I actually didn't remember the Aes Sedai with Rand had discovered it at all. Could you give me the quotes or chapter where we learned that?
I seem to recall that it was in a letter sent by one of the sisters to the head of the red ajah. Tsutama I think.
One of your problems here is that you are presupposing the existence of information that we have been clearly told doesn't exist based solely on your personal incredulity. The information contained withing the White Tower is not dependent on your ability to believe it or not.
We have neither been told or not told whether this information exists or not. Just because some random rebels don't know about it does not mean it is not written down somewhere. My assumption was that it would be based on the lifespan of the tower and the number of stilled sisters.
I cannot deny that it IS an assumption but it seemed reasonable enough to me that it would be discovered and recorded considering that it IS rather obvious.
All it would take is for one average brown to be accidentally stilled, to leave the tower, to discover afterwards that she can lie and send a letter to her former ajah explaining that bit of new knowledge. At which point the knowledge would be written down and stored for good. There must have been lots of sisters like that in the millennia the tower has been around.
Back to Verin, this means that if she were looking into the consequences of Stilling, then it is quite reasonable to believe that she would have discovered that it removes the Oaths. However, this wasn't what she was searching for. Instead, she sought a way to remove the Oaths. There is no more reason to look at Stilling for the solution than immersion in cold water or dancing naked on the full moon. There is less, in fact, because its consequences are more extreme.
I don't know if it is that unlikely. For example, we know from Moiraines PoV in New Spring that taking the oaths feels like it presses on your skin. This is shown again when the BA hunters release and retake the oaths. As a BA, Verin had the oaths released and then took them anew. It seems reasonable enough for me for her to have realised at that point that the tightening of skin/ageless look is a result of the oaths. Just because that is not common knowledge does not mean that Verin would not have realised it since she took the oaths twice.
Let us say she did, then let us say that somewhere along her life she met a stilled sister and saw that the ageless face was gone. I figure she must have met atleast one sometime in her long life. She probably stilled sisters herself even. Not a big leap from there to realise that if the ageless face was gone, maybe the oaths were too. A bit of research into the subject at the tower libraries and PRESTO!
Now this is just one possible example of how Verin could have discovered it. It could be that she was simply smart enough to realise it on her own without any outside assistance. It is a well known fact that the oath rod works only on channelers so its not a big leap from there for Verin to wonder what would happen if she stopped being a channeler by being stilled for instance. A bit of research in the libraries and there we go. Most people don't have any reason to think about the oaths overly much after they are taken. But for Verin, the oath rod and oaths would pretty much have been the most important thing to research.
70 years is a long time. A very long time. Longer than the total lifespan of most people. And all this time, Verin would have known that the success of all her work and efforts would depend on being able to break free of the BA oath. Is it really rational that given all that time, the brilliant brown Verin would not he discovered this. I don't think so.
I finished tGS last night... and really had to come back to you all.
09/12/2009 02:11:05 AM
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Silly Verin! She did not need to die.
09/12/2009 03:53:23 AM
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Re: Silly Verin! She did not need to die.
09/12/2009 06:11:02 AM
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And does she know that Stilling breaks the Oaths? *NM*
09/12/2009 06:16:54 AM
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She should. Some of the Aes Sedai who swore to Rand had been Stilled and then Restored by Flinn.
09/12/2009 03:18:10 PM
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Then, wouldn't the BA/Shadow just kill her off? I think it'd be kind of obvious what she did. *NM*
09/12/2009 03:23:05 PM
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Doesn't mean they experimented with it.
09/12/2009 08:48:23 PM
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Rebels had no reason to research a way to break the oaths. Verin did.
10/12/2009 02:00:21 AM
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You're going at it upside-down.
10/12/2009 02:33:41 AM
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Verin should have figured it out
10/12/2009 03:03:14 AM
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I was just rereading that section yesterday....
10/12/2009 10:52:23 AM
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It all seems intuitively obvious to me!
10/12/2009 07:58:46 PM
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I don't think those would work
09/12/2009 07:03:38 AM
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She should and could have found a better way.
09/12/2009 07:41:28 AM
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I always thought Masema was an irritating distraction and was glad he was killed quickly.
09/12/2009 03:53:44 AM
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Re: I always thought Masema was an irritating distraction and was glad he was killed quickly.
09/12/2009 04:21:35 PM
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It's great to see you around again!
09/12/2009 07:06:45 AM
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Good to see you too.
17/12/2009 10:01:57 PM
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Re: Good to see you too.
19/12/2009 06:12:11 AM
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Hee... gotta love zoos.
19/12/2009 06:18:35 AM
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Mine added up to many vet bills this week.
19/12/2009 07:22:40 AM
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