Agreed. He also found Be'lal's, Rahvin's and especially Sammael's strategies stupid, which suggests strongly he didn't follow in their footsteps and compromised himself by taking a position of power under an alias, nor did he create a situation where a known ruler would suddenly change his strategy massively, as this would have attracted all the other Chosen's spies. That's why no Chosen has managed to puzzle out what he's doing (Sammael was likely wrong, and the others don't have a clue). Demandred's plan involve something the other Chosen don't question, that they are convinced is someone's else's doing... like Rand and his BT....

Another clue is that DF referred to Demandred as Demandred. It quite probably means he uses his status and reputation openly with his underlings.



I still think it's pretty obvious (and has been since Taimandred was crushed by Jordan) that Demandred has made himself the commander of the Shadow's elite armies - skilled channellers is what Shai'tan values the most over anyone else, and that's what Demandred has provided him. His plans almost certainly are complementary to Semirhage's and Mesaana's, who controlled the two most dangerous groups of female channellers. Two in the trio had pawns of SH or Moridin nearby (Suroth for Semirhage, Halima for Mesaana), which makes it very likely Demandred had one watcher too.. Dashiva. Then there's his rivalry with LTT to factor in, and Rand's most personal venture is the BT. There's also the fact Mesaana laughed off Alviarin's worries about the BT. There's the matter of "screentime" too: Demandred's plans were secret, but no doubt we've seen a lot of them in motion without knowning, and it's an important storyline, not an obscure side plot. It all makes it rather obvious whatever side plans Demandred has been involved in (and there may have been quite a few - after Ishamael's death, Demandred had hegemonic goals and is likely to have tried to demonstrate to Shai'tan he could be globally in charge of everything), he sought to place a backstabber as Rand's lieutenant, and when Rand didn't take the bait and made that man the trainer of his army of male channellers, Demandred adapted his plans and embraced this golden opportunity with open arms.

Demandred's the real commander of the BT, perhaps among other things, but the other things are likely to have resulted from seizing opportunities, and to create diversions that might scatter the light's forces.

Demandred thinks like a General. He's extremely unlikely to have devised any convoluted plan, involving tons of pieces that need to fall in place to work. He's gonna have something very solid with great adaptability.



I disagree, I think Demandred and his plans will turn out to be central to TOM, perhaps the most important Forsaken scheme in the book.

In TGS, we saw mostly Moridin's plans for Rand (which included using Graendal). However, we got a Demandred/Mesaana prologue scene, and barely any "pay off". Mesaana/Alviarin were even glaringly absent, except for Mesaana's late move toward Aran'gar's pawn Sheriam.

IMO, the main reason for this is that Mesaana's actions during the timeline of TGS are connected with Demandred, and Alviarin's actions lead right to the flight of the BA from the Tower, and their destination. So Brandon chose to keep all this for ToM.

IMO, the climax of the book, the "big event" that launches Tarmon Gai'don, involves a battle led by Demandred. The KOD epilogue set the stage, revealing Taim as a DF, with a military symbol of the Shadow on the doors of his palace. IMO, what we will discover next is that this palace was built in prevision of Demandred's arrival to the BT. Demandred ordered it built, with this symbol and these colours, because the Nae'blis has such a palace.




It's hard to tell how much Mesaana's plans have been compromised. Well... it looks like the personal aspect of her plan was to destroy the WT as an organization, finish off the "AS Guild" she hated so much, and Semirhage hated so much, and Demandred hated too. That part of the plan failed massively and looks irrecuperable. The only way the WT will come down now is through war. Semirhage is no longer there to "guide" Tuon in the right directions, and the Shadow lost Suroth as well. The Seanchan have become a big wilcard, unless the Shadow has someone else very influential near Tuon. Otherwise, she's an absolute monarch, and the real supreme commander of the Seanchan armies. All the Shadow can do now is bait her, provoke her (a retaliatory raid on Ebou Dar for the WT attack by the BA/Taim would work extremely nicely... especially one that would be destructive yet leave the Seanchan armies pretty much untouched.... the other option is to behead the Seanchan... all the Shadow needs to do is to obliterate the Tarasin palace and the Empress, the top bureaucrats (incl. Seekers etc.), the military commanders, the prominent High Blood are all dead...).

In Mesaana's place, I'd worry more that she might have become irrelevant to Demandred by losing the WT, and sending the BA away. If as I believe Demandred is at the BT, Mesaana was forced by Moridin to remain near Egwene and the BA is now hidden with Taim and therefore part of Demandred's army... is Mesaana still a valuable ally or is it time for him to abandon their alliance?

Moridin has made a major strike against the trio in TGS: he revealed to them that Semirhage was following secretely his orders. Not Shai'tan's, his own. Through Graendal, he also showed he could favour some Chosen over others. The message was clear: Semirhage put their alliance aside to serve in a dangerous mission that would have gotten her rewarded, and now it was fairly obviously Graendal Moridin was turning too, having her come early to a meeting to witness the duo's humiliation.

Moridin has revealed just enough so that the other Chosen would stay away from his "pets" Cyndane and Moghedien. Now, Graendal was becoming "untouchable", in the sense that she was another seemingly siding with Moridin, beside her ties to Aran'gar. The promise of a big reward from Moridin would make Graendal cautious not to mistep with Aran'gar. That left Moridin to engineer something to create mistrust/distance between Mesaaana and Demandred. That's easily taken care of if SH ordered Alviarin to send the BA to Demandred... a poisonned gift to transfert the remnants of Mesaana's power base to her ally, which she would ressent, and if Moridin told Demandred he was getting the BA because Mesaana's proved incompetent to keep them hidden at the WT...




Well, if Moridin is clever, he won't try to backstab Demandred, he will "reward" Demandred while implying he needs to right the failures of his two allies, and make him backstab Mesaana. It's not easy to secure Demandred's loyalty, but it's feasible... at least for a while, because he would rapidly come to ressent the promise of being made number two under Moridin.... but this can be taken care of, in the short term. It begins by Shaidar Haran making him the top commander of the Shadow's forces, and promise him he will be the one to bring down Rand when time comes. That might make Demandred more cautious and patient to take out Moridin, because he believes Shai'tan is now favouring him. It might convince Demandred to try to outshine Moridin rather than have him killed.

There's a very good reason why Demandred has yet to move against Moridin: it's an extremely dangerous move to make, all the more because Moridin is not moving much from his palace it appears. Demandred wants to be Nae'blis, and that comes before any personal and emotional desire to bring down Moridin, the way he hates LTT. Demandred's not gonna move against Moridin unless he has a perfect opportunity, where he wouldn't be suspected and thus destroy any hope to be the new Nae'blis. Then there's the fact if the trio had a common endgame, it's either ruined or it's all up to Demandred to bring it to success as his side of the plan is the only one still unimpaired. Demandred's immediate priority may well be to recuperate the mess made by Semirhage and Mesaana (as I mentionned, having Taim & the BA retaliate against Tuon for the WT raid in a somewhat half-baked way might force the Seanchan to launch a much bigger campaign against the WT and BT, or Rand's power bases like Tear etc. Personally, I think this would probably be the best move for the Shadow: heat up the Seanchan/Asha'man/AS conflict, then while the Light is at war against each other and all hopes of alliances are gone, launch main strikes at the Light, for instance Caemlyn & the Borderland armies, Logain's faction, the Asha'man Rand left in Saldaea etc.)

Now that the BA are with Taim, or at least free to join Taim, there's very little purpose to let the Asha'man and AS alliance go forward, so the Shadow is most likely looking to create some horror that would split the BT/WT apart, which would be even more interesting now that Rand has gone and offered the alliance himself, meaning there's hope he will get directly blamed and the WT will think him either mad beyond any hope, or so dangerous and out of control he needs to be controlled by force.

The two most dangerous individuals now are Logain and Egwene. Logain is the one who knows Rand has made a massive mistake to overlook his suspicions of Taim, but his offer of 47 men was genuine and Rand wants no conflict between Asha'man and AS. Egwene's the one most likely to accept such information, as she's looking for ways to rationalize Rand's actions. She fears the worst about him, but she still hopes there's a good explanation for all this. Egwene willl be rageful when she learns Rand sent her to the BT despite Logain's warnings about Taim, but her anger wouldn't be directed against the Asha'man/Logain. If Logain doesn't decide to come to her before or soon after she learns the Red envoys have fallen into a trap, and her own have (maybe) vanished, things could get irreparable in the short term (in time for TG) between AS and Asha'man.

The Shadow must be perfectly aware of the threat Logain represents as they had pawns near Rand, though they're not aware of the personal debt he owes to Egwene. Rand doesn't trust him, but Egwene has trusted him. If Logain is still mulling over Rand's blindness about Taim and displeased to have been pushed aside (he's out of the main action, guarding a border, basically), and as convinced as ever Taim must be dealt with, Egwene should occur to him as his best potential ally... (I'm still pretty convinced the apparent "vanishing" of Egwene's envoys happened at Logain's orders, whether he was encouraged by a letter from Verin or not. I think Verin might be involved, because Logain doesn't really have a motive not to warn Egwene immediately that her envoys were in danger and Rand made a mistake, while Verin had all the motives in the world to want the envoys to vanish for a while and Egwene to get contacted only after/if the BA purge has succeeded.

So I think the envoys have been diverted from Caemlyn to a secret location, then taken prisoners to prevent them from communicating with Egwene or the Forsaken alike, until the BA purge has happened. Toward the end of the book, after Egwene learns the Red envoys have disappeared and she believes Rand has trapped them, and her own envoys, and Egwene is wondering if she is not facing another war beside that with the Seanchan, Logain or his envoys will appear at TV, the Asha'man and AS will ally for good and the plan to strike against Taim will be made. I wouldn't be surprised Logain, who's been very shabbily treated by Rand so far, accepts an offer by Egwene, murderously angry at Rand for sending her to a man he was forewarned was a DF, to make all the men of his faction Aes Sedai. We know from Elaida's foretelling that the BA purge, the Amyrlin's anger and the battle at the BT are all linked - and what could make the WT more whole and stronger than ever than the return of the male Aes Sedai to the fold after 3000 years? Egwene's Tower is hardly stronger than the WT of the "golden age" on the Second Covenant otherwise, centuries after the Breaking and before the days of the BA, when the Tower's reputation was also good, and its infuence making the Tower's of the NE look a pity. As for "stealing" the Asha'man from Rand, it's nothing Rand himself has not done - at least from Egwene's perspective. It would be a hard sale to the Hall, but with saidin clean, these men are there to stay, and in its history the WT had a mean to integrate groups of channellers and mold them to a common culture... make them AS too. . That's Egwene's big sale point, not only for the Asha'man but if there's any resistance in the Tower to her plan to associate all channellers with it: bringing together all groups of channellers and make them fight their differents peacefully and politically instead of through open or violent rivalry was how the WT was founded in the first place. Now it just need to be "re founded" to integrate the new groups, and not necessarily as Ajahs.