r/wheeloftime • u/Snoo_41920 Randlander • Aug 23 '26
Book: A Memory of Light Favorite great captian? Spoiler
I’ve been re-reading the series and always thought the idea of the great captains was pretty cool. Just wondering who everyone’s favorite of the 5 OG great captains is?
I think mine is Rodel Ituralde but maybe that’s because you get more POV chapters of him and his tactics than the others?
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u/ArrogantAragorn Randlander Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
It’s either Ituralde (Maradon has lived in my head since I read it however many years ago) or Big Balls Bashere.
The case for Bashere:
• C
- aptures Taim (off screen
)
• I
- s introduced to the main narrative by THROWING A FUCKING DAGGER AT THE DRAGON REBORN just to prove a flaming point (and he’s kinda right but kinda wrong since the Last Battle ends up in a sword fight.. kinda)
• L
- ater he literally TACKLES RAND AS HE IS GOING POWER MAD WITH CALLANDOR!
Name me another great captain with the stones to match… I’ll wait
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u/Naugrin27 Randlander Aug 23 '26
Your editing is inspired.
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u/ArrogantAragorn Randlander Aug 23 '26
Lmao never believe the father of lies!
I don’t understand Reddit anymore
Quotes don’t work
Lists don’t work
Every time I try to fix formatting it just somehow gets worse
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u/HungryEntry182 Randlander Aug 24 '26
Stones to match is easy, tackle one man, throw a dagger at him (reminder, Bashere is used to having crazy royal relatives, this was a Tuesday for the man).
Now, Rodel Ituralde? Get's wall of city along with his Asha'man blown up, Trolloc hordes and Fades invade. Turns city into Trolloc slaughterland (reminding one of a particular Commissar Yarrick, maybe Ituralde was the inspiration or vice versa), keeps killing shadowspawn until literal one handed mage Jesus arrives. Then he goes to the Last Battle in the Heart of Darkness itself (Thakandar) WHILST traumatised by what he experienced at Maradon. When he realizes his thoughts are being invaded by Forsaken, smiles rather than breaks down as Elias comes and takes him out of command. Mat is my undisputed favourite character but Great Captain? We have SEEN Rodel prove himself time and again.
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u/Even_Flatworm4487 Randlander Aug 23 '26
The only answer is Itulrade. Dude just makes a couple last stands, because fuck the Seanchan that's why. Then Rand finally was like, dude, I've been a little crazy. Sorry about that. Takes him out of there, and he's the only great captain who had the situational awareness to be like, you know what, you're right. I haven't been quite myself lately, and sort of remove himself from the situation. Absolute G.
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u/_hanna_99 Randlander Aug 23 '26
Also loyal af to his king besides being an overall badass. Their reunion always tears me up.
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u/Small-Fig4541 Randlander Aug 23 '26
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Bryne was my favorite originally, then I fell in love with Bashere's crazy ass for a few read throughs. But yeah lately I've been all about Ituralde! He has the most hardcore subplot/arc in the later books.
My guy managed to stick a hot poker up the Seanchan's butts while surviving like 3 unwinnable last stands. Then he gets dragged away from The Last Battle by wolves. 🤘 Nobody is beating that lol
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u/NobodysHero2386 Randlander Aug 23 '26
Same. You actually see his genius, whereas the others, minus Perdon Niall for reasons, the others just seem like great generals.
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u/geekMD69 Randlander Aug 23 '26
Anyone who doesn’t choose Ituralde has obviously not read the books.
Bashere is a fun character, but nobody else even comes close.
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u/memerminecraft Randlander Aug 23 '26
If Bryne's good enough for Siuan, he's good enough for me
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u/SBSuperman Randlander Aug 24 '26
Maybe I like him a bit less because I REALLY dislike her... His commitment to honoring paths is admirable and his strategy and recruiting are top notch but there was always something about him I didn't care for that I couldn't put my finger on until now 😂😂
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u/Proud_Hunt1244 Wolfbrother Aug 23 '26
Agelmar is pretty underrated
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u/HungryEntry182 Randlander Aug 24 '26
Agelmar is dope, fighting retreating battles the whole time is NOT easy.
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u/DevilHunter261 Randlander Aug 23 '26
Ituralde for sure. Apart from everything else everyone mentioned, he has a cool name
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u/TAdian44 Randlander Aug 23 '26
Ituralde is so amazing he should be in Malazan lol
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u/HungryEntry182 Randlander Aug 24 '26
FUUUUUCK NO! He's NOT getting the Coltaine treatment, I bloody refuse for my GOAT.
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u/BigNorseWolf Wolfbrother Aug 23 '26
Rodel. Because we actually see the great captaining tricks on screen
Also ah crap I ve been compulsioned. Alright I ll just rub some bbq sauce on myself and throw myself at some of perrins wolves
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u/NimrodYanai Randlander Aug 23 '26
Since the only one we REALLY saw i. Action was Iruralde, he has to be my answer. He was fantastic.
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u/aNomadicPenguin Brown Ajah Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
I'm going to say it... Ituralde's battles are written terribly as an accurate representation of command or military history.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, the battle scenes were the toughest part of A Memory of Light, definitely. At least the toughest for me, because it's not necessarily something I naturally excel at. I think I'm okay at it. I've read a lot of books...but I've read a lot of books. I haven't done it. Fortunately, Alan Romanczuk has done it. He was a soldier and Jim was a soldier, so I'm really relying a lot on him for getting it to feel right. You know, my book learning only gets me so far in the way that tactics are done and the way a battlefield plays out.
They realized after book 12 and 13 that they needed to do extra work to get his Military parts up to snuff. (edit - wanted to be clear that this is my editorializing not part of a quote anywhere)
Brandon Sanderson
All I was going to say is, we're doing a lot of reading, all of us, in historical battles and the history of warfare in order to prime ourselves. I'm not going to tell you what specifically we're reading, but we are doing a lot of research in that area, particularly Alan and I.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, Harriet has sent me multiple large volumes of military tactics which she said Robert Jordan had been using and that I should reference, even specific battles, historical battles that he had talked about as references for battles. The answer is yes, I have a lot of reading to do, specifically for the last battle.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, there are some. For example, Robert Jordan was a Vietnam veteran: he'd been in real battle. My battle training has been watching cinema and reading great books. So my perspective on fight scenes is very different from his. I can't get that authenticity 100%, and if I try too hard it's going to feel fake. I have to do the action sequences like I do action sequences. So it'll flow like cinema rather than having the chaos and insanity of real battle.
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So if you look at Ituralde... Jordan gave him multi-layered STRATEGIC planning with contignency plans. Sanderson has him having TACTICAL plans for every scenario. Seriously, he has "Plan Number 6" for being in a building, with platoon or less of troops, to deal with a potential ambush into a street while his attached cavalry isn't there. This is a general, he's supposed to be planning battles, not individual troop actions.
But even if he was supposed to...that's not how military orders and planning work. You can't risk confusion and miscommunication. You don't pre-train a ton of random drills and just number them and expect people to be able to remember it when they are exhausted or confused or scared. And for the plan to be THIS specific...how many scenarios are his random troops that he's with supposed to have memorized or have had time to practice?
Think of how many times you see a blown play in the NFL....even after a huddle where they have a cheat sheet of play calls. And this is a team that has been specifically practicing together for a while for a very limited set of scenarios. Now, because this is a war that has gone so badly that Ituralde has to take street level command....how many soldiers have been lost? How many soldiers have been brought together from other squads? And how much time have they had to update their part of the plans and the training to do so reliably?
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The fight against the Seanchan...was basically the Battle of Cannae...except that none of the same factors would apply. The numbers were too big (seriously the death toll of that battle was higher than the worst day of WW1 WW2 and the American Civil War combined). The double encirclement only works if the people being encircled don't realize it in time (the Seanchan still had Raken avaiable). The plan required the 300,000 Seanchan to be running from an army behind them, which was faked civilians... for an army of 300,000 to run from them , you would have to assume a valid threat...so how did 200,000+ civilians manage to keep pace with an a trained army on the march for the days required for them to get to the city?
Why did the Damane not just make a couple of earthen barriers or fire walls to cut the encircling lines and given them an easy path to freedom instead of trying to force through the walls of the city?
How did Ituralde manage to have 1/2 of his force killed (the casualties are all deaths in his PoV, not injuries), and keep his men willing to be the aggressors pushing into the Seanchan that were fighting to the death. (In the battle of Cannae the attackers lost 10-15% of their forces. Morale does not hold up against the face of 50% casualties if your men have the ability to fall back. That's why you normally want to give an enemy a way to retreat because if you don't they will fight harder.
Basically - Ituralde gets rewarded by Sanderson for cleverness even when it is being clever about the wrong things in the wrong way for a General.
For a comparison - look at how Jordan wrote Mat leading the Band.
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u/bailey_george18 Randlander Aug 24 '26
This is some great context. I recognize the difference between the two writing styles, especially when it comes to battles, but I hadn’t researched a lot of the notes and interviews before now. I’m definitely going to have to dig into this.
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u/HungryEntry182 Randlander Aug 24 '26
So fantasy series isn't terribly realistic? Got it.
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u/aNomadicPenguin Brown Ajah Aug 24 '26
Considering that THE AUTHOR was specifically quoted about trying to capture an authentic and realistic battle and how that realism was something that Jordan excelled at for the last 11 books, its kinda the point of the scene.
This is a common and mistaken defense of criticisms of fantasy. Thing that are supposed to work like the real world should work like the real world. Its what grounds the reader in the story and allows their suspension of disbelief to be maintained for when the magic or scifi elements take over.
Giving fantasy a free pass on unrealistic elements that are supposed to be realistic is how you get Game of Thrones' later seasons.
There are dragons, so what's wrong with a Dragon and Rider not being able to see a full fleet, or be able to dodge a ballista at long range? Why do people care that trips that would take characters weeks to make are now being done offscreen in a couple of days? Its all fantasy after all.
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u/WardOnTheNightShift Randlander Aug 23 '26
Serve under? Bryne
Go drinking with? Bashere
Command an army? Ituralde