Madhavi,
I just recently read WTL for the third time, same edition as yours, Kira Arguonova is still my favorite female character of Rands. I think that whole imagery with the whipping… it’s either be sacrificed, or sacrifice. That’s the two sides of altruism. Altruism is sado-masochism in practice. Anyways, Kira would not want to be among those sacrificed. No way. She wouldn’t want the few the best sacrificed to the many. She spoke to Andre about that. You can also read what she said before Rand edited Kira in this thread:
http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24819
Her only hero was a Viking:
The only hero she had known was a Viking whose story she had read as a child; a Viking whose eyes never looked farther than the point of his sword, but there was no boundary for the point of his sword; a Viking who walked through life, breaking barriers and reaping victoies, who walked through ruins while the sun made a crown over his head, but he walked, light and straight, without noticing it’s weight; a Viking who laughed at kings, who laughed at priests, who looked at heaven only when he bent for a drink over a mountain brook and there, over-shadowing the sky, he saw his own picture; a Viking who lived but for the joy and the wonder and the glory of the god that was himself.
Such had been Kira’s entrance into life…Some enter it with a heart like a pavement - trampled by many feet, and with a cold skin crying for the warmth of the herd. Kira
Argounova entered it with the sword of a Viking pointing the way and an operetta tune for a battle march.
And when she first saw Leo, she described him thusly:
His mouth, calm, severe, contemptuous, was that of an acient chieftain who could order men to die, and his eyes were such as could watch it.
Now what she said about its almost artificial, is beyond me, I don’t understand that.