OK. This is probably a silly item to be pondering but, I was just re-reading the series and am into the Path of Daggers and something kinda clicked and I was wondering other peoples input and thoughts on this.  First, I don't remember it ever coming to a conclusion about who Settalle Anan is or how she knew so much about the White Tower.  I do remember Matt asking her once what it was like to lose to power, inferring that he knew she had been Aes Sedai at one time but, other than that nothing is ever brought out about her past. So here goes my thought.

 

   Settalle is actually Martine Janata, the Aes Sedai who used to be the expert on ter'angreal and angreal in the White Tower and who was found burned out and unconscious in her room.  In the Path of Daggers Vandene lectures Elayne on the dangers of 'testing' objects from the items they found in Ebou Dar and mentions Martine and says that once she was well enough she slipped out of the Tower and disappeared.

 

Several things come to mind to support this.

  1 Settalle would have known about where the knitting circle was because the White Tower knew about them all along.  What better place to go as a cast out from the Tower than where others have gathered even if you could not channel any longer.

  2 The cache of angreal just 'happened' to be in the last place in the world someone would have thought to look for them. Who had access to all of them in the Tower and could have brought them to Ebou Dar ? Martine

  3 Settalle knew things about the White Tower only a full Aes Sedai would know 

  4 She definitely had the Aes Sedai attitude when she was herding Elayne and Nynaeve to the knitting circle.

  5 It is mentioned that when Aes Sedai are burned out or stilled they often need to find a purpose to survive.  Watching the knitting circle and guarding the cache of angreal could have been the purpose she chose, as well as being part of the network that followed girls cast out from the Tower for failing their testing.

 

What do you think ?

 

Yup.  Setalle is Martine Janata.

 

http://13depository.blogspot.com/2002/03/importance-of-setalle-anan.html

 

The only thing really being debated at this point is whether her being burned out can be healed the same way that stilling can.

Thank you so very much for the reply.  That is a great link you gave and so much more for me to read up on.  I had no idea it existed.

 

Thank you