One character one time made a comparative call! Egwene and all the others only ever say "such and so was strong enough to Travel" ... that tells us nothing about one Channelers relative strength to another... only that two individuals can each Travel effectively.
You keep arguing that we can measure pure strength based on ability with ONE specific weave, and it's not even the ONLY way to Travel! we know that there are at LEAST two saidar weaves for Traveling. We don't have a clue how strong a woman needs to be to make Aviendha's weave, maybe Sorilea could Travel if she knew that weave.
And the 3rd agers are still learning how various ability combinations are more effective than just raw strength... take Egwene for instance. When thinking about facing a Forsaken her first thought is about linking with the Strongest available women, if she was really thinking it through she should have thought about the women with the strongest abilities with offensive/combat related skills. Maybe Sisters with the best strength in Fire would be better than just stronger AS. She has hundreds of women to add the raw power necessary, but her thoughts just go to fewest possible women in the link for most possible strength... rather silly actually!
You keep arguing that we can measure pure strength based on ability with ONE specific weave, and it's not even the ONLY way to Travel! we know that there are at LEAST two saidar weaves for Traveling. We don't have a clue how strong a woman needs to be to make Aviendha's weave, maybe Sorilea could Travel if she knew that weave.
And the 3rd agers are still learning how various ability combinations are more effective than just raw strength... take Egwene for instance. When thinking about facing a Forsaken her first thought is about linking with the Strongest available women, if she was really thinking it through she should have thought about the women with the strongest abilities with offensive/combat related skills. Maybe Sisters with the best strength in Fire would be better than just stronger AS. She has hundreds of women to add the raw power necessary, but her thoughts just go to fewest possible women in the link for most possible strength... rather silly actually!
You admit that Egwene thought only of matching the STRENGTH of a Forsaken. And therefore, her statement that she doubts whether she plus Romanda plus Lelaine could match a Forsaken is made specifically with comparative effective strength in mind. In other words, she's felt Rand's strength in tSR, and she's using that as a basis for her comparison. And she's seen the amount that Lanfear can channel at the Docks in FoH. Therefore, in her mind, she plus Lelaine plus Romanda would struggle to match the effective STRENGTH of one of those two channelers.
Since she has no idea what Talents, skills or abilities any of the Forsaken might have, all she can base a comparison on is their STRENGTH, which she does happen to know, based on her experiences with Rand and Lanfear.
And it is in this context that Egwene says she and Lelaine and Romanda would struggle to match one Forsaken class channeler.
And since all our gateway discussions and other debates are really indirect attempts to arrive at the comparative strength between Egwene and a Forsaken class channeler, Egwene herself has cut through all the sideshows for us, and you have brought us full circle back to the heart of the matter.
And there we have it, from Egwene herself, and in the context so nicely pointed out by you in the post above. The context of pure STRENGTH.
I've been playing with some numbers since we've been having all of these OP strength debates
20/12/2009 06:34:05 PM
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Few glaring errors...
20/12/2009 09:04:55 PM
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Re: Few glaring errors...
21/12/2009 07:52:18 AM
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You don't get it, do you...
21/12/2009 08:19:00 AM
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Didn't you claim that Eggy+Rom+Lel cannot match a male forsaken? Now they can match Lanfear?
21/12/2009 04:14:32 PM
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What you are missing is that
21/12/2009 06:46:04 PM
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I'm not missing it at all..
21/12/2009 06:58:04 PM
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Let's try matching that with the actual text
22/12/2009 03:01:36 PM
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Not correct...
22/12/2009 03:29:24 PM
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Believe as you like, I'm not here to convince you to otherwise, I'm stating how I read the evidence
22/12/2009 06:01:24 PM
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You're reading the evidence wrong.
22/12/2009 06:27:17 PM
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RJ also pointed out that Alivia's skill set as a weapon came in handy
22/12/2009 07:40:35 PM
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I thought a power law distribution is much more likely, TBH
20/12/2009 09:39:21 PM
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Yes. It essentially refers to a skewed histogram - biased to the lower end of the range...
20/12/2009 09:53:18 PM
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Corrections
21/12/2009 01:48:43 AM
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No...
21/12/2009 07:47:58 AM
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True, the application of this model is inconsistent *NM*
21/12/2009 02:34:26 PM
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Not if you point out that the average AS is not as strong as the overall average channeler
25/12/2009 04:30:17 AM
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yet RJ has said flat out that OP strength is on an Bell Curve. Meaning the majority of channelers
21/12/2009 07:36:22 AM
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Perhaps...
21/12/2009 07:52:13 AM
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I've always hated bell curves
21/12/2009 03:56:26 PM
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The most logical answer is that the average AOL channeler was stronger than the current average...
21/12/2009 06:36:07 PM
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and that in no way maps to any kind of Bell Curve
22/12/2009 06:02:41 PM
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Why?
22/12/2009 06:34:25 PM
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Can you provide the quote where RJ tells us the
22/12/2009 07:45:04 PM
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Always go back to the evidence...
22/12/2009 09:03:42 PM
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I'll respond when you can actually provide a few actual quotes to support any of this
23/12/2009 03:20:44 PM
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I've been looking into this a bit... and you really do overstate things to suit your arguments
24/12/2009 06:15:44 PM
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And in looking for quotes for another thread I came across this gem
29/12/2009 09:54:34 PM
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I don't think we have a representative sample of the mode in this population
22/12/2009 08:35:23 PM
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Except that gateway size is used multiple times by characters to judge comparative strength...
22/12/2009 09:21:07 PM
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Re: Except that gateway size is used multiple times by characters to judge comparative strength...
22/12/2009 11:32:21 PM
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I agree that it's practically impossible to determine strength
23/12/2009 03:19:49 PM
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How convenient. And by the way, it is NOT tied to a Talent. Anyone who is strong enough, can Travel. *NM*
23/12/2009 04:36:24 PM
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Seriously go re-read the series, how can you have missed that Traveling is a Talent?
23/12/2009 04:54:51 PM
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It is a weave, the knowledge of which guarantees that you can use it, if you are strong enough...
23/12/2009 05:35:36 PM
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Yet every AS can Heal to a degree and Cloud Dancing involves weaves too
23/12/2009 05:41:42 PM
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Lews Therin can't Heal. Aginor can't Heal. If you don't have the Talent, you can't do it. *NM*
23/12/2009 05:52:02 PM
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LTT and Aginor have "Little Ability" with Healing
23/12/2009 06:02:13 PM
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Because the channelers THEMSELVES don't use Healing to judge each other's strength...
23/12/2009 06:06:58 PM
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The Channelers state that there is a minimum level of strength to make the Weave work
23/12/2009 06:11:55 PM
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No, it makes her 25% as strong as Rand! Thanks for proving my model to be virtually perfect!
23/12/2009 06:36:53 PM
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This is true, however...
23/12/2009 04:55:48 PM
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Aviendha's gateway size doesn't decrease. She is just less energy efficient in creating it...
23/12/2009 05:30:17 PM
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Aviendha is suffering from the second weave limitation
23/12/2009 05:37:45 PM
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Conceded. My faulty memory is to blame in this case. But it doesn't change the rule...
23/12/2009 06:01:33 PM
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I'll give you that there is a stength limitation to Traveling
23/12/2009 06:06:41 PM
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Why do the characters in the books judge each other's strength on gateway size then? *NM*
23/12/2009 06:08:17 PM
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Re: Why do the characters in the books judge each other's strength on gateway size then?
23/12/2009 06:20:18 PM
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And there you have it...Thank you.
23/12/2009 06:27:24 PM
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And linked with Romanda and Lelaine
23/12/2009 06:34:42 PM
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Sorry. That's pure speculation on your part. *NM*
23/12/2009 06:38:43 PM
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No more than yours is!
23/12/2009 06:49:57 PM
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Re: I don't think we have a representative sample of the mode in this population
26/12/2009 12:38:43 PM
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Re: I don't think we have a representative sample of the mode in this population *NM*
26/12/2009 12:41:01 PM
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Re: I don't think we have a representative sample of the mode in this population
26/12/2009 06:37:50 PM
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Goodness
31/12/2009 03:37:23 AM
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I'm working within the context of what we've been told by the author
31/12/2009 03:43:31 AM
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No you are not
31/12/2009 03:58:28 AM
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Back to school AS, and you will be able to do this
26/12/2009 12:34:39 PM
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The problem we're working with is that RJ says strength follows a Bell Curve distribution
26/12/2009 03:29:26 PM
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And RJ knew his maths (and you don't)
31/12/2009 03:22:09 AM
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I'm not the one who said OP strength followed a Bell Curve Distribution
31/12/2009 03:34:55 AM
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