A common misconception about Moiraine

[MasterAblar]

Look, if it actually came from a scholar that may be the case. But the BWB was written from RJ's notes to supplement and flesh out our understanding of the world. There may be some misdirection(although I would be interested to see any glaring errors or examples). The fact remains that if you can match textual evidence with claims from BWB their is very little reason to believe it wouldn't be true.

 

The problem when people make your claim in relation to the BWB is if there was false info listed for every time someone tries to denounce it because it doesn't fit their theory or a point they are trying to make, there wouldn't be one shred of truth in the entire book.

 

If those textual claims are made on shaky foundations, then I see no reason to believe that they are absolutely true. Yes the BWB was written to flesh out the WoT world, but that doesn't change the fact that some things found in it may not be true.

 

I don't have the BWB in the first place, so I know very little of what's in it. However, the claim that Lanfear was strongest after Ishamael is no more certain when said in the BWB than when it is said by Moiraine. Both have false knowledge (women and men being equal in strength) which will have influenced their belief.

You don't need to accept them as absolutely true, only as most probably true. We have statements to support it being true, precious little to contradict it.

 

As I say, we don't know what evidence the BWB's claim is based, nor do we know what evidence Moiraine's claim is based on. Did they find something stating "Lanfear is as strongas a woman can be", and therefore take from that that she is the second strongest Chosen, vying with Aginor, and behind Ishamael"? Doubtful. While the information from the AS in this instance or from the BWB could be wrong, there is no evidence to suggest that it is.

 

 

There is no evidence to suggest that it is right.

Which would imply that you treat every source, no matter how reliable, as wrong until proven otherwise. Any particular reason why? The BWB is a very reliable source, just not completely reliable.

 

I don't have the BWB so I need to ask: does it say Lanfear is uncontested second to Ishamael, or does it say she and Aginor are vying for that place? If it is the first, than I do not see how that claim can possibly be true, when you have two Forsaken like Aginor and Demandred who are said to be very close behind LTT in strength.

 

And there is evidence. First of all there is of course Asmodean's revelation of the difference in strength between men and women, which to me put's Lanfear's position as second strongest in big doubt.

Because men are stronger than women? Hardly, as we know Ishamael is stronger than her anyway.

But there is also Rahvin stating that he or Sammael could overwhelm Lanfear face to face. While he could just be lying to himself (although it's a pretty big lie when you consider that she should be according to you second strongest after Ishamael), what reason would he have to mention Sammael? He also says Lanfear and Greandal would link if he or Sammael tried anything. What reason would Lanfear have to link with Greandal, whom she does not like at all, if she had nothing to worry about fighting Rahvin or Sammael in close quarters?

Men cannot sense the strength of women directly, nor women of men, unless they link. So unless Rahvin and Lanfear have linked at some point in the past, he doesn't know how strong she is, he can only estimate. On the other hand, he only needs to be in the vicinity of Sammael when he's drawing on the Power to know how strong he is. It's harder to lie to yourself about. It's also harder to accept the lie that two women as strong as Lanfear and Graendal are weaker than him when linked. Him being stronger than Lanfear is the easiest lie out of stronger than Lanfear, stronger than Sammael, and stronger than both women.

Also according to RJ, Rand could have defeated Lanfear in Cairhien had he let LTT fight. Letting LTT take over, would have increased his skill, knowledge, and experience, but certainly not his strength. And yet he could have defeated her face to face, which means he had to have been stronger than her at that point, even knowing how skilled at fighting LTT was (and Lanfear was pretty damn good at figthing as well, and had just as much knowledge and experience as LTT.

You don't have to be stronger than someone to beat them in a fight.

Considering that he was equal to Asmodean, just one book before, that he believed himself to be equal to Rahvin just moments after his battle with Lanfear, that an Ashaman thought he and Sammael were about equal at the end of aCoS, and, finally, that Osangar was as strong as Rand just moments before Rand went off to fight Sammael (which means that either the Ashaman was slightly off about Sammael's stength, or that Osangar was acutally holding back a little so as to not draw suspicion, or that Osangar and Sammael are acually equal in strength, which is rather unlikely), it seems to me there are plenty of reasons to believe that the BWB and Moiraine were mistaken and there actually are male Forsaken who were stronger than Lanfear.

A battlefield is not the best place to gauge someone's strength in the Power - Sammael arrived and proceeded to lay an army low. It's not like anyone was able to get close and judge effectively how well he matched with Rand. That leaves room for more than slightly off about his strength. Also, Rand and Asmo were equally matched when drawing through the CK. Do you have a quote suggesting they were equally matched in strength without assistance?

 

Levels of strength stop at 21 for women and go on for several (let's say 4) for men, and stop at 25. That means that if Lanfear is indeed second strongest after Ishamael, then there are no men on levels: 24, 23, 22, and 21. And we're talking about the top Forsaken, two of which (Aginor and Demandred are said to be almost as strong as LTT, so level 25). Unless there is like a 1% difference in strength between levels down to level 20, then I don't see how Aginor can be nearly as strong as LTT, and quite honestly there would be no point at all for levels 22, 23, and 24 since there will be no channellers at those levels. If the strength levels are spread evenly (say 4% between each), then you come out to a 20% difference between LTT and Aginor, who is on level 20. If I'm 20% slower than Usain Bolt on the 100m, then I am most certainly not close behind him in speed.

Why should we say four levels? Why not two? So that leaves only one blank level between Ishy and Aginor/Lanfear. Also, there can be a reason for those levels as there are more male channelers than just the Chosen - what if RJ wanted a level or two to slot Taim or Logain in? Also, Aginor should be on level 21 if he is vying with Lanfear.

 

Strength in the Power was not a hugely important factor in determining rankings amongst the Chosen. People would rise and fall based on their accomplishments, their politicial abilities, and their ability to destroy their opponents. Also, RJ was vague enough that we can't really judge how big a gap there was between strongest man and strongest woman, how big a jump those "several levels" really indicates. It could indicate that aside from Ishy and Aginor they are outside the top 5% of the strength scale. After all, no-one said levels had to be evenly spaced.

 

Again for Aginor: is he vying with Lanfear for second strongest, or is Lanfear second strongest in the BWB?

 

Strength did not decide everything (afterall Aginor got little respect from the other Forsaken), but when you look at how strong the women are then you can tell that it wasn't unimportant either. Lanfear is as strong as a woman can be, Greandal has almost none ahead of her, Semirhage is nearly as strong as Nyneave who we know is extremely strong, and Moghedien was equal to Nyneave at the end of tSR, and at that point Nyneave was stronger than Egwene, who was stronger than Moiraine, who was nearly the strongest Aes Sedai alive.

 

As for levels not being evenly spaced, there would be little point to making such a scale. RJ mainly used it to keep track of who had to defer to who among the Aes Sedai. A scale that jumped 5% here, and then 10% there, and then only 2% here, would be quite pointless. Why make a scale that isn't evenly spaced?

You've already said why - RJ made the scale for AS strength rankings. So he needs the most levels in bands occupied by AS, to better represent subtle differences in strength, but he needs rather less in bands with no AS, and few if any channelers. He could ditch the bottom 30% with a couple of "too weak to be AS" levels, whereas an even distribution would surely dictate that the weakest third of channeling strengths would take up a third of the levels - 7, on a 21 level scale. It should be noted that 13th Depository's list has AS at levels 4-14 (rising to level 18 if you include Nynaeve, and 19 for Sharina). And in case you were wondering, RJ stated on his blog that "Regarding the percentage of women who could test for the shawl, it would be 62.5% of the bell curve", so that 30% isn't just a number I made up.

 

Well, Sanderson's knowledge of the books and the notes is not perfect. He could be unsure simply because he hasn't committed the strength rankings of the Chosen to memory (I know, how selfish). If he can't remember off the top of his head who is stronger, then he might not be sure of the comparison to Nynaeve.

 

Yeah, it's true that he may not be certain, but, while certainly none of them are conclusive, it's little things like this that to me suggest that Moghedien is weaker.

Indeed. To me, little things like that aren't indicative of anything much.

 

I'd wouldn't mind countinuing this but seeing as Yoni0 wants this to stop, I'll just let it rest here. I highly doubt we'd convince each other of anything anyways.

 

Oh, and I just took 4 because that fits with how I rank the Forsaken in power, and because several could be 4. Just like it could be 3, 5, and perhaps more though I doubt it. Personally I wouldn't use several for 2, but maybe that's just me.