I am sorry but this is Monday morning quarterbacking at its worst. There is no way to know whether or not your method, given after the fact, would have worked any better. This is especially true since we have no idea how the other BA got there.

I don't understand why you are faulting Elayne for trusting the information about there only being two BA. (In my estimation that information ended up being true. The first group of BA obviously did not know the others were coming.) Lan said it best when he stated that a portion of courage is going forward even when you know you don't know all of the information.

Finally, I don't know why you are getting on Elayne's case about taking a risk with herself. Rand's risks make Elayne's look like a walk in the park. (And Rand risks the whole world when he risks himself.) For example in WH there is an, in my mind deliberate, parallel to this event when Rand raids the dark Asha'man place in Far Madding. Yet Rand's risk is FAR madder then Elayne's for he is informed by an unknown source AND there is reason to suspect there might be two more renegade Asha'man there beside them. And this is one of the smaller of Rand's mad risk taking. Twice he chases Forsaken into T'A'R and once he chased Samaael into Shadar Logoth. If you are going to get on Elayne's case then at least do the same for Rand.

Elayne obviously made a mistake, but how much of one is difficult to discern. She also obviously feels some guilt for it; otherwise she wouldn't tell herself that she is not feeling guilt for it. I think she is smart enough to learn from her mistake, whatever that mistake was.

RabidWombat