Though I know it won't ever happen, there's a part of me that would love to find out how each of the major characters lived out the rest of their lives, what they accomplished, how they interacted with one another, etc.  Even if it's only a few paragraphs.

Did Rand get his normal life?  Or did the Wheel tap him again to be a hero?

Did Perrin end up King of Saldea?  What was his reign like?  How did history remember him?  Who was the Lord of the Two Rivers while he was in Saldea, and was Caemlyn ever rebuilt?

Was Mat able to get the Seanchan to cool their jets a little?  Did he and Fortuona ever actually fall in love?  Did she have a long reign?  Did Moggy ever escape?

Did the White and Black Towers ever start to work together?  I think it would be generations yet before they re-formed as a single organization, but what was that relationship like after the Last Battle?

Did Androl and Pevara get married?  Did Logain ever earn the respect of the Aes Sedai?  Did Aviendha prevent the future that she saw?  Did Nynaeve and Lan rebuild Malkier?  Were the Ways cleansed?  Did Galad end up with Berelain?  Where did Morgase and Tallanvor settle?

And my biggest question: Did Rand ever go back to the Two Rivers and reveal himself to Tam?  Or anyone else, anywhere else, for that matter?  Did any of his ladies ever follow him?

I hope some of these get answered in the encyclopedia, when it comes out.

Side-scrolling ftw!  Thanks!

Is there some reason that I cannot see the complete pic on this posting?  Nor can I click on it to open it in a new window.  All the pics posted on this article (and at least some of the others) are so big that they're getting cut off right down the middle, and I can see only the left side of it.

I was more of the impression that Elan Morin died, but not the way that he wanted.  He wanted a FINAL death, one where he would never come back.  He considered his current life as Moridin a punishment from the DO for coming to believe that he WAS the DO back when he was Ishamael.  The way I understood it, Rand's body was bleeding out from the wound in his side, and after the body swap, Moridin was then trapped in Rand's fading body, and died from loss of blood, assuring that he would indeed be reborn again at some point.  His punishment is that he'll NEVER get a final death.  That's more about the contrast between Rand and Moridin: Rand sees rebirth as a good thing (a chance to love again and fix your own mistakes) but Moridin sees rebirth as a cosmic joke and seeks only to end his own existence once and for all.  Rand got what he wanted: a chance at a normal life.  Moridin did NOT get what he wanted: a chance at a final death.

No?

The more I think about Elan Morin, the more I come to realize what a fascinating character he really is, from a literary perspective.  Very complex bad guy.  Now my favorite character after reading AMoL.  I shall never knock RJ, but think Sanderson really brought something special to Ishy's character.

I am proud to say that I did okay with my predictions.  Got some WAY wrong, but got a few right.  I refer you to my comments from the previous Theory Blog from Jan 1:

First of all, JACK!!  Thank you, dude!  Tai'shar [insert your home city here]!

Metal Head's Final Predictions (and you know that's important because I capitalized every word AND referred to myself in the third person):

• Body swap ftw
• Mat will kill Padan Fain.  Fair to say he has unfinished business with Mordeth.
• All Forsaken will die, none of them willingly.
• Perrin will not be the one to kill Slayer.  Wolves are pack hunters, and Perrin is done fighting with his inner wolf.  Perrin will serve as bait because he knows Slayer won't expect that.  Faile will kill Luc, or Elyas will kill Isam, or both. which Slayer will not see coming.  I'm dropping theory bombs up in here!  Somebody stop me!!
• And my final Looniest of the Looney Bin Theory, which I found written on the inside collar of my straight-jacket: Egwene gets collared again, facing her last biggest fear.  I make no predictions about whether or not she gets free before the end.

Well, that's it ladies and germs.  Those are the last theories I'll ever get to make.  It sorta brings a tear to 'me eye.  If jack is right, and the blog comments are going to be locked down soon, I'd like to send shouts to mark, snowball, jack, gwenifer, and all the other people I'm forgetting right now because that's what wine does to a person.  Best shout saved for last: MASHIARA!!!  Thanks for writing all of these wonderful theories, and for engaging with us in the comments.  I rate you 5 stars, and place you in my Cool Book.

Happy Wot Weekend, all.  We'll all be back on these blog comments before you know it, and all of us bragging about what we got right, and laughing at each other for what we got wrong.  Looking forward to it!!

---MetalHead

Totally unrelated to the original post, but I'm saying it here because the Theory Blog Comment Regulars (and btw, we TOTALLY need a new name) are sort-of "my people" on DM.

I got chosen as a Memory Keeper (SF).  I'm so completely excited I could flip, but I will find a way to keep it together!

I don't know if any of our usual regulars is going to be at the Frisco signing other than me, but if so, say hi to the late 30-something male Keeper with the pony tail.

Hope to see some of you there!

Then again, Alivia's role in "helping Rand die" still ties in nicely with the Moridin/Rand Body-Swap theory.  What if it's only Rand's BODY that she kills, while Rand's mind lives on in Moridin's body?

What if, what if...!  There is a point to be made about Alivia not really having run into Rand since his epiphany.  But one would assume that she'll be at the fields of Merrilor with the rest of the Light Armies.  I get this feeling that there is some shared secret between her and Rand, something we haven't been privy to, that even Min hasn't puzzled out yet.  It might explain why Rand is the only one who trusts her so completely, and why she never speaks of it to anyone else.  Even Cadsuane has basically left her alone.

Then again, Rand's plan to have her "help him die" might have changed since Veins of Gold.  Since he hasn't had any interaction with Alivia since then, we don't really know yet.  It's a good point that Rand wanted her to help him die while he was descending into madness, but now that he's more or less recovered, perhaps his plan has changed about that.  Between Nicola's Foretelling and Aviendha's vision, we know that there is at least a strong possibility that Rand ultimately survives the Last Battle.

Only 2.5 more weeks until we find out!  It's getting exciting now, isn't it?

Secondly there is Callandor.  The Three become one.  Perhaps the OP. TP, and the Light?  Recall Rand's first use of Callandor.  He made this construct that sought out and killed every trolloc and fade in the stone.  This wasnt something Lews Therin could do.  If I recall, Lanfear didnt know what he was doing.  And if LT could do it, then along with the 2 powerful Sa'angreal, they could have ended the war of shadow easily.  I think that Callandor helps channel the Light.

I've had a similar thought about Callandor. Recall the first place Callandor is seen CHRONOLOGICALLY. In the history of Randlad, the first place Callandor appears is shortly after the Bore, right at the beginning of the Breaking. Rand sees this scene in the glass columns in TSR. He sees that Aes Sedai preparing to create the Eye of the World, and Callandor is sitting on the table as that meeting commences. Meaning it was made BEFORE the Eye was. And it appears to have been made for a specific purpose: To fight the Last Battle.

Remember, there were two competing plans about the Strike at Shayol Ghul: Lews Therin's place to use seals, and the female Aes Sedai plan to use the Choedan Kal (sp?). Rand has admitted that his (LTT's) plan failed. The seals were imperfect and temporary. And he shattered the Choeden Kal ter'angreal in Veins of Gold. So NEITHER of those was the correct plan.

Which leads me to believe that the surviving Aes Sedai at the time must have figured out what WOULD HAVE worked. Their plan needed the Dragon, so it was no help to the Age of Legends, because by that time, LTT had already killed himself, but they knew he'd be reborn in the next age. So they prepare the Eye to give him a clean source for when he starts channeling, and they make Callandor, which they believe is what he'll need to finally re-build the DO's prison from scratch, and then they wait for the next age.

My point is that Callandor was created at the end of the AoL, so even then, they must have figured out what the Dragon needed to do, REALLY do, in order to REALLY WIN. All Rand has to do is figure out what they knew.

TOTALLY UNRELATED SIDEBAR

Noticed something in my re-read yesterday. The sad braclet/mail a'dam plan probably never would have worked, at least not the way Semirhage wanted it to. She didn't seem to know what Moghedien did, to her own demise.

Modhedien explains to Nynaeve during their duel that the male a'dam can be used by one woman, but he will still go mad and the backflow will eventually give him control. Or TWO women can use the bracelets, but that lessens control.

"Lessens control?" Could that be another reason why Rand was able to break free? There were two women using it, which lessened their control over Rand, allowing him to touch the TP and break free. Perhaps if only Semirhage had used it, it might have worked. She only need to control him long enough to get him to Shayol Ghul. There was no more taint by that point, so theoretically there would have been no backflow. But she didn't know what Moghedien knew, so she used them incorrectly, hence... one very angry Dragon and some balefire.

Has anyone at all gotten a notification yet?  I'm hopeful, but if I haven't gotten an email by now, I'm thinking I did not get chosen, right?

No pressure.  Just curious.

What bothers me is this: does Rand currently really intend to kill the DO (which I personally don't think is possible)? Because if so, he could try to convince Moridin to join him. If not - I think there's no chance to change his mind.

That's an interesting thought.  Has Rand figured out some way to actually slay the Dark One?  He's mentioned it before.  Moridin think's it impossible.  They thought healing stilling/gentling and cleansing the taint was impossible as well.

Gwen makes me realize that's the only way Moridin could possibly turn: If Rand is able to convince Moridin that it's not only possible, but that the world would be better off with the Dark One gone.  That last part is problematic.  Moridin WANTS the world to end.  He sees the endless repetition of the Wheel as something worthy only of destruction.  Unless Rand can convince him the Wheel is worth preserving, I don't seem him turning.  No one loves Elan Morin.  No one ever has, that we know of.  No love = no epiphany.  Probably.

Oh, man.  The 3 previous posts from Mashiara and Tsukibana are EXACTLY why I love this blog.

Mashiara, that's actually an incredibly astute observation (which just means that I have never thought of it, but I wish I had).  I like the idea that Moridin has become aware that everything he's done to try to obstruct or damage the Light has only made them stronger by forcing them to overcome.  I'm not sure if I agree that Moridin is now attacking the light because he's intentionally trying to make them stronger in the hopes that they'll win, though that would be satisfying to me if it turned out to be true.  Seems more to me like he is trying to make things easy for Rand in order to make him become more complacent, but is now realizing that has also failed.

And Tsukibana's idea ties in quite nicely to that basic idea.  Moridin has finally realized that every time he tries to kill the Dragon, all it does is make him stronger and MORE likely to win.  Sooo, new plan.  I think he's trying to lure Rand right into the Pit of Doom, where the Dark One can take direct action against Rand.  Maybe if the DO kills the Dragon (or turns him), he won't be reborn...?

The only place I would disagree with you, Tsukibana, is in the statement that "The Light never wins, it only achieves stalemate."  They HAD to have won at some point, because the Dark One's prison was WHOLE during the Age of Legends.  I guess it depends on the definition of victory.  If you mean the Light has never "killed" the Dark One, then I agree with you.  But at some point in the past turnings of the wheel, the Dark One's prison was rebuilt so perfectly that people in the Age of Legends barely knew the Dark One was even real.  And there was certainly no way for the Dark One to touch the world without getting some inadvertent aid from Mierin's experiments.  I think that's about as close to a total victory condition as the LIght could ever get.  Then again, it seems that Rand may have something else in mind entirely for his fight.

@Tsukibana - Regarding where Moridin is drawing his belief about past lives and eternal battles... and this is ALL opinion.  We're theorists here right?  Facts are for wussies.  :)

I would argue that Elan Morin reasoned it out for himself, much in the same way (I think) Harid Fel did, and eventually Rand.

If time is a wheel, and there are only 7 unique ages, then all of this MUST have happened before in some capacity.  Including the imprisonment of the Dark One, the Bore, the War of Power, the imperfect sealing of the DO's prison, the DO breaking free, and even Tarmon Gaidon.  If the Dark One's prison was once whole and unblemished, and time is a wheel, then at some point IN THE FUTURE, the Dark One's prison will be again whole and unblemished.  His prison doesn't need to be just "re-sealed."  It needs to be completely "re-built."  We see Rand more or less reason this out in Veins of Gold, but Rand's question was "Why do I keep doing this?"  When Elan Morin came to these same conclusions, the question he asked himself was "What shall I do about it?"  Elan Morin never concerned himself with WHY time was a wheel, or if he did, he never found his answer.  So to him, it seemed like a big fat waste, and only worthy of destruction.  Rand nearly went down that same train of thought, but unlike Elan Morin, Rand figured out his reason for why: love.  I don't think Elan Morin knew love.  The Wheel of Time is all about unity and groups coming together to become stronger than they are apart.  Love is the ultimate form of unity.  Ishamael worked for thousands of years to PREVENT unity and sow chaos/disorder wherever he could.  Definitely NOT interested in love over on the Dark Side.

Just a thought.

I doubt that Moridin is a double-agent because he has been chosen as Nae'blis.  I don't believe that ANY Forsaken, especially not the one chosen as Nae'blis, could hide anything from the Dark One.  If you swear your soul to him, he OWNS you.  When you stand in the Pit of Doom, you cannot hide anything from him.  If Moridin were secretly planning to help Rand win, the Dark One would know.  At least, I THINK he would.

There was a very telling moment in Towers of Midnight where Rand and Moridin met in a dream and just chatted.  I don't recall the chapter specifically, but Moridin was clearly annoyed at the intrusion.  But they didn't fight, they just... talked.  I thought that was a VERY cool scene, and I wanted it to go on far longer than it did.  Rand addressed Moridin as "Elan" and spoke to him as he would speak to an old friend who had simply lost his way.  At one point he said something like "You always had so many questions in your mind, Elan."  We know very little about the relationship Lews Therin had with Elan Morin prior to the Bore.  But obviously they knew one another.  The body swap theory is still foremost in my mind, but I begin to wonder if they will not "swap" bodies, but actually MERGE into one person.  Balance has been a theme of WoT since the beginning.  Saidin & saidar, White and Black Towers, One Power & True Power, men & women... it seems a possibility that "Light & Dark" also need to be balanced.  This leads me to the idea that Rand and Moridin might represent this merging of light and dark.  It started with the inadvertent link during ACoS.

But I did learn something new from this week's blog that I hadn't considered before, I'm ashamed to say.  By the time Rand fought Sammael at Shadar Logoth, Moridin already had a desire to keep Rand alive, or else he never would have gone to Shadar Logoth to help Rand beat Sammael in the first place.  But Moridin's link with Rand at Shadar Logoth definitely raised the stakes.  I think there is something to this idea that if Rand dies, so does Moridin.  It might explain why he's delaying Rand's death.  He's trying to figure out a way to not die again himself, because with his link to Rand, he's not sure if the DO can bring him back again.  That would make a whole new ballgame out of the Last Battle, at least for Moridin.  Perhaps he needs Rand to die in the Pit of Doom, while Moridin and Rand are BOTH in the presence of the Dark One.  Might be the only way the DO can bring Moridin back.

I dunno.  But I grow more anxious for the last book with each new Theory Blog.  Thanks for the great ideas, Mashiara!

@jack - I think you're bein' a tad bit hard on Egwene.  I wouldn't call her a bully any more than I would any other Aes Sedai (except Cadsuane, who really is a bully, but a well-intentioned one).  Remember, she was willing to let go of the blame for the Breaking of the Tower, and even selected a Red sister for her Keeper.  This isn't the act of a bully.  This is the act of a negotiator.  She just doesn't have all the facts yet about Rand's plan.

Rand has said that the mistake he made as Lews Therin was in thinking that the Dark One could be defeated using only saidin.  That was a mistake.  He NEEDS saidar as well, or he will fail again.  The parallels with Rand's plan and Lews Therin's struggle to bring the female channelers into the plan are pretty obvious to me.  

I think it's true that Egwene hasn't really been thinking about this the right way.  She still thinks the White Tower needs to lead Tarmon Gaidon, not the Dragon.  She's wrong about that, but she's right that the Tower needs to be involved.

I think that's what Rand has to convince her of: his plan can and will work, but only if the two of them work together.  She'll come around.  She's a smart cookie.  She'll figure it out in the end.  After all, people working together is one of the central themes of the whole story.  In the end, I think she'll see things Rand's way.

Besides, in my experience, ALL women think that men need "a firm hand."  And most of the time, they're right. :)

*SIGH*  Can. Not. Wait.

I love the job Brandon has done, but still, I miss RJ.  I wish he could have written 1,000 novels in his time.  Such a brilliant writer.  I would have loved to see what he had planned for his next act.  "Infinity of Heaven" was it?

The Wheel of Time is directly responsible for helping me to rediscover my love of reading, and also for opening the door to genres that I might not have chosen way back when.  Books like Game of Thrones, The Otherland series, Mistborn, and even Lord of the Rings... I probably would never have read those incredible stories if I hadn't found the Wheel of Time first.  I know most people read LotR BEFORE they read WoT.  For me it was t'other way 'round.

This is a really neat charity.  If I had money to donate, I would donate it to this group.  The charity is all about helping people in the here and now.  Hats off to Pat for trying to get good people involved.

"Slightly off topic, but Moridin keeps coming up here, so... Ishy throws around the struggle between him and the Dragon being eternal, but I'm not so certain I buy it.  Rand may possibly have full access to the Dragon soul, not just LTT. But all the instances Ishy mentions in TEOTW happened during his imprisonment, and give us no indication that he has access to past lives. There are ages where the Dark One is completely outside of the pattern, and essentially doesn't exist. It stands to reason that he can only be the "Lord of the Grave" when he is able to influence the pattern. Where the Heroes of the Horn live on in TAR, which is within the pattern, it doesn't seem possible for the DO to take his champion with him into storage outside of existence."

@snowball, Mashiara and I had this exact same conversation a few days ago.  I don't want to give anything away though, because she's planning an "Ishamael/Moridin" blog for next week's Theory.  It would be completely [rude] of me to spill the beans now.

Apologies.  I have drawn the ire of the censors.  It was accidental, I promise.  Sometimes I type faster than I think.

@NeekNack - There was a blog some months ago, I think before Mashiara took over, about how Moridin/Ishamael was the Forsaken MOST likely to switch sides and come back to the light, if any do at all.

It was pretty interesting.  Unfortunately, I cannot find it now, or I'd post a link.

I wonder if cleansing saidin could have been thought of as one of the impossible tasks?

1. Hand of One Power - Liking this idea.  Can't channel on himself, but what if he found a way to do just that?

2. Breaking the seals - We know that's his intention.  The impossible part seems to be getting Egwene to go along with it.  The mistake Lews Therin made the first time was believing he could seal the Bore without female channelers.  Rand already knows he needs them.  Egwene doesn't sound convinced yet.

3.  Making the Aiel give up their spears - Hmm... maybe.  Might be even more impossible to get them to reunite with the Travelling People.

4.  Surviving the Last Battle - I know longer think of this as a possibility.  I now think this is an absolute certainty.  But I have no idea HOW.

5.  Actually destroying the Dark One - Now if Rand figures out a way to do this that makes sense within the context of the story, that would certainly qualify as "an impossible feat."  I still have my doubts about this one.  I'm still thinking he has more of a chance to tie up, or otherwise arrange for the DO to be occupied with other things (or re-imprisoned) for the next several turnings of the wheel.  Time is still a wheel, one that Rand has decided to protect, so that means the Dark One MUST break free again at some point in the distant future, no?

Remnant of a remnant - Could the "Aiel" in that prophecy possible be referring to ALL of the groups that descended from the original Aiel?  Do those prophecies pre-date the splintering of the Aiel?  If so, it might be referring to the Travelling People.  My feeling is that the Shaido are still too numerous to be considered a "remnant of a remnant."  But it's possible it could be them.

And I wouldn't take too much credit for suggesting the next blog.  I got the idea from many of the commenters on this blog, and by Mashiara herself (that, plus way too much time spent thinking about this stuff).  So let's ALL take the credit together.

Sulin is Goshien.  It is stated while she's cataloging the dead at Dumai's Wells in ACoS.

I'll give up on the "Sulin is blood-related to Rand" theory.  The popular vote seems to be way against it, although I sure would like it if it turned out Rand had some family among the Aiel.  Did Janduin have any brothers?  Sisters?  I have a feeling we'll never know.

But if it turns out I was right, I will return here to crow about it.  In that case, I'll get my "I-told-you-so"s all shined up and ready for deployment.
 

The only things I can add to the debate are pure speculation and conjecture, which isn't very helpful, but it is a lot of fun!

Sulin is older than Rand.  We know that Aiel custom is to make sure that no child of a maiden ever learns the identity of her birth mother, but no one is perfect, and no cultural system is perfect either.  It wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine that if Tigraine really is Sulin's mother, maybe she had a hard time adjusting to that particular Aiel custom because she wasn't born Aiel and had just left her first child behind in Andor, and perhaps some other maiden or wise one (or someone else who wasn't supposed to know) took pity on her and told Tigraine which child was hers in order to ease her mind, and then Tigraine quietly revealed herself to Sulin sometime before the invasion of Cairhien.  There are a million possible ways that Sulin could have found out who her biological mother was, if we accept that even among the Aiel, people make mistakes and sometimes break the rules.  After all, there wouldn't need to be a rule if EVERYONE went along with it voluntarily.
 

And the only reason I ever went with this theory in the first place is because Sulin refers to him specifically as her "first-brother."  Now, I know that ALL maidens look at him as a long-lost little brother, but "FIRST-BROTHER" is quite specific.  No other maiden ever referred to Rand as a "first-brother" that I can recall.  That's the only REAL evidence there is for this.

Oh, about Gawyn's ter'angreal... I think it's pretty obvious that SOMEONE is going to use it and die, or else why is it still in the story this close to the end?  Egeanin is around now.  She might recognize it and tell someone what it is.  I doubt that Gawyn will use it accidentally.  I just don't think Gawyn will go out like that.  If he uses that ter'angreal, it won't be an accident.

Wow. For just a second there, I thought you meant that Tigraine was Rand's sister. Then I realized you were referring to her as Luc's sister.

But for just a moment there, I thought "Wow, how the heck did I miss THAT? Tigraine is Rand's sister? NOT his mother? I need to read a LOT more carefully!" LOL

Welcome Tsukibana! We're always glad to have new people posting!

I think you might be forgetting one of Rand's blood-relatives: Sulin. It's been barely mentioned, and many people who've heard me say that have disagreed, but she said as much, referring to him as her "first-brother" when she realized he'd been kidnapped in LoC. So while Sulin might not have any connection to the Royal Line of Andor if she's Janduin's daughter, she could also be considered "the blood of the Dragon," in this case.

And yes, you make a really good case for Gawyn dying. Possibly Galad too, but Galad has actually grown in the past book. The Galad from the first 8 or 9 books would certainly have executed Perrin after his trial, Last Battle or not. It wouldn't have mattered if he also saved Galad's Whitecloaks from Trollocs, or done some other good deed. In the eyes of the OLD Galad, killing Whitecloaks is killing Whitecloaks. He would not have given Perrin a lenient sentence.

But this new Galad did exactly that. After he got to know Perrin, he realized that he wasn't a darkfriend, and that he didn't just kill Whitecloaks for kicks. Galad realized that there were bigger stakes, and that just maybe, "doing the right thing" can be more complicated than it appears at first. From a literary perspective, Galad's growth makes me think he's LESS likely to die. But Gawyn though, I think he's toast, and I think he'll go out in a blaze of glory. He's Egwene's warder now, so he'll save her life I'm sure, before it's all over.

As for Slayer, no way does he turn to the light. He's a died-in-the-wool killer, and he likes what he does. His death might help Rand, but only inasmuch as the battle between Perrin and Slayer (which we ALL know is coming) will do something to help Rand, like it helped Egwene take out Mesanna (with the dreamspike). The only thing I still wonder about Slayer at this point is whether or not Rand and Lan will ever learn that Slayer is connected to both of them. I don't know if either of them is even aware that Slayer exists.

Thanks for the weekly dose of awesomeness, Mashiara!

Applied! Pick me! Pick me!

But if you don't, I'll see everyone at the San Fran signing.