I've been considering the challenges faced by any Forsaken as a King or Queen of a Third Age nation.

To me, the key difficulty would be in convincing an entire nation to fight alongside Trollocs, Myrdraal and other Shadowspawn in the Last Battle. Compulsion is limited, and to me it would only be a matter of time before you have large scale desertions from your army as people realise they are fighting on the side of the Shadow.

A capable general could manage this by seperating his human and Shadowspawn armies as much as possible, attacking in the north with Trollocs while sending his human armies east or west and vica versa.

But this is a limiting factor on your strategic flexibility, and would be increasingly difficult to maintain as time went by and your resources became stretched.

In my view, the only realistic way of binding large scale human armies to the Shadow, would be to take charge of extremely authoritarian nations where a culture of hierarchy and strict obedience to your superiors was ingrained.

In other words, a place where a "no questions asked" mentality exists among the vast majority of citizens. In the Wheel of Time, there are only two cultures that meet this requirement. Seanchan and Shara.

In my view, getting control of the Seanchan Empire would have given the Shadow the strongest army in the world, and would have been the biggest strategic coup possible in the context of the Third Age military build-up. Not only are the generals and soldiers in this army used to strict obedience, but the channelers are bound and unable to act according to their free will. An awesome resource for the Shadow.

And we saw the Shadow indeed try to gain control of the Seanchan through Semirhage's strategic placement with Tuon.

In the Guide, the Sharan culture is presented as being as authoritarian, and possibly even more monolithic than, that of the Seanchan. And they have powerful channeler in addition to their massive population size (judged by the size of the Sharan subcontinent compared to the rest of Randland).

If one could get control of the ruling elite of this monolithic nation, then the armies of all of Shara would be at your command -obedient and unquestioning.


In LoC Demandred gives the Dark One's orders to the other Forsaken. When talking to Semirhage and Mesaana, he is amazed how far reaching the Dark One's plan's are, considering where they have been strategically placed. We also know that Semirhage, Mesaana and Demandred work as a trio.

If you imagine a picture of the Third Age World, we see Mesaana in the White Tower, Semirhage in the distant west, with the Seanchan, and then you have Demandred, location unknown. I believe it would complete the picture quite fittingly if Demandred was placed in the distant East, to gather the last remaining absolute dictatorship for war against the Light.

Mesaana located in the most powerful institution in the central lands, Semirhage placed in the most powerful nation of the west, and Demandred gathering the most powerful nation of the east.

We are told that the Sharans are ruled in seven year cycles by a Sh'boan and Sh'botay (the female and male versions of their Emperor), and that this cycle has gone on from the Breaking. We saw in LoC that Graendal has kidnapped the current Sh'boan and Sh'botay. Around and about this time, we hear of fighting in Shara.

In Winter's Heart, Demandred says he has a lot to do and has no time for idle talk.

Finally, in tGS, Demandred says his rule is secure and his forces are gathering for war. What if Demandred has spent most of his time since LoC contesting to get control of Shara, hence the tales of fighting in Shara that we heard about. And that this struggle is now over, with Demandred in firm command of this powerful nation, and ready to bring an incredibly strong army to assault the central nations from the East.

The idea for Demandred being in either Shara or the Land of the Madmen has been raised many times before, but I believe that issues such as the need for an authoritarian culture, and the absolute obedience given to the Sh'boyan and Sh'botay make Shara a prime target for the Shadow's attentions.

And I think Demandred's placement in the far East fits quite symbolically with his two allies' locations in the center and far West of the world.


So I'm proposing that Demandred is the new Sh'botay of Shara.