Why do you consider the events at the Eye as such a blow to the Shadow?

I'm curious, because while it certainly marked the start of the next phase for Rand, it's far from clear it dealt such a big blow to the Shadow. Aginor was crippled and his death let the DO bring him back in a better state. Bathamel's soul was also recovered. Ishamael learned dealing with the "farm boy" would require more than he thought. He got much material to interpret his dark prophecies (e.g.: it's after the Eye events he knew the blacksmith in the prophecies wasn't the Dragon, and so on). The Blight receded a bit before it advanced again, but we can't even tell if this was an effect of Rand's victory, or a mere tactical retreat by Shai'tan who may have wished Rand to think he had dealt the Shadow a blow, or who thought that now the proof was there the Dragon was reborn, he must not be wasteful with his restrained power. In theory, a focal discs broke and so the DO's powers over Creation actually increased, not diminished. The DO loosened his grip on the weather for a short while, but this was back and even worse but a few months later... and it got worse and worse since. As for the slight retreat of the Blight, this eventually became part of a decoy operation by the Shadow who made Shadowspawn retreat further in the Blight and curtailed almost all raids.

All in all, I think the use of the Bowl of the Winds was a much greater "blow" to the Shadow than the events at the Eye. The winter it brought is probably what bought humanity its reprieve to survive until the LB. It forced the Shaido to stop to winter in a city, and likely saved Faile's life, and more importantly Perrin from going nuts when she died. That winter wasted months of struggle by the DO to lock the weather into a killing and eternal dry summer, one in which humans could no longer cultivate - and the Bowl can be used again if the DO messes the weather again, or to make conditions in which humanity can get the good reapings it desperately will need after TG is won but the fight for survival isn't. The heath seemed to accelerate the spread of "corruption" as well, the winter didn't stop it but probably slowed it down some (most food seemed to spoil between the cooking and serving, not in the reserves. As soon as the heat returned, things got much worse). The winter in the Borderlands may even have delayed the invasion from Shadowspawn by a few months, and we know it's the winter that held the Borderland rulers at the Andoran border, and the later muddy spring roads that slowed their advance through Andor massively. They would have come forward too early otherwise - and perhaps would have reached Rand months before he got the memories to be able to answer their "question". The winter also slowed things down a lot at the Tower, and this bought Elayne the time to assemble troops and gather her political allies. The Seanchan also slowed down their advance in Northern Altara when the short but very harsh winter came, and began the campaign again with the return of spring.

The biggest setback for the Shadow with baiting Rand to the Eye is that the Light got its hands on the Horn of Valere and the Dragon Banner (which I have more and more the feeling are much more important to the final resolution than we believe... The Horn, that we know predates the AOL, works to call "the Heroes", but they would fight only for those who had the dragon banner. LTT's banner in the War of Shadow were are told, and so it was even though we also know he didn't accept the name of Dragon - but the fact the Heroes will follow only that banner suggests very strongly that the Banner isn't from the AOL either. It must have been given to LTT (by the Da'shain who were styled Children of the Dragon?) just like it was given to Rand to be his banner. So it would rather seem to be some sort of "Banner of the Light" tied to the Horn of Valere. Then the one who lead the Heroes had a sword at Falme. That sword first seen as a TAR version in the hand of the then leaders of the Heroes of the Horn, has now ended up, complete with a scabbard with the dragon sigil, in Rand's hand. Rand knows the sword was the legendary Justice as seen at Falme in Hawkwing's hands, but he feels ("curiously" as if that sword had been made for him, and then he implied LTT had memories of that sword too, but that he recognized it from his own (Falme), not LTT's (WOS?). Finally, much later in the book Rand mentions that LTT know things about the sword that he won't tell him...

It did not occur to me until recently, but I think the sword "of Hawkwing" isn't from the AOL either. It's older than that. The lacquered scabbard is a bit of a puzzle. Some think it's new, was made for Rand by those who brought him Justice, and thus it's why the Dragon appears on it. Others think Rand had it made (which make a bit more sense, as the others likely would have got the dragon sigil wrong). I now tend to think it's possibly not a traditional laquered wood or leather scabbard (it wouldn't have survived since Hawkwing's days, especially not underwater) and that the sword isn't AOL made. But the scabbard don't matter. If it's new.. well, the sword finally got a proper scabbard again, that's all). The Sword is what's important. I believe it is a third artefact from "the Ages", connected to the Dragon Banner and to the Horn of Valere.

Hawkwing wielded only one artefact in his days (the sword he named or renamed Justice - he may have had no idea what the creature on the scabbard was, if Rand's scabbard isn't new). However, one of the features of his reign, however, was that adventurers assembled at his court, and they went in search of a second artefact, the Horn of Valere, and those adventures from the days of Hawkwing we know are the ones who gave birth to what is known in the New Era as The Great Hunt cycle of stories, with Birgitte the archer, Gaidal Cain, Rogosh Eagle-Eyed etc. - all contemporaries of Hawkwing.


I think LTT in the WOS had two of those artefacts - both given to him by others (the Da'shain Aiel, I think) and associated to "dragon" legends (That I think it the name of the Champion/Saviour in the older Great Serpent and Tree of Life cosmology, the set of cosmological beliefs the Wheel/Pattern/True Source invented by the channellers displaced during the AOL but did not completely erased. I think the legends surrounding the sword, and that he had that sword during the WOS, is what LTT was holding back from Rand back in TOM. Those old legends he didn't believe in.

The Tree of Life is a symbol for Creation and Man - for birth, life, death and rebirth in an eternal cycle; the Great Serpent is the symbol of cyclical time. The Dragon? It's an avatar of the Great Serpent. It doesn't bites his tail - this represents time in its eternal, "sleeping" state - the Dragon has grown legs, as if something disturbed the eternal cycle and woke the serpent up. Its attitude if one of anger/defiance, the claws on its legs and the teeth of its mouth are weapons (it's a fitting symbol with many layers of meaning to mark the arm of the Aiel warriors's chief, with an hidden meaning that may not have escaped the Aes Sedai who programmed the ter'angreal that did that): this is the Great Serpent as a warrior, fighting the Force that could annihilate time and Creation, what the AOL came to know as Shai'tan. The name of The Eye of the World may come from those old legends as well. It sure seemed to freak out especially Aiel and Tinkers that the Dark One meant to blind the EOTW and slay the Great Serpent...

I think these were very old legends no longer widely known during the AOL (like prehistoric mythology, let's say - except for amateurs mythology fans and scholars, the general public has little idea about what's known and what's speculated about those myths and beliefs). But I think the Da'shain held to some of those old symbols, as they had developped the Way of the Leaf imagery from the Tree of Life/Great Serpent mythology rather the Aes Sedai and their newer Pattern/Wheel/Creator (I'm not saying the Da'shain didn't believe in those, we know they did. I'm rather saying that they identified Shai'tan with some mythological enemy and the Dragon-Saviour that fought him. This even comes from the religion/myth that inspired the Da'shain to Jordan: Jainism. The Jain are pacifists like the Da'shain, and they have a cyclical time religion, where at the end of the cycle a Dragon-like hero rises to defeat their "Devil", which destroys the old world and this marks a new beginning of the cycle). I think this is how LTT got this name Dragon - from those old legends - and it's why he got the sword and the banner associated to those legends. I think we'll learn eventually LTT obviously didn't believe in those old legends (we know the beliefs in the Creator are tied with the One Power, and they may have arisen from its discovery), and refused to be called Dragon, but he accepted the sword, perhaps not to offend the Da'shain - and though he quite possibly did just like Perrin and tried to order the Da'shain to bring down that bloody Dragon banner, they disobeyed him and it kept coming back until eventually people at large called LTT the Dragon, recognized the banner as his sigil, and called those Da'shain who followed him around with the Banner the Children of the Dragon, until the name was associated to all Da'shain, and the belief had spread the Da'shain now served only LTT.

The AOLers never figured out the Horn of Valere that sat in a museum had very real instead of colourful legendary powers. We don't know.. but the Dragon Banner and the Sword may very well have sat in museums as well. By the time some prophecies suggested it could do what the legends said it could do, the Horn had been lost during the WOS, and resurfaced only after LTT's death, when it was hidden with the Banner at the site the next Age came to call The Eye of the World, and first inscribed with the old tongue verses about Death (Moridin in the OT) being no bar to its call (all this we got from RJ - the museum artefact, why it wasn't used in the WOS, how it got inscribed in the OT when it's older than the AOL). The Aes Sedai, other AS than the original group of Deirdre and much later in the post Breaking years, then protected a third object they thought vital in "the heart of the Stone": Callandor, some have come to call the Sword of Light, likely because of the KC verses. It was in front of our eyes all along: Deirdre had foretellings these AS with her were following to devise their plans, and they had assembled a sword, a banner and an horn. But we know they didn't place the sword with the other objects, and it's not them who placed it in the Stone that would only exists centuries later... I now think they had the wrong sword(!!!) and they didn't place Callandor with the Dragon banner and Horn as perhaps originally planned - it's why the three artefacts were assembled together in that TSR flasback, IMO - because of a conflict between prophecies that made them doubt. It could be that they realized the connections to the old legends, and that forcibly it's not LTT's san'angreal "Sword of Light" they needed but that real Dragon sword the Da'shain had given him and which they couldn't find anymore. They couldn't wait anymore, so they went forward without placing the sword with the Horn and Banner. And they put Callandor aside in the end, either because the Foretelling connected to it where not yet made, or because they couldn't puzzle out in what "heart of the stone" they had to place it.

So... as far back as TGH, it may well be that Jordan foreshadowed the finale. One of the ta'veren was in TGH already the Hornsounder: Mat. He's the one calling the dead heroes. He will be again. The second one of the ta'veren is the Bannerman. He must be there for the Heroes to join the fight. If it's no there they can't, no matter how much they wish to (this is what we saw happening in Falme. They wanted but couldn't go forward until Perrin rose the Dragon Banner - something was holding them back). And finally, the leader of the Heroes had the sword (a TAR reflection of it...) Back in TGH, this leader was Hawkwing, and Rand incarnated and didn't have the sword yet. At the Last Battle, the bearer of the sword will be Rand, not Hawkwing. Three ta'veren whose minds are "merging"/connected through the "colour swirls", and three artefacts from the "Ages" at last reunited, and the central artefact is a sword of light ("Justice" as the Rand knows that sword), held by the Dragon... and the three shall become one. Does this refer to the three ta'veren acting as one/merging, or could this refer to something happening when the Banner, Horn and Sword are reunited and used together... we'll see.