It is the fourth part of this paragraph that I think really brings into focus my ultimate disappointment with the villains. For beings with their powers, the fact that we think a major punishment for S.H. would be rape or physically bludgeoning another character, is simply not interesting and it kind of makes S.H. redundant. The same punishment could be meted out in Far Madding by some random bad guy. And that makes me wonder about the assignment of this passive mindset to all of the female Forsaken. They have the power to kill, warp reality and get what they want, yet there seems to be a broad commentary about the "nature" of women, if you will, that can be summarized in an indirect approach to get what they want besides having the motive, aggression, capability and opportunities to do so. This approach seems to work against the series in that we find the female Forsaken staying in the background, even when direct intercession would increase their likelihood of success; effectively cutting down the pool of major villains in half. Also, I don't think a convincing case has been made that a character with the superhuman powers granted by channeling could honestly be said to need to favor one approach over the other. This becomes a big problem when we look at the villains in this series and why I think the nature of Graendal's punishment exposes overall weaknesses in the story that happens to reveal other trends that I saw as problematic before, esp. in regards to Shaidar Haran and his place in the story. I'm not really sure we can say the Fades are "men" - they were produced as a result of blending human genetic stock, but part of the monstrous part of their rape is that there is an element of bestiality to it.