Rand is the greatest man in the world?

Rand's the most important man in the world right now, but I would hardly call him the "greatest". At least for the moment. What he's done on DM in TGS was impressive and certainly showing potential for greatness, because he finally made a choice.

But men like Rhuarc, Tam, Bashere are all much more accomplished men than Rand.

Maybe he'll grow up fast enough and match them before the LB. He sure has the potential, but through the series he had many more flaws than moments of greatness. Not that he's really to blame. Rand's a teenager, rash, passionate but without real maturity yet. The difference between him and other teenagers is that his youth mistakes and immature behaviour aren't dealt with normally, as part of the game of becoming an adult, but can have cataclysmic consequences for all humanity, because he's been saddled with responsabilites much too great for his age and experience. The whole world hanged on his reaching adulthood soon, and with as few bumps as possible.

If Rand were to die now, his greatest accomplishement would remain his epiphany on DM, destroying the CK and turning himself around, all on his own. The Cleansing of saidin was a team effort. Rand would never had succeeded with a woman like Nynaeve as crazy as he was, and with Cadsuane to transform what was pure madness into something that might actually work. Rand's greatests deed in the Cleansing was his faith that it could work, and ought to be done. His courage, not really his skills (his performance as leader of a mixed gender circle was probably pathetic, by AOL standards... except I'm guessing that letting a man with zero experience of linking handle the CK would have been anathema, and if he was the only one available, they'd probably have dithered and end up missing the opportunity).





I seriously doubt that.

If the Wheel had anything to do with his love life at that point, Mierin was probably a lesson about power thirst, egocentrism and blind ambition for the man who would one day end up having to lead the world.... It seems to have worked, largely. Everything points to LTT having been a good man, mostly selflesss, a man of duty that put his person and his skills in service of the greater good.

Mierin is just a big fat ton of wasted potential, because by all evidence, all that interested her was Mierin Aronaille's own little person, and power.

If Mierin were so great, she would have been around LTT and Latra Posae, working humbly day and night to find a solution to seal the gigantic scientific mistake her hubris and her power thirst has contributed in creating. I don't think she had any notion how to do that as a scientist. Lanfear's the AOL's BP engineers... she never thought of what would happen if anything went wrong, and doesn't have the first idea of how to repair the mistake.

Instead of being among the leaders, Lanfear was an obscure researcher seemingly obsessed with putting herself into the spotlight. That was probably a main motivation behind her efforts to join Beidomon's team, that and the edge being one of the people who were the first to experiment with the new Source would have given her. As RJ' said, even before the Bore Mierin was the sort of person ripe to become a Forsaken.

Even as a Forsaken, Lanfear sought to put herself into the spotlight first and above all. She couldn't achieve fame, so she would achieve infamy instead, and she took no chance that she'd end up scorned, diminished or lost among the masses again, so she made herself the Daughter of the Night, and fought the WOS as a giant marketing campaign for Lanfear, the Queen of the Shadow.

The woman's utterly pathetic. Even by Forsaken standards, she's one of the vainest, most self-serving and egomaniac persons.





That's a bit offensive to working class people, but anyway I seriously doubt Ilyena was so important socially or as an Aes Sedai. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, but her real greatness seems to have been her human qualities. She loved LTT and she brought him the balance he needed, was his anchor.

If she were so great an Aes Sedai, we would have heard about her influence with or against the Fateful Concord.



I don't think it's got anything to do with that.

What happened is that LTT had 50 years or more to build a fully realised, loving, mature and fruitful union with Ilyena. What his wife of 50 years could bring LTT must have counted a lot.

Rand could have none of that. He has a few adult years at most (at least before the LB), but it was vital for the world that he learned about love, that he found reasons not to become so dark he'd decide to end Creation. That's not an issue LTT had to face himself, with Ilyena and his family. He knew he wanted a future for the world.

Min, Aviendha and Elayne are an effort from the Wheel to place opportunities on Rand's path to experience love, with the good and bad sides. He can't develop a mature relationship of long years with a woman, as there is no time, and he couldn't stay in one place either (and neither could his lovers), so the Wheel gave him multiple women that would cross his path when needed, who would bond together, and all three of them care nothing for what Rand is, and only for him.

Min gave Rand a perspective on non-channellers. Rand tended to treat them more and more like crap, but Min is there to remind him they're not sub-humans the mighty channeller can do anything he wants with. They have as every right as channellers to be involved, and make contributions. Fel, Min, Bashere, Perrin, Mat, Rhuarc etc. - they're all very very far from useless.

Aviendha gave Rand a people, or rather she will make him see the Aiel as his own people once he returns from DM. He might regain a lot of the ground he's lost with them by marrying Aviendha and getting her pregnant. That would be the most tangible proof he cares for the Aiel and their survival, because his children will be Aiel too.

Elayne's there to show him what being a leader of people really is about. Not tyranny, not power first, but being responsible for those above whom he stands. She will also be the first mother of his children, perhaps (even probably) his main legacy and his only future.

And all three are there to learn about love at his side.

A lot of this is awaiting Rand's return from his epiphany on DM to reach the final stages. For now, the women gave Rand enough that he understood like LTT what it is to really love, laughters and tears both included. The relationship to the three women, those veins of gold, has made a big contribution to Rand's final choice not to end it all and destroy the world. By destroying the CK, he doesn't have this choice anymore, and no human will have this choice for the world at large. Cowards will have to go the Amayar way if they don't want to face what's coming.. From then on, it's win or lose against Shai'tan.



That's BS. Lanfear has the appearance of charisma and self-confidence (that's largely a mask) and an imposing presence, while the girls were just girls, self-conscious and immature. Min was still fighting against her feminity,

Egwene would stand up to Lanfear very differently now. Oh, she'd understand Lanfear is much stronger and knows more about the OP than her, but she'd also understand she's otherwise her superior in every way. Egwene is a Mierin who has managed to keep her ambition and power thirst in check, and understood she had to put them to the service of something greater than herself. Egwene is well on the way to become the sort of woman Mierin should have been.



Ouch! None of the Forsaken are attractive as human beings, and look what they've done with what they've got. Look at what 50% of the so-called Aes Sedai have done with their talents, their vows and their duties. Everything point to a society where half the Aes Sedai didn't take their role as "servants of all" very seriously and jumped at the first occasion to give up this duty to serve to aggrandize their own power. Half the Aes Sedai got wasted in a giant race for power, and all there's left of them, the thirteen, continued the trend. Even now, those still alive are still fighting for the top. Heck... Demandred and Lanfear have been in that self-serving race for ultimate power many years if not decades (or maybe centuries) before the Bore even existed...

Maybe 20% of Aes Sedai of the NE, and probably a much smaller percentage of channellers on the whole (WO, Windfinders, Kin, Asha'man etc.) serve the Shadow in the third Age, so that's a massive improvement over the AOL mentality, the real one underneath the illusion they were truly the "servants of all". The Third Ages are proving themselves better than their highly educated, too pampered ancestors. Egocentrism still exist, it's still especially strong among the privileged classes, but it's already a big improvement over the AOL society...




Lan admires her strength, her selflessness, her sense of responsability, her sense of community and how much she cares for her people, her sense of self-sacrifice. She was the Queen of her village. Nynaeve is also a real "Servant of All", her authority and power she used to serve others. She's not the equal of AOLers, she's in many ways their superior, with her priorities in the right place. None of that comes from her skills with the OP, it's all her personality, her choices and her accomplishments as a human being. Nynaeve as Wisdom is what Lan would wish to be but can't, and instead he's saddled himself with being the glrofied bodyguard of a single woman. He was fighting the Shadow with Moiraine as a substitute for his real duties. He's rejected his role as leader. Nynaeve showed him the hard way he had no choice, that's it's his duty to raise the Golden Crane and bring his people together, to defend the Borderlands.