Nynaeve - Healing Madness

[Shuyinsan]

I was rereading Towers of Midnight when I got the point where Nyneave - Before going to the White Tower to be Tested - Heals an Asha'man of the Madness.

She pulls black projections from the Asha'mans "mind" and later checks with Rand for the same only to find a White beautiful layer in his "Mind"

Nyneave does a lot of... wonders that go fairly unnoticed or at least haven't been given a lot of explanation.

Now my thing is Robert and Erica once said this at a roundup:

Access to the True Power is a matter of wanting it and the Dark One letting you. NOT black cords. In Prologue to The Eye of the World, we saw Ishamael use the True Power to Heal insanity. The One Power cannot be used to Heal insanity.

So in this statement is the Madness referred here as "Insanity" or does he mean a different kind?

If it is the Madness he is talking about then there are som things to consider.

1: Nyneave can acces the True Power

2: Error on Jordan/Sanderson part

3. You can heal the Madness with the One Power but nobody knew how cause Nyneave was the first to find out

I think it's interessting cause Nyneave is a very powerfull Aes Sedai if not the Greatest of her time, her discoveries and skill with the One Power is overwhelming

To sum up her feats:

- Proficient in all elements (instead of 2 at most)

- Cleansed Saidin

- Healed the Madness

- One of the first to unravel a forsaken skilled level of compulsion

- Capturing/Killing one of the Forsaken (Moghedien)

- Healing of Severing

- Rediscover Healing using the Five Powers

- Minor ability to feel emotions of of Ter'Angreal

Short: She's Badass

Edited October 11, 2012 by Shuyinsan

[frozndevl]

I think it is fairly obvious that it is #3. She isn't a DF, and nothing in what has been written strikes me as a mistake. She also noted in that passage, and in several others previously, that her skill at Delving is continuing to improve.

I also think that the black hooks and crap are the "physical" manifestation of the taint. And since the DO is the source of the taint on Saidin, Ishy using the TP (which is also a gift of the DO) would be able to scrape it away or at least temporarily neuter the effects. I think that Nyn is able to heal the madness on the Asha'man because once it is separate from the mind, there is nothing left to fuel it since the taint has been cleansed.

Also, Rand makes a comment about how in the age of legends, healing mental illness was difficult at best. Not to diminsh what Nynaeve has accomplished, but I don't see this as healing the mind. I think that the Asha'man aren't actually insane, they are influenced by the black crap in their head, and when that is removed, the brain is fixed. Note that she didn't actually use any Healing weaves on the Asha'man, just removed the black stuff, and he immediately went back to completely sane and couldn't understand why he was so paranoid about the Fades.

[Telcontar]

I agree with the devil.

the madness of male channelers was no mental illness but the taint left on the mind by channeling saidin. There was something there that didn't belong in the minds and Nynaeve could remove it.

The DO would've been pretty pi**ed if that had been discovered in the AoL. Though I suppose there wouldn't have been enough Aes Sedai with enough skill to remove the taint constantly on all male channelers.

[Aeshdan]

The DO would've been pretty pi**ed if that had been discovered in the AoL. Though I suppose there wouldn't have been enough Aes Sedai with enough skill to remove the taint constantly on all male channelers.

Do you suppose that the Bore is weakening some of the rules on the OP? Because there are a lot of tricks that modern Aes Sedai can do that were impossible in the AoL, including but not limited to:

-Warder bonds

-Weather manipulation without the ter'angreal

-Healing severing

-Possibly healing the taint

-Forcing someone into a circle (both the a'dam and whatever trick the Black Ajah use).

[Ryan]

I imagine (and this is pure speculation on my part) that healing mental illness in the AoL was a lot like compulsion. They would have to identify some change to the function of the mind that would counteract its illness, then use a mind-altering weave (a la compulsion) to make it. That would explain why Graendel, one of the most skilled at treating mental illness, is the best at compulsion.

As others have said, healing taint madness is different. Nynaeve said the net of blackness on the Asha'man's mind resembled compulsion. I imagine (more speculation) that compulsion woven with the True Power would look a lot like taint madness.

Nynaeve is not the only one to detect such things. Rand has on several occasions been able to see the "hose" of the True Power as well as a male Forsaken's connections to the Dark One - and, more than once, to sever them. I believe Nynaeve is manifesting a similar Talent here.

Do you suppose that the Bore is weakening some of the rules on the OP? Because there are a lot of tricks that modern Aes Sedai can do that were impossible in the AoL, including but not limited to:

-Warder bonds

-Weather manipulation without the ter'angreal

-Healing severing

-Possibly healing the taint

-Forcing someone into a circle (both the a'dam and whatever trick the Black Ajah use).

I think the people of the AoL assumed that they knew things that they didn't. They had discovered so much that they believed that, at least in some things, they had discovered the limits of possibility. So many abilities of the One Power are dependent on Talents. I think, rather than blaming the Bore, I'd blame the Time of Change, when old, forgotten things (like wolfbrothers) emerge again, and new things (Talents) never before seen come to light.

[Telcontar]

Do you suppose that the Bore is weakening some of the rules on the OP? Because there are a lot of tricks that modern Aes Sedai can do that were impossible in the AoL, including but not limited to:

-Warder bonds

-Weather manipulation without the ter'angreal

-Healing severing

-Possibly healing the taint

-Forcing someone into a circle (both the a'dam and whatever trick the Black Ajah use).

No, that's not what I intended to say ;-)

I considered the possibility that AoL-Aes Sedai would have discovered how to heal the taint-madness. I did suppose that one needs great skill similar to Nynaeve's to be able to do it. Nynaeve is obviously better at Healing now than any AoL-Aes Sedai was, but she is also one very powerful Aes Sedai with a strong Talent for Healing. I suppose that even in the AoL there was but a few Aes Sedai who could have done what Nynaeve has done.

[Shuyinsan]

I also believe that one of the reasons Nyneave is so strong is because of her profeciency in all the five powers and maybe because of her bonds to all 3 Ta'veren.There are two know Aes Sedai surpassing Nyneave in the one power is Alivia a former Damane and Sharina Sedai an older woman novice/accepted that joined in salidar.

Although her stuborness is also a part of it

[Lady_Yasha]

What RJ probably meant was that you couldn't heal actual insanity. The Taint creates a layer of "black thorns" in the mind that I'm guessing interfere with natural synaptic firing. By removing those thorns, as Nynaeve did, it removed the interference. Like a valve, if you turn it one way it narrows and strains the flow of water until it cuts it off completely. No water gets through. However, turn it fully the other way and the valve opens completely. Water flows freely and unobstructed.

Just a thought but maybe insanity and the insanity caused by the Taint are two different things. Other than that I can only guess that RJ was being sneaky and saying, "you can't heal insanity with the One Power...yet."

[Duke]

I think it's just a Talent, but if Nynaeve turns out to be an unnamed Chosen, that would be absolutely incredible.

[Lady_Yasha]

I think it's just a Talent, but if Nynaeve turns out to be an unnamed Chosen, that would be absolutely incredible.

We know the names of the 13 Forsaken and I really doubt RJ would have written Nynaeve as one of them. Many of the characters have Talents, they can't all be unnamed Forsaken.

[frozndevl]

One of the more out there theories I have seen is that Mazrim Taim is some sort of almost Forsaken that survived in a status box, but that's not what this thread is talking about, so I'll stop talking now.

[Lady_Yasha]

One of the more out there theories I have seen is that Mazrim Taim is some sort of almost Forsaken that survived in a status box, but that's not what this thread is talking about, so I'll stop talking now.

It's an interesting thought; I'm sure someone will pull the thread back onto topic. I like Shivertongue's theory that Mazrim has gone insane already thanks to the Shadow and believes he's the Dragon Reborn, opposing Rand as a false Dragon. Maybe not the right theory but all are interesting.

[Voidus]

Well my first reaction was 'well normal insanity would be primarily in the physical and cognitive realms while taint insanity would be in the spiritual' and then I realised I was mixing universes again.

Other than that I'd have to go with Nynaeve is just removing a TP weave from their minds, their minds in themselves aren't insane. As for Nynaeve using the TP the Ashaman didn't scream or seem to experience pain like Lews Therin did when he was TP healed and it was strongly implied that all TP healing would cause similar pain.

[Aeshdan]

What RJ probably meant was that you couldn't heal actual insanity. The Taint creates a layer of "black thorns" in the mind that I'm guessing interfere with natural synaptic firing. By removing those thorns, as Nynaeve did, it removed the interference. Like a valve, if you turn it one way it narrows and strains the flow of water until it cuts it off completely. No water gets through. However, turn it fully the other way and the valve opens completely. Water flows freely and unobstructed.

Just a thought but maybe insanity and the insanity caused by the Taint are two different things. Other than that I can only guess that RJ was being sneaky and saying, "you can't heal insanity with the One Power...yet."

That would make sense. Healing the taint (especially given what Nyaveye saw) seems to be merely a matter of undoing a TP weave that is disrupting the mind, while healing natural insanity would require using the power to countermand the damaged mental processes (which probably is possible as a variant of Compulsion but is practically worthless because it does more harm than good).