Bhrathairealm

[wayfriend]

That's how I see it. Destroying the Land was a means, not an end. He wanted someone to despair enough to break the Arch.

[Cord Hurn]

I don't think it's about how much he harms the Land, but about the extremes that the harm will drive its inhabitants to. It's the actions of their despair that can bring down the arch for him.

That's how I see it. Destroying the Land was a means, not an end. He wanted someone to despair enough to break the Arch.

This is probably right, but then doesn't that mean that all the wars and harm he has done when no white gold was in the Land's world were ultimately pointless (for instance, during Kevin's time, when the Landwaster wasn't capable of summoning white gold)?

[wayfriend]

That's a good point.

We know that Foul didn't start out as powerful as he later became. It seems he had a bit of a learning curve.

It could be that he was learning the ins and outs of how his jail worked. Or he was practicing his arts ahead of the "big game". Or he was just expressing Despite, his disdain for imperfect living things.

[wayfriend]

... The transformation which had created quellvisks from such creatures had been Lord Foul's only dangerous achievement during his centuries among the Demimages of Vidik Amar. Doing what he could with monsters both too intelligent and too savage to be ruled, the Despiser had given them an aspiration which might serve his purpose. When the quellvisks had rendered the Demimages extinct, Lord Foul had convinced them that they could master the entire Earth if they first slew the Elohim.

By that means, the Despiser had hoped to awaken the Worm.

Passages like this lead me to believe that the Despiser had not yet realized how to destroy the Arch of Time -- but he was making the attempts. His early trials were insufficient, but he kept trying. It's almost as if he's experimenting.

So Lord Foul's early wars may indeed have been attempts to break the Arch, but executed without knowing it would ultimately be fruitless.

Was he trying to break the Arch when he enacted the Ritual with Kevin? It's possible. We know he laughed because he knew he would survive ... but perhaps he thought he would survive by being free of the whole Earth and that crappy Time stuff.

[Cord Hurn]

Some clue as to Lord Foul's purposes in his earlier wars against the Land is given when Mhoram talks to Covenant before the War Council is called.

As he spoke, he felt that he was not replying to Covenant's question--that the question had a direction he could not see. But he continued, offering Covenant the only answer he possessed.

"It is clear now that Lord Foul lusts to strike back at his brother, the Creator. And at last, after ages of bootless wars carried on out of malice, out of a desire to harm the creation because he could not touch the Creator, Lord Foul has found a way to achieve his end, to destroy the arch of Time, unbind his exile, and return to his forbidden home, for spite and woe. When the Staff of Law, lost by Kevin at the Desecration, came within his influence, he gained a chance to bridge the gap between worlds--a chance to bring white gold into the Land.

"I tell you simply: it is Lord Foul's purpose to master the wild magic--'the anchor of the arch of life that spans and masters Time'--and with it bring Time to an end, so that he may escape his bondage and carry his lust throughout the universe. To do this, he must defeat you, must wrest the white gold from you. Then all the Land and all the Earth will surely fall."

It's possible the Despiser didn't know his wars were bootless; that could just be how Lord Mhoram sees it, of course. But somehow Lord Foul came to see that his best chance of breaking out of his prison the Earth came through focusing on attacking the Land. That much seems certain.

[JIkj fjds j]

Such could be said about the isle of the One Tree, as far as Foul's machinations went.

I don't believe the Despiser made it to the One Tree.
And shame on you for even suggesting it

The Despiser has a long reach, Rune. Even managed to show up in our world, you know!

A long reach indeed ~

However that may be I can't help thinking that Lord Foul had no real power beyond the Land ~ (his eternal prison) ~ any misshaps or misadventure encountered by the protagonists and the deuteragonist Giants may well have been the sole machinations of the Elohim ~ for reasons the OP Pastor Tim pointed out, as being complex, mysterious, and difficult to fully understand.

I had an idea the other day in connection with Bible Class I began attending this week (the Gospel of Mark) ~ and while wondering about the correlation between the Baptism, the Ressurection, and the Ascension ~ the baptising and rising up out of the cool clear water of the River Jordan ~ I might presume Jesus as gasping a great lungful of clean fresh air ~ (and the revelation of the dove of peace hovering above) ~ and how this might correlate to his Crucifixion, Ressurection, and Ascension ~ Christ reborn ~ my thoughts turned, oddly enough, to Pitchwife his deformity, and the Kemper's Pitch.

Much of Mark's gospel is about healing ~ and Kemper's Pitch could possibly be a correlation of mechanisms by which Pitchwife is eventually healed ~ by proxy of course from the Elohim ~ Findail's dispatch of Kasreyn, to Linden and the completion of the Staff of Law ~ the tool by which the final healing was made possible.

But please don't read too much into this ~ just some thoughts and variations on a theme set in Brathairealm.


Edited to add the word Ascension. What I was driving at in the first place.

[shadowbinding shoe]

The name "Brathairealm" is fairly explainatory - a breath of fresh air - from the trials and tribulations of Linden Avery. She is the counterpart to Hile Troy - blind.
When we see past her grief and despair we see the Land in all its glory.

I always read the Bhrathairain name as Brethren.