Lews Therin newsflash

[Suttree]

I see the point you are making but Birgitte thinks otherwise. She clearly says they arent her memories, and she has no right to them, and then goes farther saying those old incarnations are not her.

Quote?

 

ToM "The End of a Legend"

 

What she could draw from her previous memories was a boon, yes, but she had no right to those memories.

You said three things, and this is only one of them. On top of that, it's most likely Brandon's phrasing, and not necessarily in line with the cosmology - not that Brandon doesn't understand it, but because he has a different way of looking at it. I don't think RJ would have ever used the words 'had no right'. And she clearly refers to them as her memories. You said that she clearly says they aren't her memories, and that those old incarnations aren't her. There's nothing in the books like that.

 

She'd been forced into this life, shoving other threads aside, taking an unexpected place. The Pattern was trying to weave her in. What would happen when all the memories faded? Would she remember waking up as an adult with no history?

All that says is that she was forced into the Pattern instead of being born into it in the normal way. It doesn't say anything about her past lives not being her, or those memories not being hers.

 

And I'm not interested in Mr. Ares' opinion. I already explained how it's a combination of nature and nurture, and that is supported in the books.

 

If they were her memories why would she feel she doesn't have a right to them? To me it's pretty clears she thinks they are not her memories because she is someone different now and the quote supports that. She says it as clear as can be. As for the rest I told you I don't have the other books but are you truly putting forth that she never says she isn't that old Birgitte anymore? On more than one occasion she says this a new life and she is no longer that legend.

 

As for the quote from Mr Ares I provided not sure what the point is in being so callous in dismissing it? People could very well say the same about your viewpoint without offering anything to dispute and it would be worth about the same. Notice you didn't touch how Mat is processing the memories just fine so why would Birgitte have trouble retaining them? To me RJ's cosmology is pretty straight forward. Same soul, new incarnation.

 

- Everybody fears death because the being that is reborn, while possessing the same soul, will not be the same person. The fear is simple. I will cease to exist. Someone else will exist, bearing my soul.

[Terez]

If they were her memories why would she feel she doesn't have a right to them?

Again, because Brandon wrote that line. She makes it clear enough throughout the books that they are her memories, so either way you're clearly misinterpreting.

 

To me it's pretty clears she thinks they are not her memories because she is someone different now and the quote supports that. She says it as clear as can be. As for the rest I told you I don't have the other books but are you truly putting forth that she never says she isn't that old Birgitte anymore? On more than one occasion she says this a new life and she is no longer that legend.

There are reasons for that - mainly that she never was the legend in the first place. Also because she doesn't have magic arrows any more, like she did the first time they met her. She's still the same woman, but she's only an archer. That's one thing that is continuous in all her lives.

 

As for the quote from Mr Ares I provided not sure what the point is in being so callous in dismissing it?

1) I don't care about his opinion.

2) I had already addressed it, but since you'd rather believe what you already believe, you ignored my explanation.

 

Notice you didn't touch how Mat is processing the memories just fine so why would Birgitte have trouble retaining them?

I don't think you can compare the amount of information so closely. Mat has bits and snatches; Birgitte has whole lives. And she still remembered back to the founding of the White Tower last we'd heard, and she'd lived several lives between then and now.

 

To me RJ's cosmology is pretty straight forward. Same soul, new incarnation.

 

- Everybody fears death because the being that is reborn, while possessing the same soul, will not be the same person. The fear is simple. I will cease to exist. Someone else will exist, bearing my soul.

Again, he's explaining their fear. Not the cosmology. He explained the cosmology in the books well enough through Birgitte that he probably never considered people would misinterpret this quote so badly.

[Suttree]

If they were her memories why would she feel she doesn't have a right to them?

- Everybody fears death because the being that is reborn, while possessing the same soul, will not be the same person. The fear is simple. I will cease to exist. Someone else will exist, bearing my soul.

Again, he's explaining their fear. Not the cosmology. He explained the cosmology in the books well enough through Birgitte that he probably never considered people would misinterpret this quote so badly.

 

HAHA ahh Terez, no one has ever accused of being diplomatic when disagreeing have they?

[hazelkrs1]

I see the point you are making but Birgitte thinks otherwise. She clearly says they arent her memories, and she has no right to them, and then goes farther saying those old incarnations are not her.

Quote?

 

ToM "The End of a Legend"

 

What she could draw from her previous memories was a boon, yes, but she had no right to those memories.

You said three things, and this is only one of them. On top of that, it's most likely Brandon's phrasing, and not necessarily in line with the cosmology - not that Brandon doesn't understand it, but because he has a different way of looking at it. I don't think RJ would have ever used the words 'had no right'. And she clearly refers to them as her memories. You said that she clearly says they aren't her memories, and that those old incarnations aren't her. There's nothing in the books like that.

 

She'd been forced into this life, shoving other threads aside, taking an unexpected place. The Pattern was trying to weave her in. What would happen when all the memories faded? Would she remember waking up as an adult with no history?

All that says is that she was forced into the Pattern instead of being born into it in the normal way. It doesn't say anything about her past lives not being her, or those memories not being hers.

 

And I'm not interested in Mr. Ares' opinion. I already explained how it's a combination of nature and nurture, and that is supported in the books.

 

If they were her memories why would she feel she doesn't have a right to them? To me it's pretty clears she thinks they are not her memories because she is someone different now and the quote supports that. She says it as clear as can be. As for the rest I told you I don't have the other books but are you truly putting forth that she never says she isn't that old Birgitte anymore? On more than one occasion she says this a new life and she is no longer that legend.

 

As for the quote from Mr Ares I provided not sure what the point is in being so callous in dismissing it? People could very well say the same about your viewpoint without offering anything to dispute and it would be worth about the same. Notice you didn't touch how Mat is processing the memories just fine so why would Birgitte have trouble retaining them? To me RJ's cosmology is pretty straight forward. Same soul, new incarnation.

 

- Everybody fears death because the being that is reborn, while possessing the same soul, will not be the same person. The fear is simple. I will cease to exist. Someone else will exist, bearing my soul.

 

I will say that Birgitte's viewpoint is clearly the opposite of what you're stating, she states that in all her past lives, she never knows herself to be the legend of Birgitte Silverbow. In this life, she and other people close to her know that she is actually the Hero of the Horn straight out of the legends. This sets a pretty high bar for her now, people expect greatness. This, and the chance that being pulled out early into the Pattern made it so she couldn't be with Gaidal, made her reluctant to admit who she was (not to mention that she broke the unwritten rules of TAR which shamed her a bit).

 

And then we have the infamous RJ quote that everything about the "Rand and LTT are 2 dif people" faction pretty much depends on. A quote that relates to souls other than the Dragonsoul, for one thing, but it seems obvious that he wouldn't want the villagers of his world to be viewed as fatalistic, or for his series to not have enough tension built in.

 

It's true, though, that it all comes down to your belief of what constitutes what a "person" is. If you believe it's a combination of nature vs. nurture, it's one thing, but when you start dismissing significant traits of person-hood found in a major character (like sharing the same soul, memories, personality, viewpoint, channeling ability, fondness for women, preferring the same type of wine, ... ok I might have made that last one up) it starts to become a case of denial. The books are so much more clear on this issue than the RJ QnA quotes ever could be, Rand is LTT, and always has been. His reintegration was one of the deciding battles for the side of the Light, and few even realized what was going on (besides the wolves of course, and most likely darkfriends here and there).

 

And if his soul is unique in the Randland universe in this regard, then so be it. He is the Dragonsoul after all.

 

im just going to say, isn't a person, their charateristics and personality, a sum of their memories..? you are who you are because of your experiences and memories. like for example, if someone just put LLT memories into a lets say blank person.. like woulnd't they technically be LLT as he would act and respond the same the real LLT wud as thats all the copy remebers being.. He would be the same person.

 

what im saying is what do you define as a real personality and a constructed personality when that personality comes from the memories of a real person who is dead?

 

so if rand suddenlly got loads of LLT memories.. wouldn't a real personality, or personality trates leak through too, making LLT a real person in rands mind.. and because of his denil and saidin, they don't mergre but seperate into the real personality of LLT ? like if LLT was just made up to deal with rands subcousious desires.. a merging of rand and his subcousious desires wud be bad as those subcousius desires revolve around killing and just generally be physocopathic, but when LLT and rand merge in VoG, a different and non phycopathic personality leaves dragonmount, like the experience, wisdon and personality of the real LLT have become part of rand, and so if LLT wasn't real, where did all that extra zen personality come from..?

 

I feel the exact same way. I even described the whole Professor X scenario, even if he had transplanted his consciousness into an infant, and Mr. Ares ended up still being on the other side. Here's a link to that particular discussion.

[dwn]

It's pretty clear that souls retain the memories of past lives, yet in a mentally healthy person those memories are inaccessible to the conscious mind. Mat knowing the battle cry of Manetheren in TEotW is a likely case of a past-life memory slipping through in a moment of stress.

 

Part of Rand's insanity--which, according to Semirhage, is rare but not unique--is a breakdown between the conscious and unconscious (or wherever those memories reside). Birgitte has a healthy mind so, despite her unusual rebirth, her past-life memories are fading back into her unconscious where they belong.

 

Mat's battle memories are a bit different because they were grafted into him by the *Finn, replacing the bits of his that were corrupted by his link to the SL dagger.

 

-- dwn

[Suttree]

Look what it comes down to for me is I haven't seen a satisfactory answer for why Birgitte would say "she has no right" to the memories. Saying "well possibly BS phrased it wrong" doesn't remotely come close to cutting it.

 

Also for the record on RJ's quote I don't think there is much to misinterpret, it is pretty straight forward.

[dwn]

Look what it comes down to for me is I haven't seen a satisfactory answer for why Birgitte would say "she has no right" to the memories. Saying "well possibly BS phrased it wrong" doesn't remotely come close to cutting it.

 

Also for the record on RJ's quote I don't think there is much to misinterpret, it is pretty straight forward.

 

It's a figure of speech. It's unnatural for her to have those memories. Nobody has any business remembering their past lives. Imagine all the dead loved ones, all the hopes, dreams, fear and guilt of thousands upon thousands of incarnations. Imagine the memory of dying thousands of times. It'd be a horrible burden on your mind.

 

-- dwn

[FarShainMael]

Except for the DR, apparently.

[dwn]

Except for the DR, apparently.

 

Rand's access to past-life memories are a symptom of his taint induced madness. Rand found a way to accept and work through his madness--which was mainly about being afraid of himself--and in doing so those memories became beneficial rather than crushing. Nynaeve sees this when she delves him; the taint-ick is still there, but changed.

 

-- dwn

[OptimusPrime]

The voice is the madness. The memories are not.

[Terez]

Look what it comes down to for me is I haven't seen a satisfactory answer for why Birgitte would say "she has no right" to the memories. Saying "well possibly BS phrased it wrong" doesn't remotely come close to cutting it.

 

Also for the record on RJ's quote I don't think there is much to misinterpret, it is pretty straight forward.

 

It's a figure of speech. It's unnatural for her to have those memories. Nobody has any business remembering their past lives. Imagine all the dead loved ones, all the hopes, dreams, fear and guilt of thousands upon thousands of incarnations. Imagine the memory of dying thousands of times. It'd be a horrible burden on your mind.

 

-- dwn

Part of the reason I don't think RJ would have phrased it that way is because it makes more sense in relation to someone who was actually spun out, in which case no one has a 'right' to past life memories. Birgitte has no other memories, so why wouldn't she have a right to those?

[Mr Ares]

I see the point you are making but Birgitte thinks otherwise. She clearly says they arent her memories, and she has no right to them, and then goes farther saying those old incarnations are not her.

Quote?

 

ToM "The End of a Legend"

 

What she could draw from her previous memories was a boon, yes, but she had no right to those memories.

You said three things, and this is only one of them. On top of that, it's most likely Brandon's phrasing, and not necessarily in line with the cosmology - not that Brandon doesn't understand it, but because he has a different way of looking at it. I don't think RJ would have ever used the words 'had no right'. And she clearly refers to them as her memories. You said that she clearly says they aren't her memories, and that those old incarnations aren't her. There's nothing in the books like that.

 

She'd been forced into this life, shoving other threads aside, taking an unexpected place. The Pattern was trying to weave her in. What would happen when all the memories faded? Would she remember waking up as an adult with no history?

All that says is that she was forced into the Pattern instead of being born into it in the normal way. It doesn't say anything about her past lives not being her, or those memories not being hers.

 

And I'm not interested in Mr. Ares' opinion. I already explained how it's a combination of nature and nurture, and that is supported in the books.

 

If they were her memories why would she feel she doesn't have a right to them? To me it's pretty clears she thinks they are not her memories because she is someone different now and the quote supports that. She says it as clear as can be. As for the rest I told you I don't have the other books but are you truly putting forth that she never says she isn't that old Birgitte anymore? On more than one occasion she says this a new life and she is no longer that legend.

 

As for the quote from Mr Ares I provided not sure what the point is in being so callous in dismissing it? People could very well say the same about your viewpoint without offering anything to dispute and it would be worth about the same. Notice you didn't touch how Mat is processing the memories just fine so why would Birgitte have trouble retaining them? To me RJ's cosmology is pretty straight forward. Same soul, new incarnation.

She's probably too distracted by thoughts of my sexiness to adequately address my point. As it is, surely if both nature and nurture are important then if you change one then you are changing the person? Terez says it's a combination that's important - changing one part of it thus changes the combination. Different incarnations are different people.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

like the boys from brazil.

[dwn]

The voice is the madness. The memories are not.

 

The memories themselves are real, but that Rand has access to them is part of his madness. It makes for a tidy progression: intrusive thoughts and memories, giving those memories a voice and personality, the voice tries to take over.

 

Look what it comes down to for me is I haven't seen a satisfactory answer for why Birgitte would say "she has no right" to the memories. Saying "well possibly BS phrased it wrong" doesn't remotely come close to cutting it.

 

Also for the record on RJ's quote I don't think there is much to misinterpret, it is pretty straight forward.

 

It's a figure of speech. It's unnatural for her to have those memories. Nobody has any business remembering their past lives. Imagine all the dead loved ones, all the hopes, dreams, fear and guilt of thousands upon thousands of incarnations. Imagine the memory of dying thousands of times. It'd be a horrible burden on your mind.

 

Part of the reason I don't think RJ would have phrased it that way is because it makes more sense in relation to someone who was actually spun out, in which case no one has a 'right' to past life memories. Birgitte has no other memories, so why wouldn't she have a right to those?

 

Birgitte's memories started fading before TGS and she frequently told others "she wasn't that woman anymore." The memories she has a "right" to are those she's acquired since being "born" out of T'A'R. I agree the phrasing is a bit awkward, though. I'd have preferred something like: "By rights I should even have those memories."

 

-- dwn

[hazelkrs1]

I still feel that RJ quote is inconsequential, no matter how straight forward it might be. For your average Randlander, when their soul is reborn, because they never have any catalyst to cause them to remember past lives, and because they're not conscious of the influence their soul has on shaping their persona, they feel like they are a completely different person, even if their essence is still the same. In Rand's case he can't ignore the memories he has but few others don't, he can't ignore the fact that his soul is unique and is taking an active role in shaping who he is. That's part of the reason the madness affects him so much more at first, he is trying to deny who he is, trying to deny a fundamental part of himself, it's only when he accepts that he is Lews Therin, when he realizes his internal struggle has been for nothing because he was always himself, even though himself had existed before Rand was born.

[Terez]

She's probably too distracted by thoughts of my sexiness to adequately address my point. As it is, surely if both nature and nurture are important then if you change one then you are changing the person? Terez says it's a combination that's important - changing one part of it thus changes the combination. Different incarnations are different people.

They're the same people, as is stated many times in the books. And people change all the time based on experience. Doesn't make them different people, though the phrase is colloquially common.

 

 

Birgitte's memories started fading before TGS and she frequently told others "she wasn't that woman anymore."

I've addressed that already. People expect her to be a legend, but the stories are all blown out of proportion. Also, people remember her from Falme, where she had superpowers. But perhaps you can provide a quote or two of these 'frequent' assertions that she is no longer the same person.

[Cybertrolloc]

I've seen acts of congress easier to interpret. Using the same word several different ways and not even being clear on what you mean in the surrounding context...gah.

 

I think this thread might be able to outdo the last Egwene troll thread for awful if you guys work at it :)

[dwn]

Birgitte's memories started fading before TGS and she frequently told others "she wasn't that woman anymore."

I've addressed that already. People expect her to be a legend, but the stories are all blown out of proportion. Also, people remember her from Falme, where she had superpowers. But perhaps you can provide a quote or two of these 'frequent' assertions that she is no longer the same person.

 

Here's two:

 

"I feared you might remember who I used to be." [...] "I'm not sure I still am that woman. So much of what I was and knew has faded like mist beneath the summer rain since my strange new birth. I'm no hero now, only another woman to make my way." -- ACoS, Swoven Night, p 362-363

 

"Whatever you saw, Silverbow is dead," she said bluntly. "I'm Birgitte Trahelion, now, and that's all." -- WH, A Lily in Winter, p 297

 

I agree that "having no rights" to those memories is an awkward way to put it, but it's not completely absurd given Birgitte's unusual circumstances (and Rand's for that matter). It's unnatural for a person--by which I mean body + mind + soul--to have access to the memories of the soul's previous incarnations. Birgitte's strange rebirth is apparently still following the normal rules; she's losing the memories she shouldn't have.

 

-- dwn

[Terez]

Birgitte's memories started fading before TGS and she frequently told others "she wasn't that woman anymore."

I've addressed that already. People expect her to be a legend, but the stories are all blown out of proportion. Also, people remember her from Falme, where she had superpowers. But perhaps you can provide a quote or two of these 'frequent' assertions that she is no longer the same person.

Here's two:

 

"I feared you might remember who I used to be." [...] "I'm not sure I still am that woman. So much of what I was and knew has faded like mist beneath the summer rain since my strange new birth. I'm no hero now, only another woman to make my way." -- ACoS, Swoven Night, p 362-363

 

"Whatever you saw, Silverbow is dead," she said bluntly. "I'm Birgitte Trahelion, now, and that's all." -- WH, A Lily in Winter, p 297

Yeah, this is what I had in mind earlier when I said that she's saying that she's not a legend. Mat remembers her from Falme - the context is their little Old Tongue conversation when he finally remembers her (which she feared precisely because of Falme). She's also said many times in other places that most of the stories about her are exaggerated if not downright false. She's always been 'another woman trying to make my way'. She's always been an archer. She's always fallen in love with Gaidal, no matter how different they might have been in their various lives. Again, she doesn't suffer from multiple personality disorder precisely because she's always the same person. This is a better quote, IMO:

 

"I am Birgitte," the woman said, leaning on her bow. "At least, that is the name you would know. And the lesson might have been yours, here as surely as in the Three-fold Land. I remember the lives I have lived as if they were books well-read, the longer gone dimmer than the nearer, but I remember well when I fought at Lews Therin's side. I will never forget Moghedien's face, any more than I will forget the face of Asmodean, the man you almost disturbed at Rhuidean."

 

Asmodean? Moghedien? That woman was one of the Forsaken? A Forsaken in Tanchico. And one at Rhuidean, in the Waste! Egwene would certainly have said something if she knew. No way to warn her, not for seven days. Anger – and saidar – surged in her. "What are you doing here? I know that you all vanished after the Horn of Valere called you, but you are..." She trailed off, a trifle flustered at what she had been about to say, but the other woman calmly finished for her.

 

"Dead? Those of us who are bound to the Wheel are not dead as others are dead. Where better for us to wait until the Wheel weaves us out in new lives than in the World of Dreams?" Birgitte laughed suddenly. "I begin to talk as if I were a philosopher. In almost every life I can remember I was born a simple girl who took up the bow. I am an archer, no more."

 

"You're the heroine of a hundred tales," Nynaeve said. "And I saw what your arrows did at Falme. Seanchan channeling did not touch you. Birgitte, we face near a dozen of the Black Ajah. And one of the Forsaken as well, it seems. We could use your help."

 

The other woman grimaced, embarrassed and regretful. "I cannot, Nynaeve. I cannot touch the world of flesh unless the Horn calls me again. Or else the Wheel weaves me out. If it did this moment, you would find only an infant mewling at her mother's breast. As for Falme, the Horn had called us; we were not there as you were, in the flesh. That is why the Power could not touch us. Here, all is part of the dream, and the One Power could destroy me as easily as you. More easily. I told you; I am an archer, a sometime soldier, no more." Her complex golden braid swung as she shook her head.

Her lives. She remembers when she stood by Lews Therin's side - not Teadra.

 

I agree that "having no rights" to those memories is an awkward way to put it, but it's not completely absurd given Birgitte's unusual circumstances (and Rand's for that matter). It's unnatural for a person--by which I mean body + mind + soul--to have access to the memories of the soul's previous incarnations. Birgitte's strange rebirth is apparently still following the normal rules; she's losing the memories she shouldn't have.

Indeed. That doesn't mean she's not the same person (aside from the body bit - as for the mind, again, that's nature + nurture, and the nature remains the same). Another good quote:

 

"Anyway, I figured out a method to find the grand hall. Iron dust, left behind me in the intersections where I'd passed so that I knew which ways I'd gone before. They couldn't touch it, you see, and ... are you sure you've never heard this story?"

 

Mat shook his head.

 

"It used to be popular around these parts," she said, frowning. "A hundred years ago or so."

 

"You sound offended."

 

"It was a good story," she said.

 

"If I survive, I'll have Thom compose a bloody ballad about it, Birgitte. Tell me about the dust. Did your plan work?"

 

She shook her head. "I still got lost. I don't know if they blew away the dust somehow, or if the place is so huge that I never repeated myself. I ended up cornered, my fire going out, my lyre broken, my bowstring snapped, Gaidal unconscious behind me. He could walk some of the days in there, but was too dizzy on others, so I pulled him on the litter I'd brought."

 

"Some of the days?" Mat said. "How long were you in there?"

 

"I had provisions for two months," Birgitte said, grimacing. "Don't know how long we lasted after those ran out."

 

"Bloody ashes!" Mat said, then took a long swig of his ale.

 

"I told you not to go in," Birgitte said. "Assuming you do reach your friend, you'll never get back out. You can wander for weeks in that place and never turn right or left, keep going straight, passing hallway after hallway. All the same. The grand hall could be minutes away, if you knew which direction to take. But you'll keep missing it."

 

Mat stared into his mug, perhaps wishing he'd ordered something more potent.

 

"You reconsidering?" she asked.

 

"No," he said. "But when we get out, Moiraine better bloody appreciate this! Two months?" He frowned. "Wait. If you both died in there, how did the story get out?"

 

She shrugged. "Never did find out. Perhaps one of the Aes Sedai used their questions to ask. Everyone knew I'd gone in. I was called Jethari Moondancer then. You're sure you've never heard the story?"

 

He shook his head again.

 

She sighed, settling back. Well, not every one of the tales about her could live on forever, but she'd thought that one would stand for a few more generations.

Clearly, she thinks of herself as being this woman. It's not a very old story, or she would have likely forgotten it along with many of her memories. Birgitte is only her most recent incarnation (funny how we have no hint of when 'Birgitte Silverbow' and 'Gaidal Cain' lived, but apparently it wasn't very long ago), and that may have been the incarnation she was speaking of from 100 years ago (during which she observed that the stories of Jethari Moondancer still circulated).

 

RJ says that the cosmology, such as it is, was 'cobbled together', and in that context he speaks of a person's nature being a combination of genetics and soul traits, and that the personality is developed differently in each incarnation. He also makes it clear throughout the books that a person who is reborn is always the same person at the core. Lanfear compares and contrasts Rand with Lews Therin and makes clear which bits are the same and which bits are different (she seems to believe the differences are mostly due to Rand's naivete). Birgitte does the same with herself, but she doesn't relate more to any of her lives than the others - she only remembers the most recent ones more strongly, and there is enough variety there to give the same effect. Rand was a different story because he saw himself as Rand, at which point he started gaining Lews Therin's memories. Birgitte saw herself as all those women, at which point she started losing the memories. Her reaction is one of loss, while his reaction is to have an identity crisis. Birgitte fears that too - mainly she fears forgetting Gaidal, or not having any memories at all beyond waking up as an adult when she was ripped out. But she's not to that point yet. I have a feeling she will always remember at least one or two of her past lives. Yeah, it will be different this time, with Gaidal, but that will just be a bit of an intrigue for him. It may be that she'll forget everything, but it's hard to see a situation in which she could forget who she had been completely because other people know about it, and her recent memories have revolved around that fact. So it would be impossible to reproduce the situation in all of her lives where she just so happens to find Gaidal and fall in love with him.

[dwn]

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here, except perhaps over the semantics of "person". If you take "person" to mean soul, then Rand and LTT are the same "person". If you take "person" to mean a specific incarnation of a soul, then Rand and LTT are two different "persons" who share the same soul.

 

I tend to think of "person" in the latter sense.

 

Birgitte seems to be much like any incarnation of her soul, though one with an unusual rebirth. Over time this incarnation is normalizing as her heroic memories fade from her conscious mind. I read her "no right to those memories" statement as hyperbole; under normal circumstances she shouldn't (and wouldn't) have them at all.

 

-- dwn

[Terez]

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here, except perhaps over the semantics of "person". If you take "person" to mean soul, then Rand and LTT are the same "person". If you take "person" to mean a specific incarnation of a soul, then Rand and LTT are two different "persons" who share the same soul.

 

I tend to think of "person" in the latter sense.

I might if not for the fact that sometimes people remember past lives (even if it's just in the afterlife).

[hazelkrs1]

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here, except perhaps over the semantics of "person". If you take "person" to mean soul, then Rand and LTT are the same "person". If you take "person" to mean a specific incarnation of a soul, then Rand and LTT are two different "persons" who share the same soul.

 

I tend to think of "person" in the latter sense.

I might if not for the fact that sometimes people remember past lives (even if it's just in the afterlife).

 

I might if it wasn't for the Heroes of the Horn. Their presence alone tells me that the soul is pretty much the primary determining factor in how the person is shaped. We know that the only part of HotH that resides in TAR is the soul, and yet we don't see an absence of personality in Birgitte before she's ripped out or immediately after. It becomes pretty obvious that most of the important factors which help influence what a person develops into come from the soul. Rand and LTT might have slightly different personalities due to different upbringing, but at the end of the day they share too much in common to be called different people.

[dwn]

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here, except perhaps over the semantics of "person". If you take "person" to mean soul, then Rand and LTT are the same "person". If you take "person" to mean a specific incarnation of a soul, then Rand and LTT are two different "persons" who share the same soul.

 

I tend to think of "person" in the latter sense.

I might if not for the fact that sometimes people remember past lives (even if it's just in the afterlife).

 

I might if it wasn't for the Heroes of the Horn. Their presence alone tells me that the soul is pretty much the primary determining factor in how the person is shaped. We know that the only part of HotH that resides in TAR is the soul, and yet we don't see an absence of personality in Birgitte before she's ripped out or immediately after. It becomes pretty obvious that most of the important factors which help influence what a person develops into come from the soul. Rand and LTT might have slightly different personalities due to different upbringing, but at the end of the day they share too much in common to be called different people.

 

I'm a bit unclear on what the disagreement is here. I'll try to restate my position without using the word "person".

 

Clearly a soul retains the memories of all its incarnations. Just as clearly, a normal, healthy incarnation doesn't have conscious access to those memories.

 

Rand is (was?) not mentally healthy. One symptom of his illness was past-life memories intruding into the conscious mind of his current incarnation. As his madness progressed, those memories became part of an auditory hallucination--the voice of LTT.

 

Birgitte has her past-life memories due to her unnatural "rebirth". As time goes on those memories are fading and she's apparently becoming more like a normal incarnation. Her "no right to those memories" line is a figure of speech (perhaps a poor one) regarding her unusual situation.

 

-- dwn

[capuga]

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here, except perhaps over the semantics of "person". If you take "person" to mean soul, then Rand and LTT are the same "person". If you take "person" to mean a specific incarnation of a soul, then Rand and LTT are two different "persons" who share the same soul.

 

I tend to think of "person" in the latter sense.

I might if not for the fact that sometimes people remember past lives (even if it's just in the afterlife).

 

I might if it wasn't for the Heroes of the Horn. Their presence alone tells me that the soul is pretty much the primary determining factor in how the person is shaped. We know that the only part of HotH that resides in TAR is the soul, and yet we don't see an absence of personality in Birgitte before she's ripped out or immediately after. It becomes pretty obvious that most of the important factors which help influence what a person develops into come from the soul. Rand and LTT might have slightly different personalities due to different upbringing, but at the end of the day they share too much in common to be called different people.

 

But the personality in TAR is not the same personality as any of her lives. Birgitte in TAR is either a strange blend of all her lives/personalities or the pure personality of that soul. In either case, it's apparently not the same personality that any of her lives have when they are alive. Birgitte's situation is not especially analogous to Rand's since she was not reborn in the normal way.

[Wantanswers]

Robert Jordan never really made that explicit himself. What I think and what you think may be different and so we’ll just leave it. There are things about this in the book.

Surprisingly I agree with Terez, although I'm disappointed she never mentioned this part of Brandon's words.

Yes, there are things about this in the book, but nobody seems to have noticed it or has paid any attention to it.

I don't have TofM at my disposal at the moment so I cannot quote correctly, but you can find the things Brandon referred to in "A Testing". In that chapter Rand himself says that he and LTT are the same person! ONLY HE WAS RAISED BETTER THIS TIME.

Also he told Cadsuane he was 400 years old and he said something like:

To show me respect you may call me Rand Sedai. I am, as far as I know, the only male Aes Sedai who was proper raised and never turned to the Shadow.