Circular logic... - Edit 1
Before modification by Shannow at 27/01/2011 09:50:44 PM
the 4 holding Rand clearly must have been stronger than the 5 who could not hold Logain.
We know at least Sashalle is reasonably strong for an AS since she's taken charge in Cairhien ...
The evidence is that 5 very weak women could not contain Logain, while 4 reasonably strong women (certainly well above Siuan) held Rand. We also know that none of these women were exceptionally strong since Sahsalle is clearly the strongest of them and she is only slightly above Samitsu, who's behavior points to her being weaker than Verin ... This probably means Sashalle is similar to Verin, combined with similar strength women 4 could hold Rand. Which equates to approximately 8x Daigian holding that shield ... and as soon as it dropped to 6x Daigian he shattered it.
Then we have similar situation with Semirhage. 3 women held her shield and it was considered "taking precautions" ... at one point one of the women was Daigian! Corele and Nesune are reasonably strong, but not at the top AS levels, ... but above average so maybe 2x Daigian ... if Semirhage, who is very close to Nynaeve, could be held, easily, by these 3 that would be approximately 6x Daigian strength and it was deemed as taking extra precaution. Meaning 4x Daigian would have been sufficient to hold her, and possibly 3x since there are other combinations of women who hold the shield and same sex shielding is supposedly easier.
Point here is that Nynaeve cannot be 10x Daigian, or even 8x Daigain or she would have been able to hold the shield on Logain. Nynaeve had not reached full potential by this point, but she was pretty darn close since she was already stronger than Moghedien.
We know at least Sashalle is reasonably strong for an AS since she's taken charge in Cairhien ...
The evidence is that 5 very weak women could not contain Logain, while 4 reasonably strong women (certainly well above Siuan) held Rand. We also know that none of these women were exceptionally strong since Sahsalle is clearly the strongest of them and she is only slightly above Samitsu, who's behavior points to her being weaker than Verin ... This probably means Sashalle is similar to Verin, combined with similar strength women 4 could hold Rand. Which equates to approximately 8x Daigian holding that shield ... and as soon as it dropped to 6x Daigian he shattered it.
Then we have similar situation with Semirhage. 3 women held her shield and it was considered "taking precautions" ... at one point one of the women was Daigian! Corele and Nesune are reasonably strong, but not at the top AS levels, ... but above average so maybe 2x Daigian ... if Semirhage, who is very close to Nynaeve, could be held, easily, by these 3 that would be approximately 6x Daigian strength and it was deemed as taking extra precaution. Meaning 4x Daigian would have been sufficient to hold her, and possibly 3x since there are other combinations of women who hold the shield and same sex shielding is supposedly easier.
Point here is that Nynaeve cannot be 10x Daigian, or even 8x Daigain or she would have been able to hold the shield on Logain. Nynaeve had not reached full potential by this point, but she was pretty darn close since she was already stronger than Moghedien.
You say Nynaeve MUST be close to her full potential, because she is already stronger than Moghedien. But at the same time, YOU are the one who claims that Moghedien is close to the stronger Forsaken in strength. So now you are backing up your own assertion with another of your own assertions.
While Nynaeve is stronger than Moghedien, that means nothing if Moghedien is indeed barely 60-70% as strong as Lanfear, as seems to be the case. Then Nynaeve could easily have a LOT of room to improve beyond that point. Which is my point, and which would show that the strength distribution is much more spread out than your theory suggests.
To address some of the specifics in your argument:
Here's some more circular reasoning:
You first said that the quote relating to Logain being able to break free from 5 women is inconsistent because Rand could not break free from 4 women. And then you say that this proves that the 5 women were weaker than Rand's 4 women, BECAUSE Logain could break free from them. Well, which is it? Either the quote is inconsistent with the evidence, or ONE possibility could be that Logain's women were weaker than Rand's women. It can't be both.
Either way, I gave a number of OTHER reasons why Rand was not in a state to utilize his full strength. Not to mention the possibility that Logain could in fact still have been STRONGER than Rand at this point in the series.
In any case, the comparison with Rand's case is unnecessary, because the Logain example is all we need for the purposes of establishing Nynaeve's strength.
Regarding Logain's women themselves: I have already given you the benefit of the doubt by giving them an average strength of only 1.5 times Daigian's strength.
That makes ALL of them weaker than the average Aes Sedai. Personally, I think that is a significant underestimation of their strength, as it is unlikely that ALL 6 women selected to shield a false Dragon would be below average strength, but I am willing to assume that, to prove my point.
By making them only 1.5 times Dagian's strength, I am saying that on average, they are ALL significantly weaker than the average Aes Sedai, who is about twice Dagian's strength.
So the calculation that makes Nynaeve 8 times as strong as Dagian is an extremely conservative one using this logic.
We have to take a step back at this point to remember that all we are doing here is to try and compare Nynaeve's strength to that of the 6 women who shielded Logain. Looking at the number of women who shielded Semirhage is irrelevant, because RJ has stated that it is much more difficult to shield someone of the opposite sex, than it is to shield someone of the same gender.
So we want to compare apples with apples here. 5 women conservatively estimated to each be 1.5 times Dagian's strength would have struggled to shield Logain, just like Nynaeve was barely able to shield him. So based on this comparisn, Nynaeve's strength would appear to be comparative to that of these 5 women.
Making her at least 8 times stronger than Daigian, 4 times stronger than the average Aes Sedai, and almost 3 times stronger than Moiraine. Even if Egwene is then close to twice as strong as Moiraine, this would make Nynaeve approximately 50% stronger than Egwene, which has been my contention all along.
This would fit the bonfire candle quote.
It would fit Aviendha's reference to Egwene being able to overwhelm Amys and Melaine combined.
It would fit with the fact that Dagian is half as strong as the average sister and a third as strong as Moiraine.
And it would fit with Nynaeve being able to duplicate the shielding effect of 5 linked sisters on Logain. Bearing in mind that there are benefits to a linked shield which makes it even HARDER to break than that of a single individual shielder.
It really does fit the evidence perfectly.