Healing is a Construct

[Jsbrads2]

Healing can’t be an ordinary weave.

weaves do a thing. A construct acts situationally. If someone is anemic, it increases their blood clot factor, if someone is suffering clots it reduces the blood clot factor. If someone has a wound in one part of the body, it only “heals” there.

we were introduced to the idea of other kinds of weaves that heal specific parts of the body like the heart, and one Aes Sedai can dial in the power so carefully that she can heal someone just enough to live without healing the body so completely that the patient dies from the loss of energy, but she can’t prevent the weaves from healing a scratch while it heals the lung.

[Samt]

In the WoT universe, what do you mean by the term construct?  Are there other examples of constructs?  I'm not sure I understand the point you are trying to make.  

 

Healing is obviously a specific thing that is done, but can you explain why it can't be an ordinary weave?  

 

Definitely there is a concept of not only the power of a weave, but also the dexterity with which that weave is controlled.  What level of control and precision does the channeler have?  But this comes up with practically every weave including binding with air, manipulating objects, compulsion, gateways, balefire, shielding, etc.  Why is healing distinct?

[SinisterDeath]

2 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Healing can’t be an ordinary weave.

weaves do a thing. A construct acts situationally. If someone is anemic, it increases their blood clot factor, if someone is suffering clots it reduces the blood clot factor. If someone has a wound in one part of the body, it only “heals” there.

we were introduced to the idea of other kinds of weaves that heal specific parts of the body like the heart, and one Aes Sedai can dial in the power so carefully that she can heal someone just enough to live without healing the body so completely that the patient dies from the loss of energy, but she can’t prevent the weaves from healing a scratch while it heals the lung.

 

Just to interject, the healing weaves Aes Sedia were using at the start of the series, was basically known as battle healing, which was primarily used during the war of power. (It basically puts the patient's metabolism into hyperdrive, akin to Wolverine)

It's analogous to channeling lightning, where you're effectively using the one power on the environment around you, to guide nature into doing the hard work for you. There's several examples of this throughout the series, but it's not utilized very often.

Nynaeve introduced actual healing weaves that don't cause the patient to die from loss of energy/metabolic hyperdrive. Whether her weaves still cause the body to go into metabolic hyperdrive, and the one power is substituting the patients energy stores, or the weaves are repairing the damage like a 3d printer, or "fixing the pattern", I don't know...

 

As for how it relates to other weaves.

It's just another form of energy manipulation. 

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

Weather manipulation, if I recall, was not something that had precisely predictable results. For example verin in the two rivers and the bowl of the winds. They kinda had to do their thing and then see what happened?

[Jsbrads2]

Samt, the first construct is when Rand is in the Stone of Tear and he creates a self aware storm that seeks Trollocs and Myrdral on its own. The construct over attacked trollocs that entered the hallway where the construct was created, then lightnings flowed down all the corridors, in all directions and killed all shadow spawn outside direct observation by Rand, indicating independent information processing.

Callendor was protected by a tied off construct that protected itself or any channeler would be able to slowly pick away at it until they could reach Callendor. Rand probably created a simpler but more vicious construct to protect Callendor, tho it could have been an inverted trap weave that resets.

The Bowl of Winds creates/powers a construct.

And the last one that comes to mind was the final weave during his Seanchan war, also a construct. When Rand made the construct, he didn’t make it correctly because of the slippery weaves. Had his final weaving been just many more lightnings than other people can channel, he would have had to direct all the individual lightning strikes himself, and he probably would have noticed when the individual lightnings started slipping into his own ranks, but he was just powering a construct that was supposed to differentiate between his side and the other side and attack the other side.

[Jsbrads2]

Sinister, you may be right, I didn’t think of it in those terms.

 

Light, the problem with weather manipulation is very complicated, and that’s why a terangreal creating a construct is needed.

The Windfinder was gathering information from far away and channeling over large distances to makes changes to weather. She was an expert at make the changes needed.

When someone brings rain, they have to bring moisture from another part of the sky, but they won’t have precise data about the air speed, humidity and temperature at the location they are drawing from, so they can push the wind much faster than they intend, they can “draw” more water than intended, and not have precise temp, they can cause a mini hurricane when they intended a cooling sun shower. But someone very expert can tug very gently on the air, constantly updating her data set as information comes in, beginning of her pull was too gentle, she pulls a little harder and has the best understand of how things interact…

[SinisterDeath]

11 minutes ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Sinister, you may be right, I didn’t think of it in those terms.

 

Light, the problem with weather manipulation is very complicated, and that’s why a terangreal creating a construct is needed.

The Windfinder was gathering information from far away and channeling over large distances to makes changes to weather. She was an expert at make the changes needed.

When someone brings rain, they have to bring moisture from another part of the sky, but they won’t have precise data about the air speed, humidity and temperature at the location they are drawing from, so they can push the wind much faster than they intend, they can “draw” more water than intended, and not have precise temp, they can cause a mini hurricane when they intended a cooling sun shower. But someone very expert can tug very gently on the air, constantly updating her data set as information comes in, beginning of her pull was too gentle, she pulls a little harder and has the best understand of how things interact…

"Construct" aka a computer program / golem isn't necessarily the correct verbiage when it comes to something like weather... 

I'm not even sure that's the right word to use for shadowspawn seeking lightning, as we don't know how weaves that specifically target creations of the dark ones even work? Hell, we don't even know why or how Aes Sedai can even sense shadowspawn!

When it comes to weather manipulation, I don't think it has much to do with this idea of a "construct" or "computer" program, except for when it's taking place in doors like you described.

 

Outside, you add or remove away energy from the weather system, and then the weather does what it does.

If you want lightning to strike, you create the conditions for lightning.
If you want lightning to strike a specific place, you create a conduit from the ground to a point in the sky, and the lightning will follow it like a copper wire down a kite string.

If you want to create a mini storm in the hallway of a building, that's an entirely different beast then creating a natural storm.

That reminds me of the difference in technique between lighting a candle by drawing the heat out of your cup of wine cooling it in the process, and using only the one power to create a ball of flame hot enough to melt solid rock. 

Both techniques their dis/advantages and limitations. Scales are prevalent here.
One example is maintaining a high degree of flame.

Transferring heat from a large body of water to shoot scalding steam at the enemy all day is possibly less draining then launching massive molten balls of fire.

So kinda getting back on track here. Whether something like Shadowspawn seeking weaves are a "construct", I'd put regular weather manipulation in a different category then whatever that storm was that shot lightning specifically at trollocs was.

My best guess is. Whatever it is that allows Aes Sedai to sense Shadowspawn, That's tied to the weave in some manner. And that weave is almost like a tied off mini thunder-storm, that has a bunch of tendrils of spirit that wave around, and when it touches a shadowspawn, it causes that conduit to make a connection for that lightning to create a ground and go Zzzaaap.

[SinisterDeath]

Oh also.

If the 4th age can figure out how to create computer programs out of weaves.

Holy Crap. They're going to make the Age of Legends look like literal children playing with toys.

[Scarloc99]

On 7/3/2023 at 6:22 PM, Jsbrads2 said:

Healing can’t be an ordinary weave.

weaves do a thing. A construct acts situationally. If someone is anemic, it increases their blood clot factor, if someone is suffering clots it reduces the blood clot factor. If someone has a wound in one part of the body, it only “heals” there.

we were introduced to the idea of other kinds of weaves that heal specific parts of the body like the heart, and one Aes Sedai can dial in the power so carefully that she can heal someone just enough to live without healing the body so completely that the patient dies from the loss of energy, but she can’t prevent the weaves from healing a scratch while it heals the lung.

Healing is a perfectly ordinary weave. As with all aspects of the power there are different weaves that do different things and, as is consistent with the story many of the wonders of the age of legends have been lost. 
 

So the Aes Sedai have lost how to heal properly, the only method they have is that all or nothing approach. Heal all the body or none of it. As you say this puts great strain on the body being healed. But it is still a weave and the Aes sedai has to be in control the whole time and has to direct it. 
 

Later on it is one of the Ashaman who discovers how to heal only that which has been damaged, that combines with Nynave discovering how to combine all the powers to heal leads the yellow ajah and the kin to develop and learn different types of healing many of which are probably being re learnt. However again this is still weaves there is nothing different here to the weave for throwing a stone, or compulsion. 
 

Now onto your next points. Callandor did not make the weave to kill the trollocs etc? Rand did it, and he monologues to himself about it several times later in the books. It was a weave that he controlled and directed. 
 

The bowl of the winds, this also only worked while being channeled into. We know that in the age of legends it was one of many that formed a system

around earth. On its own aes sedai of the age of legends could only control very localized weather patterns with one. The whole network was needed for many. When it was used to fix the weather it was pushed far beyond anything it should have been able to do, something that shocked the forsaken. But again it was channeled and controlled by the wind finders using it. It was not acting of its own accord. They made small changes to the weather and, like a butterfly causing a hurricane, that then cascaded through the atmosphere to remove the dark lords effect. 

[Jsbrads2]

In the age of legends there was a global network of Terangreal to control the weather, but those terangreal were not bowls of wind, those were something else.

the bowl of winds was probably created after the sealing of the Bore. Once the global network was shattered, one or more powerful surviving female Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends created it to prevent the world from being covered in storms and the necessary weaves were given to the Seafolk. 

[DojoToad]

2 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

In the age of legends there was a global network of Terangreal to control the weather, but those terangreal were not bowls of wind, those were something else.

the bowl of winds was probably created after the sealing of the Bore. Once the global network was shattered, one or more powerful surviving female Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends created it to prevent the world from being covered in storms and the necessary weaves were given to the Seafolk. 

Thought the bowl accessed saidin.  Wouldn't that require men?

 

Either way, can't have the climate changing...

 

🤣

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Thought the bowl accessed saidin.  Wouldn't that require men?

I might be misinterpreting your question. Having disclosed that I don’t fully understand the mechanism behind the bowl of the winds, but when we see it used in the books there were no men present. However, I’m pretty sure whoever is facilitating the narrative through their point of view IIRC remarks upon some awareness of saidin interacting somehow anyway. I could be completely wrong here though, I haven’t reread the books repeatedly. 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Lightfriendsocialmistress

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, Lightfriendsocialmistress said:

I might be misinterpreting your question. Having disclosed that I don’t fully understand the mechanism behind the bowl of the winds, but when we see it used in the books there were no men present. However, I’m pretty sure whoever is facilitating the narrative through their point of view IIRC remarks upon some awareness of saidin interacting somehow anyway. I could be completely wrong here though, I haven’t reread the books repeatedly. 

My assumption was that since the bowl accessed saidin, that men were involved in creation of the bowl.

[Lightfriendsocialmistress]

19 hours ago, DojoToad said:

My assumption was that since the bowl accessed saidin, that men were involved in creation of the bowl.

Ohhhh the creation of the bowl!!! My brain misfired and thought you were referring to men being somehow involved in its use in story rather than involvement in its creation. My bad, thanks for clarifying. 

[Scarloc99]

On 9/1/2023 at 6:44 AM, Jsbrads2 said:

In the age of legends there was a global network of Terangreal to control the weather, but those terangreal were not bowls of wind, those were something else.

the bowl of winds was probably created after the sealing of the Bore. Once the global network was shattered, one or more powerful surviving female Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends created it to prevent the world from being covered in storms and the necessary weaves were given to the Seafolk. 

No those were the bowl of the winds, one of the forsaken specifically says that they have found an item from the age of legends that helped control the weather. If it was made post breaking then the forsaken would have no knowledge of it. 
 

The global network was made up of hundreds of “bowls of the winds” most of them are lost or destroyed. 

[Jsbrads2]

On 9/1/2023 at 9:23 PM, DojoToad said:

My assumption was that since the bowl accessed saidin, that men were involved in creation of the bowl.

That’s a good point. It may have been, or maybe not, I don’t know. Also Aes Sedai we’re known to use young male Aes Sedai for necessary projects, so if need required it, they would have done it. 

[Jsbrads2]

On 9/3/2023 at 10:32 AM, Scarloc99 said:

No those were the bowl of the winds, one of the forsaken specifically says that they have found an item from the age of legends that helped control the weather. If it was made post breaking then the forsaken would have no knowledge of it. 
 

The global network was made up of hundreds of “bowls of the winds” most of them are lost or destroyed. 

I don’t know what you are quoting, I just read that section and Sammael didn’t believe there was anything that could undo the Great Lord’s work, he will be sorely disappointed.

 

also, the weather network was probably powered by the Standing Wave, probably not by people channeling into parts of it, and was an automated system.

[Scarloc99]

On 9/9/2023 at 5:47 PM, Jsbrads2 said:

I don’t know what you are quoting, I just read that section and Sammael didn’t believe there was anything that could undo the Great Lord’s work, he will be sorely disappointed.

 

also, the weather network was probably powered by the Standing Wave, probably not by people channeling into parts of it, and was an automated system.

The bowl of the winds is talked about in the wheel of time companion. The Bowl of the winds should not have been able to affect the dark ones touch, but combined with the skills of the wind finders, which surpassed anything from the age of legends, it was able to. 
 

It also confirms that Aes Sedai controlled the weather network, it wouldn’t be a standing wave because that would have opened it up to all sorts of misuse. 

[Jsbrads2]

Not really. The weather terangreal would be located in fenced off and perhaps warded plots of land like electrical transformers from an earlier age 😉

I don’t think the Sea Folk were exerting any skill at all. That was just the activation sequence. The Sea Folk wind finder just used all the power available to her and put stars of increasing number of points onto the bowl, there was no discussion of her weaving any complex weaves.

In the first book, the weather snaps back with no one doing anything.

And even had the Dark One this time sent the world onto the hockey stick part of change, and this was the equivalent to a ship going off a water fall, enough force can fly that ship in a curve and back onto the river far from the cliff, that’s what the girls did with Nynaeve and Taalen using strong angreal, just those two gals contributed how many female Forsaken equivalent of Saidar? 7? 10? More? The rest of young women contributed 1? 2? Or more? All the older women? 1/2? 1? Getting that amount of Saidar should have been impossible too.
Spoilers from AMoL: As to overwhelming the Dark Ones hold on the weather… later we see local changes be made by Rand humming 💁‍♂️

[Scarloc99]

5 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Not really. The weather terangreal would be located in fenced off and perhaps warded plots of land like electrical transformers from an earlier age 😉

I don’t think the Sea Folk were exerting any skill at all. That was just the activation sequence. The Sea Folk wind finder just used all the power available to her and put stars of increasing number of points onto the bowl, there was no discussion of her weaving any complex weaves.

In the first book, the weather snaps back with no one doing anything.

And even had the Dark One this time sent the world onto the hockey stick part of change, and this was the equivalent to a ship going off a water fall, enough force can fly that ship in a curve and back onto the river far from the cliff, that’s what the girls did with Nynaeve and Taalen using strong angreal, just those two gals contributed how many female Forsaken equivalent of Saidar? 7? 10? More? The rest of young women contributed 1? 2? Or more? All the older women? 1/2? 1? Getting that amount of Saidar should have been impossible too.
Spoilers from AMoL: As to overwhelming the Dark Ones hold on the weather… later we see local changes be made by Rand humming 💁‍♂️

Trying to find the quote but Robert Jordan confirmed that the Bowl of the Winds was used far beyond it's original purpose because the Sea Folk are so far ahead with weaves to control the weather then anyone in the age of legends ever was. I think you have misunderstood much of this part of the story and where things fit into the wider lore based on information that was provided outside of the books by the author, companion books and other sources. 

[Jsbrads2]

We may disagree about what is cannon, but the book is very clear, the actions by the Sea Folk Windfinder was not a use of her subtle skill, she merely applied the startup sequence of weaves and the Terangreal did the rest uncontrolled by the windfinders.

[Scarloc99]

16 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

We may disagree about what is cannon, but the book is very clear, the actions by the Sea Folk Windfinder was not a use of her subtle skill, she merely applied the startup sequence of weaves and the Terangreal did the rest uncontrolled by the windfinders.

No I am trying to find the quote, not in the novels but elsewhere but it has been clarified that the Windfinders knowledge and ability to control the weather individually beyond anything the Aes Sedai of the AOL could do is what allowed them to super charge the bowl of the winds and use it in a way it was not designed to. It should not have been able to fix the weather on it's own, it should have needed additional bowls of the winds and the huge global network to be able to do anything other then some local weather manipulation that would have faded if the bowl was stopped being used. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

I think this is alluded to in the books, where one of the Forsaken (probably Moridin) is amazed by what the Windfinders can do as in the AoL Aes Sedai could not do anything to the weather without powerful ter'angreal. And because of this he is worried about what they could do with access to one of those ter'angreal. I think it is left unconfirmed if the Bowl of Winds is a run of the mill ter'angreal from the AoL or if it is something special made during the breaking to try to make up for loss of the weather network.

 

All of which you could put down to unreliable narrator, or it could be foreshadowing for how they could undo the effects of the Dark One while the Shadow thought they could not do so.

 

Which of course does not make so much sense as why would using the ter'angreal be in any way like manipulating the weather directly? But it could also go back to the breaking where the Windfinders could have been experimenting with how to get more out of a single ter'angreal as well as how to directly affect the weather when they still had AoL knowledge about such things.

[Jsbrads2]

Scar, the book itself is very clear, they initiated it. If your source contradicts the books, you shouldn’t consider it cannon, you know I don’t. 

Heavy, Forsaken can be surprised by many things, my assumption the Bowl was a Breaking tech not AoL tech is enough, but add that the total power used was more than could be created by an ordinary full circle of Aes Sedai would add on too. 

[Scarloc99]

22 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Scar, the book itself is very clear, they initiated it. If your source contradicts the books, you shouldn’t consider it cannon, you know I don’t. 

Heavy, Forsaken can be surprised by many things, my assumption the Bowl was a Breaking tech not AoL tech is enough, but add that the total power used was more than could be created by an ordinary full circle of Aes Sedai would add on too. 

I mean I am taking it from the books, I really suggest you go back and re read all the sections about the Bowl of the winds, the info is all there. 

Quote

 

During the Age of Legends, the weather was carefully regulated by Aes Sedai using various weather ter'angreal. None of the ter'angreal were strong enough on their own to affect the weather of the entire planet, yet through the use of several, the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends were able to keep close control over the weather.[1]

One of these ter'angreal was held by the ancestors of the Atha'an Miere. They used the bowl to survive the seas during the Breaking of the World. It was somehow lost 2000 years ago.[2] It's whereabouts since becoming lost are unknown, except that it turned up in a storeroom of the Kin in Ebou Dar where it had lain undiscovered for an undetermined length of time. The bowl became a legend among the Atha'an Miere and was thought lost or destroyed. During this time the Atha'an Miere learned to control the weather to a degree that according to Ishamael should have required a weather ter'angreal.

 

Quote

 The Wheel of Time Companion confirms that these side-effects radiated outwards from Ebou Dar as far as the Altara-Illian border.

The cause of these aftereffects was an overcharging and overextension of the Bowl of the Winds beyond what it was designed for. Originally, the Bowl was only applied over a much more local area, rather than the whole of the Westlands, perhaps the whole world. This ended up causing an instability in True Source that would not have occured when it was being used properly. It was the advanced ability of the Windfinders that enabled the Bowl to be used over such a large area.

So the Bowl of the winds IS a weather ter'angreal, there was a network of them and 1 on it's own could not change the weather. Independently the windfinders are confirmed to be able to control the weather (on a local level) to an extent that it would take a Bowl of the Winds to do. The Wheel of time Companion (not sure if you take that as Canon) confirms that it is the ability of the windfinders that allows that localised ter'angreal effect to apply to a far larger area. Now possibly the bowl is from just after the Breaking, we have nothing to confirm that other then a brief quote by Moridin (which may or may not have been based on fact, or an unreliable narrator, or RJ making a mistake) to back that up, along with the assumption that because it doesn't need male channeling it must be from after the breaking. I imagine there where many things in the AOL that relied just on only male of female channelling to work, but regardless if we take the facts we know it is clear that Windfinder ability meant that the Bowl of the Winds could be used in a way that would have been impossible in the AOL. 

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Scarloc99