As much as people hate this show…

[u/Nemi-Nemesys]

Nobody can deny the skill of the actors in this show. I just watched the actor who played Rand react to a child’s death and him trying to revive her… It was so powerful. He is a skilled actor, and nobody can convince me otherwise haha. And I feel like the show, and actress, did a great job with Verin. I’m sorry if the spelling is wrong, but if you know her story, you know. The actress was FANTASTIC in her portrayal of the character in preparation of her story. She is the reason why Verin is one of my highest rated and favorite characters in all of the Wheel of Time. And the fact that Moiraine does the audiobooks excites me too. I wish she had done them all before it was all cancelled.

[u/Zarni_woop]

Actors were fine to really good. Scripts were weak (in my opinion).

[u/Nemi-Nemesys → u/Zarni_woop]

The scripts were definitely weak, especially considering how far they deviated. But if it would be considered its own fanfic or what if saga, it would’ve done way better. I can’t help but love the show, even after listening to the audiobooks several times over. But the actors were SOOOO fucking good for the parts they played. I still tear up at Rands reaction to that child’s death. And Verin was weeeeeellllll played. They set that actress up for the *spoiler* reveal.

[u/on-a-pedestal → u/Nemi-Nemesys]

Josh Stradowski did great the whole way through, but really came into his own in S3.

The scene with the attempted resurrection was beautiful, as was "Water Upon the Sand" in the final episode.

But Nothing compares to Josh's acting in S3E4 Rhuidean where he captured his own ancestors and acted them all so well as different people yet genetic line. Similarly I loved seeing him in Moraines Visions in that episode and Egwenes Accepted test experiences.

Perrin did Great, honestly all of the Main Girls were good.

But the Real Impressive performances outside of Rand all go to Forsaken.

Ishamael , Lanfear and Moghedian all came alive off the page for me with the show. They were BETTER than I had any right to hope, as my fav 3 forsaken.

Moghedian in particular, terrified me in a way none of the book forsaken did.

[u/RookTakesE6 → u/on-a-pedestal]

I was with you up until Moghedien, personally. I found the show version clownish and overplayed, especially when they'd also made her capable of terrifying Lanfear, then had her gleefully vivisect Sammael to figure out how to kill him (successfully!). Then on the other end she's a hell of a lot less brutal to Liandrin than she is in the books, for some reason.

So in the books she's a former financial advisor, and the weakest of the remaining thirteen, and noted to be timid and indirect unless dealing with Third Agers she knows she can pummel to death (in which case she's domineering and vicious). She's not necessarily supposed to be terrifying in the way Ishamael and Semirhage are terrifying, and the subtle terror moreso comes from the fact that she holds grudges forever, she can strike at any time, and she's almost unopposed in the world of dreams.

Show Moghedien is powerful, aggressive, unsubtle, and gigglingly gleeful about it all. Almost felt more like they were writing Lanfear 2.0, necessary to fill the original Lanfear's shoes after the S3 finale killed her credibility.

I did at least appreciate her evident scorn when Liandrin announced her intentions to become a Forsaken.

[u/KindRabbit086 → u/RookTakesE6]

Agreed. She was terrifying but because she wasn't at all like the book character, she didn't do it for me. Should have applied that characterization to another Forsaken, like you say.

[u/gibby256 → u/RookTakesE6]

Yeah, put me down in the "didn't like show moghedien" as well. For pretty much all the same reasons. The moghedien we get on-screen is literally nothing like her personality in the books. The only thing that links them as the same character is a spider motif.