Was she real or an illusion (construct)?

Well when Rand balefires her (or whatever he does with the sword of Light) this is what she says

'In the brilliance he heard a whisper. "Thank you, my son. The Light. The blessed Light."'

Now if she is an illusion why would Ishy or the DO make her say this??? I can think of no conceivable reason. But everything else about her makes it look like she is not real. So lets examine..



1) Can captured souls appear in the room at all?

Yes - Ishy has been given extraordinary priviledges by the DO. (eg: the room itself, the rats in the first inn etc.). He could have contol over this as well.
Live humans are terribly hard to construct (in Tel aran Rhiod). The rules of dreamworld say the more complex a thing is the harder to construct (especially for long periods of time). And we have until now not heard of a way to create such illusions with the Power (whether actual illusion, or messing with someone's head). Therefore its a real soul

No - Ishy is NOT the DO. He cannot control souls.
There is nothing in the 12 books so far to indicate that a human (basically another soul subject to the pattern) can control souls (which are outside the pattern) or if the DO can invest this control on anyone
There is nothing in the 12 books so far to indicate that the DO can have souls captured in i 'limbo' where he can interact with them physically (Kari has a body and is wearing clothes). And if this is her soul, why does it have Kari's body? Aren't souls reborn into different bodies (eg Rand and LTT look completely different). The only way in which we have seen dead souls is when they have been reincarnated into a new body. There is nothing to say that souls have a physical image.



2) Can Kari's soul be captured by the DO?

Yes - Kari may have been Darkfriend (a few others have posted above about this)
Kari may have died violently, even is she wasn't a DF (probable for premature death). There were some theories sometime back that DO can touch souls like this.
Even if none of the above were true, who says the DO can only capture souls that have turned to the dark? As far as I know the only evidence is the perceptions of the characters themselves (I'm talking belief here), and they could be completely wrong. I mean the DO is LORD OF THE GRAVE, not LORD OF THE GRAVE OF BAD GUYS. The reason why he only resurrects forsaken is because - obviously - he only wants his own buddies to come back from the dead.

NO - No evidence to show Kari was a DF etc.
I liked FanaticTemplar's theory about the DO being able to capture souls only within a limited timeframe.



3) What Kari says.

Basically she says the DO is now stronger, his reach longer etc. My problem is that she refers to Ishy as the DO. If she's a soul, did the DO give so much power to Ishy that souls think of him as the DO????

"The Father of Lies has a honeyed tongue for unwary souls"

If she is real, then this could be hinting that she herself was led astray (i.e that she is a DF)
If she is not real then its just a ploy by Ishy. But wait, why would Ishy do this when he is trying to convince/scare Rand. Why would he remind Rand that he may be speaking utter bull? Maybe to convince him Kari is real???

All the stuff about grovelling for his favor etc. Again the DO seems to have given way too much power to Ishy over souls.


4) The Myrdraal

Is it even possible for Myrdraal to attack souls? wouldn't the DO have to reincarnate her????
On the other hand if the Myrdraal are illusions, then because Kari is affected by them she must be too...


5) the sword of Light
If she is a construct of Tel ara rhiod (as seems most possible) then can the Power (or balefire) destroy her. Tel aran rhiod is independent of the Power, Ishy could have kept her there still with his mind or whatever.
On the other hand CAN A SOUL BE BALEFIRED???????


Conclusion - I think the most probable outcome is that Kari is an illusion. Ishy has already been given loads of power by the DO, so much so that when reading the first book it seems certain that Ishy is the DO. And then I read that RJ had originally written the first book to be a stand alone book if it fails to sell. So most probably he made it look as if she was real enough for us to believe she was a soul in case he wasn't writing anymore books. Hence the "Thank you my son, the blessed Light" quote. But he made sure that there were enough doubts so that with the info of later books (especially that Baalzamon is Ishy) we could believe that she is an illusion.