I am pretty sure that Egwene had the spark but was shown how to channel by Moiraine, and as such she avoided the negative consequences of trying to master the power on her own. Such as the sickness and other problems Rand had in the first book.

However the sul'dam situation is a bit different in that the sul'dam does not need to be a fullblown channeler in order to use the a'dam. All that is required is that the she is capable of being part of the link that the a'dam forms.

There is a quote in the books where it is said that even sul'dam continue to be tested to see if the collar will hold them. I would expect that if a sul'dam had never been found that could be held by the collar the testing would be discontinued for sul'dam (which is not the case).

A sparker being first a sul'dam and then a damane would require for the connection to OP to develop in two stages. First enough to be a sul'dam and capable of linking but no more, and then later enough for the collar to hold her. Not sure if that is actually possible. The sul'dam that started off that way and later were caught by the collar could simply be those learners who worked hard and learned just enough prior to the 25th test to be held.




You are right.

Lets consider.
150 million Seanchan alltogether.
lets say 1% of those are potential channelers (I found this number by RJ)

Lets say 1% of THOSE are sparkers (did not find this, guessed)

That would mean that out of those 150 million, 15000 would be damane. In comparison to total population, that is not all that much to be honest. It is likely very rare for damane to be discovered.

On the other hand it is a massive number compared to the numbers of current AS and Asha'man, especially when we remember the extended lifespan of channelers. Rand should be thanking Semirhage, since if not for her actions, Tuon could likely have used traveling to acquire massive numbers of sul'dam&damane as reinforcements and utterly crushed everyone as a result.