I don't, but what I do think is she just created the affinity for someone she's healed as Nynaeve had with Egwene in the books, allowing her to find the group in Camelyn in EOTW

Cadsuane was mentioned, but it could just be an easter egg, not foreshadowing. And yes, your thoughts on Verin align with mine.

Aside from the EF5 and Lan, I don't think anyone is safe in the TV series.

I legitimately don't think they're looking to treat Egwene as the Dragon Reborn. I think what they are doing is setting up Egwene as the main protagonist who watches as her best friend and former lover becomes a 3,000 year old legend who is going to to break the world to save it, then watch him struggle as he becomes a ruthless dictator and potentially insane. As she learns to trust this violent monster to do the honourable thing. We are getting very little of what's happening in Rand's head (only what he's impacting in the world, and how others treat him), and so for most of the second half, I think they're going to play Rand as a villain (think Dumai's Wells from the Aes Sedai perspective, or the Nobility of Cairhien, or any other decision as he becomes "emperor"). Elayne had a speech about him becoming a king and that he needs to- she will see it, Egwene won't, and that will be the character conflict. Then they will have him interact with Tam for Veins of Gold, and show that there is a very big difference between a man being hard (pardon the pun), and a man being strong. That has been my expectation since about 1/2 way through S1, and nothing I've seen to date makes me want to change my mind.

thanks!! Didn't know that could happen. and yeah, I'm thinking they get rid of both of them. Neither of their AMOL closures are really satisfying, so better just to leave them

See, you're still thinking Rand is the main character of the series. There is very little Cadsuane does that Moiraine wouldn't work better for, you keep your lead actress, and its a byproduct of eliminating the Finns, which is already a possibility. It's a shame we can't do Polls: 1. Moiraine's book arc remains untouched, and Ms. Pike is about to go fishing for 3 seasons 2. Moiraine's journey ends in a different way, more permanent way, but at the same point in the series 3. Moiraine assumes Cadsuane's role in the show, and they redo all of her and Lan's arcs as a result. These also happen to be in my order of preference.

Hopefully we get Cadsuane. No guarantee of that, especially if they eliminate the Finn and the attendant catfight.

Possibly, or given the role size, I could see then organizing her shooting schedule so they get everything they need from her for the entire season in 2-3 days. for season 3-5, and then make her a regular in season 6.

or the Couladin casting.

I'm not even sure we get Shayol Ghul yet, let alone Shadar Haran. Since the seals have been repurposed to capture the Forsaken, not the DO, the whole approach to the end of the book is up in the air. Plus, given the massive time constraints, I don't know how much Forsaken on Forsaken action we're really going to get

Creativity in terms of something new that hadn't had RJ's direct hand in; it's a big difference, as I understand it, to create from scratch, versus playing with someone else's toys.

There is one really, really big problem with cutting out the Finn gates... you'd have to come up with a way of taking those players off the board, either permanently, or in some other fashion that can be undone for the end of the story

Moggy's gate didn't look like it took much time at all. I do grant you that no one held one and channeled something else, but we know channellers can split weaves (Rands bolts of doom), and Gateways were tied off in the books (Avi's bomb). plus we don't know if they're going to make Gateways power restricted yet. And I don't trust the SFX team not to want to replicate something that was legitimately cool. So Travelling can't be too easy, or the audience will start going "why don't they just"

I won't speak for others, but for me, it's because they don't have to deal with the Black Wind in the Ways (which still hasn't paid off), they help expand the metaphysical world of WoT, and most importantly, because they don't open up the plot issues that Travelling does. Sanderson abused the crap out of gateways, but I would refer you to Blink's fight scene against the Sentinels in X-Men: Days of Future Past to see what you could really do with Travel Gateways in combat. We've already had people talking about why Ishy didn't just port behind Egwene's shield, and they're right. In world, it can be done. Portal stones are very rare, still require traveling to and from them (they aren't Travelling's instantaneous), and don't have to deal with paying off the constant use of the Ways needing to pay off with the Wind catching a bunch of people. But I expect they'll just use a Way Gate.

The point to this was to give one of the most prolific fantasy authors in history the ability to exercise some creativity while writing 1600 pages or more of someone else's project. It was the "let me have something" point so he wasn't just transcribing notes, but actually writing. I wasn't thrilled with the way the gateways were abused in the Last Battle, but they did help solve the problem of the Light being grossly outmanned by the Dark