You nailed it all! Rafe did what all show runners and writers do with amazing fantasy stories. They butcher it. They try to create a whole new story that doesn't work. The actual books are so damn good. There was no way possible to mess it up but Amazon is to blame too. Hollywood only cares about deadlines. They don't care how bad the product is they just want it done when they need it done. The show is so bad that I cannot recommend it to anyone and I'm such a nerd for the books.
They failed to explain so many basic things like the Five Powers, which is what the One Power is made up of, fire, spirit, water, air and earth. They never mentioned how Aes Sedai live for hundreds of years while barely aging. They took away all the adventures they had after they left their village. They took away the training Moiraine gave Egwene and Nynaeve, teaching them to channel. They made their magic style look so stupid with the slow hand movements just like Dr. Strange. I was hoping to see them embrace the Source and show it from a channeler's perspective what it looks like. They had so much book material to work with but they spent so much time on meaningless things like that one Warder in the first few episodes who added nothing to the story. Did you see how they implied that Moiraine could teach Rand to channel after he asked her? That is nonsense lol! That finale upset me so damn much that it ruined my whole night lol. With all of that said I really do love the actors and I feel bad for them.
I had a bad feeling about the show ever since I saw how they mispronounced Moiraine's name. That was very telling about what was to come. If you don't care enough to pronounce the names the right way then the disrespect to the books has no limits. I mispronounce a lot of the names but I'm just a book fan reading at home lol. They had a responsibility to get that right. I say fire Rafe and start all over again.
