He [Rand] has an insane, long-dead man who accidentally killed his family and destroyed the world in his head, constantly threatening to, at best, merge with his personality (at worst, take it over completely).

It's EXTREMELY creepy, and it's meant to be so. Consider everyone's reactions to Rand whenever he accidentally slips into Lews Therin mode. He's constantly laughing to himself, or randomly flying into rages, or demonstrating knowledge that he just. shouldn't. have. There are only a handful of people in the world who aren't terrified of him to some extent.

Think what it would be like if some ancient warlord suddenly appeared in your brain. Yes, you might learn some cool new fighting moves, but you also would constantly be battling to keep your personality from being.


My response:

Polygamy is for you a good or accepted form of relation between women and men. What is your opinion on polyandry then?

Personally, I do not think that polygamy (or polyandry) is evil in itself. But I do not recommend it.

According to my opinion, polygamy was, to some extend, reasonable in ancient societies with deficit of males. It was a case among Arabic, Jewish and other tribes, permanently engaged in intertribal wars and interfamily feuds. I believe that function similar to widespread polygamy on Middle East, was fulfilled in Middle America by not so numerous, huge harems of Aztec aristocracy - young prisoners of war were slaughtered on the top of holy pyramids, surplus of women ended in harems. I really do not promote such customs, but I understand that polygamy in the war-oriented civilization was an important factor to stabilize the society.

Polyandry is a traditional practice in some Himalaya valleys. With scarce resources, in order to prevent famine and, in result, extinction of the whole population, birth reduction is applied by killing female infants and by sending young girls to nunneries. Surplus of men in a family, usually brothers or cousins, is married to one women.

In last millenium polygamy and polyandry became an obsolete and unproductive custom. Farming in northern hemisphere required long lasting cooperation between men and women. Stable couples were more efficient as peasants then slaves in big Roman latifundia with loose family ties. I time, huge farms collapsed, peasants survived. Church blessed monogamy. All of this strengthened monogamic family as a basic social unit in Middle Ages. After industrial revolution, legal monogamy is still maintained in modern, western societies, because it is functional in supporting equal position of men and women. Both sexes learn and work. In Muslim countries half of population is deprived of rights and education. Women are scheduled to give pleasure to men, to rise babies and to work in kitchen. Even in rich and educated families women are submitted to men. This is not only very unjust, this is unproductive.

Always there is an evolution of customs when civilization changes. Monogamic marriage seems to be much more loose nowadays then it was one century ago. Divorces are frequent, short time unions popular. But I do not expect that polygamy in foreseeable future will become social norm in both Americas, Europe or China.

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Above I presented, in a nut shell, what I think as far polygamy is concerned. But, of course, it is irrelevant, what is my attitude, moral or practical, to this subject. What matters, is intention of Robert Jordan what to do, at the end of books, with the three lovers of Rand. Two of them can die. If not, there are four possibilities:

1. Rand will abandon all girls and become a beggar, or will flow with them by boat to the Islands of Death, etc ...,
2. Rand will live with all three girls,
3. Rand will spurn Avi and Min, and will live happily with queen Elayna,
4. Three girls melt and Rand will live, as you said, with hive-mind monster.


You do not like hive-mind and you think that Robert Jordan, obviously, followed your fillings and decided to choose solution number 2.

I am not fond of hive-mind, as well. But I believe that Robert Jordan invented hive-mind in case of melting Rand's and LLT's personalities, and also in case of Mat's mind, filled with memory of many military leaders. And, I doubt that Robert Jordan treated melting personalities as a repulsive concept. I believe that Robert Jordan decided to melt wonder girls in order to recreate Iliena. I am not a judge of him, I am not telling that it is a nice idea or a repugnant one. I am trying to decipher hints, he spread all over last books with aim to show his plan to very observant readers only. List of his hints I gave in my basic post.

Perhaps, in preparation of post I made a mistake giving my opinion on WHY Robert Jordan decided to melt girls and not chose group-couple for them. Readers of my post, unfortunately, concentrated their comments on "morals", if polygamy is decent or not, and what they think I think, instead focusing their attention on what Robert Jordan wrote, and I only subsequently cited and discussed.