Who would win in a fight...

[Reisheiruhime]

Yeah, me too.

[Fist and Faith]

Well, the pre-Crisis Earth I Superman could have beaten both of them at the same time. I'm not betting on either the Earth II or post-Crisis Supermen.

[Mirager]

I always thought the Illearth Stone looked just like kryptonite.

At first... I thought the stone looked like my bar of Zest soap... but after a while, thinking of kryptonite did the trick too.

[[Syl]]

Zestfully clean evil.

[Revan]

neither, because their dead

[Brinn]

That's one hell of a point!

But I'm willing to bet you that Berek could decompose faster.

[Revan]

no your wrong. remember that kevin did the RoD, so he's body is ashes already

[Nav]

If I could vote, I'd have to go with Kevin. The fact that he founded the wards suggests that his mastery of earthpower was greater than Berek's. It's been said that Berek was a General, but what good is a General without an army?

P.S. I think there's a Donald Rumsfeld joke to be had right there, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

[duchess of malfi]

I think it would be Berek, because he's the sort of guy who wouldn't give up...and Kevin is not.

[Fist and Faith]

I think it would be Berek, because he's the sort of guy who wouldn't give up...and Kevin is not.

The theory that Ryzel convinced me of is that Kevin did not give up. After he found out that Foul was in his very council, he did everything that could be done to defeat him. Eventually, he realized that Foul could not be beaten. He was too powerful, and, because he had become such a trusted part of the Land, he was able to cause a lot of damage.

So Kevin did the only thing that would not guarantee Foul's victory. He hoped the Ritual would destroy Foul, but he assumed that it would at least hurt Foul for a long time. Long enough for whoever came after them to master the Wards, and maybe find a way to either detect Foul sooner, or beat him.

[Lord Mhoram]

I disagree. The very fact that he killed himself in an attempt to destroy Foul showed that he did in fact give up.

[Fist and Faith]

I doubt we can imagine the number of people who have sacrificed themselves in order to safeguard others from an evil foe. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." I don't find this to be a sign of despair, or of having given up.

[Lord Mhoram]

Why would you kill yourself if you thought it wasn't your last chance?

[Fist and Faith]

In this case, it was the last chance. No, not the last chance for victory. Not any chance for victory. But it was the only thing that Kevin could do that would not guarantee Foul's victory. He knew that he was beaten. There was no way to defeat Foul. So he did what he could. Nothing else would do enough damage to Foul to safeguard the Land long enough to give future generations a chance to find a better solution. I'm sure Kevin would have preferred that Foul invoke the Ritual by himself, but I don't think Foul could have been persuaded or tricked into doing that. Foul needed a reason to be there when it happened, and Kevin gave him one. Foul thought that Kevin would be crushed even more than he had been if he saw that Foul was going to survive it. Probably true to some degree. Even if Kevin didn't truly expect Foul to be destroyed, it must have hurt to hear Foul laughing at the whole thing.

[caamora]

Did Kevin really give up? He fought LF every way he could and enacted the RoD to try to defeat LF. I recall that Kevin did not despair until the moment before he died, which is when he realized that he couldn't kill LF. That was when he despaired.

Kevin knew that he would die in the RoD. He sacrificed himself to do what he thought would kill LF (I don't think that is giving up). He also knew that the Land would be damaged in the RoD but I think he felt that LF would also die. His dispair came the second before he died.

That's just my opinion

[Fist and Faith]

I think that Kevin knew that he would not kill Foul. Amok said:

"The first of these hazards - first, but perhaps not foremost - is the one great limit of the Power. It holds no sway over anything which is not a natural part of the Earth's creation. Thus it is not possible to Command the Despiser to cease his warring. It is not possible to Command his death. He lived before the arch of Time was forged - the Power cannot compel him."

Amok knew what he knew, and was able to do what he was able to do, because Kevin created him with his knowledge and abilities. If Kevin didn't know it, Amok wouldn't have known it. So I think Kevin only hoped to hurt Foul enough that it would take him as long, or longer, to recover as it would take future generations to master, and hopefully surpass, his Lore.

Again, nothing else would have prevented Foul's total victory.

[caamora]

I see what you are saying. But then, what was the trigger of Kevin's despair?

[Fist and Faith]

He was still choosing between the lesser of very nasty evils. He was about to desecrate the Land that he loved, only hoping that the plan would ultimately work. It was a slim chance, but the only one there was. Surely not cause for celebration.

(And it turns out his plan would have failed. No part of the plan involved white gold, and the inheritors of his Lore didn't find it. They would have been utterly destroyed if not for Foul and the Creator.)

[duchess of malfi]

In WGW didn't TC's dead talk to TC about Kevin after he upset Linden, and say some thing to the effect that death had not given him the vision he lacked in life? Or something like that? Coming from those particular people, I thought that was both damning and merciful in regards to Kevin. I'm with Mhoram 100% on this issue.

[Fist and Faith]

But what did Foamfollower mean by that? It could be that he was speaking of Kevin's (indeed, everybody's) inability to see all the possible outcomes of an act, which Amok considered to be one of the main reasons that Kevin didn't use the Power of Command. And he still lacks such vision, and so doesn't see the outcome of Covenant giving the ring to Foul.