So how does this end? (Read at own risk)

[dlbpharmd]

Sure VF, post away - and nice to see you back around in here!

[Believer]

Hasn't SRD mentioned that when he's done, no one will be able to write continuing stories in the Land? That sounds like total, utter destruction to me

[Lord Mhoram]

I would be highly interested in what similarities you could find between The Land and Narnia. Personally, I don't really see it. Is The Land a metaphor for our own world and corruption as Narnia is?

[Turnkey01]

Covenant and Foul are shoved into a rift and Avery seals both of them in their own pocket universe complete with its own arch of time.

Foul is banished from the land and left adrift with Covenant in their own place alone.

[Hellbinder]

I think some of you are turning this into way to much of a metaphorical story.

Coventant is not Foul or the Creator. These are not separate parts of his soul or anything like that. The land is real it is not some imaginary figment of Covenant trying to understand himself.

Covenant may indeed have more to learn, but perhaps it is simply about learning to completely defeat the Despiser and ultimately free the land from it.

The Land preexisted Covenant, Hile Troy went to the land before Covenant. There are other indications that others may have entered the land in the distant past.

I don’t think that the land is going to be utterly destroyed at all. It is much, much more likely that the land is going to be saved by going back to the beginning and starting over in a way that the Despiser is just not a part of it. So that it can continue and grow the way it was originally intended.

This will likely also end up with Covenant going back to the beginning of his experience as well, and finding a way to cope with his leprosy without falling into despair and loneliness, perhaps with linden.

That’s How I am going to call this one.

[Hellbinder]

Hasn't SRD mentioned that when he's done, no one will be able to write continuing stories in the Land? That sounds like total, utter destruction to me

no dont think he has said that. Link?

[Hellbinder]

Remember you can have good and bad things happening and troubles etc without a sentient force of Evil corrupting and making plans.

It is obvious that Foul was not a part of the original plan and that he just got thrown in there. i think this was even specifically addressed in the past. (its been a while) He is clearly not on an even playing field with the Creator of the land. He feeds off evil but is not omnipresent and all powerful. He is a planner and influencer not a core fabric or force of nature.

[variol son]

Hasn't SRD mentioned that when he's done, no one will be able to write continuing stories in the Land? That sounds like total, utter destruction to me

no dont think he has said that. Link?

I am pretty sure he says something like that in one of his answers in the Gradual Interview.

www.stephenrdonaldson.com/

Go to From the Author and then Gradual Interview.

[I'm Murrin]

I think some of you are turning this into way to much of a metaphorical story.

Coventant is not Foul or the Creator. These are not separate parts of his soul or anything like that. The land is real it is not some imaginary figment of Covenant trying to understand himself.

This is what the author has to say about that:

Put simply, fantasy is a form of fiction in which the internal crises or conflicts or processes of the characters are dramatized as if they were external individuals or events. Crudely stated, this means that in fantasy the characters meet themselves - or parts of themselves, their own needs/problems/exigencies - as actors on the stage of the story, and so the internal struggle to deal with those needs/problems/exigencies is played out as an external struggle in the action of the story. A somewhat oversimplified way to make the same point is by comparing fantasy to realistic, mainstream fiction. In realistic fiction, the characters are expressions of their world, whereas in fantasy the world is an expressions of the characters. Even if you argue that realistic fiction is about the characters, and that the world they live in is just one tool to express them, it remains true that the details which make up their world come from a recognized body of reality – tables, chairs, jobs, stresses which we all acknowledge as being external and real, forceful on their own terms. In fantasy, however, the ultimate justification for all the external details arises from the characters themselves. The characters confer reality on their surroundings.

This is obviously true in "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant." The villain of the piece, Lord Foul, is a personified evil whose importance hinges explicitly on the fact that he is a part of Thomas Covenant. On some level, Covenant despises himself for his leprosy - so in the fantasy he meets that Despite from the outside; he meets Lord Foul and wrestles with him as an external enemy.

(emphasis mine)

[dlbpharmd]

The Land preexisted Covenant, Hile Troy went to the land before Covenant. There are other indications that others may have entered the land in the distant past.

The events of The Illearth War do not support this statement. Hile Troy was certainly not in the Land before Covenant.

[Warmark]

The Land preexisted Covenant, Hile Troy went to the land before Covenant. There are other indications that others may have entered the land in the distant past.

What other indications are there of others coming to the Land?
I definatley dont buy into the theory that Kevin was from outside the Land.

[drew]

For sure, since SRD has said (many times) that Kevin is not from our world.

How will it end?
The Land has suffered so much, not the people of the Land, but the Land itself--was any body paying attention to what Anele told them about the history of the One Forrest? Or what Findail told them in TOT?

And then Kevin dececrated the Land; and then Foul created the Sunbane.

The Land will never return to the wonderment of what it was when it was the One Forrest.
It will never return to Pre-ROD status...probebly never even return to the post Mhoram Status.

I think by Haven Farm burning down, and Kevin's Watch falling down, it pretty much cemented the fact that no one from our world will ever visit the land again.

But will the Land (and the Earth) end with a wimper or a scream?
Possibly neither--MY theroy is that it's Time for the Land to end. It's not up Foul, it's up to the Worm/word of the World's end.
But if the Worm ends the world, Foul would be set free...I think that this story will be to stop Foul from escaping even when the Earth is destroyed.

[callback]

Here are my guesses.

Foul gets dispelled from the Land.

The Worm dies, thereby removing all Earthpower from the Earth forever.

In consequence, TC goes to spend eternity with his dead buddies, no longer having any contact with the Land.

Linden Avery somehow manages to survive and get back to the real world.

Jeremiah survives too, and gets at least partially cured in the process.

Roger dies, but finds some way to redeem himself before the end.

[Variol Farseer]

I think if you removed all Earthpower from the Earth it would cease to exist. It would be like removing all physical energy from this Earth. Matter is energy in stasis.

'Permanence at rest and permanence in motion, participants in the Power that remains,' said the Giants: they knew the physics of their world. If even Stone and Sea are manifestations of Earthpower, then what remains after you remove all the Earthpower equals nothing.