One Power - Differences Between Male and Female Channelers

Differences Between Male and Female Channelers

The One Power is "woven" (or "spun" in the terminology of those from the Age of Legends) in "flows" or "threads" (or "webs") consisting of one or more of five elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Spirit. Men are generally stronger with Fire and Earth, while women are generally stronger with Air and Water; strength in Spirit is typically equal, and equally rare. Male channelers, in general, are capable of holding more of the Power than female ones. However, female channelers, in general, tend to be more skilled and deft with their flows and weavings than their male counterparts. Male channelers cannot link to form a "circle" of multiple channelers working together without a woman's aid; only women can initiate a circle, and although men can be brought into a circle they cannot be forced, while women can be forced to do so (through the use of an a'dam **an a'dam creates a link between two women, the one wearing the bracelet of the a'dam has total control over the channeling abilities of the woman wearing the necklace of the a'dam, however women linked by an a'dam cannot join a circle with other women), however there cannot be more men than women in a circle; on the other hand, no more than thirteen women may link without including any men, and once this total is reached a man must take control. These differences allow for rough parity between male and female channeling, and it is known that the greatest works of the Age of Legends (a golden age that ended some 3,000 years before the start of the novels) were performed by men and women channeling in cooperation.

Female channelers can tell when other women are touching the Source: a white glowing aura appears around their body, though only visible to those trained to touch the One Power. It is also relatively easy for them to gauge each other's strength in the Power. Men on the other hand can only sense intuitively when another man is channeling (and roughly how much of the power they are wielding). Male channelers can sense a woman holding saidar as goose bumps on their skin; women have no innate method of sensing male channeling, though certain ter'angreal and weaves have been crafted which do the job for them.

Most vividly, saidar and saidin feel different: a woman would describe it as a gentle force that she must submerge herself in, as trying to exert control over it would lead to being instantly consumed; a man, on the other hand, faces a cataclysmic torrent requiring perfect control, immense willpower and ceaseless vigilance. In short, women "embrace" saidar, surrendering to it and influencing it from within, while men "seize" saidin, manipulating it by force. This essential difference in the "feeling" of the Power means that a woman cannot teach a man to channel, and vice-versa (though both have been tried unsuccessfully on many occasions). Moreover, many weaves which work for one sex do not work the same way (or at all) for the other. That may soon change though. Recently, men and women have linked, allowing men and women to experience handling saidin at the same time as saidar. So far, only Rand has used the intrinsic differences between saidar and saidin in his weaves, with other characters merely taking advantage of the increased power to perform weaves they already know.

As an example, men can use flows of Fire to transfer the heat of a candle flame to another location (for instance, the stones of a fireplace), but women who try that have been grievously injured, some even bursting into flame just from a candle. (Women use a thread of Water or Air to snuff a candle.) Males and females also grow in the One Power differently; women gradually increase in strength, whereas men gain strength in sudden leaps.

Terminology differs between the sexes, as well. Women, as stated before, "embrace" saidar while males "seize" saidin. Males "wield" their half of the One Power as females "guide" it. Women are "stilled" when they are cut off from the True Source while men are "gentled"; a gender neutral term was used in the Age of Legends, "severing". "Burning out" (an accidental self-severing from the One Power occurring when one mis-handles or tries to use too much of the One Power) is gender neutral as well.

Some other differences include:

• A woman's shield for her dreams is a crystal barrier between the dreamwalker and the dream, while a man's shield for his dreams is described as a barrier showing dreams as if looking into "muddy water."
• The weaves for healing with saidin are specific to each ailment, whereas Aes Sedai use the same weave of Air, Water and Spirit no matter the condition or the degree; results vary based on that Aes Sedai's particular affinity for Healing. However, it has since been discovered that the Aes Sedai use a relatively primitive weave of Healing, whereas Damer Flinn has re-discovered a number of more advanced (and, presumably, efficient) weaves. It is also known that, after the Yellow Ajah discovered Nynaeve's use of all five powers in Healing, they began to discuss the use of different combinations of elements for treating different ailments.
• A male gateway for Traveling is made by "folding" the Pattern of the Age, making the two places to be Travelled as one (similar to a tesseract) and then "boring" a hole through the Pattern, from one place to another, with no distance between one end and the other. A female gateway is made by changing the weave of the Pattern, to make the two places in the Pattern identical.
• Two women in a circle can usually beat a man who is in the same comparative power level, even if they are weaker than he individually. The more powerful the man, the greater the number of women required to shield him, but a circle of thirteen women is strong enough to shield any man.
• Women are more susceptible to compelled Circles like the a'dam. A female a'dam, which allows a "sul'dam" controller to control her leashed damane's channeling ability, is essentially flawless and allows perfect control of the captured woman. A male a'dam, on the other hand, requires two women to safely handle and maintain the link to the man, though one would do for a short time, and the man will eventually be able to reverse the flow of control to some extent, causing the three to fight for dominance. Also a male can not be "leashed" using a female a'dam, for this will result in both being killed. A recently discovered weakness with the a'dam is that the use of one prevents the channeler from linking with other channelers. This is because the a'dam creates a forced link between the channeler and the one holding the a'dam, it is therefore not possible for a channeler to be part of a linked circle and be collared by an a'dam as it is not possible to be linked to more than one circle.
• Women are able to create a bridge of Air further than men can, regardless of the fact that men are generally stronger in the Power.
• Saidin seems to be more based in brute force, being complete will and pure instinct and thus, it is done bluntly, whereas saidar is more organized, more like weaving silk into patterns.