Cipher

He did kill those dark friends in TDR even though he didn’t “know” they were dark friends, but they were there to capture him. IMO it was Lews Therin’s influence knowing these people were after him/Rand. But after more taint than S2 Rand has had.

They sidelined Nynaeve after her testing?—IMO it was an over compensating nerf for the ninja powers they gave her in S1. She can take out a trolloc solo (something a rusty sword master could not do) and sneak up on the best swordsman, legendary warder, king heir of a nation known for its martial prowess.

The orderly from the mental institution—so that he could serve Logain.

I haven’t started S3 yet, but the writers are trying to back fill their omissions by NOW starting Rand’s sword training. Lol—after his battle with Ishmael. Are we going to get some leadership training too this season? If so I will rest my case that they are clueless. From what I remember it was implied that Nynaeve was training regularly with the warders—completely unnecessary, but part of the “woman power” glow up from the writers.

When they made him a murderer and then gave his sword training to Nynaeve for some reason in S2. WTH Nynaeve gets sword training but Rand doesn’t. My message to writers is, “GTHO with that BS. They gave far more time to ancillary characters—taking time from the EF5 which could have been more of a priority.

I feel the show made a mistake by elevating Moiraine’s story to the forefront. Ultimately the writers don’t care about Rand and therefore neither does the audience. Rand’s relevance and character have been diminished in substantial ways. He was clearly the protagonist of the first 2 books and those books are what led to a large enough following for the rest of the series. The writers clearly rewrote the story taking things from Rand like both his mastery of the sword and his elevation to a lord—both of which are critical to his growth and story arc. E.G. Rand’s battle with Ishy in the series was completely lame. The idea that the first 3 books were just a derivative fantasy story little to differentiate itself from others is contrary to what happened with these books. Nobody would read 3x800+ pages books to get to the good stuff. As an example I recently listened to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little house in the Big Woods.” Even though I identify most with Pa I wanted Laura’s story and if someone rewrote the story from Pa’s perspective I feel something would be lost in the story.