State of saidar/saidin by end of KoD (spoilers)

[Msnformd]

I've searched around (some) and so far, haven't seen this discussed (in this site). If I missed it, I'm sorry.

 

So, what does everyone think of the current state of saidin/saidar, post-cleansing? Rand cleansed the male half, so he and the Ashaman say. But most stories I've ever read, there's always an equal and opposite reaction for any action. There's always a consequence to working big magic. Anyone starting to wonder if saidar is now tainted? Perhaps not in quite the same way - not making the women insane, not making them sick to their stomachs. But rather, use of saidar for ordinary every day tasks seems to be spreading a corruption. Numerous mentions of how food is spoiling, an occaisional reference to how saidar doesn't seem to be working quite right (althought Elayne's perceptions may be distorted by her pregnancy). Seems like there were one or two other mentions of other women saying saidar didn't feel/work right...

 

Or, is it the work of the DO's hand? The spoilage of food put me in mind of the descriptions of the Blight in EotW, how the plants rotted and decayed even as they grew... Could the food spoilage thing be a variant on the Blight's corruption, only spread all over Randland now, and just getting started?

 

Or is it all one and the same thing? if Saidar is tainted, was it Rand's fault for cleansing Saidin, or was it the DO's doing, in reaction to Rand's cleansing?

 

Thoughts?

[SinisterDeath]

Saidar is not tainted, Nor failing. All of the events claiming both can all be explained due to exploding gateways, over stressed bowl of winds. As well as The DO's touch on the world explains the failing food supplies in the white tower, which were "warded".

[Leafburner]

I agree with SD.

 

I don't believe Saidar is tainted.

[TaeaDawn]

I don't think it's tainted, however I think we might be seeing some sort of backlash. The two powers, while not interchangeable, are interweavable and having separated them for so long, I think it's inevitable that the source itself gets a little wonky as it snaps back into it's original shape. I think that's why you don't see any one thing going wrong and you don't see it all the time. It's a temporary wake in the source and once the waves settle it will be as clear as it always has been.

[Ilyena]

i have to agree, Saidar doesn't seem to be tainted, just overused.

[Inara]

sadar cant be overused, it cant be used up, says so about 1000 times

but saying that, it hasnt been used in such quantities since the AOL so maybe there was some special way of doing it, a ter'angrial perhaps, that allowed such hge quantities to be used without upsetting the balance

[TaeaDawn]

I wouldn't say overused, but I do think that the balance has been upset for so long that it is natural for some reaction when the male half begins picking back up again. Escpecially with the way Rand is recruiting. It's not like they are picking one or two people and learning slowly. He's out there, forcing the power as fast as they can. No slow learning for them :P

[Kaznen]

I have a theroy about what happened to Saidar to lose all the wards. RJ said that there is a limited amount of Saidin and Saidar, but the power recycles into the pool after it is used.

 

I think what happened was kinda a system overload on a computer during the cleansing. The most powerful sa'angreal for Saidar was over used to the point that it melted so that soundes like it was all used.

 

So i'm thinking that Saidar did a kind of reboot. And all unsaved information was lost. Think of the wards as something that is using only the system's RAM and the power made and augmented stuff like Heartstone and the walls of TV and the Stone of Tear as being saved to disk. So after the reboot the wards were no longer there. No one checked the wards, why should they, they shouldn't fail under normal circumstances. It has been noted that the rewoven wards still work.

 

The wards that failed in TV to keep away rats and other shadow eyes I think were the word of Messana and the BA.

[Inara]

the black sisters and Mesana specifically say that the wards failing is an effect of the dark one's touch on the world. like the weather and the bubbles of evil, and the weakening of the lines between the living and the dead (ghosts).

[SinisterDeath]

There is no overuse of saidar/saidan... Rj never said there was a Fininte amount of Saidar/saidan.. he said it was Infinite. The wards are failing because of the DO's touch on the world, the wards themselves arent actually "failing" so to speak, if they did, they wouldn't still be there, and active. What is happening however is the DO's touch is basically rotting all the food in the world, regardless of any "wards". As for the other "places" that makes you think the power is failing is easilly answered by the bowl of winds and elaynes exploding gateway of DEATH.

[Msnformd]

sadar cant be overused' date=' it cant be used up, says so about 1000 times[/quote']

 

I know the Aes Sedai say that alot, but then, they were wrong about stilling being healed, and a bunch of other stuff, too. They could be wrong about this, too.

 

Of course, if RJ himself also said it in seperate interviews that I missed elsewhere (if so, I apologize), then we'll have to take that for a given.

 

But, couldn't it still become tainted in some way? I'm sure the Aes Sedai of Lews Therin's time would never have thought Saidin could be tainted, and yet it was, by the DO himself. He's had his work undone, what's to stop him from taining Saidar in some fashion, before/during/after Tarmon Gaidon, in retribution? Just a possibility to consider... Tainted power still flows, tainting doesn't change the amount of power available. As we've seen, tainted Saidin makes the men sick, and eventually go insane. Tainted Saidar may have a different effect, but with equally bad consequences. It may not be tainted yet, (by end of KoD), but I still think its a possibility to come.

 

The food spoilage thing is obviously the work of the DO, a new spread of the Blight effect. I'm just curious about the "how it works" mechanism of this condition - direct intervention, bubbles of evil, failing of saidar keeping wards, or something else. Guess I'll have to wait and see, to know for sure.

 

Thanks for the input.

[Leafburner]

Msnformd, I really like the idea that the DO will now strike out against Saidar in some way. Taint the female half of the source so that a reverse cycle of the past 3,000 is set into motion with women slowly losing their minds and being hunted down and stilled. I think it would be a tremendous mind meld if all of a sudden we found out that all of the women are slowly losing their minds.

 

Not too difficult to imagine sometimes!

 

But as cool an idea as I think it is. I don't think that is where RJ is going. It appears to me that he is setting up to have both men and women chanelling and working together at the conclusion. Whether the Asha'man move into Elaida's new tower that she's constructing, or if they simply move into the White Tower - who knows? But I do know this, the world has not seen as powerful Aes Sedai as Egwene, Nyneave, Elayne and Avhienda in 3,000. With the discoveries they have already made and the potential that they possess I see RJ setting them up to be the driving force behind change in the Age to come.

 

If saidar was tainted as everything currently stands the next age would be in dire trouble. The White Tower would surely fall. Asha'man would gut the place. Not pretty. Andor would crumble. The Aiel would become pretty savage. It would be a very dark new world to leave us with at the end of AMoL.

 

IMHO that would be too dark an ending for this series. I may be wrong and I hope I'm not.

[Inara]

i agree with leafburner.

i dont think this is where RJ is going. i just think that the DO is destabilising the world in preparation for TG, and that the wards' functions failing as well as the powere being harder to control is a sideffect of this touch

[Msnformd]

Okay. Let me pose a tangent speculation for consideration:

 

Perhaps I'm remembering the timeline wrong, but didn't the "breaking of the world" come AFTER the big battle with the DO, after he was sealed into Shayol Gul? The Breaking has been portrayed as major geographic upheaval - earthquakes, floods, fires, volcanoes, etc. But stories that fade to myth could have been exaggerations of what really happened. I don't doubt that much of what happened in the last Breaking was physical and geological, but there was also a cultural Breaking - institutions, nations torn apart by the upheavals.

 

If I'm remembering correctly, the last Breaking came AFTER the forces of the Light won. Bad things happened even after the the good guys won (in large part, because the male half of the Source was tainted).

 

I pose a speculation that we're witnessing another imminent Breaking of the world. Rand's creation of the Black Tower upsets a 3000 year old tradition of neutering men who can channel. The White Tower has been fractured, and will probably reunite in time for Tarmon Gaidon, but it will have to undertake some serious procedural changes in the future, if it wants to survive: incorporating the Kin, accomodating women who can't or won't take the Oath, working cooperatively with the Wise Ones, Windfinders, etc. The Seanchan seem hell-bent on retaking what they believe is theirs, and frankly, the sheer power of their numbers and their organizational efficiency makes it hard to resist them, no matter how abhorrent the slavery practice is. It doesn't look like the Aiel have any intention of returning the Waste any time soon, and why would they - water and other resources are much more plentiful in Randland, why go back to the desert?

 

Invasion of new populuations, displacement of old, new opportunities squeezing out old practices - wouldn't this constitute a form of Breaking the World? Maybe not with a bang, but a wimper, but the fact is, the world our merry cast of characters live in is changing, whether they like it or not. Those who can adapt will survive; the rest...

 

I theorize that the world is already breaking at our current point the published narrative; and will continue to do so after and as a result of Tarmon Gaidon. People will survive, and will remake a new world, but the old will be irrevocalbly Broken.

 

And I still think that changes in the nature of saidar will be a part of that. Perhaps a taint, perhaps not, perhaps new discoveries of ways to use it, but change is coming. At least, that's my 2 cents worth.

[Leafburner]

And it is a fair enough theory, msnformd. I agree that some form of change will usher in the next age.

 

But wouldn't an age where men could channel and work beside women be as equal a change from the world of the past 3,000 years? I'm not terying to say that you're wrong. Far from it. I just think there is a more obvious path down which we are being directed at the moment, and I don't personally see a taint on Saidar to be part of that.

[Graendals favourite]

I just want to put in, that I thought Elayne's luxurious and unspoilt dinner after she got her new wetnurse, was evidence that the spoilage in Caemlyn would have been due to the black sisters doing something there. The same might be the case in Tar Valon, thouhg dunno if this makes sense.

[Jedimuppet]

I just want to put in' date=' that I thought Elayne's luxurious and unspoilt dinner after she got her new wetnurse, was evidence that the spoilage in Caemlyn would have been due to the black sisters doing something there. The same might be the case in Tar Valon, thouhg dunno if this makes sense.[/quote']

 

And in all the villages? Everything everywhere is spoiling. That's the DO's touch. Elayne was just happy that her old bland food was replaced by real food.

[Msnformd]

Actually, Leaf, you do have a point - having men and women working together cooperatively would be a huge change in the world view. In Randland, as it has been up until the current point in the narrative, men and women really do a terrible job of communicating with each other. That lack of communication has led to all kinds of problems - secrets, lack of information, loss of knowledge. Learning how to work together will be very difficult, and require alot of change on people's part. And many are resistent to change.

[Graendals favourite]

I just want to put in' date=' that I thought Elayne's luxurious and unspoilt dinner after she got her new wetnurse, was evidence that the spoilage in Caemlyn would have been due to the black sisters doing something there. The same might be the case in Tar Valon, thouhg dunno if this makes sense.[/quote']

 

And in all the villages? Everything everywhere is spoiling. That's the DO's touch. Elayne was just happy that her old bland food was replaced by real food.

 

Yea it had been noted in many villages as well. At least there in the haunted town with Perrin. It occured to me to think we haven't actually seen it happen over all of Randland, but if there's many instances where it happens, I suppose it's too much to think there can be Forsaken seeing to it all. A few separate places, the Forsaken could have overseen to create chaos, though. So, yea, DO's touch I guess. Though I seem to recall Elayne describing the ham as completely unturned or something.