Nakomi

[Luckers]

I thought she deserved a second thread, aside from Aviendha's.

[Lynchgrinch]

yeah, have i missed something important....?

 

But who the hell is she, and where the hell did she come from, and how the hell does she know stuff???

 

Totaly weird her apperance was.

[Sharaman]

Just listing some possibilities.

Who is she?

1) She's a channeler. In that case, she's masking her ability and she may also be using MoM to conceal her appearance.

She could have Travelled, solving the mysterious appearance/disappearance

If she is actually a "he", or a saidin channeler, Avi would not notice channeling ability anyway

Against that, she performs various physical actions, that would disturb a MoM unless it was very close to her actual appearance.

This assumes we're not seeing it all in TAR.

 

2) She's a manifestation of Avi's mind - unlikely because Avi isn't nuts

3) She is one of the many ghosts that are now walking around - indeterminate, we've never seen them interact with people

 

How did she appear?

1) Portal stone - Avi camps next to a "tremendous stone". Against that Avi does know portal stones - she found the one in Tear.

2) TAR - no sign that Avi was asleep and the sky didn't go weird as it seems to for other TAR visitors in ToM

3) Travel - see above

 

Is she Aiel? She doesn't give sept or clan name, which is unusual.

But Avi doesn't seem to question Nakomi's Aiel-ness.

So she's probably Aiel or certainly knows Aiel well enough to pass for one.

Very difficult to do.

 

She could be a Shaido WO - they are heading for Rhuidean as well to shepherd Benduin.

We've seen Melindhra conceal her clan. Another Shaido might.

Against that, she doesn't dress like WO. She is also alone.

 

Nakomi may also be from the distaff side of the mysterious red-veiled lot, assuming they're Aiel.

 

Are her motives benign?

Most difficult to judge.

She tries to force Avi to think about the Aiel future.

No overt hostility in any event.

She may be trying to influence Avi to take some sort of long-term decision that will have negative consequences.

 

Was she waiting for Avi?

Tough to imagine she wasn't. Too much of a coincidence otherwise for them to meet.

 

My theory is that she is a DF but I have little to go on.

[Lynchgrinch]

To be honest, right now i have no idea whats going on here. I recon whoever the fudge she is though, will become important sooner or later, RJ/BS would not just shove her into the plot randomly if she wasn't previously thought out.

[Second Chance]

When I first read the scene I assumed that Aviendha was dreaming. It makes no obvious sense otherwise. Not that the explanation needs to be obvious... a disguised Darkfriend/Forsaken seems the most plausible explanation to me. The Black Ajah/Mesaana and Graendal seemed pretty busy, as did the (presumably evil) group of Taim's cronies. Maybe Lanfear or Moghedien actually doing something? Something visible from Demandred?

[Kestrel]

If Cyndane/Lanfear was wandering freely I would suspect she was Nakomi. Lanfear was the one who knew how to manipulate the portal stones. As Cyndane, she probably didn't have enough strength in the Power to activate them, but she might have managed it anyway with an angreal.

 

With the mindtrap on Cyndane, I'm not so sure she could have gone unsupervised long enough to pull it off.

 

Then again, we have that little scene with Cyndane right at the end of the book. That sure looked like she was reacting to a hideous punishment. Maybe she was being punished for appearing to Avi as Nakomi?

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

Then again, we have that little scene with Cyndane right at the end of the book. That sure looked like she was reacting to a hideous punishment. Maybe she was being punished for appearing to Avi as Nakomi?

 

That seems unlikely when you look at it from a dramatic angle. That scene is an eleventh-hour cliffhanger for both Rand and the Shadow; why would it be there to represent something as comparatively minor as Cyndane trying to mislead Avi?

 

I'm more inclined to suspect our other mindtrapped Forsaken: The Spider!

[Terez]

I think it was Verin. Perhaps because she reasoned something out from the prophecies? In any case, the first Aiel she ever encountered - Urien - told her all about Rhuidean and the sin/punishment aspect of the Three-fold Land. It makes me wonder if Verin made her way there to go through the rings. She wouldn't have been able to use the crystal columns - RJ says a non-Aiel could wander around in there at will and they would see nothing.

 

But not only does she not seem to be Aiel, for various reasons - no clan or sept, and she talks as if she is not really Aiel at some points - but she has Verin's quirks. She even made a funny comment about questioning apprentice Wise Ones - something Verin is known for having done, extensively. Though they weren't Aiel, of course.

 

Her motives? Hard to pin down, but perhaps she knows that if the Aiel return to the Waste that they will be destroyed.

[Luckers]

It could be her motives have little to do with Aviendha's vision. The Aiel represent a massive force, one which having been exposed to the riches of the Wetlands could easily be misused--look at the Shaido. Verin's the sort to realise the dangers of the Aiel's cultural decline, and attempt to warn them.

[Sharaman]

Then again, we have that little scene with Cyndane right at the end of the book. That sure looked like she was reacting to a hideous punishment. Maybe she was being punished for appearing to Avi as Nakomi?

 

That seems unlikely when you look at it from a dramatic angle. That scene is an eleventh-hour cliffhanger for both Rand and the Shadow; why would it be there to represent something as comparatively minor as Cyndane trying to mislead Avi?

 

I'm more inclined to suspect our other mindtrapped Forsaken: The Spider!

Cyndane is unlikely for a very obvious reason. If she found herself in striking distance of Aviendha, we'd get the Carhein Docks redux with no Rand or Moiraine to play spoiler. Hell hath no fury like a Lanfear spurned.

Demandred anyone?

[clu7ch]

I haven't been onboard with this idea until just recently, but Cyndane is not an unlikely suspect. She made her choices to follow the dark one, to destroy and cause chaos. She didn't choose to be a dog on a leash. The part in the epiclogue reinforces that. I think she's looking for any way to possibly atone for her acts and be seen as a good guy, if only to be free'd of the mind trap and get back to her usual self.

 

The Verin idea is very interesting as well. I hadn't thought about it, but it does sort of fit. Kudos.

[slacker123]

Verin fits

not sure when the Avi timeline took place, but Verin did tell Mat she had many other things to take care of, so it's either Verin or somebody Verin asked to do the deed

[Terez]

Aviendha left for the Waste about 20 days before Verin died.

 

Deadsy apparently had the same impression as me when reading it - to both of us it seemed to be obviously Verin. The why of it is kind of murky, but the mannerisms were all Verin (Brandon's Verin, mind...though I think Brandon got her very close in TGS).

[Barid Bel Medar]

It certainly did seem very Verinish. It is the sort of thing she would do.

 

I really cant think why it would be one of the Forsaken though. They would have probably killed her on site, or at least used some compulsion etc.. I find it very hard to believe they knew what was going to happen in the columns, or that ANYONE knew what Avi questioning the future of the Aiel. It seems tooo strange a thing for one of the Forsaken to do.

 

Verin however, is a perfect candidate. She always seemed to knwo more than most, its the only thing i can think of apart from the woman actually just being a strange Aiel.

[rambling]

I think she's just part of the final ritual.

Sent by the Wise Ones to make Avi think on important issues before she goes on

[Sharaman]

It certainly did seem very Verinish. It is the sort of thing she would do.

 

I really cant think why it would be one of the Forsaken though. They would have probably killed her on site, or at least used some compulsion etc.. I find it very hard to believe they knew what was going to happen in the columns, or that ANYONE knew what Avi questioning the future of the Aiel. It seems tooo strange a thing for one of the Forsaken to do.

 

Verin however, is a perfect candidate. She always seemed to knwo more than most, its the only thing i can think of apart from the woman actually just being a strange Aiel.

Whoever it was, I doubt very much that she/he expected Avi to squeeze those visions out of the columns.

[Dunedain Fal]

When Nakomi made her appearance and after witnessing Aviendha's timetrip, I suspected that she was a DF such as Lanfear or something. But some of the posts here made think otherwise. It could be Verin. What an very interesting scene.

[aunt_pol]

Yeah, hadn't thought of Verin, but she does seem like a very plausible character. Nakomi was able to 'be' Aiel enough to convince Avi, but at the same time she asked a lot of questions no Aiel would have. Very fishy. Pretty cool too. Reread on the way...

[Vermillion]

I never got the feeling she was a darkfriend.

 

It was likely a Aiel Dreamwalker who had a vision that Avi would be there and that she needed to be there. Maybe she used TAR to find need and ended up there?

[PaulChauvet]

I just don't get the 'why' with Verin. Could she do it? Yes, but it just doesn't seem like her modus operandi. I also don't have much of a better idea either (though the long lost Jenn idea does interest me, it seems too much to be pulled out in the next to last book).

[masty]

I am not sure why a forsaken/dark friend would be interested in what the aiel do after the last battle?The shadow is concerned about last battle winning it why would they care what the aiel do after dragon wins the last battle?

[Sharaman]

I never got the feeling she was a darkfriend.

 

It was likely a Aiel Dreamwalker who had a vision that Avi would be there and that she needed to be there. Maybe she used TAR to find need and ended up there?

There are only three Aiel Dreamwalkers alive.

They sent Avi to Rhuidean.

[Sharaman]

I am not sure why a forsaken/dark friend would be interested in what the aiel do after the last battle?The shadow is concerned about last battle winning it why would they care what the aiel do after dragon wins the last battle?

Backup - make sure the Aiel aren't there to aid the Dragon's next incarnation in case the GLoD doesn't win this time.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I never got the feeling she was a darkfriend.

 

It was likely a Aiel Dreamwalker who had a vision that Avi would be there and that she needed to be there. Maybe she used TAR to find need and ended up there?

There are only three Aiel Dreamwalkers alive.

They sent Avi to Rhuidean.

 

There are only three Aiel Dreamwalkers that we've met. But we haven't really met much of anybody from most clans, so, I'd say it's a bit of a stretch to say that we have met the only three.

[Sid]

It was said that there were only the four they meet immediately after using the portal stone in TSR, and then one (Seana) was killed in an attack in the waste.