Well I mostly loathe Egwene but she does come off a lot more real then Ce'Nedra, and she gets the shit kicked out of her regularly before losing her lover and going out in a blaze of glory. She's a bitch but she's very human. Moraine-> Polgara and Elayne -> Ce'nedra seem better comparisons and while RJ does a less than wonderful job with either of them they do come off better.

Polgara has her irritating qualities but she's not as bad until it gets rubbed in your nose with Sephrenia-clone and she fits the behavior of what you'd expect from the ancient super-sorceress, she's mor ejustified s a Mary-Sue, my biggest objection to her is that she never goes MIA Gandalf or Allanon style to let characters grow or develop without her there to help and overshadow. At least Belgarath gets a long phase of not being there in Queen of Sorcery followed by being weak and presumably powerless in Book 4.

Aphrael is a pretty fun character, and the worship-me aspect is legitimized by being a goddess dependent on that behavior for her existence. I don't want to rag on Eddings too much, they're good reads.