the difference in oath rods

[Luckers]

Well then it would be 222 with the male counterparts.

[elmis]

Why would there be male counterparts?

[Luckers]

Binders were used to bind channelers against crimes. There were male channelers, therefore there would also have been male binders.

[elmis]

Never really thought about it, but I've always figured that the binders were asexual. :P

[Luckers]

Nah, Sammael makes clear that a female binder doesn't work on a man.

[elmis]

Hah, learn something new every day. That's one of the great things about a book series of this magnitude! :D

[wvlr]

Nah, Sammael makes clear that a female binder doesn't work on a man.

 

Samuel could have been lying - but I doubt it.    I do not think that he would have given the Shaido WOs something that could be used against him.  Of course many of the Forsaken have done much dummer stuff.

[Luckers]

Yeah true, though if Sammael had a way of binding a man, i doubt he'd give it away--not just because it could be used against him--i really don't think Sammael would have thought the Wise Ones capable of that. But as something he could use against Rand....

 

 

[cloglord]

This last page bring up an interesting point.  If the rods aren' tusable from male to female, it is certainly possible that they are not interchangeable.  There is quite a bit of speculation about the purpose of the numbers, and I had a thought about that as well.

 

While it is true that in the current age it not common knowledge that the rod can be used to remove an oath, it probably would have been common knowledge in the AoL when they were first designed and used.  This means that if the rods were interchangeable, (and if there really were at least 111 of them,) then all it would take for a criminal to get themselves unbound, would be for them to get access to one of the other 110 rods, and quietly unbind themselves.  While the numbers could indicate that the rods were assigned to a district, that would indicate that the rods were used offen enough to nessecitate that many rods, and would seem to go counter to the fact that such bindings were realtively rare things.  So here's my thought, what if this binding was done so rarely, that a new rod was created for each instance?  This would seem to indicate that only that unique rod could be used to remove oaths from that person, and would keep the quilty party from easily removing their oaths via other rods, and it would explain the relatively few number of such rods.  If it was only intended to be used once on one person, it would also explain the widespread phenomenon of releasing one's self from their oaths, since in the current age they all use the same rod, and could explain why Sammael soesn't have a male binder, the only two found had been for female criminals. 

 

So, what do you think? 

[wvlr]

I think that the numbers in the AoL provided a means to tie the Oaths to the Rod.  "I swear to behave XXX way and not remove the oaths with any other rod than this one"

 

If she was using Rod 29 at the time, then she would not have been able to remove the oath with any other rod than #29.

 

That part of the Oaths though was probably lost during the breaking because the WT only had the one Rod so they thought that that part of the Oaths was redundent.    So that part dissappeared over the last 3000 years.

[DemandredFO]

I forget when exactly did they find the binder/oath rod?

[The Lost One]

So here's my thought, what if this binding was done so rarely, that a new rod was created for each instance?  This would seem to indicate that only that unique rod could be used to remove oaths from that person, and would keep the quilty party from easily removing their oaths via other rods, and it would explain the relatively few number of such rods.  If it was only intended to be used once on one person, it would also explain the widespread phenomenon of releasing one's self from their oaths, since in the current age they all use the same rod, and could explain why Sammael soesn't have a male binder, the only two found had been for female criminals. 

 

So, what do you think?   

 

Interesting idea.  I keep worrying about the removal and if the rod was lost..what would they do.  But maybe the oaths were permanent - never to be removed.  And if there were few to have to be bound, maybe they would create a rod for each binding. 

 

 

[Luckers]

Again, RJ stated that a woman can construct an oath rod in TAR and use that to unbind themself, therefore the exact binder used to bind is not nessasary to unbind.

 

This last page bring up an interesting point.  If the rods aren' tusable from male to female, it is certainly possible that they are not interchangeable.  There is quite a bit of speculation about the purpose of the numbers, and I had a thought about that as well.

 

As any binder works on any woman that can channel, this would probably have more to do with the difference between saidin and saidar than the difference between binders.

 

 

[The Lost One]

Again, RJ stated that a woman can construct an oath rod in TAR and use that to unbind themself, therefore the exact binder used to bind is not nessasary to unbind.

 

I thought that meant they were creating a copy of the oath rod that was used in the binding in TAR, so they could use it to unbind.  You are saying they are just creating a generic oath rod in TAR? 

[Luckers]

That was my interpretation, yeah. Anything else would require an understanding of ter'angreal that the generic sister lacked--to my mind--yet RJ's comment was specific to all.

[wvlr]

I don't agree.    Any sister that did this would just "copy" the only OR that she knew about.    The one that the WT uses.    She does not have to know all the workings of how to make a real OR.    Just as Egwene does not need to know everything about biology to "create" Bella for her trip to the rebal camp.    She just "copied" Bella from memory.

[cloglord]

I agree with what Wvlr said, and I would have said it had he not beaten me too it.  Any visualization of the oathrod would have been of the one the sister was familiar with, and would therefore be the reflection of that specific oath rod.  We know that space as well as time is malleable in TAR, so a visualization of an oath rod in TAR is as likely in my mind to bring the oath rod across space as it is to create a new one from scratch.  Even if this is the case, we have evidence of Terangreal being created from whole cloth, without the user haing knowledge of its workings, in that Nyn made an adam, and then subsequently changed it to remove the need for the leash.

[Luckers]

As I said, my interpretation.... *shrug*

[cloglord]

I'm curious, not trying to be argumentative, but does the Nynaeve/adam example change your interpretation?

[kleribituc]

I still think that the numbers have some sort of meaning to the oath sworn on them.  Maybe we will see Galina experience some sort of different reaction from swearing on that rod.

[Luckers]

I'm curious, not trying to be argumentative, but does the Nynaeve/adam example change your interpretation?

 

Not really. There's nothing that specifically suggests that the a'dam Nynaeve creates is an exact duplicate--indeed she removes the leash at one stage suggesting its not. I honestly don't see how it has any impact on this.

[Guest cw]

I still think that the numbers have some sort of meaning to the oath sworn on them.  Maybe we will see Galina experience some sort of different reaction from swearing on that rod.

 

Sorry, but no.  The Oath Rods/Binders are a product of the Age of Legends.  The Three Oaths are a product of the 3rd Age.  How could the numbers have relevance to something that didn't exist when the rods were created?  For that matter, I don't believe the Oaths weren't even added all at once.  In the earlies days of the White Tower, they didn't have any Oaths.  They were added after significant points in the third age.

 

As far as Galina goes, it is very unlikely we will be seeing her again.  That story line was pretty much brought to a complete close in Knife of Dreams when the final Shaido were crushed.  There is no reason to bring her back in A Memory of Light.

[cloglord]

Not really. There's nothing that specifically suggests that the a'dam Nynaeve creates is an exact duplicate--indeed she removes the leash at one stage suggesting its not. I honestly don't see how it has any impact on this.

 

But it is clearly an example of someone creating a working ter angreal without knowing the mechanisms behind making ter angreal.  This speaks directly to your objection that it, "would require an understanding of ter'angreal that the generic sister lacked--to my mind."  While true that there is nothing to indicate the the adam Nyn made was an exact duplicate, it is also true that all of the adam's that nyn had seen up to that point did not require that they be identical.  If her adam was a byprocuct of Nyn's vision of an adam based on her observations, a similar attempt to make an oath rod would likely also be based on her observations.  The only observations that Nyn, or any other aes sedai had had to that point, was of the oath rod in the tower.

[Luckers]

I don't see how. Mimicry is much easier than exact duplication. No one is suggesting that ter'angreal can't be intuitively reproduced in TAR, even by those that have an incomplete knowledge of what they are reproducing--as Nynaeve's experience shows.

 

But exact duplication of a specific ter'angreal--not just its effect, but its exact nature, to me would require a far more detailed knowledge of the ter'angreal. A knowledge lacking in most, if not all, sisters.

 

And I would point out that binders show no more necessity for indetical reproduction than a'dam. There were once hundreds of them.

[The Lost One]

There were once hundreds of them.

 

This answers a question I had earlier, I was wondering how many might have been around in AOL.  It makes sense, based on the number of channelers around at that time, but hundreds leads me to believe that the bindings were done more often than I orignally thought.  It seems they tried to do a good job of keeping the channelers in line.