Oh, I don't think they hate or even dislike each other or anything like that - when Emond's Fielders see another in trouble with strangers they help, and they dislike strangers trying to bully of theirs and all. It's a fundamental trait of Nynaeve's personality, but they all have it to a degree. Egwene can be a good judge of character and she does see things in Mat, but she mostly defends Mat against people who also find her in need of a firmer hand (like Nynaeve). On her own she can take the view "Mat is such a lout", but if Nynaeve says the same, Egwene switches to "yes he's a lout, but...".


But for all that Egwene and Mat just don't have personalities that balance each other well, nor complement each other well. Mat and Egwene episodes always turn around who will trick the other. Some times Mat won, some times Egwene won. Some times they both think they've won.

The time Egwene gave advice to Mat in Tear, she was playing at being the wise Aes Sedai who knows a lot but isn't quite as closed up as Moiraine about it, and on her mind was a desire to outdo Moiraine she knew was failing with the three boys. Egwene did the same with Rand in Tear. With Perrin it was unecessary, they go along very well. Often she started out with good intentions, overdid it and irritated the person she was trying to help, and lost her temper (that's her pattern with Rand, when she was playing at being like Nynaeve or Moiraine)). She was ultra frustrated with Moiraine's attitude toward her and Elayne/Nynaeve, which made her more empathetic suddenly to the three boys who had to deal with Moiraine too, and she repaid Moiraine's trust with the little bit of information Moiraine had decided to share with her by irresponsibly giving it to Mat, in the hope by "bribing" Mat with tidbits of information, he'd come to her and open up/share his secrets and she could succeed where Moiraine was failing. She tried the same at various points with Rand, though in that case it's her sympathy for Moiraine that evetnually grew.

Egwene didn't understand there were reasons Moiraine wasn't sharing this type of information, because she didn't trust Mat (nor Rand) was mature enough to act responsibly if you put before him temptations like that. And Mat lost no time in betraying Egwene's trust in turn and going into the Doorway without of course asking Moiraine first as Egwene asked him to. That only further convinced Egwene Mat couldn't be trusted unless you got a straight unambiguous promise out of him.

Even more typical of their dynamic is the affair of Elayne's letter in TDR (where again they tricked Mat), then how the girls were so self-satisfied about their self-rescue they totally overlooked Mat had come to help them at great risk (in the aftermath, they never even thought of asking him how and why he got there... never learned he had come all the way from Andor because he discovered a threat to them, and Mat was too proud and offended to simply offer the information), and how Mat himself made too great a deal out of their lack of gratitude when he simply had to put his pride aside for a second and talk with Egwene about this a day or two later.

And there was Salidar, where a Mat pumped up by Rand to the point he was so full of himself he could burst walked into the AS camp like an elephant in a china shop. Egwene then had started to absorb Siuan's influence and tricks (Siuan has the trickster trait in common with Mat, and she sized him up really well and early too - remember that uncle in the fire story). She tricked Mat using his promise to Rand, plain and simple, and got him away from the Band so she could use it to trick the Hall.

That was their last encounter. Nynaeve had more, but still hasn't managed to find a "modus vivendi" to work well with Mat (and never will). It's Elayne who did, with Birgitte acting as their bridge character, and up to a point Aviendha, on the matter of honor. Egwene and Mat will have very little precious time to develop another dynamic now, and their basic personalities have not changed, so it's very unlikely they do. That is not to say they won't have to work together again, but their dynamic is unlikely to change much - thus the advantage of placing a bridge character between them to solve the conflict, or to use the fact they work with opposite goals to produce a result.

Siuan understands Mat really well, Elayne does understand Mat fairly well. They can bring Egwene to go against her instincts, but her instincts won't disappear just like that, no more than Nynaeve's did just because of Birgitte's views, and that Elayne's views of Mat have evolved a lot.

I'm convinced it was never Jordan's goal nor intention to iron up all the conflicts/dynamics in the series at the end. That would work counter to the whole saidar/saidin theme. They work as much together as against one another, and neither of that is a "bad thing", it's just two different dynamics, depending on the goal. The "bad things" are refusing to work dynamically at all when it's needed, or trying to work against one another when it's time to work together, and vice versa.

A lot of characters are going to always work better when they are working "against each other" than when they attempt to work together. It's the case with Mat and Egwene, and Egwene and Rand.

The thing that will change through the finale is that finally the "bridge characters" are in place. All those relationships that through growing up/character development have already developped. That allows all the dynamics to play as needed. Egwene and Perrin have always worked well together. Perrin's personality is such that Egwene is comfortable opening up to him in ways she can't do with Nynaeve, Mat, or Rand - because Perrin even if he judges her won't put it in her face; he'll just react in such a way Egwene can decode and by herself figure out what she may be doing Perrin disapprove of. Mat would make fun of her, Nyaneve would shout, and whatever Rand or Egwene does, it ends up with a fight about something else than the topic of discussion (she did that again in TOM a bit, incidentally). With Perrin, if she reacts with hostility he shuts up until Egwene calms down and explain her position. When Perrin clams up because she made a comment he didn't like, Egwene let him stew and return to the issue when he's got time to think it out. She's not afraid to tell Perrin "I can't do this, please help me", nor to tell Perrin "I don't think you can do this, let me help". Egwene needs people who walk her through the steps if she needs to and like good teachers will welcome her input and questions along the way. Rand's and Mat's (or Moiraine's) "You will have to just trust me" doesn't work for Egwene. She made that very clear with Siuan too.

She often has very good ideas to offer. Gareth Bryne was a Perrin-like figure at her side. Bryne always explained himself to Egwene, and Egwene held in return as little back from him as possible. She abided by his military decisions, he abided in return by her political decisions - and there was a lot of collaboration between them coming from that. It's not a dynamic Egwene can easily develop with Rand but that's a challenge she will probably have to face (but not necessarily win... Egwene and Rand may to the end be most productive in a dynamic of opposition and just learn when they must use that dynamic and when they must work apart to avoid conflicts (like they worked apart since LOC...), him as champion, her as AS leader). For the rest, there are bridge characters to make them collaborate without having to work side by side, which leads to conflicts. Perrin and Egwene have been giving each other advice and switching leadership all through their storyline in EOTW. It did at times create tension/friction, but it just doesn't flare up and the conflict just diffuse itself. These two never pile up problems. They didn't need to work together through the series more, they just needed to keep growing separately. Egwene's the natural anvil to Perrin's Hammer. At the beginning they were little anvil and little hammer, now they're mighty big ones. They only need to be together again for this dynamic to work.

Egwene and Mat can be productive, but in opposition. It's not only Egwene, Perrin and Mat are good friends, but their dynamic has never been very productive either. Perrin calms down/holds back Mat a bit, and Mat livens Perrin up a bit, they have influence on each other on the personal level, but they don't form a winning pair for "work". Faile does the "livening up" and Perrin has worked a lot lately on his "joys of life" issues, and Mat no longer runs into fiascos. He no longer needs Perrin to "hold him back" - Mat is at his best acting very fast, and he can't think for Perrin to force him to act faster/more decisively, and Perrin acting fast is a bad idea, no matter how good the plan is. Trying to make Perrin work with Mat would be a complete waste of Perrin's strengths, and to work a lot with Mat, Egwene would lose a lot of energy.

Perrin'd be far better with Egwene, because she isn't that great at structural thinking while he is. She has tons of ideas, she's very dynamic and creative, but she struggles to find a way to make them work together to form a coherent and global vision. Her "reforms" of the WT are such a patchwork still full of holes she doesn't know how to fill. Give all the ideas/goals to Perrin, and in time he would come up with a far more solid vision than Egwene's tons of disparate ideas (he won't, it's just an example). She rather experiments, finds what works and not, changes her plans constantly. She's more like a gardener or scholar - from start to finish it's a little bit of this, a little more of that, let's try this - until she reaches her goal. Perrin is more like an engineer or architect. It so happens Egwene has much architectural work in front of her, and Perrin could really use a fast thinker like Egwene. Perrin's very slow at coming up with ideas, but he's really good at toying with these ideas until they form a coherent whole, then he proceeds according to plan. Egwene's better at improvising along the way until it works. If Perrin grew flowers, he'd plan it all up then pray for all the conditions to hold to the end. Egwene would have learned basic garderning then experimented and adjusted to whatever came up and have a great reaping. If she had to build a house, Egwene woud learn the basics, and she'd end up with storeys in stone, wood, brick, a bit of thatch here, slate there, a couple extra windows, and forget until the last minute she needed extra bedrooms. Perrin would rather have the house he set up to build.

I can' help but see that Egwene, supposedly the woman who has to bring together Asha'man and Aes Sedai, has a conflictual relationship with the only male channeler she really knows, and zero experience whatsoever of the Asha'man (Logain wasn't one when she dealt very briefly with him. A seed for some trust at some point, but little else.) - she's never even seen an Asha'man at this point. Perrin knows and understands more about the Asha'man than the woman who will have to make them work with her own organization and even likely integrate them in it. He's shared the daily life of two of them - knows they're just like other men in the end, but tend to stay apart in fear of rejection. Perrin also has a wider experience of working with rulers and reaching compromises with them, and he even does have some experience of the AS vs. rulers dynamics from the other side of the equation (eg: Annoura vs. Berelain and so on). Perrin can stand up to Egwene if necessary without her flaring up the way she'd likely do confronting Tenobia, Elayne or Berelain. Egwene's experience is limited to Aes Sedai, who need a firmer hand. The only "difficult" ruler Egwene's truly dealt with (Mattin doesn't count, she simply gave him what Elaida wouldn't in the hope of creating her one more problem to deal with) is Elayne, and they're really not doing all that well however friendly they are with each other. If there's no real conflict between them for now, it's largely because they don't know what the other has in mind/has put in motion. And of course there's the Seanchan. If anyone stands even a little chance of convincing Egwene some sort of truce might be possible, it's Perrin. It won't be Mat. Mat is convinced Tuon is unmovable from her positions re: AS. Thom thinks the same, Egeanin thinks the same, even Setalle who managed to place herself near Tuon to observe her didn't find any angle to work on her re: channelling. Rand has given up. Only Perrin found a way to work with the Seanchan to face a common threat together, with his channellers getting out of the deal with their freedom. The problem at this point is that Tylee isn't yet in the position she could play with Tuon a role like Perrin can already play with Egwene/Rand. I think it's likely the Seanchan need to either go through a huge setback, or else witness the speed at which the Light collapses and understand if they don't join them, both will collapse. This may be when an opening for Tylee will happen. I get the feeling the Seanchan will mount an attack on Caemlyn/the BT only to find the Shadow there and realize to which extent the Light has already fallen, and their own peril. But before that I think they too will suffer an attack on Ebou Dar. The TGS prologue was a clue the Shadow has all the WG/PS it needs to mount an attack on the Seanchan. If Demandred is really the genius he's supposed to be, he will rather keep the Shadowspawn out of it for now, and send in the Dreadlords, undistinguishable from AS/Asha'man in a kind of fake retaliation for the attack on TV, and bloody them some (He must have gotten a lot of insider info from Semirhage that is still useful). Then as the Seanchan go again on the offensive, in TV or Caemlyn, he can deal with that (if they attack the BT, that is, he won't lift a finger for TV!) and at the same time send the Shadoswpawn to wipe out their southern bases.

That's one definition of a "proxy war". Either you get others to fight your wars for you, or you bring two enemies of yours to fight one another while you stand aside. I'm still convinced Sammael thought the conflict between the Whitecloaks and Masema was such a proxy war organized by Demandred. Not only that, but the fact WC led by Carridin were spreading similar Dragonsworn troubles in his territory convinced Sammael Demandred intended to spread that war to the whole south. There may be some little truth to that, perhaps Demandred got involved to push the WC to remove Pedron Niall and all stay in Amadicia/Ghealdan, so they'd all be there to be scooped by the Seanchan and join their anti-WT/anti-channeler crusade. But of course, the fact the WC/Dragonsworn troubles were spreading fast through Altara and toward Illian had only the appearances of being related to the Amadicia troubles, and the fact a DF led that campaign was pure coincidence - as it was all Niall's plans, whatever Demandred may have done behind Asunawa's faction or with Masema (I'm still not convinced he was involved in any way with Masema. I can't think it's Demandred's style at all to fuel pro-Dragon fanaticism in anyone...). Nah... this is clearly trademark-Lanfear to me. She was closely observing Rand and baiting him in Dreams to go take Callandor in Tear. Masema hated Rand. Lanfear saw him as a threat someone else in the Shadow could use and she neutralized it, turning Masema using "divine visions" in his dreams to worship Rand. It's all very obvious, it all started right after Falme, and increased a lot at the same time Rand's dreams of Callandor happened, and those never came from Be'lal who at the end flatly admitted his surprise Rand was stupid enough to come to Tear so early, but from Lanfear who was convinced Rand's best option was to seize Callandor ASAP. She countered Ishamael's attempts to move Perrin out of the way, she baited Mat to leave the Tower, she most likely used Verin to get Egwene into TAR and definitely is behind sending the girls to Tear with those fake BA possessions (possibly the visit Lanfear paid to Alviarin). Lanfear worked really hard to make a Falme-style "ta'veren fiesta" happen in Tear, so the odds Rand took Callandor increased massively. The other Forsaken aren't very good at locating Rand using the Pattern, so I think the idea of influencing Masema to gather a Dragonsworn following well out of Almoth Plain was part of an attempt she came up with, when Moiraine sent the Shienarans away, to have the Forsaken look for Rand building himself an army in Ghealdan to then advance on Tear. Then Lanfear abandonned Masema to his own devices. It's only under orders from Moridin to find and kill Perrin that Cyndane noticed Masema was now there and returned to her Dream tricks to push him to kill Perrin. That failed, Masema was killed by Faile, and obviously Perrin would require more involved efforts while Cyndane had many other duties to gather in the DF (which she appears to have been doing for a long time now... all the way back to WH we see her and Moghedien do that), so Moridin rather sent in the clown... uh, I mean Graendal.