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Part of this is perception not reality darius_sedai Send a noteboard - 23/10/2016 06:52:47 PM

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View original postThe men don't really need to be obviously stronger than the women for the story to be told. In fact, aside from a handful of outliers I don't think RJ gave it much thought because he also considered dexterity as an equalizer. Not really a concept that would play all that well in a TV Show IMO. Might be really interesting to see something like that executed well. We'd really ONLY see effective Strength and many people may have a different view of the OP and "strength". Even make us see it in the way the AoL AS saw it.




View original postAs seemed to be why men were still considered to make better weapons. I mean, it might make the women "better" at some fine weaves, but when the goal is simply to keep throwing out the massive sheets of fire, or to just make gateway after gateway after gateway... What the channeler needs is the raw strength to be able to DO it in the first place.

I don't really see why men and women would need the same amount of Power to reach the same outcome. Maybe it's like carrying water in a bucket: the stronger person carries more but slushes it all over the place, the more dexterous person carries less but ends up with the same amount of water in the end. Maybe a fireball of Saidar needs less OP to make than a fireball of Saidin? And then there were some things that men simply could not do as well, like make a bridge of Air (and presumably something that women cannot do as well).
View original postWell... That and just gateways in and of themselves, and other "must be this strong to even use" weaves as well. Maybe it's just a small sample size, but it always seemed like a hell of a lot more Ashaman then Aes Sedai were powerful enough to Travel(like just ab out every Ashaman we ever saw)... Even outside of combat, Traveling is a pretty big freaking deal.

Don't see why men and women would need the same amount of Power to Travel. Totally different weaves and all.

It's the characters IU, including female "loath to admit shortcomings" Fosaken from an Age with plenty of both, that that refer to men as making the better weapons, and even just the fact that Red's work in groups to take down untrained men says a ton. Are main first hand example is the small sample of the Forsaken, true, but men just seem more capable of do large area of effect attack weaves. The "just pump a ton of Power into them" kind of weaves.

As to Traveling... Responding to "a greater percentage of Ashaman seem strong enough to Travel" with "maybe the female weave doesn't need as much Power"... Would only paint the women as being even weaker, as the issue is so many of them not being able to use it without linking.

Which mind, is the real reason as likely as not. Just another balance thing. women can link, so can get by with having fewer strong enough to Travel on their own. Men can't, so a greater percentage of Ashaman have to be able to do it, or they'd be at a huge disadvantage against the female channelers.


The majority of the women we see in the series actually have sufficient strength to Travel. RJ named and had strength rankings for around 300 women, well over half could Travel if they knew how. We only see a handful of Asha'man but we know at least some of them could not Travel as Rand himself notes that he chose only men strong enough to Travel, implying there were those who were not.

I do speculate that Traveling is actually easier for men though, because it's also clearly noted that the weave required level 19 strength for both men and women, which would indicate that a larger % of men would have the minimum strength. However, we also know that women being more dexterous should make a woman of level 19 more effective than a man of level 19, thus Traveling (at least the weaves used by 3rd Age folks) is more reliant on raw power or conversely less reliant on dexterity.

Men make better weapons because the flow affinity for men tends toward Fire and Earth, which would make many destructive weaves much easier for men to manage than women. Being predisposed to being a weapon doesn't really make one better at combat (at least not on its own). I would say it's along the lines of a man is a bomb and a woman is an assault rifle. Sure the man is likely more destructive overall, but you wouldn't want to use him in every instance. Duels and such seem more likely to fall toward the most skilled channelers not necessarily the strongest. In fact I think we've largely seen the women come across better in most of these scenarios. Lanfear took Rand apart, Graendal took down Aran'gar with no trouble despite a pretty large gap in raw strength. Men simply seem better at mass destruction IMO.

Linking is a giant advantage since it gives women both more access to raw strength and adds precision to the weaves. Even relatively weak channelers who are linked seem to be far more effective than a single stronger channeler. However, it is interesting to note that Aes Sedai don't seem to link when going after men. They didn't form a circle to shield Rand, they formed a layered shield held individually by multiple women. I suspect this has to do with a linked woman essentially becoming useless as an individual channeler since she cannot both be linked and weave independent flows. Seems to me this is why Reds hunt in packs rather than simply wanting more power available. Additionally, Reds have to investigate to discover who the man might actually be. A wilder male likely doesn't really know what he's doing and could pose a danger to everyone even if he's not trying to. Seems prudent that you would have women around that could counter his actions and because of the laws the Tower set down these men must be taken to Tar Valon to be tried and Gentled which, before Traveling, would have required some serious endurance if you didn't have a large enough group of women to pass shielding duty around. Obviously during the Breaking the proto-Reds would have had different situations to face and direct combat would have likely been a more frequent situation and thus linking would have been a more likely necessity to face very powerful and insane males who may have even have had angreal at hand.

Domani Drag Queen in the White Tower ... Aran'gar watch out!
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IMHO dexterity only ever seemed to BE an equalizer power-wise in head to head combat. - 23/10/2016 04:35:28 PM 755 Views
Re: IMHO dexterity only ever seemed to BE an equalizer power-wise in head to head combat. - 23/10/2016 05:41:27 PM 569 Views
If ether of their Traveling weaves needed to use less raw Power, it's the male's. - 23/10/2016 06:17:04 PM 665 Views
Part of this is perception not reality - 23/10/2016 06:52:47 PM 716 Views

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