If his surviving is all that justifies this, then it is evil indeed. Because his survival came into question because he didn't have the guts to finish off or break Semirhage earlier. This situation might not have arisen at all if Semi was a'dam-ed.
You cannot use evil to counter your foolishness and then argue that you were doing what was necessary, that this was the last resort.
You cannot use evil to counter your foolishness and then argue that you were doing what was necessary, that this was the last resort.
How would using an a'dam have helped? It would not have contained Semirhage any better than the shield did. Shaidar Haran would just have removed it. Or Elza for that matter.
Neither do I see torture having helped. It was strongly suggested that physical pain will work poorly on Semirhage. And even if she had broken that way, upon being released she would still have been after revenge. I doubt very much any technique would have worked so well that she would have stayed in the cell after SH visited.
Executing her instantly would have worked ofcourse, but trying to extract information from her seems like a perfectly rational thing. What if she knows something that is the difference between victory and defeat is probably what Rand&Co thought and it is a reasonable thing to think. The wealth of information in both channeling knowledge and shadow secrets they could have potentially received from Semirhage is immense.
So really, I don't really see what it is that you call foolishness here? Trying to extract vital information from an enemy prisoner is foolishness? That makes no sense at all. Yes it turned out badly but thats looking at it in hindsight.
If it was written in the book that Semirhage was not rescued and Cadsuane was able to interrogate all the shadow secrets from her, and someone suggested that they should have just killed her instead, would you have agreed? I doubt it.
As for his survival, Rand was not about to die. Min and the rest of the world were. Rand would probably have outlived nearly everyone, albeit as a prisoner. I expect the DO would have wanted him to be there to witness it when he broke free afterall.
"Take the Gleeman!" Rand and Mat cried, throwing Thom to the Myrddraal. Then they ran away as fast as they could, and Thom's screams quickly faded into the distance along with any inconvenient feelings of guilt.
Was Rand evil to channel the True Power?
12/01/2010 05:31:34 PM
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I think this argument is relatively akin to real world ones like
13/01/2010 01:15:01 AM
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But it's the essence of the Dark One.
13/01/2010 01:43:10 AM
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4. He just reached for a power he sensed. What did he know? If he did know ...
13/01/2010 06:32:30 AM
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