I much appreciate. They're very entertaining. Are the 'Egwene's Evil' posts archived anywhere, by the way?

But re this post - honestly, I think you're overanalysing the whole thing. The Rand-Egwene relationship was bizarre, but arguably no more so than many others in the series. Actually, I always thought that RJ initially intended Egwene to be one of the three, perhaps instead of Min? But pretty much every romantic relationship in WoT is messed up in some way and I always took it to be a reflection of some, probably unrecognised, problem in RJ's own marriage and his perception of women. For that matter, I always assumed the harem was little more than a harmless wish-fulfillment on his part: isn't that sort of thing meant to be some sort of male fantasy?

But to bring it back to the Two Rivers - I don't agree with your claim that the women run the place. They're certainly awkward, irritating and meddlesome equals, but superior? I don't think so. The Women's Circle is balanced by the Village Council, the Wisdom is balanced by the Mayor. And you mention the pressure that was put on both Tam and Rand to marry, but it's not limited to men. Aside from Nynaeve, every single Two Rivers woman we've met, who was old enough to do so, has been married. It's clearly something that's expected from all members of the community, and that's far more to do with the pathological insularity and incestuously-close community than any form of gender warfare.

And in a way, you're giving Egwene too much credit. You seem to think that even as a precocious nine-year-old she was plotting and scheming for power, and while I don't doubt that the seeds of ambition would have been well-rooted in her by then, I don't believe any child could have had things planned out in such detail. If there really was action taken to mark out Rand as 'hers', I'd look to her mother, not Egwene. And that raises an interesting question, because it's easy to blame Egwene for everything, but where did she get her values and morals from? Has Marin al'Vere, in the few scenes we have observed her in, not been both pushy and manipulative? Is it a coincidence that she happens to be married to Bran al'Vere, the most influential man in the Two Rivers?

You also seemingly absolve Rand of any responsibility whatsoever, but Mat is a good illustration of of how even a stultifying, prudish Two Rivers upbringing can be overcome, with will and opportunity. Rand managed to go from an ignorant, mudfooted sheep-farmer to a skilled political operator in four or five books, but he doesn't seem to have learned a single thing about the relationships between men and women in the process - which is unfortunate at best and downright negligent at worst. If he'd been any less utterly repressed, Berelain could have been the downfall of him, her or any one of the dozens of other women who started throwing themselves at him once he proclaimed himself. At the very least, he needed to know enough to protect himself from that. Of course, that would be the one thing that Moiraine, Cairheinin to the core, wouldn't have taught him.

In short and overall: Egwene's treatment of Rand was shabby, at points, but I think calling it a grand plan or a female conspiracy is stretching things a bit. (actually, the concept of the female hive-mind has popped up more than once in WoT, and I hate to be the one to tell you, but interesting as the idea is, it came completely out of RJ's imagination) And really, if I have a problem with the romances overall in WoT, it's that the main characters are far too damn young to be engaging in them at all. Seriously. Most of the main characters are barely out of their teens, and are badly in need of a few decades of seasoning.