But the humiliation could have made her cave in earlier. More importantly, with so many Aes Sedai not needed to shield her, Elza might have been elsewhere, and thus her services would have been unavailable. And BS said SH cannot do some physical stuff like fitting the male a'dam on Rand. Hoe could he remove one from Semi?
Torture would have been useless. But as we've seen, the a'dam is also a tool for humiliation. That did work.
I remember that BS mentioned SH but did he actually say that about the male a'dam? Or just that he could not do major physical stuff like say attacking Rand with a sword.
We know he was able to do lots of very nasty "physical" stuff to Mesaana so it seems likely to me that had there been a collar around Semirhages neck, SH could easily have flipped the lock and released her. And while you tried to dismiss Elza, if SH had appeared to her and ordered her to go and release Semirhage, she would have.
As for using the a'dam as a tool of humiliation to break Semirhage, it would not have made a difference. The only way things would have changed if Semirhage had been broken like the damane are and actually wanted to remain in the cell. I find it extremely unlikely that she could have been broken that well in the time Cadsuane had. Especially since SH would have come sooner if Semirhage had broken sooner.
And ofcourse, this whole thing is ignoring the possibility that Semirhage might know a way to break free of the a'dam. We know Cadsuane researched it for instance, so it makes a lot of sense that Semirhage who was a channeler in the heart of Seanchan would have researched it as well.
It is theorethically possible that had a'dam been used, Semirhage might have broken free. But Rand knows from LTT and what happened when he was captured by the AS, that not even an AoL channeler can break free of a shield that is actively maintained. From that perspective using a shield rather than an a'dam was smart.
The bottom line is that a'dam or not, it would not have helped. Semirhage would have still have escaped and events would have happened much the way they did.
1) Her knowledge was not why Rand kept her alive. He didn't let them try get that knowledge in the first place! He kept her alive because of his foolish belief that not harming her was a good deed.
"Well, what did you learn?"
"How did the questioning go, Cadsuane Sedai?"
Seems to me that Rand wanted to learn stuff from her. I don't deny that the stupid dont-hurt-women thing played a role but it is clear that Rand did want her broken using psychological interrogation techniques and information extracted from her.
2) Through LTT, Rand knows already that she had escaped once before. Not sharing that, not adding extra precaution because he knows that, is indeed foolish.
In this I agree. Rand should have had 5-10 Asha'man inside the cell at all times. And soldier guards aswell. Ofcourse I don't know if that would have helped against SH, but Rand does not know about that.
Still, on the other hand, Rand does not have an unlimited number of men available and people are needed elsewhere doing other important stuff. The shield WOULD have worked if not for something totally unexpected (SH). Semirhage would not have escaped on her own from the shield.
I would have, because with Moghedien's escape, RJ already established that knowledge from the Shadow can come at too high a price.
Even if that knowledge had been the knowledge required to win? Moghedien was not all that good of an example since no one knew who she was and she was not guarded and able to move around freely. Elayne and Nynaeve relied totally on the a'dam which was incredibly stupid of them.
So? That was still a result of his foolishness.
Only if trying to extract information is foolishness, and I don't agree with that.
Was Rand evil to channel the True Power?
- 12/01/2010 05:31:34 PM
1022 Views
I think this argument is relatively akin to real world ones like
- 13/01/2010 01:15:01 AM
369 Views
But it's the essence of the Dark One.
- 13/01/2010 01:43:10 AM
326 Views
4. He just reached for a power he sensed. What did he know? If he did know ...
- 13/01/2010 06:32:30 AM
386 Views