The viewing numbers were there, but ultimately not in high enough numbers to counter the cost (and I'm not entirely sure that they could have been high enough to counter the cost in today's TV and Streaming climate, unfortunately).

Amazon didn't buy anything. IWoT continues to own the media rights to WoT. Sony Pictures Television simply licensed the television rights and then approached Amazon with their pitch for the show.

Rafe explicitly said that the Polycule would've definitely happened.

As a person who hated the books, Rafe's approach to adapting the material was not only valid, but needed. Which is his prerogative as the person adapting the story. The realm of 'book-to-screen adaptation' is the only place I've ever seen where people get vociferously angry about adaptors choosing to tell a story they love in a new and different (either slightly or significantly) way, and it's both irrational and ridiculous.

I was a Show-Only fan because i loved the show but hated the books.

The cancellation bums me out, but what I'm truly mourning is the loss of the community that I became a part of as a result of its existence because, as a Show-Only fan, I've got no real incentive to stay engaged with the fandom.

That might sound like a lot, but I suspect that they'd offer to put up a lot more if that's what it took to get SPT onboard for more of the show. I can't think of (m)any other instances where a distributor wants more of a show that a production studio isn't as invested in as they were at the start.

These negotiations aren't about cost, though. Amazon wants the show to continue, but SPT, as the TV rights holder and primary production studio, has to be willing to make the show a priority, and it doesn't seem as if they are right now. I think they can get there, but it might take a commitment from Amazon to help fast-track production on the God of War and/or Horizon shows that SPT wants to make in order to make it happen.

Lanfear clearly comes to Rand in all 3 of the instances we see where they interact in Season 3, first at the Crescent Inn in Cairihen, then again above The Two Rivers, and finally at the site of the Bore, and each time she makes a comment about the locations themselves. If she'd drawn him into TAR, their surroundings would have been whatever she wanted them to be.

During their breakup fight, Egwene yells at Rand for sleeping (having sex) with a Forsaken (present tense).

Because TAR is established to be wholly separate from an individual person's organic dreams. We're shown that Lanfear is a master of TAR, and while we were also shown that she can disguise herself as someone else after entering an individual's organic dreams, there's no evidence that she can actually control and/or manipulate what is happening in said dreams once she's entered them, and, in fact, both Bair and Melaine tell Egwene that while she's in her own dreams, she can take the upper hand against Lanfear, which is a fairly conclusive argument against the idea that Lanfear can control/manipulate an individual's organic dreams.

No, she pulled them out of their dreams and into TAR.

The only time we ever explicitly saw Ishy enter a person's individual organic dream(s) was when he introduced himself to young Liandrin. There was a heavy suggestion from Season 1 that he could send people dreams, but that's different than entering somebody's dreams and altering them to his own purpose, which is not something that was ever talked about or even hinted at.hgt Also, we know that Lanfear is a master of TAR, but that doesn't automatically or necessarily equate to her being able to enter and control organic dreams.

@Elder_Haman We have no evidence that Lanfear can manipulate or control an individual person's organic dreams. And it should be stressed that every time we saw her and Rand interact this season, it was inside of his organic dreams.

It isn't 'his' show. For better or worse, Rand is the Deuteragonist of this show, but is still no less important than he is in the books because the story is ultimately about him.

That's not what we were shown. The show makes it clear that, as noted, Rand is fully aware that he's dreaming of and interacting with the real Lanfear. If she were entering his dreams uninvited, such would not be the case.

Since he's fully aware within his own dreams that he's interacting with the real Lanfear, he has the option of rejecting her advances and doesn't.

Except in every single dream of Rand's that we see in Season 3, he's fully aware that he's interacting with the real Lanfear.

In our real world, I can see your point, but in a world like WoT where dreams aren't just dreams, allowing somebody who isn't your partner to seduce you is absolutely cheating because it's as real as seeking out an illicit relationship with someone who isn't your partner whilst you're fully awake.

In the interim between Seasons 2 and 3, Rand and Egwene had explicitly resumed their previous relationship, although it was on shaky ground due to Egwene's PTSD (which, come to find out, was being explicitly exacerbated by Lanfear). Simultaneous to all this, and without having formally ended his relationship with Egwene (their argument prior to her leaving their shared tent to move into a tent with Bair and Melaene wasnt an official breakup), Rand allowed Lanfear to re-seduce him in his own dreams (granted, it only happened right before Egwene caught them, but the point is that he still allowed it to happen).

Please elaborate.

With which points?

Three truths need to be stressed here: 1. Yes, Rand was cheating on Egwene with Lanfear in Season 3. 2. Yes, his doing so can be morally judged. 3. No, it doesn't automatically make him a 'lesser' character.

I understand; I just don't think making Elaida a Darkfriend automatically or necessarily does that.

Almost no-one who does things that are judged to be evil views those things in that light, because, as Sheev Palpatine said to Anakin, "good is a point of view", and that truism would exist even in a world where Absolute Good and Absolute Evil exist in equal measure (at least in my opinion).