What's the deal with Callandor?

[Mr. Dragon]

  In the same way that the super cool sword bothers me, Rand sucking in every way imaginable and constantly failing bothers me. 

 

At what has he constantly failed at? He has killed several of the forsaken, taken most of the major cities of the continant, commands most of the aiel and cleansed saiden. The battle at which he 'failed' at was regarded by both sides as a loss which in my book counts as a draw. The state he is in now is mainly due to the taint, the link with moridin and his trusting nature. The book brings in the realist view that not everything always goes your way, Rand isn't perfection incarnate and it is annoying when every book you read, the main caracter is perfect. The problem people have is that they expect the main caracter to be zomg brilliant instead of what that particular world dictates. Sure, Rand isn't my fav char at the moment but better that than an easily predicted plotline where he gets the sword, conquers all, and lives happily ever after.

[WWWwombat]

I disagree completely with you Arkelias.  If anything, I found it really cheesy that someone as woolheaded as Rand al'Thor was having such remarkable success early in the series.  Also, Rand isn't getting screwed.  Pretty much every one of his failures are because of something stupid he did.  Why did he lose his hand?  Because he didn't seize the source before walking into an obvious trap and brought someone he really cared about in with him.  He even lucks out a lot.  He was planning on cleansing the source just himself and Nynaeve sitting on the ground while making a big huge beacon for everyone to see.

[Balefire to da face!]

You know, every once in a while someone mentions how the WoT is a progression of trilogies. The obvious being that.....

 

Book 1-3: Rand's acceptence of being Dragon Reborn. Also, the culmination of his false battle with the "DO".

 

Book 4-6: Rand conquering nations in an attempt to prepare for Tarmon Gaiden. He's challenged, but ultimately he gains a lot of power. It ends with a glimpse of what is to come, though, with him captured and tortured by the AS.

 

I've noticed a lot of people say it's hard to catogorize after that, but I've always though that 7-9 were the books where Rand was simply taken down a notch. He overreached in the last three books, without setting a strong foundation, and it comes back to bite him a lot. He wouldn't be the first conquerer to find that taking a country is actually a lot easier then keeping a country *ahem* ;) Book 9 ended strong for Rand though, with the victory of cleansing....and could have set up the last 3 books to be the march to Tarmon Gaiden trilogy....but then aMoL got cut into 3 books...so that's where the trilogy stuff ends :p

 

I can see both points of view. I am really not looking for Rand to take his trusty sword and fix everything bam, boom, bing. I have come to appreciate his struggles in the last couple of books(I really don't relate to those who say his character has been "ruined"...I don't get that at all). But I can relate in that it was very, very disheartening to see him "lose" to the Seanchan in PoD.....and then find out that Callandor is busted.

 

Of course, I was dissapointed upon my first reading, but after a few more times through, I appreciate it more. Because it's definitely a better story with Rand having some real trials. Not just stuff that he can shrug off.

 

Sorry, don't even know if that is on topic anymore...but that's my take on the whole "Rand: success or failure?" thing :P

[Phariah]

ok in tSR chp 10: Rand had not a clue to what he made, or how it worked. He could only stand there , quivering with the power that filled with the need to use it.Even if it destroyed him.He could feel Trollocs and Myrddraal dying, feel the lightnings strike and kill. He could kill them everywhere, everywhere in the world. He knew it. With Callandor he could do anything.And he knew trying would kill him just as surely.

ok it's as if he had LTT letting him know there was no buffer and he would die from over channeling. he knew it for certain he would die if he did that.( there is example of the  no buffer there )

 

same page : His hand shook so hard on Callandor that he could barely hold on. " with this i can do anything." His voice harsh in his own ears. "Anything!"

"Rand!" Moiraine said urgently

He would not listen. The power was in him, Callandor blazed, and he was the power. He channeled, directing flows into the childs body, searching, trying, fumbling.

next page: Staring into those dead eyes, Rand slowly withdrew the flows. The body fell stiffly. The body. He threw back his head and howled, as wild as any Trolloc. Braided fire sizzled into walls and ceiling as he lashed out in fustration and pain. ( definately seems like a bout of increased taint wildness to me. and after he releases the source he has an almost civil and calm conversation w/ Moiraine.) and further down He shook his head to dispel some of the fog

 

so you have both wildness and buffer problems shown in Tear.

 

than when he fought the Seanchan,saidin and saidar were both inflicted with a wildness or were twisted in some way as seen that the Seanchan Damane and the male Asha'man were both experiencing channeling problems. This was near Ebou Dar. Two things happened there,the unraveled gateway and the fixing of the weather.( i'm of the mind it was the unraveled gateway ) So you have a sa'angreal with no buffer that increases wildness being used in a "warped" area which further messes with the power. Not hard to believe that Rand's weave screwed up.

 

i love Rand  ;D

 

but most of my favorite fantasy characters are persecuted, imbalanced anti-heroes along the lines of Elric Kinslayer / Thomas Covenant / Raistlin Majere.

 

and they all die in the end  :'(  so i'm praying Rand survives TG he will be one of my faves to live past the series end hopefully  ;)

[Arkelias]

  In the same way that the super cool sword bothers me, Rand sucking in every way imaginable and constantly failing bothers me. 

 

At what has he constantly failed at? He has killed several of the forsaken, taken most of the major cities of the continant, commands most of the aiel and cleansed saiden. The battle at which he 'failed' at was regarded by both sides as a loss which in my book counts as a draw. The state he is in now is mainly due to the taint, the link with moridin and his trusting nature. The book brings in the realist view that not everything always goes your way, Rand isn't perfection incarnate and it is annoying when every book you read, the main caracter is perfect. The problem people have is that they expect the main caracter to be zomg brilliant instead of what that particular world dictates. Sure, Rand isn't my fav char at the moment but better that than an easily predicted plotline where he gets the sword, conquers all, and lives happily ever after.

 

Here's what I feel he's failed at, in no particular order:

 

• Getting captured by the Aes Sedai and stored in a box
  
• Attacking Rahvin.  Yes, he won but would have died if not for Nyneave.
  
• Attacking Sammael.  He would have died if not for Morridin
  
• The duel with Toram
  
• Killing Fain.  He took the second wound right after the fight with Toram
  
• Holding Tear (which is now under siege)
  
• Maintaining relationships with the Aiel (he completely bailed on them)
  
• The battle against the Seanchan in Ebou Dar (toasted his own troops).  He could have brought 100,000 Aiel and 500 Ashaman and swept the Seanchan from the continent.  He didn't for no reason I can see.  Using gateways takes no time, even for an army.
  
• Killing off the Shaido.  There are 70,000 of them out there and he's doing nothing about them.
  
• Channeling.  Every time he tries he gets sick and dizzy.  This has gone on too long
  
• The Asha'man.  Right from the start its obvious Taim can't be trusted.  Rand spends no time at the Black Tower.  He makes no effort to get to know his followers or win their loyalty and leaves them completely in Taim's
  
• Far Madding.  He walks into an obvious trap, and gets caught. He also fails again to kill Fain.  If not for Cadsuane he'd belong to Elaida.
  
• 'Giving' the throne of Andor to Elayne.  He no longer controls Andor
  
• Getting his hand blown of in an OBVIOUS ambush
  

 

I could go on, but this should illustrate my point.  Rand has become moody, insane, and incompetent.  Every time he tries to channel he staggers or falls off his horse.  He hides from the world and doesn't work with the few allies he has left.  He ignores the Aiel when they could win every battle for him.

 

I AM looking for zomg brilliant.  He's the Dragon bloody Reborn.  He's the reincarnation of the greatest general and male Aes Sedai in history.  More importantly this is an epic fantasy, and we need epic characters.  I don't care if he fails sometimes, I just don't like that everything he succeeds at is bumbling and only because someone else keeps him from blundering.

 

I do have to say I loved the scene with him cleansing Saidin.  That was perfect!  How bout more scenes like that.

[Arkelias]

I disagree completely with you Arkelian.  If anything, I found it really cheesy that someone as woolheaded as Rand al'Thor was having such remarkable success early in the series.  Also, Rand isn't getting screwed.  Pretty much every one of his failures are because of something stupid he did.  Why did he lose his hand?  Because he didn't seize the source before walking into an obvious trap and brought someone he really cared about in with him.  He even lucks out a lot.  He was planning on cleansing the source just himself and Nynaeve sitting on the ground while making a big huge beacon for everyone to see.

 

Wombat, you're missing my point.  Jordan created Rand.  Anything that exists about Rand does so because Jordan created it.  I don't like what he created.  He could have made Rand not suck, he chose not to.  What he's created is a character no one likes to read about.

 

Rand is the reincarnation of Lews Therin, complete with many of his memories.  He's had training from Lan, Moraine, Elayne and Thom.  He's not stupid, or at least he wasn't in the early books.  Why does he make so many stupid mistakes given his training and his background?  It doesn't make sense and even if it did its not fun to read about.  I want to see characters succeed most of the time, not be constantly humbled over and over and over.

 

Maybe I just like a different style than you do.  If you like the series as is that's great man!  I just don't like where Rand has gone as a character.

[Arkelias]

ok in tSR chp 10: Rand had not a clue to what he made, or how it worked. He could only stand there , quivering with the power that filled with the need to use it.Even if it destroyed him.He could feel Trollocs and Myrddraal dying, feel the lightnings strike and kill. He could kill them everywhere, everywhere in the world. He knew it. With Callandor he could do anything.And he knew trying would kill him just as surely.

ok it's as if he had LTT letting him know there was no buffer and he would die from over channeling. he knew it for certain he would die if he did that.( there is example of the  no buffer there )

 

same page : His hand shook so hard on Callandor that he could barely hold on. " with this i can do anything." His voice harsh in his own ears. "Anything!"

"Rand!" Moiraine said urgently

He would not listen. The power was in him, Callandor blazed, and he was the power. He channeled, directing flows into the childs body, searching, trying, fumbling.

next page: Staring into those dead eyes, Rand slowly withdrew the flows. The body fell stiffly. The body. He threw back his head and howled, as wild as any Trolloc. Braided fire sizzled into walls and ceiling as he lashed out in fustration and pain. ( definately seems like a bout of increased taint wildness to me. and after he releases the source he has an almost civil and calm conversation w/ Moiraine.) and further down He shook his head to dispel some of the fog

 

so you have both wildness and buffer problems shown in Tear.

 

than when he fought the Seanchan,saidin and saidar were both inflicted with a wildness or were twisted in some way as seen that the Seanchan Damane and the male Asha'man were both experiencing channeling problems. This was near Ebou Dar. Two things happened there,the unraveled gateway and the fixing of the weather.( i'm of the mind it was the unraveled gateway ) So you have a sa'angreal with no buffer that increases wildness being used in a "warped" area which further messes with the power. Not hard to believe that Rand's weave screwed up.

 

i love Rand  ;D

 

but most of my favorite fantasy characters are persecuted, imbalanced anti-heroes along the lines of Elric Kinslayer / Thomas Covenant / Raistlin Majere.

 

and they all die in the end  :'(  so i'm praying Rand survives TG he will be one of my faves to live past the series end hopefully  ;)

 

Thanks for the page reference Phariah!  I can see the point you guys are making, its right there in the text.  But remember as the reader in that book we have no context.  We don't know what a buffer is at that point.  This passage in no way tells us Callandor is flawed, and reads more like the tremendous amount of power the sword wields is staggering.

 

When you read the series as a whole this passage dovetails with the later revelation that Callandor is flawed.  You are completely correct that Jordan appears to have planted the seeds for it here.  I still feel let down as the reader, but I guess that's my issue and not an issue of the text.

 

I am not alone with this.  Many people I know feel RJ does a poor job of political intrigue.  He does a great job of action adventure.  Its just that the series is no longer about action adventure, and hasn't been since book 5 really.

[Tyrell]

I liked his relucatance to use Callandor.  What I didn't like is when he finally DOES use it, it blows up in his face.  We waited five books for him to finally claim Callandor, a little mayhem against the Seanchan would have been nice instead of yet another failure.

The Seanchan disagree with you.  After all, they thought they lost that battle.

 

Not really. At best it was a pyrrhic victory for Rand; both sides suffered huge casualties and were forced to withdraw from the field, though Rand's aim was merely to stall the Seanchan advance.

[Thor]

just because he is the protagonist doesn't mean he needs to be all powerful and unstopable or whatever.  luke got his hand sliced off by vader and would have got killed by the emperor if not for vader, does that make luke incompetent?

[Tyrell]

just because he is the protagonist doesn't mean he needs to be all powerful and unstopable or whatever.  luke got his hand sliced off by vader and would have got killed by the emperor if not for vader, does that make luke incompetent?

 

That is kinda the point and the problem - with Callandor or especially the male CK is is/would be all powerful. He managed to destroy two armies with Callandor and he wasn't really in control - the CK statue is far stronger, with it he could conquer the world with little difficulty. And therein lies the problem. The power levels are getting too high, when you have mage-heroes capable of crushing armies on a whim you really don't need the armies - at the end of KoD we saw a hundred thousand trollocks get totally destroyed, and noone even used an Angreal then, or had the sense to link.

 

If we look back to book one Moiraine was having trouble dealing with 100 trollocks, with an Angreal. I think RJ got a little carried away levelling his characters up, realised that and didn't want to retconn anything, thus the suspicious lack of channelling / angreal usage to solve any and all problems. Even if we take Moiraine's Angreal to be a really weak one, at her power-level if we go by book 11 standards she should have been able to melt all the trollocks threatening EF without breaking a sweat, ditto the bands that follow them later on and chase them into SL. 

[Arkelias]

just because he is the protagonist doesn't mean he needs to be all powerful and unstopable or whatever.  luke got his hand sliced off by vader and would have got killed by the emperor if not for vader, does that make luke incompetent?

 

I didn't say he needed to be all powerful.  Did you even read my post?  There were a lot more things than just him losing his hand.  Also, Luke lost his hand to a superior foe, the chosen one who is the toughest Jedi of all time.  Rand was just a dumbass and could easily have prevented it.

[Mr. Dragon]

 

Here's what I feel he's failed at, in no particular order:

 

• Getting captured by the Aes Sedai and stored in a box
  
• Attacking Rahvin.  Yes, he won but would have died if not for Nyneave.
  
• Attacking Sammael.  He would have died if not for Morridin
  
• The duel with Toram
  
• Killing Fain.  He took the second wound right after the fight with Toram
  
• Holding Tear (which is now under siege)
  
• Maintaining relationships with the Aiel (he completely bailed on them)
  
• The battle against the Seanchan in Ebou Dar (toasted his own troops).  He could have brought 100,000 Aiel and 500 Ashaman and swept the Seanchan from the continent.  He didn't for no reason I can see.  Using gateways takes no time, even for an army.
  
• Killing off the Shaido.  There are 70,000 of them out there and he's doing nothing about them.
  
• Channeling.  Every time he tries he gets sick and dizzy.  This has gone on too long
  
• The Asha'man.  Right from the start its obvious Taim can't be trusted.  Rand spends no time at the Black Tower.  He makes no effort to get to know his followers or win their loyalty and leaves them completely in Taim's
  
• Far Madding.  He walks into an obvious trap, and gets caught. He also fails again to kill Fain.  If not for Cadsuane he'd belong to Elaida.
  
• 'Giving' the throne of Andor to Elayne.  He no longer controls Andor
  
• Getting his hand blown of in an OBVIOUS ambush
  

 

 

Some of these I agree with and some I don't so i'll start from the top:

 

He gets caught by the AS mainly beacuse he trusts them too much and allows them to bring in large chests filled with AS, 13 in total means he didn't stand a chance.

 

Have to agree about attacking Rahvin, it was too soon after encountering Lanfear.

 

Have to agree about attackinng Sammael, he attacked too soon after almost dieing.

 

Rand has at best a year and a half of sword practice and has a substantial wound on his side, it is realistic that he would lose to Torak who has and many more years of pratice and is uninjured.

 

Fain has some very odd abilities that has allowed him to be very trickey to kill, also, Rand had just promised not to use bailfire unless under extreme curcumstances.

 

Rand is confident that the seige in Tear will not work as the Stone will not fall to any conventional army. The seige in Tear has now been resolved anyway.

 

The Aiel are one the very few armies he can count on so it is unsurprising that he spends a limited time supervising them.

 

The logistics of bringing such a large army are enormous and without proper preperation are inpossible. You also have to realise that, as ashamen can't link, there are a large amount who can't channel enough to open a gateway and the ones that can open a gateway, can only create them large enough to allow one person at a time.

 

Rand did send a large number of the Aeil clans to hunt the shaido down and would have succeded if it weren't for the forsaken allowing them to escape.

 

Both Rand and Morridin (well we can theorise anyway) get sick and dizzy grasping saidin but yes this is annoying.

 

Yes, it is obvious to us that Taim can't be trusted but it might not be so obvious to Rand that he can't as he doesn't have all the info.

 

I have to agree about Far Madding.

 

Rand didn't control Andor, he controled the Capital, none of the high ladies and lords supported him and it is them who control a large anount of the troops. With Elayne now in control and who supports Rand, Andor now offers more to Rand.

 

Yes, Rand really should have enbraced the Source before reaching the house. He didn't because of his trusting nature and because he felt he would have enough time to seize the source to repel any attack which, thanks to LT, didn't happen.

 

 

[WWWwombat]

Rand acts pretty stupid and ignorant in the early books too.  He continually ignores a de facto Aes Sedai advisor/guardian.  He thinks that burning letters will get him out of Daes Dae'mar.  He uses Heron Wading in the Rushes in a fight with Ba'alzamon when we know he is already near blademaster skill.  Let's face it.  Rand's not a genius, but he has some terrific moments of insight and is usually smart enough to listen to knowledgeable advisors.  Once his head gets huge and he stops thinking he needs any help, the results are predictable.  I like Rand like this more than I would the alternative.  A near-perfect protagonist would have been boring, and despite your protestations to the contrary, that seems to be what you want Arkelias, seeing as you have a gripe with every little perceived failure of Rand's.

 

Also, as has been pointed out time and again on this forum, Rand was mailing that duel with Toram in the tent in.

[Arkelias]

It's not every little failure that bothers me, its when you take them all together.  Strip away about half of them and I'd feel better.  He still make mistakes at that point, just not so many.

 

You seem to think its all or nothing.  Either he's perfect or a perfect idiot.  How about more middle ground?

 

In the early books it made more sense for him to fumble around, because he was a farmer.  As he learns and grows I'd expect him to make less mistakes, because he's learned from the previous ones.  That's my primary gripe.  Rand's character development sucks.

[Mr. Dragon]

  Rand's character development sucks.

 

So has Perrin's  :(, Mat's has gone OK tho and so now he is many people's fav char.

[Arkelias]

I agree =/

 

Perrin started off strong right up through the whole Two Rivers Trolloc Saga.  I haven't really liked him since.

 

I still like Mat, but then he's developed the least out of any character.  He's trying to avoid changing, which is probably why I still like him.

[dholm]

Heh, are you kidding? In the first two books, Mat was the Scrappy. He went from my least favorite of the main characters to my absolute favorite. I'd say that's development.

[Arkelias]

He's matured some, but his basic personality feels the same to me.  How do you feel he's changed?

[WWWwombat]

Mat matured a lot throughout the series.

[Balefire to da face!]

I agree =/

 

Perrin started off strong right up through the whole Two Rivers Trolloc Saga.  I haven't really liked him since.

 

 

That's because besides a small moment in book 6, he hasn't actually done a damn thing for 7 books.

 

The saddest thing is that it's often lamented that he chased Faile for 3 books...but even when he saved her you couldn't breath a sigh of relief cause it was like, "Ok....now we can get back to the bussiness at hand....stopping the prophet". Dealing with Masema should have been a boring couple of pages about 6 books ago.....my goodness.

 

Then we have his pretty crapily written "throwing away the axe" stuff. Which, I thought was actually gonna be pretty cool when Elyas showed back up. But apparently the moral of the story we are supposed to learn from the 10 books arc is that "Tis better to smash a Trollocs head in with a ten pound hammer then to cut it off with an axe". Not exactly profound....

 

Sorry, figured as long as we are ranting about Jordan ruining his characters I would vent a little about mine. You Rand fans need to quite whining.....at least we have gotten to see Rand do one or two cool things lately....

[dholm]

He's matured some, but his basic personality feels the same to me.  How do you feel he's changed?

He's the best general in the world, for one thing.

[Arkelias]

We knew Mat was best general from the badger incident in Edmond's Field.  He's going to pull that move on Demandred and/or Graendal at Tarmon Gaidon, mark my words.  They'll never see it coming! (EDIT: I know someone is going to assume that last was serious so I had to add this.  It's a joke)

 

Balefire, you have my sincere apologies.  Rand cleansed the true source, one of the best scenes in the series.  At least he's still cool some of the time, and only one of his three women makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a pencil.

 

I have no right to complain in light of what happened to Perrin.  Faile is the worst female in the series, IMO and Perrin hasn't had a decent scene since book 4.  I bow to your superior wisdom.

[Hybrid]

I liked his relucatance to use Callandor.  What I didn't like is when he finally DOES use it, it blows up in his face.  We waited five books for him to finally claim Callandor, a little mayhem against the Seanchan would have been nice instead of yet another failure.

The Seanchan disagree with you.  After all, they thought they lost that battle.

 

Not really. At best it was a pyrrhic victory for Rand; both sides suffered huge casualties and were forced to withdraw from the field, though Rand's aim was merely to stall the Seanchan advance.

I know.  My point was that the Seanchan believed they lost that battle - they suffered heavy casualties, were faced with Traveling forces, and lost their commander - so Rand did actually do "a little mayhem against the Seanchan" rather than "yet another failure."  Not an overwhelming success, but a success nonetheless, albeit a bittersweet one.

[Nargsmart]

Also the Seanchan army was much bigger than Rand's. And I *think* it suffered more damage as well.  (ie, almost completely decimated. I don't have the book in front of me however)

 

plus Rand's original goal was just to stop the seanchan, and he only "lost" when he tried to take Ebu Dar. 

 

Also I think Rand will still use Callandor at some point.  Because, it has no buffer, there is no limit to how much power you can draw.  the only limit is the amount that will kill you and for all we know, that could be as much (more?) than the CK.