Egwene/the Aes Sedai

[Guest PiotrekS]

Egwene is extremely self-righteous, which grates on me, but even that is not my biggest problem with her. Actually, my problem is not one with her character, but the writing involved in her chapters. You never get the feeling she is intelligent or skilled when things go her way, because almost every time her opponents magically turn into retards when ever she is nearby in order to make her seem smart by comparison. Her so called brilliant manipulations could be seen from a mile off by anyone who actually bothered to think. These Aes Sedai are supposed to be masters of intrigue with 100s of years of experience in some cases, and they get played like children by a 20 year old girl? Please.

 

Im tired of things being handed to her on a silver platter, she is no ta'veren, so she doesn't even have that excuse. Actually, even the ta'veren come across as believable in their various struggles. Egwene does not.

 

Oh, while im at it. Egwene is certainly not a person I would ever want to meet. Besides her naturally arrogant manner(She always talks about taking Rand down a peg when he was being arrogant, but who does the same for her?), she is horrid to her supposed friends. I am reminded of the time she frightened Ny'neave to hide her own trespasses from the WO, and the fact that she was especially cruel to her during her testing, in order to secure her own position and assure the rest she wasn't playing favorites. She was downright vicious about it.

 

Somewhere along the line she has gotten it into her head that she knows whats best about everything. When others support Rand, she blames it on his ta'veren nature, which made me itch to slap her. Has she forgotten what a ta'veren is? The pattern bends to help them with whatever task is required of them. Is she suggesting that she knows better than the damn universe? She should get with the program.

 

That pretty much sums up what I think about Egwene. The writing is the main problem, second - Egwene's extremely self-righteous and pompous attitude. Even when she says or does somethin right, the manner of it makes me cringe.

 

Frightens Nyn to hide her tresspass in TAR? WHAT THE ****?!

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings. And that's something Nynaeve does consistantly, is ignore people who know better just because she can't admit to herself anyone could possibly teach her anything. One of the awesome things about Egwene is that she worships and respects the people she recognizes have something to teach her.

 

Now, after that point, Egwene got into her young-adult mode of treating Nynaeve as Nynaeve had treated her for YEARS before hand. She realized how to 'handle' her friend so that Nyneave wouldn't 'handle' her. And I think it's ridiculous that people will trash Egwene for that when Nyneave does it to _everyone_. Nynaeve even says to herself she needs to regain the "upper hand" with Egwene. So don't go trashing Egwene for how she treats Nyneave when Nyneave treats EVERYONE that way and becomes depressed when Egwene beats her at her own game.

 

I know that some critiques of Egwene are exaggerated, but in that case it is exactly what happened - as David Selig has shown. Furthermore, Egwene herself quite a few times broke her promise to the WOs (the ones she worships and respects )about venturing alone into TAR, so her attitude to Nynaeve in that respect is totally unacceptable.

 

I also honestly don't know where did you find this notion that Nynaeve was abusive towards Egwene in Two Rivers and that Egwene just turned the tables on her. In fact, it was Nynaeve who cared deeply for Egwene, healed her as a child and decided to train her to be a future Wisdom, which was probably the best career she could get in Two Rivers. She left Two Rivers to find not only the boys, but also Egwene.

 

Nynaeve was older and she was in a teaching position, which allowed her to discipline Egwene. But there is absolutely no comparision with what Egwene did - Nynaeve could be overly emotional, but you could always say she cared deeply about others. She would be uncapable of the level of cruelty that Egwene achieves so effortlessly when dealing with Nyn.

[Kahsm]

I must've missed the moment when Nynaeve physically abused Egwene to hide her own broken promises...

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings.

No, she did not. It's pretty clear in the text why Egwene did it: "She had been so afraid that Nynaeve would learn that she certainly did not have the Wise Ones’ permission to jaunt about in the World of Dreams alone, so sure that the flush of embarrassment had given her away, that all she could think of was keeping Nynaeve from speaking, keeping her from winkling out the truth. " The whole lecture on the dangers of TAR and the subsequent summoning of the two brutes to attack Nynaeve happened right after Nynaeve asked "“So the Wise Ones have finally decided to let you come and go as you please?".

 

I don't even understand your first comment. Are you trying to tell me Nynaeve never gets physically violent? Or that she doesn't try to hide when she's wrong or put the best face on situations that make her look bad (which she herself admits she does)? If you are, you're a lunatic. I think you're trying to set the scenario so narrow that I can't find an EXACT situation where Nynaeve does the same, but that's quite disingenuous. But yes Nynaeve hits people, and yes she hates to reveal or admit when she's wrong, or has done wrong. When she lies to Egwene about not having drank the fokroot tea, she feels bad because it she had never lied "to Egwene" before. Not that she had never lied to anyone before. And the fact that Egwene isn't surprised or annoyed means it's pretty common in their relationship for Nynaeve to do just that.

 

No, it's not clear as you say because it goes down like this:

"You nearly frightened ten years out of me," Nyneave muttered. "So the wise ones have finally decided to let you come and go as you please? Or is Melaine behi..."

"You should be frightened!" Egwene snapped, colour rising in her cheeks. "You are a fool Nynaeve, a child playing in the barn with a candle."

Nyneave gaped. Egwene? berating her? "You listen to me Egwene al'Vere. I'll not take that from Melaine, and I won't take it..."

"You had best take it from someone before you get yourself killed."

"I..."

"I ought to take that stone ring away from you. I should have given it to Elayne and told her not to let you use it at all."

"Told her not..."

"Do you think Melaine was exagerating?" Egwene said sternly, shaking her finger almost exactly like Melaine. "She was not, Nyneave. The wise ones have told you the simple truth about Tel'aran'rhiod time and again. But you seem to think they're fools whistling in a high wind. You are supposed to be a grown woman, not a silly little child. I vow, whatever sense you once had in your head seems to have vanished like a puff of smoke. Well find it Nyneave!" She sniffed loudly, rearranging the shawl on her shoulders. "Right now you are trying to play with the pretty flames in the fireplace, too foolish to realize you might fall in."

Nyneave stared in amazement, they argued often enough, but Egwene had never ever tried to dress her down like a girl with her fingers caught in the honey jar -- never. The dress, it was the accepted's dress she was wearing, and someone else's face. She changed herself back to herself in a good blue wool that she often worn for circle meetings and to put the council straight. She felt robed in all her old authority as wisdom. "I am well aware of how much I don't know," she said levelly, "but those aiel..."

"Do you realize you could dream yourself into something you could not get out of? Dreams are real here. If you let yourself drift into a fond dream it could trap you. You'd trap yourself, until you died."

"Will you..."

"There are nightmares walking Tel'aran'rhiod Nyneave!"

"Will you let me speak!" Nyneave barked, or rather, she tried to bark it. There was rather too much frustrated pleading in there to suit her. Any at all would have been too much.

"No I will not" Egwene said firmly. "Not until you want to say something worth listening to. I said nightmares, and I meant nightmares Nyneave. When someone has a nightmare while in Tel'aran'rhiod it is real too. And sometimes it survives after the dreamer has gone. You just don't realize do you?"

Suddenly rough hands enveloped Nyneve's arms. [... enter the thugs that scratch her and rip her clothes ...]

 

So yes, Egwene doesn't like the line of questioning, but she cut it off with what she was going to say anyway, and I'll prove it later in Egwene's PoV when we get to your quote. But notice Nyneave tries to position herself above Egwene, to still demonstrate that she is the superior "robed in authority". She

 

[...] She tried to make them vanish. If a wise one dreamwalker could, so could she [...]

 

Really Nyneave? You're as good as a wise one dreamwalker? This is what I'm talking about, no one can teach her anything, she can do anything as well as anyone else.

 

[...] She half expected Egwene to comfort her, and for once she would have accepted it gladly [...]

 

So she knows egwene did it to teach her a lesson, but still wanted her comfort, so you're getting all uppity when the 'victim' did not, and never does. And the "for once" means she usually would not accept Egwene's comforts. But she's so lovable and friendly right?!

 

[...] "I did not try to hold them Nyneve, if you knew how to unmake them you could have [...]

 

Again, Egwene was right to show her how much she didn't know, the same way Amys did to her the first time she was cought in TAR alone.

 

[...] "I could have dreamed myself away, to Sheriam's study or back to my bed." [...] "If you had not been to scared spit-less to think of it." [...]

 

Still Nyneave denies the obvious in order to save face

 

[...] She remembered quite clearly the day when the balance between them had shifted, when they ceased being the wisdom and the girl who fetched when the wisdom said fetch, becoming just two women far from home. It seemed that balance had shifted further. She was going to have to do something to move it back where it belonged. The lie. She had deliberately lied to Egwene for the first time ever today. That was why her moral authority had vanished, why she was floundering around unable to assert herself properly. [...]

 

Nyneave was perfectly fine with being on the heavy side of the scale, and she's not mad that Egwene had a nightmare attempt to rape her, she's mad that she's lost her sway over Egwene. Well the girl is growing up, Nyneave will have to deal with it. But she won't, instead she starts trying to figure out how to regain her dominance. Later on she even refuses to go to the meetings, sending Elayne instead because she doesn't want to face Egwene until she gets her confidence back. She's afraid of Egwene's new-found confidence

 

[...] "If you tell the wise ones about this, especially that Melaine, I'll box your ears"

Something in that should have sparked Egwene's ire. It seemed odd to want to start a row. Usually their quarrels were over Egwene refusing to see reason, and they seldom ended pleasantly since the girl had form the habit of continuing to refuse. [...]

 

And here Nyneave threatens to use violence to cover her lie, so that throws your statement out the window? Then she wishes they could have argued loudly because Egwene's calmness and dismissals anoys her. She also notes it's a "habit" Egwene had gained of refusing to be cowed by Nyneave, and that in disagree with Nyneave is "refusing to see reason". That's about as self absorbed and arrogant as you can get. But those are attributes only ever given to Egwene for some reason.

 

[... Egwene tries to drop it and Nyneave refute's Egwene's claim that she always tries to put the best face on everything, so Egwene says that if she really feels she lied she can drink the same stuff Nyneave made Egwene drink when Egwene lied as a child, but instead Nyneave admits that she DOES indeed put the best face on things for herself ...]

 

Mmmhmm.

 

[... then yes egwene does "trick" nyneave into not mentioning the visit to the tower to the wise ones, though Nyneave agrees for her own reasons so she doesn't have to put up with 'lecturing and bullying' ...]

 

Egwene steamrolled Nyneave's question about being allowed in, and then she says Nyneave shouldn't mention the visit because it will help them avoid telling the wise ones about Elaida. Egwene also lets Moir believe that she dreamed Elaida became Amyrlin. I'm not saying Egwene doesn't hide secrets, but there was nothing malicious about trying to show Nyneave she's being stupid.

 

[...] The dangers in the world of dreams were every bit as great as she told Nyneave. [...] It was not punishment that frightened her, not the sort that Bair doled out. Had she wakened to find a wise one staring at her, she would have accepted such gladly. But Amys had told her near the begining that if she entered tel'aran'rhiod without one of them accompanying her they would send her away, refuse to teach her any longer. That made her quail far more than anything else they could do. [...]

 

And here she says why she felt she had to do it, not because she feared punishment, but because she feared not being able to learn. But she also clearly states that everything she told Nyneave was true. So it still needed to be said. You make it sound like she made it all up to hide some crime, which is simply untrue.

 

[...] "She had been so afraid that Nynaeve would learn that she certainly did not have the Wise Ones’ permission to jaunt about in the World of Dreams alone, so sure that the flush of embarrassment had given her away, that all she could think of was keeping Nynaeve from speaking, keeping her from winkling out the truth." [...]

 

[...] All she could do was talk, try to keep the focus on whatever Nyneave was doing wrong. No matter how Nyneave had made her, she could not seem to bring up a shout. And with all of that, somehow, she had gained the upper hand. Come to think of it, Moiraine seldom raised her voice, and when she did she was least effective in having what she wanted done. It had been so even before she had began behaving so strangely with Rand. [...]

 

Again, Egwene noting that what she told Nyneave was indeed all true and needed to be said because Nyneave was indeed being silly and careless, thinking she was as good as the dreamwalkers. And in simply talking quickly, she inadvertently gained the upper hand.

 

[...] There was an old saying that she had never really understood before, "he strains to hear a whisper who refuses to hear a shout." She would not shout at Rand again, a quiet, firm, womanly voice that was the thing. For the matter, she ought not to shout at Nyneave again either. She was a woman, not a girl throwing tantrums. [...]

 

And after that little bit of introspection that people say Egwene NEVER does, she has grown a little. Good for her.

 

There's like a bajillion lines of dialogue between the first question about Egwene being allowed in TAR and the actual nightmare scene. And at taht point Nyneave was trying to explain how she knew it was dangerous, "but the aiel...", she was well off of her question by then. The nightmare was to show her that no, she could not handle a nightmare.

 

For the record I'm not trashing Nynaeve at all. I quite like her as a character. But I'm getting a little tired of her being held up as some paragon of kindness and rationality, where Egwene is some evil monster who treats everyone around her terribly and cares for no one when there is zero evidence of either position.

[Kahsm]

Egwene is extremely self-righteous, which grates on me, but even that is not my biggest problem with her. Actually, my problem is not one with her character, but the writing involved in her chapters. You never get the feeling she is intelligent or skilled when things go her way, because almost every time her opponents magically turn into retards when ever she is nearby in order to make her seem smart by comparison. Her so called brilliant manipulations could be seen from a mile off by anyone who actually bothered to think. These Aes Sedai are supposed to be masters of intrigue with 100s of years of experience in some cases, and they get played like children by a 20 year old girl? Please.

 

Im tired of things being handed to her on a silver platter, she is no ta'veren, so she doesn't even have that excuse. Actually, even the ta'veren come across as believable in their various struggles. Egwene does not.

 

Oh, while im at it. Egwene is certainly not a person I would ever want to meet. Besides her naturally arrogant manner(She always talks about taking Rand down a peg when he was being arrogant, but who does the same for her?), she is horrid to her supposed friends. I am reminded of the time she frightened Ny'neave to hide her own trespasses from the WO, and the fact that she was especially cruel to her during her testing, in order to secure her own position and assure the rest she wasn't playing favorites. She was downright vicious about it.

 

Somewhere along the line she has gotten it into her head that she knows whats best about everything. When others support Rand, she blames it on his ta'veren nature, which made me itch to slap her. Has she forgotten what a ta'veren is? The pattern bends to help them with whatever task is required of them. Is she suggesting that she knows better than the damn universe? She should get with the program.

 

That pretty much sums up what I think about Egwene. The writing is the main problem, second - Egwene's extremely self-righteous and pompous attitude. Even when she says or does somethin right, the manner of it makes me cringe.

 

Frightens Nyn to hide her tresspass in TAR? WHAT THE ****?!

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings. And that's something Nynaeve does consistantly, is ignore people who know better just because she can't admit to herself anyone could possibly teach her anything. One of the awesome things about Egwene is that she worships and respects the people she recognizes have something to teach her.

 

Now, after that point, Egwene got into her young-adult mode of treating Nynaeve as Nynaeve had treated her for YEARS before hand. She realized how to 'handle' her friend so that Nyneave wouldn't 'handle' her. And I think it's ridiculous that people will trash Egwene for that when Nyneave does it to _everyone_. Nynaeve even says to herself she needs to regain the "upper hand" with Egwene. So don't go trashing Egwene for how she treats Nyneave when Nyneave treats EVERYONE that way and becomes depressed when Egwene beats her at her own game.

 

I know that some critiques of Egwene are exaggerated, but in that case it is exactly what happened - as David Selig has shown. Furthermore, Egwene herself quite a few times broke her promise to the WOs (the ones she worships and respects )about venturing alone into TAR, so her attitude to Nynaeve in that respect is totally unacceptable.

 

I also honestly don't know where did you find this notion that Nynaeve was abusive towards Egwene in Two Rivers and that Egwene just turned the tables on her. In fact, it was Nynaeve who cared deeply for Egwene, healed her as a child and decided to train her to be a future Wisdom, which was probably the best career she could get in Two Rivers. She left Two Rivers to find not only the boys, but also Egwene.

 

Nynaeve was older and she was in a teaching position, which allowed her to discipline Egwene. But there is absolutely no comparision with what Egwene did - Nynaeve could be overly emotional, but you could always say she cared deeply about others. She would be uncapable of the level of cruelty that Egwene achieves so effortlessly when dealing with Nyn.

 

Abusive? what the hell. Just because you and your ilk go way off the deep end claiming ridiculous things about egwene doesn't mean I do the same for Nyneave. When I say they are similar, I mean they are similarly moderate in being stubborn women who both want to always have the upper-hand on people. Neither of them ABUSE anyone. But they will play games with people to try to get their way. Both of them. And Nyneave is physically violent, and she will refuse help from people, and she will (by her own admission) put the best face on situations.

 

Egwene on the other hand worships people who teach her just about anything. However she's often too impatient, and gets tied up in a few of her lies/secrets.

 

Also age has noething to do with it. Egwene is the TAR student, not Nyneave. Egwene absolutely has authority on that matter over Nyneave, and Nyneave is foolish if she doesn't listen. But then again why would Nyneave listen to Egwene if she won't even admit wise one dreamwalkers have anything worthwhile to tell her. That's probably one of Nyn's biggest character flaws and Egwene had to work damn hard to get through to her that TAR is dangerous, and that no she cannot handle it as easily as she thinks.

 

Nyneve lies to Egwene about the forkroot tea and you claim she's all super moral authority on everything. She only tells Egwene the truth when she thinks it's the reason she lost her mojo. SO don't try to claim that Egwene doesn't respect Wise Ones just because she's caught in her "Aes Sedai" lie, and she's impatient in learning.

 

Though I'll let you read my previous post before I go too nuts on this because i know it was posted while I was still digging quotes out. Since I think a more detailed review of that TAR scene is required. But in summary, trying to claim Egwene had Nyneve raped just to hide her lie is COMPLETELY ridiculous, just absurdly wrong. All she did was talk fast to avoid further questions, everything was legit.

[Andhaira]

What is Egwene's Ajah? Did she ever pick one? IMO Blue would suit her.

 

Also, has Egwene taken the oaths?

[AshaShan]

Egwene outlined her reasons for abusing Nynaeve in TAR in her own internal POV (to cover her own ass and asert that authority she craves so) yet her fans will still try to spin it in the kindest light possible even if that means claiming that their girl was actually lying to herself.

 

Egwene describes her objection to Rand's plan with the seals to Nynaeve and Elayne, and far from arguing that he should be better prepared before breaking them thinks that he is fully prepared and simply shouldn't break them at all. Yet her fans try to assign the former argument to her instead because they rightly think it holds more water than the one Egwene herself puts forward.

 

Sometimes its like there are two Egwene's. The one in the books and the shining paragon that her fans made up in their heads.

[Kahsm]

Egwene outlined her reasons for abusing Nynaeve in TAR in her own internal POV (to cover her own ass and asert that authority she craves so) yet her fans will still try to spin it in the kindest light possible even if that means claiming that their girl was actually lying to herself.

 

Egwene describes her objection to Rand's plan with the seals to Nynaeve and Elayne, and far from arguing that he should be better prepared before breaking them thinks that he is fully prepared and simply shouldn't break them at all. Yet her fans try to assign the former argument to her instead because they rightly think it holds more water than the one Egwene herself puts forward.

 

Sometimes its like there are two Egwene's. The one in the books and the shining paragon that her fans made up in their heads.

 

I know there's a lot of words, but maybe you should read my posts before you make replies that don't make any sense given what I actually said. In her own PoV she says, "All she could do was talk, try to keep the focus on whatever Nyneave was doing wrong" (TFoH chap 15). Which means what she told Nyneave was all true, as she sees it (and as the wise ones's see it), but it was just her not letting Nyneave get her questions in by talking over her that was the "cover up".

 

So no, the content of what she said and the nightmare itself had nothing to do with the cover up. THOSE are Egwene's words. In her own PoV she also states that she could not manage to yell (but wanted to) and the combation of quick, calm words surprisingly, had a mollifying effect on Nyneave. So Egwene did not purposely crush Nyneave, it was basically accidental. "No matter how Nyneave had made her, she could not seem to bring up a shout. And with all of that, somehow, she had gained the upper hand."

 

And where is this paragon I describe? The one who lied to the wise one's about being Aes Sedai and entering TAR because she's too impatient. The one who almost gets trapped in her own dream later? Just because you've put her down for something that she didn't do, and I'm defending that ONE action, does not mean I'm putting her up as a Paragon. I do like Egwene, but she most certainly has faults. This one... is not one of them. As clearly shown. Unless you have quotes that say otherwise?

[MasterAblar]

What is Egwene's Ajah? Did she ever pick one? IMO Blue would suit her.

 

Also, has Egwene taken the oaths?

 

She never picked an Ajah, because she was raised directly from Accepted level. However she mentions that she would have picked the Green. Blue was her second choice I believe. And yes she has taken the oaths. she took them right after the Seanchan attack on the WT.

[Himiko]

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings. And that's something Nynaeve does consistantly, is ignore people who know better just because she can't admit to herself anyone could possibly teach her anything. One of the awesome things about Egwene is that she worships and respects the people she recognizes have something to teach her.

 

Seriously, Kael? I'm kind of getting tired of this "If you read a scene and come out with a negative impression of Egwene, then you have read it WRONG, because I like Egwene and I have a different interpretation to yours, so my reading is RIGHT." attitude in certain pro-Egwene posts.

 

Egwene starts her rant on the dangers of TAR only AFTER Nynaeve mentions her being on her own. There is no evidence to suggest that she had any intention of giving Nynaeve her "lesson" until it looked like she might get busted for doing something she shouldn't. Afterwards, she thinks about how she'd kept the focus on what Nynaeve had done wrong, because she desperately didn't want the WOs finding out about what she'd done- that was clearly the focus and the reasoning behind it. Later on, she is delighted with how the balance is shifted- not because the balance is now equal, but because now she can make Nynaeve jump and cringe with a look and a sentence. She is disappointed when Nynaeve doesn't appear again, despite the fact that the end result is exactly the same with seeing Elayne, because she was looking forward to using her new skills on Nynaeve again. There is no evidence in the text to suggest that Egwene planned any of what she did to Nynaeve, and there is plenty of evidence that her primary motivation was to cover up what Egwene did wrong.

 

No-one is debating that Nynaeve is not as good as the Aiel dreamwalkers. No-one is debating that TAR is dangerous. But in Egwene's mind, the dangers of TAR are just mentioned as an aside, putting Nynaeve off the scent of the WOs, and cowing her/ distracting her until she doesn't ask any more questions is her aim. The text is perfectly clear on that. Saying "the dangers she had told Nynaeve about were true" would have been a totally irrelevant sentence had educating Nynaeve been her initial aim, that would simply have been assumed. That sentence is there only to serve to tell us that, despite Egwene's aims being her own secrets, she told the truth about TAR being dangerous.

 

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

I'm actually kind of curious- if they hadn't been in TAR, or if Nynaeve had been more experienced, and caught Egwene out THEN, do you really think that Egwene would have said "Oh, fair enough, the Wise Ones won't let me come here yet", or would she have done exactly what she did- turn on Nynaeve with some other pretext until her secret was forgotten?

 

You highlighted the passage where Nynaeve talks about the balance shifting between her and Egwene. Note that first she talks about how the balance shifted to being the Wisdom and the girl who jumped to being two women far from home (which Nynaeve herself started in TGH, by telling Egwene that they were no longer Wisdom and Apprentice, and Egwene shouldn't give her the title), she THEN talks about how the balance has shifted further- ie. they are no longer equal, Egwene sees herself/ is seen as "superior", and that is what Nynaeve has a problem with. That's how I read it. Let me guess - I need to read the text again until I agree with you?

[Suttree]

Egwene describes her objection to Rand's plan with the seals to Nynaeve and Elayne, and far from arguing that he should be better prepared before breaking them thinks that he is fully prepared and simply shouldn't break them at all. Yet her fans try to assign the former argument to her instead because they rightly think it holds more water than the one Egwene herself puts forward.

 

So no one should question the DR is that it? Just blindly follow whatever seemingly mad scheme he presents? What she thinks is there should be someway Rand can succeed against the DO without breaking the seals. This of course is different than thinking he is fully prepared. Regardless of her reasoning we know at this juncture she is right to oppose him as he has admitted he is missing something and has no idea how to continue.

 

Until he explains the situation rationally and asks everyone for help, why should she not take this stance? After all Cads has already confirmed one of Min's guesses, wouldn't it be better if they were all on the same page? Now there may be a reason Rand had to play the AS and manipulate her into opposing him. Guess we will find out in aMoL.

 

Lastly as for the "shining paragon" I challenge you to go through the forums and look for good/bad posts on Eggy. I can assure you the anti Eggy hyperbole runs a million times higher. People never just out of the blue bring up how awesome she is. The only time it is mentioned is when people start tearing her down(which happens on an hourly basis) and others finally get sick of it and step up to defend her.

[MasterAblar]

Egwene describes her objection to Rand's plan with the seals to Nynaeve and Elayne, and far from arguing that he should be better prepared before breaking them thinks that he is fully prepared and simply shouldn't break them at all. Yet her fans try to assign the former argument to her instead because they rightly think it holds more water than the one Egwene herself puts forward.

 

So no one should question the DR is that it? Just blindly follow whatever seemingly mad scheme he presents? What she thinks is there should be someway Rand can succeed against the DO without breaking the seals. This of course is different than thinking he is fully prepared. Regardless of her reasoning we know at this juncture she is right to oppose him as he has admitted he is missing something and has no idea how to continue.

 

Until he explains the situation rationally and asks everyone for help, why should she not take this stance? After all Cads has already confirmed one of Min's guesses, wouldn't it be better if they were all on the same page? Now there may be a reason Rand had to play the AS and manipulate her into opposing him. Guess we will find out in aMoL.

 

Lastly as for the "shining paragon" I challenge you to go through the forums and look for good/bad posts on Eggy. I can assure you the anti Eggy hyperbole runs a million times higher. People never just out of the blue bring up how awesome she is. The only time it is mentioned is when people start tearing her down(which happens on an hourly basis) and others step up to defend her.

 

Neither opposing him nor supporting him are the right stances in this situation in my opinion. Waiting to learn more before making her decision would be the right position to take in this situation, especially since he said he would meet with them at the FoM. There's no risk of him taking action before then. She's already decided to oppose him because she doesn't want the seals broken, not because he doesn't have a plan for what to do afterwards. She's never questioned his ability to seal the DO just the necessity of breaking the seals to do so. Of course it's her right to oppose that if she wants to, though why she is so certain that they don't need to be broken is beyond me, but she's going to have a lot of angry monarchs to deal with if she is wrong. It also makes the WT look bad. This wouldn't be a risk if she had shown more caution.

[Suttree]

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

Was Eggy wrong in what she did to Nyn...of course. She was terrified of not being able to continue learning in Tar, and made a bad decision in trying to cover it up.

 

The above analogy is ridiculous however on a few levels. One Eggy can control with a thought the dream she showed Nyn, she controls it, it disappears exactly when she wants. Of course someone wouldn't be able to control real life thugs so there is no comparison between the two.

 

Second we must look at motivations, in the example a man is cheating on his wife. With Egwene we know she wants to learn Tar to best help fight the shadow. She is learning something that will help the greater good, and is scared she will be unable to continue. A far cry from some scumbag having an affair.

[David Selig]

 

I don't even understand your first comment. Are you trying to tell me Nynaeve never gets physically violent? Or that she doesn't try to hide when she's wrong or put the best face on situations that make her look bad (which she herself admits she does)? If you are, you're a lunatic. I think you're trying to set the scenario so narrow that I can't find an EXACT situation where Nynaeve does the same, but that's quite disingenuous. But yes Nynaeve hits people, and yes she hates to reveal or admit when she's wrong, or has done wrong. When she lies to Egwene about not having drank the fokroot tea, she feels bad because it she had never lied "to Egwene" before. Not that she had never lied to anyone before. And the fact that Egwene isn't surprised or annoyed means it's pretty common in their relationship for Nynaeve to do just that.

No. I am saying that Nynaeve doesn't use violence to cover up her lies or broken promises. She hates to admit she's wrong, sure, and when she's angry, prone to use violence, though that's almost all talk and very little action. But as much as she hates to admit being wrong, she's never used violence to avoid it.

 

Also Nynaeve actually keeps her promises unlike Egwene. She may grumble about having to do it and hate every second, but she keeps her word. Despite her supposed "worshipping" of her teachers, Egwene broke her promise to Amys not to go alone in TAR numerous times.

[Himiko]

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

Was Eggy wrong in what she did to Nyn...of course. She was terrified of not being able to continue learning in Tar, and made a bad decision in trying to cover it up.

 

The above analogy is ridiculous however on a few levels. One Eggy can control with a thought the dream she showed Nyn, she controls it, it disappears exactly when she wants. Of course someone wouldn't be able to control real life thugs so there is no comparison between the two.

 

Second we must look at motivations, in the example a man is cheating on his wife. With Egwene we know she wants to learn Tar to best help fight the shadow. She is learning something that will help the greater good, and is scared she will be unable to continue. A far cry from some scumbag having an affair.

 

I accept your issues with the analogy, that's fair enough. I do think that to some extent, a love of learning and wanting to be better at TAR certainly comes into it as much as wanting to fight the Shadow- if there was no one to fight, I don't doubt that Egwene would still have wanted to keep learning, and keep her secret, and may well have followed the same course of action, however, we will never know whether I'm right or not, so I think this issue is where people diverge. Was Egwene covering up her secret for the greater good, was she doing it because she wanted to learn for herself, or was it a mixture of the above?

 

What annoys me on the subject is when this scene is brought up, you inevitably get people saying that "Oh, Egwene did it because of the dangers in TAR, not because she wanted to cover up her secret!", despite the exact opposite being confirmed in the text, or, my personal favourite, "Nynaeve was in a position of authority over Egwene once, so its totally OK that Egwene enjoys bullying her and the idea of making her flinch with a word!"

 

There is a world of difference between "Egwene made a bad decision, but its for the right reasons, IMO, so it doesn't affect my overall positive viewpoint of the character", which is what you're saying, and "Egwene did nothing wrong! She was motivated mostly by making sure Nynaeve was safe, and Nynaeve's so mean to people anyway!" which seems to me to be, in the first case, willful misinterpretation of text, and in the second, saying that what Egwene did was OK, because when Nynaeve acted in a similar manner (if she ever did) it was horrible bullying..?

[Guest PiotrekS]

Egwene is extremely self-righteous, which grates on me, but even that is not my biggest problem with her. Actually, my problem is not one with her character, but the writing involved in her chapters. You never get the feeling she is intelligent or skilled when things go her way, because almost every time her opponents magically turn into retards when ever she is nearby in order to make her seem smart by comparison. Her so called brilliant manipulations could be seen from a mile off by anyone who actually bothered to think. These Aes Sedai are supposed to be masters of intrigue with 100s of years of experience in some cases, and they get played like children by a 20 year old girl? Please.

 

Im tired of things being handed to her on a silver platter, she is no ta'veren, so she doesn't even have that excuse. Actually, even the ta'veren come across as believable in their various struggles. Egwene does not.

 

Oh, while im at it. Egwene is certainly not a person I would ever want to meet. Besides her naturally arrogant manner(She always talks about taking Rand down a peg when he was being arrogant, but who does the same for her?), she is horrid to her supposed friends. I am reminded of the time she frightened Ny'neave to hide her own trespasses from the WO, and the fact that she was especially cruel to her during her testing, in order to secure her own position and assure the rest she wasn't playing favorites. She was downright vicious about it.

 

Somewhere along the line she has gotten it into her head that she knows whats best about everything. When others support Rand, she blames it on his ta'veren nature, which made me itch to slap her. Has she forgotten what a ta'veren is? The pattern bends to help them with whatever task is required of them. Is she suggesting that she knows better than the damn universe? She should get with the program.

 

That pretty much sums up what I think about Egwene. The writing is the main problem, second - Egwene's extremely self-righteous and pompous attitude. Even when she says or does somethin right, the manner of it makes me cringe.

 

Frightens Nyn to hide her tresspass in TAR? WHAT THE ****?!

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings. And that's something Nynaeve does consistantly, is ignore people who know better just because she can't admit to herself anyone could possibly teach her anything. One of the awesome things about Egwene is that she worships and respects the people she recognizes have something to teach her.

 

Now, after that point, Egwene got into her young-adult mode of treating Nynaeve as Nynaeve had treated her for YEARS before hand. She realized how to 'handle' her friend so that Nyneave wouldn't 'handle' her. And I think it's ridiculous that people will trash Egwene for that when Nyneave does it to _everyone_. Nynaeve even says to herself she needs to regain the "upper hand" with Egwene. So don't go trashing Egwene for how she treats Nyneave when Nyneave treats EVERYONE that way and becomes depressed when Egwene beats her at her own game.

 

I know that some critiques of Egwene are exaggerated, but in that case it is exactly what happened - as David Selig has shown. Furthermore, Egwene herself quite a few times broke her promise to the WOs (the ones she worships and respects )about venturing alone into TAR, so her attitude to Nynaeve in that respect is totally unacceptable.

 

I also honestly don't know where did you find this notion that Nynaeve was abusive towards Egwene in Two Rivers and that Egwene just turned the tables on her. In fact, it was Nynaeve who cared deeply for Egwene, healed her as a child and decided to train her to be a future Wisdom, which was probably the best career she could get in Two Rivers. She left Two Rivers to find not only the boys, but also Egwene.

 

Nynaeve was older and she was in a teaching position, which allowed her to discipline Egwene. But there is absolutely no comparision with what Egwene did - Nynaeve could be overly emotional, but you could always say she cared deeply about others. She would be uncapable of the level of cruelty that Egwene achieves so effortlessly when dealing with Nyn.

 

Abusive? what the hell. Just because you and your ilk go way off the deep end claiming ridiculous things about egwene doesn't mean I do the same for Nyneave. When I say they are similar, I mean they are similarly moderate in being stubborn women who both want to always have the upper-hand on people. Neither of them ABUSE anyone. But they will play games with people to try to get their way. Both of them. And Nyneave is physically violent, and she will refuse help from people, and she will (by her own admission) put the best face on situations.

 

Egwene on the other hand worships people who teach her just about anything. However she's often too impatient, and gets tied up in a few of her lies/secrets.

 

Also age has noething to do with it. Egwene is the TAR student, not Nyneave. Egwene absolutely has authority on that matter over Nyneave, and Nyneave is foolish if she doesn't listen. But then again why would Nyneave listen to Egwene if she won't even admit wise one dreamwalkers have anything worthwhile to tell her. That's probably one of Nyn's biggest character flaws and Egwene had to work damn hard to get through to her that TAR is dangerous, and that no she cannot handle it as easily as she thinks.

 

Nyneve lies to Egwene about the forkroot tea and you claim she's all super moral authority on everything. She only tells Egwene the truth when she thinks it's the reason she lost her mojo. SO don't try to claim that Egwene doesn't respect Wise Ones just because she's caught in her "Aes Sedai" lie, and she's impatient in learning.

 

Though I'll let you read my previous post before I go too nuts on this because i know it was posted while I was still digging quotes out. Since I think a more detailed review of that TAR scene is required. But in summary, trying to claim Egwene had Nyneve raped just to hide her lie is COMPLETELY ridiculous, just absurdly wrong. All she did was talk fast to avoid further questions, everything was legit.

 

And this is before you go too nuts on this?OMG, I'd better run Just joking!

 

I've read your posts Kael - and attentively. I still understand the scene differently - and I'm perfectly allowed to do that, because it is absolutely reasonable to read it the way "me and my ilk" do (and btw, who might "my ilk" be? If they are Himiko, David Selig or randsc, then I'm happy with that!).

 

I respect your knowledge of the series and accept your freedom to interpret the text in your way within reasonable boundaries. I ask only for the same, even if my interpretation is in your eyes "COMPLETELY ridiculous or absurdly wrong".

 

You might try to assess your own interpretation with a little more critical eye though, because your distinction "Egwene talks fast to avoid further questions, but summons the thughs only to teach Nynaeve about the dangers of TAR" is obviously, desperately artificial and simply weak. It is a single scene, the events happen fast, it lasts for a short amount of time and Egwene is scared not that Nynaeve will get hurt in TAR (do we see even one line when she worries that Nyn will get hurt in TAR before this "lesson"?), but that her secret will be uncovered. The majoriy of readers posting here read it as an obvious attempt to cover her lie (even some Egwene fans, as you can see), so maybe your reading isn't as persuasive as you might think? Or everybody else is biased, right?

 

About being abusive - I think that in this scene in TAR and later in Nynaeve's test Egwene is abusive and cruel, hurting Nynaeve beyond any reasonable need either to make her more cautious in TAR, or to test her as an Aes Sedai.Therefore I challenged your interpretation that Egwene just beat Nynaeve in her own game. Nynaeve's game was some shouting and an occasional thump with a stick (and I think it was usually aimed at TR men, e.g. Mat, rather than Egwene), not an elaborate torture, which both these scenes in my eyes amount to.

 

I don't claim Nynaeve is a "super moral authority on everything". But yes, I claim she is a very good person and even though she sometimes acts wrongly, her motivation is always the good of other people. So, if Nynaeve hits me with a stick, I can forgive her because I know she is concerned for me, just nervous sometimes (I don't say she shouldn't work on it). If Egwene brings me to TAR and puts me in a TAR-created trolloc cookpot, I might think it is a slightly different case...

[Xcorpyo001]

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

Was Eggy wrong in what she did to Nyn...of course. She was terrified of not being able to continue learning in Tar, and made a bad decision in trying to cover it up.

 

The above analogy is ridiculous however on a few levels. One Eggy can control with a thought the dream she showed Nyn, she controls it, it disappears exactly when she wants. Of course someone wouldn't be able to control real life thugs so there is no comparison between the two.

 

Second we must look at motivations, in the example a man is cheating on his wife. With Egwene we know she wants to learn Tar to best help fight the shadow. She is learning something that will help the greater good, and is scared she will be unable to continue. A far cry from some scumbag having an affair.

 

She was terrified to be caught in a lie, and that the WO will find out she's a fraud AS and broke her promises to them.

I think that analogy is perfect.

Yes, she controlled the shadows ad made them disappear exactly when she wanted...after Nyn had real wounds on her back and her legs. Nynaeve had to cover it up by telling Elayne she hurt herself in some thorns.

Nynaeve is her friend. She could just ask her nicely to keep the thing a secret. But torture is a much better tool to make your point. Semirhage seems to think the same thing.

And she doesn't seem to think she did anything wrong, or even apologize. This is the only thing that irks me. Everybody makes mistakes, especially Nyn&co. But all of them apologize/admit they were wrong.

 

And she wants to continue to control/frighten her, just so she can have the upper hand. I still hope it's some of Fain taint from Fal Dara, or else she's just a ....(not a very nice person)

 

Guiltily, she realized as she turned a page that she was looking forward to seeing Nynaeve tonight. Not because Nynaeve was a friend, but because she wanted to see if the effects had lingered.

 

She wants to learn to control TaR because she wants to be the best Dreamer the tower ever had. At that time, she was only using TaR to train by herself, although she promised the WO she will not do it(and they believed her because she was AS of the Green Ajah), and it was dangerous(she actually hurt Nynaeve worse that the Forsaken did in TaR to prove that), spied on Rand's and Avi's dreams, and other non-shadow related stuff.

Nyn, Brigitte and Elayne actually fought the Shadow/Forsaken in TaR, without the Super Dreamer's help.

 

EDIT 2: Just reading FoH and found another quote about this:

“You tell her from me that she is too old to be rolling about on the ground fighting. If she gets into another, I’ll have worse to say to her. You tell her that exactly. It will be worse.” Let Nynaeve chew on that until next time. Either she would be mild as a lamb . . . Or else Egwene would just have to carry through on her threat. Nynaeve might be stronger in the Power, when she could channel, but here, Egwene was.

[Kahsm]

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings. And that's something Nynaeve does consistantly, is ignore people who know better just because she can't admit to herself anyone could possibly teach her anything. One of the awesome things about Egwene is that she worships and respects the people she recognizes have something to teach her.

 

Seriously, Kael? I'm kind of getting tired of this "If you read a scene and come out with a negative impression of Egwene, then you have read it WRONG, because I like Egwene and I have a different interpretation to yours, so my reading is RIGHT." attitude in certain pro-Egwene posts.

 

Egwene starts her rant on the dangers of TAR only AFTER Nynaeve mentions her being on her own. There is no evidence to suggest that she had any intention of giving Nynaeve her "lesson" until it looked like she might get busted for doing something she shouldn't. Afterwards, she thinks about how she'd kept the focus on what Nynaeve had done wrong, because she desperately didn't want the WOs finding out about what she'd done- that was clearly the focus and the reasoning behind it. Later on, she is delighted with how the balance is shifted- not because the balance is now equal, but because now she can make Nynaeve jump and cringe with a look and a sentence. She is disappointed when Nynaeve doesn't appear again, despite the fact that the end result is exactly the same with seeing Elayne, because she was looking forward to using her new skills on Nynaeve again. There is no evidence in the text to suggest that Egwene planned any of what she did to Nynaeve, and there is plenty of evidence that her primary motivation was to cover up what Egwene did wrong.

 

No-one is debating that Nynaeve is not as good as the Aiel dreamwalkers. No-one is debating that TAR is dangerous. But in Egwene's mind, the dangers of TAR are just mentioned as an aside, putting Nynaeve off the scent of the WOs, and cowing her/ distracting her until she doesn't ask any more questions is her aim. The text is perfectly clear on that. Saying "the dangers she had told Nynaeve about were true" would have been a totally irrelevant sentence had educating Nynaeve been her initial aim, that would simply have been assumed. That sentence is there only to serve to tell us that, despite Egwene's aims being her own secrets, she told the truth about TAR being dangerous.

 

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

I'm actually kind of curious- if they hadn't been in TAR, or if Nynaeve had been more experienced, and caught Egwene out THEN, do you really think that Egwene would have said "Oh, fair enough, the Wise Ones won't let me come here yet", or would she have done exactly what she did- turn on Nynaeve with some other pretext until her secret was forgotten?

 

You highlighted the passage where Nynaeve talks about the balance shifting between her and Egwene. Note that first she talks about how the balance shifted to being the Wisdom and the girl who jumped to being two women far from home (which Nynaeve herself started in TGH, by telling Egwene that they were no longer Wisdom and Apprentice, and Egwene shouldn't give her the title), she THEN talks about how the balance has shifted further- ie. they are no longer equal, Egwene sees herself/ is seen as "superior", and that is what Nynaeve has a problem with. That's how I read it. Let me guess - I need to read the text again until I agree with you?

 

No, you are not allowed to have an opinion on the text if there is other text that obviously discredits your interpretation. And I have been pretty thorough in explaining why the various lines across the entire chapter and 2 PoVs discredit the idea that Egwene had Nynaeve ravaged just to hide her secret. It simply cannot be true, it is not a matter of "interpretation".

 

And yes you do need to read it again because you apparently missed the part where Nynaeve thinks, "She felt robed in all her old authority as wisdom." Which means she's not going for equal, she wants the power back. That is why they are very similar people, as I have often maintained.

 

You must have also missed the other two quotes where Nyneave thinks, "their quarrels were over Egwene refusing to see reason" meaning Nyneve feels she is _always_ correct and Egwene is _always_ wrong. Is that the "equal" you think Nynaeve is hoping for? Or, "they seldom ended pleasantly since the girl had form the habit of continuing to refuse." She doesn't say 'bad' habit, but I think it's implied that Egwene not backing down to her on _all_ issues, since we already established she thinks she's _always_ right, is not something she approves of. Oh it also implies that she herself also never backs down, which, again, shows how similar these two women are. So how on earth do you think that Nyneave means equal given all that?

 

I do see how you could take that one line you quoted and think Nyneave meant to move it back to the middle. But that's clearly not what she believes given the rest of the context.

 

When did I ever say that Egwene wasn't trying to hide her lack of permission for being in TAR? I admit she did so by talking quickly. That's in her PoV. You guys point to her PoV as evidence she raped Nynaeve to cover up her "lie". But that's not what it says at all, and there's no interpretation to say that. She says, in her own mind, where there's no reason to lie, that she spoke quickly and continuously to keep Nynaeve from prying out her secret. "All she could do was talk, try to keep the focus on whatever Nyneave was doing wrong." Was that a nice thing to do? Probably not, does it make her a horrible person? Not really. Did Nyneave complain about her methods? No, she only complained about losing her dominance with the girl.

 

Here's how the scene went down with the subtleties.

 

Egwene bumps into Nyneave in the Amyrlin's study.

Nynaeve goes to ask her if she's finally allowed to go about TAR alone, Egwene doesn't want Nynaeve to pry so she interjects quickly with the dangers of TAR. Egwene's cheeks flush.

 

In Nyneave's PoV she recalls how their argument's usually go: "Something in that should have sparked Egwene's ire. It seemed odd to want to start a row. Usually their quarrels were over Egwene refusing to see reason, and they seldom ended pleasantly since the girl had form the habit of continuing to refuse."

 

Why does Nynaeve want to start trouble? Because that's how their relationship has worked for so long, usually with her winning that way. It's comfortable, likely for both of them which is why in Egwene's PoV she notes this:

 

"No matter how Nyneave had made her, she could not seem to bring up a shout." So Egwene was trying to shout at Nynaeve, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Why was that? Because she was embarrassed at being caught, remember her cheeks flushing? Egwene was not manipulating Nynaeve purposly, she was trying to shout as they usually do, but she was too embarrassed and worried Nynaeve would fret out her secret to shout, that's the reason her voice stayed calm.

 

Then she realized the inadvertant calmness had been the reason she gained the upper hand with Nynaeve. She puts that together with Moiraine and the wise ones. "Moiraine seldom raised her voice, and when she did she was least effective in having what she wanted done. It had been so even before she had began behaving so strangely with Rand."

 

And as others have quoted, Egwene is excited to try again. Which obviously Nynaeve would be as well if, say, she had figured out how to cow Moiraine with a calm womanly tone. The reason Nynaeve is so bothered by Egwene is because she cannot win by shouting, or at least, their once-comfortable shouting matches have come to an end and it makes Egwene look less childish.

 

So in answer to your question, I do think they would have argued about the dangers of TAR anyway, but I think they both would have yelled as they normally would, and both of them would have been fine with that. After all, that's how their relationship works. But Egwene's embarassment caused her to be cowed into calmness, which tripped up Nyneave and gave Egwene a eurika moment in realizing why Moiraine and the Wise Ones often speak that way.

[Suttree]

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

Was Eggy wrong in what she did to Nyn...of course. She was terrified of not being able to continue learning in Tar, and made a bad decision in trying to cover it up.

 

The above analogy is ridiculous however on a few levels. One Eggy can control with a thought the dream she showed Nyn, she controls it, it disappears exactly when she wants. Of course someone wouldn't be able to control real life thugs so there is no comparison between the two.

 

Second we must look at motivations, in the example a man is cheating on his wife. With Egwene we know she wants to learn Tar to best help fight the shadow. She is learning something that will help the greater good, and is scared she will be unable to continue. A far cry from some scumbag having an affair.

 

She was terrified to be caught in a lie, and that the WO will find out she's a fraud AS and broke her promises to them.

I think that analogy is perfect. ...

 

She wants to learn to control TaR because she wants to be the best Dreamer the tower ever had. At that time, she was only using TaR to train by herself, although she promised the WO she will not do it(and they believed her because she was AS of the Green Ajah), and it was dangerous(she actually hurt Nynaeve worse that the Forsaken did in TaR to prove that), spied on Rand's and Avi's dreams, and other non-shadow related stuff.

Nyn, Brigitte and Elayne actually fought the Shadow/Forsaken in TaR, without the Super Dreamer's help.

 

Not sure what you are getting at with all this? Are you saying Egwene's goal in all she is learning is not to face the shadow but for some other purpose? All her training led to her personally defeating a forsaken so I'm not really sure what your point is.

 

As for the lie IRC it had nothing to do with not being AS, it had everything to do with her not supposed to be in Tar with out WOs because she was still an apprentice. If they found out she would no longer be able to train and that is what she is scared of.

[Xcorpyo001]

@ Kael Pyralis

Don't take it the wrong way, but you sound and act like Egwene did in those instances.

 

Point is, she tries to bully Nyn into submission to cover her wrongdoings, to the point that she actually hurts Nynaeve, and Nyn wakes up with wounds on her body. You can't misunderstand that episode even if you try(although you seem to have managed to do exactly that).

She never feels sorry, tries to apologise, but she states that if she won't be like a lamb next time, she'll do worse.

“You tell her from me that she is too old to be rolling about on the ground fighting. If she gets into another, I’ll have worse to say to her. You tell her that exactly. It will be worse.” Let Nynaeve chew on that until next time. Either she would be mild as a lamb . . . Or else Egwene would just have to carry through on her threat. Nynaeve might be stronger in the Power, when she could channel, but here, Egwene was.

 

How can we misinterpret this? Or Nynaeve's wounds? Or the fact that Egwene is doing this to Nynaeve trying to cover up the fact that she is doing the same thing she 'warns' Nynaeve against. After she talks to Elayne again, she's almost trapped by Moghedien, because she's alone in TaR. She didn't even realised she was attacked by a Forsaken.

 

And the part about Nynaeve thinking she's right is so bad but Egwene doing the same thing and beating the crap out of Nynaeve is perfectly understandable is hilarious.

 

Nynaeve feels bad because she didn't told her friend(Egwene) the whole truth, and tells her that she was captured by a woman using a plant she didn't knew, admitting that she has flaws and she doesn't like keeping secrets from her friend. Egwene hurts her friend and wants to do it again, if she's not submissive as a lamb, so she can keep a secret from her. I personally think Nynaeve has the higher position in this friendship thing, at least in this instance. Again, I still hope it was some Fain induced madness.

 

 

gave Egwene a eurika moment in realizing why Moiraine and the Wise Ones often speak that way.

Do they also physically hurt/torture people they want to convince with a calm voice? I must have missed Moiraine doing that.

 

EDIT

@ Sutree.

By personally you mean helped by Nyn&co, WO, and author shield, represented there by the arrival of Perrin and Gawyn. Sorry, Gawin and a second later Perrin in that order. If Perrin arrived with several seconds before Gawyn, the poor guy would have had to walk all the way from Caemlyn to save her. Egwene really planed their arrival perfectly. Oh, wait, she didn't.

Anyway, I was talking about the fight against the shadow in TaR in tFoH, where she did nothing much beside 'warning' Nynaeve and doing the same thing she warned her against. And don't even try to say she was better at TaR than Nynaeve, because Moghedien played with her after she talked with Elayne, and she didn't even realized, thinking she was just tired and she couldn't focus. Both of them should have stayed out of TaR, but Egwene thinks that she's too good to be trapped in TaR.

 

The WO trust her completely because she promised them she will do everything they say. And the WO believe her because they think she's AS and she can't lie. So if they find out the whole truth they'll punish her further.

Again, she could just trust Nynaeve and ask her to help in keeping the secret.

Beating her up and planing to do worse when she discover that she can bully her and Nyn will keep it a secret is not a very good thing, at least from my pov.

You are free to think different.

 

She has to fight the Shadow in her dream, so it's perfectly understandable to hurt her friends in TaR to hide the fact she's doing some things that can get her killed without supervision(Moghe)?!? Maybe you are right. Some sacrifices are required.

One question though: how will she fight the Shadow if she's killed by a Forsaken before she can complete her training?

[Guest PiotrekS]

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

Was Eggy wrong in what she did to Nyn...of course. She was terrified of not being able to continue learning in Tar, and made a bad decision in trying to cover it up.

 

The above analogy is ridiculous however on a few levels. One Eggy can control with a thought the dream she showed Nyn, she controls it, it disappears exactly when she wants. Of course someone wouldn't be able to control real life thugs so there is no comparison between the two.

 

Second we must look at motivations, in the example a man is cheating on his wife. With Egwene we know she wants to learn Tar to best help fight the shadow. She is learning something that will help the greater good, and is scared she will be unable to continue. A far cry from some scumbag having an affair.

 

She was terrified to be caught in a lie, and that the WO will find out she's a fraud AS and broke her promises to them.

I think that analogy is perfect. ...

 

She wants to learn to control TaR because she wants to be the best Dreamer the tower ever had. At that time, she was only using TaR to train by herself, although she promised the WO she will not do it(and they believed her because she was AS of the Green Ajah), and it was dangerous(she actually hurt Nynaeve worse that the Forsaken did in TaR to prove that), spied on Rand's and Avi's dreams, and other non-shadow related stuff.

Nyn, Brigitte and Elayne actually fought the Shadow/Forsaken in TaR, without the Super Dreamer's help.

 

Not sure what you are getting at with all this? Are you saying Egwene's goal in all she is learning is not to face the shadow but for some other purpose? All her training led to her personally defeating a forsaken so I'm not really sure what your point is.

 

As for the lie IRC it had nothing to do with not being AS, it had everything to do with her not supposed to be in Tar with out WOs because she was still an apprentice. If they found out she would no longer be able to train and that is what she is scared of.

 

I guess you can say that Egwene has a strong personal desire to learn and go up in the hierarchy of any group she belongs to, so her willingness to master the Dreaming talent is first and foremost a personal thing, she wants to learn, to get better. Before somebody misunderstands - yes, it a good and positive feature of Egwene. I don't think though that "defeating the Shadow" is the main reason she decided to train with the WOs - it was the same motivation that made her leave Two Rivers and strive to be an Aes Sedai and she had no idea then that her career (or self-fulfillment, if you prefer) would have any significance in the war against the Shadow.

 

It is similar to the situation in Salidar after Egwene has been chosen as an Amyrlin - she did not want to be manipulated and fought for a real power, not because it was necessary to defeat the Shadow, but because she has a strong sense of self-esteem and would not be a puppet, no matter what. So I guess Egwene would probably try to go as far up as she could in Aes Sedao organization and develop her Dreaming even if there was no war with the Shadow at all.She is not like Rand or Moiraine who sacrifice their own needs and dreams for the good of the world - she tries to help the world while achieving personal goals as well.

[AshaShan]

Egwene describes her objection to Rand's plan with the seals to Nynaeve and Elayne, and far from arguing that he should be better prepared before breaking them thinks that he is fully prepared and simply shouldn't break them at all. Yet her fans try to assign the former argument to her instead because they rightly think it holds more water than the one Egwene herself puts forward.

 

So no one should question the DR is that it? Just blindly follow whatever seemingly mad scheme he presents? What she thinks is there should be someway Rand can succeed against the DO without breaking the seals. This of course is different than thinking he is fully prepared. Regardless of her reasoning we know at this juncture she is right to oppose him as he has admitted he is missing something and has no idea how to continue.

 

Until he explains the situation rationally and asks everyone for help, why should she not take this stance? After all Cads has already confirmed one of Min's guesses, wouldn't it be better if they were all on the same page? Now there may be a reason Rand had to play the AS and manipulate her into opposing him. Guess we will find out in aMoL.

 

When did I say no-one should question? What I said is that people shouldn't apply their own motivations to characteres that have already explained what they think and why they think it. Egwene's fans like to harp on the "Rand should dot the i's and cross the t's before breaking the Seals" thing, but Egwene herself does not agree with them. Its weird to me that you guys make up stuff in defense of her character that contradicts the explanations she herself has given.

 

I know there's a lot of words, but maybe you should read my posts before you make replies that don't make any sense given what I actually said. In her own PoV she says, "All she could do was talk, try to keep the focus on whatever Nyneave was doing wrong" (TFoH chap 15). Which means what she told Nyneave was all true, as she sees it (and as the wise ones's see it), but it was just her not letting Nyneave get her questions in by talking over her that was the "cover up".

 

"She had been so afraid that Nynaeve would learn that she certainly did not have the Wise Ones’ permission to jaunt about in the World of Dreams alone, so sure that the flush of embarrassment had given her away, that all she could think of was keeping Nynaeve from speaking, keeping her from winkling out the truth." - That is Egwene al'Vere's own explanation for what she did and why she did it. Its an ugly explanation though, and you want to see her as someone who wouldn't be motivated by such things so feel free to try and make up some other motivation for her.

[Kahsm]

@ Kael Pyralis

Don't take it the wrong way, but you sound and act like Egwene did in those instances.

Obviously I would take that as a compliment ;)

 

Point is, she tries to bully Nyn into submission to cover her wrongdoings, to the point that she actually hurts Nynaeve, and Nyn wakes up with wounds on her body. You can't misunderstand that episode even if you try(although you seem to have managed to do exactly that).

 

Where is your evidence that she bullied Nyn? Or that the bullying, specifically, was to cover her wrong doing? I don't want to write this all out fir the third time, but her PoV says she spoke quickly to cover her wrong doing, that's all. What she said was irrelevant to that.

 

Also, how do you get that she bullied Nyn at all? That would imply Egwene knew what she was doing, but she clearly states in her PoV she was surprised she couldn't manage to shout, and surprised that the inadvertent calmness worked so well. Her intention was to have a normal shouting match as they usually do.

 

You look at wounds and think that the person who inflicted them has zero right, well that's ridiculous. Context always matters, and if you refuse to listen or acknowledge any counter-argument, then you can never be anything more than ideological.

 

She never feels sorry, tries to apologise, but she states that if she won't be like a lamb next time, she'll do worse.

“You tell her from me that she is too old to be rolling about on the ground fighting. If she gets into another, I’ll have worse to say to her. You tell her that exactly. It will be worse.” Let Nynaeve chew on that until next time. Either she would be mild as a lamb . . . Or else Egwene would just have to carry through on her threat. Nynaeve might be stronger in the Power, when she could channel, but here, Egwene was.

 

Yeah, her threat to "SAY" worse. What threat did she make regarding the nightmares? None. Egwene never told Nynaeve that she'd make the nightmares again, or worse, if she didn't do as she was told... It was a demonstration that Nynaeve couldn't control TAR as well as she thought she could, that is all. The threat is the one you quoted "If she gets into another, I’ll have worse to say to her." <-- that is a threat. And she's hoping it would keep Nynaeve meek, if not she would indeed have to say worse to her. Get it?

 

How can we misinterpret this? Or Nynaeve's wounds? Or the fact that Egwene is doing this to Nynaeve trying to cover up the fact that she is doing the same thing she 'warns' Nynaeve against. After she talks to Elayne again, she's almost trapped by Moghedien, because she's alone in TaR. She didn't even realised she was attacked by a Forsaken.

 

Apparently you manage.

 

The difference is that Egewne knows and understands the risks, and does what she does anyway. Nynaeve does not, and refuses to admit the dangers actually exist, because she refuses to admit anyone has anything to teach her. Now, I have never defended Egwene's decision to tromp about TAR unguided, but pounding the dangers into Nynaeve is not the same as telling her she should never be doing it. And Egwene doesn't tell her to NOT use TAR, so she's not actually being hypocritical, she just wants Nynaeve to truly accept how dangerous it is.

 

And the part about Nynaeve thinking she's right is so bad but Egwene doing the same thing and beating the crap out of Nynaeve is perfectly understandable is hilarious.

 

I didn't say either was right, I think they're both probably overly-pig-headed. But that's who they are, even they accept it of one another, that's why they stay close. You're the one who can't accept it.

 

Nynaeve feels bad because she didn't told her friend(Egwene) the whole truth, and tells her that she was captured by a woman using a plant she didn't knew, admitting that she has flaws and she doesn't like keeping secrets from her friend. Egwene hurts her friend and wants to do it again, if she's not submissive as a lamb, so she can keep a secret from her. I personally think Nynaeve has the higher position in this friendship thing, at least in this instance. Again, I still hope it was some Fain induced madness.

Nynaeve did feel bad, but the only reason she confessed is because she felt that was the reason she had lost the upper hand. That's extremely clear in the text. But I agree, she was certainly uncomfortable. but...

 

The lie. She had deliberately lied to Egwene for the first time ever today. That was why her moral authority had vanished, why she was floundering around unable to assert herself properly.

 

Funny how Egwene's dominance she attributes not to Egwene being dominate at all, but herself being off her game.

 

gave Egwene a eurika moment in realizing why Moiraine and the Wise Ones often speak that way.

Do they also physically hurt/torture people they want to convince with a calm voice? I must have missed Moiraine doing that.

 

So Egwene now tortured Nynaeve into not asking about whether she was allowed in TAR? Are you serious? Gee, I wonder why I think you guys don't understand when you make ridiculous statements like that. I said nothing of the kind, and neither has Egwene, and I'd challenge you to find any textual evidence to suggest that's remotely true.

[Xcorpyo001]

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

Was Eggy wrong in what she did to Nyn...of course. She was terrified of not being able to continue learning in Tar, and made a bad decision in trying to cover it up.

 

The above analogy is ridiculous however on a few levels. One Eggy can control with a thought the dream she showed Nyn, she controls it, it disappears exactly when she wants. Of course someone wouldn't be able to control real life thugs so there is no comparison between the two.

 

Second we must look at motivations, in the example a man is cheating on his wife. With Egwene we know she wants to learn Tar to best help fight the shadow. She is learning something that will help the greater good, and is scared she will be unable to continue. A far cry from some scumbag having an affair.

 

She was terrified to be caught in a lie, and that the WO will find out she's a fraud AS and broke her promises to them.

I think that analogy is perfect. ...

 

She wants to learn to control TaR because she wants to be the best Dreamer the tower ever had. At that time, she was only using TaR to train by herself, although she promised the WO she will not do it(and they believed her because she was AS of the Green Ajah), and it was dangerous(she actually hurt Nynaeve worse that the Forsaken did in TaR to prove that), spied on Rand's and Avi's dreams, and other non-shadow related stuff.

Nyn, Brigitte and Elayne actually fought the Shadow/Forsaken in TaR, without the Super Dreamer's help.

 

Not sure what you are getting at with all this? Are you saying Egwene's goal in all she is learning is not to face the shadow but for some other purpose? All her training led to her personally defeating a forsaken so I'm not really sure what your point is.

 

As for the lie IRC it had nothing to do with not being AS, it had everything to do with her not supposed to be in Tar with out WOs because she was still an apprentice. If they found out she would no longer be able to train and that is what she is scared of.

 

I guess you can say that Egwene has a strong personal desire to learn and go up in the hierarchy of any group she belongs to, so her willingness to master the Dreaming talent is first and foremost a personal thing, she wants to learn, to get better. Before somebody misunderstands - yes, it a good and positive feature of Egwene. I don't think though that "defeating the Shadow" is the main reason she decided to train with the WOs - it was the same motivation that made her leave Two Rivers and strive to be an Aes Sedai and she had no idea then that her career (or self-fulfillment, if you prefer) would have any significance in the war against the Shadow.

 

It is similar to the situation in Salidar after Egwene has been chosen as an Amyrlin - she did not want to be manipulated and fought for a real power, not because it was necessary to defeat the Shadow, but because she has a strong sense of self-esteem and would not be a puppet, no matter what. So I guess Egwene would probably try to go as far up as she could in Aes Sedao organization and develop her Dreaming even if there was no war with the Shadow at all.She is not like Rand or Moiraine who sacrifice their own needs and dreams for the good of the world - she tries to help the world while achieving personal goals as well.

 

 

Ahhh, a post that actually seems to be on topic, and also an unbiased opinion. Forgot how one should look like.

Yes you are right. She tries to do good, while also trying to improve herself, even if sometimes she is to zealous in her quest for knowledge/power.

 

I don't know why I seem to make a lot of anti-Egwene posts lately. Honestly, there are only three(maybe four) things I don't like about her character:

-the 'she never listens to anyone' 'seems to think she's always right' 'takes unnecessary risks' and believes that 'all men are stupid, childish or even shadowspawn' all enter in the 'she's a woman in the WoT wold'

-she beats up Nynaeve in TaR and never apologizes/feels sorry for it. I simply can't see it any other way

-Nynaeve's test for the shawl was another sore spot for me. serene...bahhh

-her being voted Amyrlin from Accepeted, passed directly to AS following a strange rule, without passing the test or swearing the oaths was a WTF moment for me. At least they could have traveled to the WT and take the test in secret or steal the Oath Rod. Water under the bridge now.

 

Other than that, she's very funny on occasion, makes a lot of good decisions, maybe in the next book the AS+Amyrlin will finally start fighting enemies that are outside the WT, and she'll make good for some of her past transgressions. One can only hope.

[Xcorpyo001]

I'll edit my post later to answer some of this stuff.

One word of advice: don't use you guys. Talk about my post using you or whatever. The other guys made much better post explaining her wrongdoing, so trying to prove everyone wrong by talking about my silly examples will just not do.

But please, don't hold back.

EDIT:

 

Where is your evidence that she bullied Nyn?

 

Suddenly rough hands enveloped Nynaeve’s arms. Her head whipped from side to side, eyes bulging. Two huge, ragged men lifted her into the air, faces half-melted ruins of coarse flesh, drooling mouths full of sharp, yellowed teeth. She tried to make them vanish—if a Wise One dreamwalker could, so could she—and one of them ripped her dress open down the front like parchment. The other seized her chin in a horny, callused hand and twisted her face toward him; his head bent toward her, mouth opening. Whether to kiss or bite, she did not know, but she would rather die than allow either. She flailed for saidar and found nothing; it was horror filling her, not anger. Thick fingernails dug into her cheeks, holding her head steady. Egwene had done this, somehow. Egwene. “Please, Egwene!” It was a squeal, and she was too terrified to care. “Please!”

 

The men—creatures—vanished, and her feet thudded to the floor. For a moment all she could do was shudder and weep. Hastily she repaired the damage to her dress, but the scratches from long fingernails remained on her neck and chest. Clothing could be mended easily in Tel’aran’rhiod, but whatever happened to a human . . . Her knees shook so badly that it was all she could do to stay upright.

 

I call this bullying. If she wanted Nynaeve to understand, why didn't she explained it to her in a polite manner?

Or even better, try to help her with TaR?

 

 

Three scratches ran down her neck and disappeared beneath her shift.

Result of bullying.

 

 

 

Or that the bullying, specifically, was to cover her wrong doing?

Egwene thinks to herself that she managed to shut Nynaeve up by simply talking to her, whitout raising her voice, but Nynaeve lost ground because she was in shock from the nightmare Egwene throw at her. You can see that she is shocked because she didn't even felt the wounds. Egwene just blocks the bad part away and never consider the nightmare and her wounds playing any part in her change. She just thinks she did it by talking.

 

We have a quote later

Guiltily, she realized as she turned a page that she was looking forward to seeing Nynaeve tonight. Not because Nynaeve was a friend, but because she wanted to see if the effects had lingered

 

She doesn't think: "I hope she took the lesson to heart and now she is more careful in TaR"

She's thinking more like "I hope she's still scared enough to shut up, or I need to scare her more so she can keep her secret." Of course, she calls it talking now.

 

 

 

and surprised that the inadvertent calmness worked so well

Suddenly rough hands enveloped Nynaeve’s arms. Her head whipped from side to side, eyes bulging. Two huge, ragged men lifted her into the air, faces half-melted ruins of coarse flesh, drooling mouths full of sharp, yellowed teeth. She tried to make them vanish—if a Wise One dreamwalker could, so could she—and one of them ripped her dress open down the front like parchment. The other seized her chin in a horny, callused hand and twisted her face toward him; his head bent toward her, mouth opening. Whether to kiss or bite, she did not know, but she would rather die than allow either. She flailed for saidar and found nothing; it was horror filling her, not anger. Thick fingernails dug into her cheeks, holding her head steady. Egwene had done this, somehow. Egwene. “Please, Egwene!” It was a squeal, and she was too terrified to care. “Please!”

 

The men—creatures—vanished, and her feet thudded to the floor. For a moment all she could do was shudder and weep. Hastily she repaired the damage to her dress, but the scratches from long fingernails remained on her neck and chest. Clothing could be mended easily in Tel’aran’rhiod, but whatever happened to a human . . . Her knees shook so badly that it was all she could do to stay upright.

 

This inadvertent calmness?!? Again, she is blocking the fact that she just hurt/scared her friend, and she believes that it was the talking. It was not. Nynaeve was in shock(not feeling the wounds), and was sad that she didn't told her everything about the forkroot.

 

 

 

 

You look at wounds and think that the person who inflicted them has zero right, well that's ridiculous.

I agree to disagree. Her main reason was stoping Nynaeve from finding out about her transgressions.

 

What had happened with Nynaeve still amazed her. I think she’d actually have drunk, if I had pressed her. She had been so afraid that Nynaeve would learn that she certainly did not have the Wise Ones’ permission to jaunt about in the World of Dreams alone, so sure that the flush of embarrassment had given her away, that all she could think of was keeping Nynaeve from speaking, keeping her from winkling out the truth. And she had been so sure that Nynaeve would find out anyway—the woman was quite capable of turning her in and saying it was for her own good—that all she could do was talk, try to keep the focus on whatever Nynaeve was doing wrong.(AB: I guess throwing her into a nightmare can be considered 'talking') No matter how angry Nynaeve made her, she could not seem to bring up a shout. And with all of that(AB: nightmare included), somehow, she had gained the upper hand.

She did tried to stop her from finding out the truth. By any means necesarry. And almost forcing Nyn to dring some tea for not telling the whole story about the forkroot while trying to lie to her to her face is also not very nice.

 

 

 

The difference is that Egewne knows and understands the risks

 

But the point is she doen't know the riscks. She is almost trapped/killed by Moghedien several chapters later. And she didn't even notice she was in mortal danger.

 

 

 

Some extra comments.

 

By telling her everything, Nynaeve tries to return to being on an equal footing.

She remembered quite clearly the day when the balance between them had shifted, when they ceased being the Wisdom and the girl who fetched when the Wisdom said fetch, becoming instead just two women far from home. It seemed that balance had shifted further, and she did not like it. She was going to have to do something to move it back where it belonged.

She doesn't say that she wants to boss Egwene around, she wants to return to being just two women far from home. And they are equal, although Egwene seems to consider herself already AS.

Egwene on the other hand wants to deepen her control, and maintain her advantage, although Nynaeve is the older and more experienced person, in many things, if not TaR. But Egwene wants the control to be absolute, even outside the TaR.

That's another difference between them. Nynaeve is contended with them being equals(with the normal discussions on occasion), while Egwene wants to pass over the equal part of her relationship and inverse the situation Nyn had back in Two Rivers.

 

 

Although you don't want to see this, but the simple truth is Egwene hurt her friend to drive home a point, and made the same mistake she tried to stop Nynaeve from doing.

She just believed she can handle the TaR. She couldn't, as Moghedien proved it to her.

She was unable to follow the lesson she tried to teach Nynaeve. By doing this, she lost all the moral high-ground she still thinks she has.

[capuga]

 

You need to reread that. She frightened Nyn to show her that TAR was dangerous because Nyn was being stupid and ignoring the wise one's warnings. And that's something Nynaeve does consistantly, is ignore people who know better just because she can't admit to herself anyone could possibly teach her anything. One of the awesome things about Egwene is that she worships and respects the people she recognizes have something to teach her.

 

Seriously, Kael? I'm kind of getting tired of this "If you read a scene and come out with a negative impression of Egwene, then you have read it WRONG, because I like Egwene and I have a different interpretation to yours, so my reading is RIGHT." attitude in certain pro-Egwene posts.

 

Egwene starts her rant on the dangers of TAR only AFTER Nynaeve mentions her being on her own. There is no evidence to suggest that she had any intention of giving Nynaeve her "lesson" until it looked like she might get busted for doing something she shouldn't. Afterwards, she thinks about how she'd kept the focus on what Nynaeve had done wrong, because she desperately didn't want the WOs finding out about what she'd done- that was clearly the focus and the reasoning behind it. Later on, she is delighted with how the balance is shifted- not because the balance is now equal, but because now she can make Nynaeve jump and cringe with a look and a sentence. She is disappointed when Nynaeve doesn't appear again, despite the fact that the end result is exactly the same with seeing Elayne, because she was looking forward to using her new skills on Nynaeve again. There is no evidence in the text to suggest that Egwene planned any of what she did to Nynaeve, and there is plenty of evidence that her primary motivation was to cover up what Egwene did wrong.

 

No-one is debating that Nynaeve is not as good as the Aiel dreamwalkers. No-one is debating that TAR is dangerous. But in Egwene's mind, the dangers of TAR are just mentioned as an aside, putting Nynaeve off the scent of the WOs, and cowing her/ distracting her until she doesn't ask any more questions is her aim. The text is perfectly clear on that. Saying "the dangers she had told Nynaeve about were true" would have been a totally irrelevant sentence had educating Nynaeve been her initial aim, that would simply have been assumed. That sentence is there only to serve to tell us that, despite Egwene's aims being her own secrets, she told the truth about TAR being dangerous.

 

randsc put an analogy up in an old Egwene thread once, and I can't remember it word for word, but I remember the gist of it, so credit goes to him for this: A man is having an affair with a woman. His daughter walks home from work every night, and sometimes she walks near this woman's house, which happens to be in a dodgy area of town. She's been warned against walking through it, because its a dangerous area, but she continues to do it. The man is worried that if she continues to walk this close to the woman's house, she will find out about their affair. So he pays some men to molest his daughter one night. She never goes back there, so he has covered up his affair- and in happy coincidence, she now takes a safer route home as a direct result of his actions. Does that make his actions OK, does it make him a good father?

 

I'm actually kind of curious- if they hadn't been in TAR, or if Nynaeve had been more experienced, and caught Egwene out THEN, do you really think that Egwene would have said "Oh, fair enough, the Wise Ones won't let me come here yet", or would she have done exactly what she did- turn on Nynaeve with some other pretext until her secret was forgotten?

 

You highlighted the passage where Nynaeve talks about the balance shifting between her and Egwene. Note that first she talks about how the balance shifted to being the Wisdom and the girl who jumped to being two women far from home (which Nynaeve herself started in TGH, by telling Egwene that they were no longer Wisdom and Apprentice, and Egwene shouldn't give her the title), she THEN talks about how the balance has shifted further- ie. they are no longer equal, Egwene sees herself/ is seen as "superior", and that is what Nynaeve has a problem with. That's how I read it. Let me guess - I need to read the text again until I agree with you?

 

No, you are not allowed to have an opinion on the text if there is other text that obviously discredits your interpretation. And I have been pretty thorough in explaining why the various lines across the entire chapter and 2 PoVs discredit the idea that Egwene had Nynaeve ravaged just to hide her secret. It simply cannot be true, it is not a matter of "interpretation".

 

And yet, the blind Egwene fan is the only person here who interprets the scene that way. It's not an opinion or an interpretation. The text explicitly makes it clear that Egwene's purpose in scaring Nynaeve is to cover up her own wrong doings. The educating Nynaeve about the dangers of TAR line is just her BS explanation to Nynaeve for it. Perhaps you should condesend a little less when you're the only one here with the reading comprehension problem.

 

You like Egwene, that's cool. This action alone is nasty, but I can understand if you think her positives still outweigh her negatives and continue to like her. But to claim this scene is her doing anything other than covering her own ass by treating her friend poorly is just a willfully wrong reading of the book.

[Suttree]

Egwene describes her objection to Rand's plan with the seals to Nynaeve and Elayne, and far from arguing that he should be better prepared before breaking them thinks that he is fully prepared and simply shouldn't break them at all. Yet her fans try to assign the former argument to her instead because they rightly think it holds more water than the one Egwene herself puts forward.

 

So no one should question the DR is that it? Just blindly follow whatever seemingly mad scheme he presents? What she thinks is there should be someway Rand can succeed against the DO without breaking the seals. This of course is different than thinking he is fully prepared. Regardless of her reasoning we know at this juncture she is right to oppose him as he has admitted he is missing something and has no idea how to continue.

 

Until he explains the situation rationally and asks everyone for help, why should she not take this stance? After all Cads has already confirmed one of Min's guesses, wouldn't it be better if they were all on the same page? Now there may be a reason Rand had to play the AS and manipulate her into opposing him. Guess we will find out in aMoL.

 

When did I say no-one should question? What I said is that people shouldn't apply their own motivations to characteres that have already explained what they think and why they think it. Egwene's fans like to harp on the "Rand should dot the i's and cross the t's before breaking the Seals" thing, but Egwene herself does not agree with them. Its weird to me that you guys make up stuff in defense of her character that contradicts the explanations she herself has given.

 

Sorry I don't follow about the making up stuff? I state clearly in my post that her reason is she thinks Rand can defeat the DO without breaking the seals...which is of course very different than what you claim, in that she thinks he is fully prepared with a plan after breaking the seals.