The One Power (Full Book Spoilers)--No Balefire!

[WWWwombat]

Hey, no Balefire!

[Nightstrike]

No one has mentioned it here, I dunno if it's been mentioned in other threads, but did anyone catch the fact that Callandor's "flaw" is probably not a flaw at all?

It is a flaw. RJ said so.

 

 

[Nightstrike]

Knife of Dreams tour 28 October 2005 - Jason Wolfbrother reporting (copied from Theoryland):

JWB: Was Callandor constructed during the War of Power?

RJ: Yes

 

JWB: Was it used in the War of Power?

RJ: Yes, that is how the flaw was discovered.

 

JWB: Why didn't they ward/buffer Callandor?

RJ: The flaw with Callandor is simply a manufacturing flaw. (He went on to talk about how they were at the end of their tech age with only a few sho-wings and jo-cars left. A couple of shocklances were still around but they were not as prevalent as they had been. Anyway they had been mass producing ter'angreal, angreal, and sa'angreal, and there are bound to be flaws with the products. The flaw with Callandor is simply one such flaw.)

 

[Balefire to da face!]

If anything that strengthens my point.

 

The AS choose to use this sa'angreal, and knew about the flaw. To specifically push Rand in the direction of finding and using it. To me this is actually one of those "Why didn't anyone realize it earlier?!" moments.

 

We know for a fact that these AS had the access keys. If I remember correctly they were lost to the good guys in a city taken by the Forsaken when LTT made the strike on SG(which is why LTT felt he had to act), but obviously in the time inbetween they regained them because they were sent off with the Aiel to eventually show up in Rhuidien.

 

So why not the access key?

 

They are in the middle of the Breaking of the World. LTT proved that he was right with his plan to lock away the DO. We do not know if having women there would have prevented it from happening, or would have just resulted in both being tainted but the women at the time may have realized that it would have been better to work together then to cut LTT off.

 

The fact that that they did not leave Rand the access key shows that either they choose Callandor specifically despite(or because of the "flaw") or because they realized that the two powerful sa'angreal were not the answer. One or both have to be true, and both point to them realizing they had made a mistake.

 

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Callandor was choosen specifically to force Rand to work with AS and not allow any one person to control so much power.

[saidarisnowtainted]

Sa'angreal (aside from Callandor) contain a buffer that prevents this from occuring. Remember the Choedan Kal was not destroyed by drawing too much, it was destroyed because Rand turned it's power back upon it.

 

How do we explain the female Choedan Kal melting?  I actually think Saidar might have been tainted--just a crazy thought.

[Luckers]

cannon like an ion cannon?

 

Sorry, that was a typo. I meant canon--as in an established or proven fact or law within a fantasy world.

 

Actually alot of Aes Sedai know it, they tie of their wardings all the time. On that note, i wonder if we will see some new wardings coming up, like wardings to prevent traveling now that all armies in randland posses it?

 

Its mentioned that not many Aes Sedai know the trick of tying off a weave.

 

Where? The wardings on both the Tower and the Harbor chain are tied off, and the Aes Sedai all speak quite casually and knowledgeably of the practice.

 

 

Sa'angreal (aside from Callandor) contain a buffer that prevents this from occuring. Remember the Choedan Kal was not destroyed by drawing too much, it was destroyed because Rand turned it's power back upon it.

 

 

How do we explain the female Choedan Kal melting?  I actually think Saidar might have been tainted--just a crazy thought.

 

The female Choedan Kal was placed under stress in the way saidar was used, not in that too much saidar was drawn through it--indeed considerably more saidin was used then saidar, and the male one survived.

 

Essentially what placed the strain was that saidar was used to apply the pressure. Rand constrictred saidar against its opposing force in saidin in order to wring saidin like a towel, thus straining the taint out. That pressure had nothing to do with exceeding strength, but in forcing saidar against its natural forces.

 

 

[saidarisnowtainted]

Has there been any theorizing regarding the fact that the female choedan Kal melted when Rand and Niny cleansed the taint? 

 

i think that the DO may have touched Saidar

 

Let me start out by saying that unfortunately, i'm not a quoter or a researcher.  Plus I'm generally bad with names, so please forgive the fact that i am nowhere near as proficient at this as you guys are.

 

However, i do recall stuff from the story and have thouhts.  here is one:

 

I think the DO's taint touched Saidar.  what capacity?  who knows (at the moment at least)

 

Here are the issues that led me to this thought, which i admit isnt the best theory but i cant figure out any other answer to the issues pointing me to it, so now i leave it to the experts to debunk it:

 

1-Female CK melts after the cleansing. Rand was directing the flows at the cleansing using tainted Saidin, and while he has the taint in him he is directing Saidar and wraps Saidin all around Saidar. althouth the two halves of the power are separate, could the taint have touched Saidar?  What OTHER explanation is there for the female CK to melt?  As discussed previously, it cannot simply be because of the amount of Saidar that was being used.  again, the male CK didnt MELT and Rand actually had to DESTROY it with TONS of power.  Look at how much he used when standing on DM?  that had to have been more than when he cleansed the taint.  We have to assume that each CK is equal when it comes to durability and the amount of power that can be used by it--therefore, what explanation is there for it melting???

 

2- Amayar's Prophesy:  They commit mass suicide/self-genocide based on their prophesy that the end of the world (i'm not quoting obviously) is at hand when that female Choedan Kal melts.  Perhaps, while clearly not obvious knowledge to them, this event signifies the taint touching the female half of the power, resulting in the totality of the one power becoming tainted by the DO.  Under any other circumstances, this would have been the case, but in our specific circumstance, Saidin was cleansed so you still have half of the power clean. 

 

3-    Saidar is failing:  I cannot recall where, when, how many times it was mentioned, or by who, but i distinctly recall reading POV of Aes Sedai (perhaps some or one of our main characters) worrying in her mind that Saidar itself was failing.  THese thoughts wre not limited to worry over the fact that  Saidar-wrought wards are failing--we know those are failing-however, i think  it would be a weak argument to use the failing wards to support my idea because if i'm not mistaken they began to fail prior to the cleansing--anybody have an answer here?-Rather--i recall a limited instances where the flows themselves did not work/failed/dissipated or something while someone tried to weave Saidar (and i'm not referring to the instances where Elayne has trouble channeling/embracing the source due to her pregnancy)

 

4-      finally, the weakest indication i have is the manner in which Aes Sedai appear, at least in my opinion,  to be losing their "serenity".  Perhaps thei rinability to havee the serence state can affect their ability to channel?  Peraps this is female channeler's reaction to the tain as the male cahnneler's reaction is to go insane?  Please note that this is not something that appears to be affecting everyont (for now), but ithere are just WAAAAY too many Aes Sedai in my opinion who fail to keep a handle on their resolve/calm/serenity And personally, i cannot accept an explanation that teh Aes Sedai are losing their cool heads her and there (for now) because they are under immense streess--i thought that was the whole POINT of testing for Accepted and the Shawl!

[coteaz]

Sa'angreal (aside from Callandor) contain a buffer that prevents this from occuring. Remember the Choedan Kal was not destroyed by drawing too much, it was destroyed because Rand turned it's power back upon it.

How do we explain the female Choedan Kal melting?  I actually think Saidar might have been tainted--just a crazy thought.

 

The female Choedan Kal was placed under stress in the way saidar was used, not in that too much saidar was drawn through it--indeed considerably more saidin was used then saidar, and the male one survived.

 

Essentially what placed the strain was that saidar was used to apply the pressure. Rand constrictred saidar against its opposing force in saidin in order to wring saidin like a towel, thus straining the taint out. That pressure had nothing to do with exceeding strength, but in forcing saidar against its natural forces.

 

[Mr Ares]

Has there been any theorizing regarding the fact that the female choedan Kal melted when Rand and Niny cleansed the taint?

Yes, Luckers answered that in the post just above yours. He said: "The female Choedan Kal was placed under stress in the way saidar was used, not in that too much saidar was drawn through it--indeed considerably more saidin was used then saidar, and the male one survived.

 

Essentially what placed the strain was that saidar was used to apply the pressure. Rand constrictred saidar against its opposing force in saidin in order to wring saidin like a towel, thus straining the taint out. That pressure had nothing to do with exceeding strength, but in forcing saidar against its natural forces."

 

3-    Saidar is failing:  I cannot recall where, when, how many times it was mentioned, or by who, but i distinctly recall reading POV of Aes Sedai (perhaps some or one of our main characters) worrying in her mind that Saidar itself was failing.  THese thoughts wre not limited to worry over the fact that  Saidar-wrought wards are failing--we know those are failing-however, i think  it would be a weak argument to use the failing wards to support my idea because if i'm not mistaken they began to fail prior to the cleansing--anybody have an answer here?-Rather--i recall a limited instances where the flows themselves did not work/failed/dissipated or something while someone tried to weave Saidar (and i'm not referring to the instances where Elayne has trouble channeling/embracing the source due to her pregnancy)

So far as we have seen, saidar is not failing. Yes, it has been commented on by the AS, but what they note, and what we have seen is the wards failing to keep rats out, and the keepings not preserving food. We see food spoiling everywhere, and an increase in rats, but other than that we have seen no problems with saidar. We have not seen whether saidin would be more effective in these areas, but we hve no reason to believe it would be.

 

4- finally, the weakest indication i have is the manner in which Aes Sedai appear, at least in my opinion,  to be losing their "serenity". Perhaps their inability to have the serene state can affect their ability to channel?  Perhaps this is female channeler's reaction to the taint as the male channeler's reaction is to go insane? Please note that this is not something that appears to be affecting everyone (for now), but there are just WAAAAY too many Aes Sedai in my opinion who fail to keep a handle on their resolve/calm/serenity And personally, I cannot accept an explanation that the Aes Sedai are losing their cool heads her and there (for now) because they are under immense stress--I thought that was the whole POINT of testing for Accepted and the Shawl!

But we haven't really seen any dramatic increase. AS lose their cool, but they have done so throughout the books. And they appear to be able to weave just as well, so it does not affect their channeling. So your evidence for saidar being touched by Shai'tan is that the CK melted, which had nothing to do with Him, the Amayar prophecy, which had nothing to do with saidar failing, AS losing their cool, which olny indicates that they are not capable of remaining serene under any pressure, and does not indicate any change in saidar, and the rotting of food and increase of rats not being stopped by saidar, but this has to do with Shai'tan's touch bypassing them, rather than any general failing of saidar.

[WWWwombat]

cannon like an ion cannon?

 

Sorry, that was a typo. I meant canon--as in an established or proven fact or law within a fantasy world.

 

 

I know.  I just wanted to say ion cannon.

[Bob T Dwarf]

To return to a discussion of numbers for a moment - mainly that they don't add up.

 

Jordan told us that the Third Age is a time when the proportion of channelers in the population has been reduced to about 1%.  Using that figure should allow us to approximate the total population of Randland.

 

The White Tower, we are told, comprises about 1000 Aes Sedai.  We have seen that the Tower is not very efficient in finding girls who can channel, or hanging onto all of those they find.  Let's guess that the Kin also number about 1000.  Likewise let's assign 1000 as the number of Sea Folk Windfinders and another 1000 as the number of Aiel Wise Ones.

 

If we double the Aiel and Sea Folk number to account for apprentices, and add 300 to the Tower number for Novices and Accepted, we get a total of about 6300 female channelers in all of Randland.  Add to that another 50% to account for girls too young to manifest their ability yet, and Wilders that nobody knows about and we get a grant total of about 9500 women and girls who have the ability to channel.  Let's be generous and round that up to 10,000.

 

If that 10,000 represents 1% of the female population, then there can only be 1,000,000 women and girls in all of Randland.

 

Assuming an even male female population split, that means that there cannot be any more than 2,000,000 people in all of Randland.

 

All non-Seanchan fighting forces we are told that are currently in existence total more than the entire population of Randland.

 

If we assume that somehow there are an additional 40,000 Wilders that have somehow eluded AS, WF, and WO, that would still only get us to a total Randland population of 10,000,000, with something like 40% of its male population under arms.

 

For an engineer, Jordan wasn't very strong on math.

[WWWwombat]

He was talking about people who could channel or learn to, not about people actually in channeling organizations iirc.

[Luckers]

Jordan told us that the Third Age is a time when the proportion of channelers in the population has been reduced to about 1%.  Using that figure should allow us to approximate the total population of Randland.

 

You're ignoring the obvious answer--that sparkers number only a very minor percentage of women who can channel. The Tower waits upon women to seek them out--therefore the vast majority of women go untested--they live and died completely unaware of their ability.

 

A few corrections on your math though.

 

The White Tower, we are told, comprises about 1000 Aes Sedai.  We have seen that the Tower is not very efficient in finding girls who can channel, or hanging onto all of those they find.  Let's guess that the Kin also number about 1000.  Likewise let's assign 1000 as the number of Sea Folk Windfinders and another 1000 as the number of Aiel Wise Ones.

 

If we double the Aiel and Sea Folk number to account for apprentices, and add 300 to the Tower number for Novices and Accepted, we get a total of about 6300 female channelers in all of Randland.  Add to that another 50% to account for girls too young to manifest their ability yet, and Wilders that nobody knows about and we get a grant total of about 9500 women and girls who have the ability to channel.  Let's be generous and round that up to 10,000.

 

Firstly limiting them, yes the White Tower were 1000. They'd be considerably less now. Losses to Seanchan and Black Ajah alone exceed two hundred sisters, not to mention random causulties

 

That being said in other ways you fall short. Novices and Accepted--there were over 100 novices in the Tower, and around 1,000 amongst the Rebels, plus around 50 Accepted.

 

The Kin numbered 1,872 in aCoS. Even though a fair few of those will have been leashed by the Seanchan they're still out there.

 

Your big one is the Aiel. There are around 400 channelers amongst the Shaido, if the same holds true for the other clans then there are around 4,400 (minus the Shaido).

 

The Atha'an Miere we have no numbers on, but they find all female channelers too, and based on ship distribution I'd say your 1,000 is conservative. Nevertheless, we'll leabe it at that.

 

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

OK, Luckers, use your numbers and do the math.  You still come in at somewhere around 10,000.

 

To give Jordan the benefit of the doubt I added an additional 40,000 to my 10,000, and we still only get to 5,000,000 women and girls in all of Randland.  10,000,000 total population.  Over two million of which are supposed to be trained soldiers.

 

Even if you go hog wild and blow that up to a total of 100,000 women and girls who could channel, you still only get to 20,000,000 people in all of Randland.

 

The numbers we are given for channelers and troops don't add up no matter how you juggle them.

[Luckers]

Again, you're ignoring the non-active learners.

 

I'd place the total number of potential channelers  in the hundreds of thousands (male and female). Even with the population decline the stated populations of the major metropolitan areas, and that of the armed forces demand such a number of channelers.

 

The Aiel, on the other hand, we can predict. The Wise Ones predicate their population size, which fits neatly with the number of algai'd'sisqai cited against the non-spear-fighters.

[naath]

A rough guess at the numbers of sparkers (will channel no matter what) compared to potential-channellers who aren't sparkers could be got by looking at the damane/Suldam ratio - there are clearly many many more suldam than damane but I don't actually have the numbers to hand.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Again, you're ignoring the non-active learners.

 

I'd place the total number of potential channelers  in the hundreds of thousands (male and female). Even with the population decline the stated populations of the major metropolitan areas, and that of the armed forces demand such a number of channelers.

 

The Aiel, on the other hand, we can predict. The Wise Ones predicate their population size, which fits neatly with the number of algai'd'sisqai cited against the non-spear-fighters.

 

I'm not ignoring anything.  I'm even willing to allow an additional 90,000 such non-actives.

 

According to you, the Aiel and the Sea Folk are nearly 100% efficient at finding all their girls who can channel.  I's agree with that.  We know that the Seanchan test all of their female population and miss very few.  We also know that among the Seanchan, damane outnumber sul'dam, meaning that they have more sparkers than learners.

 

How is it that Randland is 180 degrees out from that?  You want us to believe that in Randland, Learners outnumber Sparkers by, what, 200-300 to one?  That the White Tower is so incompetent that they can't find more than one in three hundred learners?  Or, do you believe that they simply ignore all learners?

 

If so, that still doesn't explain why Randland has hundreds of times more Learners than Sparkers and Seanchan does not.  naath, each sul'dam has a number of damane.  The damane clearly outnumber the sul'dam.

 

None of it adds up.

[Jemlin]

Again, you're ignoring the non-active learners.

 

I'd place the total number of potential channelers  in the hundreds of thousands (male and female). Even with the population decline the stated populations of the major metropolitan areas, and that of the armed forces demand such a number of channelers.

 

The Aiel, on the other hand, we can predict. The Wise Ones predicate their population size, which fits neatly with the number of algai'd'sisqai cited against the non-spear-fighters.

 

I'm not ignoring anything.  I'm even willing to allow an additional 90,000 such non-actives.

 

According to you, the Aiel and the Sea Folk are nearly 100% efficient at finding all their girls who can channel.  I's agree with that.  We know that the Seanchan test all of their female population and miss very few.  We also know that among the Seanchan, damane outnumber sul'dam, meaning that they have more sparkers than learners.

 

How is it that Randland is 180 degrees out from that?  You want us to believe that in Randland, Learners outnumber Sparkers by, what, 200-300 to one?  That the White Tower is so incompetent that they can't find more than one in three hundred learners?  Or, do you believe that they simply ignore all learners?

 

If so, that still doesn't explain why Randland has hundreds of times more Learners than Sparkers and Seanchan does not.  naath, each sul'dam has a number of damane.  The damane clearly outnumber the sul'dam.

 

None of it adds up.

 

Of course we can believe the White Tower was incompetent.  There are a set of factors showing their own ignorance, as well as factors showing how different they were from the other channler-holding cultures:

 

Points of Ignorance:

1. We learn that the White Tower doesn't routinely check girls.  They either come to the tower willingly, or they are randomly checked by wandering Aes Sedai.  Hence one reason why so many were found in the Two Rivers after the wonder girls were discoverred.

2. The Aes SEdai had NO CLUE to the size, scope, and age of the Kin.  Big point there. 

3. The Tower is feared and considered apart from normal daily life in Randland. 

 

Points of Other Culture groups:

1. in the Aeil and Seafolk, the channelers are common and respected, and can easily test out and find most all girls.  Additionally, accounts seem to show that among them they mostly find those that have the Spark, but do not actively test for learners.

2. in Seanchan, allgirls are tested on their Naming day.  Its already obvious the Seanchan have higher numbers of Damane & Sul'dam than Aes Sedai, and that the Sul'dame (the Learners), out number the Damane (the Sparkers).

 

Its easily explained by cultural differences.  Yes, the White Tower was an ignorant bunch of women as we have been shown over and over again.  Its changing for them and they are learning, but before that, many girls were not found who either had the spark or the ability.  Many were also turned out.  The fact that the Kin out numbered the Aes Sedai is pretty striking.

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

There's incompetent and then there's USELESS.

 

I'm more than willing to concede that the WT is incompetent, just not that incompetent.  Not 1 in 300 or 400 incompetent.  If they're that bad, they're a liability not an asset for TG.

[garion]

Actually I wouldn't put it past the Wt to be that incompetent because they have become rulers of all instead of servants of all.  Look at how much hatred is directed just at wilders that come to the WT, if anything the WT is just digressing to nothing from the AoL.

[Jaric Mar Tedronai]

As Luckers asked a bit ago, where is it mentioned that not many channelers know the trick of tying of weaves? Chapter, page number, hell a title, anything will do.

 

I have read all of these books dozens of times, excepting tGS, which I have only read 4 times, and I do not remember ever reading that.

 

In addition, I would think it would come almost naturally to someone "weaving" that they could sustain it indefinitely by "knotting" or "tying" the ends together. Of course, the tower/wise ones/windfinders teach their apprentices it, so they wouldn't have to learn. 

 

Whenever you get a chance, I'd like to look up where it is mentioned and read it for myself. I have no problem admitting I don't know everything about this series, but something like that I'm fairly certain I would have retained.

[jemron]

On a slightly different One Power related topic:

 

Is the One Power "stored" or "held" in some sort of reservoir, and will it therefore eventually theoretically run out?  Or is it completely endless and "replenishing" (as in, it will never run out)?  I can't remember if this is described by RJ or in the books.  

 

The reason I ask is because there are a couple places in the series where it appears to have a measurable amount.  The Eye of the World was a small pool of purified saidin that actually ran out (though this is understandable, since it took a bunch of Aes Sedai (male and female) just to create it).  But also, when Rand and co. cleansed the taint, didn't he channel all of saidin through Shadar Logoth using the CK somehow?

 

The reason I ask is that I have been thinking about the scene in TGS when Rand first taps into the TP and Lews Therin says something to the effect of "The TP is the Dark One."

 

This made me think... Could it be possible that by channeling the TP you are actually depleting the DO himself?  Similar to when Rand channeled and depleted to pool of pure saidin at/in the Eye of the World.

 

Crazy theory, I know... But could it be possible that this is the key to somehow "undoing" the DO?  That would be why it has such horrible effects on the user.

 

Also, some have speculated that it is actually the DOs prison that is made out of TP, since the OP doesn't seem to work properly (eg. it will get tainted if you even try).  So, could it be that the more someone channels the TP, the weaker the DO's prison becomes?  As in, the DOs prison is the "reservoir" for the TP?

 

Even crazier theory: The DO (and the TP) are the prison itself, and the "entity" in the prison is actually the Creator, "bound at the moment of creation."  Possibly there is a negative "power" (ie. the TP or the DO him/itself) holding the Creator (the good power) in.  That's weird, I know...  But I've been thinking that this could be a very strange twist to the whole story that could be really interesting.

 

Maybe the pattern was created by a good and a bad entity to make it "neutral" (ie. the DO and the Creator built the pattern together) and the only way for the Pattern to stay neutral was to actually create a mechanism that traps both the DO and the Creator from every being free from each other.  Therefore, neither the Creator (the good) nor the DO (the bad) can ever have full power or control over the Pattern (which is supposed to be neutral).  Assuming that the DO is the prison and the Creator is inside the prison, they could both be like the wounds on Rand's side.  Always fighting against each other, never healing or "breaking free" of each other.

 

Discuss, criticize, expound, tear apart... Whatever.  I've been thinking about this since I read someone's post somewhere where they theorized that the DOs prison was made out of TP.

 

 

[Nightstrike]

It won't run out. It is finite, but ever lasting & endlessly reusable. RJ said so. It sounds a bit peculiar to me, since I thought it came from the Creator. I had imagined the Creator to be a being with infinite resources.

 

 

[Nightstrike]

Knife of Dreams tour 28 October 2005 - Jason Wolfbrother reporting (copied from Theoryland):

JWB: Is the One Power finite or infinite?

RJ: The One Power is finite but cannot be used up. When the weave is done, it returns to the Source. (The way he put is was 'finite but infinitely reusable'.)

 

[jemron]

Interesting... But, I still think that maybe the TP is different.  Maybe it comes directly from the DO, and therefore can run out?  Like it's managed to fit in his prison all this time, so it can't be infinite, can it?

 

I'm starting to really like the idea that the prison itself is the "reservoir" for the TP.  Once that is "broken" or "used up" it can't be rebuilt.  Either that or it comes from the DO, and somehow repels him at the same time...