The Greatest Shadow: The Sharpest Tool

[Suttree]

Just clarifying what was meant by "love" in your post. Far too many people over the years have painted her as a tragic figure who really cared for LTT & lost her "true love" despite all the evidence to the contrary. She wasn't trying to "reclaim" her man, she was trying to advance her position and establish personnel power. As RJ said:

 

RJ

But believe me, there is nothing they will not do to achieve their goals, no price too high to pay—especially if it is paid by someone else, or millions of someone elses. And Lanfear holding back and doing good for Rand's sake? Ha!...To be the one to deliver the Dragon Reborn to the service of the Shadow; that would set her above the other Forsaken...Lanfear wanted power, the power possibly to replace the Dark One, even to replace the Creator. For Rand's sake? Not a chance.

[jack of shadows]

@suttree

lanfear tragic figure???hahaha,she is a law unto herself and power incarnate.

of course she was trying to reclaim her man,lews therin left her for another woman

and her ego was severely bruised.

let's examine this from a different angle,when lanfear found out that rand slept with

aviendha she went berserk,why?because there is no separation between lanfear the

power hungry and lanfear the woman,they are one and the same.

poor aviendha,she went all the way to a different continent  to have sex with rand

and still lanfear found out,ouch!!!

 

on a personal note,it's a pleasure to read your posts.

[Myrelle Green]

My favourite was Lanfear - The Woman Scorned! Someone else said it before, you were never able to quite see what side she was aiming for at times and she did play everyone else really well. I think her end was satisfactory and entirely in keeping with her story.

[capuga]

Lanfear - Not the most effective Forsaken but still the most compelling and interesting.

[LazyMonk]

Lanfear is my favorite, with Graendal and Ishamael after.

They were the most interesting and although arogance seems to be a defining character attribute for major shadow players, these three at least didn't allow it to be their downfall (not directly at least) unlike some other total loosers (yeah I'm looking Bao).

[Edsel]

Asmodean was always a favorite, just because I wanted him to return to the Light.  But the reak "bad boys" my favorites were two of the girls... Lanfear when she was Selene, and Graendal when she was still beautiful and saved herself and allowed Aran'gar to take the heat... so to speak...

[OneWhoMustBeLeashed]

It's too bad that most of the Forsaken lacked any real depth. They were basically just a gang of sociopaths who were willing to do anything for power. Mordin was interesting because he was more philosophical. Demandred seemed interesting too due to the fact that he could develop real affection for others (his new woman and the Sharan people). That made him seem more human, even if he was still as monomaniacal and crazy about revenge as Captain Ahab. 

[Radhiën]

He did give Couladin his dragons and pointed him in the right direction, what part did Lanfear have there? She seemed mostly interested in staying close to Rand (Awhile since I read those books).

And just how much did Asmodean actually teach Rand? Probably a less effective teacher than Mogheiden was.

 

Of course, his greatest asset was those Wicked Harp Solos.

 

Ishamael... well, he had a lot of time (and page space) to work with, not really fair to compare with the others.

I personally like Ishameal/Morridin's whole philosophy thing, but I agree: Rock on, Asmodean.

[Treebeard]

I like most of the forsaken - but because we get to see her in action a lot and i like her style i chose : Moghedien

[CanUFeelTheLove?]

lanfear was,is,and always will be my favorite shadow character,and to tell you the truth,

she is also my favorite female character in the wheel of time series.

her many participations in books 2-5 were sensational,and her interactions with rand

were breathtaking and deliciously wicked.

ah,the good old days,but all good things must pass and everything went sour after the

cairhienin docks incident.

funnily enough,when perrin killed lanfear i was totally unaffected,it was just a few words

on paper,nothing more.

if you strip lanfear naked from her shadow armour,e.g. forsaken,dark side,power hunger,

you are left only with a woman on a mission to reclaim her man,for all the wrong reasons

maybe,but i truely believe she did love lews therin in her own misguided way.

so when rand walked away from her in the dream shard,she was as good as dead,everything

that came afterwards was incredibly stupid(i'll write about this in perrin's arc).

ok,for old times sake,before lanfear became cyndane,before  robert jordan ran

out of ideas about her,let me give this amazing woman one last hurrah(drums rolling):

ladies and gentlemen,directly from shayol ghul,the greatest show on randland,the hottest,

the coolest,the most regal raven haired beauty your eyes will ever see,the one and only,

thee amazing mierin lanfear eronaile(loud cheers).

 

she didn't love LTT. she's a sociopath, they are incapable of love. She desired the power that he represented. That is all. She didn't care one iota for his feelings or well being.

[CanUFeelTheLove?]

Asmodean actually did some of the best work until he turned. He actually managed to turn one entire tribe of the People of the Dragon against the dragon. That also lead to some other problems within the Aiel. He wasn't even one of the heavy hitters, as far as the forsaken are concerned. The Shaido continued to cause problems well after the battle of Cairhien.

 

To give both RJ and BS a little credit - it's difficult to give 13 main baddies depth when so many of them are schemers and plotters more than in your face warriors. In most of these books, we learn more about the good guys than the bad.

[Magus sedai]

It's evident the answere should be Demandred and will be after the book about his story comes out, I mean truly from the first time you hear about him you want more even after his death you want more LTT greatest failure was Demandred he should have been a HotH he put in place a charecter that caused as much chaos and question as anyone else in Taim and was so bad ass he didn't care when he was made chosen who else could pull that off......

[Lord D]

I see that Rahvin now has 2 votes, 1 more than he got when I asked the same poll question after ToM.

[Mickel]

I personally like the Chosen as a whole the most. They were all different in their own way, all power hungry, traitorous and deceptive with their own motives and plans. In the end I did vote for Lanfear. She played them all and, even knowing what would happen to her, she still thought it was possible to take on the dark one, hell even the creator. With her daily punishments as Cyndane, she still risked slipping away from Moridin also.

 

Ishy comes a close second with honourable mention to Moghedien. Ah she tried.

[fuzz1717]

I'm a gonna say Graendal/ whatever her new name is. I have a few criteria for this:

 

1. The DF/Chosen must be alive (even if they have to be reincarnated by the DO) for the entire series (ie they participated in the Last Battle in some significant way). We're left with the DO, Ishy, Lanfear, Demandred, Graendal, Moghedien, Taim, Slayer out of the important DFs (not counting Alviviarin, Lady Shiane... etc)

 

2. They have to have contributed something significant to the dark cause that had a lasting impact. Not counting the DO (who knows what he's been doing, other than those bubbles) we have Ishy (Rand's wound), Demandred (Sharans) Graendal (compulsing the great captains, controlling whatever land she was in), Taim (Black Tower). I knocked out Lanfear because she really didn't do much beyond killing Moirane for a few books, and she even failed at that. I took off Moghedien because she failed wayyy too many times, and no Slayer because he didn't manage to kill Perrin, only Hopper.

 

3. Subtlety. I'm a big fan of a gradual build up rather than just a one-off confrontation (ie Rand and Bel'al, Rand and Sammael, Rand and Rahvin...). That means no Ishy (the two or three conversations he had with Rand don't count) and no Taim (his BT DF thing was kinda obvious imo)

 

We're left with Demandred and Graendal, two very different characters. I like Graendal more because Demandred was a little loopy towards the end; he couldn't be his own man and lived only to see LTT die. Graendal, on the other hand, was selfish and clever, as seen by her sacking Halima/Arrangar to escape Rand's supermassive balefire. In the last battle, Demandred controlled the armies against Mat, true, but Graendal's ploys were undetected until (almost) too late for each of the Great Captains. Bashere's army was saved by the BT, Ituralde died or something to that effect, Jagad's army was decimated (half the Borderlanders gone) and Bryne was only saved by Mat. Then, Graendal isn't done there, she manages to fight off what I'm guessing is a couple dozen channelers defending Rand, only finally falling to Avi's suicidal charge and the lucky weave backfire.