1
Tamyrlin: 2004-08-31
(Frenzy for Tamyrlin)
Alright, folks. Opinions?
How about 5) Rand managed to weave something that countered Balefire, and Callandor was the focus of that weave, similar to Moiraine's staff.
Why not, he's pulled impossible weaves out of the ether before.
2
Callandor: 2004-08-31
I think Rand used saidin to fork the balefire.
3
Jiana: 2004-08-31
** "3) the balefire was created by the true power and it can't coexist with the true source (we can say this because in Shadar Logoth Rand's secret helper's balefire collided with his and the results were repulsive)" **
This sounded good to me until I thought about it... If the "sword" were made with the TP, I don't think the taint would factor in at all, since the taint doesn't exist on the TP, only the male half of the OP. So... yes, I think Rand (or LTT) frantically created a weave out of nothing to counter the balefire.
4
Callandor: 2004-09-01
**If the "sword" were made with the TP, I don't think the taint would factor in at all, since the taint doesn't exist on the TP, only the male half of the OP**
Also, that the most likely canidate for the taint is the TP (what else does the Dark One have to taint it? ;)).
5
brigitta: 2004-09-01
I think it's #4... after all, it was created during the War of Power (IIRC), which would mean that it probably has some quantities in it not tried before. untested, therefore easily prone to being flawed. otherwise... it just wouldn't be flawed. I mean, the AS would have eliminated the flaws or remade it or... something.
6
Frenzy: 2004-09-01
Jiana said, ***...If the "sword" were made with the TP...***
Why would you suspect that Callandor was made with the True Power?
7
Dorindha: 2004-09-01
(3) is good, but number (2) can probably be factored in there, with a helping of (1). But I do agree with the majority, that Rand pulled something out of the deep recesses of his mind/soul/personality that deflected it.
8
Jiana: 2004-09-04
In response to Frenzy's question... I suspect Callandor was made with the TP (does anyone else here ever associate that abbreviation with toilet paper? anyway....)... I suspect this because Callandor does not behave as other objet d'power. And of course it was created during the War of Power. So who says it was created by the good guys (i.e., those who DON'T have access to the TP)? You notice that whenever a man uses Callandor, it is impossible to control, kind of does what it wants to do once the Power touches it. Maybe the weilder of Callandor must be channeling the TP in order to control it properly.... just a theory. :)
9
minalth: 2004-09-05
All rand has to do is use that weave he used when fighting the renegade asha'man that cut out the power, if the power cannot affect it, then how can balefire, which is of the power?
10
Callandor: 2004-09-07
**I suspect Callandor was made with the TP**
Three reasons I disagree:
1. We do not know if it is possible to make an angreal, let along sa'angreal, from the TP.
2. We do not know if said angreal or sa'angreal would channel the TP or the OP.
3. We know of no Forsaken that knows how to make angreals, or sa angreals (otherwise, they would've done it).
**Maybe the weilder of Callandor must be channeling the TP in order to control it properly.... just a theory. :)**
The True Power is obviously different then the One Power. The amount of channeling from a sa'angreal like Callandor, just once, such as what Rand did in TDR, TSR, and TPOD, should be more then enough to give the user (Rand) the saa. None are present that we have been made aware of.
Plus, using the TP is not as simple as using the OP. Using the TP is a matter of wanting to, and the Dark One letting you (as per RJ); OP is just wanting to, and knowing how.
**All rand has to do is use that weave he used when fighting the renegade asha'man that cut out the power, if the power cannot affect it, then how can balefire, which is of the power?**
Because it keeps out everything, EXCEPT balefire.
**TITLE: Path of Daggers
CHAPTER: 29 - A Cup of Sleep
*That barrier would keep out anything ~short of~ balefire.* Including air to breathe. Rand released it panting, scraping along the floor, with the crash of the explosions still ringing in the air, dust still hanging and bits of broken marble tumbling. As much as for breath, though, he let it go because what could keep the Power out, kept it in. Before he stopped sliding, he channeled Fire and Air, but woven much differently than for Folded Light. Thin red wires leaped from his left hand, fanning out as they sliced through the intervening stone toward where Dashiva and the others had been standing. From his left sped balls of flame, Fire woven with Air, faster than he could count, and they burned through the stone before exploding in that chamber. One continuous deafening roar made the Palace tremble. Dust that had fallen rose up again, and pieces of stone bounced.**
11
a dragonburned fool: 2004-09-09
I see no reasons for Callandor to be made of cuendillar, because cuendillar doesn't forke a balefire beam, but just survive it, while the beam passes through (as happened in Tanchico palace with the cuendillar figurines: they survived, the box collecting them vanished, and the beam went it's way further).
The same reason will make the #4 less acceptible. For a balefire to fork, something must be done to it, it's not enought for Callandor just to resist, but an active counterstrike against the balefire is needed.
Against #2: The balefire is destructable exactly for the Pattern. They stopped to use in in the War of Shadow, because it could inflich to serious damage to the whole Pattern. Actually it is direct weapon against the Pattern itself. So the Pattern would be not the something that could resist. Also when Pattern does something it never makes it via a just-miracle, but allways uses something that could really happen, but would be less probable. So the Pattern-intervence feature would still need explanation of exactly-how.
Against #3: If TP was uncompatible with OP it would rather create explosion or at least the balefire weave would be damaged. But it still remained balefire after the Callandor, it only changed the direction and forked. Too smooth result for a meeting of two incompatible forces.
Frenzy's #5 looks fairly possible.
Another possibilities:
#6 The huge concentration and intensity of One Power could have consequences similar to huge concentration of energy/mass in the relativist theory in physics, and to so change the spatial structure. Balefire propagates in linear manner using the existing space, so the OP concentration in Callandor could change the space there in two lines, that the balefire used "thinking" that it is the same straightforward direction.
#7. Rand made some mind-trick to the space there, causing the balefire to "think" it is still propagating straightforward, but actually...
#8. Mind control on the TAR proper of Rand was so strong, that it changed the balefire to a beam of some kind of another fire, working under another laws.
12
dragonsceptor: 2004-09-09
**And of course it was created during the War of Power. So who says it was created by the good guys***
I can't seem to find the quote but I seem to remember someone saying that Callandor was made FOR LTT.
Can anoyone help out with the quote?
13
Callandor: 2004-09-09
**I can't seem to find the quote but I seem to remember someone saying that Callandor was made FOR LTT.**
No quote like that exists that I am aware of. Closest you will find is that Callandor was made in the War of Power (in the BWB). But I could be wrong (it has happened).
14
damane: 2004-10-03
It's a sa'angreal; just leave it at that.
15
Joar Addam Nesossin: 2005-02-06
" *You notice that whenever a man uses Callandor, it is impossible to control, kind of does what it wants to do once the Power touches it*. Maybe the weilder of Callandor must be channeling the TP in order to control it properly"
Well, a couple of problems with that. The only times we get a really accurate description of a man channelling through Callandor (I think) are when Rand chases Ishamael in the Stone in TAR (in TDR...) and when he attacks the Seanchan in POD.
The reason saidin 'does whatever it wants', as you put it, is because, in the first case, Rand doesn't even know what he is doing - he channels without knowing what he is really doing.
In the second case (and also in the first, although not quite so much) the answer is the taint. Callandor magnifies the taint, which was still present in POD, inducing 'wildness of the mind'. Saidin did exactly what Rand made it do. He was just a little bit mad at the time.
16
Joar Addam Nesossin: 2005-02-07
Oh, yeah, one more thing: the second time, Rand is chanelling near where Elayne used the Bowl of Winds, and we know that that seems to have had some strange effect on any weaving around there.
17
Aiel Finn: 2005-02-07
I don't have the books on me or much time, but I think that there is something about Callandor in the memories that Rand sees in the Glass Columns. Something just before the making of the Eye.
18
Anubis: 2005-02-07
i think i know what your talking about. one of the aiel visits the aes sedai and callandor is there. It is implied that that group of Aes Sedai went off to create the Eye of the World and also the Stone.
I want to say the dragon banner is there too but its been a while since i read them... yeah i think it is because the last of the Nymn is there and he is at the eye.
19
mb: 2008-09-16
If it was made during the war of power, the taint would not be there since I take that the war ended with the sealing of the Bore. It was probably made during the breaking of the world.
As for why the balefire was deflected, another possibility could be that Rand made a shield with it (either around it or around himself).
What made Callandor, I would doubt the True Power. A thing that uses saidin I think could only have been made by someone that wields saidin (and likewise with saidar). Maybe it was made with a group of male and female channelers who were linked.
20
terez: 2008-09-22
We know that Callandor was made during the War of Power - RJ confirmed it, and also, it was seen at the very beginning of the Breaking when Rand was in the glass columns at Rhuidean. Apparently it was made without a buffer, the the magnification of the taint wouldn't have become obvious until after then (in other words, obviously the taint has nothing to do with why it has a flaw).
21
Ozymandias: 2008-09-25
It could be some modified form of Cuendillar.
I've always wondered what would happen when balefire hits cuendillar. The Unstoppable Force hits the Immovable Object? Technically, the balefire should make it cease to exist, but according to the nature of cuendillar, it should also strengthen the stuff... blows your mind.
22
terez: 2008-10-05
Wonder no longer, Ozy:
________________________________
TITLE – The Shadow Rising
CHAPTER: 54 – Into the Palace
Desperately she flung herself to one side, so hard that she slid along the smooth white floorstones until one of the thin columns stopped her with a jar. A leg-thick bar of white shot through where she had been standing, as if the air had turned to molten metal, slicing all the way across the exhibition hall; where it struck, pieces simply vanished out of columns, priceless artifacts ceased to exist. Hurling flows of Fire behind her blindly, hoping to strike something, anything, in the courtyard, Nynaeve scrambled away across the hall on hands and knees. Little more than waist-high, the bar sawed sideways, carving a swathe through both walls; between, cases and cabinets and wired skeletons collapsed and crashed. Severed columns quivered; some fell, but what dropped onto that terrible sword did not survive to smash displays and pedestals to the floor. The glass-walled table fell before the molten shaft vanished, leaving a purplish bar that seemed burned into Nynaeve's vision; the cuendillar figures were all that dropped out of that molten white shaft, bouncing on the floor.
The figurines did not break, of course. It seemed Moghedien was right; not even balefire could destroy cuendillar. That black rod was one of the stolen ter'angreal. Nynaeve could remember the warning appended to their list in a firm hand. Produces balefire. Dangerous and almost impossible to control.
________________________________
The Power directed at cuendillar only makes it stronger, even if it’s balefire.
23
Ozymandias: 2008-10-08
hahaha thank you terez. Of course, the makes no sense, but sometimes we just have to go with the flow, right?
24
Dragon Tamer: 2008-10-20
If you think about it, Callandor is supposed to be excalibur. Sword in the "stone", indestructible, sign that he is the true "king". Callandor may be an artifact from before the Age of Legends. It may in fact be the original excalibur. As to how it's made, maybe the whole "lady in the water thing is meant that a woman using saidar made it. This could explain why there is no buffer and it seems to be made improperly, women probably wouldn't completely understand how to make a male sa'angreal but she was damned determined to do it anyways.
25
terez: 2008-10-22
Well, Callandor was made during the War of Power, so it was most likely made by men and women working together.
RJ does use a lot of references to real world legends but they rarely play out in a parallel fashion, which is why both Rand and Mat have Odin characteristics, etc.
26
Marie Curie 7: 2008-10-22
Dragon Tamer:
"If you think about it, Callandor is supposed to be excalibur. Sword in the "stone", indestructible, sign that he is the true "king". Callandor may be an artifact from before the Age of Legends. It may in fact be the original excalibur. As to how it's made, maybe the whole "lady in the water thing is meant that a woman using saidar made it. This could explain why there is no buffer and it seems to be made improperly, women probably wouldn't completely understand how to make a male sa'angreal but she was damned determined to do it anyways.."
Callandor was made during the Breaking, so it is not from before the Age of Legends. And it was made with no buffer as a result of an error in manufacturing:
-----------------
Knife of Dreams tour 28 October 2005 - Jason Wolfbrother reporting
JWB: Was Callandor constructed during the War of Power?
RJ: Yes
JWB: Was it used in the War of Power?
RJ: Yes, that is how the flaw was discovered.
JWB: Why didn't they ward/buffer Callandor?
RJ: The flaw with Callandor is simply a manufacturing flaw. (He went on to talk about how they were at the end of their tech age with only a few sho-wings and jo-cars left. A couple of shocklances were still around but they were not as prevalent as they had been. Anyway they had been mass producing ter'angreal, angreal, and sa'angreal, and there are bound to be flaws with the products. The flaw with Callandor is simply one such flaw.)
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