Rafe Judkins is the Chris Ofili of Wheel of Time. For those who don't know the reference (read: everyone?), Chris Ofili is the artist who painted the Virgin Mary using elephant dung and pornographic images.

There is so much wrong with the show, as you rightly highlight in your post, even from a non-book perspective. The sad thing is that most of it has already sunk in with nihilistic apathy. The show has disappointed on so many fronts so far that I come in with such high negative expectations that even when the show does anything approaching neutral, it's a dopamine hit.

However, some things are beyond the pail even for them. And it hits just that much harder as the show has actually started to get its legs and do some things well (graded on a curve, to be sure).

I am referring specifically to the Elayne Aviendha fuckfest. This was, frankly, disgusting, and I wanted to stop watching as soon as it was introduced. Elayne and Aviendha have one of the more interesting relationships in the books. Friends, fated to love the same man, becoming sisters. To denigrate their relationship for... what? Shock value? Rafe's vindictive nature to the "regressive" fans? Love is love? To me, this was incest play, and that's... well, that's like painting an icon with shit...