
Rand was 18 years old when the Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred came to his village in search of the Dragon Reborn.
Common belief has him as Lews Therin Telemon reborn.
He can hear the voice of someone claiming to be Lews Therin inside his head.
He was born on the slopes of Dragonmount, as according to prophecy, and was raised in the Two Rivers by Tam and Kari al' Thor.
His real mother was Tigraine, Daughter Heir of Andor, who died giving birth to him. His father was Janduin, an Aiel clan chief, also dead.
Rand is ta'veren, one of the few people able to bend the Pattern.
He has auburn hair and gray eyes, and he is taller than most people from his village.
He has a scar on his left side that he believes will finally kill him. He received it battling Ishamael in the skies over Falme.
He is in love with Elayne Trakand, Aviendhea, and Min Farshaw, and considers himself a randy goat, worthless of their love.
He learned a lot about the One Power from the Forsaken Asmodean, whom Lanfear trapped into aiding him.
He is challenging the Aes Sedai by creating their opposites - the Asha'man. This effort is proving more difficult since they started to go mad.
The following information was written by Matt J. MacDonald.
In the novel The Eye of the World, the
main character is Rand al’Thor. In the beginning, he is just
a simple farm boy who, like any boy his age, dreams about the
girl he is going to one day settle down with on a farm of his own
and goes of exploring with his friends.
However, as the novel
goes on, his character develops into a more responsible and aware
person. In examining his relationship with the others from
Emond’s Field, his attitude toward Moiraine and Lan taking
him and his friends away from their home, and his dreams of
Ba’alzamon, it is shown how his character is developed. Rand
has a good relationship with his fellow Emond’s Fielders.
Him and Mat are childhood buddies who are always getting into
trouble together and fooling around. He really cares for Mat and
would risk his life to save him. They help each other out and
stick together throughout the story, especially on the way from
Shadar Logoth to Caemlyn when they are hunted by Darkfriends, Mat
is blinded and Rand is sick. Before they left their village, Rand
was all but promised in marriage to Egwene. They act lovingly
towards each other a number of times though nothing major
happens. The two care for each other very deeply though, as the
novel goes on, they start to realize they could never marry
because of their destinies (to be the Dragon Reborn and Aes
Sedai, respectively), and slowly drift apart.
Perrin and Rand
were always good friends, but weren’t as close as Mat and
Rand. Quiet, heavyset Perrin always kept to himself mostly and
did not open himself up to Rand as much as Mat did. Nynaeve,
being the Wisdom, always had a kind of doctor-patient
relationship.
Even though she is only two or three years older
than Rand, she bosses him and bullies him. At first, Rand, having
never ventured more than a few miles from his home, was excited
at the prospect of adventure like the other boys. He starts out
the trip towards Taren Ferry with excitement thinking of glory
and adventure. But as the party must ride through the rain and
the cold at night, he starts to lose enthusiasm. He complains
like the others, but Lan an Moiraine refuse to let them stop.
This causes Rand and the others to start to resent Moiraine.
As
the going gets worse and worse, Rand gets very homesick and even
thinks of going back. He doesn’t, however, and goes on with,
perhaps, a little more reluctance than he had before. Once he and
Mat are separated from the others, he breeds a strong hatred of
Moiraine for having put them there. They do end up turning out
all right and finding the others, but Rand holds on to these new
feelings. After Rand leaves his village and goes on with
Moiraine, he and the other two boys start having strange dreams
involving someone identifying himself as Ba’alzamon, the
Dark One. Rand reacts to this with fear and shows his
venerability.
However, these dreams also bring out his courage
and resistance when Ba’alzamon attempts to make him follow
him and Rand refuses and denies him. These dreams seem to have an
effect on what happens in the waking world as in when, during
Rand’s second dream, Ba’alzamon kills a rat by breaking
it’s back and after he wakes up, he hears of rats being
found all over their inn dead with their backs broken.
Also,
during his (and Mat’s) next dream, Ba’alzamon is
chasing them through the maze of the Ways, though they don’t
realize it is the Ways until later on when they actually enter
them. The dreams seem to progress in certain ways each time they
happen. Like after the boys have told Moiraine about these
dreams, Ba’alzamon identifies each of them by their
appearance, which he had never done before.
Also, each time they
have a dream, the next day the party or just them are confronted
or attacked by a Darkfriend or Fade or Trollocs.
Rand is a very
complex character who evolves much even in just the first book of
this long series. His character continues to change and evolve
throughout the rest of the books to a point where he no longer
acts, speaks, or even thinks as he did in the first book; he is
almost unrecognizable.
The series is not finished yet though, and
he character will certainly go through more changes yet.