Why Rand never joined with Lanfear?

[Socrates271]

I know Rand is supposed to be a simple farmer, but why didn't Rand just simply accept Lanfear as a trainer? Unless he didn't trust her, but Lanfear did nothing but attempt to help Rand become more powerful.

 

It would be interesting to see what happens if Rand and Lanfear had joined forces...

[Smittyphi]

2 reasons come to mind.

 

1. She is freakin' Lanfear. Not only is she a forsaken that parents use to frighten their children, she's insane

2. She doesn't know how to train Rand with the male half. That's why she put the block on Asmodean so he couldn't overpower Rand but teach him how to use it.

[Feral]

1. She is freakin' Lanfear. Not only is she a forsaken that parents use to frighten their children, she's insane

 

Just to expand upon that point, her "love" of Rand doesn't protect him from her insanity either. She's unhinged and tempermental enough to kill him on a whim, just because he checked out another woman or said the wrong thing or whatever. If he wanted her to be civil to him and not screaming 24/7 then he'd have to watch everything he said and did and pretend to love her, which would get boring real fast. And no matter how good an actor he is, there's always the risk she might still guess about Aviendha, Min and/or Elayne and kill them.

 

Also, Rand's always been scared of being more powerful, hence his reluctance to use the sa'agreal he has at his disposal. So having some mad cow yammering on at him about being the most powerful person ever and overthrowing the Creater is going to make him run a mile anyway.

[David Selig]

Yeah, quite a puzzle...Who wouldn't want to join forces with and trust with his life a borderline crazy mass murderer and megalomaniac who has pretty much sold her soul to the Devil?

[Pygmalion79]

Yeah, quite a puzzle...Who wouldn't want to join forces with and trust with his life a borderline crazy mass murderer and megalomaniac who has pretty much sold her soul to the Devil?

Not only did she sell her soul to the devil, but she's dishonest: she refuses to stay bought!

[Mats Spare Hat]

Hootchie cootch's probably a wasteland all up in there after 3000+ years...probably even has cobwebs!

 

..Would you want in on that?

[Glip]

Hootchie cootch's probably a wasteland all up in there after 3000+ years...probably even has cobwebs!

 

..Would you want in on that?

 

Makes one wonder if she'd have a ter'angreal for that. Probably called "The Rod of Quivering"

 

Okay...my only excuse for this post; it's friday 17:00 and I'm done working in a minute

[Beidomon]

Hootchie cootch's probably a wasteland all up in there after 3000+ years...probably even has cobwebs!

 

..Would you want in on that?

 

Sniff. That's SEXIST!!!

[Canis Rufus]

Yeah, quite a puzzle...Who wouldn't want to join forces with and trust with his life a borderline crazy mass murderer and megalomaniac who has pretty much sold her soul to the Devil?

 

 

Hey no spice no flavor!

[Smittyphi]

Yeah, quite a puzzle...Who wouldn't want to join forces with and trust with his life a borderline crazy mass murderer and megalomaniac who has pretty much sold her soul to the Devil?

 

 

Hey no spice no flavor!

 

I'll take Basil, Oregano and Cayenne Pepper over Cyanide any day. Amazing how Cyanide and Cyndane are so closely related...

 

Edit: slow is not so...

[Socrates271]

Yeah, quite a puzzle...Who wouldn't want to join forces with and trust with his life a borderline crazy mass murderer and megalomaniac who has pretty much sold her soul to the Devil?

 

 

Hey no spice no flavor!

 

I'll take Basil, Oregano and Cayenne Pepper over Cyanide any day. Amazing how Cyanide and Cyndane are slow closely related...

 

Okay, okay I get it :) Moiraine did say in the letter she left Rand that there were three choices: Either Rand dies by Lanfear's hand, becomes Lanfear's slave, or both Moiraine and Lanfear go into the 'portal', excuse my lack of a precise term.

 

So without a doubt Rand trusted his instincts and Lews' mad ranting not to trust her.

[RelentlessAttack]

Moiraine's warning aside. Think about Rand, he was like what 18 years old when he met Lanfear, the hottest and most powerful woman alive. And even if shes done some things wrong, she went to a lot of lengths to help Rand out for a while. Even if he wasn't tempted to join her I'm surprised he never slept with her at least

 

I don't buy that he just loved Egwene and then later Elayne sooo much that it would deter him you know. He never really had a good reason for it or showed it much

[Feral]

Moiraine's warning aside. Think about Rand, he was like what 18 years old when he met Lanfear, the hottest and most powerful woman alive. And even if shes done some things wrong, she went to a lot of lengths to help Rand out for a while. Even if he wasn't tempted to join her I'm surprised he never slept with her at least

 

I don't buy that he just loved Egwene and then later Elayne sooo much that it would deter him you know. He never really had a good reason for it or showed it much

 

Well she never actually straight out offered. And if he slept with her then said "I'm still not helping you" she would have torn him to shreds before he could pull his small clothes back on...

[David Selig]

Moiraine's warning aside. Think about Rand, he was like what 18 years old when he met Lanfear, the hottest and most powerful woman alive. And even if shes done some things wrong, she went to a lot of lengths to help Rand out for a while. Even if he wasn't tempted to join her I'm surprised he never slept with her at least

 

I don't buy that he just loved Egwene and then later Elayne sooo much that it would deter him you know. He never really had a good reason for it or showed it much

The part in bold is quite an understatement. Lanfear is literally one of the most evil persons in Randland history. I'd say this is a very good enough reason for not trusting her and not falling in love with her.

 

Let's see what the Guide says about her:

 

While never a field commander, Lanfear was very useful to the Dark One both before and during the War of the Shadow. Using dreams, she guided a number of operations that turned people against established authority, creating massive riots. She is credited with winning several battles for the Shadow by the same means. She is credited with driving a number of people mad and driving others to suicide, as well as performing outright assassinations in Tel'aranrhiod.

 

Aside from these useful pursuits, Lanfear served as a governor of conquered territory at least once. She was involved in many atrocities, perhaps more than most of the Forsaken, but the people she governed had more than the usual horrors of the Shadow to face; they feared sleep itself. Suicide rates were extremely high in her territory, even considering the fact that suicide was endemic in all the conquered territories.

Amazing how anyone could resist such a lovely personality... ;) Incredibly sexy or not, its hardly surprising Rand didn't want to get involved with her. It's simple self preservation and sense of morality.

[threadnecromancer]

Yeah, quite a puzzle...Who wouldn't want to join forces with and trust with his life a borderline crazy mass murderer and megalomaniac who has pretty much sold her soul to the Devil?

 

 

Hey no spice no flavor!

 

I'll take Basil, Oregano and Cayenne Pepper over Cyanide any day. Amazing how Cyanide and Cyndane are slow closely related...

 

Okay, okay I get it :) Moiraine did say in the letter she left Rand that there were three choices: Either Rand dies by Lanfear's hand, becomes Lanfear's slave, or both Moiraine and Lanfear go into the 'portal', excuse my lack of a precise term.

 

So without a doubt Rand trusted his instincts and Lews' mad ranting not to trust her.

 

I think it is worth noting that all three of those choices came from Lanfear's finding out about Aviendha.

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

Given the kind of person Rand was at the time, and what he thought he knew about Mierin, I'd say it was entirely in character for him to reject her proposition. He was immensely afraid of the Shadow, afraid of the Forsaken in particular, and afraid of what he was becoming. He also felt a duty to his friends and knew of Mierin's jealous instability. From his point of view, he made the right choice.

 

Nevertheless, from the benefit of our outside-the-universe perspective, it's easy to see that he was wrong to reject her offer. She could have done a lot to help him escape his confrontation with himself on Dragonmount, where the world was saved from destruction by little more than a coin toss. She could have saved him the peril of countless more incidents where Rand should have died and survived only by his Ta'veren qualities, by deus ex machina, or by sheer dumb luck. Mierin was never a threat to Rand so long as he did not reject her. Early on, Mierin had the power to Compel him with impunity, or kill him. She didn't want that. She wanted him to succeed, and then choose to be her partner. She was even honest with Rand in telling him about her desires for him. Rand had all the information he needed to make the right choice. What was holding him back was his bias, fear, and narrow-mindedness.

 

Think about it: You're the hero destined to face the Dark One. Along comes one of the Dark One's top people, and she is genuinely rooting for you. The price you must pay is to become her mate, and in return you will have access to enormous power, knowledge, and personal support. That's a trivial sacrifice to make in the name of saving the world. Rand should have bargained with her, agreeing to her proposal in return for the safety and wellbeing of his friends and loved ones. Even with her disturbed jealousy, Mierin probably would have agreed to that kind of ultimatum.

 

That's the pragmatical reason that Rand made the wrong choice. There's another reason: Nearly everything we know about Mierin paints her as a decent person who got swallowed up by tragedy. Rand had more to offer Mierin than just a union. He could have helped her to redeem herself. Lews Therin could well have averted the end of the Age of Legends and the Breaking of the World if he had accepted Mierin before the drilling of the Bore. Of course, he didn't know that at the time, but hindsight is 20/20 and this time around Rand does know it. Lifting up the downfallen is not to be underestimated as a good deed.

 

I don't agree with other fans' interpretations that Mierin is insane. (And, if I may wax meta for a moment, the sexist comments about her just aren't funny at all, and certainly aren't relevant. I hate that when people do that. It comes out especially with Egwene, Cadsuane, and Faile. Is it so hard to make criticisms without descending into bigotry?) Mierin's jealousy and apparently her short temper drove her to temporary insanity that day at the docks, but as a continuing character trait Mierin is really among the most rational of the Forsaken, up there with Asmodean and Graendal. She's mentally disturbed for sure, but then again if we're using that as a judge of good character then Rand is a considerably worse villain than she is, which doesn't jive. We know that history has attributed many atrocities to her, but the judgment of history is warped and unreliable. Charn thought well of her, and Mierin's own actions as Lanfear in the pages of the books have suggested a decent person who has gotten trapped by bad circumstances--not a blithely evil villain who deludes herself with dreams of the Dark One's power. At heart she is a decent person--frustrated and tragic, overly jealous and proud to a fault, but not sadistic or megalomaniacal like most of the other Forsaken.

 

Lastly, I don't actually think that anything Mierin has wanted is inappropriate. If we lived in a world where the gods were actually real, and where mortal actions could have cosmic consequences so readily, I think it would be the mark of a healthy species for ambitious individuals to try and protect civilization against the threats of divine caprice. Rand never had the philosophical grounding to understand such a thing. Lews Therin did, and apparently he agreed with it for a while before rejecting that in the aftermath of the Dark One's counterstroke. I am very interested to see what Rand, now possessed of the full knowledge of Lews Therin without the insanity problems, will do about Cyndane in AMoL. Perhaps he may yet end up joining her! She still has a lot to offer him, both pragmatically and as a matter of character ethics.

 

Just my two coppers...

 

(Except the sexism part. Seriously, knock that off.)

[francy]

Hootchie cootch's probably a wasteland all up in there after 3000+ years...probably even has cobwebs!

 

..Would you want in on that?

 

EWWWWW!

 

LOL

[Smittyphi]

That's the pragmatical reason that Rand made the wrong choice. There's another reason: Nearly everything we know about Mierin paints her as a decent person who got swallowed up by tragedy. Rand had more to offer Mierin than just a union. He could have helped her to redeem herself. Lews Therin could well have averted the end of the Age of Legends and the Breaking of the World if he had accepted Mierin before the drilling of the Bore. Of course, he didn't know that at the time, but hindsight is 20/20 and this time around Rand does know it. Lifting up the downfallen is not to be underestimated as a good deed.

 

I don't agree with other fans' interpretations that Mierin is insane. (And, if I may wax meta for a moment, the sexist comments about her just aren't funny at all, and certainly aren't relevant. I hate that when people do that. It comes out especially with Egwene, Cadsuane, and Faile. Is it so hard to make criticisms without descending into bigotry?) Mierin's jealousy and apparently her short temper drove her to temporary insanity that day at the docks, but as a continuing character trait Mierin is really among the most rational of the Forsaken, up there with Asmodean and Graendal. She's mentally disturbed for sure, but then again if we're using that as a judge of good character then Rand is a considerably worse villain than she is, which doesn't jive. We know that history has attributed many atrocities to her, but the judgment of history is warped and unreliable. Charn thought well of her, and Mierin's own actions as Lanfear in the pages of the books have suggested a decent person who has gotten trapped by bad circumstances--not a blithely evil villain who deludes herself with dreams of the Dark One's power. At heart she is a decent person--frustrated and tragic, overly jealous and proud to a fault, but not sadistic or megalomaniacal like most of the other Forsaken.

 

Her irrationality is the main crux of Rand's refusal. If she were totally serious, she would forsake the DO forever and help Rand but she is attracted to power. We can only speak hypothetically if they were to get together but her attraction to power and obsession of Rand would ultimately betray her. Any thought on her part that Rand would be unfaithful in thought or deed would put her over the edge. I can't support the idea that if she were alive she would ever be 100% Light side. I can see Lanfear ultimately sacrifice herself to save Rand at Tarmon Gai'don though.

[MatrixM]

IF she were alive?

 

EDIT: Typo

[Terez]

I have been wondering till now whether I should click on this thread. I'm like, 'Is it a joke? Surely they're not serious.'

[David Selig]

I don't agree with other fans' interpretations that Mierin is insane. (And, if I may wax meta for a moment, the sexist comments about her just aren't funny at all, and certainly aren't relevant. I hate that when people do that. It comes out especially with Egwene, Cadsuane, and Faile. Is it so hard to make criticisms without descending into bigotry?) Mierin's jealousy and apparently her short temper drove her to temporary insanity that day at the docks, but as a continuing character trait Mierin is really among the most rational of the Forsaken, up there with Asmodean and Graendal. She's mentally disturbed for sure, but then again if we're using that as a judge of good character then Rand is a considerably worse villain than she is, which doesn't jive. We know that history has attributed many atrocities to her, but the judgment of history is warped and unreliable. Charn thought well of her, and Mierin's own actions as Lanfear in the pages of the books have suggested a decent person who has gotten trapped by bad circumstances--not a blithely evil villain who deludes herself with dreams of the Dark One's power. At heart she is a decent person--frustrated and tragic, overly jealous and proud to a fault, but not sadistic or megalomaniacal like most of the other Forsaken.

What exactly suggest that she's a decent person? She was not trapped by bad circumstances - she joined the Dark One on her own free will because of obsessive jealousy and desire for power. She committed countless atrocities in the War of Power - you may say the history has been warped and the Guide is unreliable, but you don't get to be a top Forsaken for as long as she did without committing plenty of atrocities. There's a reason why her name is still used to scare little kids. In the main series, the only positive for her is that she was unwilling to kill or compel Rand at first, but even this was at least partly due to her arrogance that she can seduce him to join her on his own free will. Most everything else she did shows that she's has a really cruel and twisted personality. Skinning someone for bringing bad news, setting up Isendre to be caught stealing by planting the stolen jewellery just out of petty meanness, casually killing a Darkfriend without a second thought before she went to the Cleansing simply because she was in a hurry, torturing Egwene at the docks instead of killing her quickly - all this certainly suggests she's evil and cruel and even somewhat sadistic. And if she's not megalomaniac with all of her "I am the best female channeller ever, the most beautiful woman ever, the best in TAR, I can beat the Dark One and the Creator and rule the world forever, only the most powerful man in the world is good enough for me" attitude, I don't who is.

[Terez]

TOR Questions of the Week, February 2005-July 2005

As an aside, for those who think that Lanfear was in some way twisted against her will by being involved in drilling the Bore---I have heard the theory advanced---of all those involved in the project, she was the only major figure to go over to the Shadow. She was ripe for the Shadow's plucking long before the Bore was drilled.

Letter to Carolyn Fusinato from RJ - 1 February 1994

Lanfear holding back and doing good for Rand's sake? Ha! She was psychically fixed on possessing a man who never loved her. Even with that, her desire for Rand was as much a desire for power as for him. To be the one to deliver the Dragon Reborn to the service of the Shadow; that would set her above the other Forsaken. And learning that the access ter'angreal for the two huge sa'angreal were still in existence....Sure, she wanted his love--not least because it had been denied her; Lanfear was a woman who claimed a right to anything she wanted--wanted his devotion, but even more than his body, Lanfear wanted power, the power possibly to replace the Dark One, even to replace the Creator. For Rand's sake? Not a chance.

 

End of.

[atlas74]

Moiraine's warning aside. Think about Rand, he was like what 18 years old when he met Lanfear, the hottest and most powerful woman alive. And even if shes done some things wrong, she went to a lot of lengths to help Rand out for a while. Even if he wasn't tempted to join her I'm surprised he never slept with her at least

 

I don't buy that he just loved Egwene and then later Elayne sooo much that it would deter him you know. He never really had a good reason for it or showed it much

Good point...When I was 18 any hot chick that came along got the shagging no matter her mental state...of course I never met one that could remove the blood from my body with her mind, though they did sometimes try. ;)

[Ala Rubra]

While I believe Terez has shown well enough that Lanfear is canonically not a good person (to put it mildly), I would probably enjoy reading a fanfic containing an alternate character interpretation. After all, I'm pretty sure that the only people she has deliberately killed on-page have been darkfriends (setting aside the Aiel that attacked her on the docks).

 

[Mats Spare Hat]

The scene in Old School, when Luke Wilson's character catches his girlfriend in the orgy & then after in the kitchen she pulls out the

 

"I'm really sorry!" line but the expression on her face is pricelessly, hilariously, contrary to the words coming out of her mouth...

 

Lanfear: "I'm really a good persooonn, I just totally got caught up against my will!"