These are the fact until we know otherwise:

Until stated otherwise men cannot sense a woman's strength and the same holds true in reverse. If you choose to believe they have changed this that's you assuming things based on your perception of the show, the showrunner, and the writers.

Moiraine specifically says she doesn't know how strong Logain is. She is stating straight out that she cannot judge his strength accurately. She says she doesn't think he's stronger than Egwene because she has never known anyone stronger than Egwene. There hasn't been someone stronger than her at the Tower in generations. The only way she has of judging Logain's strength is on the basis of any 2 person combination of herself, Kerene, Liandrin and Alanna being able to maintain a shield on him. All of these, particularly Moiraine and Kerene are among the strongest of the Aes Sedai. Again, until stated otherwise this is all she has to go on.

There are only 2 explanations for Logain breaking through the shield like it was nothing later on: someone intentionally weakened it, or Logain was able to break it the whole time but waited for the right moment. If Liandrin intentionally weakened it then that was plain suicidal of her. Letting him go with no backup around, Logain's army attacking, and she seemingly wasn't prepared at all since she didn't defend herself in the slightest. The last in particular makes it incredibly unlikely she choose to weaken her shield.

If Logain was able to break through the shield the whole time, then Moiraine's "assessment" of his strength was based on false premises and her statement is meaningless, and that's considering how uncertain she was to begin with.

I love that people are assuming so much about the strength in the one power of various characters off of nothing. Moiraine has no idea how strong Logain is. She says herself she doesn’t know. She’s guessing based on the scant evidence Logain gives. There’s literally 0 evidence that the shield was weakened when Logain broke through. Logain’s attempt earlier could easily be dismissed as him testing them, or making them think they could hold him.

Similarly Logain has no idea how strong  Nyneave. All he is doing is reacting to her exceptional show of power. His words are meant to echo Moiraine’s statement, and their talk probably unnerved him somewhat. Moiraine and Liandrin together were pressuring him but he was able to hold them off and still channel to shatter the axes. It’s also explicitly said Liandrin is pulling more than she can safely.

Pretty sure Mandarb eats Mashadar for breakfast to be fair. 

Lan and Moiraine's horses never ran off. Whichis true to the books at least where there's basically nothing that scares them.

4 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

except there is a minimum strength to be allowed to take the test as accepted and a higher minimum to take the test as AS - Sorilea is explicitly stated to be below threshold (as is Morgase and others) - so "the weakest AS" is a significant minimum level.

 

My point wasn’t so much Aes Sedai specifically rather than women in general. But yes I assume it would take less than 12 full Aes Sedai, although probably not by much. There’s a massive difference between Logain and the weakest sister.

Women aren't usualy at their strongest with fire and earth. That being said the damane are all women and they use it. It's not like Egwene would have been getting training on how to fight and destroy things as a novice.

Just because it isn't stated that the Aes Sedai used those weaves doesn't mean they didn't. 

1 minute ago, Harad the White said:

I lean more towards your explanation, but Liandrin is "a snake."

Fair enough, it's not impossible, although I think the execution was rather poor in that case. I'm honestly more suspicious of Moiraine. Her arrival right as he escaped is incredibly well timed.

2 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

She's also pretty brave (according to her). She says she is willing to burn herself out to gentle Logain.

So you think she intentionally let Logain out, knowing he could easily kill her if she did that, because she assumes he will be gentled by the other sisters after? Even though Liandrin is the one who wants him gentled in the first place and therefore couldn't push for it anyway when she's dead? And the fact that she's a darkfriend who don't exactly distinguish themselves by their sense of self sacrifice?

Seems to me that Logain holding back previously is the far more logical explanation, but to each their own.

Isn't it Leyla?

3 minutes ago, Gothic Flame said:

Looks like Aginor...just going off a description from the book.

It's definitely Baalzamon. Same clothes, same gloves, same backround, same hand over Egwene's mouth. Only thing missing is the fire in the eyes.

11 minutes ago, Harad the White said:

She's pretty tricksey. ?

She'd also be pretty dumb if that was her plan. Logain could have killed her in an instant while she was down.

1 hour ago, TheDreadReader said:

 

In book lore, all men can't break out of shield being actively held by 13 sisters that sets an upper limit.  My statement that Logain is at least as powerful as 2 Aes Sedai sets a lower limit which establishes a range for  power levels.  Since 2 is the lower limit and 12 is the upper limit, he would fall somewhere in between them. 

 

The fact that the show only showed 2 and occasionally 3 sisters holding his shield has as much to do with budget (every actor adds costs) but as long as they remain consistent with having at least 2 sisters holding the shield they are not breaking lore in a relative sense.   

 

In the books, RJ could specify absolute numbers because they don't cost any money to write.  The TV show has to be more strategic in that it shows. 

I mean it depends entirely on the strength of those holding the shield. Aes Sedai vary wildy in terms of strength, and those holding the shield over Logain were some of the strongest. If Lanfear had a shield on Logain he would never be able to break it. If it was 12 sisters of Sorilea's strength he would probably break through it easily.

I honestly don't think it had anything to do with budge. Having a handful of non speaking extras holding the shield wouldn't have cost them much. The whole point was for Logain to break free.

I honestly don't think it was at all in contradiction with the books. Rand couldn't break through 6 whose strength isn't specified but are almost certainly weaker than Moiraine, Kerene, and possibly Liandrin. He had to wait for the shield to only be actively held by 3 to break it. And he's slightly stronger than Logain. Seems fairly consistent with the books to me, particuarly since its almost certain Logain was just biding his time (I think it's extremely unlikely Liandrin would have willingly lowered her shield at that moment).

20 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Actually it was 8 Aes Sedai, 2 at each corner of the wagon watching and shielding Logain.

Ah correct it was 2 at each corner. Which makes sense if they have the numbers, no point taking chances.

22 minutes ago, LoRd PyrO said:

When Logain was brought to Camlyn; he was guarded by 13 Aeis Sedai. Because that is what it took to subdue him. How in the world can only two hold him?!?

 

No there were only 4 Aes Sedai shielding him as he was brought through Caemlyn, and they were definitely weaker than Moiraine, Kerene, and possibly Liandrin.

I’m open to the possibility, but not sure why Lanfear would give a damn about Logain. And she should still be locked up damnit! 

9 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

They're definitely meant to be real voices in the show at least because they've taught Logain how to channel and his relative lack of movement whilst channeling compared to the Aes Sedai seems to suggest he was taught differently from how the Aes Sedai are in the present.

 

The presentation though is so contrasted to what we saw with the man running from the Red Ajah in the first episode that it feels like it's the shadow attempting to convince someone they know isn't the Dragon to proclaim himself the Dragon just to cause more issues for the world.

 

Also Moiraine seems to only become convinced that Logain isn't the DR after he mentions the voices, so it seems like this is a recognizable symptom of madness to the Aes Sedai in the show.

When is it mentioned the voices taught Logain how to channel? I figured that his lack of movement is just because that’s how he taught himself.

The voices could be former lives, but they could just as easily be voice he’s hallucinating. No way to really know.

Right but it didn’t seem like they mentioned tying off the shields, just that breaking through is easier than holding it. I don’t maybe they just meant that they were expending more energy than he is, which is true. Just awkward wording perhaps.

Now setting a shield on someone is definitely harder than maintaining one on someone who’s already held but I don’t think they were referencing that.

10 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

Oh I've got no problem with Logain seeing a light, I thought from the moment I saw it that they may as well do this and make it Logain seeing a powerful Ta'veren for the first time (since they don't want to draw too much attention to Rand).

 

I just thought it was weird that the show's book consultant didn't seem to realize that Logain was portrayed as clearly covering his eyes at the moment the light appeared which made it pretty clear that he did see something.

 

In fairness to Sarah she did seem to realize her mistake after people pointed it out and she came back with the reasoning that Nynaeve must have used a weave that makes light before throwing out a shrugging emoji so she seems as uncertain as all of us.

Yeah I mean it’s obviously not intuitive and I think for book readers it seems rather odd. It can be logicked away yes but it’s not 100% on first viewing. I doubt non readers would be bothered since basically wouldn’t know much about the mechanics of channeling anyway.

4 minutes ago, Sabio said:

Some of the changes like no shifting cloaks and no ageless faces I assume are simply to make things easier. How do they give people ageless faces?   Some are just to build drama like the shielding.  Not sure why a whole episode needed to be focused on Logain to demonstrate how powerful he is.  And some leave me wondering if they even read the book.  The leaving the Two Rivers and Tam giving Rand a nod had me going WHAT?  These people are going off with a dreaded Aes Sedai and no one cares?

 

I assumed the bright light was there for all to see,

Unfortunately the pace in the 1st episode was just very rushed. It definitely would have been nice to have a bit more interaction between Rand and Tam.

1 minute ago, AusLeviathan said:

I mean we're four episodes in and I've lost count of the amount of unnecessary changes so I'm not sure that's an issue for the writing team.

 

They changed how shielding works, despite shielding being something that is going to be popping up a lot in the future and those changes will definitely require further changes down the line to a number of situations to do with shielding to make them work.

 

Plus despite Logain clearly shielding his eyes at the same time we saw the light appear from Nynaeve, and despite Logain looking at hear in awe and using a light source to describe her. We've got the show's book consultant on Twitter saying that his reaction actually referred to a shockwave. One of those blinding shockwaves apparently that only affects your eyes.

 

I'm pretty sure the writing team is going to continue doing what they want to do and if they want more prominent female characters in certain roles then they'll have no problem doing so.

It's possible they might, I'm just saying there is nothing so far even hinting at it since the character has not even been cast.

As for the the whole shielding part I'm not really bothered. Logain clearly wasn't shielded yet when Steping tried to attack him, so Logain was able to defend himself. Only thing that was weird them saying its easier to break out than hold a shield, but you could argue that they were saying constantly channelling is exhausting while doing nothing isn't. 

As for the Nyneave thing I don't know, if it made a bright light it made a bright light. Different from the books when it comes to healing but I don't see the break in rules. He just saw the effect is all.

8 minutes ago, Sabio said:

I thought I remember something with Moiraine being worried that three dragons had declared around the same time, but the guy down in Tear was quickly killed by folks.  With the series making changes and as important as Taim will be, I think it could of added some legit worry for Moiraine if rumor of Taim arrived.  Instead of her worrying over Logian who was clearly too old.

Yeah that happens at the beginning of tGH. We'll see if they keep all that in.

1 minute ago, AusLeviathan said:

Call it a hunch on my part. There's a lot of tough, older, battle experienced notable male characters in WOT and relatively notable female characters. They've already made changes to bring more women into focus with the Two Rivers and the Tinkers, so it wouldn't be surprising to see a few of those male characters be swapped to female characters.

I mean Elyas is also a former Warder which are all men. Sure they could change that but I think Perrin needs a male mentor figure at the part where he is. 

Like you said they've already very much brought female character more into focus in terms of leadership roles so it seems unecessary. Compared to the books where Bran has a lot more lines than Nyneave early on, the mayor of Baerlon is male, Bornhald, Agelmar, and Raen.

3 minutes ago, AusLeviathan said:

I feel fairly confident that they'll gender swap Perrin's Wolfbrother mentor to be a woman. There's zero chance they miss the opportunity to add a Wolfsister.

 

Either that or they give the role completely to Hopper and cut Elyas.

I...don't see any evidence of that? If they wanted to bring in a wolfsister I'd think it's more likely to be the dude he comes across on his way to Tear.

I can kinda see the second but I rather hope not. It would make it seem like being a wolfbrother is completely unique to Perrin which it isn't.

9 minutes ago, LoRd PyrO said:

I feel like if I follow every episode as it comes out I'm going to be overly disappointed. I may have to step back and watch the entire ensemble all at once. I am too much of a book nerd and have been for the entire series. I feel like I am being disappointed at every turn from the deviations from the books.

For sure I can't help but think about all the changes as I'm watching. That being said I do feel that the show still feels the same, despite the changes. And I think a lot of it is to get the story up and running quickly and introduce concepts that would take longer otherwise. Obviously some things get lost among the way like you say in your post above. It definitely takes some adapting to.

Speaking of Min actually... could she be the one behind the 4 ta'veren in the Two Rivers rumour? That's the only thing that makes sense to me with her sometimes knowing exactly what her visions mean. Issue is of course she has never seen any of them. Could be that the symbols around Moiraine tell her that I guess.

Introducing Min that early on would very spoilery though considering they want to have a DR mystery. Besides the budget for Baerlon would also be an issue.