One of the series' most important female protagonists, Egwene begins as a village girl from Emond's Field who discovers she can channel the One Power and ends as the Amyrlin Seat - effectively the leader of all Aes Sedai. Her rise from novice to the most powerful position in the White Tower is one of the series' central narrative achievements, driven entirely by her intelligence, political acumen, and force of will rather than raw power. Egwene's arc is a sustained study in the nature of authority and legitimacy - how it is earned, how it is maintained, and what it costs. She is also a Dreamer, able to prophesy through her dreams and enter Tel'aran'rhiod, the World of Dreams, with unusual skill.

One of the three central male protagonists, Mat begins the series as a mischievous, dice-rolling farmer from Emond's Field and ends it as one of the greatest military commanders in the history of the world - a fact he resents deeply and tries to avoid at every turn. Mat is a ta'veren, one of three people around whom the Pattern of the Wheel weaves especially tightly, and he is infused with the memories and skills of thousands of soldiers and generals from past ages, giving him an instinctive tactical genius he neither asked for nor wanted. He carries a spear called Ashandarei and wears a medallion that blocks the One Power. His relationship with Tuon, the Seanchan Daughter of the Nine Moons, is one of the series' most entertaining and complex dynamics. Mat provides most of the series' comic relief without ever being less than fully capable when it matters.

The Wisdom of Emond's Field - the village healer and advisor - and one of the most powerful channellers in the series. Nynaeve's defining characteristic for most of the series is her block: she can only channel when angry, a limitation that both limits and defines her for many books. When she finally breaks through it she becomes one of the strongest channellers alive. She is fiercely protective of the people she considers her responsibility, particularly the other Emond's Field characters, and her arc involves learning that protection sometimes means letting people face their own dangers. She eventually marries Lan Mandragoran, a match that says something about both of them. Her skill at Healing, the most demanding of the One Power's applications, is unmatched.

The third of the central male protagonists, Perrin is a blacksmith's apprentice from Emond's Field who discovers he is a Wolfbrother - able to communicate with wolves and access their senses, sharing a primal connection to the ancient bond between wolves and humans. He has enormous physical strength, enhanced further by his wolf nature, and golden eyes that mark him as something other than ordinary. Perrin is the most grounded and emotionally steady of the three boys - serious, methodical, and deeply uncomfortable with the violence his abilities push him toward. His arc across the series involves both his external struggle to protect the Two Rivers and his internal struggle to accept what he is, culminating in his mastery of the World of Dreams in the final books.

The central protagonist of the Wheel of Time and the prophesied Dragon Reborn - the promised champion of the Light foretold to face the Dark One at the Last Battle, and the reincarnation of Lews Therin Telamon, the channeller whose sealing of the Dark One's prison three thousand years ago tainted the male half of the One Power and doomed every male channeller of his age to madness. Rand begins the series as a sheepherder from Emond's Field with no knowledge of his heritage, and the fourteen books follow his transformation as prophecy, power, and the weight of being necessary reshape him. He can channel saidin, the male half of the One Power, making him simultaneously the world's greatest hope and its greatest danger.

A Forsaken who was an ascetic in the Age of Legends and became the opposite - surrounded by Compelled servants, living in deliberate excess as a kind of ongoing self-parody. Graendal is the subtlest of the Forsaken and the most dangerous precisely because she never fights directly when manipulation will serve. She outlasts almost all of her peers.

A Forsaken who was a general of the Light in the Age of Legends before turning to the Shadow, driven largely by jealousy of Lews Therin Telamon. He rules Illian during the middle series as Lord Brend and is one of the more straightforwardly aggressive of the Forsaken - a soldier's mind rather than a schemer's.

A Maiden of the Spear - one of the Aiel warrior societies composed entirely of women - who becomes a Wise One in training when her ability to channel is discovered. Aviendha is assigned by the Wise Ones to watch over Rand and teach him Aiel ways, a task she resents and he finds baffling, in a dynamic that gradually becomes one of the series' most interesting relationships. She is fiercely proud, quick to anger, and bound by ji'e'toh in ways that repeatedly create conflict - she feels she has shamed herself by her feelings for Rand, which under Aiel custom creates obligations she takes absolutely seriously. She eventually becomes first-sisters with Elayne through an Aiel bonding ritual.

One of the Forsaken, a powerful channeller who commands the Shadow's armies at the Last Battle under the alias Bao the Wyld.

The Daughter-Heir of Andor and one of Rand's three loves, Elayne is a powerful channeller and the legitimate heir to the Lion Throne, which she spends several books fighting to claim. She is the most politically sophisticated of the young female protagonists - raised at court, aware of how power works, and capable of playing the game. She also has a talent for making ter'angreal, the magical artefacts of the One Power, which becomes increasingly important as the series approaches the Last Battle. Her arc involves balancing her personal relationships - with Rand, with Aviendha (who becomes her first-sister in Aiel tradition), with Birgitte her Warder - against the demands of securing a throne in a world at war.

A noblewoman from Saldaea who disguises herself as a hunter for the Horn before becoming Perrin's wife. Faile is proud, fierce, and intensely political in a way that Perrin is not - their marriage is a sustained negotiation between two people who love each other but fundamentally misread each other's cultural assumptions about strength and vulnerability. Her captivity among the Shaido Aiel drives Perrin's most divisive arc.

Elayne's younger brother and half-brother of Galad Damodred, trained as a blademaster and First Prince of the Sword of Andor. Gawyn is fiercely protective of his sister and obsessively devoted to Egwene.

A false Dragon who could channel - one of the rare men born with the ability - who was captured by Aes Sedai and gentled before the series begins. His arc is one of the most quietly impressive in the sequence: stripped of his power, broken, and rebuilt into something harder and more purposeful as events refuse to leave him in the past.

An Ogier from Stedding Shangtai, Loial is eight feet tall, gentle, bookish, and deeply reluctant to be involved in anything that might end up in a story - Ogier live for centuries and consider haste to be a sign of poor judgment. He joins the group as a guide through the Ways, the Ogier-built network of passage between stedding, and stays because he is curious and because the friends he makes matter to him more than his discomfort. Loial is a scholar writing a book about the Dragon Reborn, which he considers a considerable conflict of interest given that he is watching events unfold from the inside. He is one of the few characters who is both genuinely powerful (Ogier are enormously strong) and entirely peaceable by nature, which makes the moments when he fights all the more striking.

One of the Forsaken who infiltrates the White Tower disguised as an Aes Sedai, orchestrating the Tower's division.

A young woman from Baerlon with an innate and involuntary ability to see auras and images around people that reveal aspects of their future - she cannot control it, cannot turn it off, and the viewings always come true. Min is grounded, direct, and practical in a way that contrasts with both Elayne's political sophistication and Aviendha's warrior culture, and she becomes the closest to Rand emotionally in many ways precisely because she stays with him when the others cannot. She dresses in men's clothes, has no interest in feminine convention, and is entirely without the kind of ambition that defines most characters around Rand. Her viewings provide crucial foreshadowing throughout the series.

Satellite communications operator at NASA.

Queen of Andor and Elayne's mother, Compelled by Rahvin and later believed dead. Travels incognito as Maighdin.

A former peddler corrupted by the Dark One and merged with the evil of Shadar Logoth, becoming an independent force of malice pursuing Rand.

One of the Forsaken, a sadistic torturer who poses as the Seanchan Truthspeaker Anath. Captures Rand before being destroyed.