Skimming

[aussie_ashaman123]

in CoS, Egwene says skimming is a great weave because it ensures privacy, 2 people travelling to the same spot from roughly the same place will not see eachother. However, in TSR, rand skims to Rhuidean and sees Asmodean ahead of him.

 

Can anyone explain this? is it a simple mistake on behalf of the Author, or is Egwene wrong?

[Luckers]

The easy explanation would simply be that men and women skim differently.

[JenLenaMom]

I know I'm probably wrong but doesn't Rand follow through the same gateway, when he reaches the other end the gateway nearly closes on him and catches his boot heel.  Or does that happen somewhere else.  Must be time for another re-read.

[icspots]

I've always wondered this myself, and while the women vs. men difference is somewhat compelling I'm wondering if it was just either a snafu by RJ, or something that he changed his mind on.

 

I know I'm probably wrong but doesn't Rand follow through the same gateway, when he reaches the other end the gateway nearly closes on him and catches his boot heel.  Or does that happen somewhere else.  Must be time for another re-read.

 

Rand follows Asmo. out of the "darkness" through Asmo's gatway (losing a slice of his boot in the process), but he weaves a separate gateway to begin with from Al'cair Dal after Lanfear tells him that Asmo. abandoned her plan to have him be Rand's teacher.

[JenLenaMom]

so I was half right, Yay me

[mothersmilkinacup]

I might be remembering this wrong.... but I thought that Rand actually saw Asmo make the "skimming gateway" and essentially placed his own weave in exactly the same spot as Asmo's "skimway" (does anyone know what the skimming opening is called???).  I think he said or thought something to that effect, but I don't have the books in front of me...  That allowed him to essentially travel through the same patch of nothingness as Asmo and see him.  I think that if he'd been off by a couple of inches then he wouldn't have been able to see him.  Rand has demonstrated talents around gateways (holding Avi's open) that other people don't know/can't do, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he could open up the exact same skimway as someone else.

 

PS -

I LOVE FAKE SWEARS!!!  MOTHER'S MILK IN A CUP!!!  FRAC!!!  BLOODY BUTTERED ONIONS!!!!!

[aevogt]

What Egwene says is that you would not see another person unless you opened an identical weave in the identical spot, or words to that effect.

 

Rand did not see Asmodean open his Gateway.  I always attributed it to the Male/Female difference that they encountered one another while skimming.

[RAND AL THOR]

I have a small question. Why did Asmodean skim in the first place? It is much faster to Travel. Perhaps because of the thingy about getting familiar with a place before you can Travel?

[Corbett]

to travel you mus t know your destantaon very well. If you dont then it will throw off the weave if it evrn works at all. So he skimmed because that was the only way that the weave would get hem where he wanted to go.

[DarkJustice]

If I remember correctly Rand saw the residues from Asmodeans gateway and put the same weave on the same spot.  Thats why he was able to see Asmodean.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

memory is extremely foggy, but don't they exit 'skim-world' INSIDE rhuidean's defensive perimeter?

 

in any case, to skim, you need to know your DESTINATION, if asmo, at any time, got that close to rhuidean, why didn't he just walk right in instead of later...

[RAND AL THOR]

to travel you mus t know your destantaon very well. If you dont then it will throw off the weave if it evrn works at all. So he skimmed because that was the only way that the weave would get hem where he wanted to go.

 

Asmodean has already been to Rhuidean a number of times. Near the End of SR, Lanfear says to Rand:

Now he thinks he has found something better for himself in Rhuidean.And he is off to take it while you stand here.Couladin, the drakhar, all to hold you attention while he made sure.

 

This suggests that Asmodean has visited Rhuidean several times. So surely he must know his destination well enough to Travel?

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

travelling is about knowing your CURRENT LOCATION well.

 

skimming requires you to know your DESTINATION well.

 

to travel you mus t know your destantaon very well. If you dont then it will throw off the weave if it evrn works at all. So he skimmed because that was the only way that the weave would get hem where he wanted to go.

 

Asmodean has already been to Rhuidean a number of times. Near the End of SR, Lanfear says to Rand:

Now he thinks he has found something better for himself in Rhuidean.And he is off to take it while you stand here.Couladin, the drakhar, all to hold you attention while he made sure.

 

This suggests that Asmodean has visited Rhuidean several times. So surely he must know his destination well enough to Travel?

 

this suggests that, from rand's descriptions of rhuidean, he believes that rand has found a CK access key and has decided to investigate/retrieve it for himself.

[Cybertrolloc]

I'm going with mostly changed premise.

 

Generic Aelfinn #2 covered the big one (and it takes a few hours to learn a place, see the setup Egwene's Aes Sedai use on the march through the counties south of Andor for the specifics).

 

Now back to tSR, and I've brought this up before here. The PoV is Rand, I don't even think Asmo is in the chapter before we get to the Skim place. Rand doesn't mention seeing a weave or anything along those lines. Lanfear appears and says Asmo's done a runner, then Rand makes a gateway and blunders somehow into catching up to Asmo. Hopefully you all know the rest...and Lanfear gets somehow there after the fight too ;)

[aussie_ashaman123]

saying its the difference between male and female is non-sensical, does that mean a male can see a female while skimming? is so, why cant the female then see the male?

[aevogt]

It isn't non-sensical, it's what we find in the text.

 

Rand sees another person while Skimming. 

 

Based on what Egwene says a few books later, that shouldn't have been possible unless there is a difference in the weeaves that take the channeler to whatever that place is you Skim through.

 

 

 

 

[Luckers]

Indeed. Given that it occured its not non-sensical at all.

 

My guess would be that women use different areas inside that black-space every single time they skim, a constantly changing space to move through, whilst mens skimming uses a set are of the space correlating with actual physical locations.

[aevogt]

Indeed.  Look at the differences in Traveling. 

 

A woman "imagines" for lack of a better word, two places as being so close to the same, that when the Gateway opens they are the same place.

 

A man bends the pattern so the two locations are, for all intents and purposes, the same place then bores a hole through the pattern.  I really like Rand's demonstration with Egwene's shawl.

 

The woman,s way is passive, just like Saidar and the man's way is agressive, just like Saidin.

 

If Skimming is anything at all like Traveling, then what the channeler is Skimming through would not be the same thing depending on gender.

 

 

[mabbott74]

I thought Asmo had only seen it in the world of dreams.. i recall egwene seeing him standing outside it looking in.

[Fjong]

You couldn't get inside Rhuidean in the world of dreams, until after Rand and Asmo had their battle. I haven't got the books with me, so i can't find a quote, but i seem to remember someone saying it

[aevogt]

That's absolutely correct, Rhuidean was warded against entry from TAR and also from a second visit.

 

Rand and Asmo arrive just outside the permanenet fog bank that surrounded the city. 

 

Asmodean ran right on through because he had never before been inside but Rand almost skipped the through the "no second entry trap" just at the inside edge of the fog.

 

[Serenla]

I kind of thought that the reason people don't run into each other skimming is because of the infinite variations on places to make the weave to and from.  Rand being ta'veren could have tugged him into making the weave exactly right.  It wouldn't be the first time that chance seemingly pushed him in the right direction...

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

Asmodean ran right on through because he had never before been inside but Rand almost skipped the through the "no second entry trap" just at the inside edge of the fog.

 

and it was determined that those razors were the "no second entry trap" when???

 

correct me if i'm wrong, but those razors were made out of saidin...which would have been odd considering when rhuidean was made.

[BrainFireBob]

Consider yourself corrected.

 

We don't know what they were made of.

 

Rand saw them, which could indicate they're a weave- or they could be a weave of dense air (or similar), which can be visible.

 

To Travel, you need to know your starting point, because regardless of method, you bring your destination to you.

 

To Skim, you need to know where you're going well- one presumes you step outside the Pattern and then can "sense" and "move to" your desired destination.

 

Two possible explanations: Male and female skimming are different, or Asmo was standing right there and left when crazy started- and Rand placed his gateway on Asmo's and made it the exact same way. In which case Egwene's comment serves as a statement as to Rand's incredible dexterity.

[Jehaine]

I believed it was more like making a 'tunnel' of some kind. Asmo and Rand started Skimming fairly close to one another, so i generally assumed they were using the same road, so to speak. Had the two of them started further apart, the angle would have been too different for them to come across each other as the path wouldn't overlap.