The End of the Land?

[aTOMiC]

I think I'll weep with most of the readers of the Chrons when the end finally comes but there is a part of me that has already said a fond farewell to the Land as I loved it along with Covenant at the end of the first Chrons. The Land as it was back during the first go around was irrevocably changed when Covenant and Linden returned for the second go. Sure the landmarks were the same, the people were essentially the same but the earthpower was thoroughly corrupted and gave the Land, as a character, the aspect of a terminal patient. Sure Linden managed to restore the Land’s essential health at the end of WGW but there was no going back to way things used to be and it was painfully obvious to me even back then that SRD wouldn’t waste his time exploring the history of the Land or returning his world back to the one that was populated by the Lords, Giants of Seareach, Kevin’s lore etc. Those elements are gone forever and I’ve already made my peace with that. If the Land in any form comes to an end along with the final chapter of the Last Chrons then I have trust that it will be for a good reason. Perhaps after all the wrangling back and forth about whether the Land is real or not we may ultimately find that it was only really and truly a by product of Covenant’s internal struggle, an offspring of his tortured psyche. We all await the answers together.

[dlbpharmd]

Well said Tom.

[Avatar]

Yeah.

--A

[Prom_STar]

In a thread in the general covenant forum, people have mentioned the parallels between Covenant and Norse Mythology (specifically Wagner's interpretation of them).

SOL = odin's staff, berek = odin, loric = thor, krill = mjolnir, foul = loki, etc.

well, in norse mythology, everything ends with ragnarok... the end of the world when all the gods dies and the wold serpant (worm of the world's end?) eat's the World Tree (the one tree?).

Perhaps Final Dark will be the Chronicles' ragnarok

[Nerdanel]

Thinking further about the Ragnarök connection....

We would have... EVIL GIANTS! Oh, and those snooty Elohim would bite it, along with almost everyone else.

You know, in a way The Power that Preserves already had Ragnarök overtones in the form of Lord Foul's magical winter, although Biblical divine retribution overtones also there and very strong.

Still, I consider it a practical certainty that the ending will be reasonably happy. Even Ragnarök is supposed to lead to another world being created, to say nothing of the Biblical apocalypse.

[Buckarama]

The end to despite is the end of hope.

Just like the end to darkness is an end to light.

Think that if you have a coin it needs to have a heads to have a tails.

All of life is a point of reference.

[Prom_STar]

So if Foul were vanquished once and for all, there'd be no Land. It's the whole "good is the absence of evil" thing--to understand one thing, you must have another to measure it against.

Interesting.

[musicboxforever]

Something that I've always wondered about is that if Lord Foul is not destroyed completely, he will keep coming back. Surely he must be defeated totally for there to be no more books, otherwise he will come back and corrupt the land again. I really felt like White Gold Weilder had no final end because Lord foul could come back and I wasn't that surprised when another book came out. When does it end?

[Prom_STar]

how does it end?

1.) Foul utterly destroyed (doesn't work too well. Good needs to evil to compare itself against)

2.) Foul breaks free of the Arch of Time (could happen, but wouldn't be very pretty) Or Creator intervenes, breaking the AoT

3.) Foul has a change of heart; repents; redeemed (This would be extremely powerful, but also incomparably difficult to do from SRD's perspective. Redemption is always real hard to "get right" --not to mention believable--in prose)

4.) something I didn't think of.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Thomas Covenant has already accepted his Lord Foul.
I don't think that's going to be the conflict in this one.
And didn't Foul say in the very beginning of Runes that he wasn't going to play any part gaining his freedom this time?
That others would do it for him?
Has Foul ever been wrong in his predictions?

I think this is going to be a Creator vs TC conflict of somekind in a way that I can't imagine.

[Xar]

I agree, conflict as an answer to Lord Foul has already been explored and surpassed. Even during the climax of the SC, there was no real conflict - no pitting of Covenant's (or Linden's) strength against Foul's: Covenant stood passively against Foul's attacks, accepting the Despite in himself and using this answer to defeat Foul.

SRD's cryptic clues to the end of the Final Chronicles, as well as the natural evolution of Covenant's relationship with Foul, and his understanding of the underlying connection between him and the Despiser, would seem to point out that the final answer is for Covenant not just to accept, but to identify with the Despiser. Not just to recognize he has the capacity for Despite inside himself, but to recognize that such a capacity is not external - it's something that belongs to him and defines him. In that sense, Covenant "becoming" Foul could simply be an allegory for Covenant identifying himself as the Despiser. I don't believe Foul could ever be truly destroyed while the Land lasts, because, as SRD told us, the Law also protects and preserves Foul from total annihilation: therefore, if there must be an end to Foul, either the world must be destroyed for him to be "vulnerable", or he must be utterly defeated in another way - perhaps by "becoming" him, in such a fashion as to be able to... for lack of a better word... "absorb" him.

Re-reading the First Chronicles, I noticed that the song about white gold, in its complete form, describes the Law as "the Land's Creator's self-control"; so, from this point of view, what we have is Despite and despair threatening to bring down self-control; therefore, the answer could be another paradox: as that same song points out, "he is cold and passionate"...

[Jerico]

I have had the feeling that Foul is a part of the Creator. In the end maybe the Creator will accept Foul back as part of himself?
The Creator might have been trying to go beyond himself in his creation of the Land as a "perfect' work? It backfired and he cast Foul out of himself and into his creation.
When Foul breaks free the Land will come to an end, but The Creator will become whole again and create a wonderful new Land that has as much evil as any other creation he has made, but also has Earthpower and the same peoples as the Land has?
Who knows? I mean besides SRD?
I would like to see a happy ending, but SRD has a way of twisting it around in circles........

[Nerdanel]

I am inclined to think that there will be some combining in the end. In fact I think combining is going to be a major theme in the books. We are already seeing it in things like Esmer and the cooperation between ur-viles and the Waynhim.

This might merit a thread for itself...

[wayfriend]

the final answer is for Covenant not just to accept, but to identify with the Despiser. Not just to recognize he has the capacity for Despite inside himself, but to recognize that such a capacity is not external - it's something that belongs to him and defines him. In that sense, Covenant "becoming" Foul could simply be an allegory for Covenant identifying himself as the Despiser.

Did I mention the word beginning with a-c-o- yet? Thought I did ... ah, well.

[KAY1]

I actually just mentioned this in the thread asking about the Wormof the World's end and why Foul did not rouse the Worm himself.
If the Arch of Time preserves the Law of Time which says that an action, once done, cannot be undone, then if the Arch is destroyed, would the Creator or Covenant or whoever, then be able to undo the action which caused Foul to be trapped in the first place? Obviously if that was true then any events taking place on the Earth as a result of something Foul did would not take place and getting into the old time-paradox thingy, Foul would not be released because if he was never imprisoned the Arch wouldn't have been destroyed and Foul released. I don't understand all the time stuff completely though and am sure there can be ways around this. Alternatively perhaps if Foul did destroy the Arch he would find that because time had been destroyed, then all of his actions would have never happened and he would be in a never ending circle where he can never be released, because if time was destroyed and his actions therefore never happened, he would not be free.

Or something cleverer to that effect.

My head hurts.

[wayfriend]

I don't think you can mix what happens in the arch with what happens outside the arch to that degree. The arch is in some senses a contained system. If the law of time is broken you can probably undo things that were done. (Think on that you time travel paradox foes!) But that's things that happen within the arch, right? It wouldn't affect the actions that led to Foul being imprisoned because that was outside - and probably not even subject to the same laws of time in the first place.

I think if the arch were destroyed the effect on time, if anything, would that it would be destroyed as well. The land would not just be gone but everything that ever happened would be gone (in some way). The arch preserved the past; if the past is not preserved, it is lost.

It wouldn't affect anything outside the scope of the arch. So the fact of Foul being imprisoned would not be changed, at least not by that.