Lord Loss (character)

Lord Loss is the Demon Master from Darren Shan's ten-book series, The Demonata. Lord Loss is an ancient demon who feeds off the sorrow of humanity, and through this has a morbid love of humanity. From an encounter in the novel Bec, Lord Loss had gained an obsession with chess, one of his only similarities to mankind.

Lord Loss is the only character to definitely have appeared in all eight books, and is likely to appear in all of them.

He is the cruelest character in the books. Two of the three times that people betray their allies, he does not permit them to live. He also kills people in the cruelest way possible. In Bec he kills a woman by tormenting her with zombies of her dead children.

Lord Loss is the first demon to be named in this book, although Vein and Artery were described before him. He first appears during the slaughter of Grubbs' family, and then comes back later to play chess against Dervish and Grubbs, where he is beaten.

Description
Lord Loss is described as having pale red, lumpy skin, and eight arms (which are frequently described as being mangled). He has no heart, and instead simply has an open hole in his chest filled with snakes. He bares a pair of very dark-red eyes with jet black pupils. Instead of having a pair of legs, strips of bloody flesh hang from his waist, and so he moves about by levitating. The many individual cracks in his skin, which seep blood every time he even slightly moves, give his demonic appearance a nice touch as well. He is the only Demon Master that somehow is free to travel between the Demon universe and the human universe whenever he wishes. Any other Demon Master (or demon) would have to wait for a mage to create a small window (which demon masters normally can't fit through), or use a tunnel, which is much harder to create.

Unlike any other demon in the book, Lord Loss feeds on the sorrow of humans, and because of this, he is not interested in mindless killing. He is the cruelest character in the books, and enjoys bringing slow and painful deaths upon humans. Two of the three times that people betray their allies, he does not permit them to live. He also kills people in the cruelest way possible. In Bec he kills a woman by tormenting her with zombies of her dead children.

Again unlike any of his demonic fellows, Lord Loss is greatly intelligent, and has mastered the use of human languages. His speech pattern is characterised by a tone of immense sadness, coupled with the use of quite a sophisticated vocabulary; he rarely uses abbreviations, and always addresses characters by their fulls names as opposed to nicknames. On several occasions, he has displayed polite and elegant mannerisms which contrast sharply with other more bestial behaviour undertaken at the same time: for example, at the end of his chess game in the first book, he graciously escorts Dervish Grady to the portal to the Demonata Universe, and then tries to rip his throat out moments later.

He lives in a castle made of webs. These webs vary from thick to thin, all extraordinarily strong, in order to make the mechanisms of the drawbridge work, etc. There is a moat with demon sharks at the bottom, but instead of water there is empty space. In many ways, Lord Loss bears a resemblance to a spider: His eight arms and the fact that he sometimes moves by crawling across his webbing all suggest an arachnid quality. In addition, his throne is in the shape of a spider.

Appearances
He has made appearances throughout the different books.

Lord Loss

Main article: Lord Loss

In Lord Loss, the title character is first seen killing the family of our protagonist, Grubbs, accompanied by Vein and Artery. Using his power to cure lycanthropy, a game of chess is instigated against him by Dervish. Dervish rushes to save Grubbs when he's threatened, then Grubbs takes his place and makes a bad game worse. But once he notices that Lord Loss is feeding off his misery and desperation, he puts on a disinterested façade and storms to victory. Because of Grubbs' insults to both the game of Chess and Lord Loss himself, Lord Loss vows to make the Gradys suffer, a vow that intensifies in venom as the series progresses.

Demon Thief

Main article: Demon Thief

Lord Loss masterminded the cruel plot to slowly drag Kernel towards him and, using the First Board stolen from the Druid Drust in Bec, let him realize the truth about Art. Kernel was responsible for turning Lord Loss's familiar (Artery) into a human (Art), which led to Kernel discovering his powers.

Slawter

Main article: Slawter

Lord Loss was the only Demon Master in the town of Slawter. Before the demons were released, he gave a speech to the crowd. He then unleashed his demon followers. He had a fight with Dervish and Grubbs, but eventually they escaped with the 34 survivors of the cast and crew. During his fight with Grubbs all his arms were severed, but after Grubbs ran away he regrew them using magic. Lord Loss vowed to make the Gradys' deaths even more long and painful, then proceeded to kill all the people remaining in Slawter in the most painful ways he could think of.

Bec

Main article: Bec

Lord Loss purposefully assisted in stopping the demon attacks on Ireland, due to the fact that the human world was where he got his power from, through misery and sorrow. However, he did not wish any of the group that destroyed the tunnel to live (although Bran survived). It is in this book he first learns about chess, as he sees Drust playing it. He also sours Bec's "victory" with an admission to the futility of their mission, claiming that closing the tunnel had been for his benefit and that he had been crossing for centuries before that. Half way through he gives Bec some of his powers. Unfortunately for him that included part of the Kah-gash

Blood Beast

Main article: Blood Beast

Lord Loss is not seen until the plane scene where he and his demons start killing people on the plane. He rips the lower half of a woman's face off and feeds it to Artery.

Demon Apocalypse

Main article: Demon Apocalypse

Lord Loss is first seen in the beginning of the book from the continuation of Blood Beast. Then afterward, at the cave, before and after Bec, Grubbs, Kernel and Beranabus time travel through the power of the Kah Gash. Lord Loss battles with them in order to open the tunnel and allow thousands of demons to pass. In this book, he displays affection for his (technically) human servant Juni Swan, grieving in an "almost human" way when she is killed. This is the only occasion on which he has shown genuine care for a mortal, and it is implied that the two may have shared a romantic relationship. Indeed, Juni professes her love to Lord Loss before she dies.

Death's Shadow

Main article: Death's Shadow

Lord Loss does not appear in this book, except for speaking through Cadaver's mouth. It is the first book of the series he has not appeared in.

Wolf island

Lord Loss makes no apperance, he is only mentioned.