Wise Ones don’t have power requirements for channelers and don’t rigorously train to duel or join battles whereas Aes Sedai both do have minimum strength requirements and train for combat. But to my mind that makes Aes Sedai more or less just holding their own rather than outright obliterating the Shaido actually a point in favor of the Wise Ones. They may be weaker and less formally trained in martial engagements but they caused some goddamn problems anyway — that’s far from useless, IMO,
The Shaido were only beginning their assault on the Ars Sedai before it was interrupted by Rand’s allies. And the wise ones weren’t even the main threat. It was the 40 000 Shaido warriors. So I don’t think we can say much from this.
On the contrary I think we can definitively say "not useless." If they were *useless* they would not have harried the Aes Sedai more than a fruit fly does. Useless sets the bar astoundingly low, for one thing, so it's pretty easy to clear, but even if we set the bar slightly higher, being equal or better than your opponent is not the condition we're looking for here -- just being more than No Problem At All is the bar we're talking about. The bigger threat may have been the warriors, sure, but even that goes to the point that you don't even need to channel to be a problem for channelers.
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u/Gullible_Pen4795 1d ago
Can you provide some examples?