One thing thatās very clear about Faileās first meeting with Perrin is that she thinks sheās So Cool.
And sheās is, tbf, pretty dang cool. Sheās Hunter, despite being younger and more female than anyone imagines Hunters to be (she even makes a joke about like āmaybe they didnāt notice me at the ceremony. It was crowdedā). Sheās more competent than some of her colleagues and she has cool ideas about where the Horn might be. And she can do a cool knife trick that impresses even the sailors around her.
But then Perrin is like āYou have the same name as my horseā and that totally shatters her So Cool faƧade for like a minute and she very nearly lets him get the last word.
Idk. I think reading Faile as someone who thinks sheās So Cool is definitely a way to get a deeper understanding of her character.
(If it needs to be said, this post is not an invitation to character bash. I like Faile and thatās not welcome)
Youāre so right bestie.
To be totally accurate, while per the Companion Faile is born in NE 981 and the series starts in 998 NE, so sheās 17 at series beginning, we donāt meet her till 999 NE. So she might have met Perrin at 18.
Thereās also a line about how Faile is the same age as Ewin, which would make her likeā¦ 16ā¦ but RJ specifically retconned that. I also remember her saying sheās technically too young to get married in Saldea without parental permission, although I canāt find the quote, but that might be pre-retcon or Saldeaās marriage w/out parental permission age might be 19, or something.
If you want to cover for RJ, you can headcanon that the Borderlands also do a variation of the āmilk nameā vs āofficial nameā thing that Seanchan do, and count birthdays from the official name. (Iām obsessed with the post saying that Lan means āprized/belovedā in the Old Tongue, so it is probably his milk name, and that means Lanās parents werenāt around to give him a non-milk-name and no one else felt comfortable doing it.) So perhaps when Faile was counting Ewin as her age, she was thinking in terms of her post-milk-name years, the way Tuon says itās 5 months to her 14th ātrue-nameā day. Then when she sees Matās reaction she adds her 6 years of ābirth nameā existence.
One of my favorite Faile things is that by Saldean standards sheās sheltered but because the Borderlands is a war culture sheās extremely good with knives and espionage which is objectively funny because while she can handle complicated political theory but godforbid she has to navigate interpersonal relationships as just like- a person. Itās the same thing I love about Elayne and Tuon. Theyāre trained and super competent at Playing The Game but theyāre so unfamiliar with actually making friends that they lack the skills to communicate with their partners. And the boys who should have experience in communication as village boys and Mat especially as both the son of a horse trader and a gambler but their trauma and belief that Women Are Mysterious and Complicated they also canāt communicate with their girls. Each solves this conundrum differently with Rand just sorta failing sideways with Elayne and Avienda and Min carrying the emotional load of communication. Perrin relies on his sense of smell which does Not work and eventually after severe trauma the two actually sit down and communicate like healthy adults. And Matā¦. Well Mat and Tuon canāt do anything like a normal couple so instead of talking things out they have elaborate competitions where they treat eachother like political or war enemies. And we love that for them.
I would like to add that even from completely objective standpoint Faile is good at most things she claims she is. She knows how to navigate politics, how to talk with people, how to be a spy, how to play coy and plot (if Galina was normal AS Faile's plan 100% would work), and among all Ta'veren boys parties she's one of the most ruthless people, capable of doing what Perrin doesn't have the stomach to do. And she does NOT resent him for that, she loves him for that.
