Nynaeve and Damer Flinn have both found a way to heal stilling. Further, the healing is only 100% effective if performed by a channeler of the opposite gender. However, we have yet to learn if someone who has “burned out” can be healed. In this post I will lay out my theory on the differences between stilling and burning out, and try to determine if burnout is healable.
To find the difference between stilling and burning out, we first have to discuss the actual physiology of channeling. First of all, we know that channeling is genetic and that it is a recessive gene, and that some people are born with the “spark” and will start to channel no matter what, whereas others can be taught to channel but would not start channeling on their own. Someone who is not born with the ability to channel or learn to channel will never be able to channel – if you lack the channeling gene you will never be able to channel. These three distinct classes of people (sparkers, learners, and non-channelers) indicates a genetic scheme of incomplete dominance. Someone who has both recessive channeling alleles will be a sparker, someone with one channeling allele and one dominant non-channeling allele will be a learner, and someone with both dominant non-channeling alleles will not be able to channel.
Since the channeling ability is genetic, it also has a physical component – there is something physically different about channelers. Likely this difference would be an area of the brain that provides access to the True Source – a “channeling neuron”. Those with the spark would have a fully developed “channeling neuron,” those who must learn to channel would have an under-developed “channeling neuron” that grows as they use it, and those who cannot channel do not have one at all.
So what happens when someone is stilled versus when someone is burned out? A clue to stilling can be found when Nynaeve heals Logain. She describes a “hole” when she studies Logain, and a feeling “of something cut” in Siuan, and Leane. The cut feeling indicates that stilling (or gentling) someone involves cutting off the synapse that connects the part of the brain that allows channeling. The channeler still has that part of the brain, and can still sense the Source, but they cannot activate the part of the brain that lets them channel. This is further supported in Nynaeve’s use of Fire to bridge the gap when she heals them, as this makes sense for healing the nervous system because of the electrical pulses in our brain.
Burning out, on the other hand, is different. When someone is burned out, she cannot sense the True Source at all. So what physically happens when someone is burned out? The term itself is very descriptive, and likely provides the answer. Burning out occurs when you overreach yourself with the power or are involved in some sort of traumatic event involving the power (such as misuse of ter’angreal). This indicates that the part of the brain that allows one to channel is physically damaged and destroyed. Where in stilling the connection to that area of the brain is cut, in burning out that part of the brain is just gone or dead – literally burned away. This is why those who have burned out cannot even sense the Source – they no longer have that part of the brain at all, making them as if they had been born without the channeling gene.
Because those who are burned out have lost the area of the brain that allows channeling, it is unlikely that they can be healed the way that stilling can. Healing allows the body to drastically regenerate, but it cannot re-grow something that has been lost completely. If someone has a leg cut off, healing could probably reattach the severed leg (if it was placed where it should go) but it could not cause the victim to just grow a new leg. In the same way, stilling can be healed, but burning out likely cannot.
Quote of the day:
“My name is Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran. The message I want sent is this. My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tar’mon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?”
-KoD, Ch. 20
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