I just wanted to let everyone know something I found.

You may, or may not, agree, but I thought that Snape's, from the Harry Potter series, coat is similar to that of an Asha'man. Of course, there are several ideas of what an Asha'man's coat really looks like, but I thought some of you would like to take this and use it for your Asha'man outfit, if your into that sort of thing.

Here is the website:

http://www.pearsonsrenaissanceshoppe.com/snape-coat.html

I'm still working on more of this. That Shadar Logoth is now a crater is one. I am currently rereading the series to get more of the details (in Book 10 right now), but somewhere in the series, if I remember correctly, it tells of some of the remains of Shadar Logoth. (Does Mashadar ever return?)

I have thought that the people/ghosts of Shadar Logoth are what create mashadar, almost as if they "channel" it into being. If you remember when Rand is chasing Samael, he runs across the Aeil Maidin of the Spear that went missing from before. If you recall her words, it seems that she has been corrupted by Shadar Logoth, and acts as if she were resident there. This led me to believe the "ghost" concept, that they would watch you from the shadows, ever wary of others. This would result in all of Shadar Logoth to be corrupted. If you could think that the Taint and Corruption together would cancel out, then mashadar would be the catalyst that started it.

Sound tenuous? I think so too, that is why I'm still pondering it.

Just a comment on who Demandred might be. Remember it is commented by one of the other forsaken that he is building his own army, in secret, somewhere. Also his jealousy towards Lews Therin, but also his leadership over the Hundred Companions. Recall that, in Rand's head, Lews Therin usually goes nuts when one of the forsaken appear (that's how he recognized Semirhage). The same thing happened when he first saw Mazrim Taim.

Mazrim Taim as Demandred is confirmed elsewhere. When the Red Ajah goes to the Black Tower to bond Asha'man, Taim laughs and exclaims "Let the Lord of Chaos Reign". This is what Moridin tells the forsaken to do, let Rand live, wound him, sow chaos, all so that Rand would become hardened and crack unnder the pressure.

Also recall Demandred's jealousy of the Hundred Companions, well he's building his own at the Black Tower. That's his army.

There is a possible disclaimer to Demandred being Mazrim Taim. Dashiva and the other rogue Asha'man were given the order to kill Rand by both Mazrim Taim and Demandred. This could imply they not being the same. However, I believe this is just another Machiavellian approach to impress upon the rogue Asha'man to kill Rand (to prevent himm from cleansing Saidin).

There are a few ideas that I would like to share.

The first is how the taint of Saidin was removed. What comes to mind for most of us is the "filter" concept on how to remove oil from water. However, there is another more effective manner to do so, centrifugal force. Since oil and water have different densities, they can be seperated in a spinning cone or cylinder, with holes placed at certian points that allow the water or oil to flow out of, seperately. Now recall that when Rand was forming the conduit out of Saidir, it took a form of its own that he could not understand, something like a flower unfolding. I am not saying that this was what Mr. Jordan was thinking about when he wrote this section, but that it is a viable solution to how the taint could be seperated from Saidin.

Second was the nature of Mashadar in relation to the Dark One's taint. As said, they are opposites akin to Saidin and Saidir. If, like Saidin and Saidir, they travel upon a wheel then they also experience cyclical motion, or a sine wave. Since they are opposite on the wheel, they would be opposing sine waves. In other words, when one is fully positive or cresting, the other fully negative or in it's trough; 180 degrees out of phase. This results in what is called destructive interference, where the waves would cancel each other out.

It is most likely not as the pH model above, where acids and bases neutralize each other, that would leave water behind. Recall the suction caused by the sudden disappearance of the sphere of the taint when Mashadar started crawling up it, that was destructive interference, or them "cancelling each other out", leaving a vacuum.

Honestly, these are only some ideas that occurred to me while reading the text for myself, and in all humility, I would not consider myself an authhority, so please take all this as a grain of salt.