"When he found out the real answer, he wasn’t shocked. His reaction was more 'Oh, those guys were right'. He said that the clues are there, but he never would have figured it out himself."




This argument is often stated. IMO, though, it's a rather ridiculous "Role playing game"-argument, that Slayer would prefer to kill a more powerful Forsaken. The reason why Slayer likes to kill AS so much is obviously not because they are channelers and therefore quite powerful (besides that there are also weak AS anyway). We see that Slayer also isn't that overwhelmed in WH that he is just attempting to kill the most powerful channeler on the world, the Dragon Reborn. Slayer's special hate of AS can be logically explained: Isam hates AS, because they betrayed Malkier (many Malkieri despise the WT for this reason). And Luc hates AS, because they manipulated him & his family in the past. There is no reason for Slayer to hate a Forsaken that much. He might have even regretted to kill a potential patron, whom he knew.




I would bet Rand surviving this assassination attempt is rather a plot device, than RJ wanting to show that Slayer is a lousy spy..




Slayer suddenly appears out of thin air with a weapon in his hand. That could stop Asmo for a second, before he realizes that Slayer is there to kill him, and not to save him.




I think a careful reader should definitely be able to figure out before LoC that Slayer is a special assassin or bounty hunter for the Shadow. After all his profession is already mentioned in the Dark Prophecies in TGH and we see him hunting Fain in TSR, for example.