Healing is a Construct

[Jsbrads2]

I have no idea what you are referring to. I am referring to the placement of stars with increasing points to initiate the bowl of winds. The book doesn’t describe any other channeling. 
 

Age of Legend didn’t use bowls of winds. They had black boxes in the basements of structures with sensor arrays on the roof. Probably powered by the standing wave. 

the Bowl of Winds, is a Breaking terangreal, either made by a Seafolk person(s) or granted to the Seafolk.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

This sounds like something that only a thorough referencing of the books is going to sort out, and I don't have an ebook to search. I am pretty sure that there is a lot implied by a possibly unreliable narrator, which allows people to take their own meaning out of the books.

 

I agree with @Jsbrads2, however much the companion books may officially be canon (and very useful) there is still a meaningful distinction between what is actually in the books, and what was in the author's mind. 

 

However I do think that people are perhaps making claims about what the books say a little bit freely (I myself can only give what I remember which is not exactly gospel; you'll never make that stand up in court, said the school girl to the judge) so in the absence of the actual quotes perhaps we should agree to disagree, or at least trust our own interpretations?

[Yamezt]

Double post

Edited October 17, 2023 by Yamezt

[Yamezt]

6 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

I have no idea what you are referring to. I am referring to the placement of stars with increasing points to initiate the bowl of winds. The book doesn’t describe any other channeling. 
 

Age of Legend didn’t use bowls of winds. They had black boxes in the basements of structures with sensor arrays on the roof. Probably powered by the standing wave. 

the Bowl of Winds, is a Breaking terangreal, either made by a Seafolk person(s) or granted to the Seafolk.

 

 

There is a similar ter'angreal for weather in AoL mentioned in path of daggers. While not 100% identified, it is  suggestive that the Bowl of Winds is that ter'angreal from AoL - given that the windfinders used it in the exact way Moridin is concerned that they would.

 

Quote

 “Great Master, I have learned what the Aes Sedai brought to the palace this morning. It is said they found a great treasure hidden in ancient days, gold and jewels and heartstone, artifacts from Shiota and Eharon and even the Age of Legends. There are said to be things among them that use the One Power. It is said that one can control the weather. No one knows where they are going, Great Master. The palace is aquiver with talk, but ten tongues name ten different destinations.”

 

Moridin went back to studying the stable yard below as soon as Madic spoke. Ridiculous tales of gold and cuendillar held no interest. Nothing would make a gateway behave that way. Unless... Could she actually have unraveled the web? Death held no fear for him. Coldly he considered the possibility that he had been within sight of an unraveling web. One that had been unmade successfully. Another impossibility casually offered up by these...

 

Something Madic had said caught his ear. “The weather, Madic?” The shadows of the palace spires had barely lengthened from their bases, but there was not a cloud to shield the baking city.

 

“Yes, Great Master. It is called the Bowl of the Winds.”

 

The name meant nothing to him. But... a ter’angreal to control the weather... In his own Age, weather had been carefully regulated with the use of ter’angreal. One of the surprises of this Age — one of the smaller, it had seemed — was that there were those who could manipulate weather to a degree that should have required one of those ter’angreal. One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent.

 

But what could these women do with it? What? If they used a ring?

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Yamezt

[Yamezt]

On 9/12/2023 at 7:07 PM, Scarloc99 said:

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.

 

Here you go

https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=3

 

Quote

QUESTION

The Bowl: Someone asked him whether, if men had helped the Aes Sedai and Windfinders and Kin channel through the Bowl, the One Power would still have been screwed up.

ROBERT JORDAN

His implicit assumption was that the Bowl screwed things up. I expected this to be a sheer RAFO. I was surprised. He went into a relatively detailed explanation to the effect that the Bowl was stressed far, far beyond its original design parameters because of the advanced knowledge of the Windfinders. It was affecting a global pattern, when it was designed for only a small region. Men helping would not have changed anything, and the effects linger most strongly near Ebou Dar, but also along the "spokes" which radiated from that place. (I should have asked if a spoke went out over Tear.)

FOOTNOTE

The 'relatively detailed explanation' can be found in TPOD 2, Moridin's POV. Moridin noted that the Bowl was originally a ter'angreal designed to control the weather in small areas, and that the Sea Folk were likely capable of stretching its abilities far beyond its intended capacity (since they could do unaided what should have required the Bowl, by Age of Legends standards).

 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

This totally agrees with my own summation, but also backs up my thoughts on why would ability to control the weather actually entail the ability to wring more performance out of a ter'angreal as the two should not be the same. Like a goat that can crop the grass very close to the ground is not per se an individual that can operate a lawn mower really well.

[Scarloc99]

15 hours ago, Yamezt said:

 

Here you go

https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=3

 

 

Thank you @Jsbrads2 hopefully this clarifies things for you, I am hoping you take the very words of the author as canon. He clearly thought about the bowl of the winds in detail, he also confirms that men could also have channeled into it, which also cancels out many of the post breaking assumptions. If men could not have channeled into it then he would have made that point explicit. 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Scarloc99

[Scarloc99]

14 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

This totally agrees with my own summation, but also backs up my thoughts on why would ability to control the weather actually entail the ability to wring more performance out of a ter'angreal as the two should not be the same. Like a goat that can crop the grass very close to the ground is not per se an individual that can operate a lawn mower really well.

I don’t look at it quite that way, if you think of a computer someone who understands hardware and software can push the limits of the computer almost to breaking point, getting increased performance, pushing more power through it, programming it to do things differently, 

 

The sea folk have developed skills and abilities beyond what even the designers of the bowl could do, they can look at it and use it in ways that where not thought of in order to achieved results that seem miraculous. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

1 minute ago, Scarloc99 said:

I don’t look at it quite that way, if you think of a computer someone who understands hardware and software can push the limits of the computer almost to breaking point, getting increased performance, pushing more power through it, programming it to do things differently, 

 

The sea folk have developed skills and abilities beyond what even the designers of the bowl could do, they can look at it and use it in ways that where not thought of in order to achieved results that seem miraculous. 

Yes I understand the analogy, and it does to an extent make sense that understanding how to affect the weather is related to a ter'angreal doing the same thing. But logically, the ter'angreal is not a sa'angreal that is only amplifying the channelers weaves but is in essence a machine that is being operated. And as such it does not really make sense that the ability to weave the weather directly would be exactly the same as using the ter'angreal, and so the Sea Folk's ability to superpower the Bowl of the Winds is not directly related to their ability to affect the weather but instead stems from completely different research into the Bowl in the 1,000 years they had it from the breaking to its loss.

[Scarloc99]

10 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Yes I understand the analogy, and it does to an extent make sense that understanding how to affect the weather is related to a ter'angreal doing the same thing. But logically, the ter'angreal is not a sa'angreal that is only amplifying the channelers weaves but is in essence a machine that is being operated. And as such it does not really make sense that the ability to weave the weather directly would be exactly the same as using the ter'angreal, and so the Sea Folk's ability to superpower the Bowl of the Winds is not directly related to their ability to affect the weather but instead stems from completely different research into the Bowl in the 1,000 years they had it from the breaking to its loss.

ahh see I look at it slightly differently, yes it is a machine, and the weaves the wind finders use are like a new kind of code, tey don't "superpower it" but they use it in ways that make it behave differently, and that is only possible because of there skill with weather weaves, which are aligned to the kinds of weaves the bowl already creates. Now there ability with the weather may stem from investigating the bowl and the weaves it makes, I can see that in the age of legends something like weather control, once managed, does not really gather much interest i terms of research. If the weather can be turned on and off at will anyway then why look for better ways of doing that. once the breaking happens if the Sea Folk are reliant on the bowl to stay safe that means they can't leave the area of the bowl, so it makes sense they find ways to control the weather in a similar way to the bowl so allowing them to become less and less reliant on it. That then in turn allows them to push the envelope of what it is capable of further and further through the application of new weaves they themselves have learnt. 

[Jsbrads2]

“One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent.”

If the device he was thinking of could not affect even a significant portion of one continent, that implies it is a different device.

In the AoL, weather stations would be located on top of a buildings and other choice locations and feed information to a computer that would collect all the data and the send all the commands to an automated global system of devices powered by the Standing Wave.

Automated systems mentioned by another Forsaken (?Asmodean) aren’t operated by people, but there could be Terangreal in the system which are triggered by the computer system, probably by input power from the standing wave, not initiated by Saidar.

 

The people who created the terangreal of the AoL didn’t include an alternate initialization for an automated terangreal powered by the Standing Wave to also allow women to use them.

 

If we disagree what is cannon, we will disagree on much, even if we agree on what is cannon, we could still have different perspectives on what’s what.

 

Maybe if the Bowl of Winds was a broken melted lump at the end of the channeling you could argue it was used beyond its capacity (much like the female Choen Dal (which doesn’t make sense that it could break when used)) but it wasn’t. It isn’t the same device. And even if the Seafolk used a secret chord to change the weather, it still wasn’t weather skill, it was merely knowledge of that secret chord.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

1 hour ago, Jsbrads2 said:

“One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent.”

If the device he was thinking of could not affect even a significant portion of one continent, that implies it is a different device.

In the AoL, weather stations would be located on top of a buildings and other choice locations and feed information to a computer that would collect all the data and the send all the commands to an automated global system of devices powered by the Standing Wave.

Automated systems mentioned by another Forsaken (?Asmodean) aren’t operated by people, but there could be Terangreal in the system which are triggered by the computer system, probably by input power from the standing wave, not initiated by Saidar.

 

The people who created the terangreal of the AoL didn’t include an alternate initialization for an automated terangreal powered by the Standing Wave to also allow women to use them.

 

If we disagree what is cannon, we will disagree on much, even if we agree on what is cannon, we could still have different perspectives on what’s what.

 

Maybe if the Bowl of Winds was a broken melted lump at the end of the channeling you could argue it was used beyond its capacity (much like the female Choen Dal (which doesn’t make sense that it could break when used)) but it wasn’t. It isn’t the same device. And even if the Seafolk used a secret chord to change the weather, it still wasn’t weather skill, it was merely knowledge of that secret chord.

But where are you getting this information from? As I remember it, the books are nowhere near that specific. Certainly not down to how the ter'angreal were created. I do agree that whatever was in RJ's head, it is what is in the books that is the most important. But I do not remember most of what you are stating as fact being mentioned in the books. Am I misremembering?

[Scarloc99]

3 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

But where are you getting this information from? As I remember it, the books are nowhere near that specific. Certainly not down to how the ter'angreal were created. I do agree that whatever was in RJ's head, it is what is in the books that is the most important. But I do not remember most of what you are stating as fact being mentioned in the books. Am I misremembering?

if it has not been defined in the books, but RJ has the explanation in his head then any information he gives in an interview is canon, it his his world explanation for the things he wrote about. Now, if he writes something and then contradicts that in interview then yes the written word is canon. 

[Scarloc99]

5 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

“One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent.”

If the device he was thinking of could not affect even a significant portion of one continent, that implies it is a different device.

In the AoL, weather stations would be located on top of a buildings and other choice locations and feed information to a computer that would collect all the data and the send all the commands to an automated global system of devices powered by the Standing Wave.

Automated systems mentioned by another Forsaken (?Asmodean) aren’t operated by people, but there could be Terangreal in the system which are triggered by the computer system, probably by input power from the standing wave, not initiated by Saidar.

 

The people who created the terangreal of the AoL didn’t include an alternate initialization for an automated terangreal powered by the Standing Wave to also allow women to use them.

 

If we disagree what is cannon, we will disagree on much, even if we agree on what is cannon, we could still have different perspectives on what’s what.

 

Maybe if the Bowl of Winds was a broken melted lump at the end of the channeling you could argue it was used beyond its capacity (much like the female Choen Dal (which doesn’t make sense that it could break when used)) but it wasn’t. It isn’t the same device. And even if the Seafolk used a secret chord to change the weather, it still wasn’t weather skill, it was merely knowledge of that secret chord.

But you are not stating anything that is Canon, I don't even know where you are getting some of your supposed "facts" from. The Author made a statement that disproves your insisted argument. The things you are stating here are not described in the novels so are entirely made up in your own head, or that of someone elses, and i this case the only person who is allowed to make things up in their head and call it Canon is the Author. 

 

RJ said it was used beyond it's capability in an answer that shows he thought long and hard about all of this before writing that bit of the story, we have no idea how AOL devices worked, what activated them, there is talk of "standing waves" but that is not explained, we also see multiple times that the Foresaken also don't really know what a lot of these things do, they are afraid to go into a room of terangeral because they are worried they might trigger something dangerous. That makes sense, the Foresaken where not a fount of all knowledge, so not knowing exactly how things work or what might be possible is all in character. 

 

But he said it "Should not be enought to impact even the weather in a single continnt" but later on explains the Windfinder skill allows it to be used beyond its purpose. Not because of the amount of power, but because the Windfinders create a chain effect i the weather, much like a butterfly in Japan creating a hurricane in America. The Butterfly can't actaully make a hurricane from power, but it can make a tiny change that magnifies out to a big one (and I know the butterfly analogy is not based on real life). 

[Jsbrads2]

The book is very clear it wasn’t windfinder skill, just initiated.

that is cannon, period. 
you don’t have to agree.

I see no point to restate anything else. 

[Jsbrads2]

On 10/20/2023 at 11:27 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

But where are you getting this information from? As I remember it, the books are nowhere near that specific. Certainly not down to how the ter'angreal were created. I do agree that whatever was in RJ's head, it is what is in the books that is the most important. But I do not remember most of what you are stating as fact being mentioned in the books. Am I misremembering?

One can logically infer if this device can do what the AoL device couldn’t, then it must have been a Breaking time device, trying to save the human race, and they probably did back then, maybe used it once, or many times until the world settled down and when they didn’t need it to right the weather anymore, the pattern hid it from the world.

you don’t have to reach the same conclusions given the same data, I would like to hear what other people think.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

7 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

The book is very clear it wasn’t windfinder skill, just initiated.

that is cannon, period. 
you don’t have to agree.

I see no point to restate anything else. 

That is absolutely not true. If the Windfinders essentially did no more than press the "on switch", why was a full circle used? Why was the start up sequence so complicated? It can only be because the input is significant for the output. The ter'angreals often had to be touched with the power in a specific way for a specific result (such as the arches). There is no reason to assume that doing so differently would not result in a different effect. The Windfinders were not directly controlling the weather, but they were very much controlling the bowl. 

7 hours ago, Jsbrads2 said:

One can logically infer if this device can do what the AoL device couldn’t, then it must have been a Breaking time device, trying to save the human race, and they probably did back then, maybe used it once, or many times until the world settled down and when they didn’t need it to right the weather anymore, the pattern hid it from the world.

you don’t have to reach the same conclusions given the same data, I would like to hear what other people think.

One can logically infer that it is a different device, or it is being used differently (and indeed that is only if you take Moridin's thoughts as 100% accurate, maybe he knew little about the weather ter'angreal and was mistaken). If you do not accept the author's explanation as canon, then you cannot get past the conclusion that there are two possible solutions however much you might prefer one over the other, the internal logic of the books does not rule out either option.

 

But certainly it would be interesting to hear what other people took from the books. I felt that it probably was from the AoL given the information, but the fact that it was a fancy bowl did not seem to make sense for it being part of a global network. So when reading, I was torn. But then the form of the ter'angreals seem to be more for appearing as magical items, rather than some sort of systematic near-scientific, er, system. 

Edited October 23, 2023 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[EirikDaude]

19 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

But certainly it would be interesting to hear what other people took from the books. I felt that it probably was from the AoL given the information, but the fact that it was a fancy bowl did not seem to make sense for it being part of a global network. So when reading, I was torn. But then the form of the ter'angreals seem to be more for appearing as magical items, rather than some sort of systematic near-scientific, er, system. 

 

I played with the thought that it was not really designed as a bowl in the first place, but as a parabolic dish. It's just channelers in the third age not recognizing it as such. Ofc, this would most likely make it a very shallow bowl so probably not, but it's an entertaining thought.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

6 hours ago, EirikDaude said:

 

I played with the thought that it was not really designed as a bowl in the first place, but as a parabolic dish. It's just channelers in the third age not recognizing it as such. Ofc, this would most likely make it a very shallow bowl so probably not, but it's an entertaining thought.

Ah like a satellite dish? I totally did not need to look that up by the way, use the word parabolic myself on a nearly daily basis. Good, I'm glad you came with me on that.

 

That would make sense if ter'angreal made sense, but as far as we are shown in book the size does not seem to matter, the shape does not seem to matter (at least not in a mechanical way), only the molecular/atomic structure. It could be as well an ivory carving of a naked woman hiding her modesty with her hair. 

 

But its description did sound pretty shallow so who knows, maybe that is the point after all...

[EirikDaude]

3 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Ah like a satellite dish? I totally did not need to look that up by the way, use the word parabolic myself on a nearly daily basis. Good, I'm glad you came with me on that.

 

That would make sense if ter'angreal made sense, but as far as we are shown in book the size does not seem to matter, the shape does not seem to matter (at least not in a mechanical way), only the molecular/atomic structure. It could be as well an ivory carving of a naked woman hiding her modesty with her hair. 

 

But its description did sound pretty shallow so who knows, maybe that is the point after all...

Yep, I guess it was the talk of it being part of a network which made me think of it. Ofc, there are some ter'angreal which benefit from their shape, like the portals or wasn't there talk of a kindle-like device somewhere?

[Dagon Thyne]

Healing is a talent not a construct.  A construct is a living being like the chora trees or the nym or even trollocs and other shadowspawn if you want to get technical.

 

There is no genetic alteration being done while healing you.  The weaves used simply super charges the body's natural healing properties and allow things to be healed that the body would normally not be able to.  

[Scarloc99]

On 10/24/2023 at 7:11 PM, EirikDaude said:

Yep, I guess it was the talk of it being part of a network which made me think of it. Ofc, there are some ter'angreal which benefit from their shape, like the portals or wasn't there talk of a kindle-like device somewhere?

You know I never even made the satellite dish link until now lol, I almost want the bowl of the winds in the TV show now, an old TV dish with a pointy bit sticking out of it in the middle 🙂 

[Bugglesley]

On 10/22/2023 at 11:29 PM, Jsbrads2 said:

The book is very clear it wasn’t windfinder skill, just initiated.

that is cannon, period. 
you don’t have to agree.

I see no point to restate anything else. 

It's been a month here but I can't help myself. Light! Did you get outbargained by a sailmistress and hold a grudge? What do you have against the sea folk? It's clear, over and over, that the skills the windfinders had were:

- Complicated

- Necessary

- Involved understanding/capabilities the AoL AS did not have.

 

Quotes from both Moridin in the book and RJ himself outside it already in this thread make that clear as crystal.

 

You're in this thread blowing off "Cannons" left and right with very little substantive evidence. Go back and re-read the section where they actually use the Bowl of Winds. A lot is made of who is leading the circle. A lot is made about how much expertise it took and the complexity of what had to be done. A lot of laborious comparisons to steering a ship are made.

 

Further, if you want evidence the Bowl was stretched beyond its original parameters, the obvious answer is the way the Power gets screwy everywhere around where it was used. The Bowl itself survived, but it was putting out so much power in ways it wasn't designed for that every channeler around Ebou Dar felt it and it's commented on again and again how uncomfortable they all are, from the damane to the Aes Sedai to the Kin to the asha'man. What's going on with Rand is arguably distinct, but the Power is unquestionably affected.

 

There's your canon right there. I really don't understand why you keep saying 'cannon cannon' without a single quote or reference, directly contradicting multiple insinuations and out-and-out statements from the books, as if you saying the magic word means that your textually provably incorrect memories are gospel truth.

[Aan-Alone]

Well, that sure was something to get through. At least the conversation was spirited.

 

I looked at the Seafolk, specifically the Windfinders, as the 'power/engine' for their vessels...the vessels that use sails anyhow. So they provide wind for sailing where there is none, or amplify existing winds when needed.

How would they learn to do this? I would imagine by emulating Nature, at first. Then improving upon Her, if possible. Along the way the Windfinders would also learn that Nature may push back if pushed too far. In this way they could hone their skills over a very, very long lifetime.

How did AoL AS learn to control the weather? They built automated devices to perform this function. 

It seems easy to see how the 'primitives' could/did become so extraordinarily skilled. One might think the AoL AS also went through a learning curve and one result may have been many small power devices instead of a few high power devices for optomal weather control. Who knows?

The real beauty is how simple is was to get here. Just Imagination and a little Occam's Razor. Not a single Canon/Cannon was required. 😁🤔

[Aan-Alone]

Almost forgot, if the Bowl was indeed a parabolic dish, wouldn't that imply the use of specific EM wave types/forms? Would an EM wave/field be able of drawing energy 'from' the system? I think inputting would be relatively straightforward in comparison.