I may have to reply in multiple parts. First, thank you thank you thank you. I obviously missed a lot of nuance on Belal's plans, and the labyrinthine LoC plot. It is rather clear, on reflection, that Lanfear was pushing the Emond's Field Five to go to Tear to disrupt the Netweaver's plans, and/or gain more power for Al Thor.

I also thought that Mesaana was speaking truthfully about helping Belal; it was a bit foolish to assume that Belal would contact Messy and say "let me have 13 of your BA for this little project of mine that will give me a huge gain over your team." At worst, I assumed that he ordered some BA, then Messy learned about it and did something to participate. At best, I envisioned actual cooperation, which is unlikely for the reasons you stated.

My analytical problem with the Forsaken boils down to a chess analog : we know the moves and uses of bishops, rooks, and knights, but we have so little info on how the Shadow's big pieces move, much less their plans. Left with "well they could be doing *anything*," I have trouble weeding out the red herrings and reading between the lines as easily as I would otherwise.

Although I was technically correct that Lanfear's cooperative ventures were "directed" at controlling Rand, my notes made no logical deductions on her real goals. You're clearly right that she'd never share "her man" with anyone else. And your theory fits perfectly : she participated with other Chosen to (a) keep them away from Rand, and (b) pressure him into accepting her into his life.

To be honest, you're redeeming Lanfear with this - take away all this subtext, and it seems like all her machinations had no big goal behind them. And many folks read her that way, especially given the blind depth of her LTT obsession and her immense hype. In short, reading it all at face value makes Lanfear seem quite dumb.

Although it's a little complicated (and kind of unfair to the readers with double and triple fake-outs), you also provide a solid reading into the Graendal weirdness at the coffee hours. Your ideas neatly explain the Morry-Graendal interactions, and creates a plausible reason to validate (a) the number of chairs at the Gardens, and (b) the possibility that Moridin sent the 100k Trollocs. I seriously assumed that Morry was telling the flat truth about that army, yet it's a sensible feint on his part.

So thank you yet again. I'll see if I have more to add later...