Probably a bit of both. But one thing Jordan did not handle well was Romances. They come out of nowhere, no real build up, and Rand's three literally happen by Deus Ex... Writing the more intimate moments isn't a requirement to fix that, I feel L. E. Modesitt Jr. writes romance fairly well with nothing more than a fade to black, but it's harder to do it that way.

Definitely understand that, and, for you, it may have been a waste of time. Or maybe it helped in ways that, while unrelated to you specifically enjoying the story, were beneficial. I obviously am not in Mr. Jordan's head and cannot definitively state what his intention was. But for me, much like the book Towers of Sunset by L. E. Modesitt Jr, seeing someone put a man in a situation women often have to face, and seeing so many men respond in one form or another to these situations that they sometimes did not really understand has been something I've appreciated.

Agree that it could have been handled better, just trying to look at on the bright side for Demandred. 🙂 Yes, it is disgusting, and Nynaeve and Elayne writing it off as Mat deserving it is disgusting, and Mat getting SA'd is disgusting. Just like what happens constantly, day in and day out with real people. And it's dismissed and ignored the same way. I don't believe Mr. Jordan wrote it to be anything other than disgusting and reprehensible. But it did have a purpose and point in line with the overall narrative.

1: I don't agree that he lost to an Asha'Man, he lost to a circle of 3. But, I feel his diminishment again goes back to Jordan's change. Remember, at the time Lord of Chaos was written Demandred lead the charge to save Rand from the Tower Sisters and the Shaido. 2: Don't agree, but don't disagree. 🙂 3: Spoke on this, but yeah. 🙂 4: I like Tylin in the book to be honest. Jordan was very much writing a gender reversal in terms of prominence and power and authority. Tylin is a female version of the male college kid or rich kid who does what they want and does criminally evil things and get's ignored because "Oh, you know how they are. Queen's will be Queens..." It's part of the gender inequality build the same way having a female pope or predominantly queens.

You have to break the narration to do that though. In the books it wasn't a scene we saw happen, it was something the Aes Sedai told Rand's Ancestor about second hand. So to put the scene in we either need to cut away to a different scene when we're already in a different scene and then figure out why Rand's ancestor saw it when they weren't there. Or you have to make an entirely different scene where one of Rand's Ancestors who is already established to have children to be there personally.

I don't think he was as deluded as others do. I believe he was the patterns failsafe if Rand did wrong. There has to be evil and good so to speak for there to be a balance of free will. Because of Free Will and the endless turning there is bound to or may already have been times when the Dragon ends the Dark One. No Dark One, no third power to wield in sealing the bore, no transference to a new body, the Dragon Dies too, there's a void now that has to be filled and, oh look, a crazed evil that can slide into it and be trapped, growing and growing until we have a new Dark One. But, Rand made the right choice and so the rest of the process doesn't matter and Matt snips the thread. As for my changes, I don't believe in doing major rewrites. I only have two things that stood out to me in the books that I went "Wait... what?" #1) I liked Demandred as Taim and I thought it was an interesting development. We obviously don't know why RJ changed it, though I feel it's because we as a whole figured it out too easily and fast... But I don't like it changes. #2) I never liked Graendel vs Perrin in the last arcs. I think she should have just died to Rand and been reborn instead of escaping, then failing, then being reborn. We also had Moghedien who was a Dream Walking master that just vanishes for multiple books. Put two and two together, Rand takes out Graendel, Moghedien takes on Perrin, maybe even perishing to him due to, again, not understanding that the One Power doesn't outpace T'A'R

This is an attempt to deepen and improve. The books specifically start at the Age of Legends and then stop at the Peace of Rhuidean. Them giving Janduin and letting him be his own father and see his mother is a deeper connection that Rand in the books does not get. Will request you don't do this particular rabbit hole with me. Not saying don't talk it or anything, but I won't engage or will end up engaging too much on that topic. Leaving souls hard gendered would have made the show a non-starter for me. I had a lot of trouble dealing with it the first time around and found Aran'gar a saving grace because it meant he had thought about it some an knew it was maybe a line that had potential hiccups. (That said, met him twice, only once when I was relatively passing and he was never anything but polite and friendly.).

The show has clearly done things that, while we might not agree, I can easily see as being a way to let something that happened in the books have more impact or get the audience going "Ohh, that's like..." Other examples available but off topic since they're in other episodes. Just looking at this episode. Having Rand jump straight to Janduin helps give him a deeper connection to his father and a better understanding of what happened. Watching the scene also suddenly gave me more appreciation for in the book when Rand says his parents are Tam and Kari but he wishes he could have known Tigraine and Janduin. I think the way Moraine's visions were such rapid fire flickers and insanity is a VERY solid way of showing how the arch visions jumble and vanish away until you only really hold onto certain messages.

It'd make plenty of sense. He fails in Illidan, runs, disappears, no one knows where he is, then boom, Shara. But part of me REALLY wants them to just do Taimdandred ever since we found out that was actually the plan before we all guessed to quick.

I would also suggest the concern that a lot of people, even from good intentions, have trouble when a character is well written but isn't handled how THEY had to handle it. Not a book example, but there's a show on Prime called Hazbin Hotel. There's a character that 100% is being used to work through trauma from abuse, power imbalance in a relationship and addiction. The level of fights that pop up on the internet with people both finding this character to be wonderful and incredibly well done and the people who find him to be completely wrong and making fun of serous issues for laughs... Rand has legitimate Trauma and I think balances it halfway decent given the complete lack of actual therapists... But for some, what he's has to go through is SO far above what people normally face and so they have no reference for it. And for some, they handled a similar situation differently and how Rand did it comes off harmful to them...

Honestly, you'd have to play with it till it feels right. Jordan has said the Old Tongue is a kitchen sing combo of Gaelic, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and African languages.. Now, I don't know much Russian, Arabic or any African tongues. But for the ones I do. Raven Prince or, more likely, Prince of Ravens would be.. And I provided Welsh and since "Gaelic" languages covers a few things. Welsh: Tywysog y Cigfrain Irish: Prionsa na bhFiach Galician: Príncipe dos Corvos Spanish: Príncipe de los cuervos Chinese: Wūyā wángzǐ Japanese: Karasu no ōji So hodge podge that together until it matches the known Old Tongue examples. O:-)

Despite it countering my initial throw out speculation, yeah, I actually really like the idea of Rahvin Asmodean and Belial being fused together. He's already playing all sides and tired of infighting, falling in with Rand would easily stem from that combined with him being outmatched. Or... To twist it in a more sinister way. What if he, on the verge of defeat, compels Rand to know him as his trusted advisor who's helping him against the Shadow? Maybe even tie him in with Mazrim Taim (though we have name dropped Taim so I assume we'll get him as himself or Taimandred.)

I think they're shownig how Harsh Morgase was and then will be able to use it as a contrast to a similar book event with Elayne where she shows a more even hand. For book layout, obviously I'm speculating but I imagine this is going to be largely book 4 + the Stone. I think we'll see Mogedhien best Nynaeve and set up a rivalry, I think we're going to stick Sammael in the Stone to either lose to Rand/Moraine or lose and escape depending on if they feel the war with Illidan is worth doing. I think we'll see a rush of Book 6 Egwene and book 5 stuff in season 4 culimating in the freeing of Andor from Rahvin. What I'm curious about is Asmodean. Because he's such a contradiction in that his presence and story is VERY important to justify Rand's competency as a Channeler... But he only really has one book of relevance and then gone which makes him VERY easy to cut. Maybe Rand Captures Sammael? That'd be interesting.

It helps by removing what was, I hope, an accidental side effect of the original method that locked gender and thus dismissed or alienated a group of people from the story. It also isn't a new thing, I can remember all the way back to a fairly large WoT free form RP in the AOL days (Anyone else part of that? 🙂 ) where there were discussions about Aran'gar's ramifications, if it would be possible outside and at least one character concept around a man channeling Saidar. Since Rand was never not going to be the dragon, there is no validity in the complaint that the change ruins anything. Unnecessary means different things in different content. It changed nothing in the actual plot, true. But it avoided a potential pitfall with fans and avoided making the show non-inclusive to a marginalized group.

Can't say as I agree. We see, repeatedly, that all of them, SPECIALLY the green, are completely unprepared to handle, well, anything. If anything this will make the events in later books make more sense.