Almost enough collateral damage to break the Pattern and let the DO win without a fight. Seems kind of evil to me.
Quantity is irrelevant when taking a human life. Otherwise, if ten guys were about to kill a baby, how could you justify killing them all to save it? Ten lives next to one? It is the situation that determines if it is murder or not. Actually it makes a huge difference when using balefire. You balefire one person and the odds of destroying the Pattern are quite small. But as you increase the number of people balefired you increase the risk of destroying the Pattern. If Rand had simply killed Graendal and all those inside the Palace I would agree that what he did wasn't evil. However, using balefire and risking the Pattern as he did is certainly close to being evil, even if it was unintentional.
As for the Borderlanders, you're missing the real reason he wanted to blast them. It wasn't because they had abandoned their post and were leaving their people to die, or that they were trying to trap Rand in a box. It was merely the fact that anyone would go against what he wished, that was why he was going to rain fire on them, not to kill them, but to teach them not to go against him. Seems pretty evil to me.
And why would he think that? Because he is the Dragon Reborn and is trying to fight for all of humanity against the Dark One. The right to kill recalcitrant or disobediant soldiers has long been a morally accepted position for superior officers. Some armies in particular might choose to limit this prerogative, but that is simply a matter of institutional preference. Even if we stipulate that Rand's motives might not be the purest, the situation is perfectly justified. They can't be "disobediant soldiers" because they're not sworn to him. He's still not justified, they wanted to meet him somewhere he couldn't channel because they have no idea how sane he is. Considering the fact that he almost tries to destroy them all for that it seems that they made the right decision. Also, punishing the soldiers is stupid, it's the rulers who make the decisions.
The threat to Cadsuane is also somewhat evil, there's no need for him to threaten her with death.
I think he was warning her, not threatening her. She was interfering in his chain of command, took it upon herself to take over certain issues and failed in her responsibility. He did not kill her on the spot, but he did forbid her on pain of death from interfering with her anymore. Aes Sedai play all sorts of word games, and thanks the Three Oaths, have forfeited any trust, so it made it simple. "Cadsuane,' he said softly, 'do you believe that I could kill you? Right here, right now, without using the sword or the Power? Do you believe that if I simply willed it, the Pattern would bend around me and stop your heart? By . . . coincidence?"(emphasis mine) Seems like a threat to me. While it is true that she failed, no one else could have been successful.
I like how you want to gloss over the most evil of his acts, almost killing his father
So you admit that the most evil thing he did, was only something he ALMOST did? In other words, he didn't actually DO this thing? I rest my case!I kind of consider even thinking about killing your father to be evil. The fact that he didn't follow through with it is only a small mitigating fact.
for no reason other than the fact that Cadsuane was the one who brought him in.
Highly suspicious circumstances, no? He knows she's trying to screw with his head and it is unwelcome. She has no right to do it. He had a legitimate cause for suspicion when Tam admitted that he was brought in by someone Rand sees as an enemy, who was coaching him on what to say. He should know that she is trying to help him, but his own beliefs are so twisted by his anger that he can't see the truth.
Rand barely stops himself, and then almost goes off and does something as bad if not worse. He decided he was going to wipe out the Seanchan invasion using balefire and the CK.
INVASION. What the hell is giving you a mental block here? They made themselves liable to death by setting foot on the shore. Or do you want him to get more of his people killed fighting them off? And how many more chances is he supposed to give them after they rejected his peace overtures?And if Rand was going to kill them simply because they were invaders I'd agree that it's not evil. However, the WHY he's going is as important as the actual actions. He's going to kill them because they hurt his ego, they dared to defy the Dragon Reborn. The peace overtures he spent all of 5 minutes trying to sell them on? I mean really, I think he's too used to being ta'veren and not having to work for anything. Also, if he had just gone to kill them it wouldn't have been as bad, but the fact that he was planning to use balefire with the CK makes it an extremely dangerous act.
If he had actually gone through with his plans he likely would have unraveled the Pattern bringing about the DO's victory. Again his motivation to destroy the Seanchan is not to protect his flanks, but because they dared to not do exactly as he said when he said it.
They destroyed multiple AoL cities (millions of people) before reaching that point last time.Yes, however, they stopped using balefire very early in the War of Power, before the DO had much time to influence the Pattern himself. The DO has already done a lot of damage to the Pattern, to the extent that rooms shift about inside buildings and the dead walk. When Rand balefires Graendal, "It snapped back, but Min could still feel that tension. In that instant, it seemed as if the very substance of the world had been near to breaking." Later as Nynaeve and Min go to Cadsuane, Sorilea comments, "We felt the world warping from here, but did not know what had caused it. We assumed it was the Dark One's work."(emphasis mine) They assumed that the greatest source of evil was the one responsible for what Rand did. Don't you think that makes him at least a little evil?
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Rand is NOT evil in tGS, nor does he do any evil
- 14/11/2009 12:26:27 AM
1349 Views
That is nonsense...
- 14/11/2009 12:47:22 AM
740 Views
Re: That is nonsense...
- 14/11/2009 05:30:01 AM
623 Views
So what?
- 14/11/2009 09:28:49 AM
687 Views
Sorry... gotta disagree.
- 14/11/2009 01:09:30 AM
661 Views
Re: Sorry... gotta disagree.
- 14/11/2009 03:49:49 AM
612 Views
I disagree with prety much everything
- 14/11/2009 03:10:12 AM
591 Views
Wouldn't the Chaos Graendal was causing in Arad Doman be greater than the chaos Rand caused?
- 14/11/2009 04:11:48 AM
741 Views
nothing Graendal did almost caused the Pattern to collapse *NM*
- 14/11/2009 05:59:21 AM
429 Views
The chaos the Forsaken are causing is causing the world to collapse and the DO to get stronger
- 14/11/2009 07:48:05 AM
762 Views
Re: I disagree with prety much everything
- 14/11/2009 05:45:14 AM
658 Views
Why in the world is quantity irrelevant?
- 14/11/2009 06:01:13 AM
446 Views
A murderer is evil. What difference does it make how many? That's just degrees. There's no OK number
- 14/11/2009 07:22:47 AM
526 Views
Ok, let's take this a step further
- 14/11/2009 09:45:50 PM
480 Views
Re: I disagree with prety much everything
- 14/11/2009 04:35:27 PM
633 Views
Rand has not yet crossed the moral event horizon of no return,
- 14/11/2009 03:27:22 AM
572 Views
Then he already passed the horizon by your reckoning. He DID choose to do those things.
- 14/11/2009 07:45:46 AM
662 Views
Then maybe we just have different standards.
- 14/11/2009 11:56:02 AM
633 Views
Why do you keep bringing up genocide? Rand was not doing that.
- 15/11/2009 01:02:23 AM
649 Views
To me, the Rules of War is nothing but a contract between parties.
- 15/11/2009 08:39:55 PM
447 Views
It's too late in the game to worry about followers. He has no further political agenda *NM*
- 19/11/2009 01:01:04 AM
200 Views
What Rand did that was evil.
- 14/11/2009 04:06:17 AM
575 Views
I don't see Arad Doman
- 14/11/2009 04:57:20 AM
480 Views