Jordan's been setting up for Rand to deliberately break the Seals since he lifted the seige of Cairhien; what was that, TSR, TFoH? As I noted above, even Perrin gives Egwene a funny look when she suggests talking him out of his plan to deal with the Seals. She's no longer simply athwart Rand, but the Creator himself, and I don't think even Mary Sue can win a game of chicken with the author.

In fact, I'm increasingly wondering if all this has just been a build up for making Egwene some sort of tragic martyr figure in Rands story, but whether or not that's the case I do think Jordan's set her up on a high horse just to take her down a peg. None of her lessons in humility ever seem to take; even when she nominally accepts them her reaction seems to be along the lines of "ah, yes, I am so brilliant that I see how I was wrong before, and having learned that lesson I am now incapable of repeating the mistake". Like when profligates "see the light", answer an altar call and then assume having recognized their faults and accepting redemption makes them invulnerable to any further transgression. She's not as bad as ever, she's WORSE, because of her cavalier belief that having been humbled and accepted it makes her so superior to others. Of course, all that really means is that she's at such a pinnacle of conceit that even Elaida and Niall would be gasping for breath, and in a perfect position for an epic fall to earth.

What it boils down to is that Egwene has made up her mind to stop Rand from doing something Jordan made very clear MUST be done. Ultimately, she can't succeed anyway; either Rand will break the Seals at a time of his own choosing when he's in a position to provide new ones, or they will continue to decay until the DO breaks them himself. No one can really stop it, not even Egwene. Yet, once again, Jordan's already well established that Rand WILL do it, and Egwene can bring every fictional army in Randland to prevent it but she'll still fail because the Creator has spoken. She'll either back down with as much grace as she can muster and get out of Rands way, or he and Jordan will simply run her over completely.