Halima, Mat and attempted Compulsion

[Kalessin]

While reading that hilarious scene of Mat trying to make sense of the Aes Sedai at Salidar celebrating Egwene's ascent to the Amyrlin Seat, I read that bit about Mat anti-Power angreal going chilly after dancing with Halima and wandering on, and I thought, of all the things Halima is most likely to try, it's Compulsion. He's ta'veren, he's got the ear of the Dragon Reborn, he's clearly one of the linchpins of the resistance to the Dark One, and taking him out of the play and making use of him is going to get Halima major kudos from the Dark One and Chosen cohorts.

 

What do people think?

[DojoToad]

Definitely possible.  I'm coming back up to that scene in my reading now.  Will have to keep an eye out.

[Andra]

This scene brings up an apparent contradiction regarding Mat and his amulet.

Whatever was happening, it was clearly Halima channeling at him.  With Saidin.

 

Yet when Mat is killed in Caemlyn (before being "rewound" back to life by Rand's balefire) we are told that the fox-head didn't protect him from Saidin.

 

Which raises the question: how were the two events different?  Was Halima trying to directly touch him with the Power (by Compulsion or anything else) so it shielded him, but Rahvin's lightning wasn't the Power directly, so it didn't?

Remember that either Adeleas or Vandene threw horse manure at him with Saidar, and it didn't protect him.

 

In other words, was it an oversight/contradiction?  Or a clever application of the rules?

[Samt]

7 minutes ago, Andra said:

This scene brings up an apparent contradiction regarding Mat and his amulet.

Whatever was happening, it was clearly Halima channeling at him.  With Saidin.

 

Yet when Mat is killed in Caemlyn (before being "rewound" back to life by Rand's balefire) we are told that the fox-head didn't protect him from Saidin.

 

Which raises the question: how were the two events different?  Was Halima trying to directly touch him with the Power (by Compulsion or anything else) so it shielded him, but Rahvin's lightning wasn't the Power directly, so it didn't?

Remember that either Adeleas or Vandene threw horse manure at him with Saidar, and it didn't protect him.

 

In other words, was it an oversight/contradiction?  Or a clever application of the rules?

I'd always assumed that the amulet doesn't protect him in Caemlyn because the lightning doesn't directly target him.  It's not clear to me, though, exactly what that means.  (I think the assumption that the amulet doesn't protect him against Saidin is incorrect and just a result of the unreliable narrator).  

 

Lightning attacks using the power appear to be just regular lightning that is caused by the power.  Visually, I think they don't come from the channeler but rather from the air (ie. it's not something like force lightning from the star wars universe that literally emanates from the hands of the force user). Regular lightning is caused when a large electrostatic potential builds up between two clouds or between a cloud and the ground.  I assume that one power lightning is the same thing except that the electrostatic potential build-up is caused by the power.  The lightning itself is caused by the buildup, not by the power.  It's a bit like using the power to roll a rock up a hill and the letting it fall down on someone.  I'm not sure if anyone ever uses a lightning attack indoors.  

 

Thus, I would suspect that Mat is vulnerable to lightning in general, but I'm not sure if this is contradicted elsewhere in the series.  Alternately, I believe that when Rahvin attacks in Caemlyn, there is some general destruction of buildings.  The rubble from the destruction might have also hit Mat.  

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Yeah, I think the point is that if you create lightning or fire with the power, the amulet won't protect you. It's only the weaves directly that will be unravelled.

 

Of course, that doesn't bear too close a scrutiny, if you weave a fireball, what is burning? But there is a difference between actual flames and weaves of Fire.

[Samt]

21 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Yeah, I think the point is that if you create lightning or fire with the power, the amulet won't protect you. It's only the weaves directly that will be unravelled.

 

Of course, that doesn't bear too close a scrutiny, if you weave a fireball, what is burning? But there is a difference between actual flames and weaves of Fire.

Like you said, I'm not sure that makes as much sense for fireballs as it does for lightning bolts.  The book descriptions seem to suggest that fireball attacks do actually form from near the channeler and travel from him or her.  Of course, that fireball can ignite a mundane fire, but I think it's logical to assume that the fireball itself is still sustained by the power as it travels.  There aren't, after all, natural fireballs flying around the world in the way that lightning naturally occurs.  

 

This does open a bit of a can of worms as to what constitutes the power directly affecting the holder of the fox medallion, and what is just a secondary effect that results from the power doing something.  Holding with air or suffocating him by removing the air could be argued to just be controlling the air and then Mat is affected by the air and not by the one power directly.  Perhaps if the channeling is maintained then the medallion protects against it.  But if the channeling has already stopped, the secondary effects that remain are not affected by the medallion.  

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Yup, it does does get a bit complicated.

 

For fireballs, I have always thought why they used them was that they were channeled close, then thrown. This means that the application of power is not done at distance (like making shadowspawn burst into flame with weaves). But then what is burning? Oxygen in the air solidified with Air flows?

 

With Lightning too, there seem to be two kinds at least. The girls at Cairhien manipulate the air to create local lightning storms that they move about the place, meaning they are not channeling the strikes directly and they are more "carpet bombing" their targets. We certainly see though that lightning is also used as a direct weapon without lag to generate it and deliberately aimed.

 

I've always felt RJ was happy leaving this kind of thing as a soft magic system where he gives you the rough outline but let's you add your own detail. To an extent, more detail would actual make it less believable as there would always be some sort of question about how it worked.

 

With the amulet the hard and fast rule is that weaves that touch Mat directly dissolve, so that could include Fireballs if they are some sort of tied off weave. But things created by the power like natural lightning (though Rahvin's trap sounds very direct and targetted) have no weaves to dissolve in the first place.

[Andra]

And to quote a different franchise: "This will really bake your noodle."

 

It hard to picture anything else in Randland that is a more direct application of the One Power on something physical than holding a Gateway open.  So much so that Shadowspawn (except for Gholam) can't survive going through one. 

Descriptions of how they initially take shape show the Power directly altering reality before the weaves that create the "frame" of the Gateway even exist.  Which would seem to say that every atom of the space within a Gateway is being directly affected by Saidar or Saidin for the entire time it's open.

 

Yet Mat passes through Gateways multiple times with the fox-head.  As do other people with the clones Elayne made of it.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

The descriptions of how Gateways work seem to leave doubt that they are literal gateways between two points created by the Power, not some sort of portal that transports you using the Power.

 

The point that Shadowspawn cannot travel through them is, as far as I can see, entirely arbitrary to explain why the Forsaken do not use Travelling to overrun the Westlands with Trollocs, and why only the Borderlands are plagued by trolloc raids. In the lore this is completely ad hoc compared to any other information about Shadowspawn or Travelling. 

 

Unless I missed something, of course.

[Samt]

The way the Egwene rediscovers traveling through a better understanding of Tel suggests that gateways are connected to Tel or some other alternate plane of existence. The way it works in my head cannon is that gateways are actually a portal to an alternate plane where distances are all very short followed by another portal out of that plane. These two portals are slightly and precisely offset in the other plane and due to the scaling of that plane this leads to them being in very different places in the real world.  The scaling in that plane is so extreme that even traveling across the entire world is fractions of an inch in that plane and thus the two portal seem to be in the same place.

 

As to why shadowspawn can’t go there, it has to do with the nature of their souls.  Perrin and Slayer gain the ability to go to Tel at will due to the dual nature of their souls.  Shadowspawn don’t even have souls that are connected to their bodies in the traditional way.  The dark one has made a twisted connection, but this connection is unnatural and thus cannot persist across planes of existence. Therefore, taking shadowspawn from the real world into another destroys the connection to their souls and thus kills them.  
 

This does raise questions about the ways, but in my head cannon I decided that the ways are not another alternate plane but rather a folding of reality to make distances different.  The ways don’t actually leave our plane.

 

All just head cannon, but it makes sense to me.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

I see what you mean, possibly this is very similar to what RJ had envisioned. 

 

To me, the male way of weaving a Gateway, boring through the pattern seems to be physically connecting those points. The female way of creating a similarity sounds almost like quantum entanglement or something like that, but it all seems to be about creating the Gateway in the pattern, not actually transporting anything through it. The TAR thing seemed to me to more like just a technique you could use in the pattern (age lace) or in the fabric of TAR, rather than actually the same thing.

 

But your construction certainly neatly explains the Shadowspawn issue, which mine most certainly does not.

[Dan G]

I might be overthinking this but regarding fireballs, would a weave of fire transfer enough heat/ energy to ignite the oxygen directly above a channelers hand that is able to form plasma? 

Or is a fireball a particularly energetic type of weave of fire in and of itself? 

Of course this leads to rhe other question of how a weave is maintained in a very local ares while still moving from point A to point B. 

Is the weave that creates a fireball tied off like other weaves and what is its range limit? 

With other weaves they seem to flow from a channeler until tied off, but fireballs seem to operate differently,  more like a thrown baseball. 

In my head I visualize some type of plasma,  basically an organically created form of the Romulan weapon from Star Trek or maybe a photon torpedo. 

[Samt]

1 hour ago, Dan G said:

I might be overthinking this but regarding fireballs, would a weave of fire transfer enough heat/ energy to ignite the oxygen directly above a channelers hand that is able to form plasma? 

Or is a fireball a particularly energetic type of weave of fire in and of itself? 

Of course this leads to rhe other question of how a weave is maintained in a very local ares while still moving from point A to point B. 

Is the weave that creates a fireball tied off like other weaves and what is its range limit? 

With other weaves they seem to flow from a channeler until tied off, but fireballs seem to operate differently,  more like a thrown baseball. 

In my head I visualize some type of plasma,  basically an organically created form of the Romulan weapon from Star Trek or maybe a photon torpedo. 

Oxygen doesn't burn on its own no matter how hot it is.  Fire is a reaction that involves oxygen combining with something else, usually hydrocarbons.  The air on its own does not contain sufficient levels of flammable gases to sustain a fire.  If it did, any fire would create a chain reaction that would spread unchecked throughout the face of the whole earth.  

 

I think this discussion raises questions about what weaves of fire, air, earth, and water actually are.  It doesn't seem like this works like benders from the avatar series where benders are actually controlling a piece of the element.  The ability of a channeler to weave an element doesn't seem to depend much on access to the element.  Channeling water weaves isn't easier in the ocean than it is in the desert and channeling earth doesn't become impossible (or even significantly more difficult) high in the air or in the middle of the ocean.  Thus, it is clear that weaving elements is not about using actual physical pieces of the elements.

 

Moreover, it seems that weaves of a specific element do not actually create or constitute that element.  The residue that weaves leave behind is not a material component. 

 

It seems that the weaves of elements consist of some sort of metaphysical shadow or parallel version of the elements rather than the elements themselves.  

[Dan G]

2 hours ago, Samt said:

Oxygen doesn't burn on its own no matter how hot it is.  Fire is a reaction that involves oxygen combining with something else, usually hydrocarbons.  The air on its own does not contain sufficient levels of flammable gases to sustain a fire.  If it did, any fire would create a chain reaction that would spread unchecked throughout the face of the whole earth.  

 

I think this discussion raises questions about what weaves of fire, air, earth, and water actually are.  It doesn't seem like this works like benders from the avatar series where benders are actually controlling a piece of the element.  The ability of a channeler to weave an element doesn't seem to depend much on access to the element.  Channeling water weaves isn't easier in the ocean than it is in the desert and channeling earth doesn't become impossible (or even significantly more difficult) high in the air or in the middle of the ocean.  Thus, it is clear that weaving elements is not about using actual physical pieces of the elements.

 

Moreover, it seems that weaves of a specific element do not actually create or constitute that element.  The residue that weaves leave behind is not a material component. 

 

It seems that the weaves of elements consist of some sort of metaphysical shadow or parallel version of the elements rather than the elements themselves.  

You raise very good points about oxygen in the atmosphere not being combustible. Typically,  I would have not thought along this line except for the magical system in place for WOT. Certainly there are metaphysics in play that are not real world 

Interestingly,  as you probably know, there was some concern during the Manhattan Project about igniting a chain reaction of all the hydrogen in the atmosphere.  

Instead of being of the specific element,  weaves might be based on the real world effect they have. 

We know there is technology left over from the age of Legonds,  so perhaps it is similar to the Stargate franchise concept where a very few individuals have a gene allowing them to interface with Anchent Tech. 

It is clear in WOT that a significant amount of knowledge has been lost and experiments with this tech can and have proven dangerous.  

 

[Asthereal]

On 7/18/2024 at 3:31 AM, Andra said:

This scene brings up an apparent contradiction regarding Mat and his amulet.

Whatever was happening, it was clearly Halima channeling at him.  With Saidin.

 

Yet when Mat is killed in Caemlyn (before being "rewound" back to life by Rand's balefire) we are told that the fox-head didn't protect him from Saidin.

 

Which raises the question: how were the two events different?  Was Halima trying to directly touch him with the Power (by Compulsion or anything else) so it shielded him, but Rahvin's lightning wasn't the Power directly, so it didn't?

Remember that either Adeleas or Vandene threw horse manure at him with Saidar, and it didn't protect him.

 

In other words, was it an oversight/contradiction?  Or a clever application of the rules?

 

I always sort of assumed that Mat got struck by debris flying around in the chaos. If lightning weaves cause rocks and other stuff to start flying around, the amulet won't protect him from getting hit by those. I'd need to reread that part to be sure, though.

 

So yeah, might be either.

[Samt]

9 hours ago, Asthereal said:

 

I always sort of assumed that Mat got struck by debris flying around in the chaos. If lightning weaves cause rocks and other stuff to start flying around, the amulet won't protect him from getting hit by those. I'd need to reread that part to be sure, though.

 

So yeah, might be either.

I thought this, too, initially.  However, I went back and read the section.  Although it is clear that buildings and walls are getting knocked down, we also read that Mat's body is smoking.  I'd say the implication is that he was struck by lightning.  

 

I wonder if initially RJ intended for the medallion only to work against Saidar (he asks the Finns to get away from the Aes Sedai, and is presumably only referring to modern female Aes Sedai), but as the story went on, he changed his mind and made it resist all channeling.

[Andra]

On 7/30/2024 at 2:59 PM, Samt said:

I thought this, too, initially.  However, I went back and read the section.  Although it is clear that buildings and walls are getting knocked down, we also read that Mat's body is smoking.  I'd say the implication is that he was struck by lightning.  

 

I wonder if initially RJ intended for the medallion only to work against Saidar (he asks the Finns to get away from the Aes Sedai, and is presumably only referring to modern female Aes Sedai), but as the story went on, he changed his mind and made it resist all channeling.

That was my impression.  Especially with Rand's internal comment when looking at Mat's smoking corpse.

Quote

There had been more than one bolt in that first volley, but not all had been aimed at him.  Mat's smoking boots lay a dozen paces from where Mat himself sprawled on his back.  Tendrils of smoke rose from the black haft of his spear, too, from his coat, even from the silver foxhead, hanging from Mat's shirt, that had not saved him from a man's channeling.

Whether from lightning as a secondary effect, or from Saidin itself being channeled, the foxhead didn't even protect itself, much less the person wearing it. 

And Rand had felt the lightning bolts being woven.  He had woven his shield of Fire and Air to block their Fire and Air - seemingly implying that the lightning wasn't just an effect, but was an actual Weave.  It seemed at that point that Jordan clearly intended the medallion to protect against Saidar but not Saidin. 

 

Then Halima channeled Saidin at Mat.  And all bets are off.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

It raises an interesting point as to when do weaves stop being weaves? Fire weaves appear to be able to act directly as fire, but in other channelings we see water drawn out of the air, not simply manifested from weaves of water. Is a fireball a physical fireball or just the visible part of the weave?

 

While I would not say there is no chance this is something RJ changed his mind on, even if any direct weaves would unravel when touching Mat, he was still wearing a lot of metal implements while power-generated lightning was being thrown about. I don't think it is too difficult to see how dangerous that would be in any circumstances.

[Asthereal]

On 8/2/2024 at 10:29 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

It raises an interesting point as to when do weaves stop being weaves? Fire weaves appear to be able to act directly as fire, but in other channelings we see water drawn out of the air, not simply manifested from weaves of water. Is a fireball a physical fireball or just the visible part of the weave?

 

While I would not say there is no chance this is something RJ changed his mind on, even if any direct weaves would unravel when touching Mat, he was still wearing a lot of metal implements while power-generated lightning was being thrown about. I don't think it is too difficult to see how dangerous that would be in any circumstances.

 

It raises another question that Jordan didn't consider back then: what determines whether you channel saidar or saidin? Your biological sex? But what about intersex people - people with physical attributes of both? Can they channel both? Or can intersex people just never channel?
Or maybe it's the gender you identify as. In which case a transgender person having to relearn how to channel would be an interesting story. But in that case, what about non-binary people?

 

See, we do need gender studies. 😉 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Halima seems to point that it is not something entirely physical but is related to the soul (or whatever is transferred) but is still very opaque as to what causes that. From the past lives of everyone it seems that gender is locked to the soul. It could be of course that in Randland there is no non binary or transgender people, just as there is no prostitution. RJ created it, so if he wasn't thinking about that aspect... Or possibly a more fitting example is religion in Harry Potter's universe. They all exist except Wicca, as their understanding of magic is different from the wizards, so if in canon if Wicca existed it would be objectively wrong. So in canon, it does not exist which you could argue is more respectful than including it but portraying it as factually wrong.

[Samt]

5 hours ago, Asthereal said:

 

It raises another question that Jordan didn't consider back then: what determines whether you channel saidar or saidin? Your biological sex? But what about intersex people - people with physical attributes of both? Can they channel both? Or can intersex people just never channel?
Or maybe it's the gender you identify as. In which case a transgender person having to relearn how to channel would be an interesting story. But in that case, what about non-binary people?

 

See, we do need gender studies. 😉 

Theoretically, Halima answers a lot of that, although it's a bit open as to whether or not Halima is a unique creation of the dark one.  The concept of transgenderism implies a mismatch between biological sex of the body and the gender of some other essence, which we could call a soul.  In other words, transgenderism requires that souls be gendered.  Luckily for transgenderism in WoT, it appears that WoT souls are gendered. Whether or not the wheel would ever spin out a soul in a body that didn't match it is not answered in canon.  

 

It also seems to be the case that when the dark one gives new bodies to the souls of the forsaken, their ability to channel and strength in the one power is a result of the soul and does not depend on the body being able to channel at all.  But then, severing appears to be damage to the body since it can be healed like other wounds.  A possible explanation is that actually all bodies are naturally capable of channeling both halves of the one power, but only souls that have the ability to channel can make their bodies do this.  The body can be damaged and lose the ability to channel and then the soul cannot channel in that body.  The body can also be healed of this wound.  

 

This would imply that transgender and intersex people in WoT would have a soul of one gender or the other and could then channel that half of the one power (if they are able to channel at all) and that the sex of the body would not be important.  

[Sabio]

RJ has said a soul is either male or female and the ability to channel is tied to the soul. The sex of the soul doesn't change.  LTT is always going to be male, Brigette always a female etc.  I think adding intersex things is real world issue and not something RJ would add to the series.  Simply because it would just needlessly complicate things.  My guess is he would say someone being able to channel both halves would be impossible.

 

The medallion stops weaves directly being channeled at him, not near him or indirectly.  If I use the power to toss boulders into the air, there is nothing stopping one from landing on Mat.  All it would take is a bolt landing right next to him.  It's unlikely the lighting was being targeted directly at Mat, Rhavin felt the portal open, so he blasted the area, not Mat specifically.   Also is it natural lighting that he made fall or lightning made from the power?  But the fact it wasn't being directly targeted at Mat is the key.

[Figs and Mice]

That would be my take. The medallion stops him being affected by channelling ; but if channelling sets secondary forces into action (be it lightning , stones or lumps of mud) they can hit him like anyone else.

[wotfan4472]

On 7/18/2024 at 1:31 PM, Andra said:

This scene brings up an apparent contradiction regarding Mat and his amulet.

Whatever was happening, it was clearly Halima channeling at him.  With Saidin.

 

Yet when Mat is killed in Caemlyn (before being "rewound" back to life by Rand's balefire) we are told that the fox-head didn't protect him from Saidin.

 

Which raises the question: how were the two events different?  Was Halima trying to directly touch him with the Power (by Compulsion or anything else) so it shielded him, but Rahvin's lightning wasn't the Power directly, so it didn't?

Remember that either Adeleas or Vandene threw horse manure at him with Saidar, and it didn't protect him.

 

In other words, was it an oversight/contradiction?  Or a clever application of the rules?

Mat's amulet did not protect him, because the lightning drawn against him  was basically electrical energy that was taken from the environment, and thrown at him in a bolt of energy.

 

The closest examples of this in real life is a model railway and the electric fence on a farm. The electricity that allows the locomotive to move is done in pulses along the track and the farm fence is exactly the same, but a far stronger pulse.

 

If you put your finger on the model track it will get a shock just before the locomotive touches it, and it will tingle. The pulse from an electric fence, by comparison, will throw you a few meters from it in a shock.

 

Exactly how Elyane will throw rocks at him on the way to Ebou Dar, and as you said, Adeleas and Vandene threw horse manure. What they were all discovering, Rahvin already knew what was happening, and knew ways of how to counter it.

 

His expertise in the One Power allowed him to do that. Mat's amulet will only protect from direct weaves trying to do something at the touch of his body.

 

It will not protect Mat from any elements that weaves generate before triggering the process.

Edited September 15 by wotfan4472

[Andra]

On 9/15/2024 at 3:36 PM, wotfan4472 said:

Mat's amulet did not protect him, because the lightning drawn against him  was basically electrical energy that was taken from the environment, and thrown at him in a bolt of energy.

 

The closest examples of this in real life is a model railway and the electric fence on a farm. The electricity that allows the locomotive to move is done in pulses along the track and the farm fence is exactly the same, but a far stronger pulse.

 

If you put your finger on the model track it will get a shock just before the locomotive touches it, and it will tingle. The pulse from an electric fence, by comparison, will throw you a few meters from it in a shock.

 

Exactly how Elyane will throw rocks at him on the way to Ebou Dar, and as you said, Adeleas and Vandene threw horse manure. What they were all discovering, Rahvin already knew what was happening, and knew ways of how to counter it.

 

His expertise in the One Power allowed him to do that. Mat's amulet will only protect from direct weaves trying to do something at the touch of his body.

 

It will not protect Mat from any elements that weaves generate before triggering the process.

Mat's amulet came from the Finns.  Who knows where they got it from?

There is absolutely no reason to believe Rahvin even knew it existed, much less that Mat was wearing it.  To believe he intentionally did something to bypass it is to assign knowledge to him that is not believable.

 

Rand felt Rahvin weaving the lightning. He put up a shield to block the weave, but was too slow.  Rand plainly thought that Rahvin's "weave of Fire and Air" (neither of which would appear to be a part of natural lightning) WAS the lightning, not just its trigger.

Rand's response to Mat's death showed he believed that the foxhead could block Saidar, but not Saidin.

 

Granted, Jordan was very fond of the "Unreliable Narrator" trope, and could be misleading the reader into believing Rand's mistaken opinion.

 

But that just restates the question:

Did Jordan want us to believe that because he intended it to be true, but then changed his mind?

Did Jordan want us to believe that but always intended the impression to be false?

Did Jordan always intend this kind of narrow interpretation of the difference between "direct weave" and "indirect effect"?

 

Rand clearly thought Rahvin's lightning was a direct weave, not an indirect effect.  Was he just wrong?  Or was he right and Jordan changed his mind - or made a mistake?  Did the foxhead protect against Saidin - but only direct weaves, or did it only protect against Saidar?