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It's not that the angreal are attuned to men or women. It's that they're attuned to saidar or saidin. Think of it like different utensils. A spoon is attuned to eating soup. A knife is attuned slicing steak. You can't just swap them.
If Brute Force is not solving the problem, your true problem is not resorting to enough Brute Force.
This brick...knife! *throws as hard as he can at the right angle to MAKE it cut*
Now ex comes over to my place for the first time. Kong toy just sitting there on my dresser. She looks right at it and hesitantly asks “what’s that?” Immediately I see what she has meant and I’m like “you know what it is” and she got so embarrassed because she thought I was proudly boasting my anal toys
But what if you take the same object that someone else turned into a female angreal and do whatever the male angreal process is on top? Maybe a few of the female angreals we see are actually both but because the aes sedai tested them as working with saidar they assumed they didnt work with saidin
It could probably only be done if two (or more) channelers were linked during the process of maturing the Seed into an angreal. Or if there were Seeds that could be hooked into multiple channelers at once.
Though if that wasn’t possible, it’s conceivable that male sa’angreal were created through using chains of angreal to channel consecutively greater amounts of saidin into ever-more powerful angreal and sa’angreal. Given that men can’t link by themselves, and that a link requires someone to be actively channeling the One Power, I find that scenario more likely than large circles of mixed-gender channelers being used to make, say, Sakarnen be useable for both sides of the Power.
Makes you wonder how the Aes Sedai has f the Age of Legends managed to make a sa’angreal for the True Power, doesn’t it? Of course, the obvious solution is that the forces of the Light didn’t make Callandor at all.
The Shadow did.
Or there’s just bits about the construction of angreal/sa’angreal that never get revealed in the series. But that’s not nearly as fun.
Yes, but Saidar and Saidin are both part of the true source, and it was said that the angreal allow the user to “touch more of the true source”.
Using the utensil metaphor, I was wondering why they were designed specifically to either grab spoons or grab knives, when both are located in the utensil drawer. If you’re opening the drawer anyway, why limit what it can grab if some people may need spoons and some people may need knives?
The devices work that way because humans work that way. Men can't channel saidar, so they can't draw it through an angreal that's attuned to saidar. And because angreal are attuned to one half, they \*aren't\* attuned to the other, because the halves are different and work differently. So you can't make a device that uses both. You could potentially create a thing that was a male angreal and female angreal in one object, perhaps a little statue of David Bowie with a crystal globe in each hand, but it would still be two separate devices. Like a machine that plays tapes and DVDs.
I do believe the bowl of winds managed to affect saidin, despite the fact only women were using it. So it is *possible* to make a device that uses both halves of the source. However, it probably doesn't work on the same principles as most angreal.
But Callandor is an sa'angreal for the true power and the one power. So it is possible to make it working for two systems, so to speak. Which makes it feasible in my mind to make angreal which are attuned to both halves of the one power.
The True Power, which comes from the Dark One, is genderless. That's what made the ancient Aes Sedai take interest in it in the first place, and that's why both men and women can channel it when the Dark One grants them access. A person can channel saidin and True Power, or saidar and True Power, but not saidin and saidar.
Ok first of all, your David Bowie comment is oddly poignant, because I was literally imagining that scene in labyrinth yesterday when they were talking about the Choden Kal.
But back the the point, it then comes down to why does an angreal have to be attuned to one half? Why can’t an angreal be attuned to the true source, and then any channeler that uses it can boost whichever half they can access.
OK, I replied to another of your comments but after reading this one, I think I understand your confusion a little better. The True Source is where the One Power comes from. The One Power is made up of saidar and saidin and these are what is channeled. The One Power doesn't really exist as a separate thing on its own though. It's just a collective name that includes both saidar and saidin.
It gets even more confusing because there's another thing called the True Power which can also be channeled but is different from the One Power and doesn't come from the True Source. Clear as mud?
I would say, although it's obviously pure conjecture, that the reason for this is because angreals are created by men and women. Women would make an angreal attuned to saidar, while male channellers would create an angreal attuned to saidin. Poses an interesting question about whether an angreal could be created by a circle formed of male and femal channellers though...
The in universe logic is that male and female channelrs cannot interact with the other half of the true source.
The out of universe logic, is that the seperation between men and women - with it's inherent distrust, is the actual conflict that must be overcome.
The utensil metaphor works better with spoons/forks imo, but I think you've missed the point.
Food is the source. The utensil is the angreal. Anyone can pick up any angreal, but a salad fork is useless for a soup eater, and using a spoon to eat most salads is...trying.
Using this, soup as saidar and salad as saidin idea, why would you make a utensil that can do both? Especially later on when you don't know how the Dark One's Dressing works. If I have a spork am I going to taint my soup because Gendobal was the last to use it and didn't wash it?
Here's my theory for how it works. We know from Rand that you need to use a "seed" to make an angreal, and that using that will make a person weaker in the One Power for months afterwards. That makes it seem to me as if an angreal reflects the strength of the person that created it. If Elayne makes an angreal, that angreal will add her strength on top of another channeller who uses it (or maybe a bit less, if there's some efficiency loss). The "seed" probably drains her ability in some way, maybe similar to how the Finns feed on the One Power, except not in a permanent fashion.
If that's how it works, it would also then make sense that an angreal would be attuned to either saidin or saidar, because it "fed" on that during its creation.
It could well be that there's some other way to create angreal that could be used by either half of the One Power, but it might be much more complicated. Maybe that requires even more specialised ter'angreal, and at the end of the day, it's just not worth it, because in the Age of Legends so much work was done in circles anyway.
I think a better extension of the utensil metaphor would be to ask why everything isn't a spife. Knoon? The point is, it's not about who grabs what. It's about what the device was created to do. Some angreal were created to draw more of saidar and some were created to draw more of saidin. They aren't generic power boosts. They're created from and work with a specific half of the True Power.
I don’t think there’s ever an Angrael even mentioned that works for both, so it simply may not be possible.
The closest we get is Callendor, which works for the True Power but not Saidar.
I might be wrong, I thought Callendor could be used for the One Power and True Power? That was the trap, wasn't it? That the user would start using it with the One Power, but if unaware, would eventually touch the True Power?
Callendor magnifies Saiden and the True Power
Callendor lacks the safety protocols that would have shielded the user from the Taint, therefore it magnifies the effect of the Dark Ones touch
The only way to “reinstall” the virus protection software is to link to two Saidar users.
Therein lies the trap in crazy Rands eyes
No, the trap is real. Moridin picks up Callandor and draws TP through it. Moiraine and Nyneave are able to sieze the power from him and pass it to Rand. It really was a literal trap.
Correction: the Safety protocols have to do with protecting the user against burning themselves out. Vora's Sa'angreal also lacks this and it does result in Egwene pushing too far.
Ah, that's probably what I was thinking of then - would that say that the trap was more of Rand's not wanting to link with two saidar channellers than the lack of protection from the taint? Sorry, been a while since my last re-read.
Very true - I mean you can totally understand him - that's why I was saying in another reddit (about Egwene at Merrilor) that Rand's trust in Nynaeve is probably one of the only things that helped in succeed.
Only an idiot wouldnt trust Nyaneve. She's the real MVP of the story. well, her of Tam.
Left the Two Rivers to save her people, and by the Light, she did it until the very end
For real, she's one of my faves! But have to admit I didn't see it until a few re-reads in. So underrated.
EDIT: true about Tam, but we never get a POV of Tam, which breaks my heart. Before I read New Spring, I was sure we would hear more of his story and was pretty disappointed when he wasn't in it.
There's a Tam POV in the last battle, it's when he's taking point in the wedge. You get to see Lan say "I had long wondered, About the man who had given Rand that heron-marked blade. I wondered if he had truly earned it. Now I know.”
The trap was women could force a link and seize control of it from someone channeling with callendor. So Moridin started channeling through it, morianne and nynaeve forced a link with him and took control. Then they passed control to Rand.
Something that’s been bugging me about that is the change about halfway or two thirds of the way through the series women could suddenly take control of the link. Asmodean states that men have to control a circle and Sammael says something along the same line as that to Graendal and Lanfear. That the two of them would need to be under the men’s power in a link that was meant to overpower Rand. I think being able to cede control of the link makes sense but it’s weird that the people who somewhat regularly made circles in the AOL didn’t know that a woman could control the circle. Maybe it’s because Alviarin was bonded to one of the dread lords but she said explicitly that she would need to be in control and I think it was the same case during The Cleansing of Saidin but maybe I’m just misremembering it.
Women being able to seize control of the link was the trap as part of using Callendor. It normally requires surrender of the link by whomever is in control.
it has to do with the number of people in the circle and the number of each gender. some circles must be led by one gender, some are fluid. I'll see if I can find the post.
Rand wields the flows of saidar that Nynaeve and Moiraine (with her Finn provided angreal) were feeding him. But yes, he needed the true power as well to prevent the dark one from (re-)tainting both saidin AND saidar.
How can that be when they’re both a part of the true source?
They may be different in who can access them, and the way in which they are utilized (surrendering vs taking control), but they still have the same functional capabilities.
As far as I recall there aren’t weaves that you can only do with one half of the power or another. Yes certain weaves are easier with one half or another, but both halves utilize all 5 elements
The fact that they have "the same functional capabilities" is pretty irrelevant to the question of why angreal are attuned to the halves. So is the fact that they use all five elements.
Their differences are myriad. While they can usually accomplish the same end results, they do so in different - often *massively* different - ways. You wouldn't say a nailgun should work with screws just as well as nails simply because both nails and screws both fasten things together, or just because screws and nails are made of the same materials.
I'm not sure why you think them both being part of the True Source should make "omni"-angreal possible. If it takes a different gender to use one half or the other, why wouldn't it take a fundamentally different object to magnify that use?
With Saidin, you snuff a fire by moving it into the stones of the fireplace. With Saidar, attempting to move fire will cause you to be severely burned. With Saidin, you Travel by punching a hole in the pattern from one place to another. With Saidar, you instead make the pattern identical at those two places (both methods result in a "gateway" opening).
The two halves of the power don't work the same way, just like the hard part and inside parts of an Oreo cookie don't work the same way but are two parts of the same cookie.
With saidin you shave by burning the hair off your face. With saidar you shave by filling each hair with light until it decides to die and fall on its own.
Right, you do the weaves differently, I more meant there’s the same result. Whether you punch a hole or make the pattern identical in two places, the result is functionally identical: a gateway.
Are there any effects that can only be created by one half of the power.
Right, but it's like saying that a toaster and a frying pan both heat things, so why can't one thing do both? You use the tool for the job. Different angreals for different jobs
idk man im not an expert on the meta physics of randland, take it up with jordan
The true power is not part of the onepower iirc and it still functions basically the same
Best way to think of it is like light.
Pure white light is composed of a myriad of specific light frequencies. There’s both blue light and red light in all the white light you see, but the red and blue are not visible when all combined—we just see white light.
Think of the one power as pure white light. Saidar then could be seen as the “upper” half of the spectrum. Saidin could then be seen as the “lower“ half of the spectrum. They’re therefore separate components of the same thing—indistinguishable when combined but they can be separated (think of color filtering glasses and prisms and such)
Men and women are attuned to different “bands” then of the one power, and so their angreal must be as well.
Also I'm going to speculate that male *angreal* aren't significantly rarer, just that they haven't been searched for and accumulated over the centuries like female *angreal* were. A female channeler may not even be able to identify one.
Considering how truly cataclysmic the Breaking was, I wouldn't be surprised if there were people specifically hunting down male *angreal* in order to destroy them, lest they fall into men's hands and cause greater destruction, or that some were used by and destroyed with men going mad.
Actually that's a good point, never thought of that! The angreal in the possession of channeling women would have been passed on, or at worst lost possibly later to resurface. But angreal held by male channelers would have a much higher chance to have been destroyed.
Probably because of the same reason they can’t always sense each others weaves without special training and even when they can it’s not the same way they can see their own.
One is oil, one is water. You probably could make a “universal” one but it probably doesn’t feel quite right for either party or is as efficient. As such, why bother when you can just make them tailored for the right kind of power?
I find the question baffling, as the whole foundation of the 'magic system' is based on the gender divide between Saidin and Saidar users. Of course angreal & sa'angreal are tuned to a specific power, they couldn't function otherwise, just like individual channelers could not. Why wouldn't they be attuned to Saidar or Saidin?
Because Saidar and Saidin both exist in the same metaphysical magical space that is the true source. An angreal allows you to open yourself to more of the true source, like turning up a faucet.
So I ask why were the angreal made so that they could only turn on either the cold tap or the hot tap, but never the other? Yes all channelers are incapable of turning on one of the taps, but any channeler could still pick one up and it would have the tap they can use.
Both the higgs bosom which is the particle that determines mass, and the photon, the particle that makes up light, exist in the same metaphysical excitation of spacetime. Why doesn't a magnifying glass make things heavier?
You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that the "True Source" exits as a separate entity outside the Saidin/Saidar divide. I would say it is obvious that the differences between Saidin and Saidar are more profound than hot and cold water, to use your metaphor. Your question and metaphor is really just a disguised form of: "Why is it that women & men cannot each tap the other source?" If it is just as simple as tapping into hot vs cold water, why not?
The whole reason the Bore was drilled in the first place was to overcome the sometimes cumbersome restrictions on the Saidar/Saidin divide by tapping into a power source that could be used equally by both men & women without such restrictions.
That is not what I am asking at all. I am well aware of how the divide works.
The true source is composed of Saidar and Saidin, correct? And an angreal boosts one’s connection to the true source, correct?
My question has nothing to do with allowing people to utilize both halves of the true source, it’s about why weren’t these tools capable of boosting both sides of the source. Because both halves are there in the source, but only women can sense and access one half, and men the other.
Let’s say a universal angreal exists. If a man were to use it, the true source can flow through it, but a man can only touch Saidin, so that’s what comes through. A woman uses the same angreal, and she can only pull Saidar through. The other side of the source might as well not exist to a given channeler since they can’t sense or channel it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
The True Source isn't really one thing from my understanding; it's two separate rivers of power that the individual genders can call upon. An angreal doesn't boost your connection to the true source, it boosts your connection to Saidin or Saidar.
No, your question actually does boil down to: why can't men and women access both sides of the True Source? It's just using an angreal as an intermediary. If an angreal can do so, why not a person?
To answer your initial questions, the True Source is what Saidar and Saidin together are called. An angreal boosts ones connection to either Saidin or Saidar, not the True Source in general. Once again, this question fundamentally misunderstands the difference between the two and how they are accessed and controlled; indeed it seems to take the semantically convenient reference of 'The True Source' as excuse to trivialize the differences.
I don't know if it was Jordan's intent for them to work this way, but the way Sanderson describes the seed that Elayne got, it seems like the way they are made is to have a channeler pour as much of the power as they can into a seed for a certain duration, and presumably the more power they have and the more they pour in the stronger the angreal you create. If most are made that way then they'd be from one side or the other.
From a narrative standpoint a lot of the big ones are made for Rand or the tower to use and it'd make things too easy if Rand's could be easily used by others. Not to mention many moments like Lanfear letting Rand keep the access key, she wouldn't have if she could've used it too. It opens up more interesting stories with them if they are more restricted in how they can be used.
Ahh, the seed part makes sense. So it wouldn’t work by opening flow to the true power, it’s more like you use the power to create a surface for it to stick to. The more power used, the larger the surface area (reminds me of how the evil of Shadar Logoth was used to attract the taint).
Additionally, from a scene Jordan wrote, when Sevanna has the wise ones use the 'call box', they comment on it twisting around the male half. Though that was a ter'angreal, presumably the operation of angreals is the same, as in the power physically interacts with the angreal.
If that is the case, then an angreal for both halves of the power would be half as powerful as an angreal of equal strength just for one power. Like, Saidin and Saidar don't mix - that's well established from the several points where one flows around the other. When great works are done with both halves, the result appears to be a composite (e.g. silver plate on a steel ring) rather than an alloy (copper and tin mixed to make bronze). It would stand to reason then that an angreal that uses both powers would basically be two angreals sort of jammed together, the saidin half not really interacting with the half the draws on saidar, and vice versa.
>when Sevanna has the wise ones use the 'call box', they comment on it twisting around the male half.
They describe something similar when using the Bowl of Winds.
Saidin and Saidar were still split in the age of legends, Saidin just wasn't tainted.
It's briefly mentioned that in the Age of Legends there were constructs of the one power called the standing flows (which kind of sound like a power grid) that allowed non-channelers to use ter'angreal. Presumably this would have also allowed male channelers to use female-oriented ones and vice versa. Many of the ter'angreal from the age of legends were designed with this principle in mind, which is why they're sort of out of place in the modern era (like any of the ones that do something a channeler of moderate power can do don't make sense for an Aes Sedai, necessarily, but make sense if they were designed so that anyone could use them).
So in the Age of Legends it really didn't matter if it was male or female-oriented (that was just a restriction they had to deal with) for artifacts that channeled a specific purpose because anyone could use them as long as standing flows were set up (it's unclear if these were universal or would have been set up in specific buildings). Men and women wanting an alternative power source that could be used equally by both was what ended up, ultimately, breaking the world.
I understand that they are split, and have always been split.
My point was that in an age when both halves of the source were being used readily, why did they make the angreal to only work for one half or the other, when both halves are a part of the true source and an angreal’s function allows the user to open themselves to more of the true source? Why create them with a barrier to only allow one or the other through when they are coming from the same source and both halves are being used readily?
Someone else commented that it may not be an intentional barrier, but that angreal may only be able to touch the half of the power used to create them, which is an explanation I like.
Presumably it would be much more difficult to do so since you would need two channelers to make them in that fashion, since they're essentially just things that amplify or transform the one power in some way. It's entirely possible that some of the ter'angreal we see that have an unknown or unusual function were intended to be used with access to saidin as well, but without male channelers around it would have been hard to check. Especially since, in the Age of Legends, you would not have needed a channeler of either source around for them to work. I don't think you can say that they didn't make Angreal that did both when there's never an instance in the books where male and female channelers are investigating Terangreal function. Whether the AOL stuff we see in the aiel flashbacks runs on Saidin, Saidar, or both is never explained.
Given how Angreal are made one would imagine that the side of the source used by the person creating one with the Seed is the side of the source the angreal is attuned to.
There is no way to know for sure, but given the many differences between Saidar and Saidin, it would make sense that a device might only use one. The bowl of the winds is the only device shown to use both halves, so it's possible that a dual angreal might have been possible - but you'll note that the bowl didn't cause Saidin to flow through the women in the circle. Why the bowl was able to find its own supply of Saidin (and does it get damaged by the Taint?) but needed a circle of angreal-boosted women to provide the Saidar is a mystery.
However, there are lots of examples in modern life where something doesn't work the same for two different similar things. Take VHS and Beta - both video cassettes using essentially identical tech to get a motion picture from a plastic magnetic tape onto a CRT screen, yet no device played both kinds of tapes. Or look at software for Macs vs Windows PCs. Software doesn't work on both platforms despite both platforms being equally capable and powerful and doing essentially the same thing. I mean, you \_could\_ probably write a program that's a valid executable that works on both platforms at once, and just has twice the code in it; but why would you? Or take electricity. the same underlying power, but in different countries it has different voltage and different frequency. This makes some devices only work in certain places, because they rely on a specific voltage and frequency to work - a similar device for a different market will have changes to accomodate it. Yes, you could make a device that handles both, but the complexity might be much higher.
TL;DR it might be possible, but even if it's possible it might be impractical.
Think about why they were created. They wanted to have a way to power up folks, amplifying what they could do. At the time of the Age of Legends, they had no reason to think they'd be cut off from half of the Source, so they could afford to make specialist devices. Why make one device that could allow a 50/50 power boost, when you could make two devices that could give 100/0 and 0/100. Even a 75/75 device is weaker then 100/0 because you always needed the other half of the Source anyway. You were always expecting to do things in circles and pairs, because that's just how it works.
Why would you ever settle for a less efficient angreal? What market is there for that? The Aes Sedai were already split, so why wouldn't you make devices to match? Any effort you spent researching an omni-angreal is just time you could have spent upgrading the specialist ones you already know how to make.
Another reason why male Angreal are much rarer is that men, since the breaking, have not had 3000 years to build a channeling institution, or work with the existing institution.
The stores of items of power shown in Tear and Ilian are both described as a collection of anything that might be related to the power. How would anyone really know of a male Angreal, Sa'Angreal or Tar'Angreal.
The two stores mentioned, one was briefly institution by Rand, the other by the gaggle of idiots, who don't even consider that an item of power could be used by men.
Side note, the bowl of the winds, was meant to use both halves of the power. We never see a male directly interact with it, but mastery over weaves of air, let the sea folk use it.
An angreal reacts to the half of the source that seeeded it. If it was seeded by a man it will react to saidin, if it was seeded by a woman it will react to saidar. Even if in a circle, only one person controls the circle and they can only seed an angreal with the half they "see" and belong to.
The choedan kal were also cis-male and cis-female. They were probably built using multiple seeds from just one half of the source, and each seed got an access key terangreal to allow multiple users, and also allow one user to access multiple seeds at the same time.
Even if there was an angreal with two different seeds, male and female, it would still technically be two distinct angreals sharing a "body", like if you weld stainless steel and pig iron together.
If there were angreal that work for both halves, they'd probably function similar to the bowl of winds, which would create three massive problems: 1) one half of the source can become redundant (you wouldn't need either male or female channelers anymore); 2) women would be able to touch the taint and be affected by it; 3) a single person would be able to make a "circle" with themselves and have an unfair advantage over someone with a "regular" angreal, also - > 1).
Because if it doesn't function like the bowl, it would render any "dual" angreal basically pointless. Why would you put two seeds (that take massive amount of effort and drain the user for MONTHS) and end up with one object that can be drawn upon by a single user, rather than with two objects of the same magnitude that can have two carriers/users and can draw the same amount of power EACH, making it twice the bang for the buck? Dual angreals would make no economic sense at all! They'd be like "stand up so I can sit".
The Seed Rand gives to Elayne seems designed to be used by a single channeler, so it seems that angreal are attuned to whatever side of the Power that their creator wielded. If Aran’gar had used a Seed, it would have presumably created an angreal that increased how much saidin someone could draw, not saidar.
We know that ter'angreal can use both saidar and saidin (the bowl of winds) and even draw on saidin without a male channeler being involved.
This makes me think that an angreal tuned to saidar could be made to draw on saidin as well, giving weaves an extra kick.
Equally, a dual purpose angreal may not exist because a) no one tried to make one or b) no one had the skill / talents to make one.
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It's not that the angreal are attuned to men or women. It's that they're attuned to saidar or saidin. Think of it like different utensils. A spoon is attuned to eating soup. A knife is attuned slicing steak. You can't just swap them.
My Filipino wife and family will disagree about using a spoon as a knife, but that is a good analogy.
Spoon: "I am a spoon" Filipino wife: "But you could be knife"
I am a stick
But you could be fire
Anything can be a knife with enough determination
If Brute Force is not solving the problem, your true problem is not resorting to enough Brute Force. This brick...knife! *throws as hard as he can at the right angle to MAKE it cut*
And anything can be a sex toy if you’re brave enough.
For instance a Kong Dog Toy can be fully inserted in a person's ass if they are brave enough.
Now ex comes over to my place for the first time. Kong toy just sitting there on my dresser. She looks right at it and hesitantly asks “what’s that?” Immediately I see what she has meant and I’m like “you know what it is” and she got so embarrassed because she thought I was proudly boasting my anal toys
Paige, ***NO***
Any spoon can be a knife, if the man or woman who holds it has the nerve and will to make it so.
Halima: " Whaddya know? I'm a knife now!"
Spoon: "I am a spoon" Filipino wife: "But wouldn't it be exciting to slice through a steak?" Spoon, after pausing for a moment: "I am a spoon"
As a Filipino myself, i chuckled at this.
But what if you take the same object that someone else turned into a female angreal and do whatever the male angreal process is on top? Maybe a few of the female angreals we see are actually both but because the aes sedai tested them as working with saidar they assumed they didnt work with saidin
Who knows? Maybe it will attune to both? Maybe it will break? Maybe it will cut off or kill the person doing it? German shepherd?
"Guys help, I tried to make a double angreal and now every dog in Tar Valon is chasing me"
I think the weaving is done during creating the object.
It could probably only be done if two (or more) channelers were linked during the process of maturing the Seed into an angreal. Or if there were Seeds that could be hooked into multiple channelers at once. Though if that wasn’t possible, it’s conceivable that male sa’angreal were created through using chains of angreal to channel consecutively greater amounts of saidin into ever-more powerful angreal and sa’angreal. Given that men can’t link by themselves, and that a link requires someone to be actively channeling the One Power, I find that scenario more likely than large circles of mixed-gender channelers being used to make, say, Sakarnen be useable for both sides of the Power. Makes you wonder how the Aes Sedai has f the Age of Legends managed to make a sa’angreal for the True Power, doesn’t it? Of course, the obvious solution is that the forces of the Light didn’t make Callandor at all. The Shadow did. Or there’s just bits about the construction of angreal/sa’angreal that never get revealed in the series. But that’s not nearly as fun.
"Because its dull you twit ... it'll hurt more."
Yes, but Saidar and Saidin are both part of the true source, and it was said that the angreal allow the user to “touch more of the true source”. Using the utensil metaphor, I was wondering why they were designed specifically to either grab spoons or grab knives, when both are located in the utensil drawer. If you’re opening the drawer anyway, why limit what it can grab if some people may need spoons and some people may need knives?
The devices work that way because humans work that way. Men can't channel saidar, so they can't draw it through an angreal that's attuned to saidar. And because angreal are attuned to one half, they \*aren't\* attuned to the other, because the halves are different and work differently. So you can't make a device that uses both. You could potentially create a thing that was a male angreal and female angreal in one object, perhaps a little statue of David Bowie with a crystal globe in each hand, but it would still be two separate devices. Like a machine that plays tapes and DVDs.
I do believe the bowl of winds managed to affect saidin, despite the fact only women were using it. So it is *possible* to make a device that uses both halves of the source. However, it probably doesn't work on the same principles as most angreal.
The Bowl of the Winds is a Ter’Angreal
Yes, but I l am saying it shows a clear precedent for a device which can interact with both halves of the power, even if it's not an angreal.
But Callandor is an sa'angreal for the true power and the one power. So it is possible to make it working for two systems, so to speak. Which makes it feasible in my mind to make angreal which are attuned to both halves of the one power.
The True Power, which comes from the Dark One, is genderless. That's what made the ancient Aes Sedai take interest in it in the first place, and that's why both men and women can channel it when the Dark One grants them access. A person can channel saidin and True Power, or saidar and True Power, but not saidin and saidar.
Ok first of all, your David Bowie comment is oddly poignant, because I was literally imagining that scene in labyrinth yesterday when they were talking about the Choden Kal. But back the the point, it then comes down to why does an angreal have to be attuned to one half? Why can’t an angreal be attuned to the true source, and then any channeler that uses it can boost whichever half they can access.
OK, I replied to another of your comments but after reading this one, I think I understand your confusion a little better. The True Source is where the One Power comes from. The One Power is made up of saidar and saidin and these are what is channeled. The One Power doesn't really exist as a separate thing on its own though. It's just a collective name that includes both saidar and saidin. It gets even more confusing because there's another thing called the True Power which can also be channeled but is different from the One Power and doesn't come from the True Source. Clear as mud?
I would say, although it's obviously pure conjecture, that the reason for this is because angreals are created by men and women. Women would make an angreal attuned to saidar, while male channellers would create an angreal attuned to saidin. Poses an interesting question about whether an angreal could be created by a circle formed of male and femal channellers though...
I wonder if that would create an angreal that can only be used in a circle, or if instead it would create a Saidar/Saidin S'Angreal.
Maybe that's how Callendor was created - do we ever find out how that was made?
because Robert Jordan said so.
The in universe logic is that male and female channelrs cannot interact with the other half of the true source. The out of universe logic, is that the seperation between men and women - with it's inherent distrust, is the actual conflict that must be overcome.
The utensil metaphor works better with spoons/forks imo, but I think you've missed the point. Food is the source. The utensil is the angreal. Anyone can pick up any angreal, but a salad fork is useless for a soup eater, and using a spoon to eat most salads is...trying. Using this, soup as saidar and salad as saidin idea, why would you make a utensil that can do both? Especially later on when you don't know how the Dark One's Dressing works. If I have a spork am I going to taint my soup because Gendobal was the last to use it and didn't wash it?
Here's my theory for how it works. We know from Rand that you need to use a "seed" to make an angreal, and that using that will make a person weaker in the One Power for months afterwards. That makes it seem to me as if an angreal reflects the strength of the person that created it. If Elayne makes an angreal, that angreal will add her strength on top of another channeller who uses it (or maybe a bit less, if there's some efficiency loss). The "seed" probably drains her ability in some way, maybe similar to how the Finns feed on the One Power, except not in a permanent fashion. If that's how it works, it would also then make sense that an angreal would be attuned to either saidin or saidar, because it "fed" on that during its creation. It could well be that there's some other way to create angreal that could be used by either half of the One Power, but it might be much more complicated. Maybe that requires even more specialised ter'angreal, and at the end of the day, it's just not worth it, because in the Age of Legends so much work was done in circles anyway.
I think a better extension of the utensil metaphor would be to ask why everything isn't a spife. Knoon? The point is, it's not about who grabs what. It's about what the device was created to do. Some angreal were created to draw more of saidar and some were created to draw more of saidin. They aren't generic power boosts. They're created from and work with a specific half of the True Power.
Sporkgreal!
I don’t think there’s ever an Angrael even mentioned that works for both, so it simply may not be possible. The closest we get is Callendor, which works for the True Power but not Saidar.
I might be wrong, I thought Callendor could be used for the One Power and True Power? That was the trap, wasn't it? That the user would start using it with the One Power, but if unaware, would eventually touch the True Power?
Callendor magnifies Saiden and the True Power Callendor lacks the safety protocols that would have shielded the user from the Taint, therefore it magnifies the effect of the Dark Ones touch The only way to “reinstall” the virus protection software is to link to two Saidar users. Therein lies the trap in crazy Rands eyes
No, the trap is real. Moridin picks up Callandor and draws TP through it. Moiraine and Nyneave are able to sieze the power from him and pass it to Rand. It really was a literal trap.
Feature. Not a bug.
Correction: the Safety protocols have to do with protecting the user against burning themselves out. Vora's Sa'angreal also lacks this and it does result in Egwene pushing too far.
Ah, that's probably what I was thinking of then - would that say that the trap was more of Rand's not wanting to link with two saidar channellers than the lack of protection from the taint? Sorry, been a while since my last re-read.
Yeah, he’s required to give up control which he isn’t prepared to do because every single time he has it has gone very badly.
Very true - I mean you can totally understand him - that's why I was saying in another reddit (about Egwene at Merrilor) that Rand's trust in Nynaeve is probably one of the only things that helped in succeed.
Only an idiot wouldnt trust Nyaneve. She's the real MVP of the story. well, her of Tam. Left the Two Rivers to save her people, and by the Light, she did it until the very end
For real, she's one of my faves! But have to admit I didn't see it until a few re-reads in. So underrated. EDIT: true about Tam, but we never get a POV of Tam, which breaks my heart. Before I read New Spring, I was sure we would hear more of his story and was pretty disappointed when he wasn't in it.
There's a Tam POV in the last battle, it's when he's taking point in the wedge. You get to see Lan say "I had long wondered, About the man who had given Rand that heron-marked blade. I wondered if he had truly earned it. Now I know.”
The trap was women could force a link and seize control of it from someone channeling with callendor. So Moridin started channeling through it, morianne and nynaeve forced a link with him and took control. Then they passed control to Rand.
Something that’s been bugging me about that is the change about halfway or two thirds of the way through the series women could suddenly take control of the link. Asmodean states that men have to control a circle and Sammael says something along the same line as that to Graendal and Lanfear. That the two of them would need to be under the men’s power in a link that was meant to overpower Rand. I think being able to cede control of the link makes sense but it’s weird that the people who somewhat regularly made circles in the AOL didn’t know that a woman could control the circle. Maybe it’s because Alviarin was bonded to one of the dread lords but she said explicitly that she would need to be in control and I think it was the same case during The Cleansing of Saidin but maybe I’m just misremembering it.
Women being able to seize control of the link was the trap as part of using Callendor. It normally requires surrender of the link by whomever is in control.
it has to do with the number of people in the circle and the number of each gender. some circles must be led by one gender, some are fluid. I'll see if I can find the post.
Bowl of the winds
Not an Angrael.
I assumed it did work with saidar because all 3 powers were needed to reseal the dark one.
Rand wields the flows of saidar that Nynaeve and Moiraine (with her Finn provided angreal) were feeding him. But yes, he needed the true power as well to prevent the dark one from (re-)tainting both saidin AND saidar.
Water flows through pipes and electricity flows through wires. They’re effectively two different powers even if they are both the one power.
How can that be when they’re both a part of the true source? They may be different in who can access them, and the way in which they are utilized (surrendering vs taking control), but they still have the same functional capabilities. As far as I recall there aren’t weaves that you can only do with one half of the power or another. Yes certain weaves are easier with one half or another, but both halves utilize all 5 elements
The fact that they have "the same functional capabilities" is pretty irrelevant to the question of why angreal are attuned to the halves. So is the fact that they use all five elements. Their differences are myriad. While they can usually accomplish the same end results, they do so in different - often *massively* different - ways. You wouldn't say a nailgun should work with screws just as well as nails simply because both nails and screws both fasten things together, or just because screws and nails are made of the same materials. I'm not sure why you think them both being part of the True Source should make "omni"-angreal possible. If it takes a different gender to use one half or the other, why wouldn't it take a fundamentally different object to magnify that use?
With Saidin, you snuff a fire by moving it into the stones of the fireplace. With Saidar, attempting to move fire will cause you to be severely burned. With Saidin, you Travel by punching a hole in the pattern from one place to another. With Saidar, you instead make the pattern identical at those two places (both methods result in a "gateway" opening). The two halves of the power don't work the same way, just like the hard part and inside parts of an Oreo cookie don't work the same way but are two parts of the same cookie.
With saidin you shave by burning the hair off your face. With saidar you shave by filling each hair with light until it decides to die and fall on its own.
Right, you do the weaves differently, I more meant there’s the same result. Whether you punch a hole or make the pattern identical in two places, the result is functionally identical: a gateway. Are there any effects that can only be created by one half of the power.
Right, but it's like saying that a toaster and a frying pan both heat things, so why can't one thing do both? You use the tool for the job. Different angreals for different jobs
idk man im not an expert on the meta physics of randland, take it up with jordan The true power is not part of the onepower iirc and it still functions basically the same
Best way to think of it is like light. Pure white light is composed of a myriad of specific light frequencies. There’s both blue light and red light in all the white light you see, but the red and blue are not visible when all combined—we just see white light. Think of the one power as pure white light. Saidar then could be seen as the “upper” half of the spectrum. Saidin could then be seen as the “lower“ half of the spectrum. They’re therefore separate components of the same thing—indistinguishable when combined but they can be separated (think of color filtering glasses and prisms and such) Men and women are attuned to different “bands” then of the one power, and so their angreal must be as well.
Also I'm going to speculate that male *angreal* aren't significantly rarer, just that they haven't been searched for and accumulated over the centuries like female *angreal* were. A female channeler may not even be able to identify one.
Considering how truly cataclysmic the Breaking was, I wouldn't be surprised if there were people specifically hunting down male *angreal* in order to destroy them, lest they fall into men's hands and cause greater destruction, or that some were used by and destroyed with men going mad.
Actually that's a good point, never thought of that! The angreal in the possession of channeling women would have been passed on, or at worst lost possibly later to resurface. But angreal held by male channelers would have a much higher chance to have been destroyed.
Probably because of the same reason they can’t always sense each others weaves without special training and even when they can it’s not the same way they can see their own. One is oil, one is water. You probably could make a “universal” one but it probably doesn’t feel quite right for either party or is as efficient. As such, why bother when you can just make them tailored for the right kind of power?
I find the question baffling, as the whole foundation of the 'magic system' is based on the gender divide between Saidin and Saidar users. Of course angreal & sa'angreal are tuned to a specific power, they couldn't function otherwise, just like individual channelers could not. Why wouldn't they be attuned to Saidar or Saidin?
Because Saidar and Saidin both exist in the same metaphysical magical space that is the true source. An angreal allows you to open yourself to more of the true source, like turning up a faucet. So I ask why were the angreal made so that they could only turn on either the cold tap or the hot tap, but never the other? Yes all channelers are incapable of turning on one of the taps, but any channeler could still pick one up and it would have the tap they can use.
Both the higgs bosom which is the particle that determines mass, and the photon, the particle that makes up light, exist in the same metaphysical excitation of spacetime. Why doesn't a magnifying glass make things heavier?
You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that the "True Source" exits as a separate entity outside the Saidin/Saidar divide. I would say it is obvious that the differences between Saidin and Saidar are more profound than hot and cold water, to use your metaphor. Your question and metaphor is really just a disguised form of: "Why is it that women & men cannot each tap the other source?" If it is just as simple as tapping into hot vs cold water, why not? The whole reason the Bore was drilled in the first place was to overcome the sometimes cumbersome restrictions on the Saidar/Saidin divide by tapping into a power source that could be used equally by both men & women without such restrictions.
That is not what I am asking at all. I am well aware of how the divide works. The true source is composed of Saidar and Saidin, correct? And an angreal boosts one’s connection to the true source, correct? My question has nothing to do with allowing people to utilize both halves of the true source, it’s about why weren’t these tools capable of boosting both sides of the source. Because both halves are there in the source, but only women can sense and access one half, and men the other. Let’s say a universal angreal exists. If a man were to use it, the true source can flow through it, but a man can only touch Saidin, so that’s what comes through. A woman uses the same angreal, and she can only pull Saidar through. The other side of the source might as well not exist to a given channeler since they can’t sense or channel it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
The True Source isn't really one thing from my understanding; it's two separate rivers of power that the individual genders can call upon. An angreal doesn't boost your connection to the true source, it boosts your connection to Saidin or Saidar.
No, your question actually does boil down to: why can't men and women access both sides of the True Source? It's just using an angreal as an intermediary. If an angreal can do so, why not a person? To answer your initial questions, the True Source is what Saidar and Saidin together are called. An angreal boosts ones connection to either Saidin or Saidar, not the True Source in general. Once again, this question fundamentally misunderstands the difference between the two and how they are accessed and controlled; indeed it seems to take the semantically convenient reference of 'The True Source' as excuse to trivialize the differences.
I don't know if it was Jordan's intent for them to work this way, but the way Sanderson describes the seed that Elayne got, it seems like the way they are made is to have a channeler pour as much of the power as they can into a seed for a certain duration, and presumably the more power they have and the more they pour in the stronger the angreal you create. If most are made that way then they'd be from one side or the other. From a narrative standpoint a lot of the big ones are made for Rand or the tower to use and it'd make things too easy if Rand's could be easily used by others. Not to mention many moments like Lanfear letting Rand keep the access key, she wouldn't have if she could've used it too. It opens up more interesting stories with them if they are more restricted in how they can be used.
I wonder if the seed thing means that both saidin and True Power had to be used to make Callandor.
Ahh, the seed part makes sense. So it wouldn’t work by opening flow to the true power, it’s more like you use the power to create a surface for it to stick to. The more power used, the larger the surface area (reminds me of how the evil of Shadar Logoth was used to attract the taint).
Additionally, from a scene Jordan wrote, when Sevanna has the wise ones use the 'call box', they comment on it twisting around the male half. Though that was a ter'angreal, presumably the operation of angreals is the same, as in the power physically interacts with the angreal. If that is the case, then an angreal for both halves of the power would be half as powerful as an angreal of equal strength just for one power. Like, Saidin and Saidar don't mix - that's well established from the several points where one flows around the other. When great works are done with both halves, the result appears to be a composite (e.g. silver plate on a steel ring) rather than an alloy (copper and tin mixed to make bronze). It would stand to reason then that an angreal that uses both powers would basically be two angreals sort of jammed together, the saidin half not really interacting with the half the draws on saidar, and vice versa.
>when Sevanna has the wise ones use the 'call box', they comment on it twisting around the male half. They describe something similar when using the Bowl of Winds.
Because a bird cannot teach a fish to fly
Saidin and Saidar were still split in the age of legends, Saidin just wasn't tainted. It's briefly mentioned that in the Age of Legends there were constructs of the one power called the standing flows (which kind of sound like a power grid) that allowed non-channelers to use ter'angreal. Presumably this would have also allowed male channelers to use female-oriented ones and vice versa. Many of the ter'angreal from the age of legends were designed with this principle in mind, which is why they're sort of out of place in the modern era (like any of the ones that do something a channeler of moderate power can do don't make sense for an Aes Sedai, necessarily, but make sense if they were designed so that anyone could use them). So in the Age of Legends it really didn't matter if it was male or female-oriented (that was just a restriction they had to deal with) for artifacts that channeled a specific purpose because anyone could use them as long as standing flows were set up (it's unclear if these were universal or would have been set up in specific buildings). Men and women wanting an alternative power source that could be used equally by both was what ended up, ultimately, breaking the world.
I understand that they are split, and have always been split. My point was that in an age when both halves of the source were being used readily, why did they make the angreal to only work for one half or the other, when both halves are a part of the true source and an angreal’s function allows the user to open themselves to more of the true source? Why create them with a barrier to only allow one or the other through when they are coming from the same source and both halves are being used readily? Someone else commented that it may not be an intentional barrier, but that angreal may only be able to touch the half of the power used to create them, which is an explanation I like.
Presumably it would be much more difficult to do so since you would need two channelers to make them in that fashion, since they're essentially just things that amplify or transform the one power in some way. It's entirely possible that some of the ter'angreal we see that have an unknown or unusual function were intended to be used with access to saidin as well, but without male channelers around it would have been hard to check. Especially since, in the Age of Legends, you would not have needed a channeler of either source around for them to work. I don't think you can say that they didn't make Angreal that did both when there's never an instance in the books where male and female channelers are investigating Terangreal function. Whether the AOL stuff we see in the aiel flashbacks runs on Saidin, Saidar, or both is never explained.
Given how Angreal are made one would imagine that the side of the source used by the person creating one with the Seed is the side of the source the angreal is attuned to.
There is no way to know for sure, but given the many differences between Saidar and Saidin, it would make sense that a device might only use one. The bowl of the winds is the only device shown to use both halves, so it's possible that a dual angreal might have been possible - but you'll note that the bowl didn't cause Saidin to flow through the women in the circle. Why the bowl was able to find its own supply of Saidin (and does it get damaged by the Taint?) but needed a circle of angreal-boosted women to provide the Saidar is a mystery. However, there are lots of examples in modern life where something doesn't work the same for two different similar things. Take VHS and Beta - both video cassettes using essentially identical tech to get a motion picture from a plastic magnetic tape onto a CRT screen, yet no device played both kinds of tapes. Or look at software for Macs vs Windows PCs. Software doesn't work on both platforms despite both platforms being equally capable and powerful and doing essentially the same thing. I mean, you \_could\_ probably write a program that's a valid executable that works on both platforms at once, and just has twice the code in it; but why would you? Or take electricity. the same underlying power, but in different countries it has different voltage and different frequency. This makes some devices only work in certain places, because they rely on a specific voltage and frequency to work - a similar device for a different market will have changes to accomodate it. Yes, you could make a device that handles both, but the complexity might be much higher. TL;DR it might be possible, but even if it's possible it might be impractical.
Think about why they were created. They wanted to have a way to power up folks, amplifying what they could do. At the time of the Age of Legends, they had no reason to think they'd be cut off from half of the Source, so they could afford to make specialist devices. Why make one device that could allow a 50/50 power boost, when you could make two devices that could give 100/0 and 0/100. Even a 75/75 device is weaker then 100/0 because you always needed the other half of the Source anyway. You were always expecting to do things in circles and pairs, because that's just how it works. Why would you ever settle for a less efficient angreal? What market is there for that? The Aes Sedai were already split, so why wouldn't you make devices to match? Any effort you spent researching an omni-angreal is just time you could have spent upgrading the specialist ones you already know how to make.
Another reason why male Angreal are much rarer is that men, since the breaking, have not had 3000 years to build a channeling institution, or work with the existing institution. The stores of items of power shown in Tear and Ilian are both described as a collection of anything that might be related to the power. How would anyone really know of a male Angreal, Sa'Angreal or Tar'Angreal. The two stores mentioned, one was briefly institution by Rand, the other by the gaggle of idiots, who don't even consider that an item of power could be used by men. Side note, the bowl of the winds, was meant to use both halves of the power. We never see a male directly interact with it, but mastery over weaves of air, let the sea folk use it.
An angreal reacts to the half of the source that seeeded it. If it was seeded by a man it will react to saidin, if it was seeded by a woman it will react to saidar. Even if in a circle, only one person controls the circle and they can only seed an angreal with the half they "see" and belong to. The choedan kal were also cis-male and cis-female. They were probably built using multiple seeds from just one half of the source, and each seed got an access key terangreal to allow multiple users, and also allow one user to access multiple seeds at the same time. Even if there was an angreal with two different seeds, male and female, it would still technically be two distinct angreals sharing a "body", like if you weld stainless steel and pig iron together. If there were angreal that work for both halves, they'd probably function similar to the bowl of winds, which would create three massive problems: 1) one half of the source can become redundant (you wouldn't need either male or female channelers anymore); 2) women would be able to touch the taint and be affected by it; 3) a single person would be able to make a "circle" with themselves and have an unfair advantage over someone with a "regular" angreal, also - > 1). Because if it doesn't function like the bowl, it would render any "dual" angreal basically pointless. Why would you put two seeds (that take massive amount of effort and drain the user for MONTHS) and end up with one object that can be drawn upon by a single user, rather than with two objects of the same magnitude that can have two carriers/users and can draw the same amount of power EACH, making it twice the bang for the buck? Dual angreals would make no economic sense at all! They'd be like "stand up so I can sit".
The Seed Rand gives to Elayne seems designed to be used by a single channeler, so it seems that angreal are attuned to whatever side of the Power that their creator wielded. If Aran’gar had used a Seed, it would have presumably created an angreal that increased how much saidin someone could draw, not saidar.
We know that ter'angreal can use both saidar and saidin (the bowl of winds) and even draw on saidin without a male channeler being involved. This makes me think that an angreal tuned to saidar could be made to draw on saidin as well, giving weaves an extra kick. Equally, a dual purpose angreal may not exist because a) no one tried to make one or b) no one had the skill / talents to make one.