setalleanan1

The Bowl of the Winds has already been found by Elayne and Nynaeve, but "the one who is no longer" is still a mystery. Or maybe not. If one considers the whole chain of events leading to the discovery of the Bowl, the most likely candidate is Setalle Anan, the innkeeper of the Wandering Woman. Is she just a simple innkeeper? Her words and actions speak otherwise...

"Trying to keep up the lie does no good, Nynaeve. You look to be, oh, twenty-one give or take a year, so you might be as much as ten years older if you've already reached the slowing. You might have even have worn the shawl four or five years. Except for one thing." Her head, the only part of her she could move, swiveled toward Elayne. "You, child, aren't old enough to have slowed yet, and no woman has ever worn the shawl as young as you. Never in the history of the Tower [ACoS: 22, Small Sacrifices, 488]."

After Setalle Anan tells Nynaeve and Elayne that they can't be Aes Sedai because Elayne is too young-looking, Elayne thinks: "Slowed. Slowing. How did an innkeeper in Ebou Dar know those words? Maybe Setalle Anan had gone to the Tower as a girl, though she would not have remained long, since she clearly could not channel. Elayne would have known even if her ability had been as small as her own mother's [ACos, 488]."

Even stranger is the attitude of the Kin. To everybody, they are arrogant and condescending. Except for Aes Sedai. They pretty much worshipped the floor that an Aes Sedai walked on (not surprising, since they once wanted and some still want to become Aes Sedai). How do they act towards Setalle?

The Anan woman and Reanne Corly entered the sitting room, and Nynaeve blinked in surprise. From the exchange, she had expected someone younger than Setalle Anan, but Reanne had hair more gray... Why would the older woman humble herself so to the younger, and why would the younger allow it, however halfheartedly? [ACoS: 23, Next Door to a Weaver, 502]."

Setalle Anan could have been an Aes Sedai at one time, but is no longer. She can't channel the One Power at all. There are two ways that a former Aes Sedai could achieve this fate, to be burned out or stilled. Most likely she was burned out, because all Novices are required to learn the names of all of the stilled Aes Sedai and their crimes. Sometimes they are kept in the White Tower to do meaningless work, in the example of Bonwhin, who was kept as a servant after she was stripped of stole and staff. But why would Anan be Aes Sedai? Here are several clues...

1. When Anan meets Garenia, she says, "Your name is Garenia? You look very much like someone I met once. Zarya Alkaese [ACoS, 504]." Garenia puts her off by saying that Zarya Alkaese was her great-aunt, but we found out that Garenia is Zarya Alkaese [TPoD: 28, Crimsonthorn, 542], and ran away from the Tower seventy years ago. Setalle Anan has only "a touch of gray in her hair," so if she were a normal person, she couldn't possibly be ninety or more years old. Thus we must conclude that Anan must have channeled at some point in her past, because she "slowed" at some point--there is no way she looks the hundred years old or so she would have to be if she met Zarya when she was younger.

2. Setalle is regarded as someone that the Kin don't want to offend, even to ask to be more circumspect. According to Reanne: "If Setalle had betrayed us, we would be crawling to Tar Valon, begging forgiveness the whole way... She has kept the few secrets she knows from gratitude, and I doubt that has faded. She would have died in her first childbirth if the Kin had not helped her. What she knows comes from careless tongues... and the owners of those tongues were punished more than twenty years ago [ACoS: 24, The Kin, 404]." From the "crawling to Tar Valon" remark, we have evidence that Anan has the ability to betray the Kin to Tar Valon, or at the least the Kin perceive her as having that ability. IN this passages, it's possible that Reanne is reminding Garenia that Setalle is a former Aes Sedai. Gareni has not doubt heard of the former sister making a new life for herself, but only by her new name. Garenia seems to want to know who Setalle was before she took the name Setalle.