Why cant they fly?

[scotthunt]

I know it has been touched on before but I was just wandering if anyone has any theorys as to why noone can actually use the power to fly. Also does anyone think it might be possible but not yet discovered? I ight be wrong but didn't Rand fight Ishaemal in the sky?

[Guest Toad]

The battle was projected into tthe sky, but not actually fought there - I guess.

[Bob T Dwarf]

His fight with Baalzy was broadcast on the Great-Jumbotron-in-the-sky, but we don't really know where the fight itself took place.  Just somewhere not-of-this-world.

 

Officially nobody can fly because they can't lift themselves up by their bootstraps either.  Also probably has something to do with the general inability to weave workings on oneself.  Nobody can heal themselves either.

 

Ter'angreal broomsticks now... I can see those... at least for some Aes Sedai.

[Guest Dreadlord]

The thing that bothers me about this is that while we do know a weave cant work on the wielder, which means nobody can do something to themselves with the Power to make them fly, we have seen what LOOKED like levitation ie Nynaeve making a platform of Air and lifting Rand and Lan high enough to get on a roof or something. Dont get me wrong, I see the difference between actual levitation and what happened, I am not saying she made them levitate or fly, she simply made a floor and raised it so to speak.

 

This is something anyone could do, anyone who is able to make air solidify around someone so they cant move could easily do what Nynaeve did, although it could probably be argued that so much strength can lift s o much weight.

 

Why, then, hasnt anyone made a platform of Air, walked onto it, and make it rise and move about, to make it LOOK like theyre flying to a point. Am I pushing the boundaries here? I think not.

[balefireruinssteaks]

Also keep in mind that the Aes Sedai who wonder about this only say "it was said in the Age of Legends that Aes Sedai could fly, but the means is unknown..."

 

The Aes Sedai and the people of the Age of Legends DID fly with the use of sho-cars or whatever they were called.  But since there is nothing like that in the current age, the stories probably got watered down until it was just "in the Age of Legends people used to fly"

[Corbett]

Actually in the AoL there was a weave that allowed people to fly not just the sho-cars. It is in the WoT roleplaying game book as a lost weave.

[Majsju]

The RPG is not the books...

[Mysterious]

In book 2 Siuan ponders a way to fly with the power, but dismisses it as too primitive.

[RAND AL THOR]

Ter'angreal broomsticks now... I can see those... at least for some Aes Sedai.

 

Awesome. GO Cadsuane GO!

[bRANDan]

We have seen someone fly. Ishy, at the end of The Dragon Reborn. Rand and Bel'al fight, Moiraine kills Bel'al, and Ishy floats down from above them, smacks Moiraine aside like a fly and proceeds to try to kill Rand.

 

My guess is that it is probably an extrememly rare Talent, hence it being forgotten and the uncertainty among Aes Sedai if it even truly existed.

[maximus34]

The continuous air platform would not work either.  It was touched on a few times (sorry im at work w/o my books) that everyone has a length and size limit to bridges and whatnot made with the power.  I believe rand thought about it when he made a bridge from some docks to a sea folk ship... sorry this is so vague, i will check and edit when I get home.

[Mr Ares]

The answer, in one word: Gravity. Any possible method of flying would have to take this into account. As Bob T Dwarf already mentioned, you can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps. So if you are off the ground, what is keeping you up?

[Guest Dreadlord]

The same thing that kept Rand and Lan above the ground when Nyaneve lifted them, and the same thing that kept Elayne up when she was cartwheeling on a thin wire/whatever. Solidified Air. We have seen a stationary platform of Air, we have seen one move up. We are talking the One Power here, not one person physically lifting someone who then tries lifting the other while in the air. If Nynaeve had stepped on that platform instead of Lan or Rand, she would have been able to lift herself, because she didnt latch the weave onto herself or Rand or anyone.

[Mr Ares]

Solidified Air attached to what? In the case you mentioned, Nynaeve was lifting Rand and Lan. Lifting other people isn't impossible. But lifting yourself by your own bootstraps doesn't work. When have we ever seen the OP make gravity stop working? In Elayne's case, she could attach the weave to something. Like a bridge. Bridges don't hang in mid air, they are attached to the ground in some way.

[bRANDan]

The answer, in one word: Gravity. Any possible method of flying would have to take this into account. As Bob T Dwarf already mentioned, you can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps. So if you are off the ground, what is keeping you up?

 

That gets me to thinking, perhaps the flying weave is just a weave that bends gravity. It seems easier to me to bend gravity and cause that to pull you up and wherever you intend to go than trying to lift or pull yourself up with the power. If it used gravity the weave would not have to be very strong either, instead of building some sort of contraption to lift yourself with the Power you'd just be creating a conduit that could bend gravity's pull. It also would not require you to stop gravity, only bend it, and as we have seen the OP bend light, Folded Light, it doesn't seem like such a ludicrous idea.

[The Lost One]

The same thing that kept Rand and Lan above the ground when Nyaneve lifted them, and the same thing that kept Elayne up when she was cartwheeling on a thin wire/whatever. Solidified Air. We have seen a stationary platform of Air, we have seen one move up. We are talking the One Power here, not one person physically lifting someone who then tries lifting the other while in the air. If Nynaeve had stepped on that platform instead of Lan or Rand, she would have been able to lift herself, because she didnt latch the weave onto herself or Rand or anyone.

 

I have wondered this same thing myself. 

 

However they lift things with the power...say they float a book or a teapot across the room.  If someone can make that same weave strong enough to lift a person, why couldn't they tie it off an step on it.  The initial effect would be they are off the groud using their own weave/power.  Then move it around while they are on it. 

 

I saw some comments that the weave has to be tied to something, if that were the case, why not make a flying carpet or something like that and step on that and move it around.  I personally don't believe they would have to tie it to an object, I think they would just need to make a solid disk of air, tie it off, step on it, then move it around.

 

Jsut my thoughts..

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Couldn't you just use the one power to sort of create a vacuum which could "pull" you to where you want to go? Wouldn't that work? Like Rand's conduit, except instead of forcing stuff in, you push the air out, and hold it out, with the only opening point right above you.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Well, you might suffocate before you got where you're going.  It'd be all the same problems you'd have trying to move around in space without a spacesuit.

[bRANDan]

@ The Lost One

 

In every case that we have seen someone move an object with the Power the source of that Power has been in no way moved by the weave. Trying to get the Power to move the person who is the Source of that Power wouldn't be possible, as Siuan has explained in one of her POV's.

 

Making a moving platform of Air and then tying it off would require you to specify where it will go and how far etc. before you ty it off, you'll also have limits as to how far you could send it. As soon as you stepped onto the platform it would go where you had set it to go, but trying to then control it somehow when you were on it would require you to assume the weave again and cause it to fall, not really flying at all, more like a mechanical lift with the Power. But still that hinges on being able to tie off a weave of moving Air, which I don't think is possible. Nynaeve creates a crowbar to break into a storage room in the WT and when she drops it it falls to the ground, just like a real crowbar, therefore implying weight. To make a platform capable of carrying itself and your own weight you'd hardly be able to make a platform weave with much more range than what Nynaeve did for Rand and Lan, some women further, men not even that far.

[Bob T Dwarf]

It kinda comes down to - some magical things are explainable by recourse to pseudo-science, but some are simply magic.  ( really they all are since it's just pseudo-science but that allows us to pretend they're somehow more than magic or different from magic with a semi-straight face )

 

Flying falls smack dab in the middle of the purely magic category.

 

The One Power is a wondrous thing.  You can manipulate it in myriad ways to do useful things, and you always get back as much as you put in.  Zero loss. ( except for the CK - the female sa'angreal vaporized and the access key melted - both heat loss - very strange, that )

 

Rather than asking about flying, why aren't we asking why there aren't any perpetual motion machines?

 

 

 

[Guest Dreadlord]

Didnt the Age of Legends have stuff as well as sho-wings? Im sure there were vehicles made with the One Power.

[Bob T Dwarf]

It was the Age of Legends.  They had everything.

 

The bread even came out of the OP powered oven already sliced.

[GrandpaG]

* closes his copy of Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson *

* ponders *

 

HHHMMMMMM....

Eat the right kind of metal in the right proportion, "burn" it, then push against a stationary object.  Your push will be repelled and you will "fly" away from the object that you pushed on.

 

* returns to this thread *

HHHMMMMM....

Use "Air" to "push" against a stationary object (the way a hovercraft or helicopter does).  You will "fly" away from the object that you are pushing against.

 

Maybe they'll find a reason to discover this Talent in AMoL?

???

[Bob T Dwarf]

That might work if "Air" was air.

 

But, apparently it is some mystical "element of the Power" instead.  The essence of air without being air.  Like "Fire" is the essence of fire, ie. heat and light, rather than fire.

 

Now then... have we considered the hot-air balloon?  That should be doable with OP.  Windfinders and weather-workers already have the knack of getting the wind to blow from the direction needed.

 

My guess is that something like a hot-air balloon is as close as we're likely to get.

 

Another thing to consider - even if "Air" could somehow be made to function as needed, channeling requires physical effort.  How much physical effort would it take to channel enough "Air" to lift and propel yourself a useful distance?  Might it not be less tiring to walk?  Or, Skim?  Or, even Travel?

[GrandpaG]

Yes...I very much so prefer Traveling, myself.  :)