At the end of the Dragon Reborn, Egwene hypothesizes that it is so, based on an old piece of prophecy Verin showed her. And it's clear that Moiraine never believed it was the Dark One, because he left a human body. Further, the way the other Forsaken behave as they go along make it clear by implication. As an example, Be'lal says to Rand "Truly, you know nothing" when Rand claims to have denied the Dark One to his face. I recall one of them thinking Ishamael had been more than half mad by the end and might truly have thought he was the Dark One, but I can't recall who it was off the top of my head.

Verin told him how in TSR; it's also a logical outgrowth of getting from one world to another, which Selene/Lanfear told him how to do (I think, a bit fuzzy on that part). I always took the overlong trip to Toman Head by Portal Stone to be a side effect of Rand not being able to channel enough of the power to move them from one to the other without complications.

I don't recall that we ever see on screen what the reasoning is, but given what we know of Ishamael and his bent toward turning Rand et al to his side, I think he saw it as a great opportunity to have Egwene and Nynaeve forced into becoming damane, who would have been in the care of a nation swayed by Semirhage. Perhaps the intent was to have her take them and break them personally; that wouldn't surprise me. But either way, they would have been great weapons to use against Rand in the event he did not turn.

Most AS show very little creativity in what weaves they use in various situations. I'm guessing they never thought of these loopholes just now.

This. They don't encourage experimentation at all. It's not until they get an influx of new blood who aren't mentally bound by the constraints of learning the same thing over and over and over and see the outcome of all of the "new" weaves that they begin to experiment, tweak and alter. I will admit that a certain amount of this is fully understandable, given what happened to Martine Janata during her ter'angreal experimentation, and what has happened to many who undertook the testing to be Accepted or Aes Sedai. But even the Browns, whose province is knowledge, are mostly bound to the study of history. There is little to no evidence of any upward accumulation of knowledge, merely the retention of what is known. It is of vast importance to retain knowledge, but there needs to be some movement to increase it, less assumption that you already know that which is profitable for you to know. The Yellow Ajah was particularly bad about this.

Question: In EoTW, does Rand kill Ishamael, or does Ishy OD on TP? Because Rand certainly seems to think that he did it, and so does everyone else, but when he sees Ishy again, Ishy tells him that he drew too much of the power.

 

Also: There's a point when Rand starts sucking down OP, and Ishy suddenly gets worried. Why?

To question one, I think you mean did he kill Aginor or did Aginor overdraw...at least that is my memory of it. Ishy says he overdrew, but you have to take the word of a guy who may not be trustworthy, though he has no real reason to lie about this particular thing that I know of.

For the other, this is all my opinion: as to why he gets worried, that probably has two aspects. First, if he can draw on the OP, he is a threat, however untrained. Second is probably the worry that he would accidentally kill himself by overdrawing; and given how he went out the last time he overdrew, might kill Ishy along with him - you have Dragonmount, and also what happened to Manetheren when its last queen overdrew as examples of the kind of devastation that can wreak. Ishy, at least to my thinking, wants the whole cycle to end. Apparently, from all we have seen and read in WoT, he needs the Dragon alive to be able to accomplish that. It's my personal thought that only the Dragon can break the pattern to the point that the Dark One can break free and end it all - if anyone could do it, it would have been done by now, honestly.

Thorgan: it doesn't really say, except that they had ranged almost to Shayol Ghul. Given their ability to hide in plain sight, that they might hear something wouldn't surprise me. According to an alternate theory (because it has been theorized either here or elsewhere that Ishamael was trying to mess with things and leaked the story), perhaps they were "given" the information in a manner similar to what happened with the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, assuming you are familiar with that story.

Either way, we don't really know. It's the same thing with man in the Ogier story that substantiates it, we've no details on how he came into that knowledge.

Don't the Ath'an Miere refer to him as the Father of Storms? Or is my memory messing with me?

yoniy0 is correct, we've little other evidence. However, given that he WAS demonstrably a Darkfriend in TEOTW, and given that we've seen only two Darkfriends turn out to be good guys in the entire series, I tend to think that they did actually catch him doing that. Think about it: Morgase, Queen of Andor, in debt to Darkfriends. Surely someone on the Dark One's side could have made use of that.

A moghedien was a small and deadly spider in the Age of Legends.

 

ahhhh yeah your right, ill edit that into my post. Ill give you credit for it

it's no big deal, but thanks. :) Just tossing out what I know.

A moghedien was a small and deadly spider in the Age of Legends.

On your first thing, no idea, and I'd wondered the same thing about the need trip to the tower for Nynaeve and Elayne. Given the number of TA that the AS have no idea what they do, it's possible there is another weather TA in the tower collection that would have been sufficient. That their need focus was a bit different and it took them where there were things to help them beat the black ajah, like the fluted rod. I've thought about this at random intervals but never come up with anything conclusive.

Amaresu I believe is the right spelling, which might help in the search for information. All I recall about her is that she appears with the Heroes of the Horn when Mat blows it at Falme, so obviously she is someone special. I think she had a named weapon or some such?

No, you weren't. It's been hinted at forever in the series and I honestly think very few people thought she was actually dead. We knew, because Mat had been through the doorway, that the doorway itself wasn't death. I think I had thought it through to the whole "well, she had to have met the foxes and made a bargain with them" thing, and maybe part of the price was imprisonment. Min said specifically that a viewing about Moiraine was the only viewing of hers that had not come true; I can't remember if it was in the same place or elsewhere, but her point of view reveals that according to the viewing Rand would fail without her.

As to the way of death, I never really gave it much thought.

I took Mat's lack of reaction to be a function of the place they were in and stress they were under - no extra energy or time to expend on being shocked, that sort of thing. It's clear Mat had no idea it was Jain from a subsequent PoV as was stated earlier.

I've often wondered what sort of things Ishamael did to him. For the record, I thought it was Jain as soon as RJ revealed his surname. I've thought any number of things that turned out not to be true, so I'm always proud when one does. :D