"No, the Despiser is hidden from me."

[finn]

I think you are really reaching here. The Ku Klux Klan, the Hitler Youth, Stalin, George Bush, they are/were all making the world a better place a.k.a. as they wished it to be!

I am not a religeous person, but I think it a matter of the concepts of those that represent good and those that represent evil which define them. I have met people who are devout and truly good who are both Atheist and Religeous. Equally I have met and seen corrupt persons who claim to be God's servants. What is clear is that Jehovah, Allah or whatever, is conceptually a perception of Good. The likes of those named above are not, even though they may go to church......the 9/11 terrorists in all liklehood prayed before killing 3500 odd folk.

The propaganda may spin the details but does not change the concepts. The idea that Sauron was misrepresented by a elf-biased press is in my opinion as ludicrous as that of God as a concept being only good by virtue of propaganda. The book of Jeremiah is written largely in the first person from Jeremiahs view which as we know was somewhat jaundiced.

The idea that Foul is a superior being who is so haughty that he doesn't notice the evil he does, doesn't hold water for me, as he has deliberately used power to threaten evil as a way of manipulation, as he does now to Linden.

And is everyone possessed? Joan, Anele, Roger, Jeremiah, Covenant....... It's pretty clear that SRD does not consider possession possible from the land into the real world as evidenced in the earlier quotes above.

I did notice one thing in the book of Jeremiah........God said he would make a new Covenant to replace the Covenant that was broken.

[Avatar]

Uh, maybe I misinterpreted you Finn, but this quote says a form of possession is possible between worlds, even if only on the "low end" of the spectrum.

I see "possession" ("entering") as operating along a continuum which ranges from "merely whispering nearly-inaudible suggestions" to "complete control." And on that continuum, the degree to which Lord Foul can enter a mind in the "real world" is severely limited to the low end. He couldn't do it all until the structures of Law which sustain the Land began to break down. And he still can't assume control: he can only whisper persuasively. (The Ravers can't do this at all to a mind in the "real world": only LF is that powerful. When Linden feels turiya in Joan's mind, Joan is already dead; already in the Land.)

And I think that Foul's purpose isn't simple malice either. Indeed, to a certain extent I must agree with Nerdanel in that regardless of our interpretations of his actions, they serve what is for him a greater good. His own freedom from suffering, as we will apparently be learning as SRD invests Foul with dignity in the future.

If you were trapped and suffering an eternity of torment, would you be worried about hurting people in your escape?

--A

[finn]

I guess that the "low end" of possession which is described as whispering persuasively, does not in my mind equate to the sort of possession being mooted of Joan and Jeremiah which IF possessed, is to a far greater extent. I don't think Jeremiah or Joan would not have to raise such extreme barriers merely to counter persuasive whispers.

The suggestion that anyone may do anything to better their lot without care or consideration for others is in my book, plain wrong. Is Foul trapped in a eternity of torment? There are some for whom an eternity of torment is not being allowed to watch TV or go to the Mall. Isn't Foul's eternity of torment due to him being a complete and utter bastard and the enemy of the creator? To some extent his situation is of his own making both before and after becoming trapped in the land.

I suppose we could be looking at the creator being the evil twin and Foul being misunderstood and unappreciated, I'm sure there is some substance to the idea that he was not always evil, he did not start bad but became bad and unfortunately the land had no anger management facilities. Hmm.

Perhaps he is a Darth Vader type of Character that will come good in the end? I don't think so, I think we may be in for a greater in-depth look at Foul but I don't think we'll like what we'll see. I think it is ambitious to explore the bad guy in a fantasy setting, where traditionally the baddie is just plain, intrinsically, bad.

Is it OK or even understandable for a convict to hurt or kill trying to escape because they are trying to serve a greater good for themselves? I don't think so, regardless of interpretation and motive evil and malicious acts are evil and malicious acts and simply can't be defended.

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It's not OK for us, certainly. For the convict, I'm sure the justification is not so difficult.

Not to mention the fact that we have only the "good" version of the Myth of Foul's "Fall" as it were, as pointed out by Nerdanel. I'll be most interested to hear Foul's version.

Will he turn good? I doubt it. But I'm sure, to start at the very least, his actions were reasonably justifiable to himself, and probably remain so. I certainly agree that it's unlikely he "started" bad...although, it's not impossible if he's simply a creator-aspect.

I look forward to learning more about him...perception is everything, and he percieves the Land as a torment and a suffering for himself.

I reiterate, (perhaps slightly more clearly) that if you were unjustly (by your lights) imprisoned and tormented, you'd probably be less than scrupulous about the well-being of your jailers.

Sure, in terms of absolutes, we can say you still shouldn't harm anyone in your escape, (and therefore that if you couldn't escape without harming others, you should simply meekly accept your confinement and suffer your agonies), but I distrust absolutes anyway.

--A

[Xar]

That part about how Lord Foul can possess in the "real world" is completely pointless if he never does that. Moreover, from what I have gathered translating someone to the Land is a non-trivial thing to do. Most especially, Lord Foul would have needed someone disposable to perform the summoning so that when that someone was killed Joan would end up back in the "real world". (And if Joan and her white gold was in the Land, why not simplify the plans and treat her as the designated source of Arch-destruction instead of Covenant?)

Well, SRD's concept of "possession" is definitely broader than the classical concept... I could never see LF entering and directly commanding a human being - mostly because I could never see him "lowering himself" to enter such a lowly life form - but surely "whispering persuasively" would be within his capabilities and his character. So yes, I think he did "whisper persuasively" in the real world; but he didn't actually "enter" anyone in the real world or the Land. As for Joan, SRD's GI clarified that point already, when he said clearly that although Joan or Linden can extract a lot of power out of the white gold ring, only Covenant can extract the near-absolute power needed to break the Arch. Joan being mad, after all, having been made mad by Foul, she is now Foul's tool, and therefore she no longer has the power to break the Arch of Time. It's the same reason why Foul didn't have Roger buy a white gold ring, translated him into the Land and had him break the Arch. Neither Roger nor Joan are free, and both are tools of the Despiser, although in different ways (Joan seems to be bait/helpless victim, Roger instead seems to have become a willing servant of the Despiser).

As for Foul's concepts of his own actions, I agree - he clearly knows and conceives himself to be a far superior entity to anything that lives in the Land's earth; he should have never been trapped in it, and before that happened, he had all the cosmos for himself. Now he finds himself trapped in his own Enemy's creation, unable to flee it, or to break free of his bonds; forced to endure the passing of time (even as an eternal being, time spent in a prison lasts an eternity in itself), and forced to see how the people of the Land have a good life, and are free to do what they want, while he is trapped. That alone would be torment enough for any being of Foul's stature: it would be as if a human being were trapped in a 1 cubic meter cage, forced to watch ants going back and forth happily, but unable to free himself. In his mind, he has all the rights to break free - heck, he could even blame the destruction of the Land's earth on the Creator, if he wanted ("had you not trapped me there, I would have had no reason to destroy it..."). And SRD told us in the GI that the reason he has found within Foul is that Foul feels despair, and needs an outlet for that despair. This outlet is found in harming the Creator's creations.

[Avatar]

...it would be as if a human being were trapped in a 1 cubic meter cage, forced to watch ants going back and forth happily, but unable to free himself. In his mind, he has all the rights to break free - heck, he could even blame the destruction of the Land's earth on the Creator, if he wanted ("had you not trapped me there, I would have had no reason to destroy it..."). And SRD told us in the GI that the reason he has found within Foul is that Foul feels despair, and needs an outlet for that despair. This outlet is found in harming the Creator's creations.

Agreed Xar. To Foul, that harm is as unimportant as the ants...because what are they to him?

--A

[Nerdanel]

God in the Book of Jeremiah (and elsewhere) commits multiple genocides for reasons like "those people are already in the land I'm giving to Israel" or "I made those people do something and now I'm punishing them for it". (The latter justification is used in the Book of Jeremiah. It is said that God makes the Babylonians attack and defeat Israel and then turns around and gets Babylon offed for that.) Then we have things like sounding positively gleeful about the idea of mothers having to cook their children because there isn't any food because God caused a famine. Try to leave out Jesus from this. The Old and New Testaments are very different.

I think Lord Foul has the narcissistic personality disorder though he has more reason to think himself superior than most other narcissists.

On the subject of Sauron, I was basing my thoughts on Tolkien himself. (No quote, sorry.) Sauron, after he had sincerely repented his service of Morgoth, thought he knew what was good for the people of Middle-earth. That got seriously out of hand, and he became a tyrant. Somewhere along the way the good of the people fell on the wayside as total domination became its own goal. On D&D terms, Sauron was lawful evil while Lord Foul sounds more like neutral evil.

I think means and ends are going to be big in the Last Chronicles. Linden herself has lost her scruples considerably. For example, she possessed Joan to escape the caesure and hasn't thus far given it a second though.

[Avatar]

Not sure that she should be giving it a second thought. Perhaps she will be further and further forced to abandon her principles in the hope of saving Jeremiah. Afetrall, didn't she say that there is nothing she wouldn't do to save him?

That's plenty dangerous right there.

--A

[finn]

Nerdanel are you referring to the old testament or the last ten years in Babylon? By God are you referring to Jehovah, Saddam Husein or George Bush?

Strange how history repeats itself.