Rand is probably...

[Kahsm]

I tend to agree with the OP. But with reluctance. Because a lot of the examples of non-OP characters have the opposite problem, where they are often hyped up but they actually blow when they do their thing. Gandalf for example, pretty lame, Harry Potter is a complete loser, his "power" could have been equally usefull in an inanimate object. I usually feel over-powered-ness is avoided too much in fantasy, instead of authors using their imagination to create new types of conflicts despite godliness. Two different but equally interesting examples come to mind.

 

Peter V Brett's The Warded Man. We don't see godliness yet, but I wanted to point out that the "hero" is a kid who refused to accept the status quo and ran off to improve himself and change things. No "you are destined to save us all" lameness.

 

Also, Jennifer Fallon's Tide Lords Quartet. In addition to having fairly ambiguous "sides" to start, The tide lords are immortal and unkillable by definition and even more magically powerfull than Rand (at times, trying to avoid spoilers). However, they have their own conflicts where humans tend to be collateral damage, that's all. Interesting take.

 

I find it fun to watch rand swoop in and clean up trash. And I think he still has enough bigger matters on his plate to even out. Making them more pronounced might have helped a bit though. I mean the taint has been off the table for awhile, and the way the last battle will be fought is still too mysterious.

 

Edit: And his trouble with women seems trivial and juvenile compared to his duty. I fault the women with that and agree completely with the OP. He's SOOOO irresistible we'll share him when he should be saving the world. BS

[safwd]

There will be some spoilers here so look away if you arent far into the series.

 

Lets talk about how awesome it is to be the uper powerfull awesome Rand.

 

So you are a farm boy who wants nothing more then to marry the girl down the road, have a few kids and raise sheep. Then one day you find out that you are the reborn version of the most feared and hated entity in history. Mothers tell stories of you to there children to scare them when they are being bad. The whole world knows you are coming and dreads you coming. Pretty awesome.

 

You find this tidbit of info out when Trollics come and kill a fair portion of your friends and nearly kill your father. Oh, by the way, he isnt your father. Pretty awesome.

 

You have the power to be the the strongest channeler ever, but there is no one alive who can train you so you will probably fry yourself out before you learn anything. Pretty awesome.

 

The taint of the power is driving you crazy, and if that isnt enought the crazy guy in your head is also driving you crazy. Pretty awesome.

 

Nearly everyone you are trying to save will lie to you, undermine you and possibly try to stab you in the back as soon as they can. Pretty awesome.

 

You will be kidnapped, beaten, imprisoned in a town where you cant channel, have wounds that wont heal and have your hand blown off while being nearly blinded. Pretty awesome.

 

And oh ya, In order to do your job you are going to have to die. Pretty awesome.

 

I guess having 3 wives makes it all better. He is a 20 odd year old guy who has had sex with 3 girls and had to marry them all. Pretty awesome.

 

Now to his power. Yes, he is the most powerfull channeler on the planet. But there are/were 13 people who were pretty close to him in the power, and they pretty much all want him dead or turned.

Logain and Taim are pretty close to him. Pretty close as in "My fireball can destroy 4 blocks" "Ah shucks, mine can only destroy 2 blocks".

 

All of these people could kill Rand if they were smart about it.

 

He cleansed Saidin but to do so he needed the help of a woman or it doesnt work at all.

He has Callandor, one of the most powerfull Sa'angreal in the world, but to safely use it he most be linked with 2 women, and they control the link.

 

So certainly not all powerfull godlike.

 

This is by no means an original tale. The farm boy turned hero has been told time and again, argue the uncreativity of it if you want but that doesnt make Rand a poor character.

He is the champion of the creator, yes he is uper powerfull, because the Dark One has 13 champions. And unlike the Creator, the Dark One will get involved.

 

If you really had a problem it should be, Why is evil so stupid?

13 Forsaken should have killed Rand easily long before now. But they dismissed him in the beginning as a country bumpkin and they were far to busy trying to set themselves up against the other 12. Once they finally decided to notice him he had a not so small army and had gained a bit of skill with the magic.

Aginor and Bathamel should have easily destroyed him but they were more worried about getting the Eye them dealing with him. That didnt work out so good.

Lanfear had many chances to kill him but she wanted something else, Lews Therin.

Semirhage almost killed him and wasnt really trying, she got caught off guard.

 

If two or three of those knuckle heads would have put greed aside and came after him together early one he would have been toast. But that wouldnt have made for a very good story.

 

As the books go on Rand turns into an jerk but i can see why he does it. I dont like it sometimes and i dont care for him sometimes but i can see why he does it.

The OP makes it sound like Rand has a pretty good gig. I wouldnt want that job.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Psssssssssssssttttttttttt - over here.

 

I'm gonna letcha in on a secret.

 

In fiction, whether the author is blatant about it or not, the hero is always a Mary Sue. Some Mary Sue's are beautiful. Some have warts. Some are brilliant. Some as dumb as a box-o-rocks. Some powerful. Some sniveling weaklings.

 

Doesn't matter, because if the hero ever dies, so does the story. The story cannot complete until the hero triumphs.

 

Jordaan just happened to pen one of the most blatant Mary Sue's ever. But Rand is no more or less a Mary Sue than any other hero in any other work of fiction ever written.

[Hop-Robin]

Psssssssssssssttttttttttt - over here.

 

I'm gonna letcha in on a secret.

 

In fiction, whether the author is blatant about it or not, the hero is always a Mary Sue. Some Mary Sue's are beautiful. Some have warts. Some are brilliant. Some as dumb as a box-o-rocks. Some powerful. Some sniveling weaklings.

 

Doesn't matter, because if the hero ever dies, so does the story. The story cannot complete until the hero triumphs.

 

Jordaan just happened to pen one of the most blatant Mary Sue's ever. But Rand is no more or less a Mary Sue than any other hero in any other work of fiction ever written.

 

Not true. Seeing as most stories have more than one "hero".

 

Spoiler below.

Going by your example, A Song of Ice and Fire should have ended with A Game of Thrones.

[XXX]

Honestly, its not his powers that get to me--we were warned by Nicola that the Dragon would be doing some impossible things--its more the depiction. Both the prose, and the way he (and others) think about himself.

 

In TofM he reminds me disturbingly of Richard Rahl--more someones concept of the perfect man, than a depiction of a perfect man.

 

Out of curiously Luckers..did you feel the same when Egwene's battle with the Seachan during the tower attack was described?

[Byzantine279]

I suspect Rand's "perfection" is a front. The calm a condemned man can get right as the axe is about to fall.

 

Rand dying to save the world would be even more cliche than him living, and having to live with what he has done. While he seems almost super-human now, don't forget a book before he was so dark he came moment away from destroying everything, and that whatever it was that changed him does not appear to be natural, and I suspect is not good for him either.

 

 

Nyn described it as black tines covered in white something. I don't think anything, even "good" being driven into your brain is good for you. Rand may appear to be perfect, but it is a mask he took in order to do what he needs to do. The question is, of course, does he die, and if he doesn't, what is he like when the mask falls off?

[Luckers]

Honestly, its not his powers that get to me--we were warned by Nicola that the Dragon would be doing some impossible things--its more the depiction. Both the prose, and the way he (and others) think about himself.

 

In TofM he reminds me disturbingly of Richard Rahl--more someones concept of the perfect man, than a depiction of a perfect man.

 

Out of curiously Luckers..did you feel the same when Egwene's battle with the Seachan during the tower attack was described?

 

To a lesser, which is not necessarily to say small, extent. Of course tGS had the benefit of more polish over TofM, so maybe that was why.

[Duskfire]

In the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the main character (Thomas Covenant) is stupidly powerful, more so then essentially anyone else in the world. However, its been manipulated in a way so that his power actually hurts the world, rather then helps it. It wouldnt surprise me if something similar happens in the last book; its not going to require brute fore to defeat the Dark One but something more.

 

As for Rand being stereotypical, eh perhaps, but I dont read WoT to be amazed at its unpredictability or its character depth. Not to mention, there isnt many main characters around who has progressed in different personality shifts like Rand has. You cna literally see him changing from book to book as the world on his shoulders becomes heavier, (and potentially his madness grows.)

[metalisticpain]

I don't know about mary sue,

 

However I do agree the relationship with elayne is flakey. Min's seems more legit but only after she spends a lot more time with him in later books. She has the viewings to fall back on in any case. She knew she would fall in love so that knowledge before it happened sped it up I'm sure. Elayne has no grounds for it after the hour visit to the palace. Suppose that's were the taveren stuff comes in, since Else grinwell also remembers him quite strongly. License to mary sue.

 

The sword stuff was a bit too rushed. It wasn't terrible. They main thing that annoys me with the sword skill in this series is how everyone is a blade master. Its not just rand that is suspect in this however.

 

/shrug.

[Revim]

In a series about powerful people how can you have an issue that the main character is powerful?

 

Regards the Harry Potter reference, Harry couldn't even pull a rabbit out from his hat. Voldemort should have had no trouble, mummy can't die for him twice. Before you try to refute this, let me point out HBP, Dumbledore drinks pretty much a bucket of poison. Harry sees a zombie and bricks himself, tries to give them skin deep cuts. If almost-dead Dumbledore hadn't been there to make some fire... game over. In Deathly Hallows if Neville hadn't pulled a 180 off page and grown a pair... game over. Harry Potter was a story about some useless kid with an almost unending supply of meat shields, and the ability so summon a ghost dad. That's good reading. >.>

 

If Rand was as ineffectual as HP, book 14 would be about him having a cry while the various hawkers from every major city in every book jumped in the way of fireballs and lightning bolts to save him until DO got bored and took up knitting, leaving Rand alone in a world of corpses... And he doesn't even have the voice in his head anymore =(

 

Rand is provided with the power the world needs him to have, to do the things the world needs him to do. It's not just the DO he has to fight, he had to beat almost everyone on his side into submission. Yes, he gets three girlfriends and an unbreakable katana. (Note on that, not a ninjato or ninja sword, which is like a 3/4 katana of questionable craftsmanship... Note b: The katana is one of the greatest swords the world's seen, although it was sourced from one of the worst sources of raw material, it's amazing craftsmanship pulled every possible scrap of strength from it. Also with the katana comes images of one of the most aesthetically pleasing styles of swordplay... Note c: Spellchecker thinks I'm trying to spell Kathmandu.)

 

I can sort of agree with the Richard Rahl comparison except that Rand isn't displayed as a Paladin+ like R.R, doesn't mysteriously know everything of importance and his author doesn't want to bone him worse than Cloud hungers for Sephiroth and as such feel compelled to describe him in loving detail. But the 'check out his awesome' factor I think is to try and make us feel for a character after we've had a long period of looking at him behind an unfeeling mask, followed by homicidal rage.

[XXX]

Honestly, its not his powers that get to me--we were warned by Nicola that the Dragon would be doing some impossible things--its more the depiction. Both the prose, and the way he (and others) think about himself.

 

In TofM he reminds me disturbingly of Richard Rahl--more someones concept of the perfect man, than a depiction of a perfect man.

 

Out of curiously Luckers..did you feel the same when Egwene's battle with the Seachan during the tower attack was described?

 

To a lesser, which is not necessarily to say small, extent. Of course tGS had the benefit of more polish over TofM, so maybe that was why.

 

To me both scenes seemed pretty similar and both had the same BS touch to them. Most of the big battles in the "Way of Kings" also read like that IMO.

Of course as a reader partial to Rand, I found Rand's scene more enjoyable than Egwene's but that is of course personal bias.

[spoke]

Rand is sort of like superman. Unstoppable. Superman is not interesting because of his power. He is interesting because of his weaknesses (Kryptonite, lead, and Lois Lane). Rand is not interesting because of his powers, but because of his weaknesses (Initially, ignorance, and fear, towards the middle on his Pride, his never-healing wound (this led to being captured), insanity, and near the end, losing his hand, his merging personalities with Moridin).

 

Definition of Mary Sue: A fictional character, usually female and especially in fanfic, whose implausible talents and likableness weaken the story.

 

Mary Sue does not really apply to Rand. Mary Sue's are used more frequently to refer to the super powerful characters with no character depth. Rand has too much Character Depth, and the series is built around this character, not so much his power, but his weaknesses.

[Revim]

Rand is sort of like superman. Unstoppable. Superman is not interesting because of his power. He is interesting because of his weaknesses (Kryptonite, lead, and Lois Lane). Rand is not interesting because of his powers, but because of his weaknesses (Initially, ignorance, and fear, towards the middle on his Pride, his never-healing wound (this led to being captured), insanity, and near the end, losing his hand, his merging personalities with Moridin).

 

Definition of Mary Sue: A fictional character, usually female and especially in fanfic, whose implausible talents and likableness weaken the story.

 

Mary Sue does not really apply to Rand. Mary Sue's are used more frequently to refer to the super powerful characters with no character depth. Rand has too much Character Depth, and the series is built around this character, not so much his power, but his weaknesses.

 

I'd say more like Batman; he's pretty much at the peak of human capability and has been spending books gathering knowledge, people and artifacts to his cause (prep time + gadgets) so that he'll be capable of taking on a superior enemy. He's dedicated to his cause til death (applicable to both heroes.) But he also seems capable of embracing the maxim "It's not cheating, it's winning." Which is a Batmanism and entirely alien (pun not intended) to the man of steel. Admittedly he can move mountains and level cities (Superman) but it's set in a world where other people can do the same.

 

I'd say his unpredictability and the way he's going to tackle each problem apart from the brute force factor are what make him interesting.