Moiraine's Warder and the uncrowned king of Malkier, a nation destroyed by the Blight before he was old enough to remember it. Lan is the archetypal fantasy warrior elevated well above the archetype - technically supreme, emotionally closed, and carrying a grief and sense of duty so deep they have become structural to his identity. He has been fighting the Shadow his entire life because there is nothing else for him to do. His arc is defined by Nynaeve's refusal to let him die alone in the Blight as he intends - she insists on binding him to her, which eventually becomes the most unexpectedly tender relationship in the series. In the final book he rides to the Gap of Tarwin to begin the Last Battle alone and finds an army waiting for him.