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Re: Ishamael single-handedly gave Rand the most reason to resist temptation to the Dark Kythorian Send a noteboard - 01/11/2010 05:54:16 PM
It seems to me that despite your track record in the past, the Dark One cares more about what happens with the Dragon when you interact with him. You can hardly call Semirhage a failure - she seemed to be one of the Dark One's favorites, and of all of them, her defeat was the least spectacular. It was almost impressive that she stood her ground and it really seemed that even with her scene in TGS, she did well for herself. Taking the Dragon into account, Ishamael has been a spectacular failure since day one, and only seems able to influence background plots.

It just seems to me, and other readers have commented on this as well, that RJ assigns the worst punishments for female villains as if they are supposed to possess the superior judgment, whereas the males seem to get off with a shrug or die pretty cleanly.


From what I hear, we learn more about what Ishy has been up to in regards to Rand in ToM. It sounds like he has not been quite as much of a failure as it looks like so far. And even if he has, it clearly hasn't been of the magnitude of mogy or graendal.

And I wouldn't call Semi a failure. She likely would have been absolutely successful against Rand not once, but twice, if not for two things she had no way of knowing about. First Cads' ter'angreal, which noone had any way of knowing about, is what messed her up the first time, and Rand's access to the TP is the only thing that saved him the second. But she didn't get punished by the DO, so I don't really see how this is relevent.

But I think that the female forsaken have, as a whole, created worse disasters for the Shadow than the male forsaken, so of course they have been punished more. You can say that the fact that RJ set up the female forsaken to be even more incompetent than the male is a sign of sexism if you want...I personally think it was just a plot necessity, since the female forsaken have more frequently faced people other than rand, who are not as badass as him, and so need to be more pathetic to still lose.
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Ishamael single-handedly gave Rand the most reason to resist temptation to the Dark - 01/11/2010 02:47:01 PM 1322 Views
Re: Ishamael single-handedly gave Rand the most reason to resist temptation to the Dark - 01/11/2010 05:54:16 PM 1309 Views
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