Re: Hmmm... - Edit 1
Before modification by darius_sedai at 27/11/2009 05:20:32 AM
There is a possibility she would have been mentioned, and not. RJ has introduced some strong channelers very late in the series and often for trivial reasons. I recall a Seafolk channeler, ?Rainyn, who is also as strong as Egwene, and we've never seen her again.
Metaara I think is the name you are looking for.
I'm sure Aviendha is one of the strongest Wise Ones, but we know that Tamela and Viendre come from her clan and they are even more powerful. I don't think that there are many women like Aviendha, but I'm pretty sure that there are at least 10 women of her strength in the Waste.
So in approximately 12,000-15,000 women who can channel (6k WO, 2k Kin, 2k AS and Novices etc and anywhere from 2-5k WF and Damane) we now have 4 women (Egwene, Elayne, Avi, Metaara) at this level plus 7 (Alivia, Sharina, Sommeryn, Nynaeve, Talaan, Pamela, Viendre) higher and the 5 FS. Even if there are another 10-100 women at this level it's clear that Egwene level is extremely rare.
And as an aside, we don't actually know that Pamela and Vienre are in fact stronger than Elayne in total potential. We know that they are currently stronger than she and Aviendha, but neither of them have hit their full potential so they may only have been stronger than them at that moment. In fact we don't even have conclusive proof that Someryn is stronger, only that she's never met a WO who has more strength than her. We have no evidence that she's even met P&V!
I think she's much weaker, as are all the Aes Sedai. In NS Cadsuane said that Mylen was next after her, then Kerene, and then a sharp drop to Moiraine once she reached her potential. Considering Merise is even weaker, I think Cadsuane has unprecedented strength in the Tower. I would estimate she's half as strong again as any Sister in the Tower.
Then why does Cadsuane work so very hard at building her reputation? Yes there is a good difference of strength between her and the next levels of AS, but not so much that she doesn't have to go about working toward having the AS around her be in awe of her in non-strength related manners, Alanna was even ready to challenge her over Rand.
Yes but there is no doubt that Egwene is very strong compared to an Aes Sedai. I don't really see how proving that Egwene is stronger than Aes Sedai, makes her close to the Forsaken. Some of the Forsaken might be six times as strong as any woman in the Tower for all we know.
But we also know from Elayne's POV that she is close enough to Nynaeve to be willing to disobey her, if Nynaeve was dramatically stronger she would have never even considered that! We've also seen that Nynaeve wasn't enough stronger to cut Elayne off from the source once she had embraced it. If she was vastly stronger a poorly woven shield wouldn't make that much difference.
And aside from Aliva, Nynaeve and Sommeryn no FS has ever even noted the strength of any female channeler aside from Elayne (or another FS level woman), seems to me that they'd need considerable strength for Moghedien to make something of it for no reason. Clearly (IMO) Elayne's level is much closer to the FS level than the rest of the field. I'd say at full strength they no more than 10% below the FS.
Which makes the debate a little futile I guess - angreal have a wide range of power.
But we know neither angreal was particularly strong, and linked sisters are slightly weaker than the combined strength of each AS.
Still, she thought they needed to combine their powers. There's no proof that when they reached their potential, they could do it alone. Moiraine said that Nynaeve was a bonfire next to the candle of Egwene and Elayne's potential - I've always believed this showed an immense gap between them.
I think that quote from Moiraine is mostly hyperbole. If you look at the context it has more to do with the political ramifications within the Tower than with their actual strength potentials. Not to mention how often Moiraine's estimations were dead wrong.