If you go back and read the descriptions of the breaking, and think about the 3000 year cycle - Edit 1
Before modification by newyorkersedai at 20/08/2010 04:37:24 PM
it will mske 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.
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?
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?