Random thought on the new Staff of Law

[Prom_STar]

Come to think of it, how *did* Lord Foul accomplish the summoning without the Staff?

One possible answer:
When the Staff was destroyed in TPTP, the Law was weakened (the Staff and Law supported each other, making both stronger, but the removal of one--in this case the Staff--significantly harms the other). Thus, the Staff was no longer required to perform a summoning. Foul only needed the blood of a few innocent people in the real world. Throughout Chronicles, we've seen the Law weakened. At the same time, it seems Foul's ability to affect the real world has grown. It only makes sense to me that he would be able to perform a summoning by his own power as the Law weakened--which it certainly did with the Staff's destruction (think of the Sunbane: perversion of Earthpower, which wasn't possible while the Staff was around).

[Jerico]

As far as the one forest returning...It would if given time to do so. It comes from earthpower just as the rocks are somewhat sentient. They remember 'all' of time. The trees would be the same if given the time to do so. Maybe the grass is already?
Anele is able to talk with the stone of the earth or read the Runes of the earth as written in the gutrock of it!
The one forest is just waiting to be born again. Maybe in the new world it will be?

[High Lord Tolkien]

As far as the one forest returning...It would if given time to do so. It comes from earthpower just as the rocks are somewhat sentient. They remember 'all' of time. The trees would be the same if given the time to do so. Maybe the grass is already?
Anele is able to talk with the stone of the earth or read the Runes of the earth as written in the gutrock of it!
The one forest is just waiting to be born again. Maybe in the new world it will be?

Well, the forest is gone.
But the rock remains and so does it's memory.
I can't see the sentience of the One Forest ever coming back except the Law of Death and Life is broken so.........
But that doesn't mean that Forestals can come back.
It took an Appointed to created the Forestals.
So maybe we'll have a pre-Appointed or Forestal-less One Forest?
I dunno, but it's fun to speculate!

[Prom_STar]

Couldn't someone just travel back through time and grab a forestal (say right before he was going to die so as to not adversely affect time)?

[Variol Farseer]

The trouble with grabbing a Forestal is that a Forestal is the collective spirit of a whole forest. I rather doubt it could survive unless you brought the forest along with it. That would be hard to do in a caesure.

However, as far as we know, Giant Woods is still largely intact, and it was one of the four great forests that are known to have had Forestals. So it might be possible to bring the Forestal of Giant Woods down to the present, and he might be able to take up again where he left off (presumably at the Desecration). After all, the Demondim made the same trip.

But I doubt we'll see it happen.

[dlbpharmd]

However, as far as we know, Giant Woods is still largely intact,

Just to clarify - at what time period are you referring to?

[High Lord Tolkien]

However, as far as we know, Giant Woods is still largely intact,

Just to clarify - at what time period are you referring to?

3rd Chronicles.
It was free from the Sunbane.

Linden said that the Forests could come back at the end of the WGW.
So I'm thinking that they did.
But I also imagine that they would be Forestal-less.
Garroting Deep, Morinmoss and the other one but in a pre-sentience state perhaps.
Newborn fragmented awareness but unable to act.
Probably no need for action at this point though.

[Prom_STar]

I tend to doubt the One Forest will return simply because of the trend the Chronicles have followed thus far: entropy (a word SRD uses quite frequently in the GI when speaking of TCTC). The One Forest returning wouldn't be entropy; it would be extropy, rebirth, etc.

[wayfriend]

I, too, think the forests are probably returned. There's nothing in Runes which precludes it. But I think that there are no forestals. Caer Caveral was the last.

[Prom_STar]

So basically:

Trees: yes
Powerful, sentient, forest, complete with guardians (aka Forestals): no

[High Lord Tolkien]

So basically:

Trees: yes
Powerful, sentient, forest, complete with guardians (aka Forestals): no

That's my prediction.

With a strong hope that there will be some almost childlike senteince on the individual forests part without the power to act.
But I suspect if SRD is following the entropy road then we won't get it.

[Reisheiruhime]

About the Staff, and Runes, and all that: I've always figures that the runes on the original Staff were like directions or something. Or maybe advice from Berek. IIRC, no tranlation was ever given to that Staff's runes. Now, the new Staff doesn't have runes: perhaps because it's alive and it knows it's purpose. Whenever Linden used the staff, I kept getting the picture of Vain and Findail hovering about her, trying to direct her. I mean, sure, their physical bodies are gone, technically, changed into a stick, but what's to stop their spirits, their souls, from communicating? (Assuming that Vain has a soul. Since the eyes are windows to the soul, and the ur-viles and Waynhim have no "windows", it appeals to my logic that they have nothing to show, and therefore their progeny would have nothing to show either.) And I like the "One Lawn" thing. It makes sense. One Rock, One Forest, One Tree... Might be the as of yet unannounced Lawn-Forestal doodling on Linden's pants.

Oh, and has it occurred to Him (SRD) that since she used wild magic to make the Staff, Linden can probably use both the Staff and the ring if she just sees it properly? Like how she regained her and Liand's and the Ramen's sight in Revelstone? And in the Everything-Connected form of logic, the grass stains on her pants are the directions to undo Kevin's Dirt. What? The One Lawn is retaliating.

And now too much thinking has given my poor blonde head an ache.

[Prom_STar]

From what I've read both here on in the GI, Wild Magic and Law are supposed to be in opposition to each other. Law builds up, maintains, perserves, etc. and Wild Magic "destroys peace."

Law and wild magic are to some extent antithetical. One holds things together: the other tears them apart. And the point is made more than once in "Runes" that mortal flesh isn't strong enough to withstand wielding two such enormous forces simultaneously. True, Linden's percipience enables her to use EITHER the Staff OR Covenant's ring "like a scalpel"--but not both at the same time. And wild magic--by its very nature--scales upward: the more you use it, the harder it is to contain or control.

[/quote]

[jwaneeta]

Turiya Foul spake thusly:

I like the "One Lawn" thing. It makes sense. One Rock, One Forest, One Tree... Might be the as of yet unannounced Lawn-Forestal doodling on Linden's pants.

You interest me strangely! What a spiffy idea. I love the notion of a Lawn-Forestal.

[Reisheiruhime]

I interest everyone strangely, whether or not they admit it.

("Join me, brethren, to bring down these dreaded "mowers"!)

[Giant Friend]

Has anyone considered the possibility of an event happening that could undo the new Staff of Law,thus splitting Vain and Findail once again into two seperate beings?And what would be the fall out of an angry Findail and a purposeless Vain?

You cant unstir cofee and cream...the Staff would shatter or burn up i would think before it would disassociate into its original component parts.

[Nerdanel]

On my reread I found the following excerpt in which Prothall argues that Drool has already found the Illearth Stone.

The evidence of power is unmistakable. We know that Drool has the Staff of Law. But the Staff is not a neutral tool. It was carved from the One Tree as a servant of the Earth and the Earth's Law. Yet all that has occurred is unnatural, wrong. Can you conceive the strength of will which could corrupt the Staff even enough to warp one bird? Well, perhaps madness gives Drool that will. Or perhaps the Despiser now controls the Staff. But consider - birthing the three-winged bird is the smallest of these ill feats. At his peak in the former age, Lord Foul did not dare attack the Wraiths. And as for the desecrated moon - only the darkest and most terrible of ancient prophecies bespeak of such matters.

Considering what Linden has done in Runes and at what effort, I think it sounds like the old Staff was much stricter about the Law than the new one. Particularly note the words "corrupt the Staff". That sounds pretty ominous. As I have said before, I think the runes protected the old Staff from corruption. And since the Law and the Staff are interconnected, I think Linden may end up warping the whole structure of Law itself by proxy. Think about the Staff of Law as a force for evil. If the good guys keep it they are allowing evil to prosper while endangering themselves. If they destroy the Staff, they are weakening the Law even more and making Lord Foul's job easier. That sort of dilemma sounds like the kind of thing that SRD would use.

Also, the raw materials of the new Staff are suspect. I have written about Findail and the Shadow upon the Elohim (Sunbane), and Vain might have something too. Perhaps the ur-viles as un-Lawful creatures didn't like the current Law that much, and decided it would be better to put a hidden weakness in Vain so that it would be possible to make the Law a little more accommodating and perhaps even warp the Law enough for an ur-vile to wield the Staff in safety.

Even the Second Chronicles had aliantha. I have a feeling that yet another previously untouchable sacred cow is going to get it, and the Law's corruption will turn aliantha poisonous. And I think Lord Foul will get the corrupted Staff, since that's so very fitting from the Gnostic perspective and because SRD needs to get something worse than the Sunbane of old. The logic of the plot calls for a Hell on Earth. Runes is just warm-up.

[wayfriend]

... Yet all that has occurred is unnatural, wrong. Can you conceive the strength of will which could corrupt the Staff even enough to warp one bird? Well, perhaps madness gives Drool that will. ...

Considering what Linden has done in Runes and at what effort, I think it sounds like the old Staff was much stricter about the Law than the new one. Particularly note the words "corrupt the Staff". That sounds pretty ominous. As I have said before, I think the runes protected the old Staff from corruption.

I think all that Prothall is saying here is that the Staff cannot be used in this way -- therefore, it must be the Stone.

The Runes were added by the Lords - the runes weren't on the branch of the One Tree. Therefore, they would be no stronger than the Lords themselves; if they protect the Staff, it is not at a level of power commensurate with the Staff itself, or the Stone, which surpasses the Staff.

As I said at other times, SRDs remarks on the Runes indicate that they indicate the depth of the weilder's lore. As in, the Old Lords were wise enough to actually alter the Staff of Law. And the significance of the lack of Runes on the new Staff is that it has never been weilded by anyone with sufficient lore to use it to it's full potential.

[Variol Farseer]

I suspect the question about the runes on the old Staff may be simpler than most of us think.

Hypothesis:

The old Staff was defined by its runes. It was necessary to make the Staff out of a branch of the One Tree, as no other material would suffice (for reasons not disclosed, but we can grant SRD that point and pretend to understand). But something had to make the difference between a Staff of Law and . . . well . . . a stick, albeit a stick of tremendously Earthpowerful wood. The runes were, to use a mundane analogy, the Staff's 'programming'.

The new Staff required no such programming because it incorporated two living minds, one with a perfect knowledge of Earthpower, the other with a total understanding of the structural rigour required by Law. Natural intelligence instead of artificial intelligence, if you follow me.

[Xar]

I believe that's what was stated at the end of the Second Chronicles as well: that the old Staff had runes on its surface, but the new one, being alive, didn't need any such runes. I also think the runes were the "software" for the staff, detailing and defining its purpose and its relevance within Law. The new one, being alive, didn't need such runes because it could perceive the structure of law (through Vain) through the lens of Earthpower (embodied by Findail).

The Shadow over the Elohim could be the Sunbane - or not. For all we know, it could have been something as mundane as ennui for their eternal existence, for example. Even if it was the Sunbane, that was limited to the Upper Land, it didn't even affect the Lower Land, much less the rest of the world; therefore, it couldn't warp the Elohim so much as to cause Findail - and then the Staff - to operate less efficiently. Indeed, it seemed to be more of a moral shadow than a physical one, and Findail showed that even though he didn't want to become the Staff, even though he tried to make sure that wouldn't happen, he gained some understanding of Covenant's purposes and stood by him as he entered the Banefire, for example.

Therefore, I don't think that the Shadow over the Elohim could have conditioned the new Staff; after all, with her percipience, Linden could have otherwise perceived something wrong about Findail when she was about to merge he and Vain into the Staff - and by the same token, Vain, who was created to be part of the Staff, would likely be equipped to recognize a potentially unsuitable Elohim candidate, considering that he (Vain) was the one in which the ur-viles essentially poured all their hopes.