What about shields?

[Inanna Landred]

So I'm on Path of Daggers at the bit where Rand gets shot by a Seanchan arrow in Altara and I was just thinking: Throughout the books, no one seems to just weave a simple shield around them to repel any physical attacks? (unless I missed it, which is entirely likely).
They seem to have no issues creating shields to cut other channellers off from the power and even a dome shield all around the camp at the Battle of Dumai's Wells, surely it should be a small thing to just create a small skin-tight shield like a piece of armour? :scratch
I get that the male channellers avoid holding Saidin all the time at this point, but none of the Aes Sedai seem to do it either.
But then I guess there are a lot more uses for the Power than described in the books and there's no real point to asking why or why not

/off random thoughts.

 

[Tobias Carawin]

From Lord of Chaos, chapter 11:

Spoiler

"The stone exploded, and Damer and the other students threw themselves flat to escape flying shards. Not Taim; stone splinters bounced off the shield of Air that he had thrown up at the last instant."


That is just one example of what you were looking for.

surely it should be a small thing to just create a small skin-tight shield like a piece of armour? :scratch

To put it simply... Channeling is tiring. much more so if you are performing multiple weaves at the same time. As you see in the example I provided, the shield was only created when it was needed.

 

[Megana Vallentin]

That does make me wonder, is there are reason they couldn't make a shield and tie it off so it wasn't constantly taxing them? At least something simple like a cylinder around your torso or head, maybe.

 

[Tobias Carawin]

I don't want to spoil anything beyond what Inanna Sedai has read...
but I will say this... I believe every time something was done with Air and tied off, it was stationary. I may be wrong but I don't think so.
You can tie off a shield blocking someone from the One Power and that can be mobile... but that is done with Spirit and not Air.
I would imagine that if you tied off a cylinder of Air around yourself... it would protect you, but you would be unable to move beyond the barrier of Air or cast weaves through it.

 

[Aduiavas Ida]

I think if you created a shield of Air around your head, it keeps EVERYTHING out, not just the Power, but other useful things like oxygen

 

[Megana Vallentin]

That's why I said a cylinder rather than a sphere. Leave the top and bottom open. Not perfect protection, but definitely better than none.

 

[Inanna Landred]

Don't worry, I've read all of them, just my first time round for the audio books I guess there are a lot of things we might do differently if we had been clever enough to write the books as for the mobility thing: it's apparently possible to shield another person who can be moved without any issue. Even if they can't make armour protection shields for themselves you would imagine they should be able to weave something and tie it off for the Dragon Reborn at least He did have a few Ashaman kicking about after all.

 

[Aduiavas Ida]

(Since you asked this question in the 1-8 books forum, you do need to worry about spoilers )

 

[Inanna Landred]

Ah yes, good point Adui. You actually made me frantically re-read my post, I totally panicked over putting a spoiler in there, but I don't think I did, pfew.

 

[Aduiavas Ida]

No, you are good so far, just thought I'd remind people what forum we're in

 

[Aran Cherubim]

Another matter might be practicality: how do you open a door with a shield of air around you? How do you reach for another person? Can you easily maneuver narrow places? Can you actually attack another person without just hitting the inside of your own shield? Does the added weight and volume of the air in the shield you're carrying around mess with your movement in a noticeable way? Who knows.

It might be possible to create a kind of "elastic" shield that allows for these things (a "layer" around the skin more than an actual shield) but simply put, no one's been able to research those kinds of weaves yet. Or if they have, they've failed, been forgotten or are just plain very hard to get right.

Just my two cents.

 

[Megana Vallentin]

I can't imagine moving around and doing anything physical with a shield around you, but all of those times that someone was standing somewhere up high with a good view of the battle so they could throw fireballs? A shield would protect them from the lucky arrow shot at least!

 

[Inanna Landred]

Another matter might be practicality: how do you open a door with a shield of air around you? How do you reach for another person? Can you easily maneuver narrow places? Can you actually attack another person without just hitting the inside of your own shield? Does the added weight and volume of the air in the shield you're carrying around mess with your movement in a noticeable way? Who knows.

It might be possible to create a kind of "elastic" shield that allows for these things (a "layer" around the skin more than an actual shield) but simply put, no one's been able to research those kinds of weaves yet. Or if they have, they've failed, been forgotten or are just plain very hard to get right.

Just my two cents.

You make valid points Aran, I think I was comparing it to another person being shielded from the Source, which is obviously just a Spirit shield and the shielded person can still move about freely. To ward against physical objects,, the shield would also have to be physical and thus it's metaphysical properties would be no different from being inside a (transparant) tank. Good point, well made Sir.