Well, I would first say that even if Rand knows that he has to die, I suspect he would believe that he has to die in a way a bit more significant than death-by-lunatic to fullfill the prophecies and so on. As such I think he would very much want to solve death-by-Gawyn, even with balefire.

As for the idea that Rand will win and think Gawyn is finished only to have Gawyn surprise him. First of all that depends first on Rand being capable of victory (I will address this below), and second that Rand would be stupid enough to turn his back to Gawyn before being sure he was dead. Lan was smart enough to realise not to do that, and Lan trained Rand. Rand also presumably has the experiences of LTT who given how old/experienced he was in warfare would know this too.



Yeah, I suppose this is possible. Though it does beg the question of why those maidens did not interfere in the batte to protect Rand in the first place if they were near(see below).

I suppose they might come to the scene after Rand is dead, but before Gawyn has left the scene and before Cadsuane or someone might arrive and stop them. Rand has not told the maidens about balefire so they would not realise how important it was to keep Gawyn alive and take him to a channeler so that Rand could be revived. And I don't think the maidens know it from elsewhere either. Yes, I can buy that.

Though that runs into the problem of Rand being alone, which is something I wonder about? I mean would the new Rand/LTT not understand the importance of keeping guards around himself (both maidens and channelers), and make sure that he would so be protected. If the events happen during a battle as you suggested, Rand would be doubly protected so that the enemy would not get to him. Hmm, Did I ask this question of you before?



To answer this question. I would say that being one handed will place Rand at a disadvantage to someone with two hands. I mean Gawyn will be able to put more strength to his blows since he can use both his hands. This is an instant advantage to Gawyn that Rand would somehow have to counter.

Second, there is a scene at the beginning of TGS that suggests that Rand has infact not been practising his swordsmanship.



Rand himself admits that facing someone skilled and relying on the sword would lead to his death. And he was pretty closely merged with LTT at this point so maybe the dragonmount merging will suddenly make him a master onehander, but I doubt that. Especially since I have always kinda figured that LTT's skill with two handed fighting helped Rand in becoming a master so quickly in that art, the same as LTT's skill in channeling helped Rand there. So LTT probably fought with two hands.