Dividing Flows

[Darkspot]

So, in Knife of Dreams, chapter 24, Egwene can barely make a ball of fire, it's transparent.  However by dividing her flows she can create 7 of them and 7 rings floating around them and controlling them.

 

In Knife of Dreams also Rand channels 6 deathgates at once in chapter 19, and they're all 4 x 4 paces, and Logain comments after the battle how they are bigger than what he can create.

 

These things lead me to believe when dividing flows you just have a certain size flow to work with and all flows coming from you are that size, so if you can focus enough to divide your flows, you can have a ton of the power coming from you.

 

 

 

That being said, Winter's heart, chapter 35 Cadsuane...

"Cadsuane laid the swallow on the ground beside her, took the girl’s head in her hands and lessened the amount of saidar she was putting into the shield."

had to lessen what she was using to refresh Nynaeve.

 

So how does one thing seem to let you divide flows and use same amounts of power, but another seems to be needing it differently.

[Ereinion]

Not an expert here, no quotes or anything. The main difference I see is that with Rand and Egwene, they are just making copies of the same weave. Cadsuane is doing two completely different things. I imagine it would be sort of like playing the drums with each limb going at a different tempo.

[Agitel]

There's a difference between maintaining a weave, which is also a skill, and creating one. I believe Egwene created her balls of fire one at a time, not all at once. Once she finished with one she could maintain it and divert her ability elsewhere. She could maintain so many because of her skill, not her strength, though strength would certainly help.

 

 

[Darkspot]

I was mentioning more how little she could handle due to forkroot.  She seemed to be able to handle that same amount 14 times over.  The balls didn't flicker more, they all stayed the same.

 

On Rand, his gateways are always 4 x 4 paces I thought.  So is it gateways don't get bigger with more power?  I think they do, if you look at where Nynaeve took Lan to the borderlands, she made two different sized Gateways.

 

And if power doesn't matter if you're maintaining... Why did Cadsuane need to lessen the power she had in the shield to do the healing?

[jemron]

Hmm... Could it be that this is a made up magical system that is bound to have some inconsistencies?  Maybe RJ didn't actually think of everything.

 

On the other hand, maybe it is possible to "maintain" weaves without much more power.  I don't think, if I understand you correctly, that by dividing flows, a channeler can actually channel MORE power than if they just focused all their ability into one flow.  That doesn't make sense to me.

 

It seems like it would be evenly spread.  Maybe balls of fire don't require very much, and she was lower on the forkroot that time.

[Darkspot]

It wasn't lower on forkroot, she made all 14 in a row, and the same problem was with the last as the first, very transparent from lacking power.

[Agitel]

It wasn't lower on forkroot, she made all 14 in a row, and the same problem was with the last as the first, very transparent from lacking power.

 

In a row.

 

Not all at once.

 

I think that's our point. It doesn't take a lot of the One Power to maintain a flow, that's a somewhat different skill that's associated with, but not entirely dependent on strength. I think she also commented on how the last one was only a little weaker than the rest, which would make sense if a little bit of power had to go into maintaining the others.

 

Gateways have a maximum size. I don't think we got the exact details on it, but some channelers can make bigger ones than others, and it's not entirely dependent on strength. A weaker channeler can sometimes make bigger gateways than a stronger one. On a person by person basis, I'm guessing it's possible to push it a little bigger with more power, but I'm guessing it's like going to light speed, the closer you get to lightspeed, the amount of energy needed to get even closer starts skyrocketing. It's probably the same with gateways, the closer you get to your max size, you need a lot of power for every extra little millimeter. But Rand can easily make gateways near his max without using all of his power.

[gambril]

With Gateways, iirc they don't seem to have a limit besides power.  Case in point is rebel AS making gateways to Travel to Tar Valon.  Egwene had 13 of the strongest AS all linked to make those so they were huge.  Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Agitel]

With Gateways, iirc they don't seem to have a limit besides power.  Case in point is rebel AS making gateways to Travel to Tar Valon.  Egwene had 13 of the strongest AS all linked to make those so they were huge.  Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

Gateway size has limits. It's sort of a person-by-person basis, equal strength in the power will not yield equal sized gateways. You can get larger gateways when linked together. Distance is affected too, I believe Jordan commented on this. Traveling around the world isn't really affected, as it's close enough, but if I wanted to travel from Earth to Mars, strength might play a bit more of a factor.