Who Was Actually Better With Women: Rand, Mat, or Perrin?
Short answer would be Rand. Long answer would be none of them, or it depends on context.
Starting with Rand. I like to bring into context the fact that he was under more pressure and had to deal with more things than any living person in that world. Also, he was losing his sanity. That said, by the start of the story he was the only dude with a girlfriend. Yeah, Egwene ran the show, but he sort of knows how to contain her, and I get the feeling they’d have married and lived a relatively normal life where she called the shots most times and occasionally he put his foot down, as Abel and Marin noted about “men and women”.
What I find most funny about that is, outside of Egwene’s insufferable nature and her needing to be better than everyone (and jealousy of Rand). They do kind of understand each other, she knows how stubborn he can be and when to back off, he understands what she is, especially when they argue and she flips it back on him even when he was right from the start. The spat a couple of times in the beginning and resolved it more amicably than Perrin and Faile ever did. I get why they wouldn’t have worked. But I think they were compatible.
There’s also the fact that he’s written to be the most good looking of the lads and always the point of attraction when they are together. Mat and Perrin got their women when they were miles away from Rand. He was smooth with Elayne and Else, IIRC. It’s just that he never actually spends time with his women.
Loved his relationship with Aviendha, especially after the igloo, and I think his relationship with Min is the most wholesome and healthiest relationship, although she doesn’t seem to have anything else going for her. The only issue is how he tries to push them away because of his fate. It didn’t work. But I just think that overall he communicates with his women and was never a pushover, like Mat and Perrin were most times with their women. Maybe it’s because he’s more socially balanced than they were.
Then Mat. He’s good at flirting, as opposed to Rand who relied on his looks or aura or the pattern, or Perrin who was basically given all the signals in the world by Faile. Mat is the best at having a nice time with women, but he sucked at a real relationship. He and Perrin spent a lot more time with their women, or rather their relationships were a major plot point in their story, as opposed to Rand where it’s everything but his love life.
Tuon is a crazy slaver, so I gotta cut Mat some slack here. But I find it weird that he sort of never brings up some things with her. He never tries to talk about her culture, especially when she was his “captive.” I did love how he diffused the a’dam scene and buried them, but he never really stood up to Tuon. He always tries to just avoid important conversations or expects his problems to dissolve if he ignores them.
There’s cultural differences too, and they do seem good for each other since he sort of is a scoundrel and needs someone to contain him. It just seems to me that if not for the Dragon’s Peace, Tuon would carry on like she is and Mat wouldn’t do anything and would still passively aid her by leading her armies.
He was good with the shaido maiden too, but also avoids talking her down when she’s pushing ideas into his head about greatness. Mat hates difficult conversations 😂.
Perrin, I think, is worse with women(of the three). His relationship with Faile is polarizing, as I understand. You either hate it or love it. While there are good parts, she did help him out a lot, there are a lot of red flags with them, and it starts and ends with communication. Faile wanting him to be “a man” with her and Perrin being “a careful and gentle big guy” was always a recipe for disaster.
They never adequately communicate. She is violent, and I think he’s spanked her once too. She is always angry or apprehensive about something she’s not telling, and he’s so bad at understanding that sometimes the way we feel and act are different. Perhaps most of the issues came from him invading her privacy by smelling her emotions. Also, him willing to trade thousands of slaves for his wife is crazy. It’s devotion, but he seems to be too Faile-centered, and would abandon the world for her (although he grew from that when it mattered in the end and made the right choice)
He also handled the Berelain situation so badly. I mean, something Berelain and Faile could resolve in an hour. You know, I always found it odd that he thinks shouting at a queen would make her back down, or that avoiding a conversation with Berelain would just solve his problems.
All versions of Rand handled Selene/Lanfear, better than Perrin ever did with Berelain. I loved that in the end Rand was able to beat Lanfear by showing that he never loved her and letting her know why(the fact that she could not even be as open with him as he was with her). A bunch of other women too seduced Rand, and we don’t see him struggle with sending them away or putting them in their place.
His later meetings with Elayne, their conversation, his final meeting with Aviendha, shade of my heart, and also with Min just showed that he is better overall with relationships because he’s open and direct(Mat avoids directness and confrontation) and also understands subtleties(while Perrin doesn’t)
This is my take on the matter. What do y’all think? How do you rank them?