I believe he called it a seed. When he gave it to Elayne, he explained that after using it, her ability to channel would be greatly diminished for a few months so it was not a gift to be used in a time of war. It sounds like we have a good idea now why some angreal seem so great compared to others: it seems that using a seed "creates" an echo of the original channeler's strength in the One Power and this echoed strength is captured in the item they are using the seed on. Whether it's a 1 to 1 relationship or something more detailed, it explains why a "weak" angreal, such as the one Graendal had, seemed to always give her a great advantage and also why a sa'angreal required large amounts of channelers. Perhaps RJ used the term "magnify" in the weakest way possible: to imply that it adds an echo of additional strength allowing the channeler to draw a larger amount of saidar or saidin through the angreal and then through their own connection for their use. This also explains how the facility creating the Choedan Kal could be overrun with that many channelers having access to such powerful sa'angreal: they may have been exhausted from the process and unable to adequately defend the access keys (possibly after betrayal from within) and then themselves from the attack.
It's kind of fitting that Elayne received such a gift when she was getting ready to bring new life into the world
Has anyone already discussed this? Any other theories?
Can't really see it being a one to one, as RJ didn't just say "magnify", but that a stronger channeler would get a bigger boost from one(IIRC it was talked about right before they used BotW).... Wish someone had pointed that out to BS, because he certainly seemed to think that they only did a set amount...
But if you are a channeler with a good amount of ability already, then adding a set amount of additional strength would be a bigger boost than a weaker channeler adding the same amount of additional strength might get. Just to use numbers, a channeler starting at 80 ranks of Power, finding a weak angreal that adds 10 ranks of Power, is in a stronger position from a channeler starting at 20 ranks of Power using the same angreal. Especially given that certain amounts of Power are needed for certain effects: if you neeeded at least 40 ranks of power to open a human-sized Gateway, the stronger channeler could make 2 man sized gateways with Power to spare while the weaker channeler in the same example would not even be able to make 1.
But it is true that RJ might have written himself into a corner here. He really needed to be at top form to close the story out and there more than enough elements to make for amazing visuals - B. Sanderson did what he could but having a different understanding of what an angreal could do or what the Power was capable of dramatically effected how the final battles played out.
