Fatal Revenant Read, Chapter 6-FINALLY!

[burgs]

Right, but that doesn't change the apparent fact that wild magic and Law can't work together. Covenant wasn't *trying* to do anything. It just happened, without his intent.

These spoiler black outs are driving me mad! Read the book, people!!

[dlbpharmd]

Hmmmm - it seems to me that the only spoiler tags necessary in this discussion are those referring to Danlo's Fatal Revenant thread. Burgs, I don't think you need to have your TPTP post spoilered at all.

[TalonHawk]

Ok, for anyone who hasn't read spoilers for the ENTIRE series do not read this! It contains spoilers for the ENTIRE PLOT of the last chronicles.

… or it contains my completely wrong guesses.. lol

Spoiler

Judging from Thomas Covenant's rather powerful, aggressive, arrogant, and over all STRANGE behavior from this chapter (not to mention the flashing red eyes), I wonder if it's possible that what SRD has said will happen in this series has already happened in this book before this chapter, or perhaps had already happened by the time we see him at the end of runes. In fact, perhaps it is the true story of what’s to come.

It would be quite a tease for SRD to make you think you know how the story ends from some comments he has made and then make you realize that it’s only the START of the story!

Anyway, to the point..

Thomas Covenant has BECOME Lord Foul. He has .. absorbed (?).. Foul into himself in order to fufill some purpose, or the two have been melded by another force.

By far, my favorite theory is that Foul himself found a way to do it in order to finally be able to corrupt the wild magic and break the AOT.

The ending of the second chronicles was when Foul blasted his essence into TC, which was his REAL purpose all along, I mean, come on, is Foul really that STUPID he wouldn’t have done what Findail did and just tell TC to go hang while he broke the AOT if the AOT COULD be broken that way? I don’t think Foul has EVER been able to break the AOT without TC’s consent and therefore needs to BECOME Covenant.

In fact, why go through all the trouble planting the venom in TC to make him too powerful (and therefore powerless), only to blast it out of him as your first act upon getting your hands on his white gold? Because he hoped TC would break the arch well before their final meeting, and since he didn’t, the venom served no further purpose. It’s also possible the venom served also as a “placeholder” for Foul’s spirit. When TC immolated himself in the banefire and made himself into an alloy of venom and wild magic, the removal of his venom caused “holes” in the wild magic that Foul could fill. Remember, the white gold IS Thomas Covenant.

I don’t think it’s a perfect union (yet!), the two still seem to have their own personalities, or perhaps Foul's has very slowly been becoming dominant and this particular time is a crucial point for some reason, hence the coming to the land of everyone.

It may explain a few things as well...

How Covenant can actually USE magic now without the usual gnashing of teeth.

Who Foul is talking to when Linden is first brought to the land this time. "Tell her I have her son", etc..

How Foul "Has her son" when Linden's son is obviously with Covenant at the end of runes.

TC/Foul has been able to manifest themselves in a new form (Namely Covenant’s old body) since Foul is adept at giving himself a new form.

We’ve been told that we’re going to get to know Foul much better in this series, what better way than POV’s from TC with Foul in his head?

Possibly Kevin's Dirt. "Wild magic graven in every rock", Foul's corruption of wild magic and hence the very heart of the earth. His corruption is slowly rising towards the heavens (And the AOT), and since Foul is obviously blind to beauty....

How does he wield such influence over Roger and Joan in the beginning of Runes if he's powerless inside TC? He planted the seeds even before TC came to the land in the second chronicles. SRD even hints at that in the real world scenes at the beginning of runes. Roger being told way back then that if Joan failed he would have to take her place, and how Roger has been obsessed about his 21st birthday. Foul had to be able to leave a trigger for a certain time so he would know when to prepare for.


Anyway, I'm sure there are other things, but I'm needing sleep...

[/spoiler]

[covenantparadox]

thanks for your hard work Danlo, nearly impossible task without spoilers....I'm not sure I can wait three yrs...can't WE pressure the publisher if SRD is infact ready with a complete manuscript sooner than expected? I have the strongest feeling Runes was just a meek peek into what's in store for all us in the Land

[burgs]

I doubt the publisher will need any pressure once a manuscript is provided. They want to make money as much as we want to read the book. (Well, our desire to read the book might eclipse their desire to make money...but you get the idea.)

[Khat]

Thanks Danlo - <eyes refocusing from reading all the spoiler-text> this was really wonderful! I wish we could have been there hearing SRD...
and with this - it's as close as we can get!

Why am I reminded of LFB and the suffering TC had walking, also Lord Foul's winter and this

Spoiler

freezing cold endured by Linden

?

[MrKABC]

In response to a prior post about the Staff and the ring being mutually exclusive powers:

Why then in PTP did Elena wait to have both the Staff and the ring to assault the Colossus of the fall? She appeared to have expected both powers were necessary for such an undertaking.

Also...

At the very end of WGW Linden seemed to be able to use the Staff and ring together with no problem. The wild magic did the heavy lifting (in drawing in the Sunbane power) and then the Staff of Law did the healing.

It seems to me that we have a plot hole here....

[Asuraka]

Greetings,

In LFB, towards the end of the book ("The Calling Of Lions"), Bannor places TC's ring-hand on the Staff of Law so that High Lord Prothall can summon the Fire Lions.

With all due respect, MrKABC, I believe it is not the meeting of white gold and the Staff's power that results in its destruction in TPTP, it is the fact that the Illearth Stone's power and that of white gold meet in/around the Staff that results in its destruction. In effect, the Staff is caught between a rock and a hard place.

As regards Danlo's information...

There are obviously a number of questions raised by it.

Who is the Theomach?
There are a number of possibilities:
a) One of the skurj,
b) One of the croyel,
c) An, as yet, unidentified entity (the Mahdoubt has been mentioned and dismissed - I'd be interested to know why!?) who is a member of a "people".

The point being that Covenant refers to "you people"; so there has to be more than one.

We don't really know who/what the skurj are, but they are obviously the "threat in the north" which Kastenessen was Appointed to negate.

(Speaking of Kastenessen, there hasn't really been any clear explanation as to why he developed an uncharacteristic "love" for a human woman. Was this Foul's doing? Or was it the doing of the Theomach? Anele has said that the Elohim are "tainted" - How? By whom/what?)

The croyel may seem a strange choice, but they're tendency to grant vast powers to individuals would undermine the law and order for which the Elohim appear to represent.

As regards the Mahdoubt being a possibility... in the quoted excerpt from Danlo, the entity's description remarkably resembles that of the Mahdoubt ("shadows" are mentioned as surrounding both figures, for example).

Which individuals/entities are aligned with which?
We have mention of Linden, TC, the strange entity, Esmer, the ur-viles and Jeremiah.

TC's situation is puzzling - he appears to be in multiple space-times talking to different persons. Certainly, Linden is finding it difficult to work out when he's talking to her or others.

Just a few thoughts for my first contribution!

Kindest regards,

Asuraka

[dlbpharmd]

Welcome!

With all due respect, MrKABC, I believe it is not the meeting of white gold and the Staff's power that results in its destruction in TPTP, it is the fact that the Illearth Stone's power and that of white gold meet in/around the Staff that results in its destruction. In effect, the Staff is caught between a rock and a hard place.

How was the Illearth Stone involved at the time the SoL was destroyed?

[Asuraka]

dlbpharmd
Thank you!

If you remember, Elena was summoned by Foul - she's described as being bathed in the emerald green light of the Illearth Stone ("The Colossus").

When I read the book many years ago, my distinct impression - although it wasn't explicitly stated - was that the combined forces of the Illearth Stone's power contesting against TC's white gold was too much for the Staff to withstand; thus, the Staff was destroyed through being caught between a rock and a hard place.

Kindest regards,

Asuraka

[burgs]

While I can't doubt the Illearth Stone's involvement in this (Elena was bathed in green), she was at the Colossus to destroy it. But she didn't. She couldn't - the Staff and the Illearth Stone were not enough to destroy an Elohim in its Appointment. The Illearth Stone warped Law, and the Elohim are law incarnate. Even so, the SoL, while embodying Law, is not in and of itself enough to destroy the Colossus.

White Gold was necessary for the destruction. The hope was that the white gold would be wrested from TC and then used to destroy the Colossus.

Elena was exuding power when the white gold touched the SoL, so TC didn't need to be consciously aware of what he was doing. Wild Magic transcends law, and we know that any power different than its own (i.e., TC vs. Foul when he had the IS), causes it to erupt.

In short, I don't think that the combined forces had anything to do with it. If Elena had been wielding only the SoL, the same thing would have happened. Ditto with the IS. The fact that she was *wielding* both simply made the "corruscation" that much greater.[/b]

[Variol Farseer]

Asuraka's theory does appear to fit the known facts.

By the way, if all this is true, it tells us something about why Foul snatched Covenant out of Kiril Threndor so quickly when Drool Rockworm first summoned Covenant to the Land. Drool had the Staff of Law, was searching for the Illearth Stone, and would have taken the white gold in another moment . . . and he had very little idea how to use any of the three. If Foul had not rescued Covenant, the eventual result would have been an earth-shattering kaboom as Drool blew himself and the Wightwarrens to kingdom come. The white gold and the Staff would probably have been blown to atoms, and Foul would have lost his chance to get hold of the wild magic.

(I think I'm safe in assuming that a thin dusting of gold and nickel atoms scattered throughout the wreckage of Mount Thunder would not have had any practical value for Foul's purposes.)

A caveat to burgs: The Elohim are not Law incarnate, or else Vain would not have been necessary. They are Earthpower incarnate, which is quite a different matter. One holding the Staff could no doubt command the Earthpower contained in the Colossus, but not destroy it. I think burgs is right, and the white gold was required.

But I also believe that Asuraka (a very lore-wise individual, as you can tell from the name) is correct in supposing that the Illearth Stone inflluenced the response from Covenant's ring. High Lord Mhoram destroyed his staff by putting too much power through it; well, the volley-and-return of power between the Illearth Stone and the white gold would probably be enough to destroy the Staff. Covenant eventually destroyed the Stone itself by a similar method. The power that Elena put into the Staff came partly from the Illearth Stone itself, via Lord Foul:

She took a deep breath as if she were inhaling illimitable might, then threw her weight and muscle and power, her very Foul-given existence, through the Staff at his throat.

That was the power that triggered the wild magic, and Elena was being maintained in existence by the power of the Stone (as we can see by the green aura that surrounded her). It wasn't just Earthpower; it was Earthpower tainted by Illearth-power.

In consequence of which, you might say, the white gold threw up. A sensible reaction, if you ask me.

[dlbpharmd]

Great posts asuraka, burgs and VF!

This aspect of the destruction of the SoL (ie, the influence of the IS on Elena) is new to me, and I appreciate everyone's thoughts. I agree that the presence of the power of the IS seems to have played a part in the destruction of the Staff, although it seems to me that if Elena had tried to use the Staff against Covenent in a similar fashion but free from the IS the results would have been the same.

[Asuraka]

Greetings,

Thank you, again!

If you think of it as a variation on the "scissors-paper-stone" game - without wishing to demean the context! - the contesting powers were an exact match, not only in terms of the elements involved, but in their arrangement:

Scissors (metal: white-gold) - Paper (wood: SoL) - Stone (Illearth Stone)

Of the three, and given its position in the above arrangement, wood (as represented by the SoL) is the weakest and the most likely to be destroyed.

Although not the only possibility, it was undoubtedly with this purpose in mind that Foul "arranged" this scenario.

As has been pointed out, TC was not in a position to control his power - any other was simply a catalyst - it is interesting to speculate that, if he had been capable of doing so, Foul would not have risked such a confrontation: TC could have used his self-mastery to not only rescue the SoL and Elena's shade from Foul's grip, but even to help her banish Foul permanently from the Land - regardless of the Illearth Stone.

Kindest regards,

Asuraka

[Creator]

...
Scissors (metal: white-gold) - Paper (wood: SoL) - Stone (Illearth Stone)

...

But the Illearth STONE can't beat white gold!!

[Asuraka]

Greetings,

Creator
True - perhaps I didn't quite clarify my meaning in my previous post.

I meant it more in terms of an "anvil and hammer" or "rock and a hard place" scenario.

Also, as I stated earlier, of the three, wood is the easiest to break and metal is harder than stone.

In the game, of course, it's a "vicious triangle"; also, the idea that "paper wraps stone" doesn't really mean that it is "stronger" than stone in the real world!

Kindest regards,

Asuraka

[Jerico]

I believe that from what Danlo wrote that they are in the future! Linden worries about what she will learn there having an effect on what she does when she goes back.
Maybe they just came out of a Ceasure that took them to the future. That is what they do when they are not controled. Maybe they got caught in one. TC saying they were not supposed to be there could mean that.
So many possibilities I can hardly wait!!

[burgs]

I wonder - and perhaps this has been thought of by minds far greater than my own (after all, I messed up on the Elohim-Earthpower thing *duh!*) - what would happen between a meeting between the Staff and the IS. What I mean is,

Spoiler

the Demondim are bearing down on Revelstone glowing toxic green. Linden has the Staff. She also has the white gold. It seems to me that the white gold could easily defeat the Demondim with perhaps a shrug...if dealt with a deft hand. That said, TC doesn't have a deft hand, and there are issues with Linden and the WG.

What could the Staff do to "defeat" the IS?

What if there was a Lord possessing the Staff at the end of TPTP? Would TC and the WG have been necessary?

[Aleksandr]

Unlike the Giant Ravers in the first trilogy the Domondim do not actually have a fragment of the Stone with them. Rather they are channeling the Stone through a Caesure. The Stone remains in the past; to destroy it would change the past thereby introducing a paradox which would probably wreck the arch. The necessary task is to shut down their caesure.

[Nerdanel]

I found this potentially interesting quote in The Illearth War, in the scene where Covenant and Elena meet the Unfettered One who is an interpreter of dreams.

He stopped singing when he saw Covenant and Elena, but his appearance sustained his influence over them. He wore a long, flowing robe that seemed to have no color of its own; instead it caught the shades around it, so it was grass-green below his waist, azure on the shoulders, and the rock and snow of the mountains flickered on his right side. His unkempt hair flared, reflecting the sun.

He came directly toward Covenant and Elena, and soon Covenant could make out his face - soft androgynous features thickly bearded, deep eyes. When he stopped before them, he and the High Lord exhanged no rituals, no greetings. He said to her simply, "Leave us," in a high fluted voice like a woman's.

Spoiler

Doesn't this sound a bit like Theomach? It's very strange at the very least. (By the way, the Unfettered One cannot be a human eunuch because he has the combination of a beard and a high voice.)

Attempting to explain the mystery, perhaps the Unfettered One and Theomach are both Viles. The Unfettered One could possibly be a Vile spared by Loric, and Theomach's people can be either Viles transported through time, or new Viles made/formed/corrupted relatively recently because of the Shadow upon Elohim.