Perrin Aybara: The character

[Vardar]

Countless unnamed characters. From the Two Rivers and beyond.

So glad you cleared that up

Nope just him. Send him thru, give him to Rand, come back, "BEHOLD! I HATH DELIVERED THE PROPHET UNTO HIS GOD, AND HE HATH DECREED THAT YOU WILL NOW FOLLOW ME, THE BEST FRIEND OF THE LORD DRAGON, GREATER THAN A MERE PROPHET, BOW BEFORE THE HANDS THAT HATH SLAPPED THE LORD DRAGON ONCE OR TWICE"

Thus weakening his force with the large majority being criminals, rapists and half sane men. Solid idea that.

 

i quoted the men with Faile when she was captured correct?

 

Even criminals, rapists and half sane men and women can be reformed. He either wants the army or he doesn't. Push comes to shove, put them in the front lines for fodder, the ones who survive will be better for the hard lesson.

[safwd]

I cant agree with most of what you are saying Vardarmus. And i think it is apparent that you dislike Perrin as a character so i doubt it matters what he would have done.

You appear to honestly be saying that killing 200ish drugged out women would have been a better option.

I cant even imagine the uproar that would have happened if Perrin would have done that in the book.

 

Countless people have died while Perrin ruled begrudgingly but that is what happens when you get attacked by Trollics and Aiel. You can disagree with him chasing after Faile and that getting people killed but he never forced anyone to go with him. He would have gone alone if need be. People followed him because they saw him as a good leader.

And how many people has Rand gotten killed with his foolishness? At least Perrin hasnt blown the snot out of his own troops.

 

And once Perrin found the prophet and saw what a wackadoodle he and his followers were the mission changed a bit. There is no way Rand would have wanted this group of crazies in his army. The Prophet knew that, which is why he refused to go through a gateway to Rand, not because he didnt trust he power. He was in no hurry whatsoever to get to Rand and answer for what he had done in his name.

 

So again due to Perrins poor leadership:

The Saido are no longer a threat.

The Prophet and his wackos are no longer a concern.

He has formed ties with Rands biggest non shadow pain in the butt.

He has swelled his army and will be giving Rand a very strong force for the last battle.

He played a large part in the rediscovery of making power forged weapons, which is a really big deal.

 

I to didnt love the "chase after Faile at all cost" story but you cant deny that when it is all said and done he got quite a bit accomplished for the greater good.

[bronnt]

The main problem, @bronnt, is that Perrin can't trust Rand to care about Faile's fate. Rand might've obliterated the Shaido, true, but who's to say he'd done it in a way that wouldn't prove fatal to, at least, some captives? Alliandre is Faile's best assurance, and it's not a very strong one. So, Perrin decided to do it on his own. Stupid, perhaps, but not without merit.

 

I don't know why he'd be that worried about Rand causing pointless collateral damage. Pretty much the last time he saw Rand, Rand was torn apart attempting to remember the names of every female who had died in the battle of Dumai's Wells. And Perrin understood that it was about killing women, since he was raised the same way, with the same culture....so naturally, he'd probably take some kind of care not to butcher innocent women when attacking, right? I mean, he'd obviously be worried for the sake of Rand's sanity, but he takes much bigger gambles. If he's worried about Rand blasting the camp and causing collateral damage, why should he trust the Seanchan? How can he trust them to not accidentally kill Faile during the battle? Or not to betray him immediately following the battle? Including that possibility, he also allowed a loose cannon like Masema openly run around. Plus there was a huge pack of darkhounds which conveniently ignored him, and that he probably couldn't have done anything about without someone channeling balefire. And, frankly, he'd never been able to study the effect of forkroot tea, so he had to take a wild guess that he'd put enough into the water supply, that it had fully spread throughout the camp in one day, and that it had incapacitated enough of the channelers in the camp in order for his plan to work. What would have happened if most of the Aiel Wise Ones had stockpiled water in order to avid going to the reservoir every day? They'd have had no chance, Perrin's army would have been defeated, and since he never got word out to Rand about what was going on, pretty much all hope of rescuing Faile would have been lost.

 

He risked all that without even TALKING to Rand. He didn't even know about Rand going Darkside. Even if he was worried, he could have tried tracking Rand down and talking to him, gauging Rand's sanity for himself before asking for his help, if he was that worried. It wasn't like he didn't have a lot of time, and wasn't Traveling all over the place to set his plans in motion anyway.

[yoniy0]

You miss the point that, if Rand wished so, he could've put an end to Perrin's efforts. Only by keeping him unawares could Perrin be sure that he'd be left to his own device, to rescue Faile in whichever way he deemed most safe.

 

As I said, it's somewhat untrusting and foolhardy, but he did have some valid concerns.

[Barid Bel Medar]

You miss the point that, if Rand wished so, he could've put an end to Perrin's efforts. Only by keeping him unawares could Perrin be sure that he'd be left to his own device, to rescue Faile in whichever way he deemed most safe.

 

As I said, it's somewhat untrusting and foolhardy, but he did have some valid concerns.

 

Rand wasn't exactly a trustworthy guy, he had already shown ample signs of madness, Perrin had cause to be concerned, specially in hindsight looking at what he became in tGS.

[Mr Ares]

Actually it is still murder in a war, which is why we have had soldiers on trial for murder for things they did during a not so far in the past war.

And since i have a wee bit of knowledge on this topic i can tell you that if a soldier captures an enemy, ties him up so he cannot move, then shoots him in the head it is murder.

Both options suck but if i were given the choice between the two i dont think i could bring myself to kill them.

And i say again, it was a bargining chip to get the Seanchens help. He needed their help so he did what he needed to to get it. Would they have helped without that bargin, maybe, but maybe not.

You dont have to like what he did but what he did saved lives on his side. That is good leadership. Leaders sometimes have to do distastfull things and i feel he chose the less of the 2 evils.

If you think being made Damane is worse than death then that is fine, your opinion. I disagree.

 

You're forgetting it's not as simple as tying up an enemy soldier and holding him in jail. In this case, channelling rules out simply holding them in jail. Most rules of convential warfare would go out of the door once the enemy could kill you with a mere glace if they were awake. I'm certain in that situaiton, if you drugged and killed an enemy, no court would call it murder.

I'm certain that any impartial court would sure as hell call that murder. Because it is, even if you feel it's justified for pragmatic reasons. You're right, it's not simple. The solutions available to him are murder them all and enslave them all. How big a difference do you think there is, morally, between mass murder and mass enslavement? I think either solution is bad enough that it comes across as hair splitting to say that killing them all in their sleep is more defensible.

 

 

 

Who died for Perrin's refusal to lead? Also, was Perrin really willing to sacrifice existence to get his wife back? A character's thoughts aren't necessarily completely reliable. He might say he's willing to make a deal with Shai'tan, but if push came ot shove is there really any evidence he would? During Faile's captivity, his neglect of his duties amounts to his desire to rescue his wife being placed as his first priority (delaying the return of the Prophet, but not abandoning his mission), and not doing enough for Aram. Other than that, he looks after his people fairly well. Also, who was to make the decisions in his place? He never stopped people leading, he just stepped into a vacuum. No-one was doing the damn job so he stepped up.

 

Countless unnamed characters. From the Two Rivers and beyond. Every bad decision he made caused deaths, everytime his refusal to step up and do what needed to be done until he had no choice. Heck, just to name a quick one, the people with Faile before she was captured. The deaths of all those men are on Perrin's head.

So, no-one then. The people who were with Faile didn't die because of a failure of leadership on Perrin's part, they died because the enemy attacked them. It wasn't within Perrin's power to stop that happening.

 

 

And then knock out his entire army and shove them through a Gateway as well. That's a practical solution, that is. Or maybe he should take the sensible option, and leave a now leaderless rabble behind. No way for that to go wrong. Perrin needs to worry about Masema and his army - kidnapping the leader and leaving the rest is an amazingly bad idea.

 

Nope just him. Send him thru, give him to Rand, come back, "BEHOLD! I HATH DELIVERED THE PROPHET UNTO HIS GOD, AND HE HATH DECREED THAT YOU WILL NOW FOLLOW ME, THE BEST FRIEND OF THE LORD DRAGON, GREATER THAN A MERE PROPHET, BOW BEFORE THE HANDS THAT HATH SLAPPED THE LORD DRAGON ONCE OR TWICE"

 

Ok maybe I'm being a little sarcastic, but it would work something like that. 10 minutes of time wasted, no kidnapping, no horses dead, good times had by all!

Masema is a man of dubious sanity to begin with - kidnapping him and shoving him through a Gateway to come face to face with his god is not likely to be the best way of handling things. Further, assuming you don't just break his mind completely, you don't necessarily inherit his army. Masema is the only one controlling them. Take him away, you take away the control. Which means you need to keep them in line until Masema returns. What if Perrin returns, proclaims that he has delivered the Prophet unto the Lord Dragon - and then Masema's rabble attack him?

[bronnt]

You miss the point that, if Rand wished so, he could've put an end to Perrin's efforts. Only by keeping him unawares could Perrin be sure that he'd be left to his own device, to rescue Faile in whichever way he deemed most safe.

 

As I said, it's somewhat untrusting and foolhardy, but he did have some valid concerns.

 

You're giving Perrin credit for things he never even thought. The story-telling medium allows us to know exactly what Perrin was thinking. He thought things like, "I have to get back Faile. I don't have sufficient strength. I'd make a deal with the Dark One himself if it put her back in my arms." He never thought, "Let's see, I could try tracking Rand down, but it would take time, and it's possible that he's gone completely crazy and would just crush the whole Shaido in one fell swoop, without worrying about collateral damage, despite the fact that he bawls any time a woman might be harmed." He never thought, "Rand might assume I'm just some soldier who'll take his orders and he'll send me off somewhere else where I can't participate in this rescue. He also might be going darkside as a result of things around him becoming increasingly grim."

 

If we were given good reasons within the context of the story why Perrin didn't contact Rand, I might accept this. We're not, which leaves it up to you to justify using explanations that are somewhat inconsistent with the story. The only context we're ever given is that Perrin is on a "secret" mission, which is the flimsiest possible rationalization given how long he's gone, and the fact that the mission itself changed (or was completed) by the end of WH. The fact that his reasons for doing things are no longer relevant already by the halfway point of his sideplot makes it poorly written, even worse than the Elayne/Andor sideplot, where at least much of the action/inaction is justified.

 

It's just hard to imagine why he never took the time to weigh the possible pros and cons, especially after learning that there was a GIANT pack of Darkhounds in the area, who ignored him for some reason. He correctly surmised that they were hunting something else, but what if they had actually caught what they were looking for and turned back around to descend on his camp, slaughtering pretty much everyone? He really had zero defense against them, since BF is still the only thing we've seen used on them that definitely works. Given that DarkHounds never get tired and can run down horses, I'd have been pretty frightened that they might just catch what they were looking for, and then double back to finish him off. He never came up with a plan for stopping them, even though something like that could represent a freaking huge obstacle in his plan for rescuing Faile. He didn't even seem concerned that perhaps they might descend on the Shaido at some point, and Faile would be really, really helpless in that case. That seemed like a great moment for him to say, "Crap, I really need some back-up on this."

 

The pros surely outweighed the cons in terms of contacting Rand, but we never even got to see him weigh them so that we could understand his faulty logic. A flawed character who makes mistakes is actually interesting to read. A flawed character who makes mistakes, continues to actively make the same ones, all while they're being ignored by the writer is intensely FRUSTRATING to read. If I had had the chance to see Perrin reason some of this out for himself, even if he'd made some dubious mistakes in his reasoning, that would have been a better read. He could then think back on his reasoning, and decide that perhaps he'd taken too many risks, he could see where he'd made errors in his past, and he might realize that more people had died because he'd insisted on trying to do things himself. He could experience some character growth, perhaps he could reasses the paradigm he uses for making decisions. Heck, maybe he'll even find himself unable to cope with the decisions he's made, and he'll start creating flimsy rationalizations for himself, so that we can see he's torn up by mistakes along the way. That would have made for an interesting story, but instead, Perrin's story remained simply the SidePlot That Would Not Die.

[Vardar]

So, no-one then. The people who were with Faile didn't die because of a failure of leadership on Perrin's part, they died because the enemy attacked them. It wasn't within Perrin's power to stop that happening.

 

Was Faile riding around with minimal guards without knowing how close the AIel were? You have an army, he should have known of any forces large enough to threaten any members of his retinue. Her kidnapping was on his shoulders. A good leader shouldn't have let that happen. But then again, he wasn't being a good leader at that point.

 

I'm certain that any impartial court would sure as hell call that murder. Because it is, even if you feel it's justified for pragmatic reasons. You're right, it's not simple. The solutions available to him are murder them all and enslave them all. How big a difference do you think there is, morally, between mass murder and mass enslavement? I think either solution is bad enough that it comes across as hair splitting to say that killing them all in their sleep is more defensible.

 

If you believe so. It's like letting a suicide bomber live with his hand on the trigger. Don't forget, a lot of those channelers weren't sleep, they were alive and well when they were captured. Death before dishonor, slavery is not honorable.

 

We're not going to agree on this good sir, so I suppose I'll leave it at that.

 

Masema is a man of dubious sanity to begin with - kidnapping him and shoving him through a Gateway to come face to face with his god is not likely to be the best way of handling things. Further, assuming you don't just break his mind completely, you don't necessarily inherit his army. Masema is the only one controlling them. Take him away, you take away the control. Which means you need to keep them in line until Masema returns. What if Perrin returns, proclaims that he has delivered the Prophet unto the Lord Dragon - and then Masema's rabble attack him?

 

So he was so insane, that walking for months with him was a better idea? Masema is controlling them, with the threat of the Lord Dragon hanging over their heads. They are Dragonsworn, not Masemasworn. They would have fought for Rand, and Perrin by proxy.

[yoniy0]

bronnt, I put forward that your scale for judging Perrin's perspective is skewed. You seem to use the measure of "if it's not written, he didn't think about it", where in fact, we know this isn't the truth. We've spent perhaps more time behind Rand's eyes than anyone else, and yet he repeatedly surprised us with acts that were premeditated, only we never heard more than a hint of them beforehand.

[Mr Ares]

So, no-one then. The people who were with Faile didn't die because of a failure of leadership on Perrin's part, they died because the enemy attacked them. It wasn't within Perrin's power to stop that happening.

 

Was Faile riding around with minimal guards without knowing how close the AIel were? You have an army, he should have known of any forces large enough to threaten any members of his retinue. Her kidnapping was on his shoulders. A good leader shouldn't have let that happen. But then again, he wasn't being a good leader at that point.

In what way was he failing as a leader? Perrin is not a miracle worker. Faile was accompanied by more than forty guards, and "even Sulin agreed that they had moved on east, perhaps into Altara." So even the experienced Aiel were not anticipating anyone nearby, Faile was not surrounded by minimal guards (and had the power to take as many guards as she wanted).

 

 

I'm certain that any impartial court would sure as hell call that murder. Because it is, even if you feel it's justified for pragmatic reasons. You're right, it's not simple. The solutions available to him are murder them all and enslave them all. How big a difference do you think there is, morally, between mass murder and mass enslavement? I think either solution is bad enough that it comes across as hair splitting to say that killing them all in their sleep is more defensible.

 

If you believe so. It's like letting a suicide bomber live with his hand on the trigger. Don't forget, a lot of those channelers weren't sleep, they were alive and well when they were captured. Death before dishonor, slavery is not honorable.

Neither is murder.

 

 

Masema is a man of dubious sanity to begin with - kidnapping him and shoving him through a Gateway to come face to face with his god is not likely to be the best way of handling things. Further, assuming you don't just break his mind completely, you don't necessarily inherit his army. Masema is the only one controlling them. Take him away, you take away the control. Which means you need to keep them in line until Masema returns. What if Perrin returns, proclaims that he has delivered the Prophet unto the Lord Dragon - and then Masema's rabble attack him?

 

So he was so insane, that walking for months with him was a better idea? Masema is controlling them, with the threat of the Lord Dragon hanging over their heads. They are Dragonsworn, not Masemasworn. They would have fought for Rand, and Perrin by proxy.

They are called Dragonsworn, that doesn't mean they have any actual allegiance to Rand. Many Dragonsworn simply use the Dragon as an excuse for murder and mayhem. Kidnapping Masema (which Perrin considered, by the way), would likely see things turn into a bloodbath. There is no discernable gain from it that isn't far outweighed by the insane risk.

[Siswai_Dar]

I never liked Perrin and I downright hated faile. what made Perrin so annoying to me was his unrelenting desire to do the right thing- that's unnatural! and the worse thing is that he usually managed to do so or he whined about not knowing what to do or how to do it. Mat and Rand on the other hand feel much more realistic on that aspect: Mat is a good man and he usually does the right thing but on the way he drinks gambles and curses a lot- that makes him human. Rand makes the bad choise half the time and when he does the right thing its hardly recognized by others and his guilt and frustration aloow us to identify with him0 and the most important thing is that they don't think things as much as Perrin, they ACT, even if it sometimes leads to disaster- that's what makes them human. Besides, no 20 years old think about things as much as Perrin, young people have a tendency to act recklessly.

 

the only time I felt I understood Perrin and his motives was when Faile was kidnapped- yes he was insufferable and yes it was one of the most boring sagas in the series but I could relate to perrin because he did all the bad choices he didn't try to be noble and a saint all the time- in fact, he stopped carrying about what's going on around him all together- AND IT MADE SENSE: the woman he loved (god knows why) was kidnapped, he doesn't know when will be the next time he sees her- if ever- and nothing else seems important compare to this.

 

To me, perrin was always one of the least accomplished character of RJ

[Treebeard]

I cant honestly say that i think Perrin is the most interesting and grand character of all in the series BUT i don't think he is dumb/idiot/badly written character that many thinks he is . The lousy performance he did under the Shaido chase he well redeems after.

[szilard]

Been away from these boards since forever, but this is one topic that really burned me. The problem isn't with Perrin himself (even though he is written rather stupidly) but the fact that the entire plot is one big, big Idiot Plot. I'd have been happy to read much more of Perrin, even his pointless side-show, if it was written in a fashion that made sense. I love these books, don't get me wrong-I don't mean to be overly critical. But this side plot should never have been written.

 

To recap:

 

It really starts when Queen Alliandre of Ghealdan writes Rand a letter, asking him to come and deal with the Prophet, and she's willing to swear fealty to his cause if he can help restore a bit of order to her country. It's a completely legitimate request, too, since the Prophet is a person who knows Rand personally, and all the people who are rioting and creating this chaos are people who ostensibly call themselves his followers. That's not to say they're necessarily all that interested in following, or that it's his fault the country is in chaos, but since she's willing to swear fealty in exchange for helping him solve a problem that is related to him, it's a very fair deal.

 

So what is Rand's solution to this? Remember, he's shown himself completely willing to occupy Tear, Illian (later), Cairhein, and Caemlyn at this point (though he's not personally attempting to rule Andor in general, just hold it and restore order for a while). Rand may not like the idea of taking Asha'Man into a volatile situation, but then, he's already crossed that bridge repeatedly. We're never given a reason he doesn't take himself with a dozen Asha'Man, a few of his loyal Aes Sedai, and a portion of his army to deal with this. All he really needed to do was show up and speak to Alliandre-that's essentially all Perrin did before she swore fealty to HIM-and then tell Masema that it was time to go. Obviously it's problematic for Rand himself to risk walking through areas where there's perhaps active rioting, but that's hardly crazier than some stuff he's already done sucessfully, and the fact that some Aes Sedai have sworn oaths of obedience, and the fact that he has Asha'Man willing to obey his orders should be enough to protect him. Dealing with a rioting crowd instead of an army of Aiel should be fairly simple. If they're willing to follow him, he'd be smart to divide them up so they can cause fewer issues, and send them to be trained into an army as he's done with other segments of his followers.

 

But okay, perhaps he thinks it would take too much time and he has other important things to be doing (we'll ignore the fact that, in the same book, he spends several days literally moping about in his room doing nothing). So he sends Perrin, along with a few loyal Aes Sedai and a couple of Asha'Man, along with a force sufficient to subdue any rioting, should it come to it. I might be misremebering the strength of Perrin's forces, but really, two Asha'Man ought to be able to cut a swath through these people if necessary. For some reason that still makes no sense to me, they stage a fight in order to hide Perrin's purpose. To this day, I've never understood why this was a big secret. He was fully willing to have Perrin openly lead his armies attacking Illian to use him as a diversion; perhaps he was afraid of Sammael attacking Perrin if he turned up someplace else while doing work for Rand. Again, this makes no sense in context with other actions-he let Mat march his band without any channeler support quite openly while moving to meet up with the rest of his army, practically begging for HIM to be attacked. And naturally, Sammael did attack, but, being a big fat idiot like the rest of the Forsaken, instead of squashing Mat's tent by ripping open the earth and crushing, he instead launched a very survivable surprise attack using Aiel. So I'm still not sold on that being Rand's motive.

 

Regardless, Perrin actuallly underook this secret mission while openly displaying banners that said, "Hey, Perrin Aybara is right here!" and succeeded. He pretty much had accomplished his mission. Masema, of course, refused to use the OP to Travel, but he agrees that he will go to meet Rand. At this point, Faile is captured by the Shaido. The next bits are perfectly reasonable, if you give Perrrin a pass for panicking and making stupid mistakes as a result of panicking. He doesn't know the strength of the Shaido, so he thinks he can intercept them and catch up with Faile and rescue her. If they'd caught the raiding party itself before it hooked back up with the Shaido, it's quite likely, since they had no channelers. But he screws this up, and ends up taking quite a while before catching up with her. I'll give him a pass for this-people screw up, it makes for good literature. Also, he's still essentially following Rand's directions, since he was sent specifically to secure Queen Alliandre's allegiance, and she ended up kidnapped along with Faile, so rescuing her is an acceptable part of this mission. If we accept the premise of Perrin's mission, we're quite, quite fine with everything that happens in his side plot through Winter's Heart.

 

Then came Crossroads of Twilight. This is where good plotting went to die. The entire plot hinges on Perrin's inability to quickly resolve a problem in order for the rest of the plot to work, so in a world where you can instantly Travel from anywhere to anywhere else, we're forced to endure filler. This is so full of stupid crap I can barely tolerate it. Perrin no longer gets a pass for being stupid since he's no longer panicking or behaving irrationally. It's almost as if RJ knows how idiotic Perrin is being and seeks to drive this home, despite the fact that Perrin has no excuse anymore. Perrin finds the Shaido encampment, he sees that it's way too big and well defended to defeat, and he learns that there's something like 200 channelers in the town. He's literally thinking about how he's ever supposed to defeat this force when an image of Rand is shoved into his brain. It's like an epiphany is trying to shove itself down his throat. At this point, there's no reason he's not saying, "Hey, I should get Rand's help-as soon as he's finished with what sounds like a very dangerous task, as it's creeping out all the channelers I have with me." He doesn't though. I guess he's still under whatever secret oath of secrecy he took, or something, but honestly, there's four major reasons he should be seeking Rand here.

 

1) He's on the same side as Perrin and has a force indisputably strong enough to crack open the Shaido camp like an egg.

2) Rand had already expressed a desire to find the rest of the Shaido and stop them from causing more havoc.

3) Rand also told him specifically to bring back Masema, who is present and creating problems that Rand can readily solve with his mere presence.

4) Perrin cannot complete the mission Rand sent him on without defeating the Shaido, since Alliandre is a prisoner.

 

There are certainly a few problems for Perrin to overcome. That is, immediately after the battle at Shadar Logoth, Rand goes missing. Of course, three different factions, each searching for Rand, ALL managed to track him down by the end of this book (Logain, Bashere, and Loial/Karldin). If Perrin had had the decency to look for him, he'd probably have stumbled on the same method of tracking him down. He also has another advantage none of them had-a freaking psychic connection that allows him to see where Rand is and what he's doing. He has zero excuse for not trying, especially given his singular focus on rescuing Faile. The most obvious method to her salvation is completely ignored by him, as well as any responsibility he feels toward Rand's mission being thrown out the window-he jeopardizes it by leaving Alliandre in bondage longer than necessary.

 

It gets worse. He has the ability to travel anywhere in the known world to purchase grain. Instead of going to Tear, Illian, or Cairhien (remember how Tear had all this extra grain that they sent to Illian and Cairhein?) he travels to a small town nearby where the grain is completely infested with weevils. He ignores this obvious health hazard, refuses to allow anyone to try to help these townspeople, and continues on his way. RJ was toying with us by creating this So Harber sideplot (a sideplot of a sideplot) that screamed: OBVIOUS FILLER.

 

Perrin continued to be idiotic. He continues to get reminds of where Rand is and what he's doing, even learning that Rand loses a hand through his psychic connection, and never tries to contact him. He thinks that he'll make a deal with the Dark One himself if it will get Faile back. Better to make a deal with the Dark One than call your best friend, right? Also, Rand at this point stops obviously hiding from the whole world, which means Perrin might have a chance to find him. Perrin's clearly thinking about using some of his actual friends to help him out, since he sends Grady to the Two Rivers and brings Tam al'Thor with a legion of bowmen. Hey Tam, I know you'd like to see your son and all, and I know we can create magic holes in the air that can take you anywhere in the world, but sorry, we're not taking you to see your son. There's obviously no reason Perrin shoudln't have thought of this, and using his psychic connection to track him down. What he opts instead is to make an alliance with a second powerful force, one completely opposed to Rand, and making a proposition that will make them considerably stronger by consigning 200 women to slavery. He was upset about Rand mistreating the women who threw him in a box and tortured him, but he's completely okay with forcing slavery onto Aiel women. It gets disgusting at this point, since, despite making common cause with the Seanchan, he's still taking an ENORMOUS gamble because he's relying on his ability to poison the Aiel water supply. He just barely has enough strength to pull off his victory thanks to a great deal of luck, rather than taking the relatively easy method of asking his best friend for help.

 

So we've had two books full of idiot plot at this point just for the payoff, stuffed with filler. People might have started to forgive Perrin if his idiot plot had had the decency to die, at this point. It did not. It's gone on for two more books-he rescued Faile, but the Sideplot of Doom refuses to die. He's accomplished what Rand asked of him. He has too many people to logistically move at once since he has only two channelers who can create Gateways. Common sense dictates, since he's achieved what Rand asked of him and just needs to get back and report, he send someone to track down Rand, using a combination of his psychic connection, the ability to Travel anywhere instantly, and a tiny bit of detective work. Let's keep in mind that, while it's nice to point out that Gateways have some logistical problems with using them, the more pressing issue of how he's keeping 100,000 refugees (plus his own army) fed is tidily ignored. He can feel Rand pulling him to rejoin him, so he's marching slowly with this big press of refugees instead of trying to find him. The only reason for this contrivance is so that Tam al'Thor can avoid showing up until the end of the book.

 

The side plot didn't end there, but it should have. Perrin has all these refugees, keeping them fed has got to be a major pain, and he should have told Tam to ask Rand for some channelers to Travel his people, or he should have gone with Rand himself. He knows he needs to be reuniting with Rand. This side-plot continues to go on through Towers of Midnight, with no one from either Rand's or Perrin's camp attempting to contact the other, and Tam not asking Rand to send people to collect them (even though he has friends from the Two Rivers with Perrin).

 

Perrin is likeable. His sideplot is written so stupidly that it is not.

 

BEST. POST. EVER

[awesomeman32]

I like perrin, I mean come on guys he has a freaking power wrought hammer and kicks butt in the world of dreams. Oh and he kicked the shaido's butt.

[awesomeman32]

 

Been away from these boards since forever, but this is one topic that really burned me. The problem isn't with Perrin himself (even though he is written rather stupidly) but the fact that the entire plot is one big, big Idiot Plot. I'd have been happy to read much more of Perrin, even his pointless side-show, if it was written in a fashion that made sense. I love these books, don't get me wrong-I don't mean to be overly critical. But this side plot should never have been written.

 

To recap:

 

It really starts when Queen Alliandre of Ghealdan writes Rand a letter, asking him to come and deal with the Prophet, and she's willing to swear fealty to his cause if he can help restore a bit of order to her country. It's a completely legitimate request, too, since the Prophet is a person who knows Rand personally, and all the people who are rioting and creating this chaos are people who ostensibly call themselves his followers. That's not to say they're necessarily all that interested in following, or that it's his fault the country is in chaos, but since she's willing to swear fealty in exchange for helping him solve a problem that is related to him, it's a very fair deal.

 

So what is Rand's solution to this? Remember, he's shown himself completely willing to occupy Tear, Illian (later), Cairhein, and Caemlyn at this point (though he's not personally attempting to rule Andor in general, just hold it and restore order for a while). Rand may not like the idea of taking Asha'Man into a volatile situation, but then, he's already crossed that bridge repeatedly. We're never given a reason he doesn't take himself with a dozen Asha'Man, a few of his loyal Aes Sedai, and a portion of his army to deal with this. All he really needed to do was show up and speak to Alliandre-that's essentially all Perrin did before she swore fealty to HIM-and then tell Masema that it was time to go. Obviously it's problematic for Rand himself to risk walking through areas where there's perhaps active rioting, but that's hardly crazier than some stuff he's already done sucessfully, and the fact that some Aes Sedai have sworn oaths of obedience, and the fact that he has Asha'Man willing to obey his orders should be enough to protect him. Dealing with a rioting crowd instead of an army of Aiel should be fairly simple. If they're willing to follow him, he'd be smart to divide them up so they can cause fewer issues, and send them to be trained into an army as he's done with other segments of his followers.

 

But okay, perhaps he thinks it would take too much time and he has other important things to be doing (we'll ignore the fact that, in the same book, he spends several days literally moping about in his room doing nothing). So he sends Perrin, along with a few loyal Aes Sedai and a couple of Asha'Man, along with a force sufficient to subdue any rioting, should it come to it. I might be misremebering the strength of Perrin's forces, but really, two Asha'Man ought to be able to cut a swath through these people if necessary. For some reason that still makes no sense to me, they stage a fight in order to hide Perrin's purpose. To this day, I've never understood why this was a big secret. He was fully willing to have Perrin openly lead his armies attacking Illian to use him as a diversion; perhaps he was afraid of Sammael attacking Perrin if he turned up someplace else while doing work for Rand. Again, this makes no sense in context with other actions-he let Mat march his band without any channeler support quite openly while moving to meet up with the rest of his army, practically begging for HIM to be attacked. And naturally, Sammael did attack, but, being a big fat idiot like the rest of the Forsaken, instead of squashing Mat's tent by ripping open the earth and crushing, he instead launched a very survivable surprise attack using Aiel. So I'm still not sold on that being Rand's motive.

 

Regardless, Perrin actuallly underook this secret mission while openly displaying banners that said, "Hey, Perrin Aybara is right here!" and succeeded. He pretty much had accomplished his mission. Masema, of course, refused to use the OP to Travel, but he agrees that he will go to meet Rand. At this point, Faile is captured by the Shaido. The next bits are perfectly reasonable, if you give Perrrin a pass for panicking and making stupid mistakes as a result of panicking. He doesn't know the strength of the Shaido, so he thinks he can intercept them and catch up with Faile and rescue her. If they'd caught the raiding party itself before it hooked back up with the Shaido, it's quite likely, since they had no channelers. But he screws this up, and ends up taking quite a while before catching up with her. I'll give him a pass for this-people screw up, it makes for good literature. Also, he's still essentially following Rand's directions, since he was sent specifically to secure Queen Alliandre's allegiance, and she ended up kidnapped along with Faile, so rescuing her is an acceptable part of this mission. If we accept the premise of Perrin's mission, we're quite, quite fine with everything that happens in his side plot through Winter's Heart.

 

Then came Crossroads of Twilight. This is where good plotting went to die. The entire plot hinges on Perrin's inability to quickly resolve a problem in order for the rest of the plot to work, so in a world where you can instantly Travel from anywhere to anywhere else, we're forced to endure filler. This is so full of stupid crap I can barely tolerate it. Perrin no longer gets a pass for being stupid since he's no longer panicking or behaving irrationally. It's almost as if RJ knows how idiotic Perrin is being and seeks to drive this home, despite the fact that Perrin has no excuse anymore. Perrin finds the Shaido encampment, he sees that it's way too big and well defended to defeat, and he learns that there's something like 200 channelers in the town. He's literally thinking about how he's ever supposed to defeat this force when an image of Rand is shoved into his brain. It's like an epiphany is trying to shove itself down his throat. At this point, there's no reason he's not saying, "Hey, I should get Rand's help-as soon as he's finished with what sounds like a very dangerous task, as it's creeping out all the channelers I have with me." He doesn't though. I guess he's still under whatever secret oath of secrecy he took, or something, but honestly, there's four major reasons he should be seeking Rand here.

 

1) He's on the same side as Perrin and has a force indisputably strong enough to crack open the Shaido camp like an egg.

2) Rand had already expressed a desire to find the rest of the Shaido and stop them from causing more havoc.

3) Rand also told him specifically to bring back Masema, who is present and creating problems that Rand can readily solve with his mere presence.

4) Perrin cannot complete the mission Rand sent him on without defeating the Shaido, since Alliandre is a prisoner.

 

There are certainly a few problems for Perrin to overcome. That is, immediately after the battle at Shadar Logoth, Rand goes missing. Of course, three different factions, each searching for Rand, ALL managed to track him down by the end of this book (Logain, Bashere, and Loial/Karldin). If Perrin had had the decency to look for him, he'd probably have stumbled on the same method of tracking him down. He also has another advantage none of them had-a freaking psychic connection that allows him to see where Rand is and what he's doing. He has zero excuse for not trying, especially given his singular focus on rescuing Faile. The most obvious method to her salvation is completely ignored by him, as well as any responsibility he feels toward Rand's mission being thrown out the window-he jeopardizes it by leaving Alliandre in bondage longer than necessary.

 

It gets worse. He has the ability to travel anywhere in the known world to purchase grain. Instead of going to Tear, Illian, or Cairhien (remember how Tear had all this extra grain that they sent to Illian and Cairhein?) he travels to a small town nearby where the grain is completely infested with weevils. He ignores this obvious health hazard, refuses to allow anyone to try to help these townspeople, and continues on his way. RJ was toying with us by creating this So Harber sideplot (a sideplot of a sideplot) that screamed: OBVIOUS FILLER.

 

Perrin continued to be idiotic. He continues to get reminds of where Rand is and what he's doing, even learning that Rand loses a hand through his psychic connection, and never tries to contact him. He thinks that he'll make a deal with the Dark One himself if it will get Faile back. Better to make a deal with the Dark One than call your best friend, right? Also, Rand at this point stops obviously hiding from the whole world, which means Perrin might have a chance to find him. Perrin's clearly thinking about using some of his actual friends to help him out, since he sends Grady to the Two Rivers and brings Tam al'Thor with a legion of bowmen. Hey Tam, I know you'd like to see your son and all, and I know we can create magic holes in the air that can take you anywhere in the world, but sorry, we're not taking you to see your son. There's obviously no reason Perrin shoudln't have thought of this, and using his psychic connection to track him down. What he opts instead is to make an alliance with a second powerful force, one completely opposed to Rand, and making a proposition that will make them considerably stronger by consigning 200 women to slavery. He was upset about Rand mistreating the women who threw him in a box and tortured him, but he's completely okay with forcing slavery onto Aiel women. It gets disgusting at this point, since, despite making common cause with the Seanchan, he's still taking an ENORMOUS gamble because he's relying on his ability to poison the Aiel water supply. He just barely has enough strength to pull off his victory thanks to a great deal of luck, rather than taking the relatively easy method of asking his best friend for help.

 

So we've had two books full of idiot plot at this point just for the payoff, stuffed with filler. People might have started to forgive Perrin if his idiot plot had had the decency to die, at this point. It did not. It's gone on for two more books-he rescued Faile, but the Sideplot of Doom refuses to die. He's accomplished what Rand asked of him. He has too many people to logistically move at once since he has only two channelers who can create Gateways. Common sense dictates, since he's achieved what Rand asked of him and just needs to get back and report, he send someone to track down Rand, using a combination of his psychic connection, the ability to Travel anywhere instantly, and a tiny bit of detective work. Let's keep in mind that, while it's nice to point out that Gateways have some logistical problems with using them, the more pressing issue of how he's keeping 100,000 refugees (plus his own army) fed is tidily ignored. He can feel Rand pulling him to rejoin him, so he's marching slowly with this big press of refugees instead of trying to find him. The only reason for this contrivance is so that Tam al'Thor can avoid showing up until the end of the book.

 

The side plot didn't end there, but it should have. Perrin has all these refugees, keeping them fed has got to be a major pain, and he should have told Tam to ask Rand for some channelers to Travel his people, or he should have gone with Rand himself. He knows he needs to be reuniting with Rand. This side-plot continues to go on through Towers of Midnight, with no one from either Rand's or Perrin's camp attempting to contact the other, and Tam not asking Rand to send people to collect them (even though he has friends from the Two Rivers with Perrin).

 

Perrin is likeable. His sideplot is written so stupidly that it is not.

 

BEST. POST. EVER

Um if you remember Rand was busy Umm let me see..... BEING THE DRAGON REBORN, killing forsaken crap like that, and he was having an appeared falling out with perrin so yeay.

[udbabor520]

 

Been away from these boards since forever, but this is one topic that really burned me. The problem isn't with Perrin himself (even though he is written rather stupidly) but the fact that the entire plot is one big, big Idiot Plot. I'd have been happy to read much more of Perrin, even his pointless side-show, if it was written in a fashion that made sense. I love these books, don't get me wrong-I don't mean to be overly critical. But this side plot should never have been written.

 

To recap:

 

It really starts when Queen Alliandre of Ghealdan writes Rand a letter, asking him to come and deal with the Prophet, and she's willing to swear fealty to his cause if he can help restore a bit of order to her country. It's a completely legitimate request, too, since the Prophet is a person who knows Rand personally, and all the people who are rioting and creating this chaos are people who ostensibly call themselves his followers. That's not to say they're necessarily all that interested in following, or that it's his fault the country is in chaos, but since she's willing to swear fealty in exchange for helping him solve a problem that is related to him, it's a very fair deal.

 

So what is Rand's solution to this? Remember, he's shown himself completely willing to occupy Tear, Illian (later), Cairhein, and Caemlyn at this point (though he's not personally attempting to rule Andor in general, just hold it and restore order for a while). Rand may not like the idea of taking Asha'Man into a volatile situation, but then, he's already crossed that bridge repeatedly. We're never given a reason he doesn't take himself with a dozen Asha'Man, a few of his loyal Aes Sedai, and a portion of his army to deal with this. All he really needed to do was show up and speak to Alliandre-that's essentially all Perrin did before she swore fealty to HIM-and then tell Masema that it was time to go. Obviously it's problematic for Rand himself to risk walking through areas where there's perhaps active rioting, but that's hardly crazier than some stuff he's already done sucessfully, and the fact that some Aes Sedai have sworn oaths of obedience, and the fact that he has Asha'Man willing to obey his orders should be enough to protect him. Dealing with a rioting crowd instead of an army of Aiel should be fairly simple. If they're willing to follow him, he'd be smart to divide them up so they can cause fewer issues, and send them to be trained into an army as he's done with other segments of his followers.

 

But okay, perhaps he thinks it would take too much time and he has other important things to be doing (we'll ignore the fact that, in the same book, he spends several days literally moping about in his room doing nothing). So he sends Perrin, along with a few loyal Aes Sedai and a couple of Asha'Man, along with a force sufficient to subdue any rioting, should it come to it. I might be misremebering the strength of Perrin's forces, but really, two Asha'Man ought to be able to cut a swath through these people if necessary. For some reason that still makes no sense to me, they stage a fight in order to hide Perrin's purpose. To this day, I've never understood why this was a big secret. He was fully willing to have Perrin openly lead his armies attacking Illian to use him as a diversion; perhaps he was afraid of Sammael attacking Perrin if he turned up someplace else while doing work for Rand. Again, this makes no sense in context with other actions-he let Mat march his band without any channeler support quite openly while moving to meet up with the rest of his army, practically begging for HIM to be attacked. And naturally, Sammael did attack, but, being a big fat idiot like the rest of the Forsaken, instead of squashing Mat's tent by ripping open the earth and crushing, he instead launched a very survivable surprise attack using Aiel. So I'm still not sold on that being Rand's motive.

 

Regardless, Perrin actuallly underook this secret mission while openly displaying banners that said, "Hey, Perrin Aybara is right here!" and succeeded. He pretty much had accomplished his mission. Masema, of course, refused to use the OP to Travel, but he agrees that he will go to meet Rand. At this point, Faile is captured by the Shaido. The next bits are perfectly reasonable, if you give Perrrin a pass for panicking and making stupid mistakes as a result of panicking. He doesn't know the strength of the Shaido, so he thinks he can intercept them and catch up with Faile and rescue her. If they'd caught the raiding party itself before it hooked back up with the Shaido, it's quite likely, since they had no channelers. But he screws this up, and ends up taking quite a while before catching up with her. I'll give him a pass for this-people screw up, it makes for good literature. Also, he's still essentially following Rand's directions, since he was sent specifically to secure Queen Alliandre's allegiance, and she ended up kidnapped along with Faile, so rescuing her is an acceptable part of this mission. If we accept the premise of Perrin's mission, we're quite, quite fine with everything that happens in his side plot through Winter's Heart.

 

Then came Crossroads of Twilight. This is where good plotting went to die. The entire plot hinges on Perrin's inability to quickly resolve a problem in order for the rest of the plot to work, so in a world where you can instantly Travel from anywhere to anywhere else, we're forced to endure filler. This is so full of stupid crap I can barely tolerate it. Perrin no longer gets a pass for being stupid since he's no longer panicking or behaving irrationally. It's almost as if RJ knows how idiotic Perrin is being and seeks to drive this home, despite the fact that Perrin has no excuse anymore. Perrin finds the Shaido encampment, he sees that it's way too big and well defended to defeat, and he learns that there's something like 200 channelers in the town. He's literally thinking about how he's ever supposed to defeat this force when an image of Rand is shoved into his brain. It's like an epiphany is trying to shove itself down his throat. At this point, there's no reason he's not saying, "Hey, I should get Rand's help-as soon as he's finished with what sounds like a very dangerous task, as it's creeping out all the channelers I have with me." He doesn't though. I guess he's still under whatever secret oath of secrecy he took, or something, but honestly, there's four major reasons he should be seeking Rand here.

 

1) He's on the same side as Perrin and has a force indisputably strong enough to crack open the Shaido camp like an egg.

2) Rand had already expressed a desire to find the rest of the Shaido and stop them from causing more havoc.

3) Rand also told him specifically to bring back Masema, who is present and creating problems that Rand can readily solve with his mere presence.

4) Perrin cannot complete the mission Rand sent him on without defeating the Shaido, since Alliandre is a prisoner.

 

There are certainly a few problems for Perrin to overcome. That is, immediately after the battle at Shadar Logoth, Rand goes missing. Of course, three different factions, each searching for Rand, ALL managed to track him down by the end of this book (Logain, Bashere, and Loial/Karldin). If Perrin had had the decency to look for him, he'd probably have stumbled on the same method of tracking him down. He also has another advantage none of them had-a freaking psychic connection that allows him to see where Rand is and what he's doing. He has zero excuse for not trying, especially given his singular focus on rescuing Faile. The most obvious method to her salvation is completely ignored by him, as well as any responsibility he feels toward Rand's mission being thrown out the window-he jeopardizes it by leaving Alliandre in bondage longer than necessary.

 

It gets worse. He has the ability to travel anywhere in the known world to purchase grain. Instead of going to Tear, Illian, or Cairhien (remember how Tear had all this extra grain that they sent to Illian and Cairhein?) he travels to a small town nearby where the grain is completely infested with weevils. He ignores this obvious health hazard, refuses to allow anyone to try to help these townspeople, and continues on his way. RJ was toying with us by creating this So Harber sideplot (a sideplot of a sideplot) that screamed: OBVIOUS FILLER.

 

Perrin continued to be idiotic. He continues to get reminds of where Rand is and what he's doing, even learning that Rand loses a hand through his psychic connection, and never tries to contact him. He thinks that he'll make a deal with the Dark One himself if it will get Faile back. Better to make a deal with the Dark One than call your best friend, right? Also, Rand at this point stops obviously hiding from the whole world, which means Perrin might have a chance to find him. Perrin's clearly thinking about using some of his actual friends to help him out, since he sends Grady to the Two Rivers and brings Tam al'Thor with a legion of bowmen. Hey Tam, I know you'd like to see your son and all, and I know we can create magic holes in the air that can take you anywhere in the world, but sorry, we're not taking you to see your son. There's obviously no reason Perrin shoudln't have thought of this, and using his psychic connection to track him down. What he opts instead is to make an alliance with a second powerful force, one completely opposed to Rand, and making a proposition that will make them considerably stronger by consigning 200 women to slavery. He was upset about Rand mistreating the women who threw him in a box and tortured him, but he's completely okay with forcing slavery onto Aiel women. It gets disgusting at this point, since, despite making common cause with the Seanchan, he's still taking an ENORMOUS gamble because he's relying on his ability to poison the Aiel water supply. He just barely has enough strength to pull off his victory thanks to a great deal of luck, rather than taking the relatively easy method of asking his best friend for help.

 

So we've had two books full of idiot plot at this point just for the payoff, stuffed with filler. People might have started to forgive Perrin if his idiot plot had had the decency to die, at this point. It did not. It's gone on for two more books-he rescued Faile, but the Sideplot of Doom refuses to die. He's accomplished what Rand asked of him. He has too many people to logistically move at once since he has only two channelers who can create Gateways. Common sense dictates, since he's achieved what Rand asked of him and just needs to get back and report, he send someone to track down Rand, using a combination of his psychic connection, the ability to Travel anywhere instantly, and a tiny bit of detective work. Let's keep in mind that, while it's nice to point out that Gateways have some logistical problems with using them, the more pressing issue of how he's keeping 100,000 refugees (plus his own army) fed is tidily ignored. He can feel Rand pulling him to rejoin him, so he's marching slowly with this big press of refugees instead of trying to find him. The only reason for this contrivance is so that Tam al'Thor can avoid showing up until the end of the book.

 

The side plot didn't end there, but it should have. Perrin has all these refugees, keeping them fed has got to be a major pain, and he should have told Tam to ask Rand for some channelers to Travel his people, or he should have gone with Rand himself. He knows he needs to be reuniting with Rand. This side-plot continues to go on through Towers of Midnight, with no one from either Rand's or Perrin's camp attempting to contact the other, and Tam not asking Rand to send people to collect them (even though he has friends from the Two Rivers with Perrin).

 

Perrin is likeable. His sideplot is written so stupidly that it is not.

 

BEST. POST. EVER

 

 

This board definitely needs posters and post like this.

[thehoovedone1]

while he does take a long time to get things done it I realy enjoyed his chapters exepcialy in the world of dreams. unlike rand and mat who are just powerful perin is only powerful in some situations such as in the world of dreams, this made for a nice mix of cool action scenes (in my opinoin some of the best in the books) but also some good moral choices. IN a way his charictor development is very very similar to rands. they boths start as farmers, get burdend with duety.s and powers they dont want (dragon reborn wolf brother) they reject and fight these leading to depression and anger then come out of it to be well balenced and powerful charictors.

 

the thing for me that made perin so interesting was the way he looked for refuge in the world of dreams and his wolf brother stuff but also feared it at the same time. when he finaly embraces it he becomes a great leader and balenced charictor.

 

futher more his relationship with hopper is one of the best in wheel of time. they have history and emotional conection. the idea that hooper is a mentor to perin and teachs him to control his wolf nature is great and show how hopper realy cares for perin in that pack love way.

[damandred]

 

 

 

Been away from these boards since forever, but this is one topic that really burned me. The problem isn't with Perrin himself (even though he is written rather stupidly) but the fact that the entire plot is one big, big Idiot Plot. I'd have been happy to read much more of Perrin, even his pointless side-show, if it was written in a fashion that made sense. I love these books, don't get me wrong-I don't mean to be overly critical. But this side plot should never have been written.

 

To recap:

 

It really starts when Queen Alliandre of Ghealdan writes Rand a letter, asking him to come and deal with the Prophet, and she's willing to swear fealty to his cause if he can help restore a bit of order to her country. It's a completely legitimate request, too, since the Prophet is a person who knows Rand personally, and all the people who are rioting and creating this chaos are people who ostensibly call themselves his followers. That's not to say they're necessarily all that interested in following, or that it's his fault the country is in chaos, but since she's willing to swear fealty in exchange for helping him solve a problem that is related to him, it's a very fair deal.

 

So what is Rand's solution to this? Remember, he's shown himself completely willing to occupy Tear, Illian (later), Cairhein, and Caemlyn at this point (though he's not personally attempting to rule Andor in general, just hold it and restore order for a while). Rand may not like the idea of taking Asha'Man into a volatile situation, but then, he's already crossed that bridge repeatedly. We're never given a reason he doesn't take himself with a dozen Asha'Man, a few of his loyal Aes Sedai, and a portion of his army to deal with this. All he really needed to do was show up and speak to Alliandre-that's essentially all Perrin did before she swore fealty to HIM-and then tell Masema that it was time to go. Obviously it's problematic for Rand himself to risk walking through areas where there's perhaps active rioting, but that's hardly crazier than some stuff he's already done sucessfully, and the fact that some Aes Sedai have sworn oaths of obedience, and the fact that he has Asha'Man willing to obey his orders should be enough to protect him. Dealing with a rioting crowd instead of an army of Aiel should be fairly simple. If they're willing to follow him, he'd be smart to divide them up so they can cause fewer issues, and send them to be trained into an army as he's done with other segments of his followers.

 

But okay, perhaps he thinks it would take too much time and he has other important things to be doing (we'll ignore the fact that, in the same book, he spends several days literally moping about in his room doing nothing). So he sends Perrin, along with a few loyal Aes Sedai and a couple of Asha'Man, along with a force sufficient to subdue any rioting, should it come to it. I might be misremebering the strength of Perrin's forces, but really, two Asha'Man ought to be able to cut a swath through these people if necessary. For some reason that still makes no sense to me, they stage a fight in order to hide Perrin's purpose. To this day, I've never understood why this was a big secret. He was fully willing to have Perrin openly lead his armies attacking Illian to use him as a diversion; perhaps he was afraid of Sammael attacking Perrin if he turned up someplace else while doing work for Rand. Again, this makes no sense in context with other actions-he let Mat march his band without any channeler support quite openly while moving to meet up with the rest of his army, practically begging for HIM to be attacked. And naturally, Sammael did attack, but, being a big fat idiot like the rest of the Forsaken, instead of squashing Mat's tent by ripping open the earth and crushing, he instead launched a very survivable surprise attack using Aiel. So I'm still not sold on that being Rand's motive.

 

Regardless, Perrin actuallly underook this secret mission while openly displaying banners that said, "Hey, Perrin Aybara is right here!" and succeeded. He pretty much had accomplished his mission. Masema, of course, refused to use the OP to Travel, but he agrees that he will go to meet Rand. At this point, Faile is captured by the Shaido. The next bits are perfectly reasonable, if you give Perrrin a pass for panicking and making stupid mistakes as a result of panicking. He doesn't know the strength of the Shaido, so he thinks he can intercept them and catch up with Faile and rescue her. If they'd caught the raiding party itself before it hooked back up with the Shaido, it's quite likely, since they had no channelers. But he screws this up, and ends up taking quite a while before catching up with her. I'll give him a pass for this-people screw up, it makes for good literature. Also, he's still essentially following Rand's directions, since he was sent specifically to secure Queen Alliandre's allegiance, and she ended up kidnapped along with Faile, so rescuing her is an acceptable part of this mission. If we accept the premise of Perrin's mission, we're quite, quite fine with everything that happens in his side plot through Winter's Heart.

 

Then came Crossroads of Twilight. This is where good plotting went to die. The entire plot hinges on Perrin's inability to quickly resolve a problem in order for the rest of the plot to work, so in a world where you can instantly Travel from anywhere to anywhere else, we're forced to endure filler. This is so full of stupid crap I can barely tolerate it. Perrin no longer gets a pass for being stupid since he's no longer panicking or behaving irrationally. It's almost as if RJ knows how idiotic Perrin is being and seeks to drive this home, despite the fact that Perrin has no excuse anymore. Perrin finds the Shaido encampment, he sees that it's way too big and well defended to defeat, and he learns that there's something like 200 channelers in the town. He's literally thinking about how he's ever supposed to defeat this force when an image of Rand is shoved into his brain. It's like an epiphany is trying to shove itself down his throat. At this point, there's no reason he's not saying, "Hey, I should get Rand's help-as soon as he's finished with what sounds like a very dangerous task, as it's creeping out all the channelers I have with me." He doesn't though. I guess he's still under whatever secret oath of secrecy he took, or something, but honestly, there's four major reasons he should be seeking Rand here.

 

1) He's on the same side as Perrin and has a force indisputably strong enough to crack open the Shaido camp like an egg.

2) Rand had already expressed a desire to find the rest of the Shaido and stop them from causing more havoc.

3) Rand also told him specifically to bring back Masema, who is present and creating problems that Rand can readily solve with his mere presence.

4) Perrin cannot complete the mission Rand sent him on without defeating the Shaido, since Alliandre is a prisoner.

 

There are certainly a few problems for Perrin to overcome. That is, immediately after the battle at Shadar Logoth, Rand goes missing. Of course, three different factions, each searching for Rand, ALL managed to track him down by the end of this book (Logain, Bashere, and Loial/Karldin). If Perrin had had the decency to look for him, he'd probably have stumbled on the same method of tracking him down. He also has another advantage none of them had-a freaking psychic connection that allows him to see where Rand is and what he's doing. He has zero excuse for not trying, especially given his singular focus on rescuing Faile. The most obvious method to her salvation is completely ignored by him, as well as any responsibility he feels toward Rand's mission being thrown out the window-he jeopardizes it by leaving Alliandre in bondage longer than necessary.

 

It gets worse. He has the ability to travel anywhere in the known world to purchase grain. Instead of going to Tear, Illian, or Cairhien (remember how Tear had all this extra grain that they sent to Illian and Cairhein?) he travels to a small town nearby where the grain is completely infested with weevils. He ignores this obvious health hazard, refuses to allow anyone to try to help these townspeople, and continues on his way. RJ was toying with us by creating this So Harber sideplot (a sideplot of a sideplot) that screamed: OBVIOUS FILLER.

 

Perrin continued to be idiotic. He continues to get reminds of where Rand is and what he's doing, even learning that Rand loses a hand through his psychic connection, and never tries to contact him. He thinks that he'll make a deal with the Dark One himself if it will get Faile back. Better to make a deal with the Dark One than call your best friend, right? Also, Rand at this point stops obviously hiding from the whole world, which means Perrin might have a chance to find him. Perrin's clearly thinking about using some of his actual friends to help him out, since he sends Grady to the Two Rivers and brings Tam al'Thor with a legion of bowmen. Hey Tam, I know you'd like to see your son and all, and I know we can create magic holes in the air that can take you anywhere in the world, but sorry, we're not taking you to see your son. There's obviously no reason Perrin shoudln't have thought of this, and using his psychic connection to track him down. What he opts instead is to make an alliance with a second powerful force, one completely opposed to Rand, and making a proposition that will make them considerably stronger by consigning 200 women to slavery. He was upset about Rand mistreating the women who threw him in a box and tortured him, but he's completely okay with forcing slavery onto Aiel women. It gets disgusting at this point, since, despite making common cause with the Seanchan, he's still taking an ENORMOUS gamble because he's relying on his ability to poison the Aiel water supply. He just barely has enough strength to pull off his victory thanks to a great deal of luck, rather than taking the relatively easy method of asking his best friend for help.

 

So we've had two books full of idiot plot at this point just for the payoff, stuffed with filler. People might have started to forgive Perrin if his idiot plot had had the decency to die, at this point. It did not. It's gone on for two more books-he rescued Faile, but the Sideplot of Doom refuses to die. He's accomplished what Rand asked of him. He has too many people to logistically move at once since he has only two channelers who can create Gateways. Common sense dictates, since he's achieved what Rand asked of him and just needs to get back and report, he send someone to track down Rand, using a combination of his psychic connection, the ability to Travel anywhere instantly, and a tiny bit of detective work. Let's keep in mind that, while it's nice to point out that Gateways have some logistical problems with using them, the more pressing issue of how he's keeping 100,000 refugees (plus his own army) fed is tidily ignored. He can feel Rand pulling him to rejoin him, so he's marching slowly with this big press of refugees instead of trying to find him. The only reason for this contrivance is so that Tam al'Thor can avoid showing up until the end of the book.

 

The side plot didn't end there, but it should have. Perrin has all these refugees, keeping them fed has got to be a major pain, and he should have told Tam to ask Rand for some channelers to Travel his people, or he should have gone with Rand himself. He knows he needs to be reuniting with Rand. This side-plot continues to go on through Towers of Midnight, with no one from either Rand's or Perrin's camp attempting to contact the other, and Tam not asking Rand to send people to collect them (even though he has friends from the Two Rivers with Perrin).

 

Perrin is likeable. His sideplot is written so stupidly that it is not.

BEST. POST. EVER

This board definitely needs posters and post like this.

 

The only reason i can think for Rand not going is, he might of thought it could be a trap by the forsaken.

For everything else, spot on.

I think Perrin was a good enough charecter, just completely overshadowed by Rand and Mat.

[Sabio]

Perrin was like Mat and Rand, none wanted leadership and accepted it reluctantly.  While the women in the book always seemed to act like they not only should lead but somehow had a born right to lead.

[wotfan4472]

Which shows balance I think. I liked Perrin as much as Mat and Rand. All three were awesome characters and are almost childhood friends. As for Perrin's character and Faile; how would you react if your family had been wiped out? Faile became his family. His side plot makes perfect sense and I enjoyed it immensely if you take this into account; it is she whom helped him deal with his family's destruction. I know of lots of people whom would all do the same things in his situation. If going to retrieve the one person that helped me get through all of that is not to your liking, then you do not have a heart. Leaving Faile in Shaido hands to go Rand sooner is not what good human beings would have done. It is completely selfish, all of which would have meant that the DO attacking Perrin mentally, just like He did to Rand, leading to the Light's defeat. You know He would have used that to his victory. 

[David Selig]

Yeah, the whole Perin and the Shaydo subplot is so dumb it's just painful to read. Perin needs an army and has Travelling available it makes zero sense that he didn't ask go to ask for help his close friend, who happened to be the most powerful man in the world and was already an enemy of the Shaido and had a huge army and numerous channellers. No, instead he made a deal with the Seanchan of all people. Completely ridiculous stuff.

[Suttree]

Yeah, the whole Perin and the Shaydo subplot is so dumb it's just painful to read. Perin needs an army and has Travelling available it makes zero sense that he didn't ask go to ask for help his close friend, who happened to be the most powerful man in the world and was already an enemy of the Shaido and had a huge army and numerous channellers. No, instead he made a deal with the Seanchan of all people. Completely ridiculous stuff.

 

+1

[Jak 0' the Shadows]

 

Elan come on man even I am not that focused on Egwene hate. Mowbray raised some pretty neat points there and you have to grant it. I ave personally strongly disliked ok hated his story arc since LoC but that is why I hated Faile so much. She had destroyed a perfectly good character. I also have to agree wit the characterization aspect. It has been one of the main strengths of the books. On thhe whole a good post.

some characters started off badly in the series and became better and better as it goes on.

 

In perrin's case it's the complete opposite. The first 4 books were very good. It went downhill from there.

 

I have never seen a grown man whinge and moan as much as perrin. 'Oh i dont want to be a leader waah, my beautiful faile, she's gone, the shaido took her waaah etc etc.

 

It was frankly nauseating to read

 

You misunderstand Perrin, I don't think you get his character. I don't know what you mean by 'whinge' but Perrin does not whine. He does not want to be a leader. What is wrong with that. I don't either. He is thrust into a role of leadership that he does not fully understand. He has Berlain on one side who destroys his reputation with the people he grew up with. He has old friends who are bowing and scraping and acting like they don't know him because of this leader role. He just wants to be a normal smith, he would be content to have a quiet life with his wife. The most ignorant of your statements was that he was 'whingeing' :P about Faile being kidnapped. Are you serious? Have you ever loved someone? And know to the depths of you soul that if you lost them you wouldn't be able to bear it? On the contrary, he didn't whine, he pursued. He fought a mini war for her. He killed for her. While trying to find the woman he loved who was taken from him, her clothes cut off, to him it might have looked like possible rape, he disgusted himself by giving into the temptation to torture a captive. He was finally so disgusted at himself and his weapon that he abandoned it. This wasn't a 'whinge and moan' story, this was compelling and I don't know why you didn't see it.    

[Jak 0' the Shadows]

Yeah, the whole Perin and the Shaydo subplot is so dumb it's just painful to read. Perin needs an army and has Travelling available it makes zero sense that he didn't ask go to ask for help his close friend, who happened to be the most powerful man in the world and was already an enemy of the Shaido and had a huge army and numerous channellers. No, instead he made a deal with the Seanchan of all people. Completely ridiculous stuff.

A friend who was the most powerful man in the world who was also half mad, angry at the world, and whom he had a plot with to pretend that they had a falling out? I don't think the Rand of those dark months would have helped him. The Rand of those dark months would have seen how he could use Perrin. Look at it this way, the Rand of those dark months would have seen how effective Perrin could be while the kidnapping of his wife was driving him. No Perrin wouldn't want to go to Rand for help. 

[Suttree]

 I don't know what you mean by 'whinge' but Perrin does not whine... The most ignorant of your statements was that he was 'whingeing' :P

 

Indeed...how ignorant of Elan to hit the nail on the head.

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whinge

 

I don't think the Rand of those dark months would have helped him. The Rand of those dark months would have seen how he could use Perrin. Look at it this way, the Rand of those dark months would have seen how effective Perrin could be while the kidnapping of his wife was driving him. No Perrin wouldn't want to go to Rand for help. 

 

Rand was certainly going that direction but as of TPoD his dark phase was not even close to this being an issue.