Re: There are issues, of course! 
- Edit 1
- Edit 1Before modification by Sidious at 09/01/2010 07:35:34 PM
So, 10 or 11 of the 21 levels occupy the range from 0 to 25? And the other 10 occupy 25 to 100? As you said earlier, this doesn't make sense, because this means that the difference between some of the levels is less than that between others. It also leaves vast gaps occupied by no one.
I'm pretty sure the strengths lie somewhere here. The difference between Aes Sedai strengths seems to be very small because they've had a narrow spectrum of selective strength for hundreds of years. Suddenly women like Nynaeve and Egwene are popping up. It's like having a whole population of people who average 5' to 6'. Suddenly a few 7' and 8' people are showing up, and naturally that will screw up the scale hugely.
You can get the same results by shifting the Aes Sedai to a higher range.
Yes you can, but then it starts to conflict every comparative quote in the series. It's all well and good to place an Aes Sedai at 50, but then you have to wonder how...
- Rand can smother Verin and Alanna so easily. They are by no means weak and equal to 100 if you believe they have strengths of 50. It also doesn't explain why Verin thinks it will take 13 to take Rand down.
- Liandrin thinks that three black ajah can smother Moghedien. If the AS are sitting at 50, then Moghedien is no match for two.
- ANY of the Forsaken managed to resist circles at the Cleansing if channelers were averaging 50 PLUS mixed circles with their advantages.
- Egwene exceeds Amys and Melaine in strength.
- A false Dragon has ever managed to resist six women, and we know that they do frequently.
- Logain needs six women to hold him and can come close to escaping with five. Even if women struggle to hold men more, this would imply that the combined strength of 300 could not hold an already shielded man, which is implausible.
I could probably think of others. To me, RJ has clearly made the highest strength channelers several times stronger than some of the weaker ones, to the point that whole groups of them are needed to overwhelm stronger channelers. I'll never really agree that this is limited by a factor of 2.
Thus, Egwene with Romanda and Lelaine, or with Avi, can match any of the Forsaken in strength. My interpretation that Egwene was referring to skill when she said she couldn't face one of the FS in a circle with R and L holds.
Alivia with her angreal was much stronger than Cyndane and it was an even match.
But place Egwene at 65-70, Aes Sedai around 40, and you get the same results, but this also matches what RJ said about the Bell Curve. 
It means that three Aes Sedai in a ring can match anyone, which I think it contradicted by the books. Most high level channelers can resist up to six before they run into trouble - we have numerous examples from the history of the Tower vs False Dragons, and Kiruna is sure that six can't best Rand. It doesn't even matter if you need to be ten times stronger than someone to shield them - a circle of six woman with 40-50 strength will be at least twice as strong as Rand, and probably more, and can beat him down and then shield him. Evidently six women are close to Rand's own strength, which is why False Dragons sometimes win those encounters.