I put a couple of the quotes below, but RJ and BS have made it clear that the food has been spoiling in Randland because of Rand's descent into depression and darkness, essentially rotting on the inside.

Taking it a step further, Rand's semi-descent into madness in the middle books corresponded with the world seeming to go mad, bubbles of evil, nations in chaos, kings disapperaing, etc.

The Seanchan can be viewed as a parallel to Rand's never-healing wound (plus he got the wound the first time a real battle with the Seanchan occured) in that it's concentrated to one "side" (forgive me) of Randland, and although they're spreading really slowly; they keep being beaten back and contained but never defeated and driven away, just like his wound is healed repeatedly but never fully.

I wonder, then, what literary parallel we can find (if any, and possibly in future books) with Rand losing his hand. That's really my point here. We've addressed everything wrong with him; madness, darkness, side-wound, but not hand (or his foggy vision, but that's splitting hairs because that has a plot point within the prophecies).

What have we seen in the existing novels that might qualify as a correlation there? Or what parallels could we possibly see in the last 2 books?