The Best Move by the Dark

[Mr Hindley]

There have been various debates of the merits of the Forsaken, with a general feeling of disappointment but also some oft-overlooked events that were undoubtedly bad for the Light and engineered by the Chosen. This poll is just to pin down which single action has done the most damage to the side of the Light?

 

I'm excluding:

- things that happened before the series e.g. setting up the Black Ajah, corrupting the Seanchan prophecies

- things whose outcome isn't known yet e.g. whatever Demandred is doing, or the attack on Caemlyn

- Ishamael's general 'turn Rand dark' strategy, as that runs through most of the series rather than being one action

- Gazillions of Trollocs pouring out of the Blight, which is basically Tarmon Gaidon and in a category of its own

 

Let's see who's the winner!

[Waffleboy]

First time poster, though I've been lurking here for a while. To me, the choice has to be the infiltration of the Black Tower, partially because most of the rest have already been resolved :D Rand, thus far, almost seems to have a blindness to Taim and the events at the Black Tower, and I think it will definitely come back to haunt him. We know Logain will turn out to be important, and Taim is obviously going to have some importance as well, so I think at least a chunk of aMoL will be about the events in the Black Tower and a (possible) Asha'man split.

[bysomy]

overall, the asmo/rand fight in rhuidean came closest to killing/capturing rand. only random chance stopped him from being incinerated by the choden kal.

[Lupy]

Rand's madness was a big win for the shadow.

[RahulSingh]

I think infiltration of BT is the most important move on their part.

[Mats Spare Hat]

Killing Asmodean for thiiisss guy *thumbs toward self

[Moogle]

If Semirhage had not done her domination band trick on Rand, then he never would have had his moment at VoG because he would never have snapped and almost killed his father.

 

The Black Tower is by far the most dangerous thing. Hundreds of turned/darkfriend male chanellers who all know how to Travel?

[Barid Bel Medar]

Mesaana's plan to capture Rand with her Aes Sedai.

 

It was the biggest step towards Rand's maddness and darkness. He is always going on about the "box".

 

It essentially made Rand distrust Aes Sedai, bordering on hatred. Split the men and women channelers for nearly the whole series. If it had not happened, Rand would have had better dealings with Female Aes Sedai, leading to an alliance between the white and black towers much faster. As it happened, his hatred and distrust for the Aes Sedai led him towards maddness and kept the male and female channelers apart. Possibly the biggest threat to the shadow would have been a combined force of male and female channlers.

[Elan Tedronai]

best move by the dark happened 3000 years ago. Too bad it was cleaned up in the current age

[KefkaPalazzo]

IMO, it was a toss-up between Rahvin's taking of Andor (making Rand out to be the villain, because rumors tended to skip Rahvin altogether) and Mesaana's capture of Rand (utterly destroyed his psyche). I flipped a coin and voted for Rahvin.

[Tollieman]

I think his kidnapping by Aes Sedai (Mesaana) had the biggest impact. Imo, pretty much everything started going downhill from there-on. I think had he felt less 'under pressure' (a massive understatement!), he would have paid more attention to the black tower.

 

Just my opinion there, of course. After the kidnapping, the infiltration of the black tower was also massively influential (they tried to kill him after all).

[Terez]

Was a toss-up between Couladin, Semirhage, and the Black Tower. I went for Couladin primarily because there hasn't been much real damage from the Black Tower yet, so there's no way to compare really, and Semirhage doesn't really get full credit for Rand's breakdown. I'm still tempted to say Couladin did more damage in the end. The fact that it was all necessary...well, that goes for every option.

[moratcorlm]

I'd consider Asmodean and Rahvin nearly equally successful, with Mesaana probably in third. I guess that Asmodean being responsible for the Shaido-in-Altara plotline gives him the edge.

 

The Black Tower is potentially the most dangerous, yes, but until quite recently it's been a passive danger; if Rand's attention hadn't been elsewhere, and he hadn't been so overwhelmingly in denial, he could have easily taken Taim and his cronies out. All the actual Forsaken have taken proactive measures against the Light.

[randsc]

The Dark's best move was placing a Dark Friend on the Amyrlin Seat.

[Cutlass]

Asmodean turning the Shaido aginst rand the way he did has really done the most damage - sure the Black Tower has great potential to rip things up, but the Shaido ravaged Cairhein, and when that was about as busted up as it could get Sammael and Grendal droped them off all over hell and creation to pillage burn and loot. Huge damage to the light side - including creating an additional fear of the Aiel (incidentially Rands largest group of followers).

 

I think Messanna comes a close second with the division of the white tower - things would have turned out very differently if Suian Sanche was still in charge when Rand was fully recognized as the Dragon.

 

Of course it could all be moot when the Black Tower comes out "all guns blazing" in AMoL.

[Haldir1980]

Deffinetly black tower, too dangerous! But setting Couladin was huge and kidnaping with Aes Sedai. It is good to see that two weakest Forsaken ( Asmodean and Mesana) almost had best plans to unsetle Rand and therefore chances of Light to win.

[deathgate]

I picked Asmodean who is very underrated with his Couladin coup and almost getting the most powerful angreal. I think Semirhage and her placing herself within the Seanchan along with murdering the Imperial family should be included.

[cgk84]

Since nothing major has (yet) come of the BT infiltration (that we know of) I voted for Mesaana's plan to capture Rand. It was a big part of shoving Rand down the path of madness and made him utterly distrustful of Aes Sedai, sowing further division.

[Sleeper]

Infiltration of the BT definitely has IMO the most potential for destruction.

[Evoke]

Asmodean's manipulation of Couladin has caused the most chaos, hands down. Had he not done that, the Shaido wouldn't have split. There wouldn't have been any need for Rand to dedicate so many resources towards fighting them. In turn he would have had more time to pour into monitoring the Black Tower and planning for Tarmon Gaidon. The repercussions of Asmodean's act has had far wider ripples in the pattern than any other Forsaken's plans so far.

[Finnssss22]

Mesaana's splitting of the WT has by far allowed for greatest amount of manipulations and chaos in the world than any other single event imo.

[Hael Me]

Valid points above, guys! I voted for the infiltration of the Black Tower, mainly because that's my favourite plot line at the moment. But the future look so dark I gotta wear... what's the opposite of shades???

 

But small increases in chaos could be as important... The slaying of Herid Fel, that was in my opinion one of the Shadows biggest and most crucial victories, because that old man had figured out what Rand would have to do to win the Last Battle...

[Nygma7]

One of the biggest plays imo isn't up there. You forgot Semirhage's obliteration of the Imperial family, throwing the entire empire into chaos and effectively removing them from being any threat at the Last Battle. The Seanchan on this side, while formidable, are quite different from having the entire might of Seanchan behind them.

 

If I were to rank them:

 

1) Infiltration of the Black Tower - this one was a huge coup.

2) Semirhage's wiping out the Imperial family - the empire was arguably as strong as the rest of Randland combined, and in one stroke it was made a non-issue except for the Return.

3) Semirhage's attack on Rand with the Domination Band (and consequences) - tough to rate this one. The fact that a Forsaken got the Band on Rand was one of the top plays made. But it turned out fine.

4) Asmodean setting up Couladin as a false Car'a'carn - cemented the Shaido behind Couladin and almost lost four other clans.

5) Be'lal taking control of Tear - going to rate this takeover top because of the chance to get Callandor. Would have worked if it weren't for that meddling Aes Sedai.

6) Sammael taking control of Illian - held onto it the longest

7) Rahvin taking control of Andor - most dubious takeover. Using a strong, known leader like Morgase as a puppet should have raised alarm bells earlier than it did.

8) Sammael and Graendal scattering the Shaido - caused chaos and made Perrin a non-player for several books.

9) Mesaana's split of the White Tower - Rating Mesaana low mainly because she was pretty superfluous. Elaida handled this just fine on her own.

10) Mesaana orchestrating the WT's kidnap of Rand - even more so. Elaida has the hidden aid of the Black Ajah in her coup, but this one was all Elaida's orders.

11) Dashiva and the Asha'man attacking Rand - clumsy attack that showed their hand. Against orders.

12) Darkfriends sabotaging the defence of the Borderlands e.g. at Maradon - honestly, it was hardly needed

[jemron]

Not listed: Getting Rand to take the bait and use the TP.

 

That's my bet.

[capuga]

Not listed: Getting Rand to take the bait and use the TP.

 

That's my bet.

 

I still don't believe that Rand's use of the True Power was an intentional plan by the Shadow. That being said, if we assume it was then it was a very good plan that came very close to working (Rand almost destroying the world). However, in the end it didn't work and there weren't any real repercussions from it. With Zen Rand it seems unlikely that there will be any consequences in the future either since I don't believe he will be interested in using the True Power.

 

I vote for the White Tower split. I hesitated a bit with this just because the White Tower has mostly been incompetent and there is no guarantee that they would have accomplished anything if they had stayed strong. But the Tower certainly has the potentional to do great things if they get their act together and the split basically kept them from aiding the Light's cause for many months.

 

I think the infiltration of the Black Tower has great potentional to work well for the Shadow but we haven't seen much of the effects of this so far.

 

The Shaido have certainly seemed to have caused Rand the most trouble individually but I'm not sure how much of an overreaching effect they had on the world for the Shadow as a whole.