You covered a lot of great points, yet, there are still so many bad decisions to point out. Overall, the writing of the show is just awful. No set-up, no explanation, no real character building, no world building, etc.
Why?
Rafe is just bad at this. It fails at everything that made GoT so good and successful (until it ran out of novel content).
By the way, what's the story on Fain? Why and how did he do all of this? Also, has the show ever explained what ta'veren means and why it is so important? Saying something is important isn't the same as explaining and proving it is.
And yes, WoT Novices would not know this, I am aware. My point is, the show writers don’t understand the meaning of stuff from the books. They’re not remotely attempting to tell a variant of the same story, just strip-mining it for names and ideas to bolt patchwork fashion onto the hideous visage of their own fantasy creation.
This is exactly right. This isn't an adaptation of the books for TV. Rather, this is Rafe's big chance to show how creative he is by writing a totally different story with some of the same names and concepts. The problem is that he hasn't written a good story.
Nearly everything they chose to do in this episode sucked.
-The defense of Tarwin's Gap was ludicrous. Get your channelers on the wall and hold that narrow space at all costs. Make a series of ditches. Have a ton of men on top of the wall. I could go on and on about this.
-Rand's confrontation with Ishy fell totally flat.
-Perrin may as well have not been in this episode.
-Why is this the first time we have heard of the Horn of Valere? Apparently it is going to factor heavily into season 2 since it seems to be Fain's main goal at Fal Dara. However, nobody will care about the theft of the horn that you only now mentioned for the first time. Good thing we spent so much time with Logain and Stepin when we could easily have used a bit more of Tom to set up some important world building like the Horn of Valere. Also, the horn is just under Agelmar's throne... ugh.
-Why is Uno a blond midget? This is the worst casting decision of all.
-Why would Moraine not take Lan to the Eye? It is a supposedly dangerous journey through the blight and in her view everything hinges on getting there safely. Her warder should be indispensable here and his personal safety would be a tertiary consideration for her when she believes the fate of the worlds rests on Rand getting to the Eye and succeeding. Instead Lan needs to get Nynaeve's advice about how to track Moraine and Rand through the blight and then does nothing at all.
-The whole circle led by Amalissa with burnouts and Egwene sad-healing (resurrecting?) Nynaeve was such a weird choice. If Rafe is going to have someone steal Rand's thunder at Tarwin's gap, at least have the wonder girls take some initiative or something.
-Why would the Seanchen show up to an empty beach with no city/town and with a steep mountain range abutting the beach and make a weird tidal wave? It won't wash inland because of the mountains. It won't overrun any defenses because there aren't any. What is the point? Maybe they think that little girl must be killed at all costs? It is just stupid writing. And why give the Seanchen a barbarian vibe rather than the uber-civilized empire whose superior organization makes them an enormous threat to the entirety of Randland?
