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Perrin's arguably the least taveren of the lot. Rand is like moving event paradox, and Mat's tavereness is constantly emphasized throughout the series via his luck and the dice rolling.

 

Well Mat's rolling dices and luck is not tavereness, but more something to be compared to perrins being a Wolfbrother

 

I disagree. Mat's luck is largely his tavereness manifesting itself. I've got no solid quote to back me on this, but it seems like everytime he needs to luck to save his life or make the right choice, it does. Ditto for the rolling dice. I wonder if you're thinking about the Aelfinn being responsible for that? Remember, his luck ran great before Tear.

Perrin's wolfbrotherness...hmmm...perhaps you could say its a manifestation of tavereness, but its hardly unique. Definitely rare, but not unheard of. As for his leadership abilities, they do exist, so its not too big of stretch to account them to his own abilities rather than to being taveren.

To be fair, some kids can kick ass. Teen Titans? ;D

(er, yeah please don't count above statement in any gender arguments, I meant nothing by it).

Its just occurred to me that one of the main reasons a lot of long time readers are disgruntled with Faile/Perrin/life is because the whole thing got stretched too long and unlike me (who just began reading at the start of the year), actually had to wait a few years for something to (hopefully) happen. (And yes, it took me that long to realize it). I'd totally relate if TGS turned to be TBS (total bull****).

Something else also just hit me (its one of those days) - Perrin's arguably the least taveren of the lot. Rand is like moving event paradox, and Mat's tavereness is constantly emphasized throughout the series via his luck and the dice rolling. But what about Perrin? There's been no real single event to name Perrin as taveren. You could say the whole TR thing was cause of him but that's not the same. Mat and Perrin have always been SAID or IMPLIED to be of equal taveren strength (no quotes, sorry. But its always like Rand first, and then the other two together in my mind at least). Yet, apart from making Alliandre swear fealty to him, I've seen very little tavereness to him. Maybe its there, maybe its not so in-your-face as Rand's rebel-saving-life thing, or Mat's daughter of the sands thing but surely Perrin's not had a taveren moment like that since...forever. I'd like Perrin's stories a lot more if there were a few more awesome you-can't-touch-me moments. It'd help if RJ had emphasized him tavereness more, like he did with the other two. Maybe a little less Perrin-ish modesty and a little 'I'm taveren. Deal.' attitude form hiim would help too.

So, yes, this is a blatant attempt to steer this discussion back to its initial topic - i.e. Perrin and his post-LOC storylines. I really didn't want this thread to descend into the Faile/Perrin bashing bloodbath it eventually always seems to. Hopefully, you guys find something of what I wrote more comment worthy than arguing about weight-lifting.

But since I can't help tossing some fuel into the fire...

I don't think its alright for either a man or a woman in a relationship to beat each other. I think the notion of spanking is particularly weak. If you're gonna put someone in their place, you do it through words and spirit and confidence etc. Hitting, even spanking, your partner seems reminiscent of a kid beating up his buddy cos the buddy's 'yo mama' joke was better than his. Its a total admission of defeat. By the way, its ok for siblings to beat the hell out of each other when they're kids btw. (Had to leave myself that loophole).

I have to agree with this theory, in fact I have thought the same thing for a while.  Somehow Perrin seems separated from the rest of the story.  I mean in Mat's adventures he has crossed paths with the wonder girls and with Thom, and Nyneave has switched from Elaynes party to Rands.  But Perrin just doesn't cross paths with any other main characters in his current quest.  While I don't dislike Perrin it does make his sections a little harder to read.  I would, however, argue that Gaul is a VFC.  The return of Elyas also added an interesting touch to Perrn's story line.

Gaul might be familiar but he's a secondary character and a relatively minor one at that. The others in Perrin's party aren't exactly popular/stellar characters.

Morgase's storyline might've been interesting for some, but I didn't think so. In any case, her party contributes nothing interesting, amusing or anything to the proceedings.

Bain and Chiad, an important part of Gaul's part in the party, went away with Faile. So the whole Gaul wooing Chiad scenario fizzled out, making that part of the story lose its humor.

When Faile got kidnapped, we also lost the tension building between her and Berlain rather abruptly. On the flip side, you could argue that it allowed for a better relationship between Perrin and Berlain, which has been long overdue.

Masema as I mentioned, does not count in any degree of familiarity - we barely saw him in TFOH and he was particularly unlikeable in TGH and TDR.

It wouldn't have hurt if there had been some connection back to Rand's party - perhaps through Davram Bashere? But there wasn't, so for a whole while, Perrin felt removed from the main occurences in Randland and thus marginalized any importance his actions had in that arc.

Ah, Faile bashing. The good times never end huh?

 

Perrin subsumed his entire personality in Faile as soon as they got together. He can't complete a sentence without thinking about her.

That's not even close to being accurate.

Probably not, but lines like "Nothing is more important than Faile! Nothing!" give that impression. It might have been that bad if Faile was a more popular character. But even if Perrin and Mat hooked up (by which point the DO would clearly have won), I wouldn't like hearing that nothing was more important than Mat. Even though not much is.

You send one of mine to the hospital, I'll send two of yours to the morgue.

Jim Malone would have been so proud.

Who have staged a falling out. With Perrin being given a job to do. With that falling out being more real than had been planned.

That last bit is interesting. Are you referring to this:

"Perrin thumbed a trickle,of blood from the corner of his mouth. For one moment there, he had been sure

Rand was going to kill him."

Perrin's POV, ACOS.

And then this:

"A hundred times he hurled Perrin across the Grand Hall of the Sun, and a hundred times he was

overwhelmed by blazing fear and rage. A hundred times, he killed Perrin in his dreams and woke to his own

screams. Why had the man chosen the Aes Sedai prisoners to use for their argument?"

Rand's POV, ACOS.

I thought the Rand was scared that he had thrown Perrin too hard by accident. It quite vague though.

He could have dealt with Masema at the time as well.

If half the characters communicated better, we might have had a lot fewer books.

The shaido are not honourable. They do not deserve to be treated as if they are. And I've never had much support for the idea of honour in wartime. In war, the job is to finish it as quickly and efficiently as you can. You want something, so you take the easiest road to get it. That's what Perrin did.

It'd go done a little easier with the less pragmatic among us if he did it for a higher cause than saving his wife. A scenario where hundreds of lives could be saved through torturing the prisoner for information seems a more acceptable alternative, for example. I guess its kind of a slippery slope from there, though. In Perrin's defense, the damn Aiel started singing at him. And everyone know's the Aiel can't sing no more. They were literally asking for it IIRC.

But it is still NOT ok to hit a woman.

I'd not hesitate much to beat the living hell out of someone like Galina (or Egwene, but that's not the point). I hope that doesn't make me look misogynistic but your statement is a little too sweeping for my comfort.

But he's not. He waits until he has a good plan, one that will minimise risk to his own. He takes out the Wise Ones, uses damane, uses longbows (with more range than Aiel bows), and slaughters Masema's rabble rather than his own people. Evidently, he does care about them.

True, but he didn't have much choice. It was either he plans it out, or he charges in and gets everyone killed. I'm not so sure it was a save the TR people so much as it was a 'dead TR people can't help me save Faile' mindset.

Well, the rank and file aren't really included in planning sessions. And soldiers can't just wander off. The TR people are loyal to him, Berelain is loyal to him, and the Ghealdanin want their queen back as much as he wants his wife. No-one has any reason to leave.

It is strange that no one tries too hard to persuade him that getting Faile back is not, in fact, the MOST important thing in the world. Especially when people start spewing bugs in front of you.

You mean, is young and immature, and doesn't sit down and explain Saldaean culture to him.

Why would you wish that on even Perrin? He's already married to Faile, why intensify the torture?

To be fair, some late-intro characters work great: Tuon for example. Or even, the BA hunters (although in their case, a strong storyline helped a lot).

For a while now, I've been wondering what's up with the large amount of love that Mat keeps getting and larger amount of hate directed towards Perrin. I don't have much of a preference towards either, you see. Or so I thought. I realized that I looked forward to Mat's POVs much more than Perrin and Perrin-related POVs. Here's why (let me know what you think):

-Cast.

The characters Mat meets are usually familiar ones (I'm referring exclusively to LOC and beyond). See, Mat goes off to Salidar (with Avi, another very familiar character (VFC)) where he meets with Nynaeve, Eylane, Egwene, (briefly with Siuan and Leane) a.d Thom and the Tairen thiefcatcher dude. We've been following the supergirls' POV right through TFOH so it was a welcome change to see the storylines merge. From that point in the story, Mat roams around with Nynaeve, Lan, Eylane and Avi, all of whom are VFC. Even after the gholam thing, he's left with Thom, (the seanchan lady Eylane and nyn meet in Tanchico), Domon, and the Tairen dude all of whom are old characters that have already been introduced, so at least sort of familiar.

Meanwhile, after LOC, let's see who Perrin hangs with: Berlain, Faile, Aram, a couple of AS and Wise Ones. (You'll be hard-pressed to prove that Berlain and Aram are VFC). After Faile, (who really the only VFC apart from Perrin himself) gets kidnapped, we're left to savour the presence of the new Seanchan, the Prophet, random generals and some Ashaman, AS and Wise Ones. With the exception of Berlain, Aram, one of the generals and maybe the AS, none of these characters are really familiar, nor have then been introduced to us. Even the AS haven't really been close to us as readers since we've had no POVs from them. The end result is that Perrin feels alienated from the events that occur in the subsequent books, while Mat's plot line seems kind of related.

There's a big difference.

 

Fighting Aiel isn't even fair.  They're a race of superhumans.  Every single on of them is either six foot tall+ weighing 200 lbs. of muscle if they're guys or 150 lb.s if they're girls.  The guys that are shorter than 6 ft. are usually only just under it and weigh at least the same 200+ lbs. of muscle.  They don't eat a huge amount of meat nor do they have gyms or creatine or muslce milk or anything like that.  Its just stupid.  Also, everyone's going on and on about those poor, poor, wetlander infantry armed only with a pike.  The pike was the height of warfare before the advent of gunpower(I realize the Swiss weren't "untrained" militia, but a pike isn't all that complicated to learn) and plowed through both infantry and cavalry.

 

It still took time for the cavalry to die down after the pikes came through. Most of the nobles still think that pikes suck and as you say "CAVALRY WINS" but its seen in real life at least that that's not true. AS for the Aiel physique, I remember them raising cattle and sheep, so I'm sure they do eat meat regularly and the get their workout by running like maniacs and fighting each other. Seems a little bit stretched that they're all muscled but not beyond the limits of imagination. And from a genetic standpoint at least, its possible that they are above average in height, just like the Cairhein folk are below average.

Unfortunately, the world of the WoT is very contrived.  Cavalry are still considered the creme de la creme, but only wear breastplates and don't use lances(excluding Shienarans)?  Pikeman can mess up anything that doesn't have guns, but they're still undeveloped and scoffed at, wtf?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that how things used to be in real life too? Doesn't sound too contrived - only nobles would have the money to afford stables and stuff so they'd be the ones who were on the horses where as the pikes and archers would be the commoners who get mowed down.

Also, you can't beat up someone in heavy armor(Gaul v. WC), you'll break your hands trying to and then most likely die when a mailed fist connects with your face.

Agreed, this was a little drastic, but I explained it away by thinking that WC would probably not fight Gaul with their full armor on. Would you and your buddies fight a single unarmed and unarmored guy with your full armor on? Looks a bit pathetic really. Or maybe it was a case of the armor slowing them down? I think you have a point here, but again I don't think its a big deal to most readers. AS a lot of people have mentioned, Perrin pulls a stunt like this soon after and its seems believable. Its also possible that the WC aren't used to fighting much. They just go wherever and try to bully their way around, no real all out fighting. Maybe a shove here or a punch there but no full-out fight-for-your-life kinda thing.

I have to agree about the Aes Sedai. What really annoyed me was the bonding of the Ashaman thing.

It was OK for the AS to bond the Ashaman but the other way "would bring all back to a matter of equality and that was unacceptable." It's like they haven't realized that they're not the big kids in the playground anymore. Even the 'good' characters like Nynaeve, Cadsuane and Egwene demonstrate this attitude towards the Ashaman.

I like the Aiel. The fact that they do not have a nobility feels right. Each leader has to prove himself worthy before he or she can lead anything.

What is found the most interesting though was how they feel that killing and dying are both equally easy and thus have no honor associated with them.

I don't see why anyone'd say they're weapons are inferior. Its not like Tairens or anyone else are packing Nukes or something. All in all, I'd say the difference between military technology is easily overcome in this case by experience and knowledge.