Lot's of stuff in the last few posts!
Where to begin?! (Clearly, I don't know where to end! I just couldn't stop myself with this post! But you all know me by now.
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I don't think Foul ever lied to Covenant. I think Foul figured greater despair results from knowing exactly what is going to happen, but knowing that you are unable to prevent it. And worse, if your choices actually help him! Plus, everything Foul ever said agreed with the knowledge that the Lords and people of the Land got from other sources. (Although I suppose Foul may have secretly been behind all their other sources.)
Among others, the Creator, Foul, and the specters of the Lords at the end or TPTP all believed that Covenant could kill Foul. What this means is unknown. Maybe Despite will always return, as Covenant believed. But maybe it would have to start again, a different manifestation of Despite. And maybe it would be without Foul's memories, or even knowledge of Foul. Who knows. Maybe it would even know its own nature and existence well enough to say, "I'm too young. Despite always exists, but I have no memory prior to such-and-such a date. There must have been a previous Despiser."
Or maybe Despite will NOT always return. Maybe if Covenant killed Foul, there would be no more strife anywhere. Maybe it would be a Land of love. The ur-viles would live in Revelstone with everyone else. Probably all vegetarians. I don't know.
And maybe "slay me if you can" meant "if you have the guts." Or maybe Foul knew that Covenant had the power, but doubted that he had the understanding that would be necessary to do the job. But Foul did <I>not</I> have the Stone at the time. First, Covenant physically separated Foul from the Stone, making Foul's control over it "less perfect". Then he formed "a wall of might between Lord Foul and the Stone. Lord Foul shrieked, tried frantically to regain the Stone. But he was too late. In an instant, Covenant's force had surrounded Lord Foul." (Although just before the battle started, Foul had said, "You know that you cannot stand against me. In my own name I am wholly your superior. And I possess the Illearth Stone." So Foul either didn't know how powerful the wild magic was - which is not likely - or he lied to Covenant. hmmm)
KaosArcana wrote:I don't the Staff was a physical embodiment of Law ...
It was, indeed.
And because Earthpower was the strength of mystery and spirit, the Staff became the thing it served. It was the Law; the Law was incarnate in the Starff. The tool and its purpose were one.
KaosArcana wrote:if that was the case then when Covenant destroyed the Staff there would have been no Law at all in the Land. Instead, it became a vital tool that strengthened it, and the Staff's destruction weakened the Law but did not destroy it. It took hundreds if not thousands of years for Foul to corrupt the Earthpower enough to create the Sunbane.
Maybe it was all running on momentum. Maybe the Law was still there, but was now <I>able</I> to be perverted. It's kind of a huge thing, so it took a long time to pervert it. But when the Staff existed, it could not be perverted. I'm thinking of the Staff as a kind of book that could not be written in or erased. Foul could try to change something, but the book's words will not change. So the attempt fails.
The Sea, on the other hand, had a Law of its own. It didn't follow the same Law as the Earthpower, and was not supported by the Staff. And so when Kinslaughterer was summoning a tsunami, Hyrim said:
"We must stop him! He violates the sea! If he succeeds - if he bends the Sea to his will - the Law that preserves it will be broken. It will serve the Despiser like another Raver!"
Ryzel, I don't think I usually disagree with you as much as I do in this thread.
1) I do not think that the Staff supported the Laws of Death or Life. I think the Laws of the Earthpower, of Death, of Life, of the Sea, and many others, are all separate, but working under a main system/Law. (Let's call it - oh, I don't know - the Tao.
LOL) This is the Law that preserved Foul through the Ritual. It's also what Amok meant by:
"The Seventh Ward may ignore white gold, and the master of white gold may have no use for the Seventh Ward - yet both are power, forms and faces of the one Power of life."
I think that, since these Laws are all operating under the same meta-Law, they can effect each other. So Earthpower was able to effect the Law of Death. (You don't need to use the laws of combustion to stop a combustion engine. A meteorite falling on it will do the trick - because combustion and gravity both operate under the same laws of physics, quantum physics, or whatever it is.) But Elena and Foul were both able to use the Dead <I>before</I> the Staff was destroyed.
2) I don't think that <I>not</I> being subject to laws makes one incapable of using those laws. Geez, this is going to be a weird analogy, but... Maybe there's a creature that is not subject to the law of gravity. It can move in any direction at any time it wants. But it can still knock a glass off of a table if it wants to break the glass. It can still use gravity.
3) I still don't know how you've figured out which laws Foul is subject to, and which he is not. You say, "But if he is not subject to any laws...", but that is clearly not the case. As you said, he may not be the same kind of being that he was before the Creator imprisoned him. His new being is the prison itself, since it is confined to the Earth. But that means he is confined to the Earth's laws. What else could it mean? Maybe he is subject to various laws. Maybe (again) gravity, time, Death, and Life are examples. As long as those Laws exist, he is subject to them. He doesn't levitate, or time-travel. And maybe he <I>can</I> die. Maybe it's just that, since his original nature is from outside the Earth, he cannot be killed by something <I>of</I> the Earth. No amount of physical force or Earthpower can kill him. It takes something <I>not</I> of the Earth to do the trick. Wild magic, for example.
But I think you make a <I>great</I> point about Foul being killed: I agree that he would be able to come back from the dead and wreak havoc. Maybe wild magic could do more than kill him. Maybe it could erase him from existence. Merely dying apparently means that you still exist, but in the state of death. (Or in the land of the dead. Or whatever.) Maybe erasing Despite entirely would be the only way to stop him from either raising from the Dead, or from returning even when the Law of Death still held. And such an act would lead to that "Land of Love" that I mention above.