Thanks for your perspective half moon. It's so fun to read though people's interpretations and I'm happy to know that some of my wonderings are shared with other readers.

Hello Dragonmount, I've been reading WoT for about 3 years and have made it up to the aftermath of the Caemlyn in book 5, the Fires of Heaven. I'm really enjoying the series especially the more recent books that I've read. The Visions of Rhuidean is one of my favorite pieces of story telling that I've experienced. I typically listen to the audio books on my commute home from work but will sometimes pull out a physical copy or look for a chapter summary on the TarValon Library wiki to answer some of my own questions, especially when it comes to keeping track of who's who. Keeping the Forsaken straight is probably my biggest challenge right now being an audio book listener, but I think I'm getting a feel for who's who and trying to figure out their motivations is interesting: I'm shocked to see Asmodean playing so nice right now, I assume he's just incredibly afraid of Lanfear. I also do watch the show, overall I thought the first two seasons were a little rough but they did get me into the series but it seems to be getting better and although the rate that things are happening is really ramping up, I think they've done a much better job at bringing the cool moments from the Shadow Rising to the screen. Today, as I was listening, I had a question that I really wish I could talk with someone about, which is what motivated me to seek out the community here. Rand was thinking about his Lews Therin Telamon memories and the other names of the Forsaken while in a post battle discussion with Asmodean and Aviendha. As I mentioned before, this got me thinking of Asmodean's motivations which in turn made me wonder about the cyclical nature of the world and what people believe will happen after the last battle. This caught my interest, because in some ways it doesn't make sense based on my understanding of Ishamael's beliefs, but maybe I'm jumping to another question too quickly. Let me try and spell out my noticings and wonderings. Hopefully there's a minimal amount of mistakes and misunderstandings and you can follow my thought process. 1. Is the prophesized last battle part of the cycle? I guess I always assumed it was. That after the event that released the Dark One, my understanding was there would be a period of respite and progress and then the Dark One would come back again in the next age. 2. What do the people of the world think will happen if the light wins? If they lose? How does this belief change depending on the factions individuals belong to? 3. Historically, the dragon has always won. If the Dark One won and it wasn't a reality ending event, yes I could see avoiding it would still be the preference, but it wouldn't carry the fate altering weight that this event seems to. Why would immortal characters like the Forsaken join the Dark One for fleeting victories every few centuries? What would start the cycle over again once the Dark One is in a position of unbridled power? 4. This particular last battle might be different. Maybe it would bring an end to the cycle of the Dark One's rise to power and influence on the world. I'm not sure why this one is different. Maybe it's because it's the during the age we're reading about in the book series. But from my reading and some of the characters' dialogue it seems implied that there could be a change this time. Maybe Rand is more different than previous Lews Therins. 5. If Ishamael believes that the Dark One's success is inevitable over a long enough time line, why is Rand still alive? No dragon at the last battle means the light loses. Ishamael makes it sound like this outcome has happened before, what happened after that? Why wasn't that the end of it? What else needs to happen for the Dark One to win entirely? I think I might be losing the thread of my initial question. I'm really not trying to ask what happens in the rest of the series, but I am wildly curious about what people believe has happened in the past and what they think might happen. These beliefs seem core to any motivations the different characters might have. Thanks for reading and engaging with my questions! It really is such an imaginative series, it's a lot of fun to think about these fictional histories and I appreciate hearing about things I may have missed and various interpretations. I'm not the most concerned with spoilers, especially when it comes to references to the world and lore which can typically be kept more general anyways. -Searcher