Most of which was in Malkieri territory and under their guard once. And the baby in the viewing has a sword.

The main problems with this being about any ressurection of Malkier during Lan's lifetime (and he isn't young) are that there are very few people of Malkieri descent even left alive, their culture has all but died even among them, a great percentage of the males (and some women, this being WOT) among those Malkieri are likely to die fighting with Lan, and the others have lives and families in other countries to return to. Then there's the fact the Borderlands aren't going to come out of this fight strenghtened but seriously weakened and depopulated - not much incentive for anyone to migrate to "New Malkier". And then, there's the fact Malkier used to be in a fairly inhospitable area for humans - extreme cold and nearly all very mountainous territory (Himalaya like and higher) - so rather not ideal for agriculture and depending on trade with the south for its sustainance. Of course, it's likely there will be a lot of crucial and priority rebuilding to be done in heavily-populated areas (such as Caemlyn, quite possibly) and it sounds rather silly to try to build a nation from scratch at this juncture, and in a territory like Malkier. The whole point of having this nation there was that it was the original Borderland that stood between humanity and the Shadowspawn, watching over Tarwyn Gap.

Many people (including me) expect that once the Bore is sealed the Wheel will bring back "reality" in an accelerated fashion and thus the Blight will start to "recover" and fast (the receeding after Rand's blow to the DO at TEOTW is good evidence of something like this happening), so I'll leave out the possible problem that Malkier is currently blighted, but one last possible problem with Min's viewing being a prophecy of Malkier's rebirth is that the seven towers are seen in ruins. That's not exactly a good way to symbolize a rebirth of the nation (like for instance the foundations of seven Towers with a baby and a sword would be... We don't know for sure the Seven Towers are from the same viewing as the baby and sword or if it's more than one viewing, incidentally).



Etzel's old theory. It doesn't work - reread the Dream closely. Egwene said the fate of the world maybe hung on this man not dying. Dobraine was not near death even long enough for people to announce his death and split between those applauding it and those mourning him, and the "narrow cot" isn't a good symbol for the lord's bed in which Samitsu brought him to rest after healing him... on the ground. It just doesn't fit. On Dobraine's fate merely hung Rand's control over Cairhien until Elayne claimed the Sun Throne and little more. The attack on him was used to increase the suspense around the Seals and not much else. Dobraine has since been pushed to a really peripheral role in TGS/TOM. Elayne's takeover has totally removed any importance to "Rand's steward for Cairhien".

I'd say there's something like a 95% chance that the dream is about Rand (there's no other good candidate on "the fate of the world, maybe" could hang.. aside from Perrin/Mat. If the man who appears dead but is still barely alive isn't Rand, it will most likely be one of these two). There's virtually no difference betwen what Egwene called a "narrow cot" and a funeral bier. It probably all stands on perception: Egwene didn't see a bier because she though the man still alive (and was surprised by the funeral pyre) while Min identified a funeral bier because she thought Rand was a corpse in those viewings (and about that, I'll point out that incidentally so far when she knew something about a viewing, she's always been right. It would be a first that Min makes such a mistake and takes Rand for dead if he isn't. Not sure what to make of it, I'm just pointing it out) . I would have said a 90% chance it's about Rand, since there was never any association between three in a boat etc. and a funeral pyre, but a tentative one has finally surfaced in TGS (a viewing for Rand, thus connected to him, of a three women before a pyre. It seems to provide a missing link between three-in-a-boat and Egwene's dream. Nynaeve kneeling over a corpse in a posture of grief may provide another element of the same events.). And the old argument that Min/Egwene don't recognize the man/women as people they know is not very relevant. There's plenty of evidence through the series (for Egwene eg: Aram, who we saw in TGS she remembered quite well) that sometimes people can be identified and sometimes they might as well appear faceless in the prophecy because the seer doesn't recognize who these people are. It's rather obvious Jordan made it so in order to be able to introduce prophecies without each time having to indentify which character they concern, as it would then give readers too much information/foreshadowing.

The main argument that the man wasn't Rand is that the fate of the world hung on him surviving, and thus it seemed this prophecy has to take place before he faces the DO, not after. Put in perspective with "The Great Battle done, the world not done with battle" of Nicola, it seems contradictory and suggested it may not have been Rand. But TOM may have given us a new big clue with the prophecy about a sword linked to SG. Nicola's foretelling that started with three in a boat and he who is dead yet lives ended with "the future teeters on the edge of a blade". The future teetering was always a pretty strong formulation for a post-TG situation, but that it teeters on the edge of a blade strongly suggests three in a boat will take place soon but before Rand has dealt with the Bore, not after. That would thus explain why Egwene thinks the fate of the world hung on the man from the dream not dying for real.

It could suggest the corpse over which Nynaeve kneels isn't Rand, too.. but it's from Min and she always taken Rand for dead in all the viewings (and she may be right, as I said), so it's not very solid.

Another recent interesting viewing for Rand is that of two men dead in the middle of ranks and ranks of Trollocs. Perhaps we should keep in mind that Egwene's Accepted Test has so far proven to be full of details from reality mixed with dross and twisted elements - go figure what was real, twisted or dross in the last part, where Rand was near death in the middle of the Caemlyn palace, the city full of dead and alive Shadowspawn... With the BT nearby and the fact it's the opening battle of TG, the Greag Battle may well be the Great Battle of Nicola's viewing, all the more since in many versions of the Arthurian legend this is where Arthur dies. There is no relation between King Arthur and the Do/SG storyline - it comes from a whole lot of other traditions, from the Jain to the Apocalypse to the Orphic legend and religion, Jordan may very well end his series of Arthurian parallels at the beginning of the last battle, with the battle of Caemlyn and the transport of Rand's "corpse" to Avalon/Tar Valon. An interesting detail (I'm not saying Jordan was planning to use it) is that at Avalon, Artur is either awaiting his awakening from his magical sleep (or resurrection, in the version where he's really dead) and this is supposed to take place at the moment of England/the world's greatest need. One of the versions announced that King Arthur would be awakened/raised from the death by a magical horn to lead the heroes of England/Wales to that final battle (it is clearly one of the similar legends (eg: Finn MacCool, a main parallel of Mat) from where Jordan got his inspiration for the Horn of Valere, but he twists things so much with this stuff it's always a pure gamble if he will follow one element, discard it or twist it upside down. But we can't rule out for certain that the solution to "being dead yet alive" means dead in the world and alive as a hero in TAR awaiting the Horn. That could even explain Justice's importance... Hawkwing wielded it to lead the Heroes. Perhaps it is no more his sword than the Dragon Banner the Heroes needed someone to raise to follow him... It might be the Dragon's sword when he is in TAR and the Heroes' alternative leader when he's not, and what LTT knew about it that he kept from Rand os that this sword was not made by AOL AS but it was found by them like the Horn of Valere, wielded by LTT during the WOS. It could, as the sword of the Heroes's leader, be de facto the "Sword of the Light".