#Luc Mantear

[toastandjamie]

Fellas is it gay to have your soul forcibly merged with your homies becoming a unholy conglomerate affront to god?

Anyways Isam and Luc

[queenofmalkier]

I feel like Tigraine & Luc's stories are echoed in Elayne & Gawyn. Tigraine did the right thing, the thing she needed to do in order to save the world - her kingdom included. Elayne does no less, even when it is hard. Even when it hurts.

Luc is sent away for glory, and becomes something else. Something inhuman. Gawyn tries to do the right thing, but the hunger for glory lives in his heart too. Ultimately he does succeed in defeating this hunger, but he still becomes something else. Something other.

[asha-mage]

Dain, standing up: "Hi, my name is Dain Bornhold and I have a unhealthy homoerotic attachment to Perrin Aybara."

Aram, Gaul, Byar, and Slayer in unison: "Hi Dain."

[two-ponds-and-a-bowtie]

Lan's cousin and Rand's uncle sharing a body is something I need a whole episode dedicated to in the show methinks cuz what was THAT about

[divorceblogger]

mordrellan mantear was already heartbroken after luc left for the borderlands. what are the odds that she thought that marrying tigraine to taringail made her leave too… :/

[caracarnn]

character stats framework﹕

NAME: rand al'thor

NICKNAMES TITLES: Dragon, Car'a'carn, He Who Comes With The Dawn, Coramoor, Lord of the Morning, King of Illian, High Lord of Tear & The Two Rivers, Prince Consort of Andor & Cairhien, and (Black Tower declared) King of the World

AGE: 23 ( at the end of the books )

BIRTHDATE: 2nd of Danu 978 NE

SPECIES: human

NATIONALITY: Born & raised in the two rivers

GENDER: cis male

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: he | him | his

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: heteroromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: heterosexual

FACE CLAIM: Josha Stradowski

FAMILY: Galad Damodred (half brother) Luc Mantear (uncle) 500+ far dareis mai

PARENTS: tam al'thor and kari al'thor (adoptive parents) / tigraine mantear and janduin (birth parents)

SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: Elayne Trakand, Min Farshaw, Aviendha of the Nine Valley Sept

CHILDREN: He has twins coming by the end of the books and possibly more tbh

EYE COLOR(S): gray blue

HAIR COLOR(S): deep red

HEIGHT:  6'6 ( 198.12 cm )

BODY BUILD: tall and muscular in the kind of way that shows he knows how to fight

tagged by: @luckhissoul & @adversitybloomed tagging : @lunarruled @heirofhermes @malumxsubest @forwardlion

[fishflagfeels]

“Musical”

is one possible way to rearrange the letters in Luc & Isam’s names

[ladycauthon]

Yeah I agree that he needed to be sent away so as not to follow Tigraine, and maybe he was necessary to killing Janduin. It just always seemed to me that for how interesting a character Slayer was, he was slightly underutilised? And it baffles me how Luc's (and I suppose Islam's as well to a point) entire purpose for the Pattern was just to die and then be used as a puppet for the Shadow; that just disturbs me a lot for some reason as I don't think there's anything to suggest he was a bad person before heading to the Blight, let alone a Darkfriend? I just feel sorry for him when I think about it really.

Do we ever find out why Luc had to go into the Blight just to end up as Slayer? I don't understand exactly why Gitara had that foretelling as it doesn't seem he was important outside of just being a nuisance to Perrin?

[melaan]

For who and what Slayer is, series is really weirdly unclear on that but what we know is basically this: 1. Slayer is Luc Mantear, Rand's maternal uncle and Isem Mandragoran, Lan's distant cousin, who Dark One for some reason fused in one being? 2. They are capable of physically entering World of Dreams 3. Luc is dominantly in driver's seat in waking world while Isem in Dreaming 4. They seem to have good relationship even if they may have killed each other 5. They serve as dark One's bounty hunter/ assassin

You just explained Slayer WAY BETTER to me in less than 100 words than Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson could in 4 million words. thank you

[markantonys]

winter’s heart chapter 22-27

“[min] nestled in the back of [rand’s] head more strongly than elayne or aviendha, or alanna. he was only vaguely aware of the others. min seemed alive inside him.” yes this is only because min is physically nearby him and the others aren’t, but still, it just feels like such a slap in the face to avirandlayne enjoyers 😒 especially seeing as elayne is the only one who ever wanted rand as her warder in the first place or should even have a warder. the other two have no business having a warder (especially min, whereas avi at least is a channeler if not an aes sedai) and just co-opted what should’ve been a randlayne-only bond and i’ll never stop being mad about it.

“in far madding, a wealthy man was one whose wife gave him a generous allowance or a widower who had been provided for” a city of sugar mamas, love to see it!

“at best, he would have to abandon his sword, which he was reluctant to do. it was a gift from aviendha.” 📣📣 rand just had an independent individual thought about aviendha! instead of only thinking of her in the Girlfriend Blob! stop the presses!

but rand does not have a single independent individual thought about elayne. like, he saw her again for the first time in months and found out she loves him after all, despite the confusion of the letters, and slept with her for the first time, and he’s just? not going to even mention that? have any thoughts about it? i hate it here.

min gets plenty of independent individual thoughts, of course, when rand returns to the inn and sees her and thinks about how beautiful she is and how he can feel her love in the bond. i hate it here!!!!!

could we not have been spared one (1) scene of rand pov when he was with all of them in caemlyn? he’s just had major relationship developments and we don’t get to hear a peep about how he feels about it! i know he’s busy with world-saving stuff to do, but good god!

it’s so unfair. why can’t elayne or avi be the ones traveling with rand and having adventures with him and pretending to be his wife at the inn and sharing a room and feeling his (lack of) emotions in the bond and vice versa? oh, right, because they actually have important roles in their own plotlines, how could i have forgotten.

anyway, rand’s like “why is nynaeve wearing so much jewelry and attracting attention to our party” but i recognize at least one piece as an angreal, so i’m guessing they all are. why wouldn’t she explain that to rand? they’re working together on a super important mission and still aren’t telling each other stuff?

we learn that the traitor asha’man are all darkfriends and i’m annoyed about it. every time a character turns out to be a traitor or villain or what have you, they’re always a darkfriend. i want more villains who aren’t actually darkfriends or serving the dark one! villains who do bad things without being Evil™! i think all we’ve got on that front are elaida (who’s under the control of a darkfriend), the seanchan, and the whitecloaks (who’ve been MIA for many books and aren’t a real threat). this was my same frustration when it turned out elayne was poisoned by darkfriends and not political rivals as i was expecting it to be.

lews therin is good at drawing! a random little factoid that i love. always nice to see wholesome lews therin memories. the only other one i can remember is one where he was climbing olive trees as a kid.

luc. forgot about that guy. still no clue what his deal is, but we get confirmation that he is indeed luc mantear and rand’s uncle. i can’t muster up the energy to be interested in him, i’ve already got more than enough characters and plotlines to be dealing with.

speaking of, the next 2 chapters are in some windfinder’s pov and i don’t care. i think that it should be illegal for anyone to have pov for more than 1 page unless they are rand, mat, elayne, nynaeve, egwene, aviendha, faile, gawyn, morgase, moiraine, or lan (tho i don’t thiiiiink we’ve seen any pov from him yet in the series). perrin is on thin ice. min’s ice has all cracked. everybody else never had ice to begin with.

the one good thing about the windfinder is that she’s unambiguously and canonically bi! she is married to a man whom she misses and wants to be with again, but she also had an affair with a cairhienin woman (ailil, the icon who was making fun of rand’s Can’t Kill Women shit in the last book and is now more of an icon due to being canon wlw). throughout her chapters she describes both men and women as pretty. good for her! i still don’t want to hear from her for 2 whole chapters though.

but we do have the sweetest  of moments when, after spending 2 chapters hearing how her younger sister harine is always mean and authoritative towards shalon since she ranks higher than her, harine says when she sees how scared shalon is to be cut off from the source (we also learn that far madding has ter’angreal that make it like a stedding where no one can channel): “i was afraid of the dark when i was a child, and you never left me alone till the fear passed. i will not leave you alone either, shalon.” 🥺

rand is playing his flute!!! yes!!! if only it was mat sitting in the inn room with him instead of min. i miss the cauthor roadtrip.

“how would he feel at dying? sadness at leaving [min], at leaving elayne and aviendha.” and once again we have min separated out and elayne and avi together in a blob 😒

“he would like to see his father again before the end.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭 if we never get a rand-tam reunion i’ll kill myself

“he had been told [that he had to die] by those he had to believe. to live, you must die.” the snaky folk perhaps?? i don’t think we’ve heard what rand’s questions and answers were. (also, we got an aelfinn namedrop somewhere in these chapters but i don’t think we’ve yet learned that that’s the proper name of the snaky folk. whenever i see you guys talk about the aelfinn i go “the who now? oh, you mean the Snaky Folk™” that’s who they’ll always be to me.)

“‘if you hadn’t [let us bond you], we’d have tied you up and done it anyway.’ best not to ask how that would have differed from what alanna had done, he decided. certainly, [min] saw a difference.” uh yikes min! big “it’s not rape if he’s my boyfriend” energy. elayne and avi have definitely had their moments, but min is by far the worst when it comes to stripping rand of all agency in his own relationship, what with this line + how she said “us 3 women will decide about marriage” + how she told elayne they would slice him up between them like a pie + her entire books 4-7 approach of “i’m gonna chase rand down and force him to love me”

when rand says alanna’s about to walk into the room, min drapes herself all over him on the bed so that alanna will see them that way. once again i’m asking for min to find some dignity and self-respect. she’s just so possessive of rand and insecure about her relationship with him. there is no doubt in my mind that she would not hesitate to cut elayne and avi out of the relationship if she had the chance.

alanna mentions that she asked cadsuane if she could transfer rand’s bond to her: “only, she refused. she was furious that i suggested it without asking you, outraged” nice, cadsuane has one (1) right

“a man who trusts everyone is a fool, and a man who trusts no one is a fool” lews therin does come out with good advice sometimes

rand initially thought of having aes sedai swear fealty to him as only a power move, but now alanna makes him realize that if he puts a little trust in them he can use them to help him out and solve some of his political problems in other lands. nice!

“he hoped elayne and aviendha masked the bond when he was making love with min.” aren’t they way too far away to feel it anyway? “when the two of them were together in bed, no one else existed except her, the same as it had been with elayne.” an independent individual thought about elayne and their night together!!!!!! but also, harem vibes. it’s weird to have them all bonded but not all banging. either have them all bonded and all banging, or have them banging separately and rand is bonded to none (or only to elayne). i’m all for warder bond sex benefits but rand is clearly uncomfortable with the thought of the other two girlfriends feeling what he’s doing with the third girlfriend, just as min and aviendha were clearly uncomfortable feeling what he was doing with elayne. and it seems that the warder can’t mask the bond but that min also wasn’t able to despite being the bondholder, i’m guessing because she can’t channel, which is EXACTLY why she has no business being a warder’s bondholder.

verin is native to far madding but was exiled and seems to be a wanted woman? girl what did you DO?? “hastily filling a second cup, verin slipped the small vial back into her pouch unopened. it was good to be sure of cadsuane at last. ‘do you take honey?’ she asked in her most muddled voice. ‘i never can remember.’” GIRL!?!?!??!!! i never have any idea what verin’s up to but i love her. add her to my “characters who can legally have pov” list. i would gladly read the whole series from verin’s pov.

cadsuane again talks about how she needs to help rand relearn to be human and to laugh and cry. why do you think that bullying him is helping accomplish this at all? and why the hell is this role falling to cadsuane? still struggling to see why she needs to exist at all. why can’t it be rand’s friends and family and partners (ALL of them, not just min) chipping in and teaming up to bring him back from the brink?

i guess this is why we have so much plot-mandated character separation - for narrative and character arc purposes, rand isn’t allowed to realize how many loved ones he really does have. readers say how sad it is that everyone abandons rand, but they don’t, rj just forbids them from spending time with him. but before they were separated from him (and separated from him largely not of their own choice), we’ve seen in elayne’s and mat’s and perrin’s pov that they notice rand is unwell and are worried about him, and nynaeve’s too, tho at least she’s with him rn so i have hope. and while egwene is tower-focused now, in the next chapter she does tell elayne that she loves rand, and when they were together in loc it was clear she cared for rand and worried about him even though she always misinterpreted his growing hardness as arrogance rather than trauma. and rand thinks that lan sees only tdr now and is afraid of him, but i wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s just rand’s self-loathing making him think that and lan actually does still care and worry about him.

i would kill for the pivotal scene in rand’s emotional arc to be ALL his loved ones showing up and being there for him and making him finally see that he’s not alone and that he’s so loved, but i know i’m not going to get that and i’m devastated about it.

“egwene seemed stunned by [the changes in emond’s field]. when she first appeared in tel’aran’rhiod, a long braid had dangled down egwene’s back and she was in a plain woolen dress, of all things, with stout shoes peeking out beneath her skirts as she walked.” 😭😭 egwene is the one who’s left emond’s field furthest behind, and it both heals and hurts me to see that she DOES miss it and her family (later in the chapter she wonders if her family is well and elayne suggests Traveling to visit them, but egwene says that she “can’t face confronting emond’s field as amyrlin” she misses her home but knows she’s changed too much to go back and have things be the way they once were 😭)

“[elayne] hoped rand could still love emond’s field, but it was no longer the village where he and egwene had grown up.” “here in tel’aran’rhiod, she could not know which direction he was. she missed that knowledge, small as it was. she missed him.” 😭😭😭 randlayne deserves betterrrrrrrr

“Traveling made such things [as egwene popping in to visit emond’s field] easy” YEAH IT SURE DOES SO WHY DO NONE OF YOU GUYS EVER TRAVEL TO HANG OUT WITH EACH OTHER

egwene is burdened by duty and elayne hugs her and comforts her. once again i am asking why the boys aren’t allowed to do this! “‘whatever i decide, people are going to die for it.’ she patted elayne’s arm. ‘well, you understand that sort of decision, don’t you.’” once again i am asking why neither of them are allowed to have this sort of conversation and duty-empathizing with rand!

from rumors, egwene thinks rand is chaining aes sedai like damane. aha, i remember back at dumai’s wells i predicted there would be a reckoning between rand and egwene when she found out about him making aes sedai kneel and swear fealty to him. elayne thinks “rand would never do that! if only for love of her, he would not!” bless her ❤️

“with him so far away, the veins of gold shone only in memory.” RANDLAYNE DESERVES BETTER

OKAY OH MY GOD aviendha and elayne are now sharing a bed!!! “every morning since they had begun to share the same bed” and elayne mentions “aviendha’s side of the bed” and they dress together and have breakfast together every morning, they are WIVES like straight up this is not even subtext anymore. i’m gonna jump out of order a bit here to present my evidence on this topic.

aviendha is unhappy about elayne pretending mellar is the father of her baby in order to protect them (since they’d be in danger if it was known rand was their father): “‘i see,’ aviendha said slowly, and frowned into her plate as though seeing something other than the eggs and plums she began pushing around with her spoon.” while she understands it, she’s upset about her wife pretending to be in love with someone else!

throughout these chapters, avi remains by elayne’s side and we are told many times about other people reacting to this with surprise and sometimes confusion/judgment. “the kandori studied aviendha surreptitiously when not listening attentively to elayne, and the illianers avoided looking at her at all after the first widening of eyes in surprise.” meanwhile, “if [reene harfor] had ever been uncertain about elayne calling aviendha sister, she had never shown it, and now she genuinely appeared to approve.” the sister business is all a euphemism and we are actually seeing people react to the daughter-heir having a wife.

like it’s just soooooo blatant at this point that i have to assume rj genuinely WAS intending their relationship to be subtextually romantic but just couldn’t make it explicit due to constraints of the times and/or publisher. there’s just no other explanation for this shit. they live together and share a bed by choice when other beds are available and elayne’s housekeeper approves of their ““sister”” relationship though others find it strange and avi is constantly fussing over elayne and the baby (i will get into that more in a moment bc it made my heart melt). and it seems to me that they started sharing a bed around the time of rand’s visit to caemlyn (i don’t THINK they were before that) so i can only conclude that all 3 of them got together officially that day (with min once again being the awkward outlier)

back to where i was chronologically. avi and birgitte told elayne that min told them she’s pregnant, but we learn later in the chapter that avi and birgitte got too drunk to remember that it was boy and girl twins so elayne thinks she’s having only a single baby and doesn’t know the gender. feels weird to me that avi and birgitte would remember elayne’s pregnant but not that it’s twins but whatever lmao

“she almost looked forward to the start of birthing sickness, so she could share the queasy belly with birgitte” jdfkjgh crying. also yet another reason why rand should be allowed to be near elayne again, it would be hilarious having to watch him deal with secondhand pregnancy effects.

elayne is so overworked that sometimes avi has to “half carry her to bed.” to bed, not to ELAYNE’S bed. because it is THEIR bed that they share, together, every night, as wives.

“‘do i need [birgitte] to tell me you spend too many hours inside and sleep too little?’ aviendha replied contemptuously. ‘you need fresh air.’” “‘monaelle has borne seven children. she says i must see you get fresh air.’” “elayne hastily ate her midday meal early. she had not sent for it; aviendha had. apparently, monaelle said missing meals was as bad as eating too much.” caretaker avi looking after her wife and baby 🥺

“whatever protected her baby, she was willing to do.” “nothing could be allowed to threaten her child. nothing!” 🥺🥺❤️❤️ elayne haters are always going on about how annoying pregnant elayne is, but i for one am adoring this so far. i love elayne and i love babies and i love elayne loving her babies!!

“no escort, birgitte. except for you. an aes sedai and her warder. and aviendha, of course.” of course! because elayne’s wife accompanies her everywhere! that goes without saying!

“dark-stockinged legs bared above the knee by straddling a saddle” elayne is looking at aviendha’s legs Respectfully

“unlike birgitte, [aviendha] had not ceased her attempts to dissuade elayne.” protective yet annoyed wife! “[elayne did not feel] at all ready to put up with badgering. but she did not want to snap at aviendha.” exasperated yet loving wife!

“it might be better to have a son first, so he could begin his training before his sister came. yet a daughter secured the succession, while a lone son would be pushed aside, and as much as she wanted more than one, nothing said she would have another child. the light send her more of rand’s children, but she had to be practical.” elayne i cannot wait for you to find out that you and your spouses are gonna end up with 6 kids!! she’s gonna be absolutely thriving!!

elayne finagles the borderland rulers into an agreeable deal with ease! i say that’s my baby and i’m really proud.gif!

“take care of him, min, she thought. take care of him for us.” elayne is so trusting of min and is all in on the polycule, contrasting back to my earlier thought about how i always get the impression min would jump at the chance to cut her and avi out and keep rand to herself.

“there was no time for sleep, no time for weariness. she had a city to defend.” baby 😭 she and rand are THE SAME

reading this post back, it’s amazing how much more cheerful my liveblogging became once i got to elayne pov lmao elayne and avilayne are literally saving me!

[toastandjamie]

Thinking about Luc and Issam and feeling S A D

Their entire dynamic and just- general existence is fascinating. I want a whole backstory about those two and how they ended up like that

[wheelofmeta]

Galad: Mantear or Damodred

One of the more mystifying things about Galad is the fact he uses his father’s House name rather than his mother’s. Even more aggravating, we *don’t* ever get an explanation why he does this, but I have a theory. 

If this blog isn’t obvious, I have many of those. 

Anyway. 

So, Galad is a Damodred, not a Mantear. He’s raised in the Andoran royal court, and we have absolutely no implication Galad’s ever had dealings with his Damodred cousins (excluding maybe his Aunt Moiraine).  He’s the adopted son of the Queen of Andor. But he uses his father’s House name. 

There’s a reason for that.

The reason? Morgase adopted him. It’s very likely that originally Galad was a Mantear. Hell, even after Tigraine’s ‘death’ he likely continued to be a Mantear, up until Taringail married Morgase. 

Here’s the thing. Galad is the son of the former Daughter Heir and the grandson of the previous Queen. Since Queen Mordrellen was most likely High Seat of House Mantear, Galad was probably originally the House heir once Tigraine ‘died’ and Luc vanished. There’s no implication there was a third child. So Galad most likely was the presumed future High Seat/was technically High Seat with a Regent after Mordrellen died. 

Then Taringail married Morgase. 

Morgase married Taringail and adopted Galad. This most likely meant then that Galad had to stop being a member of House Mantear and had to become a member of only House Damodred. There’s also no implication that you can go from one house to another outside of marriage.

Galad only being a Damodred also simplifies possible future issues with the line of succession. If Elayne and Gawyn died without children, but Galad survived them and had a daughter, there’s now the complication of how exactly his daughter would fit in line of succession. Galad or his hypothetical daughter most likely couldn’t become High Seat of Trakand. If he was a Mantear, his daughter would also be a Mantear. Does that mean then that Mantear inherits the throne? 

Him being a Damodred makes that a non-issue. No matter what Taringail would have probably liked, Damodred was not an Andoran noble House. As such, someone who’s just a member of House Damodred (Elayne and Gawyn in Andor would be Trakand, but Damodred in Cairhein) is no longer anywhere in the possible line of succession. You have to be a member of an Andoran noble family. So even if say Elayne and Gawyn died without having daughters, Galad’s daughter wouldn’t inherit the throne; it would likely go to Dyelin or her daughters (if any came into existence since in present canon she doesn’t seem to have any).

Galad could also have wanted to make it clear that there could be ‘good’ Damodreds. Remember, he would have grown up when the Damodred’s had lost the throne due to Laman getting it into his head that he should cut down a certain tree (no you fuckwit that’s a terrible idea). But Galad in many ways is the paragon, and he may have wanted to show that a Damodred could be a good person. 

Well, there it is. My theory of how Galad is a Damodred rather than a Mantear.

Note: Referring to Moiraine as ‘Aunt Moiraine’ managed to successfully feel like one of the most awkward phrases I’ve written for this blog. 

[asha-mage]

We joke about how Rand is surrounded by Evil Men who want him carnally, but can we talk about how Perrin is just a MAGNET for men with simmering homoerotic attachment to him? Aram, Gaul, Slayer, Bornhold, Byar- a SHOCKING number of men either want to devote their lives to serving Perrin or tearing him down completely.

Hell, even his battlefield banter with Galad reads a little bit like flirting.

[cannoli-reader]

The dynasty that produced the commander in chief for the Last Battle is the wrong dynasty?  The family that offered up the most members in Rand’s “still fought” from which he draws the inspiration to defeat the Dark One, was the wrong dynasty? The dynasty that attaching herself to meant Elaida was the first Aes Sedai who didn’t know the Dragon was Reborn to actually meet him? 

Regarding the point that House Mantear held the throne when Elaida had the Foretelling, it’s entirely possible that she figured the Foretelling meant otherwise, when Tigraine and Luc vanished and Mantear lost the throne.  Or she didn’t think that, knew it meant Mantear and stayed with Galad,  the most prominent member of that family and sole remaining known descendant of the last Mantear queen.  There’s no proof that she was not keeping an eye on the rest of the House, which so far as we know is an invalid and a pre-pubescent child, so we’re not talking about movers and shakers here. Even if the royal line (which was the wording of her Foretelling, not "ruling house”) was the key, keeping in touch with the Queen herself is the best way to protect that line and keep an eye on ALL its members, which is basically all significant descendants of Ishara.  For all we know, the real meaning of Elaida’s Foretelling was not merely Rand, but all of Ishara’s descendants who played a role, from Galad bringing the Whitecloaks onto Team Light, to Gawyn getting killed and pushing Egwene to a place where she was very willing to destroy herself, to Elayne’s commander-in-chief office as well as sponsoring cannon research, to Rand doing his thing and even Morgase’s background efforts. Hanlon even tried to bring Modrellin’s great-grandchildren into it. 

Imagine the shit Elaida would get if she was warned ahead of time about a coup and dismissed the warnings, like Siuan did, instead focusing on her personal boogieman, the Black Ajah.  Or if someone pointed out that the Aiel are, in fact, mentioned in the Prophecies of the Dragon, one of the most prominent in fact, with Rhuarc rolling up his sleeve to show his dragon markings, and she promptly tried to ignore that fact by insisting a prophecy intended Rand to lead Tairen spears to war, and telling Rand he had no need to become an Aiel chief or that leading their spears to war once more, from a city, lost and forsaken, was a bad idea (note also, the prophecy says from, not to, a forsaken city).  Or if she had a novice blurting out Foretellings in her camp and her attitude was basically, “OMG, can you believe the little shit wants us to take her seriously?”

Elaida (along with Cenn Buie) is my trash baby. I will die on the hill that she gets a bad rap just for being the most visible Aes Sedai and the one left holding the Amyrlin Seat bag when everything falls apart.  Jordan put in way too many things where Siuan and Elaida or Egwene and Elaida had similar ideas and policies to see her as a singularly bad actor.  

I know I’ve said Verin had the biggest brain among Aes Sedai before, but really it’s got to be Gitara Moroso. That woman set the gang up for success before some of them were even born. She sent Luc off to the Blight, sent Tigraine off to the Waste & managed to drop a knowledge bomb on Moiraine & Siuan that started off phase 2 of the quest.

In sending Tigraine off she started a journey that fulfils the Aiel prophecies but I kept wondering why she sent Luc to The Blight given what befalls him there. It sounds like Luc needed to become what he becomes, not for Perrin to have an adversary as I initially thought (balance and all that), but just so Perrin was there to handle you know who in the cavern right at the end. That’s the tragedy of it all. Luc wasn’t even important. He was just a stepping stone to handling a bigger problem.

Gitara’s effectiveness also makes Elaida look like the dunce of all Foretellers. She misread her Foretelling so bad that she attached herself to the wrong dynasty. 💀

[everybodyhatesrand]

“Little is known about this dark creature or his origins” 

Robert Jordan, I am confusion  - ANYWAY, here is that wiki article we referenced! 

[barid-bel-medar]

So here’s a theory that just occurred to me, or rather an idea; that Isam is a corrupted Wolf Brother. Tainted by being raised completely in the Shadow, a good way to describe him is almost the Wolf Brother version of a Darkhound. Because as noted in AMoL during his PoV in the prologue, his abilities far outstrip those of the Forsaken since he is practically a part of the World of Dreams. I would argue, especially with his emphasis on being a hunter, his disdain for civilization (ie cities, towns, large groups of people) and other factors that him being a corrupted Wolf Brother would make sense. Also, in contrast to the uncorrupted Wolf Brothers (Perrin, Noal, Elyas) to gain balance he had to be merged with an outside individual (Luc); all the uncorrupted ones found balance within themselves. Luc is also the only reason Isam can ever deal with civilization. 

Thoughts?