Rand's channeling sickness

[yoniy0]

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

Really? Wow, that's a big oversight on my part. But I thought Kumira said:

I think they would like to pretend the Power doesn't exist [...] and for the last two thousand years they have had the means to support the pretense.

What did she mean, then?

[Terez]

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

Really? Wow, that's a big oversight on my part.

No, it was just the city. (I looked it up.) But in any case, it blocks saidin and saidar separately. With that in mind, why would it block the True Power?

[yoniy0]

But in any case, it blocks saidin and saidar separately. With that in mind, why would it block the True Power?

I agree that's most likely, but it could be affecting men and women separately, for example. Either way, would he have said what he did if he didn't know?

[ZeshanHamdani]

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

Really? Wow, that's a big oversight on my part.

No, it was just the city. (I looked it up.) But in any case, it blocks saidin and saidar separately. With that in mind, why would it block the True Power?

 

Chapter 51 bottom of page 748 in the original hardcover.

 

Rand: "It's always been a city of importance, you know, The Guardians are Newer, but the city was here long ago...."

[Terez]

But in any case, it blocks saidin and saidar separately. With that in mind, why would it block the True Power?

I agree that's most likely, but it could be affecting men and women separately, for example. Either way, would he have said what he did if he didn't know?

We'll never know, will we? I'm just saying, that on its own was not enough to show convincingly that Rand could still sense the True Power. I believed he did before the Brandon quote, but I thought the dream in the epilogue was much better evidence (tenuous as it is). Min's viewing combined with the TEOTW foreshadowing seemed to make it pretty conclusive. In other words, I have always believed that he knew when he said it - I just don't think his statement was very good evidence of it. People honed in on it, though, while ignoring the evidence that was actually convincing.

[Luckers]

I gotta agree. Rand's knowledge there seems off--or rather, the certainty of his knowledge. It's kind of like Egwene's thought that she believed he could break a circle of thirteen--even if it is true, the reality of a character having the thought is odd.

 

Possibly its an element of Jesus-Rand, added to just a bit of bluntness on Brandon's place--he knew the TP would have worked and that that is what would have occured had Rand faced them pre-Vog, and was just a little too heavy-handed portraying the possibility to the readers.

 

But yeah, for all that you can explain it, it feels off. *shrug*

[Terez]

I gotta agree. Rand's knowledge there seems off--or rather, the certainty of his knowledge. It's kind of like Egwene's thought that she believed he could break a circle of thirteen--even if it is true, the reality of a character having the thought is odd.

 

Possibly its an element of Jesus-Rand, added to just a bit of bluntness on Brandon's place--he knew the TP would have worked and that that is what would have occured had Rand faced them pre-Vog, and was just a little too heavy-handed portraying the possibility to the readers.

Brandon Bluntness was my impression on the Egwene thing with the 'he can break a circle' as well - more so than the Far Madding thing, which is just Rand saying what he would have done before Dragonmount. I thought it worked better in the end when Egwene thought that there was a part of Rand that wanted her to stop him from breaking the seals.

[icspots]

I've always thought that both Rand and Moridin got the sickness when seizing Saidin after their encounter in SL. Granted we don't see very much of Moridin, and aside from the one vision/Rand POV we never see him looking ill. But what we do have is another Forsaken's POV (was it Graendal?) who commented that based on the number of saa he displayed he must have been using the TP exclusively. Granted we know that Ishammael/Moridin isn't above extensive use of the TP given his condition at the beginning of the series so maybe that doesn't prove anything. I guess the question there would be how long and how much use of the TP does it take to progress from saa to fire eyes/mouth. We know that Ishammael didn't have them when LTT killed himself. We know that we're roughly 3000 years from that time and that Ishammael was free for about 40 years every 1000 years. So assuming Ishammael continuously used the TP whenever he was free it took him 160 years to get to the point of having fire for eyes. I don't see why he'd use the TP all that time. After all he was the only trained male channeler in the world and was protected from the taint, so why worry about using the super-seductive TP when no one can notice you're using the OP. Anyway I think the fact that he has been constantly using the TP now indicates that he's do so to avoid the sickness with seizing Saidin.