Ben explains everthing.... ish

[Naggash]

Thanks you :D Robert Jordan sure is brilliant.

[JakeBarnes]

Wall of Text Appears.

Hi

Love the debate about my whether or not i am arrogent due to the title which was meant to grab attention and get a laugh with the ish because except Jordan no one has all the answers and he is sadly no longer with us. Here's something fun for you i am from England so does that make me foreign I mean the series is internation written in English and based paritally on alot of English literature and others. Next I have been reading for about 3 years and make no claim to being an elite who has diesected the series. I started this thread to share ideas and give my opinon. First I know how Rand is linked to the land with the tea getting better ect was just bring up the other bit because i believe it to be involed or at least usable for orther channelers to make more food. Voice in Rand's head is Lews Therin Serimage stated as much also said no one who had this problem before had ever survived because of the idenity crisis madness.

Here is something for you all to think about now i believe this won't happen but the one way to fix the darkone's prison properly is to use callandor to draw an unlimted amount of the one power which will kill the channelor and use to bale fire Lanfear out of the pattern completely so the bore is never made.

Hope this clears things up.

 

Wall of text hits you for 255.

 

You are dead.

[OptimusPrime]

Wall of Text Appears.

Hi

Love the debate about my whether or not i am arrogent due to the title which was meant to grab attention and get a laugh with the ish because except Jordan no one has all the answers and he is sadly no longer with us. Here's something fun for you i am from England so does that make me foreign I mean the series is internation written in English and based paritally on alot of English literature and others. Next I have been reading for about 3 years and make no claim to being an elite who has diesected the series. I started this thread to share ideas and give my opinon. First I know how Rand is linked to the land with the tea getting better ect was just bring up the other bit because i believe it to be involed or at least usable for orther channelers to make more food. Voice in Rand's head is Lews Therin Serimage stated as much also said no one who had this problem before had ever survived because of the idenity crisis madness.

Here is something for you all to think about now i believe this won't happen but the one way to fix the darkone's prison properly is to use callandor to draw an unlimted amount of the one power which will kill the channelor and use to bale fire Lanfear out of the pattern completely so the bore is never made.

Hope this clears things up.

 

Wall of text hits you for 255.

 

You are dead.

 

LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF!!

[Naggash]

I didn't get it. Am I stupid?

Is this a pokemon reference? O,O

[Cybertrolloc]

Voice in Rand's head is Lews Therin Serimage stated as much also said no one who had this problem before had ever survived because of the idenity crisis madness.

That isn't the impression I have in my KoD (1st US printing). Would you please provide the exact quote your version has as well as reasoning that we should believe Semi can speak authoritatively on this issue and will tell the entire truth in that situation if she possesses it?

[Naggash]

Voice in Rand's head is Lews Therin Serimage stated as much also said no one who had this problem before had ever survived because of the idenity crisis madness.

That isn't the impression I have in my KoD (1st US printing). Would you please provide the exact quote your version has as well as reasoning that we should believe Semi can speak authoritatively on this issue and will tell the entire truth in that situation if she possesses it?

I already explained that the "no one who had this problem before had ever survived because of the idenity crisis madness" was false in a previous post.

About the voice, there is a quote that sais without doubt that the Voice isn't LTT (it's a quote of Rand's thinking but I don't have it here sadly). Imo the "LTT Voice" was a metaphor about the part of himself that Rand wasn't able to accept. In Falme he accepted for the first time that he could be the DR (and then Tear proves it), but how much can we ask of a shepherder, still an inocent boy in a lot of ways, that suddenly realizes he's a man destined to madness and death? So my PoV is that he never accepted it deep inside, maybe unconciously, not all that being the DR means. He was too frightened.

[Terez]

When Rand first starts getting Lews Therin memories, they come naturally like his own thoughts. Or, it's words coming out of his mouth. Rand had to go to a great deal of effort to separate Lews Therin from himself pyschologically, and it's very much a chicken-egg scenario with the madness that follows. Did his separation efforts cause the madness, or did the madness faciliate the separation? Either way, Dumai's Wells kicked the anthill, so by the time ACOS rolls around he's pretty much crazy.

[Naggash]

When Rand first starts getting Lews Therin memories, they come naturally like his own thoughts. Or, it's words coming out of his mouth. Rand had to go to a great deal of effort to separate Lews Therin from himself pyschologically, and it's very much a chicken-egg scenario with the madness that follows. Did his separation efforts cause the madness, or did the madness faciliate the separation? Either way, Dumai's Wells kicked the anthill, so by the time ACOS rolls around he's pretty much crazy.

Yup. I think he was afraid of brcoming LTT or just don't being himself anymore + supreme stress + bit of madness = Voice. That's my opinion.

[FarShainMael]

I didn't get it. Am I stupid?

Is this a pokemon reference? O,O

 

I think 'wall of text' means a huge paragraph with little or no punctuation, sometimes consisting of a single sentence, which makes you mentally out of breath trying to read it. It's impenetrable.

 

To illustrate, I'll repeat that without the punctuation:

 

I think wall of text means a huge paragraph with little or no punctuation sometimes consisting of a single sentence which makes you mentally out of breath trying to read it it's impenetrable.

 

At this point I shall apologise sincerely to Ben because I think he may be dyslexic. Sorry Ben.

[Naggash]

I didn't get it. Am I stupid?

Is this a pokemon reference? O,O

 

I think 'wall of text' means a huge paragraph with little or no punctuation, sometimes consisting of a single sentence, which makes you mentally out of breath trying to read it. It's impenetrable.

 

To illustrate, I'll repeat that without the punctuation:

 

I think wall of text means a huge paragraph with little or no punctuation sometimes consisting of a single sentence which makes you mentally out of breath trying to read it it's impenetrable.

 

At this point I shall apologise sincerely to Ben because I think he may be dyslexic. Sorry Ben.

Thanks :D And exterme LOL. [i didn't know what "wall of text" refered to].

[Terez]

When Rand first starts getting Lews Therin memories, they come naturally like his own thoughts. Or, it's words coming out of his mouth. Rand had to go to a great deal of effort to separate Lews Therin from himself pyschologically, and it's very much a chicken-egg scenario with the madness that follows. Did his separation efforts cause the madness, or did the madness faciliate the separation? Either way, Dumai's Wells kicked the anthill, so by the time ACOS rolls around he's pretty much crazy.

Yup. I think he was afraid of brcoming LTT or just don't being himself anymore + supreme stress + bit of madness = Voice. That's my opinion.

 

The biggest part of it, I think, was the guilt over Ilyena. I mean, Rand grew up believing that the Kinslayer was only a short step below the Dark One in evil, but aside from that, when he actually began to remember being Lews Therin, that emotion over having killed his wife was at the forefront. RJ draws the contrast in TFOH during the Battle of Cairhien, when Rand remembers a weave that allows him to blow up hills, and he thinks that he doesn't care where the memory came from, he's happy to have it. And then he has an Ilyena moment, and he actually feels the emotional pain associated with it, so he makes a conscious effort to not think about anything at all in order to avoid those memories. And so he only gets the memories in little snatches because he suppresses them most of the time; he doesn't want to remember that. Only after he almost killed Tam did he realize that he couldn't pretend any more that Lews Therin was the murdering madman while Rand al'Thor was alright.

 

I just passed this one in my reread, but I've quoted it many times over the years:

 

No plan of battle survives first contact, Lews Therin said in Rand’s head. For a moment, he still seemed lucid. For a moment. Something is wrong, he growled suddenly. His voice began to gain intensity, and drift into wild disbelieving laughter. It can’t be wrong, but it is. Something strange, something wrong, skittering, jumping, twitching. His cackles turned to weeping. It can’t be! I must be mad! And he vanished before Rand could mute him. Burn him, there was nothing wrong with the plan, or Bashere would have been on it like a duck on a beetle.

 

Lews Therin was mad, no doubt of it. But so long as Rand al’Thor remained sane... A bitter joke on the world, if the Dragon Reborn went mad before the Last Battle even began. "Take your places," he commanded with a wave of the Dragon Scepter. He had to fight down the urge to laugh at that joke.

 

In this way, the Voice was what allowed Rand to pretend that he wasn't going insane. All his insane thoughts were automatically labeled 'Lews Therin'; there's no difference in timbre or anything because sometimes Rand isn't sure whether a thought is his own or Lews Therin's. That's why Lews Therin came back from his vacation in TPOD; Rand was about to kill Torval. Rand isn't paranoid around Asha'man; oh no, that's Lews Therin, the murdering madman. But he denied Lews Therin three times in that chapter, denied needing his voice to tell him not to trust Torval, and by the end of the chapter, surprise surprise, Lews Therin was back.

[Naggash]

Yeah, I think you can be right about Ilyena. Also, this helped agravating the madness because when he was in the box he turned to that Voice for company. That's the first time he actually talks with it, and I think that's the moment when he starts to become truly mad.

And of course I agree to the second part. I don't know if I forgot to mention it or just gave it for granted but good thing that you brought it up, someone could not be aware of it.

[Terez]

It's not precisely the first time he talked with the Voice. He told it to shut up earlier in the book, and it did, and then a few chapters later Lews Therin talked to him directly, saying "Who are you? Where am I?" The experience in the box was the first time it approached a real conversation, but the concept was developed over the course of the book.

[fikkie77]

We actually should have known the voice was a construct (as I said on Twitter): Lews Therin wasn't insane when he died creating Dragonmount: he had just been healed by Ishy. Still Rand said that LTT in his head was as insane as when he died. Rand adjusted the voice in his head to what he knew about LTT (that he was mad, killed all his family and died creating Dragonmount) at that moment.

[Terez]

We actually should have known the voice was a construct (as I said on Twitter):

 

And as I said on Twitter, many of us did.

[Naggash]

It's not precisely the first time he talked with the Voice. He told it to shut up earlier in the book, and it did, and then a few chapters later Lews Therin talked to him directly, saying "Who are you? Where am I?" The experience in the box was the first time it approached a real conversation, but the concept was developed over the course of the book.

Not the first time he talks to the voice or the first time the voice talks, but it's the first time THEY talk. That's what I meant.

[Sephie913]

We actually should have known the voice was a construct (as I said on Twitter): Lews Therin wasn't insane when he died creating Dragonmount: he had just been healed by Ishy. Still Rand said that LTT in his head was as insane as when he died. Rand adjusted the voice in his head to what he knew about LTT (that he was mad, killed all his family and died creating Dragonmount) at that moment.

When Rand first starts getting Lews Therin memories, they come naturally like his own thoughts. Or, it's words coming out of his mouth. Rand had to go to a great deal of effort to separate Lews Therin from himself pyschologically, and it's very much a chicken-egg scenario with the madness that follows. Did his separation efforts cause the madness, or did the madness faciliate the separation? Either way, Dumai's Wells kicked the anthill, so by the time ACOS rolls around he's pretty much crazy.

Yup. I think he was afraid of brcoming LTT or just don't being himself anymore + supreme stress + bit of madness = Voice. That's my opinion.

 

The biggest part of it, I think, was the guilt over Ilyena. I mean, Rand grew up believing that the Kinslayer was only a short step below the Dark One in evil, but aside from that, when he actually began to remember being Lews Therin, that emotion over having killed his wife was at the forefront. RJ draws the contrast in TFOH during the Battle of Cairhien, when Rand remembers a weave that allows him to blow up hills, and he thinks that he doesn't care where the memory came from, he's happy to have it. And then he has an Ilyena moment, and he actually feels the emotional pain associated with it, so he makes a conscious effort to not think about anything at all in order to avoid those memories. And so he only gets the memories in little snatches because he suppresses them most of the time; he doesn't want to remember that. Only after he almost killed Tam did he realize that he couldn't pretend any more that Lews Therin was the murdering madman while Rand al'Thor was alright.

 

I just passed this one in my reread, but I've quoted it many times over the years:

 

No plan of battle survives first contact, Lews Therin said in Rand’s head. For a moment, he still seemed lucid. For a moment. Something is wrong, he growled suddenly. His voice began to gain intensity, and drift into wild disbelieving laughter. It can’t be wrong, but it is. Something strange, something wrong, skittering, jumping, twitching. His cackles turned to weeping. It can’t be! I must be mad! And he vanished before Rand could mute him. Burn him, there was nothing wrong with the plan, or Bashere would have been on it like a duck on a beetle.

 

Lews Therin was mad, no doubt of it. But so long as Rand al’Thor remained sane... A bitter joke on the world, if the Dragon Reborn went mad before the Last Battle even began. "Take your places," he commanded with a wave of the Dragon Scepter. He had to fight down the urge to laugh at that joke.

 

In this way, the Voice was what allowed Rand to pretend that he wasn't going insane. All his insane thoughts were automatically labeled 'Lews Therin'; there's no difference in timbre or anything because sometimes Rand isn't sure whether a thought is his own or Lews Therin's. That's why Lews Therin came back from his vacation in TPOD; Rand was about to kill Torval. Rand isn't paranoid around Asha'man; oh no, that's Lews Therin, the murdering madman. But he denied Lews Therin three times in that chapter, denied needing his voice to tell him not to trust Torval, and by the end of the chapter, surprise surprise, Lews Therin was back.

 

This, and your last about the seperation, are some of the best WoT posts I've seen lately. I hadn't really thought of it that way. I'd already converted to the construct theory, but that explanation is way better than any argument I could make. (I find Rand's PoV the most enjoyable, lately. Reading from the perspective of someone who's totally nuts is pretty entertaining.)

 

We actually should have known the voice was a construct (as I said on Twitter): Lews Therin wasn't insane when he died creating Dragonmount: he had just been healed by Ishy. Still Rand said that LTT in his head was as insane as when he died. Rand adjusted the voice in his head to what he knew about LTT (that he was mad, killed all his family and died creating Dragonmount) at that moment.

 

The way I always saw it, LTT was completely insane when he killed himself. Not due to the taint, but due to the knowledge of what he had done.

 

But yeah, LTT is a construct. That last theory was just a way Rand wasn't bonkers throughout half the series.

[Benjamin Lockett]

I find my self disagreeing with the whole LTT being a construst idea. Firstly what is a person but a collection of experices which determins how they think and act. The voice clearly was Rand and Rand is LTT we know this because once they become one Rand says as much, and since the two have the same soul. It is fine to say it is a part of himself he would rather not acknowledge but that part is LTT. Its like how the heores of the horn remember there past lives. It all depends on your interpretion of how the pattern weaves out new threads or re uses old ones.

[Suttree]

I find my self disagreeing with the whole LTT being a construst idea. Firstly what is a person but a collection of experices which determins how they think and act. The voice clearly was Rand and Rand is LTT we know this because once they become one Rand says as much, and since the two have the same soul. It is fine to say it is a part of himself he would rather not acknowledge but that part is LTT. Its like how the heores of the horn remember there past lives. It all depends on your interpretion of how the pattern weaves out new threads or re uses old ones.

 

We know per RJ that the cosmology of the WoT is same souls but different people with each rebirth. A person is far more than a collection of experiences.

 

 

Interview: Oct 4th, 2005

 

Robert Jordan's Blog: ONE MORE TIME

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. But I will cease. I have met many believers in reincarnation, and most of them seem to fear death just as much as anyone else.

 

LTT is dead. Memories(whatever the cause) that are thousand of years old do not bring him back or make him any more real.

[Naggash]

Also, Ben, you just contradicted yourself in a previous post (if I remember correctly), and said something (LTT = Rand mad/not acknowledged part [as summary, won't write EVERYTHING again...]) that we already agreed some posts ago...I mean...you should read your own thread.

[Terez]

This, and your last about the seperation, are some of the best WoT posts I've seen lately. I hadn't really thought of it that way. I'd already converted to the construct theory, but that explanation is way better than any argument I could make. (I find Rand's PoV the most enjoyable, lately. Reading from the perspective of someone who's totally nuts is pretty entertaining.)

Thank you very much. I have lots of years of arguing about it passionately under my belt, and maybe that helps. I could go on and on where this subject is concerned. It's amazing how almost every single new member since TGS accepts that 'they were not two men and never had been'. I thought I'd never see the day; the numbers used to be very, very opposite....especially here at Dragonmount. It wasn't much better at Theoryland, but Dragonmount and Wotmania always thought the construct theory was a Theoryland oddity.

 

Suttree, in that quote RJ is describing less the reality of the situation, and more how the people in the world feel about it. It's close enough to the reality when a person does not remember their past life at all, but we've seen so many exceptions to that, not least the dead heroes, that it doesn't really ring true. Lews Therin is real in the sense that Lews Therin is Rand, and Rand remembers that life now.

[Suttree]

Suttree, in that quote RJ is describing less the reality of the situation, and more how the people in the world feel about it. It's close enough to the reality when a person does not remember their past life at all, but we've seen so many exceptions to that, not least the dead heroes, that it doesn't really ring true. Lews Therin is real in the sense that Lews Therin is Rand, and Rand remembers that life now.

 

I get that. I have often wondered though and been involved with a number of arguments relating to examples like Birgitte and how she is losing her memories with the pattern trying to weave her in.

 

ToM

It was as if the Pattern didn't know what to do with her. 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 of the memories faded? Would she remember waking up as an adult with no history? The thought terrified her as no battlefield ever had.

 

In addition she herself seems to think that she has no right to them

 

ToM

She'd been a guard, a noble thief, a lady, a peasant, a killer and a savior. But she had never before been a Warder. The unfamiliarity didn't bother her; in most of her lives, she had no knowledge of what had come before. What she could draw from her previous lives now was a boon, yes, but she had no right to those memories.

 

Is it possible the same thing will start to happen to Rand?

[Naggash]

Is it possible the same thing will start to happen to Rand?

I don't think so, at least until the LB is over. And at this point, after the LB, if he remains alive, will he start losing his memories because he doesn't need them anymore and same-process-than-with-birgitte starts OR rather he plainly didn't have time to start losing them? Again, at this point, should we start counting time when his first LTT remember emerges or in VoG?

Well, as you may know already I don't like being single-minded, so my opinion is that he won't lose them. Rand is a very different case from Birgitte. BUT I still find those questions interesting.

[Terez]

Suttree, in that quote RJ is describing less the reality of the situation, and more how the people in the world feel about it. It's close enough to the reality when a person does not remember their past life at all, but we've seen so many exceptions to that, not least the dead heroes, that it doesn't really ring true. Lews Therin is real in the sense that Lews Therin is Rand, and Rand remembers that life now.

 

I get that. I have often wondered though and been involved with a number of arguments relating to examples like Birgitte and how she is losing her memories with the pattern trying to weave her in.

 

ToM

It was as if the Pattern didn't know what to do with her. 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 of the memories faded? Would she remember waking up as an adult with no history? The thought terrified her as no battlefield ever had.

 

In addition she herself seems to think that she has no right to them

 

ToM

She'd been a guard, a noble thief, a lady, a peasant, a killer and a savior. But she had never before been a Warder. The unfamiliarity didn't bother her; in most of her lives, she had no knowledge of what had come before. What she could draw from her previous lives now was a boon, yes, but she had no right to those memories.

 

Is it possible the same thing will start to happen to Rand?

 

I'm sure it will, though I wonder if he will always remember at least a little of Lews Therin. The Forsaken have been such a big part of Rand's life that the knowledge of them is almost required for things to make sense. That doesn't mean he has to remember every little thing, but that's not how memories work anyway. The main point, though, is that Birgitte feels like she is the same person in every life despite the differences, not just because she knows that is true, but because there are aspects of her that are always the same. She doesn't feel like she has a right to the memories because in the natural course of events, she shouldn't remember anything from past lives. But if she forgets everything, then she will be a woman without a childhood, and I don't think it will go quite that far. She might only be able to remember one past life and a bit of what it was like to be in Tel'aran'rhiod in between, which would match with Rand remembering some of Lews Therin, and also a bit of what it was like to be in Tel'aran'rhiod in between, since we know he's going to die and be ripped out. He might remember everything for a while, and lose the memories slowly like Birgitte did, but maybe it will happen more quickly for him since he'll spend less time being dead than Birgitte did.

[fikkie77]

I find my self disagreeing with the whole LTT being a construst idea. Firstly what is a person but a collection of experices which determins how they think and act. The voice clearly was Rand and Rand is LTT we know this because once they become one Rand says as much, and since the two have the same soul. It is fine to say it is a part of himself he would rather not acknowledge but that part is LTT. Its like how the heores of the horn remember there past lives. It all depends on your interpretion of how the pattern weaves out new threads or re uses old ones.

Actually, LTT wasn't the construct, but the voice in Rand's head was. LTT and Rand are the same soul, the same person (though they probably have their differences). Now, Rand was faced with all those memories and with growing insanity. His mind constructed a LTT voice in his head, where he put all the memories and all the insanity. That was the construct. And I already gave the ultimate proof: LTT in Rand's head was supposed to be as mad as when he died, while we can read in TEOTW prologue that he was completely sane when he died. And being insane of grief isn't the same as being psychological insane because of the taint. It doesn't make you kill tens of thousands of innocent people, like the male Aes Sedai did. We know that LTT made sure no-one was around when he killed himself and created Dragonmount. Taint-insane LTT wouldn't have taken notice.