Week 3 Question: There are many theories that attempt to create a connection of time duration to the transmigration of the dead Forsaken. Are there time and/or power constraints on the Dark One's ability to transmigrate souls?

Robert Jordan Answers: There are definitely time constraints on the Dark One's power to transmigrate a soul. The soul doesn't have to be secured immediately - that is, the Dark One doesn't have to be ready to snatch the soul at the instant of death - but the longer that passes after the death, the less chance that the Dark One will be able to secure the soul. Someone who has been killed with balefire in actuality died before the apparent time of his or her death, and thus the window of opportunity for the Dark One to secure that soul for transmigration is gone before the Dark One can know that the soul must be secured unless the amount of balefire used is very small. Remember that the more balefire is used, the further back the target's thread is burned out of the pattern.

After the soul is secured, then a suitable body must be acquired and stripped of the (former) owner's memory and soul to make way for the favored one. By the way, what constitutes a suitable body from the Dark One's perspective is not that of the recipient. Certainly Aginor would never have chosen to be reincarnated in his, shall we say, less than imposing body, nor would the womanizing Balthamel have chosen to be reincarnated as a beautiful woman. It was only chance that Moridin ended up in a body that is young, fairly good looking and physically imposing. Those things simply don't matter to the Dark One. But the body has to be basically healthy and sound, and neither too young nor too old. After all, the Dark One wants his servants to be effective, and a body that meets those basic requirements is more desirable than one that doesn't. Since there is no stockpile of such bodies, the only way for someone to die and immediately be reincarnated would be a matter of pure chance. That is, the death occurred when a suitable body was on hand for some other reason.

There are a few other limits and constraints, but I won't go into them here, since I may want to use them in the books, and I would rather they come as a surprise if I do.</ quote>
I'm ignoring the last part about there being other restrictions he wants to use later (this instance clearly fits the bill for that). But for the "punishment by bimbo" scenario you outlined, the Dark One either held out for some time in the hope that a suitable bimbo body would appear, or such a body was luckily available when he had to resurrect her. What I'm questioning is your ascribing of deep motive to the Dark Ones actions here. But it doesn't fit, both because the logistics present a problem, as RJ said, but also because what you're saying doesn't add up:

1) you say he remade her as a girlish bimbo, but that doesn't seem to be easy, per RJ.
2) you say she is forced to be a servant in livery, and this its insulting to her.

But the important part to remember is that these punishments won't have their full effect on a personality like Lanfear's until it is made public that she was Lanfear. Her name, her beauty, her strength, her clothes... all these matter to her as they can be used to over awe others. To strip her of her pride, the DO would have made clear to the other Forsaken that she has been divested of these things as punishment. Instead, her new name is an inside joke only, her lack of her old strength meaningless since no one knows she once possessed it, and her being made a slave is a secret, which only makes it an object lesson in private. To really bring down Lanfear, he would have made it known she was now a weakened bimbo slave. This quote from RJ makes this clearer:



Given how " channeler economics" drive the decision so strongly, I find it really hard to believe he had Lanfear killed and resurrected for a useless private lesson that won't even prevent betrayal by another of the Chosen. Far more likely he was forced to do it.