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Posted

The books make it clear times and again that the a'dam is unescapable.

and yet, just because you can't take it off, it doesn't mean you are completely helpless.

 

premise: you are a prisoner. you will be tortured, abused and broken into killing your former friends. this is a fate worse than death. therefore, death counts as victory for you. if you die, it's a good outcome; you are not expecting to come out of this alive anyway. whatever damage you can deal to the seanchan before you die, that's just bonus.

premise 2: an experienced channeler could just control your flows, like nynaeve did with moggy. however, the sul'dam are anything but experienced. they do not know they can do that, just like they don't know they can channel. you have that little advantage.

 

with those premises, let's see a few things you could do to foil the empress

 

1) the martial artist

You cannot use weapons while wearing an a'dam. egwene was unable to touch the brooch of water after she thought of hitting renna with it. But! Book canon establishes that you can still use your bare hands. when egwene was first collared, she punched her sul'dam, and nothing stopped the punch. sure, she was disabled by the pain afterwards, but she could deliver one good punch in the process.

it's perfectly possible to kill a person with a single well-delivered punch, especially if they are helpless because they are not expecting it. i was thinking a solid blow on the occiput, it's the most frail part of the skull and a strong blow there often results in permanent damage. Sure, if you kill - or even seriously wound - your sul'dam you are going to die of feedback pain, but we established in the premise that's exactly what you wanted. you mercy-killed yourself, you denied the empire a powerful resource, and you managed to bring a hard-to-replace sul'dam with you.

you can also try to kill other damane, they are very valuable resources - and whether they are tortured prisoners or willing soldiers, they are legitimate targets in both cases, if for different reasons. killing a damane should be easy, if you can still throw punches and you don't get pain feedback. main disadvantage is, for something like that they are likely to cut your hands, which would prevent you from further exploiting this technique and would make your life even more miserable than it already was.

The main disadvantage is that killing someone with a single blow is hard, even if you can deliver a good surprise punch on the occiput, especially if you are a tiny woman.

 

2) friendly fire

go along with enslavement. don't resist. play pretend. if the sul'dam sense that you are not truly tamed, just say "[name] doesn't want to be punished", which is pretty realistic anyway. try to get them with the guard down. eventually, you'll be used in combat. you are expected to channel letal blows in that case. when you form a deadly wave, instead of throwing, release it at your feet.

the sul'dam can sense what you do, and can stop you. however, especially if you've been fighting normally for a while, they are extremely, extremely unlikely to be expecting something like that. people have limited concentration, and they tend to get distracted if involved in a monotonous routine. you only need your sul'dam to drop her guard for a second.

the disadantage is that it's unreliable. it requires your sul'dam to not be expecting a suicide move, that she'll be too slow to react. and, if you try it first, it's more likely the sul'dam will be attentive; you will have to kill some of your former companions at first. But if it succeeds, you could take upwards to a dozen damane with you, dealing a major blow to the empire.

 

3) the stoic

Just refuse to do anything. they will punish you; keep refusing. by tuon's accounting, ryma was about to die before she was broken by playing good cop. it means it's possible to just deny your captors, and ryma would most likely have died had she not found tuon.

it requires a ludicrous amount of willpower, though, if even egwene couldn't manage it.

 

4) the least amount necessary to kill

While it's normally accepted that you can't channel at all while wearing the a'dam, you actually can. during one of her chapters, egwene was doing just that. and she could channel only a tiny tiny trickle of power, and she was getting nauseated, and she could not open the a'dam. but she could still move small objects.

and it doesn't really take all that much strenght to kill a person with a needle through the eye or ear canal. make a needle of air, you may just be able to kill a sul'dam that way. or at least to gouge out her eyes, which would still mark her a casualty for the empire.

it's even possible you could puncture her eyes, then threaten to kill her if she doesn't release you. if she folds to your demands, you may even potentially survive and escape, but better to not get your hopes up. probably they will find you standing before a dead sul'dam. still, even if they mutilate you, they have no way to prevent you from doing the same again, so they will likely have to execute you anyway.

and you may also manage to kill other damane, which are much more valuable resources than sul'dam.

 

in the end, there are several ways to defeat the a'dam. sure, they all require a very strong willpower, and most are chancy. and they all will see you dead in the end.

but really, you've been captured and collared, what do you have to lose at this point?

  • RP - PLAYER
Posted

Canon doesn't go into very much, but you are assuming that only objects can be thought of as weapons. What if body parts and the power were the same? Egwene punched her sul'dam without thinking, but what if considering how best to one punch kill her sul'dam she could no longer make a fist or raise her arms until she had convinced herself that she would never, ever hurt her sul'dam with her hands?

 

That is the point of the a'dam, it can read your intent. You don't have any plausible deniability, you cannot make legalistic arguments to get around it. 

 

Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't loopholes as written, but we don't know what they are or quite how they would work. Ryma I thought was more about them trying to break the three oaths more than her refusing to cooperate but I could be misremembering that. 

 

That is why the show doesn't make sense, to me at least, as Egwene deliberately used the a'dam to hurt her sul'dam. She should - in the spirit of how an a'dam works at least - only have been able to put it on if she genuinely believed that it wouldn't hurt her. It did make great TV, but it did not seem very consistent, as the loophole had not been shown in advance. 

Posted
37 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Canon doesn't go into very much, but you are assuming that only objects can be thought of as weapons. What if body parts and the power were the same? Egwene punched her sul'dam without thinking, but what if considering how best to one punch kill her sul'dam she could no longer make a fist or raise her arms until she had convinced herself that she would never, ever hurt her sul'dam with her hands?

that's a possibility, but i don't find it very convincing. egwene punched her sul'dam, and while it was done in the heat of the action, it was deliberate, not an accident while flailing around. is it possible that the a'dam stops you if you are being thoughtful, not if you act in the heat of the moment? it certainly is, but since the original author died, we'll never know for sure one way or the other.

for sure, egwene never thought to hit renna with her bare hands in the books, denying us useful information. but we are told damane have their food cut for them because they can't touch knives, it means the a'dam isn't as discriminating at reading your intent as you may assume.

 

Quote

That is why the show doesn't make sense, to me at least, as Egwene deliberately used the a'dam to hurt her sul'dam. She should - in the spirit of how an a'dam works at least - only have been able to put it on if she genuinely believed that it wouldn't hurt her. It did make great TV, but it did not seem very consistent, as the loophole had not been shown in advance. 

i'm not talking of the show. what the show did with the a'dam is bad and rafe should feel bad (the part with the reciprocal collaring, not the part with egwene blowing up her tower while renna was distracted; that's covered into scenario 2).

i'm staying specifically into stuff that's confirmed by book canon.

 

Quote

Ryma I thought was more about them trying to break the three oaths more than her refusing to cooperate but I could be misremembering that. 

on ryma, they ended up accepting that she was unable to channel in battle. they stopped trying to get her to break the oaths long before.

wait, this is scenario 5): have every aes sedai swear and oath that if captured and collared, they will never, ever cooperate with the seanchan. that will make them immune to being turned.

 

  • 1 month later...
Posted

I 100% agree with all of this. There’s also the fact that the way they control you is through pain and pleasure but as you mentioned theoretically you can push through the nausea so similarly if you were determined enough, you can take off the collar it’ll hurt like hell, but if you are determined enough, you can do it Because it causes painful cramps when you try and touch it but it doesn’t actually physically prevent you from doing so and there were plenty of examples of people through sheer adrenaline and other means pushing through physical pain.

 

There’s also a question we know it’s possible to draw in Saidar in limited amounts so theoretically, you could form a weave of air and unlock the collar that way like we know is possible you mentioned before it would hurt like hell but it’s possible.

 

It’s also worth questioning how does the collar work in that regard? Does it just say the Damane tried to channel or does it let you know how much they managed to channel because if it just like a switch where if you try and channel the light turns on, Then you could theoretically at least train yourself to draw in more power.

 

It would definitely be difficult because the mental strain it would put on you enduring torture for that long, especially since they punish you every time you try to channel, but you could do it, so if you were willing to try it from the start. You could likely in a few weeks, honestly maybe even less given how adaptable humans can be channel enough to be able to consistently use weaves even through the pain. I say probably two or three weeks to be able to pushing through the pain without issue at minimum and then another week or two to consistently form weaves. But if you are just trying to get the collar off and theoretically already know how to form such a weave maybe a week at most.

 

Connected to the question of channeling in the collar how does it work with the Sal’dam cutting you off. are you capable of pushing past it can you struggle against them the same way you can in a normal circle and usurp control, forcing yourself to channel in spite of their efforts or is it an immediate shut down.(Personally my theory is that it’s a bit of a mix a proper channeler who knows how to use the power can shut it down instantly with minimal effort, but for the slavers of the empire, who deliberately don’t know how to channel they’d likely have a much harder time doing so.)

 

There’s also the question of a mental tricks like you know fantasy where it’s like oh you can’t hurt this person so you don’t think of it is hurting them for example you pick up a broom and rather than attacking your enemy with that you’re cleaning a mess or you’re throwing it in frustration or you’re not actually attacking with it.

 

Admittedly, this would likely be very difficult to consistently pull off, but theoretically, you could do it disassociate yourself and considering this object as a weapon, you’d likely have to train for that one specific object in task, but it is possible.

 

also another point that I don’t really see brought up that much is how does it inflict the pain because I have a theory that if you have one of those weaves that protect you from compulsion, it would also protect you from the A’dam’s attempt to cause you pain because the way it does so effectively a form of compulsion.

Posted
3 hours ago, LucaNox220 said:

 if you were determined enough, you can take off the collar it’ll hurt like hell, but if you are determined enough, you can do it Because it causes painful cramps when you try and touch it but it doesn’t actually physically prevent you from doing so and there were plenty of examples of people through sheer adrenaline and other means pushing through physical pain.

 

There’s also a question we know it’s possible to draw in Saidar in limited amounts so theoretically, you could form a weave of air and unlock the collar that way like we know is possible you mentioned before it would hurt like hell but it’s possible.

 

actually, it's pretty well established you can't do those.

the cramps prevent your muscles from moving. a cramp happens when a muscle doesn't respond to commands. similarly, weaves meant specifically to open the a'dam fail. egwene tried that, i think.

Posted
2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

actually, it's pretty well established you can't do those.

the cramps prevent your muscles from moving. a cramp happens when a muscle doesn't respond to commands. similarly, weaves meant specifically to open the a'dam fail. egwene tried that, i think.

Huh must misremember that but I don’t think Egwene failed because the collar stopped her that way I thought she was just in too much pain to focus on weaving especially as a novice with very little experience channeling. We did see others use weaves to remove the collars but maybe it stops them from doing other than theoretically if you could get two people working together, you could remove it. You use your weave to remove the collar on the other person and then they’d remove it from you by hand or use a weave as well.

Posted
On 12/18/2024 at 9:19 AM, king of nowhere said:

The books make it clear times and again that the a'dam is unescapable.

and yet, just because you can't take it off, it doesn't mean you are completely helpless.

 

1) the martial artist

You cannot use weapons while wearing an a'dam. egwene was unable to touch the brooch of water after she thought of hitting renna with it. But! Book canon establishes that you can still use your bare hands. when egwene was first collared, she punched her sul'dam, and nothing stopped the punch. sure, she was disabled by the pain afterwards, but she could deliver one good punch in the process.

it's perfectly possible to kill a person with a single well-delivered punch, especially if they are helpless because they are not expecting it. i was thinking a solid blow on the occiput, it's the most frail part of the skull and a strong blow there often results in permanent damage. Sure, if you kill - or even seriously wound - your sul'dam you are going to die of feedback pain, but we established in the premise that's exactly what you wanted. you mercy-killed yourself, you denied the empire a powerful resource, and you managed to bring a hard-to-replace sul'dam with you.

you can also try to kill other damane, they are very valuable resources - and whether they are tortured prisoners or willing soldiers, they are legitimate targets in both cases, if for different reasons. killing a damane should be easy, if you can still throw punches and you don't get pain feedback. main disadvantage is, for something like that they are likely to cut your hands, which would prevent you from further exploiting this technique and would make your life even more miserable than it already was.

The main disadvantage is that killing someone with a single blow is hard, even if you can deliver a good surprise punch on the occiput, especially if you are a tiny woman.

Also just noted this one, but the question is would your sul’dam dying immediately result in your death? Because it’s a pain feedback, but pain has its limit, even if you feel twice as much pain as them. There are plenty of methods of death while heard for a moment aren’t enough to cause the beating pain or even kill you for example say you have the strength of Will to strangle them to death that’s darkening and it makes you faint, but there’s no real indication that it’s a massive amount of physical pain, at least an unbearable amount. The worst thing would be is burning in your lungs, but you can tolerate that.It’s more of a slowly fading of the world around you depending on how a collar interprets that it’s entirely possible you could strangle them to death by gripping their throat. Admittedly, you wouldn’t be able to do this while they were holding the leash most likely but they’re taking it off for the night and you were close enough to grab them. You could still strangle them while they slept.

 

Again, it’s been a while since I’ve read the books on surprisingly they were a bit too long for most people to do a casual reread myself included. Moment extra prepared you had a point about the cramps and being unable to grab the collar though I still think that, but the pain indicator that I remember that shows the death of the leash holder results in the death of the person wearing a collar at least not 100% accurately rather than collateral

Posted
6 hours ago, LucaNox220 said:

Also just noted this one, but the question is would your sul’dam dying immediately result in your death?

iirc, it's ambiguous. it's implied, but never stated for certain. nor is established in any way what would happen with a painless death.

Posted

We do know that damane, due to being channelers, live much longer than sul'dam.  Alivia is over 400 years old, for instance.  As such, a single damane will have many sul'dam throughout her life.  Of course, they pass damane around anyways for various reasons, but sul'dam growing old would necessitate it regardless. I don't think that the question is answered explicitly, but if the death of a sul'dam killed the damane, I think we would hear more about it.  

Posted (edited)
52 minutes ago, Samt said:

We do know that damane, due to being channelers, live much longer than sul'dam.  Alivia is over 400 years old, for instance.  As such, a single damane will have many sul'dam throughout her life.  Of course, they pass damane around anyways for various reasons, but sul'dam growing old would necessitate it regardless. I don't think that the question is answered explicitly, but if the death of a sul'dam killed the damane, I think we would hear more about it.  

i mean, the death of a sul'dam while wearing the bracelet.

of course, when they retire and eventually die of old age, it has no effect.

 

i think Renna said that whatever the sul'dam feels, the damane feels more, even to the point of death, so a damane must protect her sul'dam in battle even more than herself. but it says nothing of painless conditions, like being incapacitated by a blow to the head. would that cause the damane to fall unconscious too? some drugs kill without pain, one falls asleep and dies; what if it's administered to a sul'dam?

we don't have any solid data on any of that - though we can surmise, at least, that poison effects would be shared, as elayne and birgitte could get each other drunk through the warder bond, and the a'dam is not too dissimilar.

Edited by king of nowhere
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

i mean, the death of a sul'dam while wearing the bracelet.

of course, when they retire and eventually die of old age, it has no effect.

 

i think Renna said that whatever the sul'dam feels, the damane feels more, even to the point of death, so a damane must protect her sul'dam in battle even more than herself. but it says nothing of painless conditions, like being incapacitated by a blow to the head. would that cause the damane to fall unconscious too? some drugs kill without pain, one falls asleep and dies; what if it's administered to a sul'dam?

we don't have any solid data on any of that - though we can surmise, at least, that poison effects would be shared, as elayne and birgitte could get each other drunk through the warder bond, and the a'dam is not too dissimilar.

It is a response of feeling not the actual effect so I say they are fine breaking renna’s nose would not result in the Damane’s nose being broken just that she experiences twice as much pain as she does, so a painless, subtle or quick death would be fine unless the method that kills them is extremely painful like burning alive.

edit it to add it’s worth remembering that until the Westland’s they did not have a method of healing using their damane if I remember correctly, so chances are, it’s more important for them to defend them not because if their master dies, they die too for more because if they’re critically injured without access to healing magic, their master would slowly and painfully die right there and there would be nothing they could do about it. So for example, we know that they’re used in war say they’re blasted by a spell that results in their body being littered in shrapnel, the Sul’dam’s pain is going to be immense doubling that’s gonna be enough to incapacitate or kill the damane but quick death no matter how painful aren’t going to kill them.

Edited by LucaNox220
New idea
Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

i mean, the death of a sul'dam while wearing the bracelet.

of course, when they retire and eventually die of old age, it has no effect.

 

i think Renna said that whatever the sul'dam feels, the damane feels more, even to the point of death, so a damane must protect her sul'dam in battle even more than herself. but it says nothing of painless conditions, like being incapacitated by a blow to the head. would that cause the damane to fall unconscious too? some drugs kill without pain, one falls asleep and dies; what if it's administered to a sul'dam?

we don't have any solid data on any of that - though we can surmise, at least, that poison effects would be shared, as elayne and birgitte could get each other drunk through the warder bond, and the a'dam is not too dissimilar.

True.  They presumably put the Sul’dam into retirement at a certain age and pass the damane to a young sul’dam.  But still, we don’t get confirmation of a damane being killed by a sul’dam death and I think it would come up if it happened.  
 

In general, I’m not sure that I agree that magical pain can be fatal in the WoT lore.  Most real world pain is accompanied by actual physical damage to the body.  Some exceptions involving nerve disorders or past amputations exist, but I don’t believe those are potentially fatal.  The idea that pain can cause your body to shut off and die without any actual damage is more of a fantasy/sci-fi trope in the first place as far as I know.  RJ just didn’t make it part of his universe.  I’m not a doctor and haven’t studied pain depth, so maybe I am incorrect on this.

 

To be clear, pain can be completely incapacitating and cause unconsciousness.  But would it actually kill?

Edited by Samt
Posted
2 hours ago, Samt said:

In general, I’m not sure that I agree that magical pain can be fatal in the WoT lore.  Most real world pain is accompanied by actual physical damage to the body.  Some exceptions involving nerve disorders or past amputations exist, but I don’t believe those are potentially fatal.  The idea that pain can cause your body to shut off and die without any actual damage is more of a fantasy/sci-fi trope in the first place as far as I know.  RJ just didn’t make it part of his universe.  I’m not a doctor and haven’t studied pain depth, so maybe I am incorrect on this.

 

To be clear, pain can be completely incapacitating and cause unconsciousness.  But would it actually kill?

it probably can cause heart attack, or kill indirectly by other forms of shock, but it's not reliable in any way.

 

i think that the death of your sul'dam is fatal was said in the book, possibly by renna, and she never lied about anything else concerning the a'damn. but i don't remember exact quotes

Posted (edited)

Damane do not die when their suldam does.

 

We have multiple POVs of dead suldam, and their damane either unconscious, which we were told so by either a Wise One or and Aes Sedai, or reacting no different to an Aes Sedai with their dead Warders.

 

Ryma's battle actually showed a suldam dead, and her damane alive.

Edited by wotfan4472
Posted

You might feel say the arrow hitting your suldam but all you would feel is the pain of the arrow not the effect of the arrow.  I imagine the adam would lose its effectiveness if in a battle if you could lose a Sul'dam and a damane to just one arrow, falling off a horse etc or a simple accident.

 

I would be curious as to what the damane might feel or experience if the sul'dam was hit by balefire.  

Posted
On 12/19/2024 at 1:19 AM, king of nowhere said:

The books make it clear times and again that the a'dam is unescapable.

and yet, just because you can't take it off, it doesn't mean you are completely helpless.

 

premise: you are a prisoner. you will be tortured, abused and broken into killing your former friends. this is a fate worse than death. therefore, death counts as victory for you. if you die, it's a good outcome; you are not expecting to come out of this alive anyway. whatever damage you can deal to the seanchan before you die, that's just bonus.

premise 2: an experienced channeler could just control your flows, like nynaeve did with moggy. however, the sul'dam are anything but experienced. they do not know they can do that, just like they don't know they can channel. you have that little advantage.

 

with those premises, let's see a few things you could do to foil the empress

 

1) the martial artist

You cannot use weapons while wearing an a'dam. egwene was unable to touch the brooch of water after she thought of hitting renna with it. But! Book canon establishes that you can still use your bare hands. when egwene was first collared, she punched her sul'dam, and nothing stopped the punch. sure, she was disabled by the pain afterwards, but she could deliver one good punch in the process.

it's perfectly possible to kill a person with a single well-delivered punch, especially if they are helpless because they are not expecting it. i was thinking a solid blow on the occiput, it's the most frail part of the skull and a strong blow there often results in permanent damage. Sure, if you kill - or even seriously wound - your sul'dam you are going to die of feedback pain, but we established in the premise that's exactly what you wanted. you mercy-killed yourself, you denied the empire a powerful resource, and you managed to bring a hard-to-replace sul'dam with you.

you can also try to kill other damane, they are very valuable resources - and whether they are tortured prisoners or willing soldiers, they are legitimate targets in both cases, if for different reasons. killing a damane should be easy, if you can still throw punches and you don't get pain feedback. main disadvantage is, for something like that they are likely to cut your hands, which would prevent you from further exploiting this technique and would make your life even more miserable than it already was.

The main disadvantage is that killing someone with a single blow is hard, even if you can deliver a good surprise punch on the occiput, especially if you are a tiny woman.

 

2) friendly fire

go along with enslavement. don't resist. play pretend. if the sul'dam sense that you are not truly tamed, just say "[name] doesn't want to be punished", which is pretty realistic anyway. try to get them with the guard down. eventually, you'll be used in combat. you are expected to channel letal blows in that case. when you form a deadly wave, instead of throwing, release it at your feet.

the sul'dam can sense what you do, and can stop you. however, especially if you've been fighting normally for a while, they are extremely, extremely unlikely to be expecting something like that. people have limited concentration, and they tend to get distracted if involved in a monotonous routine. you only need your sul'dam to drop her guard for a second.

the disadantage is that it's unreliable. it requires your sul'dam to not be expecting a suicide move, that she'll be too slow to react. and, if you try it first, it's more likely the sul'dam will be attentive; you will have to kill some of your former companions at first. But if it succeeds, you could take upwards to a dozen damane with you, dealing a major blow to the empire.

 

3) the stoic

Just refuse to do anything. they will punish you; keep refusing. by tuon's accounting, ryma was about to die before she was broken by playing good cop. it means it's possible to just deny your captors, and ryma would most likely have died had she not found tuon.

it requires a ludicrous amount of willpower, though, if even egwene couldn't manage it.

 

4) the least amount necessary to kill

While it's normally accepted that you can't channel at all while wearing the a'dam, you actually can. during one of her chapters, egwene was doing just that. and she could channel only a tiny tiny trickle of power, and she was getting nauseated, and she could not open the a'dam. but she could still move small objects.

and it doesn't really take all that much strenght to kill a person with a needle through the eye or ear canal. make a needle of air, you may just be able to kill a sul'dam that way. or at least to gouge out her eyes, which would still mark her a casualty for the empire.

it's even possible you could puncture her eyes, then threaten to kill her if she doesn't release you. if she folds to your demands, you may even potentially survive and escape, but better to not get your hopes up. probably they will find you standing before a dead sul'dam. still, even if they mutilate you, they have no way to prevent you from doing the same again, so they will likely have to execute you anyway.

and you may also manage to kill other damane, which are much more valuable resources than sul'dam.

 

in the end, there are several ways to defeat the a'dam. sure, they all require a very strong willpower, and most are chancy. and they all will see you dead in the end.

but really, you've been captured and collared, what do you have to lose at this point?

The problem I see with some of these is the fact that once you start planning and consider using something as a weapon then you are unable to even touch or use it. Egwenes strike was a spur of the moment action, when she thought about using the jug to attack the Sul'Damane she was unable to then even touch it till she accepted she would not use it as a weapon. It would be very hard to lie to yourself well enough to consider a killing blow without triggering that reaction.

 

The best way I think would be simply attempting to withhold your abilities during a dangerous situation. Although I don't think they used the Damane in battle till they were fully trained so you would need to hide the fact that you had not been broken which appeared to be very difficult.

  • RP - PLAYER
Posted

There is also the fact that sul'dam is inside the damane's head when they are complete. When being told that you must protect you sul'dam, want to protect your sul'dam, you cannot just pretend to do so until they let their guard down. They are punished until they genuinely want to do what they are told. Their previous identities are washed away because they are told to forget about them. If they get a ribbon for being good, the sul'dam will know if they are genuinely pleased or not, and can be treated accordingly. 

 

In reality of course this could lead to some sort of emotional splitting (I think the term is) where parts of the personality are split off to protect the core identity, but in canon I don't think there are many damane that are driven insane and the vast majority are successfully conditioned and trained. 

Posted
36 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

There is also the fact that sul'dam is inside the damane's head when they are complete. When being told that you must protect you sul'dam, want to protect your sul'dam, you cannot just pretend to do so until they let their guard down. They are punished until they genuinely want to do what they are told. Their previous identities are washed away because they are told to forget about them. If they get a ribbon for being good, the sul'dam will know if they are genuinely pleased or not, and can be treated accordingly. 

 

In reality of course this could lead to some sort of emotional splitting (I think the term is) where parts of the personality are split off to protect the core identity, but in canon I don't think there are many damane that are driven insane and the vast majority are successfully conditioned and trained. 

I don't think they can actually read their minds it more feelings I think. However this does extend to being able to sense deception as well which would make avoiding being discovered faking being broken exceptionally difficult.

Posted
8 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

There is also the fact that sul'dam is inside the damane's head when they are complete. When being told that you must protect you sul'dam, want to protect your sul'dam, you cannot just pretend to do so until they let their guard down. They are punished until they genuinely want to do what they are told.

that always left me puzzled.

i can understand that people who are punished repeatedly want to avoid punishment. with time, it becomes a routine. eventually, they just start to go along with it. they can even form camaraderie with the sul'dam and other damane.

but i can't imagine suddenly wanting to protect the person torturing me. torture may change how you act, but not how you feel - except for feeling afraid.

 

which is why i always assumed that the part about reading emotions was a bit of an exaggeration, very vague at best. and, most important, that a general feeling of fear would be acceptable. if the damane is complying because she's afraid, she won't be punished. it will only make her even more afraid. in fact, we even have a rare sul'dam pow with bethamin in WH chapter 20 that was along the lines of "for now they stopped demanding their jewelry back, that's progress, gradually they will adapt".

which is why i think that as long as you play along and obey all orders, and the sul'dam will feel you are afraid of them, it should be acceptable behavior.

Posted
2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

that always left me puzzled.

i can understand that people who are punished repeatedly want to avoid punishment. with time, it becomes a routine. eventually, they just start to go along with it. they can even form camaraderie with the sul'dam and other damane.

but i can't imagine suddenly wanting to protect the person torturing me. torture may change how you act, but not how you feel - except for feeling afraid.

 

which is why i always assumed that the part about reading emotions was a bit of an exaggeration, very vague at best. and, most important, that a general feeling of fear would be acceptable. if the damane is complying because she's afraid, she won't be punished. it will only make her even more afraid. in fact, we even have a rare sul'dam pow with bethamin in WH chapter 20 that was along the lines of "for now they stopped demanding their jewelry back, that's progress, gradually they will adapt".

which is why i think that as long as you play along and obey all orders, and the sul'dam will feel you are afraid of them, it should be acceptable behavior.

It's more than that they mix in a whole range of training methods.

 

Something I would equate it too from the real world is innocent people confessing to crimes that they have not committed. Almost everyone believes that under no circumstances would they ever do this but there have been large numbers of cases were skilled interrogators have used a range of techniques (excluding physical abuse) to obtain exactly these confessions, and they do not have the advantage of the A'dam or almost indefinite time.

 

If you can be manipulated into confessing to murder i do not find it remotely unlikely that given enough time people could be conditioned by the A'dam in the manner depicted in the books.

 

 

John Oliver did a very good piece on this if anyone is interested.

 

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