Thinking about things after a re-read...

[tonyz]

And the thing that kept hammering at me, all through the book, was this:

Linden is screwing up, repeatedly and royally, despite massive warnings. She may be doing what Covenant did (risking the Land to save a child), but she's still completely and utterly messing things up.

Part of it is time travel paradox: by taking the Staff out of the past, she prevents the Staff from being there to be used to heal the caesura. (Note how easily and completely she erases the one she made; someone else could have done the same way back when, too.) And we can't say that she wasn't warned; she was, repeatedly. She just bulls through.

Perhaps it's the opposite of Covenant's passivity in the first Chronicles, and hers through a good chunk of the Second, but excessive activity is also a bad thing, particularly without wisdom.

I suspect that a good chunk of the rest of the Final Chronicles will be Linden trying to fix all her miscues from this book.

Though I still can't help but wonder what the ur-viles are up to? The Demondim are interesting and impressive (though their present description doesn't quite fit the implications I gathered from "powerful and austere" in the First Chronicles). Things are going on that have not been revealed (yet).

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Perhaps it's the opposite of Covenant's passivity in the first Chronicles, and hers through a good chunk of the Second, but excessive activity is also a bad thing, particularly without wisdom.

Interesting point Tonyz. About the staff and time-travel though, it's fairly obvious that the staff wouldn't be used in the past to "heal" the seizures, from the fact that they weren't already healed. Aah, the paradox of time-travel.

--A

[KAY1]

We saw from the 1st Chrons with Hile Troy that too much action can cause disaster, though it was all necessary in the end as was TC's passivity and I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so perhaps she needs to make certain mistakes to lead her onto the correct paths? After all TC came through in the end despite everyone telling him how wrong he was.

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I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so perhaps she needs to make certain mistakes to lead her onto the correct paths?

Personally, I don't share that belief, but there is one place where it very frequently holds true: Fiction. So you could well be right...in fact, you almost certainly are.

--A

[KAY1]

Well to be fair I don't think EVERYTHING happens for a reason, but I have found on numerous occasions it has turned out that way

Yes I am sure SRD is just trying to wind us all up and start screaming at Linden to sort it out! I am sure it will all turn out right in the end. Or will it? Maybe SRD will save the Land/Earth but kill off everyone we care about. Maybe the Land itself will be laid waste to preserve the rest of the Earth! Maybe (gasp) Foul will win!

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Yep, that's the beauty of it. With SRD, you never can tell how it will end. And he's more than capable of doing exactly that.

Well to be fair I don't think EVERYTHING happens for a reason, but I have found on numerous occasions it has turned out that way

Really? I invite you to the Close then, where we have a topic on this very subject.

--A

[KAY1]

In that case invitation accepted! I will toddle off there in a bit to have a look. See if I can add my bit to the debate.

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It'll be a pleasure to have you participate. The thread is, IIRC, called simply "Reasons."

Feel free to ignore what else has been posted there already, and take it in your own direction.

--A

[KAY1]

Hee hee yes my direction might be totally different from everyone elses.

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I look forward to seeing what it is.

--A

[IrrationalSanity]

"Everything happens for a reason" is much more true in SRD's fiction than in certain others. Even the smallest description can often be seen as critical foreshadowing by the end of the series.

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A very good point. Of course, as in all the best cases, such foreshadowings do, and should, only become obvious in hindsight. A foreshadowing that's obviously a foreshadowing is usually a terrible disappointment.

--A

[Cail]

That's something I've always enjoyed about his writing. Seemingly insignifigant details end up being huge plot points later on in the series. Sort of the illustrated law of unintended consequences.

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Agreed Cail.

What I like most about it is that he resists telling you that they're going to become major issues in the future, unlike some other writer I could name.

--A

[Nerdanel]

When I read that long description of the Demondim full of surprising information, I just knew that this was foreshadowing and we would meet some Demondim eventually. Then the Demondim appeared much earlier than I had expected. That was awesome.

I think there are other foreshadowy things like the entirety of the Mahdoubt, Esmer's emerald eyes (Illearth Stone was described as emerald and colors people's eyes), and certain things about Linden that I need to make a thread about once I have reread the series again so I can make a more convincing case.

[wayfriend]

Part of it is time travel paradox: by taking the Staff out of the past, she prevents the Staff from being there to be used to heal the caesura. (Note how easily and completely she erases the one she made; someone else could have done the same way back when, too.)

You're jumping to a lot of conclusions here. First of all, there is the question as to whether Linden created a ceasure, and then destroyed it, or did she summon one which already existed, and then dismissed it again. It "collapsed on itself" is all we know. Second, if Linden did destroy it, it may only have been possible because she created it - "She knew it intimately". Third, it may be that only the combination of Linden's percipience and the Staff's earthpower which was capable of the task - another weilder may not have been as capable - the Staff's possibilities "were limited only by the capacities of it's weilder".

I think that we are a long way from saying that, had the Staff never been moved through time, it could have been used to heal all the ceasures.

[drew]

I'm pretty sure LInden didn't summon the ceasure either; I beleive Esmer did it.

We shouldn't be too hard on Linden either, Covenant was telling her that she needed the staff.

I still don't trust the ur-viles...yeah they might hate the demondim as much as anyone else, but I just don't beleive that they are now good, they may not serve depite, but they're not GOOD--I don't trust the new staff of Law either.

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I don't think the Ur-Viles serve Despite, but that doesn't mean that they serve "good" either. They're amoral, I think. The only purpose they serve is their own.

(Although, they made Vain, which could be seen as serving earthpower...maybe we'll find out.)

--A

[drew]

yeah, but am I the only one thinks there were alterier motives for creating vain?

They slaughter a host of waynhim just because they thought they might have Covenant something.

The wanted to protect Linden to make sure she got the staff from the past...who else helped Linden? Lord Foul showed her to the hurtloam.

[finn]

Picking up on Wayfriend's comments above, I see Caesures slightly differently I think, to some here. At first I saw them as wirlwind, twister-like storms, moving across the land in an ever-meandering path. But later I started to think of them as a force that had been woven into the fabric of the land.

They can touch every place in every time; such omnipotence is far greater than that possessed by a mere storm, which I now see as only one manifestation of a Caesure. I think that 'Caesure' has been created and is now a part of everything, perhaps 'graven in every rock' and that they are not summoned, created, destroyed or dismissed, but are "accessed" by those with sufficient power to use the phenomenon.

Linden accesses Caesure in its manifestation of a storm because that's how she is able to see it. I think that other forces at work in the Land may also be able to access it.

As an alternative, the force may already have been there and corrupted by Joan/Foul to created the particular manifestation of storms.

I think that this access to a "nether region" for want of a better expression, may be behind the Haruchia mind speech, Ranyhyn, Sandgorgons, etc. I have had large scale disagreement on this point before, but the Caesure phenomenon speaks to me of so much more than a storm based time portal.