Aran'gar:

- has figured out that Cyndane is mindtrapped in KOD, and thought this could be useful. It's yet another of Aran'gar many ambitions (kill Rand, seize Graendal's network, split the Demandred-Semirhage-Mesaana trio apart (and think it wonderful he now knew where Mesaana was... so it looks like she may be planning attempts to undermine Demandred and Semirhage that would appear to have come from Mesaana) is to topple Moridin and gain control of the mindtraps. *Overambitious* and *unfocussed* seems to define Aran'gar pretty well.




That's assuming in the first place Taim used it in the sense some Forsaken used it, and that there is no other, simpler way to explain the comment. It didn't attract Rand's attention one bit, and he knows about the Da'shain, so this comment wasn't apparently odd, or a slip. The simplest explanation is often the best. In the context Taim used this expression, he meant to be insulting to the Aiel as he was trying to convince Rand they wouldn't remain loyal to him and they were not good allies, that male channellers would be much better. He was saying something like "For how long these so-called Aiel will remain loyal to you anyway? How much can you rely on them". Either Taim knows Aiel mean Dedicated (you don't need to have an higher education, be an Aoler or know one for that... the Aiel are infamous in the Westlands since the Aiel War.. lots of people must know what the OT name means) - and was insulting their loyalty to Rand, or more likely he had no idea of the extent and nature of Rand's background with the Aiel and was trying to insinuate these "tamed" Aiel following Rand were not "the real deal", the real savage Aiel from the Waste but some fringe group who decided to follow Rand. If anything, the whole attempt to suggest the Aiel wouldn't stay loyal to Rand spoke of Taim's knowledge Rand's backstory being fairly limited. Certainly more limited than you'd expect from any of the Forsaken. However... there is something that used to be considered a clue that Taim was Demandred that can be interpreted as a clue that Demandred is behind the whole Taim initiative: at some point, Demandred rages against the Aiel and Rhuidean. It sure looks as if Demandred is pissed about the Aiel and how they bounded themselves to Rand.. and this attitude fits like a glove someone who seeks to provide "an ally" to Rand, who isn't pleased Rand has other he can rely on and that would compete with Taim's efforts to make himself valuable, and who would order Taim to fish to see how much Rand trusts the Aiel... which Taim did, very clumsily.


Taim was also expecting/hoping to remain at Rand's side all the time originally. How long could a Forsaken have pretended, without making a lethal slip, to be a Saldaean with Bashere and his men close to Rand (just look how much Lanfear sucked at pretending to be Cairhienin, all the slips she constantly made about books she shouln't have read, choosing a nationality which she didn't fit physically etc. Rahvin made a half-baked Andoran as well - having goals totally out of character for one - he had to rely on compulsion to pull it off, and it's the same for Graendal in Arad Doman). There's also the big problem of using a MOM when you expect to be near Rand so often... it's an extremely dangerous tactic in the long term. One accidental touch to Taim's face by anyone or any object (a banner flapped by the wind, mishandling by Taim of utensils, wine cup etc.) and it's game over (Lanfear made slips with her MOM like this too).


And Taim isn't any Saldaean, but someone with a detailed history with Bashere himself, and several Aes Sedai. Pretending to be Taim would have been a deathtrap for a Forsaken in these conditions, and he knew Bashere and his Saldaeans were there as he approached the palace at the latest. No way a Forsaken could memorize everything to convince Bashere he is Taim, even Aran'gar just pretended to have travelled a short while with Cabriana, no more. She didn't try to memorize her whole life, her culture, her accent, her attitudes... she pretended to be a woman who knew her. It's much, much better, and far more believable, to simply send the real Taim if he was available and willing to serve the Shadow....



Actually, I suggested a very simple theory about this, and someone mentionned it to Brandon who commented back he liked it a lot. My idea is that Graendal didn't give complex orders to Ituralde. Rather, when he came to meet Lady Basene, she used very subtle compulsion on him to increase his loyalty to Alsalam beyond all reasonable limits. That would have worked really well, because Ituralde was already very loyal to his old friend, and nothing in there went against his true nature. Ituralde knew the King's orders were "crazy", he knew they were conflicting, but he still obeyed them (and when he looked for a way out, he hid not to receive more orders... he knew inside him somewhere he would be forced to obey those, and change the plans again). Graendal's compulsion forced him to rationalize every order from "the King" he was receiving (the last ones were: gather all the forces of the land, and end it all in glory by provoking an invasion by the Seanchan.. with an additional motivation : and the Shadow doesn't want you to do this....) . For the Seanchan, Ituralde's found rationale was that the nation was doomed anyway, so better end it all in glory, with all the forces of the nation dying in a totally useless deed that would be sung by their children one day (mourned would be more like it...). A really rational General would have calculated this orders were insane, and that his duty, and the King's, was first to the people, and to save the lives of the Domani. Better bow to the Seanchan until they could be pushed back than to self-destroy all the nations's soldiers, and a big chunk of his apt males, from very young to very old...

Following my idea, Graendal's very simple, very practical compulsion stopped being effective the minute Rand convinced Ituralde Alsalam was either dead or his mind was jelly - leaving Ituralde totally free to make his own rational decisions again. This means if someone in the Shadow knows about this (or Graendal herself before she died), Ituralde would be "reactivated" if convinced that Rand lied, or Alsalam is alive adn well (not that this is likely to happen).




This doesn't make sense, or I don't undertstand what you're getting at. The plan with the Shaido is Sammael's own idea, it has nothing to do with an attempt to keep him out of the way.

Sammael didn't know "just enough to keep him out of the way", Graendal said (or pretended) to have told him just enough about the matters discussed with Demandred's group that he wouldn't ruin anything, but she didn't tell him about Mesaana's ongoing plan to capture Rand. She lied to Demandred. In truth, she tried to aim Sammael against both Demandred and Rand. And sure, Sammael wasn't hot on participating in anything lead by Demandred, but Graendal didn't make any effort to convince him, on the opposite she poured oil on the fire of his antipathy for Demandred, then went back to Demandred and did the same with him, telling him Sammael wanted nothing to do with them, then washing her hands in advance for what would happen by telling everyone she did pass the DO's orders not to kill Rand. If Sammael killed Rand, that would have nothing to do with her. Graendal pushed and pulled to make sure the natural dislike of the two men for one another would remain, and they wouldn't put it aside in the name of their self-interest. She needed them apart. If you noticed, Graendal was actually trying to get Sammael to kill Rand while pretending the opposite (it ends with her reflecting Sammael was aimed at Rand like an arrow). That was not just or primarly to get rid of Rand, but because Demandred was the one who got the orders to keep Rand alive from the DO and Rand's death on his watch, during his bid to lead the Chosen, would have reflected poorly on his leadership. Graendal had no intention to strengthen Demandred's position, far from it. This plan backfired and half-succeeded at the same time: after he learned Mesaana was in the Tower (and still sought to find where Demandred was), Sammael indeed made a devious move against Rand and the trio with Sevanna that would have reflected very poorly on Mesaana whose pawns were in charge of the kidnapping of Rand, especially if Sevanna's moves resulted in Rand's death. Undermining the trio, and especially Demandred's bid for leadership - much like one of Graendal's goals. The part that backfired is that Graendal wanted both Sammael and Demandred to be blamed for the fiasco (and out of the race for Nae'blis), but Sammael saw her coming from afar and forced her to get involved up to her neck. In effect, he made sure the trio would get blamed if his plan worked, but Graendal could not betray his involvement to the DO without accusing herself too.

Clever, but it failed completely, and in the end Sammael helped Demandred look good in the DO's eyes...

I think it's fairly obvious to me Demandred made Taim totally paranoid about Rand's safety (he would... again its part of his bid for leadership - nothing must happen to Rand on his watch.. and there's more below), which the obvious result that Taim was keeping eyes on Rand and when he heard of the kidnapping he went straight to find and rescue Rand, in effect having the perfect reason to disobey and do the last thing Rand wanted, and which he had in truth forbidden: conflict between Asha'man and the White Tower . That didn't seem to ruffle Mesaana one bit, so my guess is that when she she said she would soon have Rand in her hands, she was in truth lying for Graendal's sake. The trio didn't want Graendal to know they were putting Rand in danger in order to rescue him, turning him against the Tower for good, and starting a BT/WT conflict. If anything went wrong, Mesaana would have said "It's Elaida, I had no way to stop her, and I sent several BA to ensure nothing went wrong" and Demandred would have said "I made Rand's safety paramount to Taim - I never ordered him to go after the Aes Sedai". But the dangerous Sevanna wilcard aside (Sammael's doing), this was a massive success, much better than expected as it turned far more catastrophic for Elaida than it should have been - gaining Alviarin/Mesaana new leverage on her, and Demandred could claim big accomplishements to the DO, a lot of new chaos, big and small. Another success was the fact he finally was able to convince Rand to take Asha'man with him, though much to his chagrin, one of them was Dashiva (I think it's obvious Taim knew something wasn't kosher about this one, a high-ranking DF or perhaps he even knew that he was Forsaken, approached by him like Delana was by Halima, I think). Forcibly (according to my theory that Demandred is behind Taim), this would mean Demandred when he learned about this told Taim to keep a very close eye on that guy - an uknown Forsaken, or more likely he thought he was the agent of another Forsaken who had infiltrated the BT (Demandred would suspect Sammael's agent). Of course, this means Taim was taken aback when Rand chose Dashiva, and knew Demandred would be really pissed off the guy was now with Rand, with other DF and non-DF Asha'man. It appears from comments in WH that Demandred never learned Osan'gar was Dashiva, and the DO never learned Dashiva tried to kill Rand, perhaps because Demandred thought Dashiva's attempt to kill Rand was meant to incriminate him and Taim, and he hastened to cover the whole thing up. This would explain his orders and comments to the same DF Asha'man, when he gave them a mission to kill Rand in WH.



Actually, this appears to be simply a comment to herself. Demandred tried to boss the Chosen around in LOC, and was the one carrying the DO's orders, notably about spreading chaos. From Graendal's comment, it seems Demandred was insistant/annoying about this, and she ressented his attempts at playing the boss.



Hard to tell. My theory used to be that Moridin told Graendal she stood a chance to be his number 2 if she agreed to put her talents to his service. Graendal started playing games at meetings that all too often seemed to go in Moridin's direction. However, TGS sort of undermined this idea, because Moridin made the offer then I speculated before he had made when he summoned her the first time. It doesn't mean he didn't insinuate he'd like her to play games at the meetings while not promising her a reward for it, however - but in truth they don't seem "close" before his summons in TGS, so it's probably Graendal's own doings. One thing Moridin would have discussed (or go fishing about in a sly way) at the first summons was the extent of Graendal's involvement with Sammael and his plans. That's probably why he didn't wait long to bring her under his control after Sammael's death.



Well, you hit on one of the main things that lead me to believe the summons in TGS wasn't the first time Moridin asked Graendal for special favours...

In WH too she arrived first, chose a weird setting unlike her tastes (just to make the other wonder) but through her exchanges with the others she seemed to prepare the ground for what was coming. It was like ping-pong: for e.g. Graendal planted the notion in the men that the DO might mistrust them if Rand succeeded in cleansing saidin (ie: Shai'tan might suspect they wouldn't do their best to prevent it as they wanted to get rid of the necessity of the DO's filters. The women of course had no such conflict of interests) and then Moridin replied by reassurances that actually sounded more like threats.

Of course in KOD it's even more suspicious and makes one hell of hard coincidence to believe: Graendal puts too many chairs at the very meeting Moridin would (pretend to) claim Sammael is alive.

And it's not the only coincidence: Graendal just happens to pick the setting of a fancy AOL restaurant the day Moridin decided to have his mind-reading Zomorans act like fancy waiters at a meeting.

It's all very fishy. It still extremely likely to me that at the very least Moridin always made sure Graendal would be the first to arrive by summoning her first, and his messengers always had a bunch of special instructions about what she was supposed to do when she arrived. Graendal would be a clever choice for mind-games like this, because that's her style and the others wouldn't readily suspect Moridin gave her orders.




Not really, I think. She did that, yes, but her main ploy in TGS, I think, was to have set up a "hunt for Graendal" that she imagined to be extremely clever and devious and that she meant to frustrate Rand to no end. She left.. clues for him to follow, but each clue would lead to a dead end, and no doubt this would have gone on and on... a new bait, a new dead end. She followed a similar strategy about his plans: she didn't ruin them completely - she let him find one councillor, and then another, giving him hope he'd succeed... before ruining his hopes and frustrating him. Graendal obviously wanted Rand to find the dungeon and her pawns in BE, and evidence of her compulsion on people. If she didn't, these people would have all died. But she underestimated Rand and Nynaeve. Even Semirhage has misgivings about trying to undo compulsion. Graendal couldn't believe Rand had anyone with him with enough Talent to come close enough to succeeding, or that one of her pawn would have buried deep down a scrap of will and hatred for her that would let him reveal her hideout (this obviously involved some ta'veren luck...). Graendal also didn't foresee that Rand had become as hard and cold-blooded as a Forsaken and he would kill a man in cold blood to try to get information from him, and later she wouldn't have imagined Rand would have fallen so low in darkness he'd risk using so much balefire in the present state of the pattern just to kill a Forsaken, or that he would kill so many innocents just to kill her. She'd expect that from Moridin, Semirhage, Demandred at any time, but Rand she tended to read as LTT, and LTT would not have done this. Her misjudgements about Rand were her undoing... that's what you get for trying to analyze a patient from afar...



And there is yet another of my "clues" Moridin had passed to Graendal specific orders about what to say. Her attempt was oddly clumsy for her. This could suggest she ressented being used for Moridin's mind-games and by being noticeably clumsy, she tried to turn this to her advantage. She was giving a hint to the others (the more clever ones like Demandred) that she had special knowledge, and make them wonder why and how she had it. After the meeting was over, perhaps Demandred would have wondered : "is there something about Graendal's standing with Moridin I should know about? Is he favouring her over the rest of us, and telling her more than he tells us, or what?"



Confirmed to be still in the White Tower.





That's a huge assumption, and IMO it's a wrong one. Why would Mesaana admit openly (ie: in front of Demandred) that she was part of a scheme that would end up with Be'lal getting Callandor? And the massive problem that kills this hypothesis: remember Mesaana's hideout is a big secret, she would never discuss something involving the BA/WT openly with Graendal!

This doesn't make sense. The flaws to Callandor would have been obvious in the AOL - they came from it being rushed and its shabby manufacturing (no buffer). In short, whenever Callandor was used in the WOS, it was forcibly used by a circle of three. Lanfear knew the san'angreal well and didn't forewarn Rand, but that's easy to understand: she wasn't about to tell him he needed another woman beside her!

What is far more likely is that Mesaana had her own secret scheme going (likely involving Liandrin's group - Be'lal wouldn't have been aware Mesaana was in the Tower and learned his plans from Alviarin) that we don't know more about, and that aimed to get Be'lal killed and the trio getting their hands on both Rand and Callandor in his place, a flawed san'angreal that requires, hint hint, two women and one man to operate safely. In other words, it was perfectly safe to let Demandred have it, because he would need both women to use it safely. As for Demandred, he knew he was safe from betrayal: the sword was useless to Semirhage and Mesaana without him.




No, no, non. Nothing like that.

It was never part of Be'lal's plans to use the girls as bait, he made absolutely no effort whatsover to let Rand know he had them as prisoners!. He confessed his surprise to Rand that using the girls as bait could have worked after all. He didn't think he would have cared. He didn't think Rand would come to him anytime soon either, called him crazy to have done that.

What does it tell us? A lot of things.

First, Be'lal had no plan to bait Rand, at least not for the time being. Rand's arrival took him by surprise, and he had nothing prepared about that with the 13 BA. He was consolidating his power in Tear (and spoke openly of declaring war soon on Tar Valon), not baiting Rand to come take Callandor.. The girls he vaguely intended to turn to the Shadow and "train".

What happened is this:

Lanfear sent Rand the dreams about Callandor. She had witnessed what happened in Falme, how powerful his ta'veren nature was when Perrin and Mat, and the girls, were there too. The Wheel made miracles, and Rand kicked Ishamael's butt. Lanfear calculated that she could make the same things happen by pulling strings to make the Callandor prophecy occur soon. She needed to send Rand all his sallies she knew about.

She pushed Perrin to go on, interferring with Ishamael's attempt to make him go back to blacksmithing. She pushed Mat out of Tar Valon. She went to Alviarin and learned about Liandrin's 13 sent to Tear at Be'lal's orders and decided to use this (that's Egwene's dream about the big trap, with Liandrin laughing at her and Lanfear laughing at Liandrin). She gave orders (to Alviarin, most likely) to set up the false belongings in a basement pointing to Tear, told her to forewarn Liandrin in Tear of their comings, and then as Else she sent the girls to the basement. She was also the one who had ordered Slayer to kill the Grey Men sent to kill the girls in the Tower (sent by Ishamael, almost certainly. He tried to kill with Grey Men Mat too, and Perrin in Illian, the girls in the Tower, and finally he fought Rand. Ishamael too knew what would happen if Rand got all his allies around him again....). Lanfear very possibly ordered Verin to give Egwene a dream ter'angreal (Verin had one, so she didn't go and steal one in the vaults) - the flash of white as Egwene left Verin's study was Lanfear - as Silvie she basically told Egwene "it's about time you found your way here", and lead her right to Liandrin's 13. Lanfear fairly obviously arranged for Liandrin's group to be forewarned of the arrival of the girls. Be'lal learned about the girls coming from the BA, and it was the BA's idea to suggest to him to use them as bait (might have been in Alviarin's message or something - or Silvie talked to Liandrin in TAR). He likely answered "Prftt... this won't work, why would he cared about girls enough to risk this - but you say they are strong... what the hell - capture them and I might have another use for them. And here's the hedgehog, get rid of that meddling Blue"




Graendal was simply fishing to see if he would give a hint he was involved at the BT, or with Rand. She had no idea of Demandred's plans, but since Osan'gar made it obvious the Shadow was at the BT, then it was painfully obvious that Demandred was a much better candidate to be the brain involved, not Osan'gar. She went fishing, tried to get a reaction from one of the two men that they were in it together, and caught absolutely nothing. Her attempt was transparent. Demandred didn't answer and showed no reaction whatsoever - that's the clever way to deal with Graendal: give her nothing.



Yes. I'm rather convinced Cyndane was the one who tried to get Slayer to kill Rand. Moridin gave permission to kill Rand at that point, and Cyndane jumped on the opportunity. She would have been by far the most motivated. The big clue is that Slayer was also told to kill Rand's lover. He expected his lover to be with him.

I think Lanfear, self proclaimed Queen of TAR and everything found in it, was the Forsaken who used Slayer's services all the time in the series (not the Fain thing, of course): she used him to kill Ishamael's Grey Men in the WT, she used him to kill the BA in Tear (Elayne puzzled it out: the BA were killed to convince the girls they had revealed something important, so they would have no choice but to act on it. Lanfear wanted the girls out of the way, but couldn't afford to harm them - Rand would soon make her his prime suspect if anything happened. She was about to make her move on Rand, tell him she loved him and wanted him. Her use for the girls was over, she wanted these distractions to go away now.)



My guesses:

Tarabon: Nope. I'm not totslly sure the Shadow started the ball rolling there - it started very early, but Moghedien's network in the area must have worsened it if they were not behind it all along.

Altara: Nothing happened to weaken Altara. Nothing was necessary, they were an easy take for the Seanchan.

Amadicia: Yes, Demandred is involved I think - the fall of Niall right in time for the Seanchan's arrival is way too convenient to be a coincidence. Demandred's the one who designed the strategy to undermine the Whitecloaks so they couldn't resist the Seanchan invasion in any way. He tampered with Asunawa to get rid of the CoL's "military genius", then to recall the men to Amador. I think Demandred may also have used several DF proxies on both sides to embroil the WC in a timely war with Masema's people as well. I don't think he was the one who turned Masema into "the prophet" - that has Lanfear's print all over it: who but her would think it a good idea early on to have a Prophet assemble an army of fanatics in Rand's name? This was also achieved by sending Masema "visions" of a divine/angelic version of Rand in his dreams. How romantic... Typical Lanfear stuff, IMO. Demandred would vomit just at the idea of having to pretend to someone Rand/LTT is the next best thing after the Creator. OTOH, it makes a lot of sense that Demandred would have the WC destroy a man assembling Rand an army of fanatics and who considers Rand is divine.... it's not terribly useful but what the heck.. chaos is chaos and it's just so sweet to destroy someone who worships Rand/LTT.



I don't think the Shadow is behind this, and I think Jordan's hint that it might is misinterpreted (not like him at all to make a big slip, so I think it's not what he meant). This was decided between the rulers very secretely, so unless one is a DF... and this still wouldn't explain how the other three thought this a good idea.

This came from the fact Rand is to an observer in the Borderlands spreading war all over the south, weakening all the nations there. Then the Tower broke apart, and obviously is completely at a loss to fix the situation - rather sending letters to rulers trying to bully them into this and that. The Bordermen had enough. It was one of two things: either Rand was the real Dragon Reborn and he was totally out of control, maybe mad already, and needs to be guided to do what's right to prepare the world for TG. He can't be let to invade the Borderlands, the frontline. So the rulers took things in their hands.

Or... Rand isn't the DR but the worse false dragon since Guaire Amalasan. Obviously the Tower is unable to do anything, the South is falling to him, and there is no Hawkwing in sight this time around. So the Bordermen took things in their hands.

What I think RJ meant with his allusions is what we discovered in TGS:

We were told the rulers left behind enough troops to stop anything short of the TW coming again.

That may be true, but as we discovered in TGS, the blightborder is actually unguarded.

No need to look any further: when the rulers left, the Shadow saw this opportunity and lost no time to mess up all the plans they had made to keep the Blightborder safe. This suggests the Shadow is not loosing efforts with the rulers, perhaps just observing them and their doings and possibly having planned something to destroy their armies (Taim and the BT would be the obvious choice) should they show any sign of going back, or if they met Rand. What the Shadow did is mess up with the people the rulers have left behind in charge. This would mean targeting the four nations at once, and this speaks of the use of DF in several walks of life: military, nobles etc.

Perhaps Demandred is involved, but I suspect it's rather Moridin's doing, with Cyndane/Moghedien as his messengers. He's the one with overall control of the DF networks. He <>i>created them. OTOH, finding ways to undermine the military capacities of the four Borderland nations after the rulers left, and think up a way to destroy the rulers' army down south eventually (especially if I'm right that Demandred's main plan is to step in as supreme commander of the army he had Taim build for him), sounds like a very likely task for Moridin to assign to Demandred. He has by far the best skills for this - would see exactly what needs to be weakened, and think of believable ideas and diversions to draw the men elsewhere etc, and beside, it keeps him busy and far away from Rand.

I think Demandred most likely did this:

- Set up Taim to be near Rand. It ended up with Taim being ordered to train male channellers, at which point Demandred did an happy dance and told Taim: go over the top with this, milk it for all its worth - the moron just served us on a silver platter a perfect opportunity to build a male army to merge with the BA down the line right under everyone's nose and to know everything about al'Thor's own army down to when the last time they changed smallclothes.... so MAKE IT BIG, MAKE IT GOOD - and remember to undertrain the men you leave to al'Thor.

- Contributed often to the his two allies' plans. Demandred may have a few pawns in the Seanchan military, subtly pushing Tuon's generals in the right directions, giving good advice about the invasions. You know, the sort of underlings near people like Yulan, who had brilliant plans to present to their superiors, who can claim them as their own. The raid on the WT could have been influenced by Demandred. Semirhage as Anath was near Tuon, but she had little to no influence on military strategy. It doesn't mean Demandred controls any military pawns, however. Semirahge might, but Demandred advised her on military matters. As mentionned above, I think Demandred's the one who engineered the collapse of the Whitecloaks as a military power. The whole idea, IMO, is that once the job is done, Demandred moves on.

- He and Mesaana were behind "Dumai's Wells", it's all fairly obvious.

- It's fairly obvious to me one of Demandred's recent "coups", again with Mesaana, was to take the initiative again and spin the Cleansing as as Forsaken weapon of mass destruction, ordering the BA to propose an alliance between AS and the BT. Again, Demandred would have gotten control of Rand's armies. Rand no longer to worry about AS and Asha'man and setting things up, he would have learned Taim had it all under control - the AS came to it for an alliance - and Rand didn't need going through the hassle of dealing with AS himself, he just had to approve the alliance Taim negotiated with Rand's "good friend" Egwene (that's why this was launched among the Rebels, not the Tower faction. That's why Taim most likely killed the Red envoys... they were useless except to create chaos.. an alliance with the Rebels and starting a conflict with Elaida's faction, and furthering the one between Rebels and Loyalists by making the Red envoys vanish without a trace... ). Of course, the Rebel BA would have been told to be "very eager" to work with Asha'man, and bond them. Not only Demandred/Mesaana would have trained the BA in a version of the "special classes" - making Demandred's mixed gender circles make the AS's look like toy soldiers, but would have ensured that the right BA and DF Asha'man were at the right places to hurt the AS and Rand both the most in TG, when the time for betrayal came. The last thing Demandred and Mesaana needed to do: ensuring that the san'angreal and angreal came out of the vaults of the Tower and other places and got distributed (in other words, the BA among the rebels would have started pressuring the Hall for a raid on the Tower vaults at some later point)... and that most of them ended up in the hands of the BA/DF Asha'man.




Birgitte wasn't an archer in the AOL, she was a soldier on LTT's staff (more used to shocklances than arcs, obviously), and Moghedien served on his staff as well.

I think her recognition of Birgitte is derived from her TAR talent. She may have "marked" the Heroes she caught a glimpse of in TAR somehow - out of curiosity or something - and found a way to recognize these people when they're incarnated. I think it's part of her TAR talents that she realised these people weren't in TAR the normal way, and she may have marked them to verify a theory about what they were. It is well to remember that Moghedien was alive and likely roaming TAR long before Theadra would have been born.



Her "alliances" weren't meant to control Rand. They were not alliances either. Lanfear always intended to screw Asmodean. Once Rand agreed to make Asmodean his teacher, this was Lanfear's original plan, she would have neutralized Asmodean with a shield.

Her "alliance" with the three was no alliance either. Demandred, Semirhage and Mesaana were not included for the good reason they hate Lanfear and would never go along one of her plans. So they had to be neutralized, so they didn't team up and took out Rand after he got Callandor and before he became too good at channelling (Lanfear incited Rand to use Callandor and make "big stuff" even though she knew it wasn't in any way safe for him to do so, because he didn't know much about saidin and because of its flaws, precisely as a show for the Chosen... She knew it would make the Chosen hesitate more to come for him, whereas if he didn't use Callandor, they'd figure out he was still a weakling and now was the time to take him out before he learned too much. Her other reason was to show Rand how powerful he could become if he knew saidin better).

This "alliance of four" was powerful enough to make "the trio" step warily and hesitate to meddle in their plans, in fear the four who team up to come after them. Then, with her "plan", Lanfear created a motive for Graendal, Rahvin and Sammael to be patient and leave Rand alone. She baited them into thinking that the plan was to capture Rand when he went after Sammael. That wasn't her plan at all. Her real plan was to convince Rand Rahvin and Sammael meant to come after him, and that now Graendal was allied with them, and that they asked Lanfear to join them. Asmodean would have turned white... Rand couldn't face these four acting together. Then Lanfear would have said: "I left you enough time... I can have you if I ally with the other three or maybe I will stand aside and just let them destroy you if you won't have me as your lover, or I can have you if you join me and together we'll destroy those three, then we'll destroy Demandred, Semirhage and Mesaana. Your choice Lews Therin."




It's either her or it's Moridin himself.

Cyndane is a in appearance a credible suspect. With her little show that she wanted to go to Rand herself may have been just that: a show to convince Moridin she wanted to kill Rand herself. Sending 100k trollocs to kill Rand is totally unlike Lanfear... which makes it the perfect MO not to land high on Moridin's list of suspects. However, there's a huge problem, unsurmountable in my book: Cyndane is mindtrapped, and in these conditions it's a child game for Moridin to get her to spill her secrets. There's a world between Moridin not placing her high on the list of suspects and the assurance that Moridin wouldn't make sure Cyndane and Moghedien didn't do it. So... it's not very likely Cyndane is behind this.

Semirhage used to be a suspect, but not anymore. We know she was ordered by Moridin to capture Rand and was likely promised a big reward for it. She'd have to be a complete moron to get him killed.

Demandred is pretty much ruled out, and Aran'gar is ruled out. Mesaana is a most unlikely suspect.

That leaves only Moridin.... and this makes a lot of sense. The whole meeting, the suspicions etc. are thus just mind-games to increase his control and induce the Chosen to be on their best behaviour and stay away from Rand at this delicate juncture where he would try to capture him (because they know Moridin suspect one of them, so they'll all be watched... it's not a good time to mistep where anyone can see them, and if they had any plan for al'Thor, it's better to put them on the backburner for now.. unless you're reckless like Aran'gar anyway.. and nothing says Aran'gar had anything immediate in mind... she's not stupid).

Why the attack then? It's very simple: Moridin was about to order Semirhage to capture Rand. Rand was never the target of this attack. He wasn't to be harmed. Moridin's target was the bloody "super team" and their wonder-gizmos who defeated all the Chosen at Shadar Logoth. The goal of the attack was to kill Rand's inner circle so that Semirhage stood a chance at capturing him without risking a battle and harming him by bringing a lot of people into her plan. Semirhage knew (maybe not yet at the time of the meeting, but possibly even then)! She's been assured Rand's "super team" would have been dealt with, that it was safe to come at him with just a bunch of damane and a'dam, that it was safe for her to let him bring channellers, to lower his suspicions of a trap. She never expected Cadsuane/Nynaeve and all the super gizmos, and the back-up team. That was the very bad surprise she faced when she got near Rand: Moridin had failed completely.



There's all the reasons to think she was lying about that. "Ah, my soulmate, I would have recognized you anywhere in whatever body". Riiiiight. Lanfear knew Rand was TDR before she even met him, that's why she knew he was LTT reborn... she just made sure these prophecies weren't some huge pile of BS by spending time with him in TGH, making sure he could channel, testing if he remember anything by showing herself to him in the appearance she had when they were lovers (young Mierin) etc.



There's no link. When the embassy left TV, it was known that the Shaido Aiel were in the way between TV and Cairhien, and they were Rand's enemies. One way or another, Elaida's people had to find a way through. It's Elaida who ordered the embassy to contact the Shaido and make a deal. Elaida even got greedy, and ordered Galina to order the Shaido to kill all the Younglings on the return journey, in exchange for which "the savages" would be granted a sight of Rand, their enemy, humiliated, defeated and bound. A really stupid plan, typical of Elaida's arrogance.

The BA or the Shadow had absolutely nothing to do with this. Galina herself (IRRC) is the one who mentions the orders for all this came from the Amyrlin.

Sammael wanted Sevanna to steal Rand for Mesaana's group. He had puzzled out her plan, which was obvious if you knew she was in the Tower, but it's probably Graendal who told him after he had forced her to go along with him. He most likely intended Rand to die after Sevanna captured him. Mesaana would have been blamed by the DO, and this happened while Demandred was making his bid to lead the Chosen.




This comment puzzled Graendal, for good reasons.

Sammael was mistaken. He was referring to events in Ghealdan and Amadicia. It looked like a proxy war: having WC and Prophet clash, once you look at the general picture in the east.

Because Amadica isn't what tipped Sammael off. Pedron Niall had an ongoing campaign using proxies (here in the sense of creating a conflict by controlling both sides) in the east. His strategies are similar to Demandred's and this is what fooled Sammael. He was spreading troubles in the south-east having the WC pretend to be Dragonsworn (Carridin's WC - a DF), so the WC would be invinted to come to rescue. Those troubles extended to parts of Illian, or were getting dangerously close to Illian. That's the non existant connection Sammael made between everything: the WC had fought Dragonsworn on Almoth, in Amadicia a WC/Dragonsworn war was ongoing, and now they were beginning to extend this campaign by creating fake Dragonsworn problems in the east. Sammael concluded they had done the same before, that it was all one big plan. Sammael thought Demandred was planning to use the WC to try to destabilize his own territory, but Niall's use of proxies in the east was totally unconnected to the WC/Dragonsworn war in the west, and it was a pure coincidence that he chose a DF whom he based in Ebou Dar to lead the false Dragonsworn troubles in the east. That's why he told Graendal to tell Demandred he knew what he was up to, and to back off his territory.

This explanation is strengthened a lot by what Sammael did next. After the Dumai's Wells fiasco (for Sammael), he turned around and scattered the Shaido in the territories the WC were active in.. .except near his own. He thought he was giving Demandred's "friends" a real enemy to keep them too busy to interfere in the east. His next move was to grab control of a man he thought was Demandred's eastern proxy: Jaichim Carridin. He may have realised his mistake then, or hit a dead end: Carridin had no connection to Demandred, and if Demandred was involved, he was behind Niall (which he wasn't, of course).



Graendal was a bystander. You don't really think the trio really included her, do you? They let her think their ongoing plan involved Mesaana getting her hands on Rand soon. That was a mistake. They didn't realise Graendal knew enough about Mesaana to figured out how she most likely intended to get her hands on Rand soon. Then, Graendal's little plan backfired, and she ended up in a position where she was forced to tell Sammael, and to involve herself up to her neck with him.

I don't think it's a coincidence that to contact the Shaido Sammael appeared as a tall, dark man. I think his "Caddar" disguise was likely fairly close to Demandred's appearance. As for "Maisia", his "Aes Sedai", she was to have been Mesaaana in disguise.

This was a possible outcome, that probably wouldn't work but was still worth trying: when Rand ended up dead in Sevanna's care (which Sammael would have arranged somehow, I'm sure), investigations by Shadow agents might find traces suggesting Demandred and Mesaana had a secret plan to get Rand killed, while pretending to just bring him to the WT (Sammael and most likely Graendal knew nothing of the "rescue by Taim" part). Incidentally, when the plan was set up, Taim was still expected to follow Rand at his side - there was no BT in the works. This apsect of the plan came later. It's still very likely the idea was to let Elaida kidnap Rand - making Rand hate AS for good - and to have Taim himself free him. There were enough BA involved it would have been easy down the line to order Galina to facilitate Taim's little rescue, and a lot of the non-BA would have been killed in the event. In short, it was Dumai's Wells light.

But then BT happened, and it became totally unecessary to get the BA involved: Taim could perfectly well handle a real and far more credible rescue with the Asha'man. Mesaana, as we see later, never really gave a serious damn about losing Black Sisters.