So I was re-reading some of our more recent discussions about Talents, Strength, Flow affinity etc... and I had a thought about Talents specifically.

Is it possible that Talents work along the same lines as gestures, second weave restrictions or splitting flows? All of these things imprint on a Channeler at various stages of their learning and have pretty dramatic side effects that can only somewhat be overcome through skills or strength.

Could it be that when a Channeler is first exposed to the weave (maybe even the idea that the weave exists) that their mind inherently sets limitations for the ability? Think about some examples:

Androl and Traveling, this is a man who is passionate about traveling the world, perhaps when he learned about the ability his mind simply believed he could Travel with ease and therefore his ability shaped itself around this inherent personal trait?

Nynaeve and Healing, even before she knew what she was doing she was forming a complex and highly potent healing weave. Most Wilders discover far more mundane abilities such as weak forms of compulsion or eavesdropping which when you think about the majority of Aes Sedai that's not too surprising either. But Nynaeve ONLY wanted to Heal people thus her ability in the area. This might explain why so many Wise Women had such great affinity for Healing or why pretty much all of the Wind Finders have the Cloud Dancing Talent ... when their ability to channel was awoken this would have been one of the first areas these women would have been passionate about learning or was the instinctive area to focus on due to their personal circumstances. This would also explain why Egwene was an even better Healer than Nynaeve in some of Rand's mirror world visions, if she had had different needs/exposures in those lives perhaps she would have different OP abilities.

Egwene and Elayne ... the first real exposure they had as channelers to Healing made them both very intimidated by the complexity of the weaving Nynaeve was performing ... perhaps deep inside that flipped a switch that restricted their ability to make the weave effective, even though they both had plenty of strength and skill to perform the weaves they may have also triggered a tiny spark of disbelief in their own ability to ever be effective at Healing and therefor they are ineffective at Healing.

We see many examples of personalities matching OP abilities and I know that Maria thought perhaps the inherent ability could have driven the life choices of some of these folks, but then there is Asmodean's comment about Traveling where he called it a "dream of a dream" ... perhaps he's talking about Talents presenting themselves in general here, perhaps somewhere deep down there is a level of belief necessary for the OP to work. Disinterest in something may also cause this issue, but I would assume to a lesser degree than simply believing you can't do something. On the other end of that spectrum, it seems pure necessity might increase the Talent (i.e. Nynaeve had no choice but to Heal Egwene, Rand had to discover how to Travel to continue his journey, Egwene immediately saw how she could use cuendillar creation at a massive scale to end the rebellion) once they did it at such high level ability it was imprinted forever ... or once disinterest or fear set in the Talent was forever lower.

Another example of Healing would how many Yellows showed little ability with the new Healing weaves ... perhaps it's because so many Aes Sedai are trained to only believe in the weaves the Tower already knows and fundamentally didn't believe in the new weaves as viable. This is even slightly supported by Rosil being both super open minded and inviting to Nynaeve entering the Ajah and being good with the new weaves and Romanda being closed minded (assuming IIRC).

Even Semirhage's twisted ability might have been so potent because deep down she saw an opportunity to use Healing for her sadistic pleasures and thus her Talent was extremely powerful.

I can't say this is as noticeable for the non-channeling Talents, which might be completely different things than the Talents that require weaves. Things such as Dreaming, Foretelling and Seeing Ta'veren seem to be "gifts" rather than abilities and clearly appear in various forms with non-Channelers so I'm not even sure these Talents can be considered linked to the OP.

Anyway, I'm not sure anyone will even see this, but figured I'd throw out one last theory before we shut the doors on RAFO

It's been a fun adventure with you folks over the years ... even though I've never met anyone in person I feel like I know many of you quite well!