Favourite bits and big shocks

[Fist and Faith]

Maybe power skips a generation.

Merewife diabetes?

UrLord brings up a good point, though. Esmer is really the only tormented character. Covenant was in the 1st Chrons, Linden in the 2nd. Their struggle to find various things within themselves was a gigantic part of those trilogies. Maybe Esmer will continue to fill that role in the Last.

For an instant or two, his struggles filled her with empathy. "You're tearing yourself apart," she told him more gently. "Do you know that? You should pick a side."

"I do so constantly."

[Damelon]

UrLord brings up a good point, though. Esmer is really the only tormented character. Covenant was in the 1st Chrons, Linden in the 2nd. Their struggle to find various things within themselves was a gigantic part of those trilogies. Maybe Esmer will continue to fill that role in the Last.

I'll put my response in a spoiler:

Spoiler

Anele is also a tormented character. His small self worth has made him roll up in a defensive ball, with the result that there are at least two others who know how to take advantage of that and possess him.

[Fist and Faith]

Spoiler

Yeah, that's true. Since he's kinda nuts, I didn't think to put him into that category. But I guess nuts is a broad enough term that he can be grouped with Covenant and Linden to some degree. And I guess we've already learned that he's not as nuts as we first thought.

[burgs]

Speaking of nuts, Roger is completely crackers.

[CovenantJr]

Nutcrackers?

[Fist and Faith]

Nah, Roger's got a raver in there somewhere.

[A Gunslinger]

Nah, Roger's got a raver in there somewhere.

At first I though so too. But SRD rarely partakes of tyhe expected explanation. It could be that Roger posseses a madness all his own. Think of it...he for all intents and purposes is a fatherless kid. His dad contracts leprosy of all things, joins a commune with his crazy mother. The result is she goes completely insane and is locked up. Meanwhile some extra dimensional evil seduces him throught his life?

No Raver needed. He'll do the bidding of the despiser with relish.

[Fist and Faith]

You may be right. But MAN he's nasty!!!

He'll do the bidding of the despiser with relish.

This one's too easy, so I'll let it go.

[UrLord]

I do think it would be more interesting if Roger isn't under the control of a Raver...

[burgs]

SRD *did* say Covenant becomes Foul - he just didn't say which Covenant. Hmmmmmmm.......

[UrLord]

lol, I can almost see him pulling a stunt like that, too

Sometimes I think he's too wily for his own good...

[aliantha]

I agree with AG. Linden sees the Raver in Joan. But Roger's just crazy.

[CovenantJr]

Agreed. Roger is a dangerous lunatic, he doesn't need a Raver.

[Raist]

SRD *did* say Covenant becomes Foul - he just didn't say which Covenant. Hmmmmmmm.......

<neo>

Whoa!

</neo>

[brinn18]

I understand how everyone is saying that the merewives werent powerful since they never really showed a lot of power, but... how do we know what they were really capable of. The only thing we know about them is that they can lure men, and that they were the children of Kastensen and his lover, and that they were looking for a mate that was strong(or powerful) enough to be with them or her. I think that anyone would be wary of a haruchai/elohim... we know that the elohim are earthpower incarnate as well. So really Esmer could be looked at as a being with elohim powers, haruchai strength, with none of there restrictions or scruples.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I think I know what you're saying when you say Esmer is like a Super Elohim but I read it as Esmer is not a *pure* Elohim he's only part.
He's actually a blend:
1/2 Haruchai 1/4 Elohim 1/4 human
(I'm sure my % are wrong but it gets my point across)
Plus the fact that the Haruchai and Merewive halves of his mind are fighting each other doesn't elevate him any in my book.

I read him as being ony a shadow of a true Elohim.

[ScrapOSamadhi]

I wouldn't be surprised if Emser helped free Kassy. He did say he served him utterly. It is interesting to point out that he also seems incapable of serving anyone FAITHFULLY. If he did break the Durance to help free Kassy, where is the obligatory betrayl (this maybe his reason for helping the Ramen and Linden).

I believe it was stated that the Merewives want their torment to end (by ending the world). If the Skurj are the fire creatures Kassy was keeping in check and who now serve him, he is probably in a position to help that come to pass. BTW, the merewives wanting total destruction to alleviate pain echos Guy Gavrial Kay's character Galadin in The Fionivar Tapestry. Another great series.

Esmer does have a lot of power, and less restraint on using it than the Elohim. That doesn't mean he is as strong as a full Elohim, probably just more capable of messing things up.

[MacNik6]

I agree with AG. Linden sees the Raver in Joan. But Roger's just crazy.

But, if I'm not mistaken, Linden didn't see the Raver in Joan until in the Land (and inside a fall created/controlled by Joan, no less). She didn't see the Raver when Joan was in her care. Would she be able to see the Raver in Roger in the real world? Also, she hasn't seen Roger in the Land, yet.

NIK

[burgs]

I wouldn't think so.

[dlbpharmd]

From SRD's GI:

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". (emphasis mine) 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)

Based on this, I do not believe that Joan is influenced by a Raver in the "real world." However, Covenant correctly believed that she was possessed in the beginning of 2nd Chronicles, and both Roger and Linden believe that she is at the beginning of Runes.

I'm at a loss to explain Joan's insanity/possession, in light of what SRD says about character's "shrinking" into Covenant's world.