Amylia just got through books 7-8 and needs to squel (spoiler for books 7-8))

[Amylia Lerato]

Ikr, If you want to have some alone time with ur gf, maybe your office shouldn't also be ur bedroom. Crazy idea!

 

[Boreas Silverfir]

Ikr, If you want to have some alone time with ur gf, maybe your office shouldn't also be ur bedroom. Crazy idea!

but what if Min is acting as an "Emotional Support Human"?

 

[Amylia Lerato]

I love that you feel this way. I wholeheartedly agree. Perrin is my favorite and the one I identify with best. I really wish we got a better idea of both sides of every argument there with Faile. I too feel like if we got more of her perspective earlier in the series, Like in Dragon Reborn even, we'd recognize her as a perfect foil for Elayne. Faile's relationship with Perrin has the same socio-economic challenges Rand & Elayne have with the added twist that she's from a clear other country and culture. I would love it if in those sequences we could see her recognizing his steadfast nature as an admirable trait that anyone from the borderlands would love. I'd love for the anxiety chapters where she's fretting about "does he really like me as much as I like him" that could explain the hot jealousy she has at times.
People might not like her more if we got that, but I think they'd understand her more which could cool how venomous folks can get about her.

The insecurities I get, that's fine and I'm glad we saw some of it. I just can't get over how intelligent Faile is, and the fact for the last few books I've been kind of just seeing her as a jelous partner not this wonderful woman in her own right. I really hope I get to see more of that.

 

[Arinna Katal]

Getting once again up onto the soapbox that I have apparently decided is the soapbox I will die on:
The major problem between Perrin and Faile is that Perrin is instantly aware of Faile’s emotions at all times and holds them against her. This is not a normal thing in a relationship! When I’m talking to my husband, I can listen to his voice and words, and I can interpret his body language, but I don’t have instant insight into his deepest feelings. Perrin does with Faile! And he holds her feelings against her! People have emotions, and they just sort of happen, and we can’t control them. The thing we *can* control is how we behave following an emotion. Faile spends a lot of time controlling her behavior, and in the little bit we get of her POV, we see her thoughts in response to the emotions that she’s feeling, and she’s doing a lot of things like reminding herself that the situation with Berelain is not Perrin’s fault. This is a healthy thing for her to be doing, but all Perrin focuses on is her emotions, not on what she’s doing or saying. And I don’t really hold that against any of the characters—they’re all so so young! Of course they’re not amazing at relationships! But I really do think the WoT fandom spends a lot of time, like Perrin, blaming Faile for having emotions. I’m certainly not saying that she’s a perfect angel—Faile is *plenty* flawed and makes many choices that I don’t like. But holding her feelings against her is not great, especially when she was raised in a deeply messed up culture (I don’t think anyone will argue that the Saldaeans are not extremely weird about relations between the genders) and is working hard to counteract those cultural triggers that she was raised with.

 

[Satara al'Caelahn]

When I did a reread a few years ago, I found Faile to be a lot more tolerable.

I don't know if that's just general maturity on my part, or if I simply read deeper into things, but I ended up with a different perspective on her, regardless.

Faile is a product of her environment and how she was raised because her entire culture is based on stubborn arguments between men and women, or so it seems. And then to realize that she's both pushing back against her upbringing while also trying subconsciously to make her family proud, I'm not shocked at the things that she does. I'm also not shocked by how Perrin responds to it because they're all young and stupid.

If I go back and look at the behavior of all the younger characters, especially the EF5, they're all blithering idots. They're stubborn, self righteous, and they hold grudges and get petty. They're overly emotional, angsty, and otherwise teenagers. I think sometimes we forget that no matter how annoying they are, they're all pretty accurate representations of young people, especially young people who have been through half the things they have.

I think at this stage of the game, I'm more angry at the entire Shaido plotline than I am at Faile directly.

 

[Arinna Katal]

I think at this stage of the game, I'm more angry at the entire Shaido plotline than I am at Faile directly.

Oh, this is annoying as hell, you will find no argument from me here

 

[Boreas Silverfir]

It's not the best plotline and could have taken fewer pages to wrap up. Heck, saving the Two Rivers that Perrin did took fewer pages.

 

[Megana Vallentin]

Getting once again up onto the soapbox that I have apparently decided is the soapbox I will die on:
The major problem between Perrin and Faile is that Perrin is instantly aware of Faile’s emotions at all times and holds them against her. This is not a normal thing in a relationship! When I’m talking to my husband, I can listen to his voice and words, and I can interpret his body language, but I don’t have instant insight into his deepest feelings. Perrin does with Faile! And he holds her feelings against her! People have emotions, and they just sort of happen, and we can’t control them. The thing we *can* control is how we behave following an emotion. Faile spends a lot of time controlling her behavior, and in the little bit we get of her POV, we see her thoughts in response to the emotions that she’s feeling, and she’s doing a lot of things like reminding herself that the situation with Berelain is not Perrin’s fault. This is a healthy thing for her to be doing, but all Perrin focuses on is her emotions, not on what she’s doing or saying.

This is a fascinating take that I'd never heard before (bring your soapbox my way LOL) and I'm looking forward to how this will impact my opinions when I re-read in the future!