Nynaeve al'Meara

Nynaeve's father thought of her as the son he never had and taught her to track, hunt and fish. Unlike fellow tomboy Min, however, Nynaeve seems to have cleaned up well in her adulthood. At least five years older than the rest of the Emond's Field gang, Nynaeve had graduated into her adult profession as the village Wisdom by the time Moirane Sedai and her warder Lan Mandragoran arrived. Her personality hadn't changed a bit, however. Nynaeve is forceful, impatient and easily irritated. Author Robert Jordan seems to specialize in strong-willed, high-tempered women, and Nynaeve is perhaps the most extreme of the bunch.

When Moiraine absconded with several Two Rivers youths--specifically Rand al'Thor, his friends Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara, and fiance Egwene al'Vere, Nynaeve volunteered to track them down and bring them back, possibly thinking she could outface an Aes Sedai. She was wrong, and ended up getting swept up into the whirlwind adventure against her will. This set the tone for her relationship with Moiraine, and to some extent with Aes Sedai in particular--not only was Moiraine consistently riding rough-shod over Nynaeve, but she'd managed to ensnare Lan as well, whom Nynaeve was, quite against her will, starting to fall in love with, an attraction that was strongly returned. Even worse, Moiraine identified Nynaeve as a wilder--a channeler, someone who could wield the One Power and, in fact, would weild it whether they wanted to or not. Nynaeve definitely fell into that latter category. But, for her, it was too late; she'd already had her first experience channeling, and developed a mental block for her troubles. Nynaeve, until very recently in the series, was totally unable to channel unless extremely angry.

At The Eye of the World, Nynaeve, Egwene and Moiraine discovered Rand could channel; perhaps because of this, and also because of the seductive call of saidar, Nynaeve eventually agreed to go to the Tower, where she was immediately promoted from novice to Accepted, by virtue of her sheer strength in the Power. She is, at present, one of the strongest female channelers alive. Like Egwene and Elayne Trakand, she was tricked into going to Falme; like Egwene and Elayne, she was assigned the task of hunting down the Black Ajah, a journey which took her to the Stone of Tear. She was also the first character in the series to 'rediscover' balefire, a weave so potent it was banned during the War of Power.

After Rand had consolidated his holdings at the Stone, Egwene abandoned the Black Ajah chase to learn about Dreaming in the Aiel Waste; Nynaeve and Elayne continued the quest along with Juilin Sandar (a friend Mat had made in Tear) and Thom Merillin. The clues the Black Ajah left in the Stone of Tear all pointed to the city of Tanchico; Nynave and Elayne went, hoping that, if it was a trap, they'd have enough warning to escape it. The Darkfriends had taken possession of Panarch Amathera of Tarabon, one of the city's two rulers; Nynaeve and Elayne went in to rescue her, and also to retrieve some ter'angreal they had learned were in the palace. While hunting for those artifacts, Nynaeve happened upon the true driving force behind the Black sisters: Moghedien, one of the dreaded Forsaken. The two dueled, Nynaeve expecting unstoppable death at any moment... Until she realized that Moghedien was just as scared. The two were equally matched in terms of strength. By using one of the artifacts as a distraction, Nynaeve managed to shield and bind Moghedien, but a Black Sister soon intervened and Moghedien disappeared. The two have developed an immense emnity of each other, possibly because they see a little too much of themselves in each other. The one thing they don't have in common is bravery: Nynaeve is courageous almost to the point of insanity, though she considers herself very much a coward.

With chaos reigning in Tanchico, Nynaeve and Elayne set out for the White Tower--only to receive news that it had broken, that Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan, a Red sister (and former advisor to Elayne's mother Queen Morgase), had deposed reigning Blue Amyrlin Siuan Sanche, and that the Tower had split in opposition. The group changed course to Salidar. When Egwene was made Amyrlin despite not actually being a full Aes Sedai (instead, she was a lowly Accepted), she immediately decreed that Nynaeve and Elayne be similarly promoted--ostensibly to make Egwene herself less of an oddity, but really because she needed all the dependable faces she could get. In the meanwhile, Nynaeve spent time with Suian, who had been stilled as part of the deposition ('stilled' being a term to describe a woman who has been permanently severed from the Source), as well as her similarly-treated Keeper of the Chronicles, Leane Sharif. Stilling had been previously considered impossible to heal, but Nynaeve managed it, making her the pride and joy of the Yellows. (And also their lab rat, as all of them wanted to learn it, which Nynaeve did not appreciate so much.) She has also developed a new form of Healing which, instead of using the traditional elements of the Power (Air, Water, Spirit), uses all five (adding Earth and Fire).

When Rand dispatched Mat to return Egwene and Elayne to him, Egwene instead assigned him as an escort to Nynaeve, Elayne and Aviendha, and sent them (along with Tom and Juilin) to Ebou Dar for the Bowl of the Winds, an ter'angreal that could change the weather and possibly break the unnatural summer the Dark One had imposed on the world. While in Ebou Dar, Moghedien struck at her with intent to kill, resulting in Nynaeve almost drowning; in order to save herself, she had to surrender to saidar completely, and when Lan suddenly appeared to help her out of the water, her block was gone. It was the first time Nynaeve and Lan had been in each other's company since before Moiraine's death; Nynaeve had no intention of wasting time. They were married later that day.

After forming a coalition of Aes Sedai, Sea Folk Windfinders and Tower expulsees (organized into a group called the Kin), Nynaeve and Elayne led an expedition into the Rahad, a dangerous 'downtown' area of Ebou Dar, to retrieve the Bowl of the Winds. They succeeded, capturing a member of the Black Ajah they had been sent after in Book 3 as an added bonus, and then used the Bowl to break the Dark One's unnatural summer (which, unfortunately, the Dark One immediately turned to his advantage by keeping it sustained unnaturally). The coalition then fled to Andor to avoid a Seanchan invasion.

At the Royal Palace in Caemlyn, Rand approached Nynaeve for help with a major project: he had discovered a way to cleanse the male half of the True Source. To do it, he would need the strongest female channeler he knew of--Nynaeve--and likewise the strongest male--himself. They succeeded, though both required some time to recover from the intense experience of channeling huge amounts of Power for hours on end.

Nynaeve is typically described as having dark colorings and a long braid, which she would yank at in times of exasperation. The el' in "el'Nynaeve" is a Malkieri honorific given to the Queens of Malkier. As wife to al'Lan Mandragoran, the exiled last King of Malkier, Nynaeve is entitled to the honorific. She suffers the unfortunate distinction of being one of the least-liked characters in the series (Perrin's wife Faile is basically the only character more unpopular), but her marriage to Lan seems to have mellowed her out a bit.