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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

Zhon

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Posts posted by Zhon

  1.   On 5/4/2014 at 8:25 AM, Harry Potter said:

    Just watched... Finding Nemo.. for the first time ever.

    I was kinda disappointed to be honest. Not as good as I heard it was but it kept the kids I was babysitting quiet for a couple hours so all in all it did the job. I give it a 5/10

    You should probably lower that to a 4 or a 3.5, as its message was completely lost and kids across the world clamored to have clownfish and blue tang pets after watching it.  More stealing fish from their natural habitats to appease the clamoring parent-purses.

     

     

    As for me, just watched Frozen with family last night.  Watching it with a full surround system is really something else compared to just watching it on a monitor.

  2.   On 11/4/2013 at 11:37 PM, Vieira151 said:

    Question related to balefire. This is mainly a hypothetical question, and it's really just to use in a "Werewolf" game on another forum.

     

    Let there be 4 people - A, B, C and D. 

     

    The idea - B wishes to kill A. B shoots an arrow but C jumps in front of A and takes the arrow. C is injured and A survives.

     

    Should D balefire C so that C did not exist prior to the jump, would A then be affected by arrow?

    It depends on when C was balefire'd and the strength of D's channeling.  The stronger the balefire, the farther back time is affected.  If D's balefire is weak enough that it only affects time by a second or two, A would probably still be safe.  On the other hand, if D's went back by a minute or so, then A would probably be calling out "Message for you sir!"  as he drops dead from the arrow.

  3.   On 10/17/2013 at 6:56 PM, Suttree said:

     

      On 10/17/2013 at 6:38 PM, Zhon said:

    They point out several times in the series that only someone who can channel or learn to channel is capable of using an a'dam, therefore Tuon is capable of learning to channel.  

     

    Just a little later in that scene Mat flat-out tells her that the ability to train damane proves she can learn channeling, at which point she states that she chooses not to learn so it doesn't matter whether she is capable of it or not.

     

     

    Yes of course, she is a learner and we all are very clear on how the a'dam works. How close Tuon is to "stepping over the edge" and whether the a'dam would hold her yet have been debated for years here at DM. Not sure how that relates to my response however?

     

     

    Oh!  I misunderstood your question.  The answer is given to us twice within the series.  First, when Nyneave infiltrates Falme to rescue Egwene, and then a second time when she captures Moghedien during Rand's fight with Rahvin.  When someone who is capable of channeling - or learning to channel, like a sul'dam - is wearing the control end of the a'dam, they can visualize sensations that are felt by whoever is on the receiving end.  Nyneave usually imagined striking someone with an invisible lash, or brushing them with nettles.  The sul'dam often used the image of physical blows from a very strong man, putting more "force" behind it if they were especially displeased.  Or they can use the impression of being on fire, causing the receiver to experience extreme pain just as if their skin was actually being burned off but without any lasting injury.

     

    It doesn't have to just be painful sensations either.  Imagine someone's mouth being filled with the foulest concoction imaginable (such as Nyneave's "cure" for liars), or the feel of someone's hand on their shoulder as a subtle reminder to do or not do something, or imagining a pleasant sensation like touching silk or a warm breeze.  And none of it requires any sort of channeling, just a good visualization and some creativity as to what the controller wants the receiver to feel.

     

    The a'dam is also used to bring pain or pleasure in other ways.  A simple complement or "good job" will flood the receiver with pleasure, especially if the compliment is because they followed an order given through the a'dam.  Disobeying an order results in almost unbearable torture, like when Egwene wanted to bash her trainer over the head with a water pitcher and then couldn't touch it without going through excruciating pain because she was told to never wield a weapon.  And something like an affectionate pat on the head from a sul'dam can also have a heightened effect on the damane as well.  

     

    A'dam provide a nearly infinite means of both punishment and reward without causing true physical harm, resulting in damane who either accept the training so completely they forget any life without an a'dam on or they spend years in misery and pain before being completely, utterly broken.  So for all we know Tuon could have just given Joline the impression of someone pinching her bottom, or gone with an Ogier-strength punch to the gut, or any number of other things, all without even being able to sense Saidar.

  4.   On 10/17/2013 at 3:43 PM, Suttree said:

     

      On 10/17/2013 at 10:14 AM, 0rion said:

     

    How you think Tuon gave to Joline a pain through the a'dam or here was something other?
     
    "If you think that you can," she began, then cut off abruptly, her mouth going tight. An angry light shone in her eyes. 
    "You see, the a'dam can be used to punish, though that is seldom done." 

     

     

    I'm not sure I understand the question. That is one of the functions of the a'dam and Tuon as we know trains damane.

     

    They point out several times in the series that only someone who can channel or learn to channel is capable of using an a'dam, therefore Tuon is capable of learning to channel.  

     

    Just a little later in that scene Mat flat-out tells her that the ability to train damane proves she can learn channeling, at which point she states that she chooses not to learn so it doesn't matter whether she is capable of it or not.

  5.   On 10/12/2013 at 2:23 AM, EmperorAllspice said:

    I heard a quote from Robert Jordan that the Pattern broadcast the battle in Falme up in the clouds on purpose so that the one true dragon would be accepted.

     

    If the Pattern can just do that kind of thing by itself. Why does it even need Ta'veren? Why can't it just strike the Forsaken down dead? Why can't it kill the Shadow's forces. Why does it need to use anyone if it can cause such a grandiose event to happen that defies all the laws of magic set up by this series' universe?

    First off, it wasn't JUST the pattern broadcasting the battle.  That fight in the sky would not have happened without the Horn of Valere being blown.  If a golden horn can bring back the lost heroes who are tied to the Pattern to be reborn time and again, I think it can go a little farther and project an illusion of the most important part of that fight in the skies.  Plus the Pattern was declaring Rand to be the true Dragon Reborn, so it makes sense that the true champion would be shown for all to see while all the False Dragons are struck by lightning without being outright killed.

     

    Second, the Wheel and the Pattern are both aspects of the Creator, who in the very first book spoke to Rand saying "I can take no part.  Only the Chosen One can do what must be done, if he will."  All the Pattern does - all it can do, really - is guide people and events, making use of what is available to set up the potential for victory against the Shadow and its allies.  It can't strike directly, it can't kill anyone, it can't stop people from becoming Darkfriends, and it certainly can't fight the Dark One on its own.  Ta'veren are a tool for the Pattern to focus on, making it easier to guide the world into favorable conditions for the coming fights against the Shadow.  Without them it couldn't guide people and events to the degree needed in order to just survive each Last Battle over the centuries, let alone win them outright.

     

    However, as I said to you in posts above, the Pattern does NOT force anyone's hand or make them do anything they wouldn't normally do.  All the choices belong to the people whose lives are at stake.  The events still center around people with free will.  Rand could have destroyed the world from the top of Dragonmount if he so chose, rather than going to the Last Battle.  Mat could have chosen to abandon multiple groups of soldiers during the fights against Couladin and gone his merry way, leaving them to get slaughtered while he went off to live whatever life he wanted.  Perrin could have ignored the Ta'veren pullings from Rand's very presence and stayed in the Two Rivers, overseeing his home and doing what he could to protect it.  If any of those events happened, the Last Battle would have been lost completely because one of the three central pillars wasn't there when they would be needed most.

  6.   On 10/2/2013 at 5:52 PM, EmperorAllspice said:

     

      On 10/2/2013 at 5:30 PM, Zhon said:

    Or, in the case of the map Perrin needed for that attack, the odds of someone having that map were incredibly unlikely but not impossible, so fortune twisted in his favor and it turned out that someone did have it after all.

    See this is my issue. Did the Pattern give him that map months before Perrin met him to set up the meeting where he gave Perrin the map? Or did he get it by coincidence and the pattern guided Perrin to him?

     

    See, probability alteration like this doesn't work when it comes to things that had to have been going on MONTHS or YEARS in advance. Or did the Pattern warp reality to give him the map then gave everyone memories of the Banner General receiving it?

     

    Except it does work like this months or years in advance where the Pattern is concerned, even decades or centuries.  It wove Rand's birth on the slopes of Dagonmount.  The Aiel going from the Way of the Leaf to being the fiercest warriors on the continent.  King Laman cutting down Avendoraldera.  The Aiel crossing the wall, an Aes Sedai telling Rand's mother to join them because of one of her visions, Tam getting separated from his force and finding them on the mountain before Rand could die from the cold as a newborn.  Rand being raised in the remnants of Manetheren, gaining their many positive traits and growing into a *relatively* mature young man before Moirane ever found them.  If the Pattern can set up that many coincidences in just a few decades, imagine what it could do across the centuries since the Breaking.  Or just as easily in the few short years since the Seanchan have landed on this continent.

     

     

    In the case of Perrin's map, I worded my last post poorly.  Here you have a Seanchan general who has been mapping local areas.  The pattern didn't alter fortune so that the guy had the map, it altered fortune for Perrin so that the guy who owned that map was part of the Seanchan group Perrin made contact with.  Essentially, the Pattern brought Perrin the one person he needed most - someone with quality information about their surroundings - at a time when he would need that person to plan the attack.  The Pattern alters chance, not reality, and it makes full use of what's available.

     

    That Banner General could just as easily been leading a different war party, hunting for more marath'damane in a different location; if that had happened then the map would never have been used, Perrin's attack would have either failed or had far higher casualties, and any number of other things would have gone wrong from lack of information.  Just as easily, the officer could have died in an earlier battle; one stray arrow, or a Power-wrought explosion, and there would never have been a map created in the first place; or even just scouting a different area and mapping that instead.  A million ways that could have gone wrong, but the Pattern brought both the Banner General, and that map, to Perrin alive and intact.

     

     

     

     

      On 9/10/2013 at 8:23 PM, mb said:
    with what weave (or weave combination) did Rand destroy the male Choedan Kal?

    And from what material/materials were both Choedan Kal made?

    There was no distinct weave that Rand used.  He funneled pure saidin back into the male Choedan Kal, creating a feedback loop that overloaded and destroyed the sa'angreal itself.  Both statues were probably formed from stone and some sort of crystal initially, but when an object is turned into an angreal it becomes like cuendullar from then on and its original material becomes irrelevant.

  7.   On 10/2/2013 at 5:03 PM, EmperorAllspice said:

    Question about Ta'vereness.

     

    Okay, so a  character becomes Ta'veren when the pattern needs them to become Ta'veren. From what I can gather Ta'veren-ness has an area of effect. Now, people who are Ta'veren have coincidental stuff just happen to befall them. A recent example I can think of is that Seanchan Banner General just happening to have the world's greatest map of the exact area Perrin was going to attack. Now, did the Pattern contrive to give that guy the map in the first place? Or did Ta'vereness guide Perrin to the guy who had the map? Where do you draw the lines between "Actual coincidences/Ta'verenness guiding people into genguine coincidences/The Pattern planning this out months in advance"?

    You're kinda hitting the mark, but not quite.  When someone is Ta'veren, they're essentially a focal point in the Pattern's weavings.  Sometimes it only amounts to unusual events, such as what happened with the towns Rand traveled through on his way to Tear - the mass weddings, a major well drying up, children falling from great heights only to get back up unscathed, etc.  In other cases the Pattern brings a Ta'veren what they need most, even if the person in question doesn't know they need it yet - Mat meeting Noal Charin while trying to escape the Seanchan, only to have the guy be vital to one of his plans in a later novel; Faile being dragged into Perrin's activities after a chance meeting on a ship, and look how much help she turned around to give him.  

     

    And in simpler cases, people around a Ta'veren say/do things they wouldn't have said in any other situation due to the twisting chance in a Ta'veren's presence.  When Rand was on the ship with the Sea Folk hashing out the bargain for ships to move people, food and equipment, the woman in charge of the Bargain said out of nowhere "May I be strung up by my ankles if I do not make a fair Bargain" or something along those lines.  She had a very small chance of saying it, but because that chance existed in the first place Rand's Ta'veren twisting pulled it out of her, to her surprise and to his.  Or, in the case of the map Perrin needed for that attack, the odds of someone having that map were incredibly unlikely but not impossible, so fortune twisted in his favor and it turned out that someone did have it after all.  Think of it in terms of Mat's incredible luck, but on a more subtle level.

     

    Excluding the miasma ("bubbles of evil") leaking across the Pattern, when a Ta'veren is around, the Wheel itself tends to weave in favor of that person.  Not always, but enough that you can't really call anything that happens to/around them "mere coincidence".

  8.   On 10/2/2013 at 3:30 PM, jedman67 said:

     

      On 10/2/2013 at 2:57 PM, Rhienne said:

     

      Quote

     

     

    On the contrary, it's only channelers - specifically AS - that are treated so poorly. Nynaeve wasn't "abused", the windfinders were merely being very forceful in their teaching, standard practice among the athan meire. Although i think they were a little harsh on her, it wasn't unjustified IMO

    I am fairly certain that somewhere in the books it is stated that any shorebound teacher (of channeling, or anything else) is treated as being equivalent to a deckhand.

     

    But they pay them well. They recognize the necessity, but view academics as an inferior way to learn something - you learn by doing and by training and by climbing the ranks. The shorebound are "weak" and have no concept of rank or influence (and the AS system of raw channeling strength as a measure of rank always felt wrong to me, somehow).

     

    As I said though, they HAVE to pay well, otherwise no teacher would step on a Seafolk deck.  If teachers weren't treated as the second-lowest rank on a ship, the massive bags of gold wouldn't be necessary to get them on board for any length of time.

  9.   On 9/20/2013 at 7:35 PM, lilltempest said:

     

      On 9/12/2013 at 11:08 AM, Roedran a'Naloy said:
    What kind of culture regards being a teacher as being just short of a deckhand, and actually seems to find it shaming

     

     

    I always took the Sea Folk's position on the Aes Sedai teachers as a defense mechanism more than anything else. I mean, really, if you and your people had managed to avoid WT entanglements for pretty much ever and you got the opportunity to learn from them, knowing how they always march in and take over and turn everyone into obedient lapdogs (be it from bullying or manipulation), would you want to take any chances that your entire race ends up being controlled by the WT? I sure as hell wouldn't. I'd want to make sure the "teachers" knew their place and that they would not be taking over or manipulating my people at all, and would want to go out of my way to make them fear us instead of the other way around. Additionally, the Sea Folk knew the AS would somehow end up stealing every last channeler from them given half a chance, and wanted to nip that in the bud. The scene where they abused Nynaeve irritated me to no end, and I find most of the Sea Folk detestable, but I can't blame them for wanting to get the upper hand with the AS...otherwise, they would've ended up obeying the AS and jumping when the bloody women clapped. 

     

     

    Except it isn't only Aes Sedai teachers that are treated this way, it's ANY teacher from outside the Sea Folk.  They treat teachers and instructors so badly that the Sea Folk have to literally offer BAGS of gold just to get people to agree to come on board and instruct for a period of time, regardless of what they're supposed to be there to teach.

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