Discuss The Forsaken

[Arani Lepenque Aes Sedai]

I'm suddenly imagining a pillow fight.

 

When I saw that I immediately burst out into laughter.

[AnthonyJamesEnglish]

I call the Lanfear bit at the end as a slight Red Herring..

 

Rand feels a little desire, of course he does he has 400+ years of LTT in his head now. im sure LTT wouldn't deny finding her hot, would he actually go there with all she has wrought, i seriously doubt it.

 

He more than likely will rock up to find out whats going on Lanfear will do a whole "HE SAVED ME" spiel and try to worm into his good graces and Rand will be like Meh. Lanfear will get pissed and Rand will then Balefire her.

[Ghalleon]

So we know how The Snakes and Foxes are sneaky...suppose one of Lanfear's wishes was to get the love of Lews Therin back - perhaps poorly worded....suppose their plan to do that was to return her to her former self...since that is who heloved? I dunno - just a thought.

 

I, for one, would be very curious as to what she had wished for. Ever since Moraine mentioned that she had wished for that ter'angreal, I've been wondering what Lanfear's wishes were.

 

Anyone else wonder who that person was talking to Graendal was? He was unique, I think he was described.

[analyticalkeys]

So we know how The Snakes and Foxes are sneaky...suppose one of Lanfear's wishes was to get the love of Lews Therin back - perhaps poorly worded....suppose their plan to do that was to return her to her former self...since that is who heloved? I dunno - just a thought.

 

I, for one, would be very curious as to what she had wished for. Ever since Moraine mentioned that she had wished for that ter'angreal, I've been wondering what Lanfear's wishes were.

 

Anyone else wonder who that person was talking to Graendal was? He was unique, I think he was described.

 

Talking to Graendal when? You mean Isam?

[AnthonyJamesEnglish]

View Postbchez, on 09 November 2010 - 12:36 PM, said:

So we know how The Snakes and Foxes are sneaky...suppose one of Lanfear's wishes was to get the love of Lews Therin back - perhaps poorly worded....suppose their plan to do that was to return her to her former self...since that is who heloved? I dunno - just a thought.

 

 

I, for one, would be very curious as to what she had wished for. Ever since Moraine mentioned that she had wished for that ter'angreal, I've been wondering what Lanfear's wishes were.

 

Anyone else wonder who that person was talking to Graendal was? He was unique, I think he was described.

 

or do you mean the person talking to the Aelfinn and co?

[Sharaman]

So we know how The Snakes and Foxes are sneaky...suppose one of Lanfear's wishes was to get the love of Lews Therin back - perhaps poorly worded....suppose their plan to do that was to return her to her former self...since that is who heloved? I dunno - just a thought.

 

I, for one, would be very curious as to what she had wished for. Ever since Moraine mentioned that she had wished for that ter'angreal, I've been wondering what Lanfear's wishes were.

 

Anyone else wonder who that person was talking to Graendal was? He was unique, I think he was described.

Slayer

[TigerGamer]

Demandred did show up, however briefly, and spoke to the Aes Sedai at the Black Tower. I can't be the only one who is certain that Demandred is Mazrim Taim. He obviously has the second dreamspike that Moridin had (the other he gave to Graendal) which is why the gateways don't work. Graendel says as much when she flees to her hideout inside that island. Jordan has made a habit of using these alter ego's, especially for the forsaken. As an aside, Olver is Gaidal Cain.

 

Both wrong assumptions. Jordan has clearly stated that Taim is Taim, and Olver is NOT Gaidal Cain.

 

Unless he was lying. I know the history, don't throw it back to me.

 

Just what if, he was fooling us all with this particular instance.

[WhiskyJack]

Demandred did show up, however briefly, and spoke to the Aes Sedai at the Black Tower. I can't be the only one who is certain that Demandred is Mazrim Taim. He obviously has the second dreamspike that Moridin had (the other he gave to Graendal) which is why the gateways don't work. Graendel says as much when she flees to her hideout inside that island. Jordan has made a habit of using these alter ego's, especially for the forsaken. As an aside, Olver is Gaidal Cain.

 

Both wrong assumptions. Jordan has clearly stated that Taim is Taim, and Olver is NOT Gaidal Cain.

 

Unless he was lying. I know the history, don't throw it back to me.

 

Just what if, he was fooling us all with this particular instance.

 

Yep. At the end we will discover that Demandred is Dragon afterall. Rand is the real villein here. RJ lied to us all, even in the story!

[Owayn The Traveller]

Someone mentioned way back that Sammy didn't do much. Well what about the whole throwing the Shaido around like seeds in the wind. Now he really did sow chaos there as the Shaido caused a lot of trouble.

 

The only gripe I have with the Forsaken is why bother bringing any of them back if they don't really do much and that can be said for nearly all of the guys bought back up till now. Can also add Greandal to that list. She's dead, no wait apparenlty not,okay maybe now she'll live up to her reputation, oh okay well maybe not.

 

Now for a whacked out theory. I KNOW WHO DEMANDRED IS!!! Its Sleete. Tall, slightly hooked nose, face obsured in shadow, only introduced after KoD and well its him.

[Sharaman]

Someone mentioned way back that Sammy didn't do much. Well what about the whole throwing the Shaido around like seeds in the wind. Now he really did sow chaos there as the Shaido caused a lot of trouble.

 

The only gripe I have with the Forsaken is why bother bringing any of them back if they don't really do much and that can be said for nearly all of the guys bought back up till now. Can also add Greandal to that list. She's dead, no wait apparenlty not,okay maybe now she'll live up to her reputation, oh okay well maybe not.

 

Now for a whacked out theory. I KNOW WHO DEMANDRED IS!!! Its Sleete. Tall, slightly hooked nose, face obsured in shadow, only introduced after KoD and well its him.

Sleete works on that level and there's that discontinuity in his history after Dumai's Wells.

But his AS would know surely? Even if she's turned/ under Compulsion and can't reveal, he's kinda well known in the WT hierarchy and there's a lot of physical stuff involved in hauling off and whacking people with swords.

Unless Demmy is an exact fit physically in terms of size, reach, this will tend to involve actions that could disturb a MoM.

Not to mention if he gets smacked across the face.

[Duskfire]

Apparently Demandreds rule is secure. Sleete doesn't rule over anything. That, and Demandred was never described as being a Blademaster or anything even close to it, so yeha, he isn't Sleete :P

[Owayn The Traveller]

Dang it all! Foiled once more. But hey wait he could be pretending to be multiple people, couldn't he?

[Bob T Dwarf]

Dang it all! Foiled once more. But hey wait he could be pretending to be multiple people, couldn't he?

 

So now Demandred is Frank Gorshin? Rich Little?

 

No, waitwaitwait - he's Tony DiNozzo! He's solving crimes and collaring bad guys on NCIS! "You want truth? You can't handle the TRUTH!"

[Owayn The Traveller]

Maybe he's Walter Bishop off Fringe and he scrambled his own brain crossing over ,and forward or back in time depends on what age our age is , and now he really thinks he is Walter Bishop and his little rants at Bell the whole time is the old Demandred personality coming through and his hatred of being preceived as second best.

There solved it.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Nah. He's Olivia Dunham. I always suspected Demandred was a cross dresser.

 

Careful, he swings a mean purse.

[Jeangray]

As was pointed out a few times in this thread,the forsaken are people

 

This is not a valid excuse for their incomptence. If you look at the history of 20th century alone, you'll see tons of people who were a hundred times more menacing and effective than this bunch of bumblers. Rahvin was the last one where I could stretch the whole arrogance/ unfamiliarity with the era / ignorance of Rand's capabilities explanation to fit. And the last FS whose defeat was actually interesting, IMHO.

 

It is a big drawback of WoT that the villains are so unthreatening. Even if the main cast couldn't be touched until TG, there are lots of likeable secondary characters who could have been offed to make FS et al. a little more menacing. Heck, imagine if instead of Amayar a FS could pull a genocide on a people we actually have a reason to care about! But no...

 

And I have to say that Avi's vision, while bleak, reduces the whole "world is about to end!" and "second Breaking!" to farce even more. I mean, barely a generation after TG, there are so many people around and they have it so good that the Aiel are chomping at the bit to go to war! The multi-generational defeat of the Aiel is far more in line with what a true TG ought to be than the "real" TG was/will be, apparently. That's just sad.

[Bob T Dwarf]

As was pointed out a few times in this thread,the forsaken are people

 

This is not a valid excuse for their incomptence. If you look at the history of 20th century alone, you'll see tons of people who were a hundred times more menacing and effective than this bunch of bumblers. Rahvin was the last one where I could stretch the whole arrogance/ unfamiliarity with the era / ignorance of Rand's capabilities explanation to fit. And the last FS whose defeat was actually interesting, IMHO.

 

It is a big drawback of WoT that the villains are so unthreatening. Even if the main cast couldn't be touched until TG, there are lots of likeable secondary characters who could have been offed to make FS et al. a little more menacing. Heck, imagine if instead of Amayar a FS could pull a genocide on a people we actually have a reason to care about! But no...

 

And I have to say that Avi's vision, while bleak, reduces the whole "world is about to end!" and "second Breaking!" to farce even more. I mean, barely a generation after TG, there are so many people around and they have it so good that the Aiel are chomping at the bit to go to war! The multi-generational defeat of the Aiel is far more in line with what a true TG ought to be than the "real" TG was/will be, apparently. That's just sad.

 

In my view, a large part of the problem is that Jordan knew how to think like a naughty little boy, he did not know how to think EVIL. He was simply incapable of portraying the Forsaken with the kind of depravity the story required.

[AutomatedTeller]

I think he was very good at showing their depravity. Lanfear was tossing around the skin of a guy who gave her bad news. Mesaana cut off Sheriam's fingers for not being able to get all the ter'angreal.

 

The problem is, they weren't very good at much else. Though, the trolloc attack on caemlyn gives me some hope...

 

And, obviously, the destruction of the Seanchan homeland is pretty good. One assumes that was Semirhage's doing.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I think he was very good at showing their depravity. Lanfear was tossing around the skin of a guy who gave her bad news. Mesaana cut off Sheriam's fingers for not being able to get all the ter'angreal.

 

The problem is, they weren't very good at much else. Though, the trolloc attack on caemlyn gives me some hope...

 

And, obviously, the destruction of the Seanchan homeland is pretty good. One assumes that was Semirhage's doing.

 

Lemme see, here's Lanfear, the most powerful woman channeler ever to live, one of the supreme evil villains of the piece and the worst she can manage is to skin one lowly Darkfriend?

 

Oooh, Mesaana yanked off Sheriam's finger. Yeah, that's evil, but it's not EVIL.

 

Semirhage came close through what she did to Cabriana Mecandes and her Warder. But then Jordan wussed out and the Whole Imperial Family massacre happened offscreen. If you want people to believe somebody is EVIL, ya gotta show them being EVIL not tell us about what they supposedly did.

 

These are supposed to be the personal agents of the Devil Incarnate, the epitome of EVIL, their behaviour is naughty.

 

I kinda expect the DO to throw a tantrum and maybe hold his breath until they let him out.

[Ahaz Flagg]

I think the issue is the legends do not live up to your view, that is all there is to it. I cannot remember who said the quote, but it is best to never meet your hero as your view will be changed.*or some such* I am not sure what people expected, i find i like them alot more the way they are, they are not gods, they are not better then other people, they have just sold their souls for power. A power mind you that enjoys chaos, and also fermented the idea of chosen against chosen. So why be suprised when you find that these people are not gods? *shrugs*

 

At the end of the day for me, this story was never about the forsaken, and maybe that is why i am ok with how they are playing out.

[jemron]

 

These are supposed to be the personal agents of the Devil Incarnate, the epitome of EVIL, their behaviour is naughty.

 

 

 

No they're not. That's how they've become in the eyes of people who have been sharing stories about them for 3000 years, but they're just people with a lot of power who (mostly because of selfishness/cowardess) turned to the DO. They are pathetic, in reality. Cadsuane figured that exact thing out about Semi, and that's why Semi finally "broke" under something as silly as public spanking. They SEEM evil. But they are not. They're pathetic. This has always been RJ's point. And Verin reaffirms this in TGS. The DO likes followers who are predictable. They're easier to mislead and use. I think the Forsaken (with the exception of Moridin) are all being used as distractions by the DO so that people don't see what he's really planning.

[Tom Sawyer]

I think that in the early books (up to about 6), the Forsaken were handled well. Ishamael was bad-ass and Lanfear and Moghidien made for excellent villians. Be'lal, Rahvin and Sammael had good plotlines in that they took over the major power bases on the continent and used them to work for the Shadow and sow chaos and Asmodean showed that even if you're expecting them, they're tricky enough to throw you for a loop. They had a bunch of cunning plans which had a major impact on world events.

 

It's after that where they started to get kind of pointless and seemed to be more plotting for the sake of plotting than for the sake of reaching any kind of definitive goal and not really accomplishing a whole lot. During the middle of the series, the Seanchan and Shaido were a much greater threat than any of them were and that really lessened their impact. Sure, Semirhage was with the Seanchan, but I can't think of anything she did with them which the Seanchan wouldn't have done anyways, so she appears to have been totally pointless. Asmodean and Sammael sent the Shaido around, but they mainly just did Shaido-type things that they'd have probably done anyways. When that's combined with their incompetent bumbling around during the Cleansing, it created more of a "Who cares?" attitude towards them as a group.

 

There seems to be a general sense that they're going around doing things, but most of those things are offscreen, so it doesn't add much to them.

[Jeangray]

they are not gods, they are not better then other people, they have just sold their souls for power.

 

So why do RL dictators and their henchmen outclass them so much in danger and effectiveness, eh? Gods? I'd settle for a modicum of real menace.

 

As to civil war in Seanchan - good riddance, maybe a new political system gets forged as a result. It isn't like Semirhage destroyed a people to whom we have even a minimal emotional attachment.

 

Now, if somebody went and wiped out all those civilian Aiel who remained in the Waste or destroyed TR... But nope, can't happen in this series.

[Strykr017]

As was pointed out a few times in this thread,the forsaken are people

 

This is not a valid excuse for their incomptence. If you look at the history of 20th century alone, you'll see tons of people who were a hundred times more menacing and effective than this bunch of bumblers. Rahvin was the last one where I could stretch the whole arrogance/ unfamiliarity with the era / ignorance of Rand's capabilities explanation to fit. And the last FS whose defeat was actually interesting, IMHO.

 

It is a big drawback of WoT that the villains are so unthreatening. Even if the main cast couldn't be touched until TG, there are lots of likeable secondary characters who could have been offed to make FS et al. a little more menacing. Heck, imagine if instead of Amayar a FS could pull a genocide on a people we actually have a reason to care about! But no...

 

And I have to say that Avi's vision, while bleak, reduces the whole "world is about to end!" and "second Breaking!" to farce even more. I mean, barely a generation after TG, there are so many people around and they have it so good that the Aiel are chomping at the bit to go to war! The multi-generational defeat of the Aiel is far more in line with what a true TG ought to be than the "real" TG was/will be, apparently. That's just sad.

 

I've thought the same thing about RJ. It just seems so strange that so few characters have died in a series of such great length. Even a significant number of those who have were either brought back to life or didn't really die in the first place.

[Tom Sawyer]

As to civil war in Seanchan - good riddance, maybe a new political system gets forged as a result. It isn't like Semirhage destroyed a people to whom we have even a minimal emotional attachment.

 

Ya, someone once got offended by my calling Semirhage the greatest hero in the series so far for doing this. I think that destroying Seanchan was a big win for the forces of Light.