ok plenty of people like the political side. As many maybe as those who don’t. I am not sure the salidar story will be presented in anywhere near the same way. It seems clear the epic scene of an army of thousands pouring through the traveling gates to lay siege to Tar Valon won’t be coming. Maybe an “army” of 30 lol given the budget and seeming inability to film big battle moments. I think that’s my biggest issue with this show, a lack of ambition with budget and set piece battles. There is going to be no rings of power siege if Erigion, or got battle of the bastards. I gave them benefit of the doubt in season 1 because of covid. But I truly hoped the battle of the 2 rivers would be far grander and larger. Even if I am very happy to get a nighttime fight I could actually see on my tv 🙂

The fact is in the books it’s Siuan’s arc, and there are many of us who think WOT is great because of the politics. I know for me if you took that out I would have probably ignored it and not bothered reading anymore. So RJ takes Siuan out and then creates a new character to do the same thing for egwene? That’s like saying does Rand have to be the dragon reborn, isn’t there another character who could end up fighting the last battle. RJ made certain characters to have certain roles in the story. I really see no point in the TV show in killing off a major character to then give her entire arc to another character?

So you create another character to take the part of a character who had that clear arc, that makes no sense. And no, who else understands the intricacies of tower politics and what it takes to rule all the ajahs? Siuan was unique. A former AS who is alive and able to mentor the new one. A situation that has never happened before.

One thing that I think needed to be explained more is how Rand “knows” why Lewis Therin left her, we haven’t seen any indication that he has those memories or insights.

I mean at this rate the dark one himself could stand over Alanna in that final scene, Nynave tell Alanna to end the bond and Alanna look at Nynaeve and say, “this is but a flesh wound, I have had much worse” (picturing the black knight from Monty python and the gold grail)

What, sorry statements like this make me wonder if people really understand the character arcs in the books. Siuan is the driving force behind Egwene’s ascension in the tower. No Siuan no making Egwene AS. No Siuan and the rebel Aes Sedai fold, no Siuan and all of that story thread. One of the key fav threads of most readers is gone.

Alanna has the key moment at the end of the book series. Bonding Rand and then her death being the threat to force Rand to end the world.

Given what we know about Alvarin from the books it is possible that there were other forces at play.

So I was def the former in the first 2 seasons, I have stated for a long time that books 1-3 are repetitive, probably would have been so so different had RJ known from day 1 he had as many books as he needed and they needed to be seriously truncated for TV. But, season 3, while by far the strongest season so far, has for me just dropped the ball that was the strongest book. I don’t think this is all Rafes fault, I would love to see a Wheel of Time with Rings of Power budget, it seems we are relegated to “battles” consisting of tens of warriors fighting in them instead of thousands. I would have loved to see Amazon commit up front to how many season there would be. Ironically It feels that Rafe has the same issue RJ had, not knowing if the next season/book would be his last. there have been some things that have hit the mark, watching with a non book reader some of the scenes have hit her hard, but my own good will is slowly sapping away.

Next season Rand takes tear and fights the dark one potentially, Or if we are lucky next season Rand takes tear and then we get a season building to the last battle. I really don’t see how we have time to do the Rand live stories with all 3 women and save moraine and cleanse the source and everything else that needs to happen, including Egwenes story which is clearly now going to be her teaching herself how to politic to the Amyrilian Seat with no help.

I think we have 1 maybe 2 seasons left, the moraine rescue is not happening,

This may also be the case, end of the day it doesn’t really matter because he dies mins later. Wondering if there is a scene somewhere on a cutting room floor,

Not an ideal explanation but moraine experienced being tied off in a shield and Rand explained what he saw as he untied it so in terms of TV logic that isn’t a massive stretch, she also has the added boost now of her glass orb so that allows her to have the power of 8.

I don’t care about the maksim story line, part of me quite enjoys it, it shows the warder bond and if they are going to follow through with the story as is then Alanna is a key pawn in the dark ones final plan. Maybe the key pawn, I personally don’t care about many of the story changes. And Perrin is getting his chance, non book lover friends of mine have said he is one of there fav characters and a proper bad ass. Like I said, my issue here was the loss of that key emotion, even in my non book lover friends. They never felt any sense of real peril or tension in the battle. There was no emotional output except for a real outpouring when Loial died.

Oh I’m not saying it worked, my point here is that the section of the book that I know (because it has been discussed elsewhere on the forum), many many also found and find truly emotional. A section that a friend of mine reading the books for the first time called me up after reading and asked me if I cried that first time reading it, Rafe managed to suck all the emotion out of, and then artificially tried to re-inject it with a made up scene with Loial.