Theoretically, Halima answers a lot of that, although it's a bit open as to whether or not Halima is a unique creation of the dark one. The concept of transgenderism implies a mismatch between biological sex of the body and the gender of some other essence, which we could call a soul. In other words, transgenderism requires that souls be gendered. Luckily for transgenderism in WoT, it appears that WoT souls are gendered. Whether or not the wheel would ever spin out a soul in a body that didn't match it is not answered in canon. It also seems to be the case that when the dark one gives new bodies to the souls of the forsaken, their ability to channel and strength in the one power is a result of the soul and does not depend on the body being able to channel at all. But then, severing appears to be damage to the body since it can be healed like other wounds. A possible explanation is that actually all bodies are naturally capable of channeling both halves of the one power, but only souls that have the ability to channel can make their bodies do this. The body can be damaged and lose the ability to channel and then the soul cannot channel in that body. The body can also be healed of this wound. This would imply that transgender and intersex people in WoT would have a soul of one gender or the other and could then channel that half of the one power (if they are able to channel at all) and that the sex of the body would not be important.

I, too, thought this thread was going in a different direction.

I thought this, too, initially. However, I went back and read the section. Although it is clear that buildings and walls are getting knocked down, we also read that Mat's body is smoking. I'd say the implication is that he was struck by lightning. I wonder if initially RJ intended for the medallion only to work against Saidar (he asks the Finns to get away from the Aes Sedai, and is presumably only referring to modern female Aes Sedai), but as the story went on, he changed his mind and made it resist all channeling.

Is there a theory whereby the electroweak/strong force is unified with gravity? I am aware that the other three are theoretically unified, but I'm not aware of a theory that unifies them with gravity, either theoretically or experimentally.

I have a general rule to not start reading a series until it is complete. I didn't start WoT until after AMOL was released. As such, I read the series pretty continuously on the first readthrough (not meaning that I read constantly, but rather that I never had to wait for the next book to come out and didn't really move to any other leisure reading during the process). I didn't really notice the slog except for book 10. It's true that there are lots of points in the series where we are left on a cliffhanger and then move to another subplot for a while (sometimes for entire books). I think this would be especially frustrating when you might have to wait multiple years for the next book. I went into the series with the understanding that many considered the middle a slog. I did evaluate at various points if I thought I was reading a slog. The only part where I thought that I might have just read a slog was book 10. That is, for the whole book, none of the main characters change locations or meet up and change groups or otherwise have much conflict. The exception is really just the last two pages where Egwene gets herself captured. The entire rest of the book is characters either waiting for something or travelling somewhere. But the travelling characters were travelling at the beginning of the book and still haven't gotten there by the end. Even so, it is very much a book about buildup, character development/relationship building, and planning. And in fairness, I think a lot of the slog feeling comes from the fact that a lot of the book 10 plotlines and relationships aren't well liked. The Shaido, the succession, the split tower politics, and the Tuon courtship are all slow storylines and they dominate most of the crossroads of twilight.

It's clear that during the AoL, the one power was studied in much the same way that we study electromagnetism or gravity. It's a characteristic of the universe that can be understood and harnessed for various uses. In that way, I would say that it is much like science more than magic. However, if the people of the AoL were aware that the one power was caused by some ancient/alien technology, then certainly LTT and the forsaken would have been in the know. And we don't get any indication that they know this. Of course, as was mentioned, the obvious question that the world being cyclic and our world being in one of the ages raises is, where is the one power in our world. However, I think the simplest explanation is that the gene for channeling (and I think it's clear from the books that it is a gene) goes extinct and mutates back in through different parts of the cycle. That does seem unlikely, but if the wheel wills it... On the other hand, it seems to be the case that the ability to channel is also partly associated with a soul. That would mean that 'channeling' souls wait out the non-channeling ages in Tel.

Oxygen doesn't burn on its own no matter how hot it is. Fire is a reaction that involves oxygen combining with something else, usually hydrocarbons. The air on its own does not contain sufficient levels of flammable gases to sustain a fire. If it did, any fire would create a chain reaction that would spread unchecked throughout the face of the whole earth. I think this discussion raises questions about what weaves of fire, air, earth, and water actually are. It doesn't seem like this works like benders from the avatar series where benders are actually controlling a piece of the element. The ability of a channeler to weave an element doesn't seem to depend much on access to the element. Channeling water weaves isn't easier in the ocean than it is in the desert and channeling earth doesn't become impossible (or even significantly more difficult) high in the air or in the middle of the ocean. Thus, it is clear that weaving elements is not about using actual physical pieces of the elements. Moreover, it seems that weaves of a specific element do not actually create or constitute that element. The residue that weaves leave behind is not a material component. It seems that the weaves of elements consist of some sort of metaphysical shadow or parallel version of the elements rather than the elements themselves.

The way the Egwene rediscovers traveling through a better understanding of Tel suggests that gateways are connected to Tel or some other alternate plane of existence. The way it works in my head cannon is that gateways are actually a portal to an alternate plane where distances are all very short followed by another portal out of that plane. These two portals are slightly and precisely offset in the other plane and due to the scaling of that plane this leads to them being in very different places in the real world. The scaling in that plane is so extreme that even traveling across the entire world is fractions of an inch in that plane and thus the two portal seem to be in the same place. As to why shadowspawn can’t go there, it has to do with the nature of their souls. Perrin and Slayer gain the ability to go to Tel at will due to the dual nature of their souls. Shadowspawn don’t even have souls that are connected to their bodies in the traditional way. The dark one has made a twisted connection, but this connection is unnatural and thus cannot persist across planes of existence. Therefore, taking shadowspawn from the real world into another destroys the connection to their souls and thus kills them. This does raise questions about the ways, but in my head cannon I decided that the ways are not another alternate plane but rather a folding of reality to make distances different. The ways don’t actually leave our plane. All just head cannon, but it makes sense to me.

I’d like to point out that your poll has two questions with potentially opposite answers, but the response options don’t reflect that.

Like you said, I'm not sure that makes as much sense for fireballs as it does for lightning bolts. The book descriptions seem to suggest that fireball attacks do actually form from near the channeler and travel from him or her. Of course, that fireball can ignite a mundane fire, but I think it's logical to assume that the fireball itself is still sustained by the power as it travels. There aren't, after all, natural fireballs flying around the world in the way that lightning naturally occurs. This does open a bit of a can of worms as to what constitutes the power directly affecting the holder of the fox medallion, and what is just a secondary effect that results from the power doing something. Holding with air or suffocating him by removing the air could be argued to just be controlling the air and then Mat is affected by the air and not by the one power directly. Perhaps if the channeling is maintained then the medallion protects against it. But if the channeling has already stopped, the secondary effects that remain are not affected by the medallion.

I’m obviously quite ignorant on the subject. The movie looks like a desert.

So after I searched up that clip, YouTube thinks I am really into learning about the Zulu. And today I learned that “wash the spears” is a Zulu phrase meaning to wash your spear in the blood of an enemy.

I'd always assumed that the amulet doesn't protect him in Caemlyn because the lightning doesn't directly target him. It's not clear to me, though, exactly what that means. (I think the assumption that the amulet doesn't protect him against Saidin is incorrect and just a result of the unreliable narrator). Lightning attacks using the power appear to be just regular lightning that is caused by the power. Visually, I think they don't come from the channeler but rather from the air (ie. it's not something like force lightning from the star wars universe that literally emanates from the hands of the force user). Regular lightning is caused when a large electrostatic potential builds up between two clouds or between a cloud and the ground. I assume that one power lightning is the same thing except that the electrostatic potential build-up is caused by the power. The lightning itself is caused by the buildup, not by the power. It's a bit like using the power to roll a rock up a hill and the letting it fall down on someone. I'm not sure if anyone ever uses a lightning attack indoors. Thus, I would suspect that Mat is vulnerable to lightning in general, but I'm not sure if this is contradicted elsewhere in the series. Alternately, I believe that when Rahvin attacks in Caemlyn, there is some general destruction of buildings. The rubble from the destruction might have also hit Mat.

Here it is. It starts out like a chant, but turns into a sort of eerie sounding tribute.

The Aiel seem to have significant influence from the Zulu (or at least the western perception of the Zulu). They are a society of warriors from a desert area that use a shield and a brace of short handled, long bladed spears that can be thrown or used hand to hand. In the movie Zulu, the final scene is rather iconic and concludes with the Zulu warriors singing a tribute song that is rather melodic. This scene is probably not historically accurate, but may have influenced RJ's perception of the Zulu and their culture and music. Perhaps an interesting influence to consider if trying to bring Aiel music to life. Of course, that isn't a battle song so much as a post battle song, so it may be very musically different.

I find it hard to believe that longer season gaps is a choice that was made intentionally to increase viewership. I think only committed fans will put in the time for a re-watch. Casual viewers won't want to re-watch something, but also will be put off by not remembering the previous seasons well enough to understand without a re-watch.

I think a lot of long time fans don’t remember reading the prologue without context. I recently started listening to the audio books with some family members who have very little context and they frankly had no idea what the prologue was about. Of course, it works as a sort of teaser that creates some mystery, but I think that is actually harder to pull off in a TV show. It’s hard to remember the prologue the first time because there is no reference point to ground it in your memory.

I think a whole season would not work. They need to introduce the major heroes in the first (or maybe second) episode. And NS just doesn't have enough to carry a whole season. It's great for worldbuilding and backstory, but the plot and climax are not what season 1 needs. I'd agree that there's more than half an episode though. After an initial bit of NS at the beginning, I think you could have some flashbacks interspersed throughout the first season where they work. Particularly, you could have some flashbacks to explain the Moiraine/Siuan relationship and also the Moiraine/Lan relationship. You would just need to make sure that you have a clear visual cue to the audience to make it clear which parts are 20 years ago.

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I’ve long thought that starting with more New Spring content would have been excellent and actually solved many problems. I mean, they wanted to make Moiraine the center, jump more into the Tower quickly, introduce Aes Sedai, include some Lesbian sex, tell us about the bond, and generally give the story a more epic scale right away. If only there was a prequel that literally did all of those things. I’m not saying that it needs to take a ton of time or that we want to see the BA hunt in the border lands or anything like that. But I think that using NS content for the first half episode would have done a lot for making it work better. Then a 20 year jump.

Having the big 3 meet up would have been a major feel good moment. However, I think it would also interfere with the story. Although the justification for not meeting is very different, I think that neither Dark Rand nor Zen Rand would arrange this meeting just for personal reasons, so we would need a pretext as to why it was necessary for them to meet to fulfill the larger plan. I think that the fact that they implicitly trust each other completely without meeting is a big part of the story. Also, although it would feel like they have a lot to tell each other, the reader would already know everything. As such it might actually fall flat when written out, even if it feels like it should be good. (Another pretext for a recap couldn't hurt though, right?) There would need to be an emotional payoff where they get to tell each other something that they weren't able to tell each other before so that we can see some type of personal or relationship growth. And although we want to see them together, I can't put my finger on something in particular that was left unsaid between them.

It's a bit of a twist, but it isn't really turning polygamy on its head. It's still one man with multiple wives. It just that the women retain a lot of autonomy and control in the relationship. Biologically and socially from a reproductive standpoint, one man-multiple women relationships make more sense than the reverse. If anything, I would say that RJ was trying to make polygamy more pragmatic and functional, not less.

A lot of Aiel culture is just shown through examples and the reader is left to guess what the general case is or how common different things actually are. However, I don't think there is any textual support for the suggestion that sister-wives have romantic relationships with each other.

I hadn't thought of this before, but some quick googling of mythological leg wounds says that the Fisher King was wounded in the thigh in Arthurian legend. Wikipedia explains/speculates that a thigh wound is actually often a euphemism for being wounded in the genitalia. Not sure if this is related, but the Fisher King is definitely related to WoT lore, so maybe. Of course, I think Rand is more related to the Fisher King that Perrin, so maybe not. The character that is often related to Perrin is Thor, but I don't believe that Thor is wounded in the leg. Hephaestus, the Greek blacksmith god, (as well as his Roman counterpart, Vulcan) is lame. This lameness is sometimes attributed to a birth defect while other times it is associated with a fall from heaven/olympus due to some type of dispute with Hera and/or Zeus. Hephaestus is married to Aphrodite (and Vulcan to Venus), but she cheats on him with Ares (Mars). Not sure any of this is relevent, but it feels like maybe some of it is.

What if the dragon had a carneira? That would be a bit of a different story.