Books The Wheel of Time Reading The Wheel of Time: Rand Contemplates the Last Battle in The Gathering Storm (Part 25) Rand abandons Bandar Eban and heads to Tear… By Sylas K Barrett | Published on May 12, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share It’s a short one this week on Reading The Wheel of Time, as we cover chapter 42 and muse about Rand’s current emotional state and how that might be affecting his success in Ebou Dar, and as the world’s most powerful ta’veren. Riding through the streets of Bandar Eban, Rand argues with Lews Therin about who is the author of the list of dead women, and discusses how they are fated to kill the ones they love over and over again. When Min hears Rand whispering, he pulls himself together, determined not to let anyone know how close he is to collapsing. Rand feels that he has failed in Arad Doman. The food he brought in attracted more refugees, straining supplies, and he has failed to find them a king and to make peace with the Seanchan. The Domani will see war and starvation… and Rand is leaving them behind. Somehow, the people realized that, and it was very hard for Rand to look at them. Their hungry eyes accused him: Why bring hope, then let it dry up, like a newly dug well during a drought? Why force us to accept you as our ruler, only to abandon us? Bashere reports that Lady Chadmar has been returned to her mansion, as have the other four members of the merchant council that Rand has been holding. Bashere suspects that they will ignore Rand’s orders to elect new council members and then choose a King, and instead will flee the city as soon as Rand and his Aiel guards are gone. Everyone knows the Seanchan are coming. Bashere also reports that Ituralde has been in some minor skirmishes with Trollocs along the Blight, but that it is clear that something is gathering; scouts have glimpsed forces strong enough to overrun Ituralde’s own. He suspects they are gathering at the Gap. Rand has Flinn and Naeff open a gateway, but before he can ride through, Iralin, one of the dockmasters, calls out to him. Iralin reports that every bit of food in storage and on the Sea Folk ships has spoiled. Apparently it happened in the blink of an eye. The food is rotten enough to make people sick if they eat it. As he desperately asks Rand what they will do, Rand turns and rides through the gateway, leaving the city to its fate. As he arrives in Tear, he sees that the city has turned out to greet him. When he notes that the citizens seem surprised to see him, Bashere reminds him that he has been away for a long time, and that there were no doubt rumors about his death or disappearance. Rand notes to himself that he has not seen Cadsuane or Nynaeve and wonders where both women are—though of course they won’t be together. Rand and Bashere discuss whether Ituralde will abandon the Blight when he hears that Rand has left Arad Doman, and how bad a situation it is to be going to war with the Seanchan danger unresolved. Rand’s next step is to seek out the Borderland army, to settle whatever issue they have and deal with the fact that they have abandoned their duty. Bashere cannot imagine what would have drawn the Borderland leaders away from their homes at a time like this. Entering the Stone, Rand is greeted by a group headed by King Darlin, Lord Dobraine, and the foolish Lord Weiramon. Rand is shocked when Lews Therin declares that he likes Weiramon, and that a man doesn’t choose to be an idiot but that he does choose to be loyal, as Weiramon has been. Rand decides not to argue with the madman. The rest of the High Lords and Ladies are also there, as is Alanna, who Rand avoids looking at. He feels her sorrow through the bond. Darlin has built the army Rand asked him for, but is surprised to learn that they are not going to Arad Doman. When he asks where they will be going again, Rand declares that Darlin’s forces will be coming with Rand to Shayol Ghul. Rand leaving Bandar Eban is absolutely tragic. I find myself going back and forth about how I feel about his decisions here. On the one hand, it is hard to say what Rand could be doing differently at this moment. He brought the grain to the city—demanding a good deal of risk and sacrifice from the Sea Folk to accomplish the feat—but even before the spoilage, those resources were proving to be insufficient to provide for all the people who needed aid. Rand attempted to find enough members of the merchants’ council to elect a new king, but was unsuccessful through no fault of his own—too many have disappeared or died. True, he could have appointed a king, but we haven’t really seen any prospects since he arrived in the capital of Arad Doman; unless someone came to him with desire and a plan for how they would rule, Rand would still have to stay to devote assistance and resources if any new ruler was going to be effective. Even with a king, even with food, it is clear that Arad Doman could never resist against the Seanchan invasion that appears to be imminent. Once Rand failed to secure a truce with the Seanchan, his choices seems to be to either leave Arad Doman to its fate, or to stay and protect it. Which is no choice at all. Rand’s resources, already spread thin, are not infinite.  Really, the greatest disservice he has done to Arad Doman is giving Ituralde resources in the form of Asha’man and then sending him to the Blight instead of to protect his people. I think Ituralde would have been able to lead as well as anyone else available; his love for his countrymen would have been apparent, boosting hope in the suffering people even if starvation and deprivation continued. Rand could have appointed Ituralde as some kind of regent, if he remained unwilling to be made King. Rand knew Arad Doman was suffering, and he had no guarantee that he was going to be able to make peace with the Seanchan. He took away the Domani’s best hope of survival, just because Rand is too suspicious to allow his followers to serve in their own homeland. Ituralde also believed that the Asha’man he had been provided with would be enough to stem the tide of Seanchan advancement into Arad Doman; instead the country has been left completely defenseless to the Seanchan, or to whoever else may show up to conquer or destroy them. Putting aside Rand’s previous actions and looking only at the position he has found himself in at the beginning of chapter 42, it is in fact not clear what else he can do for the people of Bandar Eban. Especially because he knows that the Last Battle is about to begin; if he fails to be ready for Tarmon Gai’don, nothing he does in Arad Doman will mean anything. There’s no point in saving people from starvation or Seanchan enslavement if they’re just going to get erased from existence two seconds later. I presume this is why he doesn’t at least consider bringing Ituralde back and letting him keep the Asha’man to protect Arad Doman. Rand is ready to ride to Shayol Ghul, and he is going to want to take every single black-coated man with him. It is also true that none of Rand’s advisors have offered him a solution to the problem of Bandar Eban. In fact, several of them have expressed the opinion that he should never have gone to Bandar Eban in the first place. I believe Cadsuane referred to it as “messing about” or some such similar phrase, though this was after her banishment so she never said it to Rand’s face. Rand himself only came to Bandar Eban because he was looking for Graendal; sending the grain to Arad Doman was an attempt to aid the country, but arriving in the capital was not about trying to conquer or restore leadership. It was just something he was doing on the side while he looked for Graendal; his intention was always to find the Forsaken, kill her, and move on. For better or for worse, he is sticking to his original plan,. In many ways, the people of Bandar Eban will be no worse off after his departure. However. It feels incredibly relevant that Rand’s first failure to leave a city he took over in better condition than that in which he found it only occurs after he reached this place of emotional hardness and deep despair. That it occurs at a time when he has cut himself off from every emotion, when he accepts himself as someone who causes only harm, and who is destined to be hated. That it occurs after he accepts himself as a killer, and has become one in truth, after his actions at Natrin’ Barrow. What have we become? Lews Therin whispered. We’re going to do it again, aren’t we? Kill them all. Everyone we’ve loved. Again, again, again…“Again and again,” Rand whispered. “It doesn’t matter, as long as the world survives. They cursed me before, swore at Dragonmount and by my name, but they lived. We’re here, ready to fight. Again and again. When Rand says that “it doesn’t matter,” that he is going to kill everyone he loves, I think this is an attempt to dismiss his own feelings, not necessarily to say that other people’s lives don’t have any relevance, or even that there is no amorality in being a killer as long as you win the Last Battle. However, nitpicking over exactly what “it doesn’t matter” means doesn’t change the fact that Rand being dismissive of deaths, and of his part in deaths, is a very dangerous place for him to be. Psychology tells us that our perception affects our reality, and that what we focus on and give our energy to is what comes to pass. This is why exercises like vision boards, manifestation, and The Secret work; it isn’t magic or telekinesis, but the result of pouring one’s energy in a certain direction. The more we focus on despair and defeat, the more despairing and defeated we feel. The more we spend time thinking about our goals, the more likely we are to come up with concrete actions that help us achieve them. If Rand decides that he doesn’t care that he causes death, then he will continue to see killing as an acceptable means to achieve his ends, just as he did at Natrin’s Barrow. One can debate, I think, whether the deaths of Graendal’s prisoners were mercy or not, and whether Rand had a moral duty to stay in Bandar Eban even though he knows he must soon ride to the Last Battle without finding an obvious and clear conclusion. There are points to be made on both sides—points of morality, practicality, or both. It is Rand’s perspective that is utterly flawed, utterly broken, and that is going to be a problem everywhere he goes. He looks for darkness, and he finds darkness. He lists his failures and perceived crimes in his own head, ad nauseam, and so he believes himself a monster. He believes that Min fears him now, and so he sees fear in her actions. I could keep listing examples, but the crux of the matter is that if Rand can get to a point where he thinks huge numbers of deaths don’t matter as long as the world survives the Last Battle, then there is no reason to think he won’t eventually reach a point where he decides that saving the world doesn’t matter, either. A point where he no longer sees anything in the world worth saving—no beauty, no hope, no lives that matter. This is a terrible, terrible danger, one that not only risks Rand being unable to stop the Dark One from destroying the world, but that he may actually become the destroyer of the world himself, as I posited in my recent essay. But to bring us back to the moment at hand, I think it’s also worth noting that Rand is not an ordinary person. For him, manifestation might actually be magic, so to speak; his mood and feelings might directly affect how his ta’veren powers manifest. I strongly suspect that the grain spoiled not because of the random effects that are touching the world, like people turning into bugs and food, but because of Rand’s particular presence in Bandar Eban. What a beautifully tragic piece of symbolism it is to see the grain that Rand worked so hard to get to Ebou Dar spoil at the very moment he was abandoning the city. Rand’s relationship with Lews Therin is also changing. They are both starting to refer to themselves as “we” whenever they are in agreement on something, each accepting the other as a presence in a shared mind. When they disagree, the argument is no longer which of them is a madman in the other’s head, but rather, a debate about which thoughts and actions belong to which personality. We see this in Lews Therin’s insistence that he begin the list of dead women. We also see him accepting Rand’s actions at Natrin’s Barrow as being Lews Therin’s actions as well. It’s hard to say what this blurring means, whether it’s a sign of increasing madness in Rand or merely another way in which he has decided to just accept situations he feels he cannot change, but either way it feels like it will be significant in Rand’s journey towards fighting the Last Battle. Rand is apparently planning to ride to that battle now, and I’m curious about that decision, given how there are still two more books after this one. Will the Last Battle span two whole novels? What will that look like, and how much of that fight will actually be regular open warfare? We also see in this chapter that Rand is aware that he is very close to collapsing. If there are still two books worth of trials and tribulations to go, it’s hard to imagine him making it through all that without some kind of change to his situation. I wonder if perhaps there is some kind of climax coming, in which Rand confronts his despair and finds some kind of hope. Perhaps Cadsuane’s plan is going to work? Or perhaps Aviendha will return and help him, along with Min, to accept love and support? Time will tell, I suppose. I am very anxious about Lan, given Ituralde’s reports about what is going on in the Blight. I’m wondering if a conflict at the Gap might kick off Towers of Midnight. The way that fight has been alluded to has me thinking a lot about the Battle of Helm’s Deep and the way the Rohirim stood alone, almost certain they would be overrun, only to have help arrive at the very last moment. Will Lan also look up to a ridge and find that Rand has come to reinforce him after all? I can’t lie, I would absolutely love that. Oh! And of course part of Towers of Midnight will be the rescue of Moiraine, so it’s not all going to be Tarmon Gai’don stuff. I can’t believe I forgot about that. Next week we’ll be covering 43 and 44, which will cover Egwene’s return to the rebel camp and some very interesting points of order, then come back to Rand so he and Nynaeve can talk about the Gap and where Perrin might be located. Fun stuff! I’m always and forever happy to have a Nynaeve chapter.[end-mark] The post Reading The Wheel of Time: Rand Contemplates the Last Battle in <i>The Gathering Storm</i> (Part 25) appeared first on Reactor.