My opinion might not matter here because I don't spend hundreds of days of my life posting on here and earning a high post count. However, I would like to say i strongly agree with XXX.

The white tower has always been a running joke for me throughout the series. Sometimes I swear, RJ was really painting them with strong sarcasm and the joke was on the majority of you for believing it. 

Take the One Power away from the Aes Sedai and what do they have? They seem to have some education and years of experience because of their long lives. (It is called Wisdom.) Well let us look at the 14 books. I think it is safe to say that the Aes Sedai showing Wisdom in this series rarely happens. There are a few Aes Sedai that have a remarkable amount of wisdom but the majority act like power hungry idiots.

So how does this make them different from the royalty and educated of each and every other country state? I imagine royalty are educated from child to adult and then some. So why all this bowing and scraping to the WT? 

I think at some point in time the bowing, scraping, kissing of rings was out of respect for them and wasnt expected of the common people but was appreciated when that respect was shown. The WT seemed to have earned it at some point and might even deserved it. The way the Aes Sedai and WT are shown throughout all of these books shows me the opposite of this. They rarely do anything to deserve these honors and do nothing but EXPECT it at every turn. On top of that if looks and emotions could talk, it would seem like they enjoy watching rulers bow and scrape to them.

So Egwene thinks the rulers should bow and kiss her ring? What has the WT done in her life time to make her think they have earned that? Why doesnt she focus on earning their respect instead of beating them down with it. Maybe in her mind they should bow down because they are Aes Sedai and the ultimate power in the land. Well let me ask this: What would be the Aes Sedai and Egwene's opinion if Rand was making all the rulers bow to him and kiss his hand or his sword? You know what their responses would be... Rand has done more for RandLand Pre Book 14 then the WT has ever done in this AGE. He deserves it. 

Bah i can rant about the Aes Sedai and Egwene for Months... I have a love hate relationship with WoT. I love Wot without the WT and hate reading about Egwene and the majority of the Aes Sedai morons.

In fact, i use a service where you send in your books and they chop them up and copy every page and then send you the completed PDF in return. Much better than buying ebooks because if you read the fine print you dont actually "Own" the ebook. Anyways i have all 13 of 14 books in PDF Format and will be adding the 14th one soon. What this allows me to do is search for "Egwene" and i have purposely deleted every chapter with her POV. It makes re-reads SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE!

She is the worse character in the series and again i can't reiterate this enough, I am so pleased she died in amol!

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.