“I’m a member of the Screen Actors Guild, a Kung-Fu Master, and a former vice president at a bank,” Time Siege and The Lives of Tao author Wesley Chu introduced himself in his recent Reddit AMA on r/books. “I summited Kilimanjaro last year and now have a 3 month old baby who thinks sleep is for the weak, so I’m a little delirious from not having more than four hours of sleep at a time in over three months.” Perhaps that deliriousness is what provided him with the perfect answer for one Redditor’s question, about which fictional character he would put up against one of his own in battle.
Chu gave this a lot of thought.
It’s no surprise that he would pick Roen Tan, the out-of-shape IT geek who gets possessed by the alien Tao, forcing him to train as a secret agent in order to save humanity from possible extinction by Tao’s race, the Quasing. (The folks behind Agent Carter recently optioned The Lives of Tao!) But who would be a worthy opponent? How about the Wheel of Time’s Dragon Reborn? Here’s a fun bit of fanfiction for you:
redhelldiver: Hey, Wesley! Thanks for doing this AMA. Congratulations on the new little sleep stealer in your family.
Speaking of kung-fu masters, if you could take a character from any other book to battle one of yours, who would it be, and who would win?
Chu: Hmm. Okay, let’s set some ground rules. No magic, no future tech, no guns. Sword and board are okay. Cool?
In that case, I want Roen Tan to fight Rand Al’Thor from Robert Jordan’s excellent Wheel of Time. Rand got a hand cut off but so we’ll let him use a sword. Roen isn’t allowed a weapon because we are a civilized folk and demand relatively fair odds.
Here’s my beef with Rand. He earned a Heron-marked sword something like 3 months into the story. That’s like earning a PHD in organic chemistry after taking Bio 101. It’s not just done, so step up One-Hand Al-Thor! Show me what you got! Prove yourself worthy.
Okay, I obviously put a lot of thought into this.
redhelldiver: This is awesome. This is so awesome, I almost regret asking because now where can I read this battle? Should you find yourself holding your young padawan late one night, awake and unable to move for fear of waking the child, please remember that thanks to technology, you can type a whole story one handed now!
Rand learned the sword so fast because Lews Therin had started “bleeding” over into Rand once he started being affected by the taint. Just like Rands ability to perform well with the one power with no trainin, the blade master reflexes were tapped as well.
You could argue that it started before that when Rand tried using the special waystones in the second book to get to Falme. He had lived hundreds of lives while channeling in it. Some of those lives he was a solider and trained by his father who was a true blade master. This just shows how brilliant Robert Jordan was, there was a logical reason Rand became a blade master in such a short period of time. Outside of him being Jesus and everything.
Rand also trained every day for a significant period of time (at least 1 or 2 months) with a blade master: Lan. Lan was possible the greatest swordsman of his era.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewHB
Blade-master or not Turak’s fingernails have to be taken into account. Not to take anything away from Rand… but those nails.
Rand was also tall and broad-shouldered and had “the quickest wrists” Lan had ever seen–he was one heck of an athlete. And he was already “country strong” and “longbowman strong” when he started practicing with the sword.
Roen didn’t have that advantage. Although better to have Tao in your head than Lews Therin.
Rand had a blade master’s sword, but not necessarily a blade master’s skill through at least the first third of the series. Yes, he (re?)gained knowledge from LTT and the Way Stones, but I doubt he would have passed an official test given by Blade masters to legitimately earn the title until around Path of Daggers.
Killing Turak took talent. However, Rand’s victory was more a combination of timing, subconscious channeling, luck and stupid fashion sense than skill. At the end of the day, he never, ever laid a single hit on Lan in any of their numerous sparring sessions and there were other warders (such as Hammar who Gawyn somehow killed) that were said to be able to win matches against Lan occasionally.
So which Rand Al’Thor are we considering here? The identification of Rand as having only one hand limits it to being after Knife of Dreams but before the end of A Memory of Light. Rand wasn’t doing a lot of sword fighting during that time. There’s one scene I recall where he spends some time sparring with his father (I think) and struggles at first, having to rethink how he uses the sword now that he only has one hand. At this point he’s really more likely to be using his power instead of mundane combat. Seems a bit unfair.