Fantasy concepts of darkness

[variol son]

I was flicking through the various dissections when this quote from the penultimate chapter of White Gold Wielder lept out at me.

Then the wind took her, and she felt herself go out.

Out into the dark.

After a little thought, I realised that, unlike other fantasy authors, SRD does not ascribe any negative moral attributes to darkness. In fact, in the Second Chronicles, it is light that is poisonous and evil, and darkness is clean and good.

Do you think that this was purposeful on SRD's part? And what do you think of the idea of light being inherently "good" and darkness being inherently "bad"?

I personally never liked it, even though I'm not the biggest fan of the dark. I have always felt that such conclusions are very simplistic and shallow.

Any thoughts?

Sum sui generis
Vs

[lurch]

VS...Ho boy!..the subject is worthy of a doctorate thesis!

...Yes, i see the use of light by the author as intentional. Afterall, in the GI he has said, he sweats every word.

..He has always made the duality of anything,,the issue..If alive, then you're gonna die,,etc...There is an oriental aspect of the usage of dark by the author.

..My thoughts,,i see the " dark" as an " appreciation". Life educates oneself. As a child, the dark is the boogieman under the bed. As an adult, the dark is the reaction to ,,coming home early finding your wife in bed and her "lover" under the bed...
The dark is acquiring a taste for a good rich coffee so to speak,,educating ones pallette to the finer subtleties of a well aged cuban cigar.
...A classic is " Lucifer"..angel of light,,yet The darkest character around.
Dark is of no dimension or at best only two, as in a shadow, but with talented application everything becomes so much more 3 dimensional. So much more " appreciated"...maybe even enjoyed.
Dark is the unknown,,and the mature with it is ,,overcome your fear of it and explore it and be enlightened. Dark, Light, is much a like a continium, one evolving into the other...They are at least equals ,and for only an instant,,equal.
...Oh dark,,The first olive you tasted wasn't pleasent,,but over time you may have acquired a taste for olives..Yea, that is dark. Forgive me but..There is no Dark before its time. Its an acquired taste or acquired appreciation. There is a cactus that only blooms at night...and I know why.
........MEL

[matrixman]

After a little thought, I realised that, unlike other fantasy authors, SRD does not ascribe any negative moral attributes to darkness. In fact, in the Second Chronicles, it is light that is poisonous and evil, and darkness is clean and good.

Yes, that makes sense. The Sunbane has made the light of day a feared and malevolent time, so that peace and solace can be found only in the darkness of night.

In WGW, Ch.19, there is this intriguing line about Covenant, at the point just before he surrenders his ring to Lord Foul:

Only his eyes showed no collapse. They burned like the final dark, the last deep midnight where no Sunbane shone.

So the "final dark" is a place Corruption cannot taint-- the last unconquerable essence of Covenant.

In his essay, Epic Fantasy in the Modern World (availabe on his website), SRD advocates the idea that fantasy portrays man as "an effective passion" as opposed to mainstream "realist" fiction that diminishes man as a "futile passion." SRD cites Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy as one example of the effective passion of man in modern fantasy:

the protagonist, Morgon, faces an enemy who has the power to take his mind away, to empty him of everything that makes a human being until he is nothing more than a hollow skull--until the void is all that remains of his identity. And this loss of identity is described in such powerful and convincing terms that the reader is hard-pressed not to be terrified. Yet McKillip goes beyond the void to observe that nothing is ever truly empty. In the most profound chasms, the wind still blows. On that oasis, wind becomes a metaphor for Morgon's transcendent and unquenchable spirit: because he can never be truly empty, he can never be truly futile. "Man is an effective passion."

In a similar way, perhaps, Covenant is never entirely "empty" either. In the oasis of the "final dark" of Covenant's soul resides his effective passion against Despite. (Or something like that...)

I think SRD is also providing in the Chronicles different flavors of "dark." There is the gentle, reverent darkness in Andelain before the Celebration of Spring--contrasted by the dark cruelty of the attacking ur-viles. There is the mysterious darkness of the catacombs of Mount Thunder, while the immense darkness of brooding Garroting Deep is something altogether different. In the 2nd Chrons, there is Vain, whose darkness is of a different kind from that of his makers.

[dlbpharmd]

Interesting comments! So, what do you think of the title of the final book in the Last Chronicles - "The Last Dark?"

[Guest]

hey,dlb and others..
I think the title "the last dark" has alot to do w/ SRD's "Loss." I am acquainted with loss which terminates, the final period. That loss gives no pain because it makes no promises.It damages nothing because it permits nothing. And so it is not loss at all or gain,it is only the dark. But from that dark there is no resurrection and no return to the mere, insidious glory of the living.

[matrixman]

Well, at this point the title "The Last Dark" can mean just about anything I want it to mean. The clues from WGW are interesting, but I'm in the, um, dark about them.

saltheart, your post is quite the head scratcher.

[CovenantJr]

Interesting comments! So, what do you think of the title of the final book in the Last Chronicles - "The Last Dark?"

If SRD does indeed tend to paint darkness in a favourable way, "the last dark" could taken as some kind of final peace.

Do you think that this was purposeful on SRD's part? And what do you think of the idea of light being inherently "good" and darkness being inherently "bad"?

I personally never liked it, even though I'm not the biggest fan of the dark. I have always felt that such conclusions are very simplistic and shallow.

While I agree that such conclusions are simplistic, I think it's understandable: Darkness is generally prohibitive, frightening, potentially dangerous. On a fundamental level of animal instinct and human paranoia, it represents the horrors of the unknown - it's a blank canvas, onto which our minds can paint all kinds of dread creations. IMO, that plays a large role in darkness generally being used negatively in literature, particularly heavily symbolic fantasy.

But your comments did get me thinking about how I perceive darkness, and I realised it's one of two different things, depending on my frame of mind.
Firstly, the above - a veil that almost makes real the things that only exist in our minds, whether a physical or metaphorical darkness.
Secondly it's truth; or, more accurately, complexity. Darkness is synonymous to me with troubled introspection and its by-products, whereas light is, if not false, at least simpler and consequently an incomplete truth at best.

[Guest]

you said yourself matrixman"so the 'final dark' is a place Corruption cannot taint-- the last uconquerable essence of COVENANT". maybe i'm being ultra-simplistic but that sound awfully like LOSS to me.

[lurch]

...Consider Anele's first telling . Pages 188 thru 194. I find the story a excellent example of Donaldson's artestry and notice the use of the word dark.

..It begins with Linden, softly pleading " Tell me".almost like a child awaiting a bed time story....The Land , The One Forest , become anthromorphasized..they take on human attributes..Its a Dark story,,but there is a "parable" quality to it. One can take it as a straight line story of step by step linear fashion myth. But the last line.."that they were murdering the mind of the One Forest...wow....

...Linden is made aware of a " history" that is filled with both lite and dark. She is made aware of a state of sentinence,,an intelligence, and she as well as the reader becomes emotionally attatched...There is a grand metaphor in the Tale..Its a metaphor of any feeling their age,,knowing what put the crows feet and grey hairs on face and scalp.
The author makes much of ignorance and generations. Remember, the Tale is from the perspective of the oldest of the Land. The "dark" of the story,,is of such nature,,that its accessibilty can be gained only by age. The tip of that dark,,use to be signalled by the words.." why when I was a kid.."..Richard Jenning had a classic comedy routine that included the now common line.." up hill, both ways.." The author does a fine job of including the " islolation" ,,the nobody listens, quality of the darkness.

...So Linden has a few things to learn. Besides finding her son, or included in finding her son,,or the means to finding her son,,includes coming to understand the wisdom, compassion, value, the depth of Dark of that tale inorder to become enlightened. In that regard..the Last Dark..would be what comes right before the First Light.....MEL

[Avatar]

Interesting topic indeed Vs.

While I share your dismissiveness about the more simplistic considerations of light and dark, perhaps we should keep in mind as well that they are dependent on each other to a large extent. One automatically begets the other, and neither, regardless of personal opinion about their nature, can be comprehended without knowledge of the other.

Personally, I like the dark, in the metaphorical sense that Cj mentions. Things are rarely as simplistic as we would like them to be.

Saltheart, still not clear on what you're saying there. If the dark is that unconquerable essence of Covenant, where in that is loss?

--Avatar

[variol son]

I also notice that SRD chooses colour to demonstrate good versus evil.

In the First Chronicles, blue represents good (Lord's fire) and green evil (the Illearth stone). Rocklight is red (I think); dangerous but not inherently bad.

This is then turned on it's head in the Second Chronicles where any colour is open to the corruption of the Sunbane. Then again, light itself is poison in the Second Chronicles, so lots of things are turned on their head.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[hierachy]

The collosus' power was green. I recall that SRD makes it clear that it was a different green from the Illeath stone, though.

Green itself is not inherently evil in the first chrons, only a specific shade of green that represents the illearth stone.

[variol son]

The collosus' power was green. I recall that SRD makes it clear that it was a different green from the Illeath stone, though.

Green itself is not inherently evil in the first chrons, only a specific shade of green that represents the illearth stone.

True. The Illearth stone was "baleful" green.

[Guest]

avatar- Loss is a poem by SRD from the late 80's

[Avatar]

Aah, thanks SaltHeart. All becomes clear.

--A

[NightBlaze]

I was wondering if we were reading to much into the color scheme. The world itself is not ruled by "light or dark", rather, in the way that we as people interpret the sights and actions of those around us.
"the final dark, where no sunbane shown" I beleive was more of a reference into the damage the sunbane had done, as where Covenant becomes the lands only living link to what should be. Am I off base on that?
NightBlaze[/quote]

[variol son]

Not at all NightBlaze. I just suspect that the thread of darkness being good, or at least not inherently bad, may continue on into the last chronicles.