I don't think so. The sisters already judge an Accepted's proficiency with saidar is now great enough to pass the test, they don't need the test for this.

This isn't a channelling test, it's a test of character and discipline foremostly. It's very much in the spirit of military training. Obedience is paramount, and I think this is why so many women pass it successfully: the Tower trained them well in discipline.

It's a good test to measure battlefield skills in sisters, and it weeds out sisters that might "shame" the Tower because nowadays an Aes Sedai is expected to be able to play the part of a demi-god in any condition when she's outside the Tower, because that illusion that sisters are superhuman is one of the last things that prevents the Tower's status from falling apart. There used to be a time when Aes Sedai were not superhuman, they were rather human with wondrous skills that they agreed to put to the service of others. Nowadays, the Tower rather expect the sisters to hide their humanity, and give the illusion they have wondrous skills a lot of them don't even have (and those they have, they barely use if it's not Healing). Part of the WT's philosophy now is: never attempt anything when there's a chance you fail; take refuge behind the smokescreen of mysterious unfathomable purposes to justify doing nothing . This "saves" the illusion that the WT is all-powerful, but also increase the notion that the sisters are indifferent to almost everything.

The best Healer of the Age barely passed the test, because she will risk her life for others, and won't blindly follow stupid orders just because they're orders. She claims the right to make her own judgement calls. Nynaeve has great control of her channelling. She also lets her anger and emotions flow through her while she remains in complete control when Healing. She has terrible bedside manners and will insult her patients, but venting out is already much better than passing her aggressivity on them physically the way Semirhage did!

Nynaeve doesn't fit what's expected of an Aes Sedai these days. The problem is not really with her, it's rather rather with the Tower's extremely narrow vision of what an Aes Sedai should be like, which in turn comes from the extremely narrow field of actions for AS. All of them need to be able to pull off the "AS behaviour" among rulers and peasants.

Ironically, by serving people Nynaeve has probably done more to gain AS new respect than anyone else in the Tower had done in a long time, but Nynaeve's problem is that the Tower is afraid that she refuses to fit their mold. They see women who think outside the box as a threat., especially when Nynaeve's actions create expectations for AS that most sisters don't want to be tied to. Egwene also faces this. She's seen as dangerous because she challenges conservative thinking and traditions too much. AS are terribly frightened by the notions of change/adaptation/progress. And of work, real work.

I bet in the AOL the Guild wasn't expecting AS to fit so much into a way of thinking, and limiting the status only to certain types of personality, the way the current Tower does.



It's not, but it's taught totally from the wrong perspective. Serenity should be self-control, but the ideal of serenity as the Tower sees it is one of achieving complete indifference or a convincing illusion of it. The Tower teach the women that nothing counts beside the Tower and themselves, in that order.

A very great deal of sisters, most even, have very little real self-control. When no one but Aes Sedai is watching (and sometimes when some are), they show their true selves. Some make the most stupid impulsive decisions, Sitters will turn into bikering children, a whole Ajah (including the foremost Sitter and Ajah Head...) was fighting in the streets for which one would get first turn with Nynaeve. So much for self-control....

Real AS "serenity" is rather what Rand pulls off now.

What the White Tower teaches is the skills to fake serenity, by becoming as indifferent as possible to anything that isn't the White Tower (and significantly, it's when matters of the Tower are a stake that AS will loose their cool in public... Insult AS or do something that goes against the Tower and AS serenity will be gone in a blink) Their vaunted "serenity" is little different from what the old Rand was pulling off with his inability to transcend the Void. Asmodean had told him right away something was wrong with the way Rand did it, that it wasn't normal that he had to shut off all his emotions and become completely indifferent to achieve the Oneness (as we know now, that's how the Forsaken are taught to put themselves in the right state to embrace the True Power). Rand had to control his emotions, not shut them off.

The Aes Sedai make the same mistake.



Among other things. Another important aspect to demonstrate is understanding of OP ethics, and the rules and laws of the Tower. Virtually all sisters are seriously lacking there. The way they see things, if the Oaths don't stop them it's permitted, and if what's permitted doesn't harm the Tower than it's OK. Most AS won't put themselves in danger to be able to use the OP as a weapon, not because it's wrong but because being seen doing this could seriously harm the Tower's reputation. OTOH, they've let themselves gain a reputation of deviousness, hypocrisy and dishonesty by losing nearly all their inhibitions to go around the first Oath. They got into their mind than when they absolutely want to be believed, they just had to say something straight out and remind people of the Oath. That rarely works anymore.





I would think there were many "levels". I would imagine that to gain the title, you needed to go through a general training far more exhaustive than the Tower's OP curriculum. I imagine the training was much harder, because I bet a major focus of the Aes Sedai was on competence and safety. AS were expected to use their skills to serve others, so it was vital that whatever they performed, they could do so with perfect control and safely. It wasn't enough to be able to weave correctly, to be an Aes Sedai you had to understand your skills and your limits, as causing no harm was paramount to the Guild.

But OTOH, the feeling for the AOL scenes and the Guide is that anyone with the ability stood a chance to become a full Servant of All, that what mattered most was that you understood and followed the rules, and what you could do, you could do according to the Guild's standards of safety.

IMO, it's very likely there were advanced specialized tests, and prohibitions against certain weaves if you could not perform them well enough. I suspect a woman like Moghedien would not have had the license to Heal, or to create objects., and several other things, because she had no Talent for this. Someone like Semirhage, on the other hand, would have passed all the tests to have the right to perform as a Restorer, and even there they may have been several degrees and speciality. One Restorer might not have the permit to treat brain damage, for instance, and most AS may not have had the right to attempt work at the cellular level the way someone like Aginor could.

I even suspect you had to gain the right to use an angreal and even more san'angreal. Those let you perform stuff way beyond your natural strength, so you had to demonstrate the ability to channel with those safely before you were allowed to use them. Was this part of basic training? Very likely for angreal, but perhaps not for san'angreal. I think you probably had to pass a skill test to be allowed to wield so much of the OP.

Being Aes Sedai was different in the AOL, it's implied. For most of them perhaps, it was more like a permit to use your ability, because you had demonstrated the skills to use it for service, and you have been trained in channelling ethics and all the rules of the Guild. As we know, a great deal of Aes Sedai, probably most of them, didn't make a career out of it. Someone like Moghedien was probably more like a volunteer fireman. She had trained and passed the tests and had the title, so she could be called upon at need by her local Hall, according to her skills. It probably took a whole lot more talent to envision a career among the other AS, the sort of career lead by Semirhage, or Barid Bel Medar, LTT. And it's not that a woman like Mesaana had no skills, but the standards to be allowed to do research at the Collam Daan were exacting and she didn't have what it took for that (among other things, the positions were likely limited... only the best were given a chair of research)

In general it sounds like you had to exceed greatly the current Tower's standards to make a career in the Guild or in the Guild-based faciliities like the Collam Daan. OTOH, it's also likely a great deal of women put out by the Tower would have managed to meet the AOL standards to be an Aes Sedai (if they followed the OP training, of course), as few ever seem to be put out for lack of channelling skills, but rather for not fitting the mold. The OP aside, I bet fairly few sisters in the White Tower would meet the standards of the Guild in issues like ethics, behaviour and mentality.