Moiraine and Nynaeve are the Best Characters in Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time"

I said what I said.

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I’m taking a little break from my chapter-by-chapter analysis of The Dragon Reborn to talk about two of my favorite characters. These are the ones that manage to be both interesting in their own right and far superior to any of the other ones that stride across the stage that Jordan created for them. In other words, these are the characters that, for me, represent the very best that The Wheel of Time can achieve.

I’m speaking, of course, of Moiraine and Nynaeve. 

Yes, but T.J., I can hear you saying, how can you say that these two are the best characters in the entire saga when they’re not even ta’veren? For that matter, neither of them is the Dragon Reborn, who is arguably the most important character in all of The Wheel of Time. Hell, one could even make a claim that some of the Forsaken–most notably Lanfear and Ishamael–have a claim to be the best characters in the series.  

That all might be true, but for me, at least, the chapters focusing on Moiraine and Nynaeve are the ones that I always look forward to reading, even when they’re not necessarily the narrator. Though neither of them are flawless, they do happen to be the characters with the greatest amount of sense, and they are both very much women of honor who have principles that they will die to defend. For Moiraine this is literally true, or so it seems, when she tackles Lanfear in Fires of Heaven, precipitating her absence for much of the rest of the series (though she does ultimately return on the eve of the Last Battle). 

Since we’ve gone this far, we’ll go on with Moiraine, since in some ways she’s the most enigmatic of the many Aes Sedai. From the moment that Rand meets her in Emond’s Field she’s pulling the strings, making sure that everyone dances to her tune. While we’re led to believe that this is a bad thing–particularly from Rand’s point of view–I’ve always been of the mind that things would have gone a lot better for him and the others if they’d just accepted that she was doing what was best, if not always for them then at least for the rest of the world. 

I’ve long wondered just what it is that makes Moiraine so alluring to me and, I assume, to other fans of the series. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that we know so little about her, or perhaps it’s the fact that’s just a badass. This is a woman, after all, who managed to destroy not one but two of the Forsaken (she balefired Be’lal and pushed Lanfear into a ter’angreal). Not only that, but she cheated death many times over, and she’s clearly one of the few in the Third Age who can really face down the Forsaken and all of their formidable power. Through it all she holds true to her conviction that Rand must stay alive in order to fight the Last Battle.

If I have one complaint about Moiraine, it’s that I’ve always felt her relationship with Thom Merrilin was forced and tacked on. I was happy to see her return, of course, both because I like her as a character and because this aligns her with Gandalf, her most obvious counterpart in The Lord of the Rings. I could definitely have lived without seeing her put into a boring heterosexual relationship. 

If Moiraine is always a mystery to us, Nynaeve most definitely is not. She’s one of the few characters who actually gets her own POV chapters in The Eye of the World, and so we’re immediately invited into her mind and, while we do grow a bit frustrated with her resolute hatred of Aes Sedai (particularly Moiraine), it’s hard not to feel touched by both her obvious love of the others from Emond’s Field and her love of Lan. Indeed, the latter will become one of the most notable aspects of her personality, and you can’t help but admire her stalwart dedication to landing him. Men don’t come more stubborn and mulishly proud than al’Lan Mandragoran, after all.

Moreover, Nynaeve is just fun to spend time with as a character. She’s brilliant and powerful and she won’t take guff from anyone, whether Egwene or one of the Aes Sedai, and she has more power than almost anyone else. Like Moiraine, she’s no slouch when it comes to dealing with the Forsaken, and she never lets her fear get the better of her, not even when she’s dealing with a notoriously dangerous woman like Moghedien. Perhaps most importantly, she’ll do anything to help a friend, as she shows when she helps to free Egwene from the clutches of the Seanchan.

This isn’t to say that she isn’t described with the same sorts of repetitive tics as the male characters. Heaven knows there’s enough braid pulling and tugging, sniffing, and smoothing of skirts to fill an entire book by themselves, but it’s also true that she does have a very good head on her shoulders. And, while it takes her a very long time to overcome the block she has on accessing the One Power–unless she is well and truly angry–when she does she is able to work wonders. 

Moreover, while she is certainly stubborn–she is from the Two Rivers, after all–she ends up being wiser than Egwene (not for nothing was she appointed the Wisdom of Emond’s Field). Unlike her younger compatriot, she has the good sense to wait and see the lay of the land before leaping in feet first. It’s for this reason, I think, that she manages to survive the various traumas of the Last Battle while Egwene does not. 

Even if Moiraine and Nynaeve weren’t great characters by themselves, they also benefit from a comparison to their male counterparts. If you’ve ever read The Wheel of Time, you’ll no doubt know that it can sometimes be a bit of a slog to get through those chapters that are told from the men’s point of view. This is for two main reasons. The first is Jordan’s frustrating tendency to have his male characters constantly wish that one of the others were there because of their supposed skill with women. The second is simply the fact that his male characters, almost without exception, never really grow up. As my subtitle says: I said what I said. 

Fortunately, we have the female characters to balance all of this out, and I will close by saying that I love the way that they have been brought to life in Amazon’s adaptation. Rosamund Pike may not be as short as her book counterpart, but she more than captures Moiraine’s steely determination and ruthless approach to keeping the Dragon Reborn alive. And, as I’ve written before, she also brings out the queerness in Moiraine’s character that was always more hinted at than fully explored in the novels (one can but hope that she’ll end up with Siuan rather than Thom). Zoë Robbins, for her part, is nothing short of sublime as Nynaeve, particularly in the second season. She nails the character’s stubbornness, strength, and pride, though I do hope that we see more of Nynaeve’s humor in the subsequent seasons. 

So, dear readers, who’s your favorite Wheel of Time character?

Note: I was tempted to add Verin on this list, because she is also a very awesome character in the series. However, I hope to do a whole newsletter entirely about her, so I thought I’d save my analysis of her until then.