I hadn't read the books when Season 1 came out and didn't really care for the show because I thought it felt like a rushed story. There characters didn't really feel complex enough and the Aes Sedai felt like a joke of a community to me.

Not having read the books I didn't understand why they were so popular after watching the series. It felt pretty generic to me.

Since then I'm through 11.5 of the books and I can understand why it felt rushed. Many of the characters were changed for the worst. Rand just accepting his fate early on is what I would consider a major change in the overall theme of the early character.

Honestly Moiraine and Lan are the only characters I felt didn't get wrecked.

I understand condensing parts of a story to fit it in, there's plenty of filler in the book that is just world building that could be removed. But the first season just felt poorly sequenced to me even before reading the books. I think LotR is a pretty good example of the pacing in the movies being an overall improvement for the big screen.