Much as I hated the whitecloaks, Perrin is indeed guilty of murder.

If my neighbor kills my pet dog, I doubt any court would look kindly if I killed my neighbor in turn and say my dog is my bestfriend ( which is true he is ).

Most of the characters in the series have flaws. Perrin is too introspective. Egwene isn't introspective enough. Mat naturally irritates everyone around him (this is the most fun flaw in the books to read about). Nynaeve has a terrible temper. Rand's flaws are legion; thinking about it, I've decided that Rand actually possesses all of the flaws of the other Emond's Fields characters. He has Perrin's tendency towards putting too much thought into what he's doing and why (and the conclusions that he draws, that he needs to be harder, are the wrong conclusions), he has Egwene's tendency towards lack of additional thought beyond his initial hypothesis (for example, how long he thought that the Salidar Aes Sedai were a frightened band of women who were small in numbers), he has Mat's tendency to irritate everyone around him (without it being nearly so funny and good-hearted as when Mat does it) and his temper is far, far worse and more deadly than Nynaeve's.

 

At the end of the day, Faile only really has one flaw. She's paranoid at the thought of Perrin cheating on her, physically or emotionally. She's a terribly jealous woman. Perhaps she had a bad childhood experience, perhaps it's a cultural thing, perhaps she was just born that way. Who knows. Whatever the case, really, that's her only flaw. She's brave, but knows when to pick her battles. She's compassionate, but she knows that there's a time and place for ruthlessness. She's honest, except for those times when a lie is better for the well being of everyone involved. She is essentially a character of tempered virtues, aware of both the little picture and the big picture and how they relate.

 

Except when it comes to Perrin. As soon as Perrin enters into things, Faile's jealousy rears up and she goes from being an intelligent, poised, confident woman to being a silly, unbalanced and paranoid girl. Beyond that detail - and since most of what we see of Faile is essentially from Perrin's perspective, it's one we unfortunately see too often - she's one of the strongest and best balanced female characters in the story. It's unfortunate that the melodrama and comedy of errors surrounding the Perrin/Faile/Berelain triangle eat up so much space on the page, because there are few characters in the series better at making the right choices based on the information available to them.

That was a fantastic read and I must admit to finding myself agreeing with all of it. Though I have always viewed Faile in a bad light, I guess post-TOM it's time for some reassessment ( but I'll still skip much of the unnecessarily long soap opera of the Faile/Perrin/Berelain series during rereads)

Just want to say I enjoyed reading that..but yeah..I have nothing on Faile.

rand and egwene spent the entire series away from each other and people are questioning if they are close buddies?

 

what the hell is going on here?!

The WOT series is 20 years old and people are still posting on forums talking about it.

What the hell is going on here?! /s

I think that only one true simple FM friendship shown in WoT is Birgitte and Mat , the other ones are guiding or alliance . Egwene and Rand relations are both guidance and alliance , they never discuss their inner problems each other , what is mean friendship , imho .

I agree completely about the Mat and Birgitte relationship. I love their scenes together especially their first meeting in Mat's hotel when Mat figured out who she actually is.

Regarding Egwene and Rand, I felt they were friends in mind at least but never really took to that to heart.

I was doing a reread of TOM and on Chapter 51 - A testing on page 749 I noticed this passage when Rand was talking to Min on route to Far Madding:

"What difference?"

He smiled. "This time I was raised better."

Min found herself smiling as well.

"You know me, Min. Well, I promise you, I feel more like myself now that I have in months. I feel more like myself than I ever did as Lews Therin, if that makes any kind of sense. It's because of Tam, because of the people around me. You, Perrin, Nynaeve, Mat, Aviendha, Elayne, Moiraine..."

Egwene is noticeably absent in the people Rand lists. It cannot be because of proximity, Moiraine has been gone a long time and Rand has not had contact with Mat, Perrin and Elayne for nearly as long, Even Aviendha has not been in contact with Rand much since she went with Mat to Salidar, but still he lists all of them as a good influence on him save Egwene.

So does anyone else thinks that Rand does not consider Egwene as a friend anymore?

To be honest, if we have to wait for a unanimous fan favorite to write the remainder of the stories I fear we will never see the end of the series. Brandon Sanderson has done a remarkable job in the time alloted. If we gave him maybe 5 years to re-read the series over and over and over maybe he could've gotten a better insight on what most think is the "perfect" mat. After that we should give him maybe 2-3 years each book so that he has time to tweak and edit and fine tune it yet again.

Regarding BS explaining everything, all I can say is damn if you do and damn if you don't. We have the revelation of ASMODEAN's killer explicitly written in the book but fans here in the forum still won't take it and If god forbid a major character does something else without it being explicitly written we'll have another 186 page post about it complaining it's too vague

We have BS and I am thankful that I can read the ending because of him. I find Mat a bit off but not by much and everything else has been remarkable and I am enjoying both TGS and TOM.

It has been said that all people from Cairhien plays the Game of Houses. IIRC, Talmanes is a Cairhien Lord right? if so, I wonder what kind of game he is playing at, if at all.  I would like to get 1 chapter with Talmanes' POV..what he really thinks of Mat and the Band and their place in the Last battle and possibly in history.