The books are not the show. What, in the show, makes Egwene fighting through excrutiating pain to collar and torture Renna impossible?

Why should it have been impossible? And from whose perspective are you making that judgment?

I can't go back and check for 100% confirmation right now, but my remembrance of the scene where Egwene collars Renna is that Madeline Madden's movements and facial expressions were meant to be an indicator that the act of picking up the collar, sticking it on Renna, and then hanging her up by the collar was causing Egwene pain but that her anger was driving her forward anyway.

@Mailman is actually right here. Renna was still Egwene's Sul'Dahm after Egwene collared her, but she also simultaneously became Egwene's Damane.

'Temporary Peril' is not the same thing as 'faking' death. Viewers were not meant to think that Loial and Nynaeve were dead at any point during/after the S1 finale, although the 'law of unintended consequences' ended up applying when that's exactly how people interpreted those two scenarios.

The narrative shortcut of 'temporary peril' is not in and of itself, 'lazy writing', but if it does start to be overused, it becomes a symptom of what could be construed/seen as 'lazy writing'. I do want to clearly specify that WoT is not the first (or last) series to rely a little bit too heavily on 'temporary peril', but it's more common in Episodic/Procedural TV, and the pitfalls of it becoming a crutch can be more easily exposed in Serialized TV, as is becoming the case here.

After this episode, I'm going to agree that the show is starting to rely a little too much on 'temporary peril' (characters being put in mortal danger that gets quickly resolved) as a writing crutch.

@Kaleb The show explicitly cut the 'Wolf Dream' aspect of Perrin's Two Rivers story (per Marcus Rutherford himself), so the Hopper in Perrin's dream wasn't the real Hopper.

Opinions about the decision to do so notwithstanding, the show established that the main signifier of an Aes Sedai Sister being a Darkfriend/Black Ajah is being able to break the Three Oaths, which is something that Liandrin - having come to the White Tower already Sworn to the Shadow - would've been able - and likely incentivized - to do almost immediately upon being 'raised to the Shawl'. So even if Liandrin swearing the Three Oaths of the Aes Sedai did override her Dark Oaths, she would've been almost immediately incentivized - likely by Ishy himself in her dreams or by anyone in the Tower who was likewise Sworn to the Shadow already - to break or otherwise find a way to subvert the former, thus rendering her unbound by them.

Because she was already a sworn Darkfriend when she came to the Tower.

I was listening to some podcasts yesterday and realized something that is kind of significant but that nobody has really yet commented on: Liandrin was never actually bound by the Three Oaths of the Aes Sedai despite swearing them.

Rafe made this statement at the end of Season 1. You can criticize the show for not being consistent in its depiction of the deadly nature of the Shadar Logoth dagger, but claiming that Loial died in the Season 1 finale isn't a valid critique of anything because it's a blatant and demonstrably false statement.

Nobody died at the end of Season 1. When are people going to give up that debunked 'criticism'? Thoughts on Episode 7: * I spent most of the episode trying to figure out what the Eucatastrophe was going to be, and was disappointed that it turned out to be Perrin talking Fain into calling a 'truce'. * Dain apparently temporarily switching sides really needed an explanation * I was,100% convinced after Season 1 Episode 5 that Aram was,dead, and was just a tiny bit disappointed that he turned back up in this episode just because it kind of retroactively lowered the stakes of Episode 1x05; I was glad to see Ila again, though * Given that this episode only resolved one of the four storylines that got the lion's share of the focus this season, I'm a bit worried that we won't get a resolution to the plot point of Perrin turning himself in, which is disappointing because the stakes aren't high enough to have that be a 'cliffhanger' * I think we can pretty safely say at this point that a certain thing that happens with Alanna in the books isn't going to happen in the show, which is good * Valda dying by fire was an incredibly appropriate outcome given that the very first time we saw him, he was burning a woman to death * This is more of a comment about the season as a whole, but I still haven't found an episode that I would be willing to describe as an absolute favorite, which makes me think that the show is going to end up going 3 for 3 in terms of the Season Finales being my favorites

I'll put even money down (figuratively) that Rosamund's involvement in this show as an actor comes to an end next week.

The term Polyamory is defined, specifically, as "the practice of, or the desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved." Therefore, if Rafe is going to be true to his word that the show is turning what was a Harem situation in the novels into true Polyamory and a true Polycule, all four participants involved must have mutual romantic interest in each other, which is why I firmly believe that, when whatever negotiational impasse between Amazon and Sony Pictures Television that is currently holding up a renewal gets resolved and we get future seasons, we will see romantic and sexual connections forged between Rand and Min, Rand and Avi, Rand and Elayne, Elayne and Min, Min and Avi, and Min and Elayne in some permutation of pairings (I didn't bother to mention the establishment of a romantic and sexual connection between Avi because we've already seen it happen).