The access keys

[triadruid]

I thought the female access key at the cleansing was destroyed because the sa'angreal itself was destroyed.  That seems a more likely source of backlash to me.

I think you're right, but it does beg the question of why the sa'angreal was destroyed by the Cleansing.

 

Overuse? As Swigaro says, this is either unlikely or unfortunate, and does not bode well for the use of the male CK (presumably during the Last Battle).

Exposure to the Taint? This seems most likely to me, except that it didn't happen the way I would have expected (rotting, crumbling stone, black flashes of light, etc).

 

[Hybrid]

I thought the female access key at the cleansing was destroyed because the sa'angreal itself was destroyed.  That seems a more likely source of backlash to me.

I think you're right, but it does beg the question of why the sa'angreal was destroyed by the Cleansing.

 

Overuse? As Swigaro says, this is either unlikely or unfortunate, and does not bode well for the use of the male CK (presumably during the Last Battle).

Exposure to the Taint? This seems most likely to me, except that it didn't happen the way I would have expected (rotting, crumbling stone, black flashes of light, etc).

 

 

The only reason I can think of is the one I used for explaining the ter'angreal's destruction (I'd forgotten about the sa'angreal being destroyed).  Rand was wielding the Power, but he is stronger than Nynaeve is.  Since the ter'angreal act as buffers, perhaps Rand tried to pull too much and that resulted in backlash. 

[balefireruinssteaks]

if rand pulled too much of saidar through the ter'angreal then Nynaeve would have been burned out or harmed in some fashion.  She wasn't - so the buffer held whether saidar was being woven by a male or female. 

 

The destruction was probably the result of the fact that the keys/sa'angreal had never been tested and could not withstand the constant use at full power for as long as it took for the Cleansing to take place.

[Mr Ares]

Exposure to the Taint? This seems most likely to me.

Except that the OP was flowing through the male CK, not the female. So why was the female CK destroyed by the taint it didn't come into contact with, but the male wasn't destroyed by the taint it did come into contact with? Perhaps the problem was that it was flawed when made, and couldn't stand up to the level of use that was required at the Cleansing.

[Luckers]

Indeed, both Sa'Angrael and Key were destroyed.  I wouldn't agree, however that the use Rand put them to was so stressful to destroy the key.  Though Sa'Angrael, the CK were designed for one specific purpose, to erect a shield around Shayol Guhl in order to give the forces of Light time to come up with a more permanent solution.  As we have seen in numerous POV's, in order to be as effective as possible, shields must be maintained.  The cleansing required massive amounts of channeling that lasted less than a day.  The shielding of Shayol Guhl would have needed massive amounts of channeling constantly for weeks, if not months.  If the female CK couldn't hold up for one day's worth of channeling, it never would have managed to withstand the shielding of SG.  Latara's plan would have doomed the forces of light. 

 

The female choedan kal was destroyed because it was the source of the force used to constrict saidin. It was placed under much more active strain than saidin which was passive through the entire event.

 

Indeed, we know this as a fact--far more saidin was used than saidar, this it was the use to which each was put the make the female sa'angreal melt.

 

 

[ksbsnowowl]

Forgive my ignorance, I'm only in the middle of WH for my current reread, but how and where do we learn that the female CK sa'angreal itself was destroyed?  The only reference I can recall is in the epilogue of WH, where the one islander shepherd sits to watch the glowing of the crystal sphere, presumably during the cleansing.  A chapter or page number would be a great help, thanks!

[Paviel]

Forgive my ignorance, I'm only in the middle of WH for my current reread, but how and where do we learn that the female CK sa'angreal itself was destroyed?  The only reference I can recall is in the epilogue of WH, where the one islander shepherd sits to watch the glowing of the crystal sphere, presumably during the cleansing.  A chapter or page number would be a great help, thanks!

 

Knife of Dreams, end of chapter 22: To Make an Anchor Weep. Page 516 of the paperback version, I don't know what page of the hardcover version.

[son omerc]

I always had a different take on why Rand feared using Callandor or the Choden Kal. It wasn't fear of the taint overwhelming him, as has been stated he was unaware of the lack of buffer for the taint in Callandor until Cadsuanne told him of it, but instead stemmed from the feeling of power handling that much OP instilled in him. Check out his use of Callandor during the attack on the stone, after Lanfear reminds him that he has left it lying around unprotected, that is. He tries to raise the dead child until Moiraine tells him that he is not the Creator and cannot heal death. After that he begins to question  if he can even trust himself to use Callandor without haring off to Shayol Ghul to face the DO. When he finds the access key for the CK he is even more scared of what he could do with that. Remember that Selene explained about the actual CK statue on the way to Cairhein after he got just a miniscule taste of its power. The actual statue isn't portable and probably didn't tempt him with thoughts of using the great power of it at Shaol Ghul as the access key did.

 

I don't remember the Taint even affecting Rand in his first two uses of Callandor, or actually LTT's uses because it is obvious that he supplied the knowledge to defeat Ishy and the cloud construct that killed the shadowspawn in the Stone, the first time it occured seemed to be after the long battle with the Seanchan. That was probably more due to constant use over a long period than extra taint causing instant insanity.

 

Anyway, just my two coppers worth on why Rand doesn't go around using either on a daily basis even after his use of the access key at the cleansing cleared the taint issue out of the equation.

[Mr Ares]

I always had a different take on why Rand feared using Callandor or the Choden Kal. It wasn't fear of the taint overwhelming him, as has been stated he was unaware of the lack of buffer for the taint in Callandor until Cadsuanne told him of it, but instead stemmed from the feeling of power handling that much OP instilled in him. Check out his use of Callandor during the attack on the stone, after Lanfear reminds him that he has left it lying around unprotected, that is. He tries to raise the dead child until Moiraine tells him that he is not the Creator and cannot heal death. After that he begins to question  if he can even trust himself to use Callandor without haring off to Shayol Ghul to face the DO. When he finds the access key for the CK he is even more scared of what he could do with that. Remember that Selene explained about the actual CK statue on the way to Cairhein after he got just a miniscule taste of its power. The actual statue isn't portable and probably didn't tempt him with thoughts of using the great power of it at Shayol Ghul as the access key did.

 

I don't remember the Taint even affecting Rand in his first two uses of Callandor, or actually LTT's uses because it is obvious that he supplied the knowledge to defeat Ishy and the cloud construct that killed the shadowspawn in the Stone, the first time it occured seemed to be after the long battle with the Seanchan. That was probably more due to constant use over a long period than extra taint causing instant insanity.

 

Anyway, just my two coppers worth on why Rand doesn't go around using either on a daily basis even after his use of the access key at the cleansing cleared the taint issue out of the equation.

Well, one thing to bear in mind is that when Rand beat Ishy in the Stone, he was already a bit on the crazy side, so we wouldn't have noticed. And when LTT wipes out the Shadowspawn in the Stone, as you point out he tries to raise the dead. That was it. That was the taint affecting him. He uses it and he thinks he's powerful enough to bring the dead back to life. And he thinks that if Callandor makes him feel that way, how much worse will the CK make him. So he plans on using the lesser power of Callandor. Then Cadsuane explains about the flaw in Callandor, which is not present in the CK. So he uses the more powerful of the two, the one that doesn't carry with it the risk of burning out, the one that wouldn't magnify the taint. He was afraid of the feeling of power that came with Callandor, and that feeling was caused, in a large part, by the magnification of the taint, which wouldn't be a problem when using the CK, but he doesn't know that until Cadsuane tells him. As for using either on a daily basis, not much time has gone by since the Cleansing. Most of the time, he hasn't needed to do any channeling, he was resting up afterwards, because it was somewhat exhausting, and he hasn't had much to do. He also has problems grabbing the Source, ever since Shadar Logoth and the link to Moridin. The one time he had to do any significant amount of channeling since the Cleansing was when the Shadowspawn attacked. And LTT took the Source.

[Luckers]

I always had a different take on why Rand feared using Callandor or the Choden Kal. It wasn't fear of the taint overwhelming him, as has been stated he was unaware of the lack of buffer for the taint in Callandor until Cadsuanne told him of it, but instead stemmed from the feeling of power handling that much OP instilled in him.

 

The two are the same. The wild sense of invincibility and power he experienced when using Callandor resulted from the effects of the lack of a buffer--specifically, the amplification of the taint in an unbuffered sa'angreal induces wildness of the mind.

 

Now, he wasn't aware of the lack of a buffer, but he did fear that feeling of power that resulted from the amplification of the taint caused by the lack of the buffer.

 

Since he wasn't aware that there was no buffer, he had no reason not to think that that wildness was caused simply by holding that much power. That was why he feared using the Choedan Kal even more than he did Callandor.