Two things... - Edit 1
Before modification by Shannow at 18/12/2009 09:39:25 PM
You said that the Tower doesn't restrict women of higher strength. But the sample population of the Tower, ie. the thousand channelers we see, are skewed towards the center, with no one of very great strength or very great weakness. Which means Moiraine is not very far above the average of 50, and Egwene is clearly above it while Nynaeve and her ilk are far above it and closer to the upper end of the range.
It works really well if you make increments of 4.75. That gives us 21 levels, and you can place strong Aes Sedai like Anaiya or Myrelle or Sheriam at 50, and the list is quite good, in that case.
Edited to add... RJ never spoke of any relative strength scale. He said channeler strength is distributed over 21 levels, and that the channeling population follows a bell curve. Both statements refer to no mysterious relative scale.
The conclusion is rather inescapable... given the bell curve, a woman like Moiraine will have an effective strength greater than 50, but not much so.
And I'd like to know why this seems impossible. RJ made many comparisons between OP strength and actual strength. If you look at actual strength, the average man is likely to be half as strong as the strongest man. And that gap is still huge, still good enough to explain the great differences we see between the strongest and weakest channelers.
It works really well if you make increments of 4.75. That gives us 21 levels, and you can place strong Aes Sedai like Anaiya or Myrelle or Sheriam at 50, and the list is quite good, in that case.
Edited to add... RJ never spoke of any relative strength scale. He said channeler strength is distributed over 21 levels, and that the channeling population follows a bell curve. Both statements refer to no mysterious relative scale.
The conclusion is rather inescapable... given the bell curve, a woman like Moiraine will have an effective strength greater than 50, but not much so.
And I'd like to know why this seems impossible. RJ made many comparisons between OP strength and actual strength. If you look at actual strength, the average man is likely to be half as strong as the strongest man. And that gap is still huge, still good enough to explain the great differences we see between the strongest and weakest channelers.
One: Why would the Tower restrict themselves to the middle? They won't stop anyone who is too strong from joining them. But they do stop people who are too weak from joining them. 37.5% of all channelers, in fact.
The truth is that Sharina isn't representative of the majority of channelers who are never found. For every one Sharina that is found, there are hundreds of Kin or other women who could learn, who are WEAKER than the average Aes Sedai. There are only 6 women stronger than Nynaeve, but there are thousands of female channelers. So people of that level are simply very rare, and VERY far above the average woman in strength.
There is no sensible reason why the White Tower would restrict stronger channelers from joining them. The reason that Cadsuane is the strongest modern channeler, is because a woman of her strength is exceedingly rare. Not because the Tower are deliberately excluding stronger channelers. But they are deliberately excluding weaker channelers.
I challenge you to provide a mechanism by which stronger channelers are excluded from the Tower.
No, logic says someone like Cadsuane is far above average strength.
Two:
Even if, as you suggest, Moiraine is above average strength, that means that Moiraine is above 50 in strength. And since we know that Egwene is stronger than Moiraine and Melaine combined, that means Egwene must be at 100 strength or more.
That means Egwene is stronger than the strongest woman, Lanfear, who is at 100. How do you explain that in your quirky model?