What's your basis for saying they were average? By all indications Adeleas and Vandene were quite weak. Certainly they couldn't make gateways--or many of the other new weaves.

Only a handful Aes Sedai can make a Gateway big enough to put their arm through, and most not even that( LoC, 39).

Adeleas & Vandene were of average strength. Look into 13:th depository's article, for instance.

Adeleas could lift two women in Ebou Dar, and stuff them through a window a couple of floors up. Siuan used to be able to lift 3 times her weight, now she is able to lift somewhere between 1 and 1.5 times her weight (lost more than 1/2 her strength, but probably not more than 2/3 of her strength).

Siuan is weaker than average. We know that most Aes Sedai would be as strong as her even if she was Healed up to 2/3 her original strength. That's equal to lifting 2 Siuan. Assuming Siuan is of roughly average weight, it would place Adeleas & Vandene exactly at median Aes Sedai strength.

(Their extremely high ages would also have been speaking against the idea that they are much below median strength.)

(Could be compared to Egwene lifting 4 women high in the Air, whilst shielding a Windfinder.)

Maybe they dissolved the circle when 3 out of 6 left it? Or maybe it still feels like 3 separate soft spots for those that know what to look for?

It's interesting that 6 women shielded both Rand & Logain (Salidar as well), even though only 1 man shielded each Aes Sedai after freeing Rand.

Teslyn & Joline were stronger than Adeleas & Vandene. Adeleas & Vandene were of average Aes Sedai strength. Teslyn & Joline are stronger, but I don't know exactly how much stronger.

He did mention that the Creator ("light") and the Dark One were counterparts. He did call it carrying on the yin/yang theme.

The people in the story only know it as a symbol of saidin/saidar. Not good versus evil or anything like that.

The Aes Sedai sign (black/white) symbolizes the saidin/saidar duality. It's in the BWB.

What will happen to Randland if the DO wins? What I mean to ask is what will DO be doing after he wins?

He will destroy the Wheel & the Pattern.

From Brandon Sanderson's blog:

The Dark One CAN stop the Wheel from turning. Indeed, this is his goal. So far, history has repeated for the Dark One—but only because he has failed at his attempts to unravel the Pattern.

...

But I can promise that just because he has failed in the past doesn't mean he will fail again.

This series could end with the Dark One breaking the Wheel and destroying the Pattern. That is what is at stake.

Inverted weaves & reversed channeling means that noone can sense the weaves. The Balefire is an effect, so it can be seen anyway.

RJ said they were symbols of office. The term was used when someone was talking about those people that had the title. So LTT had a lot of influence among the mighty.

DragonCon 4 September 2005 - Emma reporting

Question Part 2: Well are they positions of power? Were they people, or were they actual rods?

Jordan: They were actual people, and they were, but you might call them regional governors of the earth, regional governors of the planet. So if I say, summon them, then we've got a guy who has been given in effect ultimate power.

Lanfear at the docks. Rand versus various reincarnations of Ishy

Also, I agree with the mentioned scenes featuring Moggy & Nynaeve.

I thought I read somewhere that there were Malkieri Aes Sedai in the Tower, just not that many.  I remember reading that I'll just have to find it.

Yes, he said there were Malkieri Aes Sedai. They hadn't been in the forefront. They are probably not among the strongest and most influential. I think one of them has been mentioned in the series... I could be mistaken(?).

question:  Who wrote the Prophecies of the Dragon?  Were they given as a Foretelling by an Aes Sedai?  Or have they just sort of always been around?

My guess is that more than one foreteller contributed. RJ said the whole thing would be 300 or 400 pages, but that he hadn't written more of it than he needed to use.

From Encyclopaedia WoT:

Karaethon Cycle, also known as the Prophecies of the Dragon, has existed since the Breaking.

 

Tor Website Q&A - The Prophecies were the collected Foretellings that occurred before, during and after the War of Power.

So you're pretty much agreeing.

I'm still not agreeing on what you said before, no.

Which is basically saying that women weaker than men is more usual than he was saying, and a bigger gulf than he was saying.

Yes, basically I said that there is a much bigger "gulf" than he was saying.

Nightstrike, your points are not at all relevant.

I had no other point than to respond to the comparison of men's and women's strengths.

But when people are saying women are usually weaker than men, why butt in to say, well, it's a bit more usual, and a bit weaker?

I didn't butt in to say that it was "a bit more usual" or "a bit weaker". I said that most men are more than twice the strength of most women.

However, regardless of strength, there is more than one way for a woman to defend herself.  A woman has the ability to make life hell in ways you could never dream of in such a way that it can not be traced back to her.

Yeah, and there's probably a lot of women that can kick butts, even if they were ever confronted by a stronger man.

The idea that a woman has the ability of a child to defend herself is HIGHLY offensive to me, and no doubt to all the other ladies who come across this thread.

I haven't suggested that, so I hope you're not talking about me. I was just responding to comments on the difference between men and women. I've not suggested that women can't defend themselves.

2002 European Powerlifting Championships

(bench press results, but they are ordered according to total results)

Men's heaviest weightclass:

125+kg

1 Vitaliy Papazov 275.0

2 Andrey Malanichev 260.0  

3 Viktor Naleykin 245.0  

4 Sdenek Sedmik 260.0  

5 Johnny Wahlqvist 250.0  

6 Dietmar Zint 245.0  

7 Jari Martikainen 207.5  

8 Nils Staerkjer 262.5  

9 Florent Veldeman 260.0  

- Raimo Makelä 235.0

Women's heaviest weightclass

90+ kg

1 Anastasia Pavlova 155.0  

2 Viktoria Olenytsa 137.5

3 Ganna Ganenko 160.5

4 Joanne Schaefer 140.0  

5 Suzanne Last 120.0  

6 Sophi Hellerstedt 100.0  

Even the weakest and smallest of all men in their prime could reach more than 110 in bench press, if they did everything right. And those 6 women that are on the list are not representative to average women. They are extreme cases. They are closer to strongest men's strength than average women are to average men's.

And I haven't trained at all, haven't set foot in a gym in twenty years, and every one of them could probably out lift me.  So what.  One anecdote proves nothing.

I've had more than one anecdote's worth of experiences. But I thought that was a good one.

The fact that there are any women at all who aren't weak and defenseless when confronted by any man, shoots a big hole in that argument, since it's evidence that his rationale isn't always true.

Yeah, and women being good fighters would certainly compensate for any possible weakness of arm-muscles.

The exact relative difference in strength levels between most men and most women is tangential to the point, at best, and the fact that you've made it your main point of contention is somewhat perplexing to me.

The exact relative difference in strength (between genders) is huge. That's us males trying to compensate for being weaker in other ways.  ;)

Personally, I haven't ever hit a woman, and can't imagine that I ever would, except perhaps in a situation where the safety of my family was somehow involved, and I haven't hit another male since I was 13.

No, I've not been any fighter either. We're peaceful, you and me. :D

That was the swedish national competition for women, by the way.

You may not say so yourself.  That's a mightily extreme position, and if I'm going to accept it, I'd like to see some sort of evidence (preferably something scholarly where I can see methodology) other than "I'm pulling percentages and ratios out of my nether regions and you should take it as gospel and the point from which to argue."  I could accept "The average man is 50% or more stronger than the average woman."  That may not be completely unreasonable.  The quote above is, to put it bluntly, BS, and I don't mean Brandon Sanderson.

No, it's not a mightily extreme position. Why don't you show me some "scholarly" information where I can see "the methodology"?

Many years ago I visited the national competition for female powerlifters. They were extremely weak, compared to the men's competition. Even regional competitions, not even national. At sixteen years of age, when I had trained only 3 months, I was stronger than all but one of the female powerlifters. I wasn't even one of the stronger ones that trained at the gym. And the woman in question probably weighed 40 or 50 kilos more than I did. And she was not stronger than me by any wide margin at all. So, yes, there really is a great difference between men and women.

Oh, no!  :'( Please dear Borg, do not hit me.

They are, on average, weaker, even significantly weaker.  They are not, however, always weaker, which would be the necessary state to assert that it's always wrong to hit a woman because women are weaker.

Maybe "not always", but rather "more than 75% of all men are at least twice the strength of more than 75% of all women". Or something like that. That would be a close enough estimation, if I may say so myself.

If a person goes with the average man being 50% stronger than the average woman (which is about what you posited) then assuming standard bell curves for distribution, somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of women will be stronger than the average man.  Fifty percent of women would be stronger than the weakest 15-20 of men.  Sorry, I just don't see that as insignificant.

That's not right. Women are weaker than that, compared to men.

Nightstrike, your points are not at all relevant.

I had no other point than to respond to the comparison of men's and women's strengths.

Women aren't always weaker, therefore it cannot be considered wrong to never hit them on the grounds of them beng weaker.

Uhh... They are weaker... and it's wrong to hit them (on any grounds)...

And it does not follow that weaker equals incapable of defending oneself.

No, I agree on that.

Even accepting that at face value, that particular nitpick doesn't change the major point.  There are, have been, and will continue to be a not insignificant portion of women who are stronger than  a not insignificant portion of men.  Considering that the post I was responding to asserted that the reason that it was ALWAYS wrong for ANY man to hit ANY woman is that men are stronger than women, the existence of some women who are stronger than some men essentially nullifies his extreme, absolutist argument.  

Change "not insignificant" to "insignificant". I'm sure there are some women who have been training for years, and men who have never lifted anything in their lives. But that doesn't change anything. Most men that undergoes the same training as female powerlifters could be stronger than them, especially considering that men in general would reach heavier weightclasses than most women. And those female powerlifters are an insignificant portion of all women. And, most importantly, those women are not representative to women in general. They are extreme cases.

Take a look at those sprinting and weight lifting records again.

Most women are less than half the strength of most men. Powerlifting records are a bit less representative. But, still, those records say that (even at the top levels) women are a whole lot weaker than men.

The average man may be somewhat larger, stronger and faster than the average woman, and the strongest men somewhat stronger than the strongest women, but that's certainly a far cry from all women are weaker than all men and therefore defenseless when confronted by the average man.  To put it bluntly, there are a whole lot of women out there (those female power lifters included) who could kick your butt (and mine) up and down the street.

Change "somewhat" to "a whole lot", at least when you're talking about strength. Especially upper body strength.

Most of the Massai men are a bit above 2 metres tall (6'7''). That's because of climate and protecting their cattle.

Fighting Aiel style (=without horses, swords and heavy armor) would probably favor those that are taller than average.

It's fun, though.

No, not really.

I'm trying to find where it says which direction they went when the left the Amyrlin's party.

No, you're right. I don't think the AS in the Amyrlin's party knew which direction they went. I just says that they went without telling anyone. So that means they would probably not know in which direction.