Mat and Rahvin

[AuldGoldBeard]

This is something that's always bothered me. In TFOH, chapter 54, "Lightning stabbed from the cloudless sky... Mat's smoking boots lay a dozen paces from where Mat himself sprawled on his back. Tendrils of smoke rose from the black haft of his spear, too, from his coat, even from the foxhead silver medallion, which hadn't saved him from a man's channeling."

 

Rand assumes that the medallion doesn't work against saidin, only saidar, but I believe Jordan himself later debunked this, and the scene in LOC Chapter 44 where the medallion goes cold and Halima is staring at him in shock should have been enough evidence for anyone. So if Mat's medallion protects him from saidin, he should not have been killed here.

 

Most people seem to try to equate the lightning to the manure, rocks, etc. that A&V have thrown at Mat and not been affected by his medallion. Sorry, but that doesn't hold water. You can find rocks anywhere along the side of the road; there aren't piles of lightning bolts lying around for Rahvin to pick up and fling around whenever he feels like it. And even if there were, lightning is electricity. You can't pick it up and throw it, not with your hands, not with air, not with water, not with anything. You have to create it. Now maybe I could accept it that you can direct the power against an existing cloud that will make it shoot out a lightning bolt, similar to affecting the weather in other ways we've seen, but then you still wouldn't be able to direct it, and any flow you put on Mat trying to direct it towards him would dissolve. And, oh yeah, the lightning came down "from a cloudless sky."

 

Another theory I've seen is that the lightning itself didn't kill Mat, only its effects did, i.e. the super-heating of the air around him. But once again, that doesn't fit with the description. Mat has been thrown a dozen paces away from his boots; that has to have been done by lightning, not just the heat. Maybe the best explanation is that the lightning bolt didn't strike him directly, but landed close enough that the effects were still enough to kill him, but that seems to be stretching things a little bit. I'm no lightning expert, but I don't think a bolt coming down six feet away is enough to fling someone a dozen paces down the road.

 

 

So, what happened here?

 

Did RJ screw up and initially have the medallion not work against saidin before changing his mind?

Does Rahvin have a crate full of lightning bolts and flings them around Zeus-style when he's pissed?

Were the indirect effects enough to kill him?

Or is there something completely obvious that I've missed?

[Vermillion]

Actually I think lightning is created to go in a direction, not guided. Think of it as if boulder being created in the sky was a natural occurrence. Then someone channels it so the boulder is created over head to drop on someone.

[Agitel]

It was pretty much "random strike" lightning from what I could tell. Rather than view the lightning as being targeted at Mat, or even the power creating lightning itself, perhaps Rahvin just created a massive potential voltage difference in the area that would be activated when it's border was breached.

 

Yeah.

[FarShainMael]

Consider how lightning is formed. Essentially, the air currents in a thundercloud (cumulonimbus) 'rub against' each other, creating huge static charges, and inducing an opposite charge in the surface of the earth below the cloud. When the voltage difference between the two is enough to break down the insulating effect of the intervening air, you get a bolt of lightning.

 

So all Rahvin had to do was adjust the electrical charges in the air and in the ground. Voila - lightning, and Mat was in the way.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/lightning.shtml

[A2597]

If an Aes Sedai makes a storm, does mat still get wet when it rains? Yes.

 

The lightning was caused by the one power, but itself was not one power. I imagine a fireball would also torch mat just as easily, as it would be an indirect flow.

[Vermillion]

If an Aes Sedai makes a storm, does mat still get wet when it rains? Yes.

 

The lightning was caused by the one power, but itself was not one power. I imagine a fireball would also torch mat just as easily, as it would be an indirect flow.

 

The question I have is would balefire work or not? The only thing I have seen stop BF is Calandor I think.

[Kaznen]

Consider how lightning is formed. Essentially, the air currents in a thundercloud (cumulonimbus) 'rub against' each other, creating huge static charges, and inducing an opposite charge in the surface of the earth below the cloud. When the voltage difference between the two is enough to break down the insulating effect of the intervening air, you get a bolt of lightning.

 

So all Rahvin had to do was adjust the electrical charges in the air and in the ground. Voila - lightning, and Mat was in the way.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/lightning.shtml

Of course modern AS don't know all this, all they know is they take a some Air and Water throw in a dash of Fire and they get a lighting bolt.

[AuldGoldBeard]

Consider how lightning is formed. Essentially, the air currents in a thundercloud (cumulonimbus) 'rub against' each other, creating huge static charges, and inducing an opposite charge in the surface of the earth below the cloud. When the voltage difference between the two is enough to break down the insulating effect of the intervening air, you get a bolt of lightning.

 

So all Rahvin had to do was adjust the electrical charges in the air and in the ground. Voila - lightning, and Mat was in the way.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/lightning.shtml

 

And it's reasonable that he could have done that and created a few lightning bolts. However, it's not reasonable that, if that's what he did, four of the bolts would strike directly at Aviendha, Mat, Asmo, and Rand (the last of which was blocked by his shield.) The text even says that the bolts were "not all... aimed at [Rand]," the operative word being "aimed."

 

If the lightning were naturally created, it could not have been aimed. If the lightning were created by the power, it shouldn't have affected Mat. A lightning bolt simply does not exist long enough to be grabbed and aimed like a rock or piece of manure. Rahvin either had to create that discharge, and then aim the lightning bolt in the one-millionth of a second it takes to form, or Rand and Mat's ta'verenness screwed up the odds so improbably that the first four bolts just happened to strike the four most important people there.

 

 

More important, your theory is contradicted by the text. Rand is standing there, looking up at the sky, and does not feel or see Rahvin do anything with the electrical field. Instead, he saw "Lightning falling from the cloudless sky. Rand wove Fire and Air to meet Fire and Air, a slow-spreading shield racing lightnings' fall." The lightning was not an indirect effect of Rahvin adjusting electrical charges, they were flows of Fire and Air.

[PatsNats28]

I don't remember if it had been introduced yet, but is it possible that Rahvin was using the TP?

[FarShainMael]

Consider how lightning is formed. Essentially, the air currents in a thundercloud (cumulonimbus) 'rub against' each other, creating huge static charges, and inducing an opposite charge in the surface of the earth below the cloud. When the voltage difference between the two is enough to break down the insulating effect of the intervening air, you get a bolt of lightning.

 

So all Rahvin had to do was adjust the electrical charges in the air and in the ground. Voila - lightning, and Mat was in the way.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/lightning.shtml

Of course modern AS don't know all this, all they know is they take a some Air and Water throw in a dash of Fire and they get a lighting bolt.

They're probably not aware of the underlying physics, no.

[FarShainMael]

Consider how lightning is formed. Essentially, the air currents in a thundercloud (cumulonimbus) 'rub against' each other, creating huge static charges, and inducing an opposite charge in the surface of the earth below the cloud. When the voltage difference between the two is enough to break down the insulating effect of the intervening air, you get a bolt of lightning.

 

So all Rahvin had to do was adjust the electrical charges in the air and in the ground. Voila - lightning, and Mat was in the way.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/lightning.shtml

 

And it's reasonable that he could have done that and created a few lightning bolts. However, it's not reasonable that, if that's what he did, four of the bolts would strike directly at Aviendha, Mat, Asmo, and Rand (the last of which was blocked by his shield.) The text even says that the bolts were "not all... aimed at [Rand]," the operative word being "aimed."

 

Actually it's quite reasonable. All Rahvin has to do is adjust the ground charge directly under his targets. Also, see below:

 

More important, your theory is contradicted by the text. Rand is standing there, looking up at the sky, and does not feel or see Rahvin do anything with the electrical field. Instead, he saw "Lightning falling from the cloudless sky. Rand wove Fire and Air to meet Fire and Air, a slow-spreading shield racing lightnings' fall." The lightning was not an indirect effect of Rahvin adjusting electrical charges, they were flows of Fire and Air.

 

Those flows were guiding the elactrical discharge.

 

We don't know if Rand felt his hair standing on end, or any similar effect of nearby static charge. He didn't say. He was too busy.

[Sharaman]

Hadn't this been cleared up anyway by subsequent events when various AS tease Mat at various times by chucking stuff at him?

Or even by the battle of Carhein earlier where Mat's wet and miserable and trying to avoid lightning strikes and storms caused by Rand. Sammy, Eqwene, Avi, etc.

He can be affected by physical phenomena triggered by channeling, but not by the channeling itself.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Hadn't this been cleared up anyway by subsequent events when various AS tease Mat at various times by chucking stuff at him?

Or even by the battle of Carhein earlier where Mat's wet and miserable and trying to avoid lightning strikes and storms caused by Rand. Sammy, Eqwene, Avi, etc.

He can be affected by physical phenomena triggered by channeling, but not by the channeling itself.

 

Yeah, you got it.

 

The medallion melts the "flows" or "weaves" of the OP.

 

Rhavin wove saidin to create the lightning, but lightning is still lightning. He didnt weave the flows at Mat, he wove it in the air above as lightning, clear weather or no, its still electricity, not a flow of the OP.