I figured as much. As Cannoli points out, we got really very little from the third book, but what with the extra big deal they made of the Dragon proclaiming himself at Falme, along with the Aiel already showing up out there and never mind the geography, I assumed they'd just skip the Stone of Tear scenes altogether. After season two, we can only assume season three will be equally atrocious.

He mentions 13 Forsaken - but is that Rafe saying there'll be 13, or the article's author just assuming? It seems like way too much for the show given how much else they've cut - and Be'lal's storyline has already been cut, while Asmodean seemed to have been replaced by Logain in his teaching role (not that that made any sense).

This is definitely not what things are like in the books - but ok, so be it, I can accept major changes from the book as long as they work on the show. Unfortunately they mostly don't. I do like the general idea of a more sane and rational, less extremely self-obsessed version of Lanfear - and with Ilyena taken out of the picture, one whose relationship with LTT may have been more genuine than in the books. But her motivations still seem confused and her actions erratic, by no means showing her as particularly good at scheming.

Uh, yeah, I don't know which book series he has been reading, but it wasn't WoT... certainly, there's the whole thing with her surviving the Last Battle and also before that, it's made pretty obvious that she cares more about her personal goals than about the DO winning, and might even want to avert the latter scenario - sort of like Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that's still a long way off from being 'lovable', barring a much more significant redemption arc, which in the books never happened and the show seems to think they can just skip past. And the 'you really come to understand who she is as a woman' part makes even less sense - when is this supposed to have happened? Cyndane has only a handful of PoVs and from what I recall, she's rarely very introspective in them, whether 'lovably' or otherwise.