Verin in the stedding........

[bigdoug1971]

Hello fellow WOT maniacs! I'm doing a very slow re-read (for the 20th time) so that I'm ready for the final book in January and it's all fresh in my mind. Cannot wait for the ending!!.....

 

Anyway, when Rand, and company are chasing Fain and his darkfriends after they take the horn back from Rand in Carhein and leave through the Waygate at Barthanes manor they cannot follow because Machin Shin is waiting there for them when Rand, Hurin, and Loial open the gate. As we know, they head for Stedding Tsofu to ask the Elders if they can use the Waygate there.

 

Before they are allowed to try going into the Ways, the Elders bring an Ogier in that was caught by the black wind in the Ways. The Eldest Ogier asks Verin to touch him. Verin touches him then "With a sharp hiss, she jerked back, staring up at him, the whirled to face the Elders. "He is.....empty. This body lives, but there is nothing inside it. Nothing."

 

 

I've always had a problem with this happening. How can she tell? She's inside the Stedding with no access to the one power. By touching him, she clearly gets some sense of the "emptiness" or she wouldn't have reacted the way she did when she touched the Ogier. We know from later books that Verin has no Well like Cadsuane or Nyneave. Again, how can she tell he's empty by touching him? Could Rand or one of the others touched him and felt the same thing? Without the Power, she certainly wasn't Delving him, and just by watching his mannerisms with the Ogier wiping the drool from his mouth and they way he was led into the room would be enough for them all to see something was wrong with him in the first place. What made her react that way from her touch?

[fuzz1717]

I never really understood this myself. I'm assuming it has to do with the power, and Verin claims to be one of the most skilled AS at Delving. Maybe after Delving for so long, she was able to recognize certain things without the direct use of the Power.

[Suttree]

Nope, no power was used. RJ said she could tell by touch that his soul was gone.

[spoke]

Berlain does the same thing with Perrin when she had him in her tent. She mentions that he felt so cold as if his soul was gone, and she cannot channel.

[thisguy]

I asked the same question. Apparently, it has nothing to do with the power.