@Mirefox Things that the degendering of souls does: 1) Allows for the deepening of characterization (i.e. Logain being driven mad by both male and female voices, Egwene being able to literally imagine herself as Jain Farstrider, Mat's 'tea-induced hallucinations' of his mother being literal manifestations of his own past) 2) Both deepens and simultaneously simplifies the metaphysics of the societal belief in Reincarnation 3) Complicates the modern White Tower's stated mission of "controlling and caging the Dragon Reborn" (although Siuan does say that things would be easier if Rand were a girl, I think we've subsequently learned enough to write that off as her being snarky)

This is untrue because there was never any intention on Rafe's part to actually change the identity of the Dragon Reborn.

I have brought this up in the past almost to the point of "flogging a dead horse", but Rafe Judkins explicitly stated that, for the purposes of the TV show, souls were degendered, turning the potentiality of the Dragon Reborn being either male or female from an erroneous in-universe belief caused by "legend fading to myth" into an actual possible reality.

I'll concede that agreeing to only follow the rules conditionally comes close to being outright defiant, but Siuan acceding to Egwene's condition wasn't the only option available to her for resolving the situation, which is why I don't see what Egwene did as actually raising to the level of defiance.

No.

I wanted to mention something here that I just talked about in a comment on LezbiNerdy's most recent video breaking down this episode: Although they both go unnamed onscreen, the WoT Show Fandom Wiki found at wheeloftime.fandom.com (not to be confused with the WoT Book Fandom Wiki found at wot.fandom.com) identifies the last two 'Randcestors' that we see as Rhodric (the one to whom Latra entrusts the Sakarnen and the one who swears the oath that the Aiel will always follow the Way of the Leaf) and Charn (the one who talks with the woman who will become Lanfear), which means that whlist the events that Rand experiences are from the books, the identities of some of the individuals who originally lived those events have been altered for the show.

Your speculation is really only going to work if the show doesn't make Moiraine's book fate permanent, which now seems more of a possibility to me than it had previously.

Confusion aside, I really did like the presentation of what they showed us, both with Rand and Moiraine's parallel yet different experiences. I'm still not entirely sure how what we learned about the Aiel and the Tuathaon either justifies or explains the current attitudes of the former towards the latter or why Rhuarc calls the latter "the Lost Ones", though. I didn't really talk about this anywhere, but after Episode 3, I started to think that the orb that we saw Moiraine channeling through in the Trailers - which LezbiNerdy had been calling the "Choden Ball" - might end up being the Sakarnen, so having this episode confirm that private theory was nice. Even though both Moiraine and Rand were told not to speak about what they experienced, spoken words from the Trailers indicates that the former isn't going to heed that admonition, and it'll be interesting to see what the fallout is. I also can't wait to find out the actual context of the abovementioned scenes of Moiraine using the Sakarnen.

No, it didn't, because what Egwene did had nothing to do with Siuan's authority as the Amrylin.

Egwyne found the loophole in the rule that Siuan was trying to enforce, which shows how smart and savvy she is. There's also not a whole lot, realistically, that Siuan could've done at that point to counter Egwyne's exploitation of said loophole.

Which is something that the show should have clarified and didn't... hence the confusion. The explanations that you and others have provided have helped lessen that confusion a bit, so thank you.

There shouldn't be a difference based on the broad way the Metaphysics of Reincarnation were explained.

Thanks for the explanations, everybody. What really confused me, if I get right down to it, was the furthest-back thing with the woman who would become Lanfear because at that point, Rand's visions should be of Lews Therin, not an Aiel (unless my understanding of the Metaphysics of Reincarnation is completely wrong, in which case the story has failed the coherency test).

Jon from WoT Up was given indications that any holdups in a Season 4 renewal are on Sony Pictures Television's end, not Amazon's.

Can somebody explain 3/4 of Rand's story this episode, please? Because I have absolutely no idea what was going on.

Especially, as was previously noted, said wedding happened inside a private residence that is still likely owned, in some part, by one of those who came in and murdered all of the wedding attendees.

Nothing about what I said was an attack on you. In narrative fiction, there exists the concept of "Word of God, which carries as much weight as - or sometimes more weight than - what is conveyed on either the page or the screen. A good example of " Word of God" story detail from another IP is the last name of the Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and ANGEL. She was never referred to by anything other than her first name onscreen, and yet if you check any official or unofficial information sources about those shows and their interrelated media, you will see her last name listed as Lehane because that is the name that Joss Whedon provided when asked to contribute information for an RPG reference book. Examples of "Word of God" information for the Wheel of Time TV series include the already-repeatedly-mentioned status of the FFH as an actual physical location, the degendered nature of Reincarnation as it pertains to the TV adaptation, the clarification that Moiraine did in fact sleep with a dog named Jenny - an Irish Wolfhound - during her Novice years (there had been speculation that Alanna was speaking metaphorically or 'in code' about Moiraine's relationship with Siuan), and the specific identification - via Instagram - of Elaida as the Aes Sedai who beat Moiraine with the One Power (which, as I noted, has debunked my personal headcanon and thusly completely upended the way that I have viewed both Liandrin and Moiraine's characterizations through the first two seasons).

A compulsive need to pick apart any one element of a story is, to me, an indicator that some distance needs to be put between the person who is feeling said need and the story itself, as exemplified by a response that Robert Jordan gave to Dragonmount's current CEO years ago at a book signing and that I've loosely paraphrased or otherwise referred to previously, One could very easily go down a rabbit hole picking apart the FFH and the Ter'angreal that are used to travel to/access it, but such obsessive analysis is, IMO, both extraneous to the actual story of the Wheel of Time TV adaptation and not conducive to responding to and interacting with it as a piece of media. Arguing against or refusing to accept the established nature of the FFH itself - which is what prompted me to go off on this tangent in the first place - is also not conducive, IMO, to responding to and interacting with the WoT TV adaptation as a piece of media. Moving on to other things that are both related and unrelated to the point I just made, I just learned within the past day that one of my own personal fan theories about the TV adaptation - Liandrin Guirale being the Aes Sedai to whom Moiraine refers when she's in the Blight with Rand in The Eye of the World - was debunked by Rafe himself, and it's forcing me to completely reorient my thinking about the show and the storylines that it is currently exploring in Season 3 and is,something that I have to struggle to not obsess over lest it completely derail my ability to enjoy the season and the story it is telling.

Aside from one instance of Channeling with it, Leanne actually spent most of that fight using the staff as a melee weapon and beating people to death with it.

Thanks for the clarification. I actually like the idea of a Forsaken dressing in a way that doesn't conform to their biological gender, although I do believe that the statue that likely depicts Asmodean was carved with masculine clothing (which doesn't necessarily mean anything but still bears noting, I think).

The Balthamel/Aran'gar thing is unnecessary because the show already changed the Metaphysics o so that the concept of a male soul being reborn in a female body is 'baked in' to how Reincarnation works.

The "FFH" is not Siuan's childhood hut. It's a new structure that was constructed at some point in the 20 years that followed Gitara's vision of the Dragon Reborn's rebirth. I won't dispute that the questions that can be asked about the "Love Shack" Ter'angreal have legitimacy, but my contention is that said questions are extraneous to the story itself. Also, my point wasn't even about the Ter'angreal themselves; it was about my annoyance at the refusal by some people to accept settled questions about Siuan and Moiraine's clandestine Nocturnal meeting and the location thereof as actually being settled.

Why would I need a source? It's a logical conclusion based on the fact that the only time we see her use it, she is in her room in the Tower, and she left it where it was - on the wall - whilst she used it. That is actually not an issue for anyone other than you.

Simple answer: her half of the Ter'angreal is in her room in the Tower, and she is not.

In the interim between Seasons 1 and 2, Dragonmount conducted a Q&A with Rafe on Twitter and asked a question that was specifically about the "Love Shack" Ter'angreal that Moiraine and Siuan use in The Flame of Tar Valon and the physical location to which said Ter'angreal led, prompting the following response: He didn't hesitate to answer the question or try to correct the presumption that the "FFH" was an actual physical place, a presumption predicated on Prime Video Bonus Material that explicitly identified the "Love Shack" Ter'angreal as being Ter'angreal and the location of the "FFH" itself as a fishing hut in the Fingers of the Dragon River Delta in Tear, thereby confirming that the "FFH" was in fact an actual location. The flashback Cold Open from Daes Daemar (Episode 2x07) later retroactively explained the existence of the "FFH" by revealing that Siuan and Moiraine both wanted to retire to a fishing hut after completing their Aes Sedai duties, and also provided, through its content, the context of and meaning for the "FFH" acronym itself (Fishwives F*ck Hut).