On the surface, it would appear that Bela, originally a mare belonging to the al'Thor family if memory serves, has done nothing more important than let people ride her back and forth across the map. But we all know how Jordan likes to catch us off guard by building a certain impression and then revealing it to be a false front.

Some of my old friends on the Robert Jordan List claimed to worship Bela as the current incarnation of the Creator. I was never quite convinced, but I couldn't help noticing several very odd things suggesting that this ordinary-looking mare has hidden depths.

1) Bela is one of the very few characters who has appeared in all seven novels and still going strong, which puts her in pretty fast company : Only Rand, Mat, Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, Min, Padan Fain, and Thom Merrilin have also been around since the beginning and never missed a single book. (Loial, Perrin, and I believe Pedron Niall are all tied for second place, each of them having appeared in at least one scene in 6 of the first 7 books). Obviously, like each of the others, she is being prepared for a VERY important role in the last volume.

2) Despite her repeated appearances, Bela has never yet had a single line of dialogue! Even the Dark One was heard to speak in Books 6 and 7, but Bela's wisdom is still being withheld from us. Is she even more important to the plot than the Dark One, that Jordan makes her wait even longer before speaking?

3) Bela is virtually the only running character in the series who has never even been suspected of being a Darkfriend, a murderer, a Black Ajah Sister, a Forsaken, an oathbreaker, or a wool-headed idiot by ANY other character. This really seems too good to be true. Probably Jordan's clever way of trying to brainwash us into thinking that she is as pure as the driven snow.

4) Bela is probably named after Bela Lugosi, the famous horror movie star of the Thirties and Forties. Is this a subtle hint that she is actually a vampire, a werehorse, or some other odd creature of unsuspected power?

5) On the other hand, Bela COULD be a contraction of the names of the two Aes Sedai who accidentally cracked open the Dark One's prison in the Age of Legends. (Be)idomon and (La)nfear. Of course, Lanfear was actually called Mierin in those days, but in that case, Bela's name is composed of two letters from the "good" name of an opener of the Bore and two letters of the "bad" name of an opener of the bore, two letters of a male saidin user's name and two letters of a female saidar user's name . . . thus representing both the yin and the yang, the good and the evil, the light and the dark, the male and the female, and making her name a perfect symbol for the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai with two equal but opposite forces in perfect balance. Coincidence? I think not! The implication is that she is closely involved with the forces of the universe, i.e. with the Creator!

6) Isn't it odd that there are no prophecies identified with Bela? The Karaethon Cycle, Egwene's Dreams, Min's Viewings, various Foretellings, etc., have shown us things about Lan and Moiraine and Rand and Perrin and Mat and Elayne and Egwene and Nynaeve and Gawyn and Galad and Taim and Cadsuane and Caraline and Logain and Siuan and Gareth and Slayer and Aram and Faile and Aviendha and just about any other character who appears more than briefly in the story, but NEVER a Foretelling or Dream or Viewing or any other sort of prophecy about Bela! It's against the law of averages for her to be excluded . . . unless the full power of the Creator is being exercised to make her INVISIBLE to all Talents of Viewing, Foretelling, etc., so that nobody will realize what an important role she has to play in Tarmon Gai'don!

NOTE: Some people apparently took it WAY too seriously when I accused Jordan of being a blatant sexist with a frightful prejudice against males in general, so this time I'm adding a disclaimer: This was meant to be HUMOR. I don't necessarily believe any of the above theories. Or not very much. I just wanted to show how easy it is to build a paranoid case against just about ANY character if you stretch your imagination enough. After all the arguments I have seen over the years making Moiraine out to be Black Ajah, or Tam al'Thor to be a former Warder, or Faile to be a Darkfriend, or Thom Merrilin to be a secret channeler, or either Tam or Thom or Bayle Domon to be Jain Farstrider, etc., etc., I decided to take it to an extreme to show how silly this can get when you mix an ounce of ambiguous evidence with a ton of pure speculation and call it "proof." How did I do?

Larry Homer