The point is that Cannoli is very knowledgable about most areas of the series and he could be a great debater regarding Egwene, whom I love and he despises. But it's become irrational now and more than irritating. I have written whole posts like
http://www.readandfindout.com/wheeloftime/messageboard/69583/ where I am prepared to concede bad behaviour on Egwene's part.
Do you really think THAT is a concession? You pretended to consider that she might be at fault, and proceeded to offer four arguments in her favor, and none in opposition! My responses were far more conciliatory, in that I allowed she might do some good from that point on, and that her tactics must be judged on the use to which she puts the power she has gained with them. And for shit like that, I am supposed to just cave in and change my mind?
However, Cannoli will not concede anything. I actually enjoy debating with Shannow but he's the same with the OP.
Why should I walk back my opinion just because you don't like it? Why should I concede anything? If we were inviting WoT characters to lunch, and I refused to allow Egwene or Siuan or Min, but insisted on only allowing the good ones to come, while not letting you veto anyone, yeah, that calls for concessions. But reversing my opinions because you don't share them is an insane expectation. If Egwene did good things, my opinion would not be so set on her. If I call her out on her treatment of Mat, why should I concede that she was nice to Perrin or Rand, if she is not?
Whether or not I make concessions has NOTHING to do with whether or not I am right on a particular issue.
What you are really saying is, "I like arguing until it gets hard; or I relish a determined opponent, as long as he eventually gives up and lets me win!"
I just don't understand how anyone can say that Egwene has not delivered and then come up with more than preposterous answers when these facts are challenged.
The original point was characters who are praised by OTHER CHARACTERS during the series, who don't live up to it. You promptly cited a bunch of examples from the last "book" for which there was no time to give Egwene unwarranted praise, and which were not all that impressive on the scale of the other main characters. Sure, she did better than Random Aes Sedai Sanderson Named After a Sycophantic Fan #2, but not compared to Nynaeve or Rand or Moiraine. She beat Mesaana in a way you even admitted was stupid, and M'hael as a function of their equipment - hers let her suicide bomb him. Author fiat, in other words. On the other hand, Nynaeve beat Moghedian through a skill she had taken specific pains to hone prior to their confrontation, and by observational awareness of her surrounds, and some deductive reasoning. She turned T'A'R against its most dangerous user. Aviendha did something similar with
Hessalm Hessalam Graendal mk2. Rand often won by daring what they believed to be impossible. And he liberated countries. All Egwene did was prevent Mesaana from winnowing a handful of the more inept channelers at the last moment. It's not like Mesaana was acting against the world on a scale akin to Rahvin or Sammael or Bel'al, or doing her thing as effectively as Graendal had been.
However preposterous you claim my reason is, who is to say you are right and I am wrong, when I find your presentation of beating Mesaana as comparable to beating Moghedian or Graendal or Lanfear even more preposterous.
When clever people are stupid or stubborn it's the absolute worst. Why was Egwene obligated to kill herself against Taim?
I don't know, but I'm not defending it or praising her for it.
That's completely moronic. Most people would have held out thinking of another plan, or waiting for an ally to help them.
Dur.
Maybe the AS around her would have made a circle of 13 and finally come to the party? The point is that she made the choice to overdraw and die to kill Taim and a whole army of evil channelers. Even from her own PoV the act was selfless.
The PoV of a character is not proof that the character is right.
How is that not producing the goods? HOW!?
How is it relevant to the question of receiving excessive praise, well before she did any of those things? How are we supposed to find those definitively impressive compared to actual leadership during that same battle, or running the battle itself, or beating the Dark One? This is how it always goes with Egwene - she does things on a much smaller scale, and you people insist on presenting it as equivalent to more significant things. Egwene gets spanked with specific constraints against breaking her will, and gets Healed afterwards, and you compare with Rand's beatings, imprisonment and anguish of a love interest sharing his punishment to a degree, with no Healing, and a deliberate attempt to break his will! Where was the honey in Rand's tea? When did Egwene have to watch Gawyn getting beaten before her eyes for taking her part? But Egwene says that now she has suffered comparably to Rand, and you people swallow it as an objective fact. Egwene takes an army into Tel'Aran'Rhiod, along with the greatest living experts in that place, to face a bunch of ill-trained Black sisters, and a Forsaken, who, unlike Lanfear or Moghedian, has never been cited as having any particular ability with the dreamworld, she only manages to corner her quarry because Perrin wandered by with the dreamspike, and still needed admonishment during the battle from Bair and Perrin, and that's supposed be anywhere near as impressive and Nynaeve taking on Moghedian all alone, with no advance warning or allies capable of more than an ineffectual distraction, turning T'A'R against its mistress, and then coopting the Forsaken to helping Rand kill Rahvin. She has no military accomplishments through the real books, although a great deal of military criticisms to offer; the political stakes of her arc are the lowest of anyone's, they are mostly achieved by authorial loopholes, rather than genuine successes, like winning battles, or eliminating genuine threats, and she makes no good or useful reforms as Rand, Mat, Perrin & Elayne all do, and finishes up too late to contribute to any of the other things going on.
Egwene only delivers the goods in a very mundane fashion compared to what so many others do in the same series.