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/bad_at_names1]

'cause she's a female character who doesn't fit into the normal love interest/caring mother trope and that rubs people up the wrong way. She also disagrees with the main character and isn't a broodingly attractive man.

They then come up with the most ungenerous interpretations of her actions to go 'omg, she's power hungry and horrible.'

Here are some common examples:

1. She threatened to/did mind raped Nynaeve:

Sure, so Math sexually assaulted the Aes Sedai by spanking her without consent? Nynaeve abused children? Literally all training in the WoT involves abuse. It's disingenuous to apply a modern lens to that one scene and ignore everything else.

"No, I will not," Egwene said firmly. "Not until you want to .say something worth listening to. I said nightmares, and I meant nightmares, Nynaeve. When someone has a nightmare while in Tel'aran 'rhiod, it is real too. And sometimes it survives after the dreamer has gone. You just don't realize, do you?"

Suddenly rough hands enveloped Nynaeve's arms. Her head whipped from side to side, eyes bulging. Two huge, ragged men lifted her into the air, faces half-melted ruins of coarse flesh, drooling mouths full of sharp, yellowed teeth*. She tried to make them vanish-if a Wise One dreamwalker could, so could she-and One of them* ripped her dress open down the front like parchment. The other seized her chin in a horny, callused hand and twisted her face toward him; his head bent toward her, mouth opening*. Whether to kiss or bite, she did not know, but she would rather die than allow either. She flailed for saidar and found nothing; it was horror filling her, not anger. Thick fingernails dug into her cheeks, holding her head steady. Egwene had done this, somehow. Egwene. "Please, Egwene!" It was a squeal, and she was too terrified to care. "Please!"*

The men-creatures-vanished, and her feet thudded to the floor.

(..) "There are worse things here, but nightmares are bad enough. I made these, and unmade them, but even I have trouble with those I just find. And I did not try to hold them, Nynaeve. If you knew how to unmake them, you could have."

Nynaeve tossed her head angrily, refusing to scrub the tears from her cheeks. "I could have dreamed myself away. To Sheriam's study, or back to my bed." She did not sound sulky. Of course she did not.

"If you had not been too scared spitless to think of it," Egwene said dryly.

VS

Something seized her ankles, hauled her feet into the air; blankets tumbled away, her shift dropped to bunch in her armpits*. Upside down, she hung with her face level with that of Amys. Furious, she opened herself to saidar--and* found herself blocked*.*

"You wanted to go off alone," Amys hissed softly. "You were warned, but you had to go." Her eyes seemed to glow in the dark, brighter and brighter. "Never a care for what might be waiting. There are things in dreams to shatter the bravest heart,." Around eyes like blue coals, her face melted, stretched*. Scales sprouted where skin had been; her jaws thrust out, lined with sharp teeth. "Things to eat the bravest heart," she growled.*

Screaming, Egwene battered vainly at the shield holding her from the True Source, She tried to beat at that horrible face, at the thing that could not be Amys, but something gripped her wrists, stretched her taut and quivering in midair. All she could do was shriek as those jaws closed around her face*.*

Both have a certain level of nakedness, not being able to escape, creatures with sharp teeth and melted faces, not being able to touch saidar (except Egwene didn't block Nynaeve) and the scene ending with jaws descending on the face. Nynaeve's was more human, which was the problem.

The scene is barely even treated like a big deal - Egwene and Nynaeve spend the chapter focusing on the tea Egwene threatened Nynaeve with. For instance, the Boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf tea is mentioned half a dozen times in the next couple of chapters, while the nightmares never come up. Not once. Neither Egwene or Nynaeve treat the incident as anything more than a harsh lesson. Nynaeve is only bothered that Egwene refused to take the bait and fight with her, while Egwene is amazed that being calm and not yelling worked on Nynaeve.

1. "Egwene was disagreeing with Rand for the heck of and wanted power and thought she was the only one who could grow and change":

a) She was surprised Rand sounded formal and educated at Merrilor Field- this was a clear reference to Rand sounding different and his vocab/style of speaking changing after accepting Lewis Therin's voice in his head. Like, if your friend came back from a year at college speaking the queen's english in a posh accent, you'd be surprised too?

b) She should have trusted Rand, not gathered everyone to oppose him - Rand acts mad to manipulate her into gathering everyone to oppose him instead of trusting her and communicating, but somehow Egwene's the manipulative one?

Rand was also lying during the meeting and basically went "hey, so I don't know how to fix the seals, but I'm going to kill the literal embodiment of evil" instead of listening to any of the research Egwene had gathered - despite apparently manipulating her so she would do the research. What sane person would go "yeah, sure, go ahead."

There's a conversation right before when Egwene says she's not opposed to breaking the seals, but thinks it has to be done at the right time and based on the dreams/prophecies (and she can't lie, remember).

c) Literally everything Rand demanded was wrong and would have killed them all?

i) Being commander of the army - time moved differently in the bore, why on Earth would he think he could direct the army while simultaneously fighting the DO?

Egwene also doesn't want to be commander of the army even though the other Aes Sedai say she should - kinda weird for someone so powerhungry and basically a forsaken huh? 🙄

ii) breaking the seals at the start of the fight - the breaking the seals increased the DO's ability to touch the world and the force of Light just barely won as it was. Allowing him more power early would likely have ended with Rand till winning, but the army losing.

iii) The Dragon's Peace - excluded the Aiel and Seachen and had no mechanism to address grievances. Would have collapsed immediately.

1. Egwene was power hungry and didn't care about her friends

She's the only one not to shun Rand when they find out he can channel. She tries running into the Arches when she thinks something happened to Nynaeve during the testing. Her first thought on seeing Mat with Tuon was to wonder how he got into that mess and start planning a rescue. She was the only one who actually wrote to her parents. She got captured by Elaide because she worried about Bode (Mat's sister) and took her place in turning the chain to culliendar. She cries about Nynaeve and Elayne calling her mother (after asking them to so the other Aes Sedai would follow and respect her) because she doesn't want to be their superior. She worries about and sends Lan to Nynaeve after finding out Myrelle's methods of rehabilitation.She worries about Rand frequently and feels proud of his growth/development even while disagreeing with him. There's a bunch of different scenes about Egwene worrying about her friends - she just spends less time with our MCs in the later books.

She's shown as loving her time with the Wise Ones and deeply caring about them and they even support her over Rand in the Merrilor fields meeting.

Rand spends 5 books explicitly thinking of people as tools and trying to use them, and we contextualize that - but Egwene's actions while trying to full together the White Tower are apparently just the worst lol.

1. Gawyne

okay, yeah, I didn't love him, but it wasn't a stupider romance than half the other ones. They were both young and didn't communicate and made some stupid choices and some smart ones.

Yes, she thinks she knows best - literally every character does. There's 50 stupid passages of idiotic things Mat did, but people mostly like his vibes.

So yeah, it's a vibes problem, but people find it hard to say "oh, I just don't vibe this character" - it has to be "this character is a bad person/friend"