Rand and Lews Therin...

[Mr Ares]

To me, Rand and Moridin feel like quite different things, achieved by different methods. Ishamael and LTT were both born, lived, and then one of them died. Years later, his soul is reborn. Then the other one dies, but when he comes back it is not after being reborn, as a child, learning to walk, talk, channel, all from scratch, as Rand did. His memories and personality are transplanted into a new body, and the person who held that body before is stripped away completely. When LTT's memories awaken in Rand, Rand is not stripped away completely (not so far, at least, and I suspect a lot of people would be disappointed if ToM essentially replaced the main character of the books with a new one).

To me, Rand and Moridin feel like slightly different things, achieved by completely different methods. The DO’s method is immediate and exact. The Wheel’s method is gradual and more of a maturation process. Similar to Rand’s Ta’verenism. He was not born a Ta’veren, but matured into one. Similarly, he wasn’t born the Dragon, but is maturing to it.

Well, to me Moridin and Rand feel like completely different things, achieved by completely different methods. Rand did not "mature" into being a ta'veren, the Wheel just made him one. It wasn't something he grew into. He was born the Dragon, though.

 

Moridin has one man's memories in his head, one personality. Rand has memories of being Rand, and of being LTT - two people. He has a voice. Moridin doesn't. In effect, Moridin and Rand are faced with very different circumstances. They are not the same thing at all. And let us not forget that Mat's new memories fit seamlessly into the holes where the old ones were before, despite Mat being a different person to those others who now fill his head - the memories would appear to be accepted as his own, or as good as. So Mat can have other memories, yet be a different person to the former owners of those memories, Moridin has his and only his memories, and Rand has other memories, yet is the same as the former owner of his memories. Does that seem right to you? Because it doesn't to me. Rand should be considered separate, a different person to LTT.

Or you could say: Moridin has Ishamael’s memories plus his own,

Only if I were of the opinion that Moridin were someone other than Ishamael. I'm not, I think one is a continuation of the other. Which is quite different to Rand having his own memories plus someone elses.

In both cases, they are the same person. Moridin is Ishamael just as Rand is LTT.

A is A, just as B is C. That's what it looks like to me.

The difference between the two is Rand has memories of growing up while not knowing who he is/was.

Rand knew exactly who he was - Rand al'Thor.

 

Concerning Mat, yes he is evidence it is possible to have to have other memories from a different person. Just as Birgitte and all the transmigrated Forsaken are evidence that it is possible to have memories of a past life and be the same person.

Except I don't consider the Chosen to have memories of past lives - what they have is an unnatural extension of their current life, in a new body. Nor do I consider Birgitte to be the same person as any of her previous incarnations, she is an amalgamation of them all, but still a distinct person from any of the individuals that comprise her.

 

Rand was just a naturally occuring, perfectly normal reincarnation (of an extraordinary soul, but the reincarnation itself was normal), up until his madness.

We don’t know for sure whether madness sometimes leads to memory leakage or whether memory leakage sometimes leads to madness. Rand was an ordinary farmer until suddenly everything happens to him at pretty much the same time. Heck even Mat has some memory leakage, and this is before he's even hear of the 'Finns.

All the indications we have are that Rand's madness, from the taint and general stress, has manifested as him having memories and a voice from a past life. Mat is a different case, as his memory leakage is not know to come from a past life. Also, how did Rand get the memories?

 

I didn't say Moridin incorporated anyone else. Fact is, Ishamael died. Now he's alive again as Moridin. Similarly, LTT died and now he's alive again as Rand. Rand is the Dragon, though, so he's extra special.

The two cases are different. One is a natural rebirth, the other is a transmigration, an extension of the previous life in a new body. And the being the Dragon means he has a job to do, not that he has super special magical powers beyond that.

 

I didn't say Moridin incorporated anyone else. Fact is, Ishamael died. Now he's alive again as Moridin. Similarly, LTT died and now he's alive again as Rand. Rand is the Dragon, though, so he's extra special.

 

 

It's safe to say that Rand remembers more than LTT's memory. So Rand is DR, man who is and was and will be. Moridin is just Ishamael. LTT is just one life of DR.

Just wanted to point out that we really don't know that about Moridin.

We do, as we have his POV. He doesn't remember his past lives. He is annoyed by this.

 

Which bring me back to Moridin. He said that DO needs to win only once but I think that it is completely in reverse - the light only needs to win once. In tGH we saw possibilities of when DO wins which considering the mirror worlds seems to have happened (in a very theoretical sense of a word).

Well, there are degrees of victory, according to RJ. Moridin's point is that only the Shadow can deliver a final and lasting victory - if the Light wins, Shai'tan is sealed, and the cycle continues. If Shai'tan is freed, He annihilates the universe. Game Over. The mirror worlds might show worlds where the Shadow has won, but they are still worlds lacking the final and lasting victory - Shai'tan is still imprisoned. So the cycle continues, until something comes along capable of breaking it. A draw or lesser victory essentially means that the cycle continues. The Light won in the AOL, if just barely. The war continues.

 

That was the answer. It all swept over him, lives lived, mistakes made, love changing everything. He saw the entire world in his mind's eye, lit by the glow in his hand. He remembered lives, hundreds of them, thousands of them, stretching to infinity. He remembered love, and peace and joy and hope.

 

So Rand remembers it all.

The impression I got from that scene was that he was aware of all those past lives at that moment. However, I think going forward the only one he will have memories from is LTT

Indeed. It is somewhat ambiguous.

[FarShainMael]

Yes, the idea of a messiah is attractive enough that some form of it likely exists in every culture. After all, a messiah absolves me from the necessity of fixing the mess I've made of the world, somebody else is "destined" to do it. I can go on being a thoughtless, uncaring fool. Why wouldn't every one in every culture yearn for that?

 

I hardly think you can make such a sweeping generalisation and somehow capture what messianic figures mean in often vastly disparate cultures and religions. It may be that some actually think of a messiah as some sort of cosmic-yet-personal get-out-of-jail-free card, but it's not really borne out in the majority of actual religious texts/traditions. A more accurate, but still inadequate, generalisation is that a messiah is a person who can fix what is beyond the control and the ability of any one person, or even every person. I think you're getting too caught up in some specifically Christian attitudes about personal salvation and the powerlessness of individuals to be anything other than corrupt and fallen without Christ (especially the more extreme Calvinist-style predestination/election beliefs). Even then, few would actually conceptualize it in the terms you've chosen, and

fewer still see it as some sort of license to continue f@#%ing-up with abandon.

That's usually taken as a sign that you're still "in sin" or have returned to it. Certainly, you ain't gonna get approbation or even necessarily the supposedly obligatory forgiveness for that sort of thing (cf. Ted Haggard).

 

Re bolded: Catholics certainly don't. We call that the sin of presumption.

[Ashaman Kovan]

If anything doesn't Rand have more in common with pretty much everyone in Randland? In so far that everyone is reborn as someone? The main difference setting him aside being that he knows exactly WHO he's reborn as and, as far as we know, him being the only person to ever be reborn as a specific person according to prophecy.

[didymos]

If anything doesn't Rand have more in common with pretty much everyone in Randland? In so far that everyone is reborn as someone? The main difference setting him aside being that he knows exactly WHO he's reborn as and, as far as we know, him being the only person to ever be reborn as a specific person according to prophecy.

 

Plenty of other people are reborn in very specific fashion: everyone else bound to the Wheel. They just have different purposes than the Dragon. The prophecy stuff is secondary: it exists because of the Dragon, not vice-versa. It's a tool the Wheel uses to ensure the Dragon does all that Dragon-type stuff. It also seems to be restricted to certain incarnations, and possibly just the "Reborn" one. We haven't heard much about anything like that going on with LTT back in the AoL. He was renowned and revered, but nothing indicates he was a figure of prophecy.

[Jon Paul]

Re bolded: Catholics certainly don't. We call that the sin of presumption.

 

Indeed, the same should be said of our Eastern cousins in schism (Oriental Orthodox, Greek Orthodox etcetera). Bob has really highlighted a great flaw in Protestant theology.