Faile is SO toxic! (The Shadow Rising)

[BoredofChaos]

I'm just listening to the part in "The Shadow Rising" where she manipulates Loial into taking her to the Two Rivers. Wow. Cold.

 

These books are so FRUSTRATING. Jordan's worldbuilding and the way he brings scenes to life with little details draw me in, then the cringe juvenile character drama crashes me out. 

 

 

[BoredofChaos]

Sorry in advance for the TLDR post.

I'm making my second attempt at this series. The first was when the books first came out. I forget when I stopped. It was either "Lord of Chaos" or "The Fires of Heaven." I think I was so habituated to the classic trilogy format that I felt like the series was never going to end. (I think it was a Forsaken being resurrected that made me set it down.)  

This time I'm working through the audiobooks. (Currently nearing the end of "The Shadow Rising", the last of the Rosamund Pike-narrated volumes.) Knowing what to expect, the more deliberate pacing is not bothering me.  

But I still find the series incredibly FRUSTRATING. Jordan's world-building on the macro scale (magic system, history, geography, metaphysics, and politics) and micro-scale (adding detail to a scene to make it real) and some truly interesting concepts keep me coming back for more. 

But, dear Creator, do the juvenile relationships and sex stereotypes between men and women make me want to put it down again. Faile is the worst. When Faile pulled the "if you don't know why I'm upset, then I'm not going to tell you" card and manipulated Loial into taking her into the Ways to return to the Two Rivers, I started skipping her chapters. (Not that Perrin deliberately hurting her to make her stay behind was that much better.) 

So far it feels like Jordan's view of relationships between men and women is that they are contests of manipulation and, under absolutely no circumstances, should partners have open and honest conversations with one another, or even like one another. 

The series is SO good...and SO bad.
 

[Bodewhin]

I think people read over the fact that a lot of times Perrin uses his wolf scent to detect Faile's feelings, and then he'll remark on what he senses from her, which is what she is definitely trying to conceal (jealousy for example) which leads to the majority of their miscommunications. 

 

It's a tad funny to me that members here seem to hate so many of the characters in WOT, especially the female ones. 

I'd be interested to know which female characters in fiction you really love because I like WOT's characters more than most I've encountered in the fantasy genre. 

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Personally I like all the characters, nearly. 

 

I don't understand how Faile doesn't blame Perrin for the Berelain thing yet does punish him for it. I thought the dynamic made sense from Perrin's POV but when we see Faile's POV, I just don't get it at all. 

 

I like Mat, though I don't like the gambler who never loses trope, if you don't lose you aren't a gambler. Minor quibble. 

 

I would have drowned Olver at birth. And Cadsuane. 

 

Yet I can also see that many other people love these characters, that shows they are not "bad" characters, but is rather a sign that the characters are realistic and diverse, and we react to them like we do real people. And real people aren't all likeable. 

 

That said no one will ever be able to convince me that any eleven year old boy should be so obsessed with bosom. That is just so uber creepy. 

[Loose Theremin]

On 9/22/2025 at 12:37 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Personally I like all the characters, nearly. 

 

I don't understand how Faile doesn't blame Perrin for the Berelain thing yet does punish him for it. I thought the dynamic made sense from Perrin's POV but when we see Faile's POV, I just don't get it at all. 

 

I like Mat, though I don't like the gambler who never loses trope, if you don't lose you aren't a gambler. Minor quibble. 

 

I would have drowned Olver at birth. And Cadsuane. 

 

Yet I can also see that many other people love these characters, that shows they are not "bad" characters, but is rather a sign that the characters are realistic and diverse, and we react to them like we do real people. And real people aren't all likeable. 

 

That said no one will ever be able to convince me that any eleven year old boy should be so obsessed with bosom. That is just so uber creepy. 

 

I don't think it was Olver who was really the one obsessed with bosoms. Robert Jordan himself was clearly a big fan of bosoms, and spankings. He just used Olver as another set of eyes so to speak.

[Bodewhin]

On 9/21/2025 at 8:37 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Yet I can also see that many other people love these characters, that shows they are not "bad" characters, but is rather a sign that the characters are realistic and diverse, and we react to them like we do real people. And real people aren't all likeable. 

 

That said no one will ever be able to convince me that any eleven year old boy should be so obsessed with bosom. That is just so uber creepy. 

 

 

I like that first bit- it's a good way to look at it. I agree. For example, Lanfear seems to be beloved by a lot of fans and she's not a favorite of mine. But I respect others are really into her as a character. Out of the Forsaken, I think Lanfear and Asmodean probably seemed the most interesting to me from a motivation and action standpoint, so I get it.

 

I never actually read Olver as creepy. I read him firstly as comic, and secondly I attributed his need for female attention to losing his mother and picking up on Mat and the band's behavior. Like the kid is just really attention starved and these attractive women feel sorry for him and baby him. I get that people read him that way, but it wasn't my takeaway. If I've learned anything about reading books, everyone picks up on different things, and processes them differently, similarly to most fictional media. 

Edited September 24 by Bodewhin
dyslexia sucks

[Loose Theremin]

On 9/21/2025 at 12:33 PM, Bodewhin said:

I think people read over the fact that a lot of times Perrin uses his wolf scent to detect Faile's feelings, and then he'll remark on what he senses from her, which is what she is definitely trying to conceal (jealousy for example) which leads to the majority of their miscommunications. 

 

It's a tad funny to me that members here seem to hate so many of the characters in WOT, especially the female ones. 

I'd be interested to know which female characters in fiction you really love because I like WOT's characters more than most I've encountered in the fantasy genre. 

 

 

" Which female characters in female fiction do you love. "

 

Very interesting question ! Well in Wheel of Time I loved Min of course but then who wouldn't she was so easy to be with. But then she wasn't a complex female character like Aviendha, Egwene or Nynaeve. So Min wasn't very realistic.

 

And in Song of Ice and Fire I loved Brienne of Tarth. I thought she was a most poignant character. Because of her size and strength she wasn't accepted as a woman. And when she rebelled and became a warrior she was ridiculed for it. But she was really a sensitive girl at heart. Poor thing. But then they cast Gwendoline Christie as my beloved Brienne in the TV show ( I had pictured Ruth Wilson from the TV mini-series of Jane Eyre as Brienne ) and absolutely ruined it for me !

 

Then I would go way back to Jane Austen. I loved Fanny from Mansfield Park, such a gentle and true soul. Molly Gibson from Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters superbly played by Justine Waddell in the 1999 TV mini-series. Lizzie Hexam from Charles Dickens Our Mutual Friend also superbly played by Keeley Hawes in the 1998 TV mini-series. Again though these are all idealised female characters rather than realistic ones.

 

A flawed female character I loved was Dorothea Brook from Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans). She got herself into quite a marital mess because of her obstinate contrariness and ended up paying the price for it. But she was a good hearted and likable woman in spite of that.

 

It helps if there has been a good TV or film of the character because it provides a living breathing person to see and experience which makes it easier for me to relate to.

 

In Battlestar Galactica  ( 2003-2009 ) for example I loved Sharon Valerii who was just lovely and ironically a wonderful human being who was treated so badly, although not without reason. I also had a soft spot for Kara Thrace ( Starbuck ) even though she was an awful person in many ways. But she couldn't help herself as she was a tortured soul because of being severely physically and emotionally abused as a child.

Edited September 25 by Loose Theremin

[Jaysee]

I'm on maybe my third or fourth attempt. I got as far as Lord of Chaos before, and this around I also just started The Shadow Rising. I've discovered that even when I hate a chapter, I almost always have something to say about it -- sometimes the more I dislike it, the more I have to say about it. So that's my motivation this time around, because I often have way more fun writing about a chapter than I have reading it.

 

Still early in The Shadow Rising, but I already had very similar thoughts about Faile. First she told Perrin: "This is a fine mess you’ve put me in." And then when she dropped the "if you don’t know, I am certainly not going to tell you," I broke the fourth wall and wrote:

 

Wow, Perrin. A woman who quotes Oliver Hardy, and a passive-aggressive gaslighter to boot — this one’s a keeper!

 

Good luck, and may you find your own motivation.

[HeronMarkedBlade]

On 6/9/2025 at 6:20 PM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

It is nice to hear others ideas on characters as I find Faile completely contrary. She has positive points definitely, but I also cannot help hold it against her that she is so deeply involved in the "we love nobles really" personality change of the whole Two Rivers. I've no idea why Jordan made them all so eager to throw away their proud independence. 

You don’t understand how those nobles raising the defence of Emonds Field, putting their own lives on the line for a tiny community would change peoples opinions of them?

 

it’s literally the most human thing in the world. We are walking contradiction. 
 

Millions of British throughout history did not love the monarchy, but were happy to fight for king and country (and just as many who did not want to defend king and country). Humans are tribal. Perrin, and by extension Faile, are part of their tribe, even if it’s in a separate and not necessarily equal way.