it’s probably easier to adapt books rather than appendices, koff The Rings of Power.) There were a few too many night-time scenes (although the flaming sword-thing was cool.) Amazon Prime felt the need to have a trailer showing lots of new costumes, locations and characters coming up in the second season after all this. Have they dropped the credits sequence from season 1 for good?
I always intended to get back to The Wheel of Time and then sort of decided that I would once I’d finished getting through The Rings of Power. I suspect I won’t be done by the time the third series arrives. Anyway, I still haven’t read the books, and haven’t been much spoiled.
I was much more interested in the ladies/Aes Sedai past, present and future, then Perrin (although, DUDE, just talk to the guy with the same eyes and, it looks like, abilities as you) than recast!Mat and shorn!Rand, so the focus felt right for me. I could have done without the opening involving the Dark One expanding on his relativistic view of the world, although I’m now wondering if the little girl was the one who Perrin and the tracker ‘saw’ escape, but whatever.
It took its time to get around to everyone and reveal that this was five months later. The casting scouts must have had fun. I feel very strongly for Moiraine, but also her pushing Lan away and his frustrations seemed very real. Her going away on her own at night to investigate that poem was stupid, though. On the one hand, the older people they were staying with were intriguing and balanced them out well (I was amused at the older lady basically ogling shirtless Lan), but while she was fine (and I loved her hair) Meera Syal is one of those actresses who makes me go ‘ooh, that’s Meera Syal’, rather than buying her as her character. The reveal that she could weave at the end was nice. I feel like I know who the actor playing her warder is but couldn’t remember who exactly he was. (IMDB is not helping me with this.)
Also, I enjoyed the sea trader’s accent and that even in her current state Moiraine was perfectly capable of dealing with him.
At the tower, Egwene and Nynaeve were novices and basically servants, which – SHOCKINGLY! – Egwene was more chill about. Although I still find Nynaeve and all the chips on her shoulders annoying – and it was such a valid question to ask why she’d signed up to this if she was struggling so much with it. And if the answer is to stay with Egwene, that’s pathetic – they got me to sympathise with her block from accessing the One Power. Liandrin’s methods were not to be approved, and there’s another one whose attitude I side-eye. Very interesting reveal that fewer girls are coming to the tower and that the Aes Sedai are slightly desperate when it comes to Nynaeve’s power. Still, I was more in charity with Egwene, who had remembered the significant Two Rivers holiday (like the others), even if my attitude towards her grief towards Rand is ‘He’s not worth it, love.’
Turned out that Mat was closer than the girls thought. Don’t really remember why Liandrin has him under lock and key. Will have to wait and see whether the recasting makes me care even less about him.
I do care about Perrin, and his struggles with his anger and finding a new attitude towards violence, revenge and conducting oneself from the soldier were interesting, given what he went through in the first series. Also, Loial was there.
There were plot developments for the battle between light and dark as everyone dealt with the ramifications of the end of the first series, (it’s probably easier to adapt books rather than appendices, koff The Rings of Power.) There were a few too many night-time scenes (although the flaming sword-thing was cool.) Amazon Prime felt the need to have a trailer showing lots of new costumes, locations and characters coming up in the second season after all this. Have they dropped the credits sequence from season 1 for good?
