Yes - Edit 2
Before modification by malekithe at 31/01/2011 06:48:23 AM
wouldn't translate. That's what I thought Moghedien meant...
I agree, Im sure that Moghedian has said something to either Birgitte, or Nynaeve about how she could do anything to them in TAR and they would stay that way. Oh yes, she told Nynaeve that she would think she was a horse or a donkey and that she (Moggy) would ride on her back or somesuch. I think just like being killed in TAR kills you in real life (because you believe you've been killed, not because your body really was killed) whatever you beleive is done to you in TAR could affect you in the real world too.
I also got the impression that Eggy and Mesaana were trying to crush each other. The air thickening suggested it to me.
Even if Messy wasn't doing the same thing, I thought Egwene was definitely trying to "crush" Mesaana by the ultimate effect. The imagery - insect v mountain - as well as the Amyrlin's own words indicate it.
I got the same thing, each was sending their will against one another, and Egwene's will was dominant and crushed Messana's mind.
I didn't think that fight was really about just the adam... I trust your analyses, but did I read it that wrongly? Do you at least see what I read from the text, in either or both instances?
a) Egwene doesn't have the knowledge necessary to do nasty things like this in TAR, not even snatching people by force into TAR from their dreams.
b) Moghedien explained to Nynaeve her tricks would work only in TAR. They would not hold in the real world.
So that leaves Compulsion, a weave Egwene knows but won't use in any circumstance...
A scheme like this Egwene would find repugnant, and it would not naturally occur to her as for all her curiosity she's never gave much thought to "nasty stuff". Her curiosity just doesn't lean that way.
"I got that Eggy "made" Mesaana into a drooling vegetable"
She didn't destroy Mesaana's mind, their contest to control TAR (which Egwene won) is what destroyed Mesaana's mind. She didn't change Mesaana permanently by imagining her with a destroyed mind or anything of the kind. Mesaana fried up her own mind by trying to hold the reality of the a'dam while Egwene denied its reality. The stronger mind won, the loser's mind was fried up.