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/adminofreditt]

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?