So where DID Moiraine learn balefire?

[FortyFiveAuto 1]

The question has been posed before, on other boards, but no one seems to have a clue.

 

Balefire was considered a forgotten weave, and all of a sudden, she made it reappear. Who else could have known it, besides a Forsaken? When she said early in the series that she had "become more deadly", what exactly did she mean? I am having a hard time believing that balefire was the only new addition to her repetoire.

 

Short of the Forsaken, I think she is perhaps the deadliest channeler in the world. I have no basis in fact to conclude this, only that she doesn't seem to have compunction about using balefire, she doesn't require a lot to feel in danger (enabling her to get around her Oath), and just the general observation that she is so cloaked in mystery.

 

So where did she pick this up, and what else might she have gotten up her sleeve?

[Olivia 26]

Whenever Moiraine learned balefire, it must have been after she got the Emond's Fielders and before she used it on the Darkhounds. (She mentioned that she had become more deadly since coming to Emond's Field.) The only time she has been away from the Emond's Fielders (and the only time they didn't know where she was or what she was doing) was when she visited Adeleas and Vandene in The Great Hunt.

Maybe while she was scouring their records (they have a few pages from the Age of Legends) she found a mention of how to form balefire. She is famous for being a quick learner of the Power and maybe she puzzled out how to create the weave from a detail she found in their house.

[Mea 0]

She was gone once before she went to Adeleas and Vandene. It was in the begining of tGH.

[Marie 73]

Yes, but she was simply spending time alone in that part. It seems more likely it happened sometime after leaving Fal Dara and meeting up again with Rand at the end of TGH.

[Mea 0]

How do you know she was just spending time alone?

[Marie 73]

She couldn't have been very far from Fal Dara, and she wasn't gone for very long. Lan stated she often needed time to herself, which implies she's done this before. Besides, it seems more likely she would only need to learn such a dangerous weave after the attack and all the other events, when it became clear the Dark One was making his moves.

[Sivart Reborn 7]

Yes, that does sound like Moiraine. Very tactical, cool, and to the point, everyone else be can be stuffed and fried (including herself) as long as the Dark One doesn't get the Dragon Reborn.

[jan 14]

Yes, that does sound like Moiraine. Very tactical, cool, and to the point, everyone else be can be stuffed and fried (including herself) as long as the Dark One doesn't get the Dragon Reborn.

 

ROFL!