Throughout my time reading through the series I’ve heard horror stories about how poorly Brandon Sanderson wrote Mat in book 12. Particularly a sexist rant he goes on where he compares women to goats and mules. Many claimed Sanderson had ruined Mat or not understood the character and ruined him for them in this book. I have just finished reading chapter 20 of book 12 where Mat goes on this sexist rant and I’m shocked that people are this upset about it.
Just to be perfectly clear his rant was definitely misogynistic and I’m not trying to argue otherwise. But quite frankly it’s not far different from how Mat was portrayed in previous books. While this particular rant was bad there were moments in The Fires of Heaven and A Crown of Swords that rival this. Robert Jordan writes characters to be sexist very frequently throughout the entire series (not a criticism of his writing I know it’s intentional).
Additionally, in the chapter in question Talamanes even calls Mat out. He mentions how Mat may be rough around the edges but is rarely straight up rude and condescending as he was in the chapter. Talamanes suggested it was due to Mat being stressed over everything and missing Tuon. I simply don’t understand why this chapter has garnered so much hate when I could easily imagine Robert Jordan writing the exact same sequence of events (with arguably better execution).