I dont think any of the suggestions so far fit v well. The Creator has spoken to Rand twice - once at the start of his journey, once at the end, and thats it. Egwene time travelling, or speaking from the Pattern after her death, dont fit either. So i have to label this as unexplained. Hard to see how a Jenn Aiel could survive all this time. Even if she was trapped in some sort of stasis, or via one of those vacuoles which Moridin stuck Moghedien in for a while, that would not explain how aware she was of the past, present and future. The best explanation I can think of is that she is some sort of ghost or something, related to the Pattern and reality breaking down as the Dark One breaks free. 

 

You know what? That's actually an excellent explanation, as far as I'm concerned. The dead were walking the earth and interacting with people. Both RJ and BS showed us moments where that was to the detriment of people, this is a moment where it is to their gain.

The dead were just walking the earth, but they were not interacting with people at all. The supposed "ghosts" never showed any sign they had any awareness of their surroundings. Which is why I dismiss the idea of Nakomi as a ghost, she doesn't behave like they did.

I also don't think the ghosts were actual ghosts at all, but more like temporal anomalies, portions of the past bleeding into the present as the Pattern weakens and frays. 

I have no real theory on who or what Nakomi was. Nothing I can come up with seems to fit. 

Yeah, that's what I was saying. It looks to me from the quotes I've read on the subject like Brandon created Nakomi out of something found in the notes because he needed to set-up this mysterious Aiel-dressed woman RJ had talking to Rand as he comes out of Shayol Ghul.

 

 

 

She's nothing but a piece of intrigue placed in the books for the fans to be intrigued about. This is made clear by three things.

 

1. Her existence was not something RJ plotted for this book but something based on something Brandon found 'deep in the notes'. Which leads us to two.

2. Brandon has disavowed using the notes--rather, when he needs something, he goes and asks Maria, who does the research.

3. She didn't really do anything. Or rather, she did nothing that wouldn't have occurred just as easily without her presence.

 

Brandon needed something (a mystery for the fans, perhaps--one may note his likening of Nakomi's role to the fandom with Asmodean's), went to Maria who provided him with something he could use, and ultimately the entire thing had little to no plot relevance.

According to yesterday's twitter chat, the scene that includes Nakomi in AMOL was written by RJ:

http://twitter.com/BrandSanderson/status/294203184098967552

 

Mike Cox ‏@Mikecox20 


@BrandSanderson would like to know how much of the last chapter was written by RJ and how much did you do? #TorChat 



 

Brandon Sanderson

Verified

‏@BrandSanderson

@Mikecox20 I did Perrin and some of the in-between writing with Loial. RJ did Mat, Rand, scene exiting the mountain, and others. #torchat

ockquote>

So that seems to say that RJ did "plot" her for this book.

No it doesn't and that response wasn't a complete answer. We know Brandon added a number of things. For instance the Cadsuane part of the epilogue was Brandon as well. Brandon has previously stated the character was his.

I was thinking that Nakomi's brief appearance in the epilogue was written by RJ, and then Brandon had to go "deep in the notes" to figure out who this random Aiel woman who Rand sees after coming out of Shayol Ghul was supposed to be, and then went and added her appearance in TOM so that she doesn't come completely out of nowhere in AMOL.