Surely Linden has served Despite...

[PitchDude]

Here's another unsolicited thought...

Given what the Haruchai are up to, and their 'grand purpose' to erase knowledge of Earthpower from the minds of The Land's inhabitants, would it not seem a natural conclusion that 'Kevin's Dirt' would be a really great coincidence for them? Mayhap *they* came up with it?

Just trying to stir the pot, mostly cuz I'm still p*ssed at SRD for the last paragraph,

Jim

[W.B.]

Yeah, PitchDude, it was concerning me as well that it's made explicitly that Linden's first purpose is to save her son. She kind of tacks on "and defend the Land" sometimes (the last instance I think is in Revelstone when she's talking with--or to--the Masters). And that makes me wonder what she's willing to risk to give up for Jeremiah's sake.

Oh, and if this is more along the lines of Bill and Dead, doesn't Linden just have to say "Well, I'll remember when this is all over to set up the decoy tape recording and the garbage can so that Lord Foul will be lured away from his desk and the trash can will fall on his head, defeating him for all time."

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

As far as where her focus goes, she was definately going to give roger the ring in exchange for their lives, and I think has actually mentioned her decision to sacrifice the land for Jeremiah, at least in an internal monologue

[UrLord]

Holy crap...what's with this causality stuff? Even if the reason the staff was missing from the Land was because Linden had taken it, thus proving that Linden WAS going to take it, doesn't mean that it in any way violated her choice. It also wasn't possible for for this to happen:

With regard to the whole causality discussion, I wonder if, at the moment she vowed to NOT go back in time to 'steal' the staff, if the whole 'Kevin's Dirt' thing would have ceased to exist.

You don't seem to understand that Linden didn't make the decision to go back in time just before she went back in time. She made that decision much earlier. After she met Jeremiah she made her decisions about what she would be willing to do for him. Her so-called "decision" to travel back in time doesn't involve causality because she had already chosen. Her ability to choose has not been violated by the idea that she had already done something that she was going to do. (Damn, where's Dr. Streetmentioner's book when you really need it?) Since she made her decision before she learned about the consequences of her decision, you don't need to worry about her making her decision as a result of a decision she had yet to make.

[Bullfrog]

Her ability to choose has not been violated by the idea that she had already done something that she was going to do.

Yikes!

Maybe I'm a time travel dummy but I can't get this.

The staff was missing because she went back and took it, therefore, she must go back and take it, therefore she has no choice. (assuming one "time line")

[UrLord]

I am assuming one timeline, but think about it this way:

You're already decided a week ago that you really enjoy cheesecake. In fact, you decide that since you haven't eaten it in a long time, the next time you see it you are going to buy it.

Today you go to a restaurant. Let's say there's a time traveler at the door who says "Ah! I know you! You purchased the cheese cake an hour from now!" And, sure enough, an hour later you get the dessert menu and see cheesecake there, so you decide to buy it.

Did the fact that time travel was involved, the knowledge of what the future was hold remove your choice? No. You had already made your choice a week ago. You didn't make your choice after the event was supposed to have happened. You didn't make your choice while you were looking at the menu. You had made your choice already, you were simply acting on it.

That's just like Linden. Her ability to choose wasn't violated because she had already chosen that she would be willing to sacrifice anything and everything for Jeremiah's sake. She made that decision even before the staff was lost by Anele. She made it before the staff mysteriously disappeared. She made it long before she "decided" to dare the caesure to retrieve the staff. It's not a matter of her doing it after she had already done it. Her choices determine her actions, and her choice happened long before the results of her actions were determined. Therefore, time-traveling causality plays no part in this.

[Bullfrog]

I agree that the "meaning" and consequences of any particular choice are still valid (which is probably enough for a story). But in order for time travel in one timeline to work everything is preordained regardless of the perception or meaning of any choice a person within the timeline makes.

If a time traveler told me I purchased a cheesecake an hour from now, I'm sure my interest in testing causality would outweigh my cheesecake craving and I would endeaver to avoid said cheesecake purchase. Then what?

[UrLord]

Well, you've clearly already made the decision to test causality, didn't you? You've still made that choice long beforehand, but now we're getting into a case where the effect is affecting the cause and causing a paradox where both states must exist simultaneously.

That is not the case with Linden. Her desire to "test" causality (if it exists) pales in comparison to her desire to save Jeremiah at any cost. Her decision was not affected by the effect of her decision.

And (going back to your example) let's be honest. If you really wanted to do something (such as eating that cheesecake) would you honestly decide not to just because some weirdo tells you he expects it from you?

EDIT: I should also mention that I don't really think that time travel is possible in the real world. The entire point to my argument is that in the example of the Last Chronicles, even with the existence of time travel, Linden's choices still exist, they haven't been preordained or cancelled out by the existence of time travel.

[[Syl]]

Mmmmmm. Cheesecake.

[Bullfrog]

OK.

Take your example from the point of view of the time traveller. He sees me buy the cheesecake, then goes back one hour as I enter the store.

He doesn't know anything about the existence or timing of my decisions. They don't matter (to him), they change nothing.

The point, I guess, is that even though as readers we empathize with the thoughts, feelings, and decsions of the characters, knowing that they must reach a predetermined result lessens the experience.

I guess we have to be happy with an "example" of time travel that skirts the paradoxes that are made possible. (let's try real hard not to change history)

Actually the way in which the TC and Linden always get back to the same physical condition they had upon entering the Land should have prepared us for this.

I am content.

[UrLord]

I don't see how the point of view of the time traveler changes anything. If anything, it makes things simpler. So he knows what you're going to eat at the restaurant. So what? You made your decision before you got there, so how does it matter to him if he knows what will happen before it happens? I knew who I was going to vote for when I went to vote in the presidential election since I made my decision before I left my house. I must reach the predetermined result of casting my ballot in the way I had chosen. Does that "lessen the experience" because my decision wasn't entirely spontaneous at the exact moment I cast my vote? I don't think so. I suppose I just don't really understand your problems with Linden's scenario...As far as my understanding goes, she makes her choice independent of time travel related events, she sees the consequences of her decision (though she may not understand the consequences or how they're related to her decision...but that can even happen to any of us without the interference of time travel), but she follows through with what she chose to do in the first place, thus causing the consequences she knew about beforehand. Nothing happened there that was predetermined except in the ordinary sense of my actions being predetermined after I've made the decision to do them.

[PitchDude]

Oh, geez, now *my* head hurts!

Jim

[tonyz]

I think that for Linden the _Land_ is not so real as the people she encountered in it (notably someone named T.C.).

Covenant had his Unbelief in the Land's reality and need; Linden has her belief in Jeremiah's reality and need; in both cases (especially in the first book) they are fundamentally unattuned to the Land and the Land's need, and therefore also to their own true needs.

One suspects that the next book is going to be gutwrenching, as Linden realizes just what she's done.

[Lauralin]

I might have forgotten something important, but from what I can recall, ragaurding the decisions that had already been made by Linden, if there were not already some evidence that the Staff had been removed from time, then why on Earth would she just dash blindly iinto a ceasure, before first ascertaining wheather there was any potential way to use her power, the knowladge of her companions, and the lore of the Ur-viles to figure out where the Staff was in the present? When she's talking with Esmer, Linden says that going back and taking it wouldn't change anything important, because nobody's been using it. If not assuming that it was lost because she'd taken it, then it seems an awfually big assumption that it hadn't been used just because the Hurachi, the Rmaen, and Anele didn't know of it's use!

No matter what she's willing to risk for Jeremiah, this really seems to be a rather fantastic conclusion.

*Is getting even more confused*

[Stonedowner]

I'm not sure why SRD got himself into the morass of time-travel. It creates knotty conceptual problems. It seems to me that if you begin with the premise (necessary for time-travel) that decisions now (i.e., causes) can have effects in the past, then your decisions that have their effects in the past must be pre-ordained. You cannot choose otherwise. That is, if the effect did happen in the past, then you cannot do anything other than make the particular decision which prompted that effect. Otherwise, you sink deeper into the morass by having effects without causes.

Maybe you can get out of this by saying time is not linear, only our experience of it is linear. Everything "happens at once," so to speak, but it unfolds to us in sequence on a subjective level as part of our consciousness of the world. This could explain why the Dead seem to know (know better) what will happen - they're able to look out over the expanse of time because they're not constrained to experiencing "what is" in linear fashion. (Ok, that was just a wild speculation I pulled out of my butt).

Anyway, I'm curious to see how the time-travel thing is handled by SRD in the end, although I doubt he'll try to 'explain' it in a scientific or philosophical sense (nor should he have to).

[UrLord]

I have nothing more to say on the matter. To me, it seems obvious that even with time-travel reversing the ordinary sequence of cause and effect, the initial choices behind the cause do not necessarily become predetermined. Maybe you all have a very odd idea of how time works, or maybe I'm the one with the odd idea, but at this point I can't see how anything else I say can convince anyone. It seems to me that SRD strongly believes in existence of personal choice, as shown by the previous Covenant books, and I don't think he intends to reverse that idea now. Clearly the characters must still have the power to choose in spite of time-traveling. That's how I interpret these books.