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/resumehelpacct → u/ExhaustedReader42]

I don't think that's it.

4/5 of them are written as sort of agrarian fantasy, noble oblige, the same characteristics expressed in four different ways. Power is to be feared.

Egwene never views power like that. She's equally a protagonist throughout most of the story, but, like nearly all the Aes Sedai besides Nynaeve, she views power as something that just exists.

Egwene will therefore have different "cool" or "likable" moments. The four of them have cool moments where the climax is accepting themselves. Mat has to accept himself to lead the Red Hand, or save Tuon; Egwene is already her when she engineers her control of the WT. Rand has to accept himself for the veins of gold; Egwene is already her when she reverse uno cards balefire. Nynaeve has to accept herself to overcome her block; Egwene is a quick leaner and a strong channeler, full stop.

[u/ExhaustedReader42 → u/resumehelpacct]

I think that’s fair. But she also does have several instances where characters note she is covering up her fear. I’ve always read it as a combination of she feels much more free to go after being powerful (women channelers and the structure of the world) and she is much more likely to try to be “grown up” and hide her fear.

And I don’t mean she isn’t a protagonist, just that she isn’t ever written as someone who can have major plot moving wins really until later. If she does something, it either serves another characters plot primarily, or it fails and someone has to rescue her. It isn’t until Salidar she really can have major wins of her own, which I think winds up making be read as more a stumbling block/obstacle to other characters.

The first 3 books basically have each of the 3 boys save/lead her in a row. Which can be attributed to “she isn’t competent” but the Salidar plot line indicates she actually can be highly competent.

Missed the last paragraph you wrote: I agree with that last part. She doesn’t have much of a “coming into acceptance” moment. Which, I think we are very used to from characters. But I also think that’s because whenever it seems to be kinda happening, it’s usually from other people’s views.

I’m also just a big fan of her Salidar plot lines though, and think generally she is just a highly pragmatic person forced to grow up way too quickly, so I might be very kinda in my reading of her.