The ter'angreal, angreal and sa'angreal of Tear and Rhuidean: did they actually make it to Tar Valon? Do we have any confirmation of that?

The objects of power left at Rhuidean are apparently under the protection of the Wise Ones. At least Egwene told the WO that they could keep the ones they still had. I think the ones in Tear are still under Wards set by Rand and possibly Morraine. I have heard people say that the ones left at the dock are still in Cairhein under guard, but I don't know of a reference for that. I do not think any of the caches have made it to the White Tower yet.

Regarding Saidin in weaving the Bowl of the Winds--

I think there are several explanations why the Bowl of the Winds was channeling Saidin as well as Saidar. Here are my ideas in decreasing order of likelihood:

1) Nynaeve wore a paralis net into the circle. They thought it was just an an'grael at the time, but in fact it has a collection s of little ter'angreal whose use is still unknown. If it was a breaking-era net like Cadsuane's, it probably had some Saidan interacting tools.

2) Just before going up on the hill Elaine had set several objects of the OP out on the edge of a well. They would have been within line of sight of the hilltop, probably less than a half-mile from channeling that was so powerful it was felt more than 20 miles away. The were even more relics in the saddlebags. Who knows how they may have interacted with each other, especially in the field of powerful channeling? If the Bowl was overloaded, how many of the other ter'angreal in the general neighborhood were also driven beyond their red-line? Nynaeve's little trinkets were almost certainly overloaded in the powerful fields the circle was generating.

3) Ebu Dar and Altara seem to have been relatively untouched by the breaking. We read constantly of rolling hills in the area which suggests long-term erosion over hundreds of thousands of years. There also seem to be a fair number of ruins in the area that are older than 3000 years. If there were any standing wave generators left it is possible that Altara has one.

I think there are four possibilities about trollocs in Caemlyn.

1) Loial forgot about the gate in Caemlyn and so the gate did not get warded. I think this is the least likely.

2) The wards were flawed. Either they did not work as Rand thought or they were not installed properly. I don't know of any foreshadowing of this so it is also unlikely.

3) The dark side has figured out how to remove or defeat the wards. The argument against this is that Verin did not mention the wards being defeated even though she knew the other defenses had been removed.

4) Whoever sent the trollocs does not know or does not care about the wards. Rand designed the ward with a delay so the shadowspawn would be well away from the ward when they die. In that case the fires were started before the trollocs began dying. In that case the battle of Caemlyn should be mercifully brief.

How did the Trollocs get into Caemlyn if Rand had the waygate guarded? What happened there?

unknown, it may be that ishy has been reading rands mind using the connection and undoing all rands work

 

I think it was just chucked in for tDR - the acquisition was off-screen AFAIK, but probably during the Caemlyn->Tear mission

That is a good theory. Mat made the Tar Valon -> Caemlyn -> Tear trip with Thom. Thom saved him with knives the first night of the trip. That might have piqued Mat's interest, and he would have had time to practice while they sailed south.

His first knife training might have started sooner. Lan started teaching the boys to use their weapons shortly after leaving the TR. Thom could have taught them knives then. Rand and Perin's weapons were the sword and ax. Mat used a bow very well already, and Lan probably felt that Rand and Perin were the ones who needed the training most urgently. Mat also would have brought a finite supply of arrows and any training would have damaged at least some of them. So perhaps Thom started working with Mat on knives while the other boys worked with Lan on blades.

Mat's abilities developed off camera, but to me it is very reasonable. It might have happened this way: Mat started learning from Thom on the way to Baeleron. Then he learned to juggle on the way to Whitebridge as well as some sleight-of-hand and magic tricks. That increased his manual dexterity and helped him develop his "quick hands" further. The way Thom and Mat both stash their knives reminds me of the way a magician hides their props. At the EotW he used his bow, but otherwise didn't have much use for a weapon until he got to Falme. At Falme he regained the tainted dagger and used it against the guards. At the battle of Falme the horn was his main weapon, but he probably used his bow, too. After the battle he was an invalid, although he did pick up a quarterstaff in TV. He met up with Thom in TV after being separated from the dagger. Thom either started teaching him knives then or continued the training they started earlier.