Early book Oddities

[Theleos]

I have been doing a second reread and I just finished up The Dragon Reborn. There are a few odd things especially in The Eye Of The World. Things like Moraine's Staff. In the book i think she said it was an "aid to concentration", we also see Moraine using a switch in The Dragon Reborn in the opening battle in the mountains. She doesn't comment on it but when it touched a "cut of flame" appeared and then spread until they died. I don't think we have seen any other Aes Sedai using similar items. Do we know if they are Ter'Angreal or if they just have personal significance to Moraine? It seems that she could do what she does without these items.

 

In general I have noticed that most of the power related things are vague and unexplained in the first book. This is because the channelers we see don't really know what they are doing, but there are some things that I thought were odd given how much I now know of how channeling works.

[Majsju]

It is just a tool to help her focus. She uses the blue stone she wears on her forehead in a similar way.

 

[mb]

Since Moiraine is bound to the First Oath, the words "aid to concentration" are likely true.

Since Moiraine would be the only one that would know about her own concentration, there would be a small chance of the words being a twist from anything else.

 

[Midean]

In regards to the "switch of fire" to me it seems just another method of concentration for her. She could more than likely have the same effect slashing her hand through the air, the switch just aids in focusing what she is doing.

[Gentled Ben]

I think it took Jordan a couple of books to really sort out how channeling was going to work.

[Elgee]

I'm with Gentled Ben on this. Even Moiraine's modus operandi changes after the first few books. There are quite a few things in the first few books that subtly change later on, I presume when RJ formulated his thoughts on the matter a bit better.

[Kaznen]

In LoC Egwene used a stone she had as a focus for eavesdropping on the TAS.

[Elgee]

Probably because that is how she learned it from Moiraine.

 

Nynaeve also used the eavesdropping trick in Salidar, but without any focus - but that's because she had learned the weave from Moghedien.

[Braus]

Maybe thats Moraines "block" so to say. Nothing worst trying to remove, she did get raised to AS not that far ago, and while she was an accepted she started hunting for the dragon reborn, so who knows.

 

And somewhere in the books its referenced that Aes Sedai usually learn to wield fireballs with a throwing motion, while wise ones/seanchan doesnt use that etc.

Maybe Moraine learnt to do whatever weapon of the power she does with the switch, with a switch and can only redo it with one.

[The Watcher and Wanderer]

I know it is mentioned somewhere that some AS use hand gestures when evoking the OP to help them focus.  However, the hand gestures are not really necessary to use the OP.  I'd guess that Moiraine uses the staff for a similar purpose.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Here's another:

 

According to postings on TOR's website, the Kareathon Cycle is also known as the Prophesies of the Dragon.  Also according to those same postings, the Horn, the Banner, and one of the seals were secreted at the Eye of the World because the Prophesies of the Dragon said they must be.

 

Yet, in The Great Hunt Chapter twenty it is stated that the Kareathon Cycle does not mention the Horn of Valere.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Here's another:

 

In the Prologue to The Eye of the World LTT kills himself.  Utterly and completely.  No body.  Not hide, hair, nor teeth remaining.

 

The Breaking lasted approximately 100 years.  The Stone of Tear was the first major structure erected after the Breaking was over.  Callandor was placed in the Heart of the Stone, warded and trapped to a fare-thee-well against anybody but the Dragon soul.  LTT would have been dead for decades by then.

 

One of the strictures placed on those destined to wait in T'a'R between lives is that they have no interaction with anyone in or from the waking world.

 

So, how were they able to construct weaves that would recognize the Dragon Reborn?

 

Jordan constructed a scientifically based, cause and effect mythos, so "It was Magic" won't work.

[mb]

The Breaking lasted approximately 100 years.  The Stone of Tear was the first major structure erected after the Breaking was over.  [/i]Callandor[/i] was placed in the Heart of the Stone, warded and trapped to a fare-thee-well against anybody but the Dragon soul.  LTT would have been dead for decades by then.

The Guide tells that the Breaking lasted some time between 239 & 344 years, not about 100 years.

We do not know when the Stone of Tear was made nor when Callandor was warded; nor of anyone touching the boundary of the wards before Rand.

 

My guess would be that the building and warding was done before Lews Therin's death and that Lews Therin never found out about it; or that Lews Therin did the warding himself.

Or maybe the warding was done in Telaranrhiod; passing/turning a warding to someone else I take does not require the person's presence.

 

[Gentled Ben]

I assume that the Aes Sedai who warded Callandor had personally known Lews Therin, or perhaps, Therin's presence was not needed in any way in order for  the warding to work, or even the memory of his presence. We dont' know enough about how wardings operate to say definitively one way or the other. For instance, things/areas can be warded against shadowspawn without need of a trolloc nearby in order to complete the weave.

[Charlz Fel]

During the sequence in which Rand sees through his ancestor's eyes, I seem to recall that the Aes Sedai who gave the Aiel their commission, at the very beginning of the Breaking, also had Callandor on the table.  This suggests that the warding was accomplished very early on, by Aes Sedai with relatively recent memories of Lews Therin.  Then, later, Callandor was somehow moved into the Stone of Tear after it was built, or possibly the Stone was built around it.  If the former, perhaps the initial warding only prevented anyone but the Dragon from using Callandor as a sa'angreal.  This warding was then strengthened, once it was in place, so that no one else could even touch it.

 

Another potential issue: The warding that prevents people from touching it includes both saidar and saidin.  Thus, it the ones who wove it must have included some sane male channelers, possibly who knew what they were doing (although this might not be necessary with a woman leading a circle).  This does not necessarily require that the warding was done early in the Breaking, since male Aes Sedai maintained their sanity for long periods of time by accepting sanctuary in the stedding, but it does seem like it would be much easier near the beginning.

[Braus]

Im sure the prophecys would take care of that. When the right person tries to take the sword, it works, or the person gets the memory that is needed automatically(across the whole series, the taveren boys does things before they know what they do)

 

 

[glow=red,2,300]OR THIS :):):):):)[/glow]

 

[fikkie77]

It was not created to act on Lews Therin Telamon, but on the Dragon, a person bound to the Wheel to fight for the Light. I don't know whether they would have needed LTT to do this, but if they did, all they had to do is to blow the Horn of Valere. But my guess would be that they wouldn't need anything from LTT.

[Mashiara Sedai]

Some other things I realized--not so much in the earlier books--was when I reread The Fires of Heaven.  I might have an earlier copy of the book and I think they fix a few of the mistakes on the reprints, but I'm not sure if these have been fixed or not...

 

P. 351, Morgase it thinking about her time in the White Tower and that she wasn't given the Aes Sedai ring until after she took the throne. Here is the direct passage:

 

She had not earned that, precisely; women who could not channel were not awarded the ring.

 

We know from later instances that Mogase CAN channel, but only just barely.  Here, she is saying that she cannot channel at all.

 

Also

 

P. 453 Siuan thinks about how she has been stilled:

 

Siuan told herself that she did not envy these women their ability to channel... but she did envy the way none of them perspired.  Her own face was quite damp.

 

Later on, P. 878, Asmodean tells Rand that the ability to keep from sweating is:

 

... a trick of the mind, he claimed, not the power.

 

Nynaeve and Elayne are also taught that it's a matter of concentration more than anything when they learn the trick as well later on.  The contradiction to it is right in the same book.  It seems like a very serious mistake.

 

~Mashiara

 

 

[Charlz Fel]

On another occasion, Siuan thinks something like, "she could still manage enough control to ignore the temperature most of the time, but not when she was trying to drag these women without letting them notice her fist in their hair."  But I don't think this entirely addresses the issue; if Siuan had started sweating when she was manipulating people as Amyrlin, it would be a well-known sign, and I don't think being stilled ought to produce that great a difference.  On the other hand, we have seen "sweatless faces" on almost no non-channelers, so perhaps the ability to channel makes it easier to ignore the temperature, contrary to the belief of most of the people who do ignore the temperature.  In this scenario, while Siuan was stilled, the trick she was used to using did not work as well, so she got sweaty in less difficult situations than she was previously able to handle.