Some of my favourite fantasy protagonists are insane... - Edit 1
Before modification by Shannow at 20/12/2009 05:48:03 PM
ok so in tgs rand at least believes that LTT was never real and was just a construct of his own mind. i appreciate that HE believes that hehe
, but im still waiting on some mechanism that provided all the other info that he got supposedly from LTT about the forsaken and the aol and channeling etc.was there ever any consensus on this? are we just assuming that he's special? that he has some connection to previous lives as shown in the mtn top? maybe the glass columns that sent him mind questing back along his ancestry kept sending him on back subconsciously or something?
or is he just making another knuckle headed assumption?
Rand decided that the memories/skills came from memories of his past life as a result of effects of the taint, but that the personality of Lews Therin talking to him and having a voice and will of his own was a construct of his mind, ie: like schizophrenia.
He may be right, he may be wrong. It's something we know will never be resolved. RJ had his own answer and it's in his notes, but Brandon said RJ specified this matter should remain open to each reader's interpretation. "The seeping memories and the fear of being LTT reborn made Rand go insane and create the voice as a schizophrenic construct to cope" doesn't appeal to many readers ( a lot of people are really incomfortable with the idea that Rand was going insane), and "The real LTT was talking to Rand" doesn't work with others for the opposite reasons - and there are those who stand in between and think LTT's voice was real but its presence was driving Rand insane, that the cause was entirely different but the effects were very similar to suffering from schizophrenia. Rand being the central character and much of the story being driven from his POV, it's probably clever of Jordan not to impose a final answer on the reader about Rand's insanity.
Jon Shannow, the Jerusalem Man, for one. A total gunslinging psycho, but he smites evildoers and brings death and destruction to bandits and brigands.
Dace/Tarantio, in one of David Gemmell's other books. He is a Jekyll and Hyde type of character, the gentle Tarantio when calm, and a vicious killer-swordsman of unmatched skill called Dace when provoked.
Viruk the Killer, from the fantastic book Echoes of the Great Song. A lunatic psychopath straight out of a Tarantino movie, yet he becomes an unlikely hero by accident by the end of the story.
And, yes, Rand al'Thor, the sometimes enjoyable sometimes frustrating hero of the Wheel of Time. Enjoyable at Dumai's Wells, or when he says Culan Cuhan wept and Sammael tried to bait him once before at Serendahar, and also when scaring Verin and Allana in the inn, but totally frustrating when letting himself be slapped around by old ladies.
Insane heroes are some of the best characters to read about. I don't know why people would have a problem with it, to be frank.