Rand's Late Channeling

[Cockta]

Am I the only one here that thinksa all the 13 Forsaken joined the Shadow for completely dumb ideas?

[Hybrid]

Am I the only one here that thinksa all the 13 Forsaken joined the Shadow for completely dumb ideas?

 

Depends on whether you believe it is possible for there to be a dumb reason to get ultimate power.  Also, the Forsaken are hardly...normal...people, so they wouldn't view their reasons as dumb.  Just like how Lews Therin didn't think it was dumb to wipe out his whole family.  In addition, none of them realize the Dark One's goal, anyways.  I don't think they're dumb ideas, just not reasons I would join the Shadow.  But then, I doubt either of us have been faced with an apocalyptic choice.

 

[Sabio]

Come on Asmo didn't join for a dumb reason?  An eternity to achieve greatness in music and recognition...  pffff  I honestly don't see what he had to offer the shadow.

[Mr Ares]

Come on Asmo didn't join for a dumb reason?  An eternity to achieve greatness in music and recognition...  pffff  I honestly don't see what he had to offer the shadow.

He was a competent governor.

 

Am I the only one here that thinks all the 13 Forsaken joined the Shadow for completely dumb ideas?

I think some of them had perfectly sensible reasons. Semirhage, for example: she liked to hurt people. The Light gave her a choice between severing and being bound on an Oath Rod. She took option 3, and thus kept long life and was able to keep doing what she loved. Ishamael joined because he felt the Shadow was the only side capable of victory. Eventually, Shai'tan would break free. All the Light can do is indefinitely delay an inevitable victory. And as the Light had nothing worth fighting for, beyond a continuation of a meaningless and worthless existence, why not join the winning side? Those are perfectly reasonable reasons to join the Shadow, surely? Well, provided you consider sadism and nihilism as perfectly reasonable.

 

Good leadership can make up for lack of numbers.

Even though quantity usually beats quality? Simple fact is that quantity is not much of an advantage, in and of itself. At Crecy, a numerically inferior English force defeated the French. At Agincourt, we repeated the trick. During the Great War, Germany beat the Russians, even though they also had commitments on the Western Front. There's plenty more examples out there. Quantity doesn't matter all that much.

Grants genious was never letting up on Lee, he ignored the losses and hounded Lee non stop.

Hardly genius.

[Cockta]

Can you please explain nihilism closer?

 

Anyways, I think him being a musician, who probably was interested in sex as well, joined the Shadow, but why, I mean, did he know what he was committing himself into?

[Hybrid]

Come on Asmo didn't join for a dumb reason?  An eternity to achieve greatness in music and recognition...  pffff  I honestly don't see what he had to offer the shadow.

 

You are obviously not a musician or a composer.  Do you have any passions?  Real passions, not interests?  If not, you probably can't empathize with him.  Just like we can't empathize with Semirhage or Ishamael or any other Forsaken.  I don't see what's so dumb about it.  He was a child prodigy who never really improved after his younger days.  He wanted to reach new levels of musical excellence, but he felt he needed immortality to do so.  To him, it's a valid reason.  To us, we don't care about musical composition or greatness that much.

 

Anyways, I think him being a musician, who probably was interested in sex as well, joined the Shadow, but why, I mean, did he know what he was committing himself into?

 

Well, he got immortality that he wanted.  Of course, he didn't realize what would happen after the Shadow's victory.  But other than Ishamael, no one knew what the Dark One's ultimate goal really was.

[Cockta]

This eerily reminds me of the pact with the devil, where you sell your soul to the devil, and you get some bonuses in return.

[Sabio]

You are obviously not a musician or a composer.  Do you have any passions?  Real passions, not interests?  If not, you probably can't empathize with him.  Just like we can't empathize with Semirhage or Ishamael or any other Forsaken.  I don't see what's so dumb about it.  He was a child prodigy who never really improved after his younger days.  He wanted to reach new levels of musical excellence, but he felt he needed immortality to do so.  To him, it's a valid reason.  To us, we don't care about musical composition or greatness that much.

 

Going to evil just to achieve musical excellence isn't dumb?  He participated in countless atrocities so he could compose and get revenge on his critics?  Still don't see what he had to offer the shadow besides maybe coming up with some catchy songs for trollocs to sing.

[Majsju]

Sex, Drugs & Rock 'N Roll for eternity, and all I have to do is committing some atrocities? Hand me the contract, mate ;D

[Hybrid]

Still don't see what he had to offer the shadow besides maybe coming up with some catchy songs for trollocs to sing.

 

Besides being one of the more powerful channelers out there?

 

Sex, Drugs & Rock 'N Roll for eternity, and all I have to do is committing some atrocities? Hand me the contract, mate ;D

 

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Of course, channeling could be called a drug...

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

You are obviously not a musician or a composer.  Do you have any passions?  Real passions, not interests?  If not, you probably can't empathize with him.  Just like we can't empathize with Semirhage or Ishamael or any other Forsaken.  I don't see what's so dumb about it.  He was a child prodigy who never really improved after his younger days.  He wanted to reach new levels of musical excellence, but he felt he needed immortality to do so.  To him, it's a valid reason.  To us, we don't care about musical composition or greatness that much.

 

Going to evil just to achieve musical excellence isn't dumb?  He participated in countless atrocities so he could compose and get revenge on his critics?  Still don't see what he had to offer the shadow besides maybe coming up with some catchy songs for trollocs to sing.

 

organization...

 

an army is useless if each of its parts fights individually.

[Luckers]

Can you please explain nihilism closer?

 

Nihilism is the belief that nothing is significant or important, that everything is random. Some nihilist went so far as to suggest nothing is real.

 

Ishamael was well known for his nihilist philosophies prior to the bore. Included in his works are titles such as Analysis of Percieved Meaning, Reality and the Absense of Meaning and The Dissasembly of Reason.

 

It's unsurprising that a man like that turned to a being that essentialy is paradox and chaos.

 

Quote from: Sabio on September 04, 2008, 03:10:46 PM

Still don't see what he had to offer the shadow besides maybe coming up with some catchy songs for trollocs to sing.

 

 

Besides being one of the more powerful channelers out there?

 

We don;t actually know how strong Asmodean was in the Power, and given the millions of channelers active in the Age of Legends there must have been many nearing his strength.

 

He gained his position because of his skills as a governer.

 

 

[Cockta]

He could as well oved his critics wrong by making better music. I mean, when you are a musician, you can't expect every song to be a hit, can you?

[Hybrid]

We don;t actually know how strong Asmodean was in the Power, and given the millions of channelers active in the Age of Legends there must have been many nearing his strength.

 

Relatively, though, he's pretty near the top.  He gave Rand a decent run for his money at Rhuidean, so he can't be too weak.  Yes, there were probably plenty of Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends near his strength, but he was still in the upper tier.  Any Aes Sedai of his power would be a welcome addition to the Shadow's forces. 

[Sabio]

If I remember right Rand was also tired from not sleeping much.  And when each is drawing half from somethign as powerful as the statue not sure how much their normal strength would make a difference.  I don't even understand how his little fat man made a difference.

[Hybrid]

If I remember right Rand was also tired from not sleeping much.   And when each is drawing half from somethign as powerful as the statue not sure how much their normal strength would make a difference.  I don't even understand how his little fat man made a difference.

 

Well, Rand's fat man angreal proves that it's not the relative difference, but the absolute difference.

[Sabio]

 

Well, Rand's fat man angreal proves that it's not the relative difference, but the absolute difference.

 

True, seems that how it is. But still doesn't make a lot of sense that it would be like that when its so much power.  I view it as a river, does it matter if one person tosses a bucket of water in the river and someone else tosses a 50 gallon drum of water in it?

[Mr Ares]

Sex, Drugs & Rock 'N Roll for eternity, and all I have to do is committing some atrocities? Hand me the contract, mate ;D

Wait, I can get Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N Roll for eternity for committing atrocities? I was doing it for free? Damn.

[Hybrid]

 

Well, Rand's fat man angreal proves that it's not the relative difference, but the absolute difference.

 

True, seems that how it is. But still doesn't make a lot of sense that it would be like that when its so much power.  I view it as a river, does it matter if one person tosses a bucket of water in the river and someone else tosses a 50 gallon drum of water in it?

 

Yes.  Your eyes wouldn't detect a difference.  But with a precise enough instrument, the difference would be noticed.  It's like having two identical piles of sand on a set of scales.  Adding one grain of sand would not be a noticeable difference to you or to your general mechanical scale, but it would be a difference.  A very precise electronic scale would notice it.  So it does make sense.

[Luckers]

Relatively, though, he's pretty near the top.  He gave Rand a decent run for his money at Rhuidean, so he can't be too weak.  Yes, there were probably plenty of Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends near his strength, but he was still in the upper tier.  Any Aes Sedai of his power would be a welcome addition to the Shadow's forces. 

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. We don't know the full details of what occured there. For instance, did the Choedan Kal devide its flow between the two channelers equally, or did Asmodean, having drawn through it for a slight degree longer gained control of a slightly higher amount of the flow?

 

Concider--angreal can be used without directly touching them if in a close enough vacinity, yet we've never seen another channeler take half the flow being put out by someone already using one. Indeed once that person was using the angreal, they became like a significantly stronger channeler, who needed to be shielded at the higher amount.

 

This suggests that the flow cannot be circumvented once begun--that it becomes completely under the channelers control. Then again there is Moiraine clawing the angreal away from Lanfear to be concidered, she did not try to channel through it, yet she thought that removing it would gain her something, suggesting the flow is not completely locked in. Maybe its a function of distance and Moiraine was hoping to throw the angreal away.

 

But im getting off topic. In reguards to Asmodean's strength--the shield lanfear placed on him was supposed to fade over a month, yet even just before his death he would barely have equaled the average Aes Sedai.

 

 

[Hybrid]

But im getting off topic. In reguards to Asmodean's strength--the shield lanfear placed on him was supposed to fade over a month, yet even just before his death he would barely have equaled the average Aes Sedai.

 

Supposed to being the key word.  If I remember correctly, Rand muses on this at one time and thinks to himself that he hasn't detected any increase in Asmodean's ability.  He decides Lanfear had just been giving him false hope.

[Luckers]

Mmm, true... but then why doesn't Asmodean show any concern? He directly comments on his own strength just before he dies, and yes he's dancing around Aviendha's presense, but even so that comment seems strangely accepting. He says 'I'm not strong'. The possesive, calm declaration of reality. It just strikes me as strange.

 

As a side note on Rand's guess, men's perceptions of another man's strength is a fairly ill-defined thing.

 

I mean, i get your point, and your probably right, but something about it all feels wrong.

[Cockta]

Do you imply that male channelers can't see exactly how strong other male channelers are?

[Luckers]

They cannot sense another man's strength like women can. They have a rough feeling of how much a man is holding as long as he is nearby, but that too is not as exact as what women feel.

[Guest Dreadlord]

Indeed, men can never tell exactly how strong each other are, they can only go off what the other man is channeling or holding Saidin, and even then he may be holding some back for the surprise element, as Rand has considered several times with Taim and Dashiva. Men can feel when a woman is holding the True Source but nothing other than the tingly feeling-goosebumps, almost-yet the man cant tell how strong the woman is, or what she is doing, or even which woman if there is more than one