Question about the origins of the Ravers

Book 1 of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

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Question about the origins of the Ravers

Post by dlbpharmd »

Received this pm, and wanted to post this here to see if anyone can offer any insight:
When samadhi touched Mhoram, Mhoram learned that the Ravers "were triplets, the spawn of one birth from the womb of their long-forgotten mother..." Runes, however, gives a much different origin. I don't know where to find it, having read Runes only once, so I can't quote it. But, iirc, they came to the Land with humans, much like Despite did. I got the impression they were sort of created by the interaction of the worst parts of humanity and the Land's Earthpower.

Has this seeming contradiction been discussed in the GI?
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Post by Variol Farseer »

According to TIW, the Ravers came originally from the Spoiled Plains, and were forbidden from the Upper Land by the Colossus. But when humans destroyed the One Forest, the Colossus lost its power and the Ravers were able to move about freely, and soon fell under the power of the Despiser. So in that sense, it really is true that the Ravers came to the Land along with humans — and Despite.

Anele's tale (Runes, book I, chapter 8) does not say specifically how the Ravers began, though he says they were the product of the evil that lurked in Lifeswallower, which came from the banes in Mount Thunder that polluted the Defiles Course. (If the Viles also arose from those banes, that would explain why the Viles and the Ravers were so similar in nature.) The Ravers did much damage before the Colossus was raised, but from that time on they must have been held back from the Upper Land for centuries. To this extent, the two stories agree.

Anele calls the Ravers a mixture of men and malevolence. Perhaps they were once human (three sons of a single mother, as Mhoram said), and the corrupt power of Lifeswallower enabled them to abandon their own flesh and possess the bodies of others. Perhaps they were something similar to the Viles, and had no proper bodies of their own, but the same corrupt power enabled them to take on stolen flesh. Maybe they were a combination of both, a fusion of two different kinds of creature. I don't know. But I think there is room to construct a composite explanation that tallies with both sets of facts.

It is noteworthy, I think, that Anele's story does not even mention the Despiser. 'Despite was the bane of men,' as Mhoram said in TIW; the stones of the Land did not remember it. Perhaps the difference between the two stories is that they are told from drastically different points of view. One is based on Mhoram's perception of the Ravers; the other, on Anele's perception of the One Forest, filtered through the memory of the rock. I should think Mhoram's account was more precise concerning the actual origin of the Ravers.

As far as I know, this has not been specifically discussed in the GI.
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Post by NickS »

From Anele's story, 'they were an admixture of men and malevolence, an enduring evil coalesced and concentrated in transient flesh generation after swift generation until they became beings unto themselves - spirits capable of flesh, yet spared the necessities of death and birth.'

From Mhoram's tale we know they were once men, Anele's words suggest that they were 'reincarnated' again and again until they became the Ravers that we know of.
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Post by Variol Farseer »

Well, from Mhoram's tale we know that they were triplets, but I don't think he actually specified that they were human. My guess is that they never were quite human, that the 'enduring evil' had infected them from the start. Perhaps the corruption of Lifeswallower might have afflicted them in somewhat the same way that the Illearth Stone warped the creatures of Foul's army in TIW?
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Post by Fist and Faith »

Thanks folks. I'm the one who pm'd dlb. No time these days to dig out my books.

I have a tough time reconciling the two origins, unclear though they are. The word "coalesce" doesn't seem to jibe with "triplets, the spawn of one birth from the womb of their long-forgotten mother..."
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Post by Variol Farseer »

Good point, Fist. Where the two conflict, I'd be inclined to accept Mhoram's account as nearer the truth. After all, he got it straight from the horse's mouth.

Assuming that the Raver was possessing a horse at the time, that is. ;)
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Post by wayfriend »

I think that there is a need to allow that both stories are told with enough imagery that they cannot be read literally. For example, "admixture of men and malevolence" may mean only that they had egos and fears, as humans do, rather than that they have some human ancester. Similarly, "triplets, the spawn of one birth from the womb of their long-forgotten mother" may be similar imagery; if you think about beings like the merewives, and Esmer, you have to allow that not everything that is born necessarilly resembles what it is born of - because it's fantasy. There may not be a concrete explanation of their ontogeny anywhere - if SRD didn't need it, he probably didn't imagine it.

We do know that the Ravers worked for a long time without Foul, even when Foul was around. I got the impression that Foul didn't use them until he was ousted from Council of Lords. I need to look up some references.

the antgear/theland website posts this, for what it is worth:
Era of Lord Foul the Despiser
Lord Foul pretends friendship with the Council of Lords and is accepted by High Lord Kevin who teaches him much secret lore. Foul sets a trap for Kevin near Mount Thunder but Kevin is mistrustful and sends other Lords who are butchered at the spot known thereafter as Treacher's Gorge. Lord Foul corrupts the southeast regions of the Land which are renamed the Spoiled Plains and Shattered Hills surrounding Foul's Creche. He begins breeding monstrous creatures to be his servants and warriors, starting a series of internecene wars against the Lord's Council which results in widespread death and destruction of the Land.
This sounds like the point where the Ravers would have been recruited. (Foul was revealed to the Lords at the time of Treacher's Gorge, right?)

My personal belief is that they are somehow banes that Lord Foul buried personally, or -- better -- offspring begat because of one of them.
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Post by High Lord Tolkien »

Lots of good info and great ideas here!
If I may add mine, I always asumed that the Lurker was the "mother" of the Ravers.
The Lurker is seemingly immortal like the Ravers.
And the Colossus was set in place to keep the Ravers from the Upper Lands so the Ravers either originated in the Lower or were most at "home" there.
Seems like the most ideal place for thier "birth".

I love the Lurker, btw.
It's an entity we've seen in both Chronicles but know NOTHING about.
Maybe it's related to the Merewives?
:o
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Post by Plains of Ra »

Variol Farseer wrote:Assuming that the Raver was possessing a horse at the time, that is. ;)
Possibly. But, I assure you, no Raver ever possessed a Ranyhyn!!
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Post by Findail »

High Lord Tolkien wrote:I love the Lurker, btw.
It's an entity we've seen in both Chronicles but know NOTHING about.
Maybe it's related to the Merewives?
:o
Maybe it's a distant cousin of Tolkien's Watcher outside the gates of Moria.
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Post by Borillar »

When I first re-read this quote:
they were an admixture of men and malevolence, an enduring evil coalesced and concentrated in transient flesh generation after swift generation until they became beings unto themselves ...
the first thought that popped into my head was: are we talking about the Baldwins? :wink:
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