At this point, I don't expect the show to go much beyond season 3. But if it does, I also don't think we can reasonably expect the plot to even hit major points from the book in a recognizable way. At best, we'll get individual scenes that look like certain scenes from the book, but there is essentially no chance that the way these scenes are connected and fit together will resemble the book. That is already what happened in season 2 more often than not, and it will only continue to compound. Worrying about how Galad will make peace with Perrin is completely irrelevant.

I thought that was obvious. Siuan is gay and fabulous. She can't have a boyfriend.

That was lots of marketing and intrigue, like I said. The dragon wasn’t ever going to be anyone else. As far as competence, I’d say they are far more competent than you are giving them credit since they clearly understood that Rand needs to be the dragon. If you think they were ever seriously considering making anyone else the dragon, you are the one questioning their competence.

This is the fiction writing version of the alcoholic who can quit whenever he wants to. It was always going to be Rand and anyone who says differently is either creating intrigue or not really paying attention to the long term effects. With things like Jain Farstrider, I tend to just assume that nobody was paying attention to the details rather than ascribing meaning to throw away lines. Occam’s razor is that somebody assumed Jain is a girl’s name and didn’t check. Also, there is a Firefly tangent in here somewhere.

It's odd that fantasy often portrays battle magic as a toolbox when practically speaking it would probably mostly just be a gun equivalent. While some situations that require creative problem solving might arise occasionally, much of the time the magic wielder just needs to kill or incapacitate a number of roughly humanoid enemies. There should be a best way to do that and it should pretty much always be the best. Of course, that gets boring, but it's a bit weird to me that magic users are so often getting creative in battle. Is Moiraine good at throwing stones? Great. She should pretty much always default to that. Or is it lightning bolts or fireballs? Also fine. But there needs to be a justification for switching it up and most fantasy is weak on this front. Not really about the show in particular and I get why it happens. But just a sort of side-tangent.

Considering the attention to detail that we've seen so far, there's a good chance they just thought that was Galad's last name.

I'm wondering if it's actually just the original forsaken. It seems in this version of the story there are only 8 instead of 13. Last season, they played with the idea that the forsaken were a shadow version of the main characters in this age. This plays up the angle that it's all about the choices you make.

Have you met any 20 year olds? They act like children all the time. I agree that Mat's character is sort of weird early on since it's simultaneously implied that he has some experience carousing and also that he doesn't. And, as you say, how could he?

A one page summary would never include a list of things that didn't happen or shouldn't be included. By that logic, Rand killing his father in a fit of rage would also not be a huge departure from the book since Tam probably doesn't even make the 1 page summary. From a character development standpoint, Rand being innocent and Mat not being a scumbag are sort of important. And Perrin growing into his own sense of manhood is very important. None of the things mentioned sink the show on its own. They are just huge red flags that the creators don't get it. TV needs to use images and symbols to efficiently give us information about the characters and story. These symbols and images are contradicting what needs to be told about the characters early on to set them up for their book arcs.

I saw that too and was at first wondering if that is actually Avi, but Avi wouldn’t be caught dead in heeled boots.

I enjoy the prologues. To enjoy the WoT you have to be willing to go with the flow and not worry about getting back to any particular story line right away. If you only want to hear about the main characters and their plotlines, the prologues can feel like a drag.

Callandor the object is not important early. Callandor the plot device that changes Rand from passenger to driver is critical and its absence leaves Rand a passenger in his own story. In regards to Mat, I just intend to believe people when they tell me who they are. If I had faith that the creators understood Mat's arc and thought it was important, I could believe you that they might still do it justice.

I was thinking I might be curious about season 3 and then about halfway through I was reminded why the show is irredeemable. No Callandor. No Tairen doors for Matt. It's so far offtrack that any attempt to bring it back on track would just push it further off track.

I recently saw a joke about a DnD item that is a "truth serum." But instead of making someone tell the truth, it simply alters reality (retroactively and including memories as necessary) so that whatever is said is true. Along those lines, do Min's visions become locked because she sees them, or is she simply an observer of that which was already locked? Does she herself have enough free will to avoid seeing the visions that she was "supposed" to see? Would it matter? To what extent are some of here visions self fulfilling prophecies where those who know about them change their actions because of the visions and thus cause them to be fulfilled? (Alivia?)

I have assumed that the world maps onto parallel worlds (Tel and others). Although distance and time may be different in other worlds, they still scale consistently and thus map onto each other point to point. This seems to be a prerequisite for things like portal stones to work. As such, travelling requires that you know the area where you are as it relates to this metaphysical grid. Moving around a locket (or even an enclosed wagon) would thus not be helpful since that item moves around the grid and is not a useful landmark. Knowing I am inside my car doesn't really tell me something useful as to where I am. Knowing I am on top of the pyramid of Giza does. I don't think the books really give details about how this works, but I don't think a small mobile device helps you travel or make gateways. That said, I think gateways can be used to communicate over long distances. There are ways to use the one power to track others (like the bond or Moirraine's coins). If you can make a gateway from where you are and use such a device to know where someone else is, you can probably create a gateway to them and talk to them through it.