You can try and find reasons for the plot holes, but the clear fact is that Robert Jordan was still very much writing book to book when he started writing the dragon reborn, he was still finding his voice and the voice of his characters and was unsure how many books he would have to finish the story in. If you look across the first 3 books there are some big inconsistencies, many of these come from the fact he didn’t know how big a series he was writing and so didn’t know how to pace his characters development to have them reach the peak of powers by the end.

At the end of the day it is all conjecture but when I say controlling his powers of Taveran I mean something new and different, maybe the next step of evolution of the power. Although I will be honest this thought does change year to year and with no answer we can never really know so I am more then happy to read your reasons why this can’t be the case. The one thing I will say we don’t know that the pattern is fully done, RJ had follow up stories on planned who knows what part the 3 boys would play in them. What part Rand has on leading humanity into the next age, we know he will live a long long long life (assuming he isn’t killed).

Rafe has addressed the Egwene thing, he has apologised and stated it was a mistake, it is what it is. The Nyn thing how did she pull galaxies together lol, she healed an entire room because she was scared and angry and yes she can';t do it again nor because of the block and not understanding what she did. Rand has shown power, but if you have him massively OP like he is at the end of EOTW you have to have a whole exposition to explain that, His arc mirrors the girls, learning, developing and slowly gettig to be the man who ends up saving the world.

Season 2 he becomes the one in charge, when he decides to enter the world of dreams it is his choice and everything from there is his decision. That is the entirety of season 2 Rand taking charge of his destiny, but also understanding the independence of others (egwene didn’t need saving which is a really neat way of setting there relationship in the books).

Robert Jordan struggled to de power Rand once he realised he had more books to develop him in, it is one of the weak points of the first 3 books. He did it by having Rand lose control of the world around him politically and by constantly finding new power levels for the bad guys and things they could do. Oh and having Rand “forget” how he did things. The TV show is doing his build the right way, the way RJ would have done it if he knew in book 1 he had a 14 book arc to tell this story. People really need to remember that.

I mean you are making an assumption and offering opinion here, first is that it is struggling we have no evidence of that anywhere. We don’t know what Amazon counts as a success here so we dint know if execs are popping Champaign at these numbers or feeling glum. then your opinion is that it is badly made, when I know many many people who love it and think it is well made. In my own sphere of people I know is about 30-40 people who have watched it and all love it, that’s among work, family and friends. Then they know people who have watched it and enjoy it. In fact the only place I see any negativity about it is online. So that is 40+ people who would disagree with you.

My feel is Amazon won’t fall for that, they will know the same users are watching multiple times. we don’t know what Amazon’s aims are and what drives them to continue a series, might be wrong but wasn’t the expanse cancelled for to lack of viewers and Amazon took it up to finish it off. At the moment in terms of value for money Apple TV is producing by far the best original content, if Amazon and Netflix want to win the streaming war they need to be willing to commit to seeing through a long tv series like WOT or they might lose out on rights for future IP

What do you mean no new seasons?

People on here are upset it seems that Rand in season 2 is not as powerful with the power as Rand in books 2 and 3. They seem to want him to be super syan, killing trollocs with a thought, annihilating armies at tarwins gap and being all powerful. The thing is, Robert jordan made a mistake in books 1-3, a mistake he spent a long time rectifying in the following books. his mistake was not of his own doing, it was forced on him by the writing process. It is a mistake that many writers have discovered if they don't have a full story mapped out start to end. I call it the Matrix effect. When he started out he hoped he had a trilogy. A story to tell over a 3 act arc, so, at the end of book 1 his main character gets a major power boost, all on his own, he destroys an army, because at this point RJ didn't even know if he had a second book. Then he has books 2 and 3 greenlit and so he carries on his oddesy, Rands powers increase, exponentially, he deals with threats with a thought, he teaches himself powers without knowing how and he becomes more and more all powerful meaning he can now take out god level beings (forsaken) on his own. Then, the best and worst thing happens he is given the chance to turn this into a multi book odyssey, but, he has a problem, his main character is at this point so overpowered in relation to the world around him that he really doesn't need anyone. he has come on in his power far faster then he should have done. Especially in relation to the other main characters around him, and, how will he find himself against threats that are really dangerous when he is so powerful all on his own. So Robert Jordan removes Rands power, the immense powers he showed in books 1 and 2 are put down to the madness, LTT in his head, or just things he can't possibly remember to do again. He is sent to the 3 fold land where his, by now, stupidly good sword fighting skills are worthless and he needs to learn to fight a different way, at the same time Matt, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve are sent on there own arcs to power them up to meet rand as he comes back down, trying to reach a point where they are all fairly equal, in different ways. I call this the matrix problem because at the end of movie 1 there is a problem, Neo is all knowing, all powerful, he is unbeatable in the Matrix, can shape it to his very will. By the time of the second movie (at least the concept as I have heard it, to my mind films 2 and 3 of the matrix are in the same place as seasons 6,7 and 8 of GOT, a thought experiment that thankfully never happened lol), Neo needs to either be de powerd, or, a threat even greater needs to be created, something that he can't fight against, that is both Agent smith, and, a crazy unintelligable plotline about architecture and load bearing structures or something. but on a serious note it is a problem with storytelling in an episodic format where you don't map out and clearly define the plot across the whole and instead have some viague idea but fill in the details book to book. So how does this impact the TV show, well, Rafe and co can, and are, fix that glaring mistake of Robert Jordans, they can ensure that Rand develops his powers in a linear and not up and down, they can show him slowly coming to grips with things in a logical way. At the end of season 2 an unshielded rand, untrained, raw, deals with Ishy far easier then Egwene, Rafe shows in that scene how powerful he is, just a few scenes before Rand ganked a load of soldiers without a seconds thought, when the most we have seen Egwene do is have a very powerful fart (sorry schoolboy humour). So no Rand is not godlike in his powers, but, that is a good thing, that is good episodic writing, if, when writing the first line of EOTW RJ had known, I have 14 books minimum to finish this in and my editor does not want a copy of the Fellowship, I think we would have had a very very very different books 1,2 and 3. and a very different, much slower, Rand journey. It is why I say WOT starts with book 4, books 1 2 and 3 where just RJ practicing, and, it is why stating that Rafe and co "Don't know the books because they have done this and that" is, in my opinion, showing that you are looking at the individual books in isolation, when that is the mistake, you have to look at the whole and, you have to look at the reality behind the writing process and how it impacted character development in a bad way.

Ok yet another read through recently and I found myself wondering, why if all the fantasy I have read do I keep coming back to this one to re read. If I think about it then it really should have been a 1 and done but for some reason I do keep returning. It isn’t the best written set of books, I mean there are moments that are brilliant, the build up and culmination of the battle of Emonds Field is one. But, there are actually very few moments through the series that pack this emotional impact. There is boundless repetition of prose. The characters are not consistently written well. Many of the evil Characters are very one dimensional on the page compared to the modern writing style, and many of the heroic characters are at various points just irritating. There is some very dated prose, crossing of arms under bosoms, men and women never understanding each other, many characters have very one dimensional emotions. the last 3 books are just ok (my opinion) BS did his best, but the final 3 books, while they have some good moments, just come across a bit flat overall. all those facts mean the series really should not be a keeper. In fact it was highlighted by a very good friend who finally read the series having seen the tv show, and they are just amazed anyone would go back and read it again, pointing out a ton of flaws that I can’t argue with. And yet. It is the series I have read the most, other maybe then Lord of the rings, but I can get through those books now over a weekend I have read them so often. There are series that I loved more, the chronicles of Thomas covenant is one that I personally feel is one of the most perfect fantasy series ever written. But it is WOT I keep coming back to. The lore and the world is one, it was the first fantasy series I read that was about a post apocalyptic earth, and since then I have become fascinated with that kind of fiction (See on Apple TV and Horizon Zero Dawn are 2 examples of recent stories of that genre that I love). But I think it is also those rare but great moments, Emonds fields, Egwene taking control of the hall. Those are the moments that I think draw me back, the rest of it, well it is easy to take in and just get through, I don’t find any of the books a slog or hard to read. Compared to Game of thrones it almost feels like an airport fiction book, something you can read quickly and easily. But it has a complexity to it that is unlike any cheap thriller. So what is it that keeps you coming back to WOT despite all the flaws with the writing that we all know are there (and many many on this forum are open about them). Why is it your go to despite maybe not being the perfect 5 star book that other fantasy novels might be.

I found myself wondering, at the end of MOL Birgitte says she can feel herself being reborn into the world soon, Elayne is pregnant, so is there a chance she could be reborn as royalty in her new life?

I know we have never seen it so this is something to which there may never be an answer but could the oath rod have been used in a way to control a male chanaller before the taint was healed? We see that collared Aes Sedai are unable to be used as weapons, the oaths bond them and prevent them from killing meaning the Seanchan have to fund alternate uses for them. So could a Male be bonded to the oath rod in a way that prevented them from hurting anyone when they went mad? Or would the madness override the oaths?

Having re read the entire series now since Brandon's "big reveal" about Lanfer not being dead I have made the decision that, given it is not specified in the story, is not obvious to the reader and makes no sense in terms of the narrative that as far as I am concerned Brandon is wrong. The concept of the Death of the Author has always fascinated me when it comes to storytelling, it primarily focuses on the idea that whatever the Author's own meaning in writing what they write does not matter when it comes to the reader. It is how the reader interprets that work with the Author simply becoming a scriptor who puts words on a page. Now generally in Fantasy/Sci Fi etc the story is clear and there is non ambiguity, or the author purposely leaves questions unanswered either to return to at a later date, or to drive through and consideration about the story. Therefore it is hard to impart the "Death of the Author" concept to the writing because explanation and meaning are there in the story. Instead such conversations revolve around the wider meaning of the story, was LOTR an allegory for WW1 etc. With the Lanfer ending however I feel that Brandon really has no place in which to state one way or another exactly what happened. He has presented a series of events and, for him, the meaning of those events is that Lanfer lives. However given that it is not clear in the story. We don't see Lanfer alive at the end, we only see it from Perrins POV, then I would argue that even though he wrote it Brandons's thoughts as to what he meant when he wrote this are not entirely valid. He may have, in his head, intended to open the possibility that Lanfer is alive, but, it is entirely up to the reader to decide what they believe happened and, whatever they believe, is correct. There is enough evidence, maybe more so, to defend the Perrin killed Lanfer idea then the Lanfer tricked Perrin.

So re reading a MOL several times I have started to pick out more things that just don't sit well with me in terms of the narrative storytelling around the last battle. One of these is that I find it frustrating that Mat never gets any real acceptance of his tactical brilliance from Demandred. It feels narriativley that there needs to be a moment, even if just before he dies, that it is revealed to Demandred that Rand is not and has never been at the last battle and his efforts to draw out the fight have led to his losing. I am happy that Lan got the killing blow, and did it with a technique he taught rand all the way at back at the start of book when the journey really started. But I was waiting for that other big reveal and it never came. Anyone else feel a bit flat at this, or where you happy with the whole Demandred Mat jousting across the battlefield and the fact Demandred never learnt who truly beat him?

So I have always assumed that as reincarnation happens in WOT and there is a defined pattern, that there must be a finite fixed number of total souls that exist. Each one being reincarnated at different points. However this can’t be true, new souls must be being created, otherwise the total number of souls would steadily deplete. Balefire is the first cause for this depletion. Not so much an issue now but we know the in the war of shadow it was being used to eradicate entire cities. Millions of souls removed from the pattern to never be reincarnated, The DO may be the other reason, he removes the souls of various of his tools now we do not know if these souls are then destroyed, or if they get spun back into the pattern once the original body has been destroyed. Over the course of turning to turning, if there is a finite resource of souls to start with, both of these things will steadily remove more and more souls. So last shadow war may not have exhausted it, but there will be another one and, balefire will be re learnt in one age and used to eradicate more souls. Over turn after turn the souls steadily trend down. So do you believe that new souls are created and not everyone is a reincarnation. In return is it possible that some souls do in fact pass on to whatever there is after, spinning out of the pattern? Or is the only way souls are removed the active intervention of other people?