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

[elec1cele]

It's true that they didn't put as much effort into it as they should. But obviously they recruited among the ones they encountered. They should have done more, though.

 

IIRC Aes Sedai can't sense the potential of learners w/o testing them.  So if they weren't recruiting they would have missed almost all of them.

[coteaz]

Yeah good point, but if people are capable of that, its a surprise that the world isn't destroyed already.

[Luckers]

Quote from: Luckers on Today at 07:34:27 PM

They did not. If a girl approached a random Aes Sedai she would test her, but they did not actively recruit prior to Verin's trip to the Two Rivers. They state this several times throughout the series. Several Aes Sedai continue to express outrage that they are doing so now.

 

 

I don't think that's how it happened. I think that, if they saw a girl with high potential, then they tried to talk her into training in the Tower. Regardless of whether she was a sparker or a learner.

 

You can only sense a woman who can channel if she is active or very near to sparking. Without testing a learner the Aes Sedai would have no idea whether she could channel, much less her potential strength--and they only test girls who approach them.

 

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They did not recruit learners. They waited for them to come to the Tower.

 

 

I don't think that's how it happened.

 

Irrespective of what you think, the books state that as what they do.

 

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There will be over a hundred thousand women who can channel in the Westlands. For recruitment to have undercut the thousand gathered in Murandy there would have to be thousands of Aes Sedai. Or at least thousands of women who trained in the Tower but did not make it.

 

 

We don't know that. There are several other things we don't know either.

 

RJ stated that Tar Valon has a population of around 500,000. Most of the other capitals are larger, but for the sake of argument lets stick to Tar Valon. That's around 8 million in the large cities. There must be at least twice that if not more (considerably more, in my opinion) in the other towns and villages.

 

So in effect yes we do know that the number of female channelers at the very least exceeds 100,000.

 

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Say we take Egwene's comment at face value. 'Most would never attain the shawl' as being a strength judgement. Lets say that means 75% of the 1000 wouldn't attain the shawl due to strength (I think that justifies 'most', or would you go higher?). Therefore 250 women who do have the strength, and 750 women who don't

 

Now to bring that in line with RJ's comment of 62% of women having the strength to gain the shawl there needs to be 2142 women (in order that the 750 be around 38%)

 

Thats an excess of 1142 women that need to have been recruited in order that 'recruitment' explain Egwene's comment.  Even if we be stingy and lower Egwene's definition of most to 60% that still means 558 recruited women.

 

If they were actively recruiting were are these 500 to 1000 murandian women who have the strength to attain the shawl? And why would they be recruiting in Murandy alone--if they had put in the effort needed for your explanation of Egwene's comment in Murandy, then why not elsewhere?

 

 

There are lots of unknown things. Very hard to do any calculation on this. They have talked to women they encountered who had great potential, that much is certain. It's also a certainty that they've never done any thorough search for novices.

 

Its in fact very easy to do calculations on this. Its basic percentages. And they do talk to girls who they encounter--potential or no potential. But those are only sparkers. They cannot sense the ability in an inactive learner, and they do not test for it until a girl approaches them.

 

I'm pretty sure it was specifically mentioned a couple of times in the books that the WT didn't recruit and that was why their numbers were so low. Possibly around the point where Egwene opens the WT to anyone who wishes to join. Don't have the books with me to check, though.

 

Egwene speaks of their being a 1000 novices after only a month of recruitment. But there are dozens of examples of Aes Sedai saying that they can't recruit because the Tower cannot affor to 'lower its standars' and accept women who 'may break in time'.

 

Several Aes Sedai still hold those feelings in spite of the success of recruiting.

 

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It was only the rebels in Salidar that actually started actively recruiting, and that was only what, 6 months ago in the actual timeline?

 

Yeah, if "actively recruiting" equals "doing a thourough search", then I agree 100%.

 

Its more than just not actively searching though. The Aes Sedai believed it was wrong to approach girls unless it was made necessary by them sparking.

 

I have a question for all of you, At the end of the book (Veins of Gold) Rand comments that the last time he had felt this alive (when he was pulling a ton of the OP through the CK) was when he had cleansed saidin AND when he had created Dragonmount (Lews Therin killing himself). Lews Therin was the leader of the Hall of Servants at the time, and due to his position he wore the ring of Tamyrlin, so my question is do you think that the ring of Tamyrlin is the other strong Sa'Angreal? If not how could Lews Therin have pulled so much of the OP into himself?

 

People have already covered why we know Lews Therin didn't use a sa'angreal when killing himself, so all I would add is that I find it highly unlikely that the symbol of an office held by both men AND women in an age were capability and service meant more that raw power, would be a power enhancer for men.

 

 

[Nightstrike]

You can only sense a woman who can channel if she is active or very near to sparking. Without testing a learner the Aes Sedai would have no idea whether she could channel, much less her potential strength--and they only test girls who approach them.

Right you are... Well, either way, they must have done some sort of recruiting testing (and performed some sort of selection) among the girls. Because of the stuff I mentioned.

 

 

[Nightstrike]

Irrespective of what you think, the books state that as what they do.

No, it's your interpretation.

 

[Luckers]

Irrespective of what you think, the books state that as what they do.

No, it's your interpretation.

 

 

The Aes Sedai state: We do not recruit. That is bad. Being Aes Sedai is hard so we wait for girls to come to us as they will stand up to it better.

 

I'm not interpreting. The Aes Sedai state their former policy often and clearly. Many still argue for returning to it.

[Nightstrike]

The Aes Sedai state: We do not recruit. That is bad. Being Aes Sedai is hard so we wait for girls to come to us as they will stand up to it better.

 

I'm not interpreting. The Aes Sedai state their former policy often and clearly. Many still argue for returning to it.

I've asked you for quotes that proves that your interpretation of "active recruiting" and the rest of it. I did it several pages ago. You still haven't answered.

 

And the numbers to make calculations of the kind you're trying to do - we just don't know enough.

[coteaz]

Im not saying the Sa'angreal was just for males, my thoughts are that the first channelers were male and female, and as such created the ring of tamyrlin, which would benefit both male and female channelers.

[Nightstrike]

IIRC Aes Sedai can't sense the potential of learners w/o testing them.  So if they weren't recruiting they would have missed almost all of them.

They must have tested girls. Whether they had any efficient "active recruiting" or not, that's something else.

[Luckers]

The Aes Sedai state: We do not recruit. That is bad. Being Aes Sedai is hard so we wait for girls to come to us as they will stand up to it better.

 

I'm not interpreting. The Aes Sedai state their former policy often and clearly. Many still argue for returning to it.

I've asked you for quotes that proves that your interpretation of "active recruiting" and the rest of it. I did it several pages ago. You still haven't answered.

 

And the numbers to make calculations of the kind you're trying to do - we just don't know enough.

 

Can't. I'm at work and don't have the books. Seriously though give it a look yourself. It's frequent and unmistakable in the early books. Just look up whenever they are discussing the decline of the Tower.

 

You might try ideal seek 'girls with the ability' or derivations there of. Trust me.

 

IIRC Aes Sedai can't sense the potential of learners w/o testing them.  So if they weren't recruiting they would have missed almost all of them.

 

They must have tested girls. Whether they had any efficient "active recruiting" or not, that's something else.

 

Only when those girls came to them and asked.

 

 

Im not saying the Sa'angreal was just for males, my thoughts are that the first channelers were male and female, and as such created the ring of tamyrlin, which would benefit both male and female channelers.

 

Even presupposing thats possible--and based on the inability to inter-mix saidin and saidar I'd say it almost certainly isn't--why did the Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends switch to single gender angreal and sa'angreal.

 

Seems pointless to me.

[Nightstrike]

It's impossible. I've given the reason for why they must have tested girls, and selected among them.

 

"Not actively recruiting" (or whatever?) is not equal to "never testing anyone". It just means that they weren't particularly efficient at it. Not trying very hard.

[blanklook]

Ah let me wade into the argument :p

 

I was reading the WoT white book that gives the history of the world, and while I don't remember exactly, I do believe RJ said 2-3% of the total population has the capability of sensing the source BUT only a small number of those can actually use it AND of the ones that can use it in Rand's time MOST of them die before they can be trained (something I found hard to believe but he rationalizes it.)

 

While it might seem strange that so many people could escape the notice of the white tower aes sedai, if Randland is anything like our own medieval period, then the vast majority of the population lives in the country side living off the land, with less than 10% actually living in the cities. While it isn't shown on the maps in a world like Rands there would be literally tens of thousands of towns and villages between the major cities (and almost none of them would have inns, a very bad thing for fantasy writers! lol)

 

I believe it says in the white book that a woman can become ill and die within a week or two of manifesting the ability to touch the source while giving no clues as to why she's dying. Not an uncommon occurrence in a world with no medicine to speak of. The Aes Sedai could easily miss hundreds or even thousands of people dying every year due to the shear size of the land they have to cover. Just consider the fact that they missed 1500 of the Kin in one spot, and none of them had traveled to the two rivers area in many years apparently.    

 

Another part of the numbers game is the number of men at arms. I haven't really looked at it myself but let us assume the stated number of 2 million is correct. If there are around 8-10 million people living in the cities that means there are probably another 90 million living in the country side, for about 100 million total, which isn't to far off for somewhere about the size and development of medieval Europe (although Europe's population varied drastically based on wars, plagues, and famines from 50 to 250 million.) In that time period you could count about 1 out of every 100 people being used as soldiers, but given the situation in Randland on the borderlands and such, I wouldn't be surprised to see that number doubled... which gives us about 2 million.

 

 

[blanklook]

Oh also I forgot about this, and I believe it has been pointed out, that Egwene and co. found hundreds of women that they made novices. How many thousands of women were found and dismissed because they were simply to old to be trained? If you don't live in a well traveled area what's your chance of even being discovered in your lifetime, let alone during the teenage years when the Aes Sedai like to recuit?

 

Also think of the hundreds of men that Taim has found which can not only sense the source but actually channel that the Red Ajah has missed simply because they have been going to remote villages.

 

Based on these two events I'd say its reasonable that of the 2-3% of the population that can sense the source and the fraction of those that can actually channel, most of them die from the sickness, and a smaller portion become wilders (in the case of women) or go insane (in the case of men), and an even smaller portion are discovered by the Aes Sedai.

[Nightstrike]

I'm not saying that they were efficient at it. Quite the contrary.

 

 

TGH, 40:

“…there are always many more sul'dam than damane…”

 

Damane live several times as long as any sul'dam, because they are channeling while sul'dam don’t.

 

 

 

TPoD, 30:   (concerning the “too old” novices in Egwene’s camp)

“Most by far would never wear the shawl.”

– ˃ Compare that to 62.5 percent of all being able to wear the shawl.

 

 

Example assuming all Aes Sedai are sparkers

Lets assume, for sake of argument, that 10 percent of all were sparkers & all sparkers were strong enough to earn the shawl.

 

62.5 percent of all can become Aes Sedai.

 

Of the learners, ((62.5-10)/(100-10)=) 58 percent would be strong enough to earn the shawl. Far less than 50 percent of the new novices will ever wear the shawl. Meaning, there must have been testing &selection going on.

 

 

[blanklook]

Gah last post I promise, I forgot we're playing the numbers game!

 

SOOOOO

 

lets assume a population of 100 million in Randland.

 

2-3% can EDIT "sense the source" EDIT, but only half are women, so for convenience lets say 1%.

 

Of those, the vast majority either aren't strong enough to channel although they can be taught to sense the source (like the queen of Andor and the seanchan handlers.) That leaves .1%

 

If they are strong enough to channel, the vast majority die before they are discovered and helped along by someone else (according to RJ), so perhaps 1 out of 10 are survivors that can channel, so we're down to .01%

 

Of that group, probably most are rejected by the White tower due to age or other factors that don't make them the ideal candidate or simply don't make it through tower training as has been previously stated, so .001

 

Out of our total population that leaves us 10,000 people in randland strong enough to be trained as Aes Sedai that have a good chance of being found in the condition that makes them a good candidate and would actually make it through training. Not that far off from what the books suggest I think.

 

 

EDIT oi' calculator mistake, that leaves about 100,000 not 10,000. A factor of ten more than we see, but oh well, for all RJ's attention to tiny details such as the size of a circle and such, in some area's he didn't seem to put much thought into it, probably for simple ease of telling the story, like how fast the group of adventures travel and such. :P cheers all.

[Nightstrike]

There are more things we don't know than there are things we do know. For instance, we don't know anything about the population size, we don't know how many that are tested, we don't know the selection process, we don't know how many that would rather not be associated with channelers at all, we don't know how many die from novice to Aes Sedai, we don't know how many wilders there are who have never been to Tar Valon & we don't know how many sparkers that die because they never get trained.

 

???

[coteaz]

There is a Saidar power ranking in 13th depository, does anyone know of a Saidin power ranking? If not anyone care to take a stab at a basic one?

[Nightstrike]

Ranking males is a difficult task. 13:th depository has a "male Forsaken" list. Taim and Logain must be pretty high up as well. "Almost" on Rand's level. Brandon Sanderson said that RJ had extensive notes on exactly how strong everybody are. Hopefully it will be in Harriet's WoT encyclopaedia - which they are working on right now. :)

 

 

 

[coteaz]

Yeah, i hope so, because i get different impressions as to how strong people are, like for instance Jahar, early on i got the impression he was fairly strong, but in KOD its implied that Merise his Aes Sedai is stronger (i think its Merise) she is high for an Aes Sedai, but in terms of overall strength she is about half way.

[Luckers]

For instance, we don't know anything about the population size

 

RJ's comment about city size and numbers provides us with a lower population estimate of over 25 million.

 

we don't know how many that are tested

 

400,000 over the last 600 years.

 

we don't know the selection process

 

Those who come to the Tower seeking training.

 

[Nightstrike]

I'm not saying that they were efficient at it. Quite the contrary.

 

RJ’s blog:

For over 3000 years, though, Aes Sedai have been removing men who actually learned to channel from the gene pool.  They have been very efficient at this.  As a result, the “present day” sees about 1% of the population who can learn to channel, with a much, much smaller percentage of that being born with the spark.

 

TGH, 40:

“…there are always many more sul'dam than damane…”

 

Damane live several times as long as any sul'dam, because they are channeling while sul'dam don’t.

 

 

TPoD, 30:   (concerning the “too old” novices in Egwene’s camp)

“Most by far would never wear the shawl.”

– ˃ Compare that to 62.5 percent of all being able to wear the shawl.

 

 

Example assuming all Aes Sedai are sparkers:

Lets assume, for sake of argument, that 10 percent of all were sparkers & all sparkers were strong enough to earn the shawl.

 

62.5 percent of all can become Aes Sedai.

 

Of the learners, ((62.5-10)/(100-10)=) 58 percent would be strong enough to earn the shawl. Far less than 50 percent of the new novices will ever wear the shawl. Meaning, there must have been testing &selection going on.

 

 

 

There are more things we don't know than there are things we do know. For instance, we don't know anything about the population size, we don't know how many that are tested, we don't know the selection process, we don't know how many that would rather not be associated with channelers at all, we don't know how many that die from novice to Aes Sedai, we don't know how many wilders there are who have never been to Tar Valon & we don't know how many sparkers that die because they never get trained.

 

[Nightstrike]

RJ's comment about city size and numbers provides us with a lower population estimate of over 25 million.

He has never mentioned anything like that.

 

400,000 over the last 600 years.

???

 

[Luckers]

Ok Nightstrike, thats like the fifth time you reposted your previous posts. We read them the first time. Please don't do it again. Also please make singular posts. If you later come up with a new thought modify your post to add the new thought. The latter is not a huge deal, just keeping these already huge threads in a somewhat decent postcount.

 

Quote from: Luckers on Today at 02:03:10 AM

RJ's comment about city size and numbers provides us with a lower population estimate of over 25 million.

 

He has never mentioned anything like that.

 

Never? You mean like this following comment in which he states the size of cities and their numbers?

 

From Thirteenth Depository (previously from the Wotmania compilation).

 

How big are the cities in The Wheel of Time?

 

Tar Valon has 500,000 people and cities like Caemlyn and Tear are around 300,000 or so. I've envisioned a seventeenth century society and you've got to remember that for those times 300,000 would be huge. Some Asian cities of that period had populations near one million but nothing in Europe was even close.

 

I was wrong about the Tar Valon not being the largest--I would have thought that cities that had overgrown their limits like Caemlyn would be larger. Nevertheless this shows that in the capitals alone there around around 6 million.

 

Say instead of 25 million, 20 as the absolute lower limit of the population in the Westlands.

 

My previous comment stands other than the five million decline in the lower limit. Thereby we still know atleast a hundred thousand female channelers.

 

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400,000 over the last 600 years.

 

In the past 600 years the Tower has found 4,000 or so channelers. 1,000 Aes Sedai plus 1,000 more dead due to the Oaths. 2,000 or so who didn't make the shawl.

 

One percent of the population can channel. Therefore one percent of the girls who approach the Tower have the ability.

 

Admittedly that may be skewed by the presence of Sparkers, but roughly speaking--400,000 applicants over the last 600 years.

 

 

[WWWwombat]

Fun fact: Japanese cities of the time were huge because of heino bunri.  Pretty much anyone not working the rice paddies was forced to live in a castle town.

[Bob T Dwarf]

17th century society.  Low average income.  Primitive transportation system.  Large expense in both time and money for an average person to travel to Tar Valon.  Logic dictates that anyone approaching the Tower for training has reason to believe they qualify.  Some actually won't, but that will likely only be 1/4 to 1/2 of the applicants.  

 

If the Tower actually found 4,000 over the last 600 years, that would mean that they were only approached by 6,000 applicants. An average of 10 girls per year.

 

Given that a sparker can and usually will kill herself without training, that is far too few applicants for a population base of 20 million.

 

Assuming the population is evenly split between those too young to manifest and those old enough, Tar Valon alone should have 5,000 potential channelers, 2500 of whom are female, 1250 of whom are too young.  Assuming a steady birthrate.  Tar Valon should produce 78 girls each year who become old enough to successfully test for the ability to channel.

 

Yet, from all of Randland, the Tower only enrolled an average 7 girls per year for the last 600 years???

 

The city of Tar Valon alone, exclusive of anyplace else in Randland, should have enrolled 46,800 girls into the Tower for training over the last 600 years.

 

I'll say it again.  None of the numbers add up.