Just answer one question... - Edit 1
Before modification by fionwe1987 at 06/09/2009 07:54:35 AM
I'm not going into the rest for now, but...
See, this is what I don't get...what difference does it make? This whole "laughter and tears" crap is utterly lost on me, which is why I've always thought Cadsuane and Sorilea really mean to "humanize" him by teaching him to be their lapdog. Otherwise, the bloody thing makes no sense at all. The man is in ungodly pain - pain that even an Aiel is shocked and proud he can handle so well - is constantly losing more use of his body, and has absolutely nothing to look forward to except more pain, more people hating him, and a painful, horrible death. What difference does it make if he's ignoring his pain or if he does the Aiel thing and "sings" while he's hacked into itty bitty pieces? He's dead either way. He suffers either way. So who cares whether he "feels" the pain or not? This whole thing is like refusing a terminal patient morphine because you want him to "feel" his last few moments of life and think he should suck it up and "love" the pain.
You can scoff at Rand all you want, but if you had your hand blown off, I highly doubt you'd just get up and barely blink an eye about the pain. Instead, you'd be crying like a little wussy girl. And if you were walking around with unbearable pain in your side, you'd be curled into a ball begging for some painkillers, at least. Rand does none of that. He takes it and keeps going like the Energizer bunny, his only consideration being that he has to get to Tarmon Gai'don while there's still something left of him for the Dark One to kill.
I think it's freaking sick to want to make him actually give a crap about living when he - and everyone else - knows he's not going to survive! He accepts that he's going to die, refuses to allow himself even the tiniest bit of hope that he might not die, and accepts that he's going to have even more pain before it's over with. At the end of the chapter, it's obvious that he's ready to get on with it and die already. I think it's a bit asinine to expect, much less want, someone to do a happy dance at the fact that he's getting hacked apart and dying to save a bunch of thankless jerks who either get off on him suffering, want to leash him like an animal so they can stab him to death themselves in order to "win", or want to see him dead and gone. That he's willing, and ready, to do it should be good enough. To want more than that is just inhumane and mean - to me, it'd be no different than telling a woman she's about to be gang raped and gutted alive then get your panties in a wad because she doesn't seem gleeful about it. That he isn't running away and has, instead, accepted his fate, is all that's needed. Rubbing salt in the wound is sick.
Lil, you act as if Rand's pain, and his reaction to it or lack thereof is going to affect only him. That is totally incompatible with the fact that this man is the savior of the world. What he does, how he does it, everything will have a major impact on the world.
Your morphine to a dying patient analogy is good. Let me expand on it. Rand is on morphine. He's doing his best to suppress pain, emotional and physical. This bottling up of pain has already led to one big problem... Rand doesn't control his temper well anymore. Granted that in many instances, he has a right to be angry, his displays of temper, the only kind of release he allows himself, do him and his cause no good. the last thing he needs is some genuine followers of his shunning him as a tyrant.
But this is scarcely the greatest problem. The worst "pain" Rand feels is that while he wastes away his body and soul to keep the world alive, the world shows no sign of wanting to help him. There is a deep sense of frustration that was again reinforced in this chapter.
We saw in KoD that this frustration has led him to a point where he thinks that absolute obedience brought on by inducing fear in his recalcitrant subjects will serve his needs for Tarmon Gai'don. He may seem far from it, at least in his own mind, but his actions clearly show that he has taken his first steps towards estabishing a tyranny.
Need. No longer was it about what Rand wanted or what he wished. Everything he did focused only on need, and what he needed most was the lives of those who followed him. Soldiers to fight, and to die, to prepare the world for the Last Battle. Tarmon Gai’don was coming. What he needed was for them all to be strong enough to win.
But the truth was that he needed Min, needed her strength and her love. He would use her as he used so many others. No, there was no place in him for regret. He just wished he could banish guilt as easily.
Both these statements continue a disturbing trend, where Rand shows a taut focus on Tarmon Gai'don, excluding himself from emotions that might "cloud" his judgment and thinking that he must have what he needs. If things carry on so, how long will it be before he things that anything, including his golden moral standard about hurting women, can be brushed aside or destroyed if it helps him defeat the Dark One? Will that translate to a willingness to use the One Power to cow down the opposition?
All this is a major moral issue, but from the example of Shadar Logoth, we know that such thoughts and motivations in the min of an influential person can mean the physical manifestation of an evil in this world so strong it negates the Dark One's own.
Bad enough in a man like Mordreth, who could influence but one city. In the Dragon Reborn, strongest ta'veren ever, the leader of the Asha'man, how much worse can things get?
There's another angle to this. How much more "morphine" can Rand take? There is only so much pain a person can bottle up, and if we can be sure of one thing, its that Rand will face more pain before Tarmon Gai'don. So what happens, say, if Min dies and Rand feels responsible (maybe Semirhage kills her). Can he bottle up the pain of her loss?
I don't think so. Puhed beyond the threshold like that, Rand will shatter. Whether he descends into total madness, or whether he gets pushed even more strongly in the direction of Shadar Logothism, the world will be doomed, and so will he.
Which is why he must learn to laugh and cry. He needs to see that felling pain for the losses he has faced, feeling anger for the deaths he must see, these are his strongest motivators to fight the Dark One.
The Rand of old faced the pain of seperation from his father, yet withstood it and left the Two Rivers. Can this Rand do that? Can he accept that if someone close to him dies so that he may succeed against the DO, he must mourn them, but not let that loss be a cause of guilt?
No. And that is what Cadsuane and Sorilea fear. Cadsuane fears a Shadar Logoth that spreads across the world. Sorilea fears a leader who sees only tools in his subjects.
He needs to suck it up and stop feeling sorry for himself. All his vaunted hardening is just a way of hiding from the pain. He has to toughen up for real. Remember, Cadsuane and Sorilea’s preference for his condition over mental & spiritual hardness is NOT softness, it is strength!
See, this is what I don't get...what difference does it make? This whole "laughter and tears" crap is utterly lost on me, which is why I've always thought Cadsuane and Sorilea really mean to "humanize" him by teaching him to be their lapdog. Otherwise, the bloody thing makes no sense at all. The man is in ungodly pain - pain that even an Aiel is shocked and proud he can handle so well - is constantly losing more use of his body, and has absolutely nothing to look forward to except more pain, more people hating him, and a painful, horrible death. What difference does it make if he's ignoring his pain or if he does the Aiel thing and "sings" while he's hacked into itty bitty pieces? He's dead either way. He suffers either way. So who cares whether he "feels" the pain or not? This whole thing is like refusing a terminal patient morphine because you want him to "feel" his last few moments of life and think he should suck it up and "love" the pain.
You can scoff at Rand all you want, but if you had your hand blown off, I highly doubt you'd just get up and barely blink an eye about the pain. Instead, you'd be crying like a little wussy girl. And if you were walking around with unbearable pain in your side, you'd be curled into a ball begging for some painkillers, at least. Rand does none of that. He takes it and keeps going like the Energizer bunny, his only consideration being that he has to get to Tarmon Gai'don while there's still something left of him for the Dark One to kill.
I think it's freaking sick to want to make him actually give a crap about living when he - and everyone else - knows he's not going to survive! He accepts that he's going to die, refuses to allow himself even the tiniest bit of hope that he might not die, and accepts that he's going to have even more pain before it's over with. At the end of the chapter, it's obvious that he's ready to get on with it and die already. I think it's a bit asinine to expect, much less want, someone to do a happy dance at the fact that he's getting hacked apart and dying to save a bunch of thankless jerks who either get off on him suffering, want to leash him like an animal so they can stab him to death themselves in order to "win", or want to see him dead and gone. That he's willing, and ready, to do it should be good enough. To want more than that is just inhumane and mean - to me, it'd be no different than telling a woman she's about to be gang raped and gutted alive then get your panties in a wad because she doesn't seem gleeful about it. That he isn't running away and has, instead, accepted his fate, is all that's needed. Rubbing salt in the wound is sick.
Lil, you act as if Rand's pain, and his reaction to it or lack thereof is going to affect only him. That is totally incompatible with the fact that this man is the savior of the world. What he does, how he does it, everything will have a major impact on the world.
Your morphine to a dying patient analogy is good. Let me expand on it. Rand is on morphine. He's doing his best to suppress pain, emotional and physical. This bottling up of pain has already led to one big problem... Rand doesn't control his temper well anymore. Granted that in many instances, he has a right to be angry, his displays of temper, the only kind of release he allows himself, do him and his cause no good. the last thing he needs is some genuine followers of his shunning him as a tyrant.
But this is scarcely the greatest problem. The worst "pain" Rand feels is that while he wastes away his body and soul to keep the world alive, the world shows no sign of wanting to help him. There is a deep sense of frustration that was again reinforced in this chapter.
We saw in KoD that this frustration has led him to a point where he thinks that absolute obedience brought on by inducing fear in his recalcitrant subjects will serve his needs for Tarmon Gai'don. He may seem far from it, at least in his own mind, but his actions clearly show that he has taken his first steps towards estabishing a tyranny.
Need. No longer was it about what Rand wanted or what he wished. Everything he did focused only on need, and what he needed most was the lives of those who followed him. Soldiers to fight, and to die, to prepare the world for the Last Battle. Tarmon Gai’don was coming. What he needed was for them all to be strong enough to win.
But the truth was that he needed Min, needed her strength and her love. He would use her as he used so many others. No, there was no place in him for regret. He just wished he could banish guilt as easily.
Both these statements continue a disturbing trend, where Rand shows a taut focus on Tarmon Gai'don, excluding himself from emotions that might "cloud" his judgment and thinking that he must have what he needs. If things carry on so, how long will it be before he things that anything, including his golden moral standard about hurting women, can be brushed aside or destroyed if it helps him defeat the Dark One? Will that translate to a willingness to use the One Power to cow down the opposition?
All this is a major moral issue, but from the example of Shadar Logoth, we know that such thoughts and motivations in the min of an influential person can mean the physical manifestation of an evil in this world so strong it negates the Dark One's own.
Bad enough in a man like Mordreth, who could influence but one city. In the Dragon Reborn, strongest ta'veren ever, the leader of the Asha'man, how much worse can things get?
There's another angle to this. How much more "morphine" can Rand take? There is only so much pain a person can bottle up, and if we can be sure of one thing, its that Rand will face more pain before Tarmon Gai'don. So what happens, say, if Min dies and Rand feels responsible (maybe Semirhage kills her). Can he bottle up the pain of her loss?
I don't think so. Puhed beyond the threshold like that, Rand will shatter. Whether he descends into total madness, or whether he gets pushed even more strongly in the direction of Shadar Logothism, the world will be doomed, and so will he.
Which is why he must learn to laugh and cry. He needs to see that felling pain for the losses he has faced, feeling anger for the deaths he must see, these are his strongest motivators to fight the Dark One.
The Rand of old faced the pain of seperation from his father, yet withstood it and left the Two Rivers. Can this Rand do that? Can he accept that if someone close to him dies so that he may succeed against the DO, he must mourn them, but not let that loss be a cause of guilt?
No. And that is what Cadsuane and Sorilea fear. Cadsuane fears a Shadar Logoth that spreads across the world. Sorilea fears a leader who sees only tools in his subjects.