The Breaking

[Mitsobar]

Been skimming through the WoT Wiki today to refresh my memory on some things and get more details in general.

In the breaking article an interesting question is brought up.

 

 

The breaking was caused by insane male Aes Aedai. However during the AoL there were an equal number of male/female AS and presumably after the sealing the ratio would of been pretty much the same in the abscene of any evidence that female AS were culled in greater numbers.

 

This results in a situation where there are relatively equal numbers of sane, rational, organised women in tandem with insane, isolated, desperate, potentially unorganised men.

The remaining female AS should of been able to organise themselves into containing and eradicating the men, they had a distinct advantage in achieving this end and even if they were not completely succesfull they could of prevented a breaking and endured say, a ravaging of the world instead.

There would of also been a fair number of altruistic male AS willing to help the women hunt/kill other men until their own time came or even commit suicide further tipping the numbers.

 

On top of this the general populace would of been hostile to any male channeler and as its been said many a time, an arrow or knife in the back kills a channeler as easily as anyone else. While difficult to bring down a male AS, they still need to sleep, eat, go to bathroom. They would of been steadily picked off by mundanes getting the jump on them or just lucky - again further helping to deplete their numbers.

 

 

 

 

Clearly something went wrong and they were not able to organise their efforts and prevent the cataclysm - what do you think the problem might of been?.

[Suttree]

I think you are grossly underestimating the reality of the situation. LPD was focused on eradicating the shadow and dealing with insane male channelers. You had 70 of the strognest male AS immediately go insane and start with a rampage of mass destruction.

 

BWB

The taint had trapped the minds of all the surviving Companions in twisted dreams of madness, while saidin gave them the power to make those dreams instant reality. There is no way to know of individual acts of destruction by most of the Companions, save that they were of a scale previously unknown.[/b]

Following that it was over ten years before anyone even realized what was going on. Basically they were fighitng a two pronged war and the BWB is clear on this:

 

BWB

Civilization maintained some cohesion for a good many years after the strike at Shayol Ghul, of course, though the decline into barbarism was inevitable.

They did everything they could and saved the world, there was no organizational breakdown here aside from the obvious one caused by civilization falling apart.

[spoke]

You have to remember that during the age of legends Channelers were about 3% of the population.  Three out of every two hundred people doomed to go insane.  Plus only the 70 or so channelers who were at the strike went instantly insane, the rest of the population it was gradual.  You had attempts at cleansing the source, followed by attempts to restore sanity and male channellers hiding in the steadings.  All of these prolonged the issues, but when people go insane you don't just start killing them, especially if hope to cleanse the taint exists.

[Agitel]

The war didn't really end with the Sealing, either. Forsaken remained loose, and darkfriends such as Mesaana's 'children' plagued the land causing chaos. The male Aes Sedai weren't the only danger. Parts of the world was still at war. 

 

On top of everything else, understand that it took decades before the Aes Sedai came to terms with the fact that there was no cure for the madness. Slaughtering, or even severing, the men was a repulsive option. Obviously they recognized the necessity of it in the end, but these men were people, not just statistics.

[Hagazussa]

First of all with even numbers the women would be at a disadvantage as male channelers on average are more powerful than female ones, not always, you have extremely powerful females and weak males but on average. In addition there was still a war going on. Now probably if the female Aes Sedai had not been around there had never been any third age as all life would have been completely eradicated, they probably did stop many male Aes Sedai but they could not get them all, also remember even one of them, if he was powerful could do allot of damage.

 

Another thing to remember was that these men where not strangers to the female Aes Sedai, they where their friends, their colleagues, their fathers, brothers and sons and quite often their husbands, it is not easy to hunt down and kill someone who is a dear friend or a lover. Also for most madness would come gradually over several years, yes for those who where there when LTT tried to seal away the Dark One went insane immediately and some would only had lasted a few days before they went insane, however most of them it would be a gradual process. At first no one knew what was going on, there would probably be rumors that male channelers started acting funny, perhaps news stories on it if they had such things but in the beginning little was known. It was not like all the men went insane and the women went out and hunted them down and did a poor job of it. It would be more like kindly uncle George who always entertained the family's kids with his fireball show suddenly one day after he had acted funny for months snaps and barbecue the kids, kill his wife and blow up the whole neighborhood, probably then he would sooner or later be taken down but by that time he would have had time to do allot of damage. It was not before much later that the Aes Sedai decided to preemptively just take down all male channelers. The Breaking would have been a situation that started small and then slowly descended into complete chaos and even if the female Aes Sedai did what the could it would not have been enough.

 

On top of this the general populace would of been hostile to any male
channeler and as its been said many a time, an arrow or knife in the
back kills a channeler as easily as anyone else. While difficult to
bring down a male AS, they still need to sleep, eat, go to bathroom.
They would of been steadily picked off by mundanes getting the jump on
them or just lucky - again further helping to deplete their numbers.

 

 

Okey that must be the most humiliating way to go ever. So you are busy running around on a mad rampage tossing fireballs at imagined foes and boiling the lakes and oceans but even insane mages have to answer nature's call so you find yourself on the crapper, only wanting a bit of peace and quiet to do your thing before you get back to blasting everything in sight, and then boom you get ambushed by a angry mob and ripped to pieces. :P

[shortkut]

Also we saw the madness did not always mean violent. In cup of sleep he regressed to an infant. Naeff was paranoid, Androl saw shadows, and Rand heard voices that only told him to kill certain people and himself. Not every male channeler was going to melt a city

[rand4747]

eventually it probably gets worse and they start randomly killing, like what happens to androl if those shadows got him, its all in his mind but maybe if they did he will just go completely nuts and start going wild with the power.