Re: Rand is crazy, and emotionally shut down so that the only thing evident is paranoia - Edit 2
Before modification by DomA at 06/09/2009 01:21:13 AM
NaCl(crazy people can say [and mean] anything)H2O
Indeed.
Jordan did that extremely well - Rand's POV, this tantrums etc. are always perfectly rational, and Jordan made Rand totally oblivous to several things ongoing during his POVs - even his own body language at times.
It's when he suddenly gave us a Mat POV of a meeting with Rand etc. that it all becomes obvious and we get to see how bad it is - all the grimacing, the aggressivity, the sudden lost of control where he laughs out loud for no apparent reason, when he stops his sentence in the middle and seems lost, or doesn't answer because he's talking to LTT etc.
For Rand it's all perfectly rational. He has a reason to laugh, or LTT's voice interrupts him so he stops talking aloud, thinking about something else suddenly makes him reacts violently etc. But from the outside, it's clear he's mad. We get to see from the POV Rand's logic, but it's madman logic - extremely rational - even obsessively so, and focussed, but that's madness.
The big outburst coming out of nowhere about Egwene (to whom he recently sent Asha'man...) is just that. Rand's paranoia ebbs and flows like that. One minute he cares to repay for what the Asha'man have done (which isn't fully rational... sending 47 men in bondage in return instead of forcing the Asha'man to release the sisters if they ask to be freed) and to stay in the Tower's good graces, the next Egwene is about as bad the DO.
Barking mad, poor boy.