#randavilayne

I'm pretty happy with what we got from the relationships, overall, even if I remain sad that we do not get our Second Great Cauthor Roadtrip. It lives in our hearts.

I can't believe that I forgot to mention that Alviarin was the White Sister who was part of Egwene's Testing! I mean, I assumed that she wasn't merged with anyone, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

So about that Avirandlayne! Avilayne are the ones who hook up in this episode, but they very much had a dynamic that involved the three of them as well as individual dynamics, which is what I like to see.

Taking the plunge first with Avilayne does establish that they are both attracted to women and this isn't going to be a "Rand's harem" situation, which is an important thing to establish (especially if Min isn't romantic with Aviendha and/or Elayne, though she might be! we will see!). But the episode also made a point of having Elayne involved in the (currently antagonistic) relationship between Aviendha & Rand, and Elayne also ends up being the person who motivates Rand to make his choice about where to go at the end of the episode and does so in a manner that is designed both to please Aviendha and to help Rand. Very neatly done by our political and emotional communicator (which Elayne is pretty good at being in the books when she isn't writing letters to Rand, which always goes poorly).

The way they set up Mat staying in the White Tower was also really good and made sense. We've seen that he's struggling with his memories from blowing the Horn and that he's trying to bury his feelings/nightmares using drinking and flirting, and those are definitely canon coping mechanisms for him.

Randgwene does seem like it is going to be a slow dissolving over the course of the season. The show making it clear that Avilayne have a strong attraction to each other does simplify some of the things that I was potentially worrying over for s4 (which we will hopefully get!), and I do understand why the show wants to be true to the emotional unraveling of the stronger version of the relationship that they've set up. But Randgwene is, by far, the thing where my brain inserts book knowledge and tries to resist show changes, because I am just constantly startled when they're not broken up yet.

Lanfear and Moiraine trying to work to undermine Rand's relationships with his friends and failing (mostly)! I really liked this touch. It brings out Moiraine's ruthlessness, it shows us how Lanfear is able to play nice to get what she wants (we know she's a great actress, from having first met her as "Selene"), and it also showed that they both underestimated the strength of the EF5 bond and Rand's own willpower. All good things!

I was really glad that (unlike the books) none of the characters blamed Rand for what happened. Nynaeve assumed right away that it was one of the Forsaken. It does still split Rand off from most of his friends (except the one that Lanfear probably MOST wanted him to shake off lol) but he doesn't go to a place that either Moiraine or Lanfear show any interest in him going -- it is Aviendha and Elayne who shape the direction of Rand's next move forward, and we see him fully willing to take someone's advice when they're actually offering advice and not trying to force him into doing something by seeing him listen to Elayne and ultimately decide that she's got the right idea (this is also one of the things in book canon that made Elayne fall in love with Rand -- that he listens to her advice).