No, this is where I think the entire conversation and discussion is wrong on many levels, Most people do not understand there being anything but cruelty, and abuse and a deep wrongness to slavery.

This may actually re-enforce the block or at the least add additional complexity and reasons behind it, they have not done a very good job of fleshing that out in the show, in some ways as much as I love the humanizing and building out reasons for Liandra working with the Shadow, I wish they had spent a little less time on that and more on the motivations and traits of the EF 5 + Min and Lan instead of using tricks like fridging, and Ishy tricked me hacks.

True, but then before they added Prime Video I was paying $49 a year for Prime free shipping, as they added stuff to it and it went up I just accepted it for the additional content. I will see if I want the ad free or not once that comes out, it will depend on how many ads and how often.

Again it may have been weird, and not acceptable or appropriate now, but it was still treating her like a misbehaving child, in a way that the Aes Sedai understood, and was part of their own tower discipline. Plain and simple it is demeaning and or punishment. Anyone who remembers having their backside paddled or switched or mouths washed out with soap can tell you it is cruel, demeaning and abuse or as close to the line as can be in many cases, but not sexual.

I always equated Randland accents to really be more based in the one to many language linguistics. Many like the Illianers is more of a dialect than just an accent, but looking at how with just one language like English has developed dialects in locations across the world from India to the US and Jamaica, and the accent differences within any given location. The Seanchan speak the same common language but the books made more out of the difficulty in understanding without slowing down or paying attention. I always equated this to the difference not with US northern English or even British to Southern English, but more like British or American English to Cajun Creole or Jamaican Patois.

If you look at the X-Ray scene data they name the young blonde damane.

True, right now streaming only needs one or 2 quality shows at a time to get/keep subscribers. WoT is a great example, 8 episodes every 1-2 years for the subscribers. If it is really popular there would be incentive for more episodes to increase ad revenue on popular shows. I only hope that the time for ads does not take away from the length of episodes.

I remember when cable was liberating in getting away from limited network availability and ad's

RJ was influenced by his experiences and the times he lived in, the subjugation and breaking of the Damane came in part from his experiences in Vietnam. Until more recently switching, spankings and and other corporal punishment, was common in most home and school situations, as was the use of physical labor especially in a boarding school situation like the White Tower.

This was powerful, arc it demonstrated so much about who Suroth is, the caste, sycophant and slavery system of the Seanchan while also being great foreshadowing to the role of Loial, and the Ogiers, and pointed out Ingtars flaws. I am not a fan of how involved Ishy is in everything, they appear to be relying on Forsaken interference as a cause of conflict even more than the books did. Min needed a better story arc than the books where really until the end she was fairly flat character, that filled in where they needed a non- channeler. I wish they had focused more on her street smarts and less on her viewings as motivators and character flaws/strengths. I also do not like how her visions appear to be more realistic and less symbolic, that can have multiple interpretations.

I mostly agree, but there are a few cases where I question the travel time, the show is being vague on days or timeline, it appears they may be shortening the time it takes in The Ways to get somewhere. We know Siuan and her entourage had been gone from the tower for a while, several sisters traveled with her in the books, and she may have collected more along the way, or that those she called were not coming all the way from Tar Valon, any individuals would have traveled faster than the larger entourage. Liandrin we know uses the Ways, and Moiraine was also aware of them, we can guess that there are other Aes Sedai that also use The Ways to get from place to place. We do not know how far from the Tower/Cairhien that Allana/Lan were, or how many days Mat and Min were traveling to get to Cairhien, there are small questions but nothing so far stands out as a glaring problems with timing or travel continuity.

I am not convinced these are whitecloaks.

After season 2 is done I need to re-watch from the beginning, because I am seeing more foreshadowing than I thought, part of that is I am not very good at catching or recognizing things in visual media, but the last few episodes really have shown there has been a lot more subtle foreshadowing than I caught early on.

Maybe, but I actually am gaining more and more respect for the writers. Yes there are many changes, but so far most of them are paying off and hitting major plot points and character arcs of the books. While I agree they do not know what to do with Lan, the stoic doomed to die silent Warder has been gone they have tried but failed to create a more "human" arc for him that is not in the books, Where Moraine they are pulling from other character arcs and what is known of her history and family. I have hopes that we will get to see more of Mat, Lan as the series progresses, there is just not enough screen time to develop all characters equally and that is true to the books too, Mat is really a non-entity flat character until after the Horn, and even later really for him to really gain any strength as a character with his own plot line. Liandrin looks to be replacing Alviarin. She could possibly also take on several of Galina's story arcs.

Or Confirmation that Moiraine believes she has been stilled. Either way it follows plots from the book.

It is, but I am not sure that Liandrin is as humanized as she appears, I do not trust any of her interactions with Nynaeve, and am inclined to believe they are all set up and manipulation. It still makes her a fascinating "bad guy". RJ like so many did at the time wrote flat bad guys, though at the time he included much more back story and motivations than many fantasy villain's. In later books he did round out and humanize some of them, times had changed and it was more acceptable to have grey areas not just good/evil.

I struggle with understanding where in the first 2-3 books there is any indication of any of them being "noble". The Two Rivers residents were less corrupt and jaded than many of the people they meet later, the EF 5 were naïve and inexperienced, but none of that in itself makes them "noble".

Mat was always an accidental and reluctant hero, in the books he spent more time trying to avoid responsibility and being a hero than anything else. He always stepped up when he thinks someone else needs saving, and the show is being true to that too. Avoiding a crying Egwene is right in character.

Throughout the books the Black Ajah and other dark friends, often influenced by different Forsaken worked against each other. The entire organization of the BA where only a few know who is BA is set up to have conflicting missions. The Forsaken and all of the Shadow's groups are encouraged to compete and betray each other to win and be on top. One of the issues I have with the show having Ishy being more involved with the Seanchan is that it kind of defeats his I am the the favored chosen, and above the petty fighting and battles between the other forsaken, who are more interested in things like power and revenge.

I agree with much of this, WoT was pushing both fantasy, cultural and gender roles when it was written in the late 80's, but it was also making statements on, the Feminism movement (not all good) of the 70's and 80's. Today female inn keepers, power structures, soldiers and rulers would not be radical, when I read the first book in 1990 they were. To be true to that idea of the books it needed to be updated. There were plenty of commentary in the books placing women above men, and the show portrays the same thing, just in visual media it is more obvious and overt in some ways than 100's of words actions here and there across 14 books. The fantasy tropes would be obvious and feel old for a reader today, unless you were a reader of myths and fairy tales or ancient legends when the books first came out. Except the initial books hero journey young boy Tolkien trope, the rest was new in fantasy books and refreshing. I like how they have tweaked the beginning to start with many of the changes that we see in later books with an ensemble rather than just the boy saves world trope of the first couple of books.

I think it is written well, it showed the connection and knowledge of an area and place by locals that have lived there a long time. I live in a place where people regularly go to certain lake/ river cliffs or waterfalls to jump in, we take our kids to swim in waterfall pools, and to jump off the rocks. Locals know to avoid the times when there are more dangers after a storm or spring rains, all that and yet I would be clueless on the dangers of oceans. It is context and believable for a people that live in an area of Rivers.

We know from the books Loial was against any use of the Ways and pushed their dangers. It might just be that Liandrin can use compulsion or some other weave to protect the horses that an Ogier or others (not black Ajah) would not or could not use.

As fast as they are moving this could be done in a a few episodes, and nothing says all of her time "gone" needs to be off screen. It could also be an end to a season and then another time jump.

Could it also be generational, I introduced the books to my kids, they are more accepting of the more mature relationships of Rand/Egewene Rand/Selene .. where they bother me more in how it changes the characters and their motivations. I was already an adult when I read the books and still perceive the 3 EF as "children" (less so Nynaeve). Also it makes a creepy relationship with Selene/Lanfare 1000's of years old with teenager Rand.

The 55/51 is average looks much different when you look at age groups. The 80x of 18-20 year old married couples drops to 20x a year for those over 65 We have an aging population, so the drop in averages makes statistical sense.