Where are all of the old wisdoms

[Jsbrads2]

So it appears channelers live longer despite how often they channel, the stronger the person in the power, the longer they live. But in Two Rivers, despite the ability to channel being relatively common and strong ability common, the oldest person with the ability is Nynaeve. Nynaeve’s teacher had the ability as well, but nothing indicating she was more than grandmotherly yrs old.

my only caveat for this shortage is that the Pattern recessed this gene popping out very few and mostly weak channelers until it was time for Nynaeve to be born.

[SinisterDeath]

On 4/25/2020 at 11:37 PM, Jsbrads2 said:

So it appears channelers live longer despite how often they channel, the stronger the person in the power, the longer they live. But in Two Rivers, despite the ability to channel being relatively common and strong ability common, the oldest person with the ability is Nynaeve. Nynaeve’s teacher had the ability as well, but nothing indicating she was more than grandmotherly yrs old.

my only caveat for this shortage is that the Pattern recessed this gene popping out very few and mostly weak channelers until it was time for Nynaeve to be born.

They didn't actively channel, or even know that's what they were doing... So people like Nyneave, who only used it on the worst illnesses/injuries, wouldn't have lived much longer than normal, because she wasn't using it nearly as much as an Aes Sedia or an Aiel Wise One.

It's possible some of the women that survived, left the two rivers entirely, and met up with the Kin.

[Jsbrads2]

I like the Kin route.

Aiel who channel less frequently than Aes Sedai still live hundreds of years, they are usually weak in the power.

How old is Sorelea? And she is the weakest person who can actually channel (not counting Morgase). 

Wasn’t it Moggie who said lifetime was only based on power? Not use. 

[SinisterDeath]

19 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

I like the Kin route.

Aiel who channel less frequently than Aes Sedai still live hundreds of years, they are usually weak in the power.

How old is Sorelea? And she is the weakest person who can actually channel (not counting Morgase). 

Wasn’t it Moggie who said lifetime was only based on power? Not use. 

Remember when Egwene was training with Moiraine, she was nowhere near as powerful as her. But Moiraine could sense that Egwene had the potential to be more powerful.

I'd argue that prior to training & use, the spigot is nearly closed.
Only letting a wisp of the power through. (Note: how many women/men die, because they basically burn themselves out, not knowing what they are doing? Opening the valve full?)

There's also the fact that channelers can "Hold" the one power, and "fill themselves" with it, and then do nothing with it. I believe this is also part of training in the use of the One Power... 

[Jsbrads2]

Wilders that survive, can channel the tapestry that is healing, all 5 elements, splitting the weaves many times... that isn’t a trickle. 

[SinisterDeath]

13 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Wilders that survive, can channel the tapestry that is healing, all 5 elements, splitting the weaves many times... that isn’t a trickle. 

There's a difference between Wilders who use the one power, and self-trained in it's use, can see and understand what they're doing, and someone like Nyneave, using it without even knowing, and rarely at that.

Short of asking Brandon or Maria, "We don't really know" if aging would affect someone like Nyneave, unfound, untrained, and never developed their use in the OP beyond rare uses for extreme circumstances.

[Jsbrads2]

the women of the Kin, don’t often channel, they do channel more often than wisdoms and they do know what they are doing...
If you deeply analyze any story, you can find holes somewhere. I think the mechanics of this detail haven’t been worked out for the story. 

[SinisterDeath]

3 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

the women of the Kin, don’t often channel, they do channel more often than wisdoms and they do know what they are doing...
If you deeply analyze any story, you can find holes somewhere. I think the mechanics of this detail haven’t been worked out for the story. 

For sure.

We can only really conclude two things, short of asking the aforementioned.

1) Being born with the spark, and never learning or using it, causes you to age slower based upon your full potential in the OP. Those who reach their mid 60s never learning get driven out of town/executed as Dark Friends, or snagged up by Aes Sedai/Kin that learn about that "person that hasn't aged a day!"

2) Use + Potential, and when you're found/taught, dictates your maximum life span. Thereby, potentially hundreds never get "found", and die well before their maximum lifespans.

Edited May 6, 2020 by SinisterDeath

[Liitha]

i seem to remember they made a point in the later books though that the aes sedai should be allowed to retire into the kin ranks, as they discovered that in all likelyhood the oath somehow meant that aes sedai lived shorter then the kin.

 

one of egw's ideas after she became amy of the split off tower or such

 

ok checked the companion, only one in 4 wilders survive, and most develop blocks, also both wilders and kinswomen move frequently and try to avoid channeling more then nesicary to not gain the ageless look.

 

it also goes on to explain how it worked later on in their lives and so on, and what happened if someone noticed ...but again exceptions to exceptions and peoples will to overlook something that just doesnt happen and so on and forth is the explanation from the books in gist. 

 

really between the books, the BWB and the companion you can find quite a lot of answers its just a mather of having the time or memory for it (i dont have the later so the bwb and companion is super usefull cause dont have time too reread the books all the time)

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Liitha

[Jsbrads2]

Liitha, yes the Kin believe the ageless look comes from use Saidar, but it isn’t. The ageless look comes from use of a binding rod, called by White Tower initiates the Oath rod.

 

Sinister, a woman born with the spark will eventually use Saidar, it isn’t a choice. Untrained, they will develop a block, but they continue to use Saidar, healing, eavesdropping and mild compulsion seem to be the most common weaves they develop. 

[Risyn_Mael]

To venture a guess, it seems like there may be many reasons for the lack of "old" Wisdoms we see in the Two Rivers area. One may be the simple matter of a small sample size, statistically speaking, introducing an element of randomness that's not representative of what we'd see if we had more data.

 

That's not very fun, though, so let's put it aside for now.

 

Another possibility is that historically we would see a lot more older women serving as Wisdom in the communities in and around the Two Rivers. In this moment in time, however, as the Old Blood begins to really sing again (that river that splits apart and winds its way down through the years before rejoining again), there is an abundance of highly-capable young women who've ended up as Wisdoms within a few years of each other.

 

Given that, outside of the Two Rivers, we very rarely (if ever?) see young women serving as Wisdoms/Wise Women/other healers, that is my basic assumption--especially when coupled with the fact that everyone is borderline scandalized at Nynaeve's youth in EotW.

[SinisterDeath]

57 minutes ago, Risyn_Mael said:

To venture a guess, it seems like there may be many reasons for the lack of "old" Wisdoms we see in the Two Rivers area. One may be the simple matter of a small sample size, statistically speaking, introducing an element of randomness that's not representative of what we'd see if we had more data.

 

That's not very fun, though, so let's put it aside for now.

 

Another possibility is that historically we would see a lot more older women serving as Wisdom in the communities in and around the Two Rivers. In this moment in time, however, as the Old Blood begins to really sing again (that river that splits apart and winds its way down through the years before rejoining again), there is an abundance of highly-capable young women who've ended up as Wisdoms within a few years of each other.

 

Given that, outside of the Two Rivers, we very rarely (if ever?) see young women serving as Wisdoms/Wise Women/other healers, that is my basic assumption--especially when coupled with the fact that everyone is borderline scandalized at Nynaeve's youth in EotW.

Are you implying all those old wisdoms are just Regular old people, or Old wilders? Because if they are old looking and able to channel to any degree of strength, they should be... really old.

 

 

16 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Sinister, a woman born with the spark will eventually use Saidar, it isn’t a choice. Untrained, they will develop a block, but they continue to use Saidar, healing, eavesdropping and mild compulsion seem to be the most common weaves they develop. 

Lets look at Damer Flinn.
~40 years old, looks old, Balding, white hair..
From everything we know, he only began to channel recently... At 40. 
Considering people start around the end of puberty? Get a terrible sickness, and only a handful survive?
The White Tower had strict age requirements to be entered in as a Novice. Many lied to get in if they were too old.

The Rebel Aes Sedia, were said to have novices that age of grandmothers. I can't recall, but did they look old?

How sure are we that the anti-aging  properties of the OP isn't tied to daily use that an Aes Sedia in training would get?

[Risyn_Mael]

2 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Are you implying all those old wisdoms are just Regular old people, or Old wilders? Because if they are old looking and able to channel to any degree of strength, they should be... really old.

 

Just that they're regular old people, and that in many parts of the world, there aren't enough Wilders for them to form the core of the healers in a region--given all of the accidental culling of the ability over the past thousands of years.  

[SinisterDeath]

3 minutes ago, Risyn_Mael said:

 

Just that they're regular old people, and that in many parts of the world, there aren't enough Wilders for them to form the core of the healers in a region--given all of the accidental culling of the ability over the past thousands of years.  

Ah ok. 

[Thrasymachus]

I would imagine that the danger of channelling doesn't just go away after the initial sickness from first touching the Source that afflicts untrained sparkers.  Even blocked, sparkers will continue to channel sooner or later, and will do it without knowledge or control.  The same dangers of causing an accident or burning one's self out either stilling (resulting in a nearly always lethal depression) or outright killing themselves should still apply, so there may not be much chance for them to survive to normal old age, let alone long enough to appear to be old.  Nynaeve had already slowed by the time Moiraine shows up in the Eye, appearing to be only a couple of years older than Rand, Mat and Perrin, but really being at least five years older. 

 

I imagine that Nynaeve's most likely future, in a world where she lives out her life in Emond's Field never knowing her true abilities, is that, confronted with a terrible illness or devastating injury caused by a stupid accident, she becomes so enraged at her inability to heal that she draws too much Power through her block and burns herself out.  This is followed by weeks of an unexplainable, deep depression that ends with someone finding her after having hung herself in her room, opened her veins in a bath, or taken a bunch of poison.  Either that or she incinerates herself on the spot, and with her latent potential, probably takes her patient, the house they're in, and maybe the neighbor's houses as well, with her.

[SinisterDeath]

42 minutes ago, Thrasymachus said:

I imagine that Nynaeve's most likely future, in a world where she lives out her life in Emond's Field never knowing her true abilities, is that, confronted with a terrible illness or devastating injury caused by a stupid accident, she becomes so enraged at her inability to heal that she draws too much Power through her block and burns herself out.  This is followed by weeks of an unexplainable, deep depression that ends with someone finding her after having hung herself in her room, opened her veins in a bath, or taken a bunch of poison.  Either that or she incinerates herself on the spot, and with her latent potential, probably takes her patient, the house they're in, and maybe the neighbor's houses as well, with her.

We've seen possible futures of during the early books when Rand and Company uses the Stones to travel.
I'll have to re-read that section to see what they mention (age wise) for Egwene.

[Jsbrads2]

People with the ability to be trained age normally if they don’t use the power. The question is if someone lived half their life not channeling, then start... will they now live to 190? 40 yrs normal life plus half of 300?

[Thrasymachus]

Sharina, that old grandmother-age novice among the rebels, began to de-age a bit as she channelled and learned as a novice.  Considering her strength, and if she remained unbound, she could live to be 800 years old.  While it's never explicitly said, I doubt her roughly 80 years living as a normie will make much difference.  I reckon she'll de-age to appear to be a woman in her 40's over the course of about a decade, and then go on to live her allotted 400 years as a bound channellers, unless she retires into the kin, and then who knows?  Being unbound could return those years, or not, or only partly.  Another thing that's never really answered.