I don't know.

Brandon said he was conscious Fain had a bit of a Gollum vibe and he was working to distance him from that.

The thing is, Brandon also all but said straight out the whole SG confrontation is part of the 50,000 word narrative near the ending of AMOL Jordan wrote himself, and that he barely retouched to refine the language. That's not the epilogue section, while he was tweetting about reaching the end, Brandon mentionned he had reached the point of RJ's long sequence in the narrative, then all he would have left would be to write the post-LB stuff...

It's doesn't sound to me that he could have done much of anything to distance Fain's from Gollum if the Fain resolution is part of the confrontation at SG written by RJ...

It's not very solid ground, but it could mean Fain has another role in the LB altogether than what many expect he'll have, that it will have been dealt with before the final confrontation with Shai'tan. In a way, Rand is beyond the whole "the victory of the light is all" issue now. His dual Shadar Logoth/Shadow corruption peaked pre-epiphany in TGS.

From the light side, RJ has already exploited the Perrin-Fain stuff, and the Rand and Fain stuff. Curiously, he's left by the road side all the Mordeth/Mat stuff, and Mat's Shadar Logoth connection (with little, fairly subtle reminders by Brandon lately it's there). Then there's the connection between the fact Fain/Mordeth has somehow side-stepped the Pattern... which means he would be a huge challenge to Mat's Pattern-based Luck.

From the Shadow side, it's the Moridin/Fain stuff that's foreshadowed but not yet fully exploited.

Fain could be another one (like Demandred) who wants Rand but may not get him.

Fain's reached the Blight a long time before Rand's expected Strike, if you ask me (unless you're one of those who believe Rand will have his way and Strike at SG the day after Merrilor, making the whole of AMOL happen over a few days. Mat being in Ebou Dar by chapter 11 makes it unlikely. At the end of TOM, Moiraine says they have to reach Rand a.s.a.p. Mat is dismissive, saying he will go to Caemlyn, and that Moiraine and Thom should come with him as Elayne would be their best chance to find Rand. As the scene ends, Mat had told Moiraine he was married to the Seanchan Empress, and he was about to tell her how things stand everywhere etc. It sounds fairly likely when Grady comes Thom and Moiraine will go to Merrilor but Mat will ask for a gateway to Ebou Dar.).

A huge twist with Fain, I sure can't even decide if I think it's possible or not - no one knows these rules, would be for Fain to reach Moridin's palace and possess him.

That's how the Pattern works... apparently incidental developments that turn out extremely meaningful later. The flaw is something its Aes Sedai makers would not have included on purpose.

There doesn't seem anything special about the san'angreal itself. Lews Therin is as clueless about its potential role as the others, at least that we know.

The flaw seems important. In the last exchange about it, Min pointed out with some alarm that the flaw seems even worse than what they knew about it. At that instant she had a viewing of Callandor held by a hand that looked made of onyx.

We were conveniently not told why Min said that of Callandor. Brandon started the scene "late". Cadsuane already had retrieved it from her friends studying it, whatever report she made had already happened off screen and all we got of that conversation was Min's cryptic closing comment.

That smacks of a plot device not to tell us yet what new stuff was revealed about Callandor... but it concerns its flaw, again.

Then we got another cryptic comment about another off-screen scene. Min said Rand had taken to wearing Justice again (and had a sheath made in his back to carry Callandor around from now on), saying cryptically (Min's comment) the ancien sword represented to him the past and Callandor the future.

In TGS, Rand off-handly thought (near the end of the book, pre-epiphany) that there were things LTT knew about Justice that he wasn't telling him.

Obviously Rand knows now, and has taken to wearing Justice again, at the same time he decided to carry Callandor.

Huh? Rand's soul directly facing the DO while dead, the DO's own domain, isn't good enough for you? That's Rand putting more than his life in the balance, it's the eternal fate of his soul on the balance, facing Shai'tan's will. It's a a matter of perception for sure, but to me that'd be a far more meaningful achievement than having Rand pull off a grand OP feat at the Bore.

That's all the prophecies we know say, by the way. Rand's blood on the rocks on SG and he has to face the DO, and that it doesn't mean victory, it means only possibility. It could mean only Rand's soul can hold off the DO as the deed is done. If verses concern the closing the Bore, the seals or anything like this, we do not know them. It sounds extremely unlikely's there's any (and if they are, they aren't understood by anyone for now as relating to these matters), or else Rand and and Egwene's scholars would have been going over those over and over to puzzle out the clues like Cadsuane and co. go over the one pointing at Callandor...

It sounds likely only Herid Fel identified the right verse of prophecy, or the right reflections by a scholar. Min will know when she comes across the phrase "belief and order make strength" in the right book (my suspicion is that the phrase is a quote from a longer commentary on a specific verse of the KC). I suspect the information she'll find there won't be obvious, they'll have to reason it out the way Fel did, having as a clue that Fel made a connection between that information and the sealing.

A very big "missing link" is also Moiraine. She's convinced Rand needs her and she must reach him soon. When Moiraine left, she wrote to Rand that of what came after that day she knew only "one small thing" and that it didn't concern him, and she can't lie. She can of course twist the truth - not having known anything directly about Rand. She knew more than "one thing", she knew about her possible rescue and its details, she knew she'd marry Thom.

Obviously, something happened since and Moiraine do know or do have something that very much concerns Rand. One of her gift is the angreal, a second obvious one might have been "her life"... the secret one might be the third.

You see, it appears Moiraine's faith in Min's viewings got shaken at some point. It's the fact she was so uncertain of her rescue that makes me think that. What she saw in Rhuidean seems to have shaken her belief in Min's viewings, because in Tear she seemed dead certain her and Thom would meet again. By the time she wrote her letter to Thom, she no longer seemed so certain.

I get the feeling Moiraine knows of Min's viewing about her, the one Min phrased as "without (Moiraine) Rand would almost certainly fail" not to tell us what the exact viewing, or aura, was.

It seems rather obvious that if she knows of that viewing, Moiraine asked the Aelfinn about that. She would have gotten a riddle back. After she went to Rhuidean, she became convinced her role was to defeat Lanfear and go to the Finns, and her faith that she had a certain future beyond that seemed quite shaken... as if she believed making that sacrifice was perhaps what Rand absolutely needed her for (there was a distinct lack of alternatives in what she saw in Rhuidean...). But perhaps she was soon proven wrong...

One of the first things Moiraine did coming out of Ghenjei was to ask if Thom would marry her, making Min's (theorical) viewing about this come true. Why doesn't Min does not think of that viewing as having failed? Maybe because she didn't understand it, only Moiraine did.

My hunch is that Moiraine's third boon/gift from the Eelfinn concerns the viewing Min had of her/the riddle about it Moiraine got from the Aelfinn. It could be "something" or it could be as simple as her asking the Eelfinn to make her understand the riddle of the Aelfinn...

In any case, Moiraine has a crucial role to play without which Rand "would almost certainly fail". It doesn't mean it concerns the endgame itself, but Moiraine's presence in the circle with Callandor suggests it (but it may simply be because Moiraine asked to be the third woman in the circle)

On a wholly unrelated note, some things jumped at me as I was re reading the Ghenjei scenes.

It sounds like Aginor may have used Aelfinn and Eelfinn genes for some Shadospawn. Not all that surprising since he was looking for the genes of predators...

We've always been told that the theory is that Fades are throwbacks to human genes but there are very strange connections. First of all, we know Sindhol and its inhabitants obey a "radically different set of natural laws" (dixit RJ). That might explain why Fade don't seem to obey some natural laws. The other connection is more straighforward. RJ's description of the Aelfinn in "attack mode" is virtually word for word the same he uses to describe the serpent-like movements and features of the Myrddraal. Even more direct, in the Eelfinn scenes, Mat believes they don't hide in shadows but appear and disappear in them... Then we come to other less direct but interesting connections... Myrrdraal can sense the ability and the OP. So do the Aelfinn and Eelfinn apparently.. they're attracted to channelers, they knew the exact strength of Moiraine's angreal. We don't know what exactly the Aelfinn and Eelfinn do to read people (either to answer questions or give people what they need (they put a lot of emphasis on the word need that was italicized in a Ghenjei scene), but I'm wondering if that "sixth sense" that doesn't exist in the human world isn't how Myrddraal perceive the world without eyes.

Too many coincidental connections, IMO. It sounds very likely to me Myrrdraal are not throwbacks to only human genes, but also to dominant Aelfinn and Eelfinn genes Aginor used to make his Trollocs (like I've long suspected there are Ogier genes in Nym).

It doesn't stop there... obviously neither Lanfear nor Moiraine could stop the Finns with the OP. Rand used a sword of fire, not weaves directed at them. Some believe Mat's medallion is Aes Sedai made, but that sounds very unlikely to me. It seems to be a ter'angreal, but one made by the Eelfinn. I don't think anyone believes they had an ashan'darei capable of making a gateway out of their world on hand either. An ashan'darei from an adventurer, yes, but it's obvious they've modified it to have the ability to open a portal. We've also seen other "doorways" of different shapes than the one from Tear/Rhuidean in their worlds in TOM, so again those ter'angreal are made by them.

The medallion of the Eelfinn could harm a gholam... It then occured to me to go re read the gholam's POV and how he described taking the life of a channeller:

"The moment of death, when it felt the ability to channel vanish along with life, produced ecstasy. Rapture."


Interesting.. similar to what Moiraine say the Finns love of the ability to channel.

As for the One Power, the gholam itself compares its itch to that felt by Myrrdraal.

I get the feeling Aginor could have used Finns genes in the gholam as well.

It does make sense, I guess.. the Finns are really nasty creatures, and they obey physical laws radically different from those of the real world. Interesting genes pool for Aginor to toy with. No reason to believe he restrained himself to human-world genes and didn't get some from Sindhol, or Portal Worlds.