how did the aes sedai miss the effect of the oath rod

[king of nowhere]

that's something that has been bugging me for a long time, but I never bothered to write about it until now.

the aes sedai don't know that the ageless look is caused by the oath rod, and they don't know it hallves their life expectancy.

But it is mentioned that the aes sedai started to swear on it somewhere between the trolloc wars and the war of the hundred years. there had been a time - a long time - when aes sedai weren't ageless and did live up to 600 years.

So, how could they miss it? when thoose aes sedai first decided to bind themselves with the rod, they certainly noticed that they developed the ageless look within a few years. even if they don't talk much about age, they must have noticed that they lived much less, also.

and if they knew, how did they forget? aes sedai keep  very meticulous records, they'd never forget something like that.

Then there is the case that they intentionally forgot, that they kept the information secret so that new aes sedai wouldn't refuse to swear. but even then it would be strange that they completely forgot. they could have classified that information as sealed to the flame, or sealed to the hall. yet siuan, who has a very deep knowledge of secret histories, does not know it. would they go as far as striken mention of it from the 13th depository? unlikely.

And that's not mentioning the likelihood that a brown would find out for herself, doing some research, that some aes sedai in the past is mentioned doing something and then doing something else 500 years later, or that there is no mention whatsoever of the ageless look before a certain point in time.

 

So, how is it possible that no aes sedai knew about the collateral effects of the oath rod?

[lordofsoup]

I always imagined that the few that survived the tainting of one power just assumed that it was worth the sacrifice and never bothered to tell their new aes sedai. 

[king of nowhere]

I always imagined that the few that survived the tainting of one power just assumed that it was worth the sacrifice and never bothered to tell their new aes sedai. 

but see, that's the problem: they didn't start binding themselves after the breaking. they started somewhere between the trolloc wars and arthur hawkwing. that's over 1000 years after the breaking.  there were a few thousands aes sedai at the time, and they were even more powerful than they are at the time of the books.

[Andrew C]

I always assumed that one AS (probably head of the Brown at some point), or a small cabal of them, decided that the Oath Rod's ability to prevent rogue channelers justified these costs, and that they worked to destroy all records of the cost of the Oath Rod. (Of course the ability of Shai'tan to unbind these oaths was a secret known only to the most senior Darkfriends).

 

It would not surprise me if these AS were either Darkfriends or manipulated by them. After all, what better way to hide your cabal of rogue channelers than to give the world 'proof' that noone could become a rogue channeler?