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1.2.6: Moridin's Nine Sha'rah Players

In [TPOD: Prologue, Deceptive Appearances, 42-43], Moridin is playing his favorite AOL strategy game (against himself):

"A complex game, sha'rah, ancient long before the War of Power. Sha'rah, tcheran, and no'ri ... each had adherents ... but Moridin had always favored sha'rah. Only nine people living even remembered the game. He had been a master of it."

Since the game is unknown in the Third Age, the nine must be from the AOL. The only people around from the AOL are the Forsaken. The ones who are around who we know that Moridin knows about are: Moridin, Moghedien, Mesaana, Graendal, Semirhage, and Demandred. That's six. We also have the Gars, possibly Sammael, and possibly Lanfear, who is probably Cyndane-- the occupant of Moridin's second mindtrap. (Rahvin, Be'lal, and most likely Asmodean are permanently dead, so they are not in the counting.) Including all of the viable possibilities, the total reaches ten, which is one more than the nine enumerated by Moridin. If we cannot eliminate one of those last four, then we must conclude that Moridin was referring to nine people who could play the game, and that one of the Forsaken simply wasn't into board games. So, let us examine the possibilities:

Sammael: Sammael apparently died at the end of ACOS. This makes him a good candidate for not being counted among the nine, or does it? Note that Moridin's second scene in TPOD is in [TPOD: 2, Unweaving, 81-84], where he watches Elayne and Nynaeve's party depart the Tarasin Palace via gateway. This scene occurs the same day that they use the Bowl of Winds. From [TPOD: 7, A Goatpen, 160], Perrin thinks that "more than half a week" (over five days in Randland) has passed since "a lace of OP streaking high across the sky had created quite a stir among the AS and WOs. And with Grady and Neald.... Neald said it made him think of wind." This description matches with that of the Bowl's action. The next day, Perrin meets Queen Alliandre, and she mentions that "four days ago Illian fell to the Dragon Reborn." [TPOD: 10, Changes, 228] This matches with the timing as figured from data in ACOS: The using/finding of the Bowl occurs the day after the Festival of Birds, when Nynaeve meets and marries Lan. The Festival of Birds is six nights before the half-moon [ACOS, 29, The Festival of Birds, 454]. Rand's attack on Sammael takes place two days after his injury at the hands of Fain [ACOS: 41, A Crown of Swords, 617], and the injury took place on the day Min assures Rand that their "comforting" was mutually voluntary. This is four days before the half-moon. Thus, we can conclude that the Moridin scene in Chapter 2 to TPOD takes place two days before Sammael "dies" in Shadar Logoth.

There is no indication that Moridin's timeline flows backwards in TPOD between the scene in the Prologue and the scene in Chapter 2. The reasonable conclusion is that the Chapter 2 scene occurs after the Prologue scene, and thus, both occur before the fight between Rand and Sammael. This implies that Sammael was definitely alive when Moridin pondered about the nine players.

Aran'gar and Osan'gar: The Gars are definitely Balthamel and Aginor, respectively, and thus they both must be aware of the game's existence. The only way for only one of them to be eliminated from Moridin's count is for Moridin to be ignorant of one of the Gars' existence, or at least of his/her identity. However, if he knew that Balthamel had been resurrected as a person named "Aran'gar," he'd suspect that there was an "Osan'gar" out there, and that it was Balthamel's old pal Aginor. The only other alternative is that Moridin is ignorant of both the Gars, and that there is yet another AOLer wandering around who we don't know about, but who Moridin does. This could, conceivably, be Asmodean, but the probability of him having been resurrected and not mindtrapped is so vanishingly small that it isn't worth considering seriously. Note that this argument implies that Moridin knows about the Gars, no matter how the "nine" remark is interpreted.

Cyndane/Lanfear: Cyndane was mindtrapped even before Moghedien, so she is definitely alive when Moridin makes the "nine" count. If she is indeed Lanfear in a new body (see section 1.2.5), then she must be included in the number of people who know of the game's existence. The only way for her to not be counted as a person who knows of sha'rah is if she is a totally new character, from the Third Age.

So, if Moridin meant "only nine people living even remembered the game existed," then we must conclude one of the following:

1. RJ did some extremely poor writing, and the scene with Moridin in the Prologue of TPOD occurs after the scene with Moridin in Chapter 2 of TPOD, even though there is absolutely no indication that this is the case.
2. Moridin does not know of Aran'gar and Osan'gar, and there is an unknown AOL person wandering around in Randland. It has been suggested that this could be LTT (which would have interesting implications about the LTT situation), or Birgitte.
3. Cyndane is not Lanfear, or any other AOL person, just an unprecedentedly powerful female channeller from the Third Age who ran so afoul of Ishy/Moridin that she was mindtrapped, and yet we've never heard of her.

One other option is that Moridin is not including himself in the nine people who remember the game, but if that were the case, it would have made more sense to say "Only nine other people even remembered the game."

On the other hand, if Moridin meant "Only nine people living even remembered how to play the game," then the sentence doesn't mean much. It does imply that Moridin knows about Aran'gar and Osan'gar, since without them, the total number of potential players doesn't even reach nine.

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