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bloom posted:They dumped the new season of The Expanse at once but The Grand Tour is apparently coming out one episode at a time so I don't think they have consistent model for releasing shows. Most of the other originals came out all at once...except the Tick which was split in half (and then cancelled.)
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Jan 10, 2020 22:46
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I'm so very much on the "Mat is the best character" train now, everything he does in AMoL is hilarious slapstick that also happens to be the best possible move/luckiest thing possible. Everyone just tolerates him and shakes their head and follows orders. quote:"Cauthon lives," Arganda said. "And that’s bloody amazing, considering that someone blew up his command post, set fire to his tent, killed a bunch of his damane, and chased off his wife. Cauthon crawled out of it somehow."
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Jan 11, 2020 04:55
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Mat starts AMoL a Seanchan nobody who can't get his cultural tics right and is obviously just the Empress's fucktoy, and by the end even the Seanchan who hate his guts are going "Holy poo poo the Prince of Ravens is a bad motherfucker". Imagine the rumors. He sacrificed his eye for the knowledge of 1,000 Great Generals! No, his missing eye is a ruby that burns his foes to ash when he lifts his eyepatch! No the ruby was in the hilt of a knife used to store the Dark One's own luck, and he stole it and that luck as his own! He can't ever lose, not at cards or dice or even war! He stole the Daughter of the Nine Moons and refused to return her unless she gave him her heart! He captured his own damane and holds her leash and commands her to breathe smoke and fire to crush his enemies! They tried to hang him once but he hung from the tree and laughed at them because he cannot die! He blew the horn of Valere and summoned the heroes and won the Last Battle and personally slew Demandred! The hundred heroes knelt and begged him to join him in service to the Horn, and he laughed in their faces and refused! He personally commanded Hawkwing himself to attend the Empress, may she live forever! He led the armies of all creation against the Dark One when the Dragon hid his face in fear! Knotai, the Prince of Ravens, may he live forever! Jordan was planning a spinoff concerning the reconquest of Seanchan, andI really wished he could have done it, because the Adventures of Mat, Min and Tuon in Seanchan would have been fantastic.
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Jan 11, 2020 06:46
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I want the prologue to be handled in quick edits like the Apple and Cain and Abel scenes in Noah. Like someone makes a reference to Lews Therin or the Dragon and then it flashes to a silhouette of him murdering his family or the camera points directly at this face and then swings as he tilts his head back, he roars and Dragonmount rises up beneath him. Just like three second cuts once or twice an episode the whole season.
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Jan 11, 2020 07:06
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rndmnmbr posted:Mat starts AMoL a Seanchan nobody who can't get his cultural tics right and is obviously just the Empress's fucktoy, and by the end even the Seanchan who hate his guts are going "Holy poo poo the Prince of Ravens is a bad motherfucker". Reminds me of one of my favorite takes on Mat, when Tuon sees him interacting with the Band for the first time: Knife of Dreams, Chapter 26: As If the World Were Fog posted:“What is he doing?” Tuon said, frowning. “He can’t think to sneak this many men out of Altara even if he knows where every last soldier is. There are always patrols, and sweeps by raken.” Again they took their time before answering. Perhaps she should try speaking very fast. It's two lines that get me. The casual "he's planning us a war," and Tuon realizing that she's seeing an important side of Mat that she'd never seen before.
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Jan 11, 2020 07:27
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Mat and Tuon have become my favourite scenes this time through, it's a pretty good dynamic that shifts over time and has some very good jokes. I think the last time I read through I also didn't get Aiel humour but this time around I very much appreciate it. Towers of Midnight: quote:(Perrin is eating a gigantic cut of ham for breakfast. Literally only a ham, nothing else.) I laughed for a while at that one, it's so simple and good.
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Jan 11, 2020 07:34
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Gaul is great.
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Jan 11, 2020 07:38
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Vavrek posted:Reminds me of one of my favorite takes on Mat, when Tuon sees him interacting with the Band for the first time: I'm re-reading KoD now and that part really stuck out for me as a great moment. Really all of KoD is great though; it's crazy how much Jordan got his groove back between books 10 and 11. My theory is that he just needed a break from the main series, and New Spring gave him that. In NS when Moiraine takes her Aes Sedai test, you can really feel the classic Jordan coming back.
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Jan 11, 2020 07:43
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So much stuff goes unsaid in POV, you can miss it. Just like Rand is obviously mad as a hatter when taken from everyone else's POV, and Perrin is a natural-born leader and king, Mat is obviously a Great General clear back to the battle for Carhien in FoH, you just don't see it because from his POV he's just trying to get away and keeps getting dragged into the poo poo.
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Jan 11, 2020 08:20
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I like how Rand is so nuts even in TGH that he scares the poo poo out of goddamned Lanfear
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Jan 11, 2020 11:30
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Atlas Hugged posted:I want the prologue to be handled in quick edits like the Apple and Cain and Abel scenes in Noah. Yeah or like The Crow.
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Jan 11, 2020 13:59
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I have never seen The Crow
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Jan 11, 2020 15:08
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Just another example of something that uses the same device. Little occasional glimpses of the formative event, shown as flashbacks with ever-increasing clarity and length until finally you get what was going on.
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Jan 11, 2020 15:10
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I like how Rand is so nuts even in TGH that he scares the poo poo out of goddamned Lanfear I don't remember that part of TGH Edit: Oh yeah, the sa'angreal
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Jan 11, 2020 16:42
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I don't know if I'd read that as an example of Rand being nuts yet. It's more that he has barely any control over the power at that point so him messing with that sa'angreal could go really badly.
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Jan 11, 2020 17:19
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Probably true, but to an observer it amounts to the same thing
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Jan 11, 2020 22:01
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Honestly Lanfear's early bits are really great in general, she's just trying to suss out -exactly- how bad this is going to be. She knows it's going to be bad, and has known that for some thousand of years, but exactly how bad an apocalypse is a win by the dragon (the most likely outcome in any given meeting) going to be this time. I still think my favorite parts of the forsaken is when they acknowledge precisely how hosed they are and then just carry on anyways.
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Jan 12, 2020 01:39
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Her goal of just becoming god with her dead lover instead of following Satan was a nice touch I thought.
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Jan 12, 2020 01:42
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i've heard in regards to how the series ends in that things end up pretty okay for most everyone, and that's honestly pretty cool as far as i'm concerned. i get kind of tired of media trying to build itself around killing off people or treating it like some casual thing for shock value, so knowing at least that it's not some 'most everyone dies, the end' kind of deal makes me more glad to finally end up finishing the series sooner or later.
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Jan 12, 2020 03:43
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Johnny Joestar posted:i've heard in regards to how the series ends in that things end up pretty okay for most everyone, and that's honestly pretty cool as far as i'm concerned. i get kind of tired of media trying to build itself around killing off people or treating it like some casual thing for shock value, so knowing at least that it's not some 'most everyone dies, the end' kind of deal makes me more glad to finally end up finishing the series sooner or later. I mean, there's some right there at the end. Rand literally sees Egwene die while he's fighting, Bashere, shittons of aes sedai. I think I get what you mean, but don't entirely agree. 
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Jan 12, 2020 03:54
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Probably true, but to an observer it amounts to the same thing To most observers yes, but from what I recall Lanfear has a good grasp on how little about the power Rand knows. She's worried because it's like being in a room with a toddler playing with matches and a box of dynamite.
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Jan 12, 2020 04:19
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silvergoose posted:I mean, there's some right there at the end. Rand literally sees Egwene die while he's fighting, Bashere, shittons of aes sedai. I think I get what you mean, but don't entirely agree. mainly i'm just going off of what i've heard from varying conversations! i wouldn't know, offhand, but some deaths were probably inevitable to some extent.
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Jan 12, 2020 04:42
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Johnny Joestar posted:mainly i'm just going off of what i've heard from varying conversations! i wouldn't know, offhand, but some deaths were probably inevitable to some extent. Oh, certainly, and it would have felt really cheap to have everyone anyone cares about survive.
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Jan 12, 2020 05:07
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If you compare it to Game of Thrones, yeah it feels like the people who matter get a happy ending*. But it's a heroes journey kind of story and arbitrarily killing people off for shock value would have cheapened things. The character deaths we got all have weight to them and really highlight what the stakes are. *There are no beginnings or endings to the Wheel of Time. But they are an ending.
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Jan 12, 2020 05:18
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I was most gutted by Siuan and Bryne. They were just so good for each other 
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Jan 12, 2020 06:21
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I was most gutted by Siuan and Bryne. They were just so good for each other Same here. Fortunately that was canceled out by how adorable galadedrid and berelain were together.
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Jan 12, 2020 07:40
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Vavrek posted:A few years ago, I deliberately tracked down the old Tor paperbacks of the entire series. The new covers are really good, but there's nostalgia for the old ones. Having all fifteen laid out, taking pretty much an entire shelf, is great. I have the early (first?) run ones which fell apart after a while due to bad glue, up to book 5 or 6. Everything else I had to wait on hardcover releases, and have since grabbed all of the missing ones as hardcover as well. I actually started reading them summer vacation at the beach not far from where Robert Jordan lived, never knew about that until a decade later, always wondered if he ever went there and spotted people reading his works. rndmnmbr posted:Jordan was planning a spinoff concerning the reconquest of Seanchan, andI really wished he could have done it, because the Adventures of Mat, Min and Tuon in Seanchan would have been fantastic. Ya, I really would like to have seen those and the final books in the series, KOD really picked up well and also introduced new ideas where felt sanderson didn't have enough info to integrate it well. Ika fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 15:46
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I was most gutted by Siuan and Bryne. They were just so good for each other For me it was Rhuarc . Not just because of the character, but also the way it went down and how quick it happened was an absolute hammer blow.
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Jan 12, 2020 16:43
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:For me it was Rhuarc . Not just because of the character, but also the way it went down and how quick it happened was an absolute hammer blow. I, uh, didn't even remember that happening. Some characters were so doomed so often that I actually forgot if they died or not. Did Talmanes actually die? I forgot, I just remember him dying but dunno if he died or not. He's the best.
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Jan 12, 2020 18:02
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Nope, saved by nyneave. In a pretty good scene.
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Jan 12, 2020 18:39
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Pander posted:I, uh, didn't even remember that happening. Aviendha killed him after Graendal hit him with Compulsion to worship her.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:57
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Gnoman posted:Aviendha killed him after Graendal hit him with Compulsion to worship her. I hated that bit. Those folks got done so dirty.
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Jan 13, 2020 00:04
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something about the aiel in general has always been great to me and i don't know how exactly robert jordan pulled it off where most other series try to do something similar and either have it come off as awful at worst in some way or another but only boring and plodding at best
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Jan 13, 2020 00:32
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Johnny Joestar posted:something about the aiel in general has always been great to me and i don't know how exactly robert jordan pulled it off where most other series try to do something similar and either have it come off as awful at worst in some way or another but only boring and plodding at best I was just thinking the same thing. The line with Perrin and breakfast being a mighty victory, and "aiel humor" being weird but, over time, you start to get and see it as funny... I don't know how you do that. Jordan was amazing at making different cultures feel distinct without being tedious, and making unreliable narrators seem so sincere and believable that you don't even notice Rand being crazy, or Perrin being a leader, or Mat being a good person and general.
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Jan 13, 2020 00:48
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I honestly think I find Graendal the most detestable of the Forsaken. I guess Balthamel was a little similar, but I got the impression he/she was a hedonist where Graendal just needs to be worshipped. The way her group of slaves was described as kneeling to her in AMOL I found disturbing. I mean jeez you already Compelled them, do you really need to have them kneeling to you as well? Yes, she does, because that's who she is.
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Jan 13, 2020 07:25
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Yeah, the thing is, Graendel is portrayed almost as a comical figure through much of the story -- it's not that she's not evil, but she's constantly contrasted against Forsaken who are much more straightforwardly brutal than she is while she constantly, smugly thinks to herself how much cleverer and more manipulative she is than them, even when it's obvious to the reader that she's not -- which is why the whole Rhuarc thing hits so hard, because when the rubber hits the road, you realize that Graendal is just the loving worst. It's weird how Ishamael ends up being the most likable Forsaken.
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Jan 13, 2020 11:07
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Weren't half of them LARPers as well?
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Jan 13, 2020 12:12
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Yeah, the thing is, Graendel is portrayed almost as a comical figure through much of the story -- it's not that she's not evil, but she's constantly contrasted against Forsaken who are much more straightforwardly brutal than she is while she constantly, smugly thinks to herself how much cleverer and more manipulative she is than them, even when it's obvious to the reader that she's not -- which is why the whole Rhuarc thing hits so hard, because when the rubber hits the road, you realize that Graendal is just the loving worst. Graendal does make a point of intentionally portraying herself as decadent, yeah. And as you say, when the chips are down... It's more apparent with some than others, but you could probably make a case that each of the Forsaken is taken down by their biggest flaw. Be'lal for example is THE NETWEAVER WITH SO MANY PLOTS MUHAHAHAHA and just doesnt even consider that Moiraine might just balefire his rear end. Lanfear, well, she was one of the more effective ones and if she hadn't been half blinded by jealous rage would have wasted Rand on the spot. "You sly dog, you got me monologuing!" Indeed.
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Jan 13, 2020 12:56
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:It's weird how Ishamael ends up being the most likable Forsaken. His philosophy is that the universe is headed towards inevitable destruction and that eternal death would be a sweet release from the unrelenting misery of his own hellish existence. He's the most relatable character in the whole series imo.
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Jan 13, 2020 14:07
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I enjoyed how from the POV of the dark one, this is all just endless cyclical torture with occasional discussions with The Dragon on Behalf of Pattern Incorporated (A Delaware Limited Liability Holding Company) about how things are just going to keep on keeping on world without end, because that was in the EULA. Then Ish is like - You know, you have a point sir.
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Jan 13, 2020 15:35
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