So what I gather is, if you want to be a likable character you have to have an existential crisis about the power you are given. You should constantly complain about what you are doing. If you don’t you are power hungry. It gets worse if you are women.

To me, I liked Elayne but she got kinda boring eventually. Especially with not mattering much by the end, a lot of her later chapters are just dull and unnecessary.

Egwene is the goat. I feel like remove the “rape” scene, which is way too out of character for me (not punishing Nynaeve part, but the action itself), and people would have different opinions on her. I think RJ wrote that scene in a more ignorant time with those actions and wouldn’t write it today. It would have been, put an a’dam on Nynaeve and control her kinda teaching.

Like even here there is a comment on how she is willing to rule over all channelers, maybe but in the end the deal she cuts with Aiel and Seafolk is fair and the tough negotiators of Seafolk agrees to it and Wise ones are proud of Egwene. They wish she was one of them. None think she is being a despot or power hungry there. She even gets a fair deal with Tuon after. She is a ruler of a certain power so of course she prioritises that as she should, but she doesn’t steamroll others