Rand at Maradon

[Kahsm]

So I'm most certain I'll be in the minority of this one, but I'd like to hear some of the theories and see how far people go with this idea of Rand's channeling powers post-VoG given what we see at Maradon. I'll supply some food for thought.

 

First, the glow.

 

Wind spun around al'Thor, whipping at his cloak.

The man himself seemed to be glowing. Was it the reflection of the swaths of fire, or perhaps the lightning blasts? Al'Thor seemed brighter than them all, his hand upraised against the Shadowspawn.

Men don't glow, and while it seems possible that it was just lighting effects from what he was doing (as Ituralde notes) it's not likely. So this seems to be one of the reasons why people say that something's going on with his channeling. But of course, this happens:

 

A figure was huddled in the corner beside the bed, fine clothing wrinkled, doublet stained with blood. Ituralde lowered his sword. Lord Torkumen's eyes were gone. He appeared to have put them out with a writing quill; the bloodied implement lay on the ground beside him.

The window was broken. Bashere glanced out it. "Lady Torkumen is down there."

"She jumped," Torkumen whispered, clawing at his eye sockets, fingers covered with blood. He sounded dazed. "That light . . . That terrible light: Ituralde glanced at Bashere. "I cannot watch it," Torkumen muttered. "I cannot!"

Despite the fact he couldn't see the light from where he was. So it's more 'radiant' than a visual thing, whatever it is.

 

So consider that along with Rand going back to Tear to deal with the darkfriends:

The courtyard grew still. Rand continued down the line, looking at each of the nobles in turn, not speaking. Min glanced to the side. Near the end of the line, Weiramon kept glancing at Rand, then looking away. The tall man had thinning gray hair, his beard oiled to a point.

Rand eventually reached him. "Meet my eyes, Weiramon," Rand said softly.

"My Lord Dragon, surely I am not worthy to—"

"Do it."

Weiramon did so with an odd difficulty. He looked as if he was gritting his teeth, his eyes watering.

"So it is you," Rand said. Min could feel his disappointment. Rand looked to the side, to where Anaiyella stood last in line. The pretty woman had pulled away from Rand, her head turned. "Both of you."

"My Lord—" Weiramon began.

So it seems petty obvious these things are linked. I would suggest that when Rand tells Weiramon to look him in the eyes he "turns up" the 'glow', not visible at such a low level, and gets his reaction. But Anaiyella backs away at that and so she's outed too. The point being, Rand has some semblance of control over the intensity of this special power. I think it's unrelated to his channeling, similar to "one with the land". It's possible he lets it run wild at Maradon, maybe it messed with the shadowspawn too, but it doesn't necessarily indicate anything special about his channeling simply because it happens at the same time.

 

As for what Rand actually did, I've tried to paint a picture of that in previous threads as being much more mundane than it looked through Ituralde's eyes. But this time I'll start with my perception of channeling prior to Maradon.

 

That had been her work, the leatherleaf, and once the lightning called from a clear sky, and a few other

things she had not thought to try until those two women tried them on her.

So Nynaeve had never thought to pull lightning from a clear sky. The suggestion seems to be that she could pull lightning from a clouded sky. And I think it's safe to assume that the latter would be easier than the former. But of course if you're a woman, pulling lighting from a cloudless sky is probably still easier, if not more efficient than fireballs.

 

Later, on the seafolk ship:

Elayne stopped short of the sterndeck to study what she was doing. The flows of Air and Water the

Windfinder handled were cable-thick, yet her weaving was intricate, almost delicate, and it reached as far as the

eye could see across the waters, a web drawn across the sky. The wind rose higher, higher; the wheelmen

strained, and Wavedancer flew through the sea. The weaving stopped, the glow of saidar vanished, and Jorin

slumped at the rail, leaning on her hands.

Elayne climbed the ladder quietly, yet the Sea Folk woman spoke in a soft voice without turning her

head as soon as she was near enough to hear. “In the middle as I worked, I thought that you were watching me. I

could not stop then; there might have been a storm even Wavedancer could not survive. The Sea of Storms is

well named; it will throw up bad winds enough without my help. I meant not to do this at all, but Coine said we

must go quickly. For you, and for the Coramoor.” She raised her eyes to peer at the sky. “This wind will hold

until morning, if it pleases the Light.”

[...]

“Jorin, I have never woven a flow half as thick as those you were handling. And the scope of it! I am

astounded, Jorin.”

So the wind will hold even though she's no longer channeling, and nothing is tied off (at least Elayne doesn't mention anything). Also, I think it's safe to say Aes SEdai don't channel anything at that scope. Note, "it reached as far as the eye could see across the waters, a web drawn across the sky." On open water? That's freakin' huge. Later on Elayne seems to pick up how to do it just fine, so Jorin is not simply an Alivia.

 

"Nynaeve and I are ahead of schedule, too, Egwene. Jorin has been teaching me to work the weather. You, would not believe the size of the flows of Air she can weave! And between us, we've had Wavedancer moving as fast as he ever has, and that is fast.

Egeanin, arms folded in front of the doors, seemed ready to let it go on, but Elayne wove flows of Air

around Amathera's waist. To her surprise she was able to lift her off the already senseless woman and set her on

her feet. Perhaps learning how to handle those heavy weavings from Jorin had increased her strength.

So we know that you can mess with the weather and it can stay as you put it, on it's own accord. And we know that Elayne is at least capable of learning to cloud dance. While Jorin is obviously extremely strong in air, Elayne was able to learn the 'heavy weaving'. It's not really clear if heavy referred to the complexity and scope of the weaves, or the size of the flows. If she mean the size of the flows, I guess she was forcing herself like the Seanchan did to Egwene. Or maybe Jorin happened to know a way to weave thicker flows than you normally would?

 

At the very same time Elayne makes these interesting observations:

"Perhaps I can. If they feel me channel, they will think it is whoever is in there." Frowning, she bit her

lower lip. How many were there? She could do at least three or four things at once with the Power, something

only Egwene and Nynaeve could match.

Obviously they were weak at the time, sine Egwene showed off much more later, but even weak, they were still better than your average full an experienced 3rd age Aes Sedai.

 

A moment later she was not so sure. She could feel someone channeling in those rooms. Not strong

flows, but definitely the Power being woven, or maybe a weave maintained. Few women knew the trick of tying

a weave.

This seems almost unbelievable, quite honestly, but it may come back to the issue of the series being about the more 'exceptional' characters in the world. So the 'everyday' Aes Sedai are quite unexceptional. That, or Elayne doesn't know what she's talking about, which is entirely possible.

 

Speaking of tying off, we learned something interesting from Egwene earlier:

“A woman who can give such beatings,” she said, “should have no objections to a milder one.” She

wove another flow of Air quickly; Joiya Byir’s dark eyes bulged in disbelief as the first blow landed across her

hips. Egwene saw how to adjust the weaving so she did not have to maintain it. “You will remember this, and

feel it, when you waken. When I allow you to waken. Remember this, too. If you ever even try to beat me again,

I will return you here and leave you for the rest of your life!” The Black sister’s eyes stared hate at her, but there

was a suggestion of tears in them, too.

Unlike the tingling pain weave, which could be a rather simple mental manipulation, this is the switch weave that Egwene ties off. This demonstrates that things like this, and Rand's (or LTT's) arrows of fire, are single weaves. Rand would not have to weave it each time for every single arrow. He could probably tie it off too. However, things that are tied off but keep using power may still drain the channeler. Similar to why you (now) can't (or it's not efficient) to tie off a gateway.

 

I asked about why Grady didn't tie off the gateways to move Perrin's troops if he was too tired to keep them open. Brandon says that this was part of the instructions he had, so he didn't want to change it (my speculation is that I think that means it was probably in the notes themselves but I don't know that for sure). He said that it makes sense for tying off gateways to have a cost for the channeller to maintain because if it were so easy to create gateways and tie them off, it could be very breaking for the logistics of the world. If this were possible in the Age of Legends for example, why would anyone need a horse or a wagon or to develop any other kind of technology to transport anything? There could just be tied off gateways from everywhere to everywhere else.6

 

6 It should be noted that this is RJ's inconsistency, not Brandon's. RJ had people tying off gateways, and then later, not being able to do it.

 

Or maybe you need bigger flows to make X number more arrows before it finishes. But either way, it would free you up to weave other things while the arrows or switches kept landing.

 

So in summary so far: Creating effects that are more likely to happen naturally is easier than creating them out of nothing. Channelers in general are _horrible_ compared to our heroes. You can tie things off that maintain active effects (though it may still drain the channeler). Skill and possibly 'technique' has a lot to do with channeling over wider areas and in more intricate patterns. Technique may even effect flow thickness in a way, or at least help stretch a channeler to their potential strength in that flow.

 

So given that, if I wanted to shoot 100 lightning bolts at something or someones, but the sky was clear, and I had some setup time, it might actually be worth my time/effort to pull in some cloud cover, or even a storm. Get the clouds good and sparky, then just direct lighting down at my targets instead of pulling it from nothing 100 times.

 

This is the heart of what I think Rand did at Maradon that we've never really seen before (except once *suspense*). Compare Rand's moment to Egwene's at the WT. She did the typical point and shoot of an Aes Sedai. Most people already accept the silliness of women throwing fireballs when they should probably be using water and air more offensively, but Rand has gone even further. He created synergy between all his weaves so they would help maintain each other. He built a situation instead of channeling individual weaves with individual purposes.

 

Clouds of Draghkar spun in the sky, diving for al'Thor. The air above him turned blue, and shards of ice exploded outward, spraying the air like arrows from the bows of an entire banner of archers. The beasts shrieked their inhuman agony, carcasses tumbling to the ground.

Seems like a tied-off ward to me. When they get close, shoot them. Done and done.

 

Light and Power exploded from the Dragon Reborn. He was like an entire army of channelers. Thousands of Shadowspawn died. Deathgates sprang up, striking across the ground, killing hundreds.

This one causes a lot of issues, but it's Ituralde's PoV. He didn't say he's channeling like an entire army of Rands or Forsaken or Egwene/Nynaeve/Elayne-s. He's only had those "everyday" channelers to work with, and they've been exhausted from very early on. Plus, he can't see the actual weaving, so he's just seeing and feeling the effects from the fire, the ice ward, and whatever the death gates do. This is also likely when Rand's DF stare-down power kicks in, which I mentioned before may not have anything to do with his channeling, but possibly disorients trollocs/fades?

 

The Asha'man Naeff—standing beside Bashere—gasped. "I've never seen so many weaves at once," he whispered. "I can't track them all. He's a storm. A storm of Light and streams of Power!"

Clouds began to form and swirl above the city. The wind picked up, howling, and lightning struck from above. Blasts of thunder overpowered the sounds of drums as Trollocs tried in vain to get to al'Thor, climbing over the burning carcasses of their brethren. The swirling white clouds crashed into the black, boiling tempest, intermingling.

I have quoted more of this than is usually done because I think it's important to keep these lines together. Naeff is having a similar experience as Elayne when she was on the seafolk ship. What if Rand was cloud dancing? Remember, complex flows as far as the eye could see on open water? And right after Naeff speaks the storm rolls in. Duh? And this, we know, is a technique and skill thing that I'm sure LTT got pretty good at over his 300 years.

 

Also, Ituralde doesn't know about the seeker lighting from that scene in the stone:

Just beneath the ceiling, right above his head, air slowly began to revolve, spinning faster, milling in

streaks of red and black and silver. It roiled and collapsed inward, boiling harder, whining as it whirled and

grew smaller still.

Sweat rolled down Rand’s face as he stared up at it. He had no idea what it was, only that racing flows

he could not begin to count connected him to the mass. It had mass; a weight growing greater while the thing

fell inward on itself. Callandor flared brighter and brighter, too brilliant to look at; he closed his eyes, and the

light seemed to burn through his eyelids. The Power raced through him, a raging torrent that threatened to carry

all that was him into the spinning. He had to let go. He had to. He forced his eyes open, and it was like looking

at all the thunderstorms in the world compressed to the size of a Trolloc’s head. He had to . . . had to . . . had to.

. . .

Now. The thought floated like cackling laughter on the rim of his awareness. He severed the flows

rushing out of him, leaving the thing still whirling, whining like a drill on bone. Now.

And the lightnings came, flashing out along the ceiling left and right like silver streams.

 

Sounds almost like a mini Maradon, right down to the swirling tempest above his head. But at Maradon, Rand called up the storm to make it easier to get lightning. Among other things...

 

Clouds spinning about one another made funnels into the masses of Trollocs, sweeping across the top of the hill, taking up the creatures into the air. Great waterspouts rose behind, made of flesh and fire. The beasts rained down, falling upon the others.

He created tornadoes, which could be tied off, or just let go if he's good enough at cloud dancing. But they didn't come out of nowhere, he generated them from what's around -- pushed them into being. Then he added water and fire, and they picked up the trollocs and tossed them around.

 

Ituralde watched with awe, the hair on his arms and head rising. There was an energy to the very air itself.

Lots of lightning, duh.

 

Waves of Trollocs broke, the drums faltering. Entire legions of them turned and fled, stumbling up the hillside and over one another, fleeing back toward the Blight.

And so they start running away, clean up time.

 

And I think this is the most telling part:

The tempest of destruction seemed to come to a peak, flashes of light blasting down in time with howling wind, thrumming waves of burning flame, tinkling shards of ice.

It was a masterwork. A terrible, destructive, wonderful masterwork. Al'Thor lifted his hand toward the sky. The winds grew faster, the lightning

strikes larger, the fires hotter. Trollocs screamed, moaned, howled. Ituralde found himself trembling.

Al'Thor closed his hand into a fist, and it all ended.

Rand is like a conductor in front of a symphony. He gets everything going almost one at a time, has everything working together with lovely synergy, tweaking things here and there. He can turn up the volume to the whole system by making adjustments. Faster storm, makes harder tempests, flares the fires brighter, cause more electrical discharges from the cloud activity. Then he stops the winds and everything ends with them.

 

So death gates and rolling fire to take out the guys who got close at the start while Rand built up his storm. And then it was mostly fire/water tornadoes and lightning. Any of these things could have been generated without the storm, but the storm is what makes it doable within Rand's limits.

[Xcorpyo001]

Wow.

I just started another re-read, and I must say the length of this post set me back at least a couple chapters :). I can't even imagine how long it took you to find all those quotes, excluding all the explanations.

Anyway, I went with option b. He's not godlike(he was almost out of gas, even an Accepted would have been a challenge for him then, especially if that accepted was...nevermind).

But he is a lot stronger than everybody of this age, and his 450+ years, many of those fighting everything the DO could throw at him during the AoL, is showing.

But in the end, he'll probably let Egwene have her 'victory', have her lead the forces of the Light, and he'll take out all the heavy hitters of the DO.

I think that near the Bore the Forsaken and the Dreadlords will have a big upgrade/power up, and the channellers of the Light will have problems with their weaves(weaker, random oddities...like the Asha'man encountered near the site where the Bowl was used, but worse)

So near the Bore, he'll probably have enough juice to nullify Moridin and his TP powerstorm. Everybody else will have to carry their weight there. After all, Logain&co still have to win their glory.

[Turin Turambar]

I voted option 2. I was leaning more towards option 1 prior to reading your take. I didn't really like the idea of him becoming "godlike", so being able to go another way there makes my happy. The DF light thing still makes me wonder though.

 

The one thing that pushed me into this choice and not 3 is that in the Stone he ws using Callandor at a level close to its max due to the amount of glow coming off of it. The effect was considerably less. Some of that would be due to being inside and not being able to create the more conducive conditions like at Maradon. With that stated I still believe the level of difference in the two cases and the account of Naeff puts it at a higher power level than others would have achieved. Having integrated the LTT memories probably helped in the thought process of setting the table as it were also.

 

Of course this is all just my opinion. Good question and well thought out reasoning.

[KaptainKaos]

I voted option 2 because it would make sense overall to me but for some reason I feel like making comments somewhat supporting option 3. Most channelers, male and female, have a particular Talent like Nynaeve/Flinn being a powerful Healers. We also know Elayne has particular abilities in identifying and making ter'angreal (perhaps angreal and sa'angreal as well). I don't want to go into a list of all the characters that have certain Talents but I think most cases demonstrate how a channeler can look supremely powerful even to other channelers.

 

Besides Nynaeve's accomplishments in general we get a first-hand look of an Age of Legends Aes Sedai (one of the most powerful actually) being totally astounded by a modern channeler's ability. This is when Moridin witnesses Aviendha taking apart her Gateway so that its destination cannot be determined (I believe they are going to use the bowl of the winds at the time but I can't remember for sure). He is shocked and even scared to a point witnessing this and it shows how sometimes even seasoned and powerful characters like Ishamael/Moridin can be intimidated by other's Talents.

 

Now we know Rand's Talents (Lews Therin's as well from what we've seen) lay in using the One Power as a weapon. He is also known to be excessively powerful, even for a man, with Fire, Earth and Spirit. This combination would create the potential for him to do things other channelers (possibly even Ishamael) to consider what he is capable of to be impossible or outside the normal range of what channelers can do. I would just add that if he was doing godlike/impossible things against the Shadowspawn he wouldn't have been so tired afterwards and admitted that what he had done might have been a mistake.

 

The identifying Darkfriends stuff and people ripping out their eyes because they can't handle looking at him thing is a bit odd though. Also as noted Ituralde sees a glow around him and whether this is really a glow or the lightning doesn't matter. This is because Nynaeve also sees a glow, not around him but protecting him from the madness and this proves something more is at work here although I doubt we will get any answers until the last book comes out.

[UncleButcher1980]

Yeah, option 2 I would think is most likely. Although, even though I wouldn't call it a 'god power', I do think he may be able to have continual access to the One Power if only because his kids did in Aviendha's vision.

[MasterAblar]

I'm just nitpicking here, but I believe LTT was 400 not 300 when he died. Great job with all the quotes. I went with option 3.

[Terez]

Who is Tarez?

 

Also, I don't have a strong enough opinion on this to vote. Not enough information, too many secrets. I do think it's likely he's connected to the Power all the time now, though (like his kids).

[Durinax]

I just think that he increased his efficiency to the point that he can do much more than before

[dwn]

There are a few reasons I think Rand's channeling is mostly unchanged.

 

1) In TEotW Rand routes an army of shadowspawn. It's a smaller one, but still numbered in the tens of thousands, and he was just starting out.

 

2) Rand's insanity has been interfering with his channeling for quite some time. We haven't really seen what he is capable of before. Now that he's at peace with his LTT memories, he can tap his strength and skill unhindered.

 

3) LTT had hundreds of years of channeling experience, and around ten years of direct battle experience. LTT also benefited by having a huge number of peers with similar experience.

 

4) Rand's 'A Storm of Light' channeling is intelligent; he uses waves of fire hug the ground, indirect effects like ice shrapnel and tornados that cover large areas, etc. I think the effectiveness of his channeling is more due to finesse than to sheer power.

 

5) On a similar note, Third Age battle channeling is rooted in third age military tactics--generally not very effective. I think this is analogous to how tactics in the US Civil War and WWI hadn't caught up with modern technology. 'A Storm of Light' shows how someone versed in AoL tactics would approach battle against a low-tech army.

 

-- dwn

[Leyrann]

I voted 2, because I can't believe he hasn't become stronger than he was.

[Louise]

Wow! Kudos for that post, 'twas impressive.

 

I'll agree with Terez here. We havn't seen enough yet.

 

I would say that he has to be more skilled though due to the merge with LTT, he's picked up all his knowledge instead of the dribs and drabs he was getting before.

 

Other than that, I'm on the fence. I'll have to wait for aMoL.

[Dewairah]

I voted 2 - because i think that much is at least a given --- but i'm also open to the possibility of 1, pending new info in aMoL

[smthappy]

I think that the Creator is helping aka he is smth like demigod

[Kahsm]

I'm a little surprised at the number of votes for 3, though most of the comments seem to go for 2. Some nifty thoughts so far. I'll refrain from rebutting directly unless it's something way-off crazy (which I'd probably enjoy to much to argue anyway), or Egwene bashing -- that's out of bounds.

 

I suppose always embraced isn't really a god power relative to channeling strength and. The same limits could still apply... If anything it may be a hindrance for males, since Saidin tends to need to be 'managed' or it would sweep the channeler away (Rand, TSR chap 7).

 

Who is Tarez?

 

I used a competing database? Apparently I tried to put a possessive apostrophe in there too. Both fixed.

[mop]

I voted 3. I don't think he has any more knowledge than Mordin they, both have knowledge of the AoL, he just hasn't pulled off too much like this before because he was insane/lacking his LTT

[MasterAblar]

As far as channeling goes, he seems to be at a LTT level in my opinion. Which in terms of fighting ability is probably higher than anyone, but I'd say Moridin is just as strong as him. I think his skill, knowledge, efficiency have all increased dramatically thanks to the experience from LTT's memories, but his raw strength in the Power is the same as before.

[Hadilmir]

I'm a little surprised at the number of votes for 3, though most of the comments seem to go for 2.

Your argument was convincing, the Maradon Showdown seems to just be Rand weaving in a very intelligent manner. I do not think most #3 voters are saying Ishmael could have pulled it off, but that it was Rand's style of weaving not his strength that allowed such a feat. Meaning Rand is just as powerful as he always was, equal with Moridin, and hasn't passed the maximum threshold for male channelers or any nonsense like that. Were Moridin to have seen this he could probably duplicate it, but only in the way that a master guitarist could copy a piece composed by a far better composer than himself.

 

*Aww, Master Ablar ninja'd me.

[Xcorpyo001]

I'm a little surprised at the number of votes for 3, though most of the comments seem to go for 2.

Your argument was convincing, the Maradon Showdown seems to just be Rand weaving in a very intelligent manner. I do not think most #3 voters are saying Ishmael could have pulled it off, but that it was Rand's style of weaving not his strength that allowed such a feat. Meaning Rand is just as powerful as he always was, equal with Moridin, and hasn't passed the maximum threshold for male channelers or any nonsense like that. Were Moridin to have seen this he could probably duplicate it, but only in the way that a master guitarist could copy a piece composed by a far better composer than himself.

 

*Aww, Master Ablar ninja'd me.

 

 

I don't think any Forsaken can pull that off.

The Chosen were very close in power to LTT. If they can pull only half of that, then:

-Lanfear would have destroyed the entire city of Cairhien when she found out that Rand 'cheated' on her

-Ba'al could have killed 500 Aiel raiding the stone in one second, eat a couple donuts and obliterate Rand without even trying

-Rahvin could have toppled the entire palace in Caemlyn on him

-Sammael was killing 50 soldiers at a time..why not his entire army sent to attack Illian?

When he was cleansing the saidin, they really wanted to kill him. I think the entire Forsaken team and Moridin using TP(and I'm not talking about toilet paper) could have made a hole the size of Andor in that place. Instead, they were defeated by a bunch of AS and Ashaman.

The Ashaman watching Zen Rand at Marador said that he's like an entire army of OP users.

[Hadilmir]

I don't think any Forsaken can pull that off.

The Chosen were very close in power to LTT. If they can pull only half of that, then:

-Lanfear would have destroyed the entire city of Cairhien when she found out that Rand 'cheated' on her

-Ba'al could have killed 500 Aiel raiding the stone in one second, eat a couple donuts and obliterate Rand without even trying

-Rahvin could have toppled the entire palace in Caemlyn on him

-Sammael was killing 50 soldiers at a time..why not his entire army sent to attack Illian?

When he was cleansing the saidin, they really wanted to kill him. I think the entire Forsaken team and Moridin using TP(and I'm not talking about toilet paper) could have made a hole the size of Andor in that place. Instead, they were defeated by a bunch of AS and Ashaman.

The Ashaman watching Zen Rand at Marador said that he's like an entire army of OP users.

Please reread my post, thanks

 

*Actually, because I'm grumpy, I'll go ahead and spell it out for you. (Take this as a warning, I am grumpy. If you are easily offended, this may not be for you. The points are all, however, still valid)

 

I don't think any Forsaken can pull that off.

I never implied any but Moridin could perform such feat, though I expect some of the other Males could.

 

-Lanfear would have destroyed the entire city of Cairhien when she found out that Rand 'cheated' on he

Her goal wasn't Cairhien, it was Rand. Done. That was too easy, I didn't even have to go into the part where I never implied anything of the sort.

 

-Ba'al could have killed 500 Aiel raiding the stone in one second, eat a couple donuts and obliterate Rand without even trying

His goal wasn't the Stone, the Aiel, or even Rand. It was Callandor. Done, but I still never implied Be'lal pulling off Maradon.

 

-Rahvin could have toppled the entire palace in Caemlyn on him

Rahvin could have done a lot of things, but destroying the Caemlyn Palace would have been destroying his only power-base. Drawing Rand into T'A'R where he nearly killed him was by far the more intelligent thing to do. Again, I never stated Rahvin could have performed Maradon.

 

-Sammael was killing 50 soldiers at a time..why not his entire army sent to attack Illian?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since when did "Weiramon was still sending charges against the fort when I left, and Sammael cuts every one to rags" and "any time Sammael sees fifty of us together, Aiel or anybody, he rips them apart" become "50 at a time"? The number 50 here is to demonstrate anything looking like an attacking force gets wiped out. Sammael has been doing this defensive fighting for days, because he doesn't want to attack the army himself and start a showdown between himself and Rand. He knows how many Forsaken have already lost to Rand at that point. So again, Sammael is doing the intelligent thing, but hey, I never implied otherwise.

 

When he was cleansing the saidin, they really wanted to kill him. I think the entire Forsaken team and Moridin using TP(and I'm not talking about toilet paper) could have made a hole the size of Andor in that place. Instead, they were defeated by a bunch of AS and Ashaman.

The Ashaman watching Zen Rand at Marador said that he's like an entire army of OP users.

Or maybe it's because none of them worked together? Anything quick enough to be effective before being detected would not have passed through the shield held by Cadsuane and her angreal; and excluding balefire, nothing that could have penetrated that shield before the channeler was blasted by one of the circles who were intent on doing exactly that.

[MasterAblar]

I'm a little surprised at the number of votes for 3, though most of the comments seem to go for 2.

Your argument was convincing, the Maradon Showdown seems to just be Rand weaving in a very intelligent manner. I do not think most #3 voters are saying Ishmael could have pulled it off, but that it was Rand's style of weaving not his strength that allowed such a feat. Meaning Rand is just as powerful as he always was, equal with Moridin, and hasn't passed the maximum threshold for male channelers or any nonsense like that. Were Moridin to have seen this he could probably duplicate it, but only in the way that a master guitarist could copy a piece composed by a far better composer than himself.

 

*Aww, Master Ablar ninja'd me.

 

 

I don't think any Forsaken can pull that off.

The Chosen were very close in power to LTT. If they can pull only half of that, then:

-Lanfear would have destroyed the entire city of Cairhien when she found out that Rand 'cheated' on her

-Ba'al could have killed 500 Aiel raiding the stone in one second, eat a couple donuts and obliterate Rand without even trying

-Rahvin could have toppled the entire palace in Caemlyn on him

-Sammael was killing 50 soldiers at a time..why not his entire army sent to attack Illian?

When he was cleansing the saidin, they really wanted to kill him. I think the entire Forsaken team and Moridin using TP(and I'm not talking about toilet paper) could have made a hole the size of Andor in that place. Instead, they were defeated by a bunch of AS and Ashaman.

The Ashaman watching Zen Rand at Marador said that he's like an entire army of OP users.

 

Rand was left completely exhausted from his channeling feat. In all the exemples you gave, being left exhausted would be a very bad idea for any of the forsaken. Also, in every exemple you gave apart from the one with Bel'al, there were channelers opposing the forsaken. There was not a single channeler opposing Rand at Maradon. Furthermore:

 

1) What would be the point in Lanfear doing that? She was pissed off at Rand, not at every living person in the city. Perhaps after killing Rand she would have gone on a rampage. She actually wiped aside any non-channeler who tried to fight her without even looking at them, and, apart from Rand, the channelers who opposed her didn't fare much better.

 

2) Again the Bel'al didn't give two figs about the Aiel, what he wanted was Callandor, and only Rand could give him that. Obliterating Rand would have achieved nothing and killing all the Aiel, which he didn't care about in the first place, might of, for all he knew, scared Rand off. Also the Aiel were spread out through hallways and undoubtebly on different floors. And the Stone of Tear is massively warded, so tearing it down is not going to be easy.

 

3) Rand is a channeler and was already quite capable of defending himself at this point. You're not going to fight a channeler the same way as fighting non-channelers.

 

4) Well, like I said, there were channelers, Asha'man, opposing him so he didn't exactly have a clear field in front of him, and he had to be careful of being attacked himself, and leaving himself exhausted was not an option. It would be a huge risk. Also, I doubt the situation was exactly like at Maradon where Rand had the entire army of shadowspawn spread out before him, and probably tightly packed together, with, again, no channelers to support them.

 

The Forsaken at the Cleansing were, quite simply, complete morons. If they had worked together, they could have taken Rand out, but they each acted independently, and, therefore, failed spectacularly and pathetically. I believe RJ called this Dumb Evil. Also, they were once again fighting channelers, not trollocs. Finally I don't believe Moridin could have taken part in the fighting anyway, even if he would bother himself with fighting with the regular forsaken, because it is my understanding that for the duration of the Cleansing he was pretty much Out of Order. In other word Rand was channeling so much saidin that Moridin, couldn't stand it and had to step outside the pattern (at least I think I read that somewhere).

 

In any case I'm not saying that all the Forsaken, or even any of them, are neccesarily capable of doing what Rand did, just that there isn't concrete evidence of them, or at least the strongest of them, not being able to do so. I do consider Rand/LTT to be the best at fighting with the power, whether against other channelers or against non-channelers. However, I feel that what he showed at Maradon was not evidence of godly powers, but simply the strongest man in the world pushing himself pretty much to his limits, channeling with utmost efficiency and skill, against a very vulnerable enemy.

 

And Rand was pissed. That counts too.

[Turin Turambar]

I think the part of choice 2 is that he is more skilled at this point than ANY other channeler. Others may be able to recreate his masterwork after studying his techniques. None have at this point, so he is more skilled. His power level can definitely be argued as the skills he used may have only made him appear to be stronger.

[Lacanos]

Sammael does similar things on a smaller scale against Rand's forces that are attacking.

 

The Glow issue is a little inconsistent though. We're told Male Channelers don't glow, yet even pre-VoG, when Rand nukes Graendal's fortress, in the lead up to that Min sees Rand glowing and thinks along the lines of Rand being the power incarnate (read this yesterday but pretty much bedridden atm).

[Kahsm]

Just a note regarding why the forsaken haven't done something similar if they could.

 

I think the key is that Maradon was mostly simple, near-mindless trash killing. Doing all that is pretty pointless if you're off to fight other channelers. Just balefire or shoot him with something while he "preps". I mean you could feel that kinda channeling from a mile away. Could "undo" the weather changes, or worse yet, if you set up a storm, another channeler could use it against you without having done any work. So that would be why channeler v. channeler fights are quite different.

 

I think of it like an allomancer fight when both have Atium. Either blow it early and hope you drop your target quick. Or hold out as long as you can before you burn it, and hope they run out first.

 

Hope you've all read Mistborn.

[Ogrelin]

Voted nr 3, he's just that good :)

[Dewairah]

I can barely focus one 1 thing at a time when i'm pissed ,let alone hundreds.

 

Rand MUST be superman