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Date Posted: 23:30:23 08/05/01 Sun
Author: the silent speaker
Subject: The case for Balwerdred

OK, I've been threatening to do this for a long time, and I finally overcame enough of my laziness to actually do it. Here's why I think Demandred is Sebban Balwer, and have since we first met him.
1. The cheap symmetry argument. The WCs were the only major group in existence before LOC not to have a Forsaken. I even guessed based on this that Semirhage was with the Seanchan, but in fairness that was pretty much guesswork.
2. A major military organization with fingers in every Wotia pie ought to seem pretty darn attractive to a general type like Demandred.
3. Balwer effectively controlled the entire Children, and yet nobody was even aware of his existence. This is exactly Demandred's MO.
4. Omerna was once a fairly decent operative (his rank was Lord Captain; they don't give those out in crackerjack boxes) but was getting "more useless by the day." Whenever anyone deteriorates that fast, I suspect Compulsion. And for the part Balwer is playing, Omerna is exactly who he would have to undermine.
5. A decoy spymaster? What's up with that? A spy is, by definition, hidden. Once people know about him, he's useless. A spy master even more so. Anyone with half a brain (in Amadicia, not you) should suspect that something is up.
6. "It is no treason to do what must be done." -- Pedron Niall. Such loyalty to the cause. And from the head banana, too. Compulsion doesn't have to be Rahvinesquely blunt. Notice that Balwer believes in the WC claptrap no more than this. Yet he dictates policy to the entire Children. Odd that an unbeliever should rise so high, yes?
7. Valda proclaimed that his first act as LCC would be to kick Balwer out of the Dome of Truth hard enough to bounce twice. That's just bizarre; no matter how much the guy irritates you, what do you gain by saying so? And class, what do bizarre things mean? Compulsion? Very good.
My theory: Balwerdred was sufficiently disgusted by Valda's grasp of tactics and strategy ("the charge")to figure that he would run the WCs into the ground without major intervention which he was not willing to do. A little twitch of Compulsion and he has an excuse to want to leave.
8. Balwer seems to have an awfully huge vendetta against the WCs in general and Valda in specific, even granting that he didn't leave under the most amicable of terms. Nobody hates like Demandred.
9. When the Seanchan came, Balwer got out safely, and took with him the most valuable prisoners in the Dome of Truth. In-teresting.
10. We keep getting told that Balwer is more than he seems. "A wolf testing the air" and so forth. If Balwer is Demandred, all that makes sense.
11. When Perrin found out that Faile had been kidnapped, Balwer was mysteriously missing. "Small chance that he had gone off after Morgase." So where was he? But Demandred, of course, is prone to mysterious disappearances.
12. At the Battle of Jeramel, Valda got away in amazingly good order. Suspiciously good order, in fact, given what we know of Valda. My theory: Semirhage gave orders to her people to let the WCs get away safely, thinking that Balwerdred was with them. Killing one's ally by mistake looks bad on a resume.
13. Balwer had had little contact with Aes Sedai. Conceivably he might not recognize the ageless face. Whoever Demandred is, he didn't recognize that Sarene and Corele were Aes Sedai, and it's not easy to find someone who could miss that. Balwer alone of the major candidates can.

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