Rand's channeling sickness

[nwash_10]

I don't have the book in front of me but I'm about 99% sure. If someone has the book with them and can confirm it would be great. Thanks.

[PsyQuestor]

When Rand was on Dragonmount during VoG he was still holding the power from when he created the gateway. That's why he didn't get sick again.

 

Are you positively sure? IIRC he was sitting down to comtemplate his existence right after he Travelled to Dragonmount and made himself a warm breathable patch to do some serious soulsearching. Was his soulsearch-POV in VoG right from the start from within the void? Always seemed to me he seized the power some time later.

Could be wrong though, have to look it up at home.

He was already holding the power.

 

What is the possibility that the access key was making him sick? I know about the theory about crossing the OP with the TP causing it as well. But if I remember correctly he was getting sick before that and it was after the key. Now that the key is destroyed (in the lava flow of the dream) he is getting better.

 

Yea or Nay?

[Entreri]

Bad Chinese take out. That stuff is going to kill him.

[hazelkrs1]

When Rand was on Dragonmount during VoG he was still holding the power from when he created the gateway. That's why he didn't get sick again.

 

Are you positively sure? IIRC he was sitting down to comtemplate his existence right after he Travelled to Dragonmount and made himself a warm breathable patch to do some serious soulsearching. Was his soulsearch-POV in VoG right from the start from within the void? Always seemed to me he seized the power some time later.

Could be wrong though, have to look it up at home.

He was already holding the power.

 

What is the possibility that the access key was making him sick? I know about the theory about crossing the OP with the TP causing it as well. But if I remember correctly he was getting sick before that and it was after the key. Now that the key is destroyed (in the lava flow of the dream) he is getting better.

 

Yea or Nay?

 

He didn't carry the keys around with him that often, to help protect the forces of Light in case he was captured. Nyneave held them most of the time if I'm not mistaken. Also I think you're confused about how the keys we're destroyed; one key (the female one) was disfigured when he cleansed the taint at Shadar Logoth, the other key wasn't damaged as far as we know but the sa'angreal it linked to was destroyed during Veins of Gold. The dreamspike was the one destroyed in the lava in the nightmare, during Perrin and Megadeth's Slayer's confrontation.

[FarShainMael]

I don't have the book in front of me but I'm about 99% sure. If someone has the book with them and can confirm it would be great. Thanks.

 

Here you go. Rand's actions in the closing stages of TGS are in summary:

 

TGS47: Rand meets Tam, is angered by hearing that Tam was 'manipulated' by Cadsuane.

Rand seizes saidin:

 

"The void shattered, but somehow saidin remained, struggling against him. He screamed as the nausea hit him, and he threw his anger against it in defiance."

 

He almost balefires Tam, but stops in horror at himself. Then:

 

"Still holding tenuously to saidin, Rand wove a gateway to Ebou Dar, then ducked through."

 

We next see Rand in Ebou Dar (TGS49). He has been with the Tinkers, and had traded his 'fine black coat' to a Tinker for a 'common brown cloak'.

 

He resolves to 'burn the Seanchan off the land', and seizes saidin (so at some point he let it go). The nausea overwhelmes him and he collapses, to the concern of passers-by. He wants to strike, but can't because 'they cared'.

 

He makes a skimming gateway, and skims to the meadow where he tried to fight the Seanchan with Callandor. After contemplating this for a 'long time', he opens another gateway, to the top of Dragonmount:

 

"He set the access key into the bank before him and wove Air and Fire to keep himself warm." He also weaves Air "so that it compressed slightly around him", allowing him to breathe

(TGS50).

 

At this point, then, he has not let go of saidin since he seized it in Ebou Dar:

 

"He still held to the Source. He didn't dare let go. This last time he'd seized it had been the worst he could remember, and he feared that the sickness would overpower him if he tried again" (VoG).

 

And then he has his epiphany. The nausea has not been mentioned since AFAIK; but then the only Rand PoV we had in ToM was right at the end!

[Glip]

I don't have the book in front of me but I'm about 99% sure. If someone has the book with them and can confirm it would be great. Thanks.

 

Here you go. Rand's actions in the closing stages of TGS are in summary:

 

TGS47: Rand meets Tam, is angered by hearing that Tam was 'manipulated' by Cadsuane.

Rand seizes saidin:

 

"The void shattered, but somehow saidin remained, struggling against him. He screamed as the nausea hit him, and he threw his anger against it in defiance."

 

He almost balefires Tam, but stops in horror at himself. Then:

 

"Still holding tenuously to saidin, Rand wove a gateway to Ebou Dar, then ducked through."

 

We next see Rand in Ebou Dar (TGS49). He has been with the Tinkers, and had traded his 'fine black coat' to a Tinker for a 'common brown cloak'.

 

He resolves to 'burn the Seanchan off the land', and seizes saidin (so at some point he let it go). The nausea overwhelmes him and he collapses, to the concern of passers-by. He wants to strike, but can't because 'they cared'.

 

He makes a skimming gateway, and skims to the meadow where he tried to fight the Seanchan with Callandor. After contemplating this for a 'long time', he opens another gateway, to the top of Dragonmount:

 

"He set the access key into the bank before him and wove Air and Fire to keep himself warm." He also weaves Air "so that it compressed slightly around him", allowing him to breathe

(TGS50).

 

At this point, then, he has not let go of saidin since he seized it in Ebou Dar:

 

"He still held to the Source. He didn't dare let go. This last time he'd seized it had been the worst he could remember, and he feared that the sickness would overpower him if he tried again" (VoG).

 

And then he has his epiphany. The nausea has not been mentioned since AFAIK; but then the only Rand PoV we had in ToM was right at the end!

 

Thanks! So it's safe to assume it's neither the amount of power Rand's holding nor the duration that's causing the sickness. It's purely the act of seizing saidin.

 

Is it in ToM somewhere that Min mentions Rand did not appear to get sick? At least if he was she couldn't tell. Is it possible to mask physical illness through the warderbond? I mean, this part in ToM was very ambiguous to me.

[FarShainMael]

It's ToM51. Rand has been talking to Cad and Min about him being a 400+ - year old Rand Sedai... They ride towards Far Madding, and as they enter the influence of the Guardians, Min hears Narishma hiss and sees his face harden:

 

Apparently, they'd passed inside the bubble of the Guardian's influence. Rand gave no indication he'd noticed. He didn't seem to be having the trouble with sickness when he channelled any longer, which relieved her. Or was he just covering it?

 

It's interesting, I think, that when he seizes saidin in Ebou Dar, preparing to destroy Seanchan 'enemies', the channelling sickness seems to incapacitate him completely. Nothing like that happened at Natrin's Barrow, so it's not preparing to murder that's the problem.. but perhaps it's a sign of Rand's 'cure', which started when he suddenly realised that he was about to murder his father and was horrifed by the thought. A conflict, possibly connected to the Kinslaying, suddenly becoming overwhelming as his sanity starts to return.

[yoniy0]

Again, Rand only felt sick when reaching for saidin or releasing it. At Natrin's Barrow he was already holding the source, hence lack of sickness.

 

The only other alternative is that the channeling sickness is related to Rand's darkened state of mind, the whole "Dragon is one with the land" stuff IMO. That said, I don't see how, but that's the only other change that could've made it go.

Yes, that's exactly what I think it was. The first instance (the thing about the red spiders was because Dashiva checked out Min's behind, if you'll recall, and the rest seems like what he felt before in Shadar Logoth, the Taint reacting to the different kind of evil - only this time he had SL's taint in him as well) was at the beginning of TPoD, after he's been hardening himself for some time.

 

I used to accept what Luckers said as the most plausible explanation, but I think it doesn't hold now (we have hints that Rand's link with Moridin is still strong post-VoG, for example the fact that Cyndane entered his dreams even though he warded them).

[Mulk]

I've wondered if Rand has an always-on connection with the One Power now; it may have been mentioned elsewhere on these boards but I've been absent a lot lately and I can't read every single post so I don't know if anyone else proposed it or not. If so, it would explain the lack of sickness. Since we don't have a PoV from him, we don't know if he has been seizing or releasing saidin. Aviendha's children in her second pass through the ter'angreal have an always on connection and it stands to reason that it would come from Rand, though I can't call that conclusive since it hasn't happened yet.

 

I don't know. But it seems like we have two choices: either the sickness is gone/Rand is healed of it (which could be taken to mean either the whatever it is enveloping the taint in his mind is doing the job, or his link with Moridin is broken, or other things), or the nature of his connection to the One Power has changed so that he doesn't need to go through the grasping or releasing of the Source in order to channel.

[FarShainMael]

I've wondered that myself. Perhaps it's connected with the Light-net Nynaeve found in his brain.

 

A thought arising: If indeed Rand is now permanently holding saidin, would he be able to channel the TP (if he wanted to, that is!)?

[jsbrads]

fact: he held onto OP while on mt. He was using the OP to compress the air around him so he could breathe

 

Dragonmount is tallest by far. Dragonwall is tall enough that people cant breathe before getting close to any summits.

[Luckers]

Yeah the concurrence of the link with the sickness is pretty clear--to the point that he feels the sickness even when he is not Channeling, but when he sees Moridin's face, and at another time specifically notes that the face and the sickness come together, so consistantly that he finds it noteworthy when it does not.

[ZeshanHamdani]

a lot of these theories have logic to back it.

i think that his sickness was caused by his mental instability.

the correlation i come up with is when he goes to places before VoG there is a lot more death and turmoil due to his mentality.

then after VoG in the ToM chapter Apples he moves the clouds and has the apples grow and even make the mans old wound feel better.

based on this i feel his sickness is gone because of VoG it is the only logical answer without theorizing anything.

[Terez]

Yeah the concurrence of the link with the sickness is pretty clear--to the point that he feels the sickness even when he is not Channeling, but when he sees Moridin's face, and at another time specifically notes that the face and the sickness come together, so consistantly that he finds it noteworthy when it does not.

The one time it didn't come with sickness, he wasn't trying to seize the Source, right? And because he thought of the Ansaline Gardens (in KOD 18)? And then there is that one time in Far Madding, which is unexplained. The sickness and face came together, but obviously he wasn't trying to seize the Source or holding the Power. Maybe Moridin is just being smarter about it. Maybe he's holding on to the True Power all the time, or he takes advantage of the moments when Rand is seizing saidin to seize the True Power so that there aren't too many of these moments. Moridin is probably amazed that Rand hasn't figured it out yet - it's amazing how little effort Rand puts into trying to figure out what's going on, how stupid he is about it. But RJ said it would eventually become self-evident why Moridin wasn't at the Cleansing, so what are we to make of that? That he didn't go because of the sickness? Because he didn't want to risk Rand recognizing him? Because their proximity might have some effect on the link? Because Shadar Logoth was where the link was forged?

 

As far as I can recall, the only time Rand recognized Moridn's face as looking ill was that once in KOD. Maybe Moridin has found some way to avoid it for the most part? Or maybe it's just because Rand so rarely gets a good look at the face. In any case, it might well still be connected to channeling despite being obviously also due to the link. Specifically, it seems most often connected to Rand seizing saidin. He always experiences the sickness at those times. So if he doesn't have to actually seize saidin any more, as some suspect - if he's always connected to it like his children were in Aviendha's visions of the future - then that could well explain why we don't see the sickness. It may be that the Power protects him from seeing anything when Moridin seizes the source. He apparently only sees the face when 1) he's seizing the Power, or 2) when he's not holding the Power at all, and the latter circumstance is far more rare.

[mackoY-kun]

maybe it's akin to irl syndromes of stress...

 

IRL, people under a great deal of stress show physical symptoms. Among the most common is being cranky, while in some cases people sick up, like what happens to rand.

[Malruhn]

Something that was mentioned in the quote above that hasn't been discussed was the fact that Rand LOST the Void - and was still able to access the Source. Could THAT be the reason he is getting sick - that the Void somehow makes it easier - or that the sickness is kind of like the illness male channelers get the first time they channel?

 

It's my opinion that the only reason that Moradin is sick is because of his close bond with Rand. One is sick, so the other is sick - kind of like the Warder's bond.

[Hemis AlRhoid]

It's pretty evident that it has to be the balefire event at Shadar Logoth that caused it. The doubling of the vision. The seeing Moridin's face. The apparent flare up when either one channels. None of these really relate to the dagger wound in any way.

 

It's intriguing that the lack of sickness could be attributed to Rand's holding the power at all times. With all the events that transpire after his epiphany, he's either not suffering from the sickness or he indeed has a constant link with the power that he does not consciously maintain. My own opinion is that the sickness is gone. I would think someone's perspective or an event would have hinted at Rand's relationship with Saidin changing if it had. Do we know if the True Power can be embraced while holding the the One Power? I don't think it can. If this is the case then I don't see him having a permanent link. I don't think we've seen the last of Rand channeling the True Power.

[ZeshanHamdani]

another thing i just read in ToM referring to when Perrin see's Rand in the dream world on top of Dragonmount going through the VoG revelation.

now in the dream world you see black evil seeping out of rands pores and they try and consume him then rand decides to live and light explodes through and the darkness is shattered.

now, rand is not crazy anymore and he is not suffering from the sickness.

i believe this backs my earlier post.

[ZeshanHamdani]

i found a quote while reading ToM again. chapter 51 "A Testing" bottom of page 754 in the original hardcover.

 

Rand: "You don't know how close you came to doom, If i had come to you but a short time earlier, i'd have returned those slaps with balefire."

Tenobia: "Inside the Guardian."

Rand: "The Guardian block the One Power, The One Power only."

 

so based on this rand still has access to the true power

[Sharaman]

Confirmed recently by Brandon that he can still sense TP.

[Terez]

i found a quote while reading ToM again. chapter 51 "A Testing" bottom of page 754 in the original hardcover.

 

Rand: "You don't know how close you came to doom, If i had come to you but a short time earlier, i'd have returned those slaps with balefire."

Tenobia: "Inside the Guardian."

Rand: "The Guardian block the One Power, The One Power only."

 

so based on this rand still has access to the true power

No, based on that Rand had access to it before Dragonmount. He was telling them what would have happened.

[yoniy0]

Well, yeah, but he didn't enter the Guardians' area of effect since WH, so how could he be certain it didn't also block the TP unless he could still feel it?

 

This is just to base it in canon. I'll trust Sharaman that the argument is ultimately moot.

[Sharaman]

There's a quote to that effect from Brandon's Reddit thing Terez's transcript " -- He can still sense TP"

[Terez]

Well, yeah, but he didn't enter the Guardians' area of effect since WH, so how could he be certain it didn't also block the TP unless he could still feel it?

Because the Guardian was there in the Age of Legends, and he knows a lot about it and how it works.

[Terez]

There's a quote to that effect from Brandon's Reddit thing Terez's transcript " -- He can still sense TP"

Actually, it's in the Twitter thread on the AMOL forum.