Circles give added precision, remember? - Edit 1
Before modification by fionwe1987 at 07/10/2012 11:31:15 PM
Circles are not about added strength, or even added Talents. They're about added precision. Four Kinswomen too weak to even become Accepted can make a Gateway as large as Rand's when in circle. This has nothing to do with Talent adding up (who says their individual Talents add up?). What a circle does is allow you to focus power from different sources into one single weave, and the process itself seems to add a ton of precision to the weaving. I'd say its fairly certain that this added precision results in greater weaving efficiency, which can end up looking like added Talents, but obviously is not.
ETA:
Here's Jordan's quote:
ETA:
Here's Jordan's quote:
For Shiska, a mixed gender circle has X amount of saidin and Y amount of saidar available, set by the strengths of the men and women in it. Talents or special skills available to members of the circle other than whoever is melding the flows are not available to the person who is. If those Talents or skills are particularly needed, then control of the circle must be passed.