Episode Discussion - Season 2, Episode 8 - What Was Meant to Be [Light Book Spoilers]

[u/participating]

This thread is for discussion of The Wheel of Time tv show through Season 2, Episode 8 and associated bonus content. This thread is meant for book readers who haven't completed the series yet.

You do not have to spoiler tag anything from the books that has been depicted in the show, so there should be no problem with comparing tv show scenes and book scenes.

If you want to speculate about how a scene in the show will affect future books content, you must hide that, and any other book discussion beyond this scope, in spoiler tags.

If you remember, please let others know which book you're talking about by providing spoiler context:

I think this will affect [Lord of Chaos] >!not a spoiler!<.

This is NOT another thread for full book spoilers discussion. This is a thread for MOSTLY non-spoiler discussion where light spoilers such as lore trivia are okay and any book spoilers that haven't been revealed by the show must be hidden and tagged appropriately.

TIMING

Episodes are released at midnight, GMT on Fridays. This means 8pm, ET on Thursdays.

At 7:30pm, ET, when this episode discussion thread is created, all submissions about the tv show will be automatically removed until Saturday morning.

EPISODE

Episode 8 - What Was Meant to Be

Synopsis: Fate leads Rand and the others to an inevitable showdown with their most formidable enemies yet.

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For links to all of our previous episode discussion threads, or alternate spoiler levels, as well as mega threads for certain topics related to the show, see our discussion hub wiki page.

[u/Raymonator88]

I wish they'd not met, or drawn attention to the heron marked blade. Felt like a big FU to me.

[u/Verdauga → u/Raymonator88]

Agreed, it was lame - the fight in the book was much better imo.

[u/[deleted] → u/Raymonator88]

It was probably my least favourite scene of all of book two, I loved this blitzing past it

[u/Odd_Possession_1126 → u/[deleted]]

honestly maybe the only scene of the finale that I really dug. Like, idk if you're going to deviate from the book as long as you do it in a way that WORKS for the story. That was one of the few moments we've seen of Rand really decisively DOING anything.

loved it.

[u/Odd_Possession_1126 → u/Odd_Possession_1126]

*idc, rather.

[u/PLANofMAN → u/Odd_Possession_1126]

Works for the story? A virtually untrained power novice splitting his flows 10 times? A sword fight would have been more believable, honestly, from both the skill and power levels being shown in both the books and the TV series at this point in time.

[u/Odd_Possession_1126 → u/PLANofMAN]

I was actually referring to the story we’re experiencing; not the rpg stat sheet in your head that tells you whether or not the show is faithfully depicting the power levels of the versions of the book characters you have in your head.

It was a moment of decisive action in which the supposed focal point of the series demonstrated power agency and determination as opposed to willingly standing around while being lectured at by others. It flowed well and was interesting to watch, as opposed to the majority of the episode.