Re: You're ignoring a key sentence... - Edit 2
Before modification by Sidious at 16/11/2009 06:51:50 AM
Although no one has shown it so far in the books, there are ways to interfere with the making of a gateway - and ways to defend against interference - so the battle would take place on many levels.
First off, what Rand did was interfere with the closing of a Gateway. The same may prevent a gateway from opening (though Asmodean doesn't phrase it that way), but that weave doesn't interfere with the making of a Gateway, as RJ said. More importantly, RJ also made it clear we've not seen such weaves in the books, and QotW was well after tFoH.
First off, what Rand did was interfere with the closing of a Gateway. The same may prevent a gateway from opening (though Asmodean doesn't phrase it that way), but that weave doesn't interfere with the making of a Gateway, as RJ said. More importantly, RJ also made it clear we've not seen such weaves in the books, and QotW was well after tFoH.
We've seen that when a gateway is woven, there is a period of spinning before the gateway appears (unless you're of the opposite sex ). It's during this time that I believe the contest begins to stop the weaving.
Now, you could state that every front line was manned by channeler's 24x7 and they merely sliced the weaves of any forming gateway, but that doesn't make sense. We're talking of hundreds of mile long fronts here. And what about behind the front? Are you seriously claiming channelers could stand vigil over the entire territory they wanted to hold?
It's more likely there were wards to detect saidar or saidin, at which stage the channelers rushed there to intercede. Even so, there is no way to defend hundreds of mile long fronts with wardings against Travelling. You'd have to cover every area of ground. If such a ward even exists, which I don't see any proof of.
That makes no sense, and stretches possibility. What makes sense is wards, made using sa'angreal to cover the region to be held.
Just using sa'angreal? Well then we'll never see it. There are about two left in the world, and none belong to the Shadow, and one is flawed.
RJ compared Travelling to bringing reinforcements with planes. When you want to counter that you bring in anti-aircraft guns that target the planes as soon as they sense them and thwart the effort. A warding like Travelling is like filling the sky with concrete and totally stopping everything - it's against RJ's metaphor.