Unfortunately, these are exactly the "cool" sort of scenes I cherished and was looking forward to seeing, but which I have absolutely zero faith in their ability to deliver them properly (or even at all).

Looks as though Rafe got canned from working on scamazon's God of War after having several iterations of the script rejected. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technologyinvesting/the-wheel-of-time-showrunner-departs-god-of-war-tv-show-as-amazon-tosses-out-scripts/ar-AA1sNoTJ So it's NOT just the WOT material, it's the showrunner after all. Huh. 😐

"Just nonsense..." Most succinct way of summing up the entire adaptation. Kudos. 🙂

Science is a by definition a never-ending process of testing and retesting assumptions about the physical world (and measuring it) until enough errata accumulate to create a crisis, at which point competing theories vie to best replace the old system while taking into account the new anomalies. Sometimes technologies will unfold "asymmetrically" because of different availability of resources and/or conditions. E.g., It's tough to create steel if there is no iron available in your region. E.g., Aztec's may not have invented the wheel because it was less useful in jungles than the open areas of say Ancient Mesopotamia. Their astronomy was more advanced than the Greeks because they had over a thousand years' more time to work out the details. Perhaps certain weapon techs don't get developed due to isolated location and/or few native enemies. To believe there should be a linear or standard process of discovery is really missing a lot of factors that may not even be scientific but rather cultural or circumstantial.

I was going to respond that he's more emo than metal, but then I read the OP. 😄

No, of course not.

A tie to Achillles, perhaps? Seems a stretch, but that's the only mythological leg wound not already mentioned that springs to mind.

"(b) Mat wasn’t very well formed by this point in the books either. " I respectfully disagree with the above statement, and your follow up comment did not sway me. 🙂

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here. 😉

What?! By this point in the books, Mat is established as a masterful quarterstaff user, an avid gambler and carouser, has his arc with the dagger and humorous post-healing eating sequence, is persuaded to "escape" Tar Valon, et al. He's not full-on Mat yet, but he's still Mat. Definitely an established character by this point in the books. Sorry.

My 5-year old uses my old legos from the 80's to build copies of the OG D&D 80's cartoon characters. She does a pretty impressive job!

Whenever I encounter these I always immediately think of Greek diacritical marks that denote differences in aspirations.

Honest feelings about the end: To be brief, kinda disappointed. The series seemed (to me) largely to lose traction after LoC. RJ spun out some crazy threads that were just too much to gather back in successfully, especially without RJ alive to do so himself. Sanderson did okay. I'm glad he finished the series. Definitely not trying to rag on him as an author. He did a reasonable job, even if I don't particularly care for his style (vs. RJ's). I think the more I reflect on the impossible pipe ending, the more I'm okay with it; however, too many loose ends just floating about without proper resolution. Rand as a father? Rand as a son? Rand as a lover? All "off" at the end...imho.

I should note I haven't read any other BS work, so when I make statements regarding his writing style, I'm only speaking in reference to his stint with WoT, and in comparison/contrast to RJ. I'm sure he's a fine writer in his own milieu.

While Sanderson did a fair enough job wrapping up the series, he writes in a markedly perfunctory manner, especially in dealing with subjects of emotional depth, especially between two or more characters, something at which Jordan excelled. It felt to me like he was going by a checklist of plot points to tick off, without adding much in terms of emotional impact. Obviously I paint with broad strokes, and there are some notable exceptions (e.g., Egwene's ending), but Sanderson just doesn't punch at quite the same weight as RJ. There's a quasi-mystical element to RJ's style that Sanderson simply couldn't reproduce nor find a suitable replacement.