So true, and here I am thinking of Verin's appearance in the Tower.

Well, to be fair, it made it slightly easier for her to conscript a handful of them into her link. But I hardly think the exigent circumstances were the kind where she would have had difficulty even if they all knew her for the tremendous ass she really is.

I LOVE it when Egwene herself confirms my critiques!

One might argue that the single most important event of Egwene's whole "PoV cluster" (in B-Sand's terms) was her seeing the sunlight Rand made.

She comes close to realizing this when she admits that Rand was treated far worse by Elaida.

Her opponents' arguments were pathetic in the Tower, her advice was glaringly obvious common sense, and she was handled with kid gloves, except when raging psychosis made her adversary look bad. Sure, it's not Egwene's fault that she is impressing morons, but these retarded imbeciles are the ones she is determined to protect at all costs, plans to punish Rand for bonding and would rather see thousands of soldiers die than harm a hair on the heads of these simpletons.

3. Egwene is a shameless hypocrite. I will give her this: tGS has promoted her to "slightly embarassed hypocrite," due to her recognition and admittance of her hypocrisy. Not that she is refraining from reaping the rewards, of course.

4. Cui bono? Egwene's turning on her own followers after being accepted by the Tower loyalists, while it may be promoted as a magnificent display of fairness and justice, is simply a re-enactment of the same principles she was operating on when she smacked down Lelaine and Romanda in tPoD after revealing that they had accidentally voted her dictatorial powers. She said she could not afford to let either one get the moral high ground or upper hand (and that was the same principle operating in her absence from the camp - Lelaine getting an edge over Romanda was to be feared, because it might make her powerful enough to challenge Egwene), and she is doing the same with the halves of the Tower that are now reunited - she can't let either faction think she owes them more lest they get sufficient power to influence her. So she castigates everyone, pretends to scold herself (while retaining the power and acclaim of the Amyrlin Seat) but forcing everyone to make a gesture of guilt. Oh, and let's not forget that Elaida could have made her exact portion of her speech in the Hall about what she was going to demand in the times to come. Elaida was a tyrant who bullied sisters and abused the limits of her power and the Hall should have checked her, but Egwene is going to be a strong forceful leader, who will cut through old, worn-out customs and will criticize the Hall's obstructionist behavior when they try to check HER power.

"Hi! I'm Verin and I'll be your deus ex machina for the evening!"

I don't know HOW you can call her portion of tGS ANYTHING but what I predicted here!

What she did was exactly no different than Rand's unleashing of Callandor on the Seanchan in Ebou Dar back in tPoD. But in Rand it's a sign of arrogance & hubris, while in Egwene it is sheer good fortune that she got handed the information she needed to grab the sa'angreal.

Boo-yah! I've been ripping the rebels up one side and down the other for years, and Egwene agrees!

*COUGH, COUGH*verin*COUGH, COUGH*!!!!!

Wow, look at her blasting at those Seanchan, who were more or less leaving anyway... all the while envisioning herself as some sort of hero and in grandiose terms.

Damn right!