Rand crazy because

[Shinobi]

Is rand mad because he channeled the one power alot tainted and because he entered the world of dreams in flesh. So i think he suffers two kinds of madness

[Shinobi]

i never reall saw that disscused

[icspots]

It's been discussed that Rand has channeled more of tainted Saidin than any other male channeler alive as he's used both angreal and Sa'angreal (including the most powerful male Sa'angreal ever created), so he probably has more than a little taint on the mind.

 

It hasn't been confirmed that going into the WoD in the flesh actually causes you to become evil. Yes the wise one's did say that, however I think that's more akin to evil people went into the WoD in the flesh and did evil things. Over the years it went from evil people do it to doing it makes you/is evil.

[Magicana]

Also due to his use of Callandor, which does not buffer the taint.

[Luckers]

Actually the quantity of the taint you have interacted with, as well as the time during which you interacted with it seems to be a non-issue. There are men who have gone completely insane after a day, and those that have lasted year.

[Osangar1282083176]

everyone keeps saying that rand is going insane. i don't think he is insane. i think that he is erally...REALLY stressed. think about it. he is very young, with no experience of the world outside the two rivers, and suddenly the salvtion of all of creation is his personal responsibility. how do you think you would react ???

[Kara_J]

everyone keeps saying that rand is going insane. i don't think he is insane. i think that he is erally...REALLY stressed. think about it. he is very young' date=' with no experience of the world outside the two rivers, and suddenly the salvtion of all of creation is his personal responsibility. how do you think you would react ???[/quote']

 

Plus the fact that he keeps getting told that he's going to go mad because all men who channel do (regardless of him cleansing the taint). If you're told something often enough you'll begin to believe it!

[Mesaana]

I agree. I don't think Rand is actually insane (yet anyways). I think he just really needs a vacation, lol.

 

He may have a heart attack or something if he doesn't get his stress level down, but aside from having the voice of his past life incarnation in his head, and some weird balefire induced link with Moridin, he's perfectly sane.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I think Rand suffers from three sources of mental illness:

 

1. Some interaction with the taint.

 

2. Lews Therin (soul-madness)

 

3. Stress

 

Since there are multiple sources interacting, and multiple people trying different methods of "treatment", the results have become so jumbled as to be essentially undiagnosable (at least to me). My conclusion is, he's definitely off-kilter, probably has good days and bad days (thats actually supported in the text), and frankly, could lose it completely any time, since only the taint's influence has been slowed, and actually, he may be the only one still susceptible in some measure, if the wound in his side does work like the taint.

 

Frankly, if it weren't a story, I would say Rand's instability is the most likely cause of the Pattern's potential demise. Rand's victory at Falme was the most costly one we've seen so far, I think.

[chemteach1977]

Robert, i would say 1 and 2 are the same. The seepage of LTT memories and this other personality are both aspects of the taint. Granted, Semirhage said the same thing so it is suspect at the least but i think we are being set up to believe that LTT is real. So there is at least a possibility that he is not.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I'll just quote my response wholesale from another post addressing this:

 

Given the amount and type of information Lews Therin has passed along, which Rand would have no way of knowing, along with the scene at Lord Algarin's manor where Lews Therin seizes the source and weaves Blossoms of Fire and Deathgates, I think its pretty conclusive that Lews Therin is real. The madness as Semirhage described it has a ring of truth to it, because it fits the situation exactly, and it's a situation in which telling the truth would still serve her purposes.

[Luckers]

The fact that LTT is a real voice does not mean he is not an aspect of the taint. As near as we can tell the 'taint' is not a type of mental instability, but rather a cause of mental instability. It can manifest in any of a hundred ways, and since we know through Semirhage that the existence of 'real voices' is a natural phenomena i is not impossible that the Taint would manifest in this manner.

 

As for semirhage, everything she said that we can verify, we have. 1. Rand is experiencing a real voice. 2. The real voice matches her description of hos such things occured. 3. Her assertion of the descent into terminal madness matches the elevating effect LTT's presense had on Rand 4. Her quote source is known to be the worlds leading expert on Abnormal Psychology.

 

So I would say that to an extent chem is right. 1&2 of Roberts list ARE the same path, one is merely cause, and one effect. However chem's logic in asserting that that in anyway suggests that the LTT isn't real, or Roberts in suggesting that if it is it has to be some inherent aspect of the soul are both fallacious.

[Kaxen]

I have always believed it to be that LTT is real. I think its more a case of Rands body having two conciousness things (two minds basically). I believe this because they are the same soul, The Dragon and The Dragon Reborn, hence it can't be two soles in one body.

I also do not think it is brought on by the taint (i.e. a madness) because that suggests a split personality disorder or some such, and from what i know of those the split personalities can control the body, and we see LTT cant do this. As for LTT seizing Saidin, channeling is part of the soul and is always done through a mental process.

[Luckers]

Actually what you are distinguishing between is skitzophrenia and multiple personality disorder. Multiple Personality Disorder involves personalities that can control the body, skitzophrenia involve mental voices, the extent of which varies between suggestion and command. Bot could be potentially caused by the taint.

[Kaxen]

Good point Luckers. I will have to put more thought into this :D

[Kaxen]

I suppose it might come down to the fact that if Rand is sufferering from skitzophrenia, would-in his mental instability-Rand think that a voice in his head seized Saidin and channeled weaves Rand could not possibly know?

 

I think the memories and the knowledge that come from LTT can only be possible if he is somehow his own concious being being in Rands body. The 'how' an 'why' of it i can't explain, maybe its just because they are the same soul?

[TurboZ]

Isn't LTT the first incarnation of the Dragon soul? I come to this conclusion because every time Ba'alzamon(sp) has come to him so far, he calls him Lews Therin. Then if that is the case then Rand is truely a reincarnation of the same soul. If the taint is breaking down the barriers of past lives then it could be that LTT is breaking through and is a real voice in Rand's head not just a figment of the taint. But I'm not that far into the series so I'm just guessing.

[chemteach1977]

LTT is not the first incarnation of the dragon. Nor is Rand the last. LTT was the dragon that preceded Rand but there must have been a dragon before him, and another before him and so on. And there will be another dragon after Rand.

I think you are expressing the opinions of many or most people around here. I have some problems with the whole idea however.

 

1. If the taint is weakening barriers and the LTT aspect of the soul is leaking through, why just him? Why not other previous dragons or future dragons?

 

2. How can Rand be LTT reborn if LTT still exists as some separate entity? When Birgitte could still remember all/most of her previous lives she did not have countless different personalities at work in her head. They had different names but they were all her.

Rand is LTT's soul reborn. There is only one soul in Rand Al'Thor.

 

From the New York Barnes and Noble signing on January 7, 2003:

 

Q:The question is, with Rand and LTT, do they have 1 soul or 2 souls in the body?

 

A: They have 1 soul with 2 personalities. The reincarnation of souls does not mean reincarnation of personalities. The personality develops with each reincarnation of the soul. This is the cosmology that I [cobbled] together.

 

Certainly does not clear up the whole argument but there is not a separate LTT soul in there. The question is: Did LTT's personality somehow come with soul (and only show up once the taint started affecting Rand) or is the personality simply a construct of Rand's encroaching madness?

[TurboZ]

If Lews Therin is not the first Dragon then why does Ba'alzamon continually reference to Lews Therin? Is it maybe because he was the previous Dragon or maybe because that personality still shows through in Rand?

Possibly the Dark One could just be trying to get under Rand's skin?

[RobertAlexWillis]

If Lews Therin is not the first Dragon then why does Ba'alzamon continually reference to Lews Therin? Is it maybe because he was the previous Dragon or maybe because that personality still shows through in Rand?

 

So Rand will know who he's talking about, and because Lews Therin Telamon and Elan Morin Tedronai were contemporaries.

 

Lets say Ishamael had found out a name of a previous incarnation. For the sake of argument, lets say it was named "Xena, Warrior Princess". If he started talking to Rand about "Xena, Warrior Princess", no one would have any idea what he's talking about. Ishy wanted to frighten and intimidate Rand, not have him say, "Huh? Whos that?"

[TurboZ]

Meh, it was just speculation.

[RobertAlexWillis]

If the taint is weakening barriers and the LTT aspect of the soul is leaking through, why just him? Why not other previous dragons or future dragons?

 

The Lews Therin personality went out of life a failure, having killed everyone he loved and unleashed the horror of the Breaking on the world he was trying to save. He has unfinished business. Thats a classic reason in stories/legends/folklore for an entity to stick around. The taint is uninvolved, unless Semirhage is lying, which frankly she has no reason to do.

 

How can Rand be LTT reborn if LTT still exists as some separate entity? When Birgitte could still remember all/most of her previous lives she did not have countless different personalities at work in her head.

 

The difference is that Birgitte was ripped out of Tel'aran'rhiod, whereas Rand was born. For Rand to have that connection with a separate personality is a symptom of a disease. And, Birgitte is forgetting those things slowly, as the Pattern corrects itself.

 

Rand is LTT's soul reborn. There is only one soul in Rand Al'Thor.

 

Given the quote you cited following this, it seems clear that the Lews Therin personality is real. Everyone knows its not a separate soul. But it is a separate distinct personality, with real memories from a previous life. The personality isn't caused or constructed by the madness, the madness is caused by the encroachment of another personality. And it's totally unrelated to the taint, which is now gone.

[Luckers]

Actually from what we've seen neither is true. The Taint seems to have destabalized Rand's psychological state, and in that instability a real past life voice is asserting itself. LTT is therefore a symptom of the Taint, and combined with Rand's personalities increasing psychological distress would defined as an abnormal psychological state... or insanity, as it is commonly called.

 

Madness is not a thing... its a name for anyone experiencing some form of abnormal mental process, and LTT qualifies. The source of that abnormal mental process in Rand is the Taint... though i imagine the strees aint helping too much either.

[RobertAlexWillis]

We don't know that the taint caused the voice to assert itself, we just know that one followed the other. It s aclassic logical fallacy ... I'm sure you'll know what I mean when I say:

 

Post hoc, ergo, propter hoc.

 

This is especially the case if Semirhage is telling the truth, and there were cases in the Age of Legends, when there was not taint. There may simply be a concurrent, not a causative, relationship.

[Luckers]

True enough, but there is another philosophical concept that ties in here. Ockham's razor. That the simplest answer is usually correct. We have a viable source of mental instability, a person whose instability has been increasing as he is exposed to that source, and symptom which we know can result from mental instability*.

 

Essentially we have a logically viable progression, and suggesting that it be discarded simply because it is not provable beyond any doubt is fallacious in and of itself. It's a theory, ill concede, but the leading one, and until it is specifically disproven, or another specifically proven to a degree greater... it holds as common assumption.

 

 

 

*We also incidently know that the taint does not cause a specific type of mental instability, therefore any naturally occuring mental condition could percievably be caused by the taint. More then concievably.