To Live You Must Die

[skalors3]

It is a cheap ending. The fact that the price is high makes it a price worth paying. It is his choice to walk to this end. That's the beauty of this book, he is the one character who knows he will die at the end, and he still walks to that goal. I think it'll lessen the story if he survives in the capacity everyone wants for him. I think the only way I would accept his living as a good thing is if the pattern spits him out as one of his children on the same day he dies.

 

His purpose is to fight the shadow, not to live with rainbows and sunshine.

[Terez]

They're not mutually exclusive. And I think it's pretty safe to say you'll be disappointed with the ending unless you start to look at the positives in Rand surviving.

[skalors3]

We'll see. I'll be highly surprised honestly. I was fairly close to the DT ending too when everyone else wanted some happy picture painted. I need to re-read ToM, but I think in Av's viewing even her children talked of him as a man absent from their lives. There is to much mess left in the world if he survives. His death is the right ending.

[fionwe1987]

They're not mutually exclusive. And I think it's pretty safe to say you'll be disappointed with the ending unless you start to look at the positives in Rand surviving.

Not so fast. There's this to consider:

 

"He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind, was gone."

 

Nothing says his resurrection won't be temporary. A brief time to finish the job and say goodbye. After all, what Moghedien does to Birgette happens in a chapter called "Ripped Away". The entire exercise has the connotations of something wrong, and against the Pattern's usual course.

 

But for Elayne's bond, Birgette would have died, after she was pushed into the real world. Who is to say that this will happen with Rand? What if Rand is brought back, with some alterations that permit him to stay longer than Birgette, and then he refuses to be bonded by Elayne and co. because he doesn't think it is right to live in a way that disobeys the Pattern's usual course? After all, the person we saw doing this was "the Spider", a woman who spins webs and patterns, but to entrap and destroy. An anti-Pattern of sorts. There is a thematic inconsistency if the way of the Shadow is used to defeat it, and perhaps that can be avoided by Nynaeve's actions not leading to a permanent rebirth. And that would tie into Rand's Jesus parallels too.

[thisguy]

Although, I don't think Avi's visions are true visions of what the future holds (I could be wrong), doesn't her daughter say something about Rand taking off, not dying?

[skalors3]

thisguy, I'd have to re-read to answer that with any sort of certainty.

[Terez]

We'll see. I'll be highly surprised honestly. I was fairly close to the DT ending too when everyone else wanted some happy picture painted. I need to re-read ToM, but I think in Av's viewing even her children talked of him as a man absent from their lives.

 

And the Aiel clearly said he abandoned them, which wouldn't have been the language if he had just died. No doubt he'll go into hiding after the Last Battle, and the matter of his resurrection will be left to myth and legend.

[skalors3]

Terez, I know you love your theories. It had been hundreds of years. Rand simply leaving the Aiel adrift could be considered an abandonment. He gave them no direction. Read Padra's account, she did not sound like a woman who knew her father. I doubt, if Rand lived, that he would abandon any of his children. They sound like children made famous because of their father with no parent's to teach them self control.

[thisguy]

I actually get what skalor and others say about his living cheapening the story. Most stories need a good sacrifice for them to feel real and worthwhile. Personally, the older I get, the more I want a happy ending. A good one, one that fits and is believable to the story. I'd rather Rand live than most of the other characters, and I like a lot of them.

 

What is interesting about Avi's vision - or what got me thinking - is Aviendha's name is close to the name of the tree of life - Avendesora.

 

The area is a mix between Yggdrasil from Norse myths and the Garden of Eden which contained the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. I really should go to sleep so the most pertinent part - The men see the past, the women see the possible futures. Sorta like Eve biting the apple from the tree of knowledge. And Rand's giving of knowledge of the past lead to the Aiel leaving the Three Fold Land, like Adam and Eve after eating the apple.

 

Also, in some Nordic myths, Yggdrasil had some sort of pillar under it - which reminds me of the pillars in Rhuidean under Avendesora.

 

Also, Aviendha's little meditation under the tree is somewhat like Buddha under the Bodhi tree.

[78WARLOCK]

Yes, Nyneve healing madness. One of the Asha'man in Tear then tried it on Rand and could'nt but his "black lines" were all covered in white.Semi was supposed to know all kinds of stuff about the mind but I believe I read she could'nt heal madness.

[FarShainMael]

In TSR10, Rand attempted to use Callandor to bring a dead child back to life. He failed. Moiraine had to remind him:

 

"Death cannot be Healed, Rand. You are not the Creator."

 

@thisguy:

Birgitte wasn't brought back to life by Nynaeve; she was prevented from dying. Moghedien didn't give her life; she ripped her out of T'A'R, so Birgitte retained her T'A'R-life. I think that if her bond with Elayne is broken - if Elayne dies, or even perhaps when she goes into labour.. Birgitte will 'die' and be returned into T'A'R.

 

Mat wasn't resurrected; he was unkilled.

 

Slayer wasn't killed, just very badly injured.

 

I don't think we are going to see a true healing of death.

[thisguy]

In TSR10, Rand attempted to use Callandor to bring a dead child back to life. He failed. Moiraine had to remind him:

 

"Death cannot be Healed, Rand. You are not the Creator."

 

@thisguy:

Birgitte wasn't brought back to life by Nynaeve; she was prevented from dying. Moghedien didn't give her life; she ripped her out of T'A'R, so Birgitte retained her T'A'R-life. I think that if her bond with Elayne is broken - if Elayne dies, or even perhaps when she goes into labour.. Birgitte will 'die' and be returned into T'A'R.

 

Mat wasn't resurrected; he was unkilled.

 

Slayer wasn't killed, just very badly injured.

 

I don't think we are going to see a true healing of death.

Why is that directed at me? What did I say? Birg was pushed out by Mogh and then Elayne bonded her to keep her alive. And, you may be right, but I don't think so. I think she will live out her life until she dies or is killed, whether or not the warder bond is maintained.

 

I never said slayer was killed, I said he told Perrin that Perrin hadn't learned how to heal himself but only to infuse himself with new blood.

 

Fine - unkilled - you're getting semantic.

[elmis]

My super wacko theory:

 

I think Nynaeve is going to heal him.

 

In the last battle, Rand will fail spectacularly on his first attemt, and die. All hope seems to be lost. Nynaeve finds him, and having heard that Lan has died in the Gap has nothing left to live for, so she pulls a Marcus-on-Ivonova [babylon 5 reference] weave on Rand killing herself, but making Rand live again to finish the job.

[Terez]

"It's all a metaphor" has now passed up body-swap.

[thisguy]

"It's all a metaphor" has now passed up body-swap.

 

It can't be a metaphor though unless Alivia helping Rand to die is a metaphor, too.

[Terez]

I didn't say it was a good theory. Just saying, it has passed up body-swap.

[thisguy]

I didn't say it was a good theory. Just saying, it has passed up body-swap.

 

Hahahaha! Fair enough.

[herid]

The role of killing Rand is split between quite a number of characters with parallels in various mythologies, not just the Arthurian one and I wouldn't try to guess to will land the final stroke based on mythology.

 

I wouldn't either, which is why I take in-book foreshadowing into account. And in-book foreshadowing points at Gawyn (and Egwene) more strongly than any other character. Aside from the (generally) presumptive nominee Moridin, Moiraine is the only one who really comes close. I don't think that success in this department is consistent with Demandred's character.

 

The strongest Mordred parallels are Moiraine (through her own first/last) and Elayne and Gawyn (through their parents' mother-first/father-last names). Only Elayne and Gawyn have that perfect parallel, but one might argue that Moiraine is stronger because the parallel is in her own name, despite the extra letter. Moiraine also has a Morgan le Fay parallel which complicates her situation somewhat, and Gawyn also has Gawain, another complex character (and Mordred's brother). Elayne being in the mix...I dunno, I think there's something great about that. I hope she does play a role in his death, even if it's inadvertent.

Moiraine could be a Mordred character parallel if she contributes to Rand's death as we discussed earlier. This remains to be seen. Same with the others although I'm very sure that Elayne won't be one.

 

Why very sure? It would be pretty easy for Elayne to play an inadvertent role in Rand's death, and she has the same name parallel as her brother.

ok, I take it back. She has enough formal parallels to remain a suspect. Still she has zero inbook indications that she will be a Mordred. Same with Galad but he has slightly stronger formal parallels.

 

Another possible Mordred as I argued a while back is Galad. He seems like a very strange Mordred but there are too many formal similarities there. There has to be a reason for that IMO.

 

As I mentioned on that post IIRC, RJ said that Rand and Galad won't have a swordfight, which pretty much rules Galad out as a Mordred parallel. He was never a particularly strong one anyway, neither in terms of character nor in terms of foreshadowing.

It doesn't have to be a swordfight. If Rand will die willingly (as the viewing about Alivia helping him to die indicates might be the case) then Galad is one of the people who won't hesitate to help him on his way if he thinks it's the right thing to do.

 

Another thing I forgot to mention that I have trouble reconciling is the cover art of AMOL. It shows Rand, Nyn and Moiraine at Shayol Ghul with a solar eclipse in the background. When exactly in the timeline is it? The eclipse is already on so it would seem like this is after the darkness came. that should mean that rand is already resurrected and this is the final showdown. But the artist claims that Rand's left hand is behind his back to hide the stump (scroll all the way down in the link). I would have thought that either pushing out from TAR or coming back as a Hero of the Horn would restore Rand's hand to him.

 

1. The eclipse is 'imminent', according to Whelan.

I missed that part. This of course proves conclusively that the scene happens early on before Rand's first death.

It is also annular, which does not cause full darkness, and even if it were total, the maximum period of darkness would be a few minutes.

I thought that the mysterious comment by BS that time will flow differently in different parts of the world could explain this. If time significantly slows down near Shayol Ghul the eclipse might last much longer than a few minutes there. There seems to be a merging of TAR and the real world which is the only idea I have of how the time can slow. Whatever the explanation for the slowing time is I suspect it's quite important and might clarify all these timeline issues with the prophecies.

 

2. I expect the eclipse to be a warning of the darkness to come. The light is going out of the world, but the eclipse itself cannot explain the unnatural darkness in the prophecies.

 

3. I expect the darkness to be concurrent with Rand's death. Not after it, and certainly not after his resurrection. All of the prophecies together (including the new one we got in chapter 1) indicate that the world will be dark the entire time Rand is dead. Light fails, and the dawn does not come. The sun rises two days late (as in my sig) without ever having set. Thus 'the day' dawns twice. The header prophecy of TGH also indicates that light will return with Rand's resurrection. Nynaeve holds the sun down at dawn (presumably by delaying his resurrection), and it rises at midnight (foreshadowed in the context of Rand, Aviendha, Moiraine and Egwene).

All of this depends on the nature of the long darkness. I can only think of 3 possibilities personally (but I would be very interested in other ideas).

1) The same kind of darkness that happened when DO's prison was breached in AOL which Rand saw in his visions in Rhuidean.

 

What seemed a tiny chip of white spun away from the Sharom in a jet of black fire; it descended, deceptively slow, insignificant. Then a hundred gouts spurted everywhere around the huge white sphere. The Sharom broke apart like an egg and began to drift down, falling, an obsidian inferno. Darkness spread across the sky, swallowing the sun in unnatural night, as if the light of those flames was blackness.

--TSR, Ch 26

 

This was my original old idea but it ties the darkness to the breaching of the DO's prison rather than to Rand's death and I'm having a hard time reconciling it with the timeline in the Dark prophecy from TOM and that AMOL cover.

2)Then I saw the theories about a solar eclipse which seemed to be be confirmed by the AMOL cover so I thought it will most likely be that and this was what I assumed when I wrote the above post.

3) The darkness will be the ultimate Fisher King effect. Then it's tied to Rand's death and resurrection. But again I'm quite hazy on the sequence if both the Broken Wolf and the Broken Champion are Rand.

4. For future reference, you can directly link to an entry in the interview database by adding, in this case, #6 to the end of the URL (since it's entry #6), like this.

Thanks, I will keep that in mind.

Perhaps this scene is from much earlier - when Rand goes to break the seals but why is there an eclipse already?

 

Why not? If Rand is the Broken Wolf, then this is probably when he gets consumed by the Midnight Towers, at which point I suspect he will be killed within hours (max), out of necessity. And the more time goes on, the more I suspect the consumption will have something to do with a mindtrap. That requires blood and saliva, and it can only be done at Shayol Ghul.

it's an interesting idea about a mindtrap. I've never thought of that. I do expect (or at least hope) that somebody's mindtrap will be broken but I never thought of Rand.

[FarShainMael]

@thisguy: Sorry, I was responding to a segment of yoour earlier post (#242).

 

Re Alivia: I think Rand is going to die twice, once being metaphorically in VoG, and once in the flesh. Recall the prophecy

 

"Twice and twice shall he be marked,

twice to live and twice to die."

 

So there's the opportunity for Alivia to act.

[Terez]

It would be pretty easy for Elayne to play an inadvertent role in Rand's death, and she has the same name parallel as her brother.

ok, I take it back. She has enough formal parallels to remain a suspect. Still she has zero inbook indications that she will be a Mordred. Same with Galad but he has slightly stronger formal parallels.

 

It depends on your definition of 'a Mordred' really. She can play an inadvertent role in Rand's death in her own special way, and Demandred can play a very deliberate yet unsuccessful role in trying to kill Rand. In that case, which is a better Mordred? I'd say neither one really, but they both have ties to Mordred, and Elayne also has ties to Guinevere.

 

I agree she's not a very strong parallel, despite the perfect name parallel she shares with Gawyn, and I'm interested to see if she does play a role in his death. If she does, I suspect it will be something to do with a copy of Mat's ter'angreal. I'm not sure if you read my original Gawyn theory (which has changed a lot), but that was my explanation for Alivia's role in that theory. It makes slightly less sense now that Gawyn has had an epiphany, but I still suspect her role will be indirect. And I have always liked the 'team effort' approach to Rand's death, up to and including the actual killing being shared by Gawyn and Moiraine. And I like the idea of most of the players being Lightsiders, and that includes Elayne.

 

Another possible Mordred as I argued a while back is Galad. He seems like a very strange Mordred but there are too many formal similarities there. There has to be a reason for that IMO.

As I mentioned on that post IIRC, RJ said that Rand and Galad won't have a swordfight, which pretty much rules Galad out as a Mordred parallel. He was never a particularly strong one anyway, neither in terms of character nor in terms of foreshadowing.

It doesn't have to be a swordfight. If Rand will die willingly (as the viewing about Alivia helping him to die indicates might be the case) then Galad is one of the people who won't hesitate to help him on his way if he thinks it's the right thing to do.

 

Galad is also someone who wouldn't hesitate to kill Rand whatever his wishes, if he thought it was the right thing to do. I was tempted down the Galad path myself until I remembered that quote, and it still bothers me from time to time, but he just doesn't seem to have the foreshadowing. I could be wrong, and Galad will just stab Rand in the heart, no swordfight. It fits with his character. But the lack of foreshadowing makes me tend to think it won't happen.

 

Again, I'm not convinced that the Alivia viewing implies willing death. I definitely think it's a possibility, and one might say it was foreshadowed both in Rand's Mirror World trip and in Egwene's Accepted test, but I think 'help' only implies that Rand 'needs' to die, not that he is cognizant enough to ask for it. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which Rand couldn't just do the deed himself; the one in Egwene's test seems rather strained in an AMOL context. I do like the idea of Rand begging for death, but in the context of Rand's character and what we can expect for him in AMOL, I think the 'small voice' possibility is the strongest. Like, only a small part of Rand is able to communicate to whoever that he needs to die. And I doubt that person will be Alivia.

 

[The eclipse] is [aside from being imminent] also annular, which does not cause full darkness, and even if it were total, the maximum period of darkness would be a few minutes.

I thought that the mysterious comment by BS that time will flow differently in different parts of the world could explain this.

 

That's not exactly what he said. But either way, it's not a total eclipse. The part you bolded is in reference to a total eclipse; an annular eclipse does not produce full darkness. He might have simply been referring to the still-confused chronology.

 

I believe that the eclipse is the moment of 'as darkness fits the sun', and possibly also the 'shadow at noon' that the Borderlands and the White Tower guard against. That might actually be based on a lost dream or foretelling. But I doubt it explains the full darkness. That's why I see it as a warning, and a time for things to get crazy.

 

As for the possibility that time might actually slow (which, again, would not produce full darkness from an annular eclipse), I find the legend of Boann and the Dagda not only instructive, but also heavily tied to the foreshadowing for Rand's death, particularly the one from 'To Boannda' in TFOH. (I just added some of what I have written on that to the OP of this thread.) I think that is some of the most intricate (yet subtle) mythological foreshadowing in the series. Nynaeve is the one who is foreshadowed to hold down the sun at dawn, but the possibility that Elayne might have her babies definitely raises an issue because she's only 5 months pregnant. The area around Shayol Ghul is a possibility. Tel'aran'rhiod is another. Then there are vacuoles. Those seem to be the only explanations worth considering.

 

3) The darkness will be the ultimate Fisher King effect. Then it's tied to Rand's death and resurrection. But again I'm quite hazy on the sequence if both the Broken Wolf and the Broken Champion are Rand.

 

This is my preferred explanation for the darkness. I'm still thinking the events of the dark prophecy are more or less simultaneous, or in rapid succession. But there are too many assumptions that have to be made to interpret the prophecy, any way you look at it, so I try not to worry about it too much.

 

And the more time goes on, the more I suspect the consumption will have something to do with a mindtrap. That requires blood and saliva, and it can only be done at Shayol Ghul.

it's an interesting idea about a mindtrap. I've never thought of that. I do expect (or at least hope) that somebody's mindtrap will be broken but I never thought of Rand.

 

And the more the circle of three is harped upon, the more I think the weakness of Callandor is simply the assumption that he has to use it in a circle with a woman in control. It seems too simple, but I don't think that RJ would have harped on it in quite the same way that Brandon has. And without the harping, the scenario is much less obvious.

[thisguy]

First off, I don't know who came up with the Moraine-Mordred parallel first, but I love it. Terez turned me on to it the other day, and thank you.

 

Here's where I sit now. Rand goes to Shayol Ghul with Moiraine and Nynaeve. Moiraine's Mordred parallel will be to have the knowledge that Rand does, indeed, need to die to effectively close the Bore. Why? Not sure. Here's what we've been told - DO is the lord of the grave. His world is the antiworld - Hell, Hades, Sheol, whatever. Possibly, for the OP to not be subject to the DO's counterstrike you have to descend into his world to touch him. This descent after death would parallel Jesus descent into Hell to fight Satan and release the souls of the righteous trapped down there.

 

Moiraine may not be entirely sure if he has to go down there at first OR he may have to descend at some specific time or after a specific event. This would leave Rand, Nynaeve and Moiraine to have to fight Mori, Moghi and Graendal in the meantime.

 

Perhaps, Nyna and Moiraine will have their hands full and so won't be able to assist Rand as his Dr Kevorkians. So, Alivia who has been trying to learn weaves on the side for some time now (a little foreshadowing) will arrive via her own gateway at the nick of time and put two saidar zitis in Rand's bonnet.

 

Rand descends to Hell - or into the Bore - without Callandor. Narshima comes along, helps Nynaeve and Moiraine defeat the baddies, grabs the sword and somehow follows rand down into the Bore.

 

Rand finds Lanfear in the bore, she gives him the knowledge (after a little bit of this and a little bit of that) and Narshima shows up in time with Callandor.

 

Here's the tricky part, either the DO grabs the sword from Narshima and uses it, opening himself up to some sort of flaw in the sword, or Rand gets it. Not sure - I've mentioned elsewhere the parallels between Surtur - the DO (possible Mori) and Rand - Freyr.

 

This and that happens, Bore is sealed. Narshima gets Rand out of there in time and brings his soul back to Rand's freshly healed body.

 

Or something along those lines. I'm still working out the kinks.

[Terez]

First off, I don't know who came up with the Moraine-Mordred parallel first, but I love it. Terez turned me on to it the other day, and thank you.

 

I think I was the first one to start talking about Mordred outside of the Shadow players (Moridin, Mordeth, and Demandred). My first choice was Gawyn, and my second was Moiraine; I think I was the first to talk about either in the Mordred context.

 

I think there are a lot of things missing in your scenario, most of which are detailed in my posts on this thread (including the recent ones). I believe that the battle with Moghedien and Cyndane will likely happen after Rand's death in Tel'aran'rhiod, as Slayer tries to kill him permanently, and perhaps also concurrent with or following the battle over the dreamspike.

[thisguy]

First off, I don't know who came up with the Moraine-Mordred parallel first, but I love it. Terez turned me on to it the other day, and thank you.

 

I think I was the first one to start talking about Mordred outside of the Shadow players (Moridin, Mordeth, and Demandred). My first choice was Gawyn, and my second was Moiraine; I think I was the first to talk about either in the Mordred context.

 

I think there are a lot of things missing in your scenario, most of which are detailed in my posts on this thread (including the recent ones). I believe that the battle with Moghedien and Cyndane will likely happen after Rand's death in Tel'aran'rhiod, as Slayer tries to kill him permanently, and perhaps also concurrent with or following the battle over the dreamspike.

 

TAR brings in another hitch, and I think the people who feel that the boundaries between TAR and the real world are weakened around Shayol Ghul are probably on to something. One reason, the Heroes of the Horn hang out in TAR waiting for their rebirths - seems to me that TAR is then a sort of halfway point. If Slayer is waiting around to kill Rand, I think Perrin will be there and will take on the mantle of Tyr and kill Slayer who will be playing Garm in the Final battle. Makes sense as Garm creates the shadowbrothers (I believe) which are called hounds, not wolves. I think Rand has cast off his Tyr character and assumed Freyr at this point. Also, I thought for sure it was going to be Cyndane, Moghi and Mori in matching black and red for the final battle but I think Graendal may have taken Cyndane place now.

[amaranth]

I think Ny + Tel makes the most sense, but what about another unlisted possibility? If Rand dies, maybe Matt uses the Horn to call him back? Maybe at a later date, Ny could pull him out of Tel when the fight is over? I wonder who's face he will have in Tel...

[Terez]

That possibility wasn't listed because it doesn't illuminate the poll question. If that happens, no one would say that Rand lived again via the Horn; he would have lived again via Nynaeve ripping him out.