Finders Keepers...

[Ashandarei]

I wasn't able to find any quotes by RJ/BS about this so I figured I'd ask on here. Is it known/theorized what Ishamael did here? Did he place a Finder on Rand?

 

When he turned back, Ba'alzamon's outstretched hand had become a fist. "You are mine, youngling, alive or dead. The Eye of the World will never serve you. I mark you as mine." His fist opened, and a ball of flame shot out. It struck Rand in the face, exploding, searing. Rand lurched awake in the dark, water dripping through the cloaks onto his face. His hand trembled as he touched his cheeks. The skin felt tender, as if sunburned.

 

Additionally, is this related to what Lanfear does to Rand later in the series? I think it's when she leaves a hickey/love bite on his shoulder in TAR.(Or maybe she does something else at some other time, I do remember her marking him as hers...)

[Aliriel]

Didn't she just straight out bite him on the shoulder?

 

A.

[Ashandarei]

Apparently nobody knows what happened or nobody cares what happened or both. Sadness.

[Luckers]

No body knows. Those dreams are very strange in light of later evidence--technically if Ishamael was pulling Rand and co. into TAR he should not only have had total control of them, he should also know exactly who they are. And in reverse if he were visiting their dreams they should be able to control him.

 

This is not to say its an early bookism (an error resulting from the world not being fully fleshed out yet in Jordan's mind). Brandon has very carefully danced around saying whether or not that place the boys visited (and Rand visits it again in tGS) was TAR.

 

But if we're going for guesswork--there may also be elements here involving how Ishamael is able to find ta'veren, which Graendal states is not easy in KoD. What he did might well have been the equivelent of placing a GPS tracker on Rand, to make finding him using this ta'veren tracking easier.

 

As for Lanfear... I'm pretty sure she did nothing but bite him.

[Ashandarei]

No body knows. Those dreams are very strange in light of later evidence--technically if Ishamael was pulling Rand and co. into TAR he should not only have had total control of them, he should also know exactly who they are. And in reverse if he were visiting their dreams they should be able to control him.

 

This is not to say its an early bookism (an error resulting from the world not being fully fleshed out yet in Jordan's mind). Brandon has very carefully danced around saying whether or not that place the boys visited (and Rand visits it again in tGS) was TAR.

 

But if we're going for guesswork--there may also be elements here involving how Ishamael is able to find ta'veren, which Graendal states is not easy in KoD. What he did might well have been the equivelent of placing a GPS tracker on Rand, to make finding him using this ta'veren tracking easier.

 

As for Lanfear... I'm pretty sure she did nothing but bite him.

 

Many thanks for the input! Yeah, I agree that it was probably a tracker/finder. Also, the whole WoT world not being as well defined at the time for RJ makes sense.