The Gradual Interview

[duchess of malfi]

Two great questions and answers!

[SoulQuest1970]

What happened? My post to SRD is gone. Seems like about 20 days worth of posts are gone.

[duchess of malfi]

The Watch crashed and many posts were lost.

[Skyweir]

((((soulquest)))) i feel your pain! I lost my post too .. but its moot now

dpharmd .. they were great questions .. can you explain to me how this is working? Is that Donaldson answering those questions .. if so he speaks of himself in third person

*is confused*

[variol son]

Woohoo! I was right abouth the Waynhim and the ur-Viles! YAY!

Sum sui generis
Vs

[Avatar]

Never thought you weren't

--Avatar

[dlbpharmd]

((((soulquest)))) i feel your pain! I lost my post too .. but its moot now

dpharmd .. they were great questions .. can you explain to me how this is working? Is that Donaldson answering those questions .. if so he speaks of himself in third person

*is confused*

Sky, I'm just cutting and pasting the really good questions and answers here, particularly the ones that I know have been discussed on the Watch. I've added the italics to indicate SRD's response, just as he does in the GI on his website.

[Furls Fire]

Soulquest, to ask SRD a question, go to his official site

www.stephenrdonaldson.com

then go to the "From the Author" forum, under that is "The Gradual Interview" there is a link in the drop down menu to submit a question.

[wayfriend]

Yay, dlbpharmd!

dlbpharmd: Mr. Donaldson:

In a previous answer this month you mentioned the injury to Vain at the One Tree as being crucial to the overall victory achieved in White Gold Wielder. This has sparked something of a debate at Kevinswatch.com. Personally, I have never seen Vain's "damage" as anything other than an accident, and an obvious clue to his purpose. Would you elaborate on this please?
- - - - - -
I think of the "transformation" of Vain's forearm as the catalyst which makes his later changes possible. After all, how can you possibly have a Staff of Law that doesn't come from the One Tree? Vain carries the true victory of the Quest for the One Tree with him when Covenant, Linden, etc. flee the sinking Isle.

I think that we finally have some sort of concrete answer here.

(It also agrees with my earthpower-readiness idea I posted in this thread, which makes me somewhat pleased.)

Okay, here's the only workable theory I have. (And it's not too much different in the end than my "One Sap" theory.)

Vain was transformed because he { chose to / was built to / was impelled to } absorb the essense of the One Tree. The transformation of his forearm into something like a branch was more than a hint of what he was to become, it actually reflected the essense of the One Tree which he had absorbed into himself. Which then leads us to this essense. The One Tree wasn't just used to build the Staff of Law, it was chosen by Berek/Creator to be the official wood of Earthpower, Inc. Let's assume that there is a good reason for that. So there's something about the One Tree that makes it condusive as a medium of Law. Perhaps because it partakes of the self-destruction which is built into the Earth, yeah, that's it. Or maybe it's a conduit that allows the creator to reach into the Earth in some way. So Vain needed to get some of this stuff, and the only place to get it was the Well of the One Tree. Structure and Earthpower were not enough - the structure had to first be tweaked for Earthpower-readiness.

So here is how I see things now: Vain's pure structure as so pure that it was not apt for anything on it's own. Certainly there was nothing about it that came from the One Tree.

And the One Tree remained a necessity. Just because you cannot grab a branch and use it any more doesn't mean it's eliminated from the process. It's just that it's now more complicated.

So, first Vain had to be guided into a shape which was apt for the Staff of Law. This happened when Vain was transformed at the One Tree - his structure was realigned into a form which was ready for the next step in the process. The visible change in his forearm was a reflection that this change has occurred.

Discuss ...

[dlbpharmd]

Thanks, Wayfriend. This is the great thing about the GI - there's no way that I would have ever come up with this detail about Vain's transformation. I am enlightened!

[dlbpharmd]

Todd: First, the requisite thanks for this forum. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate it, and how valuable I consider your insight.

I have a rather simple question. You mentioned in your Essay on Modern Fantasy that Lord Foul's Bane had sold 5 million copies. As that was many years ago, I was wondering if you could tell us what the current sales totals are for your works.

Thanks!

I don't have anything like reliable figures. I do get US and UK royalty statements; but information from other countries is sketchy at best. However, I think we can safely say that LFB is up around 10 million copies worldwide, with the rest of the "Covenant" books not far behind. Beyond that, who knows?

(09/06/2004)

So potentially 1st and 2nd Chronicles may have sold about 50 million copies?!! That's simply incredible!

[danlo]

re Vain's transformation: That's what I've always thought...

[Revan]

WOW! I didn't think it was that much!

This will probably mean that we'll have thousands of members here within a couple of years.

(Most of which will be dAN's, TOM's and hierachy alteregos.

[Variol Farseer]

So potentially 1st and 2nd Chronicles may have sold about 50 million copies?!! That's simply incredible!

Tchah! 'Tis but a trifle. I've seen various estimates of how many copies of LOTR have been sold, and it may be as many as 100 million sets — 300 million individual volumes, ignoring the complications caused by omnibus editions. And Harry Potter, they keep telling us, is even bigger. Why, Harry Potter is bigger than the biggest thing ever, only at least 50% bigger than that, even.

Then there's L. Ron Hubbard's Invasion Earth series, which ultimately ran to ten volumes. The number of copies of those books sold far exceeded the number that were even printed. (There is evidence that some Scientologists went out to buy up stocks of the books from the shops, then return them to Bridge Publications to be shipped back to the bookshops again. Now those are fanatical readers!)

Seriously, 50 million individual Covenant books sold is probably a bit on the high side, but you could probably prove 25 million just from English-language publishers' records. That's a hell of a lot of readers.

Now, if I could only collar some of those readers for my stuff. . . .

[dlbpharmd]

Peter Purcell: I was interested in your response to the magic Mordant's Need vs. magic in the Land. As an author, you are focused on the *story* you're relaying and magic-used-as-a-metaphor. As a reader we get absorbed in the story but fall in love with the *universe / world* you've created. I think that's why you get so many questions on the "rules of the WORLD" that are irrelevant to your author's perspective that the *story* should be the only focus. [Although you have said that maintaining internal consistency is important to you so that it does not distract from the *story*.]

Am I on track? Does it matter?! (smile)

Peter

I don't consider "rules of the world" questions irrelevant at all. But I get confused (and sometimes exasperated) when the questions don't appear to respect one vital distinction: we're talking about "rules of the world THAT I MADE UP." If the questions don't pertain to, or aren't validated by, material contained within the boundaries of the story, I can't answer them.

(And here we have another interesting difference between the "Covenant" books and "Mordant's Need". In "Covenant," the Land clearly exists in a different kind or order of reality than Covenant's "real world". In the Platonic sense, the Land is *more* real than Covenant's "real world." So characters from Covenant's "real world" can expand into the Land, but characters from the Land cannot shrink into Covenant's "real world". But in "Mordant's Need" the differing realities accessible by Imagery are all pretty much equal, or are "real" in the same way: they may run by different rules, but the substance of one can exist and function fully in another.)

(09/08/2004)

Ah ha - an insightful statement to make on the eve of Runes, is it not?

[zenslinger]

What does he mean by "in a Platonic sense" here? The word can have a lot of meanings. Does it have something to do with Plato's allegory of the cave (quick review of it here:
faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm)

[danlo]

I would assume he's refering to the cave..and the 'shades' of reality.

[Believer]

I think it's just a shade deeper than that.

I found www.connect.net/ron/plato.html which includes a section 'Nature of Forms'

I think this is what SRD is referring to. The Land is more *real* because it's closer to the way things ought to be. People are more people-like in the land. Good is more good. Evil is more evil. Things are closer to what they are ideally.

It's like the example that a circle is the set of points equidistant from a center. But none of us has seen a PERFECT circle. The Land is a more perfect circle than our world is.

[Creator]

I think it's just a shade deeper than that.

I found www.connect.net/ron/plato.html which includes a section 'Nature of Forms'

I think this is what SRD is referring to. The Land is more *real* because it's closer to the way things ought to be. People are more people-like in the land. Good is more good. Evil is more evil. Things are closer to what they are ideally.

It's like the example that a circle is the set of points equidistant from a center. But none of us has seen a PERFECT circle. The Land is a more perfect circle than our world is.

Hmmmmm .... Princes of Amber anyone!!!?

[wayfriend]

I think it's just a shade deeper than that.
I think this is what SRD is referring to. The Land is more *real* because it's closer to the way things ought to be. People are more people-like in the land. Good is more good. Evil is more evil. Things are closer to what they are ideally.

So something is more real if it is more ideal and less like reality?!?!