Healing Burn Out?

[Analiese Sinclaer]

If you are Stilled or Gentled, you are cut off from the True Source, but you can still sense it. When you are Burnt Out, you are not only cut off, but you are unable to sense the Source at all. We know that Stilling and Gentling can be Healed. What I'm wondering is if a person who has been Burnt out can be Healed as well? Any thoughts?

 

[Axis m'Troutilas]

The only time it was put to RJ we got a RAFO

[h=4]Interview: Sep 4th, 2005[/h] DragonCon Report - Matt Hatch (Verbatim)

[h=4]Question[/h] With regards to Healing stilling vs. being burned out. There are a lot of theories online that you can Heal stilling but you cannot Heal being burnt out. Is that true?
[h=4]Robert Jordan[/h] Read and Find Out.

Flip a coin, maybe yes..... maybe no.

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

Except for the concept, have we seen anyone but Setella Anan who was burned out?

 

[Jaryd Kosari]

Yes. Rand burned out at least one Aes Sedai at Dumai's Wells.

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

I thought he stilled them...

 

[Jaryd Kosari]

I stand corrected. :P

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

The fact I thought it doesn't make it true.... yet....
Let's go to the WoT wiki.
Axis?

 

[Padron Kerenmosa]

I remember that it is clearly dictated that they were stilled by him.(Even though I dont remember where)

 

[Sorcha Al'Verdan]

Regardless, I feel as if the process or healing someone who was burned out will be different than that of healing someone who was stilled, since the process of the loss is different. I Think of stilling as cutting a wire, and burning out as blowing up the battery.

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

I agree, in a way... We know for sure that stilling is cutting something, which leaves edges that can be bridged over.
The question is, does burning out do the same, but without the edges? Or is it completely different?

 

[Sorcha Al'Verdan]

For me, a lot is indicated by the fact that the burnt don't feel the Source anymore. In stilling, you replace that one link and the rest of the equipment is still sound (Kind of like changing the starter of a car) In burning out, I think the link will be replaced only to find that the engine blew up and the starter was never the problem to begin with. It will be much more difficult to heal, imo.

 

[Lenore Carvoe]

When you see it somehow bodily, stilling and burning out have to be the same process. If it would be like in your analogy, Sorcha, it would mean that Saidar/Saidin would disappear for all channellers.

The same with people of differing degrees in the power - they all draw their power from the same source, which means that only their links to said power must be built differently (thinner and thicker for example - like a straw you're dinking with from a glass). Stilling and burning out just takes away the straw, not the liquid in the glass. Said liquid has to be imagined as never running out or becoming fewer.

I'm absolutely not convinced that that one trial with Setalle through the a'dam was a true test. Just a tiny measuring of will power between sul'dam and damane.

 

[Jaryd Kosari]

Interesting tangent: If burn-out is indeed a situation like the engine blowing up as was mentioned above (which is the theory I ascribe to as an avid RPer)....and Nynaeve DID manage to "Heal" it....doesn't it seem likely she could also 'Heal' the ability into someone who never had it to begin with?

There's a thought to make your brain melt. :P

 

[Axis m'Troutilas]

The fact I thought it doesn't make it true.... yet....
Let's go to the WoT wiki.
Axis?

Stilled and subsequently healed indeed.


Most analogies on this situation are less than useless to be honest.


Without more information on the nature of the injury caused by burning out, there's no way of telling if its healable or if its not.

 

[Ivanor Winshaw]

The same with people of differing degrees in the power - they all draw their power from the same source, which means that only their links to said power must be built differently (thinner and thicker for example - like a straw you're dinking with from a glass). Stilling and burning out just takes away the straw, not the liquid in the glass. Said liquid has to be imagined as never running out or becoming fewer.

I think in your analogy stilling would be more like cutting the straw and healing that would be like taping it back together. But burn out would be more like taking the straw away.

And since no one with burn out has been examined, we can't really say what it's like. A la Axis' comment.

 

[Toral Delvar]

The Aes Sedai don't seem to notice the difference (once stilling has been healed, they find it easier to talk about, suggesting the assume that burning out and stilling are the same, as it wouldn't make much sense for them to have a fear of being stilled as punishment for a crime and for this to lessen when they know it can be Healed), but that is likely because they really don't like to talk or think about it much.
I think it says that Martine was the most recent woman to be burned out, 25 years in the past, but I can't think of the reference.

 

[Axis m'Troutilas]

The Aes Sedai don't seem to notice the difference (once stilling has been healed, they find it easier to talk about, suggesting the assume that burning out and stilling are the same, as it wouldn't make much sense for them to have a fear of being stilled as punishment for a crime and for this to lessen when they know it can be Healed), but that is likely because they really don't like to talk or think about it much.
I think it says that Martine was the most recent woman to be burned out, 25 years in the past, but I can't think of the reference.

Martine Janata was burned out studying ter'angreal indeed about 25 year ago. (dated circa PoD)

"She was the last sister to really make a business of studying ter'angreal... She did it for forty years, almost from the time she reached the shawl.... Then one day, Martine's maid found her unconscious on the floor of her sitting room. Burned out.... That was more than twenty-five years ago.... She vanished once she was well enough to slip out of the Tower."

 

[Sorcha Al'Verdan]

Interesting tangent: If burn-out is indeed a situation like the engine blowing up as was mentioned above (which is the theory I ascribe to as an avid RPer)....and Nynaeve DID manage to "Heal" it....doesn't it seem likely she could also 'Heal' the ability into someone who never had it to begin with?

There's a thought to make your brain melt. :P

I've had that thought, and it seems a fitting development to me - Why else would the OP eventually be forgotten (which it has to be in order to be rediscovered), as I'm pretty sure happens at some point on the Wheel, unless everyone could do it and it was regarded as commonplace at one point in time?

 

[Amier Kavellen]

A person who has been stilled/gentled can have that bond reforged (with varying degrees of success/completeness) by one adept in Healing weaves because it essentially is the cutting of a line; the two ends can be reattached. To be Burnt Out is to have that line taken away entirely. It is to become a normal human, incapable of channeling. The Source still exists, but it is just as unattainable to the average person as the birds in the sky were to Hopper outside of the Wolf Dream. The Talent, in both men and women, usually starts small before it is able to grow, and very precise tests must be used in order to detect it. Some, such as in the case of Nynaeve, don't even realize they're channeling if they've never intentionally channeled before. However, in all circumstances, the Talent must be there. One with no Talent cannot learn to channel. Unless they could. But that would require creating a line between a person and the Source. How the Talent appears in a person is somewhat mysterious. If the Talent could be obtained through means outside of strictly genetics...then it may be possible for one to be Healed from Burning Out. It would even be possible for those like Axis or myself, unable to channel, to have the Talent instilled within us.

 

[Tazren Talamar]

What is your basis for that?

We know that burnt out women can no longer sense the Source, which stilled/gentled people can. That may just be a case of having a wider gap that would have to be bridged. We don't know that the talent for channeling is burnt away completely, just enough not to be able to sense the Source.

The Source is just as unattainable to someone who's been stilled; they become ordinary humans, with ordinary lifespans.