@damaneegwene oh, no, that was definitely my first instinct too! but like you said, of the myriad problems that rand faces in the books the taint and the threat of madness is really just *one* of them; saidar channelers are already very often subjects of fear, superstition and prejudice in the books; the sense of urgency that rand feels because of the threat of madness could easily be replicated onto a saidar channeler via the threat of the forsaken. and you’re right - political manipulation, grooming and multiple factions of leaders + aes sedai being manufactured from differing views on how to guide/control TDR are some givens; false dragons would still be a Thing and far more frequently without the threat of the taint; the black ajah would be a Very formidable threat; the tower would probably tighten its grip on all saidar channelers, making its relations with the atha’an miere fraught; its relationship with the aiel and their channelers could swing either way depending on what kind of dynamic you choose to write for story convenience. wrt to the breaking of the world, I’d say that the post-apocalyptic feel and sense of loss permeating the setting is kind of integral to the story (besides just. explaining why we don’t have age of legends tech lol) so the idea of the dragon being tied to forces of good and destruction is a tension that still carries over with plenty of nuanced discussions to be had in that respect (again, reasons for the breaking can be manufactured eg: using the cheodan kal/balefire recklessly). obv we can easily carry over the whitecloak and prophet plotlines too and have more discussions surrounding abuse of power and religion - in fact the whitecloaks disliking and hunting saidar channelers would probably be grounded in *more logic* in this respect! (this isn’t really a criticism of the whitecloaks in the books because a lot of hate ideology is always based on very flimsy reasoning).