Modernizing the Wheel of Time

[Sapphire Guard]

And the whole point is that they would use a combination of Compulsion + BA + 13x13 Turning to get existing channelers, not that they would be training new ones from scratch.

The post I was replying to is about Rahvin keeping on hand mind controlled drones to link with from among the people too weak to be in the White Tower. It wouldn't work.

[Morgaln]

There was one Darkfriend that was deep and well-developed:

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Ingtar Shinowa. We got to know him, his reasons for joining the Shadow, the horrible things he did while there, and his heroic sacrifice, starting in Eye of the World but mostly throughout TGH.

Most of the rest were just moustache-twirling villains who signed up to get personal power or a support network outside of the regular channels/strata of their societies. The books do at least make it clear that most of them never expected The Last Battle to happen in their lifetimes when they originally enlisted, and therefore never expected that they'd be conscripted into the Shadow's armies or be bossed around by multiple Chosen.

There's a second one:

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Verin Sedai

[Saph]

I mean, there's a really obvious reason for people to become Darkfriends, which is that the Dark One is a freaking god.

If there's one (and only one) accessible divine entity in a world, with actual divine blessings and punishments that it can hand out, it's not too surprising that you'd get a cult worshipping it.

[Ramza00]

The best fighters are not necessarily the most powerful people. Leading armies isn't really a matter of brute force.

Aginor is super powerful, but he's not very good in a fight. That's fine.

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Where does he find all these people?

Most channeling organisations are hidden, and the black tower isn't formed yet. He has to find and kidnap an Aes Sedai who knows how to test for the ability to channel (he can't teach her Compulsion through saidar) and have her wander around testing people. For every hundred people you test, you find maybe two or three than can learn to channel, which our Aes Sedai then has to kidnap and bring to him without anyone noticing, and hope she doesn't run into any of her sisters who ask her what the hell she's doing.These people then have to be taught so they can gain enough strength to be useful, and some of them will die in the training.

Demandred did something like this, but he did it by devoting himself to building his coterie for years and taking over a society that already had channelers to hand.

Morgase broke out of his compulsion as soon as he stopped paying attention to her, he's not as good at it as Graendal. Perrin broke out of Lanfear's compulsion and promptly broke her neck.

With channelers at 2-3 percent of the population, to find 36 people, you have to test around 1200-1800 people, train them so they gain strength, hope nobody breaks compulsion and kills you at the wrong time.

And then...you have 36 people, but only one of them can attack. One of those AoE lightning spells or balefire could leave you down half your circle.

I may respond with more details later, but for now.

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Asmodean was not finished. "If two women link, they do not double their strength —
linking is not as simple as adding together the power of each — but if they are strong
enough, they can match a man. And when they take the circle to thirteen, then you must
be wary. Thirteen women who can barely channel could overpower most men, linked.
The thirteen weakest women in the Tower could overpower you or any man, and barely
breathe hard. I came across a saying in Arad Doman. 'The more women there are about,
the softer a wise man steps.' It would not be bad to remember it."

So 13 Women will defeat most men, and 13 Aes Sedai can shield anyone whether man or woman.

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Linking is a wonderful training too that both the Black Tower and the Seanchan demonstrate. This is because when linked you can not injury yourself, kill yourself, or sever yourself from the one power via drawing too much. Thus using linking and forcing a person to "be a battery" will develop their potential but they will not be able to do anything dangerous while in the link. They just do not gain any practice at managing the flows themselves, yet they can still learn how the one power of their sex works via observing and watching the person in charge of the link manage the flows.

The White Tower does not try to develop their students to the best of their ability and they will not train anyone over the age of 18. This is because the White Tower focuses on what they see as discipline and a women over the age of 18 they can not break via their method of discipline. The months to decades of being a novice is about being controlled and you can not do anything without the one power without being observed and you must replicate what you just been shown in a "rout" fashion. This in turn cause many young novices to attempt to run away, but if they are captured again the white tower uses even more discipline, so on and so on. Only when you become an accepted do you actually get to play with the one power, to learn in a creative fashion.

Besides seeing the different female traditions outside the white tower and how they do things differently, we also have the experience of the Rebel Aes Sedai Tower and they abandoned all this discipline traditions and they started discovering women all of around them who have the potential to channel, including Sharina Melloy a women in her 60s that was a grandmother [technically she was a great-grandmother] and this women had the 2nd highest potential for a women, one below Lanfear, and thus had more raw potential than Nynaeve. This was scandalous for it indicated everything the Aes Sedai in the White Tower did as tradition was "failing them."

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So yeah I am saying you are going to need at least 1 women who knows what she is doing and is capable of linking. A black ajah equivalent of Moiraine whose job is to test women and men, but also to gather information as an informant. Yes this will require lots of testing, something that will take months but it will be worth it. Furthermore said equivalent of Moiraine can link with the women she finds and train them while traveling, the goal is not to teach them skills but to merely use them as a battery. By having this black ajah be an actual Red Ajah she can also be search for any male channelers. Except you are not going to deliver these men and women to the White Tower instead you are going to deliver them to Rahvin.

The fear of this is the women who is capable and can link can always betray Rahvin. But this always can apply no matter who you link with. Better to have someone you can trust and be loyal than trust someone like Lanfear or Graendal.

The Black Ajah doing all this testing need not know compulsion and it will actually be desirable for her not to know it if you fear betrayal. Surely the Black Ajah women can promise riches or become an Aes Sedai if they cooperate with her, after all the Black Ajah member can always lie.

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The white tower was never about taking advantage of the latent potential of the women around them, it was all about societal control and manipulation and the other women channelers demonstrated this. Why never start training if the women is 18 or older ? Why not train novices first by linking with them, improving their raw potential, and then and only then after months of rapid development (similar to Egwene in Book 2 when she is captured by the Seanchan) start teaching them weaves for real with the goal of them knowing how best to weave the one power.

The answer to this obvious riddle is that the White Tower prefered control over their members instead of helping them reach their full potential, only by dominating control can you prevent a willful teenager / twenty year old from doing something stupid. Something the white tower sees as similar to a Male Aes Sedai as being mad, something that is possibly dangerous. The white tower prevented this danger via such discipline that was abusive that no women would dare try out new things until they have been elevated into Accepted or as an Aes Sedai. It is the equivalent of UK boarding school, a system of abuse that perpetrated through generations. This is what real boarding school is like, not the fairy tale version we get in Harry Potter.

[InvisibleBison]

There's a second one:

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Verin Sedai

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Verin was Black Ajah, but she wasn't a Darkfriend.

[Psyren]

There's a second one:

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Verin Sedai

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Verin was Black Ajah, but she wasn't a Darkfriend.

Yeah, I didn't count her because double-agent under duress.

Linking is a wonderful training too that both the Black Tower and the Seanchan demonstrate. This is because when linked you can not injury yourself, kill yourself, or sever yourself from the one power via drawing too much. Thus using linking and forcing a person to "be a battery" will develop their potential but they will not be able to do anything dangerous while in the link. They just do not gain any practice at managing the flows themselves, yet they can still learn how the one power of their sex works via observing and watching the person in charge of the link manage the flows.

It's also useful because wilders with blocks get to basically ignore those for the duration of the link. During the Salidar bubble, Nynaeve was part of a link and exhausted, but even though she lost her anger she stayed in the link, stayed connected to saidar and could still see the weaves. Great training tool there, it's odd that they don't use it more often.

[Ramza00]

It's also useful because wilders with blocks get to basically ignore those for the duration of the link. During the Salidar bubble, Nynaeve was part of a link and exhausted, but even though she lost her anger she stayed in the link, stayed connected to saidar and could still see the weaves. Great training tool there, it's odd that they don't use it more often.

Have to break the women spirit via months to years sometimes decades of being a Novice, one must obey, before you actually do anything with "teaching" beyond rout.

All of this makes sense when you abandon the pretext that the white tower wants to teach you how to weave, no first they want to forge you into a tool they are comfortable using, and only afterwards will you teach that tool "magic."

The Rebel Aes Sedai demonstrated this perfectly. Everything had to be abandoned and forged anew for they are now trying to fight a war with the white tower and they were roughly equal in power so a new novice training style begin. Create a "family" of about 8 girls or so and teach that smaller group instead of individually. The Rebel Aes Sedai did not have novices run away.

Likewise the Rebe Aes Sedai trained older women not just people 18 or younger at the start of the training. The only thing the Rebel Aes Sedai didn't do was think about using linking to train, something the Black Tower did within their first year and they found it dramatically speeded up the male training. Likewise the Seanchan were able to train women very quickly, but they didn't realize they were doing this via linking when their two women arrangement of Sul'dam and Damane. But the Seanchan arrangement specifically had experienced Damane 1 show weaves to new Damane 2, furthermore the a'dam link means you can force the Damane to their maximum ability and they will not burn out allowing you to train them much quicker and expand theri battery capacity quicker than a non forced woman or man.

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So yeah the White Tower training regime does not make sense if you put the world in new scenarios that was not the ones that caused the creation of the tradition. The tradition makes sense in a "lethargic" time, and during that time you used the training regime to break the will and create Aes Sedais who are completely loyal to the tower. And if the women was unbreakable, you let the "novice" go after you give up on them. They are not going to kill themselves with the one power, but also they know so little that even if they create a secret society such as The Kin [which was not really that secret society.]

As you can tell the existence of "The Kin" irks me. These women still had capabilities and talent, even if they were too weak to become Aes Sedai* or they had personalities that did not want the Aes Sedai Discipline. If they did not advance in the tower due to strength, remember women have 72 ranks of strength (men have 78 ranks of strength, also remember the white tower forgot the 12 higher ranks of strength for it became so rare, except that was due to them not finding all the women who can channel.)

So of the 72 ranks of strength if you were not rank 45 or less^{lower is better} you were not tested for the Aes Sedai Shawl. Oh you needed to be rank 22 or lower to create a traveling gateway. Yet we see the Kin routinely make gateways via linking sometimes taking 3 women, sometimes taking 4 where none of the kin were strong enough to make a gateway on their own*, but via cooperation they were capable of that. [Many of the Kin are strong enough to be Aes Sedai, in fact often as strong as the average aes sedai strength for the named Kin that we see. You you have to be stronger than the average aes sedai to form a gateway with 1 woman.]

So why then did you create such an exclusionary culture that did not take advantage of these women who have the raw potential to contribute, they merely needed to work together voluntarily?

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Whatever it is just a book series, a series with a mixture of good writting and really BAD / Cringe writting.

[Psyren]

Whatever it is just a book series, a series with a mixture of good writting and really BAD / Cringe writting.

This is why people who hate Egwene annoy me. She's the only one (well, also Cadsuane to an extent) to look at all these sacred cows and go "wow, this is beyond stupid, let's change it." Yeah she's headstrong and cocky and has all that Two Rivers stubbornness x50, but her greatest asset to the Light-side was her vision. (Not to mention her visions.)

And yes, the Kin are the best possible argument for knocking down the whole Tower and starting over.

[Ramza00]

I do not hate Egwene, but you invoked her Psyren, so lets add to the cringe writting that ROJ does.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comment...e_dream_world/

Yeah lots of the story has problems with domination that I am not sure Amazon would want to adapt, or literally do their best to skip over.

But you see people say we can change these parts of the story, but never subtly change the mechanics of 1 or 2 things about how the one power works with transgender people.

Yet removing these horrible things Egwene does gives you a warped perception of Egwene. She is Guinevere incarnated and sometimes Guinevere is the absolute worse, in a very selfish / self-centered way.

[snowblizz]

So why then did you create such an exclusionary culture that did not take advantage of these women who have the raw potential to contribute, they merely needed to work together voluntarily?

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Whatever it is just a book series, a series with a mixture of good writting and really BAD / Cringe writting.

That the Tower is dysfunctional isn't bad/cringe writing. It is, if anything, the opposite really. The Tower, again, is a shining example of the point RJ is making, going at it alone (tm) is the wrong way, working together is the right thing to do. The Tower wasn't what it was from day one, the Tower is the product of millennia of reaction to the world. Just one thing, the three Oaths weren't even 3 from the start, they added to the list as time went on. It is death by hundreds of cuts really. And I'm not even touching on the fact the Objective Evil has done it's level best to sabotage the Tower too.

Heck Egwene eventually realises she has to leave the Tower institution mostly as it is, because the world around isn't able to accept it otherwise.

The Seanchan continent pre-Hawkwing's armies and the a'dam suggest how a place were Aes Sedai just do whatever they like will look (basically, a chaotic rule of the wizards). There you have outside forced control of channelers. In Randland you have internal (self)control of channeling. And Shara it seems, the channelers run the asylum.


The Tower like everything really, has an explnation in the story and background. Like characters it got flaws and virtues that make it seem like an actual thing. You don't love all the good character you don't hate all the bad characters. People making decision that are bad without the power of third person omniscience (like us readers have) isn't bad writing. Actual bad writing is where everything and everyone is only exactly one thing. A lot of writing is that way.

[lord_khaine]

The Tower like everything really, has an explnation in the story and background. Like characters it got flaws and virtues that make it seem like an actual thing. You don't love all the good character you don't hate all the bad characters. People making decision that are bad without the power of third person omniscience (like us readers have) isn't bad writing. Actual bad writing is where everything and everyone is only exactly one thing. A lot of writing is that way.

I think this is a very important point. Just because stuff is dumb does not mean the writing is that.

And yeah, i can see how the Tower got to the way it is.
Where it should also be pointed out. Its purpose was less to train channellers.
And more to preserve civilisation. As such a lot of its rules make sense.

[snowblizz]

I think this is a very important point. Just because stuff is dumb does not mean the writing is that.

And yeah, i can see how the Tower got to the way it is.
Where it should also be pointed out. Its purpose was less to train channellers.
And more to preserve civilisation. As such a lot of its rules make sense.

Yup. Preserve civilization. Preserve channelers as an actual thing. Quite a lot of the AS stuff tries to placate the (not entirely unjustifiable) fears of mundanes. I wouldn't even argue too strenously that those things have slwoly morphed into "preserve the Tower" which to the AS *is* civilization.

[Psyren]

I do not hate Egwene, but you invoked her Psyren, so lets add to the cringe writting that ROJ does.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comment...e_dream_world/

Yeah lots of the story has problems with domination that I am not sure Amazon would want to adapt, or literally do their best to skip over.

But you see people say we can change these parts of the story, but never subtly change the mechanics of 1 or 2 things about how the one power works with transgender people.

Yet removing these horrible things Egwene does gives you a warped perception of Egwene. She is Guinevere incarnated and sometimes Guinevere is the absolute worse, in a very selfish / self-centered way.

Ugh I forgot all about that damn scene. CRINGE.
But I chalk that up less to Egwene herself and more to very inconsistent portrayals by the guy writing her. Egwene bucking authority is fine, Egwene finally asserting her superiority over Nynaeve in her area of expertise (especially to hide her own wrongdoing from someone who wouldn't hesitate to report on her) was also fine. But the way she did it, absolutely not fine and hopefully they change it.

That the Tower is dysfunctional isn't bad/cringe writing.

I don't think he was saying that the Tower getting the way it has gotten was bad writing. It is actually one of the better and more believable accomplishments of the Shadow to have fully 1/5 of the sisterhood as secret cultists.

What's bad though is that Ishamael, having accomplished such a stupendous victory, then proceeds to undermine his most powerful and useful minions at every turn. Not to mention whatever the hell the rest of the Forsaken were doing. Lanfear in particular had so many opportunities to kill off Egwene that it's not even funny.

[Saph]

But I chalk that up less to Egwene herself and more to very inconsistent portrayals by the guy writing her.

You really weren't paying very close attention if you think Egwene's actions there were out of character.

• Egwene is intelligent, strong-willed, resourceful, and competent. She's one of the most effective characters on the Light side, both individually and as a leader, and contributes a lot to their overall victory.

• Egwene is also arrogant, bigoted, self-centred, and domineering, with little to no empathy for anyone who gets in her way. Oh, and the PTSD from her time as a damane doesn't help.

You're noticing Egwene's good points and missing her bad ones, then deciding that the evidence for the bad ones must mean that the writing is "inconsistent". Or to put it another way:

Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

[Psyren]

• Egwene is also arrogant, bigoted, self-centred, and domineering, with little to no empathy for anyone who gets in her way. Oh, and the PTSD from her time as a damane doesn't help.

You're noticing Egwene's good points and missing her bad ones, then deciding that the evidence for the bad ones must mean that the writing is "inconsistent".

I'm not "missing" her bad points, I'm saying that the way they are presented is extreme. Her quick grasp of ji'e'toh doesn't fit with someone who lacks empathy to the degree that you imply. And how is Egwene "bigoted?" She's the one pushing the Tower to accept saidar-users of all ages, social strata, and backgrounds, and also for sisters to train with other societies.

[Saph]

And how is Egwene "bigoted?"

Go take a look at the way she talks about men in her PoV chapters.

[Ramza00]

¿ Can we all agree ? That Egwene has empathy, but she is also the Kai Winn [Adami] of the series.

[Psyren]

Go take a look at the way she talks about men in her PoV chapters.

...You mean like every other woman he writes?

¿ Can we all agree ? That Egwene has empathy, but she is also the Kai Winn [Adami] of the series.

No idea who that is.

[lord_khaine]

What's bad though is that Ishamael, having accomplished such a stupendous victory, then proceeds to undermine his most powerful and useful minions at every turn. Not to mention whatever the hell the rest of the Forsaken were doing. Lanfear in particular had so many opportunities to kill off Egwene that it's not even funny.

We.. yeah? the list of people Lanfear had a chance to kill would fill an entire book.
Since i mean, she is a forsaken level channeler and could wipe out a town with limited effort.

Except of course Lanfears objective wasnt to kill people. It was to hook up with her old boyfriend again.

In general thats likely the only thing that saved the light side.
That the forsaken was more or less unable to work together on their own.

[Ramza00]

No idea who that is.

Psyren I have really enjoyed this thread, but I think you should watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine now. A show that can no longer be made and tackle the same subject matters that it did in the 90s.

Winn Adami is a character from the series. The entire show of DS9 is about how a society, how a place "changes" you and other people of that place.

[Psyren]

We.. yeah? the list of people Lanfear had a chance to kill would fill an entire book.
Since i mean, she is a forsaken level channeler and could wipe out a town with limited effort.

Except of course Lanfears objective wasnt to kill people. It was to hook up with her old boyfriend again.

Oh I know, but I fail to see how leaving Egwene alive helps that. Especially since she has no problem with trying to kill her later.

In general thats likely the only thing that saved the light side.
That the forsaken was more or less unable to work together on their own.

Even beyond the cooperation issues they were pretty dumb individually too.

Psyren I have really enjoyed this thread, but I think you should watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine now. A show that can no longer be made and tackle the same subject matters that it did in the 90s.

Winn Adami is a character from the series. The entire show of DS9 is about how a society, how a place "changes" you and other people of that place.

I watched DS9... over a decade ago

But I'll point out that DS9, even in the 90s, had a more enlightened approach to gender (via Jadzia Dax especially) than many shows today.

[Ramza00]

I watched DS9... over a decade ago

Oh then I am talking about this character

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Surely you see the Egwene in Kai Winn?

But I'll point out that DS9, even in the 90s, had a more enlightened approach to gender (via Jadzia Dax especially) than many shows today.

But I was referring to the fact DS9 can not be made today due to Politics (Aka some stuff about Terrorism is sometimes sympathetic, and so on. I am not sure a billion dollar corporation would decide this is something they want to produce when there is a chance it can hurt its "brand." Likewise the Cardassians are Fascist / Colonialist and thus did unspeakable atrocities yet we are made to empathize / sympathize with these characters.)

I do not think such a show can be today in our world, maybe I am wrong though. Edit: I am dropping this subject of DS9 being made today I merely elaborated to explain it is not due to Gender but due to Politics it is hard if not impossible to be made today, but I do not want to talk about Politics on this forum due to the rules. I am editing this here to make that absolutely clear.

[Psyren]

Oh then I am talking about this character

Surely you see the Egwene in Kai Winn?

No idea, don't remember, sorry. DS9 is not high on my list to rewatch.

But I was referring to the fact DS9 can not be made today due to Politics (Aka some stuff about Terrorism is sometimes sympathetic, and so on. I am not sure a billion dollar corporation would decide this is something they want to produce when there is a chance it can hurt its "brand." Likewise the Cardassians are Fascist / Colonialist and thus did unspeakable atrocities yet we are made to empathize / sympathize with these characters.)

I do not think such a show can be today in our world, maybe I am wrong though.

Whether it can or not, we probably can't discuss any of those topics here regardless.

[lord_khaine]

Oh I know, but I fail to see how leaving Egwene alive helps that. Especially since she has no problem with trying to kill her later.

You fail to see how killing the childhood friend of the guy she want to seduce might hamper her effort?

[Lord Raziere]

You fail to see how killing the childhood friend of the guy she want to seduce might hamper her effort?

I mean it depends on how she does it.

if she had enough cleverness, one could make it an accident or even look like the fault of the Aes Sedai or some other Light person.

and thing is if its an "accident".....well then its not really an accident, because the Wheel weaves it all right? so therefore the argument would that there is no such thing as an accident and that the Wheel caused Egwene to die. therefore one could manipulate Rand into hating the wheel just as much as the Dark One through such a death, which he has shown an inclination to do with his stone mindset nonsense and wondering if he can change anything while also wondering if he is Lews Therin, having maybe a Lanfear in disguise as woman, not badgering him like all the others, telling him what he wants to hear, supporting and encouraging his Anti-Wheel thoughts and saying that both the Dark One and the Wheel are evil and that with enough time and effort lead him to conclusion to kill the Dark One and become ruler of all things alongside her to make the Wheel the way he wants, because that is what Lanfear wants.

and Aes Sedai can replicate ta'veren luck effects with magic, so Lanfear being a channeler could in theory manipulate luck to cause an actual accident to Egwene that would kill her then blame it on the Wheel, make Rand hate the Wheel and such so on. its just that Lanfear like all Forsaken, is too focused on dramatic supervillainy to play that sort of subtle game of making him doubt the Wheel.

[Ramza00]

Why blame it on the wheel, just do it before Book 9 and have Rand think he is going Mad due to the Taint and he is repeating LTT's life with killing his loved ones.

[Lord Raziere]

Why blame it on the wheel, just do it before Book 9 and have Rand think he is going Mad due to the Taint and he is repeating LTT's life with killing his loved ones.

Because if he thinks he is the one at fault, that doesn't motivate him to change things and rule the universe alongside her, which is what Lanfear wants. if he doesn't trust himself, he won't think he is good enough to try, therefore Dark one wins, which isn't what Lanfear actually wants. she is a starscream she is only nominally on the Dark One's side in the sense that she is evil, her goal is pretty much to betray both dark and light for her own obsessive love for Rand and her being emperor and empress of all things. she yandere like that.

[Ramza00]

Because if he thinks he is the one at fault, that doesn't motivate him to change things and rule the universe alongside her, which is what Lanfear wants. if he doesn't trust himself, he won't think he is good enough to try, therefore Dark one wins, which isn't what Lanfear actually wants. she is a starscream she is only nominally on the Dark One's side in the sense that she is evil, her goal is pretty much to betray both dark and light for her own obsessive love for Rand and her being emperor and empress of all things. she yandere like that.

Couldn't she then use the event to push LTT / Rand to see more an Ishy point of view that the only way to break this cycle of violence is to break the wheel? After breaking the wheel the two of them can remake this world as a Dark King and Queen and create a utopia or something?

I remember lots of the books but I can't remember all the Lanfear stuff.

[Traab]

There was one Darkfriend that was deep and well-developed:

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Ingtar Shinowa. We got to know him, his reasons for joining the Shadow, the horrible things he did while there, and his heroic sacrifice, starting in Eye of the World but mostly throughout TGH.

Most of the rest were just moustache-twirling villains who signed up to get personal power or a support network outside of the regular channels/strata of their societies. The books do at least make it clear that most of them never expected The Last Battle to happen in their lifetimes when they originally enlisted, and therefore never expected that they'd be conscripted into the Shadow's armies or be bossed around by multiple Chosen.

I wanted to bring this up because its an important part. Thats exactly the case and the series made it very clear early on that the majority of "darkfriends" basically treated it as a skull and bones society brotherhood where it was political and societal connections or at most a chance to be deliciously naughty with no consequences like a bunch of wannabe "satanists" who hang out in graveyards at night hollering made up prayers to the sky. Then here come the forsaken or just higher ranked dark friends and suddenly they were bricking it as they realized they had no choice but to do as they were told. There were also plenty of "real" darkfriends, but yeah, centuries of no dark one meant the society could spread until it permeated everything.

[Psyren]

You fail to see how killing the childhood friend of the guy she want to seduce might hamper her effort?

Yes, exactly. Because in TFoH she decides to murder her right in front of him anyway. And if Moiraine hadn't been there, it would have actually worked. More to the point, there would be no way to tell she had done it if she did it earlier than that - look how long it took us to find out who killed Asmodean, nobody is solving mysteries in Randland (except Verin).

I mean it depends on how she does it.

if she had enough cleverness, one could make it an accident or even look like the fault of the Aes Sedai or some other Light person.

and thing is if its an "accident".....well then its not really an accident, because the Wheel weaves it all right? so therefore the argument would that there is no such thing as an accident and that the Wheel caused Egwene to die. therefore one could manipulate Rand into hating the wheel just as much as the Dark One through such a death, which he has shown an inclination to do with his stone mindset nonsense and wondering if he can change anything while also wondering if he is Lews Therin, having maybe a Lanfear in disguise as woman, not badgering him like all the others, telling him what he wants to hear, supporting and encouraging his Anti-Wheel thoughts and saying that both the Dark One and the Wheel are evil and that with enough time and effort lead him to conclusion to kill the Dark One and become ruler of all things alongside her to make the Wheel the way he wants, because that is what Lanfear wants.

and Aes Sedai can replicate ta'veren luck effects with magic, so Lanfear being a channeler could in theory manipulate luck to cause an actual accident to Egwene that would kill her then blame it on the Wheel, make Rand hate the Wheel and such so on. its just that Lanfear like all Forsaken, is too focused on dramatic supervillainy to play that sort of subtle game of making him doubt the Wheel.

Heck, she could have just killed her in TAR instead of sending her back to bed. As far as Nynaeve and Elayne would have been aware, she'd have just died in her sleep.

I wanted to bring this up because its an important part. Thats exactly the case and the series made it very clear early on that the majority of "darkfriends" basically treated it as a skull and bones society brotherhood where it was political and societal connections or at most a chance to be deliciously naughty with no consequences like a bunch of wannabe "satanists" who hang out in graveyards at night hollering made up prayers to the sky. Then here come the forsaken or just higher ranked dark friends and suddenly they were bricking it as they realized they had no choice but to do as they were told. There were also plenty of "real" darkfriends, but yeah, centuries of no dark one meant the society could spread until it permeated everything.

Indeed - between the Trolloc Wars and now, the Friends of the Dark was little more than a cool club.