I do not buy that regardless though; her dad never plays those kinds of juvenile manipulative games with Rand. I would say she behaves like a spoiled teenager, but the simile is ruined by her being literally rather than figuratively just that.


"There was nothing to be done" is a CLASSIC attempted excuse for passively and silently watching tragedies unfold. We can never be sure nothing she did could have prevented it because "nothing" is all she attempted. I might cut her some slack for trying and failing, but NOT trying and failing is inexcusable.


She implied it by deciding to go there, but only AFTER they saw the Hands banner, as much of a stretch as that was. Going south would have taken longer, but at least would not have been marching up to the DOs doorstep and hoping an ally found her instead of him or his Shadowspawn legions. It is not as if the route she did take was so much safer than the route south; the main difference is that the southern route actually led to safety and some hope of accomplishing her mission rather than to ever more danger and the certainty of dooming it.

Oh, gee, marching the Horn of Valere straight toward Shayol Ghul during Tarmon Gaidon got me captured by Shadowspawn; gee, who could have foreseen THAT?


No, she did NOT "happen[] upon a situation that would allow them to get back immediately," and the proof is that THEY DID NOT; when Perrin found her under a pile of bodies later she was still in the middle of Shayol Ghul. Likewise, she did not succeed because "They made it in time for Olver to sound the Horn;" Olver could have sounded the Horn any time or place he liked so long as he did so for salvation rather than glory. ANYONE could have, though Faile had no reason to think that and every reason not to think so, so it is not indictment of her. The whole thing was a fools errand, but I do not fault her for that; I DO fault her for such awful and costly execution (which perhaps qualifies as a pun here) of her pointless task.


ANYWHERE else would have been better; "OMG" indeed. Do not make the A-bomb a Christmas present for Hirohito in 1944; no one should need to be TOLD that.


Taking warhorses to a warzone is not exactly attention getting. Neither is a courier taking a racehorse. Taking Bela only makes sense for the reason I said: Greater carrying capacity and endurance. Still, a bred military packhorse would have been far better, and a pack animal in a baggage train is as pedestrian as it gets.


Yes, because that is the ONLY circumstance under which a ta'veren wife might need to make a fast getaway while carrying the Horn of Valere to ANOTHER ta'veren during Tarmon Gaidon. But then, Faile does not seem familiar with the better and more discrete part of valor; often, that is precisely her problem.