I agree with Elysium about that point and there is also a hint from Lanfear (whatever her new name is) that shows Moridin was not likely turned.  It's in her conversation with Perrin in AMOL when they are discussing the red-veiled Aiel.  She mentions that she never was into the whole 13x13 turning trick because it takes away your creativity and drive, you're left sort of an automaton--still having some same characteristics you had from before but seemingly decreased in elan vital.  (speaking of elan vital, I wonder if Mori's name "Elan Morin" might mean something like "energy of death" or something like that...)

   Anyway, my point is that if she was on a rant on this subject as she seemed to be, and seeing that she is a vindictive and spiteful person, then if there were a Forsaken who had been "turned" she likely would have made a snide comment about them at that point in the converstation.  It may seem like a small amount of data to go on, but I really think that with what we've seen of Lanfear she can be counted on to make detractive statements about people when she's ranting, as she did so many times about LT and others.

    That being said though, I did find this a very entertaining and thought provoking article and worth looking at.  It wasn't until you got me thinking here that I spotted this particular fact.

As a lot of others have stated, really tough to say how many times I've read it. If we count re-reads of what was out at the time I was re-reading it, It's been at least 20 times.

And on the other hand, now and then when I've just completed some other book and I'm not sure what I want to pick up next, I'll come across one of the WoT books sitting somewhere where one of my friends had left it when they last finished reading it and I'll decide I just have to re-read that particular book right now, not starting from the beginning this time but just relishing a particular plot arc or twist that I really enjoyed--though of course once I've started I can't stop at just that book and I usually wind up reading at least the next 2, or the rest of the series, before being able to put it all back down again and read something else.

When I was very young, I had been really into reading, but had lost that desire at some point as a lot of my friends were not big readers. When I was in 8th Grade, my new best friend was hugely into fantasy and introduced me to many good fantasy series, all of which I immensely enjoyed. The one that really grabbed me the most, and the only one that I still re-read again and again to this day, was the Wheel of Time. I've never seen an author quite as detailed at creating an entire world in which to immerse yourself, replete with all the little things that make that world real.

First, I love reading all these and reliving some of the greatest moments in the series.

Since I can't really choose a favorite, I'm going to just go with the one I felt was most emotionally stirring of all -- Nynaeve's ride through the borderlands recruiting soldiers to fight alongside her husband. Her intensity and resolve that no matter what it takes, her husband will not ride alone through Tarwin's Gap, is the kind of scene that remind's you what life is really all about!

@Metal Head - re: theory on Rand suggesting he can channel the TP at will.

I don't have the book in front of me right now to check the wording of what was said, but as you seem to be saying here I recall it being rather vague, so it could be anything.

However, I do have a logical argument for a third possibility:

There are 3 abilities that Rand now has the OP, TP (or at least has had and we aren't quite sure if he still does), and the unnamed power where he is simply able to impose his own will on the pattern (as in when he asked Cads if she believed that if he simply decided her heart would stop, that it would).

The OP option for Rand's statement to the Borderlanders would require a Ter'angreal, which of course could be the case, but we don't really have any hints to say that it is or when he found it.

The TP option would have to make one of 2 potential assumptions:

(a) that somehow Rand has become somehow able to sidestep getting the DO's permission to use the TP (the TP is quite simply the DO himself, and this is why it is an ability granted only with his permission--this is what was explained when discussing how Lanfear (I forget her AoL name) and her buddies detected a source of greater power than the OP and drilled to get at it, and found that it simply was the DO whom they had forgotten even existed until then).

or (b) that he still has permission for some as of yet unknown plan that the DO is still planning to attempt later.

The 3rd option with this unnamed power to bend reality is the only one that would not require any assumptions to make it possible for him to use it within that radius of the town.

What do you think?

Pretty good statements on each of the characters. The only ones I felt differently enough about to post something were Moiraine and Thom. I think Moiraine's having "died" once already and come back just in time to achieve her entire purpose in the story makes her the strongest candidate for martyrhood. She's already proven that she is the most single-mindedly dedicated and willing to martyr herself of the series, having done so once already despite having already knowing in advance what was roughly going to happen and the extremely slight chances of being rescued.

Heck she's even more single-minded about it than Lan is, after all he is willing to irrationally throw himself into death without really taking the necessary thought to analyze whether that death will really accomplish anything worth accomplishing in the grand scheme. Moiraine on the other hand is so meticulously calculating about it that we know one thing for sure about her, victory is really the only thing that matters. Of course she will take her romance with Thom while she can have it, and her short period of respite from having the weight of the world on her shoulders, but in the end she is the one character most likely to throw all other considerations to the wind, without more than a half-moment's pause of regret for love, and sacrifice herself once again for the greater good. And the fact that she's already been as good as dead (and with plenty of time to have resigned herself to it while prisoner) means she has less clingingness to her frail thread of life than the others and more appreciation for the short moments that she has been given back after having resigned herself to death.

And Thom seems to me a character who considers that he's already lead a thoroughly full life (and with good cause to feel that way) and fully justified in sacrificing it so that those who haven't had so much life to live yet can keep theirs. And being connected to Moiraine with her own proclivities toward self-sacrifice, it seems to me that it would be a perfect crystalization of their romance--i.e. finally having realized their love and spending a short time fulfilling it, then dying together in a tremendous blaze of glory.

Sure, we haven't had big, prophetic foreshadowing of such an event, but that makes it that much more impactful when it happens and catches us off-guard. I think there will be something of a collage of painful losses of characters we've come to love dearly, in a way that some of our primary characters will know of these multiple deaths and be heavily moved by them at a crucial moment when their emotional frailty could cost the victory, but instead serves to harden their resolution to make the hard decisions that need to be made at that moment and thus give further meaning to those deaths by taking victory through these sacrifices.

(By the way, I haven't done a re-read in some time, and I'm not that heavy a follower of the blogging & any statements RJ has made about future events, so if there have already been any definitive statements as to these 2 surviving post-LB, then I'm sure someone will correct me on this, critically or not as their character dictates.)

Actually, I agree with both sides of the discussion on the cleansing of the taint question.

I agree with the "oily rag to clean an oily saidin" analogy; it doesn't make sense to me that this would work. Nor, if you review the description of how the cleansing was done, does this really follow the sequence of events. Saidar was used as the "filter" to separate Saidin from the taint, but then the taint (basically an essence of the DO) had to go somewhere, so Rand chose Shadar Logoth as the place to put it.

Now that is where I also agree with the "like dissolves like" theory. You put the essence of 2 powerful and opposing forces in close proximity and they zap one another out of existence. It's true that the DO is far more powerful than Mashadar/Mordeth, but then again the taint wasn't the totality of the DO, just that small portion of him that oozed out and mixed in with Saidin. So they wound up being relatively equal enough in magnitude to destroy eachother and leave nothing behind (at least, nothing was left as far as we know).

That being said, this is definitely a separate topic from the one proposed here. Maybe a mod should start a new thread and move these comments there?