Choedan Kal

[dholm]

I'd just like to point out that the reason Cyndane relied on her knowledge was because Alivia (using Nyneave's angreal) was stronger than her.

So Nynaeve, using Nynaeve's angreal, would also be stronger than her, but not by as much, and her knowledge advantage would be diluted because Ny knows about things like reversing weaves.

I'm not so sure. Alivia is "considerably stronger than even Nynaeve".

[Gentled Ben]

Nynaeve couldn't even beat Talaan after a hour of practicing.

Nynaeve taught Talaan. She beat her repeatedly and in a variety of ways before Talaan finally bested her.

[Lanthirrhos]

Back on Seachan unrest for a second, yeah, there were several instances. Alivia, if she was in ANY of them, she was not in MOST of them. Seen how big Seanchan is? lol

 

And the point remains... power MUST have been consolidated enough that the Seanchan were confident of sending troops across the sea. This isn't a war-torn nation where alivia gets to play and frollic blowing people up and whatnot to gain her "experience".

[The Doctor]

Just a thought, but if Alivia has been a Damane for 400 years, that's a long time. Nynaeve has been channeling consciously for what, 18 months?  On the other hand, Nynaeve seems to be a natural when it comes to dueling, regardless of her skill set.  She beat a Forsaken, while she still had her block.  And I feel like the reason she lost to Talaan was because she was planning to much and nut just following instinct.  The way the scene reads she's over thinking it.  Anyone who has experience fighting knows that while strategy plays a big part, the ability to adapt quickly plays just as big a part, and Nynaeve wouldn't be the first fighter to have gotten caught in that trap.  I believe that was the exception to the rule with her.  She wasn't fully treating Talaan as a real threat either.  That's a double flub.

[Titan Orion]

Theres no good saying Nynaeve beat a Forsaken when she still had a block as if thats a point against her. Nynaeve was angry so she could channel; her block meant nothing

[balefireruinssteaks]

and Nynaeve still has not reached her full potential, so it speaks better of her that she bested a Forsaken...twice...before she was fully trained.

 

I think the point is that although Alivia has 400 years of damane experience, her experience is in using the One Power as a weapon against large forces/armies.  The damage that can be done to a larger gathering of people is significantly different than trying to hone your power in on one single individual.  All of her experience (we can ascertain) is in dealing with larger forces, battalions, etc. rather than single soldiers. 

 

So when Cyndane attacks Alivia, her 400 years of experience left her vulnerable because Cyndane as a single entity is unpredictable, and without the need to follow a commander or any of the "rules of war" so to speak.

 

Nynaeve has had experience with the one-on-one and understands better the unpredictability of fighting a single person, whether fist fighting them (Siuan) or using the One Power (Moghedien, Talaan, etc)  This puts her in a better position to deal with Cyndane despite being lower in strength than the battle-experienced Alivia.  So...theoretically, with the ter'angreal and angreal...Nynaeve probably would have done better than Alivia did (even though Alivia succeeded).

[Thor]

Post Deleted. Spoilers. Also play nice!

[Charlz Fel]

Just a thought, but if Alivia has been a Damane for 400 years, that's a long time. Nynaeve has been channeling consciously for what, 18 months?  On the other hand, Nynaeve seems to be a natural when it comes to dueling, regardless of her skill set.  She beat a Forsaken, while she still had her block.  And I feel like the reason she lost to Talaan was because she was planning to much and nut just following instinct.  The way the scene reads she's over thinking it.  Anyone who has experience fighting knows that while strategy plays a big part, the ability to adapt quickly plays just as big a part, and Nynaeve wouldn't be the first fighter to have gotten caught in that trap.  I believe that was the exception to the rule with her.  She wasn't fully treating Talaan as a real threat either.  That's a double flub.

 

Talaan beat Nyneave because one of the Windfinders pointed out that fighting with the Power was similar to wrestling.  Thus, Talaan was able to transfer experience with one-on-one fighting, in another context, to one-on-one fighting with the Power.  So far as I know, we have no evidence that either Nyneave or Alivia had experience with one-on-one fighting without the Power.  Nyneave was almost certainly not trained for one-on-one conflicts with the Power (I doubt this is a part of standard training in the Tower, as it is only useful to the Red Ajah; possibly to the Green, if Dreadlords surface).  She has fought two duals I can think of--Moghedien in Tanchico, the two Black Aes Sedai in Ebou Dar--and has also practiced against the Windfinder apprentices, in the capacity of "teacher."  We do not know if she has done any additional practice offscreen.  Likewise, we do not really know about Alivia's experience.  Chances are, Nyneave has the advantage in one-on-one experience, but I would hardly call Alivia's battle experience useless; in this metaphor, it's perhaps an expert pikeman against a not-so-expert swordsman. The swordsman knows how to fight duels more or less, which the pikeman doesn't, but is a much less skilled fighter.

 

We also know that the knowledge advantage is significantly in Nyneave's favor, while the strength advangate is Alivia's.  Thus, it is hard to know who would do better against Cyndane.  In any case, we can sit here and weigh the various factors as carefully as we like, but Jordan's fights tend to be decided by luck as much as anything else.

[tuesdae666]

She has a substantial skill set in general, with many things that could be useful in a duel. Alivia is far more specialised.

 

We arent talking about skill sets in general.  We are talking about an extremely specific area - fighting with the power.  And that happens to be exactly what Alivia is specialized in.  Nynaeve's primary skill set is Healing, which is completely useless in a 1v1 fight.

 

Also, Nynaeve actually isnt all that well rounded of a channeler.  She is quite specialized herself (although not as much as Alivia), except not in fighting.  Nyneave has greating healing ability, but beyond that she really isnt all that elsewhere.  She doesnt make Ter'angreal.  She doesnt control the weather all that well despite her weather sensing abilities.  She also has very little formal training.  And she is the most stubborn and arrogant person when it comes to learning from others, so she cant have learned that much from other people.  So I really see Nynaeve as a specialist too, albeit not quite as much as Alivia.  Elayne and Egwene demonstrate much larger skillsets.

 

There is no reason why she should ever have done it. Damane don't operate alone.

 

But suldam + damane do.  In addition to encountering other damane on the battlefield and it ending up in a 1v1 scenario (which we see happening all the time in battles btw), I would imagine that suldam + damane are used in things like assassination attempts.  After all, we know that the Seanchan assissinate people left and right by all accounts.  So why wouldnt they be using their most powerful tools to do that?  That necessitates damane to protect people, which requires training in 1v1 situations.

 

Nynave has greater experience in such a situation, she has a greater knowledge of the Power. There are other reasons beyond creativity, but that is itself nothing to be dismissed. Knowledge was Cyndane's great asset against Alivia. She would not have as great an advantage over Nynaeve.

 

Once again, you have no evidence that Nynaeve has greater experience and I have arguments to the contrary, so I reject the first clause.  I also dont see anything to suggest that she has greater knowledge of the Power in the key area that we are talking about - fighting.  In fact, given the Aes Sedais' impression of Alivia fighting abilities and Nynaeve's teacher's well known weaknesses, I think its pretty likely that Alivia has substantially superior fighting knowledge over Nynaeve.

 

Actually, rather than saying that Nynaeve's skill set is limited, I prefer to think that she is good at most channeling skills, but does not have a Talent. Remember, Talents mostly have nothing to do channeling, e.g. knowing what Ter'angreals do, Dreaming, Foretelling. These don't need One Power.

 

What Nynaeve has, besides her other 'gifts' is a general talent to be good at weaving. I just need ONE example - she is the only channeler besides Rand to make balefire without knowing how to make it - it just came to her. Nynaeve has a near mythical channeling ability - all her weaves that she figured out herself are rare / or have never been seen before yet are extremely potent, more potent than what is used in current Third Age.

 

Not to mention she is naturally smart and dexterous, she can match Moghedien's strength and speed, and whatever you may say about the Spider - she may like to hide in the darkness - but that doesn't mean that she is a lousy dueler. I don't believe any of the Forsaken are lousy duelers.

[tuesdae666]

Post Deleted for spoilers. Also, play nice!

[Impressive Bosom]

 

Help me out here - are we in the Spoiler Realm?

[Luckers]

Ok people need to shape up. Not only did you miss the GIANT STICKY forbidding tGS comments on this board, you're also being downright rude to each other.

 

I will lock the thread if you keep it up.

 

[Taura-Tierno]

I always assumed that the biggest advantage Cyndane had over Alivia in terms of knowledge was the fact that she could reverse her weaves, that is, make them invisible while weaving them. So even if we assume that Alivia is a super-expert at defensive weaves and duelling in general, she wouldn't have been able to set up anything more than some kind of general defensive weaves, while Cyndane would be free to slice anything coming straight at her.

 

I'm pretty certain that Nynaeve (or anyone not forsaken) does not know how to reverse weaves, only how to invert them after they're woven. Have we ever seen any single instance of that? If not, then Cyndane would still have had her advantage of superior knowledge.

 

Also, I do believe that damane would have to have some kind of experience with duels. I mean, even if it's not something that happens all of the time, there should be instances where one damane attacks another. For that occasion, knowing how to defend yourself (and more importantly, your sul'dam) would seem quite valuable knowledge.

 

Alivia has been a damane for 400 years, so we can assume that she's been in plenty of battles. Let's say that she's fought in one battle every couple of years - let's say twice a decade (I believe it's much more than that, but let's keep the number low). That would make about 80 battles. Even if she has only fought a damane one on one in every tenth battle, or every twentieth battle, that would make at least 4 duels for her, which is more than Nynaeve. Now, I would guess that it's much more than that, but even if it's something that occurs rarely, Alivia's great age would make it likely that she has been in that situation at the very least a couple of times.

 

Also, wouldn't duels for entertainment seem like something the Seanchan would do? You know, pitting one damane against another, without lethal outcome, to see who's got the best one? I know there's no proof whatsoever for that, but it doesn't feel impossible. Unless I've forgotten some qoute that explicitly states that they don't use damane that way.