well, not tar valon, but the white tower specifically... if that attack happens, the craters in the tower will be negligible compared to when the aes sedai attack the tower...

@jack

i dont believe there will be a battle at merrilor... i think, when egwene and everybody goes to merrilor, the seanchan will use gateways to attack tarvalon... where, mat and egwene will have to attack(and probably destroy) tar valon

@paul p... yea, nyaneve has dark hair :) people think its nynaeve because of the one darker pixel on her forehead, as well as the green/yellow dress... egwene also has longer hair...

the blue woman is clearly moraine... but the green/yellow woman shows physical attributes of many women... nynaeve, egwene, meirin, and prolly others... theres really no way to know for certain until the book is released, or we get an official release

http://13depository.blogspot.ca/2009/02/saidar-strength-ranking.html

lanfear was the strongest woman we know of... whether someone could outdo her tho... we have no way of knowing :) none of the women of this age and last could, but thats not to say that a woman from another age couldnt...

and yea... i really question that "age of legends" mentality... this age has shown many incredible skills, that they believed impossible... unweaving, healing gentling, healing madness, warder bonding............. will the next age call this age, the age of legends?

@snowball mybad :) i just looked at the ranking scale again(its been a long time)... i was baseing that comment on the comment of one of the forsaken, that cyndane was weaker than lanfear was... i just wasnt aware of the bare power difference between lanfear/cyndane... :)

@fikkie77 YUP! :D lanfear is a great character... tho i think she'll escape the coursuvra... mostly because of moghedian :) i think she'll go all kamikazi on moridin, and channeling near your coursouvra has... unwelcome side effects :) freeing lanfear, who then can go to rand...

can it happen... possible... will there be time for it to happen... id say so... would lanfear be able to convince rand to let her help? would lanfear be willing to help? who knows...

will it happen? have to wait till january to be sure...

and as for the single darker pixel on "nynaeves" head... its very possible that its her... im not saying it isnt... but i will say, that the picture, does have other flaws... and rj was always a tricksy fella :P

for example... that pic doesnt show the sword glowing, therefore rands not using it as the angreal it is... therefore he's probably not in the circle with the two women, therefore it could just have been nynaeve to the rescue... theres many circumstances that could have formed the pic... if its even accurate to the story...

nynaeve doing something significant? like healing the unhealable(severing/gentling... madness... etc)? like cleansing saidin?

i cant see rj having a character, like lanfear, with nothing more to do than baiting rand for TG...

To Mark. Cyndane is most powerful female channeler, at the moment. Not sure how you came to conclusion that she is as strong as what Moiraine used to be.

 

One of the woman in picture is Moiraine. Another one DOESN"T look to have dark hair, short or long. My first guess was Cyndane. Alivia? NYn surely has dark hair.

lanfear WAS the most powerful... when both moraine and lanfear fell into finnland(haha) they both got drastically decreased in power... cyndane is powerful, but nowhere near the most powerful anymore... seemingly moraine+angreal, makes her about as powerful as lanfear was... and cyndane has slipped down to moraine's level...

and im not saying its not nyaneve... it very well could be... but as for lanfear setting herself against rand, i think we've only seen her do so, once.. just before she died... every other time she's interacted with rand, she acted with rand, but to end up in the shadow... she played with rands strings just as much as moraine... just her target was different...

to me, the picture looks to be nynaeve... but it could be either...

@moonstar i think its settled that the woman in blue is moraine... the woman in green/yellow tho... its either nyaneve, or mierin... nyaneve id say, is more likely, but mierin makes more sense(to my mind)...

as for the picture of rand, id agree, one of the best ive yet seen... but his face seems too hard... more TGS hardness... not the calm aes sedai we saw in ToM... and theres a few other issues i have with it(belt, dagger, cave, wound) still :) its up there :D

... and it looks like his whole belts is made of dragons... instead of just the buckle...

... and wasnt rands wound on the right side? that picture shows it bleeding on the left...

@jack thanks! :D even moreso, lanfear and moraine have literally swapped power levels... cyndanes power is about as moraines was, and moraine(with the angreal) is as powerful as lanfear was... they both played with rands strings from the getgo... moraine leading to the light, lanfear to the shadow... they "killed eachother"... i could go on and on...

i still believe that the two women to circle with rand, are moraine and meirin... they are the only two who make sense for rj to have planned for this to my mind... they are equal, and opposite...

add that meirin was the one who drilled the bore... she'd be the most qualified one to know how to fix it...

@aviendha theres several theories about who the woman in yellow is...

1) nyaneve... in the last book, her hair got burnt shorter...

2) cyndane/lanfear/meirin... it seems to fit(to my mind)

im sure there are others :)

tor said that the two women were "around since the biggining of the series"... ive always seen lanfear and moraine as nearly identical characters... equal and opposite... which imo, would make an excellent pair to be in the circle with rand...

tho thats complete conjecture :) we'll have to wait till january to be certain...

not to be all "mr negative"... but wasnt there a prophecy about rands blood on the rocks of the slopes of mt doom? whats he doing down in the cave?

and as for the "two woman who've been with rand since the biginning"... ive always felt that moraine and lanfear have been nearly identical characters... and theyve both been around since the biginning...

still :) a very nice picture, but i still hope they put sweets picture on the backside of the cover slip...

@jamesbirtles lanfear said there was 2 more powerful than calendor that a man could use... fair assumption that the chodenkal was one of them... and, when the girls found the bowl of the winds, the first place they found, was in the white tower... theres 2 theories of what they had found... the seal on the mistress of the ships, showed 2 bowls, so either the item in the white tower is another bowl of the winds, or, its the sa'angreal that lanfear had spoken of...

@murphwi1 i completely disagree... theres nothing in calendor which functions like an adam... and tuon could channel if she learned, she cannot channel on her own... and, rand has already shown that he can beat the male adam with the true power, theres really no point in trying to collar him... i think, that tuon had sent for the crystal throne to be brought to her from across the sea... which we know is a terangreal, causing people to fall in line(so to speak), and that when rand next meets tuon, itll pretty much be a role reversal as last time, she'll be on the throne, rand will be overcome by it, kneel, and then start to overcome it, and force her into the peace with the aiel...

actually, i always thought the remenant of the remenant, would have been the leftovers from the shaido army that perrin crushed... they were heading back to the 3-fold-land... with some survivors from the aiel with rand of course... but the majority from the seanchan :)

@paulp, RJ said that mat didnt actually die in rhuidean, so when mat was balefired back to life, that would be the time he died and lived again... whether rands un-death is anything remotely similar, we will have to see...

and, IF nyaneve is being ordered to bring reinforcements to lan, im thinking it would be likely, that it would be perrin going with her... ive always thought that the wolves would be the ones to push back the blight... doesnt require perrin, as all the other wolves are heading there, but still, i think it would fit into the story...

but then, who kills slayer? the only advantage slayer had over perrin, was that slayer was there in the flesh, and perrin just a dream... if perrin went with rand into TAR for the sealing, slayer would be a pushover for him... it would be no contest...

i think its more likely, that nyaneve will feel lan dying, and travel to him regardless of what anyone else thinks... if she even tells anyone...

and, the male adam can control the actions and saidin within a man, but as we know, rand knows how to use the true power, such an adam would be pointless when used on him...

there has been several theories about how rand will die and live again, i spose we'll have to wait a few months to be certain... tho the theory of how aviendha's babys got so strange has been answered to my mind... rand dies, breaking the bond with the girls, lives again, they find him(aviendha already pregnant) and go through the rebonding... the wise one said that the bonding couldnt be done when pregnant, as the bonding would kill the baby(s)... the bonding brushing the babies and as theyre so young, it doesnt kill them, but the effects cause them to channel all the time and such, and, it doesnt pass to the next generations :) and, elaynes babies are already born, so theyre not effected either...

@gmoney elayne is close to giving birth, and the wise woman said that near giving birth, she would loose saidar completely...

and when was someone else in control of her channeling? i dont remember that atall!

and... calendor is an angreal for a man, elayne wouldnt be able connect through it, and as for the male baby in her belly, you cannot channel without sight, and last i checked, he cannot see through her belly to connect through the sword... if he even knew there was a sword there... and had the spark... and was teenage-age for the spark to come to fruit... and he knew how to channel...

a funny theory, but i highly doubt it... i think we can call that one a no....

good call myfwnwy :D fain is the real wildcard in the story... not what id call a "joker" tho... still, the most unique character, that doesnt fit into any other slot...

anyone else notice the irony of the colours? the whole series has manymany references to red and black :D

seeing as every other bubble of evil(as what seems to be happening there) is explicitly defeated by one of the four channeling elements... i wonder if the power wrought weapons would be effected...

@saitan mat was the prince of ravens, until tuon became the empress, he is the emperor, but he doesnt have the command that we would normally expect of an emperor... but it seems clear to me that he has absolute command over the seanchan army at will... whether or not he does... id think the only one he doesnt outrank in the senchan heirarchy, is tuon...

and yea, jokers are rarely used in card games, which is kind of my point... perrin got a card thats used in nearly every game... and mat(my favorite) is pretty useless... it fits his character(to a point), but it just doesnt seem fair :(

if anything, id put the current image of mat, onto a king or a jack or somesuch, and make a boyhood character of mat, and put that on the joker... he was always a troublemaker in his youth ;-)

*hopes for a #2 card of liandrin*

@ash the finn called him "the trickster" "the gambler" "son of battles"... so it kind of fits... but still, i dont even think rand has a higher political seat of authority than mat... mat is the seanchan emperor... id expect him to be on one of the kings cards...

im not against perrin being there... but even he has admitted that he's subject to elaynes throne... he's clearly not a king...

whats this? perrin gets to be king, and mat, the seanchan emporer, gets relegated to joker?

tho i'll say, that elaida conveniently already started another tower... one which the men(or some thereof) could easily move into :)