I don't think being a Blade Master is out of character for Demandred (although I was amused that Asmodean was supposed to be one), but I do think the duels were distracting and the mentality he suddenly displayed was very different from the glimpses RJ dribbled our way throughout the series. During the Cleansing he flat out stated that the front lines was no place for a General and resented the fact that he had to get his hands dirty.

I, god help me, actually agree with Shannow on his main question here though ... How much of the last 3 books are actually cannon? Sanderson did not have a strong grasp of the mechanics of the OP and regularly gave us strange information that didn't really fit I to the rest of the series. He had a poor handle on many main characters (Mat, Graendal, Aviendha and many more) which led to some strange character interactions and left us with a lot of half ass resolution to plot lines .... Seriously a couple of paragraphs and Tuon pulls a full 180 and joins up with Rand, signs his treaty and abandons her own versions of the Prophesy after her people spent a millennia of belief in it??? Focussing nearly the entire last book on a battle,made it action filled, but ultimately robbed us of satisfying plot resolutions. I would have rather have seen no resolution to characters like Moghedien and Alviarin rather than the weak one sentence wrap ups. Or just tell us what happened off screen instead. Nynaeve spotting Moghedien in an a'dam or Cadsuane getting a report that the BA leadership had been captured and were being held in a Stedding awaiting prosecution would have been a less clumsy way to wrap these things up IMO. I'm sure there were many places with sketchy or no notes for guidance, but the whole book felt crammed because he spent 600 pages explaining a battle.