The codes:

Arrogance or Pride

Selfish or Inconsiderate behavior

Tyranny / Abuse of power

Out of Touch mentality

Judgmental Attitude

Lust for Status / Envy

Lust for Power

Sycophantic behavior or cowardice. This applies to her acceptance of or requiring such behavior, as well as acting that way herself.

Betrayal of a personal nature

Dishonesty

Protagonist Syndrome {behavior that is absolutely contraindicated unless the character knows she is a main character in a fantasy novel and thus critical to the resolution of the crisis, or bound for greatness against all in-story expectations}

Hypocrisy

Foolhardiness / Reckless endangerment of herself or others

And some that are venial level sins, or not explicitly bad or evil:

Flat out incompetence or incorrect conclusions or assessments

Stupid or Clueless behavior

Sociopathic mentality or desire toward violence or to victimize others (as opposed to actual action)

Petty, nasty or spiteful words and attitude / General rudeness

Uncooperative, resisting doing her part.

The Pattern at work, sometimes against Egwene, sometimes her going against it

Not a fault per se, but a noteworthy point of interest or milestone

Taking the side of the White Tower, or a position of inherent Aes Sedai supremacy

Part 13The Gathering Storm
This has been quite a slog. For various reasons, I have never systematically re-read either tGS or ToM, and going through them for this project is as close as I have ever come. An altered work schedule has left me without the large blocks of time I used to use for this sort of thing, Egwene's chapters and more scattered through the book, rather than compressed into contiguous chunks, I am vastly less familiar with the structure of the book, so those chunks are harder to locate when skimming and I have discovered that when I already know what's going to happen I really don't like reading these last three books.** So rather than draw this out until I get around to finishing my perusal of tGS, I'll put up the first half now.

My thanks to anyone who has stuck it out thus far.

1: While Rand’s speculation that Egwene might actually let Semirhage go and keep him as a captive “just to give her another notch in her belt” is probably based on his bad emotional state, rather than anything Egwene might actually do, this is still the one character who has always had the most accurate picture of Egwene’s mentality, and the best at predicting her actions. That he could say something like this is suggestive of the bent of her behavior before this. Rand might be exaggerating, but there has to be some sort of foundation on which to build those exaggerations. That Rand could think of this demonstrates her past treatment of him.

What’s more, a critical point of Egwene’s role as Amyrlin is predicated on her having the support and sympathy of the Dragon Reborn, to enable him to work with the Aes Sedai on a basis of mutual trust. And they made one of the worst possible choices, for while Egwene believes, to her chagrin, that Rand is open to dealing with Elaida, we see that he is definitely not open to dealing with her. Even if he doesn't really think that she would have him gentled, he still believes she would not cooperate regarding Semirhage.

From what we have seen of Egwene, we cannot even say he is wrong. For her, politics and her position are paramount. If she is not willing to endure the political difficulties engendered by saving the world from the Dark One’s touch, if she uses underhanded means to turn loose a war-criminal and terrorist for political convenience, she almost certainly won’t be willing to deal with the fallout or contentious decisions regarding a captive Forsaken.

2: Egwene’s version of praise for Silviana is that it is a pity that she “found her way to the Red,” and praises her for doing her duty, with “few enough in the Tower of whom that could be said”. Yet, there has been no indications of dereliction of duty on the part of the sisters in the Tower. There is hostility between Ajahs, but that is not a matter of duty. The greatest dereliction of duty remotely associated with the Tower would be the rebellion, made up of hundreds of sisters who abandoned the Tower in its hour of greatest need, to raise an army against it, publically slander the one Ajah that did not contribute a single deserter…and chose Egwene as their leader.

When you consider the wretched state of so many of the areas of specialization for most of the Ajahs, the Red positively shines. The Blues and their political obsessions have split the Tower. Healing is a debased and all but lost art, with a wilder and a dropout embarrassing the Yellow Ajah with their comparative expertise. The logic of the White falls on useless ears, as even their sisters belittle their conclusions & process. The state of scholarship in the world is generally only referred to in terms of how much has been lost and forgotten, in spite of the Brown's efforts, with the Tower itself, despite maintaining institutional continuity throughout the troubles affecting the rest of the world, actually losing track of the year. Twice. The Shadow seems to act at will, unconstrained or hindered by the Green. The Gray has to answer for a world beset by conflict, and several inept negotiations. Yet, according to the author himself, the channeling numbers are very low, because the Reds have done such a good job removing male channelers from the breeding pool! Since the Red Ajah was founded, the world remains unbroken. And even since the Black Tower has come into being, when the other Ajahs degenerate into weeping or screaming fits on the issue, and stall rather than act on their chosen course, the Reds step up to plan and put into action a modus vivendi that will allow them to protect the world from the Asha’man if they go mad, while accepting the need for their existence.

A woman who “found her way to the Red” is far more likely to be doing her duty than any other Ajah. But Little Miss of All Ajahs and None, like her predecessor whose ham-fisted blundering broke the Tower in the first place, prejudges them unfairly thanks to her unreasonable prejudices against the Red, without Siuan’s excuse of two decades of Blue Ajah brainwashing and political battles.

3: Egwene decides to engage Katerine in debate, unwittingly choosing a debate partner stupid enough to believe the Dark One’s promises, and thus she fails to get the responses her idiocy deserves. Katerine blames the division among the Ajahs on the rebellion, which is a plausible point, given the entirety of the Blue Ajah deserting and the rebellion setting up camp in a Blue Ajah holy site. After some pointless mental self-congratulations over Katerine’s use of a possessive regarding Egwene & them (she believes Katerine has acknowledged her leadership over the rebels, because she said “your” forgetting that “your” can precede terms like “boss” “master” and other words that don’t remotely indicate the subject is superior to the object), she makes the following points:

“Were we the ones who pulled down a sitting Amyrlin?”
What other kind of Amyrlin can you pull down? If this is an inherently wrong action, it is one the Blues invented, pulling down two sitting Amyrlins in prior centuries. Did the Creator give the Blue Ajah the equivalent of the mark of Cain, that they might never suffer the crime they were the first to commit?

Practically the first thing Siuan said in this series was that the whole Tower was getting fed up with her crap, to the point where Greens were preferring Reds to Siuan & her Ajah. Even the leaders of the rebellion admitted that Elaida was validly raised, and that they themselves had little use for Siuan as Amyrlin.

Even if acting against an Amyrlin is so wrong, how is armed rebellion & public slander, as Egwene’s “we” did, an improvement on using the process set out in Tower Law, as Elaida did?

Were we the ones who turned Warder against Warder…
Yes! Or were those Red Warders who kicked off the fight? Remember what Egwene’s FUTURE HUSBAND said during the initial uprising? That Blue & Green warders were trying to break Siuan & Leane out! Apparently when armed men use force to circumvent the actions of a duly elected legislature, anyone who tries to resist is guilty of starting a fight! And as far as that fight goes, she condemns the woman who did not order the loyalist counterattack, but plans to marry the one who carried it out without orders or invitation!

…or the ones who failed to contain the Dragon Reborn?
Was it a Red who removed him from Caemlyn when Elaida clued in that there was something significant about him? Was it the Reds who knew who he was and let him run wild, while taking pains to conceal him from the Hall of the Tower? If Rand is uncontained, it has nothing to do with the Red Ajah or Elaida, and everything to do with Egwene’s role models.

4: Egwene’s grammar has also deteriorated, thinking phrases like “they stayed with her increasingly now” and believing women can be both “tall and stocky” or things like “overly long” instead of ‘over long’ or that her Ajah is “reflected” in the colors of her clothing, instead of ‘indicated’. Or that people can have austere faces. As opposed to, what, a luxurious face? The kind of face that you spend a lot of money on? Of course, this might be a result of the Dark One’s increasing touch on the world, since Rand appears to suffer a similar affliction.**

5: Upon being confronted with another reminder of the Dark One’s touch on the world, Egwene calls it a “reminder that squabbles over authority were secondary to larger, horrible troubles”. So why is she still squabbling? Why is she persisting in her rebellion, instead of accepting her demotion for the sake of unity? The “squabble” is entirely on her part. If she and hers were to surrender, the Tower would be united. Without the excuse of the rebellion, Elaida’s supposed ineptitude could then be addressed as Siuan’s was, because in a united Tower, criticizing the Amyrlin would not be tacitly agreeing with the rebels. Even if the rebels have to endure penances, is that too high a price to pay? Elaida can order the Blue Ajah to no longer meet or wear blue, but she can’t change loyalties or eradicate secret communications and codes to allow the Blue to function clandestinely as the Black has. They don’t need the Black’s Oath Rod solution, since they wouldn’t need to lie, and have no higher allegiance to betray.

The only sticking point would be that Egwene would not be in charge. Oh, right. Squabble on, then.

6: While patting herself on the back and mentally affirming that she is ‘winning the war,’ because people are talking about a couple of White Tower defeats, Egwene is starting to think that maybe it’s not such a good thing, that the harm being done to the Tower in the name of her quest for power isn’t helpful in the big picture. She still shies away from admitting she’s at fault, instead focusing on all this ineptitude on Elaida’s part, but Elaida isn’t exactly going off the reservation. She is pretty much following the typical Aes Sedai playbook, and not doing anything too differently than any other sister in her position might have. Without their quest for power, it seems very improbable that the rebels would have behaved any differently towards the Black Tower. Egwene herself had no idea what to do about the Black Tower, because it didn’t fit into her political agenda.

Elaida’s kidnapping attempt on Rand might have been a tactical blunder, but from a Tower perspective, at least she tried something, other than the pointless meetings that went nowhere which was all the Salidar embassy managed, before alienating him by pitching a fit over ego issues.

This might also explain her overreaction to Nynaeve’s & Elayne’s bargain with the Sea Folk – “What if there is someone out there like me, who will use every event contemporaneous with my administration to discredit me, no matter how unfairly?”

7: Up to this point, so certain of her moral right to superiority as Amyrlin, Egwene, upon realizing that a confrontation with a real Amyrlin will result in a reduction of her comforts, comes up with a new formulation, that the Amyrlin does whatever is required of her, that being meek and humble for Elaida is actually doing the right thing, instead of merely the thing that is easiest for her. She asserts that the best way to win, is to make Elaida think there is no battle.

Attacking someone who doesn’t know they are fighting is called “treachery”. If Elaida is unlawful, and Egwene is the genuinely rightful Amyrlin, she should be making that point, and sticking to her guns, regardless of the consequences to herself. Except now, there is not apparently an actual principle at stake, now it’s all about winning no matter what.

She even admits that she’s going to keep “a civil tongue” because it is the best way to succeed while “maintaining some measure of pride.” By her own admission, belligerence and rudeness were her default plan, and her plan is more about her pride than any principle. Keeping a “civil tongue” is not meekness or mildness, it is simply refraining for insulting, rude or belligerent speech. It is possible to make proud declarations, accusations, and even condemnations, while maintaining a civil tongue, thought Egwene seems unaware of this (which might actually explain a lot of her past interactions with Rand). But she really, REALLY wanted to be nasty with Elaida, so it’s going to be a noble sacrifice to use that civil tongue!

8: Egwene’s first thought upon entering Elaida’s quarters is to criticize them for not being as functional as she imagines Siuan’s might have been (while admitting she has never seen ANY Amyrlin’s quarters). Siuan would have had crossed swords hanging there, despite her disparaging swords in the very first conversation she had with Egwene, and they would have been there in case warders needed them.

Hypothetical Scenario:
“Hey, fellow warder, I urgently need a sword here in the middle of the White Tower!”
“As do I. If I had a pair, I’d lend you one, but I need a sword as well!”
“Light, what are we to do?”
“I know, let’s run to the Mother’s private quarters! She’ll have a couple of swords there.”
+knock knock+
“Let us in, Mother! We need those swords on your wall!”
“No, that was the previous Amyrlin. I don’t have anything. Would you like to borrow a silk wall hanging instead…oh, you’ve been slain. Too bad. I should keep some swords on my wall.”

There are not words for how stupid this author girl is.

Also, the woman who, in her first public appearance as Amyrlin, had servants get rid of the chairs provided by her hosts to be replaced with elevated seats to loom over said hosts, critiques Elaida’s private chair for looking like a throne. She criticizes the extravagance of the decor, when the very first time in her life she ever bought clothes, she tried to outspend the daughter of a queen, who came down on the side of wool over silk. The woman who has her vapid maid hang out during working meetings to interrupt her subordinates with mindless blather, condemns Elaida because the furnishings in her private residence are “distracting.”**

9: Besides her difficulty in not screaming at Elaida or insulting her like a childhood friend, or condemning Elaida for not sharing her opinions about which side is legally in the right, Egwene is full of indignation that Elaida dares to contemplate imposing an Oath of obedience to the Amyrlin Seat, saying that it would “undermine the Tower” and “transform the Amyrlin from a leader to a despot”. At least Elaida would be doing it openly, instead of compelling that same oath through blackmail!

10: In a time of near-famine, with unspoiled food being rare and precious, of which Egwene is aware, having commented on it in this very chapter, she wastes food by dumping out soup to vent her rage and frustration at someone having the temerity to offer an opinion when Egwene can’t shriek at her or punish her for expressing it.

Her perspective is that “she wished she hadn’t been forced to spill the soup on the floor.” She thinks that her temper fit was being “forced”, but Elaida has been warped by power, because she’s rubbing the penalties for treason and rebellion in the face of a woman who is not only a traitor, but a liar who is attempting to use friendship as a pretext to further her spying, and even take sexual advantage of Elaida under a false pretext. Everything Meidani is attempting to do is the work of a horrible person, but Elaida is evil for being “cruel” to her, while she tolerates the indignity for political reasons. Egwene is not at all transformed by her stint wielding power, which is why she is pouring out soup on the rugs…sorry, being forced to dump out increasingly scarce food, at the horror of being exposed to opposing viewpoints!

And upon leaving, she wonders if Elaida had ever been a true Aes Sedai in control of her emotions. Yelling at a malingering juvenile who ruins dinner is emotionally out of control, but dumping food in a fit of temper is Aes Sedai serenity. Remember, at no point does Egwene attempt to characterize her act as a calculated gesture of subtle defiance, repeatedly describing it as an expression of her temper.

11: Egwene realizes that her duty as Amyrlin is to hold the Tower together, not exacerbate the fracturing. Up until this moment, her duty was to exacerbate the fracturing and was giving orders to that purpose! And she has not a single thought about how she was absolutely and completely wrong an hour ago.

And then she segues into “What was Rand doing to the world without guidance?” In the first place, once again, she is assuming the worst of Rand. He has been taught by Moiraine, whose final words on the subject were “You will do well,” and Egwene has never ever guided him. She herself long ago noted that he doesn’t trust or listen to her, and his successful leadership of several nations argues strongly against his needing any of her undemonstrated expertise at anything. Who is supposed to be guiding him? All those Aes Sedai she is always fuming about not taking proper care of novices or according proper respect to the Amyrlin Seat or stupidly following Elaida when it is plain she is a disaster in the making? There are simply no reasons for her assumptions, and nothing in her experience or knowledge to indicate any particular need on his part for guidance.

Siuan goes on quite a bit about Lelaine’s unsuitability, and the rebels’ desperate need to get Egwene back, to the point that a casual reader might take this as an indication of Egwene’s quality. Instead, most of what Lelaine discusses is carrying out Egwene’s policies, and even bolstering Egwene’s name. Oh, and rather than focus her tunnel-vision on an internal dispute and letting the rest of the world go hang, she’s talking about sending envoys to the nations following Rand. Like Egwene could have done any time in recent months, instead of worrying about how he’s screwing up now, in between being mad at Nynaeve for going off to help him.

The difference between these two candidates, that makes Siuan think Lelaine is untrustworthy and that they are headed for disaster without Egwene, is that Egwene listens to Siuan, flatters her, and gives her a position of importance. Almost every positive assessment of Egwene is either colored by such considerations, or is slanted due to the friendship of the assessor.

12: In spite knowing just about all the facts of the Asha’man bonding Aes Sedai, including the fact that it was in self-defense against women sent to kill them, and that Rand had nothing to do with it, Egwene is still full of outrage and condemnation of him. In a private conversation, where even the excuse of political appearances cannot hold. Later her thoughts confirm she isn’t posturing with Siuan, either, that she really is indignant that Asha’man chose not to be murdered (in violation of the so-wonderful Tower Law that mandates such men be taken to Tar Valon for trial), and chose in turn, not to refrain from executing their attempted killers.

If Rand is to blame for this supposed wrong-doing, Egwene is equally to blame for every single bad or wrong thing the Aes Sedai have done, including the attempted mass-slaughter of the channelers, workmen, servants, and male family members present at the Black Tower.

When Egwene starts earning the respect of the sisters in the Tower, bear in mind these are people too stupid to solve simple personal problems, like interacting with their warders, or the First Weaver of the Yellow Ajah who claims that the Ajah is not, in fact, about Healing with the Power. We have never seen a Yellow who is not a skilled or competent Healer, and they utterly reject even methods of healing that don’t involve the Power. The notion that the Yellow Ajah is actually about fixing or mending that which is broken is utterly counter-indicated by every other depiction of the Ajah and its members in the series. If it were true, Nynaeve would have been embraced by the Salidar Yellows, rather than ridiculed. If it were true, Romanda would have used that argument when lobbying for authority over the delegation to the Black Tower, instead of being left making a case from a position of disinterested neutrality.

Plainly, the same touch of the Dark One that has affected Egwene’s ability to describe things, and makes her talk like she just binge-watched Game of Thrones (“My thanks”? Seriously? ), is also warping Suana’s judgement. Who can say how many of the other Sitters or Ajah Heads who will come to believe that she makes an acceptable Amyrlin are suffering the same distorted perception?**

I think Egwene’s also making stuff up. At what point, in the course of a visit to Meidani’s rooms, would she have had time to inspect all the plaques and labels identifying stuff? Why would a woman give the Aes Sedai who mediated a dispute over her husband’s estate her marriage knife? Considering the symbolism and cultural significance, that makes less than zero sense, like giving your wedding ring to the probate official or arbitrator who settled a dispute, between two other people, over your late spouse’s will. Who would dothat? It isn’t even as plausible as giving away a wedding ring, since some people do stop wearing their wedding rings upon being widowed, but we see Altaran widows retain their marriage knives. Even if a widow might give her knife away, it’s a very personal gift, implying Meidani is prone to favoritism. If Verin & Alanna were refusing the gifts of fresh meat, from two men they had Healed, while they are hiding in the woods, why was Meidani accepting rugs from her patients’ family? We’re clearly talking about a greedy and corrupt woman here. At the very least, her labeling all the furniture and decor paints a picture of a passive-aggressive, obsessive-compulsive and colossally insecure braggart. Either that, or Egwene has begun inventing details out of whole cloth.**

She’s also still having her peculiar form of reverse aphasia, misusing terminology & modifiers like she’s having a contest. For one such example, we see her speculating that if several Sitters are willing to meet, they are “free of the fractures undermining the rest of the Tower.” People don’t have fractures, so they cannot be “free” of them. In a situation like this, the “fractures” as applied to an abstract concept like the unity of the White Tower, would be what divide people, not things that afflict them.**

13: Egwene’s meeting with Black Ajah-hunting Sitters is so full of idiocy that going point by point would take forever. So some bullet points:
- She criticizes their application of the oath of obedience to the captured spies, ignoring her own imposition of such an oath when her very life and survival did not depend on her victims’ cooperation.
- She lucks out in that they choose to engage her in debate, just as Katerine did back in the first chapter.
- She also lucks out when Seaine fails to make the argument of absolutely necessary security, instead, suddenly coming up with the idiotic rationale of being “certain we are all working for the same goals”.
- Her argument against having Meidani order a penance is completely baseless. That order is not making Meidani into their tool, it is part of maintaining their cover against Black Ajah spies. Something that should be obvious to the chit who pitched a hissy fit over being told to adhere to the Three Oaths while conducting her own (or more accurately, tagging along on Nynaeve’s) hunt for Blacks.
- Her argument that Elaida’s election is invalid due to the votes of Black sisters is not only as idiotic as Yuiri points out, but remarkably typically hypocritical considering what she now knows about Delana.
- Her response to Yukiri’s pointing out the invalidity of the entire Hall that elected her, fails to address the point. She diverts to an irrelevant comparison of the Halls for their views on Elaida.
- She finishes by threatening women living under the threat of murder at the hands of the Black Ajah with accusations of seeking personal power for their application of the Oath of obedience to known traitors, when she KNOWS the necessity of their use, and knows the reality of their dangers! And, is manifestly guilty of the very thing with which she is threatening to mendaciously charge them!

** WHAT THE FUCK, BRANDON?! Seriously, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?! If you don’t know how to describe things, please just don’t, okay? Or at least, read what you wrote and ask if it makes sense. If we are going to PAY to read this stuff, the least you could do is ALSO read it, considering you are GETTING paid for pretending to write a WoT book.