Cyndane's Strength (poll)

[RobertAlexWillis]

Not once in the entire battle does it appear that Rand has the upper hand. Not once.

 

That's because Rand nevr struck at Lanfear. Not once. He defended himself, he defended people around him, but he never tried to kill Lanfear. Thats not evidence that he couldn't, if he tried, its evidence that he has a mental problem.

 

How can another person "heal" another's social standing. The language seems pretty clear and it takes some pretty extreme verbal gymnastics to make them say anything else.

 

I agree with that statement. The context in the quote is quite clear.

 

Lanfear was an exceptionally strong forsaken, why wouldn't she still be stong enough to maintain the minimum strength standards of Forsaken?

 

Because the range of requirements to be Forsaken seems to be much smaller than the range allowed to become Aes Sedai, so a 50% drop would drop Lanfear out of Forsaken range, when it would not necessarily drop Siuan and Leane out of Aes Sedai range.

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

At this point, a slightly altered or augmented female Healing after stilling seems to me the most likely scenario to have affected Lanfear. Perhaps its as simple as the Healer using an angreal, or a sa'angreal. Perhaps its because Lanfear was burned out, rather than neatly severed.

 

Whatever the case, there are reasons other than her decrease in power to think that Lanfear was burned out by the ter'angreal (the fact that she didn't kick the crap out of the Eelfinn and kill Moiraine is a big one, among others). I haven't seen any other remotely believable (to me, obviously) scenario. The Eelfinn just can't do that kind of thing, and if they could, why wouldn't they just cut her all the way off for melting their doorway? And the Dark One would have no reason to do it to her, although he most likely could do something like that if he wanted to.

 

Any new candidates or theories?

[rochaid]

In respects to the lanfear/rand strength; Rand thinks many times durin the battle that he could kill her easily by calling lightning or such. He seems to be sayin this with confidence so Rand (imo) seems to be more powerful in strentgh...

[Thor]

To add to that, think of it this way, if someone is swinging a 50kg hammer at you continuously and you don't try to avoid or strike back, even if you are stronger, what do you think will happen?

 

If you watched Troy the movie, in the fight between Paris and what's his name (Algamenon or his brother can't remember name), Paris ended up getting repeatedly hammered and got bogged down.

 

Same thing happened to Rand.

[cloglord]

Again guys, read that passage.

 

Rochaid, he does not think several times that he could call lightning or fire and kill her, he thinks it once.

 

Rand tries clubbing her with air, and thinks about knocking her out with his fists. He isn't against hurting her, he's against killing her. Yet somehow at the end he can't even manage to knock her out? If he's so much stronger, why din't he do what he had intended to do at the beggining of the fight, and knock her out. If he's that much stronger why didn't he try shielding her, as she was trying to do to him? How is it that she was even close to being able to shield him while he was wielding the source already? The answer, she was as strong as him.

 

Thor, if he was that much stronger why didn't he just take her metaphoric hammer?

 

 

Another thought to add to the burnout/healing hypotheticals. What if healing by a woman exacts an single one time cost without relation to strength? Say, Suiane had 40 apples worth of OP ability and Lanfear had 100 apples worth, and the cost of healing is, was, and will always be 25 apples. That would explain why Suian would have lost proportionally more power than Lanfear/Cyandane. Who says it has to be a proportion of lost power?

[rd2000]

That's exactly what some people have been trying to say for the last 4 pages.

 

The only way we will ever know is if RJ gives more information. We just don't know enough right now to determine the truth.

[Cybertrolloc]

That's exactly what some people have been trying to say for the last 4 pages.

 

The only way we will ever know is if RJ gives more information. We just don't know enough right now to determine the truth.

Poll says only 9% responding would agree (are you the other one)? Even me over here in the Finn never did anything like that we know of and it doesn't seem that RJ wants them to be too powerful and so forth land will say wait, they did give Mat that nifty OP stopping amulet (whether they made it themselves or not). Oh, Finnsdunnit is polling at 33%...

[Thor]

There is only two possibilities.

 

Either the Finns did it, or that the drop in power is a constant and not a percentage of the original strength.

 

The first one seems more believable to me.

 

I don't think RJ will bother giving clarification on this though, and I don't really care whether he does or not since it does not affect the whole story.

 

And no, Rand is far stronger than Lanfear, you just don't want to admit it.

[rd2000]

That's exactly what some people have been trying to say for the last 4 pages.

 

The only way we will ever know is if RJ gives more information. We just don't know enough right now to determine the truth.

Poll says only 9% responding would agree (are you the other one)? Even me over here in the Finn never did anything like that we know of and it doesn't seem that RJ wants them to be too powerful and so forth land will say wait' date=' they did give Mat that nifty OP stopping amulet (whether they made it themselves or not). Oh, Finnsdunnit is polling at 33%...[/quote']

 

Actually, I haven't voted yet (so I don't see the results) because I believe differently than the poll gives us options. I think the finn's enhanced Lanfear long ago ( hence her being the MOST beautiful woman possible, and the MOST powerful woman possible) and when she died, the DO could not give her what the finn's did. So, her new body had neither the enhanced beauty, or strength.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Thor, if he was that much stronger why didn't he just take her metaphoric hammer?

 

Because Rand has problems with killing women, even very very bad women. Seriously, how could you miss that? Rand is mentally unstable. His failure to kill Lanfear is evidence of a mental problem, not her strength in the power.

[chemteach1977]

If the drop in strength is static and does not depend on previous strength, Lanfear must have been ridonkulously strong. Odds are, based on what we see with Siuan, Lanfear still lost around 1/4 of her strength and still beats out Graendal. Still possible.

 

Here's the big problem with that line of reasoning. Most AS would get nothing out of that healing. If we say Lanfear had 100 apples, Siuan had 40 apples, many AS only start with 20 apples. If the healing did not get Siuan back to 20 apples, then most AS would not regain ANY ability to channel through that healing. Seems kinda silly.

 

Secondary topic:

The angreal involved mess up the entire discussion. And Lanfear's tremendous experience advantage messes it up more. I will go with the analogy of physical strength. There are plenty of women out there stronger than lots and lots of men. But the strongest man will ALWAYS be stronger than the strongest woman.

[Thor]

Odds are' date=' based on what we see with Siuan, Lanfear still lost around 1/4 of her strength and still beats out Graendal. Still possible.[/quote']

 

No, Lanfear would not have lost 1/4 of her strength, Lanfear must have been about 4 times as strong as Siuan. (Rand is about 5 or 6 times as strong as Siuan.) Given that Siuan is now down to a third of her original strength, if the drop is static, then Lanfear would have only lost about 8% of her original strength, which is very likely.

 

 

Secondary topic:

The angreal involved mess up the entire discussion. And Lanfear's tremendous experience advantage messes it up more. I will go with the analogy of physical strength. There are plenty of women out there stronger than lots and lots of men. But the strongest man will ALWAYS be stronger than the strongest woman.

 

How many woman you know in real life are stronger than "lots and lots of men"? You must know some wimpy men.

[cloglord]

Robert, Thor.

 

I didn't miss anything. Taking her hammer does not constitute beating her to death with it. If a child was wielding a knife at me, I would just take the knife away, I wouldn't feel obligated to kill the little tyke. I understand that Rand could not overcome his mental hangups and attempt to kill Lanfear, but earlier in the same fight he was trying to knock her unconcious. If he was so much stronger why didn't he? Its a simple question, if he was so much stronger than Lanfear, why didn't he use a simple flow of air to knock her out?

[rd2000]

From reading the passage, I think it's clear Rand could have beaten Lanfear. It would have required him killing her though, and he couldn't bring himself to cross that line. Lanfear could have been stonger than Rand at that time, or vice-versa. They were both using angreals at the time.

[chemteach1977]

How bout the fact that Leanne started out twice as strong as many AS (according to her anyway) and got back less than half of her original strength. If the drop is static and not a %, many AS would regain absolutely nothing if healed in a similar fashion. You guys really think that is likely?

 

Secondary topic:

 

You ever see any female body builders/weightlifters? It is safe to say some of those "women" are stronger than your average man. Still weaker than male body builders/weightlifters but stronger than your average dude.

 

I see the scene at the docks like this:

 

Imagine you've got a sword fight between big strong guy with very little experience and smaller guy (still fairly strong just not as strong) who happens to be a world-class fencer. The extra strength would help to counter the experience and create a pretty fair fight. Now tell muscle man that under no circumstances is he to kill the other guy. Cuts down on his fighting options and gives a clear advantage to the weaker, more experienced opponent.

[rochaid]

But he did still think that he did, cloglord.

 

Just to add another reason for the futility of this thread...we don't even know the strenths of the angreal they were using...or do we?i don't think we do?Well maybe Rands,it increased his channelin power a few times, it was the same one he used against rahvin (i think)

[RobertAlexWillis]

I didn't miss anything. Taking her hammer does not constitute beating her to death with it. If a child was wielding a knife at me, I would just take the knife away, I wouldn't feel obligated to kill the little tyke.

 

I see what you're saying now. But it is much more difficult to take someone alive without harming them than it is to just kill them. Thats why the Aiel assign more ji to touching someone armed than killing them. So, Rand could have killed her, but was not so much stronger than her that he could simply capture her. Killing in this case could have been accomplished with brute force, which Rand could have mustered. Capture would have required both strength and skill that Rand did not have. So, in pure terms, Rand was stronger than her, but not by enough to be able to capture her.

[Cybertrolloc]

Since when was Lanfear trying to kill Rand at the docks? Cursed re-re-released special editions changing the story on us :(

[rd2000]

She was trying to kill him. Only slowly and painfully. Very painfully.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Yeah. Her line "If you are not mine, then you are dead." kind of gives it away.

[Thor]

How bout the fact that Leanne started out twice as strong as many AS (according to her anyway) and got back less than half of her original strength. If the drop is static and not a %' date=' many AS would regain absolutely nothing if healed in a similar fashion. You guys really think that is likely?[/quote']

 

Yes

 

Secondary topic:

 

You ever see any female body builders/weightlifters? It is safe to say some of those "women" are stronger than your average man. Still weaker than male body builders/weightlifters but stronger than your average dude.

 

 

Rand is not an average dude, so you just toppled yourself.

[chemteach1977]

Reread that quote Thor. My entire point is that Rand pretty much has to be stronger. Lanfear is the strongest woman channeler and is probably stronger than a number of AM. But Rand being the strongest male channeler means he is definitely stronger than Lanfear.

 

I have 2 problems with the healing drop being static and not a %.

 

1. RJ goes to a lot of trouble to directly compare strengths after the healing. Based on Leane's comments we can say that she started out twice as strong as "most" AS. And she was healed to less than half her original strength. Which means most AS would not regain the ability to channel if healed in the same way. It would be a cruel and interesting twist if the AS found that out the hard way. (not likely because the yellow ajah seems to have heard about Flinn's healing and should realize they need men to heal women) Just does not seem likely to me.

 

2. Unless Siuan and Leane were EXACTLY the same strength to begin with, they should have noticed the fact that the drop was not a %. If Leane was weaker for example, she would have noticed that her drop was bigger in comparison. We never hear that.

[Thor]

Oops sorry misunderstood what you meant.

 

Just because they don't mention that the drop is static doesn't mean they don't notice it. Just because they don't notice it doesn't mean that it isn't. People can be quite oblivious to their surroundings sometimes. Also, communication skills of WoT characters are hardly the best.

[chemteach1977]

I just really hope RJ throws us a little paragraph explaining why Cyndane is weaker. Cuz i just cannot figure it out. All of the explanations have their flaws IMO.

[alexbjt]

This is an easy one!!

 

cwestervelt is completely right, all who agree are correct, all who disagree are wrong. A cogent argument supported with evidence will always trump a passionate yet irrational argument.

[alexbjt]

This is an easy one!!

 

cwestervelt is completely right, all who agree are correct, all who disagree are wrong. A cogent argument supported with evidence will always trump a passionate yet irrational argument.