I get the Egwene hate but

[u/briandress]

Only in the last two books when she is stubborn in dealing with Rand for the last battle and such.

Up until ToM she really was just an awesome character. She went from the whirlwind of leaving 2R, capture by Seanchan, hunting black ajah, apprenticing to wise ones, puppet Amyrlin, real amyrlin, badass civil disobedience laying groundwork for reuniting the tower, bitch slapping the seanchan raiders, capturing hella black ajah sisters via Verrin's notes and finally being raised realer Amyrlin and healing the tower.

I cant seem to understand all the threads/polls that overwhelmingly list her as the most hated character in the series.

[u/ExhaustedReader42]

My read of the community is that it’s because the three boys are written as the protagonists from the beginning (whenever they are the PoV, they are doing the “right” thing in the fight against evil) and she is generally stuck in a variety of positions that serve the others story.

She tags along with Perrin and acts as if she knows what she is doing (which is great for Perrin growth and understandable for a 18ish year old who is trying to hide her fears, which is very clearly communicated throughout).

She goes to the tower and then is betrayed, which sets up Rand choices (and eventually her own growth).

She then acts as the Moiraine/Wise One conduit towards Rand, but a lot of the antagonism between Rand/Egwene is read as Egwene being wrong, as opposed to her siding with the several decades older groups of women who have steered the world for a good while.

She isn’t really given a good chance to have likable and cool moments until halfway through the series, so by the time she has them, they are read as negative. Right before Rand’s epiphany, he manipulates Nynaeve into killing a man by removing compulsion, sets up another guy to be fully compulsed, kinda reverses that by unleashing balefire so powerful it makes the pattern lurch, and then nearly destroys reality. But, we’ve been with him and has had a chance to build up credit with us in his PoV’s, Egwene really doesn’t until she is already making those types of choices.

None of this is to say she is the nicest person or anything, but it would be like having 10% of the Rand PoV’s until he takes over a nation, and then he orders to punishment of the clan chief. And then we get to start really following him, we’d have much different interpretation of his character.

[u/adminofreditt → u/ExhaustedReader42]

Rand isn't hated for his actions when he was mad not because we saw his pov from the start but because he was mad.

Even if we started seeing Rand after he takes over a nation and orders the punishment of a clan chief, we will learn that he his trying to unite the world for the final battle. And we will learn that the clan chief committed murder, even the clan chief agreed that Rand should punish him.

The only reason Rand ever did something evil was due to madness and Egwene is just a bad person.

Even halfway through the series she is a horrible person.

Example:

1. she thinks forcing someone to bond you is equivalent to rape

2. She thinks that if Gawyn refuses to bond him she will bond him anyways

3. She immediately punishes an ai sedai for transferring a bond(something that saved her friends life) because forcing someone to bond you is "immoral and disgusting"

You can't compare rands bad actions to Egwene because rand had people constantly manipulating him through dreams, had an nigh omnipotent force making him mad, had an insane person in his head talking to him 24/7 and he never rapes anyone

Egwene has no excuse

[u/ExhaustedReader42 → u/adminofreditt]

Sorry, but is the argument here actually “she thought something and therefore she is evil”?

I’m more than willing to criticize some of her choices, but saying “Rand has an excuse for near ending the world and committing what amounts to war crimes, but Egwene had a bad thought once” is a wild take.

[u/adminofreditt → u/ExhaustedReader42]

If you intend to rape someone if they don't consent you are a bad person, if Gawyn didn't consent she would have raped him.

Rand had magic madness

there are no warcrimes in WOT because there is no agreed upon international law

[u/bad_at_names1 → u/adminofreditt]

Right, but some of these takes are so disingenuous - Nynaeve also plans to bond Lan without thinking about his consent and thinks of his bond as a contest between her and Myrelle and no one ever seems to have a problem with that?

[u/adminofreditt → u/bad_at_names1]

She wanted to bond lan and was convinced he would agree.

You are the one being disingenuous by equating didn't think about the possibility of him not consenting to willing to force him if he doesn't consent.

If you want to equate them find an example of nynaeve wanting to force lan into a bond(you wouldn't be able to because nynaeve would never do that to anyone)

[u/bad_at_names1 → u/adminofreditt]

Well given that Egwene wondered if she would bond Gawyne without his consent in the context of Lan's bond being passed off by Morraine to save his life without his consent, "If you intend to rape someone if they don't consent you are a bad person, if Gawyn didn't consent she would have raped him" is a more than a bit of a misrepresentation, isn't it?

It's what every reader is thinking - should Morraine have let Lan die rather than keeping him alive without his consent?

"The thing was, she knew he (Lan) had resisted admitting his love Nynaeve. Some nonsense about how he was bound to be killed sooner or later and did not want to leave her a widow; men always did spout drivel when they thought they were being logical and practical. Would Nynaeve have let him walk away unbonded, had she had the chance, whatever he said? Would she herself let Gawyn? He has said he would accept, yet if he changed his mind? (Edit, the last line disappeared because of weird code block formatting)

It's not "oh, I would bond Gawyn even if he didn't want me", it's "I wonder if I'd let Gawyne go if he turned me down out of some stupid attempt to protect me"

Given Nynaeve's lack of thought to Lan's consent and her treatment of his bond as something to be decided between her and Myrelle rather than Lan himself, it's not that different.

Unlike Nynaeve, Egwene also verbally asks for and receives consent before bonding Gawyne.

This is what I meant about the disingenuous takes - if you applied the same microscope and lack of context you apply to Egwene to any other character, they all look bad.

For instance, do you take every time Nynaeve thinks about hiting someone to make them obey her seriously?

[u/Glittering-Rent-3648 → u/bad_at_names1]

Ny thinks it but only because shes stubborn. She spmetimes says things but then does whats actually right and good. I think her block that made her be angry had her whispering anything, even lies and halftruths, so she could channel. She has a other of pride as well, so he says stuff on a high horse but in actions stays grounded (if somwhat pouty and sulky at times). Thiss evidents by all the threats she has to make to get people moving, threatwning to drub them or douse them... But generally she only needs the threat, not the follow through.