Demandred's Arc (Full Spoilers)

[Frogtastic]

“River of Souls,” the forthcoming Wheel of Time short story featured in Unfettered is a collection of scenes that illustrate Demandred/Bao the Wyld’s story leading up to A Memory of Light.

 

Looks like well get more to Damndred in a few months :)

[wRAR]

“River of Souls,” the forthcoming Wheel of Time short story featured in Unfettered is a collection of scenes that illustrate Demandred/Bao the Wyld’s story leading up to A Memory of Light.

 

Looks like well get more to Damndred in a few months :)

That was known long ago though. It's a sequence cut out from AMoL.

[Elan Tedronai]

Demandred's fault was that he really didn't care about the Dark One winning.

 

He just wanted to beat Lews Therin.

 

He cared for little else.

 

demandred cared nothing but shouting and screaming like a banshee.

 

LTT was at shayol ghul on serios buisness.

 

demandred was busy having sword duels LMAO

[Frogtastic]

 

“River of Souls,” the forthcoming Wheel of Time short story featured in Unfettered is a collection of scenes that illustrate Demandred/Bao the Wyld’s story leading up to A Memory of Light.

 

Looks like well get more to Damndred in a few months :)

That was known long ago though. It's a sequence cut out from AMoL.

ah last i remembered hearing it, it didn't say who it was going to be focusing on.. just that it was cut from aMoL.... either way im excited for it now lol :P

[Asha’man Hall]

I actually enjoyed reading demandreds pats in this book, i didnt think i would enjoy reading them. he was abit of an idiot though he should of known rand was going to a shayol ghul fighting the dark one

[XXX]

Did Demandred really bond the sa'angreal or did he just punk out Taim exploiting his lack of knowledge.

[wRAR]

Did Demandred really bond the sa'angreal or did he just punk out Taim exploiting his lack of knowledge.

I suppose we will know in RoS. 

[Magus sedai]

Wow did we all read the same book, he was suspect that LTT was not there that's why he kept trying to force his hand, he sent a squad to attack his base then asked did he channel when they said no but he luckily escaped he said just like LTT, he also had conflicting reports of one rand sighting at SG but thought it was a ruse, and finally Rand was intent on confronting Dem the whole series until Moraine told him if he did he would fail. Ok now he had to be at shara because his whole teams plan was places where powerful channeling forces are Sem/ seanchan Mes/WT Dem/shara/BT

[Finnssss22]

Wow did we all read the same book, he was suspect that LTT was not there that's why he kept trying to force his hand, he sent a squad to attack his base then asked did he channel when they said no but he luckily escaped he said just like LTT, he also had conflicting reports of one rand sighting at SG but thought it was a ruse, and finally Rand was intent on confronting Dem the whole series until Moraine told him if he did he would fail. Ok now he had to be at shara because his whole teams plan was places where powerful channeling forces are Sem/ seanchan Mes/WT Dem/shara/BT

 

Don't forget that Rand randomly "popped by" and participated in disguise, in each of the 3 battle fronts previous to going to SG. Something else that was on Demandred's mind.

[Entreri]

It is almost plausible, almost:

 

Rand appearing and disappearing.

Demandred thinking LTT for Mat: "No man from this Age had lived long enough to learn the details with such care".

Demandred thinking Lan for LTT. 

 

The hatred was certainly there: "The only thing that Demandred had ever done better than his friend was as a battle general". 

[Magus sedai]

Keep in mind Dem was tempted to go to SG but had no concrete info so he stayed with his well laid plan ( 14 books worth ), he also with use of the TP searched the battlefields for any sign of LTT, marveled at his use of gateways and praised his friends ingenuity admitting to himself that his rival truly was great

[Elysium]

It is almost plausible, almost:

 

Rand appearing and disappearing.

Demandred thinking LTT for Mat: "No man from this Age had lived long enough to learn the details with such care".

Demandred thinking Lan for LTT. 

 

The hatred was certainly there: "The only thing that Demandred had ever done better than his friend was as a battle general". 

The problem that I have with calling it almost plausible is that some of the things that Demandred thought were clues that LTT was on the battlefield werent valid. Like the quote about Matt knowing the details of war...the war of power lasted a whole 10 years...Demandred might be old, but his knowledge came from 10 years of war, not centuries like his thought implies. 

[Lord D]

I thought Demandred's army was going to come from the Land of Madmen, not from Shara.  We only have one reference to the LoM in the Guide; it sort of looks like Australia, and is a continent where both men and women channelled before the cleansing (hence, the Land of Madmen).  It would have seemed easier for Dem to take control of the LoM than Shara.  It's also a pity to me that that Aus-sized continent in the south of the world got completely left out, as I'm an Aussie.

[Mr Ares]

I thought Demandred's army was going to come from the Land of Madmen, not from Shara.  We only have one reference to the LoM in the Guide; it sort of looks like Australia, and is a continent where both men and women channelled before the cleansing (hence, the Land of Madmen).  It would have seemed easier for Dem to take control of the LoM than Shara.  It's also a pity to me that that Aus-sized continent in the south of the world got completely left out, as I'm an Aussie.

Actually, it would have been harder to take control, given that everyone there is supposed to be crazy (hence the name). Also, the fact that it has only been mentioned in the BWB is precisely why it couldn't be Demandred's location. Shara is somewhere we have heard of, with plenty of hints, including hints that there is something going on there. It would be even more unsatisfying to have a country that has never even be mentioned show up and be such a crucial part of what was going on. Even with all the hints, Shara stretched tolerance to breaking point and beyond.

[OneWhoMustBeLeashed]

IMO, Demandred was amazing. He and Mordin were the only two Forsaken who seemed impressive.

 

Demandred was effective. He brought an entire (gigantic) nation over to the Shadow's side, even though they were not all darkfriends. He was winning the last battle before Lan assassinated him. He apparently stuck to a plan for the entire 14 books preparing for the last battle -- instead of getting involved in petty political fights with other Forsaken. I loved it when he told Taim, "I am not like the other Chosen." He also didn't get himself killed uselessly early in the series by disobeying orders and going after Rand prematurely.

 

Demandred also had more emotional depth than any of the other Forsaken. He was able to fall in love again, and he was tempted to abandon his obsession with killing Rand in order to live a new life. He seemed to really care about the Sharans, and wanted to protect them after the last battle. Compared to him, the other Forsaken (except maybe Mordin) were shallow caricatures. They engaged in petty and stupid bickering like the Aes Sedai and mostly just failed without accomplishing much. Even the somewhat more useful Forsaken like Grendel were not very believable. Very few people are totally good or evil, but Grendel had no redeeming qualities at all. She was just a total psycho.

 

Demandred had his issues too, of course. His obsession with revenge on LTT was over-the-top. The scenes where he kept screaming for Rand to face him were kind of silly. But, in fairness, the guy gave his soul to the Dark One because he hated LTT so much. LTT literally drove him to give away his soul. So, maybe it's understandable if he's psycho over-the-top about his need for revenge. And his death scene was great. It was like a Kung Fu movie where the head bad guy keeps killing all the heroes in duel after duel, until the best swordsman finally takes him down. Lan was like a human golem with that amulet. There's no shame in losing like that to Lan.

[Lord D]

Onewhomustbe, the Forsaken I feared most in the whole series was Semirhage, who I called the "Lady of Pain".  tGS scene where she seizes control of Rand was the most horrifying scene in the series.  It's very lucky for Rand that he was able to seize the True Power at that point, and balefire Semirhage, and I guess the True Power seizing must come from his odd bond with Moridin.

 

I disagree with you on everyone having "some" redeeming features.  Some people are Evil through and through, such as Stalin and Mao Zedong.

[nikios2099]

Onewhomustbe, the Forsaken I feared most in the whole series was Semirhage, who I called the "Lady of Pain".  tGS scene where she seizes control of Rand was the most horrifying scene in the series.  It's very lucky for Rand that he was able to seize the True Power at that point, and balefire Semirhage, and I guess the True Power seizing must come from his odd bond with Moridin.

 

the DO gave Rand acces to the True Power in order to transform him in Dark Rand and turn him to the shadow ( it almost succeeded )

[Ananta]

Am I the only one who thought that Demandred was a bit too amazing?

 

I mean, he was better with sword than Lan (granted, Lan was a bit tired), as great a general as the combined knowledge of however many memories Mat has in his head, had the 2nd most epic sa'angreal in existence, conquered a whole continent and got it to fight for the shadow and managed to sound like an utter idiot shouting at the battlefield (although that came with losing a lot of his credibility in my eyes, sounding outright idiotic) etcetc.

 

 

I suppose it would just be a little more believable if any of the other Forsaken had managed to be even remotely competent...

 

But all in all, I liked him. Definitely my favorite Forsaken. But then again, that's not saying much.

 

Also, I really hoped that Lan would have died while killing him. It was one of the most epic scenes in the book to me, and him surviving somehow cheapened the scene in my eyes. Plus, that would have left at least one of the 'main' characters without a spouse. I found it very Romeo & Julietesque that all the people who died died with their spouses, or while revenging their spouses. Now that I think about it, did anyone actually survive without losing their husband/wife?

[Suttree]

Not only that but his claim of experience was a mistake.AMoL

"the finesse of it... the little details... these took centuries to master. No man from this age had lived long enough to learn the details with such care."

Demandred is centuries old but the War of Power only lasted around 10 years(before that warefare was unknown during the AoL). The Great Captains should have more practical experience in warfare than he does and Mat should have far more in his memories.

[Entreri]

Well, if we nit pick too much, bound to find plot holes you can drive several 18 wheelers through. 

 

Just to add my 2 cents:

 

As for  sword play, there is no way anybody just practicisng the sword for sport would ever be as good as one that has actually used it in battle for decades (who is #1) at it.  This is like someone in a McDojo doing few hours on the weekend taking out a UFC fighter, lol. 

[cyribis]

I feel like Demandred was captured pretty well. In considering any character in WoT, you must realize the following:

 

1. What a character says is not necessarily the truth but merely what they think or believe or have interpreted. This leads to conflicting reports of many things that seem like plot holes but really just reflects our own world where hearsay becomes fact.

 

2. Most characters seem to have an inflated sense of themselves, the Forsaken more than most. All of the Forsaken except Moridin believed themselves to be the best at nearly everything, when in reality, they were "good" and just happened to be the ones that managed to survive the longest.

 

3. Most people are unable to see their own weaknesses in this series (as with real life.)

 

4. Goes hand in hand with #1, people believe what they are being told. Demandred believes Moridin, Moridin believes what the DO tells him etc.

 

5. RJ's secrecy can sometimes hurt. In this case, it felt like Demandred came from nowhere and was completely out of character but we saw so little of him in previous books that we couldn't possibly judge that for ourselves.

 

Sword duels: I don't feel like the Demandred sword battles answered anyone's questions about who was the best swordsman. We knew Gawyn wasn't the best. We knew that he was kinda stupid and he proved it at every opportunity. He got himself hopped up on superjuice then went off to fight someone he had no business fighting. Increasing a person's speed like that would lead to a serious decrease in grace. That's why he was so easily defeated. He was unbalanced and in the RJ world, well he might as well have just stabbed himself in the face because he had zero chance of winning even with the rings. Galad (who was far from fresh) was much better than Gawyn, but to me it just seemed like his body betrayed him in the worst possible moment. Lan, also exausted, would not have been at his best, but was willing to give up everything to win and had the knowledge and experience that made him more deadly. This is why I have always felt that Lan would beat Galad even though every hint I've read from interviews with the authors seemed to say that Galad was the best. Perhaps in a perfect setting he would be, but Lan's experience enabled him to win where Galad could not.

 

Demandred clearly showed that he was so blinded by his own hatred that he couldn't see what was obvious. He couldn't see that Moridin lied to him, he couldn't see that Mat was leading the army, he couldn't see that Rand had gone into the Pit of Doom when there was no other place for him to have gone. He was so arrogant and blind that he really thought the entire last battle was a chess match between himself and his arch enemy. Unfortunately, Lews Therin was never his arch nemesis. Demandred was just the bitch that thought he was better than Lews Therin when he was never even on the Dragon's radar as being something he needed to worry about.

 

He was still a great general, swordsman, channeler but his extreme arrogance led to his downfall, just like it did for so many of the others. However, besides Moridin, I still think he was the best of the Forsaken. Moridin, of course, just had a higher understanding of the truth and didn't seem to fall prey to the idiocy that most of the Forsaken did. In the end he was just thrilled to die, and who could blame him?

+1. Well said.

[Kahsm]

I read a bit of the thread, maybe this was mentioned but I saw a lot of people talking about why Demandred was out and about when he was the general type.

 

He knew that him and his sa'angreal could only be matched by Rand, so it was the best way to lure Rand out to fight him 1 on 1 and appease his ego. I think it makes perfect sense and fits his character just fine. The reason he wasn't MORE effective than he was is because a lot of Mat's troop movement was to keep Demandred in his command tent responding to the battle and not balefiring away his troops 1 unit at a time. This is likely why Lan and Galad and the like kept wondering what Mat was up too. Part of it was subtly letting Demandred think he was winning outright while holding back a few cards to play at the "exact right moment", but the rest was to keep Demandred on his toes and not out in the field. Better to loose some extra troops to some odd movement than to have your army decimated Maradon style by a guy who could pull of the same thing if not bigger. I mean Mat was probably lucky that Demandred was ordered to use balefire, it's more targeted that some of the other destructive things he could have done.

 

As for Gawyn, while I'll reluctantly concede that Galad is still better. I don't agree with how wide that gap BS seems to have painted is. I mean how could Demandred still be faster than Gawyn with 3 ter'angreal rings on? But then still be only slightly better than Galad and Lan without super-human speed? If Gawyn was so bad, why would Demandred compliment his skill at all? It makes no sense.

I feel like the whole duel thing was BS trying to answer the debate (similar to how he answered other debates with blunt, un-eloquent narrative). And he used the rings as a make-shift foxhead to try to even out how we could measure them. It's pretty obvious in how Demandred throws rocks at Gawyn, the way he had to for Lan and Galad, instead of just using more area-of-effect weaves which would have still worked just fine against Gawyn.

 

The way it should have gone down is like this: Gawyn is WAYY too fast for Dem, Dem claims Gawyn is cheating so he can cheat too, blows a cone of fire in Gawyn's direction and burns him to a crisp. Done.

[jjp]

Plenty of simple weaves could have neutralized any of the duelers without touching them with the Power. Reading it I was thinking all he had to do was make a small box of Air around any of them that didn't touch them. Couldn't have taken more effort than using Air to hurl stuff.

 

I guess Androl is a more creative channeler than Demandred.

[NitroS]

Why do you all think that Demandred was stupid in thinking Lews Therin being at the Last battle at Merrilor.

 

Look at it from Demandreds POV. He thinks hes the greatest general, swordsman, chaneller etc and that his age is far superior to the current one.

 

- You hear that Lews Therin had been fighting on all 3 battle fronts previously.

- You see a General which is matching you neck for neck

- You see a assassin come at you with a weave only known to those of the age of Legends, given that Lews Therin is the only one working for the light you assume he is there.

- You see a swordsman matching you

- Their is no way for Demandred to know Rand is at Shayoul Ghoul with time dialation and no prior warning due to him having the knife terangreal blocking him from being sensed by the DO.

- His hatred for Rand i wouldnt care about the DO winning or losing if the guy that took my one true love, mocked me when he beat me at everything i did and achieved more then me and lived in his shadow my whole life.

 

With the above points and his arrogance it would seem logical Lews Therin was there.

 

Then we have the people complaining how Demandred dieing. I would like to hear how other people wish for demandred to be defeated. Rand is out of the question since hes fighting the DO/moridin. You explain a way for someone to overpower Demandred who is in a full circle of 72, holding the most powerful sa arngreal in existence and the most knowledge of any channeler left in the world and the most powerful channeler individually outside Rand. The only person that could come close was egwene with soras fluted wand with another circle of 72 but still would probably not have the skill or the power to win. The only logical way to win was to have demandreds arrogance in swordplay vs Lan i dont get why people complain so much about this. Demandred exceeded anything i could have hoped for and was really impressed how his character was used, i do wish that we could have just seen a encounter or conversation between lews therin and Demandred but im happy how it was outputted. I mean the majority of people including Terez was fixed on Demandred being Roedran, really? you feel let down when we get something as cool as Shara when the major theory was that he controlled murandy and his power was going to be a backdoor into the lights lands......

[Suttree]

 I mean the majority of people including Terez was fixed on Demandred being Roedran, really? you feel let down when we get something as cool as Shara when the major theory was that he controlled murandy and his power was going to be a backdoor into the lights lands......

Yes clearly, no issues with the uneven writing, blunt plotwork or cheesy b-movie villain(that had very little resemblance to the calculating Demandred we previously saw who said there was no reason for a General to lead from the front and didn't mind if others killed Rand). People are just pissed we got something as "cool" as Shara.