Oh don't get me started on "Air weaves"...(1,2,3, and "start" ) - Edit 1
Before modification by Dunstan at 01/02/2013 05:47:24 AM
...merely dazing them, instead of spinning a Fire weave and just killing them with exactly the same amount of time and effort, was very poor writing.
It would be like a good channeler is trying to shield a Shadow channeler with a weave of Spirit.
The Shadow channeler then blocks the Spirit weave, and retaliates with an "Air fist" which slams the Light side channeler into the wall, allowing both duelists to continue the battle in dramatic fashion.
In reality, a simple weave of Fire or Earth would have dealt instant death to the Light side channeler, but purely for the sake of how it would look on screen if it was a movie, Sanderson preferred the animated fighting sequences of duelists flying all over the place into walls and stuff as the battle continued.
In reality, a One Power shielding duel would be more like the Nynaeve Moghedien matchup in tSR, or the Nyaneve Talaan duel a few books later, where to a casual observer you would simply see two motionless, intently concentrating individuals facing each other with frowns on their faces as the weaves are being spun, parried and counterspun. Possibly with explosions of fire around them and walls around them being inicinerated. Or perhaps a sneaky dagger of Air, slicing through an opponent's throat.
The point is, if you can get an attacking weave through, it would far rather be a lethal weave than a Channeling 101 level fist of Air, that merely stuns your opponent.
This was especially jarring when the person spinning the Air fist was a Forsaken.
It would be like a good channeler is trying to shield a Shadow channeler with a weave of Spirit.
The Shadow channeler then blocks the Spirit weave, and retaliates with an "Air fist" which slams the Light side channeler into the wall, allowing both duelists to continue the battle in dramatic fashion.
In reality, a simple weave of Fire or Earth would have dealt instant death to the Light side channeler, but purely for the sake of how it would look on screen if it was a movie, Sanderson preferred the animated fighting sequences of duelists flying all over the place into walls and stuff as the battle continued.
In reality, a One Power shielding duel would be more like the Nynaeve Moghedien matchup in tSR, or the Nyaneve Talaan duel a few books later, where to a casual observer you would simply see two motionless, intently concentrating individuals facing each other with frowns on their faces as the weaves are being spun, parried and counterspun. Possibly with explosions of fire around them and walls around them being inicinerated. Or perhaps a sneaky dagger of Air, slicing through an opponent's throat.
The point is, if you can get an attacking weave through, it would far rather be a lethal weave than a Channeling 101 level fist of Air, that merely stuns your opponent.
This was especially jarring when the person spinning the Air fist was a Forsaken.
For just about all the books channelers were using "weaves of Air"(and fire for that matter, hell, the only reason they don't do it with the others is there not as easily available)in much the same way a green lantern uses their "light constructs", if less "imaginatively" as with the OP making the flows of Air your using to grape someone look like a giant hand would just be a wast of power.
With BS on the other hand... When a bunch of Sisters need protection from arrows, you know what they do?
They make a little bit of bloody wind blow around themselves...
That people who can make walls of Air said in the books to be "harder then steel"(and by WOG just flat out ignore anything mundane, so in function they might as well be heart stone to any non-channeler), think a little bit of wind is the best defense they have...
My biggest problem with this, is as BS would of actually read the books before he started writing them, I've got no bloody idea how he could of made this kind of screw up, the varies "weaves of Air" or some of the most often use weaves channelers HAVE.
We're talking "channeling 101" here, right next to "fire balls, and lightning".