It can be difficult to be sympathetic to her goals though, largely because although they are morally very good, the White Tower and Aes Sedai have spent 10+ books being knocked down further and further from the pinnacle they started on.  Because Egwene sees herself as an embodiment of the White Tower as Amyrlin, readers who have become disillusioned with the White Tower aren't inclined to be supportive of someone who sees herself as inseparable from an organisation that has been repeatedly portrayed as self-serving, manipulative, and distant.  Even though Egwene's goals for the WT are noble, she comes across as the embodiment of the WT including all its very prominent current flaws.

 

The WT really does need to earn its right to respect.  Egwene sees in her head the WT as she wants it to be. When in reality she hasn't had anywhere near enough time to implement enough changes, or time for the changes she has made to have wide reaching widely known positive effects.  I think this is why she comes off as arrogant, especially in many of her internal POVs where she sees the WT as the ''steward of the land'', or her as the ''embodiment of the Light''.  Yes, the WT of the AoL and the WT she plans are deserving of this kind of respect.  The current WT however is definitely not.

I totally agree (except from maybe the WT of the AoL), it is a good conclusion of my view as well.

I haven't read all the pages of this discussion, but it seems clear to me that, predictably, the discussion on Egwene has veered into a discussion on the Aes Sedai. Because that's what it boils down to, doesn't it? If the Tower had been portrayed as a universally lovable, filled-with-noble-women, self-sacrificing, perfect organization, then Egwene's work for it would have been lauded, and no one would have denied she was doing the right thing.

 

Instead, Egwene got handed the leadership of a divided, flawed, achingly human bunch of women. Yet, we never see her doubt that working for its betterment is a good thing. And the sentiment seems to be... how dare she?

 

I think people need to step back and look at the whole field here. Any number of Aes Sedai have a less than rosy view of the Tower, from Moiraine to Verin to Cadsuane. Yet all these women also love the Tower. Heck, even Nynaeve does. We see in WH that even she was talking about "upholding Aes Sedai dignity". We just don't have as much air-time about these women thinking of the Tower because they're focussed on other tasks.

 

But let's be clear. None of these women would have been able to play their wholly critical roles for the Last Battle but for Egwene. But for Egwene distracting, and later replacing, Elaida, not one of these women would have had as much freedom to do as they did. Or does anyone here want to seriously claim that any Amyrlin but Egwene would have been fine with Nynaeve going to Rand's side of the tent in Merrilor? Do you really see Elaida standing for Moiraine insisting she remember what she Dreamed?

 

But this is the lesser of the reasons to not dislike Egwene's obsession with the Tower. The greater reason is that barring the Dragon Reborn, the Tower was the greatest bulwark against the Shadow. And even the Dragon Reborn wouldn't have had a chance but for them. In the four-front strategy the leaders of the Light command, it is the Tower that dominates the field. It is the Tower that is such a threat to the Shadow that no less than three Foresaken focussed their attentions on it to divide and destroy it. No less a member of the Shadow than Demandred struck at them first, and Demandred's battle in Merrilor would have been a runaway success but for the Tower's heroic battles with the Sharans.

 

When it came down to the end, when the politicking was done (and there wad politicking everywhere but the Borderlands), the Tower banded together, and despite being less skilled in battle than the Sharans, they gave them a battle to remember. Even leaving aside Egwene's final actions, the other Sisters did mighty fine work. They penned up the Sharans by giving up their own lives and their Wader's. And that let Mat deploy whatever other strategy he wanted to in the rest of the battlefield. 

 

And White Tower training and indoctrination has done many bad things. Its made its women stubborn, arrogant, unbending. Its allowed the Black Ajah to exist unquestioned. But it also directly led to hundreds of women with ridiculous amounts of courage standing against impossible odds and refusing to consider surrender. They were professional soldiers as much as those from any of the other armies, but pitted against the toughest foes.

 

Imagine for a minute that Last Battle without the Tower's forces. And that is what they've been preparing for. And that's what Egwene saw them as. A force to be reckoned with, against the Shadow. As they were in the Trolloc Wars, so they were again. 

 

Given how easy it is to detest the Aes Sedai as a whole, its easy to forget how important their unification was. It did not get as much airtime as it did because RJ was trying to make story arcs synchronize (like he did with Elayne's and Perrin's stories). Its there because the fight for the integration for the two halves of the Tower was as important as the fight for the integration of "Lews Therin" and Rand. As hard as the Shadow worked to drive Rand insane, it did as much to destroy the Tower. They had good reason, and but for Egwene, they'd have been the ones throwing the party at Shayol Ghul.

Overall I more or less agree.

Nevertheless it was a bit annoying for me that the WT got their heroic fight and critical role in the LB, while WOs, Findfinders and Ashaman did practically nothing (and most of them are missing) except some individuals (e.g. Androl who I really dislike). I have nothing against the WT outshining every other "institution". I expected that and it was also logical. But the contrast was too big and unreasonable for my liking.

PS. I think you have overestimated Egwene's role here a little bit. Make no mistake I am not saying she wasn't one of the most important character, but I don't think she was the only one who could achieve everyting(!) you wrote. For example Cadsuane etc. could have done their "job" with an other Amyrlin as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

Think Vards means they shouldn't have had many male channelers as they are all killed once they reach a certain age.

Unless Demandred followed Taim's tactics for the black tower, all the Ayyad bloodlines up until 17 would have been available and they could have most likely forced anyone from 13 upwards. Morr wasnt exactly much older than that.

 

Add in scouring parties travelling across Shara and in the 2 years Demandred had there he could have gotten them all well and truly sorted, and thats assuming he wasnt smart enough to start before the cleansing. He could have 13x13'd them and gotten them protection against the taint.

 

The entire Demandred arc wasnt that well thought out in my opinion. I enjoyed it because I think he's a cool character. But it makes him look inept as hell that while in control of an entire continent that he managed such a piss poor army. Sorry but a few hundred channellers and a few hundred thousand troops is a little on the small side in comparison to any large nation and Shara is the better part of 2x Randland. He could have had an enormous slave army backed with a stonking load of channellers. And then we could have had the last battle we'd been led to believe was coming before the Aiel and Seanchan decided to have a bath and a tea party and sit out the last battle.

I agree, but see my earlier post. And Demandred also was portrayed as an inept general, he had several option to won the war and he chose one of the worst one.

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

 

And if he wanted to still make the nos equivalent he could have used a powerful forsaken attack which destroys a huge no of light channelers in one shot.That would have been better instead of just forgetting about huge nos of channelers on the light side and inversely making it so that the dark side has an advantage in the no of channelers in every single battlefield.

I also thought about it. But I suspect we have missed the point here. Simply Jordan or/and Sanderson didn't want to write a big war dominated by channelers. There is a reason that we have only a few One Power combat (BT, Egwene/Taim (twice), Demandred/Logain, Graendal/Aviendha and everyone else), especially compared with the true honest battle scenes. It is easier this way to show the struggle for the victory, the hopelessness after the initial battles, the contribution and heroism of the common folk etc.

My theory is that Jordan made a mistake both with the number and strength of channelers and there was no good way to correct it without changing the plot.

"From a literary perspective, there were too many battle scenes in MoL. By now we've seen thousands of heroic charges and million of slain trollocs. And yet two-thirds of the book reads like this: "He was very tired, but pushed on to fight. He slew 24 trollocs with his sword. Everybody cheered. She was also very tired, but she sent a few fireballs at the Trollocs anyway. Everybody cheered." How about fewer battles and more melodrama. Lan meets Lorraine; Rand, Mat and Perrin get drunk together; Galad and Rand meet knowing they are brothers; Tuon cries knowing she is a Marathdamane; Lanfear actually has a plausible love interest; etc."

I would have preferred character development (Demanded), reactions for some key scene instead of melodrama but overall I agree with you.

I have mixed feeling with her arc as well.

She was one of the participant in the two most ridiculous scenes in the book (Egwene-Rand, Egwene-Tuon). Could you imagine that Roosewelt (Churchill) and Stalin had a similar argument as Toun and Egwene during the WWII? Does it make any sense during the Last Battle?

Furthermore her behaviour was inconsistent as Barid mentioned before. Finally I don't know how she guessed the right time to break the seals, maybe I missed something.

In contrast she was awesome during the battles (both in Kandor and in the Last Battle). Nevertheless the scene about her sacrifice was a little bit rushed which decreased the impact for me. Finally it was a little bit "too heroic" for me, it would have been better if someone else took care at least the Sharans. Defeating Taim and restoring the Pattern would be more than enough and realistic for her to get her glory. And more foreshadowing about the anti-balefire wave would have been nice.

In conclusion although I never particularly liked her, her death was one of the saddest moment of the book, but at least she did it in style.

Btw I don't understand what she saw in Gawyn. He lived and died as a fool.

I agree the earlier posts, it was annoying that the numbers of the armies and channellers were about the half (or third) than it should have been. In contrast, I could accept that the channellers were not as effective as earlier (they were a little bit overpowered).

I love the military history so it was an important point for me.

I would say that the original battle plan (4 fronts) wasn't the one I would have chosen, but it was an acceptable strategy. The main problem is that the distribution of the the force and channellers was faulty. As others mentioned they would have dealt with Caemlyn first. Furthermore the light side should have reserve containing channellers which could have helped out in dire situations qickly in any fronts.

In the case of the battle of Merillor, we are repeatedly told that Mat (sometimes Demandred) is a genius, but we are only informed about some minor tactical moves, nothing else. Overall the description is lacking, it is very difficult to understand the strategies used, the placement of the groups and phases of the battle for the first reading.

"Demandred being challenged to a swordfight three times as the utter height of stupidity."

I agree. Demandred himself mentioned during the Cleansing that he is a general not a fighter...

"All that time using Gateways, and they never learned how to use Gateways. All of the first three major battles could have been dealt with using a token force of Military, and a couple dozen channelers sitting in Merrilor."

It is too strong but overall I agree.

"There is no way to explain Demandred's actions. In no way do they make sense."

It is again true.