the Gholam

[Angelhydes]

this is a bit of a spoiler for those of you who haven't read Towers of Midnight yet...

I'm listening to the series again and I'm just past the part where Matt defeats the Gholam...and I he's says that he hopes he can't die because he likes thought of the Gholam falling through nothing then I remembered something. Isn't a Gholam a contruct of the one power like Trollocs, Myrddraal and even the Green Man, and contructs of the power can't survive Passing through a gateway so kicking the Gholam through the Gateway would have killed it right? Or is a skimming Gateway Diffrent somehow?

[Durinax]

this has been explained as the gholam being a perfected kind of construct, so it doesn't get destroyed

[Suttree]

Yeah Brandon said as a more perfect type of construct it could survive going through a gateway. He also stated that it would die after falling through the skimming place for a short while.

[Whizbang]

I wonder if a Gholam feels fear/terror. When one of the Aiel fall off the platform when Rand and Co and Skimming to Caemlyn to fight Rhavin, it is horrifying because you know that person will be overcome with fear long before they die, regardless of how stoic and fearless Aiel seem to be. But the Gholam? Does it feel fear? I know it backs away from and avoids Mat's medalion, but is that fear or just self-preservation? I kind of have this image of it just falling and falling, only dying from dehydration a few days later, but no real agony or fear.

[lsm]

there's a chapter with the gholam's pov, and he seemed to feel something for mat's medallion, asides from the scar but actually an emotion. so i guess it's not a big stretch to assume it's terrified as it falls endlessly in the skimming blackness

[aranyaka]

Since gholam could "fall", there must be something like gravity to cause acceleration. Soon he would be killed by speed.

[TNine]

Since gholam could "fall", there must be something like gravity to cause acceleration. Soon he would be killed by speed.

As there is also air to breathe, he would simply reach a terminal velocity.  Although i wonder what you mean by "killed by speed".  It's not the fall that kills you, as they say.

[Whizbang]

You cannot die from speed. If you were somehow in the vacuum of space above a black hole or something, and somehow managed to survive the vacuum, you would accellerate up to phenomenal speeds. But, gravity acts on the body as a whole, so you would feel nothing. You would continue to feel weightless as you accelerate faster and faster. Your inertia would increase, but the only way you'd be able to tell this is by seeing the black hole (or whatever object you desire) getting closer.

 

The reason you feel the acceleration in, say, a car or rocket is because the vehicle is being accelerated, and you are being pushed by the vehicle. This is an outside force pushing against you. If it were to push against every molecule in your body equally, you wouldn't feel it. But because it pushes against just your back, you feel it.

 

If the hypothetical "you in space falling toward a black hole" scenario were modified to include air, you would feel the air "push" against you as you accelerated toward the object. Eventually the "push" of the air would offset the acceleration and you would reach terminal velocity and stop accelerating. If somehow the object (black hole) were to only be affecting you, and not the air around you, then the pull would outweigh whatever "push" the air gives, and so, yes, eventually you would be "killed by speed" as approched speeds that made you, essentially, a meteor and you'd burn up in the atmosphere/air.

 

That said, if gravity affects an object in the mysterious Skimming Realm, then there must be a large object somewhere below to splat against.

[Orderofolde]

Yeah Brandon said as a more perfect type of construct it could survive going through a gateway. He also stated that it would die after falling through the skimming place for a short while.

I thought that he said it could stand the presence of a gateway for a short time being a more perfect construct, not that it would die after a little while.  If that is the case then great, we won't see this one back unless Moridin winks in with a platform and catches the Golumn and gives him a stern look then releases him again.  We've already seen Graendal saved after the fact, I'd hate to see this guy come back.  The fact that 5 others were created and are unaccounted for still bothers me.  I still feel that there is is another one from the same stasis box somewhere.

[Guest bhp12345]

If the hypothetical "you in space falling toward a black hole" scenario were modified to include air, you would feel the air "push" against you as you accelerated toward the object. Eventually the "push" of the air would offset the acceleration and you would reach terminal velocity and stop accelerating. If somehow the object (black hole) were to only be affecting you, and not the air around you, then the pull would outweigh whatever "push" the air gives, and so, yes, eventually you would be "killed by speed" as approched speeds that made you, essentially, a meteor and you'd burn up in the atmosphere/air.

 

That's not really true. Gravity is based on distance. Near a black hole you'd get pulled apart by the tidal force. See NDT on this:

 

[Whizbang]

Well, I left distance out of it. Pretend you are still far enopugh out to avoid the tidal force effect, and have plenty of distance and time to accelerate. All that is important is that you have a force of gravity working to pull you in, and plenty of room to accelerate.

[TNine]

I think we might be overthinking it...

[Whizbang]

I think we might be overthinking it...

 

That is not a thing.

 

;)

[Byzantine279]

I believe it was confirmed that it is dead, once and for all, and died rather soon after Mat pushed it off the platform.

 

Branching off of that, why is it that they didn't simply have the Kin channeler stand off to the side and simply remove the portion of the platform the gholam was standing on, since as Rand proved they can be changed with a thought?  I figure that is slightly less risky then having Mat try and push it off of the end of the platform.

[Luckers]

Brandon confirmed that the Gholam is now dead.

[Vardar]

I think we might be overthinking it...

This thread delivers!

 

I had the mental image of the gholam reaching the speed of sound and creating a sonic boom. Idk it just came out like that in my head.

[wotfan4472]

I am worried about the other gholam to. Disturbing to think more are running around somewhere!!!