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Kari al'Thor: What do we know about her?

Contributed by: J. R. Feehan, Anthony Padilla

• Tam met Kari sometime before the Aiel War. (ref. Tam's ranting in the woods)
• Kari is from Caemlyn. (ref. Moir. in Fal Dara, TGH)
• Kari did not give birth to Rand. (refs. too numerous to quote)
• Kari had red hair. (ref. Nyn at Baerlon)
• Kari, supposedly, had grey eyes, which Rand was supposed to have inherited. (TEotW: 1, An Empty Road, 2?) (Rienk Tychon? suggests that she may actually not have had grey eyes, but that Tam just told him so.)
• "Kari" has dark eyes in Ishy's vision at the end of TEotW. This might indicate that the "Kari" in the vision wasn't real. (TEotW, near the end)
• Kari died when Rand was young, perhaps from a disease that made her "waste away" or something. (I don't think there are any refs. to a wasting sickness, but I leave this in, in case I find one.)
• Kari didn't approve of Tam's sword. (TEotW: 5, Winternight, 56?)

All Rand can remember of her was her smile. Nynaeve said it was obvious that she loved Rand, and that she was very nice. Even still, she was only in the Two Rivers for a few years, if all Rand can remember is her smile. She probably had known Tam for quite a while, while he was in Andor. At any rate, their relationship went on long enough for him to say in his fever dream that she "Always said you wanted to have children." That "always" would imply that she and Tam didn't get hitched after, say, a month-long romance, and that maybe they'd been married a while before they found Rand, and maybe tried to have kids of their own, to no avail, which would have taken a while to find out.

At a book signing, RJ is reported to have said that we'll find out a little more about Kari later.

Loony Kari theories: People have thought that Kari was Tigraine (somehow still alive after dying on the slopes of Dragonmount), or an Aiel Wise Woman looking after Shaiel's kid (which cannot be, because Moir. said that Kari's from Caemlyn), or an Aes Sedai who'd been stilled (someone said she was wasting away and that's why she died and Tam was her Warder, etc. Wouldn't the White Tower have gotten to Emond's Field faster if Kari had been one?), or a Tinker, or she was related to some Caemlyn noble we know. Don't know why exactly, but she does have red hair, and the Caemlyn nobles, who say they're descended from Aiel blood, also have red hair.