Sharina & Bode

[Wantanswers]

Luckers, you are talking about her attempt to capture the black sisters in KoD, right?

 

Out of curiosity, what would you have done in her place?

 

Drowned them in Kin, or at the very least established a perimeter of Kin in the event something did go wrong. Elayne gave no consideration for potential failure, and all because of the certainty of safety from Min's viewing.

 

Failing isn't necesarily a sign of bad leadership, but Elayne rushed in unprepared without even pausing to think of the alternatives. In fact, when Careane and Sareitha raised some she dismissed them airily. I could probably even have abided her doing exactly the same as what she did had she given thought to the weight and dangers of the plan beforehand, but she did not, and that is what I mean when I speak of her lacking the necessary maturity at this stage.

I don't agree with you. Elayne has discussed the attack with Careane, Sareitha and Vandenne. Careane and Sareitha objected, but Vandenne agreed. Sareitha is a weak and young sister; she even hasn't the ageless face. What could the motives be of Careane, a black sister? Vandenne is a Green Sister, a member of the battle Ajah. And is she immature too?

With the information Elayne had, it was the best plan. Even after the situation had changed it was the less worst plan. How many death would have fallen if the BA had entrenched themselves in that house using that balefire rod.

 

 

[Luckers]

And once again if Elayne had listen and disagreed I could have abided her failure--but re-read that scene. She's barely paying any attention and is frustrated that they are not simply shutting up and doing what they said. She pays enough attention to the words to dismiss them, and no attention to the arguments.

 

And it wasn't a case of placing Vandene over Sareitha and Careane. She'd already decided on this plan. Vandene attained no more of her attention than did the other two. She'd decided what to do, and wouldn't consider an alternative, or even a simple adjustment to answer the concerns raised to her, and that is a problem.

 

Does she need to be decisive? Absolutely. Does she in the end need to make the decision, as both Queen and powerful Aes Sedai? Yes. But neither one spares her from the fact that she refuses to look beyond her own assessment of the situation. I don't case if she did look beyond it and disagreed, and command Sareitha and Careane to continue with all the decisive authority in the world, but she needed to at least percieve that alternatives to her appraisal existed before dismissing them--but even after the entire thing fell apart she refuses to acknowledge that she could have done anything different, that there were other steps she could have taken, other precautions made.

 

 

[Wantanswers]

Come on, Luckers. We want action. Not a report of a meeting, where every objection is dicussed.

[Noreallyjustsomeguy]

The greater the strength the woman has the greater the detail she can see and weave.

 

Granted, as a general rule, but as with most things channeling, it always seems to be more complicated in practice.

 

Making a fireball, the earth explode or a lightning bolt is easier than the advanced healing that Sharina has already learned.

 

My understanding is that Sharina (like many of the older novices) falls into the former Wisdom/Wise Woman/Mother So-and-So category, and like many of them, she has shown a particular Talent for Healing.  That would not necessarily translate into battle skill.

 

And even if it does for Sharina personally, she still would not have the degree of experience with using those weaves that a Green Sister would have (at least in theory ... which is a potential hole in my argument, I admit).  As a purely practical measure, I'm confident that Sharina herself would be totally comfortable with a support role in any battle situation.

 

Come on, Luckers. We want action. Not a report of a meeting, where every objection is dicussed.

 

Ah, of course.  Elayne was just playing to her fans Luckers!  ;D

[algspkr]

My understanding is that Sharina (like many of the older novices) falls into the former Wisdom/Wise Woman/Mother So-and-So category, and like many of them, she has shown a particular Talent for Healing.  That would not necessarily translate into battle skill.

 

And even if it does for Sharina personally, she still would not have the degree of experience with using those weaves that a Green Sister would have (at least in theory ... which is a potential hole in my argument, I admit).  As a purely practical measure, I'm confident that Sharina herself would be totally comfortable with a support role in any battle situation.

 

I do not know how many of them were Wisdoms, but I know that Sharina was not, as she was not a sparker.

[Fains nose]

Sharina wasnt a wise woman or anything, she was just an old granny who turned up to be tested. I believe that Sharina is more than ready to be Aes Sedai, as shown by her management of the novices, her flustering of aes sedai and her interaction with Siuan. Her personality and will(from what weve seen of it) puts her above pretty much every Aes Sedai weve ever seen in regards to personality and will, and since shes stronger than any aes sedai including Nynaeve, shed be above them in regards to power as well. It really highlites Aes Sedais patheticnes that some strong willed village woman is more capable than any of them.This realy shows that Aes Sedai need to stop trying to build character by scrubing floors for twenty years, instead maybe they could have novices assisting out in the field, even if it was just as a maid, then they could get some life experiance. Then you could have for example, prospective yellow ajah acepted helping yelows out in the field

[Noreallyjustsomeguy]

I do not know how many of them were Wisdoms, but I know that Sharina was not, as she was not a sparker.

 

You don't have to be a sparker to be a Wisdom.  The connection is not specifically with the ability to use the Power, but with tendencies in how they use the Power, patterns of Talents.  Many of the former Wisdoms have demonstrated a proficiency in Healing Talents, whether they were sparkers or not.  Being a sparker is, in this case, totally irrelevant.

 

Sharina wasnt a wise woman or anything, she was just an old granny who turned up to be tested

 

I would imagine that most of the Wisdoms/Wise Women etc. fit into the category of "strong-willed old granny."  I'm not talking about the "official office" of village Wise Woman as much as a rough commonality of personality traits and Talents that seem to go with a particular mindset.

 

I agree that Sharina is more than ready to be Aes Sedai.  My point is that that doesn't necessarily translate into automatically being a good battle channeler, which is the idea that I was initially responding to here.  Charlz said that, "Making a fireball, the earth explode or a lightning bolt is easier than the advanced healing that Sharina has already learned."  I'm saying that making a fireball is not necessarily easier than advanced Healing, if Sharina has a Talent for Healing, and not for making fireballs.

[FarShainMael]

My understanding is that Sharina (like many of the older novices) falls into the former Wisdom/Wise Woman/Mother So-and-So category, and like many of them, she has shown a particular Talent for Healing.  That would not necessarily translate into battle skill.

 

Hmm.. Remembering some of the things that Semi was threatening to do to her captors if they didn't release her, I wonder if some of those were adapted from Healing weaves, and whether they or similar weaves could be deployed in battle. Bit tricky if actual physical contact was required, of course.

 

 

 

[Val Mickey]

It doesn't bode well for Sharina, nor will Bode share in Aes Sedai-dom ;D

[jemron]

It doesn't bode well for Sharina, nor will Bode share in Aes Sedai-dom ;D

 

Nice.

[FarShainMael]

Pass that man his coat.. ::)  ;)

 

[Owayn The Traveller]

Maybe he wears a jacket or even plastic raincoat with yellow and red umbrellas on it. Didn't you consider that FarShain? Did you? No, always with the coat, I mean its summer he's prob in a short sleeved shirt. You got to be realistic.

[yoniy0]

It's never summer everywhere at once.

[Charlz Guybon]

I do not know how many of them were Wisdoms, but I know that Sharina was not, as she was not a sparker.

 

You don't have to be a sparker to be a Wisdom.  The connection is not specifically with the ability to use the Power, but with tendencies in how they use the Power, patterns of Talents.  Many of the former Wisdoms have demonstrated a proficiency in Healing Talents, whether they were sparkers or not.  Being a sparker is, in this case, totally irrelevant.

 

Sharina wasnt a wise woman or anything, she was just an old granny who turned up to be tested

 

I would imagine that most of the Wisdoms/Wise Women etc. fit into the category of "strong-willed old granny."  I'm not talking about the "official office" of village Wise Woman as much as a rough commonality of personality traits and Talents that seem to go with a particular mindset.

 

I agree that Sharina is more than ready to be Aes Sedai.  My point is that that doesn't necessarily translate into automatically being a good battle channeler, which is the idea that I was initially responding to here.  Charlz said that, "Making a fireball, the earth explode or a lightning bolt is easier than the advanced healing that Sharina has already learned."  I'm saying that making a fireball is not necessarily easier than advanced Healing, if Sharina has a Talent for Healing, and not for making fireballs.

The first thing novices are taught is to make small balls of fire, it has to be one of the easiest things one can do with the power.

[Noreallyjustsomeguy]

The first thing novices are taught is to make small balls of fire, it has to be one of the easiest things one can do with the power.

 

Well ... there are some assumptions there that aren't necessarily valid.  First, we haven't actually seen THAT much novice training, so that may not be a universal training scheme.  Second, the ability to make a candle strength flame does not necessarily translate into being proficient with using fireballs in battle (or lightning, much less exploding earth).  

Keep in mind that the impressive shenanigans we've seen in the story have centered around truly exceptional people like Egwene, Moiraine, Nynaeve, et cetera.  These women are not only exceptions in their degree of strength (which of course, Sharina matches and then some) but in the variety of their Talents (Egwene's Talents are quite probably as wide-ranging as Rand's despite the wide gap in strength between them).  

 

I am not saying "Sharina Melloy will definitely not be able to use fireballs in battle."  I'm simply saying we shouldn't assume that "X degree of strength assures proficiency in battle-channeling."  The idea that "Making a fireball, the earth explode or a lightning bolt" has to be and always is "easier than the advanced healing that Sharina has already learned" is not necessarily true.

[FarShainMael]

Maybe he wears a jacket or even plastic raincoat with yellow and red umbrellas on it. Didn't you consider that FarShain? Did you? No, always with the coat, I mean its summer he's prob in a short sleeved shirt. You got to be realistic.

 

I don't care if he wears a plastic mac with umbrellas or a black coat with sword and dragon pins, as long as he gets it!  (the coat that is)  :P

 

[Owayn The Traveller]

Fair enough. All I'm asking for........ shiny twirly plastic thingies. Sorry got distracted.

[FarShainMael]

Ahem. Back to topic.. If Sharina (or other strong but inexperienced channeller) links with a more experienced one, will she be able to draw on that experience?

 

[Nightstrike]

 

RJ's blog 2 October 2005 "ONE MORE TIME"

 

- For Shishka, a mixed gender circle has X amount of saidin and Y amount of saidar available, set by the strengths of the men and women in it.  Talents or special skills available to members of the circle other than whoever is melding the flows are not available to the person who is.  If those Talents or skills are particularly needed, then control of the circle must be passed.

 

BWB says that leading a circle depends on both strength and skill:

The greater the combination of strength and skill, the larger the circle that a woman, or man, can lead.

[Charlz Guybon]

Speaking of the novices, even with nearly a thousand new novices there really isn't any in book evidence for the bell curve that Jordan talked about in interviews.

 

If the average woman is an 11(Sheriam)* on Jordan's scale there should be just as many 16s(Moghedien) as there are 6s (Vandane). Now obviously the pattern steered things so that the WT would be ripe for the Wondergirls to swoop in and take authority. But you'd think that now would be the time for the neglected stronger half of the curve to make an appearance. Yet out of 1,000 novices we know of three that are stronger than a 12; Nicola (13), Bode (14) and Sharina (19).

 

If there were even 50 novices stronger than Moraine, as Cadsuane said in New Spring the WT had a thousand years ago, I think we would have heard about it by now, which suggests pretty strongly they're not there. Kinda lame.

 

* From the saidar strength article at the 13th depository.

[Nightstrike]

I think people may talk about a bell curve even if the exact distribution won't be perfectly symmetrical. When there's no room for the lower half of the bell curve, because it's not possible to be less than zero in strength, we will get a skewed curve. Bell curve grading is when a curve that isn't symmetrical in shape is brought into the shape because grade intervals are adjusted to fit into the bell curve. So the same goes here. Most people are around the mean/median.

[Paladin]

For Shishka, a mixed gender circle has X amount of saidin and Y amount of saidar available, set by the strengths of the men and women in it.  Talents or special skills available to members of the circle other than whoever is melding the flows are not available to the person who is.  If those Talents or skills are particularly needed, then control of the circle must be passed.

 

BWB says that leading a circle depends on both strength and skill:

 

Quote

The greater the combination of strength and skill, the larger the circle that a woman, or man, can lead.

 

 

Just out of curiosity. Does that mean that someone like Sorilea will not be able to lead a circle?

 

She knows the Traveling weave and I was hoping that she would be able to lead a circle and show the AS that strength and proficiency are not the same thing.

 

so much for my pet theory

[Nightstrike]

I think all, or most, of them can lead a circle. As long as they know how to form a circle to begin with. OK, maybe not true for the most inexperienced novices. Sharina is very, very strong. She seems clever enough, and might have some acquired skill already.

 

Morgase might not be able to lead a circle, but I think all the Aes Sedai and all the Accepted can do it.

[Nightstrike]

You would probably have to be both very strong and very skilled to lead a circle of 72.

[Luckers]

You would probably have to be both very strong and very skilled to lead a circle of 72.

 

I don't know about strong--I see no reason that would be a prerequisite. Skilled, certainly.