Man I was hoping it be like more along the lines of the artwork in the link below:

http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2010/339/d/8/taimon_gaidon_by_dem888-d348zgo.png

@jack of shadows

What about a ranking of god-awful WOT covers? I'll start:

1. Lord of Chaos. This is the worst cover, hands down; the figure of Rand is grotesque, with the proportions, perspective and posture all horribly wrong, on top of which is the fact that (a) he doesn't look the way he's described in any of the books and (b) he doesn't look the way he does on any of the other covers, before or since. The Aes Sedai's pose is cartoonish, and her facial expression is weird, and the Flame of Tar Valon emblem on her back is jarring, distracting, inappropriate, and unsupported by anything in the text. The draghkar is all wrong, besides not belonging there in the first place. There is much, much more that is bad about this cover, but the two central human figures are so bad that everything else fades to insignificance. This cover sucks wind, big time. It's actually painful to look at.

2. The Gathering Storm. The Rand figure is weird, but not as weird as in the LoC cover. Proportions are screwy, as usual - Rand's head is too big and his arms are too small; the woman's head is too big. Again, Rand doesn't look anything like he does in the other covers. (Not that this is entirely a bad thing - on the cover of tEotW, he looks like a profoundly mentally impaired cross between Rick Santorum and Mr. Greenjeans.) The hole in the house is completely unrealistic, and the piece of cloth draped over Rand's bad arm is all wrong. From a purely technical standpoint, there is better art than this pouring out of the middle schools of this country on a daily basis.

I think the sword can use the True power as well......I think it is going to take a combination of all three powers to reseal the dark one.

@twolitre lews said the true power was the DO..."its him!!!" i dont see how rj would have thought rand to use the DO against the DO... seems kinda contradictory...

as i see it, the TP and the OP are balanced against eachother, much like saidar and saidin... the OP the force of creation... the TP the force of destruction...

if so, the OP would be the only thing capable of restoring the seal on the DO's prison... not the TP, tho im sure it will play some part in TG

we know it cannot draw saidar, because it was used during the cleansing of saidin in a circle, and there was nothing unusual about it...

i believe that because calendor doesnt have a buffer, it is actually capable of harnessing FAR more power, than the choden kal... when used in a circle(as we suspect), the buffer that is the circle, is what limits the amount of power it can draw on...

but to draw on that much power through it, without a circle, would be VERY dangerous... potentially to how much was used to form dragonmount... lews too had a sword of light when it was created... and he wasnt in a circle... ;-)

i believe that it will be used both in a circle, and solo, during the last book... as lews probably did...

Well, LTT saying that the true power does not -have- to mean it is so, neither he nor anybody else from the AoL are omniscient. However, I do believe you're right about Callandor and that it is the power potential that sets it apart from the Choedan kal.

BTW I do not think the bore will be resealed, as per earlier comment I believe the bore will be healed as if it never were. That is in line with my pet theory that it is Nynaeve who is the other woman with Rand in the picture, and with the wheel-nature of the wheel of time. There was no bore, no seal to break through, the first time the bore was made. Nothing that weakened or deteriorated over time. Another sealing would just put it back to that deteriorating state with the implication that the DO might break free on his own, which according to nature of the wheel of time, he can't and won't do, hence there won't be a seal focal point, his prison will be intact, unbroken.

Looking forward to read it, regardless :)

The cover is a nice piece of work. Pleasant in its simplicity. I'm so excited and so depressing at the same time. It has been a part of my life for so long it will be hard to see it go. Just imagine, my fiend harassed me for two years to read the first book before I finally gave in.

It looks like Rand is up to something foolishly risky that the women are trying to discourage.

The women are Moraine and Alivia. according to Min's Viewings, Moraine must be there, or Rand will fail and Alivia will help Rand die.