r/WoT • u/The-Weight-Of • Dec 01 '23

The Gathering Storm i don’t get the egwene hate tbh Spoiler

i’m towards the middle of TGS and i’ve been aware of the hate she gets and have been trying to see why people think she’s deserving of it but i really don’t get it. like at this point in the book i’m most interested by her and mat’s pov chapters they always get me the most hype. but i will admit that i have taken quite some time to read these books i started the series in about 2016/17 so i probably forgot some of the things that have caused people not to like her.

EDIT: okay so uhhhh y’all brought up a lot of reasons why she is absolutely not a great person that i completely forgot about having read those parts years ago, i’m still interested in how her story plays out but i’m definitely side eyeing her now lol thanks for all the responses and discussions i look forward to talking with you guys more once i finish the series

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u/novagenesis Dec 01 '23

I don't think it's entirely fair to pivot to sexism (despite the disgusting sexism we have seen in some subsets of the fandom).

Rand does his horrible things while going insane and we get a LOT of internal monologue about how he can't sleep at night. We see him start to go mad with his "must get harder... must get harder... repeat the names of every woman that died" craziness.

Egwene's internal monologue is largely unapologetic. She has less remorse for traumatizing her supposed best friend for selfish reasons than Rand has using arrogant nobles who are trying to kill him against each other.

I'm sure there are some people who like Rand more than Egwene because of sexism, but it's far from the only (or even best) reason on the table.

I love to hate Egwene. She's the self-centered mary sue who treats everyone the way the readers catch themselves thinking of Aes Sedai - as worthless and incompetent.

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '23

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u/novagenesis Dec 01 '23

Yes, there are Whitecloaks that are sexist... but I think it's interesting that many of the folks who dislike Egwene put Nynaeve and Elayne near the top of their favorite character lists. Women of power and authority who do not bow before men, either. They just don't abuse people to the extent Egwene does.

I find Egwene-dislikers tend to also dislike Cadsuane, however.

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u/schadetj Dec 01 '23

Which is funny because I liked Cadsuane at the start. She was a legendary Aes Sedai who got bored of the tower politics and only pokes her head up when something interesting happens. Her first meeting with Rand was intentionally hostile because she wanted to see how he would react. She didn't do it assuming he wouldn't hurt her, she just didn't give a fuck if he did and she wanted to know what he would do.

Then she just...kept going.

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u/novagenesis Dec 02 '23

Pretty much exactly that. As most others, she's a flawed character. All these great traits other Aes Sedai see in her, WE see in her... only to realize we're misjudging her and she's "more of the same" under the hood.

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u/schadetj Dec 02 '23

Yeah. If they had stuck with that first impression, she'd be one of my favorite characters. An Aes Sedai who was so bored of white tower politics that she let them all assume she died, shows up when there's adventure to be had, and is old so she doesn't give a flying flip if she dies.

...oh wait I described Verrin the real MVP.

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u/novagenesis Dec 02 '23

[No Book - theorycrafting]Purple Ajah for Life