Rand's Arc (Full Spoilers)

[papertiger]

Siraaj is right; the DO confused Rand into thinking that the DO's death would be the complete removal of evil from the world.

[Drakkon]

What about Fain/Mordeth/Ordeith/Sashimi?

 

He's pure evil that manifested itself independently of the DO. Doesn't that mean that Rand could kill the DO but leave choice, and the chance for evil, to exist in the 4th Age.

I disagree, with out the DO you would not have Mordeth.  Rather you would not have what he turned into...

[Siraaj]

Whitecloaks are only a problem because they label everyone darkfriend. No dark, no darkfriends, no children

Whitecloaks often see evil where none exists and mistake "different" for dark. They'll keep going.

[papertiger]

Mordeth was constructed as a response to the DO, but its manifestation could have occurred in any protracted war between two parties...the desperate need to destroy the other half no matter what. 

 

Also, all anyone would have to do to become evil without the DO would be to enter TAR in the flesh and hang out for a while.

 

 

There are mutliple sources of evil in the world waiting to be uncovered. The DO may be #1 but it's not the only game in town.

[Shaolin]

Both of those are speculation. Saying they would have done or will do something, or saying Mordeth and the evil cloud I'm not gonna try to spell could have originated in another way is just assumption. We know why they originated and where they came from, and it directly stems from the DO. Without the DO, life is just vanilla. He's the chocolate

[Guest BloodyAshes95]

I am actually surprised no one has quoted page 891, "He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy.  It never had been."  

 

The DO was not our problem, it was our greed for power that help thin a place in the pattern that unsettled the balance of good and evil.  There need to be that balance...that CHOICE.  If there is no evil option to choose, then good is all there is and we are FORCED into that option.  Think of anything you are forced to do.  Is it your best work?  Is your heart into it? No, we would be turned into good robots and as we saw in that version of the pattern, it was bad...Not right.

 

What Rand did is re-balance good and evil.  Now they both have equal "touch" on the world and people now have equal choice.  Remember that CHOICE is the recurring theme here.  The people Turned had no choice and they were very average has evil people, the same would be for good people.  Choice to fight for your world, choice to die, choice...

 

The DO is essential to the balance of the pattern, but nothing special to us if we do not choose it to be so.  

 

This is an excellent point you make!

 

I believe it was even mentioned in the Black Tower that it was much better if they came to the Dark Lord on their own because they were basically more deeply imbedded into that belief than a forceful turning to the DO.

[GiovanniGinoCaffarella]

I tried reading all the replies but I did not see anyone who also believe as I do that good and evil does not exist as this is the ego of the human that makes it so.

 

I did enjoy the ending because it was an ending I did not write. I am a firm believer of not demanding  the ending and choosing the one I see fit. But rather accepting the ending for what it was. It is most humble and respectful.

 

So many great points from many of you that I can not discuss them all. Simply how we imagine the ending and its meaning, nothing and everything IS right! Basically we have learned the lesson RJ has taught us! 

[Randommer]

The debate about the whole 'world without DO = no evil' thing... Well that was never how I understood the WoT world. I always assumed like most readers that the characters were capable of being evil in their own right, like regular people, and the DO was just an external force. But then, that was never really explained and it has been discussed here before. So, it turns out that no, the DO is actually just all evil ever, including human evil. Well, alright then. By that definition, the DO is actually an integral part of the Pattern, since the Pattern is both good and evil and tries to balance them, so...uhm? Okay, I suppose. What that seems to be saying is that the world the Creator wanted to make, free of the DO, would have been awful. Unless he purposefully stuck the DO in there to keep things interesting.

 

Beyond that, I agree with everyone who's said that Rand is sort of a #### dad, and pretty #### to his own dad, too. I remember reading Avi's future vision thing, and thinking that Rand had to be dead because his kids had never seen him. It just seemed very out of character for a post-VoG Rand to do that, though granted I don't think RJ would ever have gone as Jesus-y with him as BS did. And it does make sense that Rand can't hang out with his kids; he has to go into hiding, he can't take kids with him, and it might put them in danger if anyone knew he was alive (and you can't really trust young kids to keep secrets like that). The jarring thing about it was that it didn't occur to him. He was like 'which one would I pick? Nah, can't choose; I'm such an asshole lol' and I was there 'dude, your kids?' Really? Not a bit of contemplation about how he'd be sad he couldn't be with them? Or a thought about how he'd let Tam know he was alive soon, considering the guy has now literally lost everyone? Pfeh. I know he was meant to be all delirious about still existing and whatnot, but still. Pfeh.

[XXX]

I don;t understand why Rand is so happy towards the end.Well he gets to live his life but what is a life without family and friends?. Is such a life even worth it?. And Rand was always emotionally attached to others.He just did not want to live in a farm,he wanted to live in the farm with his family.

[jwillis7]

I don;t understand why Rand is so happy towards the end.Well he gets to live his life but what is a life without family and friends?. Is such a life even worth it?. And Rand was always emotionally attached to others.He just did not want to live in a farm,he wanted to live in the farm with his family.

i dont understand this either, if a big theme of the wheel is being able to love again.  How does that work now, i mean he cannot be the father of his kids he cannot openly live with the women he loves i just dont get it.

[MauricXe]

Maybe Rand doesn't have any new powers.  Maybe:

 

1) he used the bond he formed with his women to light the pipe? He was able to draw the TP through Moridin and perhaps he found a way to accomplish the same task through his bond?  I understand the warder bond isn't the same degree as what we saw with his link with Moridin but perhaps these things are possible when you have two channelers bonded.  The other explanation is an off-screen double bond but there is no evidence for that.

 

2) his wives felt his intentions through the bond and one of them lite the pipe for him?

 

The very next passage shows them looking at him. In the case of (1), it could have been surprise or acknowledgment, or in the case of (2) one of them needed to focus on the pipe to get the job done.

 

I personally think he has a new ability not related to what I just said but I just wanted to throw it out there.

 

 

As for not having the memories of Lews Therin, I don't think so.  The memories seem to be a part of his identity and independent of the taint.  Did RJ say the taint was the cause of the voice? I always assumed it was a side effect of being TDR.  In veins of gold, I thought Rand seemed to accept that his situation was special and that LTT was really a part of him all along.  if this is the case, I will assume he still remembers his past life.  I always took the madness to be something on the lines of what we saw during his failed attack against the Seanchan using Callandor. 

 

Even if the taint is the cause of his past memories, I don't see why he has to lose them...even in Moridin's body.  When he met Moridin in TAR, he spoke as if he were LTT.  He did not hear the voice in TAR, but he was still aware of Moridin's real name i.e. Elan.  It seems to me that the memories are a permanent fixture of Rand's mind.

 

I took the passage of "only Rand" to mean he is no longer the dragon reborn in the sense that the world doesn't know he is alive.

[Suttree]

As for not having the memories of Lews Therin, I don't think so.  The memories seem to be a part of his identity and independent of the taint.  Did RJ say the taint was the cause of the voice? I always assumed it was a side effect of being TDR.  In veins of gold, I thought Rand seemed to accept that his situation was special and that LTT was really a part of him all along.  if this is the case, I will assume he still remembers his past life.  I always took the madness to be something on the lines of what we saw during his failed attack against the Seanchan using Callandor. 

 

 

Even if the taint is the cause of his past memories, I don't see why he has to lose them...even in Moridin's body.  When he met Moridin in TAR, he spoke as if he were LTT.  He did not hear the voice in TAR, but he was still aware of Moridin's real name i.e. Elan.  It seems to me that the memories are a permanent fixture of Rand's mind.

The prevailing sentiment is the taint allowed for the memory seepage and the voice was created to deal with that. I would expect the memories to fade over time much like Birgitte.

[batcaver]

Both of those are speculation. Saying they would have done or will do something, or saying Mordeth and the evil cloud I'm not gonna try to spell could have originated in another way is just assumption. We know why they originated and where they came from, and it directly stems from the DO. Without the DO, life is just vanilla. He's the chocolate

 

You started right, then started speculating yourself.  It seems to me that the whole thing simply wasn't thought out very carefully, as villain philosophy like this often isn't in these kinds of stories.  If the DO was just trying to trick Rand in the version of the world Rand himself was imagining (seems very unlikely this was intended) then it's simply a stupid and contradictory plot development.  We have no real reason to think that was what was at play in that vision, so I don't see why anyone would infer that aside from just being a general apologist.

 

If removing the DO removes free will from all people then they never had it in the first place.  If it's just that without him they'd have had no knowledge or awareness of evil, then that's something like the biblical problem of knowledge and it comes with all of that baggage.  Whether you think that makes any sense is up to you, but given the way people actually work when they do have free will, I think it's pretty much a given that there would still be manifestations of what we'd call evil, just existing under some other classification. 

 

I think, if you can, it's probably best not to look too closely here.

[woomia]

I think, if you can, it's probably best not to look too closely here.

 

I agree with this. AMOL is not a philosphical trestise, or a religious novel, it's just a work of ficiton. I accepted the ending as the end of the book, period. I never bothered with the wider philosophy because it doesn't matter.

[Reader2]

I had been just lurking, but, well, am I the only one who thinks there is no need for a WoT universe-consistent explanation of the pipe lighting scene? No, the women would not have channeled the pipe alight, surely that would have been visible to other female channelers and led them straight to Rand.

 

Remember this bit from Chapter 4? "Here, willing something to be true could make it so. If only things were that simple in the real world." (in Moridin's dreamshard).

 

It seems to me that the pipe lighting scene is almost like a "breaking the fourth wall " moment to remind us that this is NOT the real world. WoT is RJ's dreamshard, and that scene is the cue for we the readers that it's time to "wake from the dream." it's always a bit sad (okay, very sad) to leave a whole world behind at the end of a series, but it really only ever was a dream.

 

Thus, I don't mind having no explanation for that phenomenon, however, the rest of the unanswered questions are a different matter!

[GiovanniGinoCaffarella]

 

I think, if you can, it's probably best not to look too closely here.

 

I agree with this. AMOL is not a philosphical trestise, or a religious novel, it's just a work of ficiton. I accepted the ending as the end of the book, period. I never bothered with the wider philosophy because it doesn't matter.

 

And even this is a philosophy of looking at it! I have my own philosophy behind reading and spiritual matters, so it was not too difficult to accept the end as but rather the end of the book.

[Hondo]

  The memories seem to be a part of his identity and independent of the taint.  Did RJ say the taint was the cause of the voice? I always assumed it was a side effect of being TDR.  In veins of gold, I thought Rand seemed to accept that his situation was special and that LTT was really a part of him all along.  if this is the case, I will assume he still remembers his past life.  I always took the madness to be something on the lines of what we saw during his failed attack against the Seanchan using Callandor. 

 

Books ago, Cadsuanne described what she had seen with male channelers going mad and it prefectly matched what Rand was going through when he was "talking" to LTT. In aMOL, Rand attributes the memories to a side-effect of the taint. He even tells Cads(?) that if he is able to defeat the DO, the taint will have turned out to be the reason that he is successful.

 

Didn't the flaw in Callandor also play into what happened with the Seanchan?

[Hondo]

The prevailing sentiment is the taint allowed for the memory seepage and the voice was created to deal with that. I would expect the memories to fade over time much like Birgitte.

Brigitee and Rand's situations and why they have past memories are completely different. They are not even similar in how many lives they remember. So I don't think you can use Brigitte to draw conclusions about Rand.

[Hondo]

 

I took the passage of "only Rand" to mean he is no longer the dragon reborn in the sense that the world doesn't know he is alive.

I still need to go back and look at the "only Rand" paragraph again, but I think that you are right. There are several conversations before tLB, where Rand explains to his friends that he is still Rand, just with more knowledge and memories.

[Arran]

 

So anyone still disagree about rand boneheaded decision to destroy the choedan kal? oh my god it's too powerful to use it!! I bet logain would have made use of it against demy, taim and the sharans

My memories really shady on this...

I know the female one blew up... Did rand purposely destroy the male one, or was it more happenstance like with the female one?

 

But hey.

The horn nearly got into the shadows hands (thrice?)

Whats the chances of both the male & female one being stolen?

 

 

>Or - TAR and the real one are so close at SG (the thinness in the pattern) that you can will things there.

I took it as, Rand being able to use the True Source (combined one power) in a way that simply operates differently.No weaving, simply willing.

Its entirely possible, that the One Power in its self, coudl work in a similar way (through willing somethign to happen) and that 'weaving' is just the minds way of doing it.

They train themselves to use it in that manner. And rands millenia  of expereince within that timeless void fighting the darkone, gave him him the knowledge and experience to simply will things into existance using the true source. (much like Morodin had access to the true power, Rand has access to the True Source (as has been theorizes for the longest time) The true source, defined as..

"The One Power comes from the True Source, the driving force of creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time."

 

 

I like the idea of it being the combined powers and the use of 'willing' things to be. Kinda works since towards the end of the book Aviendha 'wills' her weave into place, which goes with what you said about weaving being the minds way of doing it.

[Sabio]

 

I am actually surprised no one has quoted page 891, "He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy.  It never had been."  

 

The DO was not our problem, it was our greed for power that help thin a place in the pattern that unsettled the balance of good and evil.  There need to be that balance...that CHOICE.  If there is no evil option to choose, then good is all there is and we are FORCED into that option.  Think of anything you are forced to do.  Is it your best work?  Is your heart into it? No, we would be turned into good robots and as we saw in that version of the pattern, it was bad...Not right.

 

What Rand did is re-balance good and evil.  Now they both have equal "touch" on the world and people now have equal choice.  Remember that CHOICE is the recurring theme here.  The people Turned had no choice and they were very average has evil people, the same would be for good people.  Choice to fight for your world, choice to die, choice...

 

The DO is essential to the balance of the pattern, but nothing special to us if we do not choose it to be so.  

 

This is an excellent point you make!

 

I believe it was even mentioned in the Black Tower that it was much better if they came to the Dark Lord on their own because they were basically more deeply imbedded into that belief than a forceful turning to the DO.

Good point.  The DO doesn't make people evil, when the bore was drilled into and the DO could touch the world all he did was magnify the feelings people had.  If you felt you were wronged now you felt maybe like people were inetentionally holding you back.  All the DO did was make it worse so violence started to pick up.  If I remmeber right in a book or maybe the big white book it was sggested Semi already was taking joy in hurting people before the DO touched the world.

[longtimefan]

I don't buy the DO as being the Creator's twin or equal in power.  The Creator sealed the DO in a prison at the time of Creation.  Rand, who certainly is not the creator, was able to drag the DO into the Pattern and had the power to crush him like an insect.  Regarding sealing the DO, it seems pretty clear from the last two prophecies at the very end of the book that the DO will be freed again and again, as the wheel turns.

[Hyronimus]

Wellity wellity....

 

The idea of the DO 'as the shadow on mens' minds seems a return to the idea of the DO in the first book.

 

Thinking about it, Mordeth possibly represented The DO being found in the world rather then directly at a bore.

 

Still i don't know what to think of the whole world with out a DO with out a reread.

 

Rand had to die though didn't he. I mean the wholoe dragon peace for one thing, was a price for his life (i liked seeing the sea folk being impressed by the 'contract')

I don't think the world could handle a living dragon. But i can't like the hero losing his own body even if I see the sense of it.

 

It was interesting that Rand was relieved he couldn't channel, as if burning himself out was proof of the power he had expended locking away the DO, was he worried that being able to channel would have allowed the DO a link?

 

I like the 'new' power I'm guessing having had that perspective of the pattern as he battled the DO isn't something that goes away, in a real sense, everyone survives in Rand Al'thor's dream world he held the possible threads of the world in his mind not creating but his visualising allowed it to be.

[Axon]

It could be that since LTT is the only soul that is specifically respun by the pattern for a rebirth, his soul had left Rand after he awakens.   Rand's channeling and strength in the power could actually be tied to LTT's soul, rather than Rand's.  We would know if one of the Heroes of the Horn saw him I suppose, since they all called him Lews Therin and indicated that they recognized his soul.   Of course, the question of the pipe remains in this scenario.  

 

As to Rand feeling relief at his lack of ability to channel, I believe that, for Rand, channeling is tied to his duties as the Dragon Reborn, which he was relieved to have shed.  He never liked the mantle - all he ever wanted was to tend his farm in Edmond's Field.  I mean, think about it - sure, you're powerful, but you're surrounded by enemies and schemers, and the spectre of your death in the very near future hangs over you at all times.  Oh, and if you lose your upcoming fight with what appears to be a god of some kind? The world ends. No pressure brah, you got this. 

 

All of that is somewhat ironic because, without Rand, the hole in the bore is not "forged anew."  Thus, in my mind, Rand is the greater of the two men.  

[XXX]

There is no LTT soul and Rand soul, there is one soul and 2 lives. And chanelling is linked to the soul.So the Rand/LTT soul will always potentially have the ability to be the strongest user of the OP in every age that soul is reborn.