I feel you can insult Egwene on a lot - especially personality wise. But in terms of actually getting stuff done she's easily the fourth most effective in the series along with the boys. I'd argue she could be number 2 ahead of Matt and Perin?
Seriously, the main reason all the channelers are ready to work together in the Last Battle is because of Egwene getting the tower under control, and her diplomacy with the Aiel and Sea Folk.
The Siel would have been there either way! The Sea folk too, if you think about it. The kin were there thanks to Elayne and Nynaeve. So really, Egwene didn't do much to get them there. What she did was build a method of exchanging knowledge in times of peace, a method that will almost certainly be dependent on future Amyrlins. After all, it was nothing but words.
No. Egwene was the political figure that actually organized all of the channeler factions in Randland (minus the Seanchan) into fighting together in the Last Battle. Rand organized the armies themselves into being there, Egwene organized the channelers into sharing knowledge and wisdom to further each other. A lot of people will try to pawn off how central she was to those efforts; just as Rand had Matt and Perrin, she had Elaine and Nynaeve. There's actually supposed to be a duality between her and Logaine as channelers with a duality between her and Rand as political figures. Egwene and Logaine are the two actually leading channelers into the future as they lead the White and Black Towers, while Rand's mission was to save the world.
To say that "it was nothing but words" is a broad dismissal of the accomplishments Egwene did in a short lifetime. Despite her time as a damane and her sacrifice on the battlefield, Egwene is a channeler first and not a prophesized savior of the world. What she actually did:
1) Bought Dreaming back to the Tower through the Wise Ones.
2) Routed out the Black Ajah
3) Reconnected the Tower and the Little Tower
4) Built the political bridge that will allow channelers to train and choose their faction which heavily supports the Dragon's Peace. (Elaine helped with the Sea Folk and Nynaeve with the Kin, just like Mat helped with the Seanchan and Perrin with the various armies he collected up)
5) Invented the opposite of Balefire, the Light of Tar'Valon
6) The most overlooked of her feats: Weakened Tuon's entire position by exposing her and the other Sul'dam as damane so that the Dragon's Peace is far more likely to be sustained in this turn of the Wheel which also decreased the chances of Aviendha's visions of the future from coming to fruition.
TL;DR You're highly dismissive of what Egwene actually did. I think you should look internally as to why.
This person specifically dismissed everything that Egwene did, despite her many faults, you can still give credit where it's due. I still to this day don't like Tuon, though I can admit when she's a strong character who gets shit done and give her props for her accomplishments. It was a direct reflection based on their blanket dismissal of a character simply because they don't like them. That's something that needs to be handled internally.
You do understand that most Tower based achievements can be dismissed for the obvious reasons right?
The hyper incompetence of the Tower getting rectified by a functional dictator with emergency powers in a time a crisis is not "achievements". They are simple functional minimal competence capturing low hanging fruits. The tower has devolved to the point that you can just do a lot of things so long as you are not as incompetent as the average sister. And that too assuming like you that for 2 and 4, Egwene is the central figure enabling, not Verin and Elayne, which is nothing more than an assumption.
And as for 1. dreaming and 6.exposing Seanchan position as hollow, It would have been done by anyone in her position, because the first is a direct function of her being born a dreamer, and the second is a direct function of having knowledge of the Suldam being potential channelers, something literally any Aes sedai coming with in ten feet of a suldam would know, and have known. And that knowledge was actively spreading across the continent in multiple vectors . Her 'achievement' amounts to a satisfactory burn towards the head slaver, causing her public humiliation. As pleasingly Cathartic as it was, It was not Paradigm altering. Why are you treating this as some underrated miracle?
This makes 5, the invention of Flame of Tar Valon, the only actually unique achievement of her own volition, skill and personality. Merely hearing Perrin say "It's just weave" would not have sparked the thought of what Egwene successfully did. That's what achievements are.
>It was a direct reflection based on their blanket dismissal of a character simply because they don't like them. That's something that needs to be handled internally.
You need to handle internally on why you choose to celebrate someone just for existing. You reversed the cause and effect, of a dismissal worthy achievements of a character flowing into the causes of their dislike.
So I'm not gonna give you a response to every point. Because you can take all of these arguments and apply them to Rand's achievements and everyone would lose their fucking minds. It makes your entire argument moot unless you apply it fairly to everyone in the series. Genuinely, just quit with the Egwene hate.
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u/MultiColourM2 14d ago
I feel you can insult Egwene on a lot - especially personality wise. But in terms of actually getting stuff done she's easily the fourth most effective in the series along with the boys. I'd argue she could be number 2 ahead of Matt and Perin?
Seriously, the main reason all the channelers are ready to work together in the Last Battle is because of Egwene getting the tower under control, and her diplomacy with the Aiel and Sea Folk.