The only way I see this happening if it's a visual flashback aligned with Rand's little speech to Lanfear about Sammael and Rhorn M'doi...hope seemed to die that day. Visuals to accommodate the memory, and show the audience / Lanfear that it's real. Otherwise, a powerful moment, but doesn't impact our heroes

So based on what has been said above and shown so far, here's my villain take...all speculation The men are fairly straight forward I think Sammael is in Tear, taking Be'lal's place, and will be destroyed at the end of next season when Rand takes the Stone I think Asmodean shows up in the next couple of episodes and lasts a couple of seasons when an unknown assailant kills him in Tear (maybe after he takes Moraine's place in the little girl scene) sometime in season 5 I think Season 5 ends with Dumai's Wells, with the Black Tower but without Forsaken involvement I think Rahvin meets his end in season 6 in Camelyn - this and the Wells could be swapped in timing I think Taim is replacing Demandred, and the Black Tower is replacing the Sharans in the Last Battle. They were a WTF did they come from moment in the books and would be the worst kind of cheat in the series On the Women, I'm less sure, but one of them is with the Tower, and one is with the Seanchan I am not 100% sure of the timing because i don't know if the vision with Latra giving the Sarkanen to Rand was pre / post sealing, but there's a possibility the black lady with her was Semhirage. I expect Moggy's plotlines will remain mostly unchanged For Lanfear, see below; either she's almost the same, or .... Looking at what I put forward when I broke this down when the series was announced, I'm down to about 4 important plotlines I'm not sure if we're going to get: - Morgase, Tallanvor, Lini and the escape from Rhavin - Siuan, Leane, Logain and their trip to Salidar - The tower of Genji and what drives it - Galad and the Whitecloaks There are easy opportunities to cut off (if you'll pardon the pun) those plotlines over the next season or so. I think we're losing Illian, Berelain, the Red Veils, Shara, and Far Madding completely, and the other important ones (Salidar politics, the Menagerie, the kidnapping) will get pared down to a reasonable length

Not to point too fine a point of this, but many of the Judeo-Christian religious vows have origins almost as long. Imagine what were to happen to a shame based culture like Japan had all of their ancestors sworn an oath to uphold the 10 commandments, and then to become a leader of men, every feudal lord needed to find out they were breaking those oaths as samurai. Western society is guilt based, not shame based, and so our frame of reference for this kind of oath violation is really different than the Aiel's.

I think it had value because it literally showed that some Aiel could not move past a certain discovery, and they become stuck. It's foreshadowing.

Yes, and a speculation of mine (MAJOR BOOK / SERIES SPOILERS?) is that:

The other thing I'd toss out there is a reminder that LTT's genetic lineage was completely ended during the Breaking. So there is no way for anyone descending from LTT to exist in today's world - he had no surviving children.

Speaking of things I hate, but can't let go - I have a question:

Superheroes keep losing their masks, too...it's a Hollywood trope, or a contract obligation, or a lack of faith that audiences can't tell people without seeing their faces. Either way, this fits into the "hate it, but let it go" category for me

So the first thought I had after watching this is that if this episode does not hook the audience long term, the show is doomed. In terms of capturing the essence of the Wheel of Time, this episode was its Red Wedding - a wonderful 1 episode of everything WoT has to offer. In a show that has cut maybe a book's worth of content so far, and covered 2,000 pages of story in 19 episodes, we got a whole episode dedicated to about 50 pure pages (2 1/2 uninterrupted chapters) Prior to the trip, we got so many small things - the Shaido introduction, The Flame and The Void, intro to dreamwalking, foretelling, Wise Women channeling, Rand's lineage - that speak to both him, and the world, And then with the trip, aside from 4 very small changes (Lan vs Avi; the time alignment of the 3 going to Rhuidean instead of spread out; finding the Sarkanen instead of the Choedan Kal key, Visuals for Moiraine instead of her spoken summary) and a bunch of pure excisions (Mat's presence, millions of people during and after the Breaking, the water gift, the Ogier, etc.) this has got to be the single most faithful episode they've done. - dialogue matched, visions matched. It really effectively showed that the Aiel are not the Fremen, coming from a different place, and driven by different things; both with the Shaido conflict, and the visions. Most importantly though, it demonstrated Josha's range as an actor, and showed that he can play the emotional range he's going to need for the rest of the series. While it is nowhere near my favourite part of the series, everyone speaks to The Shadow Rising as the heart of the series, and these chapters are the heart of that book. So here we are. Embrace it or not. And while I know I'm gushing about this, I also know

Spoiled, because i can't remember the book spoiler position on this board.

Later books Mat was not what i would describe as a coolly rational genius..

I'm positive it will be Asmodean; the musician statue is too much of a clue for it not to be him. But I have a slightly different hot take:

I don't much like this idea - having Forsaken behind every group of antagonists simplifies the world entirely too much. Having the Shaido, and the Whitecloaks, and Elaida and for the most part the Seanchan (I mean, really, how important was **** to them?) be different flavours of villains is important to the complexities of the world. Similar to the Morgase discussion, good people can do evil, evil people can do good, and no one can walk so long in the dark that they can't come back to the light. But if it is everyone against our heroes are agents of the Shadow, then it's too clean.

I'd be curious to see if you think The Sword of Shannara is an adaptation of the Lord of the Rings, and thus subject to infringement lawsuits.

On the adaptation debate: If you look at the 4 major components of story (Character, Plot, Setting, and Theme), in my opinion, an adaptation needs to leverage at least 2 of those in the re-telling of the story to count. If it’s only one, there is a strong possibility of convergent evolution in story telling, moving it into a “based on” or “inspired by” situation without being an actual adaptation. Expanded universe story telling is making this more difficult to distinguish though; as they are no longer adapting plots wholesale but instead stitching together their own plots from other people’s plot elements using the same characters and settings. Avengers Endgame is not an adaptation, even if all the ingredients are the same. In my experience, theme is the most vulnerable to loss during adaptation. You can undercut the original themes of a story simply by changing the delivery of dialogue, or minor plot points, while leaving the other story elements completely unchanged. There’s been a fair bit of that in WoT so far, but Starship Troopers is hands down the most egregious example of this I can think of. Doesn't mean it's not an adaptation, though. The Star Wars as adaptation of the Arthurian mythos argument does not meet my standard; the hero’s journey plot is not unique to either of them (and predates them both by a lot) and none of the other elements align – the plot even ends differently. So, while I can see that Arthur was an inspiration for Star Wars, it’s not an adaptation. That would be like saying the Eye of the World or The Sword of Shannara is an adaptation of LoTR. Inspired, yes, maybe even heavily, but it’s not an adaptation. And to show that it can be an adaptation that changes character and setting, The Magnificent Seven is obviously an adaptation of Seven Samurai, even though the names and setting have changed. Battle Beyond the Stars is certainly derivative of them both, but is it an adaptation? Probably. And the last thing I’ll put out there is that unless a creator says they’re intentionally trying to retell / redo a story by Shakespeare, I’ll assume it isn’t intended as an adaptation. Shakespeare is so pervasive in western civilization, the stories so relatable and timeless that it is way too easy to replicate plot elements, or key themes without expressly intending to do so. So prevalent in fact that it’s a key argument in the fact that Shakespeare himself was mainly adapting older works lost to time for his audience.