I never understood why people keep arguing that Shai'tan isn't the equal of the Creator, when Jordan made it very unambiguous that they are each other's counterpart much like saidin and saidar are counterparts.

It even seems obvious to me that since the Pattern is Creation/reality and is woven of saidin and saidar, than it means the Pattern itself the True Source too, and that the True Source is the essence of the Creator itself, just like the True Power is Shai'tan's own essence/energy. And it sounds obvious that the DO's "prison" is simply enough the boundary of the the Pattern.

This all seems to be about life and death in the end. In Creation, true death doesn't exist, with the DO real life doesn't exist. In Creation, death is merely a temporary stage/state before rebirth, in an eternal cycle. It sounds likely within Creation there are no means to destroy a soul. They are eternal, the Creator can't give the final death. With Shai'tan, it's true life that doesn't exist. So far, all we've seen from him is creature given life in Creation and corrupted by the TP, like Shadowspawn, like Shaidar Haran and so on. Shai'tan winning would put an end to Life (at least Moridin certainly believes so).