1:28 Is this going to become their “thing”, to have an AoL flashback at the beginning of every season finale?

1:32 Eight people in a circle, presumably Aes Sedai. No significance to this that I can see, but boy howdy do they love their overhead shots of circular patterns or images? Because the show is called “Wheel of Time,” doncha know? Which we wouldn’t, because apart from the departure from the actual Wheel of Time story, there is no sense of the Wheel of Time in this one. No references or allusions to the theme, no stories that could be other stories in a different turning, no servicing the point that knowledge and information change as they pass through hands, because everyone has a different perspective. Hell, this show does not even recognize any perspectives other than “the writers’ opinion” and “wrong.”

2:59 What, exactly are the Forsaken? Are they some sort of demon or god? They are being banished or sealed away with the use a magic circle, so that’s what I am leaning towards.

Does anyone remember last season, when Ishamael told Rand that Lews Therin had 99 companions and failed to beat him? It looks here like he’s beating him with only 7. Kicking the can down the road 3000 years might technically be considered a failure, but on the other hand, if the Philistine Goliath popped up to start appearing in the Pope’s dreams, would we consider David a failure?

Also, not to harp on an apparently irrelevant series of books, but Lews Therin died more 3,750 years before Rand was born.

Finally, with all the “giving depth” and “humanizing” of Ishamael this season, plus the absolute failure of any world-building establishing what the conflict was, Lews Therin comes across as kind of a dick here.

3:29 I am watching the intro for the first time this season, and noting that the order in which the actors are named places the importance of the characters as follows:
Moiraine
Lan
Egwene
Nynaeve
Rand
Perrin
Mat
Elayne
Loial
“Magdalena”
Dain
Ishamael
Fain
Lanfear
Aviendha

It’s possible that the order from Loial on down is purely alphabetical. But not the top ones. Then again, these writers might just be dumb enough to think Pike, Henney, Robbins, Madden, Stradhowski and Rutherford go before Finn in the alphabet…

4:25 LIARS! Got it out of the way early this week.

4:53 Dain is wearing a Ren-faire sweater and is accompanied by clinking noises that I absolutely do not believe.

5:25 The old guy who advised a character to seek Aes Sedai Healing last season is here and in command of the Children. Also, he says they have a secret weapon to make the difference going up against a foe with greater numbers & supplies and in a defensive position. I think that’s what he meant. What he said was, that they are better fortified. He is in a tent, so a pile of pillows in front of the enemy would make them “better fortified” and better fortifications are meaningless if you are planning a battle with hand-to-hand combat, because only one set of fortifications will come into play. If they are attacking yours, you have an advantage, and vice versa if you attack theirs.

5:56 So the Watchers at Falme sent out messages asking for help to every ruler and only the Children of the Light came. What are they doing? First of all, this is heavily ripping off the story of Stannis riding to the rescue of the Nights Watch from GoT/aSoI&F, and cramming it into a setting where it does not work. The Nights Watch sending letters to every king had to do with the fact that every king claimed dominion over the lands the Nights Watch protected, including the Watch itself, and thus had a concomitant duty to defend the Wall and aid the Watch. No such obligation exists for the rulers of the wetlands, since Falme acknowledges none of them as their own.
Secondly, they are changing this story to make the Children heroic, coming to the aid of people in need, because the enemies are doing morally objectionable things. None of this fits with the depiction of the Children thus far.

6:18 If Prophecies are just the lies of long-dead witches, why are they so well known? Everyone even quotes the relevant line the same.

6:23 Lanfear doesn’t know any light spells? Or have we arbitrarily reinstated the “no channeling in the Ways” rule? How do they get out?

6:47 That was not a particularly clever twisting of Moiraine’s words. She was citing a past circumstance that is no longer applicable.

6:52 How can Lanfear see Moiraine got her power back? Is this a property of the ability to channel or a special skill lost to the current era?

7:11 I sort of like Lanfear for the first time, just for her putting Moiraine in her place.

7:31 Yes, Rand. Mention again that bizarre inconsistency, how you can’t channel in the Ways, but opening the gate requires it.

8:13 Aw, Journey of Destruction didn’t get any lines this season.

8:25 Another one of these desert cities.

Who cares about world-building? The locations are chosen so Rafe & Taylor can have nice tropical vacations while shooting.

8:37 What doesn’t belong here?

8:50 Have they ever explained what it means to wake from the dream? Since other parts of the story have been talking about Rand coming here to fulfil a prophecy, arguably, one might assume that Aviendha means people are going to be forced to confront a new reality.

10:15 “The most dangerous Forsaken” has just screwed up Ishamael’s plans by bringing Rand prematurely, when Ishamael is not ready and does not think Rand is prepared to choose their team. We have absolutely no reason to think otherwise, either.

11:36 What is the geography of this setting? Moments ago, Perrin & three Aiel women were approaching the city on a perfectly clear day. Now, somehow, it’s all dusty and the Seanchan can’t see anything, so they are moving deeper into the cloud, away from the open gates they are tasked with guarding. And I simply do not believe the thuiable carried by the Children is responsible for the dust. And where did Perrin and the Aiel get to?

Also, what is the motivation of the Aiel to come to Falme? All we know about them is that two are not sexually interested in Perrin and one might be.

11:46 Oh, wait. Is that blurry thing that Short White Aiel said doesn’t belong here, the cloud covering the Children’s advance? But they are charging the gate that Our Heroes were approaching, so we still don’t know where they are…

12:07 Okay, so the Seanchan are grossly incompetent at military stuff and their troops have poor discipline. These are good facts to know, going forward.

12:17 I am dying. They gave Nynaeve raccoon eyes for her sul’dam disguise. I am literally having trouble typing from laughing.

12:37 They did her makeup before questioning the captive sul’dam for intel!

12:44 A newcomer to the continent casually uses the Children’s slang nickname.

13:46 That was stupid. This is just bad writing. They are making Egwene implacably defiant, and have decided that defiance indicates strength and she is awesome, not stupid. And they create a threat to hold over her, and Egwene is still being stupidly awesomely defiant, so now they have to follow through, but Egwene calls their bluff and so Renna backs down and cuts off her braid saying it will hurt more. No sane person would remotely believe the loss of an important sensory organ and means of speech, which has actual nerve endings in it, is preferable to a haircut. And Egwene has clearly had her hair cut before, so it’s not like that hank is irreplaceable. FFS my nieces cut off more of their hair a few years ago to donate to cancer victims (I didn’t ask and have no idea what the cancer victims do with it).

We seem to be intended to be horrified because the braid is important to Egwene. It reminds her that she is alone but never alone. So now without it, I guess she is not alone, but always alone? It seems to have been the reason Nynaeve saved her life after Amalisa overchanneled them. It would be really funny if Nynaeve comes up to rescue her and then just stops and says “Where’s your braid? Oh well, she’s not really a woman, I guess you’re right, Renna, have fun with your pet.”

By the way, the implication of this narrative is that all the other damane suck, they aren’t victims of anything but their own timidity and weakness for failing to call the bluff of their sul’dam. Feminism FTW!

13:50 And now that bitch stepped on the braid! No going back from this!

15:20 Remember the big question this season as to whether or not Moriaine was stilled? Now we’re doing it with Mat and the dagger. Is he Healed or not? The show is treating this like some sort of addiction, rather than a preternatural affinity.

15:34 When someone says they will give you anything, and you want something they are currently in possession of and physically capable of giving you, the smart thing to try is asking them for it.

15:52 Nynaeve has told this woman twice “Don’t lie to me” and the woman has not made a single statement that could be construed as a lie, unless Nynaeve thinks “I will give you anything is a lie.” In which case, what does she expect to get out of this conversation? Is her subject going to have to say “Okay, sorry, I was lying, I won’t give you anything.” Then what?

16:49 Is Rand trying to hide his identity from the Seanchan? Is he famous here in Falme? Or maybe he’s trying to be inconspicuous, with this cloak covering him like we have zero other people doing.
“What’s that man doing lurking in that alcove?”
“What’s he wearing?”
“I can’t tell, he is thoroughly wrapped up in a cloak, covering his hair as well.”
“Oh, he must be harmless then. Only people with visible clothing are a threat. Ignore him.”

17:03 The purpose of that scene was to show Rand seeing what he came to Falme expecting to find.

18:20 Why isn’t the dagger having any sort of effect on Fain? Why would he want to give it up, if it is so addictive?

19:05 I am so sick of the relationship bullshit drama between these two. Why are we supposed to care about it, in the face of the epic battle between good and evil, with other characters facing enslavement, threats of assassination or forcible conversion to evil?

20:13 So if Moiraine can say, while bound to speak the truth, that she has always known Lan to be her better, what is the problem with the bond? Why doesn’t she do what her better is asking and get on with the story?

21:11 What is actually going on with the bond? Up until now, every word on the show has suggested one of two things, that Moiraine masked it, or that it was lost as a consequence of her being stilled. Since the latter is not true, why does unmasking the bond seem to require her to re-bond him? She did nothing like this before going off to hook up with Siuan or head out for the Blight.

21:40 How did they get into the city? Why did the Seanchan let a trio of Aiel in?

22:07 Badass Shienaran is Maseema. We have his name, in the finale.

22:13 So we just got these guys escaping their slave situation and recovering the Horn all on their own, off-screen, with the help of someone who is clearly not Moiraine but they want us to think it was.

22:29 Tell the barbarian savage warriors standing right there, just how important the object you carry is, why don’t you? If I have no idea what they want and what their motivation is, why isn’t Ingtar concerned?

22:44 Loial argues that they are main characters and obligated by the plot to rescue their fellow main character. He addresses this comment as well to a trio of Aiel he has just met, but not Maseema, with whom he has crossed the continent and endured slavery and retrieved the Horn of Valere.

22:49 That argument swayed Ingtar.

23:54 Some of the Children are fighting for their lives and the others are simply strolling like they are in a white pride rally chanting “take the Tower, burn the witches.”

24:03 How interesting that despite all the efforts to make Egwene out as this staunch heroine who cannot be broken, they had her do a heel turn awfully fast, just because someone cut her hair a little shorter. Whatever your opinion might be of the Children, they are objective good and in the right, and Egwene has just betrayed everything by fighting them on behalf of the Seanchan. When they want to show her defiance and strength, they show her being petty and recalcitrant over unimportant things, and when they present her with a moral conundrum for the first time, they have her utterly fail.

The bad thing is, I don’t think they realize this is the story they are telling. I think they believe she is the coerced victim here who cannot be responsible for her actions, just as they thought going from threatening to cut out her tongue, to cutting her braid shorter was an escalation.

And how do the sul’dam see what their charges are aiming at, when they are a step down and behind?

24:58 Expectation subverted! Note that Socially Conscious Rand did not kill the Voice.

25:33 Ingtar is observing that the Aiel women understand battle well. He has not seen them fight, just make hand gestures as they walk the streets of the city, but that’s all he needs. I guess no one noticed how well Aiel fight in that war 20 or 21 years ago?

26:32 Ingtar, this is why you never leave your wingman! He clearly does not understand battle well, since he charged out alone and away from his companions, to no effect.

Is there some reason we are supposed to think anything other than “What a chump!”

27:06 Moiraine called Lanfear the most dangerous Forsaken earlier this season, and now she is saying only Lanfear was freed because the others are too dangerous.

If I am going through all this effort to watch your stupid show, writers, I think the least you could do would be the same thing.

27:32 So if Lanfear and Ishamael were BFF with Lew Therin, how did they come to be known as Forsaken? What does it mean that they are Forsaken. Why were they and their fellow Forsaken fighting the Dragon?

27:38 Moiraine is just now realizing that they are on the beach near Falme, despite Lanfear’s final words telling her to do her part for the prophecy due to occur at Falme.

27:42 Is Domon shopping, with the city under attack, or looting like some low class scumbag?

27:58 Domon can’t you see the eye shadow? What good lady on this show wears that?

28:17 The man who was picking up crap that was sold in sidewalk stalls (i.e. not very valuable), is now suddenly more concerned with survival than taking a risk to acquire riches.

28:40 A tiny broken piece of cuendillar is worth several horses, but that tiny half-empty bag contains enough money to persuade him to throw six intact cuendillar objects into the ocean.

And is there any reason Lanfear can’t accomplish the same task without a ship captain?

31:42 Mat has spent a fair share of time in a cell this year, and has learned that there is usually more than one way out of them. “Usually” he says, referencing his sole experience with a single cell. Just being in a jail cell gives you the ability to figure your way out of any locked room. Chipping away the mortar on the stones of one cell, to get access to another, and then being allowed to leave through the door, teaches you to gimmick an ashandarei out of an evil magic dagger and also imparts the knowledge that sticking the dagger into a keyhole will activate its evil powers to melt the lock. Why is the dagger cooperating with someone who won’t take it up and let it mess with his head?

32:00 Are we ever going to get an explanation of how Loial survived a similar wound from that same dagger? Or is this another instance of them forgetting last season’s finale?

33:08 When psycho bitches rain fire down on a city, we must always have a white horse running through the confusion.

33:27 They are taking a long time with this disciplinary issue. And why did Egwene step down from the parapet and obligingly kneel in the middle here? Renna looks increasingly like a chump, which does no favors for Egwene’s image in defeating her.

33:41 I was always for giving the Children of the Light a chance, but now that they have prevented Egwene from losing her tongue, I can see that they are wrong and evil and can only do or be evil. Ecrasez l’infame!

And Dain seems somewhat surprised at the efficacy of siege engines. This might fit in a book series where trebuchets might not actually exist, and ballistae are just being invented, but projectile launching devices were used in the Aiel War in this setting. Maybe he is surprised that they are having more effect against a stationary tower, than they had against light infantry?

34:10 Okay, that looked like Nynaeve, Elayne & their captive just strolled past the Children of the Light’s unit, who did not lift a finger against these “witches”, whom they are intent on killing to make their capture of the city possible.

35:43 Why are the Aiel walking through a battlefield … well, at all, since I have no idea why they are here, or what they want … but what I was going say was unveiled?

35:52 Good thing Maseema’s cool working with a bunch of foreigners. I guess he knows that Aiel are much more trustworthy than other people and so he can afford to work with them to protect the Horn.

Imagine if he had some other opinion?

35:59 Seriously, Aiel woman who might want to have sex with Perrin, what in that fog made you veil when the actual combat your party was in a little while ago did not?

36:25 Mat has, in case anyone has forgotten, seen an Aiel before, and got a good look at their distinctive garb as well as a briefing on them from Thom. More than anyone, he should have known them for what they are at first sight.

36:51 I am not crediting Egwene’s act of defiance for enabling the Children’s attack to succeed. They had plenty of time to reconfigure their positions. The other sul’dam commented on Renna losing control and Renna pulled her out of the line to kneel for another tongue bluff. Someone else was watching that sector. Also, hitting their position does not mean that the projectile came from the direction Egwene was supposed to be watching. She was being directed to shoot fireballs down into the streets, and the missile came from above. And because it flew through the air, launched from beyond the city, it could have come from any direction, since they did not establish the direction Egwene was facing, relative to the siege engines.

36:57 What good is that supposed to do?

37:43 Why did that work? Is Egwene wearing the bracelet to her collar? Renna is still wearing hers, and Egwene is still collared, so why is Egwene not getting the feedback of what Renna is suffering?

38:13 Nothing Egwene is doing has changed the fact that she is being held by a trained woman with far more experience using the a’dam. This is just plot armor, again, like the last time she was a captive and Valda decided not to look at her or do anything about the prisoner who just got free in his tent.

39:30 Our heroine just murdered a helpless prisoner. And this writers’ pet is the one for whom Nynaeve is continually stripped of in-book accomplishments, and has been made into an ineffectual chump.

41:15 Show viewers have not been given enough reason to care about this relationship in which they are randomly affectionate or not, and Book readers know he has two superior love interests in danger in the streets below.

41:42 The Forsaken chucking these insufferable versions of Our Heroines around the set will never not be entertaining.

42:46 So you can channel at someone you can’t see, inside a city, while you are in a ship offshore. This apparent lack of a limit will be very interesting when employed in future episodes.

43:06 I must point out that this show has told us fuck-all about what Lews Therin did in his last life.

43:45 If you wanted to make Ingtar have a heroic sacrifice, this might have actually been a good time for it, instead of at a random moment where it really didn’t seem to matter, since they were still in the midst of the battle.

43:59 Where would we be without the Whitecloaks!

I am laughing my ass off because all the woke dipshits who lap up the changes the show made absolutely hate the Children of the Light. The subreddit group that is critical of the show calls itself Whitecloaks, and I saw someone on social media bragging about getting it shut down. These people also call fans who criticize the show Bookcloaks.

And now they’re the heroes.

Incidentally, last we saw of her, Egwene could use their bathing services.

44:22 Nynaeve and Elayne look like they are having a pooping contest.

45:03 Is Hopper going to die saving Perrin from Valda?

46:08 Perrin is running out like he is going to hunt down the people fighting slavers, because one of them killed an animal with no way to know the extenuating circumstances.

46:20 Fuck you, Perrin.

What he did in the books was wrong, but excusable, as he was under mental duress he was not prepared for and did not choose and was attempting to reject.

This was just premeditated murder.

For the record, the score for this episode for murders of people who are active members of organizations fighting for the Light and against the Shadow, by Our Heroes, is 2.

46:45 I wonder who is going to answer the Horn, since we have not heard of a single legend, or the name of a hero in this setting. A doll being named Birgitte does not count.

47:15 Is it just going to be some nonsensical power-up? Because they said when they introduced it in the Episode That They Keep Forgetting About, that it was supposed to call the Pattern’s greatest heroes to fight at their side.

47:30 Fuck. It’s going to be them, isn’t it? The characters are the Pattern’s greatest heroes.

47:52 Oh, good. I mean, I have no idea who these people are supposed to be, so it doesn’t mean much, but whatever.

47:56 I do know who they are supposed to be and it’s even worse! That’s Uno and Amalisa in the front. FUUUUUUCK.

For the record, Uno died pointlessly, spitting defiance at the Seanchan. Old Man Bornhald was fighting the Seanchan far more effectively, doing more good for the world, when Perrin murdered him. Amalisa got two heroic women killed with her ineptitude, and would have killed two more had they not saved each other, all after letting thousands of men be massacred with her inactivity. Why are they bound to the Horn?

48:15 Aquaman?

48:43 Mat is desperately trying to remember a legend about a foul-mouthed one-eyed man. And I actually don’t think that’s Amalisa.

49:00
As a Show Viewer, I have no idea what he said or what it means.
As a Book Reader, I know that it makes absolutely no sense in this context.

49:35 While the Horn of Valere was being sounded and Mat leading the Heroes into battle, and Rand confronted Ishamael, Perrin is desecrating the corpse of his murder victim.

Have I mentioned Fuck you, Perrin?

49:57 Uno smoke-ported here to attack the men fighting the people who murdered him in his last life, whom he was summoned to fight. The Children are literally doing his job, and he attacks them. Because Main Character Morality.

51:32 These two characters’ story is just suffering porn.

52:00 I guess the Horn made him remember, while not having any effect on anyone else? Because they sure as shit have not done anything in 16 episodes to set up or justify Rand’s insistence that he has never served Ishamael. For that matter, they haven’t actually had him assert that Rand has or will.

52:32 AHAHAHAHAHA! You can’t fuck with Prophecies!

They’re really just mashing together book elements. Wow.

Who cares about context or meaning or whether they make sense? And the show simps are going to call this genius and economical storytelling.

53:42 Remember years ago, when I wrote those parody retellings of the story depicting Egwene as the hero and then gave it up because Sanderson’s account of her fight with the Seanchan was more ridiculously over the top than anything I could devise? Rafe Judkins managed to top him.

54:16 Moiraine will let a thousand innocent people die if it means Rand will live, because that is what it means to support him. But that is not what Lan is saying. His point is that she has no idea how their actions relate to Rand. He is not saying “Is Rand worth it?” He is saying “We have no idea what the situation is or what actions will help Rand and what actions will serve the Forsaken’s goals.”

54:22 But he accepts her statement, because Script.

54:33 Some bad guys randomly showed up on this beach, coming from a direction they have no reason to be coming from, for no reason other than to give Lan a redemption fight.

55:43 Hi Elayne!, Meet your future rebel-turned-vassal, arms dealer and sperm donor!

56:12 She limped through a battle and up a really high tower with a hole in her thigh, because her friend was useless but another friend needed help and is now Healing the prophesied savior of humanity. Should we have had her in the first season?

Nah, we needed time for Dana the Dumpy Darkfriend and Stepin the Tragic Warder, whose story actually had absolutely no bearing on the arc we thought it was setting up this season.

That being said, why did she think it was more important to Heal him instead of helping Egwene fight?

Also, they were trying to make this a big emotional reunion between Rand and Egwene when he arrived on the scene, and then we had her stand between him and the most powerful servant of the Dark … and in the middle of it all, he gets a love-at-first-sight gaze with some random chick who is basically here because she didn’t have any friends.

By the way, is there anyone who can’tHeal? I’m not even kidding. The first on-screen action of a wolf on this show was to lick Perrin’s wound, which he might have taken in Shadar Logoth. For all we know, Wolf-Healing is a thing Perrin can do now.

56:45 Of course, we had to set up Moiraine’s critical contribution.

57:00 What were Suroth her Voice reacting to?

57:10 The Voice was facing the other direction from Moiraine’s weaves! Everything about this shot says she is flinching away from their approach, but she should not be able to see it coming.

Assuming she can see the weaves, when last episode or so, you had to be a channeler or ex-channeler to see weaves.

57:19 Moiraine was behind the ships and her weave hit them in the prow!

58:19 Should we be impressed by this little mark on his hand, when he was just impaled with a fiery dagger-spear of Evil and had it fixed by a person who is present?

58:39 A better response to Ishamael saying “do you see it, Lews?” would be “My name is Rand!” Followed by a stomp. Stop indulging this frenemy bullshit.

59:25 What is going to be the excuse for Moiraine not channeling to solve other problems on a scale of sinking multiple Seanchan vessels, going forward?

59:34 They have said that prophecy more times in this episode than in the entire book series.

59:42 Okay, why did Lan do that? Is that his “help Moiraine channel” position?

1:00:45 Thank the Whitecloaks! They saved you guys! Rand & co just showed up after they took out all the damane (and one of his companions was one of your oppressors).

1:00:50 Oh, hey Aviendha. Glad you and your friend who would sleep with Perrin and your friend who wouldn’t could be here. Why was that again?

1:01:03 Please, please cut to Elyas looking up from peeing against a tree somewhere.

1:01:08 D’aw! Look, even Lanfear is proud of you Rand!

1:01:24 Loial really should be on the tower with the rest of the gang, narratively speaking.

1:01:55 Right, shouldn’t she be getting some cargo to Domon? What has she been doing all this time?

One of them is going to be freed, aren’t they?

1:02:08 More than one. “Softly, softly” I believe, is canonically Moghedian’s line. “My way is best. Softly, softly, in the dark,” but that doesn’t mean anything. Could be Semirhage, since the shallow dipshit segment of the fandom thinks she’s the most badass.

1:02:12 IDK if that’s binding goop from her prison, or if Moghedian is actually a lunatic who plays with spiders and webs.

1:02:52 She actually has spider-themed powers.

1:03:43 Book!Moghedian would not dare taunting or failing to strike a foe of actual stature. She thought she could get away with it with a couple of untrained girls, but Lanfear in this position would be dead. She would not say “when I strike, I don’t miss” to an enemy she was confronting, she would have already struck.

1:04:00 “All five of them…” Which five? Perrin, whose contribution was to bring a shield that he was given because Uno wandered off from the main fight instead of just giving it to Mat or showing up on the Tower his own self? Nynaeve, who was Black, and a Woman? But not Elayne, who was more heroic than either of them?

1:04:25 “Light help you, Rand al’Thor.” The problem with this show is that the writers are so stupid, I can’t tell whether that’s just a dumb error in word choice that a character would never say, or a hint that’s she’s repentant or secretly working against the Shadow. I mean, Dark.

1:04:34 Okay, according to the credits, Bain is played by Ragga Ragnars, who is 6’2” according to IMDb, and played Gunhild in “Vikings,” while Chiad was played by Maja Simonsen, who is only 5’8”. Now you can tell them apart on re-watches. The irony is, I have been differentiating them based on the only thing we are told about them, that one would and one would not sex Perrin, and I don’t remember which one Aviendha said was which.

1:04:36 Someone named Helen Tran played Amaresu, who was a Hero of the Horn ITB, so I guess that’s who took the Horn from Mat, whom I thought was Amalisa.

Wow. Wowie wow wow wow. This was the show’s worst case yet of randomly cutting and pasting stuff from the books with no regard for set-up, pay-offs or context. It was also the worst case of robbing Nynaeve of accomplishments, of promoting Egwene and of ignoring objectively bad things the characters do, all rolled into one.

Seriously, how would the plot of his episode have been different if Nynaeve had suddenly died in Ryma’s safehouse of an allergic reaction to eye shadow? Considering the anatomical nonsense otherwise seen on this show, there is no reason Elayne could not have limped her own ass up to the tower. Or, hey, you could have had a meet-cute with her and Aviendha, and then she could have helped Elayne and been on the tower-top as well, and we’d even have the same racial balance.

In the whole season, aside from filling screentime, Nynaeve’s major contribution to the plot was Liandrin cutting her bonds to allow them to escape the Seanchan, because Liandrin is randomly super invested in Nynaeve. We don’t know why. The show tried to claim she was trying to recruit Nynaeve for the Black Ajah, but how is that supposed to work if she disrupts Nynaeve being taken prisoner as she was ordered by Ishamael. Also, note that Egwene was present to defend Rand, and Elayne to Heal him, solely because of Ishamael’s orders that they be brought to Falme and turned over to the Seanchan. Why are we supposed to have taken him seriously as an antagonist again? If he comes back down the road, should we be scared, or elated that the Light is going to benefit from a bunch more own goals?

But back to Nynaeve, we have her failing to learn to channel, then pushing back against Liandrin, then being made to take the Accepted test, and then suddenly Liandrin is taking them to Falme, where she mostly carps and bitches, Ryma and Basan do all the work before dying stupidly. Nynaeve and Elayne capture a sul’dam to use to infiltrate the damane kennel, but she gets shot and that goes nowhere. She pushes the crossbow bolt through Elayne’s leg, but I have strong reservations about the efficacy of that treatment, especially since she just left the wound uncovered afterward, and whether or not it would make it easier for her to walk on. And then she helps Elayne up to the Tower, where she does absolutely nothing! Why even is she a character? Remember when people took issue with the multicultural casting of the inhabitants of an isolated town whose limited breeding pool was a plot point for two separate issues, the dipshits are shrieked about how important it was to see a Strong Black Heroine? Congrats, ladies! Hope you’re happy.

Rand’s interactions with Ingtar in the books seeded his leadership arc and his coming to accept his role and purpose. But they never even met on the show, and yet, the show felt compelled to stick a bunch of his big moments in there with another character, which had no relevance to that other character’s arc, and they also excised the detail in his backstory that made all those moments important for his arc and the plot!

With Ingtar rendered pointless in hindsight, how did Perrin help matters? As noted above, the plot forced an opportunity for him to wield Dead Uno’s shield against Ishamael, but it required yanking Uno to a different location in the fight to make that happen, and Mat could have got it from Uno if he had just stayed near the Hornsounder. All Perrin did was murder Bornhald Sr., who was a legit hero of this season, and free Aviendha, who also might as well not have been in this season, except to say a nonsense word no WoTcher would understand.

Most of the season was taken up with Moiraine and Lan’s relationship squabbles that were based on something that wasn’t real and a conflict Moiraine claims, while bound to speak truth, did not exist. We got a LOT of the adventures of the Pervert Trio, starring Rafe Judkin’s boyfriend. We got Elayne, whose white privilege pushed her ahead of Nynaeve as a hero for the events of Book 2. We got a pointless Accepted Test that apparently only tested whether or not you were smart enough to come in out of the rain, instead of anything like your commitment to the White Tower or your ability to perceive the falsity of a scenario. The magic system has no discernable rules and is not congruent with the books, which translates into nothing more than a mechanism of plot convenience. We were introduced to the power of a wolfbrother, which makes you racist specieist against white people fighting the Seanchan humans in favor of wolves. We got more Min viewings, which proved inaccurate, again. If you were paying attention, there was an actress who got to play a member of both Ravenclaw House and the Brown Ajah. There was a midget Aes Sedai. Siuan was obnoxiously arrogant and condescending and the show demanded we care about her because she and Moiraine were sooo in love.

Just garbage, all the way down.