Hmm. You are correct. I guess I remembered incorrectly and was wrong here. Thanks. I don't think this totally abolishes the idea however since there was another even more obvious way for Verin to find out the truth which I realised by thinking about it in more detail. See below for my thoughts.



Well, I think it was perhaps a bit foolish that not one AS in the camp considered the possibility for even a moment. But I am willing to accept that. They were either AS or loyal BA. Most probably they never really considered either the oaths in general or how the Oath Rod works in particular. Why would they? They had no need to break the oaths.

I obviously have no way to _absolutely_ prove that Verin knew since it has not been written in the books that she did. I am/was however trying to speculate and infer that realistically there was every reason to believe that she should have.

These are the assumptions that I have made. This is not proof but then I cannot prove this. But it seems realistic to me based on what we have read. Essentially I am trying to infer this fact based on other surrounding information about the oaths, Verin and other facts. I shall list what I mean once more below and then let it rest.

First, let us assume that the WoT world is rational world where people would act in a realistic manner. Admittedly there are problems with that since lots of people in the books are idiots when they should not be. But one flaw of poow writing in the books does not justify another similar flaw elsewhere in my view. When reading, I try to imagine that the characters would and should act in a manner that is consistent. Inconsistency or irrational behaviour without cause suggests poor writing and unrealistic scenes, which was the problem for me in the first place. I don't like scenes that don't make internal sense to me. Upon analysis, the Verin scene feels much like this.

Now lets see.

A.Unlike the rebels, Verin is a BA that does not want to be a BA. She wants to betray the BA and cleanse the tower of them. However she cannot do so due to the oath she has taken. Does it not seem reasonable that _unlike_ most AS(such as the rebels), for Verin it would essentially be top priority to find a way to break the oath. Arguably more important even than her research on the BA or anything else for that matter since none of that matters without freedom from the oaths.

B.Given that this is her life's work, does it also not make sense that she would want to be alive not just to see the fruits of her labor, but also to make certain that it is properly taken advantage of. And besides, she wants to live in general, which she said explicitly. Essentially, she does not want to die so from her perspective, finding a safe way out of the oaths without dying is once again top priority.

From A+B we get motivation. Inferring from her words and actions, we can say that a smart Verin would have researched the oaths and the Oath Rod for ANY weakness that she could exploit to weasel her way out to freedom. Agreed?

Knowledge comes next. From motivation we can say that Verin certainly wanted a way to break the oaths. As readers we also know that there are many ways to do so. I focus on stilling here. Is there any rational reason to assume that Verin could and would have discovered what we know?

C.It is a well known fact that the Oath Rod only works on channelers correct? A quick look by me using the search engine shows that Galina(BA) atleast knew it so I would say Verin would too. This is not exactly a huge secret so I believe that with research atleast she would discover it. I think it might even be common knowledge in general.

D.Verin became a BA over 70 years ago. Given that freeing herself from the oaths was a top motivation, it seems likely that a large bulk of her time would have been spent trying to find a way to free herself. Infact any time she had free from her BA hunts should realistically been devoted to this research.

Now what do we get from C+D. We know that the Oath Rod works only on channelers, suggesting it needs a connection to Saidar to work. We also know that Verin was desperate to break the oath. We also know that she had 70 years to work on the problem.

Is it really realistic to assume that in all those years, longer than most people in the forums have lived I would wager, it never occurred to Verin to wonder if maybe, just MAYBE, if you stopped being a channeler, the oaths would also no longer work since they only work on channelers. Thats not exactly rocket science we are talking about here. It is a simple logical continuation of pre-existing knowledge and no more. Verin has been shown to be an incredibly brilliant Brown sister who managed to single handedly unravel essentially the entire BA network. Are we truly expected to assume that this bonafide genius somehow failed to make this OBVIOUS deduction? The very idea is plainly ridicilous don't you agree?

Now, I admit that at this point, the idea that being stilled would release you from the oaths would only be a suspicion for Verin. A logical reasonable suspicion in my view but not proof. Verin would want to study the matter to make certain. How would/could she confirm her suspicion?

E.My first idea was that it would be written somewhere in the Tower library. There is no denying the fact that the AS don't like to associate with stilled sisters since it reminds them uncomfortably of what might happen to them one day. Earlier I speculated however that in the entire millennia the tower has been around, SOMEONE would have discovered that stilling breaks the oaths and written it down. If so Verin who would be studying the matter would undoubtedly find this information. This was based on what I believed was sheer probability. You would only need a single sister to reveal the knowledge to someone. Given the huge number of possible variations that this knowledge could have become known to the AS, I figured that it must have happened atleast once. And once is all thats really needed for it to be written down.

But let's say that in this case the odds were not in my favor and even in the vast tower library the knowledge does not exist. Verin searched for references to confirm or deny her suspicions but does not find anything. What now? What to do?

F.The answer is simple. Experiment. Verin is a BA. Not a very loyal BA but a BA regardless. In all her time, she must have had to do some pretty nasty things to keep her position and gain the necessary information on the BA. We know that she had no problem with compulsion for example, while other sisters find it abhorrent and evil.

Given that Verin has already shown that she is willing to do whatever needs to be done to achieve her objectives, and that she has a strong motivation to find a way out of the oaths. Does it not seem very likely that she, a scholar, unable to find any pre-existing information would find out the truth for herself. How? By stilling someone herself ofcourse. She was strong enough to travel which many cannot do. She had an angreal. This means that she had the strength to find some random sister and still her. She could have done this to some random innocent sister(likely she had to "remove" atleast one or two in her life so why not take the opportunity to do research), or perhaps to a potential enemy in the BA(perhaps promoting herself in the process and killing two birds with a single stone). Then all she needs to do is interrogate/torture the victim and find out if said victim is still held by the oaths now that they have ceased to be a channeler. She would discover the truth quickly after that.

So there we have it. In my view a very logical, rational and believable way for Verin to have both discovered and confirmed that stilling releases you from the oaths. So much so infact that to its actually hard to believe that she did not discover it. Remember that she had 70 years to work on the problem. That may just seem like a number when read on the screen but think about it for a moment. 70 years. That is a very long time. A very VERY long time to discover the obvious.

I will not bother repeating my earlier writings on how Verin could have utilised the same loophole she used to prepare her poison tea to get herself stilled. You focused only on whether Verin would know of this fact so I did too. Read my other posts in the thread for how Verin would have actually stilled herself once she knew that that would work.

So we have reached the end. Verin poisoned herself instead, killing herself in the process and removing all the skill, knowledge and ability that could have done much to serve the light yet. Even Egwene mentions several times that she wishes Verin were there to assist her in the purge. Infact, if Verin had been there, it is very possible that she could have devised a better plan of action and prevented any BA escaping. She could also have done further to support Rand afterwards, further helping the light.

It seems to me then that we have two possibilities here.
1.Verin knew this but chose poison anyway. This makes no sense and makes her look like an idiot.
2.Verin, in the 70 years she had, utterly failed to find out this obvious information. This makes no sense and makes her look like an idiot.

When a character is an idiot in one area (researching the oaths) but suddenly becomes incredibly brilliant in another area (researching the BA), that stinks of poor characterization and poor writing to me. It gives me the feeling that rather than having the books flow realistically and naturally, a contrived set of events happened so that Verin would have to die, allowing Egwene to take the hero role and cleanse the BA instead receiving the credit. Poor writing at Verin's expense to artificially boost Egwene is how it feels to me.