Fickle Foxhead?

[Jaric Mondoran]

I usually assume that any inconsistency or continuity goof I notice in this series has already been extensively analyzed by someone, but I haven't heard this one brought up before. Maybe someone can prove me wrong...

 

Before Rahvin gets balefire'd out of existence he kills Mat and others with lightning and fire; it's specifically noted that the foxhead medallion only offers immunity from saidar. However, in LoC Mat arrives in Salidar and dances with Halima/Aran'gar at a party one night and manages to miff her enough to get channelled at:

 

"It should have been nothing, but before he had gone ten paces the foxhead went icy cold on his chest. He spun around, looking furiously for anything at all. What he saw was Halima staring at him in the firelight. Only for an instant before she seized a tall Warder's arm and whirled back into the dance, but he was sure he had seen shock on that beautiful face."

 

The question is obvious: since Aran'gar wields saidin, how were her flows foiled by the medallion? Of course, we can't know for sure from this passage that she channelled at him, but there's no reason to think that Mat's POV misrepresents what actually happened. Foreshadowing like this is right up Jordan's alley, also, providing the main characters clues to what the reader knows already.

[Beckon]

I'm pretty sure RJ said it works against both halves of the Power. I don't have the books with me now to look at the Saidar reference, but it could just be that the person was speaking in reference to what they knew, which was Saidar.

[wvlr]

I usually assume that any inconsistency or continuity goof I notice in this series has already been extensively analyzed by someone' date=' but I haven't heard this one brought up before. Maybe someone can prove me wrong...

 

Before Rahvin gets balefire'd out of existence he kills Mat and others with lightning and fire; it's specifically noted that the foxhead medallion only offers immunity from [i']saidar[/i]. However, in LoC Mat arrives in Salidar and dances with Halima/Aran'gar at a party one night and manages to miff her enough to get channelled at:

 

"It should have been nothing, but before he had gone ten paces the foxhead went icy cold on his chest. He spun around, looking furiously for anything at all. What he saw was Halima staring at him in the firelight. Only for an instant before she seized a tall Warder's arm and whirled back into the dance, but he was sure he had seen shock on that beautiful face."

 

The question is obvious: since Aran'gar wields saidin, how were her flows foiled by the medallion? Of course, we can't know for sure from this passage that she channelled at him, but there's no reason to think that Mat's POV misrepresents what actually happened. Foreshadowing like this is right up Jordan's alley, also, providing the main characters clues to what the reader knows already.

 

Actually, through the references you have given and a few others,we found that the fox head DOES protect against both.

 

It has been determined that the reason Matt was killed is because the Power was used to create the storm and direct the lightening bolt, but the lightening bolt was not actually constructed of the One Power.

 

Just as AS later found that they could pick up something (manure I think) and throw it at Matt. As long as the Power itself (male or female) does not touch him, the spells work.

[Tommar]

Yes quite right. The lightning you mentioned was made in a general sort of way, Rahvin knew where the attackers originated from and directed a bunch of lightning to randomly hit them. It is a great refrence to show the weakness in the Foxhead. While it will stop a channeler from touching him with the one power it does not stop them from grabbing a large rock and hitting him over the head :)

[wvlr]

Yes quite right. The lightning you mentioned was made in a general sort of way' date=' Rahvin knew where the attackers originated from and directed a bunch of lightning to randomly hit them. It is a great refrence to show the weakness in the Foxhead. While it will stop a channeler from touching him with the one power it does not stop them from grabbing a large rock and hitting him over the head :)[/quote']

 

Ouch! That has GOT to hurt!

[Jaric Mondoran]

Thanks guys. I guess this is the only reasonable explanation, although I've long held the opinion that fire or lightning conjured out of nowhere consisted of woven Fire or Air. It's one thing to tweak an ongoing natural phenomenon like a lightning storm, and another to produce this kind of phenomenon where it would never occur naturally. I recall some of the language Jordan used to make me think this way, like when Rand creates a shield to fend off Rahvin's attack:

 

"Rand wove Fire and Air to meet Fire and Air, a slow-spreading shield racing lightning's fall."

 

I'm inclined to believe that you're correct in that the current canon makes the foxhead proof against any use of the Power, but I think it's a slight revision of what we see in earlier books.

[Luckers]

Lightning is what we call the sudden movement of a large amount of electrons. Essentially, creating lightning with the power is like throwing a stone, the power lends the electrons the energy to move, and obviously funnel them in a specific controlled direction, but it is the electrons themselves that do the damage, not the weave.

 

In effect what we are seeing is the photoelectric effect, except instead of using elctromagnetic energy to incite movement, the characters are using the one power, and instead of a negatively charged annode to create the target point, the characters are again using the one power to focus the movement to a specific target.

 

Note that in KoD we see again a weave designed to instigate the movement of electrical charge work against Mat.

[Jaric Mondoran]

It's a fine distinction. I tend to use Jordan's language as a benchmark: take the many descriptions in the series of domes, walls, and clubs made of Air. Sometimes these are invisible and other times they appear as a greyish mass of some kind. You could just as easily argue that these constructs aren't weaves themselves, but that the weave merely makes air molecules attach rigidly to one another, forming a solid. Thus the club or dome is a physical object not subject to the foxhead's immunity. But of course we know from the books that a female channeller can't wrap up Mat in bands of Air when he's got his lucky charm; if the bands of solid air were separate from the flows of Air which made them, this should have been possible.

 

My issue with your point about electricity is that I don't think a separation of the weave and the lighning generated by the weaves sounds physically plausible. I don't see how any electrical disturbance caused by a weave at point A can by itself generate a lightning bolt that will strike at point B. I have to think that the weave somehow generated a potential between points A and B to make this happen. It might do so mystically, but the weave would probably have to extend to the target of the bolt. I see this as falling into the same area as Healing (flows have to touch the target in order to manipulate internal bodily processes and repair damage), and we already know Mat is immune to this.

[BrainFireBob]

Things like clubs of Air require maintenance to prevent dissipation. Air won't remain that dense nor that manipulatable on its own.

 

Lightning is simply electrons arcing across the potential barrier between a high concentration well (ground) and a low (sky). They gather around anything that decreases the magnitude of the potential barrier- which means anything tall, the taller the better.

 

It's a process again to an avalanche once that critical mass is reached. Jordan's a trained physicist, as such, he considers such things. So you set the conditions and the lightning happens.

[Luckers]

Well the issue is that is is supported by Physics. All electrons need to make the leap to a grounded point--i.e. something with a positive charge--themselves is energy. This energy can be granted by many things--the ionisation of storm clouds, the photoelectric effect, electromagnetic induction.

 

Robert Jordan, with his background in Physics, would know this and is seemingly suggesting that the power can also lend electrons the energy they need to leave their medium. The resulting electrical discharge is, in and of itself, a perfectly natural thing, with no requirements for the power to sustain its existence.

 

The clubs of air, however, are not naturally occuring. Some force is required to keep the gaseous molecules rigidly allignes. Remove that force and the presure of our atmosphere would cause the instantaneous dispersal of the gas. The same goes with fireballs. Molecules do not naturally remain in enough agitation to release that sort of infrared electromagnetic energy. Some form of fuel is always required. Remove the force that is energising those molecules to such a state, and the infrared energy would dissipate in an instant.

 

Theoretically, i suppose, it would be possible to create a fire hot enough that even after the power is removed it manages to burn the person wearing the Power Disruptor before it disipates--concider Alivia's burned arm in Winter's Heart. The amount of heat would have to be fairly immense though.

[Jaric Mondoran]

I am certainly not a physicist, but am somewhat comforted by the fact that there is only ~ 1 expert on the physical implications of the One Power in the whole world anyway.

 

At any rate, my layman's brain still fails to comprehend how a lightning strike can target a specific point without the relevant weave touching that point. These bolts certainly don't behave like normal lightning (striking people in a courtyard surrounded by high towers with pennants, etc). The POVs of channelers indicate that they think of a place they want to hit with lightning or make fire erupt, and it does - this suggest to me that their weaves are touching the target. I think that you're saying the weave just produces this "concentration" of negative charge and then the electrons arc of their own accord. I don't see how lightning could be made to strike a particular target if that's so; wouldn't it show an equal tendency to go in any direction unless the weave manipulated the charge distribution of the target as well?

[Luckers]

At any rate, my layman's brain still fails to comprehend how a lightning strike can target a specific point without the relevant weave touching that point.

 

It is a good question. As i see it, there are two options, the first and least likely is that the weave funnels the electrical discharge at the beginning, rather akin to the barrel of a gun. Electricity, like water, follows the path of least resistance, once on that path it will not act to alter that path unless an easier one becomes open. As i said, i find this unlikely... there is no way that i am aware of to achieve it, though in truth modern physicists don't have the power to work with.

 

The infinitely more likely way, to my mind, is that the weave polarises the ground under the intended target, making it a more attractive target, and the individual a lightning pole. I could see this potentially working even with Mat, and certainly the Seanchan weave Joline uses on him in KoD suggests that the ability to do that near him, without directly affecting him or coming in contact with the the power-nullifying aspects of the medallion is possible.

 

It should be noted, however, that the lightning bolts that hit mat were not intentionally directed. They were curtailed to a specific area in the New City, but not to specific targets, ergo there is no requirement for the power to have come in contact with Mat or his Medallion.

 

I think that you're saying the weave just produces this "concentration" of negative charge and then the electrons arc of their own accord.

 

Actually negatively charged electrons are always present and concentrated in the atmosphere. All the weave does is lend the electrons the energy to leave the pull of their medium atom. And yes, direct the discharge.

 

As i said, its rather like throwing a stone. The weave lends the object the force to move, and funnels its direction, and though energised and directed by the power, the object that actually does the damage is not in fact power related.

[Tenshin_Xo]

Perhaps a simpler way to think about it like this. In high school, you play a bit with static charge, or failing that I'm sure you've shocked yourself on a light switch or something.

 

The Power is used to make the terminals (ie the finger and the light switch) and the bolt of lightning(or the static discharge) happens between the two.

[Trib4l]

I'm in agreement with Luckers as to the method of targeting the lightning based on the physics of lightning alone. The weave likely charges the intended target area as well as the sky.

[alStephanie]

this isnt related to the physics discussion whatsoever, because i mainly glazed over that stuff (woot for a 41% in physics! lol), but about the medallion protecting both sides. I always thought it did, and agree with the physics-y stuff about how the lightning bolt itself was not made of the power, that killed him. But when there is channeling going on around him, the medallion goes cool (whereas it goes cold when the weaves are directed at him). But when the Band is at the camp outside of Salidar, *possible spoiler* and the Chosen (cant remember which right now) that made a gateway right next to Mats tent (thankfully he wasnt inside), wouldnt mat have felt the medallion go cool when that happened? because he only realized what happened when he found the ropes/plants severed afterwards, and he didnt mention the medallion at all.... :?

[BrainFireBob]

It works against both halves- Halaima channelling at Mat confirms this, as did Jordan.

 

Mat either didn't notice (ie, hadn't figured that function of the medallion out yet), or the channelling was outside the medallion's "range."

[mègon]

I'd like to point out that lightning does not have to strike someone to kill them. It would be very possible for the lightning that rahvin create to have struck near Matt. This would've had the same effect. Lots of heat, a huge concussion, and the explosion from the lightning hitting the ground. That could've had all the effects on matt that were described in that scene.

 

Rand, who's POV it is from, does not know whether or not matt was hit directly with a lightning bolt or not. He just makes a vague assumption of "I guess it doesn't work against saidin". But Rand is just guessing, he has no hard proof.

 

We can't make the assumption that something is true just because one of the characters makes that assumption. We know that the characters don't know everything, and that they make vague statements alot (like how the women all thing men are gossips, or how all the guys think the other guys know how to deal with women, etc), so why should one assumption be taken as hard fact even when there is evidence to disprove it?

[Luckers]

wouldnt mat have felt the medallion go cool when that happened? because he only realized what happened when he found the ropes/plants severed afterwards, and he didnt mention the medallion at all....

 

It's possible that he simply didn't notice the chill of the medallion, or that the medallion had fallen out of his shirt, or so on...

[mègon]

wouldnt mat have felt the medallion go cool when that happened? because he only realized what happened when he found the ropes/plants severed afterwards' date=' and he didnt mention the medallion at all.... [/quote']

 

It's possible that he simply didn't notice the chill of the medallion, or that the medallion had fallen out of his shirt, or so on...

 

Does it go cool when there is channeling going on around him, or when there is someone holding the True Source around him?

 

If I remember correctly, during the big fight with the Shaido, Matt's medallion was not cold against him all day, but there was channeling going on all day long.

[Jaric Mondoran]

I seem to recall that women holding saidar don't affect the medallion at all, but that nearby channelling makes it go cool and that weaves directed at him make it go "ice" cold. Could be wrong on this, though.

[BrainFireBob]

It detects embracing the Source for women- evidence Knife of Dreams, when Karede is in Mat's camp. When the damane releases the power, Mat nods- then whirls to point his finger at the Aes Sedai saying "Now don't you start! She released the power, you do too."

 

The Aes Sedai hadn't done anything yet- ergo, it detects holding the power.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I know it's hard to remember, given how Jordan belabors some points, but he doesn't mention every little thing that goes on in every scene. ( There were more Forsaken taking part in the attack on Rand at the Cleansing than we saw, for instance. Since nothing major happened concerning them, Jordan elected not to create a laundry list of everybody who was there. )

 

So, we won't necessarily be informed every single time the medallion changes temperature.

 

The medallion will protect Mat against direct magic attacks, but it can do nothing about indirect effects, such an explosion nearby.