My argument against Lanfear being the killer is actually a rebuttal to Kevin Bartlett's argument for Lanfear. He has posted it on his web site Click here [weber.u.washington.edu/~klbartle/lanfear.html] to see it . If you are not familiar with his theory, then I suggest you familiarize yourself with it so that my arguments make more sense to you. Now on to the good stuff.

His arguments for Lanfear being Asmodean's killer are very good and I admit that everything seems to point to Lanfear except for two things:
his claim that she felt Rand was becoming too powerful, and, more importantly,her personality. His argument, at least how I interpreted it, is taken from the point of view that Lanfear is a cool headed, clear thinking, calculating criminal. Well, I don't think she is. All through the books Lanfear is depicted as a very calculating woman but also, her main weakness is that she is very obsessive. Not only for Lews but also for power. In fact she even tries to tempt Rand telling him they could challenge the Dark One and the Creator, as mentioned in his 6th point. She is also very manipulative as shown by the way she tries to manipulate Rand, like trying to get him to sound the Horn of Valere in TGH. I have always felt that Robert Jordan has done an excellent job in portraying Lanfear as the calculating but obsessive villain.

More on her personality in a minute, lets look at the scene where Lanfear and Moiraine fall through the Ter'angreal. This is one of the main points where Kevin and I differ in opinion. He stated that he believes that Lanfear thought that Rand was able to foil her best attempts to "shield and hurt" Rand and in so doing, conclude that Rand was becoming too powerful through Asmodean. I don't agree with this point for several reasons.

First of all, lets look at the battle with Rand from her perspective. Lanfear knows that Rand is stronger than she is (from his rebuttal section he points out she thought Rand was a "superior force"), and here she is, threatening to kill him and the best he can do against her is try to club her with Air, which she easily avoids. Then, once she starts to try and shield Rand, she is no longer being attacked, since Rand is putting everything against her attempt to shield him ("defending himself wildly"). In fact, throughout the whole battle, Rand was never able to touch her, let alone cause her any kindo f pain or damage (well, unwilling to - but she doesn't know that). On the other hand, Lanfear not only caused him pain (the heart and the hand thing)at the beginning of the battle without the angreal, but even more so with the angreal. So why would she think that Rand was becoming too powerful?

Kevin's claim that Rand was holding his ground with his own angreal is not very strong because from Moiraine's vision in Rhuidean, we know Rand would either die or give in to Lanfear if Moiraine did not interfere, ie Rand would be defeated. Granted he would be defeated because he was unwilling to kill Lanfear, but the point is that he was not capable of defending himself against her either! His only chance of winning was to kill her, which he refused to do.

Finally, when the story line shifts to Moiraine's point of view, she hears laughter, then turns to see Rand _on his knees_ laughing with tears streaming down his face, and Lanfear is standing on the cart looking down at him with a grim smile on her face (as if she had won). At this point it seems likely that Rand is shielded since he is on his knees being held like a puppet by Lanfear. This does not describe a scene in which Lanfear should be concerned about Rand's power. In fact, quite the opposite would be more suitable - "Hah, this is the great Lews Therin Telamon, this snivelling biteme that kneels before me?" - especially given her obsession for power. This scene also supports my claim that Rand was not holding his ground, at least seeing someone on their knees in a struggle does not look like they are holding their ground to me.

So, again, why would Lanfear think Rand was becoming too powerful? I think it is clear that Lanfear definitely won the battle (Rand was on his knees) and she was in control of the situation, not him. As far as she is concerned she still can overpower him.

OK, so now lets move to why, based on her personality, she did not kill Asmodean. Let's look at her state of mind during the battle with Rand. First of all, we know she is in an incensed jealous rage over the information that Kadere tells her - that Aviendha slept with Rand, so much so that she immediately skins Kadere alive (for absolutely no reason, especially since Kadere still would have been a very useful spy) before he can tell her which woman is Aviendha (Lanfear asks Rand which one is Aviendha). Thus she has already broken her "I am not as quick to kill" rule that Kevin mentions in his rebuttal section. That rule may be true except when it comes to women who are intimate with her Lews.

Then when Rand tells her that he will never love a Forsaken, she abandons all her plans for her and Lews to rule the world and basically tells Rand that if she can't have him, no one can, and decides to kill him. These two points clearly indicate her obsessive nature and how it can ruin her well calculated plans.

Now lets assume Lanfear does find a way out of *Finnland in time to kill Asmodean. The first thing she will do is pursue at least Aviendha (she may have decided to keep Rand) and kill her. There is no way that she will let another woman who she knows was intimate with Rand be anywhere near him. Her obsessive nature will not allow it. Think about it, here she was about to take revenge on Rand and especially Aviendha when Moiraine causes her to go to *Finnland. This would enrage her even more! I really find it hard to believe that the first thing she would do when she got back was decide to take out Asmodean. She can do that any time she wants, as Kevin states, he is weak, he can barely channel. Her first priority would still be to deal with Rand and Aviendha. It would be definitely out of character if she did anything else. In fact I would be shocked if we learn that it was Lanfear that killed Asmodean because I don't think Jordan is capable of such an amateur goof - changing the personality of a characater - totally screwing up his excellent handling of her so far (of course this only applies if you agree with my personality argument:).

The reason I think she is still in *Finnland is her absense from LoC and ACoS. I agree with Kevin that her absence does not PROVE that she is still in *Finnland, however, I find it hard to believe she would be quiet for so long. Again this is based on her personality. As I mentioned above, Lanfear is a manipulator, she likes people to do things her way. It is important for her that her colleagues (enemies?) know that she is there, always watching, always schemeing. I agree that it would be a wise move for her to stay hidden and presumed dead, but she can't do that for long. She needs the satisfaction that things are going her way because she has manipulated people and/or events to gain her desires. She can't let things go on their own for long. The only way that I can justify her being out of *Finnland and her absense is that the Dark One has restricted her or confined her somehow, like maybe Moridin's second mind trap, but who knows?

This brings up what I consider to be the most solid evidence for why Lanfear did not kill Asmo. RJ states, as we know, that everything we need to solve this mystery is in the books up to TFoH. I think we can agree that this means we can assume that a person who only reads up to TFoH can solve the mystery. Now, since there is no indication that Lanfear has escaped *Finnland (this is pure speculation in the pro Lanfear argument) then I find it hard to believe that RJ would expect a reader to solve the mystery when a MAJOR key to the solution is speculation. Also, some peole might say that Lanfear is indeed in Moridin's mind trap and that the Dark One could have made her kill Asmodean. Unfortunately, at the end of TFoH we don't know about mind traps and it appears that the Dark One does not have a lot of control over the Forsaken since they are unorganized and always back-stabbing each other. This means that there is no evidence that Lanfear could have been restricted by the Dark One at the end of TFoH. Therefore, the solution of Lanfear as the killer cannot be valid. The "Everything is in the books up to TFoH" quote from RJ also means that Moridin, or one of the *'gars did not kill Asmodean since you don't know these characters if you have only read up to TFoH, they appear in ACoS.

Unfortunately, I don't have a sound theory for who did kill Asmodean. I need to re-read the events leading up to his death before I can start to develop a concise theory. However, given the arguments presented thus far, I tend to lean toward Graendal or Sammael, but I am not certain.