I may be wrong, but most people seem to think Graendal is indeed dead and that the Shadow played a minimal role in this book, and that the greatest evil was Rand himself...

Now, while that last is certainly kind of true, I'm amazed how people simply ignored some parts of the prologue which strongly imply that the Shadow had a major role in making Rand the way he was.

Here's what I think the Shadow's plan was...

Moridin had seen that physical harm to Rand can hurt him. He thus wanted to end this battle without actually having to hurt Rand physically.

The first step of the plan was to free Semirhage and have her use the male a'dam on Rand. The end goal was not to capture Rand but to have him, in his desperation, seize the True Power. My belief is that this strengthened the connection between Rand and Moridin.

That achieved, the next step was to take out the one ally of Rand's who would not only notice the increasing darkness in Rand, but take concrete steps to counter it. The one ally who would stand up to him and point out how he is behaving as anyone sworn to the Dark One would. To that end, the male a'dam is removed from Cadsuane's protection, in such a way as to suggest incompetence on her part.

That done, it was now time to send Rand packing from Arad Doman, yet in a much worse mental state than he currently was. To achieve this, the Shadow played one of its most diabolical and subtle games.

First, the Choedan Kal is left behind when the a'dam in stolen, and the whole incident is designed to make Rand take very good care of it. It was to become his talisman against the use of the True Power, an object he would grow to rely on more and more, justifying it as a counterweight to the TP. This was something Moridin could well anticipate, as he is likely aware of the existence of LTT's memory in Rand's head.

Now, what has Rand said is his ultimate goal in Arad Doman? The removal of Graendal. He thinks she has the king, but we know she does not because he isn't good looking enough.

As Rand searches for the king, a source to find him is provided. An extremely handsome man, supposedly Graendal's courier, is a captive of the merchant Rand captured (however, we know Graendal rarely gives up her pets for small jobs. Her previous couriers were never handsome enough). Convenient. This captive is then promptly killed on Rand's arrival, which should lead him/someone near him to believe that this man held the key to Graendal's secret location.

If anyone were to come looking for this man, a conveniently placed "spy" of Graendal's would be found, on whom suspicion will fall immediately because he has been poisoning the imprisoned merchant! Why would Graendal have him do that if she wants to avoid notice?

More importantly, why kill the first courier? His brain would have been damaged by the compulsion. One could argue Graendal forsaw what happened with Kerb and wanted to prevent her courier from blabbing. But it makes no sense to replace one such threat with an equal threat (Kerb), and then have a fiery arrow pointed at the new threat!

Kerb was meant to be found. And his mentioning of Natrin's Barrow a case of Graendal's subtle compulsion, which we know is very difficult to detect.

So, you think, Rand has been pointed towards Graendal's lair. Natrin's Barrow makes sense, since we know Graendal's lair was in sight of the Misty Mountains (according to Sammael). But Sammael also says that her palace was widely known in Arad Doman. Rand directly contradicts this when he says the general populace of Arad Doman doesn't remember Natrin's Barrow, nor does the king, and the royal arcihvist had to search for four hours to locate it. No way will the royal archivist in one of the worlds foremost libraries take four hours to locate a fortress that is well known in his own country!

Another thing... Sammael guesses that everyone leaving Graendal's lair probably left subtly compelled into believing that she was a descendant of a family that had lived here since the Breaking. That Rodel Ituralde comes to visit "Lady Basene" certainly points to such an impression being created by Graendal.

Yet, Rand reports that his scouts heard from the villagers that someone new lives in Natrin's Barrow and that the old occupants were no longer there, and they never thought about the change. This doesn't add up to what kind of history Graendal would have set up for herself.

Therefore, Natrin's Barrow was never Graendal's lair! It was a palace full of innocent people that Rand was to destroy.

He would initially think he had justification, since the vanishing of Graendal's compulsion would make him believe she is dead.

The ultimate plan was to reveal to Rand that Graendal is in fact alive, driving out his anger, making him rile at being used.

This part of the plan never got acted upon because before this could happen, Cadsuane sent Tam to Rand, and that achieved the same purpose.

And what did the Shadow intend Rand do when his temper slips? Question the Pattern, the Wheel, the Creator. Question his purpose. And what solution should he find? Moridin had engineered a meeting to remind Rand about his own take on creation. That all creation was a lie, a torture, and release from creation necessitated destroying the Pattern. And how to do that? The Choedan Kal, of course, conveniently left behind with Rand!

While the final act that drove Rand to nearly destroy creation was not engineered by the Shadow, his reaction was completely because of what the Shadow did. Graendal was ordered to give Rand anguish of mind. And she would have, had Cadsuane not stepped in. His actions with Tam caused Rand greater anguish than anything Graendal could engineer, but it also made him question not just the Pattern and Creation, but himself.

The Shadow came very close to achieving its goals in this book. All that saved Rand was the persistence of his Aes Sedai adviser and Nynaeve, the good sense of Tam, and his core personality that, in the end, let him be honest with himself.