It's still just a guess that Taim might know how to reach Slayer, while we know for a fact that all Forsaken have access to him. That makes a Forsaken per se a better suspect for being the patron. The location of the patron's Gateway is really too ambiguous to to be a clue.
True, we only know for sure that the Forsaken and a few other non-channelers can summon Slayer. However, the fact that Slayer believes that it has to be a Forsaken kind of screams to me that it has to be someone else.
You just have the feeling that Taim might know how to contact Slayer, but that is no proof at all.
It's absurd to believe that Slayer is an unsuccessful assassin, since we learn e.g. that the DO, the Forsaken and high-ranking DF regularly use his services. Of course, also a powerful person like Brigitte remarks on Slayer's dangerousness. That Slayer also killed others under similar circumstanzes like Asmo was killed (namey "out of thin air" ) actually speaks for him being Asmo's killer as well. On the other hand, we never saw e.g. Graendal murder someone. We also see Slayer spying on people and it's clear that at least Luc knows the Caemlyn Palace very well (certainly better than any other suspect in Asmo's murder mystery). Probably he spied on Asmo, waited for a good opportunity and when he saw that Asmo would apparently go alone in a certain direction, Slayer simply went there before him to surprise Asmo. If Asmo hadn't opened the door, Slayer had just waited for another opportunity.
How is killing two sleeping people even remotely the same as how Asmo was killed? Slayer's main advantage in being an assassin is being able to get to anywhere, locked jail cells and inn rooms, not random hallways. Both instances the targets were not moving and he was given the info for where they were. To the best of my recollection we've never seen Ishy/Moridin kill anyone either, I guess he's not a threat. If that's really the best argument you have against Graendal, you might want to work on some other things. I'll agree with you that Luc, assuming the merging didn't destroy too many memories, would have a much better understanding of the Palace's layout. However, I would never argue that Graendal went looking for Asmo, I believe it was a chance killing. She was there either working with Rahvin before his death, or she came to loot the Palace after he died as she did Sammael's lair after his death and Asmo accidentally ran into her. She balefires him because she knows it's the only thing that can't be stopped, she reverses the weave which explains why Avi doesn't sense it, and Rand and Rahvin had been using balefire throughout the Palace explaining anyone sensing the residue later.
Slayer attacked/killed people e.g. in the WT, in TAR, in the Stone and in the Blight, after stalking and spying on them. This is similar to Asmo's end.
It makes no sense that the careful Graendal strolls a few hours after Rahvin's death through some random corridors of the Caemlyn Palace (Rahvin's appartments were where Rand is), especially without a disguise (though she even often wears a MoM, when she is in her own lair). In Sammael's case, Graendal positively knew at least that he had found a stasis box and thus went there. Of course, all these actions of Graendal were not known at the end of TFoH. At this time, Graendal was one of the Forsaken we hardly knew. Finally, balefire wasn't the weapon. RJ's comment about the DO's inability to transmigrate Asmo because of the manner and the location made this clear.
Bashere was already quite quick with his knife, but of course didn't actually want to kill Rand. If Slayer had an even faster and deadlier weapon, e.g. a crossbow with a poisoned bolt, it's very likely that Asmo simply wasn't quick enough to protect himself (as said, if Slayer doesn't anyway have special gifts we don't know about yet to e.g. block a channeler's ability for a moment).
In theory, however, Asmo could have at least tried to dodge, tried to channel. He doesn't bother, just as Be'lal can't do anything when Moiraine balefires him. In fact, as I mentioned in another post their final death scenes are quite similar in description.
Regarding the balefire, see above. Slayer's likely poisoned crossbow was simply too fast and too surprising, IMO.
i think i found a new stick to beat the dead asmo horse
05/03/2010 06:44:39 PM
- 1382 Views
Graendal Did It
06/03/2010 05:34:32 AM
- 579 Views
Re: Graendal Did It
08/03/2010 10:54:02 PM
- 531 Views
Regardless
06/03/2010 11:05:53 AM
- 634 Views
Re: Regardless
06/03/2010 09:21:49 PM
- 598 Views
bah
06/03/2010 10:55:09 PM
- 565 Views
So answer me this....
08/03/2010 03:40:30 PM
- 706 Views
Tell me your not serious...
09/03/2010 02:57:51 AM
- 457 Views
Slayer's patron knew where Rand was staying
17/03/2010 06:28:50 PM
- 605 Views
Very unlikely that the patron was Taim...
17/03/2010 06:44:44 PM
- 1156 Views
I call BS, not Brandon Sanderson
18/03/2010 03:09:29 AM
- 577 Views
18/03/2010 10:15:46 AM
- 1108 Views
Re:
18/03/2010 05:58:17 PM
- 658 Views
As said...
18/03/2010 06:52:09 PM
- 515 Views
Re: As said...
19/03/2010 05:27:15 PM
- 547 Views
Re: As said...
20/03/2010 09:46:26 AM
- 481 Views
Re: As said...
22/03/2010 03:31:02 AM
- 522 Views
Yeah...
22/03/2010 10:02:48 AM
- 606 Views
Re: Yeah...
24/03/2010 07:55:52 PM
- 564 Views
Fain is not easy to kill. *NM*
18/03/2010 12:05:52 AM
- 234 Views
Re: Regardless
08/03/2010 10:56:20 PM
- 444 Views
Moiraine did it.
08/03/2010 09:21:41 PM
- 474 Views
The Eelfinn can't affect the outside world at all according to RJ...
18/03/2010 01:07:27 PM
- 566 Views