I tried to find old posts that had this information, but too many posts have Dashiva in there somewhere to make it efficient to wade through.

I'm doing my pre-ToM reread and I'm having a thought I've never had before. I expect this has been discussed before, so perhaps someone can tell me what the consensus was.

I wonder if Dashiva is one of the Forsaken in disguise. I would originally expect Demandred, but then Ishy/Moridin makes more sense. I cannot recall if Moridin has been introduced yet.

When we first meet Dashiva, he is described as a man in his middle years. The battle at Dumai's Wells has just ended, and he is ignoring the huge crowd of people and hubbub around Rand, and staring at the Aes Sedai prisoners. He is a full Asha'man but Taim says he is either a dreamer, or he is going mad already.

Not long after, Perrin notes, for the first of many times, that the man's smell quivers like a madman's. He also notes that the man doesn't seem to know one end of a sword from the other. (This would seem to fit, perhaps, with the AOL Aes Sedai never needing to use weapons?)

If Taim could feel him gaining strength rapidly, and if he IS one of the male forsaken, then he must have been weaving an illusion for appearance (since Rand/LTT would recognize a Forsaken's face) and using it to block/modify the amount of power a man would feel in him.

If he IS weaving illusion, then the illusion would have to be somewhat close to his original stature and build, but besides describing him as looking like a farmer, so far no mention has been made about his physical characteristics. (Note: I had forgotten until this point in the reread how young Narishma is.)

Then, on the way into Cairhien, Perrin hears Dashiva apparently muttering to himself, and hears "fool" and "hero" in disparaging tones. This could be a man chastising himself for "getting into this mess", or it could be a Forsaken grumping about Rand/LTT's fool heroics (or something).

This may all be just a big waste of time, since there is possibly proof somewhere later in the series that I have forgotten. Likely, if there is, I will read it, slap my forehead, and say "Oh yeah..."