All of which can be said to be based on the real-world Templars.

Mat's amulet came from the Finns. Who knows where they got it from? There is absolutely no reason to believe Rahvin even knew it existed, much less that Mat was wearing it. To believe he intentionally did something to bypass it is to assign knowledge to him that is not believable. Rand felt Rahvin weaving the lightning. He put up a shield to block the weave, but was too slow. Rand plainly thought that Rahvin's "weave of Fire and Air" (neither of which would appear to be a part of natural lightning) WAS the lightning, not just its trigger. Rand's response to Mat's death showed he believed that the foxhead could block Saidar, but not Saidin. Granted, Jordan was very fond of the "Unreliable Narrator" trope, and could be misleading the reader into believing Rand's mistaken opinion. But that just restates the question: Did Jordan want us to believe that because he intended it to be true, but then changed his mind? Did Jordan want us to believe that but always intended the impression to be false? Did Jordan always intend this kind of narrow interpretation of the difference between "direct weave" and "indirect effect"? Rand clearly thought Rahvin's lightning was a direct weave, not an indirect effect. Was he just wrong? Or was he right and Jordan changed his mind - or made a mistake? Did the foxhead protect against Saidin - but only direct weaves, or did it only protect against Saidar?

Don't know how far along you are by now, sixteen months later. But there's a phrase you should look out for in the later books: It's kind of a shock when it comes, but oh so satisfying.

It's not that nothing that happens in Tel'aran'rhiod can affect the real world, it's that only things that happen to people in Tel'aran'rhiod persist in the real world. We see examples of things happening to people in the world of dreams persisting after they wake up all through the series. It's why the Aiel Dreamers were so insistent that Egwene stay out of it unless she was with one of them. It's why Rand killing Rahvin with balefire in TAR resulted in Mat and Aviendha coming back to life in the real Caemlyn. Because those were all about things happening to people in TAR persisting in the waking world. Regarding the a'dam that Nynaeve dreamed up - it didn't persist. Elayne made one to use in the real world. A different version, that could be disguised as a set of jewelry. The reason they were able to put it on Moghedien before she could escape is because Nynaeve drugged her in TAR so she wouldn't wake up in time to get away. And as the drugging happened to her person, the effects lasted just as they would have in real life.

It is my understanding that while "Champion of the Light" is a role the Wheel spins out time after time, "Dragon" was just a nickname - Lews Therin's nickname. In the same way that "Silverbow," "Farstrider" and "Goldeneyes" are nicknames. It's not that LTT is the only Dragon we know by name, it's that the name only ever applied to him. Rand is the Dragon Reborn because he is literally LTT's soul reincarnated. He is also the "Champion of the Light" - just as LTT was. The Light's champion could be anyone. Man or woman. Channeler or not. But only one person at any given time.

That was my impression. Especially with Rand's internal comment when looking at Mat's smoking corpse. Whether from lightning as a secondary effect, or from Saidin itself being channeled, the foxhead didn't even protect itself, much less the person wearing it. And Rand had felt the lightning bolts being woven. He had woven his shield of Fire and Air to block their Fire and Air - seemingly implying that the lightning wasn't just an effect, but was an actual Weave. It seemed at that point that Jordan clearly intended the medallion to protect against Saidar but not Saidin. Then Halima channeled Saidin at Mat. And all bets are off.

And to quote a different franchise: "This will really bake your noodle." It hard to picture anything else in Randland that is a more direct application of the One Power on something physical than holding a Gateway open. So much so that Shadowspawn (except for Gholam) can't survive going through one. Descriptions of how they initially take shape show the Power directly altering reality before the weaves that create the "frame" of the Gateway even exist. Which would seem to say that every atom of the space within a Gateway is being directly affected by Saidar or Saidin for the entire time it's open. Yet Mat passes through Gateways multiple times with the fox-head. As do other people with the clones Elayne made of it.

This scene brings up an apparent contradiction regarding Mat and his amulet. Whatever was happening, it was clearly Halima channeling at him. With Saidin. Yet when Mat is killed in Caemlyn (before being "rewound" back to life by Rand's balefire) we are told that the fox-head didn't protect him from Saidin. Which raises the question: how were the two events different? Was Halima trying to directly touch him with the Power (by Compulsion or anything else) so it shielded him, but Rahvin's lightning wasn't the Power directly, so it didn't? Remember that either Adeleas or Vandene threw horse manure at him with Saidar, and it didn't protect him. In other words, was it an oversight/contradiction? Or a clever application of the rules?

What if Moiraine were his carneira? There must be a reason it was brought up in the context of what she saw in the rings in Rhuidean. That would certainly explain where RJ got the idea for that little tidbit. But seriously - I would view the genesis of New Spring as sort of Jordan's version of The Silmarillion. He finally wrote down the ideas he had always had in his head as his Legendarium. I don't think he had ever intended to write it out until Silverberg approached him. If he had ever conceived of the Dragon Reborn as an older man when he met Moiraine, I don't think it ever got any further than an idea. Certainly not far enough to be considered his original intent for the beginning of the story. If he had written a novel as long as those in the rest of the series, it probably would have included Jain Farstrider, the Fall of Malkier, and the events that led to Laman's Sin, not just its aftermath. We would have actually met Tigraine, not just the people who once knew her. We might have seen how Luc and Isam met and "teamed up" and what happened when Janduin encountered them in the Blight. Those were all things RJ probably had in those notes, and he picked a relatively small bit of it out to write the version of New Spring we ultimately got. Imagine getting your hands on those notes.

Obviously, a use of the One Power in the natural world. Saidin or Saidar?

The bigger question is - where did Luca get eucalyptus to feed them? Perhaps they were a brown species of pandas, and the "branches" were bamboo?

Or possibly that Rhuidean, with its wards against entry, is viewed as a kind of extension of their world. I'd say that they the reason they don't pass through the doorways is because they dislike it, not because they are in some way forbidden.

No, if you produced slag as a waste product of smelting steel, you didn't make the slag for a purpose. The statement I was responding to was that Aginor created the Myrddraal explicitly for some purpose. In reality, they were an accident that took him completely by surprise. That's pretty much the opposite of "explicitly for a purpose." There is also no evidence anywhere in the books that the Dark One created them explicitly for a purpose either. Whether through Aginor's actions or not. He certainly made extensive use of them, but there's no evidence he planned their existence. And though the Forsaken were only permitted to use the True Power with permission, they were absolutely familiar with it. If it were obvious that's the source of the Myrddraals' abilities, he would have discovered it when he tested several of them to destruction. And no, that's not what "Distinction without a difference" means.

Actually, neither of these things are true. Aginor made Trollocs. But the Myrddraal were a surprise offshoot descended from them. A sort of throwback to the human side of the human/animal mix of the trollocs. Aginor himself didn't know how they came to be, or how their powers actually work. Though not for lack of trying to find out.

I would have loved to see Hurin, Juilin Sandar and Elyas Machera have an adventure together.