[TV] The Wheel of Time

[Dancaris]

This is exactly Ishamael's concept as a character. Elan Morin Tendronai was one of the greatest philosophers of the age. He chooses to align with the Dark One because he wants to break the wheel.

And countless times before, when he was not Elan Morin Tendronai. History of this universe is circular, 7 ages, 7 stages of history. Always same scenario, with little details between circles. Always good character (in "our" circle he called Dragon) fights bad one (dark one) and his general (Ishamael, Moridin, Elan Morin Tendronai all names of same entity)

Also, sorry, I might form texts wrong, English is not my native at all.

[Stickiler]

Can you truly say that Min, for example, had the choice to love him, when she has seen that her relationship with him is going to happen, and has known for most of her life that literally nothing she can do will change the outcome of one of her visions? She's had like a decade or more to basically come to terms with the fact that destiny has chosen her partner for her, and there's nothing she can do about. So yes, her choice to accept the inevitable and fall in love with Rand when he finally pops into her life is technically a choice, but it's not one she was really given the option to make any other way.

I mean, you can flip that on it's head and say that it's her falling in love with him which causes the images to appear, rather than the images appearing because she's being forced by the Pattern to fall in love with him.

Depends on whether you believe the Pattern is an all-powerful force that controls the course of every persons life, or whether it's just the weaving together of every persons actions and decisions.

The ability for Ta'veren to control the pattern(As Rand displays in the later books) seems to indicate that it's more like a constantly weaving latticework of actions and decisions, which we also see is essentially circular, from Herid Fel's research/philosophy.

[Nymrohd]

I mean, you can flip that on it's head and say that it's her falling in love with him which causes the images to appear, rather than the images appearing because she's being forced by the Pattern to fall in love with him.

Depends on whether you believe the Pattern is an all-powerful force that controls the course of every persons life, or whether it's just the weaving together of every persons actions and decisions.

The ability for Ta'veren to control the pattern(As Rand displays in the later books) seems to indicate that it's more like a constantly weaving latticework of actions and decisions, which we also see is essentially circular, from Herid Fel's research/philosophy.

I mean logically, if the Pattern is predetermined then Ta'veren would have no effect on it. Neither would balefire. Neither would Egwene's weave that counters Balefire (which pretty much impinges on the Creator himself). It has to be woven concurrently with the Ta'veren effect disturbing the weaving.

it's really your choice how you choose to see things.

[Dancaris]

I mean logically, if the Pattern is predetermined then Ta'veren would have no effect on it. Neither would balefire. Neither would Egwene's weave that counters Balefire (which pretty much impinges on the Creator himself). It has to be woven concurrently with the Ta'veren effect disturbing the weaving.

But pattern can be changed. You can affect it in present by ta'veren skills, you can erase from the past by balefire. But never - to control the future of it. So choices are not predetermined. Some maybe aligned to Wheel Will, but not forced. Maybe Elayne comes to garden by Wheel will back in a day, maybe not. But choice to love Rand is her own.

Same with Aviehdha. She resist not some magical mind-control to fuck with Rand. She resist her feeling toward him. She is classic tsundere at that time. To be honest, always And she run from him bc she think that Rand is Elayne's. And Aiels don't cheat.

Min - With her I dunno. Seems like she can see some pieces of future Pattern? Ot part of Wheel Will? Her powers are not described to form hard theory of her relationship with Rand. And even then she is not some fuckdoll, she is person that do what she likes. Mostly.

[Nymrohd]

But pattern can be changed. You can affect it in present by ta'veren skills, you can erase from the past by balefire. But never - to control the future of it. So choices are not predetermined. Some maybe aligned to Wheel Will, but not forced. Maybe Elayne comes to garden by Wheel will back in a day, maybe not. But choice to love Rand is her own.

Same with Aviehdha. She resist not some magical mind-control to fuck with Rand. She resist her feeling toward him. She is classic tsundere at that time. To be honest, always

Min - With her I dunno. Seems like she can see some pieces of future Pattern? Ot part of Wheel Will? Her powers are not described to form hard theory of her relationship with Rand. And even then she is not some fuckdoll, she is person that do what she likes. Mostly.

It is much more interesting with Min because with her she struggles with the power of her Viewings and how they affect others. And she has likely VIEWED horrible fates for others and then see them actually happen so her Talent is traumatic which leads to fatalism. A constant part of her character arc is her confusion that Moirane seemed to die.

[Shadowferal]

The polygamy is a non-issue to me. Common for Aiel, and the car'a'carn to hold three ladies to his heart...I'd say it's more an issue between the three.

And as for Elayne, the entire time they were in Tear probably should have been better prepped. But the times when they weren't snogging, she was teaching him rulership. And it showed.

[Surfd]

I mean, you can flip that on it's head and say that it's her falling in love with him which causes the images to appear, rather than the images appearing because she's being forced by the Pattern to fall in love with him.

That depends a lot on how you think the the "weaving" of the pattern works:

The fact that Min is capable of seeing things that haven't happened yet and is unable to influence them no matter how hard she tries suggests one of two possibilities:
- The pattern is not woven "at the current moment of time", but rather the "weave" of the pattern has been "pre-woven" to at least some distance into the future and Min basically follows your thread down the pattern into this future when she "views" a particular person: She sees things that are already set into the weave. It's one way to explain how she can have visions of things that haven't happened yet. She (as a normal person), is not powerful enough to influence the weave, which is why she is unable to change the outcome of any vision she sees. Ta'veren ARE powerful enough to somewhat alter the weave around them though; they are like a distortion in the already woven pattern, subtly (or in the case of particularly powerful Ta'veren like Rand, very much not subtly) shifting threads around them, causing ripple effects of changes to everything in proximity. The books seem to lean more in this direction: one of the biggest examples being that the Aiel Wise One's experience visions of the future during their testing in the pillars instead of visions of the past. You can't show something that hasn't been "woven" yet if it's supposed to appear on the pattern.

- The other possibility is that the pattern is being woven in the immediate "now", which means that in order for Min to see visions of the future, she would literally need to be reading the mind of god (for lack of a better word) and seeing what he planned to weave into the pattern. It would be like an individual thread in a scarf being able to see the instructions the weaver is following and knowing that 5 minutes from now he's going to execute a particular stitch pattern: There's literally nothing the thread itself can do to alter that coming future. Which would also explain why she is unable to affect the outcome no matter how hard she tries: because the event is "planned", so until it has happened, there's nothing to change. On the whole, this concept seems a lot less probable, as it puts Min's ability to see visions on the level of a god like ability.

Ultimately though, I don't subscribe to the idea that Min's visions regarding Rand are a result of her meeting him and maybe falling in love with him, as every other vision she has ever had has been effectively about seeing futures she just shouldn't be able to see. She sees those things because they are already set in the future. Things just get a bit more complicated with Rand because he's Ta'veren and because she is viewing her future with him. His very existence makes viewing things directly related to him unstable / unpredictable because He actually can alter the woven destinies of people he comes in contact with.

[Gumble]

The polygamy is a non-issue to me. Common for Aiel, and the car'a'carn to hold three ladies to his heart...I'd say it's more an issue between the three.

And as for Elayne, the entire time they were in Tear probably should have been better prepped. But the times when they weren't snogging, she was teaching him rulership. And it showed.

Poly relationships are mostly a problem for people in western societies who don't realize that in much of the world, for most of human history, that was the norm.

Marriage, as a concept, is shockingly new. 1 man and 1 woman together forever is a very "current" concept. Much of the world now, and all of the world for most of its history, practiced polygamy quite commonly.


As for the concept of the pattern forcing any of them to be with each other..... that doesn't make sense with Jordan's pattern. It doesn't force you. It may guide you in that direction, sometimes forcibly if you're ta'veren, but it doesn't make you do it. A much more likely concept is that each of their threads was designed to go with each other because the pattern knew that Rand would need all 3 of them in order to have the opportunity to do what he needed to do.

Each woman, in her own way, provided him the training, knowledge, and support he needed to get to where he did. They were not required to do so by the pattern, but the pattern would have given them the tools, or guide Rand to the people who had those tools that he needed, in order to let the rest of the weave happen.




(TO ADD) - Just think of how Perrin and Mat felt often throughout the later half of the story, like Rand was tugging at them and they knew he needed them. They had the ability he needed to help him do what the pattern was aiming at, so they got pulled back to him. In much the same way, Elayne, Min and Aviendha got pulled to him too. Feeling an intense pull towards someone, especially if you find that person attractive already, probably is an easy step towards quickly caring for them and more.

[rhorle]

I mean logically, if the Pattern is predetermined then Ta'veren would have no effect on it. Neither would balefire. Neither would Egwene's weave that counters Balefire (which pretty much impinges on the Creator himself). It has to be woven concurrently with the Ta'veren effect disturbing the weaving.

It depends on what you mean by predetermined. Is it something that can never be changed or is it something that will happen but can be changed. The pattern will weave certain events but can't force them to happen. So Rand was predetermined to be born at a certain spot to make all of the other threads come together as needed. Random acts, the dark one, etc could all change the pattern into different branches.

Ta'veren are the "police" that the Wheel uses to ensure the pattern happens in a straight line as the creator intended. You aren't born Ta'veren and people usually don't stay Ta'veren for very long. Are you familiar with the show Loki? The TVA in that show is essentially how the wheel uses Ta'veren but there is no sentience involved. It knows what is the "main pattern" and knows what to activate along the way to fix any deviations.

- - - Updated - - -

A much more likely concept is that each of their threads was designed to go with each other because the pattern knew that Rand would need all 3 of them in order to have the opportunity to do what he needed to do.

Which is essentially forcing. If X will happen without outside interference then it is forced by the pattern. Outside influences can happen which is why Ta'veren are temporarily created to correct any deviations that occur. Ta'veren can still fail but they also are designed to force events to happen a certain way. Some events also always happen in every turning of the wheel so somethings are actually forced even if the details vary.

The pattern could have kept Rand and the 3 women connected some other way. So a different turning of The Wheel could not have them romantically involved. I don't think Robert Jordan has every revealed it as a canon/key moment that always happens that way.

[Dancaris]

The pattern could have kept Rand and the 3 women connected some other way. So a different turning of The Wheel could not have them romantically involved. I don't think Robert Jordan has every revealed it as a canon/key moment that always happens that way.

Forced to interact is one thing. I beleive that Moiraine is destined to guide Rand. On other turn they can be related, on some - lovers. At this turn - she was strict mentor.
And in this turn he has 3 lovers. Is it forced? If pattern need royal teacher, tribal mentor and sence-returnor - they could have been males, or relative, or anything actually. And question is open what kind of relationship will it be. This time - they are lovers. And nothing wrong about it to me.

[Flurryfang]

I think RJ knew he made Elayne's relationship with Rand a bit too shallow for the love relationship he wanted to form, especially given that he had Sanderson put in to the final books Elayne feeling jealous of Min and Aviendha because they got to spend so much more time with Rand (author way of saying, yea he knows).

However, barring Elayne's personality, which I agree is a bit grating (though I know women like her so she IS realistic)..... Rand's relationships are all developed as basically wartime romances. I know that most of you have probably never been in the military, or around probably any real adversity, but many relationships do develop around stressful, war-ridden times that are super "WE LOVE EACH OTHER" even if they barely know each other. The human mind grabs onto that kind of stuff when it knows that life is crazy, where during easier times, people become alot slower and more picky.

So Elayne and Rand's relationship makes sense, given the situation they met and romanced in. It would have definitely been nice to get more, however given Elayne WAS a bit of an annoying, bratty character, Rand loving the "idea" of her more than her real person makes perfect sense. They both idealized the other person while barely getting to know each other, then were kept apart by circumstance. There are ALOT of long distance relationships throughout history that follow this same pattern.

See one of the changes i would absolutely love the show to make, is that it sets up different reasons for why Elayne, Aviendha and Min ends up being with Rand. They are 3 very different woman, who comes from very different backgrounds. It was clear, that Aviendha had some attraction to Rand in the books, especially when he kept courting her through his misunderstanding of Aiel culture, but if they could show that she also some part of duty in it, that would be amazing, about the pressure of her society to be the Aiel connection to Rand.

With Elayne, they could also play on that she is essential trying to keep her kingdom together and what better way, than to get in bed with the Dragon Reborn? Not to set her up as a golddigger or opportunist, but that the reason she initial keeps trying to get close to rand, is also to do her kingdom justice and to save her family legacy.

And with Min, it could easily be the pure love, but also a feeling of destiny. Having her know that she will always end up with Rand no matter what, might bring a lot of internal conflict, if she at first does not care that much for Rand.

In my opinion, the girls that fall in love with Rand do it far too easy, but if they could just explain, that there are many different reasons to feel a connection to Rand other than he is hot and they find him attactive, that could be an improvement.

[Gumble]

See one of the changes i would absolutely love the show to make, is that it sets up different reasons for why Elayne, Aviendha and Min ends up being with Rand. They are 3 very different woman, who comes from very different backgrounds. It was clear, that Aviendha had some attraction to Rand in the books, especially when he kept courting her through his misunderstanding of Aiel culture, but if they could show that she also some part of duty in it, that would be amazing, about the pressure of her society to be the Aiel connection to Rand.

With Elayne, they could also play on that she is essential trying to keep her kingdom together and what better way, than to get in bed with the Dragon Reborn? Not to set her up as a golddigger or opportunist, but that the reason she initial keeps trying to get close to rand, is also to do her kingdom justice and to save her family legacy.

And with Min, it could easily be the pure love, but also a feeling of destiny. Having her know that she will always end up with Rand no matter what, might bring a lot of internal conflict, if she at first does not care that much for Rand.

In my opinion, the girls that fall in love with Rand do it far too easy, but if they could just explain, that there are many different reasons to feel a connection to Rand other than he is hot and they find him attactive, that could be an improvement.

So, technically, the books DO have Aviendha being CONSTANTLY pestered by the Wise Ones to developed a connection to Rand because they know if he doesn't have one the Aiel won't survive. So a lot of her resistance is basically stubborness about being used.

Elayne, for all her faults, is shown to be very thoughtful and forward thinking when it comes to ruling, so basically from the Stone of Tear onwards, it would not be outside the realm to believe that she was interested in Rand at least partly due to courtly consideration.

Min, she spent alot of time fighting it, but knew she'd lose in the end.


One major thing that what they've done with this show ruins and makes you forget (I'd imagine, given the postings I see here), is that Egwene, Elayne, Aviendha, are all around the same age, which in the books is about 16, maybe 17 as the books go on.

Ask yourself, how many 16-17 year old girls fall in love with guys purely on fluff characteristics like "he's hot" and "he's important" and "it feels like we have a connection even though we've only spent that ONE SUMMER TOGETHER in the stone of tear".

You are judging these characters behavior based on adult standards, when they are barely adults, even by their own world's standards. Their behavior makes complete sense by the books, but if you add 10 years to them (or 20-25 for Min) as the show seems to have, then this type of behavior really doesn't mesh.

[Flurryfang]

Ask yourself, how many 16-17 year old girls fall in love with guys purely on fluff characteristics like "he's hot" and "he's important" and "it feels like we have a connection even though we've only spent that ONE SUMMER TOGETHER in the stone of tear".

You are judging these characters behavior based on adult standards, when they are barely adults, even by their own world's standards. Their behavior makes complete sense by the books, but if you add 10 years to them (or 20-25 for Min) as the show seems to have, then this type of behavior really doesn't mesh.

I agree, that the idea of failling in love with fluff characteristics is very true to the age they are in the books, but then again, they are not the average young adult. JR even plays with this quite a bit, as in the first few books, Rand and Egwene are set up, because they are the childhood love couple and ofcourse they are gonna get married!!.... That they then later openly question this idea of pre-mature love and what romance requires in a world, where they are all powerful wizards kinda strangles that idea completly.

So i don't think it is unfair to judge their interaction in a more adult tone, as they have thrown into a very adult situation and mature rapidly to meet that situation.

Then again, i do agree, that with the age-up in the show, immature love seems off and there has to be something more. Having crushes and on-off romance is fine, there is already plently of that in the story, but when it comes to these big love stories, there has to be more to it.

[rhorle]

The new nielsen numbers are in. Wheel of Time had 423 million mins streamed for 9-11 to 9-17. A drop from the 515 of week 1 and 2. It will be interesting to see if it recovers as episodes 6, 7, and 8 were pretty good even if the finale ending wasn't as good.

[Corvus]

Sanderson just did his season finale watch. For a guy who is physically incapable of getting upset, he really wasn't happy with it. Apologising for not being able to get things changed, calling out a lot of stuff and saying he had to fight to actually get the heroes of the horn on screen as they had planed not to show them, among other things.

Why was Rand even there? You just needed to give Egwene a sword. lol.

The chat turned on him rather viciously, even though his complaints were tame, saying 'his mask had come off', he was a 'bookcloak' and other things.

[Shadowferal]

Sanderson has his moments.

[Beaker]

From the perspective of a book fan, the TV show is complete shit. No respect for the source material. Writers/Showrunner seems to want to go another way. It's just a shame the other way is mediocrity and nonsense.

As a standalone TV show, it's still complete shit.

[Nymrohd]

Sanderson just did his season finale watch. For a guy who is physically incapable of getting upset, he really wasn't happy with it. Apologising for not being able to get things changed, calling out a lot of stuff and saying he had to fight to actually get the heroes of the horn on screen as they had planed not to show them, among other things.

Why was Rand even there? You just needed to give Egwene a sword. lol.

The chat turned on him rather viciously, even though his complaints were tame, saying 'his mask had come off', he was a 'bookcloak' and other things.

The comments largely agree with him from what I saw.

I really want to read the books again but I just don't have the time (and I get so obsessed when I read that I cannot stop). I've been through them three times and somehow Nynaeve gets me to cry from happiness every time around.

[rhorle]

Sanderson just did his season finale watch. For a guy who is physically incapable of getting upset, he really wasn't happy with it.

Brandon said he liked it. He didn't love it though and he doesn't think people will come back to it watch it a second time. That doesn't really come across as a person that isn't happy and is really upset if he would just show it. I think you are letting your bias color how you interpret him.

[Gumble]

From the perspective of a book fan, the TV show is complete shit. No respect for the source material. Writers/Showrunner seems to want to go another way. It's just a shame the other way is mediocrity and nonsense.

As a standalone TV show, it's still complete shit.

I feel bad for Daniel Greene there. He knows this show is crap, but because WoT is his bread and butter, he has to make the best of a bad situation.


Hopefully for Sanderson, he learns his lessons the hard way through this and when someone makes Mistborne into a TV show, he has complete and absolute JK Rowling style control over it. Kelsier in the hands of the evil people at Amazon..... ugh