Thoughts on "Weaves" and the "One Power" within WoT Universe.

May 1, 20206 yr

Community Administrator

Here's the gist of my thoughts about Weaves & the One Power within the Wheel of Time Universe.

They don't actually exist.
"Weaves" are a social-construct, created over several millennia by channelers.
"Weaves" exist only as a method of mentally extrapolating how the one power works through the scientific method.

I believe there are two important things going on here.

1) Willing something to happen while "Channeling" the One Power, causes it to exist.
2) What other channelers "see" and "feel" happening, is more or less their brain interpreting, what was "weaved". This allows them to replicate the weaves, without having to will it the same way.

This IMO, explains how Nyneave could heal, without knowing what she was doing. How she couldn't even "See' the weaves before learning she could channel. She "Willed" the person to be healed, and they were healed.
This explains how Rand was able to "create" completely new weaves, having no idea what he was doing. It explains some events in the earliest books, when he didn't even know he was channeling.

I find this similar to Mathematics & Engineering.
Some people have a "mental block" similar to Nynaeves when it comes to Math/Algebra/Common Core.
They cannot "see" Imaginary numbers or Methods. They can't wrap their head around "X", when the "process" of some of these early algebraic mathematical formulas are... actually pretty easy. Once it "clicks", it clicks.
Even then, you can "do" certain math or science without actually "understanding" what's really going on.

A computer-scientist could write code that efficiently uses the necessary computer components to optimize what they are trying to do with that code. Yet they may have absolutely no idea how those components actually work.

When it comes to computer software, there's a term called "Superusers".
Microsoft Excel as an example: You have people who can "use" Excel. They can input values in fields. They can enter Data.
Then you have Superusers that work magical code into the spreadsheets to create the very documents your "average" user.. uses.

After reflecting upon the series as a whole, several things stand out.

Ongoing themes.
1) "Truth" what is "Known" is very often Wrong. (Rules are Meant to be Broken)

a) Everybody: "You can't heal stilling!"
Nynaeve: "Hold my Oosquai"
b) Peasant: "Silk comes from insects!"
Rand: "What are you drunk? It grows on trees!"
c) Aiel Wiseone: "Why are you waving your hands around like an idiot?"

Aes Sedia: "That's how you throw fireballs dummy!"

2) Willing things to happen, causes them to happen.

a) Nynaeves Early channeling.

b) Tel'aran'rhiod.
c) Nakomi.

d) The Final Battle
e) Rand's Pipe

3) Reality is a Dream, within a multiverse of dreams.

In addition to the above:
RJ's Interviews.

a) https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt='weaves'

Quote

Nov 22nd, 2005
Someone asked how difficult it is for a blind person to channel, but I didn't make a note of who. In any case, it is difficult but not impossible. The different flows have different feels, though saying they have different flavors might be as accurate. In the comic, we use colors, not because they actually have colors but because they also can be told apart by sight. Someone who was blind and who tried to learn to channel would be able to differentiate between flows of the Five Powers. The difficulty would be in learning to make the weaves.

Quote

WEEK 9 QUESTION

When a person channels, where do the flows appear to originate from? Do they extrude themselves somehow from the person's body, or do they seem to appear out of thin air in the channeler's general vicinity? What do the flows look like to a person who can channel? Are they colored, clear or indeterminate, smooth or rough, wispy or solid?

ROBERT JORDAN

To the channeler, the flows seem to originate in his or her very immediate vicinity, not to emanate from themselves, although to another channeler, those flows do seem to be emanating from the channeler. The latter is the actual case, as the One Power is passing through the channeler, one of the reasons for individual limits on how much of the Power a particular person can handle. (And you have seen characters react as if to a blow from having a flow snapped or cut.)

A channeler sees the flows as colored very faintly, according to which of the Five Powers is involved (red = Fire, Blue = Water, green = Earth, yellow = Air, white = Spirit), although the "feel" of the flows are also different to a channeler, so that a channeler can tell one from another without actually seeing them. (That is how someone can tell that somebody else has channeled, say, Fire and Earth, in their vicinity without seeing the flows.) It isn't a physical feel; you might almost as well say that they have different flavors. They appear to be smooth and nearly transparent, tinged with color.

c)https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kw=dream