More on Lanfear’s Potential Repentance

As a hopeless Lanfear groupie (I think she is by far the most interesting woman in Randland, in every way, and far superior to any of Rand’s current sweeties.), I’d like to extend the discussion most recently added to by Nynaeve in her posting, "Lanfear turning back to the Light". wotmania comments that he "really likes the idea of Lanfear turning back to the Light" but "doesn't see how it is possible." I’d like to take a crack at persuasion - since I’m taking a crack at everything else ;).

In order to show how Lanfear’s conversion could take place, we have to start with a delineation of the issue of what "possibility" means. In the simplest and barest sense, anything is possible so long as it is not logically contradictory. Thus, in the most basic sense, Lanfear’s conversion is possible so long as she retains free will and can choose what she wants to do. But this is a very cheap explanation, and it would be an insult to wotmania’s intelligence to simply force it on him, so I’m going to go deeper, into questions of probability. Here, we have to consider the interests of all the players involved in our little drama, i.e. Lanfear, the other bad guys, the other good guys, and Rand.

As for Lanfear herself, it is fairly obvious that she is an extremely ambitious woman who signed on with the Shadow for her own power and glory - they offered her more. True, she does say somewhere that she serves only the Dark One, but this is probably only because she sees him as stronger than the Light’s advocates. Remember that she once tried to get Rand to join her in using the two huge sa’angreal to knock of both the Dark One and the Creator Himself. Her loyalty is clearly not that of a zealot. I think she could be persuaded to change her mind for several reasons: first, she is very ambitious, and the most basic ambition of all is to survive. Seeing as how she’s most recently been nearly killed by Moiraine and has just gotten out of Finnland, and as how the Dark One has recycled her and put her on a short leash with a name that translates as "last chance," she may well conclude that the Shadow is more dangerous to her than the Light. Second, since her perrennial obsession is with power, she may also conclude that Rand can offer her more. Why? The difference lies in the distinction between actuality and potential. Suppose that we have two trees standing next to each other, a fully grown oak and a young redwood. Actually speaking, the oak is bigger than the redwood; but potentially speaking, the redwood is far bigger because it can grow to be much taller. An analogous situation exists between the Dark One and Rand. Currently, the Dark One is much stronger; but Rand has got those two big sa’angreal - and one of them works for a woman; and Lanfear thinks she and Rand could overpower the Dark One with them. Thus, while the Dark One is currently best, Rand may well offer a better future. Thirdly, there’s her obsession: she still wants the Dragon, even if her need for him doesn’t fit conventional definitions of love. And even if she meant to be his superior originally, as Asmodean once told Rand, I doubt she’d reject a chance to be his god-like equal with that big sa’angreal. Besides, people do change - she was’'t always evil; she doesn’t always have to be out to dominate everybody - she could conceivably have a sort of Lady MacBeth-like loving partnership with Rand, and just want to rule everyone else.

As for the other baddies, all that really restricts her here is the mindtrap Moridin seems to have her caught in. The other Forsaken, Shaidar Haran, and such, sure as heck don’t love her...she just needs to get clear of her dependence on the mindtrap (N.B.: the mindtrap gives Rand additional leverage if he can get his hands on it: he can offer to free her as a demonstration of goodwill; or he can threaten her with it- though that wouldn’t make her a willing ally, and those are the best sort).

Then there’s the other good guys. The biggest problem here is their acceptance of her into their ranks. It’s true that no one can "walk so long in the Shadow that they cannot come into the Light" and it would be a little hypocritical for the good guys to tell Lanfear to go away if she came to them asking for asylum and promising aid; but they still might not want her. However, I think this is unlikely for two reasons: One, while she is an important figure in the Shadow hierarchy, most of her atrocities and such lie in the distant past. The real war between Rand and the Dark One, the "Second War of Power," if you will, hasn’t started yet, and while lots of people may fear her, I doubt there are many who actively hate her and want revenge like there would have been back in the Age of Legends. Lastly, even if there was public hatred for Lanfear in Randland, there’s no real reason for anyone but Rand to know who she is... she and the Dragon could just make up a false identity. The secret might even help to solidify their "working relationship" (or perhaps even make it more intimate...), since if they needed to keep it from everyone else they’d both be in mutual danger from the same group - everybody else in Randland, evil and good alike.

Lastly, there’s the Dragon himself. This is perhaps the biggest obstacle, since Rand, who has more than a few personal problems himself, has to really get his act together to make this work. But still, it’s not impossible - it rests primarily on Rand having the imagination to grasp the potential public and personal benefits from having a minion who happens to be the hottest woman on the planet with a genius level intellect, great mystical powers that he can enhance to nearly god-like levels, an extremely passionate obsession with him and desire to be his honey, a drive for power that he can best satisfy, and increasingly fewer reasons to support his enemies. Rand really just needs to see the opportunity dangling before his eyes.

So, that, in short [or long ;)] is why I think it’s possible for Lanfear to become a servant of the Dragon. Of course, the final objection to her conversion is that it might be due to purely personal ambitions and desires rather than sincere contrition, and that her motivation might still be due to ambition rather than goodness per se. But I still don’t see how great ambition makes her any more evil than, say, Artur Hawkwing; he wanted to conquer the world too, and yet he’s still a hero of the Horn Lanfear’s real problem is not her ends, but her means - and she’s shown us before that she can change those. Thanks for your consideration wotmania!!! This site is GREAT.

wotmania says: Seriously, and post which calls this site GREAT gets put in without a doubt... This is a very interesting topic, one I am still not totally sure about. I have a problem with Lanfear as a good guy - would you trust her? I do not think I would... But the idea of her posing as someone else (a wilder who came to Rand for instance) might work, especially since no one would recognize her as Cyndane. That mindtrap presents quite an obstacle, though...