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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 1627 Views
Ishamael may have had a hand in that... - 20/08/2010 04:45:39 AM 1000 Views
Agreed. - 20/08/2010 10:01:37 AM 900 Views
Lost Weaves - 20/08/2010 01:43:25 PM 967 Views
Re: Lost Weaves *NM* - 20/08/2010 01:45:30 PM 485 Views
Not logical - 20/08/2010 01:50:32 PM 963 Views
Re: Not logical - 20/08/2010 03:22:04 PM 796 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 921 Views
All good points also. - 20/08/2010 03:48:49 PM 1263 Views
Re: Not logical - 20/08/2010 03:45:55 PM 754 Views
Re: Not logical - 21/08/2010 04:20:41 AM 680 Views
you may have hit onto something with your last statement - 21/08/2010 05:06:59 PM 774 Views
Re: you may have hit onto something with your last statement - 23/08/2010 05:09:06 PM 689 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 840 Views
I don't think that creating cuendillar and 'angreals was common knowledge. - 20/08/2010 05:06:20 PM 786 Views
The need to learn a location to travel - 20/08/2010 05:58:48 PM 730 Views
They could use Rand's trick from TGS. - 21/08/2010 01:06:33 AM 691 Views
My only theory... - 20/08/2010 06:02:14 PM 733 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 718 Views
Trademark? Patent? Or Copyright? =P *NM* - 20/08/2010 10:19:36 PM 327 Views
It doesn't have to be logical... - 20/08/2010 11:50:17 PM 860 Views
Idea? - 21/08/2010 12:47:52 AM 648 Views
But they weren't too weak - 21/08/2010 02:48:43 AM 725 Views
That's because most of the major people in WoT are powerful channelers. - 21/08/2010 04:13:04 AM 724 Views
How can you "write a weave down"? - 21/08/2010 04:54:28 PM 770 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 361 Views
That's a stretch - Moiraine never demonstrated any creative talent with the OP... - 21/08/2010 06:15:01 PM 710 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 742 Views
Me neither... - 24/08/2010 05:50:24 PM 783 Views
Mispost.. *NM* - 25/08/2010 02:51:02 PM 426 Views
I disagree - Moiraine's wilder tricks show that she is quite creative with the OP - 24/08/2010 03:31:06 PM 733 Views
Re: I disagree - Moiraine's wilder tricks show that she is quite creative with the OP - 24/08/2010 05:32:11 PM 1060 Views
But... - 24/08/2010 06:40:39 PM 700 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 865 Views
Elayne did use Moiraine's coin trick. - 25/08/2010 06:09:27 PM 828 Views
Likely from Vandene - 21/08/2010 05:58:31 PM 1067 Views
Something no one else is mentioning... that I saw... - 21/08/2010 07:15:49 PM 827 Views
one thing i've noticed - 23/08/2010 06:37:48 PM 738 Views
Simple: none were necessary for survival in Stone Age barbarism. - 23/08/2010 09:12:40 PM 726 Views

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