Bela SPOILERS

Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
12
Location
Seabrook, TX
** Possible Spoiler ahead about Bela if you haven't read book 14 **
Hello to everyone. I would like to rant and rave a little pose some questions and possibly start a good discussion. I'm a 43 year old man, I was in the navy for ten years and deployed several times overseas including one year in a very hostile country. I'm not a small man nor am I prone to crying for silly reasons. But when I read the part when Bela dies, well I lost my sh!t. All my composure was gone. I had to read those words several times because I was hoping I had mis-read. No, no mistake. Now I realize crying is good for the soul but I haven't cried since......well since the end of the movie "Old Yeller". So there I was tears streaming down my cheeks and murmuring Bela over and over. Then I was a little angry. And I had a question. My question, the obvious one, why did Bela have to die? It served no purpose as far as pacing or plotlines go and we already knew the enemies were ferocious and brutal. So why? Why did the horse that carried the Dragon reborn to his destiny, the horse that carried the future Amyrlin to her salvation and the horse that carried a deposed Amyrlin to to freedom from her captors need to die? But of course Bela did a lot more than the things I mentioned. So I pose the question to everyone. Why did Bela die?
 
Last edited:

Aduiavas Ida

Aes Sedai
Head of the White Ajah
Joined
Jun 10, 2008
Messages
20,134
Age
34
Location
Drøbak, Norway
Pronouns
  1. She - Her
I believe Sanderson has said that Harriet had specifically said that Bela had to die :look:
But yes, that was so sad, and so undeserved :(
 

Jeem Al'Cazar

Soldier
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
848
Location
Fairfield, CA
Only reason I can think of is that Bela represented Rands journey toward fulfilling his destiny as the Dragon Reborn. His journey over, Bela died. Not sure if I'm way off base, but it seems reasonable to me.
 

Alora Sionn

Mama Wolf
Gaidin
Joined
Oct 30, 2012
Messages
44,898
I agree...when I read that I shut the book slowly, pursed my lips and considered throwing the book across the room :indifferent: I was most displeased!
 

Aduiavas Ida

Aes Sedai
Head of the White Ajah
Joined
Jun 10, 2008
Messages
20,134
Age
34
Location
Drøbak, Norway
Pronouns
  1. She - Her
The only thing that was possibly worse than Bela was Rhuarc :indifferent: I may have shouted out in anger at that point :look:
 
Joined
Apr 30, 2014
Messages
86
Age
29
Location
Utah, U.S.A
I didn't really find it surprising that Bela died, considering that she ended up in the middle of the Trolloc hoard. It was still really sad though.
 
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
29
Bela needed an end, even if it was a sad one. I would have liked to see Olver ride off into the sunset on her.
 
Joined
Sep 10, 2001
Messages
9,520
Location
Perth, Australia
Pronouns
  1. He - Him
Because Harriet should not be in charge of plot decisions.

She's not a writer, and quite frankly she's a bad editor.


And killing off Bela was a bad decision. Would have been so easy to get her out of trouble. I'd like to see Rand ride away on her at the end, united back with the horse that was there when it started. That's a tearjerker.

That said, it's not only humans that are bound to the horn, animals can be as well. And if any animal deserves to be a Hero its Bela.
 

Aduiavas Ida

Aes Sedai
Head of the White Ajah
Joined
Jun 10, 2008
Messages
20,134
Age
34
Location
Drøbak, Norway
Pronouns
  1. She - Her
Bela is most definitely a Hero horse, especially seeing how she totally overachieved on so many occasions ;)
 
Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
12
Location
Seabrook, TX
With all due respect to Harriet and Brandon it was an unwarranted decision to kill Bela off. Perhaps it was done to make us (readers) feel the sadness/loss of an old friend. And Rhuarc got to me too. I agree with Gaiden m'Troutilas, Rand should have ridden out of the story on the back of her.
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
556
Age
32
Location
Canada
I kinda have to agree with Jeem on this one. It seems like Bela for filled her purpose. To ensure everyone ended up to where they needed to be. I mean if you ever seen Kung fu Panda, the turtle appoints a hero, gets them to a certain point and continue his journey knowing he brought the world a saviour.
 
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
29
We could look at this another way. Bela was the creator and did fulfill the duty of bringing the Dragon to where he needed to be and upon the completion of this needed to return to the cosmos once more to watch and wait for the next coming.
 

Wil Cambrae

Loremaster Wil
Gaidin
Joined
May 12, 2010
Messages
5,974
Location
Chuckville, IL
Pronouns
  1. He - Him
So sorta like the old bum at the boardwalk in Dogma? :look:
 
Joined
Sep 10, 2001
Messages
9,520
Location
Perth, Australia
Pronouns
  1. He - Him
fyi,

For anyone interested in why I consider Harriet a bad editor, quite aside from what you can see in the books needing harder editing, it comes out of her own mouth in an interview.


[h=4]Matt Hatch[/h] Did that relationship of editing go on through the entire Wheel of Time? In other words, were there all these times you would sit down in The Shadow Rising, and say, "Jim...okay, three lines; we gotta cut three lines out of these."

[h=4]Harriet McDougal[/h] He'd pretty much learned to do it himself by then, and certainly in The Eye, I would say, "Well, this can go," and he'd say, "Well Harriet, in the fourth book, um..." (laughter) I didn't really realize what I was up against. (whine) "But Harriet, in the third book...in the fifth book...these things have got to be there." (meek voice) "Okay, okay." And he'd learned...he was tightening up his prose by then, a lot. And actually, as the series went on, it got to be...I did almost no pencil-work, and I thought, "Well, man, he's learned everything I had to teach him. He probably needs a new editor now who could put him through new hoops!"

She did NO pencil work in later books? Really Harriet... really? You thought entire pages worth of description of someone washing a shirt and thinking about how to do it properly to not damage the silk was worthwhile? Page after page of waffle that could have been cut and the whole thing tightened up. There's a reason the later books are so sloooooooooooooooooow, and much of it is not down to simply having so much to write about, much of it is worthless sidetracks away from the plot.
 
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
29
I agree with you, Axis Gaidin. She should have stepped back or let another editor look at it after she did. I am not sure much would have been changed, but I think she was too close to the situation to have a unbiased opinion on things.
 
Joined
Jun 29, 2013
Messages
1,090
Age
39
Location
Marinette, Wisconsin
Perhaps in purely literary sense, much of the how-to stuff could have been cut, but I personally enjoyed learning about things like choosing types of wood for building fires, and what liquids are used in blacksmithing for particular uses. Also, understanding how people lived and worked from day to day helps put into perspective how the cultures functioned and the social order.
 
Joined
Sep 10, 2001
Messages
9,520
Location
Perth, Australia
Pronouns
  1. He - Him
Perrin's scene with the Blacksmith is a good comparison with Faile's nonsense

Washing the silk was time-consuming. The buckets of water they fetched from the cistern pumps were icy cold, but hot water scooped from the copper kettle brought the temperature in the washtubs up to lukewarm. You could not wash silk in hot water. Sinking your hands into the washtubs felt wonderful in the cold, but you always had to take them out again, and then the cold was twice as bitter. There was no soap, not that was mild enough anyway, so each skirt and blouse had to be submersed one by one and delicately scrubbed against itself. Then it was laid on a piece of toweling and gently rolled up to squeeze out as much water as possible. The damp garment was dipped again, in another wash-tub that was filled with a mixture of vinegar and water – that reduced fading and enhanced the gloss of the silk – then rolled up in toweling again. The wet toweling was wrung out hard and spread in the sun to dry wherever there was room, while each piece of silk was hung on a horizontal pole, slung in the shade of a rough canvas pavilion erected at the edge of the square, and smoothed by hand to rub out wrinkles. With luck, nothing would need ironing. Both of them knew how silk had to be cared for, but ironing it needed experience neither of them had. None of Sevanna’s gai’shain did, not even Maighdin, though she had been a lady’s maid even before entering Faile’s service, but Sevanna did not accept excuses. Every time Faile or Alliandre went to hang another garment, they checked those already there and smoothed any that seemed to need it.

The only reason you might say this should have been included is showcase the mindset that Faile is falling into and how much of a cow Sevanna is. But that had already been served pretty nicely in other parts of this chapter, going into the minutia of getting silk clean is just waffle, pure and simple.

Now Perrins "knowledge dump" during the blacksmith seen was handled far better, the information on blacksmithing woven into character insights and internal struggles. We come out of that smithy feeling more in touch with Perrin as a character and it sets up the axe/hammer struggle Perrin goes on with for a long time. Its driven by the story and driven by the characters.

Reading the Faile scene I might as well be flicking through a wikipedia page for the good it does. Harriet should have red-penned the entire page. And we are talking about the latter books, a period of writing in which the wait between books got longer, and the time covered in each of them got smaller. When pace of the books was bogging down as it is, and pretty much at the low point of the series. And its waffle like the above that either made it worse, or is the cause of the slowdown to start with.


But I'm sure most people are sick of my banging on about this particular page before, so I will leave it there.
 
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
556
Age
32
Location
Canada
I think that scene you just posted shows a side to Faile that explains how she survived when she decided to pursue the horn. It shows that while she's familiar with the finery of being a lady, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty. Also could be a metaphor for how she intends to shape Perrin for Lordship. Just my thoughts though.
 
Joined
Jun 13, 2013
Messages
15
Location
Christchurch New Zealand
Samej, and all of you that cried at the death of a sturdy little horse, are my kinda peeps yo! *sniffle*

Bella means Beautiful and is added to a girls name like Isabella or Arabella. If you really want to sizzle your nizzle, really think about who left the two rivers on Bella's back. *sob*

Faile fleeing with the Horn of Valere on Bella's back, stopping to hand the Horn to Olver, then drawing the horde away from him, means so much more than you think dude! *ball*

Or... we could just cut that whole scene out, you know, too many of those pesky words. *mwahahaha*
 
Top