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A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

Pain at removing the Oaths


Charlz Fel

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Early on in the Black Ajah hunt, when Seaine thought about how painful it was to remove just one Oath (to verify that an Oath could be removed), she thought that it was quite painful, and winced at the thought of removing all three Oaths at once.  When Talene actually did have three Oaths removed at once, she screamed, as I recall, for several minutes afterward.  But in TGS, no one who foreswears the Oaths does more than hiss.  Admittedly, they had more time to prepare themselves and were in much better shape than Talene, but even so, I felt like the pain should have been greater--at least enough that they should foreswear the Oaths one at a time.  Did anyone else have the same impression?

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Was Talene the only BA that we saw onscreen having the "Dark Oaths" removed by the Oath Rod?

 

Wasn't everyone else that we see remove the Oaths on the Rod light-siders?  They were only removing the original Aes Sedai trinity, right?  Did they always do just one at a time?

 

Maybe removing all three (of the original Oaths) at once isn't exactly three times more painful.  I don't remember any of the Black Ajah hunters even hiss at removing an Oath.  Or do we ever actually see any of them remove an Oath?  Didn't they just reswear the first Oath and declare, "I am not Black Ajah?"

 

Well, Verin says that making the Oaths to the Dark One were quite distinctive, and wasn't sure it was even possible to unbind herself on the Rod.  Since the process is probably more painful to take the Dark Oaths, it would likely be more painful to remove them.

 

Maybe you just figured out a clue for Egwene to try to track down Mesaana.  A Black Sister would likely become obvious even before she reswears the Oaths and states her allegiances, because she would visibly undergo a much greater amount of pain in taking off the Dark Oaths.

 

If we think of Talene and Romanda (she's the one that just hissed a little, right?) as representing the extremes of the physical reactions by sisters in the reswearing process, then any woman whose physical reaction to the unswearing is dramatically inconsistent with the answer said reaction would logically suggest could therefore be suspect.

 

example:  Mesaana fakes unbinding herself, she oversells it a bit, whines and whimpers a little too much - maybe even gives out a short, little scream - and then takes a little too long of a breather before she "reswears."  Then she calmly and confidently says, "I am not a darkfriend."

 

Egwene could then go . . . "Wait a second.  The only Sisters who whined that much proved themselves to be Black Ajah.  That one Sister shouldn't have experienced that much pain if she were a good little Aes Sedai.  She whimpered like a Black Sister, but managed to say that she wasn't a darkfriend?  Hmmmm."

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Seaine and Pevara didn't experiment the same pain as when they took the Oaths. They would jave said it was as painful, not "quite painful".

 

Sammael's comment that the Oath Rod effects on physic are.cumulative. We know some effects of those Oaths. Life span shortened, Ageless face because of a tightening of the skin.

Then the more Oaths you take, the more you are affected by those effects.

 

The pain felt during the removing could be the consequence of those side effects beeing annulated... This if we consider that removing the Oaths neglect the effects. So the more Oaths you take, the more pain you feel.

 

And as a sife reflection, we know the Forsaken do not devellop the Ageless face (I don't prononce about life span, because of their link to the DO...) so those are not taken by a Bind Rod. And it is probably the same with BA, as Verin said it was quite distinctiv and really binding when put on a channeler. Maybe they aren't released from the Oaths taken by the Oaths Rod.

 

So the pain felt by BA Sisters may come from the release of more than 3 Oaths, and the Oath Rod can release more than one type of Oaths. But this is pure speculation...

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TGS Ch 43 Sealed to the flame.

 

Romanda nodded her head. "You are correct on both counts, Mother," she admitted

 

"Then you wouldn't mind being the first to retake the Oathd, I presume?"

Romanda hesitated only briefly, glancing at the two women bound in  Air. Almost everyone in the room held to the Source, eyeing the others as if they might grow coppersnakes for hair at any moment.

  Romanfa took the Oath Rod, and did as instructed, releasing herself from the oaths. The process was obviously painfulm, but she held herself to a controlled, hissing intake of breath. […]

"Lelaine, do you wish to be next?"

    "Gladly," the woman said. She probably felt a need to vindicate the Blue. One by one, the other women forswore - gaping or hissing at the pain of it - .

 

 

Yes. But we know just the SAS's Sitters' Purge.

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IIRC the ferrets have removed all Oaths before taking them again.

This is mistaken.  At least, the first "ferret" who was sworn, only swore the additional Oath of obedience, without foreswearing any Oaths.  When Pevara commanded this woman to recant her tales about Logain being raised by the Reds, the woman started choking, and would apparently have died if Pevara had not retracted the command.  This is the first time Seaine considers that it might be necessary to make potential Black sisters foreswear all Oaths that bind them, to avoid the possibility of conflicting Oaths.  She thinks that it might be necessary to make them foreswear all Oaths at once, since she has no idea what specific Oaths they have given, and winces at the thought of how painful that might be.

I may have forgotten exactly what happened, but did the Aes Sedai in Egwene's purge actually remove the oaths? I thought I remembered them just re-swearing the three oaths immediately, no bother to remove them first.

When Saerin et al. stumble upon Seaine and Pevara, they all (except Talene) re-swear the Oath against lying, and then state, "I am not a Darkfriend" or something similar.  I seem to recall that Pevara and Seaine actually reswear all three Oaths, so those two have an absurd number of Oaths on them if my recollection is correct.

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