Don't you think that might be a bit of an exaggeration? I mean we have what, a few sentences from Rand at a time when he is still probably feeling great and awed from his burst of enlightenment. If he is completely different in the entire book with no Randlike qualities at all then that would be bad, but making that determination now is too big a leap.



This is hardly unexpected, but has been foreshadowed for quite a while. There are several prophecies about the DR singing to the land to make things grow and being connected to the land and so on. Infact there are lot of people who have theorised that this effect would happen. I thought it was really cool and fun, but not unexpected.

As for LTT, we don't know if he had this kind of power, maybe he did not. However the AoL was also a different time. LTT did not need to have the ability to grow things, because there were aiel and Ogier and Nym who knew how to do that growing song, and their ability with the OP&ter'angreal was such that they could likely repel/counter the DO without LTT too. The current era has no such things so Rand having such power is much more critical to survival.



No it did not. The aura was present in TGS and seen by many people. Cadsuane saw it several times, first when Rand threatened to control his ta'veren to kill her. Nynaeve saw it too, as did Tuon and possibly others. The only difference was that there the aura was dark and when it appeared, things spoiled around Rand and the DO grew stronger. Now it is the opposite, being light rather than dark and un-spoiling things and countering the DO instead.


The bottom line is that ta'veren has always been described as a unique power of the pattern that helps keep things together. It makes perfect sense then that such a power would counter the touch of the DO on the pattern. The exact nature of ta'veren has also been a bit mysterious, and the limits never made clear, but we do know that Rand is the strongest ta'veren ever and glows like the sun to those with the ability to see it, so I see nothing bizarre about the new sane!Rands ta'veren strengtening the pattern enough to drive the DO away temporarily and causing good things to happen to fix things the DO has broken.