Re: Re-read some stuff - Edit 1
Before modification by Sidious at 05/10/2012 12:20:54 PM
Egwene did not Heal Gawyn. She performed Healing weaves on him, but they were essentially ineffective.
His wounds closed, and his colour returned. Why would she even try if she was incapable?
Her solution wasn't to grab an angreal and try to heal him it was to find a woman with more Talent to do the job. No amount of extra power was going to save Gawyn.
Yes well, for the ten thousandth time, luckily I don't think this either. I'm saying an angreal may push her ability from 1% to 5%. Isn't it just easier to get someone who can actually Heal?
This isn't too different from when Sorilea was able to make the gateway weave, but could not make it work.
It's because Sorilea isn't strong enough in the Power! Have you missed all the quotes in the series from people saying that they are strong enough or not strong enough to Travel? You are clutching to one piece of evidence and ignoring a vast quantity of other equally important evidence.
Unlike Androl, she doesn't have a strong enough Talent to make the weave function enough to be useful.
Agreed! She doesn't have a Talent like Androl... so what is your point? I've never disputed that the Talent doesn't exist. Androl has a fantastic Talent with gateways. It merely seems like he's quite the exception. Look at how Aes Sedai take hours to to turn metal into cuendillar and yet Egwene takes a second to turn tons of iron chain into heartstone. That is a Talent, much like Androl's.
You place so much emphasis on this Talent for gateways and I totally understand where you are going with it. In fact, I think I found another example of a Talent i.e. Reanne in WH(expectation) also weaves large gateways, so she may be a female equivalent.
But you're also ignoring a lot of what I am saying. Siuan can't Travel. She gets a sa'angreal and she can Travel. Therefore increased strength can increase gateway size. This isn't even contentious!
Nor does Egwene have enough Talent to be an effective Healer.
So who disputed that?
Siuan is an average healer ... She managed to save Brynes soldiers which is significantly more than Sheriam, Egwene or Elayne can manage. The FACT that her ability to Heal changed not at all is because Talent doesn't change, it just is what it is. The Talent defines how much Power is necessary to make the weaves work, but no amount of additional power will let you have a greater effect than your Talent allows. S if you get a greater effect when you have an angreal it follows that your Talent is strong enough to continue to let you have an increased effect.
Fair enough, but essentially you are admitting that increasing the amount of Power also increases ability, which is what I have been claiming from the beginning. We have seen several examples where women use angreal to perform difficult complex tasks.
Flinn is one of the stronger Asha'man and openly states he has difficulty with Traveling.
So? He can still Travel. His gateways are not smaller than they should be either. I don't understand why you think that all things should be easy for all channelers and you take deficiency as a sign of evidence. Flinn also takes longer to return meaning spacially he is weak too.
Androl can make a gateway large enou for a WAGON ... Androl makes gateways like Rands! Flinn has a weaker Talent for Traveling and therefor struggles with the weave despite being able to add power to it. His comment makes it clear that based on his strength he thinks he should be able to make one larger.
Yes you are right about Androl - his gateways are as large as Osan'gar's at the least.
Flinn doesn't imply that - I read that whole section again. He implies that he needs to put more saidin in that he should. He wastes saidin.
Every single Talent we have seen so far has shown us degrees of ability ... There are no "abstract" Talents. Like every other Talent, Foretelling or Dreaming or Ter'angreal ability, if the Talent is there an individual will have a set amount of ability with it. For all we know Nynaeve and Aviendha have the same Talent as Elayne, but to different degrees. Nynaeve gets "feelings" Aviendha can sense "purpose" and Elayne seems to be able to sense "form" therefore she can reproduce them to a degree. Certainly the Talents that require no weaves operate differently, but it doesn't change that Elaida had a weak FT Talent and Nicola a strong FT Talent.
An abstract Talent means we can't measure it or see it. How does one measure Dreaming or pointing to a mine to see where metal is?
I would say every Talent we have seen that requires specific weaves are incredibly common Talents, but the variation in the Talent defines how well the weave is executed. Thus you have wildly swinging variations on the Healing Talent that doesn't seem to have any correlation to OP Strength.
Strength probably plays a part in most Talents, but I've always said that Talent is the main factor. The higher you go in strength the more likely you are to have a Talent, because your affinity to the Source increases. The Forsaken have more Talents together than most of the White Tower combined, and just look at Rand and his friends. The very weakest channelers have almost no Talents among them.
Traveling looks to be the same ... Else why bother showing Androl or tell us Flinn can't make a gateway as large as his OP strength says he should?
Well firstly, Flinn's passage does not say that and he's also pinning himself up against the world's greatest Traveller. Secondly, we've always know that there is a Travelling Talent - it's your application of it to the entire channeling population that is insane. You didn't get so hysterical when Berowin popped up, but Androl suddenly has you going all crazy.
There is now proof that the ability to Travel is not dependent on OP strength
Is that so? Well apart from Logain go and read the following...
Rand speaks about ACOS (Pitfalls and Tripwires)
Egwene speaks about it in LOC (possibilities)
the stronger the Talent the weaker the Channeler can be and still pull off the weave. Clearly an individual with "average" Talent needs to dedicate a certain amount of OP into the weave to give it enough juice to function, but that isn't surprising ... We've seen plenty of weaves that require a lot of power to operate.
I agree with you. But unlike you, I believe that everyone has an average Talent and they need strength to make the gateway work. Some have weaker Talents and they need to add more strength (Aviendha, Flinn) and others need less strength (Elayne). Others can make wildly disproportionate gateways (Androl, Reanne)
But assuming how large a gateway is will give you even a general sense of a Channelers strength is a mistake as a very strong Channeler may only be able to create a small personal gateway if they have a weak Talent. And like everything else in WoT this is probably on the rare side. Outliers like Androl are obviously very rare, but what about someone like Beonin? IIRC she was able to create a quite large gateway... Much larger than she should have been able too ... Very easy to think she may have a disproportionate Talent for her strength. Sort of like Samitsu being "as effective as a circle" with Healing.
I agree with you that the Talent may be around, but I don't think its as abundant as you say. I'd personally put it with Dreaming and Foretelling in commonality.
The WF have essentially inbred for 3000+ years and have become highly specialized in both knowledge and in genetic abilities. Over time they would have bred the Talent as well as the flow affinity into almost every woman. And please note it was the strength obsessed AS who made the call on the strongest women. It's clear that most Channelers from the modern era have not really pieced together that strength doesn't make much difference with Talents ... If they knew that they may have stepped back and given only WF a place in the use of the Bowl. Just like they did in the AoL ... Choose people for a circle based on their abilities rather than on strength.
Travelling is one place where strength can influence the ability sharply. Its been demonstrated for most of the series.