I'm kind of looking forward to see Arnas Fedaravicius (*cough*, that's a mouthful to even *type* for an American from South Carolina, lol) as the Prophet. Those two different-colored eyes could add an interesting visual take to the performance, as the character gets more and more unpredictable.

... and, as a final thought on this topic: well, the production team had multiple huge delays from COVID, as well as coordination across continents ... and, the dice were rolling in their head. So ... they chose. 

And, that's true to the way those chapters usually ended ? 

On 12/12/2021 at 3:51 PM, Delrik said:

Considering Mat has a history of running from his fate and being sucked back in by the Pattern, I think this will work in the big picture

12 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

if that speculation is correct, it means we won't see mat again for the rest of season 1.

not an ideal outcome, but we can live with it. after all, mat disappeared for an entire book after having a wall fall over him...

I like both of these points, taken together. It's true - RJ had a maddening way of leaving key characters (even Rand!) off-stage for huge parts of entire books; so, this tracks. And, Mat does tend to fight his destiny - so, good calls, both.

Thank you, Adam, for a very even-handed and comprehensive summary of the way things went down (and/or might have gone down behind the scenes). This is the definitive piece I'll come back to in the future when I rewatch the series and scratch the back of my brain about what happened. COVID is quite a wild card. 

I echo NightFlight above on how I *feel* about the transition - there's a certain humor / goofiness about Dónal Finn's face, that I hope will bring the 'twinkle in the eye' back to the character going forward. In Harris' defense, he *did* have to play the 'dark' Mat under the deathly sway of the dagger, and he did that well enough; the scene with the Fade was creepy-good. But, I have high hopes moving forward as the character grows into his skin as, not just a fun-loving gambler. but a high-stakes, brilliant tactician and General.