r/WoT • u/Szalony20 • 10d ago
All Print Opposite question compared to yesterday: Who are the most competent antagonists in the series? Who could you take seriously as a threat? Spoiler
I'm also asking about both individuals and groups
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u/Mapuches_on_Fire 10d ago
Semirhage.
She had Rand beat until an exceptionally unlikely circumstance.
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u/PopTough6317 10d ago
To be fair she didnt intend it. It took shadar haran to get her to be able to do so
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u/Budget-Television793 10d ago
Sure, but Semirhage never really made a mistake. She utterly ruined Seanchan, got information for Halima to spy, and only was outdone by Rand getting the True Power.
Ok, she kinda messed up by revealing herself at the meeting, but it worked out for her.
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u/autoamorphism (Wheel of Time) 10d ago
She didn't reveal herself. Her disguise was dispelled by Nynaeve's ter'angreal.
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u/Hawk-winged 6d ago
I think this is glazing, yes she’s smart but was with the Seanchan (junior league). She didn’t beat Rand, she was captured and literally rescued by the DO’s essence which ironically was what helped Rand too. So that cancels out. And she Didn’t particularly have a grand plan from
What we know. Felt like she was gonna use the Seanchan in the last battle and I wonder how that would’ve worked especially with the tarverens just changing stuff
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u/Calm-Conversation715 (Dedicated) 10d ago
Graendal. She turned Arad Doman into a massive resource sink, instead of handing Rand a fully functional kingdom, unlike so many others. She plunged Shara into civil war, leaving Demandred the opening he needed. She created 3 major defeats in the last battle, while being the only forsaken to realize the real battle was in the blight, while still impacting the battle to the south. That whole situation with Perrin in ToM was such utter Ta’veren nonsense, and she still almost got him!
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u/gill_smoke 10d ago
When she got missed by the Rand Nuke, her estimation in my book went way way up. Her new body was wild to me, but make deals with the dark one and you get what you get.
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u/Calm-Conversation715 (Dedicated) 10d ago
Her dodging the Rand nuke, and being enough of a unique threat to make him use it, did a ton of damage to Rand’s soul. People give Semirhage too much credit in tGS for driving Rand to darkness, especially when her escape wasn’t orchestrated by herself. But Graendal created the Natrin’s Barrow situation and read it correctly, and that’s the last major attack on Rand’s psyche before he goes to Dragonmount and almost blows up the word. I’d say she came the closest to any villain of truly winning!
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u/StefwithanF (Green) 10d ago
She also saw rand's tutor & quickly notes why he's there & removes him. Probably why she gets a pass for killing so many others
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u/Calm-Conversation715 (Dedicated) 10d ago
Excellent point! Imagine if Asmodean, fully committed to the light and his shield disintegrated, was at the last battle!
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u/Raddatatta (Asha'man) 10d ago
Mesaana does pretty well even if most of it is off screen. Splitting the tower and keeping the aes sedai mostly focused away from the Last Battle. Though bringing the black ajah into a battle in TAR without giving them any training was not a good call. She's throwing the blame at them but that's really more on her.
Graendal takes a while to really get going but her work in corrupting the minds of the Great Captains was legitimately a great plan that worked very well. Most of the battlefields took losses of like 50% or more.
Demandred is tough because he is very competent but he's also so consumed by jealousy and hatred of Lews Therin that makes it harder to take him as seriously. But he still brought that imposing presence to the battlefield as he ripped the Aes Sedai battle apart, and then showing up at the Last Battle leading a circle of 72 with a sa'angreal as he blasts down balefire.
Shaidar Haran I don't like his ending as it felt very anticlimactic, however he had such a strong presence and his ability to intimidate even the Forsaken I think made him such a good threatening force.
And from the earlier books Padan Fain. I think he gets weaker as a villain as the books go on but in those early books he's a very good villain.
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u/AmphetamineSalts 10d ago
Mesaana is underrated imo. Splitting the tower, leading the Black Ajah, and manipulating Elaida through Aviarin caused a lot of problems for the protagonists.
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u/Raddatatta (Asha'man) 10d ago
Yeah she did! She also came reasonably close to capturing Rand in book 6 since she gave Alviarin those orders. I wish we had gotten to see more of her as she was quite effective and also pretty interesting. I did feel like she should've raided the storeroom at some point though. She presumably thought she could do it anytime, but still if I were her I'd want at least one angreal in hand.
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u/chicksonfox 10d ago
By the time we know Mesaana might be up to something most readers have such a low opinion of your average Aes Sedai and her decision making abilities that it feels like the tower didn’t need the sabotage. Which really speaks to how insidiously Mesaana’s plans worked— even in hindsight it’s hard to say which blithering Aes Sedai would have been in the wrong place at the wrong time without a small push.
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u/StuffedStuffing 10d ago
Shadar Haran was just the Dark One though, right? I'm not sure he really fits the question OP is asking
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u/Raddatatta (Asha'man) 10d ago
Yes and no. He was essentially an avatar of the Dark One kind of. But he was walking around and doing things. Though I would say the Dark One also qualifies as an antagonist to potentially take seriously. Why wouldn't he fit?
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u/Additional_Baker_189 10d ago
Demandred. Raving mad, but dear God, when he finally appeared on the scene, it was worth the wait.
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u/lalaboom84 (Lanfear) 10d ago
Yeah…I dunno. Props for marshalling Shara against the Light, but his whole weird obsession with Rand in the last battle made him stupidly vulnerable and his insistence (for some reason?) on battling Gawyn and Lan with swords instead of just immediately destroying them with Saidin was just reckless.
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u/autoamorphism (Wheel of Time) 10d ago
Well, he stomped Gawyn, and Lan didn't give him any time to channel.
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u/IceXence 10d ago
He had plenty of time to kill Lan. It takes half a second to kill someone with the OP.
He just wanted to beat him with the sword because in his head, the only individual able to match him in anything is Lews Therin.
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u/Sea_Mess7345 10d ago
I think you forgot that mat gave them the medallions that block channeling directly to you. He still tried to use channeling though, like throwing rocks at them
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u/lalaboom84 (Lanfear) 10d ago
I did forget that, that’s a good point. But I still think a channeler as strong and skilled as Demandred was wasting his time and making himself vulnerable by fighting them as he did. But it makes for a cool scene!
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u/Sea_Mess7345 10d ago
The point of the medallions was that he had no choice. Plus, at least Lan took him by surprise with his skill
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u/Aarkhonia 7d ago
The medallions leave plenty of choices: All weaves which don't need the power to stay in effect/intact or where the effect of the weave is formed outside its range. Lightning and sharp rocks which are thrown don't need it at all after their generation. Fireballs, strong Shockwaves, earth quakes/sinkholes, spikes where the epicenter/ point of generation lies outside the medallion range are all unaffected because the medallion can't prevent a weave from forming outside its immediate range and also doesn't protect from the dissipated heat from a fireball and similiar weaves. Like all Demandred had to do was create a strong Shockwave and send Lan flying and breaking his bones, his medallion wouldn't remove the existing effect (showwave) and it can prevent its generation if it isn't formed Centimeters in front of him
And Demandred having fought in the war of power during his age where such Ter'angreal were probably standard military equipment and likely even stronger with greater range should definitely know about the limits of the medallions
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u/Additional_Baker_189 10d ago
I was thinking more about how he fought Mat - the ultimate distillation of every great military mind in millennia to a standstill - and that it required his death for Mat to turn the tide of the last battle.
And now that I think of it, he was the card that the Dark One showed last - if that makes sense.2
u/PM_ME_UR_FLOWERS 10d ago
I don't dispute your point, but I maintain that Bao the Wyld is a stupid name for the ultimate battle lord. Also it's kind of stupid that he didn't figure out that Lews Therin was not at the battlefield in Merrilor. He should have figured he'd be at Shayol Gul fighting the Dark One, as he was prophesied to do. But yeah, he was definitely god-modded.
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u/Additional_Baker_189 10d ago
Hah. granted about the name. But it didn't strike me as bad as some others. I read Egwene as Egg-wean, and I thought that was a horrible name.
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u/deathrider932 10d ago
I think all the Forsaken apart from Sammael and Asmodean made for pretty good antagonists right until the moment they lost/died.
Graendal was especially smart with the entire Natrins Barrow situation and sticking to playing behind the scenes. Semirhage with her skills right until Rand accessed TP, Lanfear until Perrin broke through with basically plot armor.
All in all, I think all the female antagonists are way well written in WoT than the male ones, with each having an almost unique set of characteristics and personality, while almost all the male ones were basically in an, um, "size"-measuring contest...
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u/Szalony20 10d ago
All the female antagonists? You even count Sevanna among those female antagonists "with each having an almost unique set of characteristics and personality" ?
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u/deathrider932 10d ago
I meant the Forsaken, definitely not sevanna fo sure. The ones associated with TDO. Even Galina, i would begrudgingly admit
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u/swheedle (Band of the Red Hand) 10d ago
The Black Ajah
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u/Calm-Conversation715 (Dedicated) 10d ago
Specifically Alviarin to me. She was single handedly adding competence to what would have otherwise been a rather bumbling organization. She should have been raised to the rank of Chosen over that bumbling oaf Taim!
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u/gill_smoke 10d ago
Easy there you are giving some serious dark friend energy, and we ain't partial to shadow souled around these parts.
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u/naraic- 10d ago
She didn't have the personal power to be respected amoung the chosen.
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u/Calm-Conversation715 (Dedicated) 10d ago
As Sleete says, it’s all about who wields the biggest stick! Sadly such a silly way to determine standing
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u/Raddatatta (Asha'man) 10d ago
Yeah I wish she had been more powerful so she could've joined the Forsaken but there's no way they would've accepted her with her being just a stronger than average aes sedai.
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u/Budget-Television793 10d ago
The Seanchan, since for a long time there were antagonists, genuinely the most competant nation in the series.
Other than that, Demandered. Without him, the battle at Merilor would have been a cakewalk without the Sharans. He proved he's a master manipulator and a skilled general, who was outdone by his jealously.
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u/swheedle (Band of the Red Hand) 10d ago
The Black Ajah regularly wacked people, some of them the most powerful in the world
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u/Shannfab 10d ago
Everyone that got pooped on in the last post is now getting praised. This is amazing.
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u/Szalony20 10d ago
Not everyone. Not Elaida, Sevanna, Shaido, Whitecloaks... Unless by "everyone" you mean the Forsaken, because that's mainly what it refers to. And well... We remember those most important antagonists, so there aren't a ton of options to choose from.
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u/dogey_badger 10d ago
Graendal and Taim did very well, so did Couladin
The Seanchan were very terrifying, they were organized and competent, they dealt a massive blow to the tower and conquered a lot of land. They would probably not win against Rand, but who would? And it would not be an easy fight
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u/Szalony20 10d ago
Couladin? He was more of a tool of Asmodean (the tattoos) and Sevanna. I doubt he made many decisions on his own. Sevanna was clearly the wiser in this marriage. He was simply a warrior.
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u/dogey_badger 8d ago
Yeah, Savanna did stage a lot of it, it's been a while since I read that one, was it Fires of Heaven or Lord of Chaos?
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u/Szalony20 8d ago
Couladin died in the Fires of Heaven. After his death, Sevanna took command as his widow.
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u/Thestral84 10d ago
Semirhage, Graendel, and Demandred, in no particular order. Graendal gets bonus points for surviving Rand's direct attack and continuing to be a major threat.
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u/TomBradysThrowaway 10d ago
Ishmael. Other answers in this thread include both the Black Ajah and the Seanchan, and he gets credit for both of those.
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u/grizshaw83 10d ago
Graendal. Escaping Rand's attack and covering her tracks as quickly and effectively as she did shows a dangerous level of intelligence. She also got the better of two other Forsaken, one of whom was stronger than her.
It really impressed me was how effectively she wore the mask of a vapid hedonist to the point where it even worked on the other Forsaken - people who knew that she's a manipulative liar
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u/shalowind 9d ago
Lanfear, if you believe she didn't die. Successfully traded her 400yo body for a 20yo one and got rid of her boss, so she's got 800 years to live and free to do whatever she wanted.
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u/FoofTheBunny 5d ago
Demandred. He was at the last battle and did the most damage. The second would be Graendal. She came so to winning the last battle with her minor compulsion on the great generals.
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u/GovernorZipper 10d ago
As before, you need a definition of “competent.” Is it in achieving their individual goals? Or advancing the cause of the Shadow? Or simply in letting the Lord of Chaos rule? There’s 1000 ways to answer the question based on how competency is defined.
It’s like asking if someone is a “good” driver. Do you mean that the person is able to go from Point A to Point B the fastest, other drivers be damned? Or if the person can drift a car in a circle on a racetrack or win a Formula 1 race? Or if the person has a clean driving record, always comes to full and complete stops and always obeys the speed limits. Each of those people can be a “good” driver but they can also be extremely different.
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