Culture is sometimes a reason, but never an excuse. - Edit 2
Before modification by Joel at 19/01/2013 08:07:24 PM
At least if you mean each and every one of Failes annoying idiocies. I would not have confused insults, provocation and lies with courtship or flirtation, for starters. I would have believed him when he said he was faithful and uninterested in a would-be competitor, rather than starting a knife fight with her in the middle of a recently conquered foreign capitol building. I would not constantly provoke him just for the satisfaction of getting my head bitten off, and resolutely insist on concealing all my deepest feelings and motivations from my supposed soul mate just so I could get mad at him for not reading my schizoid mind and shake my head fondly over the way he slowly loses his mind trying to figure out why I am always so angry, stressed, hurt, whatever.
This is her culture. Not just Saldean but Saldean Nobility.I do not buy that regardless though; her dad never plays those kinds of juvenile manipulative games with Rand. I would say she behaves like a spoiled teenager, but the simile is ruined by her being literally rather than figuratively just that.
If you mean the deaths, I would not have watched in passive silence as Perrin killed someone who had been the only thing keeping me alive for weeks.
She was torn by it and there was nothing she could have done. She was resigned to his fate."There was nothing to be done" is a CLASSIC attempted excuse for passively and silently watching tragedies unfold. We can never be sure nothing she did could have prevented it because "nothing" is all she attempted. I might cut her some slack for trying and failing, but NOT trying and failing is inexcusable.
However, she knew darned good and well Mat was at Merrilor (that WAS why they were originally headed there with the Horn, after all,) so suddenly assuming he was at Shayol Ghul just because she happened to see one of the hundreds of banners scattered between the Bands many regiments was just stupid.
She did not say she believe he was at Shayol Ghul nor did she imply it in my opinion. Where would you have gone in her shoes if you found yourself in the blight as they did with the horn? Time was nearly out. She needed to get there as fast as possible… she was willing to take any risk necessary to get to Mat in time. If she went south, she knew they would 1) not have gotten there in time 2) likely have died by the terrors of the blight. She couldn't just stay there. That was certainly death as well and no one knew where she was or that she was even alive. Her best option was to make it to someone at Shayol Ghul that could make her a gateway to take her back to Mat.She implied it by deciding to go there, but only AFTER they saw the Hands banner, as much of a stretch as that was. Going south would have taken longer, but at least would not have been marching up to the DOs doorstep and hoping an ally found her instead of him or his Shadowspawn legions. It is not as if the route she did take was so much safer than the route south; the main difference is that the southern route actually led to safety and some hope of accomplishing her mission rather than to ever more danger and the certainty of dooming it.
Oh, gee, marching the Horn of Valere straight toward Shayol Ghul during Tarmon Gaidon got me captured by Shadowspawn; gee, who could have foreseen THAT?
There is a reason, after all, they wound up captured by Trollocs and then forced to attempt escape from their midst:
She knew that even making it to a channelor at Shayul Ghul was a long shot. She happened upon a situation that would allow them to get back immediately and she made the right decision by going forward with the risky plan despite the small chance for success. All she knew is that the gateway would take her to a battle field where supplies were needed by trolloc armies. She had no idea which battle field that would be. She knew that there would be someone able to make a gateway for her no matter which front she made it to. Whatever was on the other side of the gateway could not be forseen or planned for. There were definite dangers in this but the risk had to be taken. If not for the darkfriend then they would have more likely succeeded. But guess what. She did succeed. It worked. They made it in time for Olver to sound the Horn.No, she did NOT "happen[] upon a situation that would allow them to get back immediately," and the proof is that THEY DID NOT; when Perrin found her under a pile of bodies later she was still in the middle of Shayol Ghul. Likewise, she did not succeed because "They made it in time for Olver to sound the Horn;" Olver could have sounded the Horn any time or place he liked so long as he did so for salvation rather than glory. ANYONE could have, though Faile had no reason to think that and every reason not to think so, so it is not indictment of her. The whole thing was a fools errand, but I do not fault her for that; I DO fault her for such awful and costly execution (which perhaps qualifies as a pun here) of her pointless task.
Anyone visiting Shayol Ghul in the middle of Tarmon Gaidon, knowing the Dragon is making his own attack, has to know the chance of encountering Shadowspawn is pretty high.
Where else would she have gone? OMGANYWHERE else would have been better; "OMG" indeed. Do not make the A-bomb a Christmas present for Hirohito in 1944; no one should need to be TOLD that.
Taking a pony rather than a warhorse (or, far better, military pack animal) to a war zone was kind of stupid, too, though perhaps more justified for logistics reasons.
What?? They were trying to be inconspicuous. If you were in her shoes… you would have failed right off the bat obviously.Taking warhorses to a warzone is not exactly attention getting. Neither is a courier taking a racehorse. Taking Bela only makes sense for the reason I said: Greater carrying capacity and endurance. Still, a bred military packhorse would have been far better, and a baggage train including a pack animal is about as pedestrian as it gets.
Still, if that was the only thing with which she had to make her high speed escape, it reflects very poor planning on her part.
Huh? HUH? HUUUUUUH????? Are you joking? … “OK” said Faile. “In case we hit a bubble of evil and the gateway we are traveling through actually takes us to the blight… we will need this this and that.” OMG… what the hell is wrong with you?Yes, because that is the ONLY circumstance under which a ta'veren wife might need to make a fast getaway while carrying the Horn of Valere to ANOTHER ta'veren during Tarmon Gaidon. But then, Faile does not seem familiar with the better and more discrete part of valor; often, that is precisely her problem.