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If you go back and read the descriptions of the breaking, and think about the 3000 year cycle newyorkersedai Send a noteboard - 20/08/2010 04:37:02 PM
it will make more, if not perfect, sense. The entire world turned into a giant wasteland. Places that used to be in harbor were suddenly 2000 feet in the air, or 1500 feet under water. More likely, they were gone altogether. Continents were completely remade and shifted, for god's sake.

Rand's ancestors' memories of the Breaking pretty much set it up for you to understand. Society was reduced to people with wagons and horses and carts and junk like that. And remember that Ogier were helping out some of the un-crazy men; but once they missed saidin too much, they went out into the world and made a new damn mess.

RJ has said several times that part of why things didn't get too awful - like Dark Ages awful - is that printing wasn't lost (or wasn't lost for long). That allowed books to keep coming out and make people's brains better. But remember that there were also the Trolloc Wars later on - and that those apparently also came close to wiping out all the humans in Randland.

It doesn't make much sense that some people - like the two ancient Aes Sedai at Rhuidean - couldn't preserve their knowledge in some ways. Surely they would have had a lot to add, or even put into a book. But maybe channeling isn't something that can be taught through words and diagrams. Maybe they were scared about DF channelers getting their hands on those same weaves! Actually, I think there's decent odds that some of those things still exist in Seanchan - it clearly sounds like some of the old AoL magic wasn't lost on that weird and isolated continent.

Let's talk about some of the weaves that have been 'lost' since the AoL.

Travelling/Skimming, Compulsion, Balefire, Creating Cuendillar, Creating Angreal.

For most of these weaves it makes no sense how they got lost. I can see Balefire and Compulsion being forbidden, and once the Aes Sedai who knew them died.. Even so, even if they were forbidden, you would think some book somewhere in the Tower would explain them. Even forbidden losing knowledge forever should be obscene to an Aes Sedai, especially of the Brown Ajah.

Something like Travelling I do not see hot that would become lost at all. Every Aes Sedai would use that weave, and there are a lot in this day and age who can use it by themselves, so the theory that the Aes Sedai werent strong enough to use it is moot.

Maybe creating things from Cuendillar could be passed off as "well, most women had no strength in Earth", this is hairy at best because there are plenty of women who were in the Tower in Exile that could do it, Egwene being one, and Leane being another and Nicola and more. So it just got erased too?

Same with Angreal. You're going to forget and/or not pass down how to create them? Even if noone was strong enough to do it in thousands of years, noone will even write it down?

There's a million theories we could make say, but all seem weak.

'They were too busy to write them down'

' They never write a weave down'

' All the strongest died and noone's been strong enough in 3-4 thousands years until now (all of a sudden)'

None of those really fly with me. For one thing it seems like there is an immense amount of strong channelers today even though channelers breeding with channelers purposely has been out since the AoL. So does anyone have any idea besides just that it was more suspenseful and exciting for RJ to make them all get 'discovered' in this day and age?


This message last edited by newyorkersedai on 20/08/2010 at 04:37:24 PM
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How were all these amazing weaves 'lost' ? - 20/08/2010 04:33:43 AM 1625 Views
Ishamael may have had a hand in that... - 20/08/2010 04:45:39 AM 997 Views
Agreed. - 20/08/2010 10:01:37 AM 898 Views
Lost Weaves - 20/08/2010 01:43:25 PM 966 Views
Re: Lost Weaves *NM* - 20/08/2010 01:45:30 PM 485 Views
Not logical - 20/08/2010 01:50:32 PM 961 Views
Re: Not logical - 20/08/2010 03:22:04 PM 793 Views
All I'm saying, is that Travelling would STILL be a very usefull survival tool during the Breaking.. - 20/08/2010 03:44:59 PM 919 Views
All good points also. - 20/08/2010 03:48:49 PM 1262 Views
Re: Not logical - 20/08/2010 03:45:55 PM 753 Views
Re: Not logical - 21/08/2010 04:20:41 AM 679 Views
you may have hit onto something with your last statement - 21/08/2010 05:06:59 PM 773 Views
Re: you may have hit onto something with your last statement - 23/08/2010 05:09:06 PM 687 Views
If you go back and read the descriptions of the breaking, and think about the 3000 year cycle - 20/08/2010 04:37:02 PM 838 Views
I don't think that creating cuendillar and 'angreals was common knowledge. - 20/08/2010 05:06:20 PM 785 Views
The need to learn a location to travel - 20/08/2010 05:58:48 PM 729 Views
They could use Rand's trick from TGS. - 21/08/2010 01:06:33 AM 690 Views
My only theory... - 20/08/2010 06:02:14 PM 730 Views
The Strongest Died seems like a pretty valid theory to me... - 20/08/2010 06:14:29 PM 889 Views
Maybe Aes Sedai treated weaves like Intellectual Property - 20/08/2010 09:49:12 PM 716 Views
Trademark? Patent? Or Copyright? =P *NM* - 20/08/2010 10:19:36 PM 326 Views
It doesn't have to be logical... - 20/08/2010 11:50:17 PM 857 Views
Idea? - 21/08/2010 12:47:52 AM 647 Views
But they weren't too weak - 21/08/2010 02:48:43 AM 723 Views
That's because most of the major people in WoT are powerful channelers. - 21/08/2010 04:13:04 AM 721 Views
How can you "write a weave down"? - 21/08/2010 04:54:28 PM 768 Views
How did Moiraine learn balefire then? *NM* - 21/08/2010 05:04:27 PM 1009 Views
figured it out on her own, don't forget that Nyn used it too against the Fades in TDR. *NM* - 21/08/2010 05:12:15 PM 360 Views
That's a stretch - Moiraine never demonstrated any creative talent with the OP... - 21/08/2010 06:15:01 PM 709 Views
OK, I'll buy Vandene teaching it, but not learning it from a written description *NM* - 21/08/2010 06:35:46 PM 365 Views
I myself can't buy Vandene teaching that weave to any Sister - 24/08/2010 04:06:26 PM 740 Views
Me neither... - 24/08/2010 05:50:24 PM 782 Views
Mispost.. *NM* - 25/08/2010 02:51:02 PM 425 Views
I disagree - Moiraine's wilder tricks show that she is quite creative with the OP - 24/08/2010 03:31:06 PM 731 Views
Re: I disagree - Moiraine's wilder tricks show that she is quite creative with the OP - 24/08/2010 05:32:11 PM 1059 Views
But... - 24/08/2010 06:40:39 PM 699 Views
When did she use that? *NM* - 25/08/2010 09:34:31 AM 346 Views
We know of her trick with stones and light from 'New Spring' IIRC - 25/08/2010 02:40:26 PM 863 Views
Elayne did use Moiraine's coin trick. - 25/08/2010 06:09:27 PM 826 Views
Likely from Vandene - 21/08/2010 05:58:31 PM 1066 Views
Something no one else is mentioning... that I saw... - 21/08/2010 07:15:49 PM 826 Views
one thing i've noticed - 23/08/2010 06:37:48 PM 737 Views
Simple: none were necessary for survival in Stone Age barbarism. - 23/08/2010 09:12:40 PM 724 Views

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