Thoughts on the Demandred, Lan, Mat storyline at the last battle?

[Scarloc99]

So re reading a MOL several times I have started to pick out more things that just don't sit well with me in terms of the narrative storytelling around the last battle. 

One of these is that I find it frustrating that Mat never gets any real acceptance of his tactical brilliance from Demandred. It feels narriativley that there needs to be a moment, even if just before he dies, that it is revealed to Demandred that Rand is not and has never been at the last battle and his efforts to draw out the fight have led to his losing. I am happy that Lan got the killing blow, and did it with a technique he taught rand all the way at back at the start of book when the journey really started. But I was waiting for that other big reveal and it never came. 

Anyone else feel a bit flat at this, or where you happy with the whole Demandred Mat jousting across the battlefield and the fact Demandred never learnt who truly beat him? 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

22 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

So re reading a MOL several times I have started to pick out more things that just don't sit well with me in terms of the narrative storytelling around the last battle. 

One of these is that I find it frustrating that Mat never gets any real acceptance of his tactical brilliance from Demandred. It feels narriativley that there needs to be a moment, even if just before he dies, that it is revealed to Demandred that Rand is not and has never been at the last battle and his efforts to draw out the fight have led to his losing. I am happy that Lan got the killing blow, and did it with a technique he taught rand all the way at back at the start of book when the journey really started. But I was waiting for that other big reveal and it never came. 

Anyone else feel a bit flat at this, or where you happy with the whole Demandred Mat jousting across the battlefield and the fact Demandred never learnt who truly beat him? 

This and there were also other things I was hoping would be resolved or satisfying. I admittedly and naively thought until I finished reading that everything I thought should and would be explained or information that I expected certain characters would discover actually was going to happen. Silly me!

[DojoToad]

I'm fine with Demandred not knowing.  Shows his fallibility.  He is only human...

 

I'm also fine without having everything tied with a neat bow.  A bit of mystery is all good.

[Dedicated]

I wasn't let down by Demandred not realizing he was fighting Mat all along. I really liked that part where Demandred is convinced he is fighting Rand because of the tactical brilliance being demonstrated. He says something along the lines of, "Now, I'm certain that I'm fighting Lews Therin, because only someone who had lived as long has he could be fighting this well."

 

Also, I feel like Demandred's arc was really about Demandred's internal conflict and not his external conflict with Lews Therin. Besides, Demandred kind of came out of no where to begin with. There were hints here and there, but he didn't really come onto the scene until the last couple of books from what I remember; though it has admittedly been a while. 

 

I also REAAALLLY liked 

Spoiler

when Mat's idea for securing the river was revealed to be those guys from that town that kept killing each other and waking up the next day as if it had never happened. 

I picked up on the hints (ie: people questioning why Mat had given the instructions he had regarding the position outside of the actually battlegrounds by the river) but I didn't put it together, so it was a real treat to see how that played out.

 

What I really love about this series are the moments and scenes. Over all I think there are a lot of issues in the story, but some of these scenes are just so good. Like when Lan is fighting Demandred and Demandred is like, "... bruh... who TF ARE you?!?!" because he can't believe Lan's skill. Another example of a scene I love is when

Spoiler

Rodel Ituralde approaches the dying leader of the Sean Chan force he just defeated and dude is like, "well played, but you know you ultimately cannot win. We don't fall for the same trick twice and we learn and get better each time we face an enemy. So why are you fighting?" And Ituralde just shrugs and is like, "why does a bird fly?"

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Dedicated

[Scarloc99]

There were some good moments but the more I read the last 3 books the more I dislike the cheap tricks Brandon uses to try and generate tension. Especially when it is so different to RJs writing style. 
 

I had no issue with Lan killing Demandred, it would have just been a nice little moment if there had been a reveal to Demandred. I mean space could have been made by not having the same fight happen 3 times. You only needed Galad and Lan to fight Demandred, Gawyn was pointless other then a cheap effort to kill him. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

For me it is not that Demandred never learns that Mat is fighting him, it is that Mat does not beat him. As the battle is progressing, 

Demandred is completely coping with Mat, while using balefire to annihilate huge sections of Mat's army (where the books don't quite explain how having whole pike formations crushed the army continues to fight). Mat is trying to get Demandred to bet big on a losing hand while minimizing his own losses on every other hand.

 

The Seanchan come back for a classic will they won't they moment, ignoring that their absence must have increased the morale of the shadow as much as it lowered the morale of the good guys. However the feigned retreat had not caused Demandred to act in any way that helped Mat. The Seanchan should only have returned once Demandred had committed to Mat's ruse. But of course in the 53rd unnecessary duel, Demandred is killed, while still whipping the armies of the light.

 

Then Mat pulls off his trick with the river (I really did not like the villagers from Hinderstap coming back, I mean genius using them as a last stand to make it look like Mat was trying to hold the river, and sow seeds as to why Mat would leave them to die so heartlessly, but in the reveal there is no reason that the band of villagers would then be strong enough to retake the dam, Mat could have sent half the Seanchan army or any other reserves from anywhere in Westlands, a bunch of villagers who weren't enough to hold dam could hardly be expected to be definitely able to re-capture it, which was pretty essential, and the apparent explanation of why is that the defenders could recognise that they were the same people (how would that be so obvious?) and that when they did they would be so shocked (in the Last Battle, no less) that they would let them kill them as opposed to just vapourising them with the One Power. Sounds legit, like the bad guys in the A-Team being so upset about being covered in custard, they forget they were armed with M60 machine guns, every, single, week. But I digress.)

 

And there is no baiting Demandred into a mistake, not least because he is dead. All of Mat's stratagems are not enough and it takes essentially a deus ex machina in the Horn of Valere to win the day. So the whole point of Mat's battle memories, and the meeting of the Shadow's greatest general against the Light's, just fizzles out. Given that the real battle was at Shayol Ghul, it just makes the whole battle, all the deaths, everything seem even more pointless. 

Spoiler

spoiler removed

Sorry, I could not quite see anyway of discussing that without exclusively using spoilers. Also, I covered slightly more than I had originally meant to. I think the pain runs deep 😄

 

And seeing as I cannot mention the last battle without saying

Spoiler

Oh my God! They killed Bela! You bastards!

I won't.

Edited September 14, 2023 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade
realised I read the spoiler policy for the TV show

[Scarloc99]

On 9/13/2023 at 8:44 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

For me it is not that Demandred never learns that Mat is fighting him, it is that Mat does not beat him. As the battle is progressing,

  Hide contents

Demandred is completely coping with Mat, while using balefire to annihilate huge sections of Mat's army (where the books don't quite explain how having whole pike formations crushed the army continues to fight). Mat is trying to get Demandred to bet big on a losing hand while minimizing his own losses on every other hand.

 

The Seanchan come back for a classic will they won't they moment, ignoring that their absence must have increased the morale of the shadow as much as it lowered the morale of the good guys. However the feigned retreat had not caused Demandred to act in any way that helped Mat. The Seanchan should only have returned once Demandred had committed to Mat's ruse. But of course in the 53rd unnecessary duel, Demandred is killed, while still whipping the armies of the light.

 

Then Mat pulls off his trick with the river (I really did not like the villagers from Hinderstap coming back, I mean genius using them as a last stand to make it look like Mat was trying to hold the river, and sow seeds as to why Mat would leave them to die so heartlessly, but in the reveal there is no reason that the band of villagers would then be strong enough to retake the dam, Mat could have sent half the Seanchan army or any other reserves from anywhere in Westlands, a bunch of villagers who weren't enough to hold dam could hardly be expected to be definitely able to re-capture it, which was pretty essential, and the apparent explanation of why is that the defenders could recognise that they were the same people (how would that be so obvious?) and that when they did they would be so shocked (in the Last Battle, no less) that they would let them kill them as opposed to just vapourising them with the One Power. Sounds legit, like the bad guys in the A-Team being so upset about being covered in custard, they forget they were armed with M60 machine guns, every, single, week. But I digress.)

 

And there is no baiting Demandred into a mistake, not least because he is dead. All of Mat's stratagems are not enough and it takes essentially a deus ex machina in the Horn of Valere to win the day. So the whole point of Mat's battle memories, and the meeting of the Shadow's greatest general against the Light's, just fizzles out. Given that the real battle was at Shayol Ghul, it just makes the whole battle, all the deaths, everything seem even more pointless. 

Sorry, I could not quite see anyway of discussing that without exclusively using spoilers. Also, I covered slightly more than I had originally meant to. I think the pain runs deep 😄

 

And seeing as I cannot mention the last battle without saying

  Hide contents

Oh my God! They killed Bela! You bastards!

I won't.

The villagers from hinderstep where reinforced, Matt sent 100 of the red band to the village in the days before the lat battle, volunteers who agreed to go and die in the village so they could then come back and fight the last battle. I imagine that during that time they also spent time training the villagers how to fight in a more organised way. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

17 minutes ago, Scarloc99 said:

The villagers from hinderstep where reinforced, Matt sent 100 of the red band to the village in the days before the lat battle, volunteers who agreed to go and die in the village so they could then come back and fight the last battle. I imagine that during that time they also spent time training the villagers how to fight in a more organised way. 

Agreed, but this only explains why they were a good force for a battle that almost certainly would be a loss. I can see no justification that they would definitely be strong enough to retake the dam, given the massive numerical superiority that the Shadow had, and the importance that the dam does not fall mid-battle. 

 

I would humbly suggest that the need to reveal that the villagers were the defending force at a dramatic point overruled the fact it made no sense that they would be tasked with retaking it, far less that the defenders would recognise them as the same people (could Mat be sure that it would even be same troops?), and the idea that this was why they would be so good to retake it as the defending forces would be too shocked to fight back. Reality has been coming apart for months, the defenders are dreadlords fighting alongside shadowspawn, commanded by a man 3,000 years old. A bunch of people that look kind of like another bunch of people that died, in my eyes, does not seem to have much shock impact, certainly not "I'm so shocked I won't channel but just watch the people kill me". 

 

As I see it at least, it was a nice idea, great actually; which for dramatic reasons was taken too far, into an area that was just dumb.

Edited September 14, 2023 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade
bah, words, can't live with them, can't live without them...

[Scarloc99]

Oh I agree that it was badly written but then I think much of the last battle wasn't brilliantly written, in fact I think BS gets a lot of leeway and forgivness because he finished the series when his 3 books are not that great as a series end point. Just wasn't sure if you had picked up on the villagers being reinforced by the soldiers because it is just a. couple of sentences buried in the middle of the story, I know I missed it the first time I read the book. 

[Aan-Alone]

I'm glad someone elsr enjoyed Hinderstrap's part in the Last Battle.