How do channelers discover they are bad at healing?

[king of nowhere]

unlike most weaves that can be learned by all, provided they have the skill and strenght, healing is mostly an innate talent. some people though weak, heal strongly. some very powerful people, including elayne, egwene, aviendha, and the most powerful of all rand himself, can't heal more than "minor cuts and bruises".

 

i never gave this much thought, until today I suddenly asked myself: how do they know it?

none of the four i mention was ever shown trying to heal someone. does it mean that someone got wounded, and they tried, and couldn't help?

it's relevant because, once healing is done, it can't be done again for the same person for the same injuries. so if you try to heal someone badly wounded, and you turn out to have no talent, you may end up causing his death, by making it impossible for better healers to treat the person. and you can't know how much healing talent you have unless you try it on someone seriously wounded

 

 maybe in the tower they have some kind of tests for that, but aviendha certainly was never tested in the tower, and rand had no access to anything.

and we never, ever see those characters try any healing. all of a sudden they declare they can't do it, and how they know is never questioned

[SinisterDeath]

5 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

by making it impossible for better healers to treat the person.

I don't think this is a thing? Otherwise when Moiraine initially treated Mat, he would never have been able to have been treated in Tar Valon. Likewise, when Rand's wound was treated, he would never have been able to have had his wound treated again by others. (Note: His unhealing wound, wouldn't heal because of other reasons)

 

7 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

so if you try to heal someone badly wounded, and you turn out to have no talent, you may end up causing his death, by making it impossible for better healers to treat the person. and you can't know how much healing talent you have unless you try it on someone seriously wounded

Depending on the weave and the extent of the injury, you may well kill them anyways if you're using battle healing... as that weave basically accelerates the persons natural healing.  (Which is why they become ravenously hungry).

 

There's a reference in the Wiki that battle healing is the only kind of healing that treats wounds inflicted by Thakan'dar-wrought blades. (Myrddraal blades) while the other healing from AOL didn't, and that's why the healing used by the Tower became the predominant style. Though they never did state if the version Nynaeve uses can heal wounds inflicted by Thakan'dar blades, as it's implied I believe by one of the Forsaken that she rediscovered the original healing weaver used during the AoLs.

 

12 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

and the most powerful of all rand himself, can't heal more than "minor cuts and bruises".

Egwene had no talent for healing what's so ever.... but she was apparently good enough to impress the Yellow Ajah. So take that as you will.

 

I'd have to read the section in TDR, but I'm almost positive when Rand attempts to heal death, all the child's wounds and broken bones are healed in the process, but the meat puppet and one power driven CPR wouldn't do anything.

 

17 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

and we never, ever see those characters try any healing. all of a sudden they declare they can't do it, and how they know is never questioned

I'd say a lot of this falls onto... stuff happens off screen, or in the case with the Kid, Rand just saw himself as a Destroyer rather than a Creator.

 

The specific talent for healing in the book, may well be a specific type of delving, that you just have to have a type of talent for in order for your healing to be the most effective at.

 

How do you heal a hole in the heart if you can't delve into the body and feel that there's a hole in the heart?

 

[Delenn]

In the books at least healing is painful, and men’s weaves more so. Men are rarely considered good at healing in general because of this.  The energy for healing is drawn from the person themselves, so that becomes a factor as well. 
SD is correct that healing is tried many times on Rand’s wound by different healers. So, they obviously think it can be done. 
As far as how they know if they are any good, they try it out under supervision. Even the girls when traveling had the chance to have other channellers around to help or teach most of the early books. For poorly skilled healers, the attempt probably just won’t work. The weaves would touch the wound and do little or nothing. Or as in Liandrin’s case, her healing is said to be particularly painful as well as only having minor skills. Also, there would likely be a prior affinity for it. As with Nyn. 
Rand does get a teacher, and he will suddenly do weaves he has no knowledge of. 

Spoiler

Because his previous life as the Dragon starts to break through 

 

[king of nowhere]

book 6, chapter 30:

"what was already healed could not be healed again"

 

that sentence in that particular context can be interpreted in many ways.

 

book 6, chapter 42:

not a single quote, but perrin was wounded, and verin found him, and she says, this wound requires alanna. if multiple channelers could heal the same wound with no issues, wouldn't verin had wanted to give perrin at least a bit of healing first? to make sure he would survive long enough to see alanna?

 

i'm too lazy to look for other quotes. the ones you provide are also good, so the books themselves look a bit inconsistent on the matter.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

11 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

book 6, chapter 30:

"what was already healed could not be healed again"

Not sure of the context here, but if this was referring to something like a scar, once the body had healed it, it has already healed, you just have a scar, whereas perhaps a greater with Talent with healing would result in a lesser scar.

 

11 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

book 6, chapter 42:

not a single quote, but perrin was wounded, and verin found him, and she says, this wound requires alanna. if multiple channelers could heal the same wound with no issues, wouldn't verin had wanted to give perrin at least a bit of healing first? to make sure he would survive long enough to see alanna?

As Healing has a cost, it could be that the cost/benefit ratio to his health would not be favourable, and again if it was internal bleeding or something perhaps she did not want to risk imperfect healing where scarring could be fatal or severely debilitating, as mentioned above. Or of course it could be that that the raise of the metabolism is equally exhausting regardless of how well it heals, so perhaps Perrin was so close to death that attempting to Heal him could risk killing him without properly healing him.

 

Of course this is only speculation and hardly deductive. It could also of course simply depend on how much narrativium is in the wound. Jordan's magic system is very far from a hard system that you can game with its parameters, imho at least.

Edited April 26 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade
Tried to make it a bit easier to comprehend.

[Sabio]

One also has to remember it also depends on the weave.  Since things are broken down into the five power Spirit, air, water, fire and earth.  Healing is described as mostly spirit with some air and water.  Every channeler has strengths and weakness with the five powers.  Chances are if you're weak with spirit you will be a weak healer.

Edited April 27 by Sabio

[Yamezt]

On 4/27/2025 at 2:30 AM, king of nowhere said:

book 6, chapter 30:

"what was already healed could not be healed again"

I believe that relates to Siuan and Leane's healing when they tried to wake her to make her angry after the yellows all had a go to make her mad.

 

I've always read that as meaning the healing was complete ("what was already healed"), and the "wound" was gone, rather than partially healed.

[Asthereal]

On 4/27/2025 at 7:14 AM, Sabio said:

One also has to remember it also depends on the weave.  Since things are broken down into the five power Spirit, air, water, fire and earth.  Healing is described as mostly spirit with some air and water.  Every channeler has strengths and weakness with the five powers.  Chances are if you're weak with spirit you will be a weak healer.

 

I think this is where we should look for the answer, but it's hard to say. Jordan kept this vague for a reason, as every clear answer you give creates consequences for other aspects of the magic system, and as a writer you want to have a certain amount of leeway.

 

But there's other uses of the power that are also "talent-based": gateways, for instance. The weave is the same, but when Androl makes a gateway, he can make it really big, despite being weak in the power overall, but some channelers can barely make a gateway big enough the step through.

 

Though on the healing part, there might be more to it. In the current Age, it is common knowledge that healing is a certain exact weave, but when Nynaeve learns to heal, she feels like it's wrong sometimes, and starts to experiment a bit in using all five together rather than the traditional weave with just spirit, water and air. Nynaeve feels like the weave should be different for different ailments as well. This hints heavily at the Aes Sedai of the current Age simply not understanding healing that well.

[Sabio]

The big white book has a section about this, it pretty much comes down to two things.  1.  The yellows believe there really isn't a better way to do things,  How they do it now is the best there is.  2.  Even if it might not be the best way few channelers are willing to risk burning themselves out experimenting with new weaves.  There isn't a lot of desire before Nynaeve came around to find a better way.  

Edited April 28 by Sabio

[Turin Turambar]

So.much of the current Aes Sedai "teachings" come down to misinformation. They sort of took a science (channelling in the Age of Legends) and turned it into a religion. There were some other books I read where a group believed they had to basically "pray a certain way" in order to get their machines to work. The show depicts this in the way the weaves look. If you look at Ishy, Lanfear,  and to a greater extent any of the other Age of Legends AS, you see their weaves are precise and structured. Current channellers weaves are clumsy in comparison. 

[SinisterDeath]

On 4/26/2025 at 11:30 AM, king of nowhere said:

"what was already healed could not be healed again"

Yeah, so context is key.

 

If an injury has already been fully healed, it can't be healed again.

 

So say, I heal you, but I do a shitty job of it. I failed to set the bone, and when I healed you, the bone healed of kilter, and now your skin and bone are all just.. wrong.

 

You can't heal that, because the body is already healed.

 

Now let's say there's someone who's severely injured. They have 35 stab wounds. 

Alannah comes up, and heals a few of stab wounds, but is quickly drained.

Someone else can take over, and heal the rest of the wounds, because they're still injured.

 

Mat's "injury" from the dagger, was like Cancer.

Moiraine "Healed" his "cancer", but it was only temporary.

So when he got to the Tower, they were able to "heal" his Cancer fully.

 

Same with Rand's wounds. It was an ongoing, continual wound.

 

Siuan being unstilled. Well, she can't ever be brought back to her full power, because she was healed "wrong". Just like a bone that was set wrong. The only way to maybe fix it. Is to break it again, and try to reset that bone.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

18 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

Yeah, so context is key.

 

If an injury has already been fully healed, it can't be healed again.

 

So say, I heal you, but I do a shitty job of it. I failed to set the bone, and when I healed you, the bone healed of kilter, and now your skin and bone are all just.. wrong.

 

You can't heal that, because the body is already healed.

 

Now let's say there's someone who's severely injured. They have 35 stab wounds. 

Alannah comes up, and heals a few of stab wounds, but is quickly drained.

Someone else can take over, and heal the rest of the wounds, because they're still injured.

 

Mat's "injury" from the dagger, was like Cancer.

Moiraine "Healed" his "cancer", but it was only temporary.

So when he got to the Tower, they were able to "heal" his Cancer fully.

 

Same with Rand's wounds. It was an ongoing, continual wound.

 

Siuan being unstilled. Well, she can't ever be brought back to her full power, because she was healed "wrong". Just like a bone that was set wrong. The only way to maybe fix it. Is to break it again, and try to reset that bone.

Stop saying what I said better! Bloody wolves everywhere, I tells ya.

[SinisterDeath]

37 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Stop saying what I said better! Bloody wolves everywhere, I tells ya.

Okay, I'll start saying what you say, but bloody worse.