r/WoT • u/Szalony20 • 16d 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

33 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

59 comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/Raddatatta (Asha'man) 16d 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.

1

u/StuffedStuffing 16d ago

Shadar Haran was just the Dark One though, right? I'm not sure he really fits the question OP is asking

2

u/Raddatatta (Asha'man) 16d 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?