Where do you think Demandred is?

[RobertAlexWillis]

Just to make things clear at the start, Demandred is not Mazrim Taim. Mister Jordan has made that exceptionally clear. So, lets go with other theories, please.

 

I believe he is with the Borderlander army currently working it's way through Andor. There are a few reasons for this.

 

1) Its a major power block without a known Forsaken and/or Darkfriend in it. We're pretty clear on who is (or was, until recently) with the others now.

 

Seanchan - Anath Dorje, Tuon's truthspeaker, has been exposed as Semirhage.

 

Aes Sedai (in the Tower) - Mesaana, and she's still there.

 

Aes Sedai (the rebels)- Halima (Aran'gar/Balthamel), until Romanda FINALLY did something useful and figured out if not who, then what she was. (At minimum, a saidin channeling Darkfriend).

 

Rand al'Thor - Elza, at least, is with him, and Dashiva (Osan'gar/Aginor) had been tasked to watch him.

 

The Black Tower - the M'hael is at minimum, a Darkfriend.

 

Arad Doman - Graendal. And she quite obviously has Alsalam under wraps, and Rodel Ituralde doing what she wants him to, albeit unknowingly.

 

Caemlyn/Andor - This is a little trickier, but Moghedien has been giving orders to the Black Ajah who were captured by Birgitte, and Shiaine was getting orders from Moridin.

 

The Borderlander army is the only major armed force with no known strings attached. The Shadow would not ignore it, so it is reasonable that one of them would be there, and it fits Demandred.

 

2) It fits Demandred's personality profile. He thinks of himself as a general, so it is likely that he would choose to put himself in charge of an army. A similar pattern was observed with Sammael, Be'lal, and Rahvin. Each took power in the manner he had been accustomed to in the War of the Power. The same is true for the women, for that matter.

 

3) Although Demandred is not Taim, he has possible ties to Taim and the Black Tower. He gave the order to Asha'man to have Rand killed (although he was not the ONLY one, Taim was another). Being in the borderlands would have given him the opportunity to be behind the freeing of Taim, his conversion to the Dark (if he needed conversion), and then his introduction to Rand at the proper time. Taim begins the Black Tower in Lord of Chaos, and the Dark One seems to be working through Demandred a great deal in that book.

 

This is hardly an ironclad case, but it seems the most likely place for him. The only other Forsaken not nailed down (or at least linked to a place/faction) is Cyndane. Her personality and skills an not likely to be employed by Moridin in that Borderlander situation, so thats where I think Demandred is.

 

Comment away!

[algspkr]

Bear in mind that Elza is not opperating under orders. Verin screwed with her mind and she believes that for the shadow to win the Dark One must kill Rand during TG. She will try to face down forsaken to see it happen.

[RobertAlexWillis]

OK. That was just part of a list, saying "we know there is a Darkfriend here". Where is Demandred?

[rochaid]

there is already a forum on this,demand demandred in the wheel of times forums..i think the most likely canditate is roedran,the king of murandy.

 

and btw RJ has told us we have not seen him in the books...just to discont a lot of possibilites.(we have only heard of roedran,not seen him)

[RobertAlexWillis]

Interesting ... I'm not sure it fits the profile for Demandred to be bringing in outside help and then letting it go, the way Roedran did in recruiting the Band. When Rahvin, Be'lal, and Sammael took over countries, they quickly solidified the leadership around themselves. Murandy is still to all appearances, a group of feuding nobility that Roedran is trying to pull together. Of course, Andor, Illian, and Tear were already strongly unified countries ... and the POV of Ethenielle doesn't leave much room for Demandred commanding the Borderlanders as one of the other monarchs (since RJ said we haven't seen him yet.)

[Kaznen]

And I don't hink he could tucked in tBotRH as a recent "recruit." The forsaken (excpet Sammy) see Perrina and Mat as minor players, if they get the oppertunity, kill them, but don't go out of their way to do so.

 

I also think that the Band is the only large force that is truly DF free.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Moridin doesn't see Perrin and Mat as minor players. His only action oriented order to the Forsaken at their last meeting was to find them and kill them. He was, in fact, rather vehement.

 

I doubt Demandred would join the Band though ... he doesn't really strike me as a follower. Thats the strongest part of the Murandy theory to me, If it's true he's put himself on a throne. The Borderlanders would appeal to the general in him though ... I can't really come down on either side of this one. Are there any reliable numbers on what Murandy can muster?

[Kaznen]

Mordin was vehement about them NOT killing Rand, Rnad is his. He said, "if you need to kill someone kill these two".

[RobertAlexWillis]

After which ...

 

"Moridin's fist came down hard on the arm of his chair. 'Find them! Make doubly sure that your followers know their faces. Find Aybara and Cauthon and kill them! The Time is coming, and they must be dead!'"

 

(Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens, p.149)

 

Moridin is usually contemptuously confident, and ostentatiously relaxed. Banging the furniture with exclamation points is pretty vehement.

 

None of which tells us where Demandred is.

[rochaid]

Are there any reliable numbers on what Murandy can muster?

 

due to the many factions of murandy it seems to me that they would have a large army if united.luckers;in the military leadership forum said maybe as much as 100,000.the nobles all presumably have a fair force with them so united they could indeed have numbers aprroaching this figure.

[Dionysus]

No one really knows how many troops Murandy has.

 

I think that Luckers overestimates the 100,000 figure though. The Band of the Red Hand has 30000 troops, and Murandy had to unite to appear a threat to them (so much so that the Band left) which places their numbers at above 30000. If there were 100,000 troops in the country, it doesnt seem likely to me that 30000 troops would cause such a huge threat to unite the entire country. Two or three of the more powerful nobles would be able to provide the defense necessary, well against a normal army not the Band of the Red Hand.

 

Of course if Roedran is Demandred, he has ways of bringing all the nobles under his bidding, regardless of whether they are able to meet the threat without him.

 

Then you run into the problem of other countries and how many troops they have. Tear is estimated to have 100,000 men, would you put Murandy on equal footing to Tear? Illian is estimated to have 80000, is Murandy more powerful than them? We have more accurate numbers with Andor, and they reach up to 135000-150000 troops. Tenobia brought 50000 troops with her, and the borderlanders were worried that they are leaving the Blight undefended. ALthough she says she has enough to stop anything short of the Trolloc Wars, this would probably put their numbers at around 100,000 soldiers (plus every citizen of Borderlands can defend).

 

I just don't see Murandy as either more powerful or a little less than what has been set up throughout the books as the most powerful nations in Randland.

 

My speculation - 40000-50000 troops in a united Murandy.

[Dionysus]

As to where Demandred is, I agree with everyone here.

 

He is either with the Borderlanders or in Murandy. I side with the Borderlanders cause they are much more important to both Rand, and to Demandred considering he is the general for the Dark One, and will presumably be in major command of the Trolloc army pouring through the Blight into the Borderlands. Murandy doesnt have any importance to him in that battle.

 

Two very large possibilities earlier in the books have been somewhat put to bed with KoD. Both the Prophet and the Whitecloaks have seen their capabilities severely weakened, it is unlikely he was with either of these groups, though perhaps he did have proxies.

[Luckers]

Andor has 200,000. Merillile states that she thinks that the Borderlanders have around 200,000 troops, and Elayne comments later that if all the troops of Andor were gathered they could only just match them.

 

As for Murandy... its a weak nation because its devided, when it has been faced with an external threat its united in the past, and gained swift victory. Remember too, by all accounts Murandy is a populous place. More so then Andor, which has vast tracks of unused lands, but when looking at the chapters where Egwene is passing through Murandy there are always locals around. Quite a lot of them. My guess of a 100,000 could indeed be very wrong, concidering everyone in Murandy describes themselves as this Lord or Lady's man... a united Murandy could be a very powerful thing.

 

And it would be just like Demandred to realise that. People ignore Murandy, but if properly united, it could be a force.

 

I think that Luckers overestimates the 100,000 figure though. The Band of the Red Hand has 30000 troops, and Murandy had to unite to appear a threat to them (so much so that the Band left) which places their numbers at above 30000. If there were 100,000 troops in the country, it doesnt seem likely to me that 30000 troops would cause such a huge threat to unite the entire country. Two or three of the more powerful nobles would be able to provide the defense necessary, well against a normal army not the Band of the Red Hand.

 

This isn't nessasarily true. Firstly, the Bands numbers at the time were only 10,000, according to Egwene. This number reaches 16,000 by KoD, if all that talk of banners means what i think it does.

 

But thats not important. The numbers of the band arn't whats at question, the nature of the band is. To the Murandians what the Band is, is an army of Dragonsworn. All around them nations are crumpling. The Seanchan are almost on their doorstep, and army of Aes Sedai just wandered through their land like nothing was wrong, and now an errant army of Dragonsworn are making themselves at home, with no indication that they intend to leave...

 

Of course if Roedran is Demandred, he has ways of bringing all the nobles under his bidding, regardless of whether they are able to meet the threat without him.

 

Are you speaking of compulsion? Compelling every noble in Murandy would be somewhat hard, i imagine. And then theres the matter of what it would look like to others if Murandy randomly just came together. Demandred likely wouldn't want to tip his hand like that.

 

As for the Borderlanders... i have my doubts.

 

1. We've seen them all... and we were told we havn't seen Demandreds alter ego.

 

2. Sammael said events in the south match Demandred... he was in Arad Domon at the time, but i dont think in any way, shape, or form the borderlands can be concidered the south.

 

3. I personally believe the thirteen Aes Sedai with the borderlanders are darkfriends. There are indications that both Bashere and Tenobia are going to die soon, and theres still a second time when women who can channel are going to hurt Rand. There is also a second time when Perrin is going to be needed or else Rand is going to be hurt. Now this weren't said together... but i suspect they are linked. The first time was, and theres the fact that the Borderlanders and Perrin are getting closer to each other, and the fact that Faile will be needed to take over Saldaea. And meeting the Borderlanders is probably the only time Rand would relax in unfamiliar places, and therefore be taken by surprise.

 

4. Controlling the Borderlanders would be hard because from the lowliest stable boy to the highest lord, all live only to fight the shadow. Any indications that their leaders were acting in a way beneficial to the shadow would be noticed fairly quickly.

[Guest Majsju]

I don't think Demandred is in Murandy, and I'm not convinced he has a permanent base at all.

 

Sammael says that Demandred always liked using proxies, and that's what I think he's doing. He might be involved with Murandy, perhaps Compelling Roedhran, though we've had a POV from Demandred where he flat out says he's not comfortable using Compulsion because of the risk it carries of making the victim useless. But it wouldn't require much if any Compulsion to convince a power-hungry noble that now's the time to go for more power.

 

I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that Demandred is the one who has messed Masema up so completely. And he is also supposed to be keeping an eye on Rand, which means someone relatively close to Rand.

 

So what about Demandred being the general? Well, the Shadow has an army of it's own, and I don't think a myrdraal would be trusted to lead such an army, and make a greater strategy. SH doesn't seem like a good candidate either, as he appears to be busy with a lot of other things. And you can't have a general who has to run off to SG every now and then.

Demandred however...A brilliant general who likes the job. I don't think he cares if the soldiers are human, trollocs or myrdraal as long as they kill anything in their path.

[MetalMonkeyMood]

Two very large possibilities earlier in the books have been somewhat put to bed with KoD. Both the Prophet and the Whitecloaks have seen their capabilities severely weakened' date=' it is unlikely he was with either of these groups, though perhaps he did have proxies.

[/quote']

Yeah, the Prophet and the Whitecloaks were my two favourite bets for Demandred's location, but after that pathetic attempt at killing Perrin and Galad's duel I have my doubts that Demandred is with either of them.

I'm with the posters in this thread and my bet's on either Murandy or the Borderlands, Murandy more so because of Sammael's speculation in LoC that events to the South had Demandred's mark on them.

[Luckers]

I agree with a lot of what Maj says. It makes sense.

 

On the other hand it would seem that Cyndane and Moghedian, under the orders of Moridin, are responsible for mustering the Shadows forces. We know that Cyndane at least is organising the darkfriends, and both of them stay in the north, so if someone is gathering the shadowspawn i imagine it would be them.

[Guest Majsju]

Mustering is one thing. And with all respect to the badness of Cyndane and Moggy, I can't see them commanding an army in battle.

[Luckers]

I didn't mean that they would command the armies of the Shadow, i meant that right now Demandred's specific skills arn't needed. Doubtlessly he will command the armies, or at least part of them, when the war begins.

 

I just noted that in the meeting in KoD Demandred makes a specific comment about his 'followers'. He has them searching for the seals. From that i'd suggest he was behind the attacks on Dobraine and Bashere's wife. Even more curious is that he uses the phrase followers. I wonder if he is refering to those darkfriends that he has taken control of, or if he is in a position to have followers--which to me implies choice... Masema, the Black Tower... some place where alliegance resulted from choice rather then being born to it.

[Guest Egwene]

I too, am with Maj on this one. They way Demandred has been popping up at the meetings of the forsaken... never any talk of him being tied down (that I can remember). I always get the feeling of him jumping from place to place.

 

There are a couple of things in LoC that are interesting. First Demandred get orders from the DO in the Prologue, than he as he observes Elayne in Tel'aran'rhiod, he muses that he must let the Lord of Chaos rule, but he does not understand why. And in the epilogue he asks the DO: Have I not done well, Great Lord? ...to which laughter is the answer.

 

Could this indicate, that he has been charged with causing chaos... not just amongst the followers of the Light, but amongst the Forsaken too? Again, something easier to achive with no permanent base.

.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that Demandred is the one who has messed Masema up so completely. And he is also supposed to be keeping an eye on Rand, which means someone relatively close to Rand.

 

Now that is a VERY interesting idea.

 

So what about Demandred being the general? Well, the Shadow has an army of it's own, and I don't think a myrdraal would be trusted to lead such an army, and make a greater strategy. SH doesn't seem like a good candidate either, as he appears to be busy with a lot of other things. And you can't have a general who has to run off to SG every now and then.

 

Actually, that bit about not being able to run off to Shayol Ghul make Shaidar Haran a more likely candidate in my view. He carries at least a part of the Dark One's awareness with him.

 

And even if Demandred is the Dark One's choice for general, I doubt he would just sit in the Blight kicking his heels while he waited. It doesn't seem likely that he would have developped no personal power base. (I'm basing that assessment on his reported actions in the War of the Power)

[Guest Majsju]

And even if Demandred is the Dark One's choice for general, I doubt he would just sit in the Blight kicking his heels while he waited. It doesn't seem likely that he would have developped no personal power base. (I'm basing that assessment on his reported actions in the War of the Power)

 

Of course he would be busy with other tasks until he was called to peform the duty as general. But it would have to be things that can be combined with his role as general, which makes it very hard for him to build a physical powerbase in a nation.

 

Lets use Murandy as an example. Demandred goes that, takes the identity of Rhoedran, and starts building an army. Just as he has finished uniting the nation, and has a respectable army ready to attack he's called back to the Blight because the main strike is about to happen. What about his army in Murandy then? A shadow-controlled army in the middle of randland would be best used where it is, since it could strike the forces of the Light in the back. But Demandred can't be very efficient commanding two armies so far from eachother. Maybe if Semirhage hadn't gotten herself captured, so she could have joined the Murandian army with the Seanchan, but that would have been quite a gamble.

[Dionysus]

This isn't nessasarily true. Firstly, the Bands numbers at the time were only 10,000, according to Egwene. This number reaches 16,000 by KoD, if all that talk of banners means what i think it does.

 

Talmanes brought 3 banners of horse and four thousand crossbowmen with him when he found Mat, and left three banners of horse and five banners of foot (KoD, Attending Elaida). Each banner of horse is 1500, and each banner of foot is 3000 (BWB). 9000 cavalry and 19000 infantry, plus their masonry banner.

 

As for Andor, 200,000 is what they could field if they got every soldier. There are quite a few losses in the battle of Caemlyn, recruitment into other armies (Band of the Redhand, did Bryne ever recruit in Andor?), and Rahvin dispursed the old Queen's guard and its unlikely to make a full recovery, plus whatever stragglers.

[Guest cwestervelt]

Having a position of the Dark One's general would make the establishment of a pre Tarmin Gai'don power base a little pointless. The Foresaken that have been doing so were attempting to establish their positions for post Tarmin Gai'don life. They would need to keep their armies out of Tarmin Gai'don to be able to maintain that later. Rand needs those armies and anyone, Foresaken or otherwise, who tried to keep them out would be a target for removal.

 

Now, for Demandred, being the top dog militarily changes the situation. He stays out of sight and doesn't draw attention. Then if the Shadow should win Tarmin Gai'don, and there still happened be anything left, he would be in control of the only military body of consequence. He can carve out whatever territory he would want with no one to stop him.

[Dionysus]

So you believe Rahvin's plan was to place himself in Andor, then when T'G comes along he disappears, goes through the dubious task of destroying the world but completely bypassing Andor so that afterwards he would have military backing to reign as Nae'blis? So, if all went according to plan, Illian, Cairhien, Andor, and Tear would be off limits to the shadowspawn so that their forsaken rulers could rule the world afterwards?

[Guest Majsju]

I think it's safe to assume that the forsaken (with the possible exception of moridin) doesn't know what the DO intends to do with the world once he's free.