Jeremiah? *SPOILERS*

[Ard Rhys]

Does anyone here think Jeremiah is actually Berek Halfhand? I do.

Shawn

[Creator]

Me too!!

And guess who I think the ancient King and Queen are!

[Revan]

Hmmmm... I doubt it... Have you any evidence to back up your theory?

Berek lost half his hand in battle; Jeremaih lost it in a fire.

[dlbpharmd]

Wasn't Berek and Covenant both maimed in a similar fashion, that is - the last 2 fingers of their right hand? Jeremiah has the last 2 fingers of his right hand, but only partial index and middle finger.

[CovenantJr]

dlbpharmd and Darth are both correct. Jeremiah's halfhand is different to Covenant/Berek's, and Berek did indeed lose his fingers in battle. No way he could be Berek, IMO.

[Revan]

Unless there's going to be some role fulfilling for Covenant...

[Unmaker]

Like Covenant's possessing his body?

[Dave]

Does anyone here think Jeremiah is actually Berek Halfhand? I do.

Shawn

I think he's the creator. Or his avatar. He did warn Linden -- he built Lego models of Mount Thunder and Revelstone in her living room for Pete's sake! -- but she didn't recognize him since he wasn't wearing his trademark ocher robe. He either was or was "wearing" Jeremiah.

There are also hints of how as (or through) Jeremiah, the final conflct in the Land will be resolved.

obligatory spoiler blackout...

Spoiler

When Linden has her vision of Joan attacking the Arch, the Arch is presented as a vast cliff made up of individual blocks (Legos?) of time. And what does Jeremiah build in his room (and builds it, unlike everything else, only when no one is there)? A mobius loop!

[native]

Jeremiah is a prophet of apocalypse in the bible

jeru.huji.ac.il/eb35s.htm

But if time is to be a recurring Mobius Loop within the Land then he could well be someone from the early history of the land such as Berek. But he's much more likely to be the Creator, perhaps in an embryonic state. He might even have two identities.

One thought: if it were the natural course of the land to be reborn in a loop of time then it would be the job of people like Caer Caveral and the Elohim to ensure that progression. And if Jeremiah is an embryonic creator, then Covenant is surely marked down as the embryonic Foul for the next trip round the block.

If all that were true then Linden Avery's destiny is to despair.

[Dave]

And if Jeremiah is an embryonic creator, then Covenant is surely marked down as the embryonic Foul for the next trip round the block.

If all that were true then Linden Avery's destiny is to despair.

Could be. But I'm not positive there isn't some Findail/Vail-style joining to come involving Jeremiah and TC. That they're missing the opposite fingers jumped out at me immediately, and of course (spoiler alert!)

Spoiler

the first time either appears in Runes they appear together

suggests a connection also. And if TC and Foul are one in the same, as has been suggested through all the books so I don't think I'm giving anything away there, that would mean he'd be there, too, throwing dross into the creation, as Mhoram noted way back when. What would Linden's role in such a scenario be? Well, it might be useful to have a healer present...but really, I'm just guessing. Props and curses to SRD for dragging me back into the Land after all these years! If I ever met him the first thing I would do is buy him a drink and the second thing I'd do would be to tell him to get his butt back behind the keyboard!

[burgs]

Covenant has come too far in his personal journey to become a Despiser. I just can't see that happening.

Anyway, this whole thing about he and Foul being one, they're not one and the same. Here's what Covenant tells Linden at the end of WGW:

"We aren't enemies, no matter what he says. He and I are one. But he doesn't seem to know that. Or maybe he hates it too much to admit it. Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists. And you and I are the Land - in a manner of speaking, anyway. He's just one side of us. That's his paradox. He's one side of us."

[Dave]

Covenant has come too far in his personal journey to become a Despiser. I just can't see that happening.

Anyway, this whole thing about he and Foul being one, they're not one and the same. Here's what Covenant tells Linden at the end of WGW:

"We aren't enemies, no matter what he says. He and I are one. But he doesn't seem to know that. Or maybe he hates it too much to admit it. Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists. And you and I are the Land - in a manner of speaking, anyway. He's just one side of us. That's his paradox. He's one side of us."

While I agree with you that it's tough to see TC going the way of Foul, I'm a bit unclear on how the passage you quote shows that Covenant and Foul aren't one and the same when he says straight-out that "He and I are one."

[burgs]

Covenant has come too far in his personal journey to become a Despiser. I just can't see that happening.

Anyway, this whole thing about he and Foul being one, they're not one and the same. Here's what Covenant tells Linden at the end of WGW:

"We aren't enemies, no matter what he says. He and I are one. But he doesn't seem to know that. Or maybe he hates it too much to admit it. Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists. And you and I are the Land - in a manner of speaking, anyway. He's just one side of us. That's his paradox. He's one side of us."

While I agree with you that it's tough to see TC going the way of Foul, I'm a bit unclear on how the passage you quote shows that Covenant and Foul aren't one and the same when he says straight-out that "He and I are one."

I think that's what has most people hung up. It's what he says after "He and I are one" that explains it. "Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists." Foul is this "evil" of which Covenant speaks, and Covenant himself is "the capacity fo stand against it".

[CovenantJr]

Exactly. They balance each other, they're opposite ends of the same scale, but they're not the same person.

But he's much more likely to be the Creator, perhaps in an embryonic state.

Personally, I don't see that happening. If Jeremiah had remained in the "real" world, perhaps I could buy it. But he's in the Land now, and we know the Creator can't even act in the Land, much less go there in person, without destroying the Arch and freeing Foul. That's why he needed Covenant in the first place.

[native]

we know the Creator can't even act in the Land, much less go there in person, without destroying the Arch and freeing Foul.

Perhaps that's the point.

[Dave]

Covenant has come too far in his personal journey to become a Despiser. I just can't see that happening.

Anyway, this whole thing about he and Foul being one, they're not one and the same. Here's what Covenant tells Linden at the end of WGW:

"We aren't enemies, no matter what he says. He and I are one. But he doesn't seem to know that. Or maybe he hates it too much to admit it. Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists. And you and I are the Land - in a manner of speaking, anyway. He's just one side of us. That's his paradox. He's one side of us."

While I agree with you that it's tough to see TC going the way of Foul, I'm a bit unclear on how the passage you quote shows that Covenant and Foul aren't one and the same when he says straight-out that "He and I are one."

I think that's what has most people hung up. It's what he says after "He and I are one" that explains it. "Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists." Foul is this "evil" of which Covenant speaks, and Covenant himself is "the capacity fo stand against it".

They can be two sides of the same coin...and still be the same coin. (Or two scales on the same balance and still be the same balance). Heck, at the end of WGW TC even taunts Foul with "you're even starting to look like me."

spoiler:

Spoiler

That may explain the necessity of reviving TC -- I mean, really, why would Foul want to bring back the only guy who's ever kicked his butt (twice!)? Unless, of course, Foul can't exist as anything more than a ghost as long as TC, his "other half," is a ghost? That would explain why Foul claims to have done nothing aside from whisper a few words of counsel in the last 3,500-plus years. Being dead tends to take a toll on your engagements calender...

[A Gunslinger]

I have just finished reading RotE: I put this take elsewhere onb tyhe borad, but I am cutting and pasting here too...

The runes of the eart h was a verry good book.

The cliffhanger of course ends all cliffhangers!

Observations:

1) The parallel between her son and Roger (Cov.'s son) is way too rife with peril to be an accident. I predict that the halfhand to beware of is none other than Jeremiah. Donaldson dips into Christianity on ocassion, and one might recall that Jeremiah was a phophet whose message of doom for Jerusalem was met bitterly by believers. Also, it seems that J is somewhat more WHOLE in the land than on earth. Also, consider this...

Son of Linden

Son of Covenant

Son of Sunder

Son of Cail

Is TC, a messiah figure if ever there was one, the symbolic son of the Creator himself?

Also:

One Raver was undone. One torments Joan. Where is the last?
_________________

In short I beleive that the creator is expressing himself THROUGH Jeremiah. He is the prophet of the creator much in the same way that Roger seems to be the avatar of the despiser.

The Prophet foretells the return of the creatore AND the despiser (Roger...which is at least open to literary interpretation as TC and the Despiser are "one").

[UrLord]

Interesting points...There's a lot there that I didn't think of.