Another question I've never seen asked...

[BrainFireBob]

Travelling requires knowing where you are (you pull your destination to you). Skimming requires knowing where you're going (you step into "Skimming Space" and "home in" on the location- you take yourself to it).

 

Asmodean spent a lot of time in tel'aran'rhiod studying the mists of Rhuidean. If he was there in the flesh, that might be sufficient to qualify as "knowing" the destination.

 

Travelling to Shayol Ghul is not a problem for LTT and the Companions as a result. Skimming even isn't, necessarily, since Shayol Ghul was formerly "an island in a cool sea, a favorite of those who enjoyed the rustic." It only takes one of the 114 having enjoyed the rustic for them to be able to Skim there.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Still begs the question of why Skim if you could Travel instead, BFB.

 

The only real explanation I can think of is that Jordan just didn't want to deal with Traveling yet.  Result being possibly the most inept Execution of a Grand Conspiracy by a Villain I've ever seen in literature of any sort.  Making Asmo worthy of a Darwin Award.  Truly.

 

Whoever offed him deserves a medal for cleansing the gene pool.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

If it was the Tel'Aran'Rhiod version of the foggy area outside Rhuidean, then why is it that skimming led him to the actual city, instead?

 

Result being possibly the most inept Execution of a Grand Conspiracy by a Villain I've ever seen in literature of any sort.  Making Asmo worthy of a Darwin Award.  Truly.

 

Yeah, but we already knew he was inept.

[Cybertrolloc]

Actually this has been brought up a few times recently. Like I said last time: Changed Premise plus They Read the Script ;) (How exciting would the ending be if Asmo skims to Rhuidean, Rand skims there, they fight...)

[cloglord]

I'm confused as to why you keep ignoring the fact that Asmo knew rhuidean from TAR, but did not know al car dar, having just arrived.  That is the typical scenario for skimming vs traveling.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Because it doesn't take all that long to learn a place well enough to Travel from it.

 

See Elayne's gateway to Andor from the farmyard outside Ebou Dar.  She'd been kept busy with the Bowl and the linked circle and sorting her stash of atrifacts since arriving.  She had the absolute minimum time to "learn" that farmyard once the Raken was spotted, and they knew they were about to be attacked.

 

Rand was tied up with Couladin and his nonsense and then Lanfear for more than long enough for Asmo to learn a starting point well enough to Travel from it.

[cloglord]

Uhm, no.  It has been established that holding the OP speeds the process considerably.  Elayne was holding the power for an hour or better while rumaging through the Ebou Dar stash, and held massive amounts of the power while participating in the circle that used the bowl of the winds. 

 

Secondly, she did not skim from ebou dar to andor she traveled, she traveled to a place that she knew as it was on one of her estates in Andor.  Your example  is an example of traveling from a place she knew, (by virtue of having held the power there continuously for an extended period of time,) to a place that she knew from experience.  Since she knew both ends of her destination and used a different weave than the one you are questioning, I'm puzzled as to why this would be a good example. 

[Bob T Dwarf]

Traveling is Traveling is Traveling.

 

It seems logical to me that knowing both ends of the link should make the job easier too, but that's an assumption on both our parts.

 

Asmo clearly would have known all about inverting, reversing, and all the other ins and outs of holding and using Power without being detected.  So, a presumed inability to Travel because poor little Asmo wasn't prepared to use every advantage he possessed, just makes him into an even more pathetic bad guy.

 

Fact is that he clearly could have Traveled had he wished to.  Why he didn't isn't explained by any of the "facts" we've learned about how Traveling works.

[BrainFireBob]

He slipped away from Lanfear during the confusion at Al'Cair Dal.

 

If he'd been holding the Power, he could have Travelled. Since he didn't, apparently he wasn't.

 

Learning Rhuidean would be learning Rhuidean- he wouldn't need to Skim to TAR, if you even can, since it's not a destination so much as another dimension.

[balefireruinssteaks]

Perhaps we're just missing the obvious.

 

Why did he Skim instead of Travel?  Maybe he needed time to come up with a plan and we know Skimming takes a longer time than Traveling, obviously.  Maybe during the chaos happening at al Cair Dal, he used the opportunity to run off (Skim) so he could figure out what to do.  No one knew what Rand was going to do at the Golden Bowl, neither did anyone predict that he would reveal everything about Rhuidien there. 

 

Asmodean probably freaked out like everyone else and Skimmed to clear his head.  Everyone seems to think he was pathetic as a bad guy so that seems logical to me.

 

HOW did he do it is another thing, but it seems like he wouldn't have had to know Rhuidien that well to Skim

[BrainFireBob]

Skimming requires knowing where you're going (destination). Although this idea can be quite vague! And he did spend all that time in TAR outside Rhuidean . . .

 

Travelling requires origin (because you alter reality to bring your destination to you).

 

 

[cloglord]

Bob Dwarf, you are clearly wrong.  Traveling and skimming are two entirely different things.  RJ directly explained this difference at a signing where he said,

"In Skimming, one need to know the target better than the starting place. In Traveling, one need to know the starting place better than the destination."

  Clearly Asmo had been sniffing around Rhuidean, at least the area around Rhuidean as it exsists in TAR.  From the cooper timeline Asmo has had at least 13 days from the time he was spotted by Nyn in TAR until the events at Alcair Dal.  Equally clearly, Asmo has only arrived at  Alcair Dal along with Rand, who upon arriving immediately proceeds to Alcair Dal to speak.  Since asmo was traveling with Rand, and Rand had only arrived it is unreasonable to assume that ASmo would have had time to learn Alcair Dal well enough to travel from it.  Since Skimming requires no knowledge of origin, only knowledge of destination, skimming was the obvious choice for Asmodean in this instance.

 

It seems logical to me that knowing both ends of the link should make the job easier too, but that's an assumption on both our parts.

I did not assume it would make it easier to both tasks, I merely point out that knowing both ends would allow for either method of travel.  Since traveling is instantaneous, the more probable mode of travel would be for Asmo to travel rather than skim, but would not preclude asmo from skimming should he wish to.

 

Asmo clearly would have known all about inverting, reversing, and all the other ins and outs of holding and using Power without being detected.  So, a presumed inability to Travel because poor little Asmo wasn't prepared to use every advantage he possessed, just makes him into an even more pathetic bad guy.

 

Could you point out to me a single instance of a man hiding his ability to channel while actively holding Saidin?  To assume that we know how Saidin can be masked or inverted, just because we have seen it done with Saidar does not mean that Asmo could have done the same, or done it as easily.  As far as I recall, the ability of a man to channel can only be felt by another man while the first is actively channeling, and only if the other man can channel as well, (with the exception of ter angreal designed to do such things or the newly discoved saidair weave from KoD's.)  The simplest way for Asmo to hide his ability would be to not use it.  If you take it further, Asmo would have no reason to believe that Rand could follow him via skimming, as it is supposedly insanely hard to recreate a skimgate so as to see another skimmer, nor would he expect Rand to follow him so quickly, as he had intended for Rand to be tied up with the Aiel at Alcair Dal. 

 

To put it another way, if Asmo had wanted to travel directly from AlCair Dal by traveling, he would have had to have simultaneously held massive amounts of the power while masking his ability to hold any power at all.  He would have had to do this for the express purpose of saving himself the 10-15 minutes that traveling would have saved him over skimming, just on the off chance that Rand could extricate himself from the aiel at Alcair Dal and perform the nearly impossible feat of following him through his skimgate.

 

Fact is that he clearly could have Traveled had he wished to.  Why he didn't isn't explained by any of the "facts" we've learned about how Traveling works.

 

Fact is that he most likely could not have traveled, nor would he have seen any obvious benefit of attempting to learn the ground well enough to travel.  Why he didn't is perfectly explained by the "facts" that RJ laid out about how traveling and skimming differ.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Please make up your mind.  Either you're tired of moronic Forsaken behavior, or you're interested in both excusing and defending moronic Forsaken behavior.  Which is it?

[metria31183]

Let's assume for a minute that Asmo could have Traveled from Alcair Dal.  Why would he Skim when he could Travel?

 

Cuz that's how RJ wanted it to be.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Indeed.  Skimming in this case is just a clumsy plot contrivance Jordan used to bring about the big dustup in the Square.

 

[Luckers]

About Asmodean and Traveling, its possible men cannot display weaves they are too weak to weave as women can--alternatively, Asmodean may have been lying. It makes sense for him to have conserved knowledge and thus maintained Rand's need for him.

 

As for why Asmodean skimmed as opposed to travelled--they arrived and Rand entered Alcair Dal, Asmodean would have had to have waited an hour or more to Travel. Skimming allowed him to leave immediately.

 

The length at which Rand would be distracted was unknown. Waiting an hour would be pointless when through skimming he could reach Rhuidean in half and hour or less.

[cloglord]

Thank you Luckers.

 

Bob Dwarf, I'm not being inconsistent, Luckers outlined what I was trying to say.  It would have taken Asmo longer to learn the ground and then travel, than it would have taken for him to just skim in the first place.  If time was of the essence, which it appears it was, Asmo's best choice was to skim.

[Bob T Dwarf]

OK.  Valid point.

 

I will, however, point out that at the time she made her gateway in the farmyard, Elayne was virtually out-on-her-feet, and saidar was being far from cooperative.  Those two factors would have negated her presumed advantage in making that gateway.

[cloglord]

I will, however, point out that at the time she made her gateway in the farmyard, Elayne was virtually out-on-her-feet, and saidar was being far from cooperative.  Those two factors would have negated her presumed advantage in making that gateway.

 

You are again comparing apples and oranges.  She had been channeling nearly continuously for over and hour, (closer to two IMO,) and had been in one location.  She had spent the time to learn the territory.  Further she traveled that time with the express intention of unweaving her flows to prevent the seanchan from learning how to travel.  I do not see how she could have transported the entire group via skimming platform in her exhausted state, let alone unravel a skimming gateway from inside the void so as to prevent the seanchan from learning the weave.  Clearly in this case, traveling, not skimming, was the prefered method of travel, because it allowed the group to travel without the need for a skimming platform, and it allowed Elayne the flexibility to unweave her gateway.  If elayne had transported the group out to the farm to an immediate seanchan attack, then skimming would have been the only immediate means of traveling away from that spot again, but considering that Elayne had the option to travel, it made sense for her to do that instead.

[Bob T Dwarf]

She got to spend next to no time in that farmyard and what time she did spend was taken up in sorting her stash.  The Weather Working took place on a nearby hill.

 

The only time she got to prepare was while everybody got herded together to leave.  She didn't "know" the place in that farmyard from which she opened her gate any better than Asmo would have "known" where he started from.

 

And, as hurriedly as they got themselves organized and got out of there, they still got caught while Elayne was trying to unweave the gate.

[cloglord]

I don't think that RJ meant the rules of traveling so literally that you had to  learn a specific 5x5 foot square of ground, and only that section could be properly learned.  I would say that the amount of time they spent in that area, along with the fact that she had been channeling for an extended period of time was sufficient for her to know the area well enough to travel. 

 

As to them almost getting caught, we do not know for sure how long the women had been channeling a continentally wide beacon of saidar into the air, how long Elayne spend struggling to unweave her gateway, or how long it would take for the seanchan to organize a fist of heaven to travel the 20 miles from ebou dar to the farm by to'raken. Regardless, none of those factors address the fact that Elayne would not have been able to move the group as quickly or as easily as traveling, nor would it have provided her the same opportunity to unweave her gateway that traveling did.

[Bob T Dwarf]

All very true.

 

Her situation and Asmo's situation are alike only in terms of time needed to execute.  Asmo knew exactly when he was going to make his move.  Elayne had the timing thrust upon her with no preparation.  Asmo was rested and ready.  Elayne was worn out and flagging.  Both knew exactly where they intended to arrive.

 

Now, if Asmo failed to make prudent preparations so that he could get where he wanted to go in the least possible time, that's just stoooopid to the max.  Just as with Elayne, he could have been holding the OP when they got to his starting point.  He certainly knew all the tricks of inverting and reversing and who knows what else that would have completely hidden his preparations from everybody including Rand.

 

The author's failure to have him employ any of those techniques just makes for a needlessly inept villain and a too artificially contrived ending to the endeavor.  It was weak and clumsy writing.

 

Reads pretty exciting the first time through, but falls apart miserably if you really look at it.

[cloglord]

What?

 

Its simple math.  Lets say it takes Asmo one hour of holding the power in a small area in order to learn it well enough to travel there.  That would mean it would take him 1 hour of prep time + 0 Hours of preptime.  That equals one hour between point A & B.  In the skimming scenario it takes him 0 Hours to prep + 0.5 hours to travel.  That equals 1/2 hour between A & B.  Now if time is of the essence, which is the better choice? 

 

Asmo was not in the immediate vicinity of Alcair Dal, he was on his way to Alcair Dal during the hour previous to his skim-trip.  The area learned by Egwene at the farm was no were near as large as the area that Asmo would have covered traveling for that hour.

[Lille]

She got to spend next to no time in that farmyard and what time she did spend was taken up in sorting her stash. 

 

Which she did by holding the power. And holding the power is the best way to learn a place fast.