No, but maybe you are missing the point of what a good villain can do. - Edit 2
Before modification by RugbyPlayingAshaman at 31/08/2011 07:23:04 PM
Because it IS. And the (female or male) Forsaken are NOT important! The threat is the Dark One and Jordan and Sanderson have both gone out of their way to demonstrate that the Forsaken are petty, contemptible scum who are not worth the slightest bit of respect.
They have also gone out of their way to present the idea of the Dark One as being completely inscrutable to human understanding. So having the Dark One or Shaidar Haran dole out lackluster punishments puts them on the level as street thugs and allows human judgments such as "petty" and "moronic" to be applied to them.
There are more imaginative punishments that beings with these types of powers should be able to inflict. The POINT of an Evil villain is that they are a waste and they do squander potential. Why go for imaginative punishments that fail to disturb the reader? If rape is the most disturbing, than why not use that punishment? What possible reason can you give for the evil characters to forgo utilizing it?
Maybe you think that is the point of an evil villain. My point was that rape, while disturbing to me, is unimaginative and really cuts both ways - it devalues both characters, and for a series showing an ultimate evil, doesn't seem appropriate.
When Cyndane suggested that her punishment was having her soul crushed every night, basically devaluing her by taking away her claim to the name "Daughter of the Night", I thought that this would have been a fitting punishment for someone who lost their initial gamble badly.
Name ONE male Forsaken who has been punished since Shadar Haran showed up? There were basically four running around contemporaneously, and most of them died in battle before they could be punished, while Demandred and Moridin have, by all appearances, been successful. As I noted to the moronic original poster, the males more or less all DIE, so how can you claim that the women get it worse, especially when you consider that death is the thing Darkfriends sell their souls to avoid? What "slap on the wrist and ironic punishments" were dished out to males?
Osan'gar got an unassuming body and Aran'gar got a female body. The latter was ironic. And I do think that there are situations when death is merciful. Death by balefire removes their souls from the reach of the Dark One to inflict further or worse punishments. I would say that Lanfear, Moghedien, Mesaana and Graendal had worse punishments because they had to live through degradation of the idea that they were Chosen and were violated. Rhavin and Bel'al got off lightly. Would the Dark One have punished him if they survived? We don't know, but we do know that both went out in a big blaze of glory so some element of their characters still looked impressive and appropriately villainous. Semirhage, in contrast, had every element of her persona destroyed in one scene so that by the end of it, what we remember is her getting spanked by a gray-haired younger channeler.
Or when critically reading readers' commentary.
It is the different viewpoints that make a message board or discussion forum interesting, in my opinion. You think this was an appropriate punishment and I think it is lackluster.