"Is Graendal dead?" may well be the most contentious issue in tGS. Like Asmodean's death in tFoH, there is considerable mystery surrounding her death in this book.

While I would say she is alive, that is not what I want to focus on in this post. Instead, let us assume that she is indeed dead, never to return again.

It is then important for us to realize that the events leading to her death are atrociously illogical. How?...

Let's look at how her location was identified.

First, the one person who could tell, her compelled messenger-slave, was killed before he could reveal anything. That is in line with what Graendal would do to protect herself from Rand. It fits, because she knew he was coming, and would obviously do something about it. That is what Rand assumes, and we agreed with this.

The next few steps, however, are quite mind boggling.

We're told another compelled slave of Graendal's, who for some reason, was compelled at Natrin's Barrow rather than in Bandar Eban itself, poisoned the messenger.

He then stays back in the location of the crime! Not only that, he now starts poisoning the merchant Rand imprisons with a slow acting poison!

One might say this was to prevent her from revealing any detail she got out of the messenger. But we know Graendal's compulsion is fool proof from non-OP methods of torture. We see the guys in the prison tell Nynaeve quite clearly that the messenger said nothing at all.

Why kill the merchant then?

If all this has no deeper meaning, if all this did not lead to a trap, then Graendal must have had a bout of extraordinary idiocy.

How do I prevent al'Thor from finding my hideout? Oh! I know! I'll have the guy who can tell him poisoned! I'll send someone from Natrin's Barrow. Then I'll have him stay and needlessly poison others so al'Thor will get suspicious and find him and... oh!

It takes the meanest intelligence to figure that Kerb was not going to help but hinder any plans of Graendal to stay hidden. Graendal, the super smart Forsaken, would certainly have figured this out.

Another alternative is that she did indeed want to lure Rand to her lair, but did not expect the Balefire and so she died.

That is, however, also illogical. Not only do we know that Graendal is never going to have an all out fight, we know she knows that Semirhage was captured by Rand.

She is also aware he has the CK, courtesy Cyndane. She may not know to expect Balefire, but she would certainly know she would stand no chance whatsoever against Rand.

The conclusion? If Graendal is dead, then it was one of the shoddiest sequences in all of WoT. It cheapens and lessens the worth of tGS quite spectacularly.