Aratouial Delafeld
Novice
Amazon put out a new "explore" feature on their page for the show. It included character bios of our main cast, plus an interactive map and timeline. There is so much cool stuff if you haven't seen it you absolutely should check it out.
Things of note:
THE ABEL CAUTHON CONTROVERSY:
and here's the good stuff:
There have been rumors of people who were test audiences for the first season saying that the show makes you not like Mat's parents, and this seems to confirm that. This isn't necessarily a departure from canon-- we don't know much of Abel except that Mat thinks of him as, well, quick-witted and slick, and what we see during the Whitecloaks/Trollocs/Etc business. It is entirely possible for Abel to have had a come-to-Jesus reordering of his priorities after Mat left, it's been known to happen. But, I get why people think this is a definitive change.
MY PERSONAL OPINION:
After ruminating on it for 24 hours and talking to a lot of folks, I'm actually really excited about the potential here. Usually during re-reads I am speeding through the first couple of books and my opinions of the characters are overly colored by who they grow into. I know what they end up becoming so I forgive them a lot of their earlier foibles. However, on this one, I'm doing a "close read" to help with the costume catalog and urkh I'm having issues with Mat in particular. All three boys are maddening to me but I want to smash things when Mat ... well, is Mat.
It occurred to me today that they are aging up the characters and that is a big deal for Mat. Perrin's issues are "oopsie I did a murder," which is pretty adult, Rand's are "dfklgjhsdfjgkh nope I can't channel what'd'y'mean" and Mat's are "I'm ... a literal teenager???" This presents a problem because we're not going to have Rand's "this is so out of character for Mat" POV when he's being poisoned by the dagger ... and also he took the damn dagger.
I do think they'll play up the Ordeith/mashadar influencing people's decision making in Shadar Logoth, but after all of Moiraine's warnings the fact that he takes the dagger anyway is a lot less sympathetic if he's 24ish vs 19. At 24 that's just the decision of a greedy, selfish, reckless son of a gun. But if he's a 24-year-old whose parents were absolute crap and he's desperate for security and control, those are real, relatable, sympathetic things for Ordeith to mess with.
Looking past season 1, a lot of things would make sense, too. Mat is extremely reactive, defensive, and now that I'm thinking in terms of ACEs (adverse childhood effects), hypervigilant. Everything from taking the dagger to blowing the horn to having an extreme sensitivity to unfair treatment and having words twisted around on him makes so much sense.
This, to me, says that the writer's room took the question "what are Mat's motivations? What makes him act this way?" very seriously, and looked for an answer beyond "uhm cuz teenager." I think this decision will save his character in the show-- I think it took him from being potentially unwatchable to sympathetic and relatable.
Things of note:
- They are making it clear that the western half of the main continent is called "The Westlands." I was wondering about that, considering, y'know, Westeros, but anyhoo.
- They are leaning into the genderless dragon as a red herring. On the timeline it says Moiraine has heard of "four young people" who could potentially be the dragon. Certain people [insert eyeroll] are panicking at the idea that they're actually going to make Egwene be the Dragon which is just such obvious poppycock but y'know.
- On the interactive map there's a location marker for Breen's Spring. Again, certain people are panicking about the show supposedly "making up a town," except for the fact that Breen's Spring is mentioned as one of the stops in EotW. Just really emphasizes the need to condense the EotW travelog.
THE ABEL CAUTHON CONTROVERSY:
and here's the good stuff:
Mat's mischievous smile and witty retorts simply distract from the question constantly burdening him: Is he a good person — and how would he know? His parents were far from role models, yet he fears himself fated to follow their path.
MY PERSONAL OPINION:
After ruminating on it for 24 hours and talking to a lot of folks, I'm actually really excited about the potential here. Usually during re-reads I am speeding through the first couple of books and my opinions of the characters are overly colored by who they grow into. I know what they end up becoming so I forgive them a lot of their earlier foibles. However, on this one, I'm doing a "close read" to help with the costume catalog and urkh I'm having issues with Mat in particular. All three boys are maddening to me but I want to smash things when Mat ... well, is Mat.
It occurred to me today that they are aging up the characters and that is a big deal for Mat. Perrin's issues are "oopsie I did a murder," which is pretty adult, Rand's are "dfklgjhsdfjgkh nope I can't channel what'd'y'mean" and Mat's are "I'm ... a literal teenager???" This presents a problem because we're not going to have Rand's "this is so out of character for Mat" POV when he's being poisoned by the dagger ... and also he took the damn dagger.
I do think they'll play up the Ordeith/mashadar influencing people's decision making in Shadar Logoth, but after all of Moiraine's warnings the fact that he takes the dagger anyway is a lot less sympathetic if he's 24ish vs 19. At 24 that's just the decision of a greedy, selfish, reckless son of a gun. But if he's a 24-year-old whose parents were absolute crap and he's desperate for security and control, those are real, relatable, sympathetic things for Ordeith to mess with.
Looking past season 1, a lot of things would make sense, too. Mat is extremely reactive, defensive, and now that I'm thinking in terms of ACEs (adverse childhood effects), hypervigilant. Everything from taking the dagger to blowing the horn to having an extreme sensitivity to unfair treatment and having words twisted around on him makes so much sense.
This, to me, says that the writer's room took the question "what are Mat's motivations? What makes him act this way?" very seriously, and looked for an answer beyond "uhm cuz teenager." I think this decision will save his character in the show-- I think it took him from being potentially unwatchable to sympathetic and relatable.