It shouldn't be a surprise but it's still a disppointment to me that the White Tower was restored basically unchanged at the end of the series. I truly believe monolithic channeling organizations are a terrible idea and I was hoping the Tower would have been replaced by a collection of smaller groups by the end. In hindsight this was a bit naive. They're clearly intended to be an Organization of Great Good, much as that doesn't often come through on the page.

Hmmm, can we think of any other nation that believes in this? I look forward to your recap of the Egwene-Tuon meeting. They have more in common than either would like to admit.

What would you have done in her place? As I see it Egwene was in a difficult situation. She had to fight: one of the fundamental responsibilities of leadership is protecting your organization and members from harm. If she had hidden or fled it would have completely obliterated any conceivable claim to leadership. Yet Egwene could not risk capture. Not only would it leave the Tower without sane leadership, it would have given the Seanchan access to all the newly invented weaves. Elaida gave them Travelling, but Egwene would have given them Inverting and Compulsion and the creation of cuendillar as well.

And she was only one person. An organized force could have tried to cut off the Seanchan within the Tower to prevent them from returning to the to'raken with captives, but the Tower was in chaos. Egwene's troops were a bunch of shaky of novices who'd only learned to link half an hour ago - even with a sa'angreal there were limits to what she could do. Sniping fleeing to'raken was probably the most efficient tactic available to her.

She could have Traveled to the rebel camp and roused them to join the fight. But that could have backfired horribly. If the Seanchan had shifted their attack to the rebels they would almost certainly have captured Aes Sedai who knew how to Travel (finding one in the Tower was a long shot, a real piece of luck for them.) They would also have found a vast number of novices who could be relatively easily captured.

She could also have used Travelling to take novices and other survivors to safety. But every one she removed from the battle would have been one fewer fighter in the Tower.

In truth I found the whole battle a bit dull. The setup was great - Egwene's greatest fear, the sworn enemy of the Tower, attacking when she can't channel a thread. But she got around that pretty quickly and once she had the sa'angreal it was all quite predictable. Zap. Blast. Decimate. No cleverness or skill. It would have been much more interesting if Egwene hadn't been able to channel at all, or only barely. If she'd fought with nothing but cunning and wit and inspired others to follow her through courageous example, that would have been a real moment of awesome.

I don't have a problem with Egwene killing sul'dam. They were enemy invaders attacking the Tower. But I wonder how much your perceptions effect what you can do when Oath-bound. A sister who knew they were trying to capture her, not kill, would still feel in terrible danger. Would that be enough to enable her to attack an approaching sul'dam? I don't think she would have a problem attacking a hostile damane - definite imminent threat - but would an existing weave fail if she tried to aim it at a soldier or unlinked sul'dam as well?

In her defence, if Gawyn were my love interest I'd try to prevent him from ever acting on independent thought too.