Sammael
What We Know of Sammael
name: Tel Janin Aellinsar
occupation: world renowned sportsman
Tel Janin Aellinsar was once described as an "active, solid man with golden hair, blue eyes, and an abrupt manner (TWoRJtWoT)." He had a compact physique and stood at an average height.
Tel Janin was once friends with Lews Therin Telamon and became one of his leading generals. His greatest strength lay in defense.
He went over to the Shadow during the fourth year of the War of the Shadow because he thought that the Dark One would eventually win the war, but he also partly hated Lews Therin Telamon. He believed that he was better than Lews Therin, and it was during the War that Sammael got his scar from Lews Therin. He became one of the Shadow's greatest generals, although not as great as Ishamael would be. He preferred military conquest and field commands to governing and politics.
After he emerged from the Bore, Sammael went to Illian, where he adopted the name of Lord Brend. In time, he became Illian's ruler. Sammael was apparently killed during a battle with Rand al'Thor in Shadar Logoth. He disappeared into the mist of Mashadar.
Clues From the Text
[ACoS: 15, Insects, 287]
He stood only a little taller than average, a muscular, solid man in a coat of the high-collared Illianer style, so covered with gold-work it was hard to tell the cloth was green, but more than being one of the Chosen gave him stature. His blue eyes were colder than winter's heart. A livid scar burned down his face from golden hairline to the edge of golden, square-cut beard, and it seemed a suitable decoration. Whatever got in his way was brushed aside, trampled or obliterated. Carridin knew Sammael would have turned his bowels to water if the man had been just someone met by chance.
[ACoS: 20, Patterns Within Patterns, 356]
He had always wondered how much of Sammael's vaunted bravery was really stupidity and blindness. But the man did hold saidin; perhaps he was not completely unaware of his danger.
--the Watcher
The Chosen Speak
[FoH: Prologue, The First Sparks Fall, 23]
Sammael was compact, solid and larger-seeming than he truly was, his stride quick and active, his manner abrupt. Blue-eyed and golden-haired, with a neat square-trimmed beard, he would perhaps have been above the ordinary in looks except for a slanting scar, as if a red-hot poker had been dragged across his face from hairline to jaw. He could have had it removed as soon as it was made, all those long years ago, but he had elected not to.
--Rahvin
[FoH: Prologue, The First Sparks Fall, 27]
Sammael absently rubbed the scar across his face; it had been Lews Therin who gave it to him. Three thousand years ago and more, well before the Breaking of the World, before the Great Lord was imprisoned, before so much, but Sammael never forgot.
--Sammael
[FoH: Prologue, The First Sparks Fall, 28]
Anyone who believed he was at ease was a fool; Sammael had always liked to dupe his enemies into thinking they could take him by surprise.
--Rahvin
[FoH: Proloque, The First Sparks Fall, 29]
Sammael's way had always been armies and conquest; he would not go near Lews Therin, even reborn as a shepherd, until he was sure of victory.
--Rahvin
[LoC: 6, Threads Woven in Shadow, 130]
With his golden hair Sammael might have been handsome enough to stand among [Graendal's] pets, if he would let Semirhage remove the burned furrow that slanted across his face.
[LoC: 6, Threads Woven of Shadow, 137]
Sammael was a transparent fool. No, not a fool. He was deadly enough when he had something to fight directly, something he could see clearly, but he might as well be blind when it came to subtleties.
--Graendal
[LoC: 6, Threads Woven in Shadow, 132]
...[He] enjoyed the struggle for survival, though it was unconscious now; only the strongest deserved to survive, and he proved his own fitness to himself every day in that battle.
--Sammael
Updated 06/28/99