Rand's Plotline (spoilers for the entire book)

[cdmays]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet as I didn't scroll through all 55 pages of text.  Sorry if it's a repost.

 

There's been a lot of discussion about Rand's use of the True Power.  

 

Was Rand using Morridin, as if Morridin was a living Ter'Angreal like the Choeden'Kal?  Did the Dark One purposefully intend this connection so that he could fight Rand spiritually?  Is the Final Battle not really a Battle at all, but rather a spiritual contest between the Light and the Shadow to see which side Rand ultimately chooses?

[Obligatory WOT Reference]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet as I didn't scroll through all 55 pages of text.  Sorry if it's a repost.

 

Can someone please explain to me how LTT is gone from Rand's head? Was it because he was just all of Rand's suppressed emotions manifesting in some sort of crazy manner? I didn't really understand how Rand knew that LTT was gone. Thanks

[cdmays]

I think Rand was schizophrenic.  Lews Therin was not a separate person in his mind, but an aspect of his mind that had taken on a different persona.  There is a point during the book when someone is discussing Rand's insanity (is it Verin?  I forget).  Anyway, the speaker eludes to the stress and weight all placed on Rand's shoulders. 

 

Actually, I believe this is mentioned twice in the book.  Sorry I dont' have it in front of me to find the quotes.

 

During the series he's learned who he is and what his destiny is.  Add to that the taint that weakened the boundaries the Creator placed to block off access to our current memories.

 

The result is a schizophrenic delusion that took the form of Lews Therin in Rand's mind.  The voice is how Rand was dealing with all of these things.

 

Fortunately, by finally confronting the voice about what he did in his previous life, Rand has started on the path to healing.

[kevin-nivek]

I always saw it as:

Rand started gaining the memories of Lews Therin. This scared him so much because his ultimate goal is to not become the dragon, not to break the world and kill his loved ones. So when he started talking and thinking like lews therin he mentally shunted the memories off into another part of his mind where they formed another personality based on lews therins personality before he died.

But being still just another aspect of rand lews therins ranting usually coincided with rands fears and concerns.

At the end of the book rand was finally able to admit that the lews therin voice was just him ( a fact helped by how lews therins memories were spilling over to rand more and more often)and in admitting that, his split personality was healed.

 

Its multiple personality disorder not schizophrenia btw

[benr]

And I don't see multiple personality disorder being cured by one self-enlightenment session on Dragonmount.  TheDragon/TheDragonReborn/LTT/Kinslayer/Rand'alThor still has issues.

[kevin-nivek]

Well rand says he'll no longer hear lews therins voice again, so that leads the reader to believe that his MPD problems are done.

 

Doesn't mean he still won;t have other issues, just now knowing love is the reason to fight would probably be kinder to his 3 ladies and people in similar situations (nynaeve and lan)

[Ged]

I'd say that the Lan decoy plan had merit and that it made sense for Rand to use him as a diversion, except that its incredibly lame and no one should be letting their guard down because of that.

 

Unfortunate that we didn't get to see Rand's new personality interacting with someone. If nothing else the whole 'remembered all his lives' thing is very promising - unfortunately, I still don't expect Super-Rand to actually be very wise.

[coteaz]

Well even though LTT was the greatest man of his age, im assuming he still had advisers.

[baldur74]

Overall I thought his plotline was pretty good and I am glad that we are finally past "I have to be harder than a stone...." sequence. Over the past seven or so books I have not liked were Rand's plotline was heading but I think Brandon did a good job of righting the ship and getting the story moving again. This entire sequence with Rand put me in the mind of cleaning house.  He took all the garbage and dumped it over the side and started fresh.  I really liked that because I was really get tired of the "woe is me" attitude.  Hopefully Rand as well as the other two will come full circle now and get back into the characters I first fell in love with in the Eye of the World before the last book. 

 

 

 

[Seven of Nine]

And I don't see multiple personality disorder being cured by one self-enlightenment session on Dragonmount.  TheDragon/TheDragonReborn/LTT/Kinslayer/Rand'alThor still has issues.

Perhaps, but Rand is certainly not a typical multiple personality sufferer. There really is a past existence with all the baggage it brings with it. Acceptance rather than denial can be a major factor here, imo.

[Vambram]

I am not sure how many have previously speculated this. I believe I have seen a variation of this theory in the forums over a year ago. After reading TGS and the final chapters in it, I believe that Rand al`Thor is the reincarnation of Lews Therin. Their personalities are different, and they do not have the same memories because of the over 3000 year difference between when LTT died and when Rand was born.

I have resisted the Reincarnation idea before to explain LTT and Rand al`Thor. However, now... Now I believe that is the very best explanation that best matches all of the evidence concerning Rand and LTT.

LTT is the Dragon.

Rand is the Dragon Reborn.

At the end of Veins of Gold, what I believe we are seeing is the final merger of this Reincarnation. In other words, to try to put it very simply... LTT and Rand al`Thor MERGE into ONE personality with the sheepherder from Two Rivers remaining the dominant personality.

[ShiftedInsights]

OK this thread only took a few hours to read, so if I miss any points or repeat bad ideas, oops.  I'm not putting in the effort of tracking down exact sources either, so feel free to hate.  OK, first the True Power bit.  This chapter left me a bit perplexed and it seems I'm not alone, there is too much up in the air to really nail down absolutes, but it looks like either Rand drew the TP through the Magic Moridin Link because his subconscious could not find any other tool to use to prevent the absolute worst thing he could think of happening, or everyone's favorite Dark One from the dimension of never ending evil saw advantage by granting it to him in a sacrifice play.  Verin makes it clear that she can't figure out the motives and methods of the DO, so its safe they are fairly beyond any human comprehension. 

    I'll stick a pin on the "is the TP the DO or does he just have control of it" argument, the answer to that does not seem to change much to me.  First, Semi was on her last hand, and Moridin cut her loose, telling the others that if the DO wanted to use her for something that was his business, but none of the Forsaken were to help unless the DO told them to.  Since SH set her free, it's safe to assume that the DO wanted to use her, but didn't care to make Moridin and Co. aware of that. 

 

SO if Moridin is where Rand's TP access came from EITHER

Moridin did not mean to give him access to it, and the DO could not tell the difference between if Moridin wielded it or Rand pulling it through him, which does not really jive IMO, if the DO has the TP spigot I do not think that he would ever let it be used in direct opposition to his machinations. 

OR

Moridin granted him access so he could kill Semi and foil a plan laid down by the DO using SH as his avatar, which also does not jive, Nae'blis or not, freeing Semi and using her to catch Rand was a DO black op and foiling it because he was still mad at Semi seems a good way to go from Nae'blis to eternal suffering beyond the grave. 

 

Now if the DO gave Rand the TP pipeline, he was deliberately burning a Forsaken in order to corrupt Rand; Semi put him in the exact situation which would make the Rand/LTT duo have a breakdown and the DO let him out of it, but tied him to the extremely addicting, corrupting force that is the TP in the process.  Seems much more plausible to me. 

 

As a tinfoil hat theory, perhaps one of the lifetimes where he went over to the DO's side held some knowledge of TP weaving. 

 

As for the LTT/Rand 'are they different people?' argument.  Same soul, different lives and memories, one body.  That covers it.  Tainted Male Channlers can go mad in different ways, at different paces. We saw the one Ashaman revert to a childlike state and try to use the power to play with blocks, no voices involved (at least from any narrative point we got to read).  I'm a firm believer that the taint is what allowed LTT's memories and personality to start to leak into Rand.  Granted, there was enough regular every day stress on Rand's shoulders that it could have driven a totally sane, non taint exposed potential messiah into the deep crazy, but I don't think any voices that resulted from that would know weaves Rand did not, or how to draw and play the flute, or make him tug his ear when he saw pretty girls.  I recall in Moraine's visions, there was a potential at one point for Lanfear to take Rand, and then when anyone sees him next, LTT is the dominant personality.  Also, a semantic point, I think the same soul is always the Champion of Light, but does not always have the title of Dragon.  I think Moridin's soul is the Champion of the Dark, from the whole 'ancient enemy' bit.  Moridin is also quite mad, but the dominant reasons for his crazy seem to be his knowledge of the Wheel and his past lives of eternal pointless struggle, combined with the few millennia he spend half out of the DO's prison.  The TP corrupts him, but that is less to do with madness, and more to do with inevitably pulling past the safe limit and always needing to be in the DO's good graces to get it.  Don't get me wrong, the OP is addictive too, it makes people who can touch it want to hold it more and more often, and in greater magnitude, but it is resistible, and the payoff for resisting is an extremely long live of being a powerful sorcerer. The TP on the other hand is irresistible and guarantees a shorter life, so while both addictive powers, their natures are very different, tainted sadin might make one go crazy, but one has to already be there of their own volition to use the TP unless there is no other choice.  While I see that a few people (some with better theories and textual backup than others) see some poetry in the idea of Rand using the DO's own power to make the Bore No More, it just does not feel right.  As LTT says, the TP is the power of betrayal, it is at the DO's whim, and I don't think it would be possible to use it against his ends, it would require outsmarting the DARK ONE! Diabolical intelligence has to trump human intelligence of any kind, they will not beat him through clever trickery.  It also cannot be that the TP is orders of magnitude stronger than the OP, I don't care if one paragraph in one book has 5/6ths gibbering mad Rand 'deliniating' the difference between the TP's power and its addictive life enhancing feelings.  Rand is not an omniscient Narrator, and he is far less so when his hands are being used against his will to choke a loved one purple.  The Taveren Effect X 3 will play a part, I'm dead sure of it, a la Min's fireflies in the darkness.  All three of the wonderkids are massive Taveren, and Rand doubly so.  People they walked by on the street years ago have the course of their entire life changed just from being near them for a few minutes, look at Domon. The pattern does to the taveren what the taveren do to normal people, it puts them where it needs them; Egwene is not taveren but her rise to power is just as meteoric as the three Two River's boys, and she got there just by being around them. If the DO is working to distort and unravel the pattern, and the three of them are the taveren corrective influence on the pattern, it feels like them being together at SG will even the playing field when it comes to the dark one being able to make buildings internally morph, or turn people's blood to magma.  Break Seals, clear the bad patch on the Bore, some combination of the Power and the Taveren triple whirl will heal bore completely so there is an Age or two for everyone to forget Malevolent Evil and get back  the the run of the mill human ambition and selfish evil, which has a much lower death rate. Tinfoil hat theory there is that they break the wheel in a good way and free humanity from eternal repetition of their behavior and open the way for that whole Romantic Infinite Human Potential bit.

  The scene on DM was a point of synthesis for Rand/LTT, but that had more to do with finding a reason to keep going than anything else; think about it, LTT was already his fatalistic disturbed self because of his wife killing, and Rand was expected to save a world that, through the process of saving it, had removed any reason for him to care if it survives. Any of the things that had the potential to balance him a bit and make him appreciate the world were taken from him. Anyone he cared about could be hurt to use against him, or used as tools by others to manipulate his behavior.  By virtue of being a channeler, most of the world would fear him no matter what he did.  By being a male one, he is starkly terrifying to absolutely everyone, and by being the Dragon Reborn that terror is elevated to Nightmare of the Populace of Everywhere.  Cadsuane and a few privileged others are the only ones who really understand how tied to the state of reality Rand's mindset is but instead of organizing a fanclub to give him hugs and bring him puppies, all they do is do more damage to that mindset, and through it, to reality itself.  The 'We' bit on DM comes to mind here.  The WE he was talking about was everyone in reality, but the real WE are Him and LTT, who have suffered so much they see death as mercy to them, and therefore everyone else.  Moridin's link to Rand might have helped put Rand into Shiva mode too....it's certain he isn't all that happy living over and over locked in constant struggle either, breaking the wheel is a peace that Moridin welcomes.  When LTT hits the way too late realization that llyena would be spun out and live again too, and might be in the world at that minute it pulls him past his hangups, and Rand gets to see the unbroken chain of his soul's experiences and all the happiness and love that existed in those, so the WE now saw the why of existence, as the blinders of their personal suffering no longer colors the way they think everyone else must view existence.  I don't think this means that Rand now has the sum total knowledge of all of his soul's lives, but the brief window to them did a world of good.  I think he will have access to LTT's fount of information, though I don't know if their personalities will merge. I also don't know if Rand's TP ops are semi permanent or if the DO will cut him off how that he he giggled.  Alright, that's all the ranting I have on Rand for now, I hope my lack of formatting and direct quotation does not offend too many.

 

As for the differences of Traveling based on the power used, when Rand and Egwene were trying to work out the details of it, it became known that the Power was not the be all and end all of traveling, it opens the gateways, but the way that reality point A and B get bridged has less than 100% to do with the Power. Sadiar requires the women to imagine bringing the two places into the same space and mentally 'make them the same', sadin requires the mental process of bringing the pattern together in two spots and poking a hole between them.  Asmodean tells Rand that trying to do it the female way would likely result in him ending up somewhere outside the pattern, and Egwene feels that if she tried to poke a hole through the pattern that the results would be Egon Bad.  The True Power Travel is done by tearing the pattern and moving outside, which makes sense since the DO is on a plane outside the Pattern, and no one he would allow access to the TP (with the one time Rand exception) has the integrity of the pattern anywhere on their concern list. 

[ShiftedInsights]

Small forgotten edit.  I wanted to refute the idea someone posted earlier that the CK never did any evil since being created.  When the globe on Tremalking switched on during the sadin cleansing, there was the unintended consequence of the Sea Folk's land lubber porcelain makers going all suicide cult, and I would say an entire Randland race scouring itself from the earth should count as a bit of evil. 

[Luckers]

Small forgotten edit.  I wanted to refute the idea someone posted earlier that the CK never did any evil since being created.  When the globe on Tremalking switched on during the sadin cleansing, there was the unintended consequence of the Sea Folk's land lubber porcelain makers going all suicide cult, and I would say an entire Randland race scouring itself from the earth should count as a bit of evil. 

 

Your assuming that the ending of Illusion was a bad thing--perhaps their prophecies had some truth to them, and something was achieved by their suicide that we do not understand. Perhaps even for them--in a world where souls do not end at death, perhaps their suicide elicited some form of power which will be important.

 

Consider Ardihol--power was created there, from the consumption of the souls of its citizens. Obviously in that case the death=power was evil, but recall that theirs was a death consumed in hatred and paranoia. The nature of what they believed formed the power that resulted from their deaths. The Amayar died in hope and happiness, so maybe they created something of a similar form.

 

The assumption that suicide is evil is prolific in our world--either through the judeo-christian influence, or the athiest one. But in a world were death means neither the end, nor is it a sin--and where death can create power... well perhaps the suicide of the Amayar will have positive effects as yet unforseen. In a story with foretelling such a thing is possible.

[ShiftedInsights]

Those are good points, especially when taken as a part of the bigger picture.  For counterarguments, I recall RJ alluding to the event as the huge, unforseen tragedy of KOD, though many of the fans did not really take it as such since it was a race of characters that no real backstory or reader rapport built up beforehand.  Rand would certainly have seen it as evil (at least pre Threads of Gold, I do not recall that information being conveyed to him as of yet, and he might cope better now), his attempt to do something to drastically improve the world inadvertently leading to the deaths of so many women would have reaffirmed his personal image as a destroyer, and I don't think he would have considered them suicides so much as a mass death that he triggered, but then again I can't really know. 

[Luckers]

The Gasp Moment, is how he phrased it. That an event we previously thought was good would have unforeseen consequences. And it did--a whole group of people killing themselves is tragic and sad, but it isn't necessarily evil.

 

I'm just stirring the pot, by the way. I don't necessarily believe this.

[DafyddNZ]

I think Rand and Morridin have a lot in common, back in the Age of Legends I think Morridin had a similar moment to Rand's but went the other way. But lacking a CK did the next best thing and became the DO's lackey in an attempt to destroy the world.

 

Also Rand is going to be so much more dangerous now, instead of attacking his own side he is going to be focused solely on the DO and Forsaken. He also is going to have all the memories of LTT, making him as powerful or even more so than Morridin.

[deepak_dragonreborn]

PLus he wont have to fight with LTT for the control of OP.

[Mr Ares]

I am not sure how many have previously speculated this. I believe I have seen a variation of this theory in the forums over a year ago. After reading TGS and the final chapters in it, I believe that Rand al`Thor is the reincarnation of Lews Therin. Their personalities are different, and they do not have the same memories because of the over 3000 year difference between when LTT died and when Rand was born.

I have resisted the Reincarnation idea before to explain LTT and Rand al`Thor. However, now... Now I believe that is the very best explanation that best matches all of the evidence concerning Rand and LTT.

Rand al'Thor is the reincarnation of Lews Therin Telamon, you say? Really? I have a crazy, far out theory of my own: Rand al'Thor is, wait for it, the Dragon Reborn! It might sound crazy, but I think there are a few clues indicating this is the case.

[Luckers]

Don't be a prat Ares.

 

Yes, Vambram, Rand is the reincarnation of Lews Therin. This is, as Ares rather caustically pointed out, one of the underlying concepts of the series, and something we've known since book one.

 

 

[garion]

The question is now will Rand uphold his promise he made to LTT about dying or since he reconciled will that be null and void?

[Luckers]

Reconciled, null and void. That topic was actually the basis of their reintergration--they live again for hope to love again. That hope joined them. No more death wish.

[WWWwombat]

He still knows he has to die though.  He won't be so eager now I guess.

[garion]

Or will he go with his head held high knowing he has left something behind (his kids) for the next Age to remember him.

[Luckers]

He still knows he has to die though.  He won't be so eager now I guess.

 

Does he know that? Even at his bitterest he concieved that there was wriggle room in the prophecies about his death. He tried to shut his mind to them--but that are there. We all know as fact that he must live on in some form following his death--he has that information too.

 

Now he's no longer shutting himself down he may allow himself to consider that reality.