"RJ was so sparse on his descriptions...almost Hemingway-esque. I wish he'd gone to town on the amount of lace people wore."

Arguably, a place as large and as diverse as Randland should have multiple languages, not just accents. But RJ (along with everyone else who isn't Tolkien or also isn't Douglas Adams, who creatively got around this problem with the invention of the Babel fish) is not a linguist, and making everyone incomprehensible to everyone else just adds more complexity and problems to your novel. That said, in a perfect world, more consistency with accents would be pretty awesome but not easy in terms of casting. Lets make everyone from Cairhien sound like they're fae the East End ae Glasgow, everyone from Caemlyn sound like they're from London, everyone from Seanchean sound like they are from Alabama, everyone from the Two Rivers sound like they're from the West Country, everyone from Sheiner sound like they're from Mumbai, everyone from Ebou Dar sound Persian, and so on and so forth. And Aiel? WTF accent do you use for Aiel? Vague BBC British accents seem to be the default, with the odd accent that isn't. You could definitely have more fun with it but I get why the showrunners didn't.

I think that's one of the most true-to-life aspects of the series. Have you met the US Congress? Or the British Parliament, for that matter.

I think that's a fair summary, Samt. By the time we encounter the Aes Sedai, it appears that the main purpose of the White Tower is to consolidate/maintain the power of the White Tower. A few people in it, i.e. Moiraine and Siuan and Nynaeve, are working towards the greater good (the greaaater gooood) but most Aes Sedai are pretty Machiavellian about gaining power and influence for the sake of power and influence. Therefore, some of the 'missions' as you put it, of the Ajahs could be vestigial remains from the Age of Legends. That was a technologically advanced society, more akin to the 21st century, but knocked back to the 16th century (give or take) after the Breaking. The AoL Yellows could have been pursuing new knowledge in medicine, and the AoL Whites could have been using math and logic to advance science and technology. AoL Greens were probably not useless and doing more than having Warder orgies. Browns were probably like people who have PhDs in history or philosophy. Reading lots of books and forever wondering why they joined that Ajah because there are no jobs and no one gives a damn (yes, I have a PhD in history). Joking aside, by the time we meet these people in the Third Age, the Tower has stagnated, and they are doing none of these things. Just being catty and manipulative, maintaining a status quo that attempts to preserve the White Tower as the most geopolitically significant power in Randland, but not actually using the One Power or the vast knowledge contained in their library to advance society.

I always figured the Blue was mostly involved in politics/intelligence.....In our world, somewhere between the State Department and the CIA. The Grey tries to be a broker between nation-states and/or rulers in international disputes, whereas the Blue manipulates things behind the scenes, for instance, with advisors close to kings and queens and a significant network of 'assets.'

I thought it was fairly clear. Grey = international diplomacy. UN peace negotiators, though they rarely seem very good at it. White = math. Probably lots of pure math, but maybe applied math because people still build things so you need to know something about engineering.

Nevermind hiding knives! The One Power can apparently put the balls back on a horse! Reading Crown of Swords at the moment, and Tai'Daishar is described as a gelding. I am sure that in later books, RJ says he's a stallion. I guess if they can Heal stilling.......

I'm sure knife throwing is a thing in the real world. Probably takes some serious skill to get the knife to land point first, and even more to hit a moving target. However, running around with a few seven-inch blades wedged up your sleeves seems like a good way to stab yourself in the arm, or the foot if it falls out. Does hiding knives in your sleeves really make sense?

Trundling through my reread, and it occurred to me that characters shove knives up their sleeves about as often as we shove mobile phones into our pockets. The knives are arranged so they can be thrown at someone in a second. Then I started thinking about the mechanics of this, probably not something you should do too much of when reading WOT. Has anyone in the real world ever run around with knives in their sleeves? Do people do this? Is it plausible? How do you manage it without stabbing yourself? Or not being annoyed and impeded by having a bunch of heavy, metal things stuck to your arms? You're not sitting around watching TV, either. You have to ride, fight, run, etc. These aren't those mini Swiss Army knives that are little more than an inch long. They are plainly large enough to do serious damage. People carry many of them, and they stay put unless the wearer wants to throw them at someone. How? Special knife pockets? Do garment makers add these as a feature? You still have a bunch of heavy metal objects attached to your forearms. My sense of it is that RJ used knife-throwing in the way a writer of a thriller set in our era might utilize a firearm, but without thinking too much about the physics. If a character needs lethal force to defend themselves against a sudden attack, they can whip out a knife in the same manner a modern character would whip out a gun, and seemingly strike their foes with the degree of accuracy you would expect of James Bond. But what do I know. Not a lot about knife throwing.

Just chiming in to say that if the show cut out the whole plot line of Siuan's service to Bryne, I, for one, would not complain. That whole arc, going from some very demeaning servitude (and the spanking) to falling in love, was pretty squicky.