Are you sure he does not know? AoLeres developed Balefire, LTT has much of that knowledge which means right now, so does Rand. It seems reasonable enough to me for Rand to know full well that balefire does not kill souls. And I have something which strongly suggests that this is true.

Liah.

In Shadar Logoth, Liah is caught by Mashadar. Rand has reason to believe that Mashadar is going to eat her soul, so in order to save her he destroys her with balefire, burning her thread back to before Mashadar caught her, killing Liah, but saving her soul.

Rand even mentions this specific event when she balefires Graendal and calls it a mercy, which it was. Now consider, if Rand believed or even had a reason to doubt that balefire destroyed souls, why would he have used that on Liah. Using balefire on Liah makes sense only if he thinks that death by balefire is better than death by Mashadar.

No, I think he knows full well, probably from LTT and research done in AoL what balefire does, and that it does not kill souls.



I am not entirely sure I understand what you are saying here. I mean sure, balefired forsaken come back. But they dont come back as those personalities, and they come as new infants so they are no longer his enemies at that point, even if the soul is the same. Which is the whole point of using balefire.



Not even to get rid of a forsaken who might destablize it even more? I have never claimed that Rand did no damage, just that thanks to LTT and the knowledge of balefire he has from the WoP, he is better equipped to judge the damage done to the pattern than anyone else alive.