Demandred must be used to command "minor Forsaken", as his channelling underlings all were back in the WOS (and he must have had far more than a handful of powerful rivals to contend with at the same time. It's nothing new for Demandred that his underlings could have divided loyalty and might abandon or betray him if he showed any weakness). One change now is that they don't even have that Forsaken status (for now, and that we know) and his authority over them is even clearer, better seated. The other change is that events made it so that unless Moridin decides to get involved in leading battle (why would he?), he won't have to compete to be the Shadow's main general this time, and their demise came very early in the game. From the get go (ie: back in LOC), Demandred has known there wouldn't be any Be'lal and Rhavin at the LB, and later Sammael got out of his way (and noticed how in KOD Demandred lost his usual self-control when Moridin pretended that Sammael might still be around). Basically, Demandred has known since LOC or so, before Taim was sent to Rand, that if he needs men to play leadership roles similar to that played by Be'lal, Rahvin, Sammael at the LB, he had to train them. Unlike his "partners", whom he hated, totally distrusted and competed with, those men are clearly his underlings, whom he would have trained as he wishes, following his vision of strategy and tactics, his hierarchy, and his leadership.

I believe Demandred has recruited far more than we see at the BT, and those probably aren't even his elite troops. Taim has long been obsessed with recruitement and numbers. He went from being pissed not to be near Rand, and obsessed to place someone near him to very suddenly distancing himself from Rand and focussing on his faction at the BT and making promises about numbers to Rand so Rand wouldn't be suspicious if he learned how extensive Taim's recruiting efforts were (which IMO indicates the orders of his patron have changed radically at some point. Taim's original role was changed because Rand placed him where he did and opportunities arose from that). Before Logain showed up, it was his followers doing all the recruiting, but Taim's faction remains deceptively small. We know that Taim's teams appeal to desire for power right from recruiting, a good strategy to sound for the potential of these men for eventually joining the Shadow. How many people with the ability that would be too good assets for the Light Taim's teams have rejected, we'll never know. Asha'man of the strength of Taim/Logain have not surfaced quite a few of the lightsiders are rather weak, and Taim's faction seems to have some of the strongest recruits... we can at least say that. Recruiting an army for Rand, sure... but has Taim recruited the army he would have recruited if he served the Light? Somehow, I doubt it.

I believe Demandred has let Taim have only a fraction of the people Taim found, enough to consolidate his power and control the BT, and be able to destroy or turn Rand's army down the line (Rand calling so many Asha'man out in KOD was a blow to the plan. More Asha'man have now escaped the final BT "purge" than the Shadow originally hoped for, I guess). The rest of the DF/turnable candidates was sent elsewhere to some well hidden base. Taim and his faction are merely the plan to undermine Rand's efforts to build an army of male channelers. By leaving Taim in charge, Rand has provided Demandred with a smokescreen and easy mean to test and recruit in the open every last male DF. That alone was a huge gift for Demandred, and as his forces grew. he could even send them to recruit out of the Westlands, among the DF there (if he bothered to do that, but I certainly wouldn't rule out completely Demandred has Seanchan/Sharan/Seafolk male DF among his channellers).

I'll also bring up that a Black Sister, and around the same time Taim started to recruit, launched an extremely similar female initiative (and under Forsaken eyes - ie: when she came, Aran'gar didn't put any stop to her efforts): sending small groups of AS all around to recruit young women. And this same Black Sister was highly displeased when Egwene went and publicly announced that any woman of any age could now come to the Rebel Aes Sedai to be tested, and people flocked to the sisters again (mostly southerners, a matter of geography). Elaida's number of novices has also mysteriously increased a lot since the Tower coup, without her making any effort to recruit. By the time of Egwene's capture, Elaida had more than twice the number of novices than the Tower has had in many years, and that's after Sheriam took away as many as she could when the Blue fled. Is this a sign Mesaana had DF come to the WT in large numbers to be tested? Possibly. It was a bit early for the results of Egwene's pronouncement to also have had an impact on numbers at TV, anyway.

With Egwene's public pronouncement Sheriam was no longer allowed to "screen" novice candidates... Her initiative went from selective recruiting happening well away from Salidar by groups reporting to Sheriam and likely infiltrated by Black Sisters to recruiting at large and increasing the power of the White Tower. Sheriam tried to make it stop, the Hall tried to make it stop, but it didn't work (incidentally, TGS made it quite plain that we had to interpret Sheriam's dithering to deliver the MoN's message about Nicola's escape to Egwene was to ensure Nicola would reach the Tower and there unwittingly betray Egwene's plans for the Harbour, where the BA would arrange to stop it. All Aran'gar's notion to prolong the siege, it appears, but the plan backfired completely and delivered Egwene to Mesaana's pawns... It's no wonder Sheriam was such a wreck when Egwene herself got captured...).

Demandred doesn't need to give much training to women. Before the Cleansing, the odds the Light would use mixed gender circles were so low to be non existent. But Demandred saw even the Taint didn't stop Rand's inner circle, and those circles were a match to the Forsaken. Jordan said if the Forsaken had linked, they would have won at SL, but none of them there trusted the others near enough to do that...

The Cleansing proved to Demandred he would need mixed gender circles. It also opened up the whole can of worms that the Shadow couldn't trust anymore that Asha'man and Aes Sedai would remain apart - that 3,000 years of fears/mistrust/hatred of male channellers may no longer be enough. Much to Taim's displeasure, Logain was even back then capturing AS and keeping them alive and bonded at the BT... Another alarming sign, and so was Logain escaping with all those women and going to Rand.

Demandred, I'm convinced, did try to put obstacles in Rand's way. It's not Aran'gar who stupidly went and killed with saidin the two women the most closely tied to Cabriana Mecandes around the same time, and after Moridin's orders left her no choice to unveil herself at Shadar Logoth to Rand's inner circle. The secret that a woman channelled saidin was out. As soon as a sister remembered that Anayia and Kairen were very close friends and that this was a trio of friends, Aran'gar was in trouble (Lelaine and the Blue obviously figured it out early, but Sheriam or Moria managed somehow to keep Aran'gat out of suspicion. It seems quite simply enough that the Blue saw all this as an internal affair, and the BA among them managed to convince Lelaine to thread carefully... the Blue had three women who could have taken the task to keep watch on Halima... two of those women are BA, the third is the one Lelaine named to replace Anayia on Egwene's Council). Sheriam became erratic after the murders, which suggests Aran'gar was not pleased at all about these murders and made Sheriam responsible for watching over both the Blue's inquiries and Egwene's. In the end, Romanda remembered the connection and exposed it all... but the last clue came from yet another Black Sister who conveniently "discovered" a way to detect saidin and made the demonstration in the Hall - at the request of a group including Lelaine but also the very Black Sister behind the whole "Asha'man/Forsaken weapon business" all along (the sitter Moria) on the very day Rand's emissary came with among his orders from Rand to warn the Aes Sedai about a woman channelling saidin... which Demandred and co. would have been forewarned about as we know from later events that Demandred/Mesaana all along had spies with Rand's inner circle, who reported to them Semirhage's capture notably).

Nahhh... Aran'gar didn't kill those women. This was arranged by Demandred/Mesaana/Semirhage. It's pawns of Mesaana (Moria) who piloted the plan to negotiate with Mazrim Taim. The trio (more likely Demandred with Mesaana) lost no time to react to the Cleansing and what Demandred/Semirhage faced there. It's the BA who planted in the Rebels' minds the very notion that the Forsaken unleashed some mass destruction weapon at SL and that the AS had no choice to seek the Asha'man for mixed gender circles... They lost no time, they put that in motion almost right after the Cleansing, and this gives an idea that the spread of mixed gender circled is something that worries Demandred/Mesaana. The truth is rather different... saidin is clean, it's Rand who got his hands on a mass destruction weapon and didn't even need it - not to be involved at all - for mixed gender circles and Callandor to force the Chosen to retreat.

Killing Anayia and Kairen was meant to expose Aran'gar all along and get rid of her without being blamed for it, putting control of both AS side back in Mesaana's hands. Mesaana and Demandred also meant to control how the AS and Asha'man would "ally" and tried to preempt any initiative by Rand. And they meant to ensure they wouldn't ally, first by delaying as long as possible Egwene's group, then by a second plan, this time to ruin the initiative of Tarna/Pevara (the Sitter that got involved with this, the one who couldn't help but smile briefly when the Red AH decided to go forward with the plan, is yet another Black).

I would say that if you think the Shadow has not closely followed the mixed gender developments and their spread, and taken initiatives to undermine this and prepare to get their own counterparts, think again.

Shadow mixed gender work is already done secretely at the BT or by BT-linked people... how else do you think the Shadow is turning one by one the sisters sent by the Tower/Rebels? Unless the Shadow has gotten angreal/san'angreal, it sounds very probable that we've also seen the mixed gender circles at work in TOM operating a Portal Stone to move against Perrin large numbers of Shadowspawn.

I think we've already seen as well men from Demandred's real army, not the infiltrated group lead by Taim and which he keeps at the BT (not that those aren't important too - their mission at the very least is key component of the plans, and I remain quite convinced that in the opening blows of TG, Demandred intends to seize Caemlyn and the BT and make at either his HQ for the war). Some of these soldiers of the Shadow are the obviously well trained soldiers we've seen working at Moridin's fortress. They're not DF Asha'man, I believe they never even set foot there, I think they very likely came from Taim's recruiting efforts... they were just diverted elsewhere.

You assume way too much that Demandred has not started training his men to lead circles as far back as WH if not before (he didn't necessarily waited for the Light to acquire mixed gender capability to plan to get his own...he wouldn't be much of an AOLer otherwise... even Be'lal considered training women), just because the core group of Black Sisters with the Rebels and Loyalists were still infiltrated, not training with the men. All Demandred needs to train his men in mixed gender work/warfare is a few Black Sisters to link with. There's plenty of BA "in the wild" and unaccounted for to make this happen early. He doesn't need to train most of the women at all, that's the whole point - he can use women who are "even worse than novices". They know how to link, that's all they need to know (in a way it's even better that way, because many of those women have been agents of other Chosen). Demandred simply needs those women to be able to form circles at all - and the Shadow won't have any more trouble to teach the BA to link with men than Cadsuane's group or Nynaeve had. It takes but minutes. The only ones who need military training are his circle leaders, the rest are there only to make the circles work and increase their strength. Also keep in mind that the BA know how to forcefully bring women into circles, and the Shadow can use even novices for that, much easier than capturing and controlling and eventually turning full sisters, and that probably explain Sheriam's recruitement efforts (no, I don't think she knew why she had to launch recruitement, she just had orders from Alviarin or Mesaana to follow) - and we still don't know much about Alviarin's own "errands" for Mesaana that she found "beneath her". Alviarin may well have been ordered to test female DF, organize the recruitement of those among the DF who can be taught to channel. In any case, once forced into a circle a woman can't escape. You bind the whole lot in a cart in the back under the watch of the other circle members who aren't leading and that you don't want exposed needlessly...





This sounds very unlikely, that a male Chosen lead male armies and female Chosen lead female underlings. That's completely un-AOL like. That's not at all what would be natural for Demandred, and even before the Light started getting its own mixed gender circles it would have been stupid of him to willingly undermine his own army by making it a male-only club. That's also wasting the potential of the BA completely and therefore weakening himself. Demandred is supposed to be a genius of organization/strategy/tactics. A man like this spot advantages and seize them. Now it's even more obvious, because the Light will have mixed gender circles on the battlefied, and a great number of those, some of them can even be full 72 circles, probably able to wipe armies of Shadowspawn with a few weaves... You really think Demandred a utter moron if you think his plan was to have Mesaana lead BA to the field while he lead only male soldiers. He may or not have had in mind for Mesaana and Semirhage to be generals. Demandred can have Mesaaana/Semirhage train women, but he can just as well join a circle and teach women... It's not like either of the two Forsaken ever had formal military training, merely some practical experience during the WOS where they were apparently not terribly good. Mesaana's skills were far more administrative. Nothing says he didn't find much greater talents to exploit and train among the people he recruited, and nothing says Demandred's allies didn't plan to remain infiltrated during the LB, until they could strike as insiders devastating blows when they counted (Mesaana would have been close to AS leadership, Semirhage right next to Tuon), or that the trio didn't plan to regroup at a powerbase (like Caemlyn) for the LB, with Mesaana taking over the running and organization of the "powerbase" and Semirhage keeping everyone terrorized of the trio, and taking care of prisoners - totally freeing Demandred from anything but focussing on leading the war (from the back, it won't be easy for the Light to lure him out of the lair he will have chosen, especially now he's lost his two allies and if as I think his base of operation will be protected by the dreamspike. Demandred won't make Graendal's mistakes a second time...). There were many more possibilities than Mesaana/Semirhage planning to lead armies in the field. Of course, it won't happen now, Demandred will only have the leaders he's trained.



Aiel? Demandred hates Aiel. And sorry, but "sizeable foot of humans" is just a plain stupid notion. Demandred has been shown loathing third age human soldiers and their means, and he has no means to equip those humans any better. Humans won't feed on captured population either, and they need all sort of accomodations Shadowspawn don't need. Trollocs just need Myrrdraal and orders to follow. Armies of human would be a huge burden to his dreadlords, they aren't Trollocs to keep to the field no matter what either, and in the end they're not just worth it, not when Demandred can count on such vast armies of Shadowspawn. The only benefit of human armies for Demandred is in not having any of those while the Light is stuck with those and cares that as many soldiers as possible survive... Humans DF are undistinguishable from other humans to anyone but Rand himself (which merely means getting close to the leadership circles would be a feat, but everywhere else not much) and thus far more useful remaining behind enemy lines for all kind of sabotage operations or remain hidden visible to help the Shadow's forces - and Ishamael has kept them organized, reachable, with a hierarchy and all. Moridin is already having Cyndane and Moghedien pass his "Tarmon Gaidon" orders to DF circle leaders.



He used to have two allies placed in two major groups of female channellers. Demandred had his "pool of female channelers" well covered, BA and captives and all. As for female soldiers, it's very likely he already has that covered, though I agree it's easier for him to mostly have trained male circle leaders and he probably intended to rely on them for the most part. At the moment, he probably has a fairly limited number of women trained to lead circle, and that's probably all he intended to use. The rest of the BA, the captives etc. are just "circle fodder".



Demandred has had much more time to train circle leaders of both genders. The comparison to the Light is just not valid. Rand isn't helping them, they are third agers on their own trying to work their way to mix gender work. They are progressing fast, but that would be nothing compared to having an AOLer passing tips to his trainers so they train the troops in turn. There are "secret classes" already ongoing right under the Light's nose at the BT. The Shadow is training the third age channellers to be much better than the the Light's. Why AOLers would be blind to the fact mixed gender circles would decuplate their advantage over the Light, and once the Light started using them figure out they need to match and surpass that by training and increasing the number of women they will have?



You underestimate Demandred. I'll remind you Ishamael caused massive destruction but eventually "lost" the Trolloc Wars, because without him his leaders were not up to winning. Demandred would likely have won the Trolloc Wars.

It will be neither the TW nor the WOS. I called it the "new WOS" merely because it's the new direct face-off with Shai'tan, it's just a convenient name. TG won't feature the modern warfare of the WOS for sure (though let's keep in mind that modern weaponry wasn't even conceived before the WOS either... the WOS must have been "high tech" merely in the middle of the war, before that the Light had to even invent how to organize armies and to invent weaponry, and in the late war phase the high-tech stuff was all gone - the AS could not even reliably make a san'angreal, the Standing Flows collapse and the non-channelers were already left using horses and such for transportation...) but with the Shadow's top general and his AOL battle weaves in which he no doubt has trained his channellers already, and his WOS-inspired tactics and strategies passed to his officers, the Forsaken themselves to take charge of various aspects of the conflict instead of Ishamael having to oversee every little thing, a few "gimmicks" to use like the dreamspike near Caemlyn and whatever gizmos Moridin holds in his vaults or that the other Chosen has found. And the greatest component of all: Shai'tan again as powerful to touch the world as he has not been since the WOS - as soon as Rand breaks the last seal. It will have aspects more comparable to the WOS era than the Trolloc Wars, it's just that the Light is already in a state even worse than it was in the last days of the WOS... but the Shadow has nowhere near the numbers it had back then either.

The Light's general (assuming it will be Mat) has Rand's LTT knowledge to draw from - and if the "colour swirls" evolve further perhaps soon even without having to ask Rand or have him nearby to get access to his WOS memories... including all his knowledge of Demandred as a general and very likely tips to how best use the channellers in battle and how to fight those of the Shadow, but his "own" military background is far more from TW experiences. The material world is much closer to the TW wars too, so in some ways the war will ressemble more the TW.. except that war caught the Light unprepared and complacent, not on the verge of uniting behind the DR and two powerful ta'veren, with the final reunion of male and female channellers in sight. It won't evolve much at all like the TW (the Shadow will be far more mobile than that, for one thing).

It will be different from both the TW and the WOS. It will be a fairly short war, devastation and final victory will both arrive much faster. It will have aspects of both conflicts, and aspects totally different from both.



Well, I always thought Demandred would cause massive devastation, so I'm not part of the "we". I think much like you that he will get a series of successes through the first half of AMOL. It's conceivable what we thought of Rand's main powerbases/conquests will all fall early to the Shadow. That would even the odds a bit. Right now the Light has many cities to protect, so it will have to divide its forces. The Shadow has but SG. Assembling the leaders and military forces of the Light at Merrilor and announcing publicly it will conclude by the breaking of the Seals might very well include an unseen secret purpose for Rand. He may be baiting Demandred to spread his forces in order to seize the cities, while he gathered the Light into one massive force, including most if not all of its channellers. Merrilor sounds like forcing the opportunity to organize the Light's forces and leaders into a coherent group, able to work together, make the decisions together, to give them ways to communicate, to define the missions of each group etc. Part of the reason that make me think this is that Rand announced everything so long ahead of time. He seems to count on giving time for the Shadow to organize its opening moves. It's a gamble that the Shadow won't resist spreading its forces all over the land (Rand seemingly serves on a silver platter to Demandred all the still usable Portal Stones and Waygates... which appears to give them a big gift, but it's also a poisonned gift as the Shadow loses a fair percentage of Shadowspawn every time they use the Ways to move...), but at the same time it counts on the fact the Breaking of the Seals itself also means Rand can now strike at SG at any time, thus Shai'tan will want to keep a great deal of his assets around SG, and won't let Demandred strike as strongly as he could have in the south. That sounds like a strategy to place the Light on the offensive rather than spreading it on defense and to use the Light's greater number of channellers to take out one after the other the smaller but relatively big armies the Shadow, deployed to take the cities in a series of coordinated efforts. This is rather bad for the populations, but probably not as bad as the reverse situation, which would have forced Rand to divide his forces to protect all the population centers, leaving Demandred on the offensive and with the advantage to strike at each if those cities in turn with a huge force. Rand could also be planning the evacuation of women/children out of the way (eg: Seafolk Islands) but that sounds like inviting the Shadow to strike there because it would deal a vast blow to the moral of the Light. In any case, Rand has now gathered in one place most of "his" scattered armies. If Merrilor is also a bait for the Shadow to strike at last, and it sounds likely, Demandred probably counts on the fact the Light forces won't stay united, and if he strikes at enough locations at once they'll scatter to go save their cities (their people, actually) and and he'll take out those forces before Rand has time to turn them into one organized force. Rand's plan, if his that's his plan, would hinge a great deal on keeping the forces gathered at Merrilor from doing just that - by letting the cities fall to the Shadow for the moment. The Shadow probably doesn't expect Rand to be capable of that, nor that he might even be willing to make that gamble.

As for the True Power ideas. Your theory makes sense, at least this is certainly a possibility for Shai'tan. We musn't be fooled by what he did in the WOS. He was dealing with a wholly different "crowd", that is with a society with equalitarian values, where the most powerful people were expected to serve the others, and only then did they got honors that set them aside. People whose idea of "power" included receiving the symbolic reward of an honorific name... Shai'tan played masterfully on the AOL Aes Sedai's ressent that their power was "leashed" and expected to be put to the service of everyone and not their own interests. The whole Shadow strategy was designed to place the AS above other humans, to make them the Chosen Ones of God, to make them adopt their scorn names into honorifics, to give them "their rightful place" their society refused them and to launch a vast hunt to reach the very top, competing with one another for the title of Nae'blis. Blessing the most deserving of them with access to his own godly essence was merely one of these steps to the top. This game, Shai'tan still plays with his AOLers. The Chosen don't want the TP, but oh how they ressented it that Moridin still got exclusive access to it.... how easily Graendal was fooled to see being granted access again as a reward when it came.

I wouldn't be surprised that Shai'tan's next move is to force the remaining Chosen to use his True Power from now on, that it's the OP they're expected to use in a limited way, when they can justify it. At this stage, this would force the Chosen to fully commit themselves, because as addicts their future is totally in Shai'tan's victory, surviving his defeat no longer an option (no more than it is for Moridin. He'd likely kill himself if he survives a resealing. There would be no point for him to die no doubt horribly from TP deprivation.

It seems that Moridin offered this "sacrifice" of his immortality to Shai'tan totally willingly, by addicting himself to the TP. Ishamael has sealed his fate to his Master's - committed himself 100% to his cause. This is why Moridin is the most prized of all the Chosen to Shai'tan, and the only reason he would have picked another as Nae'blis would have been pure pragmatic opportunism, like thinking someone less trustworthy was more useful/competent than Moridin in the position (but it's rhetorical, none of the others would be) and Moridin was best used for something else.

It wouldn't surprise me that with the LB, Shai'tan forces Demandred to do like the Nae'blis.

As for the "dreadlords"... I'm less convinced Shai'tan will grant them the TP, but I'm not convinced at all he won't either. This wouldn't displease Moridin, he's quite above that kind of thing. Demandred would see this negatively however. It depends on how Shai'tan thinks, really. He overvalues his Chosen, but granting them exclusive rewards isn't because it's only fair, it's strictly a matter of convenience. Granting the TP to the underlings of the Chosen provides them with an edge, and Shai'tan could see this as a way to motivate Demandred to give all he is worth in the LB, because he's not irreplaceable. That could work, or Shai'tan might see this as undesirable because Demandred is supposed to worry about the war, not about the status of his underlings. OTOH, Demandred is used to have lead underlings who all had the status of Chosen and he joined in the middle of the WOS rose almost immediately to the top, securing even very "old guard" allies like Semirhage. Seing his underlings sudddenly being named Chosen, marked and even possibly being granted access to the TP might not upset him much, just grate him a bit that "primitives" are granted those privileges... but all channellers serving the Shadow used to have all this, only access to the TP remained a very rarely granted privileges to selected individuals among the Chosen. The fact this hnour counts for the Chosen is well seen with Moghedien who has kept track of how many Chosen have been granted this absolute reward in the WOS. So they care.

It's also an open question if access to the TP would come with finally granting the "dreadlords" the mark and title of Chosen, and privileges to force obedience from Shadowspawn of the Chosen. It's not because the Shadow didn't offer the opportunity in the Trolloc Wars, when only Ishamael lead and wouldn't be around for long that Shai'tan may not return to his AOL system/hierarchy once the seals are broken. There are probably advantages for Shai'tan to mark someone. That would greatly motivate the rank and file channellers for the LB, all these "honors", but Shai'tan could just as well name none for now and merely promise it could happen if they serve well in the LB. Practically speaking, making the "dreadlords" Chosen would also have an impact for the Light. People fear the Forsaken massively - throwing a few hundreds at them with frightening OT names as TG begins would have an impact on morale, greater than unleashing the very same anonymous dreadlords on them. That would have no impact on Rand and his inner circle, but the small folk are far more afraid of Forsaken and would immediately associate the title with the power of the "real" Chosen. It would be sound propaganda, anyway. It's a logic Demandred probably would agree with, assuming as I do that the intimidating (Nazi-style) titles of the Asha'man officers was his idea.