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?

I mean I read into it as being akin to Pillow Sisters in the tower, that and the fact that Aiel have a far more relaxed attitude to sex and physical activities then other cultures in the world it is just the next logical step. It all pretty much made sense to me. Now I will accept RJ does not explicitly state it one way or another so end of the day whatever any reader takes to be fact, is indeed fact here.

I mean if we are fantasy casting sorry Dame Judi Dench can't be beaten for me, can project that power and authority but also has that age and experience oozing from her naturally and I can see her chewing scenes with rand up, saying nothing with just a gaze and then a raise of an eyebrow.

I think it is because Cadusane has a far smaller role then Elaida in the books, and I can see, if he carries on his trend of writing deep villains for the show, Elaida in the show having some really meaty scenes to get her teeth into which is probably something that as an actor she will prefer. Yes, headcanon a lot of fans put her in a role I think she is far better suited for this role and it is actually better casting. I imagine he might have sat down with her and given her a choice behind the scenes, casting like this usually involves a lot of conversation and Rafe will have had some input but no where near as much as you might expect. I also think she might well have seen what he sketched out for Elaida and said, yes, I will have that instead please. I get the feeling that unlike the books her steps into madness will not be influenced by Fain at all and, much like Liandrin, will come from her past meaning that as an actor she can really get into that character plus, bad guys are always more fun to play then good. As for anyone can play Elaida and combining her with Liandrin, peolpe complain about Rafe ignoring the books but then want to make monumental changes such as this, a darkfriend on the seat makes no sense when it comes to the showdown with Egwene, the whole point of Elaida is to show that bad choices does not always = Bad people, and being so convinced you are right can make you blinkered to what is right and true in front of you. Elaida is one of the Key characters of the story and needs to exist pretty much as is in the books, just with the removal of the Daggers influence on her hopefully. One of my issues with that was RJ seemed to want a world where everyone is inherently good, except when they are darkfriends or touched by Shadar Logath, and all bad people are either darfriends or have been corrupted by said dagger. Rafe is showing much more shades of grey which I love. Liandrins arc should now continue away from the tower, possibly ending with her in stedding at the last battle, although following her path in the books would also be really interesting.

But they are not, the essence of the wheel of time is there, the story threads are all there, we can debate what has been removed, added, changed around, but all the bits that make up WOT are present. But as I have said, following the source material as closely as some want, would make for an awful viewing experience for non book readers, and probably for most book readers as well. Especially the character shifts across books 1-3, and having key characters not realy make any appearance until later on in the books meaning TV audiences barely get any screen time to care or emote with those characters. But we are going round and round in circles. You don't like it, many of us accept and understand the flaws but still love it and see it as the WOT.

I mean homosexuality has been prevelant in every age of human culture, it’s just that people didn’t know how to see it, but I also think it is a side effect of WOT being a sexy fantasy novel, it has far more sexual references then any other fantasy I had read as a teenage boy, in fact that may explain why I keep coming back? And it makes sense RJ wrote steamy bodice tearing novels. I do wonder would a post 50 shades WOT have seen RJ double down on certain things a lot more lol? But yes up until that point the only fantasy book I can think of that I had read that had sex in it was Thomas covenant, and that is a very different type of scene

I mean is this what people mean when they say they love Lan because he “gets sh#t done” 🙂

This as well, something I hadn’t thought about.

I mean I wish the final trilogy had been at least 4 books maybe even 5. It felt a bit like season 8 GOT Brandon, I don’t have enough pages to finish this, I am going to have to rush finish a ton of story threads in a really hurried way. Publisher “we can give you another 2 books no problem” Brandon, ignoring them “yes I think I need to smoosh some story threads together, oh, and I want to burn a ton of space on some silly side stories just so I can feel all creative, Publisher “But Brandon, you can have 2 more books and, the books are not written you are doing them from scratch, why make up new characters if you don’t have enough space”.

I always assumed that some sister wives are in a relationship themselves, it is never specifically stated but it very much feels inferred to me, especially how the wife is the one to pick the other wife, that felt like there had to be some level of attraction.

Yeah that “failing to turn Logain” felt like BS artificially trying to create tension, which all fell a bit flat with me. I did like the idea that men turn women easily and vice versa but it that whole section of writing just feels very “hacky and cheap” to me anyway.

I mean it took BS months to reread and make notes before he started writing a page in anger and as far as I am concerned he mighty as well not have bothered. I mean, maybe I could get through all the books in 4 weeks, but if it was my first read through I would barely be able to tell you about the main story threads at the start by the time I finished it. So you would rather have the books as written with cartoon like forsaken, Logain a bit part character until he suddenly isn’t and some really dated themes? You really don’t seem to understand what an adaptation for a new medium requires. There are elements about seasons 1 and 2 that I feel are actually an improvement on the story RJ told, and that comes from the fact that RJ had no idea what story he was actually being paid ultimately to write until by book 4 he knew he would be allowed to go crazy. The writers have a chance to correct the flaws of the series, and there are flaws, read the forum and everyone has things they massively dislike about it and would change, In some ways it is amazing it gets the love it does from so many who read it repeatedly because many of us do that inspite of the fact that at points it isn’t a great piece of literature. Rafe is a fan, like all of us there are elements he likes and doesn’t like, like many of us he thinks sections of the book shouldn’t be in the tv show, now he may disagree with you on what those sections are, but that is a disagreement between you and him, not the fanbase in general. I mean I am pretty sure I could get 2 people who dislike Rafes changes in a room together, ask them to do there own version of the show and pretty quickly one would tell the other they didn’t believe they had read the book.

We don’t know if these numbers are reported by Amazon or taken from the independent viewing figures that Nielsen does using a special box or even paper diaries still. This is my point of getting all hung up on the numbers, where do those numbers come from. Also, is this US only, because to be fair as someone in the UK I doubt Amazon cares about US numbers if international figures are sky high. There is this obsession for tv and cinema that the only market that matters is the US and yet it is clear with lots of IPs that they might not do great in America but land far far far better internationally and so are seen as a massive success

She is a staple on British TV, as both an amazing comedic actor and in some great serious roles. I suggest looking at her credits on Wikipedia and adding some of them to your watch list generally.

The Verin pacing has been about perfect, to much and the big reveal will become to obvious. What I am hoping the TV show gives us that the book didn’t is a chance to see the horrible choices she has to make to convince the shadow she was one of them. I think we are going to see her kill her own sister as part of that maybe, so far my wife, a non book reader, absolutely loves her so I think the roller coaster ride that can be made of her story will come across far far better then it did in the books. I also hope they handle the big final reveal to egwene much much much better then it is in the books where it is all very much a bit part to the big story of Egwenes trial and the tower being divided and then attacked. I always felt she was done dirty by BS.

Why was this such a big deal, it showed how closely he was being watched, it showed that he couldn’t even get away to do that, but it also, for once, showed a bit of mundane humanity. The critic reviews I read about this very scene absolutely loved it because you never see anything like that in fantasy. And which lan are you talking about? The clear Aragorn ripoff that RJ made him in books 1-3, or the torn, flawed, reluctant leader he became once RJ realized he had enough books to write him properly? Lan in the TV show, for me at least, matches that later Lan very closely, which is what we should have at the start of an arc. He will become the lab you recognize from EOTW but good TV gives him an arc to get there.

Witcher is not like comic books it is like WOT in that they took an amazing story and characters and butcherd them, the show runners admitted they didn’t like the computer game or the books. That is far far away from Rafe who obviously loves the books and has read them many many times, and his main advisor who is a savant when it comes to the lore. I hav concerns that the other writers might not have read the books and I have no doubt the directors, who have as much input into the story as the writers and Rafe, probably have never read the books and go from the script/notes those also then making there own changes. but the basis is out of a love for the books.

And yet I would have preferred him to go full on lunatic, a cautionary tale of the prophet who then goes so far into his own rabbit hole that he starts to see his own messiah as a false idol and he himself is the true savior. It would have been well within the realms of our own era to see someone do that and get all his followers to drink the kool aid with him.