Mesaanas identity - A new approach?

[farthammer]

There was a scene were mesaana is shown building a tower out of dominos and one of the forsaken comments that mesaana took pride in being able to build it purely with her knowledge of stresses and levers. Now consider that female merchants, engineers arent uncomon in randland, and that the builders that were doing some work on a library that were involved in overthrowing siuan. Could mesaana be posing as a female architect/engineer on elaidas palace?

 

Now that's an interesting idea.  I wonder if she actually recreated parts or rooms of the WT interior offsite at a safe location and linked them with inverted gateway(s) with no one the wiser.  Asmodean once commented that he thought only LTT, Demandred, and Semirhage were strong enough to block them from closing.  Maybe she panicked about not being able to rescue Semirhage because she needed her to keep the scheme going.  So in effect she did not have to be in Tar Valon herself, just that sisters were Traveling to her without realizing it.

[Duskfire]

|Thats what i always thought. Considering Mesaana was hiding her ability to channel shows that she wasn't AS. You could say that she Didn't want other AS knowing her ability but is it possible you hide the extent of the power you could channel? If she was AS she would have to be stronger then most other AS and they're only a few that can fall into that category. Also BS said to think of ways to cheat the oath rod. what better way then not to take the oaths in the first place.

 

Its possible to appear weaker then you are. Lanfear would have done this while posing as Else Grimwell at the Whitetower.

 

Shes almost certainly Danelle. Out of all the evidence and all that we know, its really the only person that fits that doesn't have any glaring holes in it. And since we have met her and should be able to know who she is, then it can't be anything completely random.

[Sharaman]

Tarna doesn't work.

Verin met Mesaana twice in the WT before she went to the TR but she was too swaddled up for V to guess who she was impersonating.

Tarna (and Tsutsama and several others) are automatically eliminated because they were nowhere near the WT during the TDR-TSR period.

There is another meta-reason why novices/ accepted don't work.

RJ said and Brandon concurred that she could be identified from info in the books by CoT.

We have descriptions of Mesaana and some details of her activities.

But to match them, we need details of the secret ID.

There are no such details about any of the twoer novices/ accepted/ servants.

 

 

 

[DaughterOfNight]

I guess I commented on another topic about this but here goes anyway:

 

My guess is that it's Danelle.  The only thing that I can't remember is if RJ told us if we have seen Mesaana on screen yet or not.  Have we?

 

If so, I'm betting on Danelle.  My reasoning behind it, to put this very simply and without elaboration, is because of a passage I read in the encyclopedia recently.  If you look at Mesanna's chapter, she is described to be a scholar and all about knowledge.  She was also known to have a 'dreamy' look about her and always seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.  Another part said that she was a mediocre battle general (commander? officer?) but shone as a governor of already conquered territories.  

 

With that being said, Danelle is described a a 'dreamy' Brown, lost in her own thoughts -- until the moment when she helped pull Suian down.  And at that moment, the dreamy look was gone and her eyes were as sharp as ever.  Suian (or whoever's POV that chapter was) definitely made a point to notice the difference in Danelle's behavior.

 

Putting these small ideas together, not even considering everything else we know from the books, it seems plausible that Mesaana is Danelle, providing that we have seen her on screen.  Mesanna definitely seems like she would be a Brown considering how she is described in the encyclopedia.

 

[Edit: Ah, I found my previous post... Just found my posting history, yay! I'll just do the copy and paste thing...

 

Danelle... now, I can't remember if we've been told whether we've seen Mesaana on screen or not.  Danelle seems to fit because of the way she's been described along with the ajah she's associated with.  In the Encyclopedia, Mesanna is described as '...practical and intelligent, though often taken for being dreamy because of her introspection.'  She also loves knowledge, research and such. She was an average field commander but blossomed as a governor of conquered territories, her administration efficient and orderly.  This seems to fit Danelle pretty well.  ]

 

[DaughterOfNight]

The two most likely candadates as put foreward by the Encyclopedia-WoT is either the red sister Tarna Feir, or the brown sister Danelle. I personlly prefer Tarna as she was sent to the rebel camp in tSR, though that point doesn't get mentioned till LoC. The glossary clues just seem to fit the timeline of Tarna Feir better. 

 

What is in the Encyclopedia about Tarna?  I guess I missed that part... I definitely caught the similarities between Mesaana and Danelle from reading the text of the Encyclopedia!