Putting the Stilling vs Burnout issue to rest.

[Leopoled Boothe]

This is a topic that has been debated more than once on this board, and I think I've stumbled across some info that will put the issue to rest once and for all. The following is a quote from "The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time" more popularly know as "The Big White Book, pg 22:

 

Stilling is usually done as punishment for a crime while burnout occures through overload or misuse of the power, or is the result of LOOSING TO AN ATTACK BY A GREATER POWER WHILE CHANNELING.[/b]

 

To me the part in bold caps sounds an awfull lot like what Rand did to the three AS at Dummi's Wells who were later healed by Damar Flinn.  Thus this seems to imply that burnout is indeed healable. 

[Jehaine]

Depends. If they got overpowered in weave vs. weave, then they burned out. If Rand stilled them as part of his attack, then they never burnt out in the first place and could therefore be Healed by Flinn.

[Avery]

For what it's worth, in the beginning of The Path of Daggers, Verin refers to the Aes Sedai who were shielding Rand and can no longer channel as having been stilled.

[Dakeyras]

Depends. If they got overpowered in weave vs. weave, then they burned out. If Rand stilled them as part of his attack, then they never burnt out in the first place and could therefore be Healed by Flinn.

 

It's described as Rand crushing the 3 soft points, the Sisters weaves, in fists of spirit.

 

Verin describing the Sisters as stilled I always took as a 3rd age description. In the 3rd age being stilled is done to a channeler by another channeler whilst being burnt out is often ascribed to angreal or ter'angreal misuse. In the Age of Legends it was just severing.

[a5m]

The glossary has burnt out as part of definition of stilling. They are one in the same based on the simple definition.

[Ashaman Kovan]

Let's see....If you get your arm chopped off by someone holding it under  a power saw is your arm any less chopped off than if you do it yourself with a hand saw? Or in a miraculous world where "healing" is possible, any less healable?

[wconn1979]

Its my belief that Stilling and Burning out are both healable and that to be properly healed you have to be healed by the opposite power.

[Mr Ares]

Its my belief that Stilling and Burning out are both healable and that to be properly healed you have to be healed by the opposite power.

The only part of that which is not actually a confirmed fact is that being burnt out can't be Healed - and all the evidence says it can be.

[Jambo]

Let's see....If you get your arm chopped off by someone holding it under  a power saw is your arm any less chopped off than if you do it yourself with a hand saw? Or in a miraculous world where "healing" is possible, any less healable?

 

Okay firstly where the heck did u come up with an example like that  ;). In this example your only covering the stilling description (i.e. spirit cutting through) but what Rand did was crush them, so..... using ur imagery we can look at what he did as hmmmm... an elephant stepping on your foot. It would be crushed, so would that be ne different to heal than having an arm cut off??

 

With modern medacine limbs can be reattached....so having something crushed could be seen as worse.... but with "healing" you'd have to think there would be no difference - if one can be healed so can the other. So the question is: is this example even relevant? Would the healing of one's connection to the Source be the same as if healing severed or crushed body parts?? because if it is u can assume that there is no real difference between stilling and what Rand did.

[bjclinton]

Looks like the title of this Thread should be changed from "Putting the Still vs Burnout issue to rest" to "Resurrecting the Stilling vs Burnout issue"  ;D

[aslansrevenge]

It does not matter what you call being cut off from the OP weather you do it your self or if someone else does it the results are the same you can not touch the source. So why are you so worried abot what you call it? In the AOL all they called it was severing because it is ALL THE SAME

[Ashaman Kovan]

It does not matter what you call being cut off from the OP weather you do it your self or if someone else does it the results are the same you can not touch the source. So why are you so worried abot what you call it? In the AOL all they called it was severing because it is ALL THE SAME

 

That was sort of my point with the whole "arm" imagery. The method may be different but the results are the same.

[CUBAREY]

With modern medacine limbs can be reattached....so having something crushed could be seen as worse.... but with "healing" you'd have to think there would be no difference -

 

Change your example from crushing a limb to crushing a nerve. If we could do a bypass operation to replace the crushed part of the nerve then crushing and severing are the same. The "healing" is building a bypass to link both parts of the still good nerves. Similarly healing a severing or crushing in a channeler is building an artificial bypass between either the severed parts or parts not crushed.

 

However, that in the Age of Legends both may have been called by the same name is not dispositive as in AOL neither was "healable".  Channelers were cut off from the source and there was no way to heal them. In the Third Age a way to heal severing has been found by Nyneave (although its not perfect. Dalmer's(sp?) method of healing the A.S. whose powers were crushed is not described. We really do not have any evidence on whether Dalmer and Nyneave's methods are similar (with Dalmer's being more effective only because he is the opposite gender from those being healed) or whether they are drasticly different and each heal's one type of cutting from the source. (While as my previous argument indicates my own belief that the methods are indeed similar and should be able to gheal both types of malodies).

[Leopoled Boothe]

For what it's worth, in the beginning of The Path of Daggers, Verin refers to the Aes Sedai who were shielding Rand and can no longer channel as having been stilled.

 

Not worth much I'm afraid here's another quote from the Big White Book:

 

For women the intentional remaove of the abilty to channel is called "stilling."  If the abilty is lost by accident the process is called being "burned out" though the term "stilling" is sometimes used for this also, a deplorable loss of precision in speech since the Old Tongue fell out of use.

 

So it seems that Verin may have surcome to a "deplorable loss of precision" that is so prevelent in the third age.

[Spirit1025]

Here's another white book quote that may be of interest. It's from page 22, top of the page. Right in with the other quotes already used.

 

"The stilled woman, like the man who has been gentled, is cut off from the True Source, always tantalized by the sense of saidar, yet unable to touch or channel it. The woman who is burned out can neither channel nor sense the Power."

 

So it seems there is some difference between stilling and burning out. Stilled women can sense the Source, and burned out women cannot. So, to Heal a burned out woman, one would have to first replace whatever allows them to sense the Source, which is not removed in a stilling, as the stilled woman still senses the Source.

 

I think this has already been referenced on another post, but I didn't see it here yet. It doesn't shed any light on whether or not the burning out can be Healed or not, but it at least points out that there is a difference. So a different method of Healing would necessarily be in order.

[Leopoled Boothe]

Here's another white book quote that may be of interest. It's from page 22, top of the page. Right in with the other quotes already used.

 

"The stilled woman, like the man who has been gentled, is cut off from the True Source, always tantalized by the sense of saidar, yet unable to touch or channel it. The woman who is burned out can neither channel nor sense the Power."

 

So it seems there is some difference between stilling and burning out. Stilled women can sense the Source, and burned out women cannot. So, to Heal a burned out woman, one would have to first replace whatever allows them to sense the Source, which is not removed in a stilling, as the stilled woman still senses the Source.

 

I think this has already been referenced on another post, but I didn't see it here yet. It doesn't shed any light on whether or not the burning out can be Healed or not, but it at least points out that there is a difference. So a different method of Healing would necessarily be in order.

 

Yes, I agree that stilling/genteling and burnout are differnt, yet both are healable as I have reason to belive that both have been healed in the series (see orgional post on this thread).  Note that if I am correct then Nyneave has healed only stilling/genteling while Damar has healed only burnout.  Interstingly, Nyneave and Damar did discus the fact that each had used differnt weaves to heal their respective patients.  It is possible that the differneces in weaves could be chalked up to differces in Saidar and Saidin, but then again it could be that they used diffent weaves because they were healing differnt things. Perhaps Nyneave and Damar's discoveries were not redundant afterall.

[bjclinton]

maybe we'll find out in AMoL....if Satelle Annan (sp?) gets healed, we'll know that being burned out can be healed!

[Asmo]

...there was ever a stilling vs being burnt out issue?

 

It's obvious they are the same. No matter how you look at it, channelers access the True Source via a link. Stilling / gentling means having that link cut, and burning out means cutting it yourself... either way, the link is cut, and since it's cut, it can be bridged by a person who knows how to heal it.

 

The real question is, is there any difference if you're severed and Healed from before? It's obvious there's a power reduction if the same half of the Source is used to link you to it, but why? Is one's link to the True Source constructed with the opposite half of the Power, so only that can really bridge the gap appropriately? Or is it because the same half of the Power is used to link a channeler to the Source, and bridging the gap would result in a Power reduction either way, but using saidin on top of saidar or the other way round can restore the link fully?

[cheyjade]

In the Path of Daggers, Toveine Gazal leads the strike on the Black Tower.  Or, attempts to. Before her group even gets close enough to meet up with the other bands of sisters, warders, and guardsmen, they're ambushed by Asha'man.  After Logain bonds Toveine, she thinks to herself that Logain was stilled and executed.

 

Toveine's mistake, author's mistake, or mistake at all?

[Guest Dreadlord]

QUOTE

Let's see....If you get your arm chopped off by someone holding it under  a power saw is your arm any less chopped off than if you do it yourself with a hand saw? Or in a miraculous world where "healing" is possible, any less healable?

UNQUOTE

 

I hate these kind of comparisons. When debating on things to do with the One Power, you cant compare it to ANYTHING, since the One Power and everything about it was designed by RJ. RJ did not design the way arms are cut off, there is nothing similar about an arm being chopped off in real life and healing/gentling/burnout in a fantasy fiction.

 

Anyway, since being severed and being burnt out are described to be different,  thats what makes me think they are different, as well as some of the quotes from the BWB/whatever. Why would they say "using too much of the Power could still you, or burn you out," as if they were different?

 

If they arent the same, then it would be like saying "if you put your arm under this power saw it could cut your arm off, or cut your arm off."

[Asmo]

In the Path of Daggers, Toveine Gazal leads the strike on the Black Tower.  Or, attempts to. Before her group even gets close enough to meet up with the other bands of sisters, warders, and guardsmen, they're ambushed by Asha'man.   After Logain bonds Toveine, she thinks to herself that Logain was stilled and executed.

 

Toveine's mistake, author's mistake, or mistake at all?

 

Gentling = Stilling a man.

[Mr Ares]

If they arent the same, then it would be like saying "if you put your arm under this power saw it could cut your arm off, or cut your arm off."

Or maybe a bit like a term for cutting your own arm off, and a term for cutting a mans arm off and a term for cuting a womans arm off when, in more enlightened times, they simply used the same term for an arm being cut off. Change arm cut off to cut off from Source and that is exactly the situation in the books - isn't it rather redundant to have the term stilling for women and gentling for men?

[trakand_01]

I have always thought that the names for it are very descriptive, and more than likely thought up by a woman.

 

Think of it this way. A woman channeler is alive with the power. She lives it, breathes it, opens herself up to it and it becomes as natural to her as the air which she breathes.

 

You cut her off from it, you still her. She no longer has the life and movement that she had - she is still, whereas before she was full of movement and vitality.

 

= stilling

 

Women see male channelers as dangerous, wild, fiery and rampant. They need to be more... gentle. You cut him off from the source and in theory, you will make him gentle.

 

= gentling.

 

With regards to the stilling v burnt out - I always thought that Stilling was something that someone else did to you, burnt out was something you had done to yourself, accidentally.

 

Or to think of it another way...

 

Think of a light plugged into the wall.

 

Someone cuts through the flex - the light goes out, won't work.

You put a 100W bulb in a 40W light, the fuse blows. Light goes out, won't work.

 

The same end effect, different method.

[aslansrevenge]

In book 4 the Shadow Reborn Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve were discussing this issue with Aviendha and Egwene says that in the white tower they are tought that all three are the same thing just diffrent names for men, women and accidents

[Guest Dreadlord]

They are also taught stilling and gentling cant be Healed...