For the record I was being cheeky with my comment about Nynaeve's violent tendencies ... I feel much the same as you in that regard and the Wind Finder example is an excellent one.

Nynaeve wasn't one of my favorite characters until I started re-reading the series ... When I was younger and reading the series as it was being released I thought of her as something of a bully, and there are certainly elements of that in her personality, but as I re-read the books I started to see more of her heart and internal motivations come through. I love that she was willing to throw her entire life's work away to go track down a few wayward teens. The bravery it would take to grab your horse and travel alone through monster infested woods and into what must have seemed like a massive city chasing down a woman and her companion that represent the greatest power you can imagine is astounding. She's also one of the only characters in the entire series that is shown to have true personal growth. The Nynaeve in EoTW and the Nynaeve after all her experiences is a much different person, but oddly exactly the same too. I'm not sure I can really explain it in a short post, but she matured without becoming a totally different woman. Egwene, in contrast, drastically changed in ways that made her nearly unrecognizable as the same person in some ways. I found her interesting and I tend to enjoy the intrigue and political machinations plots in general (what fiction I do read tends to these kinds of stories) but despite that I recognize that she doesn't have the heart that Nynaeve possessed. Egwene was the character that learned to play the system from within the system and Nynaeve was the character who truly tried to move the system. For me both have appeal as characters to read about.

I never really cared much about Aviendah or Elayne and was purely annoyed by Min, all of whom I felt were shitty to Nynaeve most of the time, despite claiming to be her closest friends. At least Egwene has the balls to admit she was basically a bitch to Nynaeve and for pretty immature reasons. The others always rationalized IMO.