In the absolute you'd be perfectly right there doesn't seem to be any logic to this, but the massive failure with Rand, and his epiphany, changes everything. Moridin and Shai'tan are linked to Rand, you can bet they know he's changed (from their perspective, for the worse, much worse). Rand also openly claims to have all the memories of LTT (where Mesaana could hear, notably).


If this Rand breaks the seals, it means he's about to strike at the DO, and if he's about to strike at SG, and has "saved" the armies of the world incl. all channellers by gathering them together and unifying them, the Shadow doesn't have much of a choice but to launch the War. Rand is placing the Shadow on the defensive at SG. The Breaking of the seals was the only forewarning the DO would have of Rand's impending strike at Shayol Ghul. If Rand breaks the seals right off the bat, he turns the tables on Shai'tan. It's no longer the world living with the sword of Damocles of the LB over its head, it's now Shai'tan who has to drive the War without knowing when and how the Light will strike at SG. Shai'tan could sit on his butt at SG and wait (which is what Moridin and his forces will do, keeping himself in reserve for this), but all this would do is make Rand and the Light the time to rebuild their strength and learn to work together more efficiently (just the possibility of seing soon the channellers male and female all together is a threat to the Shadow), and leave him time to refine his plans. Or the Shadow could strike in the hope of not losing the initiative, and hope Rand will be stupid enough to lead the LB himself as LTT once did, and so be too busy to even think of the Strike. With his strike at Maradon and though it wasn't his intent to do this, Rand might have deluded the Shadow he might do just that, that he will come in person to defend certain targets.

The missing element in all of this is why Lews Therin appears so oblivious to the fact Demandred is obviously alive and well and has managed to keep himself aside for the Last Battle itself. It's very unlikely LTT is truly oblivious to this, it's merely a plot convenience that Rand didn't share his thoughts on his old foe on screen (at least not openly, though personally I think there was at least one clear allusion made by Rand)

We even got news details about Bel Medar's betrayal of LTT. When he went to the Shadow, Demandred brought with him a group of followers, and announced his new allegiance by attacking Lews Therin by surprise. Once again it shows Demandred obsessed with his rivals's accomplishements. Demandred does care about the "symbols". Demandred seems to have one exploitable weakness as a general: his targets are predictable, what Rand has accomplished, Demandred wants to match. What Rand has, Demandred wants. He wanted LTT's place, he created his group of followers to match the Hundred Companions (and as usual failing only by a small margin) - he wasn't to go away to the Shadow like a punk with his tail between his legs, he had to go there proudly as LTT's match (this betrayal of Demandred and his Eighty-One seems to the second biggest blow of the WOS faced by LTT after the Fateful Concord: one of his closest collaborators defecting all at once, bringing with him a large group of LTT's staff or officers. The dual message was clear: "You should have chosen me as leader, but now it's too late", and provoke a crisis of confidence in LTT's leadership with this mass defection among his staff.)

So what to expect of Demandred now? What are Rand's "accomplishements?" He's conquered nations, and retook from the Shadow Tear, Illian, Caemlyn and Arad Doman. He's gained the Aiel, took Cairhien. He's created the Black Tower. He's failed to make an alliance with the Seanchan when Semirhage fell. His ally Egwene took the WT on her own and the AS have not given Rand their allegience, which might incidentally not place Tar Valon at the top of Demandred's wish list.

By his gathering the forces of the world at the fields of Merrilor - in essence stripping the cities of their defenses, Rand is offering on a silver platter to Demandred a golden opportunity to seize in his opening move the symbols of Rand's power of his choice. Will it be Caemlyn or the Stone, Illian or Rhuidean? Or all of them at once? That would be a coup attractive to Demandred, undoing all of Rand's conquests in one blow. This not only humiliates Rand, Demandred could also flatter himself to have retaken for the GL all the "bases" the incompetent Chosen have lost to Rand (because Demandred also cares about demonstrating his superiority among the Chosen) This is also a gamble that is very attractive strategically. By conquering Tear, Caemlyn, Cairhien and Rhuidean in particular, Demandred would gain secured Waygates, three Portal Stones and fortified staging grounds (complete with food, ie: people) for massive Shadowspawn armies. It would also take the civilian populations hostage (including the Aiel of Rhuidean.. and we know Demandred particularly hates the Aiel, LTT's old followers). Rand wants his unified army and an early strike at SG, Demandred shows him the price to get it is to abandon the people to their fate. And Demandred wants badly Rand to come lead the war and face him on the battlefield. He's gonna do all he can to bait him to do just that, to distract him from SG. Demandred will be furious that Rand doesn't intend to lead the War himself. Furious. It will be interesting to see what Demandred attempts to make Rand change his mind. It will have to be personal.

For Rand this is a huge gamble. If Demandred controls his appetite - or worse, doesn't come into the open because he's seen the trap and he decides to wait to commit himself and throw only Shadowspawn at the Light for the time being, Rand is a bit screwed. If Demandred can't resist conquering all or many of the symbols of Rand's power, then he spreads himself thinner than wise, and once he's conquered Demandred won't want to be seen losing any of his conquests back to the Light as a matter of pride.

As for the indirect allusion to Demandred I think Rand made in TGS, I believe it's when he realized there was a dreamspike at the BT and commented that this could be the most dangerous trap he's faced yet. In LOC, LTT instincts already screamed "Demandred" at Rand when he met Taim, but Rand pushed this away as madman ramblings. Now that we know about the Eighty and One, it seems a solid possibility what LTT meant in LOC is that he's met this sort of men before... those who followed Barid Bel Medar.

Now that we know Barid Bel Medar had gathered followers it seems even more obvious he's behind Taim, but what also seems obvious now is that most of the DF channelers Taim found were never sent to the BT, just enough to mount an hidden faction with whom to spot all those who showed promise of joining the Shadow, and to control the Lightsiders, and what they learned and what they wouldn't learn. Demandred let Taim handle the infiltration and undermining of Rand's male channelers, and now that the War is about to start, Taim is cleaning the place up of Lightsiders and has been given a tool to fortify the place against Travelling. A palace with the insignia of the Shadow's generals is already built... that sounds to me like Taim has prepared for Demandred his LB headquarters, and Demandred is about to come... he just needs to get Caemlyn under control first.

The core of Demandred's army is hidden, elsewhere, likely it was far in the Blight all along known only by Demandred, the DO and the Nae'blis (I think we've seen the first of Demandred's non-Asha'man soldiers around Moridin in TGS, and in TOM I think a few of them have started to liaise with Taim - those "new recruits" who gain power and rank too fast. They're not really new recruits. They're trained men sent from elsewhere, and they barely care enough anymore to pretend for a short while they're new to channelling). Those "Red Veils" are probably Demandred's as well (and with their black eyes may not even be Aiel at all). Rand has Aiel, Demandred had to field something like them. One even wonders if the Red Veils isn't the force Demandred intends to throw at Rand's Aiel armies specifially. Where he got these pseudo-Aiel is anyone's guess... Shara, Island of Madmen,remote areas of Seanchan? If they're Aiel male sparkers collected over the last centuries, there can't be that many. Their "clan chiefs" might be those Aiel sparkers, but I think the Red Veil we've seen in TOM wasn't Aiel. Aiel dreadlords would have little use for Spears, to begin with.