I have maintained a silence thus far on this topic because, quite frankly, he comes the closest of anyone not sworn to the Shadow to deserving Egwene and all that a relationship with her entails. But injustice cannot be hidden behind silence forever, so now Egwene’s behavior in regards to Gawyn must be examined. To her detriment of course.

The Old Days
When they first came to know one another, there is not the slightest foreshadowing of their future relationship. Though Gawyn’s lack of expressed interest or attraction to Egwene is explained away fairly early on as deference to his brother’s own interest, there is a similar lack on her part. Until they meet up in Cairhien, halfway through the series, Egwene does not speak a single word directly to Gawyn in the entire series, as she herself admits. If nothing else, that’s rather rude.

The Courtship
This is one of the more absurd developments of affection over the course of the series. One is tempted to conclude that there is some sort of communicable mental affliction for which the Trakand family are carriers, which causes people to fall in love with them for absolutely inexplicable reasons, without even any interaction or observation of the Trakand in question.

Rand is happy to see Elayne leaving Tear and dismisses the issue of his uncertain feelings for her, and the next time they meet, he is asserting his love for her and accepts her proposal of a lifetime commitment. And more or less goes back to ignoring her and forgetting about her for more than once a book. Tallanvor falls in love with Morgase with no real interaction with her, and little evidence of any sterling personal qualities that would engender such feelings, to the point where he is willing to swear a false oath and then reverse himself with a private blood oath to her. Meanwhile, she is barely aware of his identity, despite his being the longest serving officer currently in the Royal Palace.

Egwene experiences a similar progression as she starts having lurid dreams about Gawyn during the long period of their estrangement, after spending several months where she is still technically Rand’s girlfriend, and the affectionate nocturnal musings come soon enough after the termination of that relationship that Lanfear believes Rand might still be jealous about them. Later, Gawyn is the star of a fantasy that is bait for a trap by Moghedian, the nature of the bait apparently determined by the subject, if Moghedian’s subsequent musings are a reliable guide, and by LoC, their feelings have grown strong enough to trap her in his dreams, and when she actually meets him in the flesh, she will confess her love for him, and claim willingness to accept his proposal of marriage, save for their prohibitive current circumstances.

The Cairhien Phase – AKA The Exploitation
Those accustomed to viewing Egwene with an objective eye, and being alert for her self-interested motivations for every action have seen this episode of their relationship as the justification of Egwene’s feelings – namely the utility of this relationship to her immediate ends. This is the general tone for most of her personal friendships, and we see a repeated pattern of one-time friendships falling into dormancy as she turns her attention to more advantageous relationships. Gawyn has the fortune (for good or for ill) to evade this deterioration because after this point in her life, she moves on into realms where no male relationship can help her one way or another. After this, she becomes entirely invested in the White Tower, the supreme path to power for women in WoT, and that is a circle in which men are merely an afterthought and their power, or even moral equality, explicitly rejected. Gawyn remains her default boyfriend after this period, because no other man can make her a better offer. Were the White and Black Towers to unite on an equal basis, with the latter having genuine influence and explicit power in the new world order, Gawyn might very well find himself back on the singles scene, as Egwene pursues the new true love of her life, who just so happens to bring a substantial amount of authority among the male Aes Sedai to the table.

In any event, at the last point in her life when a man can be of urgent use to her, she fortuitously encounters the object of her (apparently reciprocated) lascivious dreams. The strongest case for Gawyn’s mental deficiencies are presented in LoC, with both his sudden and absolute acceptance of Rand’s guilt for the death of his mother, from a source whose credibility is mentally dismissed by Gawyn himself moments before, and in his blithe subservience to Egwene’s agenda. From his point of view, the circumstances are (or should be) remarkably suspicious. From out of nowhere, a woman who has never registered the slightest awareness of his existence, suddenly claims to love him, just before coming up with a laundry list of remarkably curious requests, all of which are rather serious conditions to place on a man in his position. She asks that he forego vengeance for his mother (against a man who just happens to be her “ex” ), on little evidence offered (though to be fair, he sought vengeance based on equally limited evidence; the word of a woman known to be close friends with his sister, who is otherwise impeccable in her selection of friends, against that of a stranger Gawyn had previously noted for exaggerating his insights and being disingenuous in his justifications), first of all. She all asks him to keep her whereabouts secret from their superiors, despite their reputation for harsh treatment of deception or betrayal, and her own behaviors strongly suggestive of spying, indicating active hostility to his mistresses.

Not only does he readily agree to all this, he takes casual comments from her as requests to spy on the sisters, and while he does not accede, he seems to be more aware of the dangers of such a course of action than the last men so requested by a diminutive channeler (Bukama in New Spring), and rather than refuse even such a ridiculous proposition, instead asks her to desert the fight and elope. Think of the implications of this counter-proposal in sitcom terms: an implicit suggestion so absurd that the man proposes to get out of agreeing to it. That's how thoroughly under her thumb Gawyn is at the time of their first romantic liaison – he believes she is suggesting an absurdly suicidal course of action, but even then, he cannot say no, and instead offers to run away and marry her peasant ass into the royal family of two nations, in hopes of dissuading her from the course of action he assumes. Egwene, having at least the shrewdness to not discard a tool so easily and willingly utilized, refrains from taking him up on this offer (which probably only engenders further gratitude and devotion from him).

However, in terms of personal relationship behaviors, her secretly chosen course of action is still rather reprehensible, for even an ordinary sort of friend, let alone the supposed love of one’s life. As a compromise between her self-appointed duties, and her obligation as a friend to Gawyn, she decides to refrain from actually asking him to divulge confidences regarding his superiors, but determines to make use of any information he offers unprompted. The latter aspect might seem innocuous were it not for the phrasing Egwene herself uses to describe it – “let slip.” In other words, she will not limit herself to information he freely or willingly shares with her, but also things he reveals unconsciously or unknowingly to her. Since the only reason he would do so unless he is the sort of man to freely gossip with everyone he encounters, such information is likely to come to Egwene only due to his increased trust in her, and comfort or security he perceives in her presence, due to her claim of affection for him. In other words, she is determined to use information that she is specifically able to obtain only by taking advantage of the trust they are supposedly offering to one another as a token of their love! Not only that, she makes this determination after obliquely reassuring him that she will not ask him to compromise his honor for her! An equivalent “compromise” by Gawyn would be that he would not actually arrest Egwene or report her to the sisters, but if one of them asked if he had seen Egwene, he would tell the truth. What makes Egwene’s compromise more absurd is the sheer lack of duty or obligation behind it. By all reasonable standards, her rightful duty and allegiance is to the same sisters and Amyrlin Gawyn himself serves. By her later reckoning, the rebellion which she defends and for which she attempts to obtain information in this episode, is in the wrong! She has no real reason to prefer one group over another aside from an unfounded distrust of the Red Ajah (would that Lan had extended his lecture on the topic to Egwene as well as Perrin the night he rescued them from the Children of the Light), and a Gawyn-like absurd loyalty to a somewhat abusive personality (Siuan) who nonetheless tossed her crumbs of attention at one point.

Setting aside the murky and mercurial issue of Egwene’s rightful allegiance, her position vis a vis Gawyn as an intelligence source is one of those attempts to have her cake and eat it too, but in this case, fails on both ends. She is trying to serve both her perceived duty to her cause, and honor the trust extended by her love interest with her compromise, yet in doing so she fails both. If her cause is important enough to justify breaking a personal trust, then she is obligatedto do all in her power to obtain whatever information she can, to point of wheedling it out of Gawyn and using his feelings as leverage. On the other hand, if it is not sufficiently important to jeopardize their relationship, she owes it to him to keep his confidences. The only reason he might possibly “let slip” any useful information is because of his (apparently misplaced) trust in her. Her use of that information without his knowledge is a betrayal of that trust. Instead, Egwene manages to violate both her concerns with her idiotic compromise, and by refusing to strain his feelings for her, betrays her cause, and by deciding to breach his trust by making use of his slip-ups, she betrays their relationship. It’s enough to make Min’s childish behavior around Rand appear the more sane romance in this book.

The Tar Valon Phase – AKA Breaking Him to the Saddle
Their relationship gets off on a bad foot in Tar Valon, with Gawyn offending Egwene by his use of initiative. While in fairness to Egwene, Gawyn’s initiative is generally something that ought be discouraged, in this case, he acted from the best of intentions and the damage he did, if any, by his cooperating with her rescue is hard to determine. That rescue, after all, resulted in a purge of the Black Ajah from both Tower and rebel camp and Egwene’s acclamation as Amyrlin for real shortly after. The discovery of her sleeping at the scene of the battle could not have enhanced the perception among the Tower Sitters of her role in that fight, after all. Not only that, her closest political and military advisors were convinced of the necessity of the rescue, and there is absolutely no reason for anyone in the know, including readers, to accept Egwene’s assessment of a situation when conflicting with Siuan’s. After all, by her own indirect admission, the political campaign that resulted in her ruling as well as reigning among the rebels was of Siuan’s devising, down to the speech in the Hall which called for the vote. Siuan’s own admiration for Egwene’s leadership is not totally objective and a strong case can be made that she is simply rationalizing her own failure to gain the upper hand in their covert working relationship – rather than admit she is stuck serving an ignorant child who coasts on her fortune in riding the slip stream of competent people and extraordinary times, a mental image of herself as the right-hand man of a capable and forceful leader would certainly be more palatable. In any event, as Egwene herself all but admits, her objection with Gawyn’s actions is not what he did or why, but the fact that he contravened her known wishes. Even the fact that his awareness of her wishes was second-hand at best, and those wishes arguably outdated and based on obsolete scenarios does not matter to her – it is the fact that he did not comply with her expressed orders to other people! This slightest deviation by even the tiniest hair is sufficient to make Egwene express misgivings about their relationship and contemplate reneging on her promise to bond him as a Warder.

Setting aside the ludicrous and tortured logic Egwene employs to rebuke Gawyn’s behavior, it is completely without precedent or comparison anywhere in WoT, to a degree that suggests an inconceivably high opinion of herself, and in particular, self-identification with her office (by ignoring the boundaries of her personal and professional lives) to an insane degree. No male ruler or other authority figure is shown to, or could possibly dream of, in the context of the culture and general depiction of male-female relationships, demand the degree of deference and submission to the office as Egwene requires of Gawyn. Perrin would not expect such of Faile, despite his overlordship of a nation and a separate demesne, or even of his vassal Alliandre. Rand would certainly not expect or demand such from Min, who has no problem “humorously” belittling his background or behaving indecorously in public, or even socializing in a friendly manner with women who act towards him in ways that Egwene would punish if subjected to the same. In court politics, a nod or smile from the ruler at a particular individual, or lack thereof, can be the basis or undoing of fortunes and careers. For a woman like Caraline Damodred to snap at him, and then have his consort engage her in a friendly chat about clothes is far more indicative of license to lese majeste or defiance than the spanking Cadsuane covertly administers in the same episode. Yet Rand never once tries to impose on Min a code of conduct that would make his life easier, nor would she let him forget it if he did. Tuon, the heir and all-but-official ruler of the Seanchan Empire swears her marriage vows without attempting to place any preconditions or restrictions on Mat’s behavior, and she presides over a court where, as a High Lord describes it, the wrong facial expression can result in horrific deaths. The Seanchan have elaborate protocols and standards of acceptable behavior and propriety, and for Tuon to allow her consort to merrily go his way after fighting a bloody and successful campaign against her forces is far more undermining of her authority than any misplaced initiative is for Egwene. Imagine if word got out that the father of Elayne’s children and her intended husband left her bed to travel around the world sleeping with her best friend, without so much as checking in on her once, to the point where he is the last significant PoV character left in ignorance of their forthcoming offspring! While it is hard to imagine a rebellion or secession taking place in Andor in that circumstance, it might still be highly embarrassing for Elayne if publicized in the wrong light, yet that is what she accepted when she got into a relationship with a man with other obligations. The same may be said of Tuon with Mat, Perrin with Faile and Rand with Min or Aviendha (or for that matter, Elayne – that relationship has endless potential for a feedback loop of infinite political inconvenience). Compared to those scenarios, however much of a stretch the potential problems caused by the independence of the ruler’s consort, Egwene’s position is absurd.

In the first place, her position is entirely political. Her own authority and political influence matters ONLY among Aes Sedai. To everyone else, including novices, Accepted, Warders, Tower servants and ruling monarchs, her authority is the same as the White Tower and absolute in that regard. That is, after all, the basis on which Egwene induced the Hall of the rebels to declare war on Elaida – by establishing their skepticism of Egwene’s authority and office as a rejection of the entire group & its authority and legitimacy. Therefore, the personal and public life issues are not the same for her as for a monarch or national ruler. Rather her authority is closer to what contemporary mores would call “professional.” In other words, generally limited to work-related matters, with strong habits protecting the private interests of individuals, and maintaining them as discrete from their public and professional interests and responsibilities. Just by the practices shown in recent books, her assertion that she cannot afford the slightest disrespect or independence in a Warder is discredited. If the senior-most Sitters in the Hall of the Tower cannot question the warder of a sister with absolutely no authority or influence in their camp without her permission, how in the world can the conduct of the Amyrlin’s Warder or his flouting of her commands be made to reflect against her? What passes between a Warder and Aes Sedai is repeatedly shown as being private and not even subject to innocuous questions from friends, let alone public considerations of authority and fitness for office. Indeed, the general run of women, even rather straitlaced individuals such as Nynaeve are implied to discuss intimate details of their marital relations more freely than sisters discuss their Warders with friends from the same Ajah and decades of association. Plainly, Egwene does not need Gawyn to conform to external expectations of Warder behavior in order to maintain her authority or respect as Amyrlin. Myrelle is permitted to hold positions of high authority despite rumors of scandalous behavior on an unmatched scale (until Rand, at least) with her own Warders. Even if it is merely a question of personal image, her position is about as silly as Mat’s stubbornness regarding his drinking and gambling habits vis a vis marriage. Her insistence on Gawyn’s obedience is like that of a newly married and insecure young man demanding public exhibitions of respect from his bride lest other men ridicule him as whipped. In addition to that peril being more a product of his own insecurities, the truth is that married men would certainly understand the difference between husbandly cooperation and submission, having experience in that position themselves. Almost every Warder-Aes Sedai relationship of a PoV character is shown to reflect his as well, and the only one-sided relationships with a bond-holder cracking the whip to the degree Egwene seems to expect in her demands of Gawyn, are those perceived as outsiders, with the more experienced observers offering the caveat that it is impossible to say what really goes on. The most note-worthy example of this type, Merise & Narishma, certainly does not preclude public disobedience or backtalk on the part of the Warder.

Thus we see by the standards of either a ruler and consort or Aes Sedai and Warder, Egwne’s stated requirements of Gawyn are absurd. Even more damning is that fact that to that, she has offered him nothing in regards to their relationship (aside from the opportunity to “betray” her to the Tower embassy, which both of them had to know would severely curtail their opportunities for PDA, questions of trust aside), aside from the promise to bond him as a Warder, on which she is already reneging. So much for the Three Oaths… She even, at the time of that promise, explicitly recognizes his obligations to Elayne, but gives little sign of accepting those obligations in her treatment of him in Tar Valon. Certainly it is hard to reconcile her insistence that everything he does henceforth must be influenced by the demands of her office with any idea that he will be permitted to operate according to the requirements of Andor and its military interests and necessities (fortunately for Elayne, Caemlyn is no doubt filled with people possessing superior judgment to her brother, down to some of the beggars, thus obviating her need for his military expertise – it is noteworthy too, to take into account which of the two was on a winning side in their recent experiences of wartime leadership).

A further indignity heaped on Gawyn’s head by his supposed beloved, is her horrifically rude and impersonal summons to Tar Valon to resume his abject petitioning for her favor. If any other character, especially the male variety, were to delegate the composition of a private invitation for his love interest to a subordinate clerk or secretary, the consequences would be a sharp lesson in failing to properly respect one’s love interest. Even given the much greater latitude afforded WoT women in such matters, it is impossible to envision Elayne so ordering Master Norry to compose a letter for Rand (except in the case of a public missive for a generally known meeting on official business) or Faile having Balwer write one for Perrin or Tuon having her secretary do so for Mat. In each of those cases, once again, it would be far more excusable as in at least two of those instances the secretary in question is familiar with the man from a prior working relationship, and in all three cases, enjoys a longer and/or closer working relationship than between Egwene and her Keeper of the Chronicles! Contrast even the apparent insult or snubbing of Elayne merely communicating with Mat in this manner upon his first arrival in Caemlyn, including his own resentment and her later apology and explanation that she was unaware of his arrival or treatment. Yet, Egwene has not the slightest qualm about treating the man who has risked and sacrificed so much for her in the same way Elayne apologizes for giving the appearance of treating a rather uncouth individual with whom she clashes on so many levels!

Poontang – the Final Indignity
When all is said and done, when Gawyn has been used and abused so mercilessly by the object of his affection, and in spite of all of this, defended her from assassins regarding whose existence she herself dismissed his reports, nearly at the cost of his own life, she finally fulfills her promise and bonds him as a Warder and agrees to marry him. Yet, Egwene being Egwene, she still continues to set the tone for their relationship by finding one last way to screw him over (strictly figuratively speaking, which is the problem, if you know what I mean). She refuses to have sex with him (though by this point she might very well be the first woman in the entire series to do this under any circumstances) until they go through some meaningless farce of a wedding ceremony! Now as a general principle in real life, I do not personally disapprove of premarital abstinence in the least. On the other hand, Egwene and Gawyn don’t live in the real world, they live in the world of tWoT, where I cannot punch them. None of the reasons for premarital chastity apply to their circumstances. There is no religion, so that aspect does not apply to them. Regarding their customs, not only does the Two Rivers accept premarital sex (though it appears to be their own obscure revenge for the Breaking or something in that they don’t tell the men it’s okay), but Egwene has repeatedly and explicitly disavowed her obligations to Two Rivers practices, starting with the first book in the series, and even expressing her rationalizing for ignoring the particular practice as it applies to this specific case! As far as her prospective husband’s customs and traditions, there is no word one way or another on Andoran sexual mores, but judging by his female relatives, the specific practice of his family seems to be Trakands put out! Elayne’s holding out until the fourth date would appear to be more a result of her own personal inhibitions and innocence, than any real opposition to premarital relations, and Thom seems to have set her straight on that account as well, when they discuss her mother’s habits in tSR. So customs and practices of their homelands don’t apply, and certainly the Tower has no such restrictions. The only viable reason for withholding what some might argue would be his due, after defending her singlehandedly from the Bloodknives, would be the necessity for a commitment to a long-term relationship. Would Egwene (or her apologists in our community) REALLY try to make the ridiculous assertion that words spoke in the presence of a village pharmacist are more binding and more properly affirming lifetime commitment than a Warder bond? Real world religious scripture speaks of a man and woman becoming one flesh, but what is that compared to a bond that lets them feel one another’s emotions and physical sensations! Egwene is committed, she’s in the clear morally, and is by her own reckoning unbound by any tradition or social expectations. There is absolutely no reason to make Gawyn sleep in a separate bed, except her own contrary and malicious nature. And people expect me to trust in her friendship with Rand to induce her cooperation for Tarmon Gaidon?