Did RJ intend for Egwene to die, or was it Brandon's idea? He's being coy about that, if you can believe it.

Per the Birmingham thread:

That's pretty mind-boggling to me that he would even hint that something as big as this might not have been per RJ.

So, year of 4 Amyrlins similarity, parallels to Rand who didn't die, a namesake who didn't die, and a foreshadowing of her husband dying.

I don't have a problem with her dying as a plot choice, but none of that indicates it very much to me.

 

I disliked the manner of Siuan and Gareth's deaths too. To be honest, I would have much preferred if they had died when Demandred and Shara arrived and blew up the command tent. That struck at me much more than there eventual death. The only good thing about Siuan's death is that is has a parallel to the way her father died (or whoever it was that died in the anecdote she talks about with Mat in tDR).

 

However, Egwene's death does have much more meaning and it also makes sense. At least to me. See: Terazed's post:

 

 

 

 

Rand squeezed his eyes shut, thinking of all those who had died for him. Of Egwene, whom he had sworn to himself to protect.

You fool. Her voice in his head. Fond, but sharp.

...

Let go, Rand. Let us die for what we believe, and do not try to steal that from us. You have embraced your death. Embrace mine.

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Why?

"I've failed."

No. Not yet you haven't

The Dark One flayed him. He huddled before that vast nothingness, unable to move. He screamed in agony.

And then, he let go.

>

>Redemption to the Redeemer!

>

Perhaps we are getting confused as to the order of importance of Egwene's accomplishments at her death. Actually it may be this scene which is the most important of her accomplishments in WOT. Rand's guilt list has been his tragic flaw throughout almost the entire series. In book after book characters have been arguing with him over it's unreasonableness but none have been able to argue successfully. In the beginning Rand tried to make himself hard and kill off his emotions. Later compassion led him to attempt to embrace the suffering of others. Even then some characters thought there was something wrong with Rand's attitude, but none could change his mind.

Rand accepts the responsibility of redeeming everyone else by sacrificing himself to kill the DO but underneath he, himself has a desperate need of being redeemed. When he walks into the Pit and fights the DO completely alone he has achieved only partial enlightenment and thus the DO is able to crush him.

Looked at this way it might make more sense why Egwene would be the one from the original EF group that needed to die. She was the first one that he worried about getting killed. He has been worried about her since day 2 in the barn in EF when she shows up with her sack demanding to go on their adventure without understanding what was at stake. When they are separated at Shadar Logoth he refuses to accept the possibility she is dead. Again and again he makes it clear that her death would be unacceptable. In the end Egwene had to be the one to offer Rand his redemption and allow him to complete his path to enlightenment. It is interesting that in the end it is not Egwene the Amyrlin or Egwene Sedai that is able to do save Rand but just Egwene al'Vere of the TR. Throughout the series she is driving herself to an extreme or allowing herself to be physically beaten over and over again in order to build herself up and be in control. That is certainly a pathological pattern of behavior. In her last battle she is depicted as being in an angry rage the entire time till she cast the flame of Tar Valon. After that she is able to let go herself. Perhaps she also was able to achieve a redemption from her own inner demons in the end.

Of course odds are I am completely wrong but it is an explanation that would foreshadow the ending of the book and there is no way Rand could have won without that scene.

So Egwene's death was a way to raise the stakes for Rand. That makes sense for his character in that scene, but my question was to people that see it as inevitable in the context of *her* character arc, not Rand's.

Is there one single battle in the RJ-penned WoT that anybody ever had a problem with?

Quite the opposite, he was at or near his best in those scenes.

I don't understand why people say her character arc was leading to a death.

She was primed to lead the WT for centuries after having JUST consolidated her rule, had major unfinished business with the Seanchan/damane, had just gotten married, Min never mentioned seeing anything about her dying....

What am I missing?

Egwene forming her own circle of 72 with the Kin, Windfinders, Aes Sedai, Asha'man, etc. would have been epic. 

Easy, Androl should have killed him by sucking him into the vacuum of outer space via gateway.

• Seriously though, drop the sword dueling nonsense.
• Logain should have dealt with Taim. 
• That would leave somebody like Egwene to deal with Demandred. Dying while confronting Demandred would be more fitting than Taim anyways, and it's a crime Logain didn't take Taim down. That's if you insist on a "one vs one showdown" scenario.  
• Otherwise, leave it to a military-style death, with Demandred being out-generalled by Mat and dying under attack by a brilliant maneuver. It could have been an incredible scene of Demandred going down in a hail of OP chaos, maybe by Mat's Seanchan surprise attack, and play up the angle that Mat's experience is based on centuries of ACTUAL FIGHTING and he used THAT to take Demandred out, who only relied on his books and minimal experience.
• Or, it could have been made interesting by some POVs of collared Aes Sedai/Wise Ones realizing they were attacking the Forsaken and actually feeling momentarily good about what they were doing, something like that to make it interesting. 
• Or, you could have seen Sharans uncomfortable fighting alongside Trollocs and Shadowspawn, and a Sharan taking him out after realizing what was happening.

You could have done ANY number of things that would have felt more organic and realistic to the story, and there are probably 50 better ideas than the ones I came up with at work after thinking for 10 minutes.

agreed - the obvious solution is don't write yourself into a corner by giving him a hugely powerful sa'angreal and a huge circle - neither of those things existed before amol

Ding ding ding.

Even if completely unintended, that is very cool.

It's not very glorious when it needs to be explained as such.

Basically charging into the Gap was the worst option. Maybe we can blame the Great Captains being compromised to satisfy any questions that annoy us like this.

This may have been touched upon previously, but if so I missed it.

Was anybody else amazed that the dragons/cannons were not used at Tarwin's Gap?

That is the strategically perfect place to mow down a bottlenecked army. A lot of lives for the Light were lost because of this decision.

Nakomi is whatever you want her to be. There's no way to know so just make up whatever floats your boat. Egwene, Verin, Tigrane, Harriet, Lini in TaR, any of them work equally well.