Memory of Light Read-through #43: Chapter 37—The Last Battle Part 4

By Linda

Mat POV

The scene of Mat sitting on a dead Trolloc to rest and have a drink of water is a reference to Jordan being called “iceman” in Vietnam:

I have, or used to have, a photo of a young man sitting on a log eating C-rations with a pair of chopsticks. There are three dead NVA laid out in a line just beside him. He didn't kill them. He didn't choose to sit there because of the bodies. It was just the most convenient place to sit. The bodies don't bother him. He doesn't care. They're just part of the landscape. The young man is glancing at the camera, and you know in one look that you aren't going to take this guy home to meet your parents. Back in the world, you wouldn't want him in your neighborhood, because he is cold, cold, cold. I strangled that SOB, drove a stake through his heart, and buried him face down under a crossroad outside Saigon before coming home, because I knew that guy wasn't made to survive in a civilian environment.

Robert Jordan on his blog, April 26th 2007

Demandred didn’t fall for trickster Mat’s bait and kept the Sharans in reserve. The Raven Prince feels that his luck ran well when it didn’t matter, but is in short supply when it is desperately needed—like now. When totally beset, he becomes all the more determined, ike any other stubborn Two Rivers person. The Light’s armies are finally fully unified, but all must hold and with a resolved Mat at their head they have their best chance.

Olver POV

This scene is about people not being what they seem. Olver thinks he can manipulate or trick people better than Mat does. Aravine and Faile put on convincing acts for the Darkfriends—and even the genuine Darkfriend adopted a fake style to fool Faile a little longer. It is Olver, ignored, who kills the Black Sister, thereby freeing the others from Aravine’s betrayal.

Leane POV

Leane has learned that strength in the Power isn’t everything. Skill means a great deal. Of course, when both are present, a channeller can be truly impressive, as Leane observes when Egwene weaves twelve separate weaves simultaneously.

The Aes Sedai are stunned by the number and fighting skill of the Sharan channellers. (Again, a reflection of their delusion that they were the only proficient channellers.) There must have been a lot of fighting among channellers in Shara to account for their prowess—a society like the Seanchan feared, and mistakenly imputed to Aes Sedai. Damane also fight well—but at a non-channeller’s direction; they are not independent. Only Egwene, who was damane for a short while, but long enough for a fair bit of training, can match them. Leane is shocked by something momentous like the Sharans, but also by something comparatively less earth-shattering: her discovery that a Red Sitter wants to learn the Domani seduction techniques.

Talmanes POV

As a non-channeller, Talmanes can’t understand how an Asha’man would know of a fully enclosed cavern. He sensed it with Earth.

Talamanes’ humour is very dark and most of the men don’t recognise it.

Faile POV

Faile realises that her mistaken distrust of Harnan and Vanin brought disaster upon her group. However, it may well have happened anyway.

After killing Aravine, Faile gets Olver to take the Horn to Mat while she bravely acts as a decoy.

Logain POV

Logain gives Androl his own dragon pin in acknowledgement of his accomplishment. He doesn’t trust Gabrelle, thinking her concern is fake, and an attempt to manipulate him. His hatred of Aes Sedai kept him going after being gentled and his psychological state was further eroded by the attempted Turnings.

The Aes Sedai is impressed at his courage in going to fight Demandred. However, he has an additional motive: he lusts for the sa’angreal that Demandred has.

Ila POV

Ila and Raen have suffered privations in the last year, but feel Aram’s loss far more. She is dismayed that Raen is looking at a quiver of arrows. Raen realises that the Way of the Leaf won’t save them from the Shadow and if the Dark One remakes the world it will be worse than any suffering they have known. Moreover, they can’t run away from the Shadow if the Dark One wins. The Tinker realises they can only follow the Way if others protect them, as the first Aiel protected the Jenn, whom the Tinkers were once part of—and so the Tinkers come full circle. At first Ila hopes this is a temporary depression, but Raen has some realisation that the Tinkers owe a debt to the fighters, and that the fighters’ actions are not evil.

This insight inspires Ila to reassess the rejection of Aram, who had realised that he could have saved his mother from the Trollocs if he fought them, when the Tinnkers tradition of non-violence ensured her death.

The Way of the Leaf does not have all the answers.

Olver POV

Alone with the Horn, Olver feels abandoned all over again. He had thought himself tough—and so he is, but in this horrific situation is rightly terrified. One does not exclude the other.

Noble Bela didn’t throw Olver in terror as most horses would have when near Trollocs. Olver thinks Bela is dead, but the Companion says she survived and lived in retirement in the Two Rivers. Previously, Harriet had insisted that Bela died, but implied at a booksigning that she became a Hero of the Horn. Bela is Harriet’s favourite character.

Logain POV

Logain thought that he could match Demandred because he assumed his opponent would be tired from all his channelling, but the Forsaken whipped him. One positive outcome of the clash is that he realises Gabrelle’s concern for him is real. (What she dislikes is their unequal, forced bonding and it may be that she Bonds him in turn ultimately.) For himself, Logain is humiliated almost to the point of despair.

Berelain POV

The First will ask gai’shain to help retrieve the wounded form the battlefield, contrary to ji’e’toh. Since they are pledged to non-violence, it would be a major sacrifice of their honour. Annoura sacrifices herself to rescue the wounded Galad, to atone her treatment of Berelain. Burning out can’t be Healed because the channeller’s connection to the Source is destroyed, not merely cut.

Rand POV

Watching over everyone, Rand feels responsible for all the deaths, that he should have been able to save them. The Dark One tries to make Rand despair as he is crushed by grief and responsibility. Rand’s awareness extends to all, even Nyaneve attending to Alanna.

Taim POV

Taim sneers at Demandred obsessively wasting energy calling for Rand, but the newest Forsaken was bested by Egwene. Demandred uses meditation to restore himself to freshness, which explains why Logain did not find him tired. Taim is impressed with Demandred’s presence in spite of himself. Demandred loans Taim Sakharnen, but convinces Taim that the sa’angreal is bonded to Demandred and can’t be used against him. Taim can’t believe Demandred would hand over such an object of the Power to anyone. The Shadow’s general reminds Taim of their orders to use balefire.

Elayne POV

Elayne oscillates between feeling she isn’t doing much for her troops, who don’t even know that she lives, and thinking she could be more useful fighting with the Aes Sedai.

Mellar (aka Hanlon) and his darkfriends have tricked their way close to Elayne. Their plans are to cut Elayne’s babies from her womb and take them to Shayol Ghul for the Dark One to torment Rand. This is not exactly the ultimate version of Birgitte’s warning that horrible things could happen to Elayne and her babies could still be born OK, since they wouldn’t be healthy, at best living for an hour, but it highlights Birgitte’s good sense.

Rand POV

The Dark One’s world-building scenario is the void, nothingness, this time. Rand could accept that for himself, but not for the whole world. Nothingness is what Moridin desires, but Rand thinks Moridin is wrong. Peace does not equal nothing. Nor is nothing “everything” like the Dark One says.

Min POV

Yulan criticises Mat’s generalship strongly, while being careful to not criticise Tuon’s choice of him as her consort. The Truthspeaker is horrified that she is thinking of what she sees and does in Seanchan terms. It’s a sign that she is fitting into their society as well as Mat has. Both will change it, both are being changed by it.

Beslan and Tylee press to go back to the Last Battle, while Galgan is uncertain. Tuon is troubled by Yulan’s scouts’ reports and fears that returning is what feels good rather than what is strategic.

Min makes some excellent deductions from her viewings and flushes out Moghedien. Just as importantly, she adds to the pressure on Tuon to return to the battle.

Egwene POV

Taim uses balefire to undo all the work Egwene’s forces have done in the last few hours. She thinks about what Perrin said and about the necessity for balance in the Pattern and weaves the Flame of Tar Valon, opposite of balefire. The weave is so positive that it eases her pain from Gawyn’s death. Equal to balefire at first, the flame weave is the stronger—plus Egwene was able to be reckless with the amount of power she drew, due to her sa’angreal having no buffer.

The Amyrlin almost senses that a black hole could open in the area soon:

Black lines radiated across the Heights, and her mind's eye saw them opening, the land shattering, and a void appearing here that sucked into it all life.

A Memory of Light, The Last Battle

This is the danger of balefire: it destroys the Pattern, leaving Nothing.

After separating herself for Leilwin, she finishes off all the Sharans with the flame of Tar Valon weave, expending her body energy in the process. Witnessing this, Rand is overcome with even more grief and guilt.

Mat POV

Even with the Sharan channellers gone, Mat’s troops are outnumbered by the Trollocs. Symbolically, he raises the Age of Legends Aes Sedai banner, the unbalanced yin-yang symbol. (“Under this sign shall he (Rand) conquer”…) When all seems grim, he gets news that the Seanchan will come back. They will return; just as it was important that Mat return to Sindhol to rescue Moiraine and subsequently return to Tuon (who herself prosecutes the Return). There is a strong theme of “I will return” in the Mat-Tuon story line, a reference to General Macarthur, a parallel of Mat, declaring “I will return” to re-take territory invaded by Japan in World War II. It’s also a reference to Persephone (or Kore, which is one of Tuon’s names) spending time between her mother Demeter above ground and her husband Hades (a parallel of Mat) in the underworld. In this case, it is Mat who splits his time between his wife and his homeland.

Mat would almost rather Tuon stayed safe. She is returning to help him despite misgivings that she would gain more politically by letting the Aes Sedai be damaged by the Shadow. But there is no safety anywhere. It’s obvious that they can’t win the Battle while Demandred is alive, even if he no longer has the sa’angreal.

Loial POV

Loial pretends he will get to write his book, but believes he won’t live to do it. Nevertheless, he intends to witness Lan’s fight. Sadly, this happened to Jordan, who did not live to complete his series.

Tam POV

Rand’s father helps Lan get through the Trolloc barrier by raining fire arrows on them, and has one of the best lines of the book in my opinion:

"Let's give Lord Mandragoran a little something to guide his way!"

A Memory of Light, The Last Battle

He is given…Light.

Lan POV

A small thing that had huge consequences was Lan’s offer to check whether there were Healed troops in Mayene, resulting in him intercepting Berelain’s note to Mat with the weave-stopping medallion. The best of the knights seizes the opportunity to duel the Forsaken. But first he must get through the Trollocs, impossible in itself except that Tam helped. Like Tam, Lan is completely within the void. He immediately wounds Demandred.

Rand POV

Rand is witness to everyone dying and desperate. He feels a failure until he is prompted to let go. His father’s words save his sanity, while the man himself enables Lan to save the Last Battle.

Lan POV

One with the Land in the void, Lan is a stand-in for his protégé Rand, while Rand fights a greater duel for the Land.

Demandred demands Lan’s name, but, unlike Gawyn and Galad, Lan refuses to reveal his identity, in violation of chivalric code and protocol, saying he is just a man and one who is there to kill Demandred. This is a way of showing contempt to this evil person. In New Spring, Lan is disgusted when an arrogant Tairen noble (as it turned out, a Darkfriend—probably Weiramon) passes him orders in the Aiel War without introducing himself first. The duel is very Arthurian. Demandred is a parallel of Meleagaunt, who was a treacherous enemy of King Arthur’s court that duelled Sir Lancelot (a parallel of Lan) three times, and was killed by him in their last duel. Rather than fight Lan three times, Demandred duelled three different knights with Arthurian names, falling to Lan last. Three is the most important number in the series.

Amazingly, Lan dodged Demandred’s diversions and did not let them disrupt his attacks at all. Demandred is shocked. Lan reads him like a book. In contrast, Demandred assumes Lan came to win, but he came to kill him, expecting to die also, and fulfilled his aim.

And so ends the longest chapter in this series, with a huge number of POVS. The quick changes of POV in the second half of the Last Battle chapter speed up the action and stop the reader feeling bogged down, but instead, hit with woe upon woe.

Memory of Light Read-through #41: Chapter 37—The Last Battle Part 2

By Linda

Egwene POV

Egwene thinks that she hasn’t finished with the Empress—but alas, she has. After leaving their hostile meeting, she sees the cracks in reality for the first time. These are mainly, but not entirely, due to balefire. Egwene promptly develops a weave that doesn’t heal them of itself, but cushions the cracks in the Pattern while they heal themselves, and is one of her greatest feats. It leaves a film of crystals.

With all this distraction, she finally notices that Gawyn is not there with her. Bryne volunteers to go and bring him back. (They assume the Warder has gone to the Andoran armies to fight). Egwene permits Siuan to go with Bryne, but indicates that she would like her to be the Tower’s spy among the Seanchan. This tragically means Siuan’s death. If Egwene had known, would she have still asked this of Siuan? I believe so, but she would probably have phrased it differently.

Siuan actually commends her; says Egwene is a great replacement, a wonderful legacy. Most of Egwene’s legacy will be her part in the reform of the Aes Sedai, and her legendary battle with Taim and the Sharans, plus the Flame of Tar Valon weave. It is an outstanding legacy, but as Amyrlin, she is a short-lived replacement. And for Siuan the swan who can’t sing, what shall be her swan song? The fact that she kisses a man openly for the first time. Their last and only public kiss.

Egwene realises her hypocrisy in thinking Captain Chubain is too young for his job. He’s about 10‒15 years too young, she’s about 200.

Mat had the clever idea of setting the dry bush alight around the Shadow’s army to force them back, and for the smoke to cover the Aes Sedai army’s movements (and also the sight of their channelling.)

Gawyn POV

The rings hide Gawyn so well that even a Myrddraal does not see him, and neither does a Trolloc that passes close by him. Nor does Gawyn feel pain. When he runs through the Trollocs, they hear and smell him, but he is a blur. Gawyn is almost like a Myrddraal himself in the way the shadows hide him:

“There were shadows here and shadows were protection.”

- A Memory of Light, The Last Battle

and Myrddraal are slightly out of phase with time and reality, according to their creator, Aginor. The Amyrlin’s Warder is quite knowledgeable in what he can do while wearing the rings, showing some practise.

Gawyn is not going to kill Demandred for pride or glory, but for necessity. Nevertheless, he wants to do something that matters and he thinks he can be risked, but not Egwene or Logain. The fool still hasn’t learned what the Warder bond is because he refuses to listen. He is too impulsive to be a good choice as a Warder.

Demandred tries to balefire Gawyn but he dodges it, thanks to the rings, which make the encounter an actual duel and not an execution. Demandred challenges Gawyn’s loyalties and ethics as they fight. The Forsaken truly outclasses Gawyn—runs rings around him. He asks if Elayne or Rand is any better than Demandred in killing for advantage? Yet for them, it is a last resort against those who are committing crimes; for Demandred it is a first resort to gain advantage.

Demandred believes no one—Rand or anyone else—can defeat the Dark One. Apparently, the best way to save the world is to let him destroy it and protect people after. The Forsaken says Rand claims he can do the same.

Demandred believes that it must be Rand with Lews Therin’s memories who is the Light’s general, and therefore keeps looking for him on the battlefield. No one else could be so skilled in his opinion. He assumes that Rand wove Night’s Shade around Gawyn, not that he could have a ter’angreal with the same effect.

So many beliefs, false assumptions and outright lies. Desperate to be at the forefront of the war himself, Demandred thinks that Rand is personally orchestrating everything. (Mind you, Rand thought the same until he was convinced by Moiraine and others at Merrilor that he can’t do everything.)

Gawyn is not one enough with his sword—it is still a thing he manipulates instead of a part of him. Demandred efficiently wears Gawyn down and then stabs him fatally, although the Warder bond keeps Gawyn alive a little while.

Faile POV

Faile is rightly convinced that there is a Darkfriend among her group, but wrongly that they are one or both of the two men who ran off. She thinks Vanin’s terror is at being caught and not at what he was holding, not understanding how religiously Mat’s men try to avoid danger. Since she believes that it is pointless to hide the Horn, Faile is wearing it openly.

Perrin POV

Berelain pointedly has a chaperon for Perrin while he is in the hospital in her palace. This consideration is partly due to being pulled into line by Faile, but also due to her own desire for marriage to Galad.

Janina is able to selectively Heal. After more than one session, Perrin is finally Healed fully but is exhausted, so Janina probably Healed in the way Samitsu does and not the full five Powers Healing that Nynaeve weaves, that doesn’t take so much out of the patient.

Perrin deduces that three battlefronts moved to Merrilor, but Rand still fights. He informed them that time moves differently at the Bore—much more slowly—which they are all glad of and pass along to the battle command. At first, Berelain held back that Faile’s caravan was destroyed and she has vanished. Perrin insists his beloved is alive, because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. He is determined to return to Gaul, but finally accepted that he would die without sleep.

Androl POV

Pevara looks down on Theodrin as not being “proper” Aes Sedai. However, Pevara hasn’t behaved as a “proper” Red in decades. She is otherwise understanding and positive towards Theodrin, though, and can accurately identify her feelings.

It’s taken a while, but Androl and Pevara are taking stock of their bond, and then their relationship. To Androl, Pevara is solid and reliable and their relationship life-saving. Androl is awkward around women. Even if they can see into his mind, they see awkwardness there. Pevara has been mentally comparing Androl to her figurines of her family. He will be her new family. All Aes Sedai see their family fade away over time, but Pevara’s family was cut off short.

Androl realises that Pevara’s achievement with the gateway, when she can’t do them easily, and didn’t have control and wasn’t the leader of the ring, was because she acted as him. She is able to overcome her fear of male channelling upon herself.

An inveterate traveller, Androl knows where he is relative to everywhere he’s ever been. He also “knows” any place he’s at in a very short time. He has an extreme sense of location, of place. Androl says that “small things matter.” He is a perfect example of that: his channelling ability is small, but really matters to the whole world.

They laugh at themselves, which is such a positive trait. They need all the mirth they can get in such times. It is something to fight for, something to help them fight. Respite, positivity—things the Dark One knows are the most dangerous—keep them from despairing.

Rhuarc POV

Rhuarc gives us an informative assessment of how the battle is going at Thakan’dar. Ituralde’s defences were finally broken, but they efficiently reduced the numbers of Shadowspawn. He is impressed by the dedication of the Dragonsworn; which is something, coming from an Aiel. As for the red-veiled Aiel, Rhuarc calls them Honorless. Impressively, he himself kills a red-veiled channeller. More concerningly, he feels the Light are losing the battle here.

And then Graendal strikes. She didn’t kill him, but has Compelled him to use his considerable fighting talents for herself, her protection. Rhuarc is robbed of his mind—judgment and values—and is now walking dead. A sad end to a much-loved character. It really shows the vileness of the Shadow. The Dreamwalkers knew something of his fate, we see them earlier in the series asking him if he wants to die old and fat in bed. Graendal turns everyone to herself; these days it’s a compensation for being robbed of her beauty by the Dark One. But she was always a monster even before being reborn as Hessalam.

Rand POV

Rand creates his “perfect” world out of one of the “If worlds” that is an alternate reality that may be less likely. Ogier are rebuilding Emond’s Field as compensation for Rand’s sacrifice. Originally, the Ogier thought of a monument to Rand, but the Two Rivers people made the more practical choice of reconstruction. They worked closely with the Ogier and learned off them.

The Two Rivers is more diverse, and more egalitarian than before and is now a place of pilgrimage or tourism. With the development of gunpowder weapons, the people are renowned riflemen as well as archers. But the only war is in the east, along Sharan border.

A monument was still made, but instead of commemorating just Rand, it honours all the fallen in the Last Battle. Rand rejects the sight of his friends on that monument as not definite fact, and this makes his vision wobble. He is still insisting it’s his sacrifice only, no one else’s.

Darkness only exists when Light falters. The Dark One can’t win so long as Rand is steadfast, which is why he tries to make Rand despair. The Dark One tells Rand that his world is flawed, because it can’t be perfect. There is still crime. The Dark One, being openly and fully evil, is more honest, more true, than Rand’s world—supposedly. Though who would believe such a liar? It’s just another attempt to make Rand give up.

This short vision is the “true” world that Rand should aim for: high ideals, but still with choice and messiness, and not draconian or extreme. Balanced. The Dark One is trying to force Rand to give up, or to be an extremist. Good forced on people is the evil of Shadar Logoth. The Dark One’s contention that if Rand can’t have perfection then his world is inadequate, that a grey world is the same as a black world, and that since criminals break rules there should be none, sounds sadly familiar in the real world.

Silviana POV

Still Silviana digs at the Blues. She is on the whole a very sensible and thorough woman, but Blues (and men) are her blind spots. She carries deep prejudices, which, from time to time, Egwene pulls her up on.

The Keeper assumes that Demandred attacked Egwene—she almost forgot about Gawyn (because good riddance) even though he isn’t there but has gone off on his own. Courageously, she offers to stand in Egwene’s place in the Warder bond. Silviana doesn’t understand the emotional attachment and intimacy of the bond, augmented, in this case, by love and a long-term commitment of marriage. She really misses the point. Instead, Egwene’s group will fight their way to Gawyn.

Elayne POV

Elayne judges that Mat’s plan to send Egwene’s army to attack the rear of the Shadow army fighting Elayne was genius.

Birgitte is fretting over how many of her memories have been lost. Unlike if she were born a baby, she can remember that she knew things she doesn’t now know. She is like an adult baby, or someone in the early throes of Alzheimer’s. It is a cruel situation.

While Galad is Elayne’s big brother, and certainly feels this way toward her, she doesn’t like him enough to accept his advice or criticism, seeing as she outranks him on a social scale. Yet she takes liberties to read a letter written to Galad and not her. She is an entitled miss. Galad doesn’t know the depth of Elayne’s rejection of him (which originated in part due to jealousy of Galad’s place in their father’s heart), but continues as though she feels everything that he thinks she should.

Mat’s letter is more educated than the “joke” letter he sent Elayne in Caemlyn to manipulate her into giving him a hearing (and that upset many fans with its style). Mat sent Galad to Elayne and a messenger there with his orders for Galad, so the spy at military headquarters can’t determine what is going on.

For a long while, as Galad notes, he wouldn’t have killed women (which Whitecloaks certainly would if they believed the women were Darkfriends or could channel), but not now. Galad has seen that women can be evil. Elayne says for once she agrees wholeheartedly with him. Galad thinks that Elayne is joking when she says that she doesn’t want to strangle him for what he says. His belief in right makes him oblivious of his family’s failings, at times. Probably just as well. Galad becomes increasingly appealing over the series. Early in the books we only know him through Elayne’s eyes, and they are highly biased. Away from her, his actions can speak for themselves and although a little stiff (as many Cairhienin are), he is good-hearted, just and reasonable.

Mat POV

Mat is loving the gamble of war, and he admires Demandred’s willingness to gamble also.

Logain won’t take orders at all easily from Mat, and tries to deny that he should cooperate. There’s resentment in his belief that he declared himself Dragon too soon and so was not the one. Yet Logain doesn’t want the Dragon’s destiny. Now he wants the glory and honour of killing Demandred as compensation for how the Reds treated him. Some of this is post traumatic stress and the effects of almost being turned to the Shadow. Mat was probably unrealistic in trying to get Logain to aid the Aes Sedai, considering what they did to him. Sure, everyone needs to work together, since the war is everyone’s—as Mat says—but Logain would be far more motivated to aid a group that had not damaged him.

Mat hasn’t worked out how to get rid of Demandred. He correctly doubts Logain would do much good against such a powerful Forsaken. The Shadow attacks the command tent as Mat wonders how to save Elayne’s forces and Tuon begins their pretend rift.

Min POV

Sharans wear lamellar armour (typical of their strong “Chinese” origins). Tuon breaks free of her ceremonial clothes and runs to save Mat from Grey Men. It is ironic that Tuon is highly mobile, while Min, who used to be admired for wearing men’s clothes, is stuck in her cumbersome dress.

Min is appalled that her rescuer, Siuan, is here and not with Bryne. The two must stay near each other to live. Siuan doesn’t care since if Mat dies, the Last Battle is lost, and insists they must help him. While Min saves Tuon, Siuan is killed by a fiery explosion after attracting attention with her channelling. Another much-loved character is lost.

Demandred POV

Demandred is peeved that his “advantage” in using the eyes of scouting bird with the True Power is overtaken, even eclipsed, by gateways that look down on a battlefield. The people of this Age are not the primitives that the Forsaken had convinced themselves. They have open minds, and are therefore free to experiment, whereas the Age of Legends people had such extensive knowledge that they are comparatively closed to new ideas and techniques.

The Forsaken won’t Travel to Mat’s command post for fear that Lews Therin is there. This is a gamble he won’t take. He’s being cautious, not afraid! It shows just how much he respects and fears the abilities of his despised Lews Therin. He’s also wary of M’Hael, who has been promoted rapidly due to his successes. Demandred’s grudging respect to M’Hael shows how strong-willed and persistent M’Hael is.

Rand showing himself in various battlefields has made Demandred wonder where he is. It adds credence to Demandred’s belief that there’s a trap somewhere. He can’t believe that the master general of this Age isn’t Lews Therin in disguise. This is consistent with his attitude to Third Age people even after expressing surprise at their innovation. His assessment that they are too young and can’t be experienced enough is correct. Mat had a very unexpected genesis: he was manufactured by the Pattern and the Eelfinn—and is a concert of generals.

The Forsaken reluctantly admits that Lews Therin was stronger in the One Power and more popular. (And if he thinks Lews Therin is Mat, a pretty damn good general.) But Demandred was better at war—plus it is an outlet for his anger and resentment. He acknowledges Mat is a very good gambler, as Mat also said of him.

Shendla does not see Demandred as evil. For the Sharans, the Pattern is about fate and balance, and not so much which side you’re on or the choices you make, as it is for the other nations. The Sharans have had little choice until now, but perhaps after the Last Battle they will feel differently about choice and the Pattern. Judging by their conversations in this book and in River of Souls, they accept that since the Pattern calls for two sides, there’s no shame in either side. It could be that they have had to be constrained the entire Third Age to be the sort of people that would fight wholesale for the dark side. Yet they worry about the existence of their nation after this apocalyptic event as much as the fate of the world. Shendla is satisfied that Demandred will try to save Sharans when he remakes the world, and Demandred is surprised that he wants to do well by them. Having been locked into his sterile feelings of envy and resentment for centuries, he is almost surprised to find he has developed feelings for Shendla, too.

M’Hael is roundly punished for insulting Demandred. A True Power shield sucks up the One Power like an a’dam when touched by a man or like a gholam. The shield might have given the idea of a gholam to Aginor—or at least how to craft one using similar weaves and principles.

Rand POV

The Dark One has to work within time’s rules when he touches Pattern. This is why balefire prevents the Dark One from capturing a soul. He is bound by the logic of causality when he reaches into the Pattern.

A Memory of Light Read-through #25: Chapter 22—The Wyld

By Linda

Egwene POV

The higher the status of the Sharans, the fewer tattoos they have (see Costume article). Their male channellers are feral, and take pride in how dangerous they are. They have been dehumanised in their upbringing, and glory in that, because the fear they now arouse in others is a type of power. As former breeding stock, they have never had power. The male channellers wear rampant, aggressive vine tattoos from an early age, while the female channellers have a tree tattoo on their back with its branches bearing leaves onto their face. The Sharans appear to be starving their former rulers. Or have they withered away under the contempt of their ex-subjects at how they are puppets bound to the Pattern?

Egwene wonders why the Sharans have invaded now. We will find out that they are the antagonists of the mainland armies, fighting on the side of the Shadow in the hope of liberation from the Pattern that has held them in thrall until this moment. As unforseen and deadly invaders, they represent a combination of the Mongol Horde invading the West and also the Carthaginians invading the Ancient Roman Empire with Demandred as the Great Khan (a mirror and rival to Rand, the Car’a’carn) and the great general Hannibal, respectively.

Demandred uses the True Power to Travel to the site. His superior abilities are shown in how he finds Leane hidden among the tents and carries her to him with weaves. Yet he overlooks Egwene, a stronger channeller, on the perimeter. Leane is brave and controlled. Demandred uses her as a messenger to Rand to deliver his challenge and threat:

”If he does not, I will slaughter and destroy. I will seize his people. I will enslave his children, I will take his women for my own. One by one, I will break, destroy, or dominate everything he has loved."

A Memory of Light, The Wyld

Demandred’s excuse that he killed the newly captured slaves because the Sharans had no time for them and they would suffer without training, and presumably, being provided for properly, has a parallel in the Mongols enslaving who they wanted in the areas they invaded and killing the rest. Demandred and Rand both share parallels with Genghis Khan: Rand in a positive way with his union of the war-like and feuding Aiel clans (see Rand essay) whom he took back to the Westlands, and Demandred in a very negative way with his invasion of the Westlands committing atrocities. Demandred emphasised this very similarity to both Leane and Gawyn (A Memory of Light, The Wyld and The Last Battle).

Demandred also misused religion to demoralise and terrorise, as Genghis Khan did at Bukhara:

“I am the flail of god. Had you not created great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
.

The Forsaken was an agent of Shaitan claiming to be an equivalent of the Dragon, the Creator’s champion who is as much a scourge as a saviour, and whom he threatened.

Demandred’s claim that he fulfilled Sharan prophecy is true:

"Just as the people here awaited him with prophecy, just as they showered him with glory, the people of my land awaited me. I have fulfilled their prophecies. He is false, and I am true."

A Memory of Light, The Wyld

although he didn’t believe it. His mistake is in thinking that the promised one of the Sharan prophecy was the Dragon—it wasn’t. Their prophecy was separate to the Karaethon Cycle and the antithesis of it. Both men are prophesied ones.

Demandred’s title of “He Who Is Owned Only By the Land” is a claim that is also true, and in a way that Demandred did not intend. Rand is one with the Land and the Land one with him. Demandred is owned by his hatred of, and obsession with, Rand. Demandred sees himself as an equal and rival to Rand, and wants to steal everything that Rand has. He never imagined that Rand would ignore him, and not consider him at all. It is the ultimate insult to the Forsaken.


Perrin POV

Perrin wonders why Lanfear gave him knowledge of the Dreamspike. It was to buy his trust and regard; to keep Rand safe for her to kill, and thereby earn the Dark One’s obligation; and to keep Perrin busy in the Dream until she needed him.

Perrin must call the Last Hunt for the wolves; they can’t hunt the Darkhounds on their own, just as the Heroes of the Horn need the Dragon’s banner at the least to fight. The Wolf King follows up on the wolves’ advice that Graendal is in the Dream. She was in Ituralde’s tent reading reports, which would give her intelligence of the Light’s military plans, and then went to Bashere’s dream.

In her ugly new body, Graendal is all the more determined to be the Naeblis. She now looks like Grendel the man-eating monster. It is as though her beautiful parallels, the ancient Greek Aphrodite and Circe, have been robbed of their beauty, but are still capable of destroying men. Graendal was in Tel’aran’rhiod in the flesh, which allowed her to channel at her full strength. She thinks that actual pitched battles against the Light are far less useful than destroying the generals of the Light’s armies, but as we see, a general can be replaced. Perrin is more than a match for Graendal in Tel’aran’rhiod, although he balked at killing her. By Aiel thinking, the greater honour would be taking her captive, as Aviendha did.

Lanfear criticises Perrin for not killing Graendal, but she has an obvious self-interest there, in reducing her competition. While she would not be allowed to kill a colleague at this time, Perrin could. She tells him that not killing women is a weakness. Ironically, he will kill one—and only one—woman, and it is her.

Lanfear tries to manipulate Perrin, but he rejects her charms. She plies him with knowledge instead; this time about Slayer being able to physically enter and leave Tel’aran’rhiod at will. Just knowing that it can be done inspires him to ask the right questions, which leads to him killing Slayer and Lanfear and protecting Rand.

Moridin is too occupied to keep a watch on Lanfear. Nevertheless, Lanfear declines to help Perrin with an action because she will be further punished if found out. She wants Perrin to become powerful in his own right, and tempts him with power and the good he could do with it. He rejects her temptations, while acknowledging her beauty. Again she dispenses knowledge as a lure and tells him whose dream Graendal just invaded: Bashere’s. Did she recognise it and if so was it because she has looked herself?

What is Moridin up to? Moghedien implied that he no longer cared to inflict for cruelty. Is this due to ennui or just being too busy? Rand hasn’t gone to Shayol Ghul yet, but perhaps Moridin has, or he is giving final orders prior to doing so. While he is despairing of his existence, and only wishes to be free of the cycle of rebirth, he assumes it will only happen with the Dark One’s victory, so he can’t sit around in a depressed state, but must continue prosecuting the Shadow’s plans.

A Memory of Light Read-Through #3: Prologue— Androl and Moghedien POVs

By Linda

Androl POV

Androl and Pevara deal with their nervousness in different ways: he is making something to keep his mind occupied, while she is chattering and questioning. Androl lets Pevara know that he is aware of her questioning others about him and that he finds it under-handed. He also shows her he knows why she is doing it: to find out why a man would choose to learn to channel—or see if he could. To his surprise she replies honestly. She is a better person than he thought. While talking to her, Androl is trying to force himself to be calm, like a woman wanting to channel saidar.

Pevara suggests that they try to link. This technique is something Androl didn’t know existed. When she patronises him about his lack of knowledge, he says no man may know everything, implying that anyone, including women, who claims to know all are wrong.

Androl assures Pevara that he is weak in the Power, even though he is a leader. This is not something an Aes Sedai would expect, since it is the opposite of Aes Sedai custom. Perhaps she thinks he is trying to fob her off, but she will soon find out he is being truthful.

The Red tries to flatter Emarin at the expense of the other Asha’man present and he insults her politely—or at least, mocks her. Androl thinks she missed his sarcasm, but sarcasm doesn’t work if it is ignored. So they came off about equal.

Emarin and Pevara are working out ways to escape, but Androl wants to bring everyone out who isn’t a Darkfriend. Moreover, the Asha’man will not abandon the families that they brought to the Tower. Events ensure that Androl ends up having his way.

Emarin notices Androl’s slip when he speaks of the Knoks rebellion. He is observant, but so is Androl, who has deduced that Emarin is using his brother’s name and is Lord Algarin of House Pendaloan. Like Androl’s family, the Pendaloans have the genes for channelling in their family. While the reader might assume that there are also female channellers as well as male ones in such a family, we often don’t see both genders of channellers in the one family. The inheritance is therefore probably separate and sex-linked (which makes sense, considering the two Powers are gender specific.) Halima/Arangar, the only woman able to channel saidin, is an unnatural creation of the Dark One, and an example of Wrongness. Algarin/Emarin is very unusual in judging people by merit and not background, and (mostly) respecting Aes Sedai—especially for a Tairen High Lord.

Androl sees this time as a test for the Asha’man to prove their fitness for self-governance and independence. They can’t run to others and yet demand to be their own people. Most of Logain's faction are resentful that Rand has not come to the Black Tower but not Androl. Rand has got other things to do, but the Black Tower was a very important thing and Rand was blind on this and distracted by the Shadow.

Pevara explains that people are being Turned to the Shadow. She sees the Black Tower as fallen under the Shadow’s influence. (Little does she know the degree to which the White Tower was run by the Shadow.) Androl wants to overthrow that influence and make the Black Tower a refuge, a positive place for male channellers—something that Pevara hasn’t really considered should happen.

Androl points out that evil people don’t inspire loyalty only self-interested allies, which gives them an advantage. He is a reluctant leader and looks on his role as temporary until Logain returns. In his opinion, the Asha’man all belong to the Black Tower, not any one person.

Regarding forcibly freeing the Black Tower from the Shadow, Androl doubts that Aes Sedai can fight well due to lack of experience. This is a reasonable inference, although the Reds and Greens do practise. The White Tower has not been that peaceable in the last years—although Pevara will not admit to any fighting among Aes Sedai. However, the sisters have battled Darkfriends and Shadowspawn less than they might. Androl also points out that Asha’man will ally with Taim to fight off Aes Sedai if sisters try to play a large part.

Moghedien POV

The final scene of the Prologue is the Forsaken meeting in a locale controlled by the Nae’blis. Moridin likes to confound as well as intimidate, and so his little world has floating stone, a breeze that doesn’t ripple the water surface, and burning water. The dream shard is attached to Tel’aran’rhiod, yet is unaffected by it. This is consistent with Ishamael’s books on reality and meaning (Analysis of Perceived Meaning, Reality and the Absence of Meaning, and The Disassembly of Reason) and also with his strategy of distracting the other Forsaken with his ‘crazy’ and alarming ideas.

Moghedien is subtle in her use of motifs and symbolism but still emphasises that she is not wearing livery. The wind with screams on it seems designed to disturb Moghedien by reminding her of her punishment. However, she is not fearful when Moridin threatens to give her mindtrap to Demandred and instead opportunistically tries to lower Demandred’s standing—but it doesn’t work. Demandred is strongly favoured currently.

The Spider thinks she wasn’t careful enough if she got mind-trapped. But doing nothing is also a move that results in disaster as often as success. Just a few moments ago, she was bolder, but Moridin’s warning of a return to captivity makes her fearful; fearful of losing her mindtrap that she holds. Does this foreshadow what happens when she is collared?

It turns out that Moghedien kept information back from Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne. Knowledge in all its forms—correct, partial and corrupt—is an important theme of the books—see Knowledge essay.

The scene shows that both Demandred and Moridin are unbalanced now that the finale is upon them. Moridin is withdrawn and brooding – uncaring in evil. His efforts to destroy Rand’s soul have backfired and he is despairing and tired of his greatly prolonged life. Demandred is obsessed with achieving personal triumph and “satisfaction” over Rand.

However, obsessed or no, Demandred is more observant than Moghedien, who also has changed. She is crushed, and overwhelmed to a degree, and missing things. It was only through Demandred that she noticed the sea is full of people—souls—being tortured. Moridin/Ishamael is always surrounded by such torture and pain. Moghedien is glad to see someone worse off than her. Is that why the Forsaken surround themselves with suffering? Blinded by ambition to be higher than everyone else, and yet they gloat over seeing people in the worst states. So petty and vulnerable to punishment.

No one knows what Demandred is up to—except Moridin probably. In turn, Demandred is probing Moridin, watching for weakness. Moridin killed Lanfear to free her from Sindhol (which is the name of a world, not of the creatures who live there).

As Hessalam, Graendal is hideous. Literally a monster, Graendal the man-eating bewitcher has now become Grendel the monster of legend, (see Graendal article). Moghedien gloats over this, but envies Hessalam’s strength in the Power. She recognises Graendal by her tone and body language and enjoys the irony of Graendal’s ugly state. She feels Graendal got her just desserts and that Graendal, despite her power and abilities, is no longer above her:

Moghedien almost chortled with glee. Graendal had always used her looks as a bludgeon. Well, now they were a bludgeon of a different type. How perfect! The woman must be positively writhing inside. What had she done to earn such a punishment? Graendal's stature—her authority, the myths told about her—were all linked to her beauty. What now? Would she have to start searching for the most horrid people alive to keep as pets, the only ones who could compete with her ugliness?

This time, Moghedien did laugh. A quiet laugh, but Graendal heard. The woman shot her a glare that could have set a section of the ocean aflame all on its own.

Moghedien returned a calm gaze, feeling more confident now. She resisted the urge to stroke the cour'souvra. Bring what you will, Graendal, she thought. We are on level footing now. We shall see who ends this race ahead.

A Memory of Light, Prologue

It is hard to say who ended the race ahead. Graendal would be the happier of the two, although as mindless as all those she enslaved, while Moghedien has her mind, but is unfree. Who is better off? For Graendal, ignorance is bliss. Moghedien has hope of escape, but maybe not much chance. The point is that neither won.

Finally we get to the ostensible point of this meeting: Taim has been raised to Chosen. He will be known by his self-adopted title of M’Hael, which means leader and is a reference to Hitler’s title of Der Fuhrer and also to St Michael who leads a host against the Dragon at Armageddon (see Names of the Shadow). Moridin introduces him formally to force the other Forsaken to accept M’Hael’s rise and status and also to point out his successes and their failures.

Speaking of failures, Moghedien is resentful that Moridin has not been punished for his failures and his need to be rescued. The difference is that Ishamael died serving the Dark One, though, not serving himself.

Moghedien feels insulted at having to assist Demandred by watching over one of the armies (Seanchan) and even more when she is threatened by Moridin in front of the others.

Fun in the Last Days. Moridin’s meeting parallels Rand’s meeting in a couple of chapters’ time. Both are having unity problems.

River of Souls Read-through

By Linda

River of Souls is a short story published in the Unfettered anthology produced by Shaun Speakman of Grim Oaks Press. It is about 4200 words long, and explains some of Demandred’s story line which was not fitted into A Memory of Light (or earlier books).

Demandred has been in Shara for two years. Since he was not released early from the Bore, and the series commenced on Winternight March 998 NE, the events of River of Souls occurred after the Cleansing of saidin, which was in March 1000 NE. There is mention of dead trees, which occurred as drought took hold, but not of Wrongness, unless Shendla’s comment that every Sharan can feel that the Dragon has come refers to this, so perhaps the story is set before the Pattern loosened in Knife of Dreams.

Rhuarc told Rand in Lord of Chaos, The Wheel of a Life in November 999 NE that he had received reports of fighting in Shara and how the Sharans expected Rand to break the world. This news would have taken some time to travel west to the Aiel. The fighting may have been due to Graendal’s abduction of the Sharan monarchs (for her meeting with Sammael in late October 999), or due to Demandred’s slave revolt and social revolution (apparently commenced after the Dark One commanded him in September 999 NE to sow chaos), or both.

The story starts with Demandred, aka Bao, wrapped in the Oneness. The Oneness is valued and seen as the sign of an adept – someone all together – but, like anything, it has its bad side. Distancing is supposed to be a way of removing oneself from troubles or from being dependent or overly attached, but it could also make the practitioner unfeeling and disconnected. Some of the best exponents of the Oneness (e.g. Lan and Rand) had trouble expressing their feelings, so putting aside your emotions can have negative consequences. I guess Mintel would have said it is neither good nor evil, except that he thought very highly of the Oneness as a sign of enlightenment. It was no longer so in Demandred’s case.

Demandred always wanted to be number one (and the symbolism of One in the series is written about here) so much so that he became unscrupulous about it. His usage of the Oneness is negative, symbolized by his compressing his feelings to a black point:

Bao took all of his feelings - all of his thoughts, all that he was -and pressed them into a single point of darkness in his mind. That darkness consumed the emotion. He felt nothing.

River of Souls

It mirrors the nothingness of the Pit of Doom which sucked all into it:

Nynaeve clutched the stalagmite deep within the Pit of Doom, holding herself from being pulled by the winds into that nothingness in front of her. …It pulled with a powerful force, drawing all that was nearby into it. She feared that if she let go, she would be yanked in. Already, it had stolen her shawl, making it vanish. If that nothingness pulled her in, her life would end. Perhaps her soul as well.

A Memory of Light, Unchangeable Things

Demandred does express emotions, just not appropriately: none or little where he should feel in abundance, and obsessively where he should let them die away. As Graendal observed:

Demandred never smiled, never seemed to enjoy anything. Though he was one of the foremost generals among the Chosen, warfare had never seemed to bring him joy. Once she had heard him say that he would laugh the day he could snap the neck of Lews Therin. And only then. He was a fool to bear that grudge…
Yes, he was a cold one.
Perhaps Graendal underestimated him. He very well might be the most powerful of the three [allied Forsaken], more dangerous than Semirhage. She was emotionless and controlled, true, but sometimes emotion was appropriate. It could drive a man like Demandred to actions that a more coolheaded person couldn't even contemplate.

The Gathering Storm, Prologue

And he did become irrational over Rand in A Memory of Light.

When Demandred gained Sakarnen he laughed because with it he had a reasonable chance of killing Rand, and a good one once Rand destroyed the male Choedan Kal.

Fairly early into Demandred’s time in Shara, Mintel adopted him. Perhaps the Forsaken attracted Mintel’s attention when he began the slave revolt. (Only Shendla followed Demandred from the beginning.) With his frequent meditation, usage of the Oneness, and sanctity of person, Mintel is like a Buddhist monk. The Great Servant that Mintel and Demandred referred to is most likely the Buddha.

In A Memory of Light Moghedien didn’t interrupt Mintel’s meditation, but she did cut off his speech and then killed him. By Sharan belief this was a bad omen - and omens are reliable in The Wheel of Time world - so no wonder Moghedien was soon fired upon by dragons and then collared by a sul’dam.

Mintel went through the “City of Dreams” to reach Demandred quickly. Demandred feared he could have lost his soul doing that. The City of Dreams is probably Tel’aran’rhiod, the World of Dreams, which if you enter physically causes you to lose part of your humanity. A less likely possibility is the Ways, with the Black Wind the risk. The title City of Dreams is Macau, fitting the Chinese theme of Shara. It is also the name of a charity which helps at-risk youth to brighter futures. Other characters who enter Tel’aran’rhiod physically use channeling or their dual nature. Perhaps this shows Mintel’s power/prowess that he doesn’t need either.

The kingdom trees are mulberry trees and the mention of the Inner Land is an allusion to Inner Mongolia in China. The Sharans’ complex measurements of distance, weight and time are perhaps a reference to those of India. The Sharan name for outsiders, Ulikar, is very similar to the Russian place name Ulika. Due to their long history of contention, the Russians are outsiders to the Chinese. Plus Russia is west of “Chinese” Shara, indicating someone from the westlands.

At some time in Shara Demandred was branded on his hand:

The back of his hand had been scarred with a terrible burn in the shape of a circle, with three sinuous hooked knives stabbing out from the center toward the perimeter, their tips turning until they blended with the line outside.

River of Souls

It is the triple yin-yang symbol, the sam-taeguk symbolizing heaven, earth and humanity (see illustration right), but a particularly aggressive form of it.



A western version is the triskele, see illustrations below. The photo on the left actually depicts three blades.

The branding may be a relic from his slave days, or perhaps was a souvenir from gaining the rod section of Sakarnen. Demandred looks at it when Mintel speaks of the difference between men’s aims and what they receive, and of fate and the Pattern, but this would be an appropriate reaction for either possibility.

Shendla’s comment that Bao does not laugh because his duty is too heavy recalls Lan, who will defeat Bao. Both men were reluctant to take responsibility for their people – the people had to press them to – though for different reasons, and were gibed at for not laughing:

"I want to see you smile, Lan!" Andere shouted, clinging to his horse's saddle. "Show more emotion than a stone, for once! Surely this deserves it!"

Lan looked at the battle he'd never thought to win, seeing a last stand instead become a promising fight, and couldn't help himself. He didn't just smile, he laughed.

A Memory of Light, A Knack

"No smile?" Torn asked, inspecting Bao's face. "Not a hint of one?"
"Lord Bao does not laugh, Torn," Shendla said, a possessive hand on Bao's shoulder. "His duty is too heavy."
"Oh, I know, I know," Torn said. "That doesn't mean I can't try. Someday I will break that mask of yours, my friend. Someday!"

River of Souls

which makes Demandred’s laugh at gaining Sakarnen and smile at the end of River of Souls all the more significant. With Sakarnen he believed he could now defeat Rand, he had the means to “snap the neck of Lews Therin”, especially if these events occurred after Rand’s epiphany in June 1000 NE, where he destroyed the male Choedan Kal. Ironically, by the Last Battle, Demandred’s obsession with proving himself the better man impelled him to want to kill Rand without Sakarnen.

Demandred, like Rand, was gone for three days on his quest. Both men had an epiphany involving their sa’angreal: Demandred gained one, but Rand destroyed one. Demandred believed his eyes showed only death and coldness, though Shendla disagreed, and Rand’s eyes certainly held coldness and death, even fairly early in the series:

[Rand] did not understand why those coming before him began to sweat and lick their lips as they knelt and stammered the words of fealty. But then, he could not see the cold light burning in his own eyes.

The Fires of Heaven, Other Battles, Other Weapons

Demandred is honest with Mintel and Shendla, and like Lanfear, nearly came back to decency in the face of the “beloved”. Both Lanfear and Demandred were nothing to Rand, but they fervently believed they were and obsessed over him, and then justified their evil actions as being “caused” by his lack of regard for them.

So why did Shendla follow Demandred from the start? She said he wouldn’t want to know because it would weigh on him, and he agreed. If it was because she was infatuated with him, he probably would not feel pressured, merely flattered – or take it as his due. She appears to be a scholar of the Sharan Prophecies, and has some sensitivity to the Pattern:

”The Dragon has come, Bao. Every man and woman in this land can feel it. He will try to destroy the world, and only you can stop him. There is a reason you have done what you did. The Tapestry... shall I call it by your word? The Pattern? It has brought you.”

River of Souls

I suspect she is also a dreamer, one who cannot channel. Either way, she recognised his place in the Pattern almost immediately.

Demandred surprised himself by following the rules of the prophecy. Perhaps subconsciously he was afraid that if he didn’t do the quest perfectly he won’t succeed. Or he needed to believe in the role himself to be convincing to others, and to prove himself.

The chasm that Demandred descended is called Abyrward. The name is a combination of abyss, wyr(m) (worm, an alternate name for dragon) and ward; the abyss guarding the dragon, or more correctly, stopping most people from happening upon the dragon. The river at the bottom is Angarai’la, River of Souls – the souls of those who failed to kill the guardian in the cave? The name refers to Shangri-La but with connotations of anger. Shangri-La is a legendary Buddhist hidden valley or Oriental utopia. The River of Souls and Hearttomb are a dystopia and utopia combined since they house a monster and a benevolent being. Shangri-La is sometimes used to describe a lifelong quest or something elusive that is searched for obsessively. The Holy Grail, San Greal, also represents a lifelong quest and was an Arthurian Shangri-La. Demandred spent two years hunting for Sakarnen, but it was a means to an end, since his ultimate Shangri-La was Rand’s death.

Another allusion for the sacred river, considering the Sharans’ parallels to the westward-invading destructive Mongol hordes of Genghis and Kublai Khan, can be seen in Coleridge’s poem:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea…
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover! …
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Kahn, or A Vision In A Dream

Demandred didn’t have a pleasure dome like Kublai Khan did at his summer palace in Shangdu (Xanadu), but an un-described tent. However the area had vegetation that was far healthier than elsewhere in Shara. The river Angaralai’la runs within a chasm that is rugged and wild before entering the cavern of the Hearttomb. We don’t know where the river ultimately ends up. It is sacred to the Wyld since only he is allowed to drink its waters. Angaralai’la means River of Souls in the Old Tongue, and Demandred heard whispering in its flow:

The babbling noises it made accompanied him down the long decline, always his companion. At times, its noises sounded like whispers. Perhaps that was where it had earned its name.

River of Souls

Kubla Khan heard ancestral voices, voices of the dead, in the noise of the River Alph, that prophesied war. Once he attained Sakarnen, Demandred intended to take it and the Sharan forces to the Last Battle. He was killed there, and Shendla wailed over his corpse for the loss of her demon lover Demandred. Note that a few names of the Forsaken have demonic parallels (see Names of the Shadow). For further details of Demandred’s Mongol parallels see here.

Jordan and Sanderson reverse engineered Angaralai’la as a combination of Coleridge’s Xanadu and Shangri La, both being legendary places.

The sacred cavern of the Hearttomb contained a jumara and a nym, a monster as nasty as Aginor could make, and a force of fertility and nature as positive as the Light’s technologists could make.

The Nym had withered away in the Light-less Shadowspawn-inhabited cavern. It appears to have no body and existed as a foliate head:

Here, upon a natural stone dais, he found the plants grown together into what seemed a kind of face or head.
"So I was right," he said, kneeling beside the face. "I thought the Nym had all died."
"I... am not of the Nym..." the face said softly, eyes closed. "Not any longer. Have you come to give me rest, traveler?"

River of Souls

In the real world foliate heads occur in sacred architecture and are a representation of the Green Man, a nature spirit or Nature itself (see updated Nym parallels article). Someshta the Nym guarding the Eye of the World was called the Green Man.

The presence of the Nym may have influenced the growth of green, plant-like protruberances by the jumara. Or maybe the jumara camouflaged itself by creating similar growths to that emanating from the Nym.

Demandred killed a jumara, called a “worm” in the Third Age according to Sammael (Lord of Chaos, To Understand A Message), in single combat to attain the sa’angreal Sakarnen and become the prophesied Wyld, saviour of the Sharans. Since worm is an alternative name for a dragon, Demandred, unbeknownst to him, already was the Dragonslayer prior to bringing the Sharans to fight at the Last Battle and trying to kill Rand there. In a neat reversal of typical dragon features, Demandred used:

weaves to lift chunks of rock up into the air, then burned them molten in the blink of an eye and sprayed the jumara's maw with melted rock.

River of Souls

The jumara’s mouth burned as it swallowed fiery rock, rather than breathed fire out. Another link with the jumara and Rand is that Demandred had always hated jumara (River of Souls) and also the Dragon. He cursed Aginor with burning and Dashiva had indeed been burnt at the cleansing before these events.

As the fight with the jumara showed, Demandred has real skill but misapplied it.

Angor’lot, the True Destiny, is the sa’angreal Sakarnen. Sa’angreal are an allusion to the San Greal, the Holy Grail which featured in Arthurian myth and Sakarnen even has a cup component. Such hallowed objects are guarded from the unworthy. Sakarnen was disassembled and hidden, with one part at least guarded, because of the danger it posed. The Choedan Kal were also hidden - within landforms - and their functional keys stored in Warded Rhuidean, and Callandor was protected by Wards attuned to the Dragon Reborn. There is a strong Arthurian theme in Demandred’s story line as well as East Asian/Mongol. (Two other themes are Ancient Rome and Beowulf, but more of these below). The name Angor’lot is similar to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which is the world’s largest religious monument. It fits with the Buddhist/East Asia theme of Shara and the Taoism and religious awe of the One Power. More simply, the name sounds like “anger (a) lot”, and both its users, Demandred and Taim, had a lot of anger toward Rand especially.

Demandred’s alias Bao is an east Asian personal name (see updated Demandred essay), but as Bao the Wyld he is a parallel of the hero of Anglo-Saxon legendary hero Beowulf, and also the brutal ancient Chinese general Bai Qi of the “wild beast” state of Ch’in/Qin.

Brandon Sanderson confirmed in a tweet that Beowulf, the hero of Scandinavian legend and Anglo-Saxon literature is the main parallel for Demandred’s alias Bao the Wyld:

Both [words of the name] are a reference to Beowulf, and I meant the Wyld to mean "predator" or, in more common tongue, he who will kill the dragon.

The monster Grendel terrorized the hall of Hrothgar, King of the Danes for years, killing Hrothgar’s warriors one by one until the heroic Beowulf arrived. He fought Grendel unarmed so that he would not have an unfair advantage over the beastand ripped Grendel’s arm off. Grendel crawled off to his lair to die. Grendel’s vengeful mother attacked, and Beowulf drove her off and killed her with a sword, then found Grendel’s corpse and cut off the head as a trophy.

Beowulf eventually became King of Geatland, and ruled for over 50 years until a slave’s theft of a golden cup from a treasure mound roused it to attack the Geats. Beowulf fought the beast and killed it, but was mortally wounded in the fight.

Most of Demandred’s parallels with the Beowulf legend related to the Age of Legends or events in A Memory of Light and are described in more detail here. (Graendal also has some parallels as can be seen by her name).

After devoting two years to tracking down and winning Sakarnen, to gain an advantage over Rand, Demandred decided not to use it against the Dragon, because it would not prove him the better man. He was a former slave who killed the dragon-like jumara guarding the golden cup of Sakarnen. It was a close fight and he thought it nearly killed him. For this deed, he was acclaimed Dragonslayer by the Sharans and was regarded as their savior and king.

Demandred’s months as a slave culminating in him leading a slave revolt and ultimately a revolution reminded me of Spartacus, one of the leaders of a major slave uprising against the Ancient Roman Republic. Being a skilled gladiator (since he survived the arena), an excellent military commander and a threat to the Roman republic, Spartacus matches Demandred well. The enemies of Ancient Rome are one of the three strands used to develop the Forsaken (the other two being gods and goddesses and the Nazis, see here for full article). Spartacus and his fellow rebel slaves had no intention of ending slavery but acted for their own ends, and so did Demandred; he was there to find Sakarnen, and urged that slaves should be freed as a way to fulfill the Dark One’s command to spread chaos:

Two years ago he had started on this course when he had decided to impersonate a slave among the Sharans. After that had come the revolution, which he had led almost by accident…
"You break us free of fate's chains. You did not know the prophecies when you first came - you have said so yourself - but you fulfilled them anyway."
"By accident."
"Releasing the enslaved, declaring all men free? That was an accident?"
"I did it to create chaos!" he said, turning.

River of Souls

I‘ve written more about this parallel here in the updated Demandred essay. I smiled when Moghedien impersonated Demandred after he was killed in A Memory of Light, because she had been a slave to the a’dam - and ended one, too - so her impersonation of him is really apt.

Did he appoint new nobility, perhaps after the original nobles were killed in the revolution and Graendal stole the monarchs? Or did he treat the original nobility harshly? In A Memory of Light, The Wyld, they were depressed, starved-looking and lacking in confidence.

The result of the slave revolution was that the male channeller concubines were freed of their fate. This parallels Rand’s pressure on the Sea Folk after the cleansing of saidin to stop killing their male channellers (The Gathering Storm, . Demandred taught the Freed how to channel, probably the way his protege Taim taught the Asha’man. At the Last Battle they seemed reasonably competent and would have needed some months to reach this level.

It is interesting that, of all the Forsaken, Demandred was the one who got most caught up in the society he infiltrated.

In the balance:

"All men want something," Mintel said. "All men receive something. Not all men understand the nature of what they have received. You came to us for one purpose, but it was not the purpose that the Grand Tapestry planned for you. That is not uncommon."

River of Souls

Demandred came for Sakarnen, “freed” Sharans and gained their united forces. He did not kill Rand, but accidentally “helped” convince him not to kill the Dark One. Just as he accidentally fulfilled the other Sharan prophecies.

Sharans, or Mintel at least, were not concerned with good or evil but with fate, the Pattern. Demandred freed many of them: a “good” outcome from an evil purpose. Yet they killed a lot of people and their channellers were all but wiped out. On the other hand, the channellers were either feared or hated because of the power they misused or the threat they posed.

Good and evil are necessary in the Pattern, as Moiraine said:

“The Creator is good, Perrin. The Father of Lies is evil. The Pattern of Age, the Age Lace itself, is neither. The Pattern is what is. The Wheel of Time weaves all lives into the Pattern, all actions. A pattern that is all one color is no pattern. For the Pattern of an Age, good and ill are the warp and the woof.”

The Dragon Reborn, Within the Weave

Mintel also followed this philosophy, but unlike him, Moiraine wouldn’t let Darkfriends live. Judging by his non-action in A Memory of Light, Mintel thought some outcomes would be worth the crimes. Mintel believed the Sharans were fated to help Demandred ‘save’ the Land from the Dragon. This was by making Rand see the nobility of the Light’s fighters as they battled the Shadowspawn, Darkfriends and Sharans and realize that he should not kill the Dark One.

The Sharan prophecies run in parallel to the Karaethon Cycle (see updated Prophecies of the Dragon article) so it’s not surprising that Demandred thought that they were all about Rand. Instead, Demandred mirrored Rand. He is right when he says that he and Rand are alike; they are similar enough to share a common parallel in Genghis and Kublai Khan. But of course, Rand is true and Demandred is wrong. Not false, wrong. As he has been since he joined the Shadow.

At Last: Demandred

By Linda


Until now, Demandred has held back (or been hidden by the author), but if he is ever going to strike on-screen, this is his only remaining chance. As he has always intended, he will strike at Moridin as well as Rand.

In The Gathering Storm Prologue, when Moridin asked him about the status of his preparations, Demandred said:

"My rule is secure," Demandred said simply. "I gather for war. We will be ready."

He was careful not to give any location, or even hint of where his forces are. Moridin may think he knows, but Demandred may have secreted extra in at least one other location.

In this Age the Shadow requires a general the equal of Mat Cauthon. Looked at the other way, the Pattern had to arrange for someone allied to the Light to be as good a general as Demandred, and as successful a gambler, too. The Shadow are well aware of the difference luck makes, and in the early books often commented on Lews Therin’s good fortune. After a lot of effort, Mat is both a brilliant general and a lucky gambler.

The Age of Legends was the equivalent of the Ancient Roman republic (see The Age of Legends essay) and enemies of Rome parallels of the Forsaken (see Three Strands Common to the Forsaken article). Demandred is a parallel of Hannibal, renowned for bringing elephants over the Alps to invade the Republic, the ultimate unexpected movement of forces or ultimate movement of unexpected forces. I think Demandred will move his forces via the Ways from “unlikely” places such as Seanchan.

One could compare the heights and depths of the paths and islands in the Ways with the steep passes of a mountain range. The Seanchan literally have elephants (s’redit) of course, but there are creatures from the If worlds trained for war that could also be brought to terrify mainland forces and cause chaos. These animals were able to eradicate all the Shadowspawn on the Seanchan continent (The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time) so they’d be a very useful addition to any army wanting to fight or defend itself against the Shadowspawn attacking the Westlands, whatever side that army is on.

So when Graendal remarks:

Demandred liked having armies to command, but there were none left moving in the world.

The Gathering Storm Prologue,

This is not altogether true: there are plenty on the Seanchan continent and, as Graendal muses, perhaps some on the mainland that have been at least partly subverted. Demandred may well have some forces in Murandy - not enough to be a threat to Moridin – and others elsewhere. It always puzzled me, with so many nations/areas and so few Forsaken, why some Forsaken haven’t drawn on more than one nation. Demandred has always liked using proxies, according to Sammael (Lord of Chaos, Threads Woven of Shadow), and by doing so he can amass armies in various locations until the time comes to move them into position on the gaming board.

I see him as being the general of all the Shadow's forces, but having some of his own personal forces in reserve to take control of areas he's conquered, destroy armies in his own name, or strike at Rand and Moridin.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #2: Prologue POVs 4-6

By Linda



WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

This post covers the second half of The Gathering Storm Prologue, starting with Graendal’s POV.

Graendal’s parallels are really obvious in the first scene of this POV: man-hungry Circe in her lair, which is a palace in a forest above a lake like Nazi leader Hermann Goering’s Carinhall (see Graendal essay for more on her parallels). She has enslaved a member of the Merchant Council and is tempted or distracted by Moridin’s messenger; he makes her think about killing Moridin.

She doesn’t appear to be as intelligent as RJ’s earlier portrayals of her. Normally her shallowness is a facade to deceive others, here it is more pervasive. For example, she criticises Mesaana’s appearance and suggests Mesaana joined the Shadow for research opportunities. Yet Graendal made a different and rather better diagnosis of Mesaana’s motives in Lord of Chaos. Graendal also daydreams of putting Moridin under Compulsion to serve her as her pet. She is fooled by one of Moridin’s serving men:

There was silence in the too-black room for a time, and then a servant in a crisp red uniform entered, bearing two cups. He was an ugly thing, with a flat face and bushy eyebrows, worth no more than a passing glance.

- The Gathering Storm, Prologue

He was probably watching her while she disregarded him and so was definitely worth more than a passing glance. (This servant appears to be the reverse of the beautiful, white-clad zomaran, but perhaps has a similar role in unexpectedly ‘reading’ Moridin’s guests.)

Moridin is in the deep Northeastern Blight in a black stone building with no glass in windows. Just as Graendal has her Carinhall, so Moridin could own multiple towers/fortresses as the Nazis did. Shadowspawn in this part of the Blight supposedly only obey the Dark One, not even Moridin. It is hot and very austere. Graendal used to be into austerity, but she isn’t now. Or did she only like her own austerity and not anyone else’s? A thinly-veiled holier-than-thou?

Moridin has become more stern and authoritative – more like Rand. He stands staring at nothing like Rand does. Rand and Moridin are merging. Moridin, the would-be captor of the Fisher King, is himself becoming like the Fisher King.

Unlike Rand, Moridin is obsessed with killing Mat and Perrin. Graendal wants to kill Rand instead, as probably all the Forsaken except Moridin do. Each one thinks they are the only one who dares to consider killing Rand against orders. Moridin doesn’t want Rand dead yet until he is in the right place at the right time:

”He is to live unharmed until he can face me at that last day.”

- The Gathering Storm, Prologue

The other Forsaken disregard this. Does Moridin think that the Pattern will look after Rand until the Last Moment or when Rand breaks the Seals and that is the Shadow’s chance to kill him and win?

Graendal sees Moridin as:

lacking in imagination lately. Everything of black and red, and all focused on killing those fool boys from the village of Rand al'Thor.

The Gathering Storm, Prologue

Is Moridin unimaginative? Or setting them an example of focus? Or is he fooling them all?

Demandred and Mesaana asked for the meeting with Moridin, and arrived together for moral support and to show a united front to Moridin while they ask his aid in rescuing Semirhage. They didn’t think that anyone else would be there that would need fooling – least of all Graendal. Graendal should have known this or been quicker to figure it out.

Moiridin invited her along to put them off balance and to humiliate them; and to manipulate Graendal, too, to make her feel like she should, and could, outdo Demandred, Mesaana and the hapless Semirhage and do what Moridin wants.

A woman – a Darkfriend? A Black Sister? – reported to Mesaana and Demandred that Semirhage didn’t intend to harm Rand, and that injuring him was a reflex. Did this woman witness it personally, or was she told by other witnesses? Elza was not personally present during the attack. Maybe the informant was a sul’dam or damane. The fact that all the Seanchan were revolted by Semirhage’s declaration of her identity means nothing, such is her reputation on both sides.

Demandred says that Semirhage knows he would kill her for killing Rand, because the Dragon’s death is his prerogative. Big deal. Demandred is not convincing here. All the Forsaken are planning on killing Rand if they can and none worry about big shot Demandred paying them out for it.

There will be no rescue of Semirhage as punishment for her failure and because she injured Rand when this was forbidden. and Demandred and Mesaana are forbidden to rescue her.

Rand’s injury pains Moridin, which is why he doesn’t want Rand harmed physically. He’s going to go for psychological pain instead. If he thought he wouldn’t be affected by it, or that it would be less difficult to bear than physical pain, he was wrong. Or maybe he was willing to bear it. The way Moridin lives now – the bleakness and discomfort – would add to Rand’s misery, as would Moridin’s displeasure and frustration with Semirhage. Quite probably Moridin’s fortress serves the dual purpose of adding to Rand’s discomfort through the link, while also intimidating other Forsaken. Moridin’s trying to drive Rand over the edge, but will he feel it too? Moridin’s showing a raw temper like Rand and all his lighter mockery is gone. This becomes obvious when the two souls meet in Tel’aran’rhiod as their old, true selves.

Humiliated or not, Demandred and Mesaana tell something of their plans. Mesaana says she will have all Aes Sedai serving the Shadow and that the White Tower will soon fall to her. She claims she is gaining followers all the time – some knowingly, others not. Who are these followers? And who are they following? We didn’t see much evidence of it in The Gathering Storm or Towers of Midnight. Graendal regards Mesaana’s claims as unsubstantiated boasts.

Demandred prepares for war, and says he will be ready. So he’s not quite ready yet. Is he conning Moridin as much as Mesaana is? He’s ruling someone or something supposedly. Neither we nor Graendal have any idea what Demandred is doing. Graendal thinks he’s a fool to bear a grudge against Lew Therin; that it is a waste of energy and time. Is Demandred with the Borderlander armies? Or on the Seanchan continent?

Graendal has spies on the Borderlander camp but has seen no sign of other Forsaken there. She knows which Aes Sedai Mesaana is pretending to be and has agents watching her. Graendal doesn’t know that Aran’gar left the rebels at least two weeks earlier. She has only just discovered that Semirhage was masquerading as a high-ranking Seanchan.

Lanfear and Moghedien are rallying Darkfriends and trying to kill Mat and Perrin, according to Graendal. She’s probably right: it was probably Lanfear who set Masema up to kill Perrin – her typical modus operandi of dreams and madness was used; and Masema was nearly successful.

Graendal thinks that:

Moridin was gathering the Great Lord's forces for the Last Battle, and his war preparations left him very little time for the south.

The Gathering Storm, Prologue

Despite what Graendal thinks, Moridin probably is doing more than war preparations. Moridin, like Demandred, is very hard to read and keep tabs on, as Graendal discovers on her next visit to Moridin’s fortress in Towers of Midnight.

Graendal didn’t know what to make of Moridin’s looking at her while rebuking Mesaana:

"You will speak when I give you leave, Mesaana," he replied coldly. "You are not yet forgiven."
She cringed, then obviously grew angry at herself for it. Moridin ignored her, glancing over at Graendal, eyes narrow. What was that look for?

The Gathering Storm, Prologue

Again, this is something that Graendal should be able to work out. Moridin looks at Graendal with narrowed eyes because he is seeing if she is taking note of the situation or to make her take note. (And Graendal oversteps far more than Mesaana does.) His look is also designed to annoy Demandred and Mesaana by reminding them they are pleading in front of Graendal.

Moridin tempts Graendal with a carrot, offering a small reward to her in advance, to get her to prevent Rand pacifying Arad Doman, and to bring him emotional pain. The latter order is added seemingly as an afterthought, but is probably more important to his strategy of getting Rand to despair. It very nearly worked. Rand nearly did the Dark One’s job of destroying everything including himself. Moridin is motivating Graendal rather than ordering her, so perhaps her task is a very risky one. I guess the example of Semirhage has sobered them all up.


Ituralde’s POV shows his skill as one of the Great Captains. In this scene he fools the Seanchan and the reader into thinking he has far more forces than he does and that the Seanchan will be attacked on two fronts. Like his later battle in the Borderlands, his victory is one few others could achieve but comes at a high cost. Knowing how good he is, his vain struggles to save Maradon in Towers of Midnight are all the more impressive. Ituralde is the king of lost causes and unwinnable battles.

Will Ituralde have his wish to have access to raken for aerial surveillance? He is one for whom the Seanchan now have great respect, so he may direct some of their forces in the Last Battle. Mat Cauthon can’t be everywhere.


In Masema’s POV we see that despite his words the Prophet’s heart isn’t too pure, but full of personal ambition. He isn’t thinking about how he can help Rand to victory, but about what Rand’s victory will do for him. Masema wants to be raised up to the level just below Rand as his Prophet:

Think not of the past, think of the future, when the Lord Dragon would rule all of the land! When men would be subject only to him, and to his Prophet beneath him. Those days would be glorious indeed, days when none would dare scorn the Prophet or deny his will.

The Gathering Storm Prologue

From what Lanfear told Rand, Asmodean dreamed of something similar:

He dreams of you triumphing over the Great Lord and putting him up beside you on high.

- The Fires of Heaven, Gateways

The two men are not that far apart. They both induced large groups to butcher innocents, ravage the countryside and provide an unwelcome distraction. Masema betrayed the Creator, and Asmodean the Dark One and probably both were meddled with by Lanfear. Masema lost his sanity, Asmodean most of his channelling ability. Both men professed allegiance to Rand, but were not that useful, and both were ambushed and killed by women.

Masema admits the failure of his Dragonsworn movement was his fault – but for the wrong reason. He regrets not killing Perrin long ago in The Great Hunt, before Masema even followed Rand. The night before the battle of Malden Masema saw a vision of Rand commanding him to kill Perrin. He sent Aram to do it. The “vision’ was probably created by one of the Forsaken; Lanfear is the most likely perpetrator. Sending people mad and manipulating their dreams was her modus operandi in the Age of Legends. Moreover Masema’s uncertain mental state can be traced back to early in The Dragon Reborn, when very few of the Forsaken knew where Rand was or who he was with. Lanfear was one who did.

Wandering in dark woods is symbolic of Masema’s state of mind. His memories of life as Masema are blurry, another sign of mental manipulations such as induced insanity or Compulsion.

Can someone be blamed for being sent mad or going mad?

Masema blames Darkfriends for the high casualty rate he suffered at Malden. He assumed the Dragon would protect the Dragonsworn (from afar, even) and lead them to victory. Likewise in the next book, Galad believed the Children would be strong and protected by their belief in the Light and the Creator, until casualties showed him otherwise. His sanity contrasts with Masema’s. One minute Masema is proud and fond of followers, the next contemptuous and thinking they are cowardly or Darkfriends. However, Asunawa also accused Whitecloaks of being Darkfriends when things did not go his way.

This scene of Faile killing Masema reinforces that Faile is important in her own right. The Prophet started out like John the Baptist, and unlike Salome, Faile “took his head” personally. Ambushing Masema in the woods while dressed in green, she is Wild Woman defending her Wild Man husband (see Faile and Berelain and Perrin essays for more on their parallels).

Just as Masema and Asmodean mirror each other, so the Dragonsworn and Darkfriends are both millenarian extremists.

Masema’s followers were renowned for their abnormal, often violent, behaviour in their efforts to recruit for the Dragon. Masema’s concentration on the Dragon’s rebirth and imminent salvation of the world and rejection of everything else as useless is typically millenarian. He preached that belief in the Dragon and obedience to his word is enough to ensure the defeat of the Shadow.

The Forsaken/Darkfriends are far more developed as a millenarian cult. This is hardly surprising, since they were established more than three thousand years ago and it is their master, the Dark One, who wants to end the world as it currently is. From the Shadow’s point of view, their victory will usher in an eternity of rule under the Dark One – a dark eternity of an evil paradise where they will be the elect. Many Darkfriends are in the same mould:

Unlike the Forsaken, Darkfriends have not known immortality, yet they have survived as a society for over three thousand years, serving and waiting for Tarmon Gai’don: the Last Battle…Some extremists are deeply dedicated to obtaining freedom for the Dark One and thus immortality and dominion for themselves.

- The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time

On the other hand, while the Whitecloaks are religious extremists, they showed little acceptance of the Dragon as the Creator’s surrogate and most showed little interest in the Last Battle at all, let alone feel it is imminent, until Galad took charge.

At death Masema’s soul falls into the void. It doesn’t sound like the Creator was impressed with him.

Knife of Dreams Read-through #3: Forsaken Actions and Plans in Knife of Dreams

By Linda

Moridin, the Naeblis

In Knife of Dreams At the Gardens, Moridin called a meeting to make sure all Forsaken are in line. No Forsaken is to follow their own plans. Nor are they to send Trollocs or Myrddraal out of the Blight; they must report immediately to him if any are seen. The Forsaken are not to harm Rand in any way, but Mat and Perrin must be killed. With so little time left before the Last Battle, Moridin thinks the Pattern won’t have time to make ta’veren alternative aides with as much following as these two have and so they can be removed to weaken Rand.

He offhandedly agreed with Demandred that the Seals must be found and directed the Forsaken to search for them.

Moridin’s playing mind-games with the other Forsaken, putting out more chairs than ‘necessary’ to make them wonder what he knows or doesn’t know. And what they don’t know that he does.

Graendal implied she chose the setting for the meeting. Lews Therin equated being ‘at the Gardens’ with a relaxing day out (Knife of Dreams, News For the Dragon). If she did make the backdrop, possibly with Moridin’s approval or instructions, she was probably trying to make this unconscious association in the other Forsaken’s minds to take them off their guard. She says that these sort of associations have an affect even on the most sophisticated (The Path of Daggers, New Alliances). With the Forsaken comparatively at ease, the mind-reading zomaran can read their thoughts, and contrary to what the other Forsaken believe, very likely pass on to Moridin what they sense. It would explain his widely acknowledged preference for them.

Aran’gar, whose POV it is, associated the Gardens with expensive goodies and winnings obtainable only by cheating, and thought up a couple of schemes at the meeting – one to squeeze Graendal, the other to kill Moridin and get the mindtraps of Moghedien and Cyndane.

Moridin made it obvious even to someone as unobservant as Aran’gar that he holds the mindtraps of Cyndane and Moghedien and that Mesaana has been punished.

A couple of other things Moridin did prior to or during Knife of Dreams are: he ordered Semirhage to capture Rand without harming him (The Gathering Storm, Prologue), which she attempted, and he had established a black fortress deep within the Blight in the northeast. Graendal noted that she was “on the second level of a deep black tower" in The Gathering Storm, Prologue with crops already being grown in the surrounding area.

Moridin feels nausea when Rand seizes saidin and Rand feels nausea when Moridin channels (Knife of Dreams, Within the Stone) (see Crossroads of Twilight Post #5: Visions of Others for an exploration of this).


Aran’gar

While Aran’gar has previously disguised herself as other Forsaken, she didn’t disguise herself as Sammael and order Shadowspawn to attack Rand’s group at Algarin’s manor. Aran’gar left the rebel Aes Sedai with Delana just prior to being exposed by Romanda, and her whereabouts are unknown. She formed an alliance with Graendal probably before her abrupt departure (The Gathering Storm, Prologue) and aims to use Graendal’s Darkfriend contacts in ways she thought Graendal would disapprove and kill Graendal when she is no longer useful (Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens).

Aran’gar also plans to kill Moridin and take over Cyndane’s and Moghedien’s mindtraps. Good luck with that.


Cyndane and Moghedien

These two have been rallying Darkfriends and trying to kill Mat and Perrin at Moridin’s orders according to Graendal (The Gathering Storm, Prologue).

It was probably Cyndane who sent Masema a vision of Rand in his dreams ordering him to kill Perrin (The Gathering Storm, Prologue). “Dream hauntings” were Lanfear’s speciality. Masema’s madness began early in The Dragon Reborn when very few Forsaken, perhaps only Ishamael and Lanfear, knew of the significance of Mat and Perrin.


Demandred

Demandred said he has been looking for the last three Seals (Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens). From Moridin’s complacent smile, he knows where they are and can access them when he wants, or he isn’t worried about any other Forsaken finding them. Moridin might think the Seals don’t have to be in the Shadow’s hands to open the Bore at the Last Battle.

Demandred has apparently been making his rule secure and gathering for war (The Gathering Storm, Prologue).


Graendal

Aran’gar thinks Graendal has a wider range of Darkfriend contacts than she. Graendal told Aran’gar that Cyndane was not Lanfear because she is weaker in the Power than Lanfear was (Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens). It is not known if Graendal believed this at that time or was dissembling. She allowed Aran’gar to toy with her, when Graendal never lets herself be the lesser of any pair, although she will flirt with someone she intends to kill or who intends to kill her (A Crown of Swords, Patterns within Patterns). It looks like Graendal has Aran’gar sussed out.

By The Gathering Storm, Prologue she had formed an alliance with Aran’gar.


Mesaana

Mesaana’s punishment by Shaidar Haran for not attending the Cleansing or Forsaken meetings and not following Moridin’s orders was publicised at the Forsaken meeting as a warning to the others (Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens). Unheeded in Aran’gar’s case.

Mesaana wanted Aran’gar to sow further dissension among the rebels. She didn’t want Egwene captured because she assumed the rebellion would then fall apart ( Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens) despite having been warned previously by Aran’gar that Egwene is not a figurehead.

Graendal believes she knows which Aes Sedai in the White Tower is Mesaana’s alias.


Semirhage

As her contribution to ‘let the Lord of Chaos rule’, Semirhage killed the entire Imperial family of Seanchan and sent a ship to the mainland to inform the Return (Knife of Dreams, Prologue). She then encouraged Suroth to find and kill Tuon and become Empress.

From her words:

"Perrin Aybara and Mat Cauthon," Semirhage murmured, inspecting the two shapes. "So that is what they look like. Who knows, Moridin. If you had shared this with us before now, they might already have been dead."

- Knife of Dreams, At the Gardens

she has seen both Mat and Perrin, not just Mat.

Moridin ordered Semirhage to capture Rand and not harm him (The Gathering Storm, Prologue). She disguised herself as Tuon and aimed to collar Rand and his entourage with a’dams. In a reflex action, Semirhage burned Rand’s hand off and damaged his eyesight in contradiction to her orders and was captured by Rand’s group (Knife of Dreams, A Plain Wooden Box). She did not expect that two of the party would have ter’angreal protection devices.

These Forsaken are dead and apparently not reincarnated: Asmodean, Be’lal, Osan’gar, Rahvin, Sammael.