S1E5: "Blood Calls Blood" - w/Book Spoilers

Cinna Vrammar

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The colored bands aren't just at the wrists - they're on the hems of the dresses too - and the Accepted are wearing rings if you look real close. The colored bands are way narrower than I imagined, though, and I don't think they read well on screen.

At first I was thinking they're merging Liandrin and Elaida, but what if they merge Liandrin and Alviarin instead? I know that would change some of the politics, but I think that would be a more natural merge than Liandrin with Elaida.
 

Morgana Arakos

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This episode blew me away. Daniel Henney and Peter Franzén did such an incredible acting job. I was really struck by what an honest and vulnerable depiction of grief the ending was. And how rarely I feel like I've seen male characters allowed to show that kind of emotion on TV. I expected the show to have great female characters, but I've been really pleasantly surprised at the ways Rafe has expanded on the warders' characters, and at the incredibly positive and healthy form of masculinity they embody. This episode might be my favorite so far. It made me cry so much.

Also, Loial!! I didn't really have a firm picture of Loial in my head from the books, but I loved how they chose to depict him here. Hammed Animashaun does his voice and mannerisms perfectly--it's like he leapt off the page and into the show.
 

Nadezhda al'Lanahrin

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66623340-D03-B-4-AFC-A1-B5-6-A8-B64-C11-DB5.jpg


Means nothing to me.


Out there guesses

prophetic painting of her in the Eelfinn world.

or a secret way of passing messages to her from Siuan.
 
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The colored bands aren't just at the wrists - they're on the hems of the dresses too - and the Accepted are wearing rings if you look real close. The colored bands are way narrower than I imagined, though, and I don't think they read well on screen.

At first I was thinking they're merging Liandrin and Elaida, but what if they merge Liandrin and Alviarin instead? I know that would change some of the politics, but I think that would be a more natural merge than Liandrin with Elaida.
The colored bands are on the bottom of their shirts as well.

Also, grabbed some screenshots of Novices and Accepted, including Fain showing behind the Novices:
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@Cinna Vrammar the second picture in Yenie Sedai's post shows the colored bands on the Accepted's skirts
 

Cinna Vrammar

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Azlan Marenellin

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We see him in a subsequent shot outside the tent, on his knees and grabbing his shoulder where he got stabbed. I don't think the knife wound is fatal, especially because it doesn't make sense to kill off the character now.

The angle and location where Egwene stabbed him would normally have required major medical attention. That is a "killing" strike in most bladed martial arts. That said, if he wasn't bleeding out already by the end of that scene (which he wasn't) then it clearly missed any arteries.

we spend SO much time at the White Tower with the girls and the Aes Sedai becomes such a huge part. But we don’t get to it until The Great Hunt. Bringing it forward into this early makes a lot of sense.

the tricky part will be the leaving Tar Valon part and explaining how we end up with the original group going without reinforcements in natural way. Or if they do bring reinforcements make it feel like not breaking the original vibe too much.


Honestly not sure what is going to be the inciting moment to head for the Eye at this point and to suddenly take the ways……. Wait and see now I guess.


Damn weekly schedule. I want to binge it.

As far as this goes, Perrin and Egwene were taken to a camp and tortured within sight of the White Tower. If I had to guess, it would be a Whitecloak pursuit of Egwene and Perrin that forces them to use the Waygate in the Ogier Gardens in Tar Valon.
 
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As far as this goes, Perrin and Egwene were taken to a camp and tortured within sight of the White Tower. If I had to guess, it would be a Whitecloak pursuit of Egwene and Perrin that forces them to use the Waygate in the Ogier Gardens in Tar Valon

If anything……. Maybe Perrin and Egwene get chased to Stedding Jentoine!

Stays close enough to the books then.

maybe Rand and crew follow on some intel from Aram or something.

Still don’t know what gets the group heading to the Eye though.


Maybe someone has a Foretelling? Or perhaps more likely the Ba’alzamon dreams hint at it. No time to wait for reinforcements. We must travel by ways!

Etc etc.

Something like that.
 

Lithiel Morn

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Brief sidenote about Loial: the voice and the mannerisms are lovely. I am willing to let go of the ears being practically invisible, despite being one of his key expressive features. However, what I just cannot get over is that he's practically Rand's height. How much harder would it have been to make him taller? I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it's brought up so often in the books - alongside all the ogier-sized furniture - that it's just such a huge deviation from how I've imagined him for years now.
 
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Yeah I got height issues too.

its bloody Tom Cruise and Jack Reacher all over again.

you can’t cast 5ft7 Cruise as 6ft5 Reacher without fundamentally changing a core aspect of the character and how everyone else is supposed to react to them.


Same with Loial.


Stick him in hooded cloak and we would probably pass in a crowd now.

bad choice.
 

Imzadi Hopewind

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Loial already have high heel shoes :shifty But Rand is so tall! :laugh: It was the problem as well in LoTR, but they had money enough to fix that problem.
 

Elania al'Manir

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The costume designer said this is the tallest cast she's ever worked with. Josha and Marcus are both 6'2". Their only real option to make Hammed, who's 6'3", taller would be to put him on stilts, and that would have changed his gait. I think it would have been really neat to see giant Ogier, but I don't know that it's feasible.
 

Keisha al'Benn

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Well since the Rosamund is so tall I don't think they're worried about height issues....for real she needs to be like 5 foot 2 max!
 
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There was SO MUCH TO LOVE in this episode!
  • the Stepin storyline was amazing - I like how much time we spent on it bc it gives such insight into the warders and the bond and the behind the scenes of the Tower
  • I was thinking they'd merge Liandrin into Elaida and not make her Black, but now I'm considering the suggestion others made about Liandrin & Alviarin and how that might work better
  • the relationships between the Aes Sedai are super well done and I'm excited to see more of them
  • I agree with whoever it was who basically said the show made them truly despise the Whitecloaks while the books just made you irritated & disgusted with them
  • the wolves! <3
  • Loial isn't what I imagined but I'll go with it because he SOUNDS very close to what I imagined (though I imagined him speaking even slower :laugh:) - also, Rafe said somewhere that making him as tall as he should have been would have used up their entire budget, so they had to make some compromises
  • seeing the brokenness of both Logain and Stepin in the parade was heartwrenching
QUESTION:
Did Logain ACTUALLY laugh maniacally at Mat (and/or Rand)? Or was that Mat's hallucination? I thought it was really happening, but then the camera switched back to Logain and he was in exactly the same spot in the cage, unmoving. So in my head it was a hallucination, but it seems people in this thread think it actually happened so now I'm really curious.
 

Arella Mathara

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I haven't read this thread fully but I think it was a hallucination. I see it as the dagger madness messing with him and playing on his own insecurities of being afraid of being able to channel
 

Alora Sionn

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I saw it as dagger madness too because Rand didn't seem to react the same way that Mat did
 
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I think the show must be presenting it as a hallucination, which I don't really like. Because as others pointed out, Rand didn't notice it, and when he looked back Logain was once again perfectly still and not looking up. Maybe we can charitably read the show's take as a mixture of the dagger corruption and Mat's ta'veren nature?
 

Keisha al'Benn

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Except....in the book when Logain laughs it's because he sees the glow of Rand's taveren nature. Since we're assuming he saw Nynaeve 'glow like the sun' like a taveren, and not her weaving, it makes more sense that he would see similar glows around Rand and Mat. It would also throw more confusion as to who really is the Dragon to the television-only audience....
(just my thoughts....)
 

Nadezhda al'Lanahrin

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After rewatching, I think his laughter was dagger madness.
 
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Rafe said somewhere that making him as tall as he should have been would have used up their entire budget, so they had to make some compromises

my problem is. Rafe also said this

You can not even imagine the number of hours that goes into each person’s weapon. I was in at least 20 meetings about the dagger that Egwene has, and that’s not even a major weapon in the books. There’s a whole team of people (and we have a few BIG book fans on the props team)looking at every item held by an actor on the show. I’d be shocked if less than 10,000 woman/man hours were spent on the design and creation of the Heron Mark sword

They were spending their money poorly back in 2019/2020

and now we see the finished product it’s clear where some of those shortfalls landed sadly.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars on weapon design that could have been honestly picked up at stores everywhere and actual pivotal stuff seems to have suffered for it.


Ah well, hopefully they learn their lesson on budget for next season.
 
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