So the other day I watched, perhaps for the hundreth time, my favorite music video of all time: Hurt by Johnny Cash. I linked the video below. Seriously, check it out before you finish this post. It's so...haunting. I have never seen a music video like it. (By the way, this is a remake of a Nine Inch Nails song but I like this one much better.)

Anyways, I was just recently thinking about the WoT when I decided to watch the video. And for some reason, while listening to the lyrics, Rand popped into my head and I was shocked to realize that the song perfectly describes Dark Rand. Have you watched the video yet? Let me illustrate my point:

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real

As Rand descends into his darkness, he becomes emotionally numb. He keeps thinking that he has to become as hard as steel. What's left for him to feel? Just pain. Pain from all the women who have died around him. The never ending pain from the wounds on his side. The pain from losing his hand. So what does he do? He causes himself pain by branding the names of the women who have died into his memory. He causes himself pain for choking Min. For letting that little girl die in the Stone of Tear. For him, these pains are all that's real now.

The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

Replace "needle" with "dagger" and it makes perfect sense. As talked about above, Rand is used to pain. When Fain cuts him with the dagger, Rand is already use to pain like that. Pain, for him, is "the old familiar sting." And then he can't take it anymore. He tries to "kill it all away" by becoming like steel. But he remembers all the pain anyways. He can't let himself forget. How many women were on his list? He has a madman in his head that won't let him forget what he has done in a past life. He killed his wife and all his children. No matter what he does, no matter how mad he becomes, he can't forget.

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

What, indeed, has Rand become? Is he steel now? Or is he an unfeeling monster? For Rand, it doesn't end. Everyone he loves dies. Life after past life. An unending cycle. After all, everyone's going to go away in the end. What's the point?

And you can have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

Rand doesn't want any of this. His empire? Pssh he's just trying to hold onto what he has until he can die at the Last Battle. Then the Seanchan are welcome to his "empire of dirt." Rand can't do anything about that. He is the Dragon Reborn, the man prophesized to bring about another breaking. He's going to hurt a lot of people, especially the people he loves.

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair

Crown of thorns? Is Rand really entitled to be King of Illian? Or is he just sitting "upon my liar's chair?" He's just a tyrant, isn't he? Full of broken thoughts indeed. He's mad, after all. Lews Therin won't leave him alone. He doesn't know how to get rid of him. It's beyond repair.

Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

Even if he wins in the end, his feelings will disappear as he is reborn again. He is the Dragon Reborn. Always. But his friends are somebody else in every life. But Rand, the Dragon, Champion of the Light, is "still right here."

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

And you can have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Rand wishes he could start again, a million miles away. So he goes where he was meant to go. He goes to Dragonmount. He wants to find a way to end his madness. He just wants to "keep myself." And finally the light begins to shine. He does find a way, a million miles away, up on top of a mountain.