Anyone else see the gaping, screaming, massive, supergalactic-mass sized problem here?
If defiling is easier than preserving, and is the basis of preserving, in that one must add actions to it in order to preserve, how the hell was defiling ever "kept as a secret" among a select cabal to whom it had to be TAUGHT? Seriously, anyone who can preserve can choose to defile, but not vice versa (you have to be taught the extra step(s) and gain a certain control/willpower in order not to defile)...so defiling is a secret art unknown to any except a handful?
WTF?! That's like, "Rajaat taught a whole bunch of people how to add, but he didn't teach them numbers!" How the frick did they add if they didn't know about numbers? Apple + Banana = Orange, which is both a color and a fruit (but not a number!)?!
Anyways, this is a serious logical inconsistency within the established history of the game that has been bugging me for quite some time. It affects more than just the establishment and training of wizards in historical ages; it also affects the whole idea of the Preserver Jihad and such (so, tell me again why there were a whole bunch of preservers just wandering around?).
Thus, does anyone have any ideas to deal with this problem? I mean, beyond "All of canon history is a dirty, filthy lie!"
Because with glaring problems like that in it, obviously. 
BTW, I am unhappy with the idea that preservation was (for some reason) easier to do than defiling in the past. Unless someone comes up with a really outstanding, evocative, coherent/organic reason, that is.
Per the title: Rajaat taught preserver magic to his students first, and kept the practice of defiling secret, teaching it only to a few of his brightest and most promising students. YET all preservers can defile because it is easier and more basic an action to perform than preserving is. Preserving takes extra work and control/concentration that defiling does not.
Anyone else see the gaping, screaming, massive, supergalactic-mass sized problem here?
If defiling is easier than preserving, and is the basis of preserving, in that one must add actions to it in order to preserve, how the hell was defiling ever "kept as a secret" among a select cabal to whom it had to be TAUGHT? Seriously, anyone who can preserve can choose to defile, but not vice versa (you have to be taught the extra step(s) and gain a certain control/willpower in order not to defile)...so defiling is a secret art unknown to any except a handful?
WTF?! That's like, "Rajaat taught a whole bunch of people how to add, but he didn't teach them numbers!" How the frick did they add if they didn't know about numbers? Apple + Banana = Orange, which is both a color and a fruit (but not a number!)?!
Anyways, this is a serious logical inconsistency within the established history of the game that has been bugging me for quite some time. It affects more than just the establishment and training of wizards in historical ages; it also affects the whole idea of the Preserver Jihad and such (so, tell me again why there were a whole bunch of preservers just wandering around?).
Thus, does anyone have any ideas to deal with this problem? I mean, beyond "All of canon history is a dirty, filthy lie!"
BTW, I am unhappy with the idea that preservation was (for some reason) easier to do than defiling in the past. Unless someone comes up with a really outstanding, evocative, coherent/organic reason, that is.
Here is my thoughts on it.
When a child is first learning to walk, they make small steps and must have something to hold on to. This is how magic was first introduced to Rajaats first students, as baby steps.
If you think about it, many of the people he was teaching were masters in the Way or at least powerful students, so they would not dive head-first into something new. Rajaat Taught them the method of slowly drawing out the energy, and if they drew too much, they would have seen the horrible effects and he would have become a rather sturn teacher, telling them that they must not do it this way, only the way he was teaching.
Perhaps he took those students aside who showed a taste for taking more then they needed and this is how he deemed them the best and the brightest- bacause they wre not afraid of taking the power that was there.
So it is kinda like this: if everyone around you is right handed, and everything is taught to you using your left hand, you will never really know what you could have done with your left.
It does seem strange the way they explained it though.
...The rest were used to justify his jihad on preservers.
...The rest were used to justify his jihad on preservers.
I don't know...
Magic was fully incorporated into Athasian civilization over 4,620 years (Timeline numbers) of use, so the reason for the Jihad must have been other than newly minted defilers causing trouble and turning public opinion against all wizards (since nearly all wizards were preservers...its called the Preserver Jihad).