Explain to me how Moghedien is only 60% of Lanfear and managed to do anything? - Edit 1
Before modification by darius_sedai at 28/01/2011 06:28:43 PM
While Nynaeve is stronger than Moghedien, that means nothing if Moghedien is indeed barely 60-70% as strong as Lanfear, as is MY contention. 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.
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.
I'm rationalizing the inconsistency in the books. Logain is not stronger than Rand at this point in the series ... Rand was already strong enough to face any of the FS males at this point (he'd killed off Rahvin just before in fact). Later quotes about the weakest sisters given these types of tasks just reinforce the point.
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.
No it does not. Nynaeve's shield was about to break, but we have no clue how much effort Logain was making, nor do we know how good Nynaeve is at shielding, she did after all fail to shield Elayne, which if she was as much stronger as you claim she should not have had a problem with.
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.
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.
1.5x Daigian is a significant margin! that's a 50% increase in strength over Daigian, try 1.1x-1.2x Daigian for these women!
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.
So the calculation that makes Nynaeve 8 times as strong as Dagian is an extremely conservative one using this logic.
No that would make all of these women probably stronger than Siuan is now, and that's very unlikely.
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.
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.
Firstly, Nynaeve could not hold the shield on Logain so she is clearly not as strong as the 6 combined that did hold the shield
Secondly you have claimed that Daigian is a 10 in strength (which I think is conservative, but I'll use it for this purpose). 5 women at 1.5x her would be 75 and should have been able to hold any man. But 5 women who are 1.2x Daigian (total of 60) would not have been able to hold him but add in a 6th at that level and he's contained by the combined 72 ... certainly there will be variations here (linking benefits, shielding Talents etc), but when you compare to Rand (where the same variables exist) ... the 4 women holding him were likely much closer to 2x Daigian, so an 80 combined, but once they lost that extra 20 he shattered a 60 shield.
This would fit the bonfire candle quote.
Nothing really supports that quote except Moiraine's hyperbole ... face it that quote has never been literal and wasn't meant to be. If it was Nynaeve would be 10,000x Egwene and we all know that's not the case.
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.</quuote>
No one is contesting these things, it's a matter of the scale we use, not the facts from the book, it's clear that Egwene is approximately 2x Sheriam (Amys+Melaine) and that Moiraine is about 3x Daigian. The question has always been where do the Forsaken level women fit on that Scale ... I say 2x Moiraine you think more than that.
We have no idea if Nynaeve's shield was able to duplicate the effect of those 5 women. Logain put no effort into it and Nynaeve herself noted that it was a very slow build that bent her shield with no real effort then wondered what would happen if he put any effort into it! All we are told about the shielding effect later is that 6 women could hold the shield, but that if it had been 5 he could have broken free ... no idea if that would have been easy or if that would have been a struggle for Logain.
What we can see from the book is that Nynaeve's shield really had no chance of holding Logain if he had chosen to break it.
It would fit with the fact that Dagian is half as strong as the average sister and a third as strong as Moiraine.</quuote>
No one is contesting these things, it's a matter of the scale we use, not the facts from the book, it's clear that Egwene is approximately 2x Sheriam (Amys+Melaine) and that Moiraine is about 3x Daigian. The question has always been where do the Forsaken level women fit on that Scale ... I say 2x Moiraine you think more than that.
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.
It really does fit the evidence perfectly.
We have no idea if Nynaeve's shield was able to duplicate the effect of those 5 women. Logain put no effort into it and Nynaeve herself noted that it was a very slow build that bent her shield with no real effort then wondered what would happen if he put any effort into it! All we are told about the shielding effect later is that 6 women could hold the shield, but that if it had been 5 he could have broken free ... no idea if that would have been easy or if that would have been a struggle for Logain.
What we can see from the book is that Nynaeve's shield really had no chance of holding Logain if he had chosen to break it.