Egwene - I have always disliked her since book 1. On re-reads I would skim her chapters or skip them altogether. I do like her taking back over the tower from the inside arc but that is about the only part of her story i enjoyed. After becoming Amrylin, she seems to have caught on to the same Aes Sedai naivety that effects the rest of them. The "I am Aes Sedai, hear me Roar, I know best, everyone kneels to the tower, we control all, we know all", mentality. So when she died I actually smiled. I smiled first when Gawyn died because he was another character I pretty much disliked throughout the series and also smiled at the pain it caused Egwene.

 

Discussion:

 

Here is where I ask others to think about her character and ask what happened to her in AMOL. She spent the entire series following someone around trying to learn how to be like them. Nynaeve, Moraine, Aiel Wise Ones, Broken Tower, Full Tower. I get it, she is not a quitter and is extremely focused on achieving what she sets out to. She is intelligent and strong in the power. At what point in all of this though, does she learn the qualifications to be a world leader, a diplomat, a General of Armies, a expert on the past histories of AOL, etc. She acts like she is the worlds authority on all of this. At multiple times during the last battle she "sees" the battle going poorly and questions Mat's tactics.... I can understand this from other leaders that have fought in battles but she has never lead a battle before. She has no memories from her past. She has never dealt with high up authority other than Elayne and the high ups in the White Tower. She basically rode in on others coat tails and we are supposed to accept that she is all of what she is in AMOL after 2 years and the majority of that time she is just trying to be a wisdom or an aes sedai or a wise one. 

 

She knows the best way to fight the last battle, how to direct Rand through his fight with the Dark One, she knows when to break the seals and that Rand is wrong. At the time they argued about this she didnt know. She just assumed she was right VS a man with all the past memories of Lews Therin. 

 

Wasn't she with Rand and the Aiel during all the battles Mat was directing during books 4-6? Is it possible that she is all of the above yet she never heard the rumors or stories about Mat. So instead of taking those into consideration she reflects back to a child hood memory of him saving someone as her reasoning to grant Mat control of all the armies for the last battle?

 

I can go on and ON with her... I am glad to wash my hands of her character and again very very satisfied to not only see her die but to have her experience the loss of Gawyn before she died. 

I think u missed a good portion of the series where Egwene is raised as a rebel amyrlin and learns from siuan.

as for mat he has always been the sort of responsibility shirking character and everyone has always seen him that  way its not just egwene very few ppl in the book actually know about mat's "memories"

as for she has dealt with no high up authority other than elayne. She is the highest authority in the land as amyrlin seat and eqwene is arguably one of the next highest as queen of andor.

and as for question mat's tactics everyone in the last book did that, from what we got from the text mat was laying a trap essentially letting the shadow gain the advantage on purpose. However mat told no one else of his plans so the entire army is in the dark and all they can tell is that the battle is not going well and they lost the high ground right away.

She didnt ride in on coattails she was initially raised as a puppet amyrlin but managed to not only take control of the rebel aes sedai but also gain their respect. Of course she had help doing that but she most certainly contributed the most to the effort.

i could go on but most of ur points seem to point to parts of the book u skimmed over and missed some important or at least semi-important details

 

 

Her ambition can be lauded or criticized, but the way in which that ambition informed her behavior during the LB, first with Rand then with Mat, is what compromised her as a character in my eyes. It seemed that she was ignoring both the will of the Pattern and common sense in antagonizing both, which is petty.  

Psychopath, certainly not. But if we look at just ToM and AMoL def split personality disorder.

I think it started when the coup ended and her reaction was to immediately yell at the Tower Aes Sedai for not standing up to Elaida and then turning around and yelling at the Rebel Aes Sedai for rebelling against the White Tower.  That was the point I started to hate Egwene (who I liked for the most part up until TGS)

imo u should reread that part cus it honestly feels like u missed some of the important parts of that

or  ur just over-exaggerating, not quite certain

i feel like i am reading a completely different book after reading most of these comments that example when she is yelling at the aes sedai and the rebels for instance conveniently left out the part where she included herself in the rebuking of the rebel aes sedai

and the comment earlier about egwene's statement about rand not creating a stedding was fairly clearly set up as comic relief

best i can think of is for some bizzare reason half of the fans read actions by egwene and elayne as bratty or snobby when the rest of us read them as a form of comic relief

gawyn on the other hand did start getting on my nerves ever since he got his hand on those rings but thats a pretty typical tragedy arc.

as for rand and egwene at the meeting i dont understand why people find it so hard to believe that egwene would be resistant to breaking the seals and releasing the dark one into the world. While we all knew it was the wrong decision from her point of view and every other character that is a very radical and risky move. Especially considering for quite a while the books were leading to trying to figure out how they sealed the dark one away in the age of legends and then just re-doing that. And then when egwene suggests taking the safe route that again is completely reasonable. Breaking the seals risks ending everything right there where as taking the safe route only risks saidin or saidar getting tainted which they would be expecting and could therefore come up with a way to combat it. Not to mention even Rand says that he isnt sure what breaking the seals will do. Personally i am normally the person who hates characters who want to play it safe in situations like that but when its the fate of existence itself in the balance i dont blame her at all not to mention rand didnt offer up much of an argument other than some metalsmithing comparisons. If it was my choice id want a little more to go on than that.

personally i loved it i understand why the ending was left so loose but i honestly think it will drive me insane over the next few days

i need to know how he lit that pipe.