Demandred's Arc (Full Spoilers)

[Suttree]

@Kakita

 

Are you suggesting that graendal after studying and then throwing the country into chaos wouldn't have subsequently caught wind of some prophecy fulfilling figure reuniting the entire nation?

[KakitaOCU]

I'm suggesting she didn't really care about the place and didn't really bother to pay attention. She hopped in, studied it enough to grasp the true power structure with their Channelers, snatched the pupper leaders and never looked back.

 

She may have noticed the prophecies but either written them off as distorted dragon prophecies or just didn't care as she felt they were not important to the last battle and her plans.

 

That seems, on the surface, off for someone who is as careful as she is, but TGS showed she has a blind spot for anything that doesn't fit with her line of thinking. So in the same way it never occurred to her that Rand might simply blast her from a distance it didn't occur to her that just because she felt Shara was inconsequential doesn't mean everyone else thought the same.

[Matthew79]

I was convinced it was going to be Mat who would finish of Demandred, not Lan. Demandred going around the battle field shouting for Rand just reminded me of Coualdin(think that was his name).

[Sabio]

@Kakita

 

Are you suggesting that graendal after studying and then throwing the country into chaos wouldn't have subsequently caught wind of some prophecy fulfilling figure reuniting the entire nation?

She got what she wanted, why should she follow the country after?  After all she still had her own tasks in Arad to deal with.  Some chosen might of assumed the chaos and reports of fighting at the trade posts was a chosen stiring up chaos but why hould she suspect Demandred had seized the country.  It's clear when she leared Dem had created an Army she didn't suspect becuase she thought to herself what a feat it would be if he had gotten into the Borderlander army.  I wrote of Shara simply becuase at the time it seemed to me RJ created the rumors of fighting in Shara as a way to write them out of the story so he could focus on Randland like he did with the seachen homeland.

________________

As for Dem I liked most of his POV's,.  Yes I started thinking the one person at a time coming to kill him got old, but nowhere did it say Lan was the better.  As Lan said he wasn't there to win just to kill him.  Dem was probaby the better swordsman after all he did have a hundred years or so of practice and could call on the power to aid him.  I am glad he didn't come over to the light it would of been too Darth Vadarish.  I like how the sharans suddenly appeared, it was a WTH type of moment.  Up until then the battle scenes were getting al ittle boring and you knew the DO had some trick up his sleeves.  I think the POV's showed dem wasn't just a super monster that their was a little humanity left in him like when he admitted to himself Lewis was better at most things then he was.  I did think he was portrayed a little too much like a crazed monster shouting for Lewis, when any portal could of opened and someone could of told him "hey Lewis just showed up in the blight".  But I can understand a lot of the obsession since he has been waiting since being sealed in the DO's prsion to show everyone he was the better man.  After killing Lewis I could really see Demandred not giving a crap about anything else.

 

I felt Taim was the mini Demandred.  Taim reminded me a lot of Dem, jealous of Rand, thinking he was the better man, hated being in Rands shadow, he built the black tower from nothing yet everyone called it Rands tower, Rand gets all the credit etc......

[Sabio]

 

[Sabio]

 

[Suttree]

Nah, it's pretty unbelievable she would spend that time there and never look back. She would still have had agents and kept tabs.

[KakitaOCU]

It might even be that she was there, caused the chaos by stealing the puppets and then Demandred came into the open. Do we know exactly how long he spent there? Rand claimed the Aiel in the course of a few months. Demandred may very well have done the same with Shara.

 

As for her having agents, she might have, but she doesn't trust anyone beyond her pets it seems. So I'm guessing she has non-channeling agents she has to go personally check on. Very soon after the pupet theft she becomes very busy, directing her own domain's chaos and war, trying to steal what she can from Sammael's domain. The Cleansing, apparently working with Messana. And then Rand blind sides her. It's very possible that those events combined with her thoughts that Shara wasn't important until after the Last Battle meant that she just hadn't really followed up.

 

Edit: Incomplete thought, added the second paragraph.

[Sabio]

Nah, it's pretty unbelievable she would spend that time there and never look back. She would still have had agents and kept tabs.

Why would she care and who knows how long she was there?  She got what she wanted (her pretties) went to her lair and started plotting her schemes.  If it was that important to her she wouldn't of tried to focus Samm's attention there when she was talking about Shara to him.  Just from that I think it was clear she didn't consider it an important place. Some folks might of thought a chosen was stirring up some chaos there and Semi and Messana might of known where he was but its unlikely every chosen had a spies in every land reporting on everything.  it seems most of the chosen gained knowledge about each other from spying on each other personnally.

[Suttree]

In relation to her pets that simply isn't true. She was the most skilled by far at compulsion and we see her have everything from mindless slaves to barely touches agents working out in the real world. There is a huge range in the way she makes use of her "pets".

 

@sabio

 

Why are you thinking she has to have some massive presence. That and keeping your finger on the pulse are two very different things. Again unrealistic that she would turn the page and ignore it entirely. Especially with the huge change that would accompany Dems actions.

[KakitaOCU]

She's still have to personally go check on her pets, which leads back to my timing question. It still seems possible to me that Bao the Wyld rose up after she left for a while and most of it occurred while she was busy with other things. When did Demandre first say his rule was secure?

[MarkDiLillo]

Considering she took her pets from the ruling classes of Shara, I kind of agree that I feel she would have noticed Demandred.  Though I do find it plausible that Demandred was an unknown at the time and only really rose to power afterwards.  I dont think it too much of a stretch to say that she erroneously decided there was not much use for Shara and decided to ignore it.  Remember that Graendal was not one to build and deliver massive armies so Shara may well have been too far removed from the central conflict for her likings.  Her strengths require her to be a little bit closer to events whereas Demandred's style seemed entirely opposite.  He had the ability to take over an entire nation, gather their loyalty, and form them into a military weapon.  Graendal would have fumbled this because while she can manipulate the leadership via Compulsion, she did not possess the talents to actually earn the devotion of the population and armies to get them to goto war.  Demandred possessed the charisma and leadership to convert everyone to willfully fighting against the Light.

 

I really like the way RJ presented Demandred even if I didnt like the way Brandon finished it all.  RJ presented Demandred as the guy who never quite was the Dragon, so he had him go off and pretend to be another nations savior.  The background plot and everything we saw in aMoL, whether it was RJ or BS, was nicely thought out IMO.  I just think the actual appearances of Demandred were absurd in aMoL.

[Mr. Micawber]

Well, yea, I expected Mat to kill him too. This battle was basically a shitty rerun of the battle of Cairhien combined with a weak sauce version of Austerlitz (with casualties more on the lines of Eylau or Borodino). Why not?

 

 

[Mr. Micawber]

The background was emphatically not "well done"

 

Why do people insist on repeating this dreck? This is like a joke on the Big Bang Theory or Seth McFarlane's shows, where the audience is supposed to laugh at, basically, a reference to nerd or pop culture

[KakitaOCU]

Well said, Mark, thought I disagree on one point. It's pretty clear what she took are not the ruling class. Sure people THINK they're the ruling class. But Graendal's explanation to Sammael shows what they really are. Puppets, puppets kept in guilded Cages and brought out be the "leader" the people see while those who are actually in charge do their own thing. Given what the puppets believe and given how their "rule" is structured, I really don't think they know much of anything. They're kind of equivalent to the rag doll chief the Wiseones show Egwene when she first became Amyrlin.

 

Edit: Micawber, I'm sorry you feel that way, but that's clearly not where all of us stand. The hints were all there, specially with the benefit of hind-sight. While I think it could have used more fleshing out than just being revealed in the last book, the basis itself works just fine.

[MrBlack]

While I would have liked a bit more development of the Sharan prophecies surrounding Demandred in earlier books, I thought his arc was handled well overall.  Demandred has always been a mysterious figure in the series, and it makes sense to have him building his power base in Shara, an equally mysterious nation to the rest of the world. 

 

I thought Brandon handled the character fairly well.  He wasn't just a giant robot shooting lasers at the army; we had plenty of POV moments with him directing the movements of his army and considering Mat's tactics.  I could see some strategy behind his constant calls for Lews Therin to face him.  He stated that Lews Therin always preferred to fight rather than lead from the rear, and he hoped that his constant goading would lure the man out.  Demandred should know by now that Rand has destroyed the Choden Kal, and realizes that Rand would be at a disadvantage against him even with Callandor in hand and a full circle, given the power of Sakarnen.  It's a sound strategy, setting aside the fact that Demandred should have realized that Rand might have made a run around the armies to attack Shayol Ghul directly, although we could chalk that up to a mix of Demandred's arrogance (he assumes Rand would lead the Light's armies himself, because that's what Demandred would do) and his blinding hatred of Lews Therin.

[MarkDiLillo]

While I would have liked a bit more development of the Sharan prophecies surrounding Demandred in earlier books, I thought his arc was handled well overall.  Demandred has always been a mysterious figure in the series, and it makes sense to have him building his power base in Shara, an equally mysterious nation to the rest of the world. 

 

I thought Brandon handled the character fairly well.  He wasn't just a giant robot shooting lasers at the army; we had plenty of POV moments with him directing the movements of his army and considering Mat's tactics.  I could see some strategy behind his constant calls for Lews Therin to face him.  He stated that Lews Therin always preferred to fight rather than lead from the rear, and he hoped that his constant goading would lure the man out.  Demandred should know by now that Rand has destroyed the Choden Kal, and realizes that Rand would be at a disadvantage against him even with Callandor in hand and a full circle, given the power of Sakarnen.  It's a sound strategy, setting aside the fact that Demandred should have realized that Rand might have made a run around the armies to attack Shayol Ghul directly, although we could chalk that up to a mix of Demandred's arrogance (he assumes Rand would lead the Light's armies himself, because that's what Demandred would do) and his blinding hatred of Lews Therin.

 

The problem with Demandred was that he didn't seem to be doing any general work.  Sure we were told that he was their general and he was considering all the movements of troops, etc.  Yet at the same time, we saw Mat in a command outpost doing hard work the entire time.  Demandred was running around on the battlefield shoot lasers all over the place while screaming for Lews Therin.  How was he commanding the army while fighting at the same time?

[MrBlack]

Didn't Graendal take her "pets" from Shara around the time of Lord of Chaos?  I could see her having done so soley to sow chaos abroad and prevent Shara from being any sort of threat.  Both she and Sammael seemed to think that Shara was too far from the center to be relevant to events in the west, and she may have paid little heed to the country once it was thrown into chaos.  Graendal might have assumed that the prophecies regarding the Wyld were related to the Dragon Reborn, and that the country would not be relevant to the Last Battle so long as Rand made no move toward it.

[MrBlack]

 

While I would have liked a bit more development of the Sharan prophecies surrounding Demandred in earlier books, I thought his arc was handled well overall.  Demandred has always been a mysterious figure in the series, and it makes sense to have him building his power base in Shara, an equally mysterious nation to the rest of the world. 

 

I thought Brandon handled the character fairly well.  He wasn't just a giant robot shooting lasers at the army; we had plenty of POV moments with him directing the movements of his army and considering Mat's tactics.  I could see some strategy behind his constant calls for Lews Therin to face him.  He stated that Lews Therin always preferred to fight rather than lead from the rear, and he hoped that his constant goading would lure the man out.  Demandred should know by now that Rand has destroyed the Choden Kal, and realizes that Rand would be at a disadvantage against him even with Callandor in hand and a full circle, given the power of Sakarnen.  It's a sound strategy, setting aside the fact that Demandred should have realized that Rand might have made a run around the armies to attack Shayol Ghul directly, although we could chalk that up to a mix of Demandred's arrogance (he assumes Rand would lead the Light's armies himself, because that's what Demandred would do) and his blinding hatred of Lews Therin.

 

The problem with Demandred was that he didn't seem to be doing any general work.  Sure we were told that he was their general and he was considering all the movements of troops, etc.  Yet at the same time, we saw Mat in a command outpost doing hard work the entire time.  Demandred was running around on the battlefield shoot lasers all over the place while screaming for Lews Therin.  How was he commanding the army while fighting at the same time?

I seem to recall people bringing him reports from the field, and using a falcon to do reconnaissance as well.  We didn't see as much of it as we did with Mat, but there was enough in the book to establish that he was directing the battle from the Shadow's side.

[Mr. Micawber]

The hell do you mean "the hints were there"? Of course they were there. I called Demandred in Shara as soon as WH came out

[Mr. Micawber]

Are you familiar with concepts like character development and plotting? Throwing him down like that was worse than not having the Sharans at all. Again, this is principally Jordan's fault, for grotesquely wasting around five books

[Mr. Micawber]

Seriously, this isn't a question of "oh, I'm sorry you feel is way". It's a question of what the hell is BS doing teaching creative writing if he came up with this. If Jordan did, I think we reached the point where it would have been better for Harriet to publish whatever he had finished. Then there wouldn't be a fiction that this is a complete work. The treatment of Demandred in this book is amateurish. Look, you want an example of doing a lot with a character in a tiny amount of space? Reread the sole chapter featuring Be'lal. It's better than all of the Demandred in AMOL

[hjustinpace]

I'll add my voice to the growing cacophony in favor of Demandred's treatment in AMoL (as opposed the cacophony on the other side largely supplied by one person posting repeatedly :P ).

 

 

The Sharan reveal was very Jordan-esque--it looks like the only logical option in hindsight but there was enough evidence for the alternatives to keep people guessing.

 

 

The exact moment of reveal was great--everything seems to be humming along, going well for the Light (and getting a bit boring), and then BAM. The imagery of the enormous gateway opening with an army behind it, Egwene immediately behind enemy lines and in grave trouble (and solving the Why-in-the-heck-would-Gawyn-activate-a-ring problem), and the headfake on Suian and Gareth's deaths were all awesome.

 

 

I do think too little time was devoted to Demandred (my biggest gripe with AMoL was how precious pages were allocated among storylines and characters) and too much of that to the overly repetive sword fights, but what we got was some really great, quick characterization and worldbuilding. As someone else mentioned, we get more characterization from Demandred in one book than we did for most of the other Forsaken over 13. What we saw of Shara hinted at a culture as rich and as unique as Seanchan. That, and the Bao the Wyld prophecy left me wanting more, in a good way, because it left me thinking.

[Mr. Micawber]

You cannot seriously believe that. Did you read the books? We got tons of characterization for them. Did you reread the Be'lal scene like I asked? Or the scene where Moghedien dresses down Liandrin? Hell, a few lines during the battle of Cairhien said more about Sammael's character than the dozens of ridiculous Demandred screams:

 

"Are you still so jealous of me, Tel Janin? When did I ever slight you, or give you one finger less than your due?"

 

"'I remember when he was first named Destroyer of Hope. After he betrayed the Gates of Hevan, and carried the Shadow down into the Rorn M'doi and the heart of Satelle. Hope did seem to die that day. Culan Cuhan wept'"

[hjustinpace]

You cannot seriously believe that. Did you read the books? We got tons of characterization for them. Did you reread the Be'lal scene like I asked? Or the scene where Moghedien dresses down Liandrin? Hell, a few lines during the battle of Cairhien said more about Sammael's character than the dozens of ridiculous Demandred screams:

 

"Are you still so jealous of me, Tel Janin? When did I ever slight you, or give you one finger less than your due?"

 

"'I remember when he was first named Destroyer of Hope. After he betrayed the Gates of Hevan, and carried the Shadow down into the Rorn M'doi and the heart of Satelle. Hope did seem to die that day. Culan Cuhan wept'"

I am familiar with all those scenes. I won't ask if you read AMoL, because that's a bit of a silly question, no? The characterization for Demandred came not when he was yelling across the battlefield, but in his internal thoughts and his conversations during the duels.