Firstly, the amount of women who are depicted as having half a brain is very, very small indeed. What about all the rest? And secondly, let's not forget that Egwene *is* just an Accepted in Tar Valon's eyes, and a rebel to boot. In a less hierarchic society, that might not have been so much of a problem, but considering the way novices and Accepted are treated in earlier books, it makes the ease with which Egwene gets Aes Sedai and even Sitters to consider her an equal or even superior fairly exaggerated. And Tar Valon, unlike Salidar, has not had time to get used to an Amyrlin raised from Accepted, or to semi-full sisters like Theodrin, or to uber-strong and mature novices like Sharina.

Making it all the more interesting that we hear or see *nothing* of Mesaana or any Black sisters during Egwene's one-woman-war, wouldn't you say? They've managed to exacerbate tensions between the Ajahs for months or even a year (I'm a bit fuzzy on the timeline), sowing chaos and division, and then when Egwene starts trying to bridge those gaps and is exceptionally - imho unreasonably, in your opinion evidently not - successful, they do precisely nothing about it. That they were blindsided by Egwene's move against them based on Verin's information, I'll buy, as they had no way of seeing it coming, but one really has to wonder why they did nothing to undermine Egwene's attempts to undo their work.

The fact that you state that pretty much underlines my point. You put Egwene in the same category as Cadsuane, which for a *reader* is a fair thing to do, as we've seen Egwene and know what she's capable of, and because in fantasy young people take up positions usually reserved for much more experienced people all the time. The Salidar Aes Sedai have had some time to get used to her being Amyrlin, as well. The Tar Valon ones have not, and the idea of an Accepted being in the same category as Cadsuane is completely laughable for them. Or should have been, anyway.
I mean, it's kind of like some 25-year old bloke walking into the US Senate and telling them everything they're doing wrong - and the Senate listening to him.

Certainly, that's what the book says happened. Whether one finds that credible or realistic is something else. I don't think it's unrealistic that Egwene rallied the novices and went to fight, and as someone has said somewhere, it was important for her to exorcise her demons. I do think it's unrealistic that most other Aes Sedai, including Adelorna at that, are so useless, and of course one has to wonder how she can get her hands on that sa'angreal so easily.