I was just rereading that section yesterday.... - Edit 1
Before modification by Light in the Night at 10/12/2009 10:53:22 AM
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.
It's in KoD prologue in a letter from Sashalle, telling about her, Irgain, and Ronaille being Stilled by Rand and then later Healed by Flinn.
Funny thing is, she doesn't flat-out state in her letter that she has been released from her Oaths by the Stilling. What she does say is that upon her return to the WT "she looks forward to reaffirming her Oaths to the Tower and her Ajah." (Not an exact quote, but really close.)
Here's the thing, she tells them in her letter that she swore fealty to Rand, and so she is bound to him until after TG. I read very closely, and saw no signs that Tsutama, Javindhra nor Pevara made the connection that by being Stilled, the three sisters had been freed of the Oaths. (I think they were too caught up in the swearing fealty, being Stilled, and then being Healed, to really give it much thought. That plus they had just decided to bond Asha'man.)
We also know that none of the rebel AS ever thought about the fact that Siuan and Leane had been freed from their Oaths either. If they had, both would have come under suspicion and never been allowed to have the free reign they had.
All the evidence points towards the AS in general not being aware, or just not associating being Stilled, with being released from the Oaths. In part I believe this stems from the fact that once you were Stilled, it was unhealable, thus you were no longer qualified to be an Aes Sedai, and never would be again. (We even saw the Stilled sisters hold themselves apart from the other AS, and the AS could barely make themselves look at the Stilled sisters w/o throwing up.) Fairly complete disassociation.