Prologue, Chap. 1-50, Epilogue

[fikkie77]

Verin hoped to get her hands on the oathrod, to undo her oaths, so she didn't have to die to get around them. She failed to get it and concluded herself that that wouldn't have worked.

 

The angreal stash from Rhuidean is probably shipped to Tar Valon.

[Rhalurn]

Ah yes, i remember Egwene apologising in her head about the oath rod. Was there other aes sedai with Moraine back in Rhuidean (sp) then? Terrible memory i know, we haven't even had a hint that the tower recived the cache - surely Egwene would of mentioned it whilst in the special room. Hopefully Elaine will get her hands on it, along with Avienda.

 

It might just be me, but i got a simple thrill from Avienda going 'this seems to be a twin angreal for communication' the WoT's first iphones!

[havoc110]

The Hall of the Tower deposed of her and did that by the letter of the law.

 

Quote Egwene:  "You stilled and deposed your Amyrlin, murdering her Warder, and you did it unlawfully."  My point was when Egwene brings it up, anybody, Egwene (perhaps her conscience in her POV), or any other AS who didn't care to accept Egwene as the "consolidated" Amyrlin could have brought this point up for debate.

[havoc110]

I totally loved the book, i literally squealed like a ten year old girl when i started reading it (and several times cool things happened) - but you have nailed it on the head. With Verin i was like - ok that explains her abit, but you told mat to wait 30 days - but your dead... so is she dead? She clearly thought she could possibly be alive somehow (or maybe the letter would influence him somehow). I didnt like how rand went off the handle with tam, then for some reason thought 'screw it, i wont be hard as stone anymore' and destroy the best weapon going. I didnt associate gawayn's (sp) 'must save egwene' mood with perrins, and im more than dissapointed that he just left the younglings after 'thinking about his feelings'.

 

 

More on Verin, her drinking the tea conveniently fits right before the Seanchan attack, and more importantly, right before Egwene walks in and can tell her where the Oath Rod is.

 

It's like our oldest and wisest AS, Verin and Cads, are taking cues from the Forsaken playbook, and have taken to bumbling about, digging their own holes deeper, setting their own plans back through their own actions. 

[Eleint]

More on Verin, her drinking the tea conveniently fits right before the Seanchan attack, and more importantly, right before Egwene walks in and can tell her where the Oath Rod is.  It's like our oldest and wisest AS, Verin and Cads, are taking cues from the Forsaken playbook, and have taken to bumbling about, digging their own holes deeper, setting their own plans back through their own actions.

 

Er.  How would -she- know that the Seanchan would attack, or that Egwene would know where the Oath Rod is.  It's not a stupid mistake if she has no way she could know in the first place.  A tragedy yes, but not a stupid mistake.

 

She isn't a reader, she doesn't have our knowledge of everything that happens.

[havoc110]

My observation about Verin had more to do with the timing on the authors' part more than anything.  But since you mention it, Verin should have much more knowledge about what she needs than any of us.  She one of the eldest AS (not verified, but I think this is true), and she's been BA for a long time.  So if her Oath Rod research was even a fraction of her BA research, and her angreal notes, she should know a thing or two about how where it is and how to get her hands on it. 

 

Her crazy story she gives to Mat, if it is to be believed, should give her concern that the end is approaching, and she could be of service if freed, something a Rebel Amyrlin could give her if reconciliation is near.  An Amyrlin whose novice quarters in which she is waiting for her, albeit after poisoning herself.

 

So Verin knew stuff that we didn't, her BA address books are only one example, but that really wasn't taken much into account when composing her death.

[Mr Ares]

I haven't read many of the interviews, so don't know what his reasoning was with going this route. I hope it was no "I didn't think I could do RJ's writing style justice" type crud, because dude... at least try.

He said that by trying to imitate RJ's style, it would probably come across as parody, so he decided to adapt his own style to complement RJ's.

[Nightstrike]

Siuan Sanche wasn't even Aes Sedai for a while. Not her fault, but that might not matter. She couldn't be Amyrlin if she wasn't Aes Sedai. So I think it could be argued that she wasn't able to fulfill her duties as Amyrlin seat, or even Aes Sedai.

The Amyrlin IS Aes Sedai. That's how Egwene was raised in the first place: making her Amyrlin made her Aes Sedai. Stilling didn't end Siuan's reign as Amyrlin, deposing did. The Hall of the Tower deposed of her and did that by the letter of the law. That ended Siuan as Amyrlin. She could be raised, but wouldn't be a logical choice: she's weaker in the One Power than she was and wouldn't get the support of the Hall of the Tower, because she couldn't bring the Reds back.

You aren't Aes Sedai if you're stilled. You have to have the ability to be Aes Sedai. The Salidar Aes Sedai were telling her that she is no longer Aes Sedai. She was probably unlawfully deposed. But she wasn't capable of fulfilling her duties as Amyrlin while she was stilled. Probably not since then either.

[Razor]

The reason Egwene used to argue it was not legal is it used the minimum required Sitters in the vote, and at least one of them was black.  As a black her vote was nto legal, hence the action was not legal.  Seems trick logic to me, but the sisters she presented it to agreed with her logic.

[fikkie77]

She was deposed before being stilled. That's why she wasn't Aes Sedai anymore. If the Amyrlin gets burnt out, she technically remains Aes Sedai, because the Amyrlin is Aes Sedai. But they would probably depose of that Amyrlin anyway, or call for an Asha'man healer.

[Nightstrike]

She was deposed before being stilled.

She was stilled. Unable to channel. Unable to fulfill her duties. Unable to be Aes Sedai. Unable to be Amyrlin.

 

That's why she wasn't Aes Sedai anymore. If the Amyrlin gets burnt out, she technically remains Aes Sedai, because the Amyrlin is Aes Sedai.

You can't be Aes Sedai if you can't channel. If the Amyrlin got stilled or burned out, then she was unable to fulfill her duties. Unable to be Aes Sedai. Unable to be Amyrlin.

 

 

But they would probably depose of that Amyrlin anyway, or call for an Asha'man healer.

Now they might change the law and traditions. Asma'man healers might call for change.

 

[Dorkfiend]

Of course, while on the subject of Verin, it strikes me that actually, while I can't think of anyone who was wholly right (if anyone has a quote of someone saying, prior to release, that Verin was Light side and BA, then I'll admit they made a bloody good gues, and can give the rest of us an "I told you so"), the vast majority appear to have been half right. If you said Verin isn't BA, she's for the Light and a Brown, you're right she's for the Brown and the Light, but wrong about her not being Black. If you said she was Black, and therefore evil, you're wrong, because she wasn't evil, but right in that she was Black. The only people who are completely wrong are people who said things like "she's a Darkfriend but not BA", "she's of the Purple/Orange/Heliotrope/insert colour of choice Ajah", "she used her Dream ter'angreal and freed herself from the Oaths in T'a'r", or similar. Of course, I'm not going to gloat. I'm magnanimous in victory.

 

Actually, I'd figured this out a long time ago.  I wish I had posted it somewhere, for bragging rights.  As it stands, I only told my wife, who thought I was nuts.  ("That stupid Lightfriend theory," she called it, in spite of the fact that this just about completely opposite from that ridiculous theory.)

 

The clues were all there, all along.  From the lie in TGH, to Verin's exceedingly odd thoughts in her POVs, especially about her past and her curiosity that always led to trouble.

 

There was the alarming list of people who tried to kill her, and vice versa.  Why would a Brown sister get into so many altercations with evil people?  No AS seemed to have that much trouble, not even Moiraine.  Each little anecdote of hers seemed on par with experiences in POVs from darkfriends such as Hadnan Kovere.  That was the first clue.

 

Then there was her plan, that secret one that she'd been planning for seventy years?  What could be so secret she couldn't confide in, say, Sarafelle, because no matter how dangerous it was it would be of little interest to another world-forsaking Brown.

 

Then there was the little matter of her notes and her impossible-to-decipher code.  She was studying something, something so dangerous that she could trust no one with the results -- not even Siuan Sanche, who was one of the few AS that was immediately obvious as a non-BA, from her treatment of Rand.

 

Next was her odd Compulsion-like treatment of da'stinkies.  Pledge loyalty to the Dragon, she told them.  True, these women included Elza, but even were she BA, she would have had to know she was adding onto Rand's strength.

 

And so you had this very strange woman, whose very internal thoughts were so guarded to herself it was like she was keeping the secrets of Verin Mathwin away from Verin Mathwin, who you could say the following about:

• supported Rand in a substantive way that seemed more supportive than, say, Elza's confused mania
  
• could lie
  
• was studying something extremely dangerous
  
• consorted with folks more dangerous than Juilin Sandar would drink with
  
• was extremely curious, more so and about more subjects than your average Brown
  
• kept everything secret from everybody, including her allies and possibly even herself.
  

 

Finally there were her comments to herself in FM about Eadwin, and how she had climbed into one pickling kettle after another.  I can't remember exactly the passage but that's the part where it all came together for me, and I started looking reexamining her parts for clues and confirmations.  I found them.  It was the only explanation that made sense:  Verin joined the BA just so she could study the organization from within, a double agent of sorts.

 

I wish most of my looney theories turned out right.  Most of them have been flat wrong thus far.  I'm still living down Taimandred, "Mat can learn how to channel", and "Moiraine and Cyndane just switched bodies".

 

Hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day :)

[Alghar Khan]

Of course, while on the subject of Verin, it strikes me that actually, while I can't think of anyone who was wholly right (if anyone has a quote of someone saying, prior to release, that Verin was Light side and BA, then I'll admit they made a bloody good gues, and can give the rest of us an "I told you so"), the vast majority appear to have been half right. If you said Verin isn't BA, she's for the Light and a Brown, you're right she's for the Brown and the Light, but wrong about her not being Black. If you said she was Black, and therefore evil, you're wrong, because she wasn't evil, but right in that she was Black. The only people who are completely wrong are people who said things like "she's a Darkfriend but not BA", "she's of the Purple/Orange/Heliotrope/insert colour of choice Ajah", "she used her Dream ter'angreal and freed herself from the Oaths in T'a'r", or similar. Of course, I'm not going to gloat. I'm magnanimous in victory.

I did know that she wasn't bound against lying. The majority wasn't "half right", by the way. It was clear as day she wasn't for the Shadow.   ;)

 

Of course, I thought that it was because she had used the oath rod in tel'aran'rhiod. I thought that was way more likely than her being BA. I was as close to the truth as it was possible to be by using logical deduction. Correct logical deduction means a right to gloat.

;D

 

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

The Rhuidean stash is sitting in a warehouse in Cairhein.  It was put there after Lanfear's meltdown at the docks.

[Mr Ares]

The majority wasn't "half right", by the way. It was clear as day she wasn't for the Shadow.   ;)

Most were right in that they said either that she was for the Light, or that she was BA. Both were true, and most seem to have guessed one or the other, but I can't think of anyone who guessed both. Not even you. So you are in no position to gloat, because you were not "as right as it was possible to be by logical deduction", you were no more right than anyone else.

[Luckers]

I'm in a position to gloat. My 'Very Helpful Verin' theory basically went "I've no clue how she managed to lie, but she's being super helpful to the light."

 

Go me. Arn't I awesome? Don't you all just want to fall around me fawning with awe?

 

;D

[Mr Ares]

Go me. Arn't I awesome? Don't you all just want to fall around me fawning with awe?

Not particularly. But I might get around to fawning later, when I have a comfy chair to sit in. And you bring me a beer.

[Thorn]

]Most were right in that they said either that she was for the Light, or that she was BA. Both were true, and most seem to have guessed one or the other, but I can't think of anyone who guessed both.

 

I'll toot my own horn and say that I think the closest anyone I saw around here came to guessing it was me, with these posts, in Lucker's "very helpful verin" thread:

 

 

Just to note, I think all those make it very unlikely that Verin is a member of the Black Ajah, but they don't make it "proven." She could (much like the Black sister she Compels) just be trying to get Rand to the Last Battle.

 

Personally I think it unlikely (I think she's either a "dark brown," or a former BA member who managed to wriggle out somehow). But it's still technically possible for Verin to be a Black Ajah member, just very unlikely.

 

Beyond that, I don't really know. But it's presumably possible to renounce the BA -- after all, "no one can walk so long in the darkness that they cannot come to the Light," etc. etc. Presumably, the hard part about renouncing the BA isn't the oath; it's 1) the sort of people who join the BA aren't going to be the sort of people who renounce it, and 2) the rest of the BA is likely to kill you very dead just for trying.  Again, I'm not saying this is a likely scenario, just a theoretically possible one.

 

I didn't guess that she was acting as a current mole, though, but I think that's as close as anyone else got that I saw, anyway. I got that she was "for the light," and said it was likely she had a BA past.

[Mr Ares]

Yeas, I think that's about the closest I've seen. *Hands Thorn the medal of guessing something quite close to the truth about Verin*

[Thorn]

Yeas, I think that's about the closest I've seen. *Hands Thorn the medal of guessing something quite close to the truth about Verin*

 

**dances**

[Alghar Khan]

;D Everybody knew she was for the Light, so that doesn't count.  ;D

 

;D It was possible to deduce that she wasn't bound against lying.

    Mr Ares: Wrong!  Alghar Khan: Correct!

 

;D It wasn't possible to deduce that she was in fact Black Ajah, so that doesn't count.  ;D

 

Score

Mr Ares: 0 points.

Alghar Khan: 1 point.

 

;D  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D

[Alghar Khan]

AS cannot lie. Verin is AS. Therefore Verin cannot lie. That is absolutely crystal clear.

 

She sent Verin. Fact. She did not intend to, but she did. As for the rest of the world, I think you'll find more people support the position that, at the very least, she might not have lied. You are part of a tiny, insignificant even, minority, which holds with the entirely unsupported and utterly unsupportable view that it is impossible for it to be anything other than a lie, which is wrong.

How much more fun in november (or whenever) when us insignificant ones becomes the significant ones. Speaking of unsupported, what support do you have for your claims? None! You're the unsupported one.

You'll be waiting a lot longer than just till November. Because it's never gonna happen. As for support, your theory rests upon the only possible meaning of "sent" requiring intent. Which is wrong. The dictionary does not support you. It has nothing to require intent. The way people use the word also does not require intent, because people will say that they sent things even when they did so unintentionally. Therefore, the word sent not requiring intent makes a nonsense of your point that that is the only possible meaning, so you are unsupported. The word sent leaves things open to multiple interpretations - requiring intent or not. So your absolutist position is ruled out at once. We have passages, already quoted, that are certainly possible to read as Moiraine sending Verin. We have Wotmania's mention of RJ statements from signings requiring Three Oaths for the Agelessness, which Verin has, and which appear to have support in the books, what with the successive tightening of skin arising from each Oath sworn. We have Verin's PoV in PoD Prologue, where she is quite specific in all her words, and everything she says is true, even when lies would be harder to detect than in this instance. Which doesn't make sense if she can lie. We have no reason to believe herself ever to have unbound herself. We have RJ's statements about falsehoods only being utterable with intent to deceive which cannot be taken to support you, and the books repeatedly making clear that AS are able to mislead with the truth quite freely under the First Oath. All the evidence supports me, not you. Nothing supports you. If you actually opened your mind and thought about it, you would see that inescapable truth.

;D  ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D

 

[Luckers]

Go me. Arn't I awesome? Don't you all just want to fall around me fawning with awe?

Not particularly. But I might get around to fawning later, when I have a comfy chair to sit in. And you bring me a beer.

 

What type of beer do you want?

 

 

Wait...

 

 

Something just went terribly wrong.

[WWWwombat]

I thought Mr. Ares was infallible.

[Alghar Khan]

I thought Mr. Ares was infallible.

 

Everyone who actually bothered reading the books can be pretty damn sure that Verin didn't lie. Therefore, this is just AS truth twisting.

 

AS cannot lie. Verin is AS. Therefore Verin cannot lie. That is absolutely crystal clear.