Re: Well... - Edit 2
Before modification by DomA at 26/05/2010 04:37:23 PM
IMO, it also doesn't seem to make much sense that the especially careful Graendal would stroll through the basement of the mostly empty Caemlyn palace - with no servants there - without any disguise,
I don't like much how you resort to exageration and parody when you don't have good arguments to present against a theory. The hypothesis is credible, if you don't describe it on purpose in a completely ridiculous way.
We have the clue from the scene itself that Asmodean thought he was heading for an area/room where he'd find servants and a pantry where he could get wine (a pantry is a room for servants, we've seen one in TGS at the Chadmar palace - and I don't think it was a coincidence, I might add). Does it prove it's Graendal? No, several Shadow characters could have reasons to visit the servant quarters for information (including Luc who knows how this palace is run, I might add. If Slayer did it, he wasn't waiting in ambush for Asmodean or following him, he was there for information when Asmodean stumbled upon him).
It's a ridiculous notion that Graendal would be strolling the palace to find herself spies. She would not stroll at all. She'd do exactly what Nynaeve does in TGS (which set in motion the events that bring Graendal's demise, and this is why I think it's no coincidence. RJ likes to mirror things that way): she'd head straight for the servant quarters and compel the first one she finds there to fetch her the person in charge of the servants. It's Renee Harfor Graendal needed. Only Renee commands all the servants, and could tell them to report to her everything they heard, as there's no telling otherwise which servants who get good info and which would never even get close to Rand or his entourage. Compelling a random servant (or even many) was of strictly no use, it's a network of spies Graendal would have needed to learn anything of value, and the only to get a network of spies with ease and speed in a palace is to compel the person in charge of the servants. That's most likely what Graendal has done in Cairhien to get herself spies. Did she succeed or not before she stumbled on Asmodean? Did she flee or tried so more? It's completely irrelevant, like your attempt to drown the issue in a sea of irrelevant remarks, like the fact most servants had fled the palace. As if Graendal would have known that and it could have motivated her decision to try to learn Rand's plans, and you imply she couldn't have been there because her mission would not have succeeded, which is totally irrelevant: what she wanted to do has no bearing on Asmodean's murder. What we know is that Graendal has eyes in many places and is always very well informed - the best informed of all the Forsaken. An for that, she need to get networks established. She was very well informed about Cairhien and the Cairhien events, days after Rand got there... so it tells us Graendal loses no time in setting up spies.
We also know that Renee kept herself very well informed about Rand, and even under Elayne she's become increasingly jealous of handling matters of spying (which was Norry's job)... It doesn't at all mean she works for anyone or that there's more than ambition and rivalry behind the fact she's so insistant to handle spies and agents, but it doesn't exclude the possibility there is that at play...
A Forsaken like Graendal should per se use stronger balefire, especially if she might confront her arch-enemy or a Forsaken rival, precisely to exclude that the DO might perform a transmigration.
That wouldn't be a priority, not in the circumstances. If she stumbled on Asmodean (or someone else), her priority would be to kill him as fast as possible and get out of there without raising attention or leaving traces behind. The last thing Graendal or Sammael would have wanted was to provoke Rand.
Why would Graendal use a big amount of balefire to kill a Forsaken? A minimal amount of balefire kills a Forsaken as surely as it would a squirrel. There's no defense against balefire, great or small. Transmigration wasn't an issue with Asmodean in the eyes of another Forsaken: he was a traitor. And that's assuming the Forsaken expected transmigration at that point. All those who had died were no brought back, they had no reason to expect the same thing wouldn't happen to all those who got killed.
But would she dare go without a disguise right under Rand's nose? Yes she would. A scene in TPOD establishes that. Remember that the only risk she ran was to run straight into Asmodean. He was the only one who could recognize her. Anyone else who would see her would die or get compelled to forget seing her...
By the way, what told you the weave wasn't inverted? All inversion would do in the case of balefire would be to hide the fact you're about to weave it. The balefire itself can be sensed and seen, even by non-channellers... it also leaves residues, but that corridor was full of them from the fight between Rhavin and Rand (another reason for a Forsaken in the palace to use balefire instead of something else).
And if her balefire was nevertheless just minimal, the DO could transmigrate Asmo everywhere, according to RJ's words on balefire.
He said there were other factors in seizing soul and transmigration he didn't want to get into because he could have a use for them. The "window of opportunity"/time factor was the only one he was willing to discuss. All he was willing to say about the "where" is that there is a "where" factor.
To explain the how- and where-factors with balefire would mean that RJ basically said that - by chance - balefire in such an amount was used that, if Graendal had theoretically killed Asmo at SG, the DO still could have transmigrated him.
Yes, I think it's exactly what he was getting at. You seem to be under the impression he was giving us a big clue about the murder. I rather think that, as usual with all the Asmodean question he answered, he was most of all giving us a riddle with no final answer that would make us discuss for years to come. And it did.
Don't forget: there's no "big mystery" there. Jordan wasn't even sure he could find a way to put the resolution of the murder and how it happened etc. in the final book. All he promised was to give us the answer by the PB's release on his blog, if it didn't fit in AMOL. Brandon and Harriet decided there's a way to put it in one of the three books. Jordan didn't spot the place himself. This speaks once more in favour of the whole thing being mostly irrelevant: no big secret, no impact of the plot, no greater mystery to solve than who and why, and answers that are given strictly to please the fans, because Jordan himself had no use for them.