# w_theory

created: 2005-06-29 03:41:53
subject: Egwene&#8217;s Recognition of the Dreams of Others
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<p>As a Dreamwalker, Egwene not only possesses the ability to enter <i>Tel&#8217;aran&#8217;rhiod</i> at will without the aid of a ter&#8217;angreal made for that purpose, but she also possesses the ability to enter that &#8220;vast blackness filled with twinkling pinpricks of light, more by far than the number of stars in the clearest sky, each sharp and distinct as far as the eye could see.  If she had eyes here, that was.  Formless, she floated in the infinity between <i>Tel&#8217;aran&#8217;rhiod</i> and the waking world, the narrow gap between dream and reality&#8221; (<i>Lord of Chaos</i>, Dreams and Nightmares).<br /><br />And a further description of this netherworld:<br /><br /><blockquote>The great spangled ocean of darkness swirled around her, seeming to move while she stood still.  A fish at home in that ocean, she swam confidently, without really needing to think about it any more than the fish did.  Those flickering lights were dreams, all the dreams of all the people of the world.  Of all worlds, places that were not quite the world she knew, worlds nothing like it at all.  Verin Sedai first told her of those, the Wise Ones affirmed it was so, and she herself had glimpsed things, peeking in, that she simple could not credit, not even in a dream.  Not nightmares &#8211; those always seemed washed in red, or blue, or a murky gray like deep shadows &#8211; but filled with impossible things.  Better to avoid them; clearly she did not belong in those worlds.  Peering into such a dream was like suddenly being surrounded by broken mirrors, everything whirling and no way to tell up from down.<br /><br /><i>Lord of Chaos</i>, Dreams and Nightmares</blockquote><br />And this:<br /><br /><blockquote>Each light looked identical to every other, yet she had learned to recognize a handful.  How exactly, she did not know, a thing that irked her no end.  Even the Wise Ones did not know that.  Still, once she identified which dream belonged to which person, she could find that person&#8217;s dreams again like an arrow to the target, no matter if they went to the other side of the world.<br /><br /><i>Lord of Chaos</i>, Dreams and Nightmares</blockquote><br />That &#8220;handful&#8221; of the dreams of others that Egwene has learned to identify include Rand, Nynaeve, Elayne, the Wise One Dreamwalkers, Gawyn, Rhurac, Berelain&#8230;and <b>Moiraine</b>:  &#8220;Rand&#8217;s dreams, and Moiraine&#8217;s, appeared muted, dimmed by the wards they had woven.&#8221; (<i>The Fires of Heaven</i>, Dreams of Galad).<br /><br /><i>Those flickering lights were dreams, all the dreams of all the people of the world.  Of all worlds, places that were not quite the world she knew, worlds nothing like it at all.</i><br /><br /><i>Still, once she identified which dream belonged to which person, she could find that person&#8217;s dreams again like an arrow to the target, no matter if they went to the other side of the world.</i><br /><br />Or no matter if they went to another world mayhaps?<br /><br />Before you discount this wild and bristly hair of speculation out of hand &#8211; &#8216;Why in the seven hells would Egwene look for somebody&#8217;s dreams whom she thinks is dead and thus dead dreamless!&#8217;  &#8216;Why would Egwene go looking for a &#8220;dead&#8221; person&#8217;s dreams in other worlds that she has already determined to avoid?&#8217;  Not to mention, &#8216;Doesn&#8217;t Egwene already have enough on her plate right now without adding <i>this</i> to it for goodness sake!!&#8217;<br /><br />Well.  There&#8217;s this bit:<br /><br /><blockquote>Aes Sedai with switches chased her through endless corridors, where misshapen things lurched through shadows all around, where a grinning Nicola denounced her to the Hall and Thom Merrilyn came forward to give evidence.<br /><br /><i>A Crown Of Swords</i>, Unseen Eyes</blockquote><br />Now I simply can&#8217;t believe that Jordan would put this bit into one of Egwene&#8217;s prophetic Dreams &#8211; &#8220;Thom Merrilyn came forward to give evidence&#8221; &#8211; for no damned good reason at all.  Not to mention Egwene being able to see the dreams of those in other worlds besides her own, for no damned good reason at all.  But what evidence could Thom possibly have?  Considering where Thom stands, how could it possibly be negative with regards to Egwene?  (Now, now.  *Finger wag*   Be logical and dispassionate when you answer that please <img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/wink.gif" border="0" /> )  Thom&#8217;s &#8220;evidence&#8221; most likely, at the very least, balances out Nicola&#8217;s denouncement.  And the most likely source for that evidence?  Moiraine&#8217;s letter to him.  <br /><br />Herein lies Egwene&#8217;s impetus to go looking for a &#8220;dead woman&#8217;s&#8221; dreams in one of those &#8220;other&#8221; worlds.  And yes.  You cannot access the world of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn through <i>Tel&#8217;aran&#8217;rhiod</i> (Jordan has confirmed this).  But I&#8217;m <b>not</b> talking about  <i>Tel&#8217;aran&#8217;rhiod</i>.  I&#8217;m talking about that netherworld betwixt <i>Tel&#8217;aran&#8217;rhiod</i> and the reality of all waking worlds.<br /><br />Moiraine wards her dreams without even thinking about it, like all Aes Sedai are taught to do.  She may or may not be able to do this now.  We don&#8217;t know.  But regardless of whether Egwene could enter Moiraine&#8217;s dreams warded or unwarded, she would definitely recognize that particular &#8216;twinkling pinprick of light&#8217; that is Moiraine.<br /><br />If only she knew to look for it.  And where.<br /><br />Some how, some way, Egwene and Thom will meet again.  And soon I think.  It&#8217;s not impossible.  Jordan will make it happen if he wants to.  I think he wants to....<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-03 05:21:28
subject: What is Jordan's &quot;terrible cost?&quot;
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<p>According to the guys at dragonmount.com, Jordan said &quot;Something that has previously happened in the series is going to be revealed to have a terrible cost.&quot; This tidbit is posted at www.dragonmount.com/Community/Events/comicCon2004.php We've seen the &quot;cost&quot; of some things before &#8211; Nynaeve (in my opinion) is a bullying jerk but a dedicated friend, and Rand's escape from lusty Cairhienin noblewomen in TGH is why Thom's girlfriend gets killed (I&#8217;m not exaggerating - Thom never says it, but it wouldn't have happened if Rand hadn't so foolishly spoken to him at Barthane's party).<br /><br />While the dragonmount folk suggested that Jordan's &quot;terrible cost&quot; may have to do with the corrected weather or the now-clean saidin, I have yet to hear any solid ideas about what this &quot;Terrible Cost&quot; will be , so I wanted to offer two possibilities (the second I will only briefly outline).<br /><br />Here goes: What if the destruction of Shadar Logoth will cause the release of Machin Shin?  That certainly sounds terrible, doesn't it?... Want some supporting evidence?  Well, there was a Waygate at Shadar Logoth, and it's frequently been stated that a Waygate can *only* be destroyed by removing the special leaves and allowing the Waygate to die.  This suggests that it's possible that the destruction of the physical doors of the Waygate will leave an &#8220;open doorway,&#8221; allowing Machin Shin to come out.  <br /><br />Recall that the Black Wind came out of a Waygate before in TGH, Chapter 33 (&quot;A Message From the Dark&quot;<img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/wink.gif" border="0" />.  At that time, Fain somehow left Machin Shin as a guard on the Waygate that Rand opened; not only did Machin Shin prevent Rand and company from following Fain, the book describes it as coming *out* of the Ways until Loial closed the Waygate. Now I thought that was supposed to be impossible, but re-read the chapter for yourself - it actually manages to come several feet (or however Jordan measures distance in the books) away from the gates.<br /><br />If the destruction of the physical Waygate didn&#8217;t destroy the connection to the world within the Ways, then it's possible that Machin Shin may come pouring out of the unlocked, unblocked  &quot;connecting point&quot; between the Ways and Randland.  I suppose it could only be prevented, if at all, by having the Ogier use their &quot;Talisman of Growing&quot; to grow a new Waygate in the same spot.  Personally, I think this highly unlikely because Rand and company frequently seem way too careless and disorganized (as a group) considering the stakes that they're playing for. The easiest example is that they share info with each other way too seldom - Perrin doesn&#8217;t tell any Aes Sedai or Aiel Dreamwalkers about Slayer and his nifty habit of killing things in TAR (which he should&#8217;ve mentioned to anyone that goes to TAR); Lan doesn&#8217;t know (from Moiraine or Verin) that his &#8220;son of traitors, last seen in the Blight&#8221; uncle might be alive; Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve care enough about Rand to risk their lives to protect him, but they never tell Rand about that pesky collar of black metal; and our heroes never compile a list of names and descriptions of all the Darkfriends they&#8217;ve met, etc.  None of these are even deeply personal secrets (Perrin and the wolves, Mat&#8217;s memories, Rand&#8217;s inner voices).  Hell, does Rand even know about gholam?  These mistakes are all, to me, worse than Rand ignoring problems in the BT, or just torturing info out of Taim (and then killing him) &#8211; both of which he should&#8217;ve done many, many books ago.  Sorry for the digression.<br /><br />An extra bit of information makes the &#8220;Machin Shin Free&#8221; possibility more likely: Rand destroyed SL by filling it with lots of Saidin - the stuff the Ways were actually *made* of.  This connection alone makes my idea convenient, but if you still want more theory, consider this: In Jordan's world, the opposite halves of the Source actually repel each other, suggesting that the opposite must be true - Saidin must be attracted to Saidin (and the same with Saidar, of course). This is why weaves come together, the AOL Aes Sedai could make a pool of Saidin, etc.  I think it&#8217;s possible that the presence of all that Saidin, and the sudden absence of a locked Waygate, could somehow &quot;attract&quot; the Saidin-made Ways, and especially the Taint-created Machin Shin, which seems to have some kind of consciousness (a fact suggested by the way that the Black Wind reacted to, and obeyed, Fain in the past).  Also, remember that the last time Machin Shin came out of the gate was when it came into contact with Fain, who is tainted by both the DO *and* SL.<br /><br />Of course, this last fact (that tainted Saidin was used to destroy SL) also creates another possibility which I will quickly outline. We all know that Rand's wound is filled with the Taint of both the Dark One and Shadar Logoth.  By choosing Shadar Logoth to destroy (instead of, say, the Blight, part of the Seanchan Empire, or even the houses of the Congars and Coplins), Rand has managed to put the Dark One's Taint - all of it, mind you - in the same spot as SL and all its own taint.  Further, the WOT books have, at times, tracked lots of other mythology - if you didn't believe it before, Moridin's babble about &quot;the Fisher King&quot; is the AOL's version of hyper-chess (PoD prologue) is a clear example.  And it's this particular example that brings the second possibility to life...<br /><br />In mythology, the Fisher King, like King Arthur, was supposed to be &#8220;one with the land&#8221; - when the King was ill, the land itself became ill as well (both physical effects like reduced crops, and social effects, like rampant injustice).  The piece from Moridin's board, for example, has something in common with Rand - they both have &quot;wounded sides.&quot;  Well, the second possibility boils down to this: since Rand recreated the conditions that exist inside his own wound, perhaps Randland itself will now start to have the same problem - the soil itself will become weakened/infected by a cocktail of the two Taints.  I'm not certain what the result of that could be, but it certainly couldn't be good.  Given the magnitude of each taint (every pebble in SL and a whole lot of the Dark One's ill will (does he have any other?)), it might take a lot more than one Asha'man to &quot;bottle up&quot; this cocktail...<br /><br />One last, brief point - the fact that neither possibility was shown in CoT doesn't mean that they can't/won&#8217;t occur.  Although I lack specifics, Crossroads of Twilight seems to take place over two or three incredibly dialogue-filled weeks (it's a nice read, but, for my taste, has far too little action, resolution of old mysteries/problems, or stuff concerning the Forsaken (always my favorite)).  The end of the book itself doesn't seem to occur too long after the destruction of SL, which means that the &#8220;Machin Shin Amok&#8221; or &#8220;Tainted Land&#8221; problems might not yet have come to a head.  Feel free to poke holes/disagree/etc.  This is just a little speculation to pass the time until the next book comes out...<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-04 05:54:39
subject: Perrin And Co. Will Go To Caemlyn
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<p><i><b>Note:</b> Perrin and co. will go to Caemlyn <u>after the Shaido are dealt with.</u> Duh.</i><br /><br />1. Perrin and Elayne hardly know each other. The only times they met was briefly in Falme (if they even saw each other at all, before splitting apart a few days later) and again in Tear, though even then they only saw each other briefly. According to Perrin, Elayne <b>seems</b> a pleasant young woman and is <b>a bit</b> taken with herself (emphasis mine) (A Crown of Swords, <i>Hill of the Golden Dawn</i>). Do those words seem like the words used to describe someone you&#8217;ve had more than just a passing acquaintance with? Especially when Elayne is far from pleasant, and way, way, <i>way</i> more than just a bit taken with herself.<br /><br />2. When Morgase entered Perrin&#8217;s and Faile&#8217;s service, she stated later on that the only reason she did it was so she could gain information that might be of use to Elayne (The Path of Daggers, <i>A Simple Country Woman</i>). Jordan does nothing without making it its own subplot, and so far Morgase entering service has done absolutely nothing for anybody except bring her closer to Tallanvor. The last point of view we had from her was when she told Tallanvor her reasons for entering service, so who can say what information she did learn? <br /><br />3. According to Elayne, a lot of nobles weren&#8217;t supporting her because Rand had said he intended to &#8220;give&#8221; her the throne, and also because of what Rahvin had made Morgase do under Compulsion (Winter&#8217;s Heart, <i>Snow</i>). The fact that Morgase had officially relinquished throne and High Seat in Elayne&#8217;s favor gives Elayne an undisputed right to claim the throne, and can help clear the mess Rand had made. And also, if Morgase goes to Caemlyn, then it gives her a perfect opportunity to clear up her name.<br /><br />4. Morgase can offer moral support for Elayne, and a lot of guidance regarding Andor and the throne. Elayne seriously needs her mother at a time like this. And plus, Elayne thinks her mother is dead &#8211; sooner or later, she has to realize that her mother is actually alive. <br /><br />5. Perrin and Elayne have yet to settle the issue of the Red Eagle banner. Although it is a little confusing as to what Perrin is going to peal, exactly &#8211; he might insist that he means nothing by it, and that he&#8217;s just going to explain how it was necessary, but also completely harmless, but at this point the Two Rivers men (and Faile, of course) aren&#8217;t going to give up the idea of Manetheren so easy as that. So&#8230; really. That needs to be cleared up, and we can find out once and for all whether Manetheren really will be resurrected.<br /><br />6. Bashere&#8217;s army of Saldaean light cavalry, which consists of about eight thousand men, is camped about twenty miles west of Caemlyn, along with the Legion of the Dragon. Twenty miles is very close. That's a day&#8217;s march (less than half a day, if the army is fast as the Band). Then there is the Borderland Alliance, which consists of about two hundred thousand light cavalry. They are in or around Braem Wood, moving south through Andor with the destination of Murandy, where they expect to see the Dragon Reborn. Now of all the characters, Perrin has the strongest connection to the Borderlands (Nynaeve will soon, if Lan will ever get off his ass and reinstate Malkier), so sooner or later he&#8217;s going to have to meet up with them. And if Tenobia is going to die, and Bashere does choose to abdicate the throne in his daughter&#8217;s favor, it&#8217;s going to be then. And as for the rest of the Borderland alliance&#8230; well, so far Elayne has sent them on a wild goose chase all the way south to Lugard (where Rand is nowhere near). They&#8217;ll be pretty pissed off when they realize that they won&#8217;t get Rand, but seeing one of Rand&#8217;s best friends will ease some of the sting, especially when Perrin can keep them from going all the way to Lugard (and then Perrin can bring them to Rand for real, and learn something of being a Borderland general from Agelmar Jagad. Heck, even Bashere could give him a few pointers).<br /><br />7. The Prophet still has to be dealt with, whether or not Masema falls off a horse and breaks his neck and over half his followers gets speared fighting the Shaido. And it was Rand&#8217;s last order to Perrin, after all. And since Illian and Tear are under threat of the Seanchan, and Andor is off-limits to Rand, that&#8217;s going to have to be settled in Cairhien, and Caemlyn is just on the way. (Whether he actually gets to Cairhien is debatable, but this gives him a good reason to set off in that direction to begin with.)<br /><br />8. Alliandre, also in Perrin&#8217;s company, has yet to let it be publicly known that she supports Rand&#8230; and also that she ceded her throne and country to Perrin, so he&#8217;s technically the King of Ghealdan now. That has to be settled &#8211; Perrin can either release her from her oath (not likely); or claim the throne, name himself King, and throw Alliandre out on her face; or he can keep her as a puppet Queen like the Seanchan do. But either way, Rand does have to learn about it, and either Perrin tells him in Cairhien or he can give the message to Elayne. <br /><br />9. Then there&#8217;s the Shaido. All I&#8217;m going to say is that they&#8217;re going to be wiped out for good. I won&#8217;t theorize (like the Whitecloaks stepping in and Galad meeting Berelain, or Mat sending in his Band to help out). But whatever happens with the Shaido, Rand is going to have to know about it, and any hostages, gai&#8217;shain, and/or algai&#8217;d&#8217;siswai are going to have to be settled, and that will, of course, have to be done by Rand.<br /><br />10. Lastly, there&#8217;s Loial, who, at the moment, is with Rand. Loial has been with Perrin for a long time, and they&#8217;ve become the very best of friends. Perrin will definitely meet up with him again soon. And if Perrin ever does restore the Ways Loial will have to be with him.<br /><br /><i><b>PS:</b> I tried to stay away from time constraints. I don&#8217;t know when all of these things will come into play &#8211; like, for example, if Rand will deal with the Prophet and his followers before or after the issue with Suroth is cleared. Or if they even do come into play. Same example would be if Perrin heads off to Cairhien to deal with the Prophet, then every Prophet drops dead and he gets sidetracked with other things (Elayne, Egwene). But either way, it doesn&#8217;t matter. Whenever they come into play, they will sooner or later, and if they don&#8217;t, they&#8217;ll at least get Perrin going in that direction.<br /><br />And <b>PPS:</b> Personally, I think that Rand will be taken to the White Tower, since there&#8217;s definitely thirteen Black Ajah, Egwene&#8217;s Accepted test vision will come true, Semhirage and Mesanna have always been close chums (which was shown when the Forsaken had their meeting), and as far as I&#8217;m concerned the Light doesn&#8217;t know Alviarin was Black Ajah and the Shadow doesn&#8217;t know Elaida put Alviarin in her place. And since Tar Valon isn&#8217;t very far from Caemlyn or Cairhien, I think Perrin will head off there (&#8216;cause he doesn&#8217;t even know Egwene is Amyrlin, at this point, and hasn&#8217;t seen her since the Shadow Rising, along with Mat). So, just in case you all wondered when the heck all of this would happen what with everybody&#8217;s busy schedules, there you have it.</i><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-06 06:08:29
subject: Mazrim's life and times
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<p>This theory will attempt to describe as full a chronology of Taim&#8217;s activities to help determine what his true motivations and loyalties are.  I hope to cover some new ground, and not just rehash ezboard discussions.  I recommend you open your mind when reading it, to appreciate the depth of analysis I have tried to put into this.  Understanding Taim on a surface level only leads to theories like Taimendred, which was shot down by Winter&#8217;s Heart, and by RJ himself in multiple interviews.<br /><br />1. Pre-Eye of the World<br /><br />Taim has been described as about the age of 35, according to Rand&#8217;s POV in LOC.  Since he is a sparker, it is established that he had to start channeling by the age of 20, or a little later, which would mean that he started slowing by about age 25 at the latest.  To appear to be age 35 would mean that he is older than that, but not necessarily that much.  For example, Morgase, who is in her early 40&#8217;s, looks to be 30 due to the slowing process.  She is as weak as a channeler can be, yet still is able to take advantage of the slowing effect.  It took about 12 years or so off her appearance.  However, she started training at age 14, which could be 5 or more years sooner possibly than Taim started, so her slowing could have started sooner as well.  The amount of slowing depends on strength, and clearly Taim is extremely strong, as powerful as almost any Forsaken, but it is not known how much OP strength causes how much slowing, so it isn&#8217;t possible to determine just by that how long Taim has been slowing.  Taim may have slowed for sometime between 15 to 35 years to look his age, which means he is somewhere between age 40 to 70, but tending toward the middle somewhere, meaning he was born sometime between 930 and 960 NE, and started channeling between 945 and 985. So he has survived somehow for over a decade and perhaps longer without succumbing to the effects of the Taint.  How?  Is he protected by a Black cord, or is he lucky, or is it something else?  If he is protected by the Dark One, then he is a Darkfriend.  However, it is not certain that he is protected, despite seeming to be as sane as a non-channeler.  While some saidin channelers go insane within months, others can channel for a decade or more before going mad.  Still others have survived even longer by avoiding using saidin or even cutting themselves off from the OP by living in Steddings.  Taim had avoided Aes Sedai notice for a long time, possibly by lying low and not channeling, which would help him avoid the Taint, since its effects aren&#8217;t felt unless saidin is used.  Logain, who appears short of his middle years, which is about Taim&#8217;s age, and therefore may have been channeling as long as him, shows no signs of the Taint, and yet is not accused of being a Darkfriend &#8211; in fact, he seems to be Taim&#8217;s primary rival at the Black Tower.  So there can certainly be something else going on with them to explain their resistance.<br /><br />Taim also seems to have some knowledge of useful saidin weaves that he learned before meeting Rand in LOC.  When he learned it is not known, but it is likely before he declared himself as a False Dragon in TGH, since after that he had little free time for non-critical activities.  He knew some attack weaves, which he used against the Saldaean army in battle, compulsion, testing for saidin ability, and additionally the trick for ignoring temperature, which is not a channeling ability but is generally associated with channelers.  Did he have a Forsaken teacher at some time, or some other as yet unrevealed teacher, or did he learn these on his own?  Since Rand (though with LTT&#8217;s help for some weaves) and Logain learned some weaves on their own, and saidar wilders also learn on their own, it is not beyond reason to assume that Taim could do the same.  And just because few saidin channelers are recorded in recent years (mostly because of being captured by the Red Ajah) doesn&#8217;t mean there weren&#8217;t some that survived the Taint and lived anonymously.  Who knows if they didn&#8217;t even have some as yet unrevealed organization?  Also, ability to learn weaves (and presumably discover them) is directly tied to channeling ability, and Taim is on the very high side in that regard, just under Rand&#8217;s ability at the least, and maybe stronger.  Taim&#8217;s &#8220;old style&#8221; healing (commented on by Cadsuane) may have been picked up from Dashiva, since early in LOC he was not a proficient healer.<br /><br />It seems clear that Logain is not a Darkfriend.  Why didn&#8217;t the Shadow try to get him released as well as Taim, to cause chaos?  Most likely because, at the time, they didn&#8217;t have the Forsaken planning structure in place to pull it off.  Logain was likely already in the White Tower and stilled before even Aginor and Balthamel escaped from the Bore.<br /><br />2. Troubles in Saldaea<br /><br />While the troubles in Saldaea mentioned in EOTW by may have just been the increased Trolloc raids, it may also be Taim-related, since it was in the same sentence as Logain.  He was already known in Fal Dara by the Aes Sedai there, so had declared himself sometime before the beginning of TGH.  The Pattern spun him out as a False Dragon, since he was defeated and captured when Rand fought Ishamael over the skies at Falme.  At that time, his being a False Dragon wasn&#8217;t just a part of some chaos plot by the Dark One.<br /><br />Eye of the World   CHAPTER: 13 - Choices   &quot;Not that they don't want to, I expect, only the Governor don't trust them no more than I do. He won't let but maybe ten or so inside the walls at one time, and ain't they mad about that. The rest have a camp a little ways north, I hear. Bet they got the farmers looking over their shoulders. The ones that do come in, they just stalk around in those white cloaks, looking down their noses at honest folk. Walk in the Light, they say, and it's an order. Near come to blows more than once with the wagoneers and miners and smelters and all, and even the Watch, but the Governor wants it all peaceful, and that's how it's been so far. If they're hunting evil, I say why aren't they up in Saldaea? There's some kind of trouble up there, I hear. Or down in Ghealdan? There's been a big battle down there, they say. Real big.&quot;<br /><br />Great Hunt   CHAPTER: 5 - The Shadow in Shienar   &quot;Yes, Moiraine. You do not have to remind me. I've lived with the Prophecies of the Dragon as long as you.&quot; The Amyrlin shook her head. &quot;Never more than one false Dragon in a generation since the Breaking, and now three loose in the world at one time, and three more in the past two years. The Pattern demands a Dragon because the Pattern weaves toward Tarmon Gai'don. Sometimes doubt fills me, Moiraine.&quot; She said it musingly, as if wondering at it, and went on in the same tone. &quot;What if Logain was the one? He could channel, before the Reds brought him to the White Tower, and we gentled him. So can Mazrim Taim, the man in Saldaea. What if it is him? There are sisters in Saldaea already; he may be taken by now. What if we have been wrong since the start? What happens if the Dragon Reborn is gentled before the Last Battle even begins? Even prophecy can fail if the one prophesied is slain or gentled. And then we face the Dark One naked to the storm.&quot;<br /><br />Lord of Chaos   CHAPTER: 2 - A New Arrival   Taim studied Rand a moment before speaking. Despite the heat, the fellow barely sweated. &quot;To see you. You were the one in the vision in the sky. They say it was the Dark one himself you fought.&quot;  &quot;Not the Dark One,&quot; Rand said. Bashere was not fighting him exactly, but he could feel the tension in the man's arm. If he let go, that blade would be out and through Taim in a heartbeat. Unless he used the Power. Or Taim did. That had to be avoided, if it could be. He kept his grip on Bashere's wrist. &quot;He called himself Ba'alzamon, but I think he was Ishamael. I killed him later, in the Stone of Tear.&quot;<br /><br />3. On the run<br /><br />Clearly Taim had the Black Ajah to thank for his escape while being escorted by soldiers and Aes Sedai back to Tar Valon for his gentling, and this was a plot planned out carefully some time in advance.  However, they just left Taim to fend for himself in the middle of nowhere, despite his apparent importance.  They would not have left him if he were an important Darkfriend, yet he had to find his own way.  He traveled by land, most likely by horse, since he was going slowly enough to be tracked by Bashere&#8217;s army.  No Forsaken scooped him up to bring him up to speed, or even keep from being captured and stilled for once and for all (as far as they knew at the time) and to possibly be interrogated to reveal Darkfriend plots.  No one taught him the weave to Travel, so he could easily evade his Saldaean pursuers, which the Shadow must have been aware of.  No, he was just left to wander on his own, and create what incidental chaos that he could manage by himself.  That&#8217;s no way to treat a so-called Dreadlord, especially someone that was allegedly being groomed by Ishamael.  And though Ishamael died before Taim was freed, any ongoing plots that he initiated would have still been followed through on.<br /><br />Shadow Rising   CHAPTER: 5 - Questioners   Joiya shrugged. &quot;As you wish. Let me see. Different words. The false Dragon, Mazrim Taim, who was captured in Saldaea, can channel with incredible strength. Perhaps as much as Rand al'Thor, or nearly so, if the reports can be believed. Before he can be brought to Tar Valon and gentled, Liandrin means to break him free. He will be proclaimed as the Dragon Reborn, his name given as Rand al'Thor, and then he will be set to destruction on such a scale as the world has not seen since the War of the Hundred Years.&quot;  Shadow Rising   CHAPTER: 17 - Deceptions   Leane examined the red wax seal on the end of one of the small cylinders, no larger than her own finger joint, then broke it open with a thumbnail when she was satisfied it had not been tampered with. The rolled paper inside she extracted with a slim ivory pick. &quot;Nearly as bad as Trollocs, Mother,&quot; she said almost as soon as she began reading. &quot;Mazrim Taim has escaped.&quot;  &quot;Light!' Siuan barked. &quot;How?&quot; &quot;This only says he was taken away by stealth in the night, Mother. Two sisters are dead.&quot; &quot;The Light illumine their souls. But we've little time to mourn the dead while the likes of Taim are alive and ungentled. Where, Leane?&quot;<br /><br />The reason he went to Andor may have been to join Rahvin as some claim (or kill Asmodean), but south was also the only logical escape route for him.  West led back to Saldaea, east to Tar Valon, and north to the Blight.  However, there is no known connection between Rahvin and Liandrin&#8217;s crew, who were the ones to free Taim.  It is barely plausible that Taim was told to go to Caemlyn and wait for Rand to show up though his arrival there was not part of any known Shadow plot &#8211; the Forsaken were planning on dealing with Rand in Illian.  And if he was to meet Rand, it is possible that he was planning on taking Asmodean&#8217;s place as Rand&#8217;s teacher.  However, it is not something he could have planned on his own without Forsaken guidance &#8211; rather he would have needed help from someone like Sammael or Graendal.<br /><br />4. Arrival in Caemlyn.<br /><br />Why didn't Bashere recognize Taim?  Was someone impersonating Taim at any point or is that a red herring?  Taim certainly knew Bashere and mentioned an accurate portrayal of how Bashere&#8217;s followers ended up (compelled by the One Power.  Was Bashere compelled at some point also, affecting his short or long term memory?<br /><br />Was Taim planning on giving the seal to Rand the entire time he had it, which was awhile since the Black Hills are a hike from Caemlyn, or did he just decide on the spur of the moment?  Was it just Rand's luck that he had it in the first place, or some Darkfriend plot?<br /> <br />Rand puts Taim in charge of training the Asha'man which he accepts, in exchange for his amnesty.  Taim had no way of knowing that would happen before he went there, or knowing what they would even want with Taim, whether he would be in a close position to Rand.  So if Taim had some ulterior motive for joining Rand, he had no way of knowing in advance how he would be in position to implement it.  That works if Taim is just flying by the seat of his pants, but not if he is working some intricate plot for the Shadow.  <br /><br />Taim&#8217;s training may or may not have been done by Asmodean, however, was Taim's placement facilitated by Asmodean's death?  RJ stated the dark one didn't order his death, so it wasn't planned anyway.<br /><br />Lord of Chaos   CHAPTER: 3 - A Woman's Eyes   Taim caught up to him before he and the Maidens were halfway back to the trees. &quot;If you stay a little longer, you can learn the test.&quot; Exasperation touched his voice. &quot;If I really do find four or five more, anyway, which truly won't surprise me. You do seem to have the Dark One's own luck. I assume you want to learn. Unless you mean to dump it all on my shoulders. I warn you, it will be slow. However hard I press, this Darner has days yet, weeks, before he can even sense saidin, much less seize it. Just seize it, not channel even a spark.&quot;<br /><br />Fires of Heaven   CHAPTER: 56 - Glowing Embers   If his anger disturbed Bashere at all, the man gave no outward sign. Those tilted eyes watched Rand carefully, but not uneasily. &#8220;The White Tower allowed Mazrim Taim to escape. The false Dragon.&#8221; He paused, then went on when Rand said nothing. &#8220;Queen Tenobia did not want Saldaea troubled again, so I was sent to hunt him down once more and put an end to him. I have followed him south for many weeks. You need not fear I&#8217;ve brought a foreign army into Andor. Except for an escort often, the rest I left camped in Braem Wood, well north of any border Andor has claimed in two hundred years. But Taim is in Andor. I am sure of it.&#8221; This part of his plan he had not meant to reveal so soon. Delay could be costly, but he had intended to have a firm hold on the nations first. Yet it might as well begin now. &#8220;I am announcing an amnesty. I can channel, Lord Bashere. Why should another man be hunted down and killed or gentled because he can do what I can? I will announce that any man who can touch the True Source, any man who wants to learn, can come to me and have my protection. The Last Battle is coming, Lord Bashere. There may not be time for any of us to go mad before, and I would not waste one man for the risk anyway. When the Trollocs came out of the Blight in the Trolloc Wars, they marched with Dreadlords, men and women who wielded the Power for the Shadow. We will face that again at Tarmon Gai&#8217;don. I don&#8217;t know how many Aes Sedai will be at my side, but I won't turn away any man who channels if he will march with me. Mazrim Taim is mine, Lord Bashere, not yours.&#8221;<br /><br />5. Running the Black Tower.<br /><br />Taim does take his recruiting job seriously, doing a very good job of bringing in both channelers and legionnaires for Bashere to train.  That doesn&#8217;t seem to cause chaos in any meaningful way, since Rand gained a lot of followers.<br /> <br />Taim is good at strategic thinking, for example with regard to how Sammael would defend himself.   But that shouldn&#8217;t be surprising, seeing as how he has fended for himself for a long time and managed to gain a large army of followers before his capture.  He is very resourceful and intelligent, which doesn&#8217;t speak for his allegiance particularly.<br /><br />He shows up ostensibly to tell Rand of Narishma when the gray man attacked-did he have advance notice of it somehow?  It had to be sent by a Forsaken though.  It's unlikely that Demandred would have sent it, even as a trick for Rand to gain Taim&#8217;s trust, and it was probably from Sammael, and there is no connection from Taim to Sammael.<br /> <br />Taim's &quot;so-called Aiel&quot; comment is similar to something Moridin said, which makes people think Taim is a Darkfriend by association.  However, the Forsaken don't only work with Darkfriends, and could have trained/used/manipulated Taim for their own reasons without him being a Darkfriend.  It could also be that Aiel weren't ten feet tall and cannibals as they were thought of by many people.  And his knowledge of the Old Tongue, as well as others&#8217;, could have been picked up from Dashiva, who claims to be a scholar of it.<br /> <br />Taim's ego could explain why he was angry when Rand made his &quot;Asha'man&quot; speech and gave Taim his pins.  That seemed to be one part of the Taimendred ruse, since it is similar in attitude of subservience toward Rand to Demandred.<br /><br />If Taim was a Darkfriend, why would he let his main rival Logain rise and gain influence that threatens his own within the Tower without taking drastic measures?  He certainly doesn&#8217;t seem to be someone to let bygones be bygones.<br /><br />6. Rescue of Rand. <br /><br />In an interview, RJ stated that Taim tracked down Rand at Dumai's Wells because of his paranoia, not due to inside knowledge of the forsaken planning the kidnapping.  If he were working with the forsaken, then he would have helped them rather than taking his own initiative to rescue Rand.  If not, his boss would have at least told him to stand aside.  The kidnapping seems to have been intended to succeed, though even his rescue caused there to be discord between Rand and the White Tower.<br /> <br />Taim wanted to place one of the fearsome foursome with Rand, and got upset when Rand chose Dashiva.  Possibly he wanted them to spy on Rand, because he trusted them or because he was their Darkfriend boss and didn't know who Dashiva was.<br /><br />7. The Fearsome Foursome <br /><br />They seem to have been working with Taim closely for some time.  Is this due to a dark alliance, or for some other reason.  If the Foursome were more advanced than other students by having extra training, then maybe they infiltrated to gain Taim&#8217;s trust, and he raised them quickly because of their ability.  The Shadow&#8217;s M.O. is generally to get someone in power as second in command to major institutions, like The White Tower and the Seanchan, <br /> <br />8. Attack on Rand.<br /><br />Taim knew about Rand&#8217;s wishes to cleanse saidin since early in LOC when they met for the first time.  Yet nothing happens to Rand, at least at Taim&#8217;s hands.  In fact, Taim rescues Rand from the Shadow.<br /> <br />Lord of Chaos   CHAPTER: 3 - A Woman's Eyes   &quot;How many Aes Sedai are there altogether? A thousand?&quot; &quot;Not so many, I think,&quot; Taim said cautiously. Culling the human race. Burn them for it, even if they had cause. &quot;Well, there will be enemies enough anyway.&quot; One thing he did not lack was enemies. The Dark One and the Forsaken, Shadowspawn and Darkfriends. The Whitecloaks certainly and very likely Aes Sedai, or some of them, those who were Black Ajah and those who wanted to control him. Those last he counted enemies even if they did not think themselves so. There surely would be Dreadlords, just, as he had said. And more beyond that. Enemies enough to crush all his plans, crush everything. His grip tightened on the carved haft of the Dragon Scepter. Time was the greatest enemy of all, the one he had the least chance of defeating. &quot;I am going to defeat them, Taim. All of them. They think they can tear everything down. It's always tearing down, never building up! I'm going to build something, leave something behind. Whatever happens, I will do that! I'll defeat the Dark One. And cleanse saidin, so men don't have to fear going mad, and the world doesn't have to fear men channeling. I'll ...&quot;<br /><br />&quot;Cleanse saidin&quot; Taim said softly. &quot;I think that would take more power than you can imagine.&quot; His eyes lidded thoughtfully. &quot;I have heard of things called sa'angreal. Do you have one you think could actually&#8212;&quot;<br /><br />Three months later, Rand makes another comment, and two known Darkfriends overheard it.  All of a sudden, there is urgency by the Shadow, though there is no sudden change in Rand&#8217;s ability to cleanse Saidin.  The only difference is the fact that the Shadow now knows about his intentions.  He is attacked within two weeks, despite there being no absolute lifting of the order to not kill Rand by Moridin at the time.<br /><br />Path of Daggers   CHAPTER: 14 - Message from the M'Hael   Rand had not realized he had spoken any of his thoughts aloud. Narishma's eyes, and Morr's, and Hopwil's, belonged in one face, shining with sudden hope. Dashiva looked poleaxed. Rand hoped he had not said too much. Some secrets had to be kept. Including what he would do next.<br /><br />Winter's Heart   CHAPTER: 22 - Out of Thin Air   &quot;Kill him,&quot; Demandred had commanded later, but he had added that it would be better they died than let themselves be discovered again. By anyone, even the M'Hael, as if he did not know of Taim's order.<br />And later still, Moridin had said, &quot;Kill him if you must, but above all, bring everything in his possession to me. That will redeem your previous transgressions.&quot; The man said he was one of the Chosen, and no one was mad enough to make that claim unless it was true, yet he seemed to think al'Thor's belongings more important than his death, the killing incidental and not really necessary.<br /><br />Winter's Heart   CHAPTER: 13 - Wonderful News   &quot;Killed?&quot; Moridin moved his hands as though weighing something. &quot;If it comes to that, yes,&quot; he said finally. &quot;But finding him is no problem. When he touches the Choedan Kal, you will know where he is. And you will go there and take him. Or kill him, if necessary. The Nae'blis has spoken.&quot;<br /><br />In conclusion, Mazrim Taim is not so obviously a Darkfriend as many make him out to be.  I believe that he is his own man, and while some of his objectives in terms of gaining power and glory intersect with some Shadow goals, that is by happenstance only, though the Shadow may help or manipulate him from time to time when their interests are the same.<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-10 03:12:46
subject: Fain's Final Role-Part 3
body:
<p><b>Introduction</b><br /><br />In this part of the theory I hope to show how the Aridhol Power and the True Power react to each other, needless to say it&#8217;s probably worthwhile hunting down the other parts of this theory, just so you&#8217;ve got the bigger picture in your head while your reading this. Sorry it&#8217;s taken so long, but as they say &#8216;good things come to those who wait&#8217;.<br /><br /><b>The Purpose of Aridhol</b><br /><br />Throughout the Trolloc Wars, Aridhol&#8217;s purpose was to defeat the Shadow, that was their number one priority, despite their questionable methods.<br /><br />EoTW, The Shadow&#8217;s Waiting:<br /><i> &#8216;The victory of the Light is all. That is the battlecry Mordeth gave them and the men of Aridhol shouted it, even while their deeds abadoned the Light.&#8217;</i><br /><br />So while it is true that they weren&#8217;t very nice people, they nevertheless acted against the Shadow as much as ever Manetheran had. While it is suspect whether this is ploy that Mordeth used in order to manipulate the people of Aridhol, I think it is more likely that Aridhol was just a tool in which Mordeth wanted to strike back at the Shadow for whatever reason he had.<br /><br />TFoH, Memories:<br /><i> 'Reborn to smite old enemies and new' </i><br /><br />New enemies certainly refers to Rand and perhaps, in a lesser way, Mat and Perrin. Old enemies possibly relates to Mordeth&#8217;s enemies and the only one that survives to date, is the Dark One and so the Shadow. <br /><br />With this in mind, it could be thought that evil of Shadar Logoth would be the agressor towards the evil of the Shadow.<br /><br /><b>Aridhol Power and True Power</b><br /><br />There have only really been three instances in which the True Power and what I consider Aridhol Power have come into contact. Firstly Fain&#8217;s soul, secondly Rand&#8217;s wound and lastly the Cleansing. Unfortunately it might be hard to find a consistency between the three, due to the nature of each. With Fain&#8217;s soul, what we are seeing is the competition between a soul (Mordeth)and a disease (Shadow). As Mordeth isn&#8217;t the source of the Aridhol Power, much the same way that Ishamael/Moridin isn&#8217;t the source of the True Power, nor is Mordeth a manifestation of the Aridhol Power, like the Mashadar. Whereas Rand&#8217;s wound is a conflict between pure Aridhol Power and True Power, similar to that at the Cleansing, where a manifestation between pure Aridhol Power and True Power contend.<br /><br />So with Rand&#8217;s wound we see the two evil locked in a small area, but unlike the Cleansing they&#8217;re not forced together and we&#8217;ve not seen any development in the wound so far. It appears to be the same in A Crown of Swords as it is in Crossroads of Twilight. One thing does seem true though, is that they seem to repel each other as much &#8216;attack&#8217; each other.<br /><br />WH, With the Choedan Kal:<br /><i> &#8216;The slash given by Padan Fain&#8217;s dagger, the dagger that had come from Shadar Logoth, did not beat together with the pulsing larger wound it cut across, but rather against it, alternating&#8217;</i><br /><br /><i> &#8216;The wound given to him by Ishamael throbbed in time with the taint, while the other, from Fain&#8217;s blade, beat counterpoint with the evil that killed Aridhol&#8217;</i><br /><br />Here we can see that evils are opposite in a way and seem to repel each other. Much in the same way that <i>saidin</i> and <i>saidar</i> repel each other. <i>Saidin</i> and <i>saidar</i> are completely different, this is often stated, where one needs to be fought to be brought under control the other needs to be surrendered to. Whereas one is inheritantly calm, the other is &#8216;an avalanche of molten ice&#8217;, well you know how it is. Rand also describes the two evils in his wound differently.<br /><br />WH, Blue Carp Street:<br /><i> &#8216;The twin wounds in his side began to throbbing, the older like a disc of ice, the newer a bar of fire across it.&#8217;</i><br /><br />The Aridhol Power wound is described as fire, whereas the True Power wound is described as ice, the two being completely opposite. This is echoed by Sumitsu, when she is analysing Rand&#8217;s wounds.<br /><br />CoS, Blades:<br /><i> &#8216; &#8220;Seems like a cyst, but full of evil, instead of pus. And this&#8230;&#8221; She drew her finger down the gash, &#8220;&#8230;seems full of a different evil.&#8221; &#8217;</i><br /><br />From magnets we know that opposites attract, however this rule doesn&#8217;t seem to apply to <i>saidin</i> and <i>saidar</i>, therefore we can hopefully assume that Aridhol Power and True Power also repel each other. However this doesn&#8217;t explain how <i>saidin</i> was Cleansed, or does it?<br /><br />Perhaps the taint was destroyed, as much as it was just taken off of <i>saidin</i>. During the Cleansing, Rand was forcing <i>saidin</i> into Shadar Logoth and, perhaps, as <i>saidin</i> was rushing through the evil of Aridhol, the taint couldn&#8217;t follow it, so it was &lt;shifted&gt; off of <i>saidin</i>.<br /><br />WH, With the Choedan Kal:<br /><i> &#8216;the taint was moving&#8217;</i><br /><br />There, it was moving. I think this is quite crucial, in that Rand describes the taint as moving, moving off of <i>saidin</i>, not being destroyed. <br /><br />CoS, A Crown of Swords:<br /><i> &#8216;Distantly he felt the new wound in his side throbbing, a slash of flame, echoing the evil that clung to the very dust of Shadar Logoth&#8217; </i><br /><br />WH, With the Choedan Kal:<br /><i> &#8216;The wound given to him by Ishamael throbbed in time with the taint, while the other, from Fain&#8217;s blade, beat counterpoint with the evil that killed Aridhol&#8217;</i><br /><br />Now I&#8217;m not saying that Rand absorbed the Aridhol Power from Shadar Logoth and the True Power from the taint on <i>saidin</i>, just that it &lt;is&gt; a possibility, but it does further accentuate that the two evils don&#8217;t seem to be attracting each other, just themselves.<br /><br />So when we &lt;do&gt; see these two evils, two powers, interact what is the outcome? Well we haven&#8217;t really seen properly with Rand&#8217;s wound what&#8217; going on, only that it seems to have gotten worse.<br /><br />COT, A Strengthening Storm:<br /><i>&#8216;Those two overlapping wounds hurt since Shadar Logoth&#8217;<br /><br />&#8216;One at least he hoped would begin to Heal since Shadar Logoth was gone&#8217; </i><br /><br />Obviously he believes that with Shadar Logoth gone that the wound should be getting better, however the second comment implies that it hasn&#8217;t. It sounds like it hasn&#8217;t even began to show signs of healing and the Cleansing was what, a week ago? Anyway there seems to be little change in the condition of Rand&#8217;s wound, supporting the fact that the two evils are repelling each other. If they were attracted to each other or if they were attacking each other, then the wound would surely be getting better as the two powers negated each other? Therefore the state of his wound remains unchanged.<br /><br />Similarly with the Cleansing where I have concluded that the evil of Aridhol was &lt;pushing&gt; the taint off of <i>saidin</i> rather than destroying it. The only question that it leaves unanswered though, is that where did the evil of Aridhol go? Well the taint must have been somewhere and as the pure <i>saidin</i> was being forced into Shadar Logoth, it seems obvious that the taint, the True Power stayed there.<br /><br />WH, With the Choedan Kal:<br /><i> &#8216;Saidin and saidar, alike and unalike, could not mix. The flow of saidin squeezed in on itself away from the surrounding saidar and the saidar pushed  it from all sides, compressing it further, making it flow faster. Pure saidin, pure except for the taint, touched Shadar Logoth&#8217; </i><br /><br />Imagine Shadar Logoth as being a siv (with very very very small holes), now imagine a mixture of water and sand running through it, the water being <i>saidin</i> and the sand being the taint. The sandy water, is being poured through piping, which is <i>saidar</i>. As the water (<i>saidin</i>) flows through the siv, the sand (taint) is being collected in the siv and so the water comes through pure. Although it&#8217;s slighty different (as you can&#8217;t really incorporate the repelling) it&#8217;s the best analogy for what is happening. Even though the True Power is opposite to the Aridhol Power in Shadar Logoth, it cannot not go into it, as it is attached to <i>saidin</i> which is being forced into Shadar Logoth by it&#8217;s opposite and repelling <i>saidar</i>.<br /><br />You now have to opposite and repelling powers in incredibly close contact, there is no where for the taint to go now that it is trapped in Shadar Logoth and similarly there is no where for the evil of Aridhol to go as it is also so trapped. The two evils attempt to repel each and escape from Shadar Logoth, which results in it&#8217;s destruction.<br /><br />WH, With the Choedan Kal:<br /><i> &#8216;she was watching the great dome. Black no longer seemed to describe it&#8217; </i><br /><br />I think the black dome that Moghedien sees expanding around Shadar Logoth are the evils trying to escape Shadar Logoth, or perhaps just the taint, either way, when it stretches the boundary of where it can reach it collapses in on itself, rather like an evil supernova.<br /><br />WH, With the Choedan Kal:<br /><i> &#8216;the dome collapsed in on itself, in the space of heatbeat to pinpoint, to nothing&#8217; </i><br /><br />And so Shadar Logoth is destroyed along with the taint and the evil of Shadar Logoth.<br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br /><br />1. The True Power and the Aridhol Power are opposite to each and repel each other<br />2. During the Cleansing, the taint was pushed off of <i>saidin</i> and trapped in Shadar Logoth, where the tension between the two repelling evils, so close to each other, caused the destruction of the city and indeed, the two evils<br /><br />In the concluding part, I'm going to tie all the previous parts together and using all the evidence acquired state what I think Fain is going to be doing at Tarmon Gaidin.<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-20 06:12:07
subject: Fain's Final Role-Part 4
body:
<p>Fain&#8217;s Final Role-Part 4<br /><br /><b>Introduction</b><br /><br />In the final part of the theory I&#8217;m going to use all the previous parts of the theory to hopefully support what is going to happen to Fain at Tarmon Gaidin. Firstly I&#8217;m just going to recap on what I&#8217;ve already stated and perhaps elaborate on points that I&#8217;ve may not have properly covered and try to answer some of questions raised in the other theories. You may wish to skip the Questions and Answers section and perhaps just refamiliarise yourself with some of the concepts in the recap section before moving on to the real beef of the theory. <br /><br /><b> Questions and Answers </b><br /><br /><u>Shishka:<br />Just one minor quibble. In your Conclusion 2, you state that the Shadow's hold on Fain no longer drives Fain to find the boys. I disagree. Fain still seems to have no goals other than to find and kill Rand (since ACoS, that's all we've seen him try to do). So, while I don't think this &quot;need&quot; has gotten any stronger over the course of the books, I don't think it's gotten any weaker, either. It still seems to be his primary (actually, only) motivation in life.<br />I do agree that Mordeth is gaining more control over Fain as the series progresses, but the need to kill Rand (and, to a lesser extent, Mat and Perrin, as RJ has said) still seems to be what's driving both of them to act. </u><br /><br />Fain&#8217;s &lt;need&gt; to find Rand is now purely self-motivated, whereas before he being forced by the Dark One and Ishamael to find the boys and no real feelings towards them. This is reflected in that during EoTW, Fain was living on grubs, rats and lizards to sustain himself so that he could continue his search after the boys. He was also forced to enter the Ways against his will, driven by his need to find the boys. However after his encounter with Machin Shin he is in fact able to travel &lt;away&gt; from the boys and then later in books 3-4 he was able to again stay away from them without any reprocussions. Surely this shows his need to find the boys has indeed lessened<br /><br /><u>Sir_Lancelittle:<br />I certainly can believe that Mordeth is getting stronger however I disagree with the idea of rating the shadow as part of Fain. I think the DO clearly modified him caused him to have certain desires and needs (such as hunting Rand) but that is very different then what you purposed (where the shadow was almost a third person in Fain's body) just as someone might feel hunger </u><br /><br />Fain comments on how he was remade at Shayol Ghul, which meant that it involved the Dark One. Why need the Dark One if he was just going to be given extra abilities? Ishamael could have done that with the One Power, Aes Sedai are able to make their Warders sense Shadowspawn with One Power, so why couldn&#8217;t Ishamael have done this? Also Fain often includes being reborn at Shadar Logoth with being remade by the Dark One. As what happened in Shadar Logoth incorporated his soul, it is logical to conclude that this happened at Shayol Ghul too.<br /><br /><u>Geer:<br />It states that while the One Power is made of two halves that work together to create something greater than either half alone, the Dark Powers are two seperate powers that when combined destroy each other - like an acid and a base. The evils are also attracted to each other just like the dagger in EotW drew the Forsaken to Mat This is how the taint was destroyed</u><br /><br />The interaction between the Aridhol Power and the True Power, I&#8217;ve explained the Part 3. I think though that Aginor was just able to sense the evil that Mat carried with him, even though the Shadow power isn't attracted to the evil of Aridhol. Much in the same way that Warders are able to sense Shadowspawn without themselves being evil.<br /><br /><u>Asha_man Drake:<br />The big question now is, &quot;Is the AP gone with the destruction of Shadar Logoth&quot; ? Please let me explain :<br /><br />Let's assume the theory is correct and Mordeth is the original wielder of the AP. Then we can suppose that his power grew along with his control over the city of Aridhol, so that his power was at a maximum when he gained total control of the people's minds and the king's. Is the city a whell he can draw his power from ?<br /><br />So what happened when the city was destroyed when Rand cleansed Saidin ? We can safely assume the city is no longuer affected by the &quot;AP&quot; but what of Fain's power ? Did he drew power from the Shadar Logoth, in which case it would be very bad for him ? Did he drew from the dagger only ? Did he do everything on his own ?</u><br /><br />No. Aridhol was twisted by Mordeth&#8217;s power. It&#8217;s probably a bit misleading that it&#8217;s been called Aridhol Powe, but I really didn&#8217;t want to call it Mordeth Power as this seemed too personal, after all the True Power isn&#8217;t known as the Dark One&#8217;s Power. Let&#8217;s say that Shadar Logoth is to Mordeth as the Ways are to the Dark One. Mordeth created the evil IN Aridhol with his power, he tainted it and twisted it, by feeding off the suspicion in the city, the city that he cultivated with his power in the first. He isn&#8217;t tied to Shadar Logoth he created it, the evil in it anyway. So Mordeth always had the power with him and this is now what Fain is using. <br /><br /><u>Lil timmy:<br />But what IS Mordeth?<br />I always sort of thought Mordeth is a kind of gholam. Perhaps a gholam that survived the Breaking and managed to free itself from control. There is a hint of this in one of the later books, the gholam is thinking that it now has the concept of freedom, though it is still constrained.<br /><br />That does not explain how Mordeth is able to consume souls and take the bodies of others. In fact we have no idea just what Mordeth is, a ghost? A sort of vampire? It would explain is contempt for Aes Sedai.</u><br /><br />Mordeth was just a man that used this &#8216;Aridhol Power&#8217;. I&#8217;ve already (hopefully) disproved in a previous theory &#8216;Padan Fain, Mordeth and the Mashadar&#8217;, that Mordeth wasn&#8217;t a gholam, even if my ideas on where he got his powers from weren&#8217;t so refined by then. <br /><br /><b>Recap</b><br /><br />Part 1<br /><br />1. The Dagger wasn&#8217;t really that great for Fain, it was in fact the ulterior desire of Mordeth, who wanted the Dagger to accelerate his possession of Fain<br />2. The Shadow hold on Fain hasn&#8217;t lessened since the encounter with the Machin Shin, however it&#8217;s so insignificant that it no longer drives Fain to find the boys, but does leave him with the ability to sense them<br />3. Mordeth has already momentarily controlled Fain&#8217;s actions and is now sharing a head with Fain<br />4. Mordeth is very close to taking majority control of Fain&#8217;s body<br /><br />Part 2<br /><br />1. Fain&#8217;s talents stem from Mordeth and as Mordeth becomes a more prominent aspect on Fain&#8217;s soul, his talents increase<br />2. Aridhol Power shows the beginning of a Power to perhaps rival that of  the One Power or the True Power<br />3. It&#8217;s &#8216;channelled&#8217; by creating globs of Aridhol evil (or whatever it was when Mordeth used it) shaping it to a desired effect and then placing it somewhere<br />4.    Mordeth was the original wielder of the Aridhol Power<br /><br />Part 3<br /><br />1. The True Power and the Aridhol Power are opposite to each and repel each other<br />2. During the Cleansing, the taint was pushed off of <i>saidin</i> and trapped in Shadar Logoth, where the tension between the two repelling evils, so close to each other, caused the destruction of the city and indeed, the two evils<br /><br /><b>Fain&#8217;s Final Role</b><br /><br /><u>Part 1</u><br /><br />I think that at the Last Battle Fain will kill Shaidar Haran and there is a lot of evidence that supports this idea. Firstly the nature of the super-fade and how powerful he is requires a similarly powerful person to counter him. Shaidar has very powerful talents, which would incapacitate even the most powerful of channellers.<br /><br />1. The stedding effect:<br />Whether Shaidar purposefully or otherwise is able to shield channellers, or whether he is a sort of portable stedding, he is able to shield incredibly strong channellers with ease.<br /><br />Osan&#8217;gar in the presence of Shaidar<br />LoC, prologue:<br /><i> &#8216;He reached for saidin &#8211; and found nothing. He had not been shielded, he would have felt it, and known how to work around it or break it, given time, if it was not too strong. This was as if he had been severed.&#8217; <br /><br />&#8216; &#8220;You have not been severed, but you will not channel until you are told you may.&#8221; &#8217;<br /><br />&#8216; &#8220;And you will be given to&#8230;my brothers, blocked as you are&#8221; &#8217; </i><br /><br />These quotes certainly support the fact that Shaidar has control over his ability to shield channellers. However the shielding is unique in that it doesn&#8217;t allow the shielded to break free. Osan&#8217;gar thought that he had been severed and Graendal also isn't able to even sense the Source around Shaidar.<br /><br />PoD, New Alliances:<br /><i> &#8216;It [Shaidar] had to be the reason she could not sense the Source&#8217; </i><br /><br />Different to severing, or if it was possible a temporary severing, in that she could not sense the Source at all, which reflects the nature of the stedding and also the Guardians of Far Madding.<br /><br />WH, A Portion of Wisdom<br /><i> &#8216;This city is worse than a prison, there is no Source here&#8217;</i> (Lews Therin)<br /><br />CoT, A Mark<br /><i> &#8216;She wasn&#8217;t shielded. The Source was simply gone. There was nothing for her to embrace.&#8217; </i><br /><br />We must also be remembering that, as Osan&#8217;gar said, there is nothing to fight against and therefore nothing to break through the shielding, which means that strength in the One Power, indeed being able to channel at all, stands for nothing, when fighting the Hand of Shadow.<br /><br />2. Shaidar&#8217;s imitation channelling<br />Along with his ability to shield, which appears to use little effort, he is able to channel as any other user of the One Power is able, except for the fact that he isn&#8217;t channelling the One Power. He shows passive abilities, though, as well as aggressive ones, implying that there is more to him than what we have seen and it is highly suspect that he can do with, what is probably the True Power, it.<br /><br />PoD, New Alliances<br /><i> &#8216;A ball of&#8230;something&#8230;appeared in the air, a dead black globe, but a silver light filled the room.&#8217; </i><br /><br />And there are, of course, his more deadly talents to fear.<br /><br />CoS, Spears:<br /><i> &#8216;Angry black flames raced down from Shaidar Haran&#8217;s hand, the hand of the Hand of the Shadow. In an instant the wooden shaft was charred and twisted.&#8217; </i><br /><br />CoT, A Mark:<br /><i> &#8216;suddenly black fire flashed around her and she screamed as clothing fell away to dust. Bands of black flme bound her arms to her side, wrapping tight around her legs and a seething ball of black appeared in her mouth, forcing her jaws wide&#8217; </i><br /><br />While the proper mechanisms of the True Power is suspect, for another theory; another day perhaps, I hope that I have shown that a channeller would not be able to kill Shaidar. I doubt that he could even be overwhelmed by many channellers, due to the fact that it takes him little effort to shield the likes of Graendal, Moghedien and Mesaana. Also a person trying to engage in melee combat with him, would have the same chance as fighting a channeller in normal circumstances&#8230;small. And perhaps on a lesser point, I have never seen Shaidar carrying a sword, perhaps it shows his contempt for melee combat and his security in his usage of the True Power.<br /><br />And this is where we come to Fain. Fain&#8217;s abilities counter that of Shaidar&#8217;s quite effectively and we also have to take into account that Fain&#8217;s are still developing, by the time it gets to the Last Battle he should be even more powerful. Anyway, Fain&#8217;s counter-talents.<br /><br />1. To counter the shielding<br />Fain used his talents in Far Madding , where the Guardians as we&#8217;ve seen, create a similar feeling to what those shielded by Shaidar feel. I think that Shaidar trying to shield Fain from the Aridhol Power, would be the same as him trying to shield Perrin from communicating to the wolves or Min from having her viewings&#8230;impossible.<br /><br />WH, Blue Carp Street<br /><i>&#8216;With a smile he raised his free hand.<br />Torval and Gedwyn came up the stairs with their cloaks over their arms &#8220;I say we aren&#8217;t going near him until I know where the others are,&#8221; Gedwyn growled. &#8220;The M&#8217;Hael will kill us if&#8230;&#8221; Without thought Rand twisted his wrists in Cutting the Wind and immediately followed with Unfolding The Fan. The illusion of dead men, come back to life, disappeared&#8217;</i><br /><br />2. To counter the aggressive &#8216;weaves&#8217;<br />As I have said in Part 3, I believe that the Aridhol Power and the True Power is opposing to a point that for both to be in extremely close contact would create a sort of tension that destroys them both. Therefore if Shaidar was to channel the True Power while Fain was channelling the Aridhol Power and both were to clash, then I think that Shaidar would come off decidedly worse for wear. While Fain is only channelling the Aridhol Power, Shaidar I think is &lt;infused&gt; by the True Power. Certainly when Fain used the Aridhol Power on normal fades, well they didn&#8217;t like it.<br /><br /><blockquote><b> Part 2 excerpt<br />LoC, Letters:<br /><i>'jerked it's eyeless face away when it saw him watching. It knew remembered his.....tricks very well&#8217;</i><br /><br />Now unless Fain is able to increase the potency of his little &#8216;trick&#8217;, then that Myrddraal would&#8217;ve just laughed in his face. So it&#8217;s safe to assume that Fain does have some control over what it can do. It also seems he can be quite specific with it too, choosing where or how it hurts the fade.<br /><br />TSR, Assurances:<br /><i>&#8216;I know how to hurt your sort. I can make you scream through endless dying&#8217;</i></b></blockquote><br /><br />You see, Fain isn&#8217;t infused with Aridhol Power the way that Shaidar is with the True Power. Shaidar appears to be the avatar of the Dark One and as such I think He poured a little bit of himself into Shaidar, which boosted Shaidar&#8217;s powers. As the Dark One is the Source of the True Power, then this would infuse Shaidar with the True Power.<br /><br />Fain however, just has the spirit of a past channeller of the Aridhol Power on his soul, this, I don&#8217;t think, is the same.<br /><br />It has also been foreshadowed throughout the series with Fain&#8217;s &#8216;hobby&#8217; for capturing and breaking Myrddraal. Killing a fade is really not that big a deal. Even an average channeller could capture a fade, but being able to break it so that it then obeys you and doesn&#8217;t turn on you when your back is turned? I think that is the sign. <br /><br />TSR, Goldeneyes<br /><i> &#8216;the Myrddraal in their midst, it&#8217;s slug pale, eyeless gaze as bleakly wooden as theirs.&#8217; </i><br /><br />Fain is the Fade Killer and Shaidar Haran, the Hand of the Shadow, is the Master Fade, it is surely appropriate that the two will meet at Tarmon Gaidin and for the reasons I have outlined, I think that Fain will triumph.<br /><br /><u>Part 2</u><br /><br />Now this is the most outlandish part of my theory, however I hope that all my previous groundwork will prove that it is a very real possibility. Otherwise it&#8217;ll just have been a great big waste of time. Anyway, cracking on.<br /><br />I believe Fain and/or his dagger to be the focal point for the Dark One&#8217;s new prison. Not resealing, total reimprisonment. This is an alternative to using the One Power, which I don&#8217;t think would be possible, knowing what we know from the crumbling Seals.<br /><br /><blockquote><b>As such it isn&#8217;t too hard to see how the True Power could somehow corrode the One Power in cuendillar. We know from Rand&#8217;s never-healing-wound that the True Power seems to resist the One Power and it was only through some unknown Healing by Nyneave that the True Power wound didn&#8217;t finish Rand off. As the True Power stems from the Dark One it would have the feel of evil about it, this is only natural, and so as the Dark One is actively touching and weakening the seals, the True Power is at that time in the seals. This would exlpain the feeling of evil when she touched it:<br /><br />&#8220;It (the Seal) was whole when we put it in the purse&#8221; said Nynaeve in TFOH, To Teach and To Learn. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t look at it,&#8221; Elayne said breathlessly, &#8220;or touch it more than we had to. It felt filthy, evil.&#8221; It no longer did.&#8221; TFOH, To Teach and To Learn.<br /><br />So when the seal was near to breaking it would be filled with the maximum amount of the True Power and the Dark One would be touching more, then when the seal broke the Dark One stopped touching the seal and pouring True Power into it and so the evil feeling left.</b></blockquote> (Weakening of the Seals~Foxhead)<br /><br />However if the prison was to be made with the Aridhol Power, the Dark One wouldn&#8217;t be able to touch it and therefore wouldn&#8217;t be able to corrupt it. Firstly there is nothing in the prophecies that says that Rand will be the one who seals the Dark One away again. This is just speculation, but I&#8217;ll have at shot at how I think it might work.<br /><br />Rand &#8216;dies&#8217; at Tarmon Gaidin, perhaps at the hand of Shaidar Haran ,which leads to the death of the super fade as Fain gets his revenge for not being the one to kill Rand. Then Fain goes into the very heart of Shayol Ghul to confront the one who had hurt him so much. By this time Fain has become Mordeth, with all of Mordeth&#8217;s skills who uses some trickery in an attempt to battle the Dark One. Perhaps another Mashadar or something. Anyway the &lt;exact&gt; method of the imprisonment isn&#8217;t overly necessary and the numerousness of methods makes it hard to depict what exactly could happen, but I think the result will be that Dark One is sealed away using Fain in some way.<br /><br />TFoH, Memories:<br /><i>'Reborn to smite old enemies and new' </i><br /><br />The old enemies are most certainly Mordeth&#8217;s and despite his methods he was anti-Shadow during the Trolloc Wars, the nation of Aridhol killing as many trollocs as others, as I thought in Part 3, I think that the Shadow did some injustice to Mordeth and he used his talents and the Aridhol Power to use Aridhol as a weapon against the Shadow. Which backfired as we know.<br /><br />Anyway, we know that the evil of Aridhol can be anchored in some way to a specific place, as Shadar Logoth is evidence of it. Also after a millennia or so, the prison could perhaps thin, as it was in the Age of Legends, waiting to be broken open again in some way. After all two very strong repelling magnet, brought into very close vicinity, both will eventually lose some of their strength and the same could be for the prison. This is just speculation though.<br /><br />The best thing about this theory though, is that, in one fell swoop it gets rid of Fain and the Dark One. However there are questions that must be answered before we can accept this theory.<br /><br />1. Will Fain make it to Tarmon Gaidin?<br />2. The Pattern does everything for a reason, what is the reason for Fain?<br />3. Fain has survived this long, while in theory anything mortal can kill Fain, will they?<br /><br />Fain has come too far and for him to be killed by Rand or a stray arrow would be preposterous, his final act will be something magnificent, climatic and ultimately genius. I think this is suitably tricksy for Robert Jordan, rather than Fain just dying.<br /><br />Finally I just want to say thank you to everybody that has read every part of my theory and I hope it hasn&#8217;t been too anti-climatic and you&#8217;ve enjoyed it and ultimately that you agree with it. So after a good three weeks of waiting&#8230;flame away <img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/biggrin.gif" border="0" /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-25 05:41:46
subject: Galad's next move
body:
<p>One question from the prologue Embers Falling on Dry Grass is what Galad plans next. <br /><br />It's made clear in the military conference in Suroth's PoV in KoD, prologue, that Galad could convince seven thousand Whitecloaks to desert the Seanchan, and that this army disappeared somewhere in Amadicia.<br /><br />The Seanchan Captain of the Air Yulan says: &quot;Raken are the best way we have to locate Aiel, and in two days we still haven&#8217;t found those Whitecloaks.&quot;  Then Suroth replies:&quot;The Aiel are less of a problem every day,&#8221; [...] &#8220;and a few deserters are nothing.&#8221;  And General Gagan states: &quot;I hardly call seven thousand men a few deserters&quot;.<br /><br />I disagree with those who believe Galad &amp; Co. will end up with Perrin and fight the Shaido.  Besides that Perrin is apparently too far away, Perrin wants to fight Aiel and ally with the Seanchan army in this area. <br /><br />From Galad's thoughts in KoD, prologue, it's obvious that he doesn't want to help hunting Aiel anymore, especially not as an ally of the Seanchan. <br /><br />Hunting Aiel is what the Seanchan wanted the Whitecloaks to do: &quot;Have the Children find someone, anyone, who is fighting the Seanchan and ally with them. Make sure that the Children of the Light ride in the Last Battle instead of helping the Seanchan hunt Aiel and steal our nations.&quot;<br /><br />That shows that Galad wants to fight the Seanchan now.<br /><br />A possible alliance with Ituralde is not very likely. Against it speaks that Ituralde seems too far away in Tarabon and wants to head back to Arad Doman as quickly as possible, hunted by the Seanchan army.<br /><br />In my opinion, Galad's best next move would be to march back to the Fortress of the Light with his men, free it from the Seanchan occupation and free the prisoners there.<br /><br />Especially since those prisoners bother all Whitecloaks extremely, as Galad says: '&quot;What about the men who defended the Fortress of the Light? Will any release get their chains struck off or make the Seanchan stop working them like animals?&#8221; More angry growls; those prisoners were a sore point to all of the Children.'<br /><br />Furthermore, this aim, the Fortress of the Light, can explain how such a young and new Whitecloak officer like Galad could convince so many other Whitecloaks and apparently even Lord Captains to follow him as the new Lord Captain Commander.<br /><br />If Galad wins this fight, he will undoubtly be the legitimate Lord Captain Commander in the eyes of all Whitecloaks. Considering that Suroth ordered that most raken should be moved away from Amadicia to Tarabon, this Whitecloak army will likely surprise the Seanchan with their strike. <br /><br />Finally, I believe that in this case the Whitecloaks also get a good reason to throw the hated Questioners out of the Whitecloaks organisation, since certainly all Questioners stayed with Asunawa and thus didn't help to win Amadicia and the Whitecloak's headquarter back.<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-25 07:21:05
subject: Liandrin and the Draghkar
body:
<p><b>Liandrin and the Draghkar</b><br /><br />There has been much speculation since The Great Hunt was published, that Liandrin was the culprit that warded the Draghkar and sent it to snare Moiraine at the Namelle sisters&#8217; house. Certainly there is quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to support the idea, but this theory will attempt to disprove that claim, and lay it to rest for good.<br /><br /><b>Signs that point to Liandrin:</b><br /><br />Our suspicions are aroused about Liandrin perhaps from the very first time we meet her. She and Anaiya are the two Aes Sedai that come to summon Moiraine from her room in Fal Dara, announced by a rapid insistent knocking at her chamber door. Moiraine&#8217;s POV tells us that no Shienaran would knock that way, not at anyone&#8217;s door, but least of all hers. Before she can cross the room in response to the knocking, a second thumping, even more vigorous than the first is heard. And as Moiraine opens it, we see Liandrin with her hand raised ready to pound once again.<br /><br />After Moiraine and Anaiya exchange pleasantries as old friends, Liandrin twitches her shawl and without so much as a how-do-you-do, announces: &#8220;The Amyrlin Seat, she requires your presence, Sister.&#8221; Then she frowns and tries to look over Moiraine&#8217;s shoulder into her room, and says: &#8220;This chamber, it is warded. We cannot enter. Why do you ward against your Sisters?&#8221;<br /><br />Not the most sterling of introductions, and designed to make us take notice, IMO. The contrasts that Jordan makes between the two escorts are plain too, when they head off to see the Amyrlin; Anaiya casually walking and chatting, while Liandrin brackets Moiraine in-between them, &#8220;walking as stiffly as a guard,&#8221; is how RJ describes it.<br /><br />As they proceed toward the Amyrlin&#8217;s chamber, they encounter Lady Amalisa. Moiraine&#8217;s attention is distracted for a moment as she spots Egwene leading Rand to her room, and when she returns to the conversation at hand, Liandrin is heard to say: &#8220;&#8230;. and I would welcome the chance to learn more of your land.&#8221; She wore a smile, open and almost girlish, and her voice was friendly.<br /><br />We can see this gets Moiraine&#8217;s attention through her POV: &#8220;Moiraine schooled her face to stillness as Amalisa extended an invitation to join her and her ladies in her private garden, and Liandrin accepted warmly. Liandrin made few friends, and none outside the Red Ajah. <i>Certainly never outside the Aes Sedai. She would sooner make friends with a man, or a Trolloc</i>. Moiraine was not sure Liandrin saw much difference between men and Trollocs. She was not sure any of the Red Ajah did.&#8221;&#8230;. &#8220;Moiraine studied Liandrin as they walked, never looking at her directly. The honey-haired Aes Sedai was staring straight ahead, rosebud lips pursed thoughtfully. She appeared to have forgotten Moiraine and Anaiya both. <i>What is she up to</i>?&#8221;<br /><br />As they near the end of their short walk, we have another exchange: &#8220;Enough of idle talk,&#8221; the honey-haired woman broke in angrily. &#8220;For you, Moiraine, the Amyrlin waits.&#8221; She took three quick strides ahead of the others and threw open one of a pair of tall doors. &#8220;For you, the Amyrlin will have no idle talk.&#8221; Unconsciously touching the pouch at her waist, Moiraine went past Liandrin through the doorway, with a nod as if the other woman were holding the door for her. She did not even smile at the white flash of anger on Liandrin&#8217;s face. <i>What is the wretched girl up to</i>?&#8221; (All preceding quotes from TGH, Summoned.)<br /><br />It is rather obvious that RJ intentionally made Liandrin a suspicious character right from the start, and the POV through Moiraine is there to ensure that we didn&#8217;t miss it. Of course in the very next chapter, The Shadow in Shienar, Liandrin removes any doubt we may have had about her when she uses Compulsion on the Lady Amalisa, and commands her to find the three boys so that they may be removed from Fal Dara in secrecy. The POV we get from her when she leaves Amalisa adds to the intrigue:  <b> &#8220;Full night already, and there was much to do before dawn. Her orders had been explicit.&#8221;</b><br /><br />By the time Liandrin discovers Rand in the dungeon and uses the One Power on him, we can pretty well conclude she is Black Ajah. You could even say that Jordan was not very subtle at all when it came to Liandrin, and wants us to pick her out rather easily.<br /><br />Next up comes the condemning quote used as evidence concerning the Draghkar attack, which is from Anaiya: &#8220;Moiraine isn&#8217;t on a ship, girl. She&#8217;s gone, two days gone, and the Amyrlin is in a taking over it.&#8221; Anaiya grimaced and shook her head, though most of her attention was still on the workers. &#8220;First Moiraine vanishes with Lan, then Liandrin right on Moiraine&#8217;s heels, and then Verin, none of them with so much as a word for anyone.&#8221; (TGH, Woven in the Pattern)<br /><br />The way Anaiya worded this naturally makes us want to connect Liandrin&#8217;s disappearance to her following Moiraine and Lan. Later, when the Draghkar attacks Moiraine at Adeleas&#8217; and Vandenes&#8217; house, and they conclude that it was warded against detection, most everyone assumes that Liandrin must be the one that warded and sent the Shadowspawn. This seems perfectly logical based on what we have learned about Liandrin, and then linked to what Anaiya said.<br /><br />What other things has Liandrin done that we know of? Here&#8217;s a partial list: She cons Egwene and Nynaeve into going with her to Falme under the pretense of helping Rand, Mat and Perrin. She hands Egwene and Min over to the High Lady Suroth, and chats openly with her about serving their &#8220;Master.&#8221; She returns to the White Tower, and along with 12 other Black Ajah members, steal ter&#8217;angreals from the vault and commit murder in the process. Her and her cronies kidnap Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne for Be&#8217;lal, to be used as bait for his and Mesaana&#8217;s trap. She and the ten remaining Black Sisters flee to Tanchico to find the male a&#8217;dam. She meets Carridin and calls him by the name &#8220;Bors&#8221;, and lets us know she was at the Dark Friend Social at the beginning of TGH.<br /> <br />This last item is of some importance, in that it lets us know that the explicit orders she thought about at Fal Dara were almost certainly orders received from Ishamael. This would also include the command she received for taking the girls to Falme. <br /><br />All-in-all, we can conclude that Liandrin is indeed a bad-guy, and she has had her hand in several Shadow plots. So why not just go ahead and put the blame of the Draghkar attack on her list as well? There are several things that speak strongly against this idea.<br /><br /><b>Billboards that say Liandrin didn&#8217;t do it:</b><br /><br />Let&#8217;s look back to the original statement by Anaiya: &#8220;First Moiraine vanishes with Lan, then Liandrin right on Moiraine&#8217;s heels, and then Verin, none of them with so much as a word for anyone.&#8221; If you follow the same logic you used earlier that tied Liandrin into following Moiraine, it would also imply that Verin then followed Liandrin, and we know that&#8217;s not the case. Verin went after Rand, Mat and Perrin. Sometimes it&#8217;s easy to make associations that aren&#8217;t really there.<br /> <br />So where does the real evidence come from that would clear Liandrin? Not where I really like to get it from since it sometimes conflicts with the books and is not always reliable, but this is the one place we have for information that comes straight from the author himself; the Question of the Week from TOR:<br /><br /><br /><b>Week 6 question submitted by: Debbie E</b><br />Hometown: Bristol, UK<br /><b>Question:</b> <br />How were the Gholams made? Were they created or bred like the Trollocs? How exactly are they controlled if they are immune to the One Power?<br /><b>Robert Jordan Answers:</b><br /><br />The gholam&#8212;singular and plural are the same&#8212;were created, not bred.  Supposedly their creation involved making them so that they would be obedient to the Chosen, whoever they might be at any given time.  <b>This was an attempt at copying something that had turned up in Myrddraal, which seem incapable of disobeying one of the Chosen, possibly because of the use of the True Power in creation of the Trollocs, the parent stock of the Myrddraal.  Even Aginor, who created the Trollocs, and thus indirectly the Myrddraal, was uncertain about the actual cause. (Becoming one of the Forsaken involves receiving a mark from the Dark One in return for your oaths; this mark is invisible and cannot be sensed by another human being, even another of the Forsaken, but it can be by certain non-human creatures, including Myrddraal and draghkar among others.  This may play a part in the Myrddraal's obedience but doesn't explain it completely.) This element in gholam has some flaws, however, as we have seen in a small measure.  In any case, if I were you, I wouldn't try giving orders to a gholam unless I were one of the Forsaken</b>.<br /><br /><b>Week 12 question submitted by: Lasse</b><br />Hometown: Oslo, Norway<br /><b>Question:</b> <br />In Winters Heart, you mention that back in the Age of Legends, there were several other Forsaken that the Dark One had killed because he suspected they would betray him. What's their story? Were those people ever as high ranking as the 13 survivors, or where they more like high-ranking Dreadlords then actual Forsaken?<br /><b>Robert Jordan Answers:</b><br /><br />First off, Dreadlords was the name given to men and women who could channel and sided with the Shadow in the Trolloc Wars. Yes, the women were called Dreadlords, too. They might have liked to call themselves &quot;the Chosen,&quot; like the Forsaken, but feared to. The real Forsaken might not have appreciated it when they returned, as prophecies of the Shadow foretold would happen. Some of the Dreadlords had authority and responsibility equivalent to that of the Forsaken in the War of the Shadow, however. <b>They ran the Shadow's side of the Trolloc Wars, though without the inherent ability to command the Myrddraal that the Forsaken possess, meaning they had to negotiate with them. Overall command at the beginning was in another's hands</b>.<br /><br /><b>Week 2 question submitted by: Douglas M (and others)</b><br />Hometown: California<br /><b>Question:</b> <br />Is the mark that Alviarin received from Shaidar Haran the same as that the Forsaken received from the Dark One? If so, is she now a Forsaken, or some sort of lesser Chosen?<br /><b>Robert Jordan Answers:</b><br /><br /><b>The mark that Alviarin received from Shaidar Haran was not the same as that given to the Forsaken, though it shares one function: Shadowspawn will recognize her as belonging to the Dark One. They will not obey her as they will the Forsaken, however, but she doesn't have to worry about one trying to kill her, either. She is not any sort of lesser Chosen.</b> You might think of it more like the tattoo some people get put inside the ear of their dog, an identification so others will know who the dog belongs to as soon as they see it.<br /><br /><br />Here we have not one, but three different questions with answers by the author that can be directly applied to Liandrin and her inability to command the Draghkar. First and foremost is the mark that the Forsaken receive which allows them to command Shadowspawn, with Myrddraal and Draghkar being mentioned specifically. <br /><br />Secondly, we see that even the Dreadlords did not share this ability to command Shadowspawn because they lacked the mark bestowed upon the Forsaken by the Dark One. They had to actually negotiate with the Myrddraal during the Trolloc Wars. <br /><br />And just to clarify the matter beyond doubt, Alviarin, who has now been marked by the DO&#8217;s avatar Shaidar Haran, even she is not able to command the Dark One&#8217;s creatures. Her mark only provides protection to her from attack by them.<br /><br />While Jordan has provided contradictory answers to some of the Questions of the Week, when it comes to the subject of commanding Shadowspawn, he has not wavered. Given all the corresponding evidence from these three separate answers makes it obvious that Liandrin did not send the Draghkar after Moiraine. She simply did not possess the ability to do so. This also makes it highly unlikely Liandrin or Vandene warded the Draghkar either. Since a Forsaken had to issue the original command to the creature, wouldn&#8217;t it make sense that they ward it themselves instead of commanding an Aes Sedai to do it for them?<br /><br />That&#8217;s pretty much it for this section of the theory, and most people would probably stop right here. Not me. Why?  Because it doesn&#8217;t explain everything. It leaves the question hanging of: &#8220;What was Liandrin doing if she didn&#8217;t follow Moiraine?&#8221; Let&#8217;s explore one possibility. (And try to keep in mind this has less proof and is partly conjecture for discussion.) <img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/wink.gif" border="0" /><br /><br />Going back to &#8220;Summoned&#8221;, in TGH, let&#8217;s look at some of the other discussion that took place while Anaiya and Liandrin walked with Moiraine when she asked, &#8220;What news have you?&#8221;&#8220;Three more false Dragons.&#8221; Liandrin bit off the words. &#8220;In Saldaea, Murandy, and Tear false Dragons ravage the land. The while, you Blues smile and talk of nothing, and try to hold onto the past.&#8221; Skipping down the page, Anaiya picks up the conversation: &#8220;It isn&#8217;t so grim as that,&#8221; Anaiya said. &#8220;As far as we know, only the one in Saldaea can channel. He has not had time to attract many followers, and sisters should already be there to deal with him.&#8221;<br /><br />Now let&#8217;s jump ahead to Moiraine and Siuan talking in TGH, The Shadow in Shienar: &#8220;Never more than one false Dragon in a generation since the Breaking, and now three loose in the world at one time, and three more in the past two years. The Pattern demands a Dragon because the Pattern weaves toward Tarmon Gai&#8217;don. Sometimes doubt fills me, Moiraine.&#8221; She said it musingly, as if wondering at it, and went on in the same tone. &#8220;What if Logain was the one? He could channel, before the Reds brought him to the White Tower, and we gentled him. So can Mazrim Taim, the man in Saldaea. What if it is him? There are sisters in Saldaea already; he may be taken by now. What if we have been wrong from the start?&#8221; <br /><br />From two different perspectives, we learn that Taim is in Saldaea and according to Anaiya, sisters should already be there to deal with him. Siuan furthers this claim by saying that in fact, sisters <i>are</i> already there. Anaiya also states that Taim has not had time to attract many followers, either. (We will accept this as fact, since she made it in a statement. She must have had some information to base this conclusion on, or she is BA, which has never been proven. Given that Halima killed her in CoT speaks for her not being BA as well.)<br /><br />What I&#8217;m going to try to establish here is a relative comparison between Logain and Taim. Logain declared himself the Dragon Reborn in the fall of 997 NE. (No exact information for an actual day.) He was captured approximately 7 months later in Lugard, about 600 miles from Tar Valon. (I am using the longest time frame possible here.) Now, not taking into consideration the time taken to learn of his declaration, or assembling an escort for him, but just covering that distance traveling 25 miles per day would take almost a month. (24 days to be exact.) So, by using those numbers, 6 months after they arrived, he was captured. <br /><br />In the case of Taim, Siuan tells us sisters are in Saldaea on Amadaine 2, and he is captured on Nesan 26, 165 days later, which translates to almost exactly 6 months, the same as Logain&#8217;s capture. <br /><br />Why are these numbers the same? Logain had amassed an army and had won some major battles along the way. He had moved from Ghealdan, through Altara, and into Murandy working his way to Tear. I&#8217;m sure anyone can probably imagine the difficulty of getting to Logain with an army surrounding him. But Taim? He had no such army to compare with Logain&#8217;s according to Anaiya. In fact, Taim never made it out of Saldaea! <br /><br />Taim <i>was</i> involved in a battle and winning, when the projection of Rand fighting Ishamael in the sky threw him from his horse and knocked him unconscious. His followers thought he was dead and fled the field, enabling his capture. (From TDR, The Amyrlin Seat) This makes it sound like they were not having an easy time of it, and were only successful because of the event in Falme. And from LoC, A New Arrival, Taim says to Bashere: &#8220;I remember you. I had you beat at Irinjavar, until those visions appeared in the sky. But everyone knows that.&#8221; <br /><br />The point to be made here is that Taim managed to elude capture for 6 months, while at the same time attracting an army. What kept the Aes Sedai from bringing him down when he had only a few followers? Why wasn&#8217;t something done to at least stem the flow of soldiers joining his cause, which should have sped up his capture? From the look of things, Bashere eventually had to bring an army of some unknown size to help assist the Aes Sedai. <br /><br />Was this simply a case of bad tactics by the Aes Sedai? With the recent spate of false Dragons, you would certainly think that they would know to neutralize and isolate one before he gathered too many followers to handle. In Logain&#8217;s case, he already had a huge army that had won major battles, but they were still able to bring him down in 6 months time without the intervention of visions in the sky.<br /><br />Did Taim have some help to avoid capture? I think it&#8217;s almost a sure thing that he did, and Liandrin is the likely choice for aid. She took off from the Amyrlin&#8217;s entourage and didn&#8217;t return to the White Tower for 101 days. (From Amadaine 7 to Choren 23) Even if you still believe she sent the Draghkar after Moiraine despite the evidence I have provided to the contrary, this is a long time for her to make her way back to Tar Valon. (*note* according to the Tellings of the Wheel chronology, Moiraine was in Tifan&#8217;s Well 10 days after departing the Amyrlin&#8217;s party, the same night she was attacked.) This would still leave 91 unaccounted for days until Liandrin reappeared at the WT.<br /><br />Why suspect Liandrin? For one thing, we learn that she was working for Ishamael. And it has long been suspected from Taim&#8217;s slips, that he has had contact with, and possibly training from a Forsaken.) For another, her last known location was in the Borderland country of Shienar, and she was last seen heading after Moiraine in the direction of Kandor. Extending out that line of travel would point her toward Saldaea. <br /><br />Perhaps more intriguing though, is that we can make a connection with Liandrin to Taim. This is from TSR, Questioners, Joiya is speaking: &#8220;The false Dragon, Mazrim Taim, who was captured in Saldaea, can channel with incredible strength. Perhaps as much as Rand al&#8217;Thor, or nearly so, if the reports can be believed. Before he can be brought to Tar Valon and gentled, <b>Liandrin means to break him free</b>. He will be proclaimed the Dragon Reborn, his name given as Rand al&#8217;Thor, and then he will be set to destruction on such a scale as the world has not seen since the War of the Hundred Years.&#8221;&#8230;.. &#8220;You can see the obvious result. Rand al&#8217;Thor will be blamed for the depradations of&#8230; Rand al&#8217;Thor. Even proof that they are not the same man may well be dismissed. After all, who can say what tricks the Dragon Reborn can play? Perhaps put himself in two places at once. Even the sort who have always rallied to a false Dragon will hesitate in the face of the indiscriminate slaughter and worse laid at his feet. Those who do not shrink at such butchery will seek out the Rand al&#8217;Thor who seems to revel in blood. The nations will unite as they did in the Aiel War&#8230;.but no doubt much more quickly. Even the Dragon Reborn cannot stand against that, not forever. He will be crushed before the Last Battle even begins, by the very ones he was meant to save. The Dark One will break free, the day of Tarmon Gai&#8217;don will come, and the Shadow will cover the earth and remake the Pattern for all time. <b>That is Liandrin&#8217;s plan.</b>&#8221; (emphasis is mine)<br /><br />I&#8217;ll take the time to throw in here that there is doubt about Joiya&#8217;s story because she wasn&#8217;t stilled like Amico was, and the prohibition against the BA being able to reveal the Shadow&#8217;s schemes. While this is true, Joiya states she only knows about this plan from Liandrin. For all we know, she thinks Liandrin cooked this idea up on her own. Face it, she has spent time with her and knows how ambitious she is. In my mind, just because Liandrin told her about these elaborate plans of <i>hers</i>, doesn&#8217;t make it a <i>Shadow</i> plot by any means.  <br /><br />Let&#8217;s look at this plan from a slightly different perspective. <i>Before</i> Taim was captured. <i>Before</i> Rand proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn, and <i>before</i> the world knew his name:  Ishamael certainly knew of the Prophecies of the Dragon, that Rand was destined to unite the nations and bring them together to fight the Shadow at Tarmon Gai&#8217;don. What better way to cut the legs out from under the Dragon Reborn than to have his name associated as a mad-man bent on destruction? Without the aid of the nations&#8217; armies, the Light wouldn&#8217;t have a fighting chance at the Last Battle. Using Taim as a diversion to discredit Rand is not only brilliant in terms of the Shadow&#8217;s strategy, but the same theme is also repeated with the DO&#8217;s orders to Demandred: &#8220;Let the Lord of Chaos rule.&#8221;<br /><br />If this was Ishamael&#8217;s plan that Joiya described, it was ruined by Rand proclaiming himself and Taim being thrown from his horse and captured, despite receiving help to keep him on the loose. If it was originally plotted out by Ishamael, then it was abandoned after Rand defeated him at Falme. Why? Because when Taim was caught, he lost all his followers and the plan wasn&#8217;t viable anymore. On top of that, more Forsaken were appearing on the scene with plots of their own, such as Mesaana and Be&#8217;lal. <br /><br />I think this is a pretty good explanation for Liandrin having such a detailed plan to aid the Shadow&#8217;s cause. (I certainly have a very hard time giving her credit for devising such a well laid scheme.) Jordan really tries to cloud the issue as well with the conflicting events that follow. Taim is broken free, just like &#8220;Liandrin&#8217;s&#8221; plan described, which leads us to believe she knew about this. However, Taim is never used in the manner she talked about. In actuality, his escape is most likely the plot of different Forsaken with another agenda, while Liandrin is still holding onto an old plot of her former boss, Ishamael. <br /><br />Liandrin has given us plenty of reasons to doubt her, anway. She is overly-ambitious, as seen by her idea of using the male a&#8217;dam to control Rand herself, and have the Forsaken bow to her demands, for one. The plan she tells to Joiya, is another. Plus she tried her Compulsion trick on Moghedien and even attempted to get the other Black Sisters to help gang up against her.<br /><br />Just a couple more things to drive this possibility home. One thing that is often forgotten is that Liandrin had a map of the Ways, most likely provided by Ishamael. This <i>could</i> have been used to facilitate moving Taim to safety if needed, and <i>may</i> be how he escaped capture for so long.<br /><br />The circumstances surrounding Taim&#8217;s escape are suspicious, too. Siuan proclaims that it must have been the work of his followers when Leanne reads the message to her. (I always get suspicious when one of the characters makes an outright statement like this based on little or no evidence.) The fact is, Taim&#8217;s followers fled thinking he was dead after he fell from his horse. <br /><br />Another suspicious point is that only two Aes Sedai were killed when a total of at least six should have been maintaining the shield on him. (Why only two dead out of the six?) This could indicate Black Ajah involvement, which means they would have been sent as part of the original group to find him. This in turn means planning from the very beginning, before they left Tar Valon, to ensure there were enough Black Sisters in the party to achieve their goal.<br /> <br />For me though, one of the biggest hints is Jordan&#8217;s penchant for irony. Siuan used Logain to spread lies about the Red Ajah aiding him in eluding capture by the Aes Sedai. Logain says this: &#8220;For a whole year they helped me avoid other Aes Sedai, sent messages when one was near, though there weren&#8217;t many then. After I proclaimed myself, and began to gather a following, they sent news of where the king&#8217;s armies were, and in what numbers. How else do you think I knew where to strike and when? LoC, The Storm Gathers.<br /><br />In my mind, this use of Logain spreading rumors about the Reds is not just a sub-plot of Jordan&#8217;s, but a clue to help us see what was done earlier in the series. There has to be a logical reason it took so long to bring Taim under control, and why he was able to gather followers when Aes Sedai were already on the scene. The fact that Liandrin is also from the Red Ajah is probably not by coincidence, either.<br /><br />That&#8217;s it. Just something to chew on for a little while. <br /> <br />*Side note* There have been arguments put forth that Slayer commanded Trollocs and Myrddraal while attacking the Two Rivers. Here is a quote from TSR, A Missing Leaf: &#8220;A neat trick, Goldeneyes, locking the Waygate.&#8221; Perrin tensed, ears straining. No telling from where in this dense growth that voice had come. Not so much as a leaf rustled. &#8220;If you knew how many Shadowwrought died trying to get out of the Ways there, it would lift your heart. Machin Shin feasted at that gate, Goldeneyes. But not a good enough trick. You saw: the gate is open now.&#8221; There, off to the right. Perrin slipped through the trees as silently as he had when he hunted here. &#8220;It was only a few hundred to begin, Goldeneyes. Just enough to keep those fool Whitecloaks off balance and see that the renegade died.&#8221; Slayer&#8217;s voice became angry. &#8220;The Shadow consume me if that man does not have more luck than the White Tower.&#8221; Abruptly he chuckled. &#8220;But you, Goldeneyes. Your presence was a surprise. There are those who want your head on a pike. Your precious Two Rivers will be harrowed from end to end, now, to root you out. What do you say to that, Goldeneyes?&#8221;<br /><br />From all appearances Slayer and the Trollocs are at the very least working in conjunction with each other to kill Fain, the original prime target in this instance. Whether or not the Shadowspawn are under his command is less certain. <br /><br />In the final attack against Emond&#8217;s Field, the Trollocs shout: &#8220;ISAM!&#8221; three times before they start their charge. (As we know, this is a part of Slayer&#8217;s persona.) However, the interesting thing about this is that Perrin had just shot Slayer in T&#8217;A&#8217;R that very morning, only a short time before this. Certainly he had not recovered from that serious wound in time to come back and lead this final charge. It appears that this was a prearranged battle-cry, but with what intent? <br /><br />And from WH, Wonderful News, Moridin says: &#8220;Small, apparently unimportant matters can become very important,&#8221; he murmured. &#8220;This rat. Whether Isam succeeds in finding and killing that other vermin, Fain.&#8221;<br /><br />This quote lets us know that it was obviously Ishamael that originally issued the command for Slayer to hunt Fain down. If he gave Slayer that order, then he most likely also ordered the Myrddraal and Trollocs to assist him in whatever capacity to see the mission accomplished. So, while Slayer might have had some sort of leadership role in this instance, the original command would have come from a Forsaken. <br /><br />Now you&#8217;re finished. <img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/tongue.gif" border="0" /> <br /><br />A little more Light in the Night!<br /><br />P.S. ~ For those of you that were looking for something different from me, I'm sorry to say I'm still working on those theories as I can. This was just something I threw together recently and wanted to get posted before the e-book prologue came out.<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-07-28 10:10:36
subject: Who killed Adealas?
body:
<p>This may be simply a giant red herring, but in the prologue to Knife of Dreams, we learn an interesting fact about the Black Ajah. Pg. 75 of the e-book: &quot;Her lips almost writhed.  What they had learned about the Black Ajah's means of putting someone to the question was as nauseating as it was incredible.  Forcing a woman into a circle against her will?  Guiding a circle to inflict pain?&quot; It seems they have the ability to force a woman into a link, and use the link against her. As seen in LoC, tPoD and Winter's Heart, someone in a link can tell what the others she is linked to are feeling, so it can be helpful in detecting whether someone is lying.  The question is, whether or not other sisters know of this method.<br /><br />In <u>The Path of Daggers</u>, it is revealed that Moridin at least, might know something of this method, though not from his knowledge of the Age of Legends.  In tPoD, he is contemplating some of the things that have been discovered for the first time since the Breaking, including Nynaeve's Healing of severed people, and the warder bond.  Another discovery he mentions is &quot;involuntary rings.&quot;  A circle is sometimes called a ring by people from the Age of Legends, and what Moridin is referring to is unclear at that point, though the <i>a'dam</i> springs to mind.  The <i>a'dam</i> and the Oath Rod and turning people to the Shadow against their will are all examples of how the ability to channel can be turned against one, so the idea that a link can do the same is hardly a suprise, especially since it has been previously established that the <i>a'dam</i> itself is based on the principles of linking.<br /><br />Later in the same book, when the Aes Sedai are demonstrating linking to the Sea Folk Windfinders, Renaile din Calon, their leader, not having been to the White Tower, and thus never having been discouraged from individual thought, immediately sees the potential drawback to another woman controlling your ability.  To reassure her, Sareitha Tomares steps up and procedes to give a Brown Ajah-style lecture on just how impossible it is to bring someone into a link against her will.  After all, it was &quot;conclusively&quot; proven in studies by the White Tower &quot;...that one woman cannot form a link with another against her will.&quot; But we know now that the Black Ajah can do such a thing!  So choice A is thus: Sareitha is your typical Aes Sedai, with a firm grasp on what is impossible right up to moment she is proven wrong, in which case ANYONE who knows of the Black Ajah's technique is a Darkfriend.  If Sareitha is not a Darkfriend, every word of her lecture is true.  She states that the Tower studied the matter and that she herself has &quot;...read every page that survives in the Tower Library of those studies...&quot; so if that is true, than no one else knows about forcing women into a circle.  The only way for the method to be general knowledge is if Sareitha is a Darkfriend and capable of lying.  Of course there are several other sisters standing there who can call her out on it later in private, so even if she is Black Ajah, it is unlikely that she is lying about the extent of the Tower's knowledge.  <br /><br />So how does this answer the question of Adeleas' murder?  Simply this. &quot;Yet Elayne wondered.  What else was in those pages that had <i>not</i> survived?  She had noticed a slight change in Sareitha's inflection at one point.  She had questions.  For later, when there were fewer ears around.&quot;  <br /><br />Later of course, never comes, thanks to the experience of using more of the Power than she ever has in her life, followed by the evacuation of the Kin's farm, and the battle with the Seanchan, in which she plays the major part.  It should be noted that Sareitha is a fairly young sister, since she doesn't even have the ageless look yet, so she might be less experienced in controlling her emotions than many, and not as skilled in lying to cover the secrets of the Black Ajah.  The hitch in her voice as she discusses an impossible feat that is known and used by the Black Ajah (and it is not simply limited to the Supreme Council, as the Black Ajah hunters know of it, though they have not captured any council members), which is both repellent to Aes Sedai, and frightening to any woman who can channel (much the way discussion of stilling once made any woman uneasy or the way that forkroot still does), not to mention a very real threat in the minds of any Black Sister (which is one reason why EVERY Black sister might know of this technique - they are told about it upon signing up, so they know the price of stepping out of line or behaving suspiciously).<br /><br />So based on that, it is certainly Sareitha.  Unless it is all a massive deception on Jordan's part.  He did put that in people's minds, with Moridin's mention of involuntary rings and Elayne's unspecific mention of a hitch (it would be good to know exactly <i>what</i> words she &quot;hitched&quot; over).  But hopefully, this minor mystery will be resolved in KoD when the various Darkfriend plots at work in Caemlyn come to fruition, and rope the mystery Black Sister into their plans, thus revealing her identity.  Or it could be a never-resolved plotline that Jordan has threatened us with.<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-01 05:55:46
subject: Was he Channeling?
body:
<p>I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I was struck by something when I read the KoD prologue, during the swordfight between Galad and Valda. I think he was channeling, or at least holding the Power.<br /><br />Quotes:<br /><br /><i>&quot;Red-hot searing fury fountained in Galad, but with an effort he managed to turn his back and walk away, already feeding his anger into an imagined flame as his two teachers had taught him...by the time he had reached young Bornhald, he had achieved what Gareth and Henre had called the oneness.&quot;</i><br /><br />The Flame and the Void, what Rand uses to control <i>saidin</i>. Of course it is commonly used by non-channelers to make them focus, so it's not proof of anything in itself.<br /><br /><i>&quot;Every creak of saddle leather was clear and distinct, every ringing stamp of hoof on paving stone. He could hear flies buzzing ten feet away as though they were at his ear, almost thought he could see the movement of their wings.&quot;</i><br /><br />This was the one that really persuaded me. It is too similar to Power-enhanced senses to be a coincidence, I think. RJ does nothing by accident.<br /><br />My final piece of evidence is in the genetics. Galad is the child of Taringail and Tigraine. It is a fair bet that the Damodreds have a few channeling genes floating about, as Moiraine could not only channel but had the spark inborn. Tigraine was the mother of Rand. Lastly, Taringail and Morgase had Elayne, who is a very powerful channeler.<br /><br />All in all, it's not conclusive, but it does seem likely that Galad at least has the ability to learn how to channel, and KoD suggests he may already be doing so. <br /><br />Thoughts?<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-01 06:06:09
subject: The Love Mess: Gawyn, Egwene, Galad and Berelain
body:
<p>As you are probably aware, many character names in The Wheel of Time take deep roots into other myths, such as Arthurian legends (the most obvious being, of course, Artur Paendrag).<br /><br />As such, and though it's a loose connection, I do believe we can find an echo of the well-known Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur triangle in the relationship between Galad/Egwene/Gawyn. What&#8217;s more, we can even see RJ has taken some liberties since both men, as individuals, ressemble other Round Table knights (Gawain for Gawyn and Galahad for Galad, as can easily be guessed).<br /><br />Thanks to this connection, we can take a guess at what may happen next for them (also, if you don&#8217;t want the explanation of the characters&#8217; connection, you can just scroll down past the first three points and read the tasty bit of theorizing). <br /><br />First, let's take care of the similarities between each WOT character and his/her arthurian mythos counterpart(s).<br /><br />1) Egwene/Guinevere: the connection is pretty loose there. The most obvious and noticeable fact is their name, Egwene al'Vere being directly connected to Guinevere (also Gwenhwyfar in Welsh): you can hear the echo between the two. Apart from that, only one other point: Guinevere was kind of the hidden power at Camelot, a woman who ruled in her own way even if the power was officially only the King's (you can see that with Lancelot obeying her every whim, for example). The connection ? Egwene has become the Amyrlin, the one who is said to make the rulers of nations dance at will, the hidden power manipulating the thrones.<br /><br />2) Gawyn/Arthur/Gawain: though in Arthurian legends Gawyn would have the part of Arthur in the love triangle (and he has: Gawyn is the &quot;legitimate&quot; one, his relationship with Egwene is already in place since they have kissed, etc), he is obviously more similar to Gawain as an individual (besides, Arthur is already connected to both Hawkwing and Rand). First, the similarity between their name is obvious and self-explaining. Second, Gawain is often portrayed as a brave and valiant knight, but unable to free himself from authority to take his own path. This goes well with Gawyn: he is a brave knight, but he can&#8217;t seem to shake himself free of Elaida&#8217;s authority, even though he doubts her more and more. <br /><br />3) Galad/Lancelot/Galahad: once again, as an individual, Galad is more of a Galahad than a Lancelot. However, Galahad being Lancelot&#8217;s son and the man Lancelot should have been (i.e. truly pure, whereas Lancelot is not), the connection is easy to establish. The link between Galad and Galahad (apart from their names, of course) is obvious: they are both the epitome of the handsome knight, the pure warrior who will always do the right thing. Moreover, Galahad is a bastard, and though Galad is not, his position as *half*-brother to the heirs of Andor, son of Taringail&#8217;s first marriage, is not entirely different. Both have the blood, but both have no lawful heritage to look forward to.<br /><br />Plus, you can note that in both cases (Arthurian legends and WOT), the two men have a very strong connection (Arthur and Lancelot are king and faithful knight, Galad and Gawyn are half-brothers), which can make the whole situation with the lone woman all the more complicated.<br /><br />So, now that the lenghty preparation is out of the way, what may happen next ?<br /><br />In Arthurian legends, Guinevere is sentenced to death by burning. Gawain refuses to guard her execution, but his brothers do so. Consequently, when Lancelot comes back just in time to rescue Guinevere, he has to kill Gawain&#8217;s brothers in the process. Therefore, Gawain will seek vengeance and the two will fight a duel. Lancelot wins and kills Gawain. So how do matters stand in WOT right now ?<br /><br />1) Egwene is the Amyrlin of the so-called &quot;Little Tower&quot;. While trying to enter Tar Valon, she has been captured. If the ones who caught her are sisters of the White Tower, she will be brought to Elaida to be judged. No doubt Elaida we&#8217;ll think it fitting to sentence her to death or stilling.<br /><br />2) Gawyn has no brothers, but he is the chief of the Younglings instead, which is close enough: they are brothers-in-arms. And the Younglings are still under Elaida's authority for now.<br /><br />3) Galad is gathering fame and power among the Children of the Light, and has recently said outright that he was ready to ally himself with Aes Sedai to fight Tarmon Gai&#8217;don, together against the Shadow. Plus, we all know he has a crush on Egwene.<br /><br />So ? Can we hope to see Galad rushing toward Tar Valon to break through its walls and rescue Egwene on the verge of her punishment, having to kill some members of the Younglings in the process and thus setting the pieces in place for a later duel between him and Gawyn ? Let me also remind you of one of Min&#8217;s viewings, and one of Egwene&#8217;s dreams. - &quot;I've read you, Egwene... I see things I am sure link you to Rand, and Perrin, and Mat, and - yes, even Galad.&quot; Linked to Galad ? Haven&#8217;t seen anything about that yet, I believe. Interestingly, Gawyn is NOT mentioned among those names. Is that a mere error ? Or is it telling us something ? - &quot;One road leads to violent death, the other, long life. Down one road they marry, the other, not. Gawyn smiles and chooses.&quot; And we still do not know which road he chose. Could it be he took the &quot;bad&quot; one, where he will die a violent death fighting Galad in duel ?<br /><br />Finally, let&#8217;s take a look at the Arthurian ending: both Gawain and Arthur die, Guinevere takes shelter into a convent, and Lancelot becomes a monk. This could fit extremely well with Gawyn dying, Egwene living among the Aes Sedai sisters and Galad leading a true Child of the Light&#8217;s ascetic life.<br /><br />As a bonus, a little side-note about a fourth character who could become entangled in this complex mess.<br /><br />Remember Min&#8217;s &quot;a man in white who will make her [Berelain] fall head over heels&quot; viewing ? Many have already theorized Galad the Whitecloak could be this famous man in white: he has more than his share of good looks to have Berelain madly in love with him, after all. In Arthurian legends, Elaine of Astolat fell in love with Lancelot, but he never returned the feelings, and she killed herself because of this. Berelain and Elaine do have echoing names once again. If Galad is her man in white, as he very well may be, it&#8217;s easy to imagine he will never love her in return either: he&#8217;s Galad, after all. How will Berelain react to this remains to be seen.<br /><br />So, to sum up what could happen if the Arthurian analogy is upheld :<br /><br />1) Egwene is sentenced to death or stilling by Elaida.<br /><br />2) Galad comes in and rescues her, killing Younglings in the process.<br /><br />3) Gawyn seeks vengeance for his comrades-in-arms. The half-brothers fight each other, and Gawyn dies.<br /><br />4) Berelain falls in love with Galad, who does not love her back. She might kill herself over it (though I don&#8217;t deem that last point too likely).<br /><br />That&#8217;s it, a bit loony, but interesting speculation nonetheless, eh? <img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/wink.gif" border="0" /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-02 05:09:03
subject: Galadedrid and the Wolf
body:
<p>The entire premise of this theory is summed up nicely in the title: Galad will join forces with the Wolf, Rodel Ituralde. My logic follows my interpretations of the Galad&#8217;s current location and the likely location of Ituralde and the potential convergence that RJ has set up.<br /><br />The first portion is based only of information available from excerpt (which is Galad&#8217;s POV in the prologue) and previous novels. The addendum updates it with the rest of the prologue.<br /><br /><b>The Wolf&#8217;s Plan</b><br /><br />In COT, we have a POV from Rodel Ituralde as he meets with representatives of various factions in southern Arad Doman. We see that he has formed a plan, but we only get bits and pieces of it. Some of those are listed below.<br /><i><br /><blockquote>&#8220;...this plan had layers inside of layers.&#8221;<br /><br />&#8220;Everything would be ruined before it began, if he failed to provide the bait.&#8221;<br /><br />&quot;With any luck, the furious generals would not see where he was leading them until it was too late. And if they did... Well, he had a second plan.&quot; </blockquote><br /><br /></i>And the most important quote:<br /><i><br /><blockquote> &#8220;The Taraboners would want to stay afterwards (from the rebellion in Tarabon), of course, and continue the fight in their own homeland. He could not expect anything more. Which would leave him and the few thousand men he could take with him to be hounded back north again, all the long way across Almoth plain. If the light shone on him, hounded with fury.&#8221; </blockquote><br /></i><br /><br />It sounds like the key to Ituralde&#8217;s plan is to gather as large of a force as possible and drive as deep into Seanchan controlled territory as possible. This of course is Tarabon. <br /><br />It&#8217;s hard to place an exact timing on this meeting, however, we know that it is in tale-end of winter. The Tellings of the Wheel: The Chronology of WOT estimates that it takes place on the 18th day of the month of Jumara (or about February 5th by our calendar).  An important side-note, this is also the approximate date that the Seanchan defeated King Ailron and the Whitecloaks at Jeramel.<br /><br />So, with several weeks to organize his forces, I would say that Ituralde left southern Arad Doman some time in early March by our calendar, and took a solid month to stealthily enter Seanchan territory in Tarabon. Another important side-note, the time period covered by COT ends in late March, which implies that events in the <i>Embers Falling on Dry Grass</i> likely fall sometime in late-March, or early April. This would be the about the time that Ituralde&#8217;s forces would be expected to start making their presence known in Tarabon.<br /><br /><b>Galad </b><br /><br />RJ takes care to let us know where Galad is in the prologue. The manor house is described as being located along an ancient trade route between modern-day Tarabon and Amadacia. <br /><br /><blockquote><i>This had been a major trade route once, long before Amadicia and Tarabon came into being&#8230;</i></blockquote><br /><br />This trade route is further described as an ancient gateway to the mines of Aelgar. Aelgar was one of the Ten Nations before the Trolloc Wars and it occupied the southwest portion of the Westlands, mostly within the uninhabited region of what is now known as the Shadow coast, but including all of Amadacia, most of Tarabon, and part of Altara. It is also mentioned that this ancient trade route has long been abandoned for the modern route, which passes to the north &#8211; this is the line on the map.<br /><br /><blockquote><i>Trade had shifted far north, farms and villages in the region dwindled, and the fabled lost mines of Aelgar remained lost in the tangled mountain ranges that began only a few miles to the south.</i></blockquote><br /><br />Considering this rather detailed account of the location, we can safely conclude that the estate where Galad confronts Valda is located in the southwestern portion of Amadacia, near the region known as the Shadow Coast. It is unclear how close this location is to Tarabon, but it is reasonable to conclude that it is relatively close to the border.<br /><br />At this time, the Lords Captain of the Children of the Light have been called to a meeting with their Seanchan allies (though allies might not be totally appropriate as the Seanchan clearly rule the WC&#8217;s now) at a place called Nassad. Most Lords Captain are already at or near the meeting location, except two: Trom (with Galad) and the Lord Captain Commander himself &#8211; Valda. Galad notes that Valda likes to arrive late to meetings with the Seanchan. He was surprised to find that Valda was already preparing to leave for the meeting; he then concludes that this must be an important meeting. <br /><br /><i>&#8220;Why aren&#8217;t you on your way to Nassad, Trom?&#8221; Disapproval colored Valda&#8217;s words. &#8220;The other Lords Captain will be halfway there by now.&#8221; He himself always arrived late when meeting the Seanchan, perhaps to assert that some shred of independence remained to the Children--finding him already preparing to depart was a surprise; this meeting must be very important--&#8230;</i><br /><br />Later it is remarked that the meeting is being held across the border. <br /><br /><blockquote><i>&#8220;He </i>[Asunawa]<i> rode the other way, toward the border,&#8221; someone put in. Nassad lay just over the border.</i></blockquote><br /><br />Due to their location nearer Tarabon than any other nation, it is safe to conclude that this meeting is taking place in Tarabon.<br /><br />So what is this important meeting regarding: the invasion of Seanchan territory by Ituralde? The WC&#8217;s are being ordered to play a key role in the resistance of Ituralde&#8217;s forces and then to drive them back north.<br /><br />Well, we know that there is a conflict to come between Asunawa and Galad for control of the WC&#8217;s. I further speculate that whatever force becomes loyal to Galad will follow his lead to ally with nearest force opposing the Seanchan: Ituralde. Looks like the Wolf has a plan C that he doesn&#8217;t know about yet.<br /><br /><br /><b>Addendum</b><br /><br />This is an update to the above with the info available in the entire prologue. <br /><br />So, we have confirmation of Ituralde&#8217;s plan. His present location is deep within Tarabon &#8211; along the trading route (the line on the map) between Tarabon and Amadacia. Ituralde is essentially in the place I predicted he would be, and preparing to flee to the north.<br /><br />From Suroth&#8217;s point of view, which occurs roughly one day after Ituralde&#8217;s attack, we know that Galad has indeed drawn about 7000 of the remaining 9000 Whitecloaks to his command. Also, Galad&#8217;s army is in an unknown location. Presumably, for Galad to gain such a large number of fighters, he went to the meeting at Nassad, which has been determined to be in Tarabon. It is not known where Galad&#8217;s force went next, but we do know that Galad intends to ally with an enemy (any enemy) against the Seanchan. The first word that Galad receives regarding the coordinated attacks against the Seanchan stores in Tarabon will provide Galad with news of exactly what he is looking for. Galad will use this news to attempt contact with Ituralde&#8217;s forces. I think it likely that Galad will meet up with a group of Taraboner&#8217;s who were part of Ituralde&#8217;s initial force and will inform Galad of Ituralde&#8217;s involvement. Galad will then seek out Ituralde to join forces.<br /><br />Now for the really wild speculation. After Galad and Ituralde have joined forces the Seanchan will pursue in force as Ituralde has intended. Just as the trap is springing, Rand will show up on the scene. I base this off a thought we view of Ituralde&#8217;s. To paraphrase, he thinks something along the line of being totally committed to the plan &#8216;&#8230;unless the Dragon Reborn appears out of thin air in front of him&#8217;. This is an excellent example of RJ&#8217;s ironic foreshadowing. So, I predict that after Rand has procured some sort of alliance with the Seanchan, he will indeed appear out of thin air in front of Ituralde. The result of this is where Galad will become reunited with Perrin and will see the plot issues of Perrin and the Whitecloaks, Rand and his half-brother, and Morgase.<br /><br />Flame away &#8211; I know that Etzel has managed to get his idea posted prior to mine.<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-03 04:57:37
subject: The Many Faces of Demandred
body:
<p>I'll keep this as short and sweet as possible...<br /><br />I think the main reason so many people have trouble with WHO Demandred is posing as if for the simple reason he is posing as MORE than one person!<br /><br />1. Mil Tesen: The peddler who told Gawyn that Morgase was dead.  (This of course DID set Gawyn against Rand permanently.)<br /><br />2. Tumad Ahzkan: one of the men under Bashere.  His reactions when Taim first show up are &quot;noteworthy&quot; if you concider him as a &quot;possible&quot; Demandred.  Plus, there is the fact of his &quot;being close enough to Rand to be able to keep an eye on him.&quot;  Not to mention the fact that Bashere's tent (and wife) were attacked in an attempt to get the Seal that Bashere had been given by Rand...in front of Tumad.  There is the fact that he was in Caemlyn at the same time Demandred &quot;departed&quot; T'a'R by making a gateway (and using a gateway in T'a'R takes you to the place you are at in the waking world.)  And let's not forget the fact that there is STILL the &quot;unseen&quot; watcher in T'a'R: Bashere is still in Andor, outside of Caemlyn, close enough to be able to &quot;see&quot; the Siege army surrounding the city.  So Demandred is still within reach of Caemlyn, close enough that he is the only &quot;logical&quot; choice for the unseen watcher in T'a'R in Caemlyn.<br /><br />3. Jaq Lounalt: by far, my favorite of the bunch.  The first time we see him (although I still think he is the Taraboner mentioned so prominently in CoT &quot;Glimmers...&quot;<img src="http://www.msu.edu/~mackertm/wotmania/images/wink.gif" border="0" /> is in CoT, Chapter 15 &quot;Gathering Darkness&quot; (pg. 444 (pb)):<br /><br />&quot;...But keeping well away from Jaq Lounalt, a lean man with one of those farcical Taraboner veils covering his huge mustaches and a conical cap pushing the hood of his cloak to a ridiculous height.  The fellow smiled too much, as well.  He hardly looked a man who could reduce someone to begging with just a few cords.&quot;<br /><br />This is important when you include to two previous mentions of him in the same chapter (pg.438 &amp; pg. 440):<br /><br />&quot;'You want to be careful what you say, or Arymilla may ask her Taraboner to play cat's cradle with you again...' It seemed impossible that Naean's face could grow any whiter, yet it did.&quot;<br /><br />&quot;...Apparently, she was bright enough to see that.  Or maybe just frightened enough of the Taraboner.&quot;<br /><br />We know from everything we've seen that there isn't a single person (with the exception of Arymilla) who doesn't think it absolutely bizarre that most of the people opposing Elayne are supporting her (even Bashere thinks that her claim to the throne is 5th in strength, at the very best.)  So HOW did she not only get enough support, let alone the idea, to pull off the siege of Caemlyn?!  We have the answer of course...her Taraboner.<br /><br />We know for a fact one of the Chosen HAS to be hanging around Caemlyn simply because of the usual tell-tale signs: rats, filth, the blight on the stored food, the &quot;ugly&quot; mood that's starting to sink in.  Naturally, everyone in the city thinks it's just because of the Succession.  But just like with Tear, Illian, Tar Valon and the Rebel AS camp, the vermin and disease that is creeping in slowly is one sign WE know to recognize as evidence one of the Chosen in present.<br /><br />Recently, RJ has stated that we HAVE seen every one of the Chosen in their &quot;bases&quot;, whether disguised or not.  Which means we have seen who Demandred is posing as.  The only &quot;new&quot; person that appeared in CoT who could possible fit this idea IS Jaq Lounalt.  And one has to wonder IF he is posing as this person because of a tie to the Panarch, Amathera Aelfdene Casmir &quot;Lounault&quot;.<br /><br />It certainly has to make you wonder...<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-11 05:52:57
subject: Be'lal Incognito
body:
<p>A flash of balefire and he was gone.  Seemingly before we ever got a chance to know him.  Be'lal was one of the most formidible Forsaken during the Age of Legends, but he seemed to pass from the Fourth Age in a flash as quick as lightning.  Or did he?<br /><br />The evidence that indicates Mazrim Taim is more than a false Dragon is legendary.  Theories have been written by the dozen alleging that Taim is Demandred in disguise, or that Taim was Ishamael's protege.  One very good case that hasn't been made in full, however, is that Mazrim Taim is actually Be'lal reincarnate.<br /><br />&quot;RAHVIN DEAD IN HIS PRIDE.  HE SERVED WELL, YET EVEN I CANNOT SAVE HIM FROM BALEFIRE.  EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME.&quot; <br /><br />The Dark One's statement from <i>The First Message</i> in LoC seems to deny any possibility of Be'lal's revival.  There are, however, some nuances to this statement that leave open the possibility that Be'lal was not beyond Old Grim's reach when he was balefired by Moiraine at the end of TDR.  First of all, the second sentence above is a clear reference to Rahvin specifically.  The Dark One could not save &quot;HIM&quot; from balefire, meaning Rahvin.  It does make some sense to extrapolate that statement of fact to include all Forsaken destroyed by balefire, but it is not really an explicit statement that the Dark One cannot save any Forsaken from balefire under any condition.  Read explicitly, the Dark One's statement merely says that he could not save Rahvin from balefire.  And there is a world of difference between the balefire that destroyed Rahvin and the balefire that destroyed Be'lal.<br /><br /><blockquote>There was an instant of surprise on the Forsaken's face, and he had time to scream &quot;No!&quot;  Then a bar of white fire hotter than the sun shot from the Aes Sedai's hands, a glaring rod that banished all shadows.  Before it, Be'lal became a shape of shimmering motes, specks dancing in the light for less than a heartbeat, flecks consumed before his cry faded. -- <b>TDR</b>, <i>What Is Written in Prophecy</i><br /><br />&quot;Rahvin!&quot; (Rand) screamed, and balefire flew from his hands, molten light thicker than a man, driven by all the Power he could draw. <br /><br />It struck the Forsaken, and Rahvin ceased to exist.  The Darkhounds in Rhuidean had become motes before they vanished, whatever kind of life they had had struggling to continue, or the Pattern struggling to maintain itself even for them.  Before this, Rahvin simply...ceased.-- <b>TFoH</b>, <i>The Threads Burn</i></blockquote><br /><br />RJ has clearly established a unique experience for Rahvin.  Rand completely obliterated Rahvin with balefire of unprecedented size and strength.  There is even a direct comparison with the strength of balefire used to destroy the Darkhounds earlier in TFoH, and that strength is comparable to the balefire that Moiraine used on Be'lal.  The effects are entirely similar as Be'lal turns into the same type of specks that Rand observed with the Darkhounds.  So the question becomes, can the Dark One save someone from less balefire than killed Rahvin, or will even the smallest amount of balefire confound the Dark One's efforts?  &quot;EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME.&quot;  Many readers believe this suggests that any amount of balefire will prevent the Dark One from retrieving his prized servants from the grave.  However, RJ himself has indicated in the Question of the Week section at his Tor website that this is not the case.<br /><br />&quot;There are definitely time constraints on the Dark One's power to transmigrate a soul. The soul doesn't have to be secured immediately - that is, the Dark One doesn't have to be ready to snatch the soul at the instant of death - but the longer that passes after the death, the less chance that the Dark One will be able to secure the soul. Someone who has been killed with balefire in actuality died before the apparent time of his or her death, and thus the window of opportunity for the Dark One to secure that soul for transmigration is gone before the Dark One can know that the soul must be secured unless the amount of balefire used is very small. Remember that the more balefire is used, the further back the target's thread is burned out of the pattern.&quot;<br /><br />Could the amount of balefire that Moiraine used on Be'lal be described as very small?  Compared to the amount used on Rahvin, the answer is clearly yes.  Therefore, the possibility that Be'lal could have been saved by the Dark One should be admitted.  But could he have been reincarnated in the body of Mazrim Taim?  Is there any evidence to suggest that Taim is Be'lal specifically, and not just a man with some of the knowledge and attitudes common to a Third Age mentality?  I believe there are.<br /><br />Unfortunately, we know very little about Be'lal.  Some of what we know comes from the BWB: &quot;While Rahvin preferred manipulation, the Forsaken known as Be'lal, the Envious, was a master of it, to the point that he was often known as the Netweaver.&quot; (pp. 56-57)  Be'lal's capitalized nicknames are important, and provide the best insight available into his character.  The first title, the Envious, is reinforced in the BWB, &quot;Some sources suggest that he, like Sammael, had been one of the leaders in the fight against the Shadow before he turned to the Dark, and that he envied and later hated Lews Therin.&quot;  If Be'lal envied LTT, and was reincarnated by the Dark One as Mazrim Taim, one could logically expect Taim to exhibit some sign that he is envious of Rand's position.  I believe there are two indications that this is actually the case.<br /><br />The first is as simple as the clothes that Taim chooses to wear.  &quot;The dragons climbing the sleeves of (Taim's) black coat glittered in the sunlight; thead of gold would do for the one, but what could make the blue shine so?&quot;  As early as <i>The Black Tower</i> in LoC, and every time RJ describes him thereafter, Taim emulates the tattoos that Rand received in Rhuidean.  In <i>Message from M'Hael</i>, Taim demonstrates again that he believes he is Rand's equal. &quot;The paper was snowy white and thick, the seal a dragon impressed into a large oval of blue wax that glittered with golden flecks.  It might almost have been thought to come from the Dragon Reborn.&quot;  Not only does Taim try to claim a position of equality with Rand, but he also tries to adopt a part of Rand's persona.  Taim's obsession with the Dragon symbol is a clear sign of profound envy for Rand's position and success.<br /><br />Be'lal's other title is the Netweaver.  He showed his flair for intricate plots in TDR when he and Mesaana lured Rand, Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve to Tear in his attempt to gain possesion of <i>Callandor</i>.  That plan was working perfectly until, by happenstance, Faile was snared by the hedgehog <i>ter'angreal</i> trap instead of Moiraine.  There is ample evidence that Taim has a similar proclivity for devious planning  He has used his position within the Black Tower to build a very effective base of power and further his own agenda.  By the end of LoC, Taim manages to discover Rand's kidnapping in time to provide the decisive element in the battle at Dumai's Wells.  Even at this time he has formed a core of followers that are loyal to him, rather than Rand, and continues to expand this cadre as opportunities permit.  In PoD, we see that Taim's personal favorites all hold positions of considerable authority, and Taim orders these suspicious fellows to strike at Rand.   In WH, after it's revealed only Taim's students, except for Logain, have been raised to Asha'man at the Black Tower, Taim sends Rochaid and the others to Far Madding after Rand.  All the while, he publicly repudiated these renegades by adding their names to the list of traitors to be hunted down and killed.  These events suggest that Taim is playing a deeper game, and has developed a scheme for attaining power worthy of the Netweaver.<br /><br />If these things suggest some commanalities betwen Be'lal and Mazrim Taim, then areas of contrast need to be explained.  Perhaps the biggest discrepency between Be'lal and Taim is the apparent divergence on their view of swords.  Here are the relevant passages that describe Be'lal's use of his black Power blade, and Taim's statements regarding the steel and leather swords of the Fourth Age. <br /><br /><blockquote>Rand came back smoothly into a guard stance, trying not to let his sudden uncertainty show.  A heron stood on the black blade, too, a bird so dark as to be nearly invisible.  Once he had faced a man with a heron-marked blade of steel, and barely survived.  He knew that he himself had no real right to the blademaster's mark; it had been on the sword his father had given him, and when he thought of a sword in his hands, he thought of that sword.  Once he had embraced death, as the Warder had taught, but this time, he knew, his death would be final.  Be'lal was better than he with the sword.  Stronger.  Faster.  A true blademaster. <br /><br />The Forsaken laughed, amused, swinging his blade in quick flourishes to either side of him; the black fire roared as if swift passage through the air quickened it.  &quot;You were a better swordsman once, Lews Therin,&quot; he said mockingly.  &quot;Do you remember when we took that tame sport called swords and learned to kill with it, as the old volumes said men once had?&quot; -- <b>TDR</b>, <i>What Is Written in Prophecy</i><br /><br />&quot;I sent (Henre Haslin) away,&quot; Taim said.  &quot;What good are swords?&quot; Another rock exploded.  &quot;I can barely avoid stabbing myself, and I've never felt the lack.  They have the Power, now.&quot; -- <b>LoC</b>, <i>Lessons and Teachers</i><br /><br />&quot;As it is, I have had one kill himself drawing too deeply and three burn themselves out, but no one has died from a sword yet.&quot;  (Taim) managed to put a good deal of contempt into the word &quot;sword.&quot; -- <b>LoC</b>, <i>The Black Tower</i></blockquote><br /><br />The reality may be, however, that Taim's disdain for swords is entirely logical for Be'lal, the Third Age blademaster with his blade of black Power.  In the first passage, Be'lal wasn't wearing any kind of mundane sword at his hip when Rand confronted him in the Stone of Tear.  Be'lal also references the &quot;tame sport called swords.&quot;  This is probably a reference to the sport that Tel Janin Aellinsar, a.k.a. Sammael, championed, described in the BWB as &quot;a sort of bloodless competition with swords.&quot;  If this sport is similar to fencing, such disdain for steel fencing swords compared with Power blades seems entirely rational.  It is apparent from Rand's vision of the past in <i>The Dedicated</i> that soldiers were armored and armed to such an extent that even deadlier swords which are common in the Fourth Age would have had little effect in any battle.<br /><br />Another point is that Taim's contempt seems directed at the sword itself, not necessarily at the skills of a swordsman.  As Taim says of his students, they have the Power now, and steel simply can't compete.  Henre Haslin may well have been dismissed because he can't summon a blade of the Power to teach his students.  Both Lan and Rand even corroborate the overwhelming advantages using a blade of the Power has over a more ordinary sword.  In <i>This Place, This Day</i>, Lan sharply questions Rand: &quot;You can make a sword from the Power, or kill without, but suddenly you are wearing steel on your hip again.  Why?&quot;  It seems even Lan fails to see the purpose of using a sword when other, far more powerful options are available.  In <i>A Crown of Swords</i>, Rand himself displays the advantages of a Power blade in battle: &quot;Rand did not even try to draw the heron-mark blade at his side.  Death in a tattered red coat, he channeled and a sword of fire was in his hands, pulsing darkly with the throb of <i>saidin</i>, sweeping an eyeless head from its shoulders....He danced the forms in a darkness lit by the flame in his hands, shadows flying across faces above him, faces with wolves' muzzles and goats', faces contorted in screams as his fiery blade sliced through black mail and the flesh beneath as if they were water.  Trollocs depended on numbers and overwhelming ferocity; facing him, and that sword of the Power, they might as well have stood stock-still, unarmed.&quot;<br /><br />If the discrepency between the attitudes of Be'lal and Taim about the utility of the Fourth Age sword is not as illogical as it first seems, then there are two other minor points that might also support the idea that these two men are one and the same.  The first is Lews Therin's rabid reaction to Mazrim Taim.  The very first time that Taim in introduced to Rand in <i>A New Arrival</i>, LTT's reaction is is incredibly strong: &quot;<i>Sammael and Demandred hated me, whatever honors I gave them.  The more honors, the worse the hate, until they sold their souls and went over.  Demandred especially.  I should have killed him!  I should have killed them all!  Scorched the earth to kill them all!  Scorch the earth!</i>&quot;  It certainly seems clear from this uncommonly strong reaction, that LTT somehow equates Taim with the allies that betrayed him in the War of Power.  From subsequent events, and from RJ himself, we now know that Taim is neither Sammael or Demandred, but Be'lal was also a friend that eventually sought the Dark One and turned to the Shadow.  In <i>What Is Written in Prophecy</i>, Be'lal taunts Rand, &quot;Do you remember even one of those desperate battles, even one of our dire defeats?&quot;  Be'lal's question, coupled with the fact that Lews Therin and Durram Laddel (as Be'lal was known before turning to the Shadow) worked together to re-invent a military application for fighting with swords, suggests that the two were close allies, and potentially closer friends than either Demandred or Sammael.<br /><br />Finally, it is important to consider the bigger themes in this epic.  To date, Rand's most important antagonists in the story have been the Forsaken.  As Taim's stature within the series grows, he approaches this level of importance.  Certainly, it is possible that RJ will choose to deviate from his established pattern of Rand's confrontation and conquest over these dark masters of the previous Age.  It seems more likely to me, however, that these thirteen crucial enemies will maintain their prominence until the very end of the story.  Be'lal remains the one Forsaken about which RJ has revealed next to nothing.  Then again, maybe RJ has revealed much more about this character than we realize, and we simply need to look in the right place to find him.<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-13 21:56:51
subject: Cosmology of the Wheel and the Dark One's Prison
body:
<p>I'm going to try and lay out the issues that the Wheel of Time cosmology brings up in my mind.  I didn't have a plan for this before I started writing, but it seems to have taken on a life of its own.  I don't claim that all of this is original work, either, so if I've borrowed from you, thanks!  And if I address your theory specifically to say I don't like where it leads, sorry, no offense intended.<br /><br />The books imply that the Wheel is an infinite cycle, without beginning or end.  Unfortunately, this conflicts with what we know of the universe we live in, which certainly appears to be winding down.  There are also more local difficulties: extinction-level meteor impacts, stellar aging, and exhaustion of natural resources all dictate that the same world can't be inhabited for eternity without the equivalent of divine intervention.  There are three basic possibilities: 1) our theories are wrong, and our universe can last forever; 2) the Wheel of Time universe is finite, and whoever says otherwise is just wrong; 3) the Wheel of Time universe is not our universe.  Obviously since we're dealing with a fantasy series it doesn't have to be our universe, but according to RJ  the third age is intended to be a possible past/future of our own world.  So let's eliminate 3.<br /><br />Thermodynamics is the main issue with our universe lasting forever.  All closed systems ever observed tend toward entropy, and we usually assume that the universe is a closed system.  However, there could conceivably be circumstances in which a closed system tended towards order, and the universe might not be a closed system.  Those are random ideas that have absolutely no evidence, but we're talking fantasy.  Especially with the Power around, there's no physical reason our universe couldn't last forever.  Getting around proton decay might be a trick, I'm not completely clear on my m-theory.  But we can worry about that in 10^40 years.  Local issues are a bit more of a problem.<br /><br />Whether the timeline of the WoT universe is finite or infinite, there is certainly a cycle of history.  I started out thinking that maybe that wasn't true, that crazy Ishmael (big philosopher, remember) wrote a book about it in the Age of Legends and it just became accepted as fact.  But the cycle is definitely there.  This is evidenced by the fact that Artur Hawkwing recognized the Dragon, and referenced fighting with and against him on occasions beyond number.  &#8220;I have fought by your side times beyond number, Lews Therin, and faced you as many more.&#8221;  Short of Hawkwing lying or having false memories, neither of which we have any reason to assume, we must believe that there is some cycle to history in the Wheel of Time.  If one were to assume that &#8220;times beyond number&#8221; means at least a hundred cycles, and that an age lasts 3000 years on average, we get a reasonable lower bound for the age of the cycle of about five million years.<br /><br />I don't believe that any planet's natural resources could possibly last five million years in a mineable form (like Elayne's alum deposits), with at least several thousand of those years inhabited by an industrialized society.  They'd all be mined out, and spread around the planet.  However, we can summon up the Power once again to solve our problems.  At some point in the cycle, the Power is used to bring humanity new deposits of minerals, to wipe out any significant asteroid capable of hitting Earth within the next cycle, and every few billion years, to fix up the sun.  Channeling is great for insoluble problems!<br /><br />(As a side note, if there's no particular significance to what planet the cycle occurs on, it's also possible that instead of fixing our own world, humanity actually Travels to an entirely new one.  Moghedien implied that such travel did occur during the Age of Legends.  Makes me wonder whether there are any colonies out there.)<br /><br />So with channeling, there's no physical reason the WoT universe can't be infinite in both directions.  However, the lack of a beginning to history causes serious issues.  One is that of the Dark One's continuous attempts to escape his prison.  If the Dark One can actually escape under certain realizable circumstances, then is it not reasonable that in an infinite sequence of random events, he would have already done so?  The four main possibilities are that 1) the Dark One can never actually escape, and keeps trying because he a) doesn't know, or b) doesn't care; 2) the Dark One has escaped, but his escape does not permanently destroy the cycle of time, due to a) divine intervention, or b) the Dark One not actually desiring to end the cycle; 3) Events aren't random; and 4) the universe had a definite beginning, and the Dark One has only made a countable number of attempts to escape, all of which have been foiled.  If we take the pronouncements that there are neither beginnings nor endings to the wheel of time to be the word of Robert Jordan on the nature of the universe he's writing about, then 4 is eliminated, leaving 1, 2, and 3.<br /><br />There are several possible reasons for the Dark One to try to escape, even though it can never happen.  He may not realize the impossibility of the task.  Perhaps despite his immense power his memory is somehow flawed, and he can not recall the infinitude of past failures.  It's also possible that even though he knows he can't escape, he finds the side-effects of the attempt desirable.  Maybe he just likes death and destruction.  (And a great cry of &#8220;YA THINK!?&#8221; did issue forth...)<br /><br />If the Dark One can indeed escape, however, we have another set of problems.  His stated goal is to break the cycle and remake the universe to his specifications.  But if that's the case, then the only ways the cycle can continue after his escape are if breaking free doesn't automatically get him his way, or if his desired structure of the universe is identical to its current one!  If the escape is always undone, the wheel remade, and the Dark One re-imprisoned, then the effect is identical to his escape being impossible.  Pragmatically, we can disregard this possibility.  This is good, because otherwise it would bring up the question of how the Dark One could have been forcibly imprisoned by his equal in the first place, and I'd really prefer not to deal with that.<br /><br />The remaining possibility is that the Dark One can escape, on the occasions he has escaped he has remade the world as he wanted, but that this new universe was identical to the old one!  This would require a significant stretch of the language involved: the Dark One does want to destroy the cycle, but only so he can make it again; the wheel is without beginning, but only in the sense that it has always had a nearly identical predecessor.  However, it's not totally unworkable.  One theory compared this to the Dark One and the Creator playing a cosmic game, taking turns seeing who could imprison the other in creation for the longest time.  The imprisonment would thus be somewhat voluntary, explaining how the Creator could imprison a being of equal power.<br /><br />Given all our basic assumptions, it seems that 2b is our most likely candidate for the reality of the situation thus far.  The Dark One and the Creator are playing a game, and all us little humans are only significant in a utilitarian sense.  Basically, they're both really sucky gods.<br /><br />However, logical as it seems, I find this solution unsatisfying.  Under the above, all Rand's friends may die if he fails, but y'know, who cares, they'll come back around sooner or later.  It's all happened before, and it'll happen again, no big deal.  So let's add a new basic assumption: that I will find the explanation of the situation dramatically satisfying.  (Hey, it's my article.)  If the Dark One has already escaped an infinite number of times, but is still imprisoned, then his escape has no lasting consequence.  If the Dark One can't escape or doesn't want to, then Rand's actions have no consequence.  I find both unsatisfying.  Therefore, the Dark One CAN escape and permanently destroy reality as we know it, but has never done so in the past, due to the actions of the Dragon.  For this to be the case in a random history, he must not have made an infinite number of attempts.  In that case, we can conclude that the Wheel of Time MUST have had a beginning.  The opening of each book can be called a metaphor or poetic license.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the idea of an infinite future has the same problem as that of an infinite past: the Dark One will eventually escape!  The Dragon's actions only delay what is eventually inevitable, and the universe's unending nature guarantees its own eventual destruction.<br /><br />It's a riddle.  The Dragon must win, but not permanently.  He must win every time, eternally, but there must still be a chance of his losing.  How can there be an eternal battle, which either side can win, but which one side always will?  How can I flip a fair coin infinite times, and have it always come up heads?  (Without being Mat.)  I believe that the answer lies in the nature of free will.<br /><br />One of the major theological debates goes as follows: if God knows what I will do before I do it, in what sense do I have free will?  God knew before the creation of the world that I'd be sitting here typing this article.  So how can I be said to be doing it of my own will?  If I decided not to type it, would God then be wrong?  Or would he simply have known that I'd never type it?  Many explanations have been proposed, including from God's lack of foreknowledge, our lack of free will, and even the ability to affect the past knowledge of God.  But the most consistent one has always been totally outside the box.<br /><br />There are two definitions of the word &#8220;eternal&#8221;.  One is that something exists without end in either direction of time, like the Dark One seems to.  The other, though, is that something exists totally outside of time.  God didn't know what I was going to decide before creation, because for him, there is no &#8220;before&#8221;.  God does not sit here watching, saying &#8220;Knew you'd do that.  Knew you'd do that.&#8221;  God does not exist in time at all.  He exists outside of time, and sees all things that I have ever done or will do at a glance.  I have free will, but God already sees how that shapes the future.  It's difficult to explain that well, but I hope the idea got across.<br /><br />The Dark One once commented to Demandred that &#8220;EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME&#8221;.  If the Dark One is unable to step outside of time, it is implied that the Dark One exists within time.  This assumes that the Dark One's statement is true, and that he has no reason to lie to Demandred about his abilities, but I see no reason for him to lie at that juncture.  And herein I believe we find our solution, as possibility 3 above: events aren't random.<br /><br />The Creator and the Dark One once (insofar as that has meaning) both existed outside of time.  Time did not exist.  For whatever reason, the Creator created the Pattern and trapped the Dark One within it.  The Pattern is infinite, maybe even in both directions, but the Creator is outside of time and sees all of it at once.  The Pattern is woven so that there is near infinite variation, and so that there is free will.  But the Creator being as uber as he is, he wove the entire infinity of the Pattern, even all the alternate worlds, in such a way that it would never happen.  And the Dark One, being within time, can never know that this is the case.<br /><br />The Dark One's prison is time itself.  He CAN escape.  But he never will.<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-14 05:35:21
subject: White Tower under attack
body:
<p>It's known that the Seanchan want to attack the White Tower and this will eventually happen. In KoD, prologue, Egwene warned the Sisters in the Tower of this danger.<br /><br />The Seanchan plan is certainly in the interest of the Shadow. After all, the Seanchan leader Suroth is a Darkfriend. Therefore it seems likely that the Shadow would take own measures to support this attack. <br /><br />We see in CoT and already in the beginning of KoD that the Shadow becomes even more agressive recently; examples are the attack on Bashere and Dobraine in CoT, or Semirhage announcing that she destroyed the Seanchan court in KoD. <br /><br />Considering this, I believe that the Shadow might have sent warded Shadowspawn to the White Tower to create some chaos and thus weaken the defense. After all a Gray Man already infiltrated the White Tower in TDR, ch.15, without problems.<br /><br />Also the mark Alviarin received from Shaidar Haran in CoT protects her against Shadowspawn, as RJ stated: &quot;The mark that Alviarin received from Shaidar Haran was not the same as that given to the Forsaken, though it shares one function: Shadowspawn will recognize her as belonging to the Dark One. They will not obey her as they will the Forsaken, however, but she doesn't have to worry about one trying to kill her, either.&quot; <br /><br />Such a mark only makes sense if the Shadow plans to use Shadospawn in the White Tower and doesn't want that Alviarin is killed by chance. <br /><br />Furthermore, Shaidar Haran commands Alviarin regarding the Black Ajah Hunters: &quot;You will find who threatens my creatures here and deliver them to me.&quot;<br /><br />That sounds as if Alviarin has to find the Hunters, but then the Shadow will deal with them. That could be another reason to send Shadowspawn to the White Tower.<br /><br />If this is right, &quot;the bat&quot; Egwene sees above Tar Valon at the end of CoT could actually be a Draghkar (and not necessarily a raken), as she first thought: &quot;For an instant, she thought it had been a Draghkar, an evil sight on this of all nights. Only a bat, she decided.&quot;<br /><br />Moreover, in KoD, prologue, Alviarin suddenly considers while she walks through the empty corridors of the White Towers: &quot;Night seemed to cling to the walls despite the mirrored stand-lamps, the ghosts of shadows dancing where none should be. Imagination, surely, yet they danced on the edges of vision.&quot; <br /><br />Maybe this wasn't so surely imagination after all, but hints at a Gray Man (wouldn&#8217;t be the first time that a character dismisses a likely thought too quickly). In the beginning of TGH there are similar scenes where a character just has the strange feeling that something is close, and later a Gray Man is seen in Fal Dara.<br /><br />Finally, in the beginning of KoD, ch.1, &quot;the stench of burning sulphur&quot; is often mentioned in the camp of the Rebel Aes Sedai and thus emphasised as relevant. This is also the stench of Darkhounds.<br /><br />While at first this stench comes with the wind from Dragonmount later the wind might carry the stink from passing Darkhounds. Such a deception would be quite typical for Robert Jordan.<br /><br />We see that the horses panic like in other scenes with Darkhounds. <br /><br />It's said that &quot;the sudden stink of burning sulphur hung heavy in the air, announcing where that wind had come from, and more than one Aes Sedai offered a silent prayer against evil.&quot;<br /><br />Normally the Aes Sedai should know that Dragonmount has nothing to do with evil, i.e. the Shadow.  So, maybe they actually have an uneasy sense of the Shadow; therefore they pray.<br /><br />Also other people in the camp have this unpleasant feeling:  &quot;None knew what the Aes Sedai knew, yet the biting, sulphurous smell that filled the chill night air seemed an ill omen, and hardened men offered their prayers aloud as fervently as the beardless boys. Camp followers added their own, and loudly, armorers and farriers and fletchers, wives and laundresses and seamstresses, all clutched by the sudden fear that something darker than blackness stalked the night.&quot;<br /><br />Something darker than blackness stalking the night could actually mean Darkhounds on their way to the White Tower.<br /><br />Finally, the statment in the KoD synopsis that &quot;even the White Tower itself is no longer a place of safety&quot; could hint at that, too. <br /><br />As said, I don't expect that the Shadow wants to destroy the whole White Tower with such an attack.  If I'm right, it will rather be a swift strike to create confusion, so that the Seanchan attack will likely be more successful; maybe another reason is to kill the Black Ajah Hunters. <br /><br />It certainly would be a nice plot twist.<br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-16 07:45:26
subject: Mazrim Taim - student of the dark
body:
<p>This theory concerns something that has been bothering me for some time, the apparent discrepancy betweens the apparent age of Mazrim Taim, and the fact that he hasn't yet gone mad. Given that channelling causes your age to slow, Taim must have been channelling for a very long time now to appear in his mid/late 30's. So how has he managed to hold off going mad for so long? This problem has been examined from many angles already, and was also used as evidence for the now debunked Taimandred theory. However, I think there is a very simply explanation for this discrepancy: Taim does not have the spark, he was taught.<br /><br />The first piece of evidence I will use for this theory is the very problem raised above. It has simply been assumed that Taim has the spark inborn, and so must have started channelling somewhere in his 20's at the latest. I could not find direct proof that he started channelling of his own volition anywhere. If, however, he was taught to channel, it is quite possible that he has only been using the power a relatively short time. In one stroke this eliminates the problem of his sanity and his apparent age together.<br /><br />One of the reasons for assuming Taim must have had the spark seems to be his strength in the power. His strength is shown to be not far below Rand's. However, we have an unlikely source to show us that great strength in the power doesn't always equate with having the spark inborn. In the rebel Aes Sedai camp they have been recruiting anyone who expresses interest on their march to the tower under Egwene's policy of having every female channeller aligned to the tower. One who sought to join under this policy was Sharina Malloy, an aged grandmother who, to everyone&#8217;s surprise, (and Nynaeve's great annoyance), turns out to have more potential than even Nynaeve. It hardly needs pointing out that Nynaeve is herself equal in strength to at least some of the Forsaken.<br /><br />The second piece of evidence for this theory comes from Taim himself. Taim has a few tricks that he has learned and is happy to impart to Rand. It is very significant that one of these is the test to detect if a man can channel. Where would Taim have learned this trick? There seems to be no evidence of his using any other channellers in his own army before Rand proclaimed himself, so where did it come from? The simple answer is, of course, that Taim pick up the knack of the test when he took the very same test himself.<br /><br />The question then becomes, if Taim was taught, who by? The only possible answer I can see to this question is our old friend Ishmael. He was the only one of the Forsaken that was not sealed in the bore in the years just prior to the start of the Eye of the World when Taim must have been taking his lessons. We already know that he set up the black ajah amongst the female channellers, so it's not too far fetched to think he may have recruited a few men as well. After all, even if they do go mad they create havoc, and that's all for the better as far as Ishy is concerned.<br /><br />So in summary, Mazrim Taim was discovered by Ishmael and, though he didn't have the spark inborn, was taught how to channel the one power.<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-23 08:48:22
subject: Mesaana is a newly raised Sitter
body:
<p>In this theory, I will attempt to show Robert Jordan has left a clue suggesting Mesaana is disguised as Juilaine Madome, the new Sitter for the Brown.<br /><br />In the &#8220;Crossroads of Twilight&#8221; chapter titled &#8220;A Mark&#8221; Alviarin enters Elaida&#8217;s study to find Elaida with a number of Sitters who want to discuss negotiations with the Rebels.  When Alviarin walks into Elaida&#8217;s study, she thinks to herself, &#8220;What surprised her more than her relief, though, was the presence of more than half the Sitters in the Hall standing in front of the writing table in their fringed shawls.&#8221;  There are currently 18 Sitters in the Hall, so there must be at least 10 Sitters present in Elaida&#8217;s study.  <br /><br />Most of the Sitters present are named:<br /><br />From the Yellow: Suana and Doesine<br /><br />White: Ferane<br /><br />Gray: Andaya and Yukiri<br /><br />Brown: Shevan<br /><br />Green: Talene, Rina, and Rubinde<br /><br />Which total only nine sitters, exactly half of the current Hall.  Who is the missing Sitter?<br /><br />No Red Sitter is mentioned, and we can assume that they are not interested in negotiating with the rebels.  Jordan mentions about Ferane, &#8220;She might well have been there by herself because she simply did not believe she needed any assistance from the other White Sitters.&#8221;  So clearly she is the only White Sitter present.<br /><br />He also writes about the Green Sitters, &#8220;All three Green Sitters were there, indicating very strong support among their Ajah, or heavy pressure from the head of the Green.&#8221;  Now since he takes special care to note that all three Green Sitters are present, it seems unlikely that any other Ajah has all three Sitters present.  This leaves us with the Brown Ajah.<br /><br />Now we know that Shevan, Saerin, and Juilaine are the Sitters for the Brown.  Was Saerin present?  I doubt it.  Saerin had been a Sitter for over forty years, so she stands higher than Shevan, yet Shevan did all the talking.  Also,  Talene (Black Ajah) was so nervous about speaking she looked at Yukiri and Doesine for guidance.  Saerin is the leader of the Black Ajah hunters, and if she were present, Talene would have looked at her. That leaves Juilaine. <br /><br />It&#8217;s a stretch, but I think her omission is an important clue from RJ.  Every other Sitter was mentioned by name,  and he specifically says that there were at least ten Sitters present.  A short time later, we see Mesaana.  So what do we know about Juilaine?  Not much.<br /><br />In COT, Seaine says &#8220;Saerin says that Juilaine was handpicked for the Brown, too, apparently not their usual way&#8230;&#8221;.  Later in the chapter she says, &#8220;Juilaine and Rina and Andaya gave me a hint, and Ferane made me decide to check.&#8221;  So Juilaine must be too young to be a Sitter under normal circumstances.  In &#8220;The Path of Daggers&#8221; Seaine describes her as tall with short black hair, who walks with a mannish stride.<br /><br />For the rest of this theory, I&#8217;m going to summarize points that have been discussed at great length.<br /><br />1.  Mesaana was one of the Sitters in Elaida&#8217;s Study.  When Alviarin summons her, Mesaana is already aware Alviarin has met with Elaida and is being punished by seeing Silviana for penances.  Only the two Brown sisters in the library and the Sitters present in Elaida&#8217;s study knew Alviarin was back after a month&#8217;s absence.  <br /><br />2. Mesaana wears a lot of brown.   In &#8220;Lord of Chaos&#8221; Mesaana is described as wearing a russet-colored dress, in &#8220;The Path of Daggers&#8221; her dress is bronze with black scrollwork, and in &#8220;Crossroads of Twilight&#8221; her dress is bronze-embroidered green.  It&#8217;s possible she likes shades of brown, but it seems more likely that she&#8217;s disguised as a Brown sister.  Also, she wears silk, which no maid or clerk should be wearing.<br /><br />3.Brown sisters tend to spend a lot of time studying (and not socializing),  which would make it easier for Mesaana to impersonate a Brown.  For one, she wouldn&#8217;t have to keep her disguise on all the time if she were supposed to be in her room alone studying.  Also, she wouldn&#8217;t be expected to have many close friends.  And, as the lowest ranking Brown Sitter, Mesaana wouldn&#8217;t be expected to speak much, although she would still be present for any important news that came to the Hall.<br /><br />Taken together, I think Mesaana may be Juilaine Madome.<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-30 07:46:50
subject: The Comprehensive One Power Strength Theory - part 1
body:
<p><b><u>TABLE OF CONTENTS </u></b><br /><br />1.	Introduction<br />2.	The Strength List<br />3.	The Channeler&#8217;s Strengths explained<br />4.	Gateways<br />5.	Linking<br />6.	Shielding<br />7.	Comparisons<br />8.	Small note on the Forsaken<br />9.	Conclusions<br />10.	Acknowledgements<br /><br /><b><u>Introduction </u></b><br /><br />This is the comprehensive One Power strength list. It divided into two parts because it is too large to be posted as one unit. Last year we started pondering the possibility of creating a linear scale regarding One Power strength. Not only that, but we wanted to create  a scale which included men.<br /><br />Many people will find our list even more speculative than Linda Sedai&#8217;s One Power strength FAQ. There may be some merit in your argument because while we have taken every precaution to create the most accurate list possible, there are many assumptions based on evidence such as gestures, leading remarks and other potentially weak evidence. While some of the evidence may appear circumstantial, there is certainly no way that a more accurate list can be made unless Jordan provides us with his own personal list.<br /><br />The evidence was gathered from books 1 to 10, New Spring, the Wheel of Time Guide, Tor Questions and interviews given by Jordan. Evidence from the Guide often appears to be flawless but Jordan has made several blatant refutations regarding the statements in the Guide by inserting contradictions in the series, and by stating in interviews that the Guide was more like a book written by an Aes Sedai who gathered information regarding the Age of Legends. Apart from this, we looked for all the evidence regarding the strength of a channeler e.g. Nynaeve, and we weighed the validity of the comments by including aspects such as source, bias and confirmation by later acts and statements. Strong statements were included immediately whereas weaker ones were reserved until a later comment strengthened their validity or refuted it.<br /><br />The evidence is based on the following &#8230;<br />-	direct comparisons of strength by male and female channelers<br />-	acts using the Power which imply strength<br />-	deference between characters<br />-	shielding, linking and dueling<br />-	gateway size <br />-	other miscellaneous statements and conclusions<br /><br /><i><b>Confounders </b></i><br /><br />Unless a channeler directly mentions the strength of another channeler, any evidence we give could be seen as speculation. As mentioned above, it is the overall impression of the channeler which is important and not individual facts.<br /><br />Sometimes this picture is very difficult to form. Whereas the Aes Sedai conveniently defer according to strength, it is obvious that they are the exception. The weakest Forsaken often jibe the strongest ones &#8211; or lie, the Seafolk and Kin hold strength in little regard, and the Aiel flagrantly ignore it.<br /><br />One of the most important concepts to note regarding One Power duels is that strength is not everything. In fact, it can mean very little in the face of knowledge, skill and intelligence. Consider how Cyndane could stand against a stronger channeler (Alivia with her angreal) and use skill, speed and intelligence to match her. This should be born in mind when judging contests between channelers.<br /><br /><i><b>Critical Points </b></i><br /><br />- We don&#8217;t claim this to be the actual One Power strength list which Jordan uses, but we do claim that it is a list which fulfils the vast majority of statements regarding strength in the series.<br /><br />- It is a list of absolute raw strength in the Power, and has nothing to do with skill or Talents, unless they are obviously a product of the channeler&#8217;s strength.<br /><br />- The women are listed according to their potential i.e. the strength they will reach one day. Many of the women like Sharina and Nicola aren&#8217;t even close yet. The men are listed according to their current strengths &#8211; they may increase with time. The exceptions are the Forsaken (whose absolute strength is indicated) and other established channelers like Taim and Logain.<br /><br /><b><u>THE LIST </u></b><br /><br />100: Lews Therin Telamon, Rand al&#8217;Thor, Ishamael, Moridin<br /><br />95: Demandred <br /><br />93: Sammael<br /><br />90: Aginor (Osan&#8217;gar), Rahvin, Taim, Logain <br /><br />85: Lanfear<br /><br />80: Be&#8217;lal, Balthamel (Aran&#8217;gar), Asmodean<br /><br />*** male Forsaken strength ***<br /><br />75: Cyndane, Alivia<br /><br />70: Graendal, Sharina<br /><br />65: Semirhage, Mesaana, Nynaeve, Talaan, Damer Flinn<br /><br />60: Jur Grady<br /><br />55: Moghedien, Someryn, Fager Neald<br /><br />*** female Forsaken strength ***<br /><br />50: Torval, Gedwyn, Rochaid <br /><br />45: Tamela, Viendre<br /><br />40: Egwene, Aviendha, Elayne, Metarra <br /><br />38: Bode<br /><br />30: Cadsuane, Therava<br /><br />29: Meilyn<br /><br />28: Kerene, Nicola<br /><br />25: Average Ash&#8217;aman&#8217;s strength, Jahar Narishma<br /><br />25: Moiraine, Siuan (old), Elaida, Romanda, Lelaine, Garenia, Rainyn<br /><br />24: Amys, Sheriam, Leane (old), Reanne, Merise, Pevara, Yukiri, Saerin<br /><br />23: Anaiya, Myrelle, Carlinya, Morvrin, Bera, Kiruna, Nesune, Melaine<br /><br />22: Delana, Rafela, Masuri, Katerine, Sumeko, Toveine, Shalon, Liandrin<br /><br />21: Alanna, Verin, Seonid, Alviarin, Kurin, Falion, Ispan, Tarna<br /><br />*** minimum level for Travelling ***<br /><br />20: Average Aes Sedai (16 &#8211; 20) &#8211; Demira, Aeldene, Merillile, Chesmal, Elza, Vandene, Adeleas, Kairen, Valinde, Micara, Turanna, Zerah, Temaile<br /><br />15: Weak Aes Sedai (10-15) Cabriana, Kumira, Therva, Berowin<br /><br />10: Average Accepted (5-15), average woman, Siuan (new)<br /><br />8 : Daigian<br /><br />*** absolute minimum level to become Aes Sedai ***<br /><br />5 : Average novice (1-10)<br /><br />*** minimum level to become Accepted ***<br /><br />3: Sorilea, Alise<br /><br />&lt;1: Morgase<br /><br /><b><u><i>The Channelers &#8230; </i></u></b><br /><br /><b><u>Lews Therin Telamon and Rand Al&#8217;Thor </u></b><br /><br />Lews Therin was the Dragon, and Rand is the Dragon Reborn. Therefore there aren&#8217;t going to be any debates about whether the two have the same strength in the Power, because it is obvious that Jordan has set Rand up to be Lews Therin reborn. The Forsaken discussion at the beginning of the fifth book provides us with the most insight into Lews Therin&#8217;s strength &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) - <i>&#8220;He is Lews Therin Telamon reborn,&#8221; Lanfear said just as softly, &#8220;and Lews Therin was as strong as any.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Lanfear clearly states that he could match any Aes Sedai for strength in the the Age of Legends. None of the Forsaken object to this statement, and because of this we must assume that no one can be stronger than him in the Power.<br /><br />The Guide also alludes to his strength &#8230; <i> the most powerful of the Chosen in the One Power, he was equalled by none but Lews Therin Telamon himself.&quot;</i><br /><br />The Guide, at least, implies that Ishamael was so strong in the Power that no Aes Sedai could match him except Lews Therin Telamon. Therefore Lews Therin and Ishamael appear to share the very top tier of strength. Rand&#8217;s strength is truly remarkable. If we look at the beginning of the fifth book &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (The Gift of a Blade) - <i>He had thought that he was strong before, but Asmodean&#8217;s teachings were making him stronger. </i><br /><br />It is amazing to think that he matched the male Forsaken, Asmodean, even before this. He did have an angreal, but he didn&#8217;t use it until the very end of the battle. Asmodean helps him reach even greater strength, and even in LoC we see that he has increased in strength further. So how strong is Lews Therin or Rand? It is easy to place a value of 100 behind his name on a list, but practically what does his strength mean?<br /><br />TFOH (This Place, This Day) - <i>&#8220;&#8230; you are stronger than Aviendha and me together.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Egwene provides us with some perspective. Where she gained this information is something to be considered &#8211; either from her humbling experience earlier in the series with Elayne, or perhaps from Moiraine and her knowledge of Lews Therin. It is also possible that she judged his strength based on the number of flows he was wielding. We do know that she was correct though, and that Jordan is passing a hint here rather than sharing Egwene&#8217;s ignorance. Considering Egwene and Aviendha have a strength of 40, their combined strength of 80 still falls well short of his potential of 100. Later in the series, Lews Therin starts passing on tidbits of information to Rand regarding his capabilities &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Gifts) - <i>In the mirror his head tilted as if he was listening, and he nodded, voice dropping to a murmur. &#8220;Yes, I can handle three, if they aren&#8217;t too strong&#8230; Of course, if one of them is Moghedien in a wig, or Semirhage, I may be in trouble.&#8221; </i><br /><br />You will notice that Rand is not afraid of a group of three Aes Sedai who can channel. The reason is two-fold &#8211; it is unlikely that three women can exceed his strength unless they are considerably strong, and secondly, no three women can shield him unless they <i>all</i> have Forsaken strength (discussed in the shielding section). Rand says that he can handle three Aes Sedai (20 x 3 = 60), because their combined strength falls well short of the strength required to threaten him. However, he mentions that if one is Moghedien (55) or Semirhage (65), then he may have a problem. He is correct &#8230; if Moghedien and two women combine their strengths the total (20+20+55) is 95 and enough to make the circle as strong as the top male Forsaken and a grave risk to him. If Moghedien is substituted with Semirhage, then the combined strength rises to 105, and he in great peril indeed. Of course, some strength is lost in a circle, but as you will see later, it is a very small amount. Later he reveals another interpretation of his strength &#8230;<br /><br />LoC (The Mirror of Mists) - <i>Seven. Lews Therin groaned. I cannot handle seven, not at once. Rand thought of the fat-little-man angreal, and the voice faded to murmurs; it still sounded uneasy, though. </i><br /><br />Lews Therin is clearly uneasy about handling seven Aes Sedai. His sentiments are understandable because seven Aes Sedai linked in a circle would have a strength of about 133 (20x7-circle penalty of 5%) which is well above his strength threshold. Even seven weak Aes Sedai could link and command a strength of 100 (15x7 &#8211; circle penalty of 5%).<br /><br />The final evidence for Rand&#8217;s strength is introduced when he weaves gateways. No one has made a bigger gateway in the series than Rand, unless they have been linked or used an angreal or sa&#8217;angreal. The gateway hypothesis is explained fully near the end of the theory.<br /><br />TFOH (To Caemlyn) - <i> The gateway appeared at the foot of the steps, first a bright line seemed to turn, opening into a square hold into blackness four paces wide&#8230; Four paces was as large as Rand could make it. </i><br /><br />&#8230; and later &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (A Crown of Swords) - <i>Seizing the Source, Rand made a gateway between the posts, four paces by four &#8230; filled with saidin.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Four paces by four paces is the maximum size for a gateway for one channeler unaided. It corresponds to 12ft x 12ft with a area of 144sq.ft. Near the end of the fifth book Rand appears to be reaching his full potential because his gateways don&#8217;t become larger as the series progresses. There can also be no doubt that this is as large as he can make a gateway because he clearly mentions that he is filled to the brim with the Power.<br /><br />Rand (Lews Therin) was given a strength of 100 &#8230;<br />-	highest strength for a channeler<br />-	equalled only by Ishamael<br />-	explains how many women he can defend himself against, and how many he cannot.<br />-	explains the size of his gateways.<br />-	As strong as five average Aes Sedai<br /><br />Rand&#8217;s progression in strength was typical of a male &#8211; irregular and unpredictable. We don&#8217;t know how strong he was between books 1 and 2. In book 3 he held at least ten flows and stopped Egwene and Elayne from touching the Source at the same time. Egwene and Elayne were both stronger than Moiraine at the time (&gt;25). For him to maintain the shield on two women with a combined strength of 60 (30x2), he would need a minimum strength of 40. This only accounted for two of his ten flows. He was probably much stronger at this point already.<br /><br />In book 4 he matched Asmodean exactly using the Choedan Kal, so his strength was about 75. In book 5 he roughly matched Lanfear in strength, 85, and he mentioned that Rahvin was about as strong as him (90). He also said that Asmodean&#8217;s teachings had made him stronger. In book 6 Taim was nearly as strong as him &#8211; so he was probably at 91. In book 7 Dashiva was weaker than him, but he equalled Sammael &#8211; 93. He probably completed his ascent to 100 during books 8 -10, and probably attained his potential while using the Choedan Kal to cleanse saidin.<br /><br /><i>Rough strength progression </i><br /><br />Book 1	 	-	negligible<br />Book 2		-	unknown<br />Book 3		-	40 - 75<br />Book 4		-	75<br />Book 5		-	85-90<br />Book 6		-	91<br />Book 7		- 	93<br />Book 8 -10	-	100<br /><br />Like Nynaeve, it appears that Rand gained the majority of his strength in the early books (1-5). It is also apparent that he underwent a huge strength leap in book 3 and 4.<br /><br /><b><u>Ishamael / Moridin</u></b><br /><br />There can be little doubt that Ishamael was the strongest of the Forsaken in the One Power. According to the Guide &#8230;<br /><br /><i>&quot;&#8230; he was assuredly the Dark One&#8217;s top captain-general despite the fact that he never held a direct field command... the most powerful of the Chosen in the One Power, he was equalled by none but Lews Therin Telamon himself.&quot;</i><br /><br />This statement was later echoed by Moiraine &#8230;<br /><br />TDR (The Hammer) - <i>&#8220;&#8230;No one knows the strength of the Forsaken, except that Ishamael and Lanfear were the strongest.&#8221;</i><br /><br />It is therefore logical that he was placed at the ultimate level of strength, 100 &#8211; hence equaled by Lews Therin. Why trust two erroneous resources , the Guide and the Aes Sedai? The truth is that it makes sense to place Ishamael at 100 for the following reasons &#8230;<br /><br />1. Ishamael was set-up by the author to be the direct nemesis of the Dragon, the Light&#8217;s Champion. To be able to match the Dragon, he must match him in all aspects that count, especially strength in the Power. Theology is an important part of the series, and logic dictates that it must apply here more than anywhere else.<br /><br />2. He was not afraid to approach the Dragon Reborn at any stage unaided. Even Demandred was said to hold back his attack on Rand until he acquired an angreal or sa&#8217;angreal. Even though Rand was untrained at the time, the following cannot be ignored &#8230;<br />-	He couldn&#8217;t possibly know that Rand didn&#8217;t have any knowledge from the Age of Legends. He was the most ardent believer in the reincarnation of Champions through the Ages.<br />-	Even when Rand was trained, he approached Rand unaided once again, while Rand was fighting Sammael.<br />-	He approached Lews Therin unaided in the prologue to the first book. Very brave considering the man destroyed everyone who crossed him. Only a man who believed he could match Lews Therin would perform such an act.<br />-	The other Forsaken ran immediately when Rand appeared before them, except Be&#8217;lal who caught him before he was trained and Lanfear who immediately shielded him before he could seize saidin.<br /><br />3. Despite his failures against Rand, the Dark One reincarnated him as Moridin and still set him up as Nae&#8217;blis. The Dark One aptly hinted at his motivations &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Mindtrap) - <i>&#8220;How deep is your failure, Moghedien? The Chosen are always the strongest, but you let yourself be captured &#8230; My Chosen are always the strongest.&#8221;</i><br /><br />The Dark One always encouraged the Forsaken Aes Sedai to try and kill one another so that only the best would serve him. Ishamael was always at the top of his game (QotW), and clearly because he was such a lethal enemy. The Dark One would obviously appoint the strongest of them to unite those under him. Some of the other Forsaken thought they had a genuine chance of being Nae&#8217;blis, but the Dark One made the logical choice &#8211; Ishamael was the strongest of them, and he held the Shadow&#8217;s ideals closer to heart than any other. Later, Osan&#8217;gar, one of the strongest of the Forsaken provides us with some hints regarding Ishamael&#8230;<br /><br />WH (With the Choedan Kal) - <i>But the fact remained that Moridin terrified him. The man had always terrified him, from the very beginning&#8230; Moridin would find out somehow if he fled, and kill him.</i><br /><br />The above quote from Osan&#8217;gar (Aginor) is valuable because it tells us that even in the War of Power, Aginor was terrified of Ishamael despite the fact that Aginor was so strong in the Power. He doesn&#8217;t doubt that Moridin would kill him if he fled. Osan&#8217;gar elaborates further still &#8230;<br /><br />WH (With the Choedan Kal) - <i>But still, he could take Callandor after al&#8217;Thor was dead. No one else among the Chosen possessed so much as an angreal. Even Moridin would quail before him once he had that crystal sword.</i><br /><br />Osan&#8217;gar believes that he will be able to dominate the other Forsaken if he acquires Callandor. Even Moridin would quail before him. Clearly he considers Moridin to be the final obstacle to overcome for him to become the most powerful Forsaken. The Forsaken response to Ishamael is consistent. Even if one considers Osan&#8217;gar to be a coward, one cannot ignore Rahvin and Be&#8217;lal&#8217;s reaction to him &#8230;<br /><br />TDR (Shadows Sleeping) - <i>The first two men [Rahvin and Be&#8217;lal] stood side by side now, made uncomfortable allies by the presence of the newcomer [Ishamael]. He shouted at them and shook his fist, while they shifted uneasily, refusing to meet his glares. If the two hated each other, they feared him more.</i><br /><br />We therefore placed Ishamael at 100, next to Lews Therin Telamon.<br /><br /><b><u>Demandred</u></b><br /><br />Demandred has played a small visible role in the series so far. He will probably play larger roles in the next two books, and therefore it was a challenge to place him correctly on the strength list. There can be very little doubt that he possesses enough strength in the Power to place him nearly at the top of the strength tree. <br /><br />As we see from the Guide &#8230; <i>&quot;Born one day after Lews Therin, he had almost as much strength and almost as much skill.&quot;</i><br /><br />Demandred therefore nearly matched Lews Therin with regards to strength and skill. We also see from Mesaana&#8217;s POV in LOC that Demandred would have undoubtedly been the greatest man of his Age if not for Lews Therin Telamon. These two bits of information are useful in placing Demandred. His well-known arrogance cannot merely be prescribed to personality traits - he knows exactly how great he is. It is clear that the other Forsaken are wary of him &#8211; Mesaana mentions that he always dominates the room. If we look at Mesaana&#8217;s opinion again&#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Prologue) - <i>Demandred would have had his sa&#8217;angreal and launched himself at Rand al&#8217;Thor long since. </i><br /><br />Demandred has great strength and skill in the Power and was notoriously risky regarding tactics, but by no means has he ever been a fool. Despite his training, strength and daring nature, he is unwilling to challenge Rand unaided. This indicates that he himself considered his strength insufficient to match Lews Therin&#8217;s. We therefore placed him at 95, just one level below Lews Therin and Ishamael. It is possible that his strength is even greater &#8211; from 96-99, but surely not weaker and certainly not equal to Lews Therin in strength.<br /><br /><b><u>Sammael</u></b><br /><br />There is some evidence that Sammael may have been the third strongest Forsaken after Ishamael and Demandred. The first evidence comes from the prologue of TFoH &#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (Prologue) - <i> Snatching at saidin, he filled himself with the Power &#8230; Linked to saidin as tightly as Rahvin &#8211; this close Rahvin could feel it dimly &#8211; Sammael eyed him warily&#8230; Then he sensed Sammael gathering the Power&#8230;</i><br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) &#8230;<i>&#8220;This Rand al&#8217;Thor. Could he have overwhelmed you [Lanfear] face-to-face?&#8221; Not that he himself could not, if it came to it, or Sammael &#8230;</i><br /><br />The section on <i>Rahvin</i> contains more detail regarding the above two quotes, but the first quote suggests that Sammael is at least as strong as Rahvin. The second quote suggests that Rahvin and Sammael are both stronger than Lanfear. Later Sammael draws on saidin again when Graendal and Lanfear have a confrontation proving that he had a further reserve to draw upon. Therefore he is probably stronger than Rahvin too. Further proof for Sammael&#8217;s possible advantage over Lanfear comes later in when he assumes that she has been thwarting his plans &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Threads woven of Shadow) - <i>&#8220;That was Lanfear; I am certain. The next time I see her, I&#8217;ll kill her.&#8221;</i><br /><br />From this passage we can see that Sammael has no doubt he could kill Lanfear. Graendal doesn&#8217;t doubt him either, even from her own POV later, naming him a dangerous man to reject &#8211; as if she feared the consequences of his retribution. The Ash&#8217;aman also experience Sammael&#8217;s wrath when they try to match him in Ilian.<br /><br />ACoS (A Crown of Swords) - <i>&#8220;&#8230;before we more than started, Sammael came. A man channeling saidin, at least, and a lot stronger than Eben or me. As strong as you, my Lord Dragon, I&#8217;d say.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Jonan Adley&#8217;s opinion here is considerable because he estimates that Sammael&#8217;s attacks are about as strong as Rand&#8217;s. Just a few lines before this Rand says that the Ash&#8217;aman around him are filled to bursting with saidin, and that Dashiva is a bit weaker than him. The two quotes imply that Sammael is stronger in the Power than Osan&#8217;gar (Aginor). Rand&#8217;s strength was still on the increase, however. Adley elaborates further &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (A Crown of Swords) - <i>&#8220;Sammael cuts every one to rags despite anything Eben or I can do &#8230; We have to strike back and run immediately, and even so, he nearly burned us where we stood, more than once.&#8221;</i><br /><br />When you read the section on <i>male strength</i> you will see that the average male channeler has a strength of 40. However, the Ash&#8217;aman have only recently begun channeling and therefore cannot possibly be near their end potential.<br /><br />ACoS (Pitfalls and Tripwires) - <i>None were near as strong as he&#8230; Fedwin stood highest of the three &#8230; These three were all strong enough to make a gateway of useful size, if just barely in Jonan&#8217;s case. </i><br /> <br />Rand estimates that all of them can make a gateway of useful size, meaning that a person can walk through it. The section on <i>gateways</i> explains that only strong Aes Sedai can make proper gateways. In fact, most Aes Sedai cannot Travel at all. Jonan can barely make a useful gateway, and therefore his strength at the time equals the minimum level required to Travel effectively - at the time Jonan is roughly as strong as a sister like Alanna i.e. 23. The other Ash&#8217;aman are stronger, but nowhere near Rand. If Jonan and Eben have a combined strength of 50 (just an educated guess), it would explain why a man with a strength of 93 would defeat them, no matter what they did. Perhaps when they reached their potential one day they would be able to make a good co-operative effort against Sammael. Unfortunately Jonan, Eben and Sammael have died so we might have to wait an Age for a rematch.<br /><br />Another piece of proof for Sammael&#8217;s strength concerns the size of his gateway&#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Spears) - <i>A hole, five paces wide and three high, in midair.</i><br /><br />A pace is three feet and therefore his gateway measures 15 by 9 feet with a cumulative area of 135 square feet. Sammael was trying to fool the Shaido into believing that he had given them several Travelling ter&#8217;angreal and because he was trying to move an entire army, it seems logical that he used all his strength to weave the above gateway. Sammael&#8217;s gateway has an area 93% that of Rand&#8217;s. As mentioned later, estimates of strength based on gateway size are very circumstantial, but it is just one more piece to fit into the puzzle concerning Sammael. Jordan also mentioned that Sammael was one of the &#8216;super-Forsaken&#8217; who were always at the top of the status pyramid (QoTW). It appears that strength in the Power was one of the criteria for success because the three males mentioned are the three strongest (according to us), and the same applies to the three females mentioned.<br /><br />Sammael&#8217;s hatred for Lews Therin was similar to Demandred&#8217;s, if less potent, but he appears to be yet another man from the Age of Legends who almost matched the Dragon but couldn&#8217;t quite manage to equal him. Demandred&#8217;s hatred for Lews Therin was intense because he always crossed the finish line milliseconds after Lews Therin, unlike Sammael who experienced a sour grudge, probably because he was a full second behind the other two. Thus their mutual animosity.  Sammael also tells Graendal to warn Demandred not to step on his toes in ACoS. Sammael is furious and also not afraid to confront Demandred.<br /><br />We therefore allocated Sammael a strength of 93. This fulfilled the following criteria&#8230;<br /><br />-	He is stronger than Rahvin, Aginor and Lanfear<br />-	He is not afraid to confront Demandred<br />-	He can easily match two inexperienced Ash&#8217;aman<br />-	He possesses enough strength to weave a gateway of five by three paces.<br /><br /><b><u>Aginor</u></b><br /><br />The initial books were very specific about Aginor&#8217;s placement with regards to strength &#8230;<br /><br />Guide - <i>&quot;The second most powerful man, known by the Forsaken name Aginor, came close to rivalling Lews Therin and Ishamael in strength.&quot;</i><br /><br />EoTW (There is neither beginning nor end) &#8230; <i>&#8221;Aginor was surprised and angry I held him as long as I did, but fortunately he had no time to spare for me. I am surprised that I held him so long. In the Age of Legends, Aginor was close behind the Kinslayer and Ishamael in power.&#8221;</i><br /><br />It is clear that the Aes Sedai and the ancient manuscripts rate Aginor just one level below Lews Therin in strength. We believe that Aginor was close to Lews Therin in strength, but not second in strength. His position as the second strongest male Forsaken was probably formed at the beginning of the War of Power. He was weaker than Ishamael and second in strength. Unfortunately, a few years later Demandred joined the Shadow and later Sammael. Both were stronger than him, but the &#8216;records&#8217; were not corrected to accommodate this &#8211; probably because records concerning strength took a back seat in the face of the destruction of the world. We also know that he was very strong in the Power &#8230;<br /><br />EoTW (There is neither beginning nor end) &#8230; <i>There was a vast amount of the One Power in the Eye. Even in the Age of Legends, few could have channeled so much unaided without being destroyed. Very few.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Moiraine&#8217;s source of information may be questionable, but if it is true it at least proves that even in the Age of Legends, his strength was very close to the top tier of male strength. We also know that Balthamel was no match for Aginor, thanks to Jordan&#8217;s opinion &#8230; see Balthamel&#8217;s section. Therefore Aginor possessed more than your average male Forsaken strength. Aginor drew too much saidin and died, and he was later resurrected as Osan&#8217;gar (Dashiva). As far as we know, he never experienced a loss of strength or we would have been privy to further details, as we were in Lanfear&#8217;s case. Rand encounters Dashiva&#8217;s strength after Fain attacked him &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (A Crown of Swords) - <i>Saidin filled all four men, to overflowing it seemed. Dashiva held almost as much as Rand could have.</i><br /><br />Rand&#8217;s assessment of Dashiva is accurate because he can sense strain when a man is holding his absolute maximum. We know that Dashiva is close to Rand in strength. Rand is still increasing in strength though because barely ten lines later Adley says that Sammael is as strong as Rand &#8230; and we know that Sammael was not as strong as Lews Therin.  This small section provides evidence that Sammael is stronger than Aginor in the Power. Even though we believe that Demandred was stronger than Sammael, there is also some evidence that Demandred was stronger than Aginor &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Wonderful News) &#8230; <i>Osan&#8217;gar frowned at &#8220;idiots&#8221; and &#8220;blind fools,&#8221; as well he might, but he quickly smoothed that plain, creased face, so unlike the one he had been born with. By whatever name he was called, he had always known who he dared challenge and who not.</i><br /><br />Demandred insulted Osan&#8217;gar to his face but his own reaction clearly states that Demandred was one of those he never dared challenge. This clearly refutes the fact that Aginor was stronger than Demandred in the Power &#8230; and a stronger man wouldn&#8217;t shy away from Demandred&#8217;s domineering personality.<br /><br />ACoS (Hill of the Golden Dawn) - <i>The instant the gateway was fully open, veiled Aiel poured out, men and Maidens, spreading in every direction to encircle the hill &#8230; One moment it was a flood of Aiel, the next, mounted Cairhienien armsmen galloping in two by two &#8230; Perrin strode stepper in &#8230; and ducked in spite of himself. The upper edge of the thing stood well above his head, but he had seen the damage a gateway could do &#8230; Loial and Aram followed close behind &#8230; the Ogier &#8230; bent his knees &#8230; Wagons rumbled from Dumai&#8217;s wells to Cairhien, the sisters in the first like statues of ice being lurched about. Their Warders trotted alongside&#8230; The Shaido gai&#8217;shain came, trotting in a column four wide under the gaze of a single Maiden &#8230; four more Asha&#8217;man, each leading a second horse &#8230; Last of all came Rand on Kiruna&#8217;s gelding, and Min on her mare. Sorilea and Amys strode along to one side of the tall black horse. Nandera and half a dozen Maidens to the other.</i><br /><br />Dashiva&#8217;s gateway had an avalanche of people passing through but some facts could be ascertained&#8230;<br />-	the gateway can easily accommodate a man sitting on a horse, but not an Ogier. It can also accommodate wagons &#8211; the average immigration wagon has a height of 10 feet and a breadth of 5 feet. An Ogier has a height of ten to twelve feet. The gateway therefore has a height of approximately 11 feet.<br />-	From the wide column of people which passes through we can see that the gateway must be at least 11 feet wide to accommodate the people.<br /><br />The gateway therefore has an area of 121 square feet &#8230; or 84% of Rand&#8217;s. Taim said that Dashiva was gaining his strength rapidly and it is possible that he was hiding some of his strength. On the other hand, the gateway size is only a rough estimation. From all the above evidence, we believe that a strength of 90 is suitable for Aginor. It fulfills the following criteria &#8230;<br /><br />1.	Close behind Lews Therin (10% weaker)<br />2.	In the top echelons of male strength<br />3.	Acceptable placement compared to other males like Balthamel and Sammael.<br /><br /><b><u>Rahvin</u></b><br /><br />Rahvin played quite a substantial role in the Fires of Heaven, and it was in this book that we learnt that he was stronger in the Power than we initially thought. The Guide doesn&#8217;t even mention his strength in the Power, and we considered him a very average male Forsaken until the fifth book came out. <br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) &#8230; <i>Snatching at saidin, he filled himself with the Power &#8230; Linked to saidin as tightly as Rahvin &#8211; this close Rahvin could feel it dimly &#8211; Sammael eyed him warily&#8230; Then he sensed Sammael gathering the Power&#8230;</i><br /><br />Sammael&#8217;s strength has already been explained but this quote does prove a few things. Prior to this Rahvin said he filled himself with saidin when Lanfear surprised him. As mentioned previously , Sammael had a reserve of saidin to draw upon. Therefore Sammael is stronger than him. Sammael does, however, consider Rahvin to be a risk and he eyes him warily. Lanfear stirs up some interesting debate &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) &#8230; <i>&#8220;I did not want to launch a frontal assault against superior forces.&#8221; &#8220;Is he really so strong?&#8221; Rahvin asked quietly. &#8220;This Rand al&#8217;Thor. Could he have overwhelmed you face-to-face?&#8221; Not that he himself could not, if it came to it, or Sammael </i><br /><br />This quote provides evidence that Sammael and Rahvin are probably stronger than Lanfear in the Power. It cannot be ascribed to male arrogance in the face of deficiency, because Rahvin would not admit Sammael&#8217;s mutual advantage if this was the case. Forsaken are loathe to admit strengths in other channelers, and when they do it should be taken seriously. It is important to recognize the general tone of the above quote. Firstly, Rahvin feels uneasy that an enemy of his is stronger than Lanfear in the Power. Although he admits that he could challenge her, his tone implies that he wouldn&#8217;t relish the experience &#8211; and the result would possibly not be as he hoped. The prologue suggests that Sammael is the strongest of the three, followed closely by Rahvin, followed closely by Lanfear. Rand also shares his own experiences regarding Rahvin &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (The Threads Burn) &#8230;<i>He had been clever in his attacks, clever in his escapes, but from the moment he fled the throne room he had not faced Rand for more than the instant it took to strike and flee. Rahvin was strong, perhaps as strong as Rand, and more knowledgeable, but Rand had the fat-little-man angreal in his pocket, and Rahvin had none.</i><br /><br />Based on the strength of his attacks, Rand estimated that Rahvin was about as strong as him in the Power. In LoC Rand tells us that he has become stronger in the Power and that Taim falls slightly short of his strength. In ACoS, Dashiva is marginally weaker than him too, but he is as strong as Sammael. The separate passages all imply that Aginor (Osan&#8217;gar), Rahvin and Taim all have similar strength in the Power with Sammael the strongest of the four.<br /><br />For this reason we placed Rahvin at 90. It satisfies the following criteria &#8230;<br />-	He is slightly weaker than Sammael<br />-	He is as strong as Aginor and Taim<br />-	He is probably stronger than Lanfear (in raw strength at least)<br /><br /><b><u>Taim</u></b><br /><br />Mazrim Taim was set up to be one of the powerful 3rd Age male channelers of the series. The first time we meet Taim is in the sixth book &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (A woman&#8217;s eyes) &#8211; <i>&#8221;Taim held enough of saidin to law waste as far as he could see. It was not much short of what Rand himself could manage, unaided. But then, the man could be holding back. There was no sense of strain, and he might not want to show his full strength to Rand&#8230;</i><br /><br />At this point we know that he can almost match Rand in strength, and after LoC Rand never tells us about another jump in his strength so we must assume that he getting near to his end potential. This is not surprising &#8211; being a male, and one of enormous strength, it might only take him two or three years to gain his potential. The problem here is that Rand is not sure if Taim is holding back. It is impossible to say with a male channeler, but as Rand says, you often feel a sense of strain when someone is holding their maximum (seen in later books with the Ash&#8217;aman). At least we know Taim&#8217;s minimum strength then. The Black Ajah also give us a clue to his strength &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (Questioners) - <i>&#8221;&#8230;The false Dragon, Mazrim Taim, who was captured in Saldaea, can channel with incredible strength. Perhaps as much as Rand al&#8217;Thor, or nearly so, if the reports can be believed &#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />This quote by Joiya should not be taken lightly. There is increasing speculation that Taim is a darkfriend, and if this is the case then the Shadow could have intimate knowledge regarding his strength. It is unknown which reports she is referring to &#8211; eyes-and-ears of the Tower, or reports of the Shadow &#8211; but either way, it implies that he is near to Rand in strength &#8211; as early as book 4. We also know that the most of the Ash&#8217;aman openly fear him &#8211; even the devious ones like Torval. Just like Rand, there is no Ash&#8217;aman we have heard of who is near to them in strength &#8211; except Dashiva, and he is a Forsaken &#8211; and Logain the other False Dragon. Even then &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Out of Thin Air) - <i>Dashiva had simply vanished. Kisman did not know whether he had simply run or the M&#8217;Hael had killed him, and he did not care. </i><br /><br />The Ash&#8217;aman are familiar with one another&#8217;s strength, and Dashiva has openly shown his strength around Rand and the other Ash&#8217;aman several times. Kisman, however, does not doubt that Taim could kill Dashiva &#8211; so this places his strength at least equal to Aginor&#8217;s. Admittedly, Taim is an enigma. We have seen him holding saidin in great amounts but we haven&#8217;t seen him fight anyone. Even at Dumai&#8217;s Wells, it is debatable whether he contributed at all or merely commanded and watched, like Rand did. There are also those who believe that Taim is more than he seems &#8211; possibly a Forsaken in disguise. Although Jordan tries to steer us off the Demandred hypothesis, he himself admitted that perhaps he was being deliberately misleading. Theories regarding Taim&#8217;s identity have touched on Demandred, Moridin and Be&#8217;lal. Demandred and Moridin are possibilities, in which case his strength will lie at 95 or 100, but Be&#8217;lal is more unlikely considering we believe that Be&#8217;lal wasn&#8217;t strong enough in the Power to fit into Taim&#8217;s shoes.<br /><br />We placed Taim at 90. This allows for the following &#8230;<br />-	upper male Forsaken strength<br />-	close behind Rand<br />-	at least equal to Aginor (Dashiva)<br />-	possibly holding back if he is a Forsaken<br /><br /><b><u>Logain</u></b><br /><br />Logain was one of the False Dragons and by all accounts, very strong in the Power. We believe that his strength ranks up with the strong male Forsaken. After he was Healed by Nynaeve, he regained all his strength unlike Siuan and Leanne. <br /><br />LoC (To Heal Again) &#8230; <i>&#8221;I went by Logain&#8217;s house. Six sisters are maintaining his shield, the same as when he was captured. He tried to break free when he knew we found out he had been Healed, and they said that if  only five had been holding the shield, he might have. So he&#8217;s as strong as he ever was, or close enough to make no difference.&#8221;</i><br /><br />The above passage&#8217;s relevance is discussed in the <i>shielding</i> section but, briefly, four Aes Sedai can maintain a shield on any man, no matter how strong he is. The reason they thought he could break free was that he was breaking the &#8216;soft spots&#8217; and disrupting the shield. This is discussed later,  but it does imply that Logain&#8217;s strength is very close to the top of the strength ladder. Rand suffered the same problem breaking through a shield. In fact, there&#8217;s no proof that Logain is weaker than Rand but statistically, he is. More shielding evidence can be found in the next quote&#8230;<br /><br />LOC (To Heal Again) &#8230; <i>Something pushed against the shield Nynaeve had fastened between Logain and the True Source, building until the shield began to bend and the weave trembled on the brink of ripping apart. She let saidar flow through her, sweetness reaching the very end of pain, channeling every thread into Spirit, into the shield.</i><br /><br />A strong channeler can be held by a weaker channeler who is approximately 66% of the stronger channeler&#8217;s strength (discussed later). Put another way, a strength of 66 whether by a single channeler unaided or with an angreal, or a cumulative strength of 66 in a circle can hold a channeler of any strength. This explains why three average women cannot hold the strongest males (20x3=60) with a loss of strength in linking = 55 - which falls well short of the required 66. Therefore four sisters can hold any man (confirmed by Rand) - 20x4 = 80 &#8211; penalty for linking = 76. If you read on, later you will see that we placed Nynaeve&#8217;s strength at 65 (her end potential anyway). <br /><br />The shield she places on Logain barely holds, and she even mentions that he&#8217;s barely trying. We know that three sisters couldn&#8217;t hold Rand, and because we deduced that Nynaeve is nearly as strong as three average Aes Sedai in LoC, the same can be said for shielding Logain. If Nynaeve is sitting on a hypothetical strength of 55 in LoC, then she should be able to hold a man whose strength is 91. Logain&#8217;s strength lies somewhere around ninety or above. Taim&#8217;s strength has already been explained but Logain explains to Rand exactly what he thinks of Taim &#8230;<br /><br />CoT (A strengthening storm) - <i>&#8221;Every man who wears the Dragon is one of that group except me, and he&#8217;d have kept the Dragon from me, if he dared.&#8221;</i><br /><br />This statement can be interpreted in two ways &#8211; Logain is as strong as Taim, or Logain is stronger than Taim. There is no other Ash&#8217;aman who has ever made such a bold statement regarding standing up to Taim. We therefore placed Logain at 90 &#8211; to fulfill the above-mentioned evidence his minimum strength is 90, but he could easily be stronger : anywhere up to 100. He may well be the strongest channeler of the modern Age after Rand.<br /><br /><b><u>Lanfear </u></b><br /><br />Lanfear was probably the most difficult character to write about. Her strength has been the subject of debate of countless posts on the board. The Guide and later Moiraine inform us about her strength initially &#8230;<br /><br />Guide - <i>&quot;The most powerful of the female Forsaken, possibly the most powerful of all next to Ishamael,was Lanfear.&quot; </i><br /><br />TDR (the Hammer) - <i>&#8220;&#8230;No one knows the strength of the Forsaken, except that Ishamael and Lanfear were the strongest.&#8221; </i><br /><br />To many people this will end the debate. In fact, these statements were conclusive until the fifth book when discrepancies possibly started to occur. The first statement from the Guide shows doubt about whether she was second in strength, but not much doubt that she was certainly a contender for the top tier of strength. Comparing males and females is very difficult, and the only way to know whether Ishamael or Lanfear was stronger would be for someone to link with them and actually compare the volume of Power they can each hold. However, Moiraine discredits her own statement at one point &#8230;<br /><br />TGH (Blood calls Blood) - <i>Lanfear. In the Old Tongue, the Daughter of the Night&#8230; Some said she had really been the most powerful of the Forsaken, next to Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope, but had kept her powers hidden. Too little was left from that time for any scholar to say for certain. </i><br /><br />As Moiraine says, Lanfear&#8217;s strength comes down to myth and rumour. There are also two ways to interpret this &#8216;hidden strength&#8217; of Lanfear&#8217;s. Firstly, she may have masked some of her strength because she was indeed the most powerful of all. Secondly, people who witnessed her strength assumed that she was hiding a portion thereof because her deeds didn&#8217;t live up to her supposed superiority in the Power. The initial statement from TDR, in our opinion, was actually a statement which was twisted as myth faded to legend after the War of Power. The original statement was probably &#8220;No one knows the strength of the Forsaken, except that Ishamael was the strongest among the men, and Lanfear the strongest of the women.&#8221; Remember, when the War of Power began Ishamael was the strongest, Aginor was noted as the second strongest man and Lanfear as possibly the second strongest of all. This was before Demandred and Sammael turned to the Shadow. Moiraine doesn&#8217;t doubt that Lanfear may have been the strongest, but Asmodean exposes her flawed knowledge by dismissing her belief that men and women share equal strength in the Power. Of course, Lanfear stands by the original statements with her disposition in book 4 &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (Decisions) - <i>&#8221;&#8230;Or do you mean to kill me, now? I loosed you to defend yourself.&#8221; Her voice, her stance, said she expected an attack, or at the very least was ready to counter it &#8230; </i><br /><br />&#8230; and later &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (The Stone Stands) - <i>&#8221;Whatever you can do, Lews Therin, I can do. And better.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Despite Rand&#8217;s lack of training, she obviously feels the threat when she releases Rand&#8217;s shield and assumes a defensive pose. Later she claims that she can duplicate anything which Lews Therin can do. Whether these are accurate claims or arrogant delusions is something which one can debate. Another interesting bit of information comes from Asmodean &#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (Pale Shadows) - <i>&#8221;Do you think Lanfear really intended me to teach you everything? If she wanted that, she would have contrived to stay close so she could link us. She wants you to live, Lews Therin, but this time she means to be stronger than you.&#8221; </i><br /><br />The statement implies that in the Age of Legends she was weaker than Lews Therin, but for the first time we see skill enter the arena as a contender for &#8216;strength&#8217;. It is possible that Lanfear could duplicate any deed Lews Therin could despite inferior strength &#8211; women did have greater dexterity in the Power apparently. The first bit of evidence which casts doubt on her strength occurs in book 5 - Rahvin opens the allude &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) - <i>&#8220;I did not want to launch a frontal assault against superior forces.&#8221; &#8220;Is he really so strong?&#8221; Rahvin asked quietly. &#8220;This Rand al&#8217;Thor. Could he have overwhelmed you face-to-face?&#8221; Not that he himself could not, if it came to it, or Sammael &#8230; &#8220;He is Lews Therin Telamon reborn,&#8221; Lanfear said just as softly, &#8220;and Lews Therin was as strong as any.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Lanfear states from her own mouth that she considered Rand to be a superior force and that she wasn&#8217;t willing to attack him directly. Of course, she did exactly that later in the same book, but one must ask whether she would have risked it if she didn&#8217;t possess an angreal? Her own opinion states that she was not willing to face him unaided at the end of book 4 &#8211; even using military analogies to explain her thoughts to Sammael and Rahvin.<br /><br />At the same time Rahvin is surprised that Rand is strong enough to overwhelm Lanfear from a strength perspective. This immediately implies that despite superior male strength in the Power, Lanfear sits up in the top tiers of strength in the Power &#8211; even male strength in the Power, which is saying something indeed. Rahvin also says that he and Sammael could both overwhelm Lanfear if they needed to, be he doesn&#8217;t seem to like the idea &#8230; <i>if it came to it.</i>It has been suggested that Rahvin is merely being his arrogant self again &#8211; but then why did he include Sammael in his boasting? And why did he say that Lanfear would link with Graendal to prevent her defeat? This statement of Rahvin&#8217;s is similar to Asmodean&#8217;s comment which states that two women who link can match a man. Therefore, just because Sammael and Rahvin are stronger doesn&#8217;t mean they will have any advantage &#8211; Graendal and Lanfear will stick up for one another if they try anything.<br /><br />While Lanfear logically must possess enormous strength for a female channeler, the statements suggest that she is weaker than Lews Therin, Rahvin and Sammael. Even if Rahvin was being an deluded fool, we have no way of knowing this and we cannot in good conscience dismiss such a direct comparison of strength. As mentioned later, men are stronger in the Power than women and therefore it stands to reason that the top males are probably stronger than the top females. The fact that the strongest man, Lews Therin, was stronger than the strongest female, Lanfear, already suggests that the entire male strength hierarchy is one step above the female one. Later in the fifth book she fights Rand &#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (Choices) - <i>Her attempts to shield him did not slow; they came faster, stronger. He could not believe she was so strong&#8230; He could end it, finish her. He could call down lightning, or wrap her in the fire she herself had used to kill&#8230; An angreal; unless Rand had his own angreal, she should be able to crush him with that. </i><br /><br />Rand had previously defeated Asmodean and mentioned that he had grown stronger with Asmodean&#8217;s teachings. During the battle he placed Lanfear on the defensive, but she quickly got the upper hand and started her attempts to shield him. The problem is that she was using an angreal. Before she started using the angreal Rand pushed her back, and thereafter she gained superiority &#8211; before he drew on his own angreal. This already implies that Rand was stronger than her, or possibly equal to her before anyone started using angreal. Remember, Jordan gave Lanfear an angreal for a reason.  If we compare Rand&#8217;s attitude towards Lanfear and Rahvin &#8230;<br /><br />Lanfear : TFoH (Choices) - <i>His hand tightened on his coat pocket, the fat little stone man with his sword hard against the heron branded into his palm. He drew on saidin as deeply as he could, till the taint floated in the emptiness with him like misting rain. </i><br /><br />Rahvin : TFoH (The Threads Burn) - <i>Rahvin was strong, perhaps as strong as Rand, and more knowledgeable, but Rand had the fat-little-man angreal in his pocket, and Rahvin had none&#8230; the angreal in his pocket had already proved enough to harry Rahvin. </i><br /><br />Rand fought Lanfear unaided for the majority of the battle, confident that he could stand against her without using his angreal &#8211; which he could until the final part of the battle. There were numerous problems with facing Lanfear &#8211; she had an angreal and great skill in the Power. After he finally drew on his angreal near the end of the battle he mentioned that he could wrap her in fire or call down lightning to kill her &#8211; but he refused to kill a woman (assuming she couldn&#8217;t counter it in some way). To be fair to Lanfear, though, one should also consider that she wasn&#8217;t trying to kill Rand immediately like Rahvin was, but rather to toy with him and make him die in the slowest way possible. <br /><br />Contrast this with Rahvin where he used the angreal almost from the beginning. There can be little doubt that Rand felt the strength of Rahvin&#8217;s initial attack and realized that this Forsaken was very close to him in strength. Almost immediately he used his angreal to cover the inner city with a shield against further attacks &#8211; and then for all his attacks thereafter. By his own words, Rahvin was possibly as strong as him, but no match for an angreal. Hence Rahvin&#8217;s decision to run away &#8211; and even then Rand came close to death on several occasions. An absolute estimate of her strength can be found thanks to Egwene. Egwene and Aviendha know how strong Lanfear is &#8211; they faced her at the docks prior to almost dying&#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (Choices) - <i>&#8220;I do not think we could have survived many moments more. She was very strong.&#8221; </i><br /><br />During the Docks scene Egwene and Aviendha stare at Lanfear for some time before their unfortunate experience. Either they estimated her strength directly (the most likely), or they saw the intense glow of saidar around her, or the strength of the weaves she was making. Later Egwene makes the most interesting statement of all &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (A Pair of Silverpike) - <i>&#8220;It had to be one of the Forsaken. Do you really think Faolain and Theodrin together could have stopped him? I&#8217;m not sure I could have, even linked with Romanda and Lelaine.&#8221; They were the next two strongest women in the camp, as strong in the Power as Siuan used to be. </i><br /><br />Egwene was disturbed that a male Forsaken had freed Moghedien. Egwene doesn&#8217;t know their strength, but she does know Lanfear&#8217;s and she also knows that Lanfear was one of the strongest of them (thanks to Moiraine). She then questions whether she could match one of the males even linked with Romanda and Lelaine. This is not a frivolous comment &#8230; Egwene (40) + Romanda (25) + Lelaine (25) = 90 &#8211; penalty for linking = 85. This places them exactly on a par with Lanfear and this is why Egwene questions whether she could match a male Forsaken even linked with the other two. Moghedien also revealed that males are stronger, so this would have made Egwene even more unsure of herself. Therefore, due to a lot of little backward steps in Egwene&#8217;s mind, we can estimate Lanfear&#8217;s strength. We also know that she is as strong as a woman can be in the Power (like Lews Therin in men) &#8230; <br /><br />WH (With the Choedan Kal) - <i>Then the woman struck back at her, and she suffered her second shock. She was stronger than Cyndane had been before the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn held her! That was impossible; no woman could be stronger. She must have an angreal, too. </i><br /><br />Cyndane clearly mentions that no woman can be stronger in the Power than Lanfear used to be. This is a plausible statement &#8211; Lanfear&#8217;s strength has always seemed uncanny.<br /><br />We therefore placed Lanfear at 85 &#8230;<br />- much stronger than any other female Forsaken<br />- as strong as most of the male Forsaken<br />- weaker than Lews Therin, Demandred, Sammael and Rahvin<br />- estimated from Egwene&#8217;s statements<br /><br />Lanfear&#8217;s strength in the Power is spectacular. Graendal mentioned that women who were stronger than her were very rare in the Age of Legends. Even after being weakened, Cyndane was still stronger than Graendal. This already places Lanfear more than one &#8216;level&#8217; above Graendal &#8211; making Lanfear far less common than <i>very rare</i>. Some people will argue for placing Lanfear at 98 or some other very high level. That&#8217;s all well and good, but remember that even at 85 she is 21% stronger than the next female Forsaken after her. If she was placed at 98 she would be a staggering 40% stronger than Graendal. The difference would be irreconcilable. We already know that from Graendal&#8217;s own mouth that Graedal herself is no match for the top tiers of male strength. A strength of 85 flaunts all her strengths and reveals very few weaknesses &#8230; just as Lanfear was meant to be portrayed. Lanfear may be stronger than 85, but we believe she isn&#8217;t &#8211; and she definitely isn&#8217;t weaker. At 85, she is probably a match for any of the male Forsaken &#8211; being 15% weaker than the very strongest of them, but with the advantage of using unseen saidar and her skill, probably makes her the most dangerous female Forsaken to face.<br /><br /><b><u>Be&#8217;lal</u></b><br /><br />Be&#8217;lal is the Forsaken who has played the smallest role in the series. From his appearance to his death he lasted for only a few pages. For this reason, it is almost impossible to accurately place him on the strength list. Despite this fact, we still believe that he was one of the weaker male Forsaken in the Power. We may of course be totally incorrect in our assumptions, but there is little evidence either way.<br /><br />The Guide was fairly descriptive regarding Be&#8217;lal - <i>&#8230;he combined and surpassed the strengths of both Rahvin and Sammael, being both a patient and cunning planner and a capable fighter willing to do battle directly with the foe.</i><br /><br />The Guide clearly rates Be&#8217;lal above Rahvin and Sammael. The Guide seems to be incorrect here. In the first instance, Jordan revealed that some of the Forsaken were always at the top of the status pyramid in the Shadow (QotW). Be&#8217;lal was not one of those mentioned, whereas Sammael was. This at least proves that Be&#8217;lal was not one of the &#8216;super-Forsaken&#8217;, contrary to what the Guide says, and he certainly never surpassed Sammael. Secondly, Rahvin&#8217;s feelings regarding Be&#8217;lal are clear &#8230;<br /><br />TDR (A message out of the Shadow) - <i>&#8221;It will serve him right if three untrained girls can foil him. He was always a fool, and he is still a fool&#8230; He never realized that the best plans take time to mature.</i><br /><br />Although Rahvin may show bias in the face of adversity, one shouldn&#8217;t discount his statements too far. Lanfear said that Rahvin was seldom a fool, and this provides us with two statements of polarity. None of the above quotes are evidence of strength. The Guide merely claimed that Be&#8217;lal was a better manipulator and general than Rahvin and Sammael. Unfortunately the author has since refuted these assumptions. The above evidence also therefore discredits the Guide&#8217;s quote as a reason to place Be&#8217;lal above Sammael and Rahvin on the strength list. Evidence regarding Be&#8217;lal&#8217;s strength can be found in the series, however &#8230;<br /><br />TDR (The Hammer) - <i>&#8220;&#8230; he was called the Envious, and he forsook the Light because he envied Lews Therin, and that he envied Ishamael and Lanfear, too.&#8221; &#8230; &#8220;I did not know the name, the Netweaver. Or that he envied the Dragon as well as his companions in the Shadow. That strengthens my belief that he wants Callandor.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Moiraine and Loial provided us with useful evidence regarding his strength. Be&#8217;lal envied Lews Therin &#8211; but so did half the Forsaken. Unlike the other male Forsaken he also envied Ishamael and Lanfear &#8230; to a degree which earned him the title, the Envious. Ishamael and Lanfear share one area of common ground &#8211; they are the strongest in the Power among their respective sexes. Be&#8217;lal possibly envied Ishamael because he possessed strength in the Power which Be&#8217;lal wished he had. His envy of Lanfear is curious, but explainable. As mentioned above in Lanfear&#8217;s section, she possessed strength in saidar which made her a rival to the male Forsaken. Be&#8217;lal was a general in the Shadow and obviously had to maintain a considerable ego. If Lanfear was stronger than him the Power, it would cause him some degree of embarrassment &#8211; especially if the other generals were stronger than her, which we believe they were. Be&#8217;lal therefore envied her strength because he could not match it &#8230; in the same way in which Sammael wished he was taller.<br /><br />Therefore his first action when he was released from his prison was to try and acquire the powerful sa&#8217;angreal, Callandor. It is unlikely he could challenge the other male Forsaken without the ability to draw more saidin. Moiraine even says that his envious nature convinced her that he wanted Callandor. For this reason we believe that Be&#8217;lal was one of the weaker male Forsaken, and that he stood below Lanfear in strength. We therefore allocated him a strength of 80. As we mentioned earlier, we could be entirely incorrect, and he could be much stronger &#8230; 85, 90 or even 95 &#8230; but there is no good evidence for it, and some good evidence against it.<br /><br /><b><u>Balthamel</u></b><br /><br />Balthamel appeared in the first book and died on the same page. He has now been resurrected as Aran&#8217;gar but we have seen very little evidence of &#8216;her&#8217; prowess with saidin since. If we look at information regarding Balthamel in the Guide he is mentioned as &#8230; <i>&quot;quite strong in the Power...&quot;</i><br /><br />Although the Guide doesn&#8217;t provide an impressive perspective regarding his strength, one cannot deny that he is Forsaken and therefore very strong in the Power. However, it is likely that he was one of the weaker male Forsaken, or at least not one of the strongest of them. The first time we saw Balthamel, it was clear that Aginor was the leader of the two. Granted, Balthamel could not speak at the time but when they were resurrected, Aginor once again appeared to be the dominant party. Regarding the Eye of the World, Jordan once explained why Aginor wanted to get his hands on the well of saidin (QoTW). Part of his answer included the following &#8230; <br /><br /><i>He was able to channel clean saidin, true, but only through the &quot;filter&quot; which had been provided by the Dark One just a short time previously, which meant the Dark One would be aware of him channeling wherever he was. Balthamel might well have been for the long drop, administered by Aginor, if things hadn't worked out differently.&lt;i&gt;<br /><br />Jordan&#8217;s comment is particularly interesting because he shows us that he has no doubt that Aginor could overcome and destroy Balthamel. Therefore Balthamel is weaker than Aginor &#8211; Aginor merely needed a source of saidin which the Dark One couldn&#8217;t trace to kill his peer. Later we see Aran&#8217;gar&#8217;s efforts to have Logain severed again. As mentioned above, Logain&#8217;s strength probably ranks up with the top male Forsaken. <br /><br />LOC (When Battle Begins) &#8230; &lt;i&gt;&#8220;And you will continue to press for gentling Logain again. That, or killing him.&#8221; A slight grimace actually made the woman more beautiful somehow. &#8220;If they ever brought him out of that house, I would attend to it myself.&#8221; Delana could not imagine how, but she would not doubt the woman until she failed. &#8220;What I don&#8217;t understand is why you are so afraid of a man with six sisters shielding him from sunup to sunup.&#8221; Halima&#8217;s green eyes blazed as she leaped to her feet. &#8220;I am not afraid, and don&#8217;t you ever suggest it! I want Logain severed or dead, and that is all you have to know. Do we understand one another?&#8221;</i><br /><br />Aran&#8217;gar is obviously disturbed that Logain can channel again, and she has surely deduced his strength either from tales of when he could channel, and by the fact that six sisters were needed to shield him. Logain presented two problems for Halima &#8230; he would sense someone wielding saidin within Salidar, and his strength would be a direct threat to her. Her ferocious response to Delana&#8217;s accusation fits in well with Balthamel&#8217;s legendary temper, and also displays her efforts to hide her real fear of him. Of course, she said she would kill him if he left the house, but then he would be shielded and defenseless. For these reasons, Logain is possibly stronger in the Power than Balthamel.<br /><br />Later we see Aran&#8217;gar face a circle of three including Eben, Daigian and Beldeine. The maximum strength of this circle was approximately 65 (40+10+20 &#8211; 5% penalty for linking), and therefore it is not surprising that Eben died and Beldeine was severely injured, because Aran&#8217;gar was surely not as weak as 65. Therefore we placed Aran&#8217;gar at 80. This allows for several points to be satisfied &#8230;<br /><br />1.	Aginor is considerably stronger than Balthamel.<br />2.	Logain is stronger than Balthamel.<br />3.	Balthamel falls within male Forsaken strength &#8211; stronger than any of the women except Lanfear.<br />4.	Aran&#8217;gar&#8217;s strength was sufficient to soundly &#8216;defeat&#8217; the circle at the Cleansing of saidin.<br /><br /><b><u>Asmodean</u></b><br /><br />It is likely that Asmodean was one of the weaker male Forsaken, but certainly not of all the Forsaken. He battles Rand at the end of book 4 &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (The Traps of Rhuidean) - <i>A heartbeat later, Rand&#8217;s hands grasped it, too. For the barest instant he stared into the Forsaken&#8217;s face &#8230; The barest instant, and they both reached through the figure, through the ter&#8217;angreal, for one of the two most powerful sa&#8217;angreal ever made&#8230; Yet he only held half of what that sa&#8217;angreal could deliver; the other half filled Asmodean &#8230; He could not pull another thread through the ter&#8217;angreal; he and Asmodean were equally balanced, each with half of what the great sa&#8217;angreal in Cairhien could draw. </i><br /><br />A sa&#8217;angreal is probably a fixed multiplier of strength, and therefore stronger channelers can draw more through them than weaker ones. For this reason, Rand was probably as strong as Asmodean at this point in the series &#8230; they both held half of what the sa&#8217;angreal could offer. Asmodean is therefore substantially weaker than Rand because Rand mentions that he has gained strength in the Power twice after this chapter &#8211; and for a man like Rand, this doesn&#8217;t indicate small trifles of the Power. After their duel Lanfear places a shield on Asmodean which allows him to channel a small trickle of the Power to teach Rand. Lanfear admits that Asmodean could break the shield, but the process would be painful. The important bit of information here is that Lanfear tied off the shield, and a shield must be stronger than the channeler to maintain its constitution when tied off. You can be weaker and hold a stronger channeler, but not if you tie off the shield. For instance, when Nynaeve manages to shield Moghedien earlier in the book, Moghedien unravels the shield by working free the six soft points which make up the shield, and here Nynaeve was as strong as Moghedien in the Power. There are other examples of this happening in the series. In order for Asmodean not to be able to break free, Lanfear must be able to weave a strong enough shield. Therefore Lanfear is probably stronger than Asmodean. We also see other evidence of Lanfear&#8217;s superiority to Asmodean in other quotes &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (Traps) - <i>&#8221;Risk,&#8221; she sneered. &#8220;You fear risk as much as Moghedien, don&#8217;t you? You would creep about like the Spider herself. Had I not hauled you out of your hole, you&#8217;d still be hiding, and waiting to snatch a few scraps.&#8221; </i><br /><br />This quote shows that Asmodean seems to have a similar cowardly tactic like Moghedien &#8211; hide and wait. Lanfear also implies that she forcibly removed him to come and help her. Earlier they had yet another altercation &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (Imre Stand) - <i> Natael scrambled to his feet. &#8220;This young man has just been telling me the most fascinating things about Rhuidean. You will not believe it.&#8221;<br />&#8220;We are not here for Rhuidean.&#8221; The words came out as sharp as her hatchet of a nose. At least she was only glaring at Natael now.<br />&#8220;I tell you &#8211; &#8220;<br />&#8220;You tell me nothing.&#8221;<br />&#8220;Do not try to silence me!&#8221; <br />Ignoring Mat, they moved off down the wagons, arguing in low voices, gesticulating fiercely. Keille seemed to have been browbeaten into a grim silence by the time they disappeared into her wagon. </i><br /><br />This was a very interesting argument between Asmodean and Lanfear. Firstly, we see how Natael bounds to his feet when Lanfear approaches. Later he tries to tell her something and she overrides him. This makes him livid and he tells her not to dare try and assume she can command him. They continue arguing and Keille eventually keeps quiet. This strongly goes hand in hand with Lanfear&#8217;s later statement that she pulled him out of a hole he was hiding in. She also presumes that she is the leader among the two, but Asmodean will have none of it &#8211; he may be weaker but he&#8217;s not taking that from anyone. It at least proves that he is strong enough to defy her. <br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) - <i>&#8220;If you were close enough to know all of this, why did you leave him alive? You could have killed him before he knew you were there.&#8221; &#8230; &#8220;But now he has Asmodean, weak ally as he is. And even before Asmodean, four of the Chosen have died confronting him.&#8221; </i><br /><br />The Prologue of the fifth book suggests that Asmodean was the weakest of the males. Sammael firstly asks Lanfear why she didn&#8217;t kill Asmodean &#8211; he has no doubt she could do it &#8211; even in stealth. Lanfear considers him to be a weak ally &#8211; but just in case Sammael and Rahvin dismiss Rand&#8217;s victory of Asmodean as inevitable &#8211; she reminds them that he also killed four other Chosen. Sammael earlier states that he was always a coward, and later in the next few books he mentions that he would kill Asmodean if he ever came across him. The most intriguing part of the first chapter still follows &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Prologue) - <i>&#8220;Is he really so strong?&#8221; Rahvin asked quietly. &#8220;This Rand al&#8217;Thor. Could he have overwhelmed you face-to-face?&#8221; Not that he himself could not, if it came to it, or Sammael &#8230; </i><br /><br />Despite the vigorous use of this quote, Rahvin finds it hard to believe that another man can overwhelm Lanfear, but none of the Forsaken were surprised that Rand overwhelmed Asmodean. The logic is inescapable &#8211; Asmodean must be weaker than Lanfear. Later the Dark One gives us some information &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Prologue) - <i>Who betrays me shall die the final death. Asmodean, twisted by his weakness. Rahvin dead in his pride. </i><br /><br />The Dark One says that Asmodean was twisted by his weakness. While this statement could have multiple meanings (e.g. he was scared to die), one possibility is that he was twisted by the same weakness which we believe twisted Be&#8217;lal &#8211; both were weaker than other males and risked everything to gain a sa&#8217;angreal. We therefore placed Asmodean at 80 which allows for the following &#8230;<br />-	One of the weaker Forsaken males<br />-	stronger than any original female Forsaken except Lanfear<br /><br />There have been some theories which suggest that Asmodean was even weaker than Moghedien. Unfortunately, this is just not a viable option. A number of Ash&#8217;aman of above average strength will be as strong as Moghedien. For Asmodean to be a male Forsaken, he must have enough strength to compete on their level &#8211; or he would be long dead. The battle in Rhuidean suggests that he is very strong because he can match Rand &#8211; who already had easily managed Egwene and Elayne together. His shield is an interesting thing. It probably reduced his strength to approximately 15, that of a weak woman.<br /><br />TFOH (The Lesser Sadness) - <i>He could feel that bolt in another way, feel the weaving of saidin that had made it. So Asmodean was tempted even back in the tents&#8230; </i><br /><br />Rand believes Asmodean strong enough to weave a killing blow of lighting &#8211; which any average woman can do. Later Rand comments on his strength again &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Choices) -  <i>&#8230;for an instant Rand sensed saidin filling the other man, felt the taint that twisted Asmodean&#8217;s mouth. Just for an instant, but long enough for him to judge. If Asmodean had drawn as much as he could, he would be hard pressed to match one of the Wise Ones who could channel&#8230; Once more saidin poured into him, just for a moment. Rand felt a sensation of strain, yet it was still a feeble flow. </i><br /><br />Rand confirms that Asmodean can barely match a woman like a Wise One with the amount he can channel. If the average Aes Sedai has a potential of 20, then Asmodean can probably channel 15 or less at this stage. It also fits in well because Asmodean cannot teach Rand to Travel &#8211; he is too weak. Lanfear thus placed a shield on him which cut off 80% of his potential. One should also pay attention to Rand&#8217;s wording &#8211; he considers Asmodean&#8217;s flow to be feeble, and Lanfear names it a trickle, but it probably equals the potential of many Aes Sedai. This is important when reading into their comments regarding shields and strength.<br /><br /><b><u>Cyndane</u></b><br /><br />Only the most stubborn readers haven&#8217;t accepted that Cyndane is Lanfear reincarnated. We already know that she is weaker than Lanfear in the Power, thanks to Demandred&#8217;s opinion &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Wonderful News) - <i> At first he had thought she was Lanfear reincarnated&#8230; He had been sure, until Mesaana told him the girl was weaker than Lanfear.</i><br /><br />Later Graendal also meets Cyndane &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (New Alliances) - <i>The girl was stronger in the One Power than she herself! Even in her own Age, that had been uncommon among men, and very rare indeed, among women. Where had the Spider found a girl so much stronger than she, and why was she traveling with her? Moghedien had always been jealous of anyone with more strength.</i><br /><br />As discussed in the <i>Graendal</i> section, her strength in the Power was very near the top limits of female strength. She was therefore astounded to meet a woman with greater strength in the Power than her &#8230; a rare find according to her own words. Cyndane is therefore weaker than Lanfear in the Power &#8211; somehow she lost some of her strength, but still stronger than Graendal. It is Cyndane&#8217;s unusual strength in the Power, and her training from the Age of Legends, which helped her to stand up to an attack by a female like Alivia with an angreal. Graendal&#8217;s comment also indicates that Cyndane is much stronger than Moghedien in the Power. We therefore placed her at 75, stronger than any female Forsaken except Lanfear.<br /><br /><b><u>Alivia</u></b><br /><br />Late in the series, we were pleasantly surprised with the addition of another female channeler of great strength. Alivia appears to be the strongest female we have encountered so far, excluding some of the other female Forsaken. Alivia&#8217;s strength was first mentioned to us by Reanne Corly &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Seafolk and Kin) - <i>&#8220;&#8230; Alivia is considerably stronger than Nynaeve.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Although Alivia is clearly stronger than Nynaeve, Reanne&#8217;s statement should be viewed with caution. Reanne has a bit more than average strength for a woman, therefore when she is comparing two very strong channelers like Nynaeve and Alivia, a large difference in her opinion may be a small difference from Graendal or Lanfear&#8217;s opinion. If the difference between the two was 10, then it is well to remember that this is 50% of an average Aes Sedai&#8217;s strength, but only 15% of Nynaeve&#8217;s. Luckily for us, Nynaeve gives us her own opinion concerning Alivia &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Ideas of Importance) - <i> She would not mind demonstrating a few of the weaves she had learned from Moghedien for this woman. Including a few they had all agreed were too nasty to do to anyone. Except &#8230; She was fairly certain the other woman could overpower easily, whatever she did.</i><br /><br />Thanks to Nynaeve, we know that the difference in strength really is not negligible. For this reason we placed Alivia at 75. This places her more than a level higher than Nynaeve, allowing &#8216;overwhelming&#8217; strength as Nynaeve implied. Alivia is most probably stronger than any of the female Forsaken, except Lanfear. Considering Nynaeve can match most female Forsaken in strength, Alivia must exceed the majority of them for the trend to remain true. She may be one of those very rare women who is stronger than Graendal. We cannot judge her battle with Cyndane at the Cleansing of saidin accurately because Alivia had an angreal and this always distorts Power debates. However, we placed her next to Cyndane in strength &#8230; a <i>remarkable find</i> as Graendal would say. Alivia&#8217;s angreal gave her a strength boost which exceeded Lanfear&#8217;s raw strength. The angreal probably pushed Alivia up to at least 90 or 100, allowing Cyndane to show once again that strength is not everything. A strength of 75 is a good place to insert Alivia for the following reasons &#8230;<br />-	It gives her an adequate advantage over Nynaeve.<br />-	Very close to the top tier of female strength<br /><br />Her strength may be greater than 75. Some claim she may be as strong as Lanfear but this would be like finding a man as strong as Rand al&#8217;Thor &#8211; what are the chances? One should also remember that the stronger one makes Alivia, the less likely Cyndane would survive once Alivia took hold of an angreal. Jordan gave Alivia an angreal for a reason &#8211; he needed to give her something to counter Cyndane&#8217;s skill with the Power. Placing Alivia and Cyndane next to one another in strength allows all these factors to be balanced.<br /><br /><b><u>Graendal</u></b><br /><br />Graendal has provided us with some very useful information regarding strength. Her encounter with Cyndane and Moghedien was interesting &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (New Alliances) - <i>The girl was stronger in the One Power than she herself! Even in her own Age, that had been uncommon among men, and very rare indeed, among women. Where had the Spider found a girl so much stronger than she, and why was she traveling with her? Moghedien had always been jealous of anyone with more strength.</i><br /><br />The above-mentioned quote has been used several times in this theory because it contains some valuable information. By all accounts, Graendal&#8217;s strength should be seen as the maximum female strength in the Power. The reason for this is clear &#8211; Graendal was already over 400 years old when the War of Power started, and for her to say that a woman of greater strength was extremely rare, means something indeed. As a figure of prominence in the Age of Legends when millions of channelers were present, it seems like an accurate assessment of hers. She is clearly aghast that Cyndane is stronger than her, probably because she never expected a woman of the present Age to come close to her. She is correct of course - Cyndane is not from the present Age. It is probable then that Graendal was the strongest of the female Forsaken after Lanfear. Women who exceed Graendal&#8217;s strength should be seen as very rare occurrences because they are truly extremely uncommon. However, Semirhage and Mesaana may also be these rare women. The only reason we didn&#8217;t place them higher than Graendal is because it would prevent Nynaeve from matching the majority of them in strength &#8211; like Jordan said she would. It would also place Alivia at a near impossible strength if we raised Nynaeve even higher. Despite her strength, she cannot hope to match the male Forsaken (in strength, at least) who are considerably stronger in some cases. Her own quote above explains that although women of surpassing strength were extremely rare, men of greater strength were merely uncommon. Her own POV explains much &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (To understand a message) - <i>&#8230; small loss compared to having al&#8217;Thor &#8211; or Lews Therin &#8211; come after her. She had no intention of ever confronting him directly; if Ishamael and Rahvin had fallen to him, she was not about to risk his strength, not head on.</i><br /><br />Graendal is clearly daunted by the prospect that Rand or Lews Therin might come after her. She clearly states that if Ishamael and Rahvin couldn&#8217;t defeat him, what chance did she have &#8211; even mentioning strength as the defining difference? Her own words illustrate that her own strength is no match for the top levels of male strength, but then, Graendal has rarely relied on strength in the Power to destroy her enemies. There are multiple examples of this. Here are some more &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Threads woven of Shadow) - <i>&#8230; she would never find herself in open conflict with al&#8217;Thor&#8230; If al&#8217;Thor ever discovered her, she simply would abandon everything and re-establish herself elsewhere &#8211; or else surrender before he could strike a blow, then begin convincing him she was indispensable.</i><br /><br />Sammael&#8217;s message is clear &#8211; if Rand comes for Graendal she is going to run immediately, or surrender immediately but definitely not fight him like all the male Forsaken have done. Sammael also believes that he knows more about Graendal than any other Forsaken. And again &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Threads woven of Shadow) - <i>&#8220;All I say is that Lews Therin is as dangerous now as he ever was in our own time. Frightened? Yes, I am frightened. I intend to live forever, not meet Rahvin&#8217;s fate!&#8221;</i><br /><br />Although one must admit that skill is also essential, she explains the dangers of strength &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Patterns within Patterns) - <i>&#8220;If you think I will teach them Compulsion, erase it from your mind. One of those women [Someryn] was not negligible. I will not risk strength and skill residing together, in her, or in someone she teaches.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Graendal cannot easily overcome someone like Rand because not only does he have strength, but his victories over the well-trained male Forsaken are proof enough that he has the skill. She is not a woman to be trifled with, however, because she clearly has no problems with challenging Lanfear, or even threatening to kill Sammael &#8211; who are both surely stronger than her. Her prowess in the War of Power as one of the top Forsaken (QotW) is evidence enough. As Lanfear says &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (The Traps of Rhuidean) - <i>&#8221;I mean us to rule together, not to watch Sammael kill you [Rand], or Graendal add you to her collection of handsome young men.&#8221; </i><br /><br />She put on a very impressive display at the Cleansing of saidin where she held her ground against Verin&#8217;s circle, and even killed one of their number. Unfortunately the contest couldn&#8217;t be used for evidence because we know that both Graendal and Verin had angreal which can cause major shifts in strength estimations. We allocated her a strength of 70. This allows for the following &#8230;<br />-	weaker than Lanfear<br />-	stronger than Semirhage, Mesaana and Moghedien<br />-	weaker than all the male Forsaken<br />-	stronger than almost every woman in the series<br /><br />With a strength of 70, her statements become clear. Men stronger than 70 are an uncommon occurrence, but it can occur, but women stronger than 70 are very rare. Male strength becomes rare from 80 and female strength from 65. There is really no point debating a theory which implies that Graendal could have a strength of 90, behind Lanfear at 95. We have already discussed our beliefs regarding Lanfear &#8211; and it stands to reason that because Cyndane, the diminished Lanfear is still stronger than Graendal, that the gap between them was considerable.<br /><br /><b><u>Sharina </u></b><br /><br />Sharina Melloy was introduced at a late stage into the series. A channeler of great strength, she apparently exceeds Nynaeve in strength in the Power. She is mentioned in a few places, such as in TPoD (Beginnings) - <i>&#8230;a grandmother named Sharina with a potential above even that of Nynaeve&#8230; </i><br /><br />&#8230;and in CoT (Secrets) - <i> Sharina&#8217;s potential was nothing short of remarkable, far beyond anyone in living memory except for Nynaeve, and ahead of Nynaeve as well. Some thought she might become as strong as it was possible to be, though that was only speculation.</i><br /><br />The quotes place Sharina above Nynaeve in strength. However, judging by the tones of those who spoke in the quotes, we don&#8217;t believe that she is much stronger than Nynaeve. When Alivia was discovered, the channelers who mentioned her placed her well above Nynaeve in strength, and even Nynaeve conceded that later. The two quotes regarding Sharina place her above Nynaeve, but suggest that she is not as strong as Alivia. We therefore placed her at 70 &#8211; a level above Nynaeve but a level below Alivia. Egwene&#8217;s above-mentioned quote contains some amusing irony. Some Aes Sedai think that Sharina is as strong as is possible in the Power. This is an interesting statement, and a clue, because by all practical purposes, she is at the top tier of female strength. By equaling Graendal, Sharina is on a level which Graendal said was difficult for a woman to surpass in the Age of Legends. Women of greater strength were <i>very rare</i> and this should be kept in mind.<br /><br /><b><u>Semirhage</u></b><br /><br />Semirhage has never directly revealed her strength to us, but it isn&#8217;t too difficult to deduce from various statements and actions. In LOC (Threads woven of Shadow), she makes the following comments &#8230; <i>Lanfear. If there was any justice, time would give her Lanfear.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Semirhage hates Lanfear, and therefore would probably do anything to get her hands on her. However, her own wording suggests that the only way she would obtain her goal would be for Lanfear to be &#8216;given&#8217; to her &#8230; no doubt if she failed the Dark One. She therefore possibly doesn&#8217;t consider herself a match for Lanfear&#8217;s strength. This is not unexpected, really &#8211; Lanfear is the strongest female we have seen by a fair margin and probably the top level of female strength. We already know that Graendal considers her strength to be near the top of female strength. Very few women exceeded her strength, even in the Age of Legends. It is highly suggestive that none of the female Forsaken (except Lanfear) were stronger than Graendal. Therefore Semirhage was placed below Graendal in strength &#8211; even though Semirhage could be one of these <i>stronger</i> women.<br /><br />Mesaana also states that she considers herself a match for Semirhage on most points and that they both had weaknesses where the other one had strengths. Their strengths are therefore also probably similar. Jordan explained that Nynaeve would equal most of the female Forsaken when she reached her potential. Therefore, it would fulfill his expectations for Nynaeve to match Semirhage, Mesaana and Moghedien, but not Graendal and Lanfear. For this reason, Semirhage&#8217;s strength is probably similar to Nynaeve&#8217;s. Semirhage was also the greatest Restorer during the Age of Legends, and if you read Sidious&#8217;s theory - <i>strength in the Power and Healing</i>, you will see some proof that to be a great Healer like Semirhage, you need strength in the Power to take the Talent to its full potential. Semirhage&#8217;s strength was thus placed at 65. Later there is a section on shielding which explains that you must be 66% stronger than a channeler to definitively cut them off from the True Source. Rand explained that no three women could shield him while he was holding saidin unless they were as strong as Semirhage and Mesaana. Three women of Semirhage and Mesaana&#8217;s strength have a combined strength of 195 and with a small penalty for linking, can create a shield of strength 185. This is 85% stronger than Rand&#8217;s strength, and it fulfills his, and consequentially Lews Therin&#8217;s prerequisite for shielding him. Three weaker women (like Moghedien) will not be able to achieve this feat, and it also validates her strength of 65.<br /><br />Semirhage&#8217;s strength is a contentious issue. While we feel that we certainly can justify her strength being 65, we also feel uneasy that she is weaker than Graendal in strength. It is possible that Semirhage is stronger, but that creates problems when matching her with Mesaana, and even Nynaeve. KoD will probably reveal her strength in more detail. Whatever her strength, she is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous adversaries in the series.<br /><br /><b><u>Mesaana</u></b><br /><br />Mesaana gives us her opinion when comparing herself to Semirhage &#8230; LOC (Prologue) &#8230; <i>Mesaana knew her own strengths and weaknesses, with the One Power and elsewhere. She matched well with Semirhage on most points, and where she did not, she had other strengths to lay against weaknesses in Semirhage.</i><br /><br />Semirhage&#8217;s strength was described above with all the relevant motivations, and Mesaana&#8217;s strength is similar or the same.  She says that there are points where she cannot match Semirhage, but we don&#8217;t know if this implies weakness in strength or skill &#8211; and we aren&#8217;t about to guess. Therefore she has been placed at 65 too. We have not seen Mesaana channel or fight because she hides her potential, inverts her weaves and didn&#8217;t show up at the Cleansing of saidin. Her strength is therefore based on her POV, which seems accurate because she acknowledges her deficiencies as well as her strengths. She is a female Forsaken after all, and her strength should reflect it.<br /><br /><b><u>Nynaeve </u></b><br /><br />Nynaeve was introduced as that super-strong channeler who most of us have come to love. The importance of Nynaeve&#8217;s strength is trying to place it in relation with Elayne and Egwene, firstly, and secondly, the female Forsaken.<br /><br />Nynaeve is very much stronger than Elayne and Egwene. The following quotes suggest this &#8230;<br /><br />TGH (Summoned) - &#8230; <i>Nynaeve was the Wisdom in their village &#8230; Once she gains conscious control of what she does without knowing, she will be as strong as any in Tar Valon. With training, she will shine like a bonfire beside the candles of Egwene and Elayne. </i><br /><br />According to Moiraine there can be little doubt as to how much stronger Nynaeve will be compared to Egwene and Elayne. <br /><br />TSR (Playing with Fire) - <i>With so many exclaiming over their strength &#8211; everyone said she and Elayne would be among the strongest Aes Sedai, if not the strongest, in a thousand years or more &#8211; she had just assumed they were as strong as he. Near to it, at least. She had just been rudely disabused. Perhaps Nynaeve could come close if she was angry enough&#8230; She very much feared he could handle her and Elayne both like kittens. Kittens he might decide to drown, if he went mad. </i><br /><br />Egwene and Elayne have just been privy to Rand&#8217;s strength which humbled them considerably. Egwene mentions that Rand must be extremely strong compared to them &#8211; perhaps Nynaeve could come close. Egwene is already implying here that Nynaeve is very much stronger than her.<br /><br />TFOH (Ripped Away) - <i>The amount of saidar that Nynaeve had drawn into herself was amazing. </i><br /><br />Elayne is clearly amazed at how strong Nynaeve is &#8211; there is no question that the difference between them is considerable. Egwene once made a similar comment regarding Nynaeve and her ability to channel so much saidar and weave it in such complex ways. The difference between them <i>must</i> be large The section on <i>Moghedien</i> has more detail regarding how Nynaeve and Moghedien match up. Nynaeve is stronger than Moghedien in the Power &#8211; they matched one another evenly in books 4 and 5, but even in book 9 Nynaeve mentions that her strength is still growing. Jordan also mentioned that Nynaeve would be able to contend with most of the female Forsaken in strength when she reached her potential. We assume that she will match Moghedien, Semirhage and Mesaana &#8211; but not Graendal and Lanfear who are hinted at being the two strongest of the females. What are the limits of Nynaeve&#8217;s strength?<br /><br />TDR (Healing) - <i>&#8220;I do not think I could handle half that much of the Power.&#8221; She paused as if she had just heard her own words &#8211; that she could channel half of what ten full Aes Sedai did with a sa&#8217;angreal&#8230; </i><br /><br />It seems that Nynaeve was both inexperienced but not mistaken in her assumption here. Despite her marvelous strength, the books which followed proved that she was certainly not stronger than five Aes Sedai, never mind with a sa&#8217;angreal. From what we have seen regarding angreal, Siuan Sanche with that rod sa&#8217;angreal would be more than a match for a channeler of any strength. Therefore she is correct &#8211; she cannot channel half of what they can.<br /><br />ACoS (Swoven Night) - <i> Embracing saidar, she slammed a shield between Elayne and the Source. Or rather she tried to. Shielding someone who already held the Power was not easy even when you were stronger. </i><br /><br />Nynaeve may be stronger than Elayne, but she isn&#8217;t strong enough to shield her. According to our shielding hypothesis, you must be about 66% stronger than another channeler to snap their connection to the Power. Elayne hasn&#8217;t reached her potential of 40 yet (see her chapter), but if she was at 35 then Nynaeve would have to have a strength of 58 to cut her off from the Source. We believe she wasn&#8217;t this strong yet because later in the book two linked Black Ajah managed to hold Nynaeve, which they could not have done if her strength was as high as 58. When Nynaeve reaches her full potential of 65 she will be able to shield a woman of strength 43 &#8211; meaning that Elayne might well become her victim if she tried again.<br /><br />WH (Ideas of Importance) - <i>&#8220;Windfinders you will form a circle. Kurin, you will lead. If she does break free, see that she causes no harm.&#8221; &#8230; The glow still enveloped the circle of six. </i><br /><br />This statement proves that six linked Windfinders are more than a match for Nynaeve. In fact, if the average woman does have a strength of 20 then this circle will command a strength of about 110 &#8211; much more than needed to control an irate Nynaeve. However, it does prove the Seafolk&#8217;s opinion of her strength merely by the fact that they link six sisters to prevent her from wreaking havoc when she is released.<br /><br /><i><u>Nynaeve&#8217;s strength progression in the series. </u></i><br /><br />In book 2 Nynaeve started channeling properly. Siuan Sanche could shield her from the Source meaning that with Siuan&#8217;s potential of 25, the maximum strength she could cut off from the True Source would be 16.5. Nynaeve&#8217;s strength at the beginning of book 2 was therefore less than 16. Later in book 2 Nynaeve goes beserk when the sul&#8217;dam try to capture her &#8211; wielding lightning and making the earth tremble. One cannot say how strong she is at this point but on her return to the Tower a few months later &#8230;<br /><br />TDR (The bite of the Thorns) - <i>&#8220;I wish I could have found a way to raise you to the shawl, Daughter. Verin says you are already as strong as any woman in the Tower.&#8221; </i><br /><br />At the beginning of book 3, Nynaeve&#8217;s strength is at least 25 &#8211; the strongest sister in the Tower. At the end of book 3 she is held by Liandrin and later Amico before she can embrace the Source. Liandrin and Amico cannot hold a shield on a woman stronger than 33 (see shielding section), so she is still below 33 at this point. At the end of book 4 she faces Moghedien and they are almost exactly equal in strength. Considering Moghedien&#8217;s strength is 55, Nynaeve was about here too. In book 5 she mentions that she and Moghedien are equal again &#8211; but then not too much time elapsed between the two books. In book 6 she shielded Logain after she Healed him in an attempt to prevent him from seizing saidin. She mentions that Logain isn&#8217;t even trying to break her shield with any effort, yet her shield teeters on the brink of ripping apart. Considering we placed his strength at 90, Nynaeve would have to have a strength of at least 60 to hold him. Therefore she is still weaker than 60 in book 6. In book 7, two linked sisters hold Nynaeve. Faolain and Ispan were two average Aes Sedai (strength 20) and if linked they would have a strength of about 38, meaning they could shield a woman with a maximum strength 63. Therefore Nynaeve was weaker than 63 in book 7. When she reaches her potential of 65, two sisters will not be able to hold her. Book 8 doesn&#8217;t provide much information on Nynaeve, except that she and Talaan share a similar potential. In books 8 and 9 Nynaeve mentions that she is still not at her potential. Her strength progression was approximately &#8230;<br /><br />Book 1 	&#8211; negligible<br />Book 2		- &lt;16<br />Book 3 	- 25-33<br />Book 4		- 55<br />Book 5		- 55-60<br />Book 6		- &lt;60<br />Book 7		- &lt;63<br />Books 8 -9	- &lt;65<br />Book 10	- possibly at 65 (her end potential)<br /><br />If we look at the time between each strength progression &#8230; (the Wheel of Time timeline)<br />Book 2-3 	- from 15-30 in 10 months (1.5 strength per month)<br />Book 3-4	- 30-55 in 3 months ( 8.3 strength per month)<br />Book 4-6	- 55-60 in 4 months (1.25 strength per month)<br />Book 6-10	- 60-65 in 4 months (1.25 strength per month)<br /><br />The Timeline contains several estimations regarding dates, therefore only rough dates are used. What is interesting is her approximate gain in strength. When she arrived at the Tower she started slowly gaining strength as she learned how to wield the Power. After she left the Tower she was engaged in combat and other vigorous uses of the Power and her strength increase reached its maximum velocity &#8211; 8.3 strength per month. For three months she gained Daigian&#8217;s strength on a monthly basis. When she was at 55, she then started approaching her final potential of 65 and she slowed to a gain of 1.25 per month which presumably maintained this rate until she reached 65 at the end of WH. We know that women gain their strength at a constant rate, and this does not refute that. She gained slowly as she learned but then shot up to maximum as she was gaining strength and she maintained it until it slowed down for the last parts of her potential. This is similar to Moiraine who gained the majority of her strength by the time she was raised to the shawl, but mentioned that it would take more than five years for her to complete that final stretch to her potential.<br /><br /><b><u>Talaan </u></b><br /><br />Talaan, a young sea-folk girl was also another strong channeler who was introduced late in the series. The first time she appears, Elayne comments on her strength &#8230; TPoD (Unweaving) - <i>Talaan &#8230; came very close to Nynaeve.</i><br /><br />Talaan is the strongest sea-folk woman we have seen so far in the series. Later Nynaeve encounters her &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Ideas of Importance) - <i>Talaan matched her as closely as made no difference &#8230; Talaan had not slowed, yet; she was little more than a child. Fifteen? Maybe younger! The Light alone knew what her potential was.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Nynaeve&#8217;s statement here suggests that Talaan would one day become stronger than her. Nynaeve unfortunately made an error of judgment here by estimating Talaan&#8217;s age &#8211; 15. Later Talaan informs Nynaeve that she is 19 years old. This suggests that Talaan and Nynaeve share an almost identical strength in the Power. Talaan is well into gaining her strength, and Nynaeve began late. In the end they will probably be equally strong in the Power &#8211; or very close. Talaan and Nynaeve also have a friendly training duel in WH (Ideas of Importance) and they both demonstrate that they are more than a match for one another in strength and skill. We therefore allocated Talaan a strength of 65, equal to Nynaeve.<br /><br /><b><u>Damer Flinn </u></b><br /><br />As late as CoT, Damer Flinn may be the strongest Ash&#8217;aman after Taim and Logain. The first time we get a hint of his strength is during the battle with the Seanchan &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (Gathering Clouds) - <i> None was as large as Rand could make, but any would pass a cart, if closely&#8230; Ducking low on Tai&#8217;daishar&#8217;s neck, Rand heeled the gelding through the largest gateway. Flinn&#8217;s, as it happened, but then he would have ridden through one made by Gedwyn right then. </i><br /><br />Out of the nine gateways, Flinns is the largest. Rand decides to use Flinn&#8217;s gateway and he had to duck low to clear it. The height of your average man on a horse is about 9ft, but Rand is considerably taller being over 2m tall. If he had to duck low then the height of the gateway was about 8.5ft. All of the gateways could pass a cart (5ft), but it stands to reason that Flinn&#8217;s is wider than this considering his gateway is the largest. Even with a conservative width of 7ft, the area of his gateway is 60 sq.ft and his indicated strength is thus 42. His gateway was probably larger at the time though, because a little later Rand mentions &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (Gathering Clouds) - <i>As they came close, Rand could feel the Power in the grizzled old man and the younger, maybe as much as they could hold. They had both leaped up in strength since Dumai&#8217;s Wells. That was the way of it with men; women seemed to gain smoothly, but men suddenly jumped. Flinn was stronger than Gedwyn or Rochaid, either one, and Narishma not far behind&#8230; None came close to matching Rand, though. </i><br /><br />Flinn is stronger than Gedwyn, Rochaid and Narishma. Whatever his strength in book 8, it is clear that his strength leaped again &#8230;<br /><br />WH (With the Choedan Kal) - <i>Abruptly the old man stopped and thrust out his hand straight forward toward Demandred, and Demandred found himself frantically fending off a net of saidin that struck his warding much harder than it should have, as hard as his own spinning would&#8230; He tried to launch his own attack and crush them, but the old man flung web after web at him without pause, and it was all he could do to fend them off. </i><br /><br />Flinn was linked with Sarene and Corele, two Aes Sedai of average strength (approximately 20 each). Demandred explained that the combined strength of the circle struck his defenses with a strength equal to his own. If Sarene and Corele contributed 40 to the circle and Demandred&#8217;s strength is 95, then 55 strength would have to come from Damer. However, considering some strength is lost in a circle, Damer would have to contribute at least 60 for the combination to match Demandred (60+20+20 = 100 &#8211; 5% for linking = 95). We also know that Demandred couldn&#8217;t get a retaliation in, so the circle may have been even stronger &#8211; although we can&#8217;t be sure.<br /><br />Damer also appears to have a very strong Talent for Healing. In TPoD, Rand explains that Flinn was the only Ash&#8217;aman who could weave the complex weaves of Healing needed for advanced Healing i.e. removing objects like arrows. The theory <i>Strength in the Power and Healing</i> conveys the message that strength is important for a Healer to be a true master like Semirhage. We therefore placed Damer Flinn at 65 &#8230;<br />-	stronger than Gedwyn, Rochaid and Narishma<br />-	strong enough to match Demandred in a circle with Sarene and Corele<br />-	strong enough to be a true master Healer<br />-	far behind Rand<br /><br />Like all the Ash&#8217;aman listed below, there is no telling how strong he will become. His strength was approximately 65 at the time of Winter&#8217;s Heart.<br /><br /><b><u>Grady &amp; Neald </u></b><br /><br />Grady and Neald appear to be quite strong.<br /><br />ACoS (To be Alone) - <i>Grady and Neald saluted again &#8230; the now-familiar vertical flash in the air rotated into a gateway not quite tall enough to ride through&#8230; he was nearly knocked down by Sulin and a small horde of veiled Maidens&#8230; Faile followed him &#8230; Selande and a good two dozen young Cairhienin and Tairens poured out of the gateway drawing their horses along &#8230; Dannil finally began leading the Two Rivers men out at a run, pulling their horses&#8230; After that came the remounts, a herd of spare horses tied ten to a lead&#8230; A great many high-wheeled supply carts came through &#8230; a great many because carts could not carry as much as wagons, and carts because a wagon and team would not fit through the gateway. It seemed neither Neald nor Grady could make one as big as Rand could, or Dashiva &#8230; Neald was holding the gateway open. </i><br /><br />The passage of people through this gateway was written in quite some detail. Gateway size is just an estimation of strength, but it is the only evidence we have of Grady and Neald&#8217;s strength. Neald&#8217;s gateway at the time could not sustain a wagon, but rather a cart. A cart is as broad as a wagon (5ft), but not as high (10ft). A man on a horse (approx. 9ft) can also not fit through, but a man on a cart (approx 8ft) could. We don&#8217;t really know the width of the gateway, but it needed to be wide enough to allow a herd of horses through, tied to a lead &#8230; as well as a horde of Maidens and a group of Cairhienin and Tairens with their horses. A width of less than three metres (nine feet) is not practical. Therefore the area of Neald&#8217;s gateway is approximately 72 sq.ft or 50% of Rand&#8217;s gateway in size. This implies that Neald&#8217;s strength could be 50 at the time. In the tenth book they start to weave gateways for Perrin again &#8230;<br /><br />CoT (Whirlpools of Color) - <i>&#8220;Fager&#8217;s no more rested than me. Less, maybe. I&#8217;m stronger than he is, a bit. Better if I do it.&#8221; He turned to face northeast, and with no more warning, a vertical slash of silver-blue appeared beside the track-marked stone&#8230; He ducked his head and rode Stepper through into snow that was all over the dun&#8217;s fetLoCks &#8230; Accustomed to Traveling if not to Ash&#8217;aman by now, they barely bent their heads enough to clear the top of the opening, and only the tallest did even that. It struck Perrin that the gateway was larger than the first one of Grady&#8217;s make that he had passed through. </i><br /><br />&#8230; and later again &#8230;<br /><br />CoT (When to wear Jewels) - <i>&#8230; the familiar silvery slash of light appeared, widening into a hole in the air &#8230; Without waiting for anyone, Perrin rode through into a snow-covered field &#8230; the Two Rivers men strung themselves out flanking the line of carts. </i><br /><br />The gateways are clearly larger now. People can now go through on horses, and they only have to slightly bend their heads. The first gateway was made by Grady, and the second by Neald. Grady says that he is slightly stronger than Neald. Now that people can almost ride through the gateways on horseback ( 8.5ft), the area goes up to 77 sq.ft and places their strength at approximately 54. We therefore placed Grady at 60, and Neald at 55 &#8230; but who knows how strong they will eventually be?<br /><br /><i>Part 2 continues &#8230; </i><br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-08-30 07:48:46
subject: The Comprehensive One Power Strength Theory - part 2
body:
<p><i>This follows from Part 1&#8230;</i><br /><i>Here is the List of Strength again, to recap &#8230; </i><br /><br /><b><u>THE LIST </u></b><br /><br />100: Lews Therin Telamon, Rand al&#8217;Thor, Ishamael, Moridin<br /><br />95: Demandred <br /><br />93: Sammael<br /><br />90: Aginor (Osan&#8217;gar), Rahvin, Taim, Logain <br /><br />85: Lanfear<br /><br />80: Be&#8217;lal, Balthamel (Aran&#8217;gar), Asmodean<br /><br />*** male Forsaken strength ***<br /><br />75: Cyndane, Alivia<br /><br />70: Graendal, Sharina<br /><br />65: Semirhage, Mesaana, Nynaeve, Talaan, Damer Flinn<br /><br />60: Jur Grady<br /><br />55: Moghedien, Someryn, Fager Neald<br /><br />*** female Forsaken strength ***<br /><br />50: Torval, Gedwyn, Rochaid <br /><br />45: Tamela, Viendre<br /><br />40: Egwene, Aviendha, Elayne, Metarra <br /><br />38: Bode<br /><br />30: Cadsuane, Therava<br /><br />29: Meilyn<br /><br />28: Kerene, Nicola<br /><br />25: Average Ash&#8217;aman&#8217;s strength, Jahar Narishma<br /><br />25: Moiraine, Siuan (old), Elaida, Romanda, Lelaine, Garenia, Rainyn<br /><br />24: Amys, Sheriam, Leane (old), Reanne, Merise, Pevara, Yukiri, Saerin<br /><br />23: Anaiya, Myrelle, Carlinya, Morvrin, Bera, Kiruna, Nesune, Melaine<br /><br />22: Delana, Rafela, Masuri, Katerine, Sumeko, Toveine, Shalon, Liandrin<br /><br />21: Alanna, Verin, Seonid, Alviarin, Kurin, Falion, Ispan, Tarna<br /><br />*** minimum level for Travelling ***<br /><br />20: Average Aes Sedai (16 &#8211; 20) &#8211; Demira, Aeldene, Merillile, Chesmal, Elza, Vandene, Adeleas, Kairen, Valinde, Micara, Turanna, Zerah, Temaile<br /><br />15: Weak Aes Sedai (10-15) Cabriana, Kumira, Therva, Berowin<br /><br />10: Average Accepted (5-15), average woman, Siuan (new)<br /><br />8 : Daigian<br /><br />*** absolute minimum level to become Aes Sedai ***<br /><br />5 : Average novice (1-10)<br /><br />*** minimum level to become Accepted ***<br /><br />3: Sorilea, Alise<br /><br />&lt;1: Morgase<br /><br /><i>To continue &#8230; </i><br /><br /><b><u>Moghedien </u></b><br /><br />Moghedien is probably the weakest of the Forsaken in the Power. The Guide suggests this ..<br /><br />Guide - <i>&quot;It is known that a number of the other Forsaken did, in fact, look down on her, yet those who discounted her too far often lived to regret it.&quot; </i><br /><br />It is likely that this statement is true because Moghedien later tells the Dark One, in a manner of speaking &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Mindtrap) - <i>&#8220;Great Lord, you know how many of your enemies I brought down in the War of Power. From the shadows, unseen, or if seen, ignored because I could not possibly be a threat.&#8221; </i><br /><br />It is likely that Moghedien honed her viper-like tactics to an art and brought down enemies who were much stronger or skillful than her. Moghedien is by no means weak in the Power, but she is weaker than the other Forsaken. Her statement implies that she is weak enough to not be seen as a threat by channelers of Forsaken strength. What can we deduce about her strength? We know that she considers Elayne and Nynaeve to be threats to her &#8230;<br /><br />TSR (Veils) - <i>&#8221;Little more than girls, and obviously not close to half-trained. Strong though; strong enough to be more than troublesome.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Moghedien therefore doesn&#8217;t consider Elayne&#8217;s strength to be negligible &#8211; in fact she implies that Elayne could be a threat to her. We do know that Egwene, who shares the same potential as Elayne, said that she could never stand against Moghedien &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (The Figurehead) - <i>Moghedien has a good reason to dislike her, very personally, and the only sister who could match one of the Forsaken alone, when she could channel at all, was in Ebou Dar. Moghedien could have killed Egwene without anyone noticing &#8230;</i><br /><br />Therefore Moghedien is much stronger than Egwene, Elayne or Aviendha. Nynaeve is another matter, however&#8230;<br /><br />TSR (Into the Palace) - <i>Suddenly, everything changed in Nynaeve&#8217;s mind. Moghedien&#8217;s voice was not a voice tight with anger; it was a voice tight with strain. Moghedien was not going to suddenly hurl all of her strength at her; she already was. She was facing one of the Forsaken, and far from being plucked like a goose for supper; she had not lost a feather. She was meeting one of the Forsaken strength for strength! </i><br /><br />Nynaeve later confirms this statement &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (To Boannda) - <i>She herself was a match for Moghedien in raw strength, and if she was not strong enough to do something, it seemed safe to say the Forsaken was not either. </i><br /><br />&#8230; and again later &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (The threads burn) - <i> She and Moghedien were much the same strength in the Power; Tanchico had proved that. </i><br /><br />In books 4 and 5 Nynaeve is an absolute match for Moghedien from a strength perspective. However, in WH Nynaeve reveals that she still hasn&#8217;t reached her potential. Nynaeve is thus stronger than Moghedien in the Power. When Nynaeve eventually reaches her full strength, Moghedien will probably not be able to stand against her &#8211; but direct conflict has rarely been Moghedien&#8217;s secret to success. Other statements also place Moghedien fairly low among the Chosen &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (New Alliances) - <i>Where had the Spider found a girl [Cyndane] so much stronger than she, and why was she traveling with her? Moghedien had always been jealous of anyone with more strength.</i><br /><br />LOC (Threads Woven of Shadow) - <i>Moghedien. She skulked out of sight, but she had never gone so long before without making herself known, just to remind the rest of them that she, too, was Chosen. </i><br /><br />Moghedien also nearly had apoplexy when Nynaeve thought of challenging Rahvin to help Rand. She is most likely weaker than Lews Therin, Rahvin, Lanfear, Cyndane,Graendal, Nynaeve and Semirhage. We have also never seen her at a Forsaken gathering &#8211; she no doubt fears outright assassination because of her inability to compete directly with the others. When she met Graendal (under duress) she never let go of the Source &#8211; a wise decision even according to Graendal. Moghedien is weaker than Nynaeve, but not too much so. Her encounter with the Black Ajah gives us a rough indication of her strength&#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (A Silver Arrow) - <i>Lifting her head, she blinked tears away to see Temaile watching her, rubbing her arms and smiling. &#8220;We could overwhelm her, Temaile. We three together could &#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />Liandrin believes that she, Temaile and Chesmal could overwhelm Moghedien if they attacked her together. Temaile actually considers the idea. The three women are average Aes Sedai (20) and in a circle &#8230; 20 x 3 = 60 &#8211; penalty for linking = 55. This explains Liandrin&#8217;s statement. We placed Moghedien at 55 &#8230;<br />-	weakest of the Forsaken<br />-	weaker than Nynaeve, but equal to her early on in the series<br />-	much stronger than Egwene and Elayne, but still threatened by them<br />-	could be matched by a circle of three Aes Sedai.<br /><br /><b><u>Someryn </u></b><br /><br />Someryn is the strongest Aiel channeler we have encountered in the series. We already know that Someryn and Therava are stronger than any Aes Sedai &#8211;<br /><br />TPoD (Questions and an Oath) - <i> Therava and Someryn were stronger than any woman in the Tower, and any of them could have been Aes Sedai easily.</i><br /><br />Considering Moiraine is the strongest living Aes Sedai at 25 (Cadsuane is considered dead by most), this indicates that both Therava and Someryn are stronger than this. Sevanna comments on her strength later &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Patterns within Patterns) &#8230; <i>&#8230;but Someryn prided herself that she had never encountered a woman near as strong as she.</i><br /><br />Sevanna&#8217;s statement here is valuable. Although she cannot channel, Sevanna reportedly flaunted the fact that Someryn was the strongest Wise One, and by a long shot. She said that she had never encountered a woman who was nearly as strong as her &#8211; and she was therefore disgruntled when she measured Graendal&#8217;s (Maisia&#8217;s) superior strength. Considering Therava is stronger than any Aes Sedai, and Someryn is much stronger than any other Wise One, it stands to reason that Someryn is very strong in the Power. If one considers that there are 500 Shaido Wise Ones in that camp alone, it statistically places Someryn&#8217;s strength very high. The Wise Ones don&#8217;t have a selection policy like the White Tower &#8211; and every girl who can channel is taught to do so. Therefore the general strength trend should follow among the Shaido Wise Ones. It is therefore reasonable to place Someryn at Forsaken level. Graendal&#8217;s own opinion confirms this placement &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Patterns within Patterns) - <i>&#8220;If you think I will teach them Compulsion, erase it from your mind. One of those women was not negligible. I will not risk strength and skill residing together, in her, or in someone she teaches.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Graendal&#8217;s opinion is the best we have yet with regards to Someryn&#8217;s strength. She considers Someryn to be &#8220;not negligible&#8221; which means she has enough strength to threaten her. Graendal also alludes to the fact that training would make her a risk. She considers all the other Wise One&#8217;s strengths to be negligible, including Therava. However, her wording does imply that Someryn&#8217;s strength isn&#8217;t tremendous &#8211; to mention her strength as &#8220;not negligible&#8221; and not &#8220;dangerously strong&#8221; at least implies that Graendal could manage her if it came to it. We therefore gave her a strength of 55, which is lower female Forsaken strength. She may be as strong as 60 or even 65 but it is unlikely that Graendal would remain so serene at the prospect of a woman as strong as Semirhage or Mesaana.<br /><br /><b><u>Gedwyn, Rochaid &amp; Torval </u></b><br /><br />The first time Gedwyn speaks to Rand, he alludes to their strength &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (Answering the Summons) - <i>&#8220;Rochaid and I brought eight Dedicated and forty Soldiers, enough to destroy an army or cow ten kings &#8230; Burn me, the pair of us could do a fair job alone. Or you could. Why do you need anyone else?&#8221; </i><br /><br />The second half of the quote is interesting because it implies that Rand is as strong as the combination of the two. Considering Rand has a strength of 100, a strength of between 40 and 50 for the two of them would lend credibility to the statement. We also know that they are weaker than Flinn &#8211; at the time anyway.<br /><br />TPoD (Gathering Clouds) -<i>Flinn was stronger than Gedwyn or Rochaid, either one &#8230; </i><br /><br />According to Flinn&#8217;s paragraph, he is probably the strongest Ash&#8217;aman who wasn&#8217;t a false Dragon. We placed Gedwyn, Rochaid and Torval at 50 &#8230;<br />-	each about half as strong as Rand<br />-	easily strong enough to Travel<br />-	stronger for men<br />-	weaker than Flinn<br /><br /><b><u>Tamela &amp; Viendre </u></b><br /><br />We have only one quote regarding Tamela and Viendre, from Elayne &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Snow) - <i>&#8230;she recognized, bony Tamela with her angular face and Viendre, a beautiful, blue-eyed eagle. Both were stronger in the Power than she, stronger than any sister she had met save Nynaeve.</i><br /><br />Tamela and Viendre are therefore stronger than Elayne. We placed them one level above level on 45. She never showed any indication of a large gap in strength and then there is Someryn. Considering the Shaido Wise Ones have met the Taardad Wise Ones, it is important to remember that Someryn has never met a woman who came near to her in strength. We don&#8217;t know if she met Tamela and Viendre, but we&#8217;d rather not take a chance &#8211; and therefore they lie two levels below her.<br /><br /><b><u>Egwene</u></b><br /><br />Egwene is, after Nynaeve, the strongest channeler in the Tower along with Elayne (not counting novices like Sharina). It is common knowledge that Elayne, Egwene and Aviendha share the same strength in the Power, and although it will be proven anyway, a lot of our evidence rides on that known fact.<br /><br />TGH (Summoned) - <i>Egwene, a village girl, is at least as strong as Elayne. I have seen the daughter-heir and I know.</i><br /><br />This occurs after Siuan&#8217;s statement regarding Elayne&#8217;s strength in the Power. Although this statement suggests that Egwene may be stronger than Elayne, it later becomes evident that they share the same potential. Just a few months later Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve are sent to hunt the Black Ajah. Moiraine tries to allay their fears &#8230;<br /><br />TDR (The Bite of the Thorns) - <i>&#8220;But each of you is more than a match for Liandrin in sheer power, and she is the strongest of them.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Despite the fact that they are only months into their training, they both possess enough raw strength to match the strongest of the Black Ajah, Liandrin (23). This is remarkable when one realizes that it took Moiraine many years to reach her full potential (25). The stronger the channeler is, the faster they reach their potential &#8211; see the <i>Guide</i>, and therefore they must have a very high potential if they have only just started channeling and are already up there with strong full Aes Sedai. The implication is that they are significantly stronger than Cadsuane at 30 because if they were sitting on at least 23 after a few months of training, it is unlikely they would peak at only 30 after a few years. So how strong is Egwene? The revelation comes from Aviendha &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Among the Wise Ones) - <i>&#8220;You are Aes Sedai, and strong enough in the Power to overcome Amys and Melaine together,&#8221; Aviendha continued &#8230; </i><br /><br />Amys&#8217; strength is comparable to a strong Aes Sedai like Sheriam (24), and Melaine is weaker (20). Aviendha says that Egwene has enough strength to match this &#8211; 44. Although we believe Egwene&#8217;s strength to equal 40, it gives a good indication of how strong Egwene really is in the Power. Moiraine later drops some more interesting information &#8230; <br /><br />TFOH (News comes to Cairhien) - <i>&#8220;but what if who is with Rahvin is Semirhage, or Graendal? Or Lanfear? These two might overwhelm one such, but could you face her and Rahvin together alone?&#8221;</i><br /><br />This is an interesting statement. Moiraine believes that if Egwene and Aviendha combine the strengths they might be able to equal Semirhage, Graendal or Lanfear. There are two reasons why Moiraine knows this. Firstly, she has an uncanny and even unrealistic knowledge of the Forsaken &#8211; even being able to identify Sammael and Be&#8217;lal in the early books. Secondly, she passed through the ter&#8217;angreal in Rhuidean which showed her run in with Lanfear at the docks. This vision she had was not merely a quick flash, but a strong memory because when she encounters Lanfear at the docks later she mentions that the sight hit her like a blow &#8211; the same sight which had filled her dreams. Therefore, it is possible she roughly estimated Lanfear&#8217;s strength here &#8211; either directly measuring it (less likely) or by the intense glow of saidar around Lanfear and the strength of the flows she was directing at Rand. It seems unlikely Moiraine would voice a rash opinion anyway &#8211; it&#8217;s not in her character. If Egwene and Aviendha had a strength of 35 at the time (40 end-potential), then a union, but not necessarily a circle, of their strengths would equal approximately 70. This, according to our calculations, would allow them to overcome Semirhage, match Graendal, and fall beneath Lanfear. This is why Moiraine expresses doubt regarding their victory &#8211; she presumably knows Lanfear&#8217;s strength, but she also knows that Lanfear was the strongest &#8211; so any of the other women must be weaker and possibly in danger of losing to Egwene and Aviendha. The next bit of interesting evidence comes from Egwene&#8217;s encounter with the Seafolk where they graciously dump her in the sea &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Summoned in Haste) &#8230; &#8230; <i>she embraced saidar and channeled before the Windfinder could react. So she knew the weather, did she? Could she divide her flows four ways? Not many Aes Sedai could. One flow was Spirit, a shield she shoved onto the Windfinder to keep her from interfering. If she knew how. Each of the other three was Air, woven almost delicately around each woman, binding her arms to her sides&#8230; With an effort she lifted them higher, some ten or twelve paces above the surface; no matter how hard she strained, that seemed to be the limit.</i><br /><br />When Siuan is Healed she realizes that she cannot lift Gareth Bryne off the floor with flows of Air. She then says that she used to be able to lift nearly three times her own weight at her original strength. If we look at Siuan&#8217;s original strength of 25, we see that it would take approximately 9 strength to lift one woman &#8211; because three times nine would barely surpass Siuan&#8217;s ability to lift nearly three times her own weight (which she claimed). Egwene lifts three Windfinders, and assuming they are the size of average women, this uses 27 strength. However, at the same time she places a shield on the Seafolk Windfinder &#8211; who was not embracing saidar yet &#8211; but she wanted to prevent her from interfering. If the Windfinder has a strength of 20, your average female strength, then the flow of Spirit needs a strength of at least 13 keep her from the Source. Therefore Egwene has an absolute strength of 40 at this stage. Egwene&#8217;s strength is limited to 40, however&#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (The Figurehead) - <i>Moghedien has a good reason to dislike her, very personally, and the only sister who could match one of the Forsaken alone, when she could channel at all, was in Ebou Dar. Moghedien could have killed Egwene without anyone noticing &#8230;</i><br /><br />Moghedien&#8217;s strength is explained in the relevant section but it is important to see from this quote that Egwene has no doubt that she would fall against Moghedien. Therefore she is considerably lower than Moghedien in strength. Overall, there is good evidence to place Egwene at 40 &#8211; either because of direct evidence, or because of evidence which places Aviendha and Elayne at 40 too. It is possible that the three girls are as strong as 45 &#8211; but not stronger than this. As an amusing side note, there was a time when Egwene thought that she and Rand shared the same potential.<br /><br /><b><u>Aviendha </u></b><br /><br />As mentioned in Egwene&#8217;s section, we know that Aviendha, Egwene and Elayne share an equal potential. The Wise Ones have confirmed that her strength is very unusual in their population too &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (Among the Wise Ones) - <i>&#8220;You know your fate, Aviendha. You will be a Wise One of great strength &#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />Considering the Wise Ones catch every girl who can channel, this means something indeed. We already know that Egwene and Elayne are very strong in the Tower, but they choose channelers selectively and not absolutely like the Aiel, Seafolk and Seanchan. Aviendha is notoriously poor at weaving gateways &#8211; most probably because she is trying to relearn the weave instead of trying to weave like she did when &#8216;escaping&#8217; from Rand. She weaves another gateway in book 8 &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (To Keep the Bargain) - <i>She fought the urge to draw more; already she held almost as much as she could &#8230; The flows coalesced into a silvery, vertical slash that rotated and became an opening in the air, taller than a man and just as wide&#8230; The gateway filled her with dissatisfaction. Elayne could make this weave with only a part of her strength, yet for some reason it required all but a fraction of Aviendha&#8217;s. She was sure she could have woven a larger, as large as Elayne could &#8230; Unlike Elayne, she could not move more than five or six steps without this weave beginning to weaken, and the same if she tried to tie it off. It was all very frustrating. </i><br /><br />Her gateway is taller than a man, approximately 7 feet high, with the same width with a area of 49 square feet. Compared to the &#8216;maximum&#8217; gateway size by Rand al&#8217;Thor of 144 square feet, this puts her strength at approximately 34. However, she says that she should be able to make a bigger gateway like Elayne. In fact, her maximum size should be 58 square feet &#8211; about 8 feet high and 7 across. Considering her second last statement, one should consider the possibility that Aviendha may have a permanent weakness regarding Travelling, or even weakness in Spirit. This is just speculation, because in book ten her gateways are already larger &#8230;<br /><br />CoT (Talk of Debts) - <i>The gateway was positioned so that Elayne seemed to be riding out of a hole in the wall &#8230; Aviendha was last to appear out of the gateway, of course, after she was sure that everyone was through, and before she let the gateway wink out of existence &#8230; </i><br /><br />At least people can ride through her gateways now. However, it is possible she hasn&#8217;t progressed at all &#8211; there is no mention of width, and some height can be gained if there is a penalty for width. We placed her strength at 40 because it fulfils &#8230;<br />-	her being equal in strength Egwene and Elayne<br />-	gateway size estimates.<br /><br /><b><u>Elayne </u></b><br /><br />As with Aviendha, a lot of assumptions have been made because we know that Elayne, Aviendha and Egwene share an equal potential in the Power. Of course, she has her own unique evidence too.<br /><br />TPoD (Unweaving) - <i> She had grown accustomed to knowing that only Nynaeve and the Forsaken were stronger than she. Well, Egwene, but she had been forced, and her own potential, and Aviendha&#8217;s, matched Egwene&#8217;s. </i><br /><br />By the eighth book Egwene can hold more of the Power than Aviendha and Elayne, presumably because of her rough treatment at the hands of the sul&#8217;dam. However, as Elayne says, they share the same potential. Her statement also illustrates how unusual her strength is for a female. Siuan echoes this sentiment &#8230;<br /><br />TGH (Summoned) - <i> Elayne has potential. More than I have ever seen before &#8230; Elayne could well be the most powerful Aes Sedai in a thousand years&#8230; </i><br /><br />Cadsuane noted that no Aes Sedai had matched her in a thousand years. Therefore Elayne is stronger than her. We have seen make a gateway on one occasion &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (The Color of Trust) - <i>Elayne stepped out, and suddenly there was a slash of light in front of her, widening into a hole &#8230; &#8220;Dismount,&#8221; Mat ordered. Elayne looked quite pleased with herself &#8230; but pleased or not, the gateway was not as large as the one which Rand had made for the Band. Of course, they were not nearly so many as the Band, but the least she could have done was make it tall enough to ride through. </i><br /><br />This is an amusing passage because of the irony therein &#8211; Elayne is proud of herself because she has made a gateway which no Aes Sedai can match in size, but Mat is disgruntled because it isn&#8217;t big enough to ride through, like some of the Ash&#8217;aman&#8217;s gateways. This is another clear allusion to the difference in male and female strengths in the Power, but it is covered in other sections. Elayne&#8217;s gateway cannot be accurately gauged &#8211; its height is less than eight feet and it is about as wide. If we guess the gateway&#8217;s dimensions to equal 7ft by 7ft then the area is 49sq.ft, putting her strength at 34 in book 6. However, this is a wild estimation and while it appears to be accurate, it may be wrong. Aviendha does mention in TPoD that Elayne can make gateways worthy of her strength, unlike Aviendha who appears to be struggling.<br /><br />Elayne&#8217;s strength was thus placed at 40 &#8230;<br />- as strong as Egwene, Elayne and Metarra<br />- stronger than any Aes Sedai (at least for a thousand years)<br />- strong enough to make gateways of worthy size<br /><br /><b><u>Metarra </u></b><br /><br />Metarra has been included because of her strength. Simply, she is as strong as Elayne &#8230; TPoD (Unweaving) - <i> Metarra on a level with Elayne herself &#8230; </i> Therefore she was placed at 40.<br /><br /><b><u>Bode</u></b><br /><br />Bode isn&#8217;t a very important character in the series so far, but we can&#8217;t leave her out. Firstly, she&#8217;s strong in the Power and secondly, she&#8217;s Mat&#8217;s sister. Egwene&#8217;s gives us one of the only quotes we have regarding Bode &#8230;<br /><br />CoT (What an Oath Rod can do) - <i>Bode&#8217;s future would be brilliant. Her potential almost equaled Egwene&#8217;s.</i> <br />We therefore placed Bode at 38, almost as strong as Egwene.<br /><br /><b><u>Cadsuane</u></b><br /><br />Before Nynaeve, Egwene and Elayne, Cadsuane was the strongest Aes Sedai. Most people consider her dead and therefore have moved to the next Aes Sedai tier (Moiraine and Siuan) as the strongest &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Diamonds and Stars) - <i>Once Cadsuane Melaidhrin had been the standard by which every new entry into the novice books was judged. Until Elayne Trakand, none had come to the White Tower in her lifetime who could match that standard, much less surpass it&#8230;&#8221;</i><br /><br />Cadsuane is considerably stronger in the Power than Moiraine - thanks to Cadsuane and Moiraine&#8217;s statements in New Spring &#8230;<br /><br />NS (An Arrival) - <i> A number of women were stronger than she [Moiraine], but only one [Cadsuane] could be as much stronger as this one&#8230; &#8220;Meilyn is considerably older. When she and I are gone, that leaves Kerene the strongest&#8230; From Kerene, it&#8217;s a sharp drop to the next five. Five once this child and the Sanche girl reach their potential.&#8221;</i><br /><br />Moiraine is strong for an Aes Sedai, but in New Spring she was new to the shawl and years away from her potential. Therefore she states that many sisters are above her in strength , but only one is very much stronger. Cadsuane then implies that she is quite a lot stronger than Moiraine &#8211; after Cadsuane there is Meilyn, and after her comes Kerene and then a <i>sharp</i> drop in strength. We placed Cadsuane at 30. Many people will think that the above mentioned statement implies that Cadsuane is stronger than this, but it is important to remember that Aes Sedai use a very small scale when judging one another&#8217;s strength. Strong sisters are found at 25 and the weaker ones at 15. Although Sheriam stands below Moiraine the difference is probably only 1 (24 vs 25). Therefore if Cadsuane is at 30, Meilyn at 29 and Kerene at 28, then Moiraine at 25 will be a sharp drop. Then there is the statement by Merana &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Diamonds and Stars) - <i>The woman did not stand that far above her. Not really. Just higher than any other sister.</i><br /><br />This proves that Cadsuane&#8217;s strength isn&#8217;t exceptional, merely the top tier among Aes Sedai. Later Elza comments on Cadsuane at the Cleansing &#8230;<br /><br />WH (With the Choedan Kal) - <i>Cadsuane must have had an angreal of her own, from the amount of saidar she was drawing, more than Elza and Merise combined&#8230;</i><br /><br />This at least proves that Cadsuane isn&#8217;t as strong as two Aes Sedai. Elza says she must have an angreal to be drawing that much. Her strength is therefore definitely less than 40. We have seen Cadsuane weave a gateway on one occasion &#8230;<br /><br />WH (To lose the sun) - <i>Cadsuane herself, garbed in unrelieved dark green, sat easily on a tall horse with a black man and tail, maintaining the weave that made the gateway&#8230; Nesune Bihara, all in bronze wool, rode through the gateway looking around as if trying to see everything at once, and then Elza Penfel &#8230;</i><br /><br />Her gateway was at least ten feet tall and six feet wide &#8211; with an area of 60 square feet. Using these calculations she has a strength of 42 &#8211; but we also know she has an angreal and she no doubt used it to suit her purposes. Other explanations are possible, but these are discussed in the gateway section.<br /><br /><b><u>Therava </u></b><br /><br />All our information regarding Therava comes from Galina &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (Questions and an Oath) - <i>Therava and Someryn were stronger than any women in the Tower. </i><br /><br />This places them above Moiraine at 25. Galina is one of the stronger Aes Sedai, standing highest in strength among those who went to capture Rand, and also being Ajah Head (which usually implies strength, but not always). Galina then comments on Therava again &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Spears) - <i>Therava was somewhat stronger in the Power than she, which relatively few women were&#8230; </i><br /><br />Therava is therefore quite a lot stronger than Galina, whose strength is approximately 23. Graendal also said that only Someryn&#8217;s strength was not negligible implying that the rest of the Wise Ones had negligible strength compared to Graendal. Therefore Therava probably doesn&#8217;t possess Forsaken-level strength, and Galina&#8217;s statement doesn&#8217;t imply a massive difference. We therefore placed her at 30.<br /> <br /><b><u>Jahar Narishma </u></b><br /><br />Narishma is difficult to place. He was born with the spark, so he may turn out to be very strong when he reaches his potential.<br /><br />TPoD (Gathering Clouds) - <i> Flinn was stronger than Gedwyn or Rochaid, either one, and Narishma not far behind&#8230; None came close to matching Rand, though. </i><br /><br />We have already discussed Gedwyn, Rochaid and Flinn&#8217;s strengths in the Power. Narishma is slightly weaker than Gedwyn and Rochaid &#8211; all of them far behind Rand.<br /><br />CoT (Ornaments) - <i>&#8220;Jahar is growing stronger &#8230; At Shadar Logoth, I thought I must be imagining it. Three or four days ago, I was half convinced I was mistaken. Now, I am sure I am correct. If men gain strength by fits and starts, there is no saying how strong he will become.&#8221; &#8230; She did not voice her obvious worry, of course; that he might grow stronger than she. </i><br /><br />Considering the average man had a strength of 25, all it would take is a man of this strength to exceed Merise. The statement is erroneous though. Apart from other signs of strength in Narishma, we know that Eben was certainly stronger than Daigian, and Flinn stronger than Corele. Cadsuane appears to be sharing an ignorance here by believing that the Ash&#8217;aman are generally weaker than the Aes Sedai. We know that all the Ash&#8217;aman who accompany Rand can fit a cart, but often not a man on horseback (from a height perspective). Therefore the width of the smallest gateway to satisfy this must be at least 6ft, with a height of 6ft. With an area of 36sq.ft, it would denote a strength of 25 which already implies that all the Ash&#8217;aman are stronger than any Aes Sedai, except Cadsuane. <br /><br />When Narishma used Callandor at the Cleansing it glowed like a flame. It also appears to glow according to how much saidin you pull through it. Rand can&#8217;t even look at the sword, it is so bright when he uses it. Egwene&#8217;s dream suggests that Narishma is holding an object glowing like the sun. This could be a vague hint that he will grow to be very strong in the Power. He was born with the rare spark, and they are often the strongest of channelers. Judgment must be reserved on Narishma. We placed him at 25 &#8211; strong enough to make a gateway for a cart and riders &#8211; and of average male strength. It is difficult to say how strong he will eventually become (he&#8217;s still leaping in strength in CoT), but Egwene&#8217;s vision could indicate a strength of as high as 90.<br /><br /><b><u>Nicola</u></b><br /><br />Nicola is another novice who also possesses quite a lot of strength in the Power. She is first mentioned in the sixth book &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Questions and Answers) - <i>Two years earlier, with more potential than any novice in centuries, she would have caused real excitement. That was before Elayne and Egwene, and Nynaeve herself, though.</i><br /><br />Then later &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (A Pair of Silverpike) - <i>&#8230; she had a potential bettered only by Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene herself among living Aes Sedai. </i><br /><br />In the first quote it is mentioned that she has more potential than any novice in centuries &#8211; therefore her strength is limited to the previous thousand years. If we look at Cadsuane&#8217;s statement &#8230;<br /><br />NS (An Arrival) - <i>&#8221;No one has come to the Tower in a thousand years who could match me. No one to match Meilyn or Kerene in almost six hundred&#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />We know that Cadsuane is the strongest novice to enter the Tower in a thousand years. Therefore if Nicola is the strongest novice in <i>centuries</i> then she must be weaker than Cadsuane &#8211; assuming Nynaeve&#8217;s statement is totally accurate. The statement implies that she is probably as strong as Meilyn or Kerene. The second quote from ACoS helps confirm this fact because the girls mention that she is stronger than any <i>living</i> Aes Sedai. This implies that some of the assumingly deceased Aes Sedai are stronger than her &#8211; like Cadsuane. She is definitely stronger than Moiraine and Elaida, but probably weaker than Cadsuane. It has indeed been centuries since Meilyn and Kerene were novices (they were both very old), and it would fulfill all the criteria to place her on Meilyn&#8217;s level at 29 or Kerene&#8217;s at 28.<br /><br /><b><u>Moiraine, Elaida, Romanda &amp; Lelaine </u></b><br /><br />These four Aes Sedai share the same strength in the Power (25). It is the highest level among Aes Sedai &#8211; not including the new additions of course. Siuan confirms in ACoS (an Oath), that no one was stronger than her before she was stilled. Egwene then mentions Romanda and Lelaine&#8217;s strength &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (A Pair of Silverpike) - <i> They were the next two strongest women in the camp, as strong in the Power as Siuan used to be </i><br /><br />&#8230; and of course there is Moiraine &#8230; <br /><br />NS (An Arrival) - <i>&#8221;Phaaw! From Kerene, it&#8217;s a sharp drop to the next five. Five once this child and the Sanche girl reach their potential. </i><br /><br />&#8230; and Elaida &#8230; <br /><br />NS (The Human Heart) - <i>Since gaining the shawl, Elaida had never deferred to anyone other than the Amyrlin Seat or a Sitter than Moiraine had seen, yet she bowed her head and murmered, &#8220;As you say, Meilyn&#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />Elaida is weaker than Meilyn, but Meilyn died a few decades before book 1. Elaida is also on Verin&#8217;s list of Aes Sedai who are strong enough to use the Choedan Kal &#8211; Moiraine and Siuan too. Therefore Moiraine, Elaida, Romanda, Lelaine and the old Siuan share the same potential of 25 &#8211; stronger than any Aes Sedai since book 1.<br /><br /><b><u>Amys </u></b><br /><br />Amys was included because she is important for our shielding statistics. Her strength, however, is debatable &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Like lightning and Rain) - <i> &#8230; was as strong as any Aes Sedai she had yet met. </i><br /><br />Moiraine is the strongest Aes Sedai (besides Cadsuane), and Egwene has obviously encountered her. Amys should therefore share Moiraine&#8217;s strength of 25. Egwene, however speaks of Amys again in the seventh book &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Unseen Eyes) - <i>In the One Power, she and Melaine were no stronger than Theodrin and Faolain, far from weak, indeed stronger than most Aes Sedai, but far from a Forsaken&#8217;s strength too. </i><br /><br />Egwene&#8217;s comments about Amys, move from applauding to mediocre. The second quote should be given more weight because, firstly, Egwene is more experienced with the Power, and secondly, it is far more specific than the first quote. Clearly Amys is stronger than usual for a woman, but probably not as strong as Moiraine. She probably falls one level short i.e. Sheriam&#8217;s level (24).<br /><br /><b><u>Siuan</u></b><br /><br />Siuan used to be as strong as anyone in the Tower (after Cadsuane)&#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (An Oath) - <i>&#8220;There was no one stronger than me, before &#8230; </i><br /><br />After Siuan was stilled and then later Healed she lost the majority of her strength&#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (The Figurehead) - <i> She was less than she had been, no longer Amyrlin and no longer anywhere near so strong in the Power. </i><br /><br />&#8230; and later from Siuan&#8217;s own mouth &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (an Oath) - <i>&#8220;There was no one stronger than me, before &#8230; Sometimes, when Romanda is hammering at me, or Lelaine, it suddenly hits me like a gale. They&#8217;re so far above me now, I should be holding my tongue until they give me permission to speak. Even Aeldene is, and she&#8217;s no more than middling.&#8221; </i><br /><br />So how much strength did she lose? The answer lies in several other quotes and in her diminished abilities &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (To Heal Again) - <i>&#8220;I [Leane] am not as strong as I was, Siuan, and neither are you. Most of the women here can channel more than either of us, now. Light, I think some of the Accepted can, not even counting Elayne and Nynaeve.&#8221; </i><br /><br />We therefore know that some of the stronger Accepted are stronger than Siuan and Leane. Therefore to place them alongside the average Accepted, who they equal (10) fulfils all the criteria. Leane elaborates further when they try to get Nynaeve to Heal them for the second time &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (To Heal Again) - <i>&#8220;If Nynaeve couldn&#8217;t Heal us all the way the first time, maybe she&#8217;ll only take us to two thirds what we were, or half. Even that would be better than now, but still most here would be as strong, and a good many stronger.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Therefore Siuan and Leane&#8217;s strength is less than half of what it used to be i.e. &lt;12 in Siuan&#8217;s case. Even if Nynaeve could Heal Siuan&#8217;s strength to 12 or 17, it would still mean that most sisters could equal or surpass it. Her exact strength reduction is explained in the following quote &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (To Heal Again) - <i>His boots never stirred from the floor &#8230; the simple act of picking something up was one of the hardest in channeling, but she had been able to lift nearly three times her own weight. </i><br /><br />Siuan could lift almost three times her own weight when her strength was 25 implying that she needs approximately 9 strength to lift her own weight ( 9 x 3 = 27 = almost ). However, she cannot even lift one man off the floor &#8211; a man who no doubt weighed more than she did. If Siuan weighed the average female weight of 55kg (120lbs), and Bryne 80kg (176lbs) (ratio 1 : 1.45, or 45% heavier than her), then she would need a strength of 13 to lift Bryne. She cannot lift him at all, and therefore her strength is less than 13. Siuan therefore had a previous strength of 25, and now has a strength of 10 &#8211; losing approximately 60% of her strength. A good cause for being upset.<br /><br />Her current strength of 10 is therefore justified &#8230;<br />-	some Accepted can channel more than her<br />-	very low in Aes Sedai circles<br />-	cannot lift one man<br /><br /><b><u>Daigian </u></b><br /><br />We included Daigian because she is most likely the weakest Aes Sedai, and this provided a range for Aes Sedai strength. Merana informs us about her first &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Diamonds and Stars) &#8211; <i>She had been longer a novice, and Accepted, than anyone in living memory, barely allowed to remain in the Tower, gaining the ring by a fingernail and the shawl by an eyelash. Daigian was always self-effacing around other sisters. </i><br /><br />&#8230; and then Cadsuane &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (New Alliances) - <i>Most sisters considered Daigian little better than a wilder, and treated her little better than a servant&#8230; </i><br /><br />We know that she spent an enormous amount of time being a novice and Accepted &#8211; possibly decades. Novices usually require sufficient strength in saidar to become Accepted. Considering Daigian became Accepted by an eyelash, she is walking dangerously close to this boundary. It stands to reason that she is weaker than the majority of Accepted (10), and far short of a weak sister (15). Siuan states that even if Nynaeve Healed her to half her original strength (12), most sisters would be as strong, and many stronger. Daigian therefore must fall considerably short of this if she is treated like a servant or wilder by most Aes Sedai. We therefore placed her at 8 &#8230;<br />-	weaker than any Aes Sedai<br />-	below average strength for an Accepted<br />-	weak enough to be scoffed by other Aes Sedai<br /><br /><b><u>Sorilea </u></b><br /><br />Sorilea is probably the weakest effective channeler in the series (unlike Morgase who cannot actually channel effectively). She is very weak in the Power but she is able to channel &#8211; embrace saidar whenever she wants to,  make a flame etc. Egwene remarks on her strength &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (A Taste of Solitude) <i>&#8230; though she could channel, she had less strength in the Power than most novices Egwene had met. </i><br /><br />The average novice has a strength of approximately 5 &#8211; a small fraction of their future potential of 20, and Egwene says that Sorilea has less strength than most novices she has met. Her sentiments are echoed again later &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (An Oath) - <i> &#8220;One, Sorilea, would never have made it to Accepted &#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />So Sorilea would probably never surpass novice level. Cadsuane later remarks on Sorilea &#8230;<br /><br />TPOD (New Alliances) &#8211; <i>She was weak enough to make Daigian look at least moderately strong. But then, Sorilea&#8217;s strength did not lie in the Power. </i><br /><br />We already know that Daigian is very weak for an Aes Sedai &#8211; and surely the weakest of them all. If Daigian looks strong next to Sorilea, then Sorilea is weak indeed. We placed her at 3, below novice level in strength and weak enough to make Daigian look moderately strong.<br /><br /><b><u>Morgase </u></b><br /><br />LOC (Prologue) - <i>Fifty times trying to sense the True Source to find it once, and when found, twenty times attempting to open herself up to saidar in order to catch a dribble once. </i><br /><br />Without a doubt, Morgase must have the lowest possible strength in the Power. The above quote implies that she must <i>try</i> approximately one thousand times to channel a small thread of the Power. In this chapter she even implies that she doesn&#8217;t consider herself a channeler. However, it cannot be denied that she is one. Annoura and Galina both sensed the ability in her, and Annoura dismissed her strength as negligible. Verin once told Morgase that there was hardly any need for her to train in the Tower. It is possible that she cannot channel effectively at all, meaning she probably couldn&#8217;t enter a circle, or even recognize the flows of the Power. When the Seanchan invade Amadicia she mentions that she can sense saidar but she cannot identify flows or residues. Later, during the cleansing of saidin she asks Galina what is happening, citing that the amount of saidar must be enormous because she can sense it. This implies that she cannot sense saidar or weaves most of the time.<br /><br />We placed her at &lt;1, just to create scale, but in truth she is far weaker than this e.g. 0.001 and certainly more than one hundred times weaker than Rand.<br /><br /><b><u>Average Male Strength </u></b><br /><br />Most people who have read the series know that men are stronger in the Power than women, but very few people grasp its meaning when interpreting duels and standings in the Power. The Guide was the first book to hint at a difference in strength &#8230;<br /><br />Guide (The Wheel and the Power) - <i>&quot;In general, men were stronger in the use of the Power than women - that, in the sheer volume of the Power they could handle - though there were certainly individual women who had great strength and individual men who were comparatively weak.&quot; </i><br /><br />The Guide was quite clear &#8211; men have strength, and later it reveals that women have dexterity. Nynaeve comments on this in the series &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (The Threads Burn) - <i>Moghedien insisted the men were stronger &#8230; It was not fair that men should have the muscles and greater strength in the Power too. The Aes Sedai in the Tower had always said they had been equal. </i><br /><br />One thing that the Guide and Moghedien did not do was quantify this difference, but Asmodean did when he was teaching Rand &#8211; <br /><br />TFOH (Pale Shadows) - <i>&#8220;Perhaps in the grand scheme of the Pattern, it&#8217;s a balance for men being stronger&#8230; Some women have stronger arms than some men, but in general it is the other way around. The same holds with strength in the Power, and in about the same proportion&#8230; If two women link, they do not double their strength &#8211; linking is not as simple as adding together the power of each &#8211; but if they are strong enough, they can match a man.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Asmodean says that the proportions remain constant &#8211; every now and again you get an Ash&#8217;aman as weak as Sorilea, and sometimes you get a woman as strong as Lanfear, but generally men are stronger. On two occasions there has been the metaphor involving muscle strength. Therefore men are probably not only stronger, but generally a &#8216;level&#8217; up from the weakest to the strongest, because the strongest woman has no hope of ever equaling the strongest man if muscle strength is an accurate analogy  &#8211; with the proportions intact.<br /><br />It is important to realize that men are much stronger in the Power in general &#8211; although they apparently cannot match females with regards to dexterity and weaving of Air and Water. Asmodean says that two women can match a man only if they are strong enough. The reason is simple &#8211; two women have a combined strength equal to that of a man, but they lose some of it when linked in a circle (about 5% we estimate). <br /><br />Therefore if two women want to match a man, they cannot be of average strength because the loss of strength from linking will place their combined strength below his. Asmodean therefore says that the two women must be strong enough &#8211; implying above average strength. That way, when the strength is lost in the circle, their combined strength equals the man&#8217;s and they can match him.<br /><br />As you will see later, the average strength of a woman is about 12. If two women link, their combined strength will be 24, but this will be reduced to 23 because of the circle penalty. Therefore the women need to be say, 14, to form a circle of 28 which ends up at 27 and enough to match a man. The section on average female strength explains that while most Aes Sedai have a strength of 17-25, the average woman is weaker at about 12. Meaning that the average man has a strength of about 25. This difference can also be seen in Travelling. A much larger proportion of the Ash&#8217;aman can Travel, and most are still growing in strength. However, look at Egwene&#8217;s statement after her discovery &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Possibilities) - <i>Egwene&#8217;s rediscovery of Travelling caused a lot of Aes Sedai to smile, though only a handful were strong enough to make a gateway larger than they could put an arm through and most not even that. </i><br /><br />Egwene clearly states that only a minority of the Aes Sedai can Travel. Considering strong Aes Sedai (&gt;20) can Travel, it seems logical that males with an average strength of 25 can too. Many people will disapprove of our placement of some common Ash&#8217;aman above Forsaken like Moghedien or other renowned channelers.of strength/. Unfortunately, if you find yourself being skeptical here, it means you haven&#8217;t fully appreciated the difference between men and women in the Power. If you are one of these people, do yourself a favour and go and observe the acts of the Power performed by the men and women in the series.<br /><br />Despite Elayne&#8217;s record strength in the Power, Mat grumbles because she cannot make a gateway big enough to ride through on a horse. In fact, she gives herself a satisfied smile at her achievement because her gateway is far larger than anyone in Salidar can duplicate, except Egwene and Nynaeve. However, take a look at the gateways of men like Grady and Neald &#8211; and you will see that the size easily exceeds Elayne&#8217;s, often considerably &#8211; and Rand mentions that none of them are nearly close to his strength. Graendal says that the Ash&#8217;aman are &#8216;dangerous puppies, especially Al&#8217;Thor&#8221; &#8211; clearly she fears them more than she fears the Shaido Wise Ones or the Aes Sedai, and despite calling them puppies (a reference to their poor training), she has seen the imminent implication &#8211; a male has a far greater chance of challenging her strength than a female.<br /><br />Despite our mixed-gender list, it is important to look at the list in terms of males and females. The weakest female Forsaken is Moghedien, and she is surpassed by a handful of modern Age females. The same cannot even be said for the males. The weakest male Forsaken is Asmodean, and the closest male to him is Damer Flinn in our opinion &#8211; who is still considerably weaker (of course, there is Logain and Taim). Remember, despite their strength, Rand has repeatedly told us that none of his Ash&#8217;aman are near to him in strength. Statistically, some of the Ash&#8217;aman will probably grow to be Forsaken strength &#8211; the women found Sharina, the men will probably find the same (possibly Narishma).<br /><br />Consider how some of the strongest females like Nynaeve can be held by two Aes Sedai, whereas the strong males like Rand and Logain require at least four to six Aes Sedai to hold them. Your average male has a strength of 25, but according to the Guide he may lack dexterity in weaving and may have problems with Air and Water. A man who is stronger than usual (akin to Moiraine in women) will have a strength of 40. Very strong men, like Egwene for women, are like Damer Flinn sitting at 65. Your Forsaken strength males then start above this &#8230; from 75 to 100. They are like Nynaeve and Alivia in strength. The list is not proportional, because the strengths tend to plateau at the top levels allowing some of the female Forsaken a bit of advantage.<br /><br />In the future when you read about an Ash&#8217;aman, it would be well for you to think of him representing two average women, or at least an Aes Sedai as strong as Moiraine (but often much stronger). At the same time, remember not to equate the White and Black Tower with their currently equal numbers.<br /><br /><b><u>Average Female Strength </u></b><br /><br />We have already discussed the average man&#8217;s strength and mentioned that he is about twice as strong as the average female, but weak in Air and Water. Women, on the other hand, struggle to perform acts which require strength, and they cannot easily weave Earth and Fire in most cases. <br /><br />The average woman is weaker than the average Aes Sedai &#8230; TPoD (Beginnings) - <i>&#8230;a flood anxious to become Aes Sedai, women of every age&#8230; Almost a thousand! Most by far would never wear the shawl, yet the number of them had everyone staring&#8230; </i><br /><br />Due to the fact that Egwene has tested a random sample of women, this provides a far more realistic picture of strength than the current Aes Sedai strengths. The Aes Sedai are a select group. Egwene says that most of the women will never wear the shawl implying that they are considerably weaker than the Aes Sedai &#8211; with an average strength of 12 (like Accepted). The average strength is misleading &#8211; Sharina is one of these novices and one can see how that would distort the average. It therefore stands to reason that for every strong or very strong novice, there are several other weak women (&lt;10) to balance them out.<br /><br />We have seen that Rand with his strength of 100, considers himself a match for any three <i>Aes Sedai</i> unless they become too strong (Forsaken strength, by his standards). With a strength of 20, three Aes Sedai can easily be handled and shielded by Rand. When a Forsaken replaces one of the women, their combination approaches Rand&#8217;s strength and they become a threat to him. We have also seen how Aes Sedai struggle to shield men of great strength. Apart from this, only a small minority of Aes Sedai can Travel, as opposed to the majority of the Ash&#8217;aman.<br /><br />In essence there are two scales which have provided the entire strength list &#8211; providing a strength of 20 to the average Aes Sedai, and a strength of 100 to the strongest channeler. All the proportions can be maintained between these two standards thanks to the quotes in the series. One other quote which provides proportion comes from Elayne &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (Next Door to a Weaver) - <i> Reanne &#8230; easily equaled Sheriam, say, or Kwamesa or Kiruna. Not many women possessed so much strength &#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />We know that Sheriam nearly reaches the top level of Aes Sedai strength (living Aes Sedai) at 24 strength. Elayne&#8217;s comment is interesting because it proves that very few <i>women</i> can achieve this strength. <br /><br />Jordan rarely shows us any weak channelers &#8211; and when he does, it is usually to provide scale e.g. Sorilea, Morgase. While the average woman has a strength of 12 and the average man a strength of 25, we rarely see an Aes Sedai weaker than 20 or an Ash&#8217;aman weaker than 40 (the 1:2 proportion is still maintained, however). For instance, the small minority of Aes Sedai can Travel &#8211; yet most of the Aes Sedai in the forefront of the plot can. Most Ash&#8217;aman can Travel, but all those who were too weak were left behind at the Black Tower for the battle against the Seanchan.<br /><br /><b><u><i>Other concepts explained &#8230; </i></u></b><br /><br /><b><u>Gateways </u></b><br /><br />Gateways are one of the central themes of the theory. Asmodean started teaching Rand about gateways &#8230;<br /><br />TFOH (To Caemlyn) - <i>There were limits for one man by himself, Asmodean claimed; it seemed there were always limits. The amount of saidin you drew did not matter. The One Power had little to do with gateways, really; only the making. Beyond, was something else. A dream of a dream, Asmodean called it. </i><br /><br />This statement must be read properly. At this time Rand didn&#8217;t know how to Travel &#8211; he could only Skim. Asmodean claimed he was too weak to teach it, and he seems to have been correct (see Asmodean&#8217;s section). The One Power is used for making the gateway. Beyond the gateway, the skimming platform had little to do with your strength in the Power but rather your strength of will. What is also indicated is that it doesn&#8217;t matter how much saidin you draw, but rather how strong you are at the time. However, most of the channelers make their largest gateways when they are filled with the Power.<br /><br />Rand can make the largest unaided gateway in the series &#8211; four paces by four paces = 12ft x 12ft = 144 sq.ft. This is the largest gateway possible unaided (as far as we know). Rand is also the strongest in the Power, therefore any gateway area seen as a fraction of this gateway of his, can be viewed as an expression of the channeler&#8217;s strength, but only if they are using all their strength &#8211; which they frequently do.<br /><br />Therefore if an Aes Sedai can weave a gateway 6ft high and 5ft wide (enough for her to walk through), then the area is 30sq.ft. Use this against Rand&#8217;s gateway &#8230; 30/144 x 100 =  21%. Therefore she has a strength of approximately 21. The section on female strength proves that very few Aes Sedai can Travel.<br /><br />Most Ash&#8217;aman can Travel despite the fact that they are growing in strength. We have also seen Egwene and Elayne make gateways which no Aes Sedai can duplicate. It appears that the minimum strength required to Travel is approximately 21. Below this, the weave won&#8217;t form at all in most cases. Hence Asmodean&#8217;s inability to teach Rand Travelling despite having about 15 strength (or less). There is one exception we have found in the series &#8211; the sole confounder out of all the gateways. Reanne is responsible &#8230; <br /><br />WH (Expectation) - <i>The familiar vertical flash of light appeared in the stableyard and rotated into a hole in the air ten feet tall and as wide. </i><br /><br />According to this, the area of her gateway is 100sq.ft and this makes her strength 70 &#8211; about as strong as Graendal we estimate. In fact she slightly stronger than the average woman. There are several possible explanations for her gateway, but most of them are discussed at the end of this section. Reanne had been weaving that gateway for days on end &#8211; so perhaps her increasing knowledge and practice of the gateway allowed her to make a bigger gateway. Or perhaps she had one of the angreal. Or perhaps Jordan slipped up.<br /><br />The point is that strength in the Power is directly proportional to gateway size. There can be no denying this is due to the overwhelming evidence in its favour. There are always exceptions to the rule- as Berowin proved with shielding. Gateway size is a nifty way to estimate channeler strength but it is probably affected by the following &#8230;<br />-	strength in the Powers esp. Spirit<br />-	a gateway Talent may be present<br />-	dexterity in weaving (Elayne and Aviendha share the same potential but Aviendha is still struggling to Travel)<br />-	knowledge of the area<br />-	males and females may require disproportionate amounts of the Power to Travel, but we haven&#8217;t seen evidence of this yet.<br /><br />It appears that precision weaving is a wonderful augmentation for Travelling. The biggest gateway we have seen in the series&#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (Beginnings) - <i>The light of saidar sprang up around the thirteen sisters near the Sitters, around all of them together, and a think slash of silver appeared in the middle of the clearing, rotating into a gateway ten paces tall and a hundred wide. </i><br /><br />If the thirteen Aes Sedai had an average strength of 20, then the circle would have a strength of about 247 (260 &#8211; 5%). This would allow a gateway about 2.5 times greater than Rand&#8217;s or 360sq.ft. In actuality, this gateway is 9000sq.ft in area or 25 times larger than it should be. As Asmodean said, there are limits to one man alone.<br /><br />The same happens among the Aes Sedai. Due to the fact that they cannot even make a gateway big enough to fit an arm through, they link in pairs and Travel to where they need to get. Another example of an exponential increase in gateway size thanks to linking. Precision weaving appears to play a strong role &#8211; sharper, cleaner cut weaves provided by the circle allow better approximation by the two sides of the Pattern (see Sidious&#8217; theory on Precision Weaving).<br /><br />Gateway size also appears to increase as your strength in the Power increases. This has been demonstrated by the Ash&#8217;aman, Elayne and Aviendha. It is probably susceptible to angreal &#8211; meaning that the use of an angreal can increase the size of a gateway. However, it is possible that one channeler even with a sa&#8217;angreal won&#8217;t be able to make a gateway larger than Rand&#8217;s. Asmodean said that there were limits to one man alone. A circle may be the only way to increase the size of a gateway beyond 144 sq.ft, but this remains to be seen.<br /><br /><b><u>Linking </u></b><br /><br />Considering so much evidence is based on circles, it is important to obtain the correct information regarding linking.<br /><br />We already know that when two people link, they are both unable to draw their maximum &#8211; but the leader can channel more than she can unaided. The circle buffers the channelers from drawing too much of the Power and burning one another out, or worse. So how much strength is lost when people link? It appears to be a very small amount and it is based on evidence given by Elayne &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (The Breaking Storm) - <i>At that moment, Caire drew deeply. Saidar flooded through Elayne, almost as much as she could hold&#8230; </i><br /><br />Although Elayne is part of a circle, Caire cannot draw Elayne&#8217;s full potential despite using the full strength of the circle to correct the weather. Therefore the loss is very small when linking. Of course we cannot place it accurately, but we believe the statement means that the loss is 1-10% of the channeler&#8217;s strength. Therefore in all linking formulae, we assumed that the loss was 5%. If it is slightly more or less it won&#8217;t make a large impact on the equations. We also don&#8217;t believe the loss of strength is greater than 10% because Elayne would surely not say that she is holding near to her maximum if she lost 20% of her strength. There are some other issues to ponder, issues which we decided to ignore in our formulae to necessitate simplicity, but which could influence the final strength product.<br /><br />Firstly, do channelers lose a percentage of their strength when linking e.g. 5% or do they lose a fixed amount of strength e.g. 5? If they lost a fixed amount then weaker channelers would pay a greater price when linking, whereas a fixed percentage would disadvantage stronger channelers more. We believe that a fixed percentage is lost. Considering you are channeling a huge amount of the One Power through a single channeler, it stands to reason that larger amount of strength will be lost when you are drawing on the strength of a powerful channeler. If the leader of the circle can be seen as a canal for water joined up by three other currents (three channelers), then it would seem logical that if one of the canals contained a huge torrent of water, more of it would be buffered back than if it was a canal of normal size. Therefore if 5% of strength is lost, then Elayne will lose 2 strength while linking, and Lanfear 4 strength. However, the leader will have access to 38 remaining strength in Elayne, and 81 in Lanfear. Therefore linking with a powerful channeler outweighs the penalty for their strength.<br /><br />We also know from the Guide that the leader of the circle is very important &#8211; their strength and skill are important factors. It stands to reason that if Moiraine led a circle comprising of her, Elayne, Egwene and Lanfear &#8211; it might lose more strength than if Lanfear led the circle. This will only occur, of course, if the leader is the bottleneck who is responsible for the buffered strength.<br /><br />There may be a strength loss difference which is dependent on strengths in the Powers. If the leader is weak in Air, then she may cause an entire buffer effect on all the women linked to her concerning Air weaves. If she is strong in Air, then their strength should contribute to hers. Therefore a leader strong in all five Powers would possibly be the best choice to lead a circle.<br /><br />There is also the question of whether men alter anything when they are introduced into a circle. Is some strength lost? We believe it is only because our thoughts regarding the strength loss are focused on the belief that the leader is a narrowing of the conduits for so much of the Power. As an alternative, perhaps women lose strength because saidar interferes with the saidar of the other women, whereas men have saidin which stays away from the saidar. The Guide says that the best circles were balanced males and females, despite the fact that men were stronger in the Power. Therefore there is an advantage to mixed circles &#8230; perhaps no loss of strength, perhaps males are strong in Earth and Fire and women in Air and Water leading to more powerful weaving. It is a contentious point with very little evidence either way.<br /><br />All of these points should be taken into consideration. However, for the purposes of sanity we have said that 5% of strength is lost in any combination, no matter who the leader is and how skilled or strong he/she is.<br /><br /><b><u>Shielding </u></b><br /><br />Shielding has always been a difficult topic to discuss and reason out. We believe we have found all the relevant numbers required to make shielding a workable system.<br /><br /><u><i>1. The Basics of Shielding </i></u><br /><br />There are two basic principles which are the constants of shielding. Firstly in order to actually cut someone off from the Source after they are holding the Power &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Ideas of Importance) - <i>&#8230; trying to shield someone who held the Power was chancy at best and futile at worst, unless you were very much stronger than they &#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />To conclusively sever the established connection to the Source you need to be much stronger than the person you are shielding. We believe you need to be two-thirds (or 66%) stronger than the person you are shielding. Moghedien and Nynaeve, and later Talaan and Nynaeve showed that you can shield one another if you have the same strength. However, as Nynaeve said when shielding Talaan, shielding is chancy when your strengths are close but the chances of success increase the stronger you are compared to your target. In other words, if the chance of shielding someone of similar strength is 25% or less, then the probability increases as you become stronger until it becomes almost 100% when you are 66% stronger than the other person. As Nynaeve implies, being two-thirds stronger would constitute the <i>very much stronger</i> she was referring to.<br /><br />Secondly, to prevent someone from breaking your shield and touching the True Source &#8230;<br /><br />WH (Ideas of Importance) - <i>&#8230; it was useless to try breaking free unless you were much stronger than whoever had shielded you. </i><br /><br />Although we believe you must be two-thirds stronger to shield someone conclusively, we also believe the opposite is true with regards to holding that woven shield. You can maintain the shield if you only have two-thirds of your target&#8217;s strength i.e. you are 66% as strong as your target. This is why all channelers desperately try to fight off shields &#8211; if one gets through you have little chance of breaking it considering your attacker was strong enough to to shield you in the first place. The following sections all contain some proof as to how we came to the conclusion that 66% is the magical number in shielding. We&#8217;ve already discussed the channeler&#8217;s strengths so they won&#8217;t be debated again &#8230;<br /><br /><u><i>2. The bare minimum strength of 66% </i></u><br /><br />TSR (Sharp Lessons) - <i>Amys sighed; the glow around her vanished, and so did the barrier between Egwene and saidar. &#8220;I cannot shield you any longer. You are far stronger than I. In the One Power, you are. You very nearly battered down my shield&#8230;&#8221; </i><br /><br />This is the best evidence available for the minimum strength required to hold a stronger channeler. Egwene clawed at the shield madly but Amys managed to hold her, with Amys&#8217; later comments that she barely managed to maintain the shield. Therefore Amys was right on the boundary of holding Egwene. Amys, with a strength of 24 needs only be 66% as strong as her target &#8211; therefore she cannot shield a woman stronger than 36. Egwene, being forced to her potential, is already close to this level. When she reaches 40 she might be able to break a shield of that strength.<br /><br />LOC (To Heal Again) &#8230; <i>Something pushed against the shield Nynaeve had fastened between Logain and the True Source, building until the shield began to bend and the weave trembled on the brink of ripping apart. She let saidar flow through her, sweetness reaching the very end of pain, channeling every thread into Spirit, into the shield.</i><br /><br />Here we have Nynaeve trying to prevent Logain from breaking her shield. She says he isn&#8217;t trying and she is straining to maintain the constitution of the shield. Nynaeve surely fell short of the required strength to hold Logain because even she admits that he made no strained effort to free himself. With Logain&#8217;s strength of 90, a woman would need a minimum strength of 59.4 to hold him. Nynaeve is in that vicinity in LOC, but probably slightly weaker. When she reaches her potential of 65 he won&#8217;t be able to break her shield unless his potential turns out to be greater than 90.<br /><br /><i><u>3. Failed shields </u></i><br /><br />ACoS (Swovan Night) - <i>Embracing saidar, she slammed a shield between Elayne and the Source. Or rather she tried to. Shielding someone who already held the Power was not easy even when you were stronger. </i><br /><br />It is important to see that Nynaeve isn&#8217;t strong enough to shield Elayne in book 8. With Elayne&#8217;s strength at approximately 38 in book 7 and Nynaeve&#8217;s at 62, Nynaeve is 63% stronger than Elayne and not really strong enough to cut her off. However, 66% is the absolute strength needed for shielding &#8211; her chances of cutting Elayne off are still very high if she reattempts.<br /><br />ACoS (Spears) - <i>Perhaps it was a sign of their own disdain, they had chosen the weakest of their number to shield her this morning. Micara was not truly weak in the Power &#8211; none of them were that &#8230; Galina could have broken Micara&#8217;s shield with little effort. </i><br /><br />We must assume that Galina uses a similar system to Siuan when judging strength. Siuan believes that some weaker Aes Sedai like Aeldene (15) are just middling with the Power when it comes to channeling. Therefore, Micara cannot be much weaker than 15, the same as a weak Aes Sedai, for Galina to say that she isn&#8217;t truly weak. If her strength is 15 and Galina&#8217;s 23, then Micara is 65% of Galina&#8217;s strength and unable to hold her. If Galina flexes her muscles the shield will break. Micara is possibly weaker because Galina says that she could use little effort to break the shield. Verin comments on a similar situation &#8230;<br /><br />TPoD (Deceptive Appearances) - <i>Neither could channel strongly enough to have any certainty of holding Turanna by herself, but they linked as though they had been holding circles all their lives. </i><br /><br />Once again it proves that even average Aes Sedai can break shields if the woman shielding them is weak enough.<br /><br />LOC (The Mirror of Mists) - <i>Not strong enough. Even with the angreal, maybe not strong enough, not to hold seven. You fool! You waited too long! Too dangerous! &#8230; Shielding anyone did take a fair amount of strength. With the angreal, Rand was sure he could make seven shields, even with them embracing saidar already. </i><br /><br />Rand is discussed in detail later, but Lews Therin at least shows that Rand cannot shield seven sisters. Seven average Aes Sedai (20) would require 33.2 strength each to be shielded with a total of 232.4 to do the deed. Therefore the angreal would need to more than double Rand&#8217;s strength for him to shield seven Aes Sedai. However, if he managed to shield them then he would only require 92 strength to hold them all, well within his normal capabilities.<br /><br />ACoS (The Sending) - <i> What I do not understand is how they captured him &#8230; Perrin, both Elora and Ledar say that when Aes Sedai find a man of great power, they always gather thirteen to take him&#8230; they wrote of Yurian Stoneboww and Guaire Amalasan. Of Raolin Darksbane and Davian, as well, but the others are who worry me&#8230; Those were four of the most powerful among the men who had called themselves the Dragon Reborn &#8230; Six Aes Sedai tried to capture Stonebow, and he killed three and captured the others himself. Six tried to take Amalasan; he killed one and stilled two more. Surely Rand is as strong as Stonebow or Amalasan. Are there really only six ahead of us? It would explain much. </i><br /><br />Once again this suggests that six sisters cannot shield a man of great strength. Six average sisters (20) would form a circle with a strength of 114 (20x6-5%), meaning that the strongest man they could shield would have a strength of 69 &#8211; well below the higher male strengths. This would explain why six Aes Sedai almost always come up short against the strong males. This is confirmed by Kiruna &#8230;<br /><br />ACoS (the Sending) - <i>&#8220;He&#8217;s being held prisoner. An Aes Sedai named Coiren and at least five others are taking him to Tar Valon&#8230;&#8221; &#8220;Six? &#8230; Six could not take him. I am sure of it.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Shielding relies on how much of the Power you are holding and not your potential. This was demonstrated when the damane shielded Elayne in TPoD &#8211; she was so exhausted and holding so little that one woman could shield her without any problem. Therefore if Rand has a strength of 100 but is only holding 10 Power, any Aes Sedai could shield him by herself and cut off his link to saidin. Unfortunately, one average sister would fall hopelessly below the minimum of 66% of the target&#8217;s strength to hold the shield. Rand would just need to sneeze and the shield would shatter.<br /><br /><i><u>Absolute Holds &amp; Successful Shielding </u></i><br /><br />ACoS (Six Stories) - <i>&#8220;&#8230; they have me shielded &#8230; I cannot do it alone; they&#8217;re linked. If you don&#8217;t fight them, they will kill you.&#8221; </i><br /><br />Ispan and Faolain caught Nynaeve off guard here, and while linked they shielded her before she could embrace the Source. With a linked strength of about 38 (20x2-5%), they could shield a woman with a strength of 63. Considering Nynaeve hasn&#8217;t reached her end potential of 65, they could indeed maintain the shield on her. However, once she reaches 65, it will take a third sister of average strength to maintain the shield.<br /><br />TPoD (A Quiet Place) - <i>The white-haired sisters were linked &#8230; There was no way to tell which led the small circle and held the shield on the Darkfriend, but not even one of the Forsaken could have broken it. </i><br /><br />It is unclear why Vandene and Adeleas linked to hold Ispan &#8211; they might have needed strength for other issues, such as interrogation or wardings. Despite being weak in the Power (15), their circle strength of 28.5 (15x2-5%) can hold a woman with a strength of 47. Not as strong as Nynaeve, but strong enough to hold Elayne or Egwene. It is possible that precision weaving and strength in Spirit may play a role here. It is important to see why the strength may be valuable in the Red Ajah &#8211; two weak sisters can hold a man of strength 47, but if you make them stronger like Ispan and Faolain, they can hold a man of 63 strength.<br /><br />TSR (Into the Palace) - <i>The glow of saidar already surrounded Temaile, but she did not have a chance. Appalled at what she saw, Elayne embraced the True Source and lashed out hard with flows of Air, webbing her from shoulder to ankles, wove a shield of Spirit and slammed it between the woman and the Source. The glow around Temaile vanished&#8230; </i><br /><br />This is just one example of how the new girls have enough strength to easily shield an average Aes Sedai. Temaile, although not very strong, may still have a strength of 18, meaning that you must have a strength of at least 30 to shield her conclusively. No Aes Sedai in the Tower (except Cadsuane) is that strong, and Elayne uses two flows &#8211; one for the shield, one for the Air bonds.<br /><br />LOC (Lessons and Teachers) - <i>&#8230; it had been a series of extremely bad moments, from discovering that they could not cut him off from the True Source to the contemptuous ease with which he had shielded them, snapping their connections to saidar like thread. Both of them at once. Remarkable. How many would it take to shield and hold him? The full thirteen? That was only tradition, but it might be necessary with him. </i><br /><br />Verin cannot believe that Rand can shield two sisters at the same time, while they are both holding their maximum strength. Verin and Alanna have above average strength for Aes Sedai (21), and therefore Rand needs 35 strength to shield either of them with a total of 70. This explains why they consider his strength to be remarkable &#8211; they have never encountered any single channeler with so much strength, not even Nynaeve. In fact, according to our calculations, Rand could shield three sisters of average strength at the same time.<br /><br />TPoD (A cup of sleep) - <i>The shield he had tied off on Shalon would hold her for a day or two before the knot unraveled &#8230; He could not have left the Windfinder free to channel, but shielding a woman was not a matter of dribbles of the Power. </i><br /><br />Rand clearly shows that it doesn&#8217;t require a small amount of the Power to cut off an average woman &#8211; 33 (or one-third of his strength) isn&#8217;t a small amount and could possibly allow detection by his assassins.<br /><br /><i><u>Talents </u></i><br /><br />The number 66% only applies to standard channelers, those with nothing special to offer. If we look at Berowin &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Next Door to a Weaver) - <i>Most Aes Sedai she had met stood above Berowin; nearly all&#8230; Anyone could block her from the Source if they caught her by surprise, of course, and someone weaker could hold the shield once woven, but not this much weaker. </i><br /><br />Berowin is weaker than most Aes Sedai (&lt;15), yet she can maintain a shield on Nynaeve who is very much stronger. Technically, this should be impossible, but it does prove that a shielding Talent does exist. Berowin even implies later that she could hold the Forsaken, implying the possibly infinite flexibility of her shield.<br /><br />Therefore, the following channelers should be viewed with caution &#8230;<br />-	those with any degree of shielding Talent can hold channelers who are much stronger than them. They have probably also got a better chance of shielding another channeler whose strength is close to theirs. <br />-	those who are unusually strong in Spirit won&#8217;t have to be as much stronger to shield their targets, and they may be able to break shields with greater ease.<br />-	Those who practice shielding, like the Red Ajah, may be able to get shields through where they normally wouldn&#8217;t. They might possibly be able to deflect stronger shields with greater ease too, or break them &#8211; Galina and Turanna both spring to mind.<br />-	Those with unusual weakness in Spirit might not be very good at shielding or breaking shields.<br /><br /><u><i>Shielding men of great strength in the Power </i></u><br /><br />Shielding of men with great strength in the Power is a very interesting &#8216;science&#8217; and we&#8217;ll base all our calculations on Rand al&#8217;Thor, whose strength of 100 makes the mathematics simpler. Weaker males (and that means everyone) require less strength to hold or shield them.<br /><br />LOC (The Taking) - <i>That shield made his eyes bulge, it was impossible. No three women could block him from the Source once he had taken hold of saidin, not unless they were as strong as Semirhage or Mesanna &#8230; Rand felt the blood drain from his face. Four sets of eyes in four ageless faces examined him. </i><br /><br />While some may harp on Rand&#8217;s grammar here, he makes it clear that no three women can shield him unless they all have Semirhage or Mesaana&#8217;s strength. It is no coincidence that he uses Semirhage and Mesaana &#8211; they are supposed to be more or less equal &#8211; and Rand says he knows about all the Forsaken. It takes at least 166 strength to shield Rand (100+66%). Semirhage and Mesaana share a potential of 65. If three women of their strength link then the circle strength is 185 (65+65+65-5%), which exceeds the required strength to cut him off from saidin. However, any weaker Forsaken (i.e. Moghedien) or woman would not fulfill the criteria. Three Moghediens (55) would command a circle strength of 157 (55x3-5%) and three Egwene&#8217;s 114 (40x3-5%). Therefore Rand fears no three women &#8211; they can be as strong as they like, so long as they aren&#8217;t as strong as Semirhage or Mesaana. That&#8217;s only for shielding though, the ultimate defeat &#8211; three Moghediens or Egwenes would be more than a match for him in strength, but at least they cannot snap his connection to saidin. Once a fourth woman is introduced, the women need only be strong but not of rare strength to take him. There are other circles which can shield men of great strength &#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (Pale Shadows) - <i>&#8220;And when they take the circle to thirteen, then you must be wary. Thirteen women who can barely channel could overpower most men, linked. The thirteen weakest women in the Tower could overpower you or any man, and barely breathe hard.&#8221; </i><br /><br />&#8230; and later &#8230;<br /><br />TFoH (News comes to Cairhien) - <i>Thirteen of the weakest Aes Sedai could overwhelm him linked, and he did not think that Elaida would send her weakest. </i><br /><br />Asmodean is busy teaching Rand about shielding &#8211; always beware of thirteen women. While some believe that thirteen becomes a magical number, we believe that strength plays the definitive role here. Thirteen women who can barely channel can shield <i>most, but not all</i> men according to Asmodean. Women who can barely channel are probably Accepted with an average strength of 10. If you link 13 of them you will get a circle strength of 123 (13x10-5%), meaning they can shield a man of approximately 74. Therefore they could shield most men, unless the men had Forsaken strength (&gt;80) &#8211; which is very rare. Even if you took thirteen novices (5), they would command a circle strength of 62 (13x5-5%) and could shield a man with a strength of 37, meaning that they could shield the majority of men who average 25.<br /><br />However, when you take the thirteen Aes Sedai, you can shield anyone. A weak sister has a strength of 15, and 13 of them will command a circle strength of 185 (13x15-5%), well within the boundaries for shielding a man of any strength. Rand comments that the size of his link to saidin is what is important when facing shields. He does this while facing Lanfear, and thus he draws on his angreal to make it harder for her to shield him. Even unaided Lanfear would have needed 166 strength to shield Rand and therefore the angreal would have to nearly double her strength. Even so, after he uses the angreal her shields become even stronger and still start to get through, indicating that her angreal gave her a massive advantage &#8211; it could have multiplied her strength several times. If Rand&#8217;s own angreal doubled his strength (200), Lanfear would require 332 strength to shield him or nearly four times her unaided strength &#8211; and she manages it alongside her pain weaves. Clearly her advantage with the angreal was enormous, as was his.<br /><br />Now, once the shield has been woven on such a man, there are two ways to break it. Firstly, he can either overwhelm it with his strength, but then the shield must be weaker than 66% of his potential&#8230;<br /><br />LOC (The Feast of Lights) - <i> Slowly, ever so gently, he felt his way along it, to where a hard plane suddenly turned to six soft points. Soft, Lews Therin said, panting. Because they are there. Sustaining the buffer. Hard when they knot. Nothing to be done when they are soft, but I can unravel the web if they knot it. With time&#8230; Gingerly Rand felt along the shield to the soft points. To six Aes Sedai. </i><br /><br /> The second method is to attack the hard points which develop in a shield. When an Aes Sedai is channeling into the shield, the points are soft and cannot be unraveled. When they are tied off, the point becomes hard and can be forced open. If the knot is broken the overall strength of the shield becomes less &#8211; the shield becomes thinner. Unfortunately the Aes Sedai have anticipated both occurrences &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Weaves of the Power) - <i>Egwene&#8217;s suggestion that it be tied off had been met with close to shock, and not far from scorn &#8230;Custom said six, though if he was as much reduced as Suian and Leanne, any three sisters in the camp could surely have held him, and custom said the shield on a man must be maintained, not tied&#8230; The sisters shielding him had all their strength directed into that &#8211; another custom; you must use every bit of your strength to shield a man. </i><br /><br />Therefore there are always six sisters to maintain the shield on a man, and also with their full strength. With six sisters at full strength all the points are soft and cannot be unraveled, and there is also no chance that six sister&#8217;s strength falls short of the 66% of the male&#8217;s strength required to hold the shield. Unfortunately, as Dumai&#8217;s wells the Aes Sedai let this system falter&#8230;<br /><br />LOC (Dumai Wells) - <i> Suddenly his breath froze. Six points, but one was hard now. Not soft; hard. And then a second. A third&#8230; A fourth knot became hard&#8230; The knot resisted. It trembled and then it burst. There were only five. The barrier thinned. He could feel it grow less. An invisible wall only five bricks think now instead of six. The two Aes Sedai would have felt it, too, though they might not understand exactly what had happened, or how&#8230; A second went; the shield thinned &#8230; The third knot gone &#8230; And a third soft point appeared &#8230; Truly frantic, Rand hurled himself at the fourth knot. He had to unravel it before a fourth sister came into the shield; four might be able to hold it whatever he did&#8230; The shield remained, but held by only three now&#8230; It gave as he pressed, bending, bending. Suddenly it tore apart before him like rotted cloth. </i><br /><br />As the Shaido attack increased, more and more Aes Sedai left the circle until only two were maintaining it. Rand started unraveling the shield &#8211; every time he flexed a knot he mentioned that the shield was becoming one &#8216;brick&#8217; thinner. As he said, the Aes Sedai wouldn&#8217;t understand what was happening, only that suddenly the shield was thinner for no obvious reason. The Aes Sedai probably panicked and called back another sister because the one hard point became soft again. However, the three linked Aes Sedai had a combined strength of 60 (less than 2/3 of Rand&#8217;s strength), and couldn&#8217;t hold him. As he says, four would hold him because they would have a strength of 80 &#8211; well within the boundaries to contain him. He then pressed the shield which the three women held, and it ripped apart, unable to hold him any longer. The same happens with Logain &#8230;<br /><br />LOC (To Heal Again) &#8230; <i>&#8221;I went by Logain&#8217;s house. Six sisters are maintaining his shield, the same as when he was captured. He tried to break free when he knew we found out he had been Healed, and they said that if  only five had been holding the shield, he might have. So he&#8217;s as strong as he ever was, or close enough to make no difference.&#8221;</i><br /><br />This is an interesting statement, but Siuan&#8217;s statement is based on exactly what Rand said &#8211; they wouldn&#8217;t know what was happening. He obviously started attacking the knots, the weak points in the shield, but they were all manned by an Aes Sedai and unbreakable. It is possible that five were holding him at one stage and he broke the one knot causing panic. However, like Rand, all it would take is four sisters to hold him.<br /><br /><i><u>Conclusions and Implications of Shielding</u></i><br /><br />It seems like you need to be two-thirds stronger than another channeler to cut them off from the Source definitively. You can also be two-thirds as strong as your target and still maintain the shield without them breaking it. The following are rough guides to the requirements for shielding &#8230;<br /><br />Rand, Ishamael, Demandred&#8230;.&#8230;&#8230;...9 Aes Sedai (20x9-5%)<br />Sammael &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.&#8230;.9 Aes Sedai<br />Aginor, Rahvin, Taim, Logain&#8230;&#8230;.&#8230;8 Aes Sedai<br />Lanfear&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.&#8230;8 Aes Sedai<br />Be&#8217;lal, Balthamel, Asmodean&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..7 Aes Sedai <br />Cyndane, Alivia&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;...7 Aes Sedai<br />Graendal, Sharina&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;7 Aes Sedai<br />Semirhage, Mesaana, Nynaeve&#8230;&#8230;....6 Aes Sedai<br />Flinn, Grady&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.6 Aes Sedai<br />Moghedien, Neald&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;5 Aes Sedai<br />Torval, Gedwyn, Rochaid&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;5 Aes Sedai<br />Egwene, Aviendha, Elayne&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..4 Aes Sedai<br />Cadsuane&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..3 Aes Sedai<br />Moiraine, Siuan, average Ash&#8217;aman&#8230;3 Aes Sedai<br />Average sister&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;. .2 Aes Sedai<br />Weak sister&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;1 Aes Sedai (stronger)<br /><br />Remember, this is only if you want a 100% chance at success &#8211; and even then your target may attempt to slice your weaves. Rand may be able to slice the shield generated by nine linked Aes Sedai before it settles on him, and therefore 13 would be a safer number to ensure that he can&#8217;t even do this. These numbers only mean that this circle would be able to cut the channeler off from the Source if they didn&#8217;t resist. Although it would take six Aes Sedai to shield Nynaeve, we already know that she and Moghedien were trying to shield one another. The chances of shielding decrease as your strength advantage decreases, and it is also possible that you open yourself up to shielding when dueling because the Power may wax and wane and you release it in weaves e.g. Nynaeve-Moghedien, Nynaeve-Talaan.<br /><br />Sometimes the formulae are borderline. To shield a strong Ash&#8217;aman with a strength of 40, you need 66.4 strength which is too much for three Aes Sedai. However, if one or two of the Aes Sedai are slightly stronger e.g. Verin, Alanna, Katerine, then you can pull it off with 3 Aes Sedai. And then to maintain the shield on them&#8230;<br /><br />Rand, Ishamael, Demandred&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;... 4 Aes Sedai (20x4-5%)<br />Sammael&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..4 Aes Sedai<br />Aginor, Rahvin, Taim, Logain&#8230;&#8230;....4 Aes Sedai<br />Lanfear&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;3 Aes Sedai<br />Be&#8217;lal, Balthamel, Asmodean&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.3 Aes Sedai <br />Cyndane, Alivia&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..3 Aes Sedai<br />Graendal, Sharina&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;...&#8230;3 Aes Sedai<br />Semirhage, Mesaana, Nynaeve&#8230;&#8230;...3Aes Sedai<br />Flinn, Grady&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;3 Aes Sedai<br />Moghedien, Neald&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;...2 Aes Sedai<br />Torval, Gedwyn, Rochaid&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;...2 Aes Sedai<br />Average Ash&#8217;aman &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.&#8230;2 Aes Sedai<br />Egwene, Aviendha, Elayne &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;2 Aes Sedai<br />Cadsuane&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.1 Aes Sedai<br />Moiraine, Siuan &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.1 Aes Sedai<br />Average sister	&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;1 Aes Sedai<br />Weak sister &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.1 Aes Sedai <br /><br />The gaps become far closer when you are merely maintaining the shield. Four average Aes Sedai can maintain the shield on any channeler, but six are usually used on channelers of great strength to prevent the inconvenience of them destroying the two hard knots caused by the absence of two sisters. These numbers only apply to channelers at their maximum potential. Nynaeve was held by two sisters in TPoD, and Egwene by one sister in the KoD prologue. When they reach their potentials, more sisters will have to be added. Egwene may be reaching her potential because Silviana refuses to allow only one sister to guard her in KoD. Hence her command to place two Red Ajah sisters in charge of Egwene (just in case).<br /><br /><b><u>Compared to the One Power Strength FAQ </u></b><br /><br />Strength	Level on FAQ<br />100		<br />95<br />90<br />85		L1 	(Lanfear)<br />80<br />75		L2,3 	(Cyndane, Alivia)<br />70		L3 	(Graendal)<br />65		L4,5 	(Semirhage, Mesaana, Nynaeve)<br />60<br />55		L5,6  	(Someryn, Moghedien)<br />50<br />45		L6 	(Tamela and Viendre)<br />40		L7 	(Elayne, Egwene, Aviendha, Metarra)<br />38		L8 	(Bode)<br />35<br />30		L8	(Cadsuane, Therava)<br />29		L9	(Kerene)<br />28		L9 	(Meilyn, Nicola)<br />25		L10	(Moiraine, Siuan, Romanda, Lelaine, Elaida)<br />24		L11 	(Sheriam)<br />23		L12	(Anaiya, Myrelle)<br />22		L13	(Delana, Liandrin, Katerine)<br />21		L14	(Alanna, Verin, Alviarin) &#8230; can Travel<br />20		L15	(Chesmal, Elza)<br />15-20		L16	(Vandene, Adeleas, Kairen, Temaile)<br />10		L17	(Siuan)<br />8		L18,19	(Daigian)<br />5		<br />3		L20	(Sorilea)<br />&lt;1		L21	(Morgase)<br /><br />Our list doesn&#8217;t correlate directly with Linda&#8217;s. There are some channelers with contentious strength issue whom we have placed in other spaces. The most important aspect is to see how most of the levels fall within the average women&#8217;s strength. The majority of Aes Sedai have a strength of 20 or less and therefore fit into levels 15 and 16. We know that the vast majority of Aes Sedai can&#8217;t Travel (L14) and Jordan only really reveals weak channelers to provide scale for the stronger ones.<br /><br />Aes Sedai probably rank their strength on small differences in the Power. If you consider that Siuan and Moiraine were the strongest in the Power, and Aes Sedai like Vandene and Adeleas the weakest (Daigian is a rare exception), then the entire strength scale of Aes Sedai falls between 8 and 25. Therefore a difference of 1 or 2 is enough for deference. Channelers like Elayne or Nynaeve throw a spanner into the works when they arrive &#8211; and their strength is marveled at because they are so many &#8216;levels&#8217; higher according to the traditional Aes Sedai scales. Contrast this to the Forsaken who probably use differences like 5, 10 or 15 to distinguish variants in strength. Consider how Graendal thinks that all the Wise Ones present have negligible strength except for Someryn. She frankly ignores all the weaker levels, as does Rand on several occasions.<br /><br /><b><u>The Forsaken </u></b><br /><br />The Forsaken are difficult to place in the strength hierarchy for the following reasons &#8230;<br /><br />1.	it is difficult comparing males and females<br />2.	each Forsaken thinks they are as worthy as any other<br />3.	they aren&#8217;t truthful in several instances, so why should strength in the Power be different?<br />4.	they use skill and Talents to override any deficiency which might be present making the estimation of their raw strength very difficult.<br /><br />We have discussed every Forsaken in detail and the reason for their placement. We don&#8217;t believe it is too far from their true strengths. We do feel, however, that the female Forsaken are all weaker than the male Forsaken in raw strength (except Lanfear). Jordan has made it obvious that the male Forsaken are probably stronger. As we mentioned in the relevant sections regarding male and female strength, males appear to be one level stronger with the strongest men stronger than the strongest women too. If we just look at the tactical differences between the males and females, we see that this fact is barely hidden, if at all. All the males have decided to directly challenge Rand &#8211; Asmodean, Sammael, Ishamael, Be&#8217;lal, Rahvin and Aginor. Lanfear has too, but she is so strong that she should be considered the pinnacle of female strength. Graendal, the strongest after Lanfear has mentioned that she would never face Rand directly, and the other women have made no effort to directly face him like the men have.<br /><br />If men are so strong, then why are there any female Forsaken? Firstly, Forsaken competition rarely boils down to outright combat and usually occurs using assassination, plotting and backstabbing. Despite Semirhage&#8217;s strength of 65 and Sammael&#8217;s strength of 90, she is more than capable of killing him with a fraction of her strength. However, the males tend to compete with one another and the females with the females. This is not unexpected really. A male will rather face another male of equal strength where he can see the attacks, than face a weaker woman where everything is invisible. Rand clearly mentioned that his skills with the Power were reduced to nothing when facing Lanfear because he couldn&#8217;t see any of her attacks until the last moment &#8211; before he had to desperately fight them off. I don&#8217;t think Mesaana and Rahvin would cherish fighting one another. It would be like two people trying to stab one another in the dark &#8211; both of you are going to get hurt, and the victor might not necessarily be the stronger of the two. KoD will probably reveal this point further, but it is likely that Semirhage and Graendal will never be able to stand against Rand with raw strength. They will have to use stealth, distraction and potent weaving to defeat him.<br /><br />The average male Forsaken strength is 87 and the average female strength is 68. The males are approximately 30% stronger on average &#8211; but this should be viewed with caution. Many of them like Ishamael, Demandred, Lanfear and Graendal have extremely rare strengths among their respective genders. As mentioned above, Forsaken strength appears to pale beside their various strengths and Talents. When Sammael and Graendal threaten to kill one another, Moridin doubts who will win. Both are extremely strong and both are Talented in certain areas. Graendal and Cyndane have both demonstrated that skill truly is far more important than strength (within limits).<br /><br /><b><u>Conclusions </u></b><br /><br />We have attempted to make a linear strength list which includes the males and females of the series. A lot of the information is based on nothing more than educated assumptions, and a lot on verifiable fact. In the end all we tried to achieve was a list which held true in the vast majority of the situations which occurred in the series. It will be interesting to see whether our assumptions on strength, shielding and other phenomena are proven true in the last two books of the series. <br /><br /><b><u>Acknowledgements </u></b><br /><br />Firstly to Shannow who spent the past several months debating these issues with me. Our innumerable posts and discussions could probably fill a book. Jacques, thanks for discussing almost every issue with me. Your knowledge in this area is unique.<br /><br />Secondly to Linda Sedai who edited this whole theory and made suggestions. We also engaged in several discussions regarding the Ash&#8217;aman and the Aes Sedai and I&#8217;m extremely grateful for her insight and contribution. Thanks Linda!<br /><br />All thoughts are welcome.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-09-09 04:08:39
subject: The Purpose of the Song
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<p><b>Introduction</b><br /><br />In this theory I will show how the Song will be used. It&#8217;s quite a short theory and by my standards very straightforward. There&#8217;s very little to support it, except for a few quotes and a sound bit of reasoning.<br /><br /><b>Curing the Blight</b><br /><br />And this is it. The Blight has been described many times as a desecration of land, with only the hardiest of plants living there. It is a haven for nasties and without the aid of some external help, I doubt it would ever get better, which in needs to for the continuity of the land. The area around Shayol Ghul must always be the place that the Dark One emerges, as this (as far as we know) is the only place where the Pattern is thinner. Yet when the Dark One was released in the Age of Legends, Shayol Ghul wasn&#8217;t blighted, indeed it was even a &#8216;haven&#8217;.<br /><br />BWB, pg 53:<br /><i> &#8216;Shayol Ghul - his touch had already transformed it from an idyllic island in a cool sea to a desolate waste&#8217; </i><br /><br />If we&#8217;re presuming that the Blight cannot Heal itself then, we must ask ourselves how it can get &#8216;better&#8217;. There must be a Blight created with every time the Dark One is freed, yet we don&#8217;t have anything similar in our world and no deserts do NOT count! There is a fair bit of evidence to prove that the Blight hasn&#8217;t been getting better, even during the Dark One&#8217;s three or four thousand year absence.<br /><br />BWB, pg 198:<br /><br /><i> &#8216;Seanchan also shares the Blight, though it is less dangerous here, as Trollocs and Myrddraal were wiped out&#8230;the corruption of the place is the same as within out own Blight&#8217; </i><br /><br />Here it says that the Blight in Seanchan is, eviromentally, the same as our own Blight, the only reason it&#8217;s known as the &#8216;Lesser&#8217; is, because it is devoid of Trollocs and Myrddraal. Surely if the land was able to heal itself from the Dark One&#8217;s touch, it would have done se here. It has had three thousand years far away from the Dark One and hasn&#8217;t seemed to have gotten better.<br /><br />The Blight can be alikened to a cancer upon the land (I would say disease, but I know I read somewhere that diseases were incurable). Without external aid, cancer will kill a person and so the Blight needs healing and there is also the plants within the Blight to be considered.<br /><br />EoTW, The Blight:<br /><i> &#8216;Sickly mottled the red of the new growth, and black flecks like disease&#8217; <br /><br />&#8216;Leaves covered the trees with greater profusion, but stained and spotted with yellow and black, with livid red streaks like blood poisoning. Every leaf and creeper seemed bloated and ready burst at touch. Flowers hung on trees and weeds in a parody of spring, sickly pale and pulpy, waxen things that seemed to be rotting while Rand watched. When he breathed through his nose the sweet stench of decay. Heavy and thick sickened him; when he tried breathing through his mouth he almost gagged. The air tasted like a mouthful of bad meat.&#8217; </i><br /><br />The Song I think, will change all this, it does appear to be an agricultural power, perfect for restoring the Blight. I think that when the Dark One is defeated, the Ogiers will sing in happiness or whatever that they&#8217;ve won and then Rand will join in, remembering the song from his visions in Rhuidean and the Tinkers will sort of recognise it and join in. Then the surviving Aiel will raise their voices in unison and the Song will heal the land. They&#8217;ll all join hands and sway by shiny, happy people.<br /><br />TSR, The Dedicated:<br /><i> &#8216;The Ogier began it, as was fitting, standing to sing, great bass rumbles like the earth singing. The Aiel rose, men&#8217;s voices lifting in their own song, even the deepest at a higher pitch than the Ogier&#8217;s. Yet the songs braided together, and Someshta took those threads and wove them into his dance, gliding across the field in swooping strides.&#8217; </i><br /><br /> So I admit, the Nym thing is a problem as there appears to be none left. However the Ogier have shown that they can tree-sing without the aid of the Nym to similar effects, so they may not need the Nym at all. Perhaps they&#8217;re all about the interpretative dance.<br /><br />And that&#8217;s it.<br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


created: 2005-09-13 05:40:01
subject: Aviendha's Gateway
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<p><center>Aviendha&#8217;s Gateway</center><br /><br />The purpose of this theory is to show that Aviendha&#8217;s gateway to the Kin Farm was a very special gateway. By the end of this theory I hope I have convinced you that there is something completely unique to Aviendha&#8217;s gateway. I will present three different bodies of evidence, the first circumstantial, the other two more empirical. <br /><br />The first piece of evidence is quite circumstantial. All of Rand&#8217;s young female &#8220;acquaintances&#8221; are extraordinarily talented. Min sees auras and frequently knows what they portend. Elayne, besides being a very strong channeler, can make ter&#8217;angreal, a talent lost since the Age of Legends. Egwene, equally strong in the One Power, is a Dreamwalker, has had some success in interpreting her Dreams, and is also quite talented in manipulating T&#8217;A&#8217;R. Nynaeve, is not only one of the strongest female channelers ever, but is also an extraordinary healer, having even Healed stilling, a feat not thought possible even in the Age of Legends. <br /><br />This leaves Aviendha. Robert Jordan has shown over and over that he likes symmetry. Everyone else has a special talent. It is highly unlikely that only Aviendha lacks one. <br /><br />So far Jordan has revealed no extraordinary talents of hers. Or has he? What about the ability to pick apart a weave? According to Moridin this was unknown in the Age of Legends also. <br /><blockquote>&quot;He was about to turn away when the outlines of the gateway suddenly began to flex and tremble. Transfixed, he watched until the opening simply - melted.&quot;.... &quot;What had the woman done? These barbarous rustics offered too many surprises. A way to Heal being severed, however imperfectly. That was impossible! Except they had done it&quot;.... &quot;but whenever he thought he had the measure of them, these <i>primitives</i> revealed some new skill, did something that no one in his own Age had dreamed of. Something the pinnacle of civilization had not known! What had the girl done?&quot;.... &quot;Coldly he considered the possibility that he had been within sight of an unraveling web. One that had been unmade successfully. Another impossibility casually offered up by these...&quot; tPoD chapt. 2 &#8220;Unweaving&#8221;</blockquote><br />Picking apart a weave was unknown in the Age of Legends, in the Westlands and amongst the Sea Folk. However, it is quite common amongst the Aiel.<br /><blockquote>&#8220;Is this another thing you Aes Sedai cannot do? The Wise Ones say any woman can learn, if she is taught, some women more some less, but any woman, if she can pick out embroidery.&#8221; tPoD chapt. 1 &#8220;To Keep the Bargain&#8221;.</blockquote><br />Obviously picking apart a weave isn&#8217;t terribly unique, at least to the Aiel. So Aviendha&#8217;s unique talent is not that. Still, she must have one, what is it? <br /><br />We know from the FAQ that Aviendha is as powerful channeler as either Elayne or Egwene. (http://www.wotmania.com/faqtopic.asp?ID=75) Yet she is having considerable difficulty in making a gateway. <br /><blockquote>&#8220;The gateway filled her with dissatisfaction. Elayne could make this weave with only a part of her strength, yet for some reason it required all but a fraction of Aviendha&#8217;s.&#8221; tPoD &#8220;To Keep the Bargain&#8221;.</blockquote><br />Why does it take so much of Aviendha&#8217;s power? Some would say that it&#8217;s because Aviendha has a block of sorts due to the trauma associated with the first time she made a gateway, to run from Rand. I believe differently. This particular gateway of Aviendha&#8217;s not only allowed people to Travel from Ebou Dar to the Kin farm, but also backwards in time. <br /><br />Obviously, to prove this we have to pay close attention to the time frame in which all this happened. First let us look at what time the gateway was opened. The first clue of the time is when Mat is arguing with the Windfinders about the necessity of leaving Ebou Dar and the gholam behind. <br /><blockquote>&quot;'We are bloody well getting out of here now,' Mat said, again later, and this time there was argument. There had been argument for the past half-hour near enough. Outside, the sun was past its noon peak.&quot; CoS chapt. 39 &#8220;Promises to Keep&#8221;.</blockquote> <br />The argument lasts another &#189; hour at the most, until all are agreed to Travel to the Kin Farm. It doesn&#8217;t take long for everybody to get organized though, as Aviendha, Elayne and Nynaeve go to the palace courtyard the sun is still just past its peak.<br /><blockquote>&#8220;When Aviendha and the others appeared, Renaile din Calon ostentatiously looked to the sun, past its noon peak.&quot; tPoD chapt. 1 &#8220;To Keep the Bargain&#8221;</blockquote><br /><br />Aviendha makes the gateway to a spot a few miles north of Ebou Dar. Note that it is only a few miles north of the city. I&#8217;ll get back to this point later. The first real evidence we have that something strange has happened is when Elayne notices that the sun seems lower in the sky than it should.<br /><blockquote>&quot;'We&#8217;re safe and in a few hours we will reach the Kin&#8217;s farm, we&#8217;ll use the Bowl, and the world will be right again.' Well, somewhat. The sun seemed lower than it had in the stable yard, but she knew that was only imagination. <i>For once, they had gained a clear jump on the Shadow.</i>&quot; tPoD chapt. 2 &#8220;Unweaving&#8221;</blockquote><br />Italics mine. Note that RJ has left us with a little hint here in his &quot;jump on the Shadow&quot; remark.<br /><br />Elayne and Co. ride for quite a while, eventually arriving at the Kin farm. It is here that we come across our second clue that time is not quite right. <br /><blockquote>&#8220;Nynaeve made several more brief visits, before finally coming to announce that the Kin&#8217;s farm lay just ahead, out of sight around a low rounded hill that appeared ready to fall on its side. Reanne had been pessimistic in her estimate; the sun had not fallen nearly two hours worth.&#8221; tPoD chapt. 3 &#8220;A Pleasant Ride&#8221;</blockquote> <br />Let&#8217;s look at these two clues closely. Could Elayne have been mistaken? Well yes, she could have. But would RJ take the time to point out that Elayne has bad time sense? Not likely. Possibly, it took longer for everybody to file thru the gateway than Elayne expected. However from RJ&#8217;s account the exodus seemed well planned and expedited.<br /><blockquote>&#8220;The departure had been carefully planned, and the whole stableyard sprang into motion as soon as the gateway opened fully.&#8221; tPoD chapt 1 &#8220;To Keep the Bargain&#8221;</blockquote><br />If that is not enough proof we have Moridin's PoV<br /><blockquote>&quot;Something Madic had said caught his ear. 'The weather, Madic?&quot; The shadows of the palace spires had barely lengthened from their bases, but there was not a cloud to shield the baking sun.&quot; tPoD chapt. 2 &quot;Unweaving&quot;.</blockquote><br />The fact that the shadows had hardly lengthened at all clearly proves that the expedition moved quickly through the gateway.<br /><br />So it is doubtful that the time it took everybody to get thought the gateway was the cause for this lower sun. What about the earth&#8217;s curve? Could that have had any effect? No. Note that they are only going a few miles north of the city. Not east or west, and only a few miles at that. They would have had to Travel many miles east or west for there to be any effect in the sun&#8217;s angle. We can also rule out altitude for the same reason. You would need to climb quite high for the sun&#8217;s angle to change noticeably, and they were only several hundred feet higher than Ebou Dar. There are no mountains high enough near Ebou Dar to cause that kind of change. <br /><br />But, wait a moment you say. Didn&#8217;t Elayne think that the sun was <i>lower</i>? Doesn&#8217;t that mean that more time has passed? Not necessarily, it was somewhat past noon. If going through Aviendha&#8217;s gateway changed time more than an hour or so the sun would seem to be lower as it would still be before noon.<br /><br />The second clue is even harder to explain away. The Kin farm has been in existence for a long time. Obviously Reanne has been there many times. It is extremely doubtful that she would have misjudged time so badly. And if she had erred, it most likely would have been to estimate a shorter time. It is a large group and a significant part of it, the Windfinders, have had no experience riding at all. If anything the ride should have taken a much longer time, not shorter. <br /><br />However to base a theory this earth-shattering on only these two clues, makes for thin proof. All we have so far are the somewhat objective observations of only one character. For the most incontrovertible evidence we have to go back to Crown of Swords and look at what is happening there in conjunction with what has happened at the Kin Farm.<br /><br />Right after Mat&#8217;s &#8220;bargain&#8221; with the Windfinders, everybody goes off to get ready to leave Ebou Dar. Unfortunately, Olver has gone off to run with the street urchins. Everybody offers to help search, but Mat sends Elayne and Co. off to the Kin farm. <br /><blockquote>&quot;'The Bowl is too important,' he told them. 'That gholam is still out there, and maybe Moghedien, and the Black Ajah for sure.' The dice thundered in his head. Aviendha would not appreciate being lumped in with Nynaeve and Elayne, but he did not care right then. He addressed Lan and Birgitte. 'Keep them safe until I can reach you. Keep them all safe.'&quot; CoS chapt. 39 &#8220;Promises to Keep&#8221;.</blockquote> <br />Note that at this time it is still only slightly after high noon. <br /><br />The search is quickly organized. As soon as he leaves Elayne and Nynaeve he meets with his Redarms.<br /><blockquote>&#8220;Everybody goes in a different direction. Make loops out from the Mol Hara, and try to be back after about an hour. Wait till everybody is back before you go out again. That way, if somebody finds him, the rest of us won&#8217;t still be looking tomorrow.&#8221; CoS chapt 39 &#8220;Promises to Keep&#8221;</blockquote><br />The search for Olver is on. The rest of the chapter is devoted to Mat&#8217;s search for Olver. Until he meets up with the Seanchan invasion that is. It is <i>very</i> significant to note that he <i>never</i> went back to Mol Hara. In other words, <i>the time Mat spent searching for Olver was less than an hour</i> before the Seanchan invasion landed. <br /><br />In the same time period, Elayne and Co. have Traveled by gateway, had a ride which Reanne said should take about two hours, arrived at the Kin farm, quelled a panic at the farm, organized who would take part in using the Bowl of Winds, sorted through the collection of junk, ter&#8217;angreal and angreal, demonstrated linking for the Windfinders, and <i>then</i> used the Bowl of Winds! It wasn&#8217;t until <i>after</i> the Bowl of Winds had been used that the Seanchan invaded. They all feel the saidar being weaved by the Seanchan damane, and they see two tor&#8217;raken, one of which they kill. Renaile tries to open a gateway to her ship from the hilltop, which fails, and Elayne convinces her the Bargain isn&#8217;t yet complete.<br /><blockquote>&#8220;But most of all you aren&#8217;t going anywhere except with us, because our bargain isn&#8217;t complete; the Bowl of the Winds is not yours until the weather is right.&#8221; ...&#8221;And because you made a bargain with Matrim Cauthon, my subject. You go voluntarily where I want you to, or you go tied to a packsaddle. Those were the choices you accepted. So, get down this hill now Renaile din Calon Blue Star, before the Seanchan sweep down on us with an army and a few hundred women who can channel and would like nothing better than to see us collared alongside them. Now! Run!&#8221; tPoD chapt. 5 &#8220;The Breaking Storm&#8221;</blockquote><br />The one event which is common to both Mat and Elayne&#8217;s experiences is the arrival of the Seanchan invasion. For Mat it took place less than an hour after the women left through Aviendha&#8217;s gateway; for Elayne and Co. the time span was at least two hours longer! How can that be? The only difference between the two is that Elayne and Co. Traveled through Aviendha&#8217;s gateway. As miraculous as that sounds, Aviendha wove a gateway that took Elayne&#8217;s group back in time at least two hours or more. <br /><br />To sum up. Aviendha&#8217;s gateway to the farm allowed people to Travel both spatially and through time. We have Elayne&#8217;s observations of the sun to prove this. But more importantly if we look at both Mat&#8217;s experiences in CoS and Elayne&#8217;s in tPoD we see that there is a discrepancy of over two hours in time. The only difference is Aviendha&#8217;s gateway, therefore Aviendha&#8217;s gateway also allows one to travel in time. <br /><br />Thank you for reading, and all comments are appreciated<br /><br /><br /><br />NaClH2O <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> </p>


