Esmer

[oscartheduck]

Esmer seemed like something of a deus ex machina character to me, interesting to some extent but really just around so that there is someone powerful to prod things along.

Linden et al need a caesure and BAM! a caesure exists because Esmer can do those things. They need a way to approach the Waynhim without them running away and BAM! along comes Esmer and everything gets sorted out.

I'm not saying that he is without interest, but more that he has seemed thus far to me to be mainly a way to get things done.

[I'm Murrin]

"The merewives are hatred, and their scion is torment."

Esmer is, in some ways, the opposite of Thomas Covenant - and everything Covenant believed about power. Passion unrestrained, externalised, and with power behind it. Esmer goes too far with everything, because he is a being of extremes. He doesn't seem to have much concern for how ends are achieved - hence the way he dealt with the Waynhim, blasting the wards, and his calling of the caesure without much regard for how others viewed that.
SRD purposefully portrayed Esmer as a mysterious and dangerous being, who showed up exactly when he was needed - a deus ex machina of sorts, yes. But at the same time, what he has shown us of Esmer should, by all rights, terrify us. He can show up at any time, do almost anything. Whenever he helps, he must also cause great harm - and he helps without asking permission.
His very existence is torment, not only for him, but for all around him.

[ZefaLefeLaH]

This is *exactly* what I've been saying. The character is so powerful that he could go kill Foul for them & then become worst than Foul ever was by some balancing betrayal.

It seems to me that SRD was writing himself into corners & needed something to get him out of them. Esmer is simply too powerful. It's stupid. I have to rank him up there with the likes of JarJar. Just pathetic to have such a creature in a story.

[esmerlover]

You guys are looking at it the wrong way.

Don't consider Esmer as being a friend to Linden. He is a tragic character, but I doubt he's aiding her for love of the Land. He doesn't Help the party and then balance the aid with betrayal. Quite the opposite. He betrays them and then balances the betrayal with aid.

However, both actions - the aid and the betrayal - ultimately serve his purpose.

As the series continues we'll discover that much of what's currently happening to Linden & Co. is by Esmer's design (Or Kastnessen's, whom he serves utterly).

So its not "They needed a Ceasure and then Esmer gives it to them."

It is actually "Esmer wanted them to go into the Ceasure and led them along the path that would result in them needing him to summon one for them."

Then Esmer was there to create the Fall he wanted them to go into.

Esmer's motivations in setting up the chessboard are currently unclear. It may be that he wishes to destroy the Haruchai utterly. Or prevent his own birth or cause his own destruction. Maybe his meddling in time and Linden's affairs results in the freeing of Kastenessen himself.

And Esmer could not go and just kill Foul. I imagine on a 1 to 10 power level he's about on par with the three Haruchai who had the IllEarth shards - and they were mastered easily. If Esmer were to challenge Foul, no doubt he would become his servant in despair (If he isn't already, unwittingly or not).

Nor could Esmer become "Worse than Foul ever was". Foul was present before the creation of the Land. Thus, no inhabitant of the Land itself can ever utterly defeat Foul or hope to surpass his might. Foul sets the bar. He's the worst there is or will ever be.

[Lord Mhoram]

Not even Esmer can simply walk up and destroy Foul. He seems to be a wild card, but I would say that Foul's thinking strategically and has even Esmer as a pawn in his game.

I am curious as to where we would rank Esmer's powers with Covenant's. Not even Esmer wields the power of wild magic: that which destroys peace. I would say Covenant was, in all, more powerful (and still is, actually, being the Arch and all), but it is Esmer who wields absolute control over his powers.

Guys, looking at Esmer's powers and saying it's stupid is the wrong way of looking at it. In all, the Covenant trilogies haven't really looked too closely at the actual make-up of magic (though, certainly, "Runes" delves waaay farther into it than previous Covenant novels), but it has always been about the psychology, the tragedy, the implications of great power and magic. That's what Esmer, as a character, is all about.

[I'm Murrin]

By saying 'guys', and 'you guys', I hope you're not including me in that - I was arguing the merit of Esmer's character. Esmer is another of SRDs looks at the way power affects different people, and the consequences of choosing whether or not to use that power freely. Esmer is the other end of the scale from the First Chrons TC.

And Zeph, saying that the Last Chrons simply being written spoils a good series is pointless, since SRD wrote the Second Chrons with the express purpose of creating the situations and characters we see in Runes. If he had not had Esmer in mind the whole time he was writing the second chrons, the merewives wouldn't even have made an appearance. You have to accept that even if you don't like it, this is what SRD was planning more than 20 years ago.

[drew]

...Besides, if Foul was there in a cloud of smoke, called Linden Fool, and Groveler, it would just seem like a re-hashing. A new threat is just what the chronicles neeeded. We don't know wether to trust Esmer or not, the same way we don't know wether to trust the return of Covenant or not, or even Jeramiah for that matter.

[oscartheduck]

Some interesting ways of viewing him here that I hadn't considered, especially esmerlover's notions. Any reasons on why you consider him that way?