one word....Asmodean..... ;-)

[Bob T Dwarf]

Next we have to ask ourselves how much we're willing to bet that Rand would certainly have known that a man was channeling' date=' and whether there are any ways to invert balefire while using it..[/quote']

 

Except that inverted weaves haven't been introduced yet. Plus they take longer to prepare. The death happenend too quickly. Rand would certainly have known if a man were channeling from no more than one flight up.

 

A Crown of Swords, A Crown of Swords:

 

A man channeled. For a moment, Rand froze, staring at the Great Hall of the Council. That had been enough of saidin for a gateway; he might not have felt a much smaller channeling the length of the square. It had to be Sammael.

 

Does anyone seriously think it's not reasonable to suspect BF' date=' given the description of Asmo's death? I'm not saying it's for sure, but lacking evidence to the contrary, I'm going to take it as a clear hint that BF was used..(Alys, I know we already covered this, but it's in response to Bob's post). The question is not if mundane means would have been sufficient, but would they have resulted in the description we have. I feel with RJ, you have to parse carefully.

 

J[/quote']

 

It's reasonable if you're fixated on a supernatural method of death. The phrasing doesn't really indicate anything other than that death was instant.

[Alys Kinch]

**I'd make it late morning attack. There was the rather extensive dustup on the Cairhein docks first. Probably early afternoon when Asmo was killed. **

 

that's what i said. are you trying to nitpick just so you don't exactly agree with me?!? ;)

[Bob T Dwarf]

But, of course Grey Poupon?

[Bob T Dwarf]

:idea: it has to be either shadar haran or moridin.

 

i'd be willing to place my bet on moridin he most likely has asmodean's soul hanging around his neck along with lanfear does any one recall little cyndane or cyndi or whatever her name is?it is her highness (:roll: )lanfear herself.

 

Oh, I really, REALLY want it to be Shadar Haran, but Jordan has flatly stated that the DO did not order Asmo killed. Doing so entirely on his own is just a wee tad outside the parameters SH has been operating under, so far.

 

None of those Forsaken known to have been killed had yet made their transmigrated appearances, so Moridin is out.

[Paradoxic]

Saldaen random assassination ranks higher in my book of "necessary assumptions and reader-based story creations" than Lanfear/Moiraine... and I'm a Graendal supporter. [by the way, the best 'wish' for Lanfear that would fit the situation would be something like "to hurt Rand" or "kill someone close to Rand" or "Kill someone Rand needs"; just thought of this several pages back when we discussed why Lanfear would have killed Asmodean instead of the girls.]

 

Moridin and Shaidar Haran are not suspects, Pheobe, sorry. Robert Jordan stated that the person who killed Asmodean should be 'intuitively obvious' at the moment of his death. This means that the only suspects are ones that were introduced before Asmodean's death. These two weren't introduced until later books.

 

Realistically, the murder only needed 1 incident of channeling. Balefire would have done the killing and the cleanup all in one go. The killer would not have Traveled away from the scene just incase someone came to investigate the channeling and could read the weaves used to travel... thus tracking our assassin back to home base. I definately do not believe Graendal would have chanced it, even given the very rare possibility of that talent existing amongst the wise women; she is not one to underestimate her opponents.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Has anybody seen even one instance of anybody throttling back on their weaves? Of it even being possible? You get what your inherent strength and training provides. No more, no less. If it were possible to modulate balefire, they never would have mutually stopped using it during the War of Power.

 

Some weaves take very little power, and anybody who can channel can make them. Some take a LOT of Power and not everybody can manage those. Balefire takes lots. Gateways take lots. Even then the strength of the balefire is a factor of the strength of the caster just as the size of the gateway is a factor of the strength of the caster.

 

Moiraine could barely manage to create balefire, and the strength of her blast was only enough to erase a second or two of time.

 

Graendal, now; one of the strongest channelers from the Age of Legends. Few had equaled her and even fewer had surpassed her. Her balefire would have blasted through Asmo, through the door, across the hall and bored a hole all the way outside. Asmo might have awoken from Rand's balefiring of Rahvin only to immediately disappear from Graendal's.

[Talya]

Paradox, to carry on the reasons for Lanfear....she could have asked to get to Aviendia. The finns placed her the cupboard but Asmo walks in and ruins it all including his own life.....just something I thought of why reading your post.

[Guest Egwene]

didn't Rand modulate balefire? I am sure he goes around using 'mini' balefires somewhere...

[Alys Kinch]

yeah, egwene, in rhiudean, i thought, with the dark hounds.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Remembering what had happened before, Rand darted to one side as he channeled, the shaft of liquid white fire streaking by the door as it destroyed the Shadowspawn He had tried to make it less this time, to confine the destruction to the Darkhounds, but the thick wall at the far end of the chamber had a shadowed hole in it. Not all the way through, he thought - it was hard to tell by moonlight - but he would have to fine his control of this weapon.

 

He's not yet at near his full strength. This is only the second time he's used balefire. He tries to modulate the balefire, but seems to only succeed in focusing it a little better.

 

We don't know how far back Rand erased things. Mat had been holding the door against the Darkhounds for awhile. They'd managed to chew a big hole through the bronze sheathing and the door itself before Rand arrived. The door was still a mess, but the hole afterwards was only large enough that Mat had barely been slobbered on.

 

By the point he takes out Rahvin, when his strength and training have increased further, his backstep seems to be at about a half hour.

[Guest Egwene]

In fact, in the fighting after he killed Rahvin:

 

Quote: Shafts of balefire leaped from his hands as fast as he could weave them, narrower than his liitle finger, precise and cut off as soon as they struck. They were much less powerful than the one he had used against Rahvin....... It seemed to make little difference.... (i.e. it was as effective)

[Alys Kinch]

thanks, eg. he first started trying in rhiudean, but i knew he did little ones somewhere.

[Bob T Dwarf]

OK. If you guys want it to be balefire so badly, prove who both had the capability and experience with "mini-balefire" and also prove they were present in Caemlyn when Asmo was killed.

 

Obvious also means provable. Nobody can make a provable case for any of the Forsaken. There are really only six people who can be proven to be in the palace at the time of the murder. ( Bashere's escort of ten is presumed, but not proven to be. )

[BenTGaidin]

Moridin and Shaidar Haran are not suspects' date=' Pheobe, sorry. Robert Jordan stated that the person who killed Asmodean should be 'intuitively obvious' at the moment of his death. This means that the only suspects are ones that were introduced before Asmodean's death. These two weren't introduced until later books.[/quote']

 

 

Except that Moridin is Ishy, who's been around since the first book. We don't have to know that he's taken another identity to suspect him as the killer.

 

 

Ben T-Gaidin

[Alys Kinch]

problem is, bob, that we don't have to be able to prove it, but logically be able to place them in the position to be able to do it. all we have is circumstatial. for any one. so i will fall back on my old idea. ask the blog. if a direct answer gets turned down, ask details. i do want to know by the end. if it isn't important to the plot anymore, or in amol, he should be able to tell us.

[Bob T Dwarf]

No, Ben, as of the end of The Fires of Heaven, we have no reasonable expectation that anybody like Moridin exists.

 

Rand only thought he'd killed Ba'alzamon in the first two books. He hadn't. The death in Tear was the only time he actually did kill him. Since none of the Forsaken who'd died had reappeared in any form, we had no expectation that transmigration was possible.

 

Those that the DO has transmigrated don't attain sufficient strength to survive in the real world until later in the series.

 

I agree, alys. It's really impossible to make anything other than a circumstantial case against anyone. The only real thing the Saldaean idea has going for it is that there is no need to invent a reason for them being there. It's still necessary to accept that whoever Asmo ran into was a DF who knew he was on the hitlist, and that's still a little bit of a stretch.

 

I'm not in love with the idea of some random Saldaean DF killer, it's just that that's the only possibility I can see from those we know were there.

[Jedimuppet]

didn't Rand modulate balefire? I am sure he goes around using 'mini' balefires somewhere...

 

Yeah, he totally has. I can't remember specifically, but I do remember him choosing to use just a little bit of the power at one point or another.

 

Also, of course you can modulate it. If you can choose how much power you use to shield, or lift, or hold or whatever, why not in how much you put into your BF?

 

J

[Bob T Dwarf]

No, there really isn't any evidence that he can modulate it.

 

He can focus it. He can control the duration of each blast. But, the intensity of the effect... ???

 

The problem with balefire is that the degree to which it rewinds time is a direct result of the strength of the caster. If it had been possible for a strong caster to throttle back on the rewind, they never would have abandoned it as a weapon in the War of Power. Just step it down to where the rewind is only 1/10th of a second or less. It would have become just another weapon in their arsenal, rather than something that both sides voluntarily abandoned.

 

So, if balefire was used... and we have no proof it was... the only possible suspect would be Moiraine, since she's the only one we know of whose rewind effect would be short enough that it might pass unnoticed. Anybody else would have rewound time to such an extent that everyone in the palace would have noticed the effect.

[Jedimuppet]

No' date=' there really isn't any evidence that he can modulate it.

 

He can focus it. He can control the duration of each blast. But, the intensity of the effect... ???

 

The problem with balefire is that the degree to which it rewinds time is a direct result of the strength of the caster. If it had been possible for a strong caster to throttle back on the rewind, they never would have abandoned it as a weapon in the War of Power. Just step it down to where the rewind is only 1/10th of a second or less. It would have become just another weapon in their arsenal, rather than something that both sides voluntarily abandoned.[/quote']

 

The effect BF has on time is a direct effect on the amount of strength put into the blast. Obviously the upper end of this is the strength of the caster, but they can choose how much strength they put into it.

 

I would never have thought that would be a talking point, as it is mentioned in the books.

J

[Bob T Dwarf]

If it's so controllable, why did they abandon it in the War of Power?

[Jedimuppet]

If it's so controllable' date=' why did they abandon it in the War of Power?[/quote']

 

Because it's dangerous no matter how much you use. It always unwravels the patter, just more or less depending on how much power you use. If you use so little power to stop the pattern degradation, you've just nullified the usefullness of your weapon.

 

That's why. Plust, don't you remember Rand sometimes using a finger thin ray vs a white hot brick sized bar? Read around. He sometimes thinks about using just enough of the power to do that particular job.

J

[Bob T Dwarf]

The size of the "bar" and the duration of the blast are varied so as to minimize collateral damage. He wants to take out this Myrddraal, but not that soldier that the Myddraal is fighting as well. Maybe he just wants to kill the enemy but not blow a hole in the wall behind that enemy as well.

 

There is no indication that such change in bitstream size or digital frequency has any effect on the damage to the timestream.

 

Let's take Mat and Aviendha as an example. They're talking in the garden. Maybe Mat's strolling around. Asmo goes to look for some wine and gets balefired behind that door. Mat now finds himself 5 feet from where he was and in the middle of saying something he'd already said. Or, maybe he just wonders why the music suddenly stopped in midtune and how Asmo vanished.

 

Balefire doesn't just take out the person. It undoes all of his interactions for some period of time into the past. It's use is very noticable.

[Jedimuppet]

The size of the "bar" and the duration of the blast are varied so as to minimize collateral damage. He wants to take out this Myrddraal' date=' but not [i']that[/i] soldier that the Myddraal is fighting as well. Maybe he just wants to kill the enemy but not blow a hole in the wall behind that enemy as well.

 

There is no indication that such change in bitstream size or digital frequency has any effect on the damage to the timestream.

 

Umm ok. I suggest maybe you read when the timestream is badly affected, and what the bar looked like. He very obviously can change the strength of BF. You can't change just one component by saying, oh, I'd like it to take out this wall, but be minimal in damage to the pattern. They're bundled. Using less of the power makes the BF less destructive, both to the pattern, and the target.

 

I think this is a side debate, though, because I've never heard of anyone thinking that pattern damage is constant no matter how much power you use.

J

[Bob T Dwarf]

Your theory of balefire makes it possible to reduce the timestream effect to where it could become nothing more than a disintegration ray. Just make the target vanish at the point in time when the beam strikes. Very useful weapon. Nobody would abandon using that.

[Talya]

Bob, There must be someway to control balefire because I'm sure during the AOL it was used to destroy cities. So you must be able to control the strength of it because there is alot of difference between one man and millions. (I know they were probably linked used Sa'angreal)but it's still a matter of control.

When someone wants to light a fire they control how much of their strength they use when producing the flame to do it, if it was always at their max strength you have alot of singed eyebrows to say the least. Why would it be any different here.

I hope this makes sense in what I'm trying to say.