Still Fuming About Perrin's Trial (Towers of Midnight)

[Red Eagle]

OK,

For all the debates I have ever seen on this topic, there are a few points I notice always seem to be either absent or downplayed. 

 

1) Nowhere in the text is there ever even the haziest implication that the Whitecloaks even have permission to be in any country besides Amadicia, and even there, the fact the king of Amadicia was considered a puppet of the WCs implies their "authority" in that nation flowed from threat of main force. 

 

There is certainly no implication that the WCs possess any more authority outside Amadicia than any other group of bandits or sell-swords. During the early books, when there's a high concentration of WCs in Caemlyn, Morgase's PoV certainly frames the problem with ridding Andor of the WCs is one of fear of their violent retaliation, or their whipping up a frenzied mob in Caemlyn itself. 

 

I make this point, because when people talk about Perrin killing the two WCs after they killed Hopper and the other member of his pack, they always seem to jump to the point "You can't kill people because they killed wolves" or "You can't murder people simply because they threaten you."

 

The problem with this, is it skips over a very important point. "What right did the WCs have to demand ANYTHING, of ANYONE, and what gave them the right to take anyone prisoner? (That's the most generous interpretation of the WCs intentions, had Perrin and Egwene immediately surrendered themselves.) 

 

From my perspective, it doesn't matter that Perrin didn't know he was an Andoran. Neither does his personal motivation matter. From the moment the WCs chased and made demands of fellow travelers under threat of force, they were effectively acting as highwaymen. "Stand and deliver!" being the demand of highwaymen. 

 

2) The "Impartiality" of Morgase: I don't doubt that Morgase believed herself to be impartial, but there were two incredibly strong factors biasing her against Perrin. The first (lesser) bias being the knowledge that an acquittal would almost certainly lead to a battle, and in that battle, her stepson would almost certainly be killed. The second greater bias, was her fear of Perrin's growing authority breaking away a portion of Andor from Elayne. We see her worrying about this a great deal, and Perrin being conveniently disposed of by means of this trial would resolve this problem neatly. 

 

3) Galad is an imbecile. He literally became the leader of the WCs because corruption was so endemic, not one Whitecloak captain was willing to trust one other Captain to have authority over them and their legion. To then turn around and accept the guilt of a man on the basis of a drunk and a fanatic, with one of their accusations being immediately, provably wrong, can only be described as willful blindness. 

 

Finally, and this is just an opinion of mine. After all the fear, committed murders, and destruction Perrin's personally witnessed the Whitecloaks cause, the fact he keeps belaboring his guilt over killing two men who intended (at best) to turn him over to torturers on the basis of personal opinion, made this plot-point one of the weakest/most infuriating in the entire series for me.  The 11th hour attempt to rehabilitate the WCs by implausibly making Galad their leader also grated on me. It was like Sanderson (or RJ, if this was in his bequeathed notes) was simply whitewashing all the evils perpetrated by the WCs as a terrorist organization. 

 

Thoughts?

Edited February 8, 2022 by Red Eagle
Mispelling/Corrections

[KakitaOCU]

Without knowing the actual legal codes of Andor I can't really answer.

That said, Morgase DOES know the legal codes, so if that's how she ruled it's likely how Andor would see it.

Level of force is different in different places and different locations.  In almost all situations in US law, for example, there is a responsibility to de-escalate and flee the situation short of using lethal force.  The Castle laws are exceptions but almost ALL of them require you to be on your own property.

So, there might be places where the situation was fully in Perrin's right, but no, there's an easy argument for his guilt.  Because the WC's committing a crime doesn't absolve Perrin from committing a crime.

Let's use a fantasy series example.

There's a Cooper.  Each year the cooper's tax rates have gone up, the tax collector has become nasty and forceful about it and the Cooper feels the Tax Collector is charging more and pocketing it.  There is a law and a path to address such grievances and the Cooper could file a complaint through proper channels.   The Cooper feels it won't do any good since people are corrupt and so never says a word, just deals with  it.  Until one day they snap and kill the Tax Collector when the TC threatens their family.  

During the trial ALL of this comes out.   Is the Cooper guilty of Murder?  There's reasons he got pushed to that point, the TC was in the wrong.   But ultimately, the Cooper still committed Murder.  

In the case of Perrin, the WC's didn't have authority, but that doesn't give Perrin the right to use Lethal force against them for killing Wolves.  Now, if he had stayed calmed, revealed himself and demanded them back down and walk away, or just let him and Egwene and the wolves leave?  And THEN they attacked him, then he'd have an argument for lethal force.

[Red Eagle]

That's ridiculous,

It's a dark night. You and the woman relying on you for protection have been given cause to run and hide from men with deadly weapons in hand. Men with no authority you recognize, who, having discovered your hiding place, do not behave like guards, thief-catchers, or soldiers. 

 

These men immediately threaten torture for noncompliance to their demands for surrender. Let's take the supernatural element out, and say that Perrin & Egwene were traveling with a pair of trained guard-dogs. When it becomes clear the men with swords will not relent in their demands, Perrin sets the dogs on them to try and drive the men away. He's trained these dogs personally and at length, so he can be confident the dogs will not go beyond his orders to threaten life-threatening injury.

 

The men kill the dogs without hesitation, then turn back to repeat their threat, only Perrin attacks, because he is both outnumbered, and must prevent one of the men from running over to put a knife to Egwene's throat. 

 

In a "generic fantasy setting" that would be Random Encounter: Fought off Bandits. 

 

Furthermore, months later, you discover the men you killed belong to an organization that really does grab people at swordpoint, torture confessions out of them, then hang their victims on the basis of these coerced confessions. 

 

Finally, you even discover the very fellows of the men you killed have gone to your home village to do more kidnapping, torture, and murder. Providing all the proof you need to know the men you killed really did mean to see you tortured for your noncompliance, because you have seen the members of their organization do the same many times, and heard second-or-third hand accounts of far more acts of kidnapping and murder. 

 

The fact that Perrin had a personal motive for the killings that is not itself a justification for lethal force, does not automatically prove he didn't have such a basis, even if it was unknowingly. 

 

As for Morgase: We see a number of cases where Morgase's pragmatism trumps her devotion to the law. Her decision to not eject the WCs which were very much an active threat to good order in Caemlyn, for one thing. 

 

I'm not sure the text intends for us to accept Morgase's ruling as evidence she is a "reliable narrator" of Andoran law in this circumstance, or it wouldn't go to such pains to show us that Morgase seems to spend more time on thinking about Perrin's & Galad's likely reaction to her ruling, than the ruling itself. 

 

Galad is presented as someone who "Always does the right thing" yet here we see him doing what the Whitecloaks have been doing the whole series. Invading other countries to force the WC position on good and evil on the people of other nations.

 

The Trial took place in Ghealdan, and Alliandre was Perrin's liege-lady. By all rights, Alliandre had every right to say "I am queen, I say this man is not guilty of any crime. Should my liege-lord enter the territory of another nation, you are of course free to take this matter to the leadership of said nation, but here you will desist in your attempts to undermine my crown by usurping the crown's authority in matters of law."

 

The fact that this option wasn't taken, was that everyone knew Galad would have had the Whitecloaks attack anyways. 

[Andra]

A few things:

1) According to EotW, the incident took place outside the borders of any nation, so the Whitecloaks had as much right to be there as anyone did.  

2) If they'd been across the border in Andor, the Whitecloaks' actions would have been illegal, since they had no authority to enforce Whitecloak law there.  But Perrin could have also been subject to murder charges.

3) I don't believe the Whitecloaks had threatened torture for noncompliance.  I'm fairly certain they had said something like "come down from there and you won't be harmed."  The wolves attacked them before they had caused any harm.

4) The wolves had certainly gone beyond any restrictions against life-threatening injury before Perrin and Egwene were taken captive.

5) What you might discover the people you attacked did later in retaliation doesn't justify what you did in the first place.

6) It's actually Morgase's devotion to the law that prevented her from ejecting the Whitecloaks from Caemlyn.  They had no authority there, but they had the same right of entry as anyone else.  Unless and until she discovered they had specifically violated Andoran law, she had no basis to do anything more than keep an eye on them.

7) Perrin was Alliandre's liege lord.  She had sworn fealty to him rather than the other way around.  As such, she was by definition partial.

 

The only thing I think was missed was the fact that the Whitecloaks had already injured Elyas.  Which would have justified pretty much anything Perrin did under the law as applied, without any need for him to define the wolves as compatriots rather than pets.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Andra

[Asthereal]

20 hours ago, Red Eagle said:

1) The problem with this, is it skips over a very important point. "What right did the WCs have to demand ANYTHING, of ANYONE, and what gave them the right to take anyone prisoner? (That's the most generous interpretation of the WCs intentions, had Perrin and Egwene immediately surrendered themselves.) 

 

From my perspective, it doesn't matter that Perrin didn't know he was an Andoran.

 

2) The "Impartiality" of Morgase: I don't doubt that Morgase believed herself to be impartial (...)

 

3) Galad is an imbecile. He literally became the leader of the WCs because corruption was so endemic, not one Whitecloak captain was willing to trust one other Captain to have authority over them and their legion. To then turn around and accept the guilt of a man on the basis of a drunk and a fanatic, with one of their accusations being immediately, provably wrong, can only be described as willful blindness. 

 

(4) Finally, and this is just an opinion of mine. After all the fear, committed murders, and destruction Perrin's personally witnessed the Whitecloaks cause, the fact he keeps belaboring his guilt over killing two men who intended (at best) to turn him over to torturers on the basis of personal opinion, made this plot-point one of the weakest/most infuriating in the entire series for me. 

 

Thoughts?

(Cut the quote a tad short, as I'll mainly be responding to these points.)

Here's some notes from someone who studied law but never practiced it:

 

1) None. The WC had no right to do anything of the sort.
Perrin and the WC were IN the country of Andor, so Andoran law applies.
Perrin could argue self defence, and he did - sort of, but he is one voice against several witnesses, which makes it an ineffective defence. By most people, the wolves are viewed not as personalities, so the defence of using violence because a "friend of his" was killed, was also not effective.

 

2) The complete impartiality of Morgase isn't relevant, as both parties accept her judgment. If Morgase's impartiality becomes a matter of debate, an argument could be made for removing her as judge, but that never came up. Both parties always accepted her authority as judge.

 

3) Galad had several witnesses swaying his perception that way, so it isn't fair to judge Galad's choices negatively at this point. (Switching to storyteller mode here.) Galad's mini-arc here was learning about Perrin as a person and learning to see his side of the story actually makes a lot of sense. The payoff for this mini-arc is that Galad chooses a lenient punishment for the crime Perrin was convicted of, and Galad saving Perrin's life during the aftermath of the battle. And of course Galad and the WC fighting under Perrin's command afterwards, but that part became less relevant as Perrin had other things to do during Tarmon Gaidon.

 

4) I agree Perrin's guilt felt over these killings wasn't shown well enough to make this storyline as strong as some of the others. The verdict makes sense to me: entering into unlawful combat, causing the death of others. An anti-brigand law, which seems very fitting to apply to WC cases. The fact that Morgase applies this particular law is actually an insult to the WC, and my legal brain very much appreciated that little detail.

 

But I can see why the trial bit angers people. And you're not the only one. Awesome YouTuber Daniel Greene also hated that bit. I think this is mainly because for us readers, Perrin should not feel guilt over these killings, and the fact that he does isn't told well enough to convince us otherwise. The result is us rooting for Perrin to choose to completely destroy the Whitecloaks instead of agreeing to the trial, which we knew was going to go badly for him, as he has no witnesses.

 

Awesome alternative idea: have Perrin learn to enter and leave Tel'aran'rhiod at will earlier, and have him take Morgase and Galad into the dreamworld to meet Hopper. "Here's my witness." Also, Egwene should have popped in to testify. Perrin's only witness: the Amyrlin Seat. Boom!

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Asthereal

[KakitaOCU]

3 hours ago, Asthereal said:

But I can see why the trial bit angers people. And you're not the only one. Awesome YouTuber Daniel Greene also hated that bit. I think this is mainly because for us readers, Perrin should not feel guilt over these killings, and the fact that he does isn't told well enough to convince us otherwise. The result is us rooting for Perrin to choose to completely destroy the Whitecloaks instead of agreeing to the trial, which we knew was going to go badly for him, as he has no witnesses.

Quoting you because this bit is good, not cause I'm debating you.  ?

The other factor to keep in mind, and Red Eagle does it in this thread, is that many people look at this from a moral or ethical perspective, not a legal one.

From a moral perspective, we as readers know the wolves are sentient, we know the WCs are bad people for the most part and so it's no doubt that Perrin is justified in what he did.  }

But that's not the same as legal justification.  It's like my cooper and tax collector story.  As a reader I think most of us would side with the cooper.  But from a legal perspective if you start forgiving actual crimes because the circumstances make them sympathetic then you open a door for things to get more and more gray and more and more crimes being allowed.

Law can't be perfectly just or even perfectly fair, it has to be held equally against all parties no matter what.

[Andra]

10 hours ago, Asthereal said:

1) None. The WC had no right to do anything of the sort.
Perrin and the WC were IN the country of Andor, so Andoran law applies.
Perrin could argue self defence, and he did - sort of, but he is one voice against several witnesses, which makes it an ineffective defence. By most people, the wolves are viewed not as personalities, so the defence of using violence because a "friend of his" was killed, was also not effective.

Not disputing anything in your post except this.

They weren't in Andor when the incident the trial is about took place.  The Whitecloak witnesses say it was "in the wilds of central Andor," but in EotW it is specifically identified as being in the east of the Caralain Grass, north of the Andoran border.

 

The fight took place inside an abandoned Stedding, where Hawkwing had intended to set up his capital.  Outside of any existing nation or province at the time.  It was several days travel outside of Andor.

When Perrin and Egwene were rescued, they were inside Andor, but not where the original killings happened.

 

Perrin's legal defense could have worked if he had mentioned Elyas (who the Whitecloaks also injured), rather than Hopper.  This is a missed opportunity on Sanderson's part.

And a big problem I have with the trial in general.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Andra

[Asthereal]

10 hours ago, Andra said:

Not disputing anything in your post except this.

They weren't in Andor when the incident the trial is about took place.  The Whitecloak witnesses say it was "in the wilds of central Andor," but in EotW it is specifically identified as being in the east of the Caralain Grass, north of the Andoran border.

 

The fight took place inside an abandoned Stedding, where Hawkwing had intended to set up his capital.  Outside of any existing nation or province at the time.  It was several days travel outside of Andor.

When Perrin and Egwene were rescued, they were inside Andor, but not where the original killings happened.

 

Perrin's legal defense could have worked if he had mentioned Elyas (who the Whitecloaks also injured), rather than Hopper.  This is a missed opportunity on Sanderson's part.

And a big problem I have with the trial in general.

I really thought it happened in Andor. A large part of the Caralain Grass falls under Andor rule, as I remember, and Perrin and Egwene were traveling east from where they crossed the river at Shadar Logoth. Seemed sensible to assume they were still in Andor.

By the way, same argument could apply as for the impartiality. If everybody agrees that Andoran law should apply and everyone submits to it, you can use it. But that's getting pretty grey, and would not work for our western criminal law. But the countries in the westlands in WoT don't have laws as clear-cut as we do. Perrin's trial is a kind of mixture between criminal law and civil law. The Whitecloaks try Perrin for a crime, where in criminal law a state prosecutor should do that. The Whitecloaks under our law systems would only be able to report the crime to the state (police/prosecutor's office), or if they wanted to be party in a trial, they could sue at a civil court, but they'd only be able to sue for damages.

Legal analysis of fantasy stories gets murky quite fast. ? 

 

But I agree with you that Perrin should have asked Elyas to testify. I wasn't aware Elyas was involved in that particular event (it's been a while since I read EotW), but if he was, he would have been able to testify about the circumstances, at the very least. I am mostly sad that Perrin didn't demand his best witness to be heard. The flaming Amyrlin Seat as a witness... Would have been so cool!

 

Oh well. I don't want to complain about Sanderson's work on WoT. His books are awesome. I loved all three of them.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Asthereal

[Red Eagle]

It still bothers me, 

If you behave like a bandit, you get cut down like a bandit. A ruling like Morgase's means literally anyone can set themselves up as vigilantes wherever a ruler's guards-people are not, so resisting the demands of men who might do anything to unarmed captives becomes unlawful.

 

To say Perrin was guilty, is to say that the actions of the Whitecloaks were not inherently unlawful. 

It's a ruling that declares "The lawful course of action was to surrender yourself and the attractive young woman with you to the armed vigilantes. If you are beyond the claimed territory of a ruler, legal authority belongs to the largest, most well-armed band that happens to be passing through." 

 

I also choke on it a bit, when she and Elayne then get so prickly as ruler and ex-ruler about their authority over territory not traditionally occupied or seen to by the Andoran crown. The hypocrisy rankles, because Perrin could simply say, "I'm only enacting your ruling on a larger scale, Morgase."

 

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Red Eagle

[KakitaOCU]

2 hours ago, Red Eagle said:

If you behave like a bandit, you get cut down like a bandit. A ruling like Morgase's means literally anyone can set themselves up as vigilantes wherever a ruler's guards-people are not, so resisting the demands of men who might do anything to unarmed captives becomes unlawful.

Not the case here.  Perrin could have resisted, and if they became violent wit him he could have defended himself.  What was deemed illegal was Perrin actively attacking and killing humans because those humans defended themselves against wild animals.

That's another distinction.  We know the WCs are problems.  But in the actual turn of events.  the WCs moved through an area, set up camp, Wolves and a Man attacked them.  They started to search the area and the wolves kept coming.  They found two young people and ordered them to come out and another wolf attacked them.  They defended themselves against the wolf and then Perrin raged and killed two of them.

The Wolves and then Perrin were the actual aggressors here.  To compare it to real life situation.  If you're at the mall say, and you see someone snooping around with a knife calling for people to leave the mall.  You could legally call the authorities, you could legally not answer them or hide or address them and try to de-escalate.  What you can't do is just up and them and kill them on the premise that you thought they might do harm later.

[Andra]

10 hours ago, Asthereal said:

I really thought it happened in Andor. A large part of the Caralain Grass falls under Andor rule, as I remember, and Perrin and Egwene were traveling east from where they crossed the river at Shadar Logoth. Seemed sensible to assume they were still in Andor.

At the point they crossed, the river was the border.  And Shadar Logoth was on the Andor side.  So when they crossed the river, they left Andor.

 

And from what I remember of my WoT geography, Braem Wood straddled most of the Andoran border east of Whitebridge.  And the Caralain Grass was entirely north of Braem Wood.  Elyas describes the Grass as being the remains of the long-dead kingdom of Caralain, and as no longer part of any nation.

Again, that is specifically why Hawkwing chose that abandoned stedding as his future capital.  Because no one would see it as being anyone's existing property.  And because he was safe from channelers there.

 

Even if they had crossed the border back into Andor by then, they would have been in the extreme north of the country.  While the Whitecloaks in the trial say it was in "the wilds of central Andor."  Either way it's a mistake by Sanderson.

 

The worst part for me is that it's an unnecessary mistake.

Morgase specifically says that, since the Whitecloaks had no authority in Andor, the applicable law was the mercenary code.  That same code would have applied outside any nation's borders.

 

10 hours ago, Asthereal said:

But I agree with you that Perrin should have asked Elyas to testify. I wasn't aware Elyas was involved in that particular event (it's been a while since I read EotW), but if he was, he would have been able to testify about the circumstances, at the very least. I am mostly sad that Perrin didn't demand his best witness to be heard. The flaming Amyrlin Seat as a witness... Would have been so cool!

 

Yeah, it was Elyas who brought them there - to get away from the Ravens.  Because the Dark One's Eyes wouldn't willingly enter a stedding.  We know from a sending Perrin got from the wolves that Elyas had a belly wound and was recuperating in a cave somewhere.  A belly wound he could only have gotten from the Whitecloaks.  But even if he hadn't been wounded, he was still a witness to the events, and should have been called in the trial.  Rather than being sent off with Tam to scout the surrounding countryside for injured villagers (and Waygates).

 

Unfortunately, the problem with the Amyrlin as a witness is that, even though we know Galad would have trusted her testimony, none of the other Whitecloaks would have.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Andra

[Asthereal]

18 hours ago, Andra said:

Unfortunately, the problem with the Amyrlin as a witness is that, even though we know Galad would have trusted her testimony, none of the other Whitecloaks would have.

But Morgase would, and that's more important. She's the judge.

It also would have been a cool interaction between strong characters, and Perrin and Egwene, as I recall, haven't met in a long while by that point. Has Perrin even seen her after she became Amyrlin for the the Salidar Aes Sedai?

[Andra]

5 hours ago, Asthereal said:

But Morgase would, and that's more important. She's the judge.

It also would have been a cool interaction between strong characters, and Perrin and Egwene, as I recall, haven't met in a long while by that point. Has Perrin even seen her after she became Amyrlin for the the Salidar Aes Sedai?

Only in the Wolf Dream.

 

Aside from that, the last time they saw each other in person was in Tear, I believe.

[KakitaOCU]

1 hour ago, Andra said:

Only in the Wolf Dream.

 

Aside from that, the last time they saw each other in person was in Tear, I believe.

They're not alone by any means, but they meet in the tent at Merrilor as well.

[Asthereal]

1 hour ago, KakitaOCU said:

They're not alone by any means, but they meet in the tent at Merrilor as well.

Yeah, but that's after the trial. I was speculating about Perrin asking Egwene to testify there.

Anyway, didn't happen. Elyas also didn't testify. Perrin's case was a lost one. Perhaps that was what Sanderson was going for in the first place, but it ended up being the worst part of ToM, sadly.

[KakitaOCU]

38 minutes ago, Asthereal said:

Anyway, didn't happen. Elyas also didn't testify. Perrin's case was a lost one. Perhaps that was what Sanderson was going for in the first place, but it ended up being the worst part of ToM, sadly.

You wouldn't want Elyas to testify.

Again, motive and expectation of behavior are not facts.  The reality is the WCs came to the area and set up camp.  Elyas and the wolves initiated hostility in that encounter.

Having the person who committed assault and started an altercation testifying wouldn't have helped Perrin's case, it would have given more clear evidence that the WC's were attacked and defended themselves.

[Andra]

4 hours ago, KakitaOCU said:

You wouldn't want Elyas to testify.

Again, motive and expectation of behavior are not facts.  The reality is the WCs came to the area and set up camp.  Elyas and the wolves initiated hostility in that encounter.

Having the person who committed assault and started an altercation testifying wouldn't have helped Perrin's case, it would have given more clear evidence that the WC's were attacked and defended themselves.

Elyas was a human who was wounded by the Whitecloaks.  Given that the law Morgase applied to the case was the mercenary code, and that her primary reason to reject Perrin's "they hurt my friends" defense was that wolves aren't "people," his testimony would absolutely have been relevant.  We are told by the Whitecloaks that they didn't see any human other than Perrin attacking them.  Which means that by the same "initiated hostility" argument, injuring Elyas was a crime.  And justification for Perrin's actions.

 

There's no real reason not to have included his testimony.

[KakitaOCU]

1 hour ago, Andra said:

Elyas was a human who was wounded by the Whitecloaks.  Given that the law Morgase applied to the case was the mercenary code, and that her primary reason to reject Perrin's "they hurt my friends" defense was that wolves aren't "people," his testimony would absolutely have been relevant.  We are told by the Whitecloaks that they didn't see any human other than Perrin attacking them.  Which means that by the same "initiated hostility" argument, injuring Elyas was a crime.  And justification for Perrin's actions.

 

There's no real reason not to have included his testimony.

I disagree, context is everything.

So long as the narrative is "Wolf attacked the WCs, WCs killed the wolves, I killed the WCs"  AND you judge wolves not people, then it's an open fight.

 

Applying real world law:

Senario 1: Person A enters a public space, they look dangerous, your dog attacks them, they kill the dog and you kill them in response.  There's some argument that you were retaliating trying to save your animal and took it too far.  You're probably at fault for the animal (bye insurance if you had it) but it might only end up as manslaughter.

Scenario 2: Person A enters a public space, they look dangerous, your friend who is with you deliberately starts a violent fight trying to seriously hurt Person A.  Your dog joins in and gets killed and you kill in return.  Now you're accessory to murder as the death directly resulted from the actions of a sentient person.

There is SO much more detail and context needed to get a uniform and real verdict here, but that's a VERY basic level of it.

The moment you bring in Elyas as the sentient person who STARTED the violence, the whole thing swings against Perrin.  Best case scenario is the exact same verdict, after that you run the gamut to accessory to murder to even maybe Perrin is not guilty but Elyas is...

 

[Andra]

17 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

The moment you bring in Elyas as the sentient person who STARTED the violence, the whole thing swings against Perrin.  Best case scenario is the exact same verdict, after that you run the gamut to accessory to murder to even maybe Perrin is not guilty but Elyas is...

Except that the Whitecloaks don't even remember that Elyas was even there.  Which means that, as far as their allegations are concerned, he didn't start anything.

 

Add Elyas' injury, and Perrin is reacting to protect a fellow human who the Whitecloaks had tried to kill.  Not to protect wolves.

[Chivalry]

On 2/8/2022 at 11:57 AM, Red Eagle said:

OK,

For all the debates I have ever seen on this topic, there are a few points I notice always seem to be either absent or downplayed. 

 

1) Nowhere in the text is there ever even the haziest implication that the Whitecloaks even have permission to be in any country besides Amadicia, and even there, the fact the king of Amadicia was considered a puppet of the WCs implies their "authority" in that nation flowed from threat of main force. 

 

There is certainly no implication that the WCs possess any more authority outside Amadicia than any other group of bandits or sell-swords. During the early books, when there's a high concentration of WCs in Caemlyn, Morgase's PoV certainly frames the problem with ridding Andor of the WCs is one of fear of their violent retaliation, or their whipping up a frenzied mob in Caemlyn itself. 

 

I make this point, because when people talk about Perrin killing the two WCs after they killed Hopper and the other member of his pack, they always seem to jump to the point "You can't kill people because they killed wolves" or "You can't murder people simply because they threaten you."

 

The problem with this, is it skips over a very important point. "What right did the WCs have to demand ANYTHING, of ANYONE, and what gave them the right to take anyone prisoner? (That's the most generous interpretation of the WCs intentions, had Perrin and Egwene immediately surrendered themselves.) 

 

From my perspective, it doesn't matter that Perrin didn't know he was an Andoran. Neither does his personal motivation matter. From the moment the WCs chased and made demands of fellow travelers under threat of force, they were effectively acting as highwaymen. "Stand and deliver!" being the demand of highwaymen. 

 

2) The "Impartiality" of Morgase: I don't doubt that Morgase believed herself to be impartial, but there were two incredibly strong factors biasing her against Perrin. The first (lesser) bias being the knowledge that an acquittal would almost certainly lead to a battle, and in that battle, her stepson would almost certainly be killed. The second greater bias, was her fear of Perrin's growing authority breaking away a portion of Andor from Elayne. We see her worrying about this a great deal, and Perrin being conveniently disposed of by means of this trial would resolve this problem neatly. 

 

3) Galad is an imbecile. He literally became the leader of the WCs because corruption was so endemic, not one Whitecloak captain was willing to trust one other Captain to have authority over them and their legion. To then turn around and accept the guilt of a man on the basis of a drunk and a fanatic, with one of their accusations being immediately, provably wrong, can only be described as willful blindness. 

 

Finally, and this is just an opinion of mine. After all the fear, committed murders, and destruction Perrin's personally witnessed the Whitecloaks cause, the fact he keeps belaboring his guilt over killing two men who intended (at best) to turn him over to torturers on the basis of personal opinion, made this plot-point one of the weakest/most infuriating in the entire series for me.  The 11th hour attempt to rehabilitate the WCs by implausibly making Galad their leader also grated on me. It was like Sanderson (or RJ, if this was in his bequeathed notes) was simply whitewashing all the evils perpetrated by the WCs as a terrorist organization. 

 

Thoughts?

 

I'm chalking this up to Sanderson taking the helm. It was a weird moment for sure.

 

Truthfully, there are plenty of head-scratching moments from this whole Perrin-Morgase-Galad arc.

[KakitaOCU]

4 hours ago, Andra said:

Except that the Whitecloaks don't even remember that Elyas was even there.  Which means that, as far as their allegations are concerned, he didn't start anything.

 

Add Elyas' injury, and Perrin is reacting to protect a fellow human who the Whitecloaks had tried to kill.  Not to protect wolves.

Not really how it works.

Prosecutor: Mr. Elyas, you claim you received injuries from the White Cloaks, how did that happen?

Elyas: I wanted them to move on and pick a different camp so the wolves and I started attacking their horses and trying to frighten them.

As soon as it's brought up he's there the WC's can remember and bring up that THEY didn't start the fight.  At which point that becomes a factor.  You could cross examine and ask why that didn't come up, but they can pretty easily say "We didn't realize these two young people were connected to the wolves and man attacking us at the time it happened."  But now the defendant is clearly making that connection.

[Andra]

28 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

Not really how it works.

Prosecutor: Mr. Elyas, you claim you received injuries from the White Cloaks, how did that happen?

Elyas: I wanted them to move on and pick a different camp so the wolves and I started attacking their horses and trying to frighten them.

As soon as it's brought up he's there the WC's can remember and bring up that THEY didn't start the fight.  At which point that becomes a factor.  You could cross examine and ask why that didn't come up, but they can pretty easily say "We didn't realize these two young people were connected to the wolves and man attacking us at the time it happened."  But now the defendant is clearly making that connection.

According to the reasoning you have already detailed, it's exactly how it works.

You said that Perrin's guilt is because he initiated violence against humans in response to violence against animals.  But the Whitecloaks had responded to wolves trying to frighten their horses by physically attacking Elyas.  An attack that justified Perrin's response.

 

You can't have it both ways.

 

But even more, you're ignoring the actual ruling in the trial.

Because the Whitecloaks had no authority under the law where the incident occurred, Morgase applied the Mercenary Code to the case.  Under that code, as Galad describes it:

"She has ruled that our altercation was a brawl between unemployed mercenary groups.  Essentially, the ruling states there were no innocents in the clash -- you are not, therefore, charged with murder.  Instead, you have killed illegally."

 

Even tough Perrin was found guilty, it wasn't for murder.  And that's without considering Elyas' injury.  With that taken into account, it wouldn't have even been an "illegal killing."

 

It's a missed point by Sanderson.  A point that he needed to be missed, because he needed the punishment to be left up to Galad's later judgment.  Rather than an outright death penalty.  It was part of how he needed the story to go, in getting Galad to become Perrin's ally.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Andra

[Asthereal]

4 hours ago, Andra said:

It's a missed point by Sanderson.  A point that he needed to be missed, because he needed the punishment to be left up to Galad's later judgment.  Rather than an outright death penalty.  It was part of how he needed the story to go, in getting Galad to become Perrin's ally.

He could have had Elyas testify, but Morgase still coming to the illegal killing judgment. Let's frame it as such: Elyas attacked, and got injured by Whitecloaks defending their camp. Suddenly it looks like Elyas and the wolves were the agressors, and Perrin chose the wrong side. Morgase could still have come to the same judgment, but the trial would have looked a bit more balanced.

 

It's a missed mark indeed. But I'd say it's a small mark against an otherwise pretty stellar effort.

[KakitaOCU]

12 hours ago, Andra said:

But the Whitecloaks had responded to wolves trying to frighten their horses by physically attacking Elyas.  An attack that justified Perrin's response.

 

 

 

It's  ot both ways.  WC didn't respond to wolves by attacking Elyas.  Unless you think Elyas' actions were just to yell and make noise or something?  He attacked them in what I'm sure were not meant to be lethal,  but assault is assault and no matter intention, swinging a blade is using a lethal implement. 

 

12 hours ago, Andra said:

But even more, you're ignoring the actual ruling in the trial.

 

No, I'm not.  Morgase's ruling was based on the facts she had presented to her in the book.  Adding a bunch of extra details,  like that it was Perrin's side that initiated violence, might have changed her mind.

 

[Andra]

12 hours ago, Asthereal said:

He could have had Elyas testify, but Morgase still coming to the illegal killing judgment. Let's frame it as such: Elyas attacked, and got injured by Whitecloaks defending their camp. Suddenly it looks like Elyas and the wolves were the agressors, and Perrin chose the wrong side. Morgase could still have come to the same judgment, but the trial would have looked a bit more balanced.

 

It's a missed mark indeed. But I'd say it's a small mark against an otherwise pretty stellar effort.

Except that all Elyas had done at that point was try to frighten their horses.

If Perrin's use of deadly force against the Whitecloaks was unjustified because they had only hurt animals, then the Whitecloaks' prior use of deadly force against Elyas was unjustified because he had only tried to frighten animals.

 

If the argument that convicted Perrin had been applied consistently while accounting for Elyas rather than ignoring him, Perrin wouldn't have been convicted.  Because defending another human (Elyas) from deadly force (by the Whitecloaks) now makes Perrin's actions a justified use of deadly force, rather than an illegal killing.

 

But as I said before, they needed the outcome to be Perrin relying on Galad's judgment for his punishment.  Which creates everything afterward that leads to Galad becoming Perrin's ally.  If Perrin had actually been acquitted, that likely wouldn't have happened.