Exactly. Rand having an intimate and consensual physical relationship - one that is accepted and agreed to by all parties - with more than one of the "three beautiful women" that Min told him about means that he is engaging in Polyamory regardless of whether or not said "three beautiful women" have intimate physical relationships with anyone other than him either within the confines of the overall relationship dynamic they share with him or outside of it.

And I think you're ignoring the show's clear demonstration that she does have some redeemable qualities. We're clearly at loggerheads here and just going around in circles, so it's probably best to just amicably agree to disagree and move on. 🙂

Yes, because doing so wouldn't make practical narrative sense given the choices made thus far. It's possible to make a one-dimensional villain compelling, but you have to be upfront about them being one-dimensional, which has not been the case here despite you and the people you've discussed the show with feeling otherwise.

Only if you're determined to view Show!Liandrin as being one-dimensionally evil.

The scene as presented is devoid of anything that counters the overt intimacy of the face touch itself with any overt or subtle communication of malice or intimidation.

The scene as presented makes it clear that she only uses the One Power because of Elayne's presence. She also apologizes before casting the weave. If, as you claim, it was always her plan to abduct Nynaeve and Egwene by using the One Power to knock them out, all we, as an audience, would have seen initially was a wave of wind that knocked them back, followed by Liandrin just appearing. And you seem to be determined to view Show!Liandrin in the same light.

Or you could stop and be a much happier person (and allow people who actually like the show to enjoy it).

The sequence as presented contradicts this assertion. You're determined that Liandrin be this one-dimensional villain whose every action is suspect despite the show repeatedly demonstrating otherwise, and it's strange to me. Show!Liandrin isn't and shouldn't be a black-and-white baddie and can have layers and nuance to her characterization without changing the awful things that she may or may not do.

Despite the urge from some people to view her as such, Show!Liandrin is not a black-and-white baddie (nor should she be), and there's clearly affection for certain people in her behavior and demeanor, whatever else she might say or do. Her being the Aes Sedai who beat Moiraine to get her past her channeling block actually starts to make more and more logical sense the more I think about it, so now that's the theory I'm running with until/unless the show does or says something different. As far as the face touch goes in light of the Instructor theory, I still see affection in it where others apparently see a creep factor, but to each their own, I guess.

Beating Moiraine with the One Power and calling it helping is definitely something that fits Show!Liandrin's more nuanced, less black-and-white characterization, but the idea hadn't occurred to me until now because the implication had, as noted, been that she and Moiraine had been Novices at the same time.

Not to be pedantic, but it's the 'Two Rivers 5' in the show, and the fact that Rafe and his team have unequivocally made Moiraine the Lead of the series means that they were never going to be the direct focal point of the story in this particular Turning.

This comment just made me think of something: the story that Moiraine tells Rand in Episode 1x08 about an Aes Sedai beating her with the One Power in order to get her to channel could possibly have been about Liandrin. It doesn't explain the intimacy that many fans saw in her touching Moiraine's face, but it's still a fascinating notion.

Per Rosamund Pike, Show!Moiraine is in her 70s, which, by proxy, also puts Show!Alanna and Show!Siuan in their 70s because Season 1 dialogue and onscreen interaction established the three characters - Moiraine, Siuan, and Alanna - as having been Novices at the same time. The presumption among many (but apparently not all) within the fandom had been that Show!Liandrin had also been a Novice at the same time as Moiraine and that the two of them had had some kind of intimate relationship in the past, but Season 2 has disproven the first part of that presumption.

You might not be able to consciously respond in such a situation, but I'm willing to bet that, to an outside observer, your body language would betray your thoughts. I hadn't ever even considered @Scarloc99's interpretation because there's nothing in the scene between Moiraine and Liandrin as presented onscreen that even remotely hints at discomfort on Moiraine's end.

@Scarloc99 Agree to disagree. 🙂

Liandrin doesn't say anything about how old her son is; she's talking about how long it's been since she brought him to the city and is speaking, as one often does, in generalized terms (80-90 years).

@Scarloc99 I really don't get how you get intimidation out of that face touch when Moiraine doesn't in any way react negatively to it.

@Scarloc99 In the conversation with Moiraine where she brings up Jenny, Alanna says "when we were Novices" (emphasis mine). Re: Moiraine and Liandrin, what was your interpretation of the face touch? Because it's not normal behavior for a person to caress another person's face like that, especially without objection, if there's not a previously existing intimacy between them.

There's been nothing in the show that links Ishy to Liandrin directly other than the meeting between Ishy and Min, so I'd say, no, it might not be as glaringly obvious just yet that Liandrin's bad as some people might think.

I'm not disputing that she's a baddie in the show; my point is that I'm not sure it's obvious to non-readers/unspoiled viewers that she's a baddie based just on her actions in this episode.

I briefly mentioned earlier somewhere that some people seem to be letting their book knowledge color the show's use of Liandrin, and I think Episode 4 only reinforced that opinion for me. We can't know what her original plan would've been if Elayne hadn't followed Nynaeve and Egwene, but it's pretty clear that she only used the One Power to knock them unconscious as a desperate measure, so that in and of itself isn't really the huge indicator of her being a baddie that I think some people think it is, at least for me. I knew because of general spoilers that Liandrin was bad news bears, but that knowledge hasn't stopped me from being fascinated by her characterization, but I suspect that others who are truly unspoiled also find her fascinating and will continue to do so even after this episode and the next one (which I already know is going to hurt me emotionally even though I'm not generally a very emotional person).

I already knew from just general spoilers that Moiraine and Siuan were contemporaries, but the show also made that clear given their romantic relationship and their collaboration on the hunt for the Dragon Reborn. For Show!Alanna, we know that she was a contemporary of Moiraine's (and therefore Siuan's) because of her asking Moiraine about Jenny the Irish Wolfhound, and then again because of the comment she made to Lan in this most recent episode about Moiraine suddenly changing 20 years earlier. I had been basing my assumption about Show!Liandrin being Show!Moiraine's contemporary off of the aforementioned intimate face touch from Season 1 and my general knowledge about the concept of "Pillowfriends", but this most recent episode put the kibosh on that 'contemporaries' theory and so now I'm desperately wanting to know why said moment happened without Moiraine objecting.

No, Lanfear didn't die, because Moiraine literally says that she can't kill her.

Multiple WoTTubers - including the staff of this site - and podcasters who are intimately familiar with the novels are citing amd have cited in the past numerous book-specific examples of how Rafe and his team are remixing the story, taking things that exist in the novels - from The Eye of the World all the way to A Memory of Light - and either repurposing or recreating them onscreen. If there were even a shred of truth to the notion that the TV adaptation is not telling the story of the novels, references to the novels themselves in public online discourse and discussion about the television series from hardcore book fans would be isolated rather than prevalent and pervasive. As far as my own personal dislike of the novels goes, I dislike the ones that I've read because I did not connect with the writing style and hated the ponderous and repetitive nature of Robert Jordan's storytelling.

Hmm. I don't know if I can personally picture either Show!Moiraine or Show!Liandrin engaging in an imbalanced romantic affair, but without them being contemporaries, there aren't a lot of options left when it comes to justifying the level of intimacy that Liandrin caressing Moiraine's cheek in Season 1 implies.