How many innocent travelers did Rand kill? tDR, Ch.36

[Wulf]

At the end of Chapter 36, Rand kills a merchant and her guards.

 

I understand that he's feeling (and is being) hunted, but the text gives no indication that these people were anything other than ordinary travelers.  There's a Gray Man corpse among the dead so as the reader we're supposed to understand that these were nasty people that just needed some killin', but Rand himself had no knowledge of what he'd just killed.

 

There's not even any indication that the group knew what they were traveling with.  The guards were surprised at his hostility as he slaughtered them all.  If they were hostile, they'd have been at least a little bit ready for a fight.

 

Is Rand just systematically killing every single human that he comes across outside of a village as he travels?

 

I think I'd have actually preferred the chapter not have the gray man corpse included as a deus ex morality-saver.  Rand just slaughtered a group of people with no provocation, let's judge him on that.

[solarz]

I've always thought that they were likely innocent travelers and Rand killed them as a manifestation of his madness.

 

The Gray Man is inconsequential, he/it could have just been hiding among the caravan.

[Sabio]

RJ did confirm they were DF's.   Their surprise is understandable since the point was to approach him all friendly like so he would lower his guard, then strike.  So when he struck first they weren't prepared for that.  I guess there was a risk these were just innocent people, but I assume to Rand it was unlikely this lady and her guards would be traveling that late at night in the Murandian Hills without a very good reason.  Most people would of found camp long ago and not risked traveling in the wilderness at night.  Also it would seem rather inefficient to have a gray man just riding in a caravan in the slim hope these people stumbled upon Rand.  

 

Sadly the incident is left out of Rand's section in the companion.  So there is no way to know why he assumed the lady was the most dangerous.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Sabio

[agreddon]

5 hours ago, Sabio said:

RJ did confirm they were DF's.   Their surprise is understandable since the point was to approach him all friendly like so he would lower his guard, then strike.  So when he struck first they weren't prepared for that.  I guess there was a risk these were just innocent people, but I assume to Rand it was unlikely this lady and her guards would be traveling that late at night in the Murandian Hills without a very good reason.  Most people would of found camp long ago and not risked traveling in the wilderness at night.  Also it would seem rather inefficient to have a gray man just riding in a caravan in the slim hope these people stumbled upon Rand.  

 

Sadly the incident is left out of Rand's section in the companion.  So there is no way to know why he assumed the lady was the most dangerous.

2nded.  It's possible they were innocent, but I'm going with highly unlikely.  And if his madness was setting in that early, we would have heard about other incidents since then.  More than likely he was suffering from a combination of tiredness and over alertness (not to mention outright depression as realizing he was the boogyman of the world)