Strength of Terangreal?

[The Lost One]

I am doing a re-read of The Path of Daggers and I was reading through the point where they just comeout of the gateway with the Kin and the Sea Folk and Elayne starts sorting through the stuff they found.

 

She finds a terangreal that she says is not that powerful but with it she could hold double the amount of power that Nynaeve could.

 

I always imagined a decent terangreal would let a channler handle about 25-50% more of the power or so, but if I am reading this correctly a less powerful terangreal will let a channel more than DOUBLE what they normally could handle?  more than double....is that correct? 

 

If so, what do some of the stronger ones let a channler handle?

 

I had no idea they were so powerful.  So for examople, if Elayne was using this small terangreal against a forsaken without any, wouldn't she be much stronger than any of the forsaken....or am I misunderstanding this completely?

[Trib4l]

I'm assuming that you mean either angreal or sa'angreal, since ter'angreal do not augment the strength of a channeler like the first two.

 

Not saying these numbers are anywhere near accurate. If you were to place Elayne and Nyn on a 100 point scale with Nyn at say an 85 and Elayne at a 70, even with an angreal that would allow a 25% increase in power, that would place Elayne at around an 87-88 just marginally stronger than Nyn. Obviously if they are closer in strength than I've suggested here, then the margin would be larger.

 

A sa'angreal could potentially double, or in the case of the CK's, magnify to a power of 10 or more a channeler's ability to hold massive amounts of the OP. Just as a reference, when Rand and Nyn are using the CK to cleanse saidin, one of the Aes Sedai remarks that they are holding more of saidar than the whole White Tower could hold unaided (or perhaps even using all of their stored angreal). Considering that there are (afaik) just under 2000 sisters under the reign of the WT, you can see that one sa'angreal can make an enormous change in the amount one channeler can handle.

 

To answer your last question, assuming she was facing one of the lesser forsaken with a small angreal, she would likely be equal to or moderately stronger in the OP as a result. That says nothing for skill, just that she would be able to contain more of the OP.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Well, angreal and sa'angreal don't augment your abiliity by percent. They basically allow you to channel exponentially more.

 

With Callandor, for instance, you can wipe out a city.

 

And the Choedan Kal are said to be strong enough to give you the ability to destroy the world.

[Majsju]

When Siuan and the other Aes sedai Heal Mat in TDR, they are using the strongest Sa'angreal the White Tower has. 13 Aes Sedai, a Sa'angreal, and Nynaeve comments that she doesn't think she could handle half that amount by herself, unaided. granted, Nynaeve is at this point still quite new to consciously using the OP, so she may not be 100% accurate in determening such things, but she should be close enough.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

That would lead me to the assumption that the fluted sa'angreal in the WT is not near the strength of Callandor or the Choedan Kal.

 

 

[Charlz Guybon]

I am doing a re-read of The Path of Daggers and I was reading through the point where they just comeout of the gateway with the Kin and the Sea Folk and Elayne starts sorting through the stuff they found.

 

She finds a terangreal that she says is not that powerful but with it she could hold double the amount of power that Nynaeve could.

 

I always imagined a decent terangreal would let a channler handle about 25-50% more of the power or so, but if I am reading this correctly a less powerful terangreal will let a channel more than DOUBLE what they normally could handle?  more than double....is that correct? 

 

If so, what do some of the stronger ones let a channler handle?

 

I had no idea they were so powerful.  So for examople, if Elayne was using this small terangreal against a forsaken without any, wouldn't she be much stronger than any of the forsaken....or am I misunderstanding this completely?

 

You're thinking of the amber turtle Elayne gave to Aviendha.

http://encyclopaedia-wot.org:8008/items/amber_turtle.html

 

That's an angreal of average strength. Nyneave's braclet and rings angreal is stronger, Elayne's seated woman is weaker, and likely comparable to Cadsuane's shrike ornament.

 

You're not misunderstanding their power, it's why Cadsuane didn't bother joining a circle at the cleansing. Even with a weak angreal like her shrike she was probably as strong as Nyneave is without one, perhaps a bit stronger. That's why she was able to hold off the unnatural lightning channeled by one of the Forsaken.

 

This just shows how dangerous Graendal is with the gold ring angreal she found among Sammael's belongings.

 

 

[The Lost One]

Thank you....yes it was the amber turtle angreal.  I really did not understand how strong they are, until I did this re-read. 

 

 

[Guest cwestervelt]

That would lead me to the assumption that the fluted sa'angreal in the WT is not near the strength of Callandor or the Choedan Kal.

 

 

 

The angreal and sa'angreal held by the Tower don't come close to Calandor.  Lanfear mentions that there were only 2 or 3 male sa'angreal ever made that were more powerful that Callandor, but they were either lost or destroyed.  One of those is the Choedan Kal, which has been reclaimed.  Nothing, Callandor included, is anywhere near the strength of the Choedan Kal.  There was fear that the Choedan Kal when used together, and possible when used seperately, would allow someone to destroy the World.

 

As an indication of the amount of power that the Choedan Kal allow you to handle, every Aes Sedai from the Sea of Storms to Tar Valon and beyond could have pointed at Rand and Nynaeve when they were cleansing the Taint.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

It basically amounts to Rand + Nynaeve using more of the OP than the 2000 Aes Sedai in the Tower combined

[Darkness Incarnated]

It basically amounts to Rand + Nynaeve using more of the OP than the 2000 Aes Sedai in the Tower combined

 

I don't know, considering how the CK is described, I believe Rand could hold more than the said 2000 AS. I guess it depends on how strong the individual is. But does the CK (and the other angreal and s'angreal by extention)increase the amount of Power you are channeling in respect to your strength? If I remember well, even Nynaeve doesn't come close to Rand in the Power. So let us say Nynaeve can hold a maximum of 50, while Rand can hold 100. If the two of them use the CK at their maximum, there will still be that difference between them, right?

[Charlz Guybon]

It basically amounts to Rand + Nynaeve using more of the OP than the 2000 Aes Sedai in the Tower combined

 

I don't know, considering how the CK is described, I believe Rand could hold more than the said 2000 AS. I guess it depends on how strong the individual is. But does the CK (and the other angreal and s'angreal by extention)increase the amount of Power you are channeling in respect to your strength? If I remember well, even Nynaeve doesn't come close to Rand in the Power. So let us say Nynaeve can hold a maximum of 50, while Rand can hold 100. If the two of them use the CK at their maximum, there will still be that difference between them, right?

 

Yes, I believe they multiply your ability by a set factor.

[algspkr]

When Siuan and the other Aes sedai Heal Mat in TDR, they are using the strongest Sa'angreal the White Tower has. 13 Aes Sedai, a Sa'angreal, and Nynaeve comments that she doesn't think she could handle half that amount by herself, unaided. granted, Nynaeve is at this point still quite new to consciously using the OP, so she may not be 100% accurate in determening such things, but she should be close enough.

This is also from early in the series before the laws of channelling were set down, and much has seemed to change sence then.

 

I believe that the wand is about on par with Calandor, but all we have to go on is Rand saying with Calandor he was handling as much as 100 men could.

 

I do believe that both angreal and sa'angreal increase power through multiplication, not addition, for which I have no direct evidence, but when they fixed the weather the angreal went to the strongest people available which would have been pointless if they increased strength through addition. 

[Darkness Incarnated]

Maybe Callandor isn't as strong as I thought. Since Rand wanted to use it to cleanse saidin, I thought it was perhaps second only to the two CK. But still, the s'angreal used in healing Matt never struck me as being as strong as Callandor.

Rand feels like he can do anything when he wields Callandor, what does it feel like to use the CK?

[Guest cwestervelt]

As far as male Sa'angreal go, Callandor is second only to the Choedan Kal.  Any other's that were stronger were, according to Lanfear lost or destroyed.  She indicated a total of 2 or 3, and was including the Choedan Kal among them.

 

I think people are over rating the Fluted Rod.  I doubt it even comes close to the level of Callandor.  A full circle taken from among the strongest Aes Sedai currently in Tar Valon, channelling with it were only able to handle 2 to 3, maybe as much as 4 times what Nynaeve thought she could handle alone.  And Nynaeve was barely trained at that point.  She is vastly stronger than any of those Aes Sedai separately, but that circle should have been able to flatten her.  If the rod was anything near Callandor, that would imply that Nynaeve can handle nearly enough Power unaided to singlehandedly destroy a city.

[RobertAlexWillis]

The Choedan Kal are in a class by themselves.  Far and away more powerful than anything else.  They can crack continents.

 

Callandor is next, and is also in a class by itself.  It can wipe cities clean.

 

The white fluted rod is next, and it seems to be, if not in a class by itself, at least head and shoulders above the other sa'angreal the Tower has.  Egwene thinks that she (or any of several other Aes Sedai) could "crumple the walls of Tar Valon" with it.

 

Considering the Power-wrought nature of Tar Valon's walls, thats nothing to sneeze at.

 

It also seems to be a much more realistic assessment than Nynaeve thinking that she could use half the amount of saidar, unaided, that 10 Aes Sedai could, using that sa'angreal.  Given all we've learned since (and the level of Nynaeve's development at that time) that seems extraordinarily unlikely.

 

Incidentally, Rand's souped up craziness when using Callandor is because of Callandor's flaw, not because of the ridiculous amount of saidin Rand can draw with it.  He was internally rational through the whole cleansing, and during the fight with Asmodean.  No "I am the storm!!" and lightning in every direction, no zombie making, no drawing a line in the sand for Shai'tan.

[Charlz Guybon]

Maybe Callandor isn't as strong as I thought. Since Rand wanted to use it to cleanse saidin, I thought it was perhaps second only to the two CK. But still, the s'angreal used in healing Matt never struck me as being as strong as Callandor.

Rand feels like he can do anything when he wields Callandor, what does it feel like to use the CK?

 

IIRC a strong Aes Sedai can level the Shinning Walls of Tar Valon with a single blow using the fluted wand. So it's strong, but not quite as strong as Callandor.

 

As for Nyneave's estimation of her strength compared to it, I don't think we can take it seriously.

[Darkness Incarnated]

That is the way I see it as well, though I still don't understand why Rand would have chosen Callandor over the CK to cleanse saidin, considering he had used both, and knew the CK could handle way way more than Callandor, and thus hasten the process. Other than being afraid to draw that much of the Power, of course. :D

[Guest cwestervelt]

Rand's experience with Callandor made him afraid of the Choedan Kal.  He realized something was wrong when he used Callandor and mistakenly assumed it was due to the amount of Power he could channel with it.

[Gentled Ben]

Hmm...I don't remember Rand preferring to use Callandor instead  of the Choeden Kal. Instead, what I recall is Cadsuane, upon learning that he intended to cleanse Saidin, asking "With that?" in reference to Callandor, which he had just dug up from the ground near Far Madding, and Rand replying "No, with the Choeden Kal," and then describing them to her so that she knew what it was he was referring to, as he knew she didn't know the original mnames for them, of course. When was he intending to use Callandor instead, and who/what changed his mind?

[Darkness Incarnated]

In that exchange where he goes to see Cadsuane, trying to impress her with his titles and crown, in CoS or PoD. She tells him that Callandor is flawed, and Rand, as he leaves (with her reminding him to ask nicely), he thinks to himself that he had intended to use it, and now instead he would have to do with the CK (approximate words).

 

[RobertAlexWillis]

DI is correct, its at the very end of TPoD, ch 27.

[Gentled Ben]

Cool, thanks! :)