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The Gholam seems to be the hardest-to-kill monster RJ has introduced thus far. What, exactly, is it? We have information on it from Birgitte, who has some memories of the War of Power, [ACOS: 40, Promises to Keep, 606-607], from Elayne, Mat, etc's encounter with one in [ACOS: 39, Six Stories, 598-600], and from the short gholam POV scene in [TPOD: 2, Unweaving, 84-85].
Gholam were created by Aginor [LOC, 23, To Understand a Message, 347] for the express purpose of killing channellers, although they're pretty handy at killing non-channellers, as well. The OP can't touch them; the effect of channelling at a gholam is exactly the same as channelling at a person wearing Mat's foxy medallion (i.e. the flows break apart on contact). Furthermore, they are immune to conventional weapons, too: nobody is able to harm the one who Mat fights with swords, etc, and the gholam itself thinks "it had never encountered anything that could harm it. Until that man with the medallion" [TPOD: 2, Unweaving, 84]. They can sense the ability to channel at a distance of about 50 paces, and they can detect use of the OP at greater distances (it felt the channelling at the Kin's farm). They look like normal human beings on the outside. Inside is another matter. They have no bones, and can squeeze under a door, and are very strong, and very quick. (Think the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.) Only six were ever made; three have a masculine outward appearance, three feminine. They have at least a rudimentary intelligence (Mat chats with the one he fights in Ebou Dar), and they are living things, not some sort of machine. (Mat surmises (actually, Birgitte surmises) that the one they met was "kept alive" since the Breaking in a stasis box.) They feed on blood. There is some way to control a gholam, and force it to do one's bidding. The Ebou Dar gholam thinks: "The one who commanded it wanted [Mat] dead.... for the time being, it was constrained. For its entire existence it had been compelled to obey one or another human, but its mind held the concept of not being constrained [TPOD: 2, Unweaving, 84-85].
We can draw some further conclusions, namely, that unlike the T1000, they don't have the ability to assume any form, only liquid form and their humanoid form. (If not, why specify that 3 are male-shaped, and 3 are female-shaped?)
Where have we seen gholam? We've seen two for certain, namely the one in Ebou Dar, and the one that killed poor Herid Fel in Cairhien at the end of LOC. There is one previous possible gholam encounter, which took place "off-screen." This is the killing of Lord Barthanes in TGH. Barthanes was clearly killed at Ishy's instigation because he helped the renegade DF, Padan Fain, get away with the Horn of Valere. Barthanes died in a very similar fashion to Fel, i.e. he was ripped limb-from-limb. Furthermore, this took place in the same building as Fel's demise. Again, this may or may not be a gholam-induced death, but it is worth mentioning as a possibility.
It is difficult to be more precise, because we don't know how either the medallion or the gholam actually work. Perhaps it is because the gholam are made with/are held together with/have some connection with the OP, and the medallion negates the OP. Or, perhaps it's a "like charges repel" sort of deal. Or, maybe the gholam is a kind of "living ter'angreal," and the effect is due to an adverse reaction between similar ter'angreal, as described in [TDR: 23, Sealed, 217]. If it is the case that the magic is the key, then a gholam could probably be killed by prolonged contact with some weapon/ter'angreal made to copy the medallion's effect. This is problematic, bc the medallion is currently buried under a wall, along with its wearer.
An argument against the theory that the medallion's ability to negate flows is the key, is that then the gholam probably would have been hurt by contact w/ Mat himself, and not just the foxhead. [James Huckaby] Then again, maybe not. As stated above, we don't really know how the medallion works. It was pointed out that when Mat was wrestling the gholam, the foxhead fell out of Mat's "open" shirt: "Struggling for air, he [Mat] pushed himself up, foxhead dangling from his open shirt." [ACOS: 38, Six Stories, 597] So, if the medallion works only when it is in contact with the wearer, then Mat may not have been in contact w/ it when he touched the gholam. [Jason Wilson] Of course, this objection does not apply to the idea that the reaction was due to the "similar ter'angreal interference" effect.
An argument against this theory is that it seems kind of silly. Why would the Forsaken make such specific, deadly anti-AS assassins if they have such a common, easily exploitable Achilles' heel? Why would the Forsaken be so wary of them that they limited their number to six? [Tim Yoon]--"Oh No! A gholam's chasing us!" "How much money do you have on you?" [Aaron Bergman] The former question can be rationalized by saying that the Forsaken counted on the fact that people wouldn't think to use silver on something the OP can't stop. This idea does NOT explain the objection that if it was so easily defeated if you knew the key, the Forsaken wouldn't have been so wary of it that they only made six. Furthermore, the Gholam thinks to itself [TPOD: 2, Unweaving, 84] that "it had never encountered anything that could harm it" until it met the medallion. In all of its existence it never encountered a common metal like silver? Unlikely.
1) Indirect effects of the OP: The gholam's material breaks up OP flows just like Mat's medallion, making it immune to the OP. Like the wearer of the foxhead, it is likely that this immunity doesn't extend to indirect effects. One could try dropping something heavy on it, or zapping it with lightning, or something like that. Doubtless, it is immune to some of these (considering its oozey nature, I doubt dropping a safe on it would have much permanent effect), but something might work. Balefire probably won't work; it is very likely a direct effect.
2) The T-1000 Effect: Melt it. If one channelled enough heat into it, or dropped it into a volcano, it might lose all molecular cohesion. Furthermore, we know it is vulnerable to heat: the heat generated when the medallion touches it cooks its "flesh" (I use the term loosely.).
3) One of These Days, I'm Going to Cut You Into Little Pieces: while stabbing a gholam doesn't hurt it, it may be that if you dismember it, and separate its pieces far enough (perhaps by the judicious use of Gateways), it won't be able to reassemble itself. Then again, maybe it would. Using a Gateway to cut it (like Graendal's poor servant in [LOC: 6, Threads Woven of Shadow, 137]) probably wouldn't work-- the edges of the Gateway are made of Power, and so the Gate would dissolve upon touching the gholam.
4) Out of This World: Open a Gateway to the Skimming Place. Knock the gholam through (throw a big rock at it, or something), and close the Gateway. According to Egwene, the chances of ever opening into that bit of Skimming Space are very low, so chances are the gholam will be permanently Lost in Space.
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The Wheel of Time FAQ. Copyright 1999 by Pamela Korda and Erica Sadun. HTML implementation by Matthew Hunter. This site maintained by Matthew Hunter (mhunter@andrew.cmu.edu). Comments and questions regarding the content itself should be directed to Pam Korda (kor2 @ midway.uchicago.edu).