Elayne

[Lyenna]

A lot of emphasis is being put on Min's viewing saying that Elayne won't be harmed until she has the twins. Everyone is not going to survive at the end so I'm starting to wonder if Elayne will be among those die at TG, assuming she had the kids before that is. Just a thought. Any others?

[RobertAlexWillis]

Everyone is not going to survive at the end so I'm starting to wonder if Elayne will be among those die at TG, assuming she had the kids before that is.

 

I'm thinking that is not necessarily the case. Jordan doesn't seem to want to let anyone die, except the bad guys. That might change a little for Tarmon Gai'don, but I don't see a George R R Martin-esque bloodbath approaching. And Elayne survives the Last Battle, according to Nicola's Fortelling. She is obviously the "lion sword" among the three women standing around Rand's bier with the "dedicated spear" (Aviendha) and "she who sees beyond" (Min) after "the great battle [is] done".

[Bob T Dwarf]

There's also the three in a boat thing.

 

All of Rand's women seem destined to survive.

[gak]

i think the one thing that is taken for granted is taht elayne knows she will have the twins... that dosent stop her from being hurt.... i think rj still has a few surprises up his sleave

[Lyenna]

I had forgotten about Nicolas fortelling. I see what you mean about RJ not wanting to let anyone but thebad guys die but does that still mean they're all going to be there at the end? Rands women aside, somehow i just can't see it.

[KeithC]

I suspect that with all of the emphasis Rand has placed on making sure that he does not harm or lead to the death of any women whenever it is possible that he will likely do whatever he must to make sure that Elayne, Min, and Aviendha at the very least survive TG.

[Guest cwestervelt]

It would also require a sudden slow down in the pace of the stories. The first 3 books covered over a year. In the next 8 there has only been about another 1 year of time passed. The last few books have been taking place in only a month at most each. There would need to be a half year or so span of time encompassed by the final book for the twins to be born first.

 

The viewing is definitely having an impact on the stories though. Look at Elayne's actions in Knife of Dreams. She is being utterly careless in her actions and getting a lot of people killed as a result of Min's viewing.

[Bob T Dwarf]

cw-

 

Cut the girl some slack. Everybody who died was cannon fodder anyway. The body count at TG is going to be enormous, they would have died there anyway.

 

How many people have needlessly died because of Rand's squeamish repugnance for killing women?

 

I mean c'mon, if we're going to start casting stones over the needless waste of manpower, let's start with Rand. One lil ZOT and no mo Lanfear and Moiraine aint stuck in Finnland. One BIG ZOT and no Cyndane at all, at all. How many good people is she going to kill before she buys it?

[RobertAlexWillis]

How many people have needlessly died because of Rand's squeamish repugnance for killing women?

 

I'm not aware of anyone defending Rand's actions in this area. It is one of his great faults as a leader. He has, and probably still will, get lots of people needlessly killed because of it, including, as you pointed out, lots of women. Rand is insane, though. It doesn't make it OK, mind, that's just the reason. His pathological guilt comes at least in part because he has subconscious guilt from his former incarnation killing Ilyena and company.

 

It's odd that you want to cut Elayne some slack, when she, supposedly in full possesion of her faculties, did not think fully through the ramifications of her actions, because she was blithely assured of her own personal safety, but not Rand, who is, frankly, NOT in full possession of his faculties.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Rand's in better shape mentally than people want to acknowledge. He's also had nine books of being the big cheese. After nine books he should have a better appreciation of what it costs to be the king.

 

Elayne is another case of a very self-assured young woman who thinks that because she read a book she actually knows something. She's in the beginning stages of finding out that there is a lot more to being queen than she's been taught or ever imagined. She's just really getting her first fragmentary glimpses of the elephant.

[Lukys Kinch]

We also have to acknowledge the fact that Jordan is playing up the fact that Elayne is pregnant and not always thinking clearly because of said pregnancy. I personally think that that is a dumb excuse but I've not known many pregnant women and I don't know exactly how they act when they are pregnant.

[Lyenna]

I agree with you there, about her pregnancy being played up but i think her actions have a lot more to do with what Min has told her.

[Viezael]

Mat also has a weird thing about killing women. Why? Is it some Two Rivers thing?

[RobertAlexWillis]

Rand's in better shape mentally than people want to acknowledge.

 

What do you base that on?

[Bob T Dwarf]

He still carries on coherent conversations. He makes lucid plans. He still appreciates and allows for the sensibilities of others. He hasn't nuked everything in sight.

 

He's worried. ( who wouldn't be ) He's stressed. He's way overburdened. But, he's still sane.

[Dark Justice]

A man that have converations with a man inside his head. Sane?

A man that holds the power for hours, just so the madman in his head cant steal it. Sane?

A man that counts all the female that has died for his cause, in his head. Names all of them. Sane?

 

Rand was already insane by TdR.

[RobertAlexWillis]

He still carries on coherent conversations. He makes lucid plans. He still appreciates and allows for the sensibilities of others. He hasn't nuked everything in sight.

 

He's worried. ( who wouldn't be ) He's stressed. He's way overburdened. But, he's still sane.

 

Insane does not mean non-functional. In fact, the most dangerous types of insanity leave a person functional in most situations, but dangerously unstable in others. A man who looks at his hand that was blown off ten seconds ago and reacts with the equivalent of a shrug, gets genuinely confused about others being concerned, is dangerously disconnected emotionally from reality. Emotional disconnetion on that scale is a form of insanity.

 

Rand display 6 of the 9 characteristics from the US Deptartment of Health and Human Services' list of symptoms requiring medical intervention/treatment. They are as follows:

 

-Dissociation: The person exhibits pronounced emotional disconnection, an incomplete awareness of the traumatic experience, a sense of seeing him/herself from another perspective, a perception that the environment is unreal or that time is distorted. (My hand was blown off? No biggie ... )

 

-Depression: The person exhibits pervasive feelings of hopelessness and despair; unshakeable feelings of worthlessness, guilt, or self-blame; frequent crying for no apparent reason; withdrawal from others; or inability to engage in productive activity. (Do I have to elaborate?)

 

-Mental Illness: Symptoms include hearing voices, seeing things or people that are not there, delusional thinking, appearing out of touch with reality, and excessive preoccupation with an idea or thought. (What was that Lews Therin? Yes, we've killed lots of women.)

 

-Inability to Care for Self: The person does not eat, bathe, or change clothes; is apathetic, isolated from others, and unable to manage activities of daily living. (Rand only displayed this once, when he felt like he had raped Min. But once is still there, and the fact that he would interpret what they did as rape is evidence of a pathologically over-developed sense of guilt.)

 

-Suicidal or Homicidal Thoughts or Plans: The person makes statements like "I can't go on," "I just want to end this terrible pain I'm feeling," "I wish that I had died," "I want to join my husband in heaven," or "I'm going to get even." The person feels pervasive self-blame or sense of responsibility for another person's death. (Ilyena! My love! I deserve death ... )

 

Rand al'Thor is mentally unstable. I repeat, being insane does not mean being totally non-functional.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Do you have conversations with real people? Remember that LTT is real, not imaginary.

 

The names are a way for Rand to keep himself human. He keeps reminding himself that these were people. People he cared about and for whom he was responsible. If he ever stops reviewing that list, they become "troops" ie. expendable combat units, non-human. And, he becomes something much less than human as well.

 

No, he's quite sane and rational. He's just a rational being in an irrational situation who's doing the best that he can given the circumstances. Remember everyone and everything he comes in contact with tells him that he is fated to die - horribly - in a confrontation that he cannot avoid or resist. Wouldn't you be a little depreseed too? It's a sane response to an insane situation. If he weren't worried and depressed and preoccupied he would truly be disconnected from reality. What's the loss of a hand when you're fated to lose everything? A remarkably rational and objective assessment on his part.

[RobertAlexWillis]

The names are a way for Rand to keep himself human. He keeps reminding himself that these were people. People he cared about and for whom he was responsible. If he ever stops reviewing that list, they become "troops" ie. expendable combat units, non-human. And, he becomes something much less than human as well.

 

That is Rand's rationalization of a pathological reaction. Mat has ordered many people into death. Does he sit around moaning to himself and naming names? No. He doesn't like ordering the death of women, but after he does at the end of Crossroads of Twilight, does he kneel in the mud and moan for hours? No. Does that mean he is no longer human? No. How about Bashere? Perrin? Rhuarc? They've all ordered people to their death, but don't react with a list. Are they all inhuman?

 

Rand only names the women in his list. Has he only ordered women into death? Is he not responsible for the men as well?

 

It is possible to remember and take responsibility for things without being pathologically obsessed.

 

Do you have conversations with real people? Remember that LTT is real, not imaginary.

 

LTT is real in the sense that Rand has a connection with a part of his own soul from the past. LTT is not a separate, real entity in his own right. So, Rand suffers from REAL multiple personalities. That only makes it worse: he can lose conscious control of mental abilities while keeping nominal control of his body. That's REALLY dangerous, and it isn't rational or sane.

[Mat is the Boss]

Mat and Perrin feels the same as Rand when it comes to women getting harmed. So far Mat has killed the Maiden darkfriend, and the runaway sul`dam(forgot their names). This was in selfdefence, but he still feels bad about it. Perrin wouldn`t even hit Galina when she begged him for it. Perrin couldn`t even make himself shout at Faile until he learnt that was what she really wanted. This isn`t insanity, just the way men are raised in the Two Rivers

[Luckers]

Psychologically insanity is defined by diruption of the normal functions of the human state, meaning tht which causes a person to be unable to fucntion in a sociological enviroment. Rand, at worst, would be stated as a low, functioning, schitzophrenic.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Actually, insanity is not a medical term at all. It describes no specific set of symptoms or treatments. In modern usage, it is a legal term having more to do with culpability than any specific diagnosis. And many people who are not considered legally culpable (and therefore, by definition, insane) are able to function in a social set to varying levels.

 

In trying to define what specific mental illness(es) Rand has, we can't limit ourselves to our real-world disgnoses, because Rand exhibits symptoms we don't have any definition for. Specifically, contact, including conversation, memory transfer, and subconscious knowledge exchange with a previous personal incarnation. There is no documented case of that in our world, so our world's medical definitions don't apply fully.

 

Rand exhibits symptoms of mental illness. Whether that makes him "insane" or not depends on how you personally use the word "insane". Like many arguments over status, this one is revolving around terminology.

[Mat is the Boss]

Have anyone considered that he may need to be mad in order to win the Last Battle? It certainly is madness to think that one man can defeat the Dark One. So long as he still thinks, and acts on his own, I`m not worried.

[Luckers]

Actually Robert, thats specifically what i meant. In psychology insanity is described merely by the sidtortion of the norm, which is in turn described by the inhibition to function normally in a social setting.

 

And i assure you of that... i wrote a paper on normality for psychology not 3 months ago.

[RobertAlexWillis]

So, are you claiming that Rand functions normally in social settings? I remember quite a few ... ah .... social gaffes that go beyond burping at the wrong time. The people around him, mainly Cadsuane and Min at this point, are carefully controlling all his "public" appearances, because he is liable to slip at any time.