Towers of Midnight Speculation Thread (Spoilers for tGS)

[Duskfire]

  Noal has acted like a man given an order under compulsion to protect Mat's life by a Chosen previously.  So what will occur when Noal receives Moridin's order to kill Mat, from another darkfriend?

 

 

I completely disagree with that. No one knew Mat would go to Ebou Dar; Sammael himself was surprised. I agree he was under compulsion some time previously, but nothing to do with Mat. He has simply been swept up by a ta`veren, and probably sees Mat as a way of redeeming his past mistakes.

[Ataxia]

The AS will arrive on time this time and will save Lan and his army.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I hope the AS dont save anyone, they will be more arrogant than before, they need to get whipped up by Demandred (just beacuse he is the greatest character) along with the Sea Folk and Borderlanders (Damn Tenobia)

 

As for Didaa's theory of Lanfear, its crazy and 99.9999% lies, but arent we all going to be feeling crap if it turns out to be right?

 

Not sure who is going to go into the ToG with Mat and Thom, probably Noal, there really is no other reason for his existance in the story unless it is the biggest RH, but oh well. Other possibilities = Talmenes (although i have no idea why, just beacuse he is Mat's 2nd) that Seanchan guy might want to protect the PoR and all they seem pretty set up about that kinda stuff. Moridin (just to mess with everyone although its really only a joke) Demandred (for the same reason as Moridin)

 

I dont see how it could be Luca now, since he isnt even travelling with Mat anymore (I cant remember i may be wrong in this) and Mat is already in Caemlyn, so it would take ages for him to catch up (that could be the reason for Verin's waiting letter but i doubt) On Verin's letter, it could be someone from that letter (although I have no reason except that Verin seems to know about almost everything)

[Ataxia]

I think the tower being split deflated their ego. I also think the AS will save Lan mainly because of the foreshadowing in NS Chapter 25. Moriaine tells Lan 100 AS were sent but they arrived too late. They'll make it in time with traveling. Maybe Moiraine and/or Nynaeve will drag them to do it. I could also see Egwene leading it herself. She was ashamed of the Greens and this could help redeem them. Im not sure she even knows Lan is marching atm.

[DemandredFO]

I don't see the AS arriving on time now either.  Maybe Nyneave, Moiraine, Myrelle one or all three but I highly doubt AS will send organised help.  They'll be too busy being in need of saving from Rand and the Seanchan to do any good.  Also they're still way too arrogant, unfortunately Lan probably needs to die and Nyneave is going to hopefully give Egwene a verbal smackdown and then destroy something

[mossman87]

Been awhile since i posted but let me ask all my DM friends, does everyone agree yet what most of us i think were believing all along that Noal Charin is the 3rd man Moiraine doesn't know that is going to Ghenji

 

That answer is going to depends who you are asking, but my own answer remains that Valan Luca is the 3rd man predicted to enter the Tower of Ghenjei with Mat & Thom. 

 

Other individuals are going to argue violently in support of Noal to be the 3rd man to go ToG ... and the Dark One to win the Last Battle.   :-[   

 

 

...based on Sweet's cover art I can see Mat there and it looks like Thom is carving the fox symbol(upside down triangle) in the tower and I gotta think that the old man w/ the staff is Noal...only thing is we never see Noal w/ a staff but i still think it seems to confirm him as the 3rd.  BTW i love the dust cover description telling us all the things that will be covered plus i'm sure theres more it doesn't...i'm excited!

 

  Yes, Tor Inc changed the artwork radically.... Thom doesn't even wear clothes as Thom has in the past, in the new artwork.  Seems as if the publisher has attempted to kill the Valan Luca theory with artwork.  Shrug.  Yet to the textual evidence suggest otherwise, for Valan Luca's future role.

 

  Noal has acted like a man given an order under compulsion to protect Mat's life by a Chosen previously.  So what will occur when Noal receives Moridin's order to kill Mat, from another darkfriend?   

 

A little too obvious on this one, my friend.

[r2debo]

What if Noal goes into the ToG and has been there before?  If he the going to be the hero who suddenly remembers his past and understands how to save Moiraine?  I'd love that. 

 

Or, maybe there has to be some sort of one life traded for another deal.  Noal, guilty from leaving his sick wife, decides to trade his life for Moiraine's, as he sees the love and dedication Thom has for her and wants to do for Thom what he did not do for his wife.  This one to me makes the most sense. 

[Shard]

What if Noal goes into the ToG and has been there before?  If he the going to be the hero who suddenly remembers his past and understands how to save Moiraine?  I'd love that. 

 

Or, maybe there has to be some sort of one life traded for another deal.  Noal, guilty from leaving his sick wife, decides to trade his life for Moiraine's, as he sees the love and dedication Thom has for her and wants to do for Thom what he did not do for his wife.  This one to me makes the most sense. 

 

I think this theory has alot of merit but I still feel that somehow Mat's "Deciding between Two Aes Sedai, which the fate of the world rested on" hasn't happened yet. Many also feel that Mat will lose an eye for this Decision as well.

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

Y'all are being too hard on poor Dida. It doesn't matter if he's wrong or not. The more discussion we have on this board about my favorite Forsaken, the better.

 

BS went out of his way to remain vague about whether Lanfear and Cyndane are the same person, and as far as I'm concerned that means there's some wiggle room to speculate about what exactly Cyndane is. Not "who," but "what." It'd be hard to argue (although Dida makes it look easy) that Cyndane is a completely different person from Lanfear, but I also think she might not be the cut-and-paste transmigrated successor to Lanfear that most folks have assumed. Every time I reread that BS interview where he talked about Lanfear and Cyndane, I get a little tickle of excitement. Finally, after all this time, we are going to get some answers about WTF happened to her after she went crazy(ier) and fell into Finnland, and the tone and style of Brandon's reply makes it seem as though these answers will have a lot of intrigue and plot gravity. Epic win!

[Ashaman Kovan]

Demandred (just beacuse he is the greatest character)

 

Really?? You think the guy we've seen like twice in 12 books is the greatest character??  :-\

[aunt_pol]

I got chills when I read Ataxia's post there, pointing out how the AS do owe Malkier big time - the WT has to fight somewhere, why not with/ alongside Lan's army? Lan meeting Moiraine again is going to be a massive tearjerker.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Demandred (just beacuse he is the greatest character)

 

Really?? You think the guy we've seen like twice in 12 books is the greatest character??  :-\

 

we have seen him more than that, like at least 5-10 times, and yes, thats one of the things that make him the best, mystery surrounding him. Plus, apart from Moridin, hes the only forsaken who actually seems to be putting aside their squabbles and doing some good (or bad). Hes the only one that so far hasnt actually failed so utterly it makes the AoL channelers look like fools.

[Ashaman Kovan]

It's a bit hard to say he hasn't failed when we don't even know what he's been doing. Oh, he did fail at the Cleansing though.

[mb]

It's a bit hard to say he hasn't failed when we don't even know what he's been doing. Oh, he did fail at the Cleansing though.

Failure would be being killed or captured; neither ever happened with Demandred.

 

Just one happened during the Cleansing.  (Osangar)

 

[Durinax]

It's a bit hard to say he hasn't failed when we don't even know what he's been doing. Oh, he did fail at the Cleansing though.

Failure would be being killed or captured; neither ever happened with Demandred.

 

Just one happened during the Cleansing.  (Osangar)

 

failure would be failing to complete  what they where sent there for, and everyone was sent there to stop rand which failed, it was a collective failure

[Ashaman Kovan]

It's a bit hard to say he hasn't failed when we don't even know what he's been doing. Oh, he did fail at the Cleansing though.

Failure would be being killed or captured; neither ever happened with Demandred.

 

Just one happened during the Cleansing.  (Osangar)

 

 

Their mission was to stop Rand from Cleansing the Source. They didn't do that. Therefore they failed. All of them, including but not limited to, Demandred. I know Durinax already clarified this but I figured I'd respond anyways given it was directed at me. :]

[FarShainMael]

I'm currently wondering about Min's viewing of Alivia, where she would apparently 'help Rand die', and about what sort of situation Rand would be in where he would prefer to die and not be able to manage it himself. For sure we are going to see this somewhere, ToM seems most likely to me. So what would it be? A few thoughts occur:

 

1) If Semi hadn't been balefired and had managed to take Rand to SG, he would certainly prefer to die rather than be slave to the DO. However, Semi is no longer around, but one of the other Forsaken may have a go.

 

2) If the said Forsaken is CynFear, she may do a Tylin on Rand.

 

3) Rand may go to the DO voluntarily, with Alivia as his Get Out Of SG free card.

 

4) Something else.

 

Thoughts?

 

[algspkr]

  Yes, Tor Inc changed the artwork radically.... Thom doesn't even wear clothes as Thom has in the past, in the new artwork.  Seems as if the publisher has attempted to kill the Valan Luca theory with artwork.  Shrug.  Yet to the textual evidence suggest otherwise, for Valan Luca's future role.

 

  Noal has acted like a man given an order under compulsion to protect Mat's life by a Chosen previously.  So what will occur when Noal receives Moridin's order to kill Mat, from another darkfriend?   

 

Luca knows nothing about the rescue, has never met Moiraine and dislikes Mat.  What is the textual evidence that he will be the third man, or even that we will see him again?

[Barid Bel Medar]

  Yes, Tor Inc changed the artwork radically.... Thom doesn't even wear clothes as Thom has in the past, in the new artwork.  Seems as if the publisher has attempted to kill the Valan Luca theory with artwork.  Shrug.  Yet to the textual evidence suggest otherwise, for Valan Luca's future role.

 

  Noal has acted like a man given an order under compulsion to protect Mat's life by a Chosen previously.  So what will occur when Noal receives Moridin's order to kill Mat, from another darkfriend?   

 

Luca knows nothing about the rescue, has never met Moiraine and dislikes Mat.  What is the textual evidence that he will be the third man, or even that we will see him again?

 

Plus the fact he is not with Mat, who is now hundreds of leagues away in Caemlyn

[Jillain Sanche]

BS went out of his way to remain vague about whether Lanfear and Cyndane are the same person

 

While different in specific ways, it is clear from the text that Cyndane inherited Lanfear's soul/consciousness. See the passage near the end of Winter's Heart, in the chapter when Rand cleans the taint from saidin with Nynaeve's help. Cyndane has a POV which is crystally clear Lanfear's perspective toward Rand.

 

I would quote it for you but I am at work right now, books at home. Just finished rereading WH.

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

While different in specific ways, it is clear from the text that Cyndane inherited Lanfear's soul/consciousness. See the passage near the end of Winter's Heart, in the chapter when Rand cleans the taint from saidin with Nynaeve's help. Cyndane has a POV which is crystally clear Lanfear's perspective toward Rand.

 

I would quote it for you but I am at work right now, books at home. Just finished rereading WH.

 

I'm familiar with that passage. Lanfear's my favorite character; I've read all of her limited appearances many times. =)

 

Let me put it another way. Unlike Dida, I'm not saying, nor do I actually think, that Lanfear and Cyndane are two completely different people. What I'm skeptical about is the idea that Cyndane is the one-to-one, cut-and-paste successor to Lanfear. Cyndane is of Lanfear, that much seems certain, but I'm not convinced that Lanfear is entirely explained by and accounted for in the form of "Cyndane." Does that make sense?

 

People have always assumed that Lanfear was either killed or trapped in Finnland, and the Dark One or the Finns transmigrated her into a new body and gave her the name Cyndane. Badda-bing, badda-boom, off to Moridin to be mindtrapped and then off to Randland to be a good little lackey. Whether or not those events actually occurred, I think something more significant also happened to her at the hands of the Finns. I just don't know what that might be. I'm very much looking forward to finding out in four months! =)

 

My personal hunch is that we'll learn the answer from Moiraine before we learn it from Cyndane herself. RJ was a tricky fellow. There's only one Lanfear POV in the whole series, and the whole purpose of it seems designed to make us think "Lanfear is Cyndane now." This was an author who loved tricking us with the truth: telling no lies but drawing us to the wrong conclusions. He put that scene into the story on purpose, and we still don't know what his ultimate goal was. Nor do we know why Lanfear was the only Forsaken to ever get her own chapter icon, what will come of the Dark Prophecy, what "last chance" actually refers to, why she scared Perrin more than Ishamael did, what her wishes and questions to the Finns were (if she made any), or what she thinks about the Bore.

 

I've been burned by RJ before. I thought Semirhage would turn out to be much more important to the plot than she ultimately became. That's why I'm not very optimistic about the Demandred intrigue. But Lanfear is different; she and Ishamael were always operating on a different frequency than the rest of the baddies. She spent several books in the most mysterious place in the series. She clearly doesn't care about the Shadow or hope for its victory. I just think it would be too much of a Lucy-with-the-football moment for RJ to have done all that setup just to tell us at the end "Gotcha! Nothing really important happened to her. She died and got a new body. End of story."

 

That's why I'm suspicious of taking Cyndane at face value. Brandon went out of his way to remain vague on the premise that she and Lanfear are the same person. He probably did that not because they actually are two different people (which seems very unlikely), but because he wouldn't have been able to give a truthful answer without giving us too big a clue about the direction of the plot. To me, that creates a distinct space of ambiguity in which Cyndane may exist as "Lanfear but not quite." His other comments about her (such as his perception of her power level as Cyndane) only reinforce my suspicion that there's more going on here than meets the eye.

 

At any rate, we'll know the answers soon enough! I've been waiting for this for more years than I want to count.

[aunt_pol]

I'm pretty much inclined to agree with you there, Emu. I don't for a moment believe that Cyndane is 100% NOT Lanfear, but 100% the oher way seems a bit too much. We def have some fun stuff coming in that story arc.

[Shmuel Goldberg]

There's something different about Lanfear's resurrection.

 

Throughout the whole series we see that slight changes in circumstances make for different outcomes, often to much consternation of the involved characters.

 

The manner of Lanfear's death and resurrection is different from any other's. She died in Finnland, a ter'angreal meltet, and she is diminished in strength upon resurrection. Moreover, her character has changed quite a bit. There's a mystery to this and I believe we will learn about that in ToM.

[Durinax]

I tihnk we will see rand playing his video games, I mean stones, and moraine will walk in and rand will say what took you so long to get back.

 

and moraine will say its verins fault she told mat to wait 3 weeks before coming to pick me up so I can come to the last party. . . erm battle

[logannagol]

I'm just rereading The Dragon Reborn at the moment and I noticed something interesting in one of Perrin's dreams. Its the dream where Perrin is walking down a hallway filled with strange shadows and Hopper is telling him to run. Perrin then encounters a man dressed oddly who appears to be a noble. One of the shadows touches the man and his skin is pulled off.

I presume that this dream is one taking place in Tel'aran'rhiod, so my question is: what on earth are those shadows?

Are they perhaps related to Lucker's theory of the unseen eyes?

Not sure if this has already been brought up, but as far as I can recall there has been no answer to what those shadows were in later books.