The Big (Currently) Unoticed Thing In Books 4-6 (Mistborn Spoilers)

[zach]

Ignore Terez. tGS if anything made it clear that LTT was a real voice. She just has a chip on her shoulder about it.

 

OK haha now i have to backtrack a few steps...  Maybe Thom saying the dragon is one with the land is more of a figure of speech... as in the dragon is the one who was born to save the place therefore if he isnt strong and what-not the land will not hold up against the shadow. hmmm

[Terez]

OK haha now i have to backtrack a few steps...  Maybe Thom saying the dragon is one with the land is more of a figure of speech... as in the dragon is the one who was born to save the place therefore if he isnt strong and what-not the land will not hold up against the shadow. hmmm

It was confirmed by a prophecy in A Crown of Swords iirc.  Check the Encyclopaedia; I think it was confirmed by two separate prophecies.  And then confirmed by Brandon.

[zach]

OK haha now i have to backtrack a few steps...  Maybe Thom saying the dragon is one with the land is more of a figure of speech... as in the dragon is the one who was born to save the place therefore if he isnt strong and what-not the land will not hold up against the shadow. hmmm

It was confirmed by a prophecy in A Crown of Swords iirc.  Check the Encyclopaedia; I think it was confirmed by two separate prophecies.  And then confirmed by Brandon.

 

Prophecies have been tampered with and still it's true you just have to look at it differently.  Just like all the different views on the actual prophecies.  Rand is one with the land in the fact that if he doesnt have it in him there will be no more land.  Not that he actually physically has any effect on it subconsciously or anything. 

[OptimusPrime]

Ignore Terez. tGS if anything made it clear that LTT was a real voice. She just has a chip on her shoulder about it.

 

No.

 

Rand asks "Lews Therin" a question in VoG but the voice replies as Rand. I think you're the one with the chip Luckers, as you cant stand to be proven wrong  :D

[Terez]

Ignore Terez. tGS if anything made it clear that LTT was a real voice. She just has a chip on her shoulder about it.

 

No.

 

Rand asks "Lews Therin" a question in VoG but the voice replies as Rand. I think you're the one with the chip Luckers, as you cant stand to be proven wrong  :D

There are hundreds of similar quotes from the books.  They just get a little bit sharper in The Gathering Storm.  The evidence starts well before Rand even starts getting the memories. 

[zach]

Ignore Terez. tGS if anything made it clear that LTT was a real voice. She just has a chip on her shoulder about it.

 

No.

 

Rand asks "Lews Therin" a question in VoG but the voice replies as Rand. I think you're the one with the chip Luckers, as you cant stand to be proven wrong  :D

There are hundreds of similar quotes from the books.  They just get a little bit sharper in The Gathering Storm.  The evidence starts well before Rand even starts getting the memories. 

 

Iirc in tGS rand starts hearing another voice in his head, a quiet whisper that is his actual consciousness.  I recall it definitely in the scene with Tam, he feels that he'll never hear that voice again and it scares him.  And that voice he is talking about is not the voice he talks to when Rand is in the box.

[Luckers]

"They were not two men, and never had been."

 

That's certainly true. They were not two men. They were two facet manifestations of the same soul. Personality created from the experiences each underwent in their own distinct period of life, but still the same soul--and Birgitte makes clear that the facet personalities for all their different experiences and personalities are still the same individual, and can exist easily in cohabitation as a single person--the problem here was that Rand treating Lews Therin as another person altogether was driving them further apart, and since a soul cannot split (as per RJ) that was driving him mad. Semirhage makes clear that intergration is the solution to this, and to do that Rand needed to realise that Lews Therin was a part of himself--a different aspect of his own soul--but still him.

 

That doesn't make Lews Therin any less real, it just shows his manifestation was having a destabalizing influence.

 

 

Everyone else is just in denial.

 

Yes darling, everyone secretly agrees with you, they just don't want to admit it.

 

Ignore Terez. tGS if anything made it clear that LTT was a real voice. She just has a chip on her shoulder about it.

 

No.

 

Rand asks "Lews Therin" a question in VoG but the voice replies as Rand. I think you're the one with the chip Luckers, as you cant stand to be proven wrong  :D

 

And where precisely have I been proven wrong? I haven't even offered my arguments on this issue--just responded to Terez's fallacious assumption.

 

[zach]

I agree with Luckers about it not being two men. Theyre the same soul just different personalities pushing each other apart by not accepting each other.  If we cloned hitler would he be anything like the last one? no because of so many different factors but mostly because his upbringing can not be replicated.  So Rand and LTT's soul's different personalities literally have to be different.  His manifestation was only destabilizing because of Rand's unacceptance though. 

[Luckers]

His manifestation was only destabilizing because of Rand's unacceptance though.  

 

I would have phrased it more along the lines of Rand's unacceptance being what was standing in the way of intergration, as opposed to it being the reason the LTT manifestation was destabalizing. It's active existence itself was destabalizing.

 

Drekka suggested I had a chip on my shoulder about this issue--it's actually a bit the opposite, I've never cared about this. To my mind the whole debate is caused by people's inability to contemplate that the LTT voice was both madness, and real. In the real world voices in the mind are constructs caused by trauma as a coping machenism, so that's what people have looked to say here. Rand, emotionally stunted, desperate to harden himself, and recieving memories from the past has gathered those memories and created the LTT personality to hold them.

 

The problem is none of that is necesary. Within this world, with each birth having its own personality, and given that Semirhage makes clear that it is a normal madness for a real past voice to manifest itself, these issue seemed pointless to me. I saw no need to go to the more elaborate construct option to explain what was clear.

 

As I understand it though, the Theoryland discussions got so heated that lines were drawn, lines that even in the face of Semirhage's revelation could not be undrawn, and so this issue has become... overevolved.

 

But fine. If this issue is spilling over to be debated here, then I'll put my mind to it. I'll make a post with my thoughts after I finish my work on the BUT compilation. I'm sick of this claim that just because Terez has brow-beaten everyone but Isabel on Theoryland into not questioning her on this that the discussion is resolved.

 

Perhaps it is the construct theory. It should be interesting to actually discuss it, rather than just utter absolutist conviction, yes? Besides, at least perhaps this way people will know what I do think, rather then telling me what they think I think has been disproven.

 

 

[Terez]

"They were not two men, and never had been."

 

That's certainly true. They were not two men. They were two facet manifestations of the same soul.

Rand was never under the impression that anything else was the truth.  He was, however, under the impression that there was a voice in his head, talking to him.  It was this that he realized wasn't true at the end of The Gathering Storm.  He was talking to himself all along.

 

Also, Theorylanders have more respect for themselves than to be browbeaten into believing anything by me.  Isa is just delusional.  She held onto her belief for so long that she'll never be able to give it up, and there are a few others that will do the same.  The vast majority of the fence-sitters hopped the fence to my side (some of them despite not liking me at all).

 

Oh, and you might not be aware, but Leigh Butler agrees with me as well.  ;D

[Luckers]

I'll talk on the points in my thread.

 

Also, Theorylanders have more respect for themselves than to be browbeaten into believing anything by me.  Isa is just delusional.  She held onto her belief for so long that she'll never be able to give it up, and there are a few others that will do the same.  The vast majority of the fence-sitters hopped the fence to my side (some of them despite not liking me at all).

 

I don't know if you're aware of how fierce a browbeater you are. We've had how many fights in the last month? I can dig my heels in as heavily as anyone else, but there have been numerous times where I've thought to myself 'Oh god, just let it go so I don't have to deal with the reply'.

 

But feel free to inform the fence sitters I'm doing this. I'd be curious as to their comments. And I look forward to your responses, also. Perhaps you will convince me. You may not be aware of this but I have not once seen you actually discuss this issue. Usually you just laugh at the person who's suggested otherwise, call them a delusional idiot, and restate that it is resolved.

 

It should prove... interesting.

 

Oh, and you might not be aware, but Leigh Butler agrees with me as well. 

 

Dropping names, Terez? I wonder what Leigh would say.

 

Irrespective, I love Leigh. Being one of those responsible for updating her old FAQ site I've spent the better part of the last year and a half immersed in the insane capability of her methodology.

 

Yes, indeed. I would be most interested to debate this with her. That would undoubtedly be an interesting discussion.

[Terez]

LOL, did you just accuse me of name-dropping?  Really?  ;D  Anyway, I'm merely pointing out that another WoT guru you know agrees with me.  You always pretend as if it's a fringe theory that no sensible person would believe, but that's just silly.  I have discussed the subject with you once, back with RAW was still posting (I recall he jumped in as well).  This was well before TGS though.  I got frustrated relatively quickly - lots of hot air and not a great deal of actual arguing.  I also made a post covering some of the main points in the thread on the subject that's on the first page.  Got a lot of hot air from your buddy Ares, but not much else.

 

I doubt I'll join in your thread, simply because I've got so many other things going on and not a lot of time.  I might surprise myself, though.

 

The reason the psychological aspect is necessary to explain what is going on with Rand is that his psychological issues are solidly and directly linked to the phenomenon throughout the series, down to the resolution of the issue which was purely psychological.  We have been saying all along - since long before TGS - that Rand's refusal to admit that HE was the one to kill Ilyena was the primary cause of the 'voice'.  It was an attempt to disassociate himself from the memories, and the guilt/pain of the Kinslaying.  Once he faced the truth, he was able to find a reason to live, and once he stopped suppressing the memories, they were free to integrate in his mind.

[Luckers]

I doubt I'll join in your thread, simply because I've got so many other things going on and not a lot of time.

 

How distinctly in tune with everything else you've done on this issue.

 

The reason the psychological aspect is necessary to explain what is going on with Rand is that his psychological issues are solidly and directly linked to the phenomenon throughout the series, down to the resolution of the issue which was purely psychological.

 

Of course Rand's psychological state influences this--it's in his head, and LTT is a psychological issue in himself.

 

This draws me back to the point I originally made--construct theories exist because people cannot reconcile a psychological instability--an insanity, in point of effect--with something that is real. The two can co-exist quite comfortably.

 

We have been saying all along - since long before TGS - that Rand's refusal to admit that HE was the one to kill Ilyena was the primary cause of the 'voice'.  It was an attempt to disassociate himself from the memories, and the guilt/pain of the Kinslaying.  Once he faced the truth, he was able to find a reason to live, and once he stopped suppressing the memories, they were free to integrate in his mind.

 

That's nice. I'll be sure to address it in my thread.

[Ashaman Kovan]

This is, maybe sadly so, vastly entertaining to me. Why is it so hard for people to grasp the concept that LTT was real AND Rand was crazy? I don't get it.

[Luckers]

I know, right.

[Morsker]

The most suspicious part to me is that Semirhage thought the only way to have past-life memories was by hearing a voice; when Rand recognized her, she knew he heard voices. The old "construct" theories say past-life memories are natural, and the madness gave voice to them, but that doesn't explain Semirhage's deduction.

 

I think it's caused by a combination of past-life and current-life trauma on similar subjects, in this case killing women. The truly lucky can achieve reintegration like Rand has in tGS, and then keep the memories without the madness, but the mental disorder is the only way to get the memories in the first place; they aren't normal.

[Ishmayl]

I don't understand anymore how this conversation is anything other than throwing your junk down on the table and measuring... but it is entertaining...  So who believes what?  Luckers, will we get a thread from you on this?  I never really liked Leigh's theory, so if she agrees with Terez, I must not like Terez's either, but I can't tell what the exact two (or more) theories are.

[bronnt]

I'm definitely more on the side of Terez here than I am Luckers.  I once believed that Lews Therin was a real voice, but there's plenty of evidence to demonstrate that it's really just Rand talking to himself.  I think the first actual clue is that Lews Therin goes quiet for a long time after Cadsuane simply mentions that male channelers often hear voices.  Since the voice was mostly a coping mechanism for his insanity and for the fact that he was leeching memories from his past life, his sanity re-exerted itself after that.  He was scared into trying to remove the voice so he wouldn't have to admit he was insane.

 

Another aspect started in Winter's Heart (I think).  The voice started to sound much more sane.  He could occasionally identify with it and it became much more reasonable in his head.  By the time we get to tGS, it's just Rand's voice talking to Rand in his own head.  He's so close to the edge with his emotional difficulties at that point that he's nearly completely mad, and he doesn't quite catch on, but we're certainly meant to take something from that.

 

This is, maybe sadly so, vastly entertaining to me. Why is it so hard for people to grasp the concept that LTT was real AND Rand was crazy? I don't get it.

 

The memories were real, that doesn't mean the voice was really the previous incarnation of the Dragon speaking to him.  Lews Therin WAS a real person, in the Second Age.  But he's been reborn in the Third Age and there's nothing left of him that should allow him to communicate with his existing incarnation.  The memories can exist without a voice; in T'A'R, Birgitte's soul carries the memories of all of her past lives, with the most recent being the strongest.  They do pervade with the soul, but she's not a conglomerate of 10 personalities having a dialogue in her head.

 

The most suspicious part to me is that Semirhage thought the only way to have past-life memories was by hearing a voice; when Rand recognized her, she knew he heard voices. The old "construct" theories say past-life memories are natural, and the madness gave voice to them, but that doesn't explain Semirhage's deduction.

 

I think it's caused by a combination of past-life and current-life trauma on similar subjects, in this case killing women. The truly lucky can achieve reintegration like Rand has in tGS, and then keep the memories without the madness, but the mental disorder is the only way to get the memories in the first place; they aren't normal.

 

Just because Semirhage says that he hears voices because he has memories doesn't meant the two aren't correlated.  She doesn't outright say what you're taking from that statement either-that the only way to have memories is to have a past life voice tell you about them.  That's not even true from what we see in Rand-there's memories completely independent of the voice.  Rand's memories of LTT begin far before the voice ever appears.

 

I don't think it's weird to say that all cases of insanity where there's memory seepage from past lives would all develop the same type of coping mechanism.  It's insane to remember things that happened in your past life, and a sane person will try to reject those memories by creating an alternative personality to cope.  If there's enough memory, you can detail the voice and the face of the person who lived previously, so it's like having a conversation in your head-but you're still just talking to yourself.

 

Like I said, look at Birgitte.  LTT is a also a Hero of the Horn, and would have been in T'A'R between lifetimes.  Her memories are intact without her always nattering to herself about things that happened thousands of years ago.  She's an intact personality with the memory of, presumably, dozens of lifetimes.  There's a method for memory seepage that does not involve a real voice manifesting itself.  She didn't require a coping mechanism because she was pulled out of T'A'R sane, and was able to account for the memories.  Rand's memories come only at the behest of the loss of sanity, and appear BEFORE the voice.

[Luckers]

  Luckers, will we get a thread from you on this?

 

You will, yes. I have to finish the BUT compilation, and after that I'll either do this or the Unseen Eyes post. So it'll be out either tuesday or friday, depending on how I play it.

[zach]

Correct me if i'm wrong but you guys are trying to argue with people who think the same thing.  Terez quoted me a page or two back saying that it was the DARK ONE in rands head. not Rand.  

 

nvm i was incorrect

[Paerish Swar]

I'm going to quote myself from 2 months ago in the "questions on the 'reality' of LTT in Rand's head" thread.

 

Is there any evidence that the taint on Saidin corrupts more than just the body of the channeler, but rather taints the soul as well?

 

I ask this because after Lews Therin draws on too much of the One Power and kills himself, as a Hero bound to the Wheel he should have returned to Tel'aran'rhiod as a stark, raving, sane man.

 

For books, and books, and books we see Rand referring to the voice in his head as being totally insane, and it certainly does rant, rave, and babble a whole lot.

 

What I'm saying is that it should have been obvious to us that the voice in Rand's head wasn't real - that it was a coping mechanism.

 

Even if, in some weird way, there were two distinct and independent consciousnesses in Rand's head, there is no reason why the "Lews Therin consciousness" would be insane.  Such a situation would seem to require that there be some sort of weird temporal displacement/warp/wormhole that allowed Rand to access the mind of Lews Therin at the end of his actual life at the end of the previous Age.  And that, my friends, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. (Sorry Owayn, but it just doesn't to me.  This isn't Donnie Darko, after all.)

 

I think Birgitte's situation kindof served as a "heads up" for what Rand was going through.  A normal reincarnation situation for a Hero bound to the Wheel creates the standard level of awareness - no past life memories (Hawking in tGH says something to this effect, as does Birgitte two books later) - , but in abnormal situations there can be uncomfortable variations.

 

I think the combination of the effects of the taint on Rand's mind, his extreme ta'veren nature, and perhaps even a circumstance of general upheaval in the pattern itself all conspired to give Rand access to memories he should not have had, and forced him to compartmentalize "the crazy" into a seperate pseudo-consciousness (for which Lews Therin was both a convenient and an understandable scape goat).

 

In short, there has never been anyone in Rand's head other than Rand.  The past-life memories he has access to are an unfortunate, though "natural," result of his unique situation.

 

 

 

Maybe ??? 

 

I would like to correct one line of my above post.  Where I said that, "it should have been obvious to us that the voice in Rand's head wasn't real," I would like to say that I think the voice was real.

 

I think, though, that it is necessary to clarify that just because the voice is really there, it does not mean that it represents a separate and distinct consciousness.

 

The voice was real, but it was only as real as Rand made it.

 

I think the argument now is whether the voice represented in full or in part a distinct LTT consciousness that was independent from Rand's own mind, or if it simply represented one side of a schism in Rand's singular consciousness.

 

I still stand by the rest of my comments on that matter.

 

If the voice were representative of a separate and distinct LTT consciousness, there is no reason why it would have been as raving mad as it was.  Confusion and guilt don't even account for it.  As a Hero bound to the wheel, the Dragon's soul had 3000 years in T'a'r with the complete memories of every previous incarnation, which would contribute to an "eternal" perspective on the nature of the Wheel and the role of the Dragon's soul.  No madness necessary.

 

Why would Rand gain access to a personality - the personality of a single man afflicted with madness - that no longer exists?  The soul is eternal, but LTT was just a finite blip: a temporary physical expression of that soul.  That body is gone.  That personality is gone.  Only the memories remain.

 

So how does an entire, distinct personality come in to play with the voice?

 

I'm not sure it does come in to play, or even can.  I think the voice was more likely to have been a coping mechanism created by a desperate Rand in an effort to make some sense out of his past-life memories, his taint-inflicted madness, his guilt and his anger.   

[Ishmayl]

Paerish - I really like what you said, and I think it makes a lot of sense.  I'm still up in the air on this whole thing, and unfortunately don't have time to talk right now since I'm at work (on a Saturday :( ), but it's one of the more reasonable arguments I've seen.  It helps that you use proper punctuation and grammar - I have problems reading long posts from people that don't know how to articulate.

[Mandragoran07]

taims age fits timeline, its always been my guess.... a good reason for him never going insane before the cleanse was never brought out

[FarShainMael]

Why would Rand gain access to a personality - the personality of a single man afflicted with madness - that no longer exists?  The soul is eternal, but LTT was just a finite blip: a temporary physical expression of that soul.  That body is gone.  That personality is gone.  Only the memories remain.

 

That personality was sane when LTT died, not afflicted with madness. That in itself suggests very strongly to me that the 'voice' is not that of an independent consciousness.

 

[Nightstrike]

Temporarily sane, but possibly erased the moment he overdrew saidin? Or later?