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r/WoT•
ARASLS

A Quick Reminder about Egwene and Nynaeve being in Amalisa's Circle

SpoilerTV - Season 2 (Book Spoilers Allowed)

It is explicitly stated that the strongest female channeler is able to do anything that the strongest male channeler can do, barring Talents, etc.

Nynaeve is literally only 2 levels below the strongest female channeler. Egwene is 5 levels below her, but still enough to make up the gap between Nynaeve and Rand.

Linking allows someone to reach levels of precision and dexterity that are not possible alone.

Lastly, the Eye of the World in the books is not a sa'angreal or angreal. It is exactly what it is, a pure untainted pool of saidin that a male channeler can use and is thus coveted in an Age where saidin is tainted and the only other source of untainted saidin is the Dark One itself. Rand gains no extra boost from the Eye of the World in terms of strength except for the fact that it doesn't not contribute to his madness.

All in all, it is definitely is reasonable that Amalisa's experience + Nynaeve and Egwene's strength = Rand's performance at Tarwin's Gap in the books.

Posted Sep 7, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

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ButIDigress_Jones•

Ok but what was the narrative reason for the change?

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ARASLSOP•

To give the Wondergirls a reason to be there other than sit about and scream?

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ButIDigress_Jones•

That’s a poor reason to take the moment from rand. Sure we all knew he was the dragon reborn, but that was the first moment where the audience (and some of the characters) realize what that actually means. The scale of it. I wasn’t a fan of season 1, but I don’t think this scene killed my interest or potential interest. At the end of the day it’s just one scene, but it is very indicative (as many other scenes either left out or added) of the type of story they’re trying to tell and it’s not the WOT story, it’s a fantasy fanfic type of story. Doesn’t mean it can’t be good, but it will inevitably be disappointing that we didn’t get the book accurate adaptation that the book readers/the story itself deserve.

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undertone90•

There's a huge difference between having the prophecised chosen one defeat an army of monsters, and having some regular, though powerful, channelers do it. If Rand does it, it's a display of awesome power that can't replicated. If Egwene and Nynaeve do it, then it completely breaks the power scaling of the show and makes it so that trollocs can never be a threat again. The show has now established that just a handful of aes sedai can wipe out tens of thousand of trollocs, and there's a thousand aes sedai and thousands more channelers from other groups.

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HumorousChill•

Yup, a group of UNTRAINED channelers, only 2 of them with actual decent power did what the Dragon Reborn with over 400 years experience working with the power and an angreal did.

There’s no words to describe how bad of a fuck up this was in regards to the power scaling on the story.

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ARASLSOP•

There are about 5000 trollocs at the Gap in S1E8, mentioned in the EoTW. Nynaeve and Egwene nearly burned out killing all of them.

Rand literally dealt with an army many times more than twice that size with the angreal. I don't see the issue with the power scaling here.

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HumorousChill•

They were still untrained and weak apart from Nyn and Egg, not to mention there is literally no narrative reason for that moment to be taken away from Rand. It was a critical moment for readers/watchers to have a glimpse of what he will be capable, to show us exactly why the Dragon Reborn is the Dragon Reborn.

We are now 11 episodes on and we STILL haven’t been given any indication of just how batshit powerful he is/will become. There is literally no defence for this, it was a piss poor decision.

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ARASLSOP•

Amalisa is Tower-trained. The rest doesn't matter. I don't think you understand what it means when Amalisa is leading the circle - the rest of the channelers don't matter except for their overall OP strengths and elemental affinities. Amalisa trained for years at the Tower and has likely spent the rest of her life after fighting Trollocs at the gap. Of course she has the skill to decimate a group of trollocs and still died doing it.

Rand literally broke cuendillar, which we (at this point) are supposed to be unbreakable. I do believe that the visuals could have been better for this one though.

The narrative change that allows people to burn out in the circle is a good choice. It adds a layer of explanation as to why Aes Sedai do not use Linking more often in the Books except in really desperate moments.

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undertone90•

I think they said 10000, and Rand didn't actually wipe out the army at Tarwin's Gap. He jumped in, started blasting, and the Shienarans took the opportunity to charge the trollocs broken line, routing them.

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ARASLSOP•

Amalisa "There are at least 5 times the number compared to what came before."

In context, this is in reference to them talking about her and Agelmar helping their father arm against "1000 trollocs in the gap".

In the books, Rand buried at least like half the trollocs and didn't suffer any consequences and still fought Ishamael afterwards.

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ARASLSOP•

It took roughly 20 Aes Sedai and Asha'man (or even less actually) to wipe out ten thousand trollocs in Knife of Dreams.

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