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

The thought that occurred to me last night - S3 opens with Domon docking in Camelyn and our heroes offloading, picking up Elaida and the boys, and then most of them heading back to the tower on the way to the Waste. There would also be a huge opportunity - move the Finn Gate from Tear to Camelyn, and have Elaida's foretelling come from the Finn instead of an inate talent. Have the Camelyn library supply the Portal Stone knowledge to Rand, and off to Rhuidean they go. The Tanchico thing is interesting; Nyn and Elayne are going to spend very little - if any - time back at the White Tower.

There's a big difference between random foreshadowing, and specific projections of future events, especially of Min's visions. The only show I've ever seen put shot footage in the can for years is Babylon 5, and it didn't do much of it. Given cast turnover risk, I think they'll continue to be careful with specifics, even if general foreshadowing is there

I think there's a big difference between laying out the arcs and overall structure, and having the individual scenes identified. So I expect what we'll continue to get is visions that payoff in the season itself, but few if any specifics that go across seasons that aren't really freaking obvious. So we may get the Finn's speech to Mat about Tuon and his eye, and Min's panicked ones at the Tower or Cairhien, but few others.

I think this is a good summary of how I interpreted Brandon's comments on the series, if you expand it to include their debate around Moiraine and the Oaths. I think WoT S2 was decent television (I haven't / won't watch RoP so can't compare, but it was better than GoT8), I think Season 2 is light years ahead of Season 1, and that the writing team did get better at internal consistency. They're still not good at it, but they did get better. Hopefully with 3 relatively straight forward plots next season, they are able to take the time to set things up and pay them off more effectively. Also, from a certain point of view, if they show that Egwene is doing everything on her own, her outcome could be considered a payoff to that. But the thing with Theme that I think Brandon is missing is it's the most subtle part of an artistic work to develop, and as an author, he has months (most authors have years) to ensure the theme is consistently developed across the length of the story. But script writers don't. I honestly can't think of any TV (aside from maybe Breaking Bad and the Sopranos (as you sow, so shall you reap), and Sons of Anarchy (cough, Hamlet, cough) where complex overarching themes were successfully applied So of the two, from an enjoyment perspective, I think it much more important that they fix the internal consistency issue first, and worry about the overarching theme later, since Rand still has the entire stone versus steel arc to go through.

Ah, this is where the difference lies, then. I expect almost all of season 8 to be used for book 14, with maybe only Genji and Veins of Gold pulled in from book 13. In envision Season 7 ends with cliffhangers - Mat going in and Lan charging the Gap, and season 8 opening with Veins. I also don't think we get the Cairhien Docks and Dumai's Wells in the same season. They're too big emotional moments to have them too close together. So I expect the first ends season 4, and the second season 5. So with that, seasons I think seasons 6 and 7 need to cover most of books 7 through 13 - everything after Dumai's Wells up through Egwene as Amyrlin and Perrin forging the hammer. Not saying it can't be done (eradicate the Shaido at Cairhien, for example, eliminates the kidnapping entirely), but it's going to be very hard

I get what you're saying, but it's all the fat that has to be cut off the bone, with only 5-6 storylines being left, before they add back some new things to try and bridge the lore that makes me thing the cuts are going to be very deep. So yep, it's the 6 main plotlines represented by the EF5 + Elayne, and cut off almost all the side branches and tertiary characters. Your Helm's Deep comparison is also apt, because we need to find run time for the major battle set pieces involving Perrin in the Two Rivers, Mat and Couladin at Cairhien, Dumai's Wells, The War at the Tower, Tarmon Gaidon, and maybe one of Rand's battle with the Seanchan (in Arad Doman?), Perrin with the Shaido, or the Compulsed Borderlander fights , dpeending on how big the fight at the cleansing is. Each of those would be half to most of an episode each (only minor inserts for dramatic tension) and big chunks of the seasons budgets. And I expect TG to be the last 3 episodes of the show (Tuon leaving, Egwene leaving, the Pipe). So there's almost a season worth of combat across the remaining 6 years. Because it's Helms Deep or Battle of the Bastards they'll be compared to. I'm along for the ride, don't get be wrong, but I'm torn - I don't know if it's better than them to cut more entire plotlines, and leave time for the rest to breathe, or for them to try and keep as much as they can, but create a rushed, unearned feeling in their emotional payoffs. I'll use Elaida as an example - how much screen time do you think we'll get from her as Amyrlin? 20 min? 30 min? over 4 seasons? She can do a lot, but earning her outcome is going to be very difficult. So is it just better to show her sit down as Amyrlin and not again until Egwene is captured, or should they show what's happening inside so we know Egwene is justified? Decisions decisions...

All of what you say is true, and were arguments discussed before the series started. But now, we have 2 seasons of actual evidence of Rafe's approach to adaptation and the depth of cuts. And its comparable to the usual measuring stick of fantasy adaptation (with similar artists' writing style, even) The showrunners have already cut almost 1/3 of the covered plot content in the first two seasons, while adding maybe an hour of content not in the 14 main books per season. So maybe it's not 6 whole books worth of content, maybe it's only 3 or 4 more. But more major cuts HAVE to be made. And the slog by itself isn't enough

Not sure which way you mean this - creators need to get over forcing character arcs where none existed in source material, or I need to get over wishing they wouldn't do it?

This would have been a copyright strike without doubt, especially with it being such new content. so this is what they could do

Greene started out as purely a WoT Creator and book tuber, but has expanded to many other things, and has self-published a book. I think the reality is if you posted a lot of content about the books, there's not much left to do besides review the episodes. And the more you loved the novels, the harder it will be - as the Dusty Wheel guy said - to Unlearn what you have learned.