"If Air barriers were infinitely strong then why did it take so many Aes Sedai to create the barrier to fend off the Shaido?"

Maybe because each Sister could only make a barrier sufficient to cover a certain area, and due to this size limit and the fact that they were under attack, it took multiple Sisters to erect defenses.

"This is a tough one. It's entirely plausible that the issue in this circumstance was solely a matter of the Aes Sedai's inability to cover the entire area by themselves (in fact, this was most likely the case) but by the same token I don't think that there is any true evidence that supports that all walls of Air are completely impenetrable, either."

For reasons of simplicity, mainly because we've never seen any wall of Air be penetrated by anything less than being sliced or neutralized by another channeler, I think there is much more evidence that a non-channeler would not be able to penetrate a wall of Air. The only evidence to counter this is based upon conjecture. We've seen an Aes Sedai of below average strength for a female hold a fit, strapping Child of the Light in a grip so tight he could barely breathe - I got no indication from this, or other scenes involving being held with Air, that any amount of force being subjected against it could neutralized the effect. I just need to point out that we've seen effects made with the Power that lasted for centuries without lessening. I just find it hard to believe that you could create effects lasting for millenia with no signs of strain, yet when you try to erect a barrier of Air, it fails under the weight of thousands of troops. The Power is not a physical force, and it doesn't obey physical laws binding reality - any failure of a weave, to me, seems to indicate a failure on the part of the channeler that created it, not a weakness inherent in a weave or a flow.

"This scene seems to me like the closest thing that you have toward cold hard proof that the shields woven by channelers are completely impenetrable. After all, a raging army of Aiel were beating wildly against the barricade created by the Asha'man to no effect. The only argument I can work against it would be that the sheer number of Asha'man might have been what kept the wall of Hardened Air from being battered down."

I doubt it - the description of the barrier the Ashaman created clearly stated that each Ashaman made a single barrier, and then the others fitted theirs nearby to create a shell with no openings. In this case, the weaves aren't even being reinforced, they are singularly concentrated but due to communal action the overall area affected and protected is increased.

"When I hear the words "stop a herd of charging bulls," my mind jumps immediately toward an implied defense, not an implied attack. In the situation that is being described, the Aes Sedai are walking around the Salidar camp, defending themselves from a miasma that has animated several objects and set them against the residents. In some situations we have shifts that are strangling women or yoking them unbidden into the air, while in others we have examples of pots and pans careening across the grounds to smack people over the head.

Even so, if anything is implied to be attacking in this quote, it's the "herd of charging bulls" that Nynaeve seemed confident Anaiya would be able to defend against if the need should arise. The operative word in this phrase is "stop." Why would any Aes Sedai take measures to "stop" an offensive charge by drubbing each attacker individually with a club of air when it would be much simpler to weave a massive barricade with the One Power?"

I am saying that an individual is limited in the magnitude of an effect they can achieve unaided. If there was no Link available, the Aes Sedai would strategically club each attacker individually - there is no other choice. With a larger pool of the Power, you could club every attacker at once. Notice how during Moiraine's test for the shawl she didn't raise a massive barricade around herself when the three men attacked her - she choose the more limited area surrounding them and left it at that. She was limited by her own strength, ability to see enough of the area to work on affecting and the test conditions.

At any rate, this is somewhat rhetorical an attack in other hands is a defense. You could also say that it takes more energy to defend than it does to attack. This is probably why when a channeler wants to stop a charge, such as Lanfear, they aren't raising barricades - their throwing waves of flames, explosions of earth and etc. An Aes Sedai might weave a wall, because they are defensive by nature, but I think with that much Power many weaves could be sufficient to stop a herd of charging bulls. In many ways, incinerating the lot of them or hitting them with lightning would be more effective than raising a wall.

I also want to point out how ridiculous the selection is - you go from talking about being able to stop a herd of charging bulls, and then refer to lifting a kettle - this implies that the channeler now has a little more choice in what she could do to defend herself than before, since she has a greater amount of the Power to work with and channel into her flows.

"Don't get me wrong - I know where you're coming from. If we are operating under the assumption that a shield woven of Air is impossible to destroy, it would make sense to say that the sheer volume of the power that the Aes Sedai were holding would be enough to take an attacking force apart individually - but I think if this were the intended suggestion, it would be much more readily apparent. Instead, this statement seems to suggest that, given the power at Anaiya's fingertips, she would be able to defend against an onslaught that would normally overwhelm her."

I think the key is the word "onslaught" - note my initial response was that most channelers can accomplish a range of effects, with their strength, Talents and etc dictating the amount of area that can be taken up. It makes more sense to me, given my distinction, that Anaiya meant that whereas unaided she could handle two or three opponents at one time, with this increased power, she could handle a much larger group at one time. It's not the fact that her effect is under attack, but the fact that her effect is magnified as the volume of One Power she can hold is increased. We see this time and again - as channelers get more and more exhausted, the size and Power of the effects they can
generate become smaller, even though they are still being created. Eventually, once you pass a certain threshhold of exhaustion, the effect you can generate is so minimized that it can no longer achieve whatever it was you were trying to do.

"This is a really tough one, and I am partial to Sidious' opinion going into it. The trouble is that the entire fight that you are both referencing is shown from Mat's POV, so we don't see any channeling whatsoever. We learn in the beginning of the encounter that Nynaeve is shielded and the Kin that have accompanied her are too afraid to take action against Ispan and Falion or their henchman. For the readers who want specifics, I'll cite this episode as well.

Lan moved. He did not draw his sword, and against Aes Sedai he should have no chance if he had, no chance in any case, but one moment he was standing still and the next moment he had thrown himself at the pair. Just before he struck, he grunted as though hit hard, but he crashed into them, carrying both Black sisters to the dusty floor.

Every part of me wants to say that this is evidence that Lan has successfully crashed through a wall of Air, but you have raised a credible point. It could be that Ispan or Falion reacted out sheer surprise and simply struck out with a hard hammerblow before Lan could tackle them. This would be consistent with the way that Lan winds up on his knees afterward in a good deal of apparent pain -- but so would him crashing through a wall of solid Air."

The kinetic energy from crashing through a wall would have stopped Lan before he reached the Sisters. He would have crashed into a solid wall of invisible force, slowed down considerably and fell near their feet instead.

"If you hold to the contention that bands of Air used to bind someone's hands together are indestructable by the sheer virtue of being power wrought, how can you suggest that a net of Air could be forced apart? I would have to think that it would be an all or nothing deal -- it is either possible or impossible to physically damage a flow of Air. It may be that a net of Air is significantly weaker than a wall of Air, but if all flows of Air are completely impossible to destroy, that places a great deal of power in the hands of any given channeler."

Because a net of Air might be simply a combination of strong breezes and not actually hardened air. For example, a weaker channeler often falls back on other techniques if she isn't strong or knowledgeable enough to accomplish an effect. Moiraine didn't know Traveling, for example, but she did know how to remove weariness from a horse in order to travel faster by conventional means. A better example would be affecting the weather - most channelers are nowhere near as skilled in this weave as a Sea Folk Windfinder, but in a small room, an Aes Sedai can create an effect that makes it cool in that small area. Or when Nynaeve raised a windstorm to escape the Seanchan, this was clearly not the same thing is weaving a wall of Air and slamming it forward - you could force yourself to walk forward against the windstorm, but the wall of Air would lift you up, slam you backwards and hold you tight against the wall or whatever object you hit when you flew backwards.

But, yes, I think every channeler is incredibly powerful.

"Here's a thought. Do you think that Elayne could weave a barricade that is sturdy enough to protect her from a Cannon at point-blank range? What about Siuan Sanche?"

Yes. In fact, at point blank range, I think the cannon would be destroyed due to the backlash.

"We all know of the example where Siuan Sanche attempts to hoist Gareth Bryne up into the air and fails because she does not have sufficient strength to lift him -- but we don't know whether or not that means that she could have held him there indefinately no matter how fiercely he struggled."

No, but I assume the effect is different in the same way that I assume if she decided to push him back with Air, that would effect would be different, as well. EG: A weaker channeler might be able to place a hardened air restraint on a particular body part, but not the whole body, or push an entire body back, even if she can't lift a weight substantially above hers.

"There is another example that comes to mind, but I'm getting groggy and don't want to look it up. In Crown of Swords, there is a scene where Rand weaves a bridge of Air (essentially another form of Hardened Air when you get down to the wire) and Min states that she trusts him. Afterward, Rand morbidly begins to think that if he had tried to weave that bridge even a pace more it would have collapsed under their combined weight. This might be an indication that the smaller the hardened space, the more difficult it is to destroy -- but it might very well also be one of those strange catches that comes with the One Power that is not allowed because it is too close to flight."

Asmodean addresses this - women can weave longer bridges of Air with saidar than men can with saidin, no matter the strength difference.

I look at this, once again, as an all or nothing that has more to do with differences between saidin and saidar than anything else. They are different, inter-related forces, so one effect might act one way when created by saidar and another way when created with saidin. For example, a "bridge" of Air may be hardened air effect with saidar, but more like contained air currents with saidin - that may account for why Rand notes his concern.