#She gets grafted onto the arcs of Lan or Rand

[onaperduamedee]

My greatest expectation in terms of arc this season (Siuan aside) is Nynaeve's because I'm waiting for the show to develop her story in a preventative way against the dilapidation of her thread post book 7.

One of the books most unexpected failures for me was Nynaeve's arc after she broke out of the block, as she becomes essentially other characters' powerful sidekick. Storylines that should have centered her like the Cleansing positioned her as an adjuvant, rather than a story driver. She still accomplishes great feats but her writing always feels rather external and not as involved as the introspection we get for any of the other EF5 and Elayne.

And it's so disappointing because there is no rhyme nor reason to this demotion: one minute she is on equal footing with her Two Rivers friends in ACoS, and the next book she becomes a side character plus.

It's so immensely frustrating because as many side characters in this series, she has meaty things going on later on, for example she's married to a war veteran with immense emotional baggage and my favourite bits of Lan and Nynaeve's relationship are when we see that under the marital bliss there is an unease on Nyn's side because she wasn't really equipped to handle all that come with Lan. Or later on in the series, Rand uses her on several occasions and makes her accomplice to war crimes and tortures, which as someone whose drive is healing the world must be incredibly brutal.

Yet, we don't get as much introspection about these events on Nynaeve's end, although she would be entirely legitimate in giving her perspective, particularly as they touch on different, complex sides of healing: what happens when the wound left is trauma? what constitutes mercy killing?

So if there is one arc I really need the show to properly fix, it is Nynaeve's. And that means letting her be a main character until the end.