Roger and White Gold

[Jerico]

What Law do you think Troy was about to break?

[Xar]

What Law do you think Troy was about to break?

Not any specific Law, but probably the concept of Law altogether, in the sense that if he had called upon the power of wild magic he would have transcended Law and wouldn't have been bound by it (or at least he could have forbidden being bound by it), thereby making his promise to the Forestal null and void.

[wayfriend]

I think Xar is right on about the Law being broken. It is either the general use of wild magic or the specific breaking of Troy's promise. (If the forestal had not exacted his price for his aid, would it have "broken" the forestal in some way?)

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something else, either. Perhaps the Law is that Elena cannot be spared the price of the Power of Command. Or cannot be spared the price of breaking the Law of Death. Or else other laws ( "the Law of Payback is a B****" ? ) become broken.

Troy, like Linden, has no trouble using the ring. That's because the "trouble" is Covenant's fear and avoidance of his own power.

I don't agree with the statement "only someone outside the land could use it". Kasreyn certainly could. Elena could have (according to Donaldson). Didn't Prothal "use it" on Mount Thunder to summon the Fire Lions?

[Xar]

I think Xar is right on about the Law being broken. It is either the general use of wild magic or the specific breaking of Troy's promise. (If the forestal had not exacted his price for his aid, would it have "broken" the forestal in some way?)

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something else, either. Perhaps the Law is that Elena cannot be spared the price of the Power of Command. Or cannot be spared the price of breaking the Law of Death. Or else other laws ( "the Law of Payback is a B****" ? ) become broken.

Troy, like Linden, has no trouble using the ring. That's because the "trouble" is Covenant's fear and avoidance of his own power.

I don't agree with the statement "only someone outside the land could use it". Kasreyn certainly could. Elena could have (according to Donaldson). Didn't Prothal "use it" on Mount Thunder to summon the Fire Lions?

Prothall didn't use the ring... Bannor used the ring to power or awaken the Staff of Law (since Prothall didn't know how to do that) and the High Lord used that to summon the Fire-Lions.

Wow, doesn't it feel like talking about ancient historical characters?

[Zarathustra]

What Law do you think Troy was about to break?

Not any specific Law, but probably the concept of Law altogether

No, in TIW, it clearly said the Law of Identity. Or I at least I think it did. Damn, where's my copy of TIW when I need it?

If this recollection is indeed correct, then Troy was about to violate the fact that Covenant is the wild magic, which implies that it's possible, via the ring, for people to access something which Covenant alone has the right to access--for doing so violates his identity. Perhaps this is just a simpler way of saying "possession." Through the ring, one can tap into Covenant's wild magic, Covenant's passions, which is clearly wrong. Only TC should be able to tap into his own passions.

This is supported by the text--or at least as quoted above (emphasis mine):

power flamed from the white gold as if it were answering his passions.

So it wasn't answering Troy's passions, it was only appearing to answer his own. In fact, it was answreing TC's passions.

I believe SRD touched on this in the GI, saying that Troy's use of the ring was similar to Linden tapping into Covenant's power through her healthsense (possessing him). Troy didn't need healthsense in order to possess TC and make use of the power, of course, because TC gave him the ring.

So did Linden already violate the Law of Identity? What consequences will this have?

[Edit: I found what I needed in the GI.]

In the Illearth War Hile Troy is given Covenant's ring, but is prevented from using it by Caerroil Wildwood, who states "I cannot permit this. It is breaking of Law." Maybe I am too dense to have understood, or I missed it, but what Law is Wildwood referring to?


But let me try this. 1) The Law of identity. As Mhoram says, Covenant *is* white gold. The use of his power by someone else violates his relationship with that power. In "The Power that Preserves," Elena destroys herself--and the Staff of Law--by violating Covenant's relationship with white gold. 2) The Law of promises. Troy has offered to pay Wildwood's price; to trade himself for the survival of his army. If he becomes a white gold wielder and goes off to confront Elena/Kevin, he'll be breaking his word--and once Troy does that, Wildwood won't have the power to force him back. 3) The Law of, well, let's call it consequences. Elena has broken the Law of Death. She's locked in a battle with Kevin's ghost/spirit/whatever. Troy wants to intrude on that battle, determine the outcome. But wild magic is the wrong tool for the job. It's better suited to breaking Laws than to mending them. Elena already has the only tool that could possibly be used to repair what she's done--but she's fighting for her life, and besides she's out of her mind. In a situation like that, how could wild magic do anything except make matters worse (break more Laws)?
(09/21/2005)

[dlbpharmd]

I have no memory of a "Law of Identity."

Troy was able to access the wild magic because a) the ring was freely given by Covenant; b) Covenant supported the use of the wild magic in the way that Troy was about to use it; and c) Troy's love of Elena gave him the passion necessary to access the wild magic - he required no trigger.

[Zarathustra]

dlbpharmd, it came from the GI. I edited my post to reflect this. It was indeed the Law of Identity, among others.

[wayfriend]

I think that the "law of identity" was thrown out by SRD casually, in order to frame an answer to the question. I don't think that there is a Law of Identity (capitol letters) per se. SRD is merely trying to say that the forestal respects that the use of the ring to save the Land falls on Covenant's head, and the responsibility cannot be assumed by another. People like Mhoram and Saltheart refused the ring when it was offered to them (IIRC?), and Troy should have refused it for the same reasons. The doom of the Land is Covenant's to bear.

BTW, I prefer the "Law of Payback is a B****" to the "Law of Consequences", personally.

[Zarathustra]

Wayfriend, but SRD explicitly says:

The Law of identity. As Mhoram says, Covenant *is* white gold. The use of his power by someone else violates his relationship with that power.

Clearly, it is related to the fact that TC is the white gold. SRD says so. It is rooted in what the wild magic is (WM=TC). This contradicts your interpretation:

SRD is merely trying to say that the forestal respects that the use of the ring to save the Land falls on Covenant's head, and the responsibility cannot be assumed by another.

However, I will concede that in the GI, this question makes SRD "squirm," in his words. He didn't have this explicitly thought out at the time of writing it, but comes up with the idea in the process of answering the question.

[dlbpharmd]

dlbpharmd, it came from the GI. I edited my post to reflect this. It was indeed the Law of Identity, among others.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

[wayfriend]

However, I will concede that in the GI, this question makes SRD "squirm," in his words. He didn't have this explicitly thought out at the time of writing it, but comes up with the idea in the process of answering the question.

Absolutely. And, specifically, his answers about the power of the white gold and about giving vs taking it from Covenant have changed. So we are left to figure out which of the author's explanations we agree with.

However, his answer does not contradict mine!

If Covenant is doomed to save or damn the Earth with wild magic, he needs his ring, and he needs to be in spiritual unity with it, in order to be able to express his passions entirely and completely through it. It must be *his* ring.

As I said earlier, much of the First Chronicles is about Covenant becoming adept with the wild magic. He has an organic relationship with that ring, which is essential, but there is still more to learn to articulate his passion through it. The spiritual unity of Covenant and the ring is not complete until the end of TPTP - it arises through use! - and when it is complete, Covenant's passion can be expressed entirely and completely through the ring, and it's wild magic invincible.

If you accept that, then what would happen if Covenant gives the ring to Troy before the spiritual untity is completed? The process is aborted. Instead, Troy becomes the owner of the ring, with the essential organic relationship to it. Now the spiritual unity that grows is that between Troy and the white gold ring.

Which is nice for Troy, but it sucks for the Land. Troy has power, but it is not *the* wild magic. He might defeat Kevin and save Elena, but he can't defeat Foul. Foul's victory is assured.

So the *violation* that the Forestal speaks of is the violation of the organic relationship and spiritual unity between Covenant and his ring. Troy would undermine and dismantle that relationship if he proceeded on the course he desired. It's a violation threatens the existence of the Land.

It is indeed about identity - Covenant and his ring must be one. Even if Troy gave it back the next day, his use of it would alter the ring, alter Covenant's relationship with it.

[Zarathustra]

I agree with nearly everything your said, except:

Even if Troy gave it back the next day, his use of it would alter the ring, alter Covenant's relationship with it.

Did Linden's, Elena's, or Kasreyn's use of the ring alter TC's relationship with it? Violate, yes. Alter? I don't believe so. And if this is true, then this paragraph isn't:

If you accept that, then what would happen if Covenant gives the ring to Troy before the spiritual untity is completed? The process is aborted. Instead, Troy becomes the owner of the ring, with the essential organic relationship to it. Now the spiritual unity that grows is that between Troy and the white gold ring.

The process wasn't aborted by Linden's, Elena's, or Kasreyn's use. So this cannot be the danger to which Wildwood refers.

[wayfriend]

The process wasn't aborted by Linden's, Elena's, or Kasreyn's use. So this cannot be the danger to which Wildwood refers.

It would be aborted if Covenant gave the ring to someone permanently. Because he would never use it any more, and spiritual unity grows from use.

I'm not sure Elena ever used the ring. It was certainly never given to her.

Kasreyn was never given the ring, and he never used it. He "caught" wild magic and reflected it back.

Linden never used the ring. She possessed Covenant, and made Covenant use the ring (a big difference). And by all accounts, it was a violation.

Troy was given the ring, but he had it only a moment. We know the Forestals summation of that case. But it was only a moment; whatever was the violation, it certainly had the potential to be huger, but by the intercession of the forestal, it was recoverable.

[dlbpharmd]

Wayfriend, that's about the best explanation of Covenant's relationship with the white gold that I've ever read.

Please clarify:

Linden never used the ring. She possessed Covenant, and made Covenant use the ring (a big difference). And by all accounts, it was a violation.

I can remember 2 times that Linden "used" wild magic prior to Covenant's death:
1) At the One Tree, she tried to use wild magic to abort her transformation back to Earth,
2) On Starfare's Gem, when she healed the wounded Giant.

Neither of these instances involved outright possession, however - at least not by the usually accepted definition of possession.

WGW, chapter 4:

Her expression stopped him. Her features wore the look of dreams. Without a word, she reached out, caught his half-hand by the wrist, stretched his arm like a rod over the Giant's pain.

Before he could react, she frowned sharply; and a blare of violation ripped across his mind.

...

Without warning, all his preconceptions were snatched apart.....Now her percipience had grown so acute that she could wield his ring without his bare volition.

I would also suggest that Linden did use the ring for herself, after Lord Foul's defeat, and after Covenant gave it to her.

[Zarathustra]

t would be aborted if Covenant gave the ring to someone permanently.

So you no longer subscribe to:

Even if Troy gave it back the next day, his use of it would alter the ring, alter Covenant's relationship with it.

??

If you're retracting this, then we're in agreement. Of course Covenant permanently giving up his ring would permanently alter his relationship to it. That's basically a tautology.

[iQuestor]

Well, I have to disagree, sort of; see, I don't completely buy this Law of Identity thing, or at least something is not right.

Laws are not easily broken; The Law of Death took nothing less than EarthBlood to break.

Its kind of like my favorite shirt slogan:
Gravity. Its not just a good idea, its the Law.

If Troy was breaking a Law, it seemed it would take a lot more effort on his part to do so, White Gold or no. Was white gold, lent freely by Covenant, enough for Troy to Break the Law, coupled with the trigger of his emotional distress? I do agree that it was Covenant's emotion that supplied that, rather than Troy's, because Covenant was the white gold.

I think this is a gap in the story's framework, because Linden's use of the white gold would also violate this Law. So we are left with it either did violate the Law, but there was no forrestal around to inform us, or SRD just was a little free with his dialog of the Forrestal, as was said earlier.

The Law of identity. As Mhoram says, Covenant *is* white gold. The use of his power by someone else violates his relationship with that power.

-- this episode reminds me of Mhoram's remark to Troy at this time, who said Troy was bound by the Oath, even after Troy said he had taken no Oath of Peace. Troy was not (nor was anyone else) supernaturally bound by the Oath; it was enforced by belief and custom, unlike, say, the Vow of the bloodguards.

Troy took the ring, and did in fact use it easily, so to me that says there was no structural law of the Land's universe (at the time SRD wrote the event) that prevented or even resisted him doing so, regardless of later explanations.

[wayfriend]

Iquestor: Laws can be broken, that's a given. The forestal stopped Troy because they could be; if they could not be broken, he would not have acted.

dlb: it's a matter of interpretation, and may be only mine. But it explains a lot. For instance, if Linden was weilding the ring, then the Elohim would not be needing to convince Linden to take the ring, since in principle if not in fact she had taken it already. I interpret "a blare of violation ripped across his mind" to refer to possession; possession is referred to as a violation throughout the story. And further it says, "He recoiled in shock rather than pain; her hold did not hurt him. Yet it bereft him of choice.", which also seems to conote a benign form of possession.

It's possible that Linden just uses the ring directly. She's able to use it, without touching it, at the end of WGW (although it seems to work much better when she picks it up). This is after it was given to her, BTW, and after TC was dead, so it's not possession in this case - which makes here feel infinitely better about it.

But consider: if this is so, then the "blare of violation" could only be Linden's interference with the spiritual unity of Covenant and his ring. It is the Law of Identity thing again, the same thing as in the Troy case. Later, it says "And it was a violation. Mhoram had said to him. You are the white gold. Wild magic had become a crucial part of his identity, and no one else had the right to use it, control it." This sounds remarkably like SRDs comment about the Law of Identity.

So the possession/use question actually doesn't destabalize my whole theory that much. (Thanks for the nice comment.)

[Zarathustra]

I don't completely buy this Law of Identity thing,

Sounds like a good time to send in a remark to the GI and tell SRD that he is wrong about his own writings.

[iQuestor]

Quote:
I don't completely buy this Law of Identity thing,

Sounds like a good time to send in a remark to the GI and tell SRD that he is wrong about his own writings.

I don't want to give the wrong impression by that remark, but I am at a loss to explain myself fully, but I will try again.

Covenant lent the ring to Troy, who was able to use it instantly with none of the trouble TC had with it. Caer Caveral noted the a Law was broken, or about to be, and turned troy into caer-caveral as price for letting the army scoot through his woods and also (apparently) to stop Troy from breaking this Law of Identity.

If you read further in my post, you will see that I meant that I don't buy his explanation completely and that (IMO) it is a hole in the story structure. My point is that :

A) Laws should be harder to break, because Troy gave the use of the ring no thought at all, and

2) Linden used the ring more than once, both with and without covenant's permission, and

3) Either the Law of Identity is what was about to be broken (which creates holes elsewhere around the fact that Linden was able to use it)
or the remark about Law meant something else.

so apply the Law of Identity to that situation, and it causes problems to arise somewhere else, in my opinion.

Others have pointed out that SRD was 'squirming' a bit on this topic as well. SRD isn't a god, he just a human, although a much better writer than most... certainly among my favorites. But I do not expect him to know and have thought out every little detail and plot evolution and significance of every implied blade of grass in the Land. There are going to be holes in the most well crafted story, and this is one of them, again my opinion.

Yes, SRD gave the answer about the law of Identity in the GI, but it was 30 years after he wrote the work. But viewpoints change, we change, he changed. If this point had been brought up thirty years ago, what answer would we have gotten then? The impact or import of the Law might not even then have been fully realized in his mind, and now he has written 6 more books based in the same Land. Linden might not have even been conceived at the time SRD wrote that eposide. He has had thirty years to think on this, and possibly thought about it a lot when the question was posted on the GI. then he had to think on it.... even you concede:

However, I will concede that in the GI, this question makes SRD "squirm," in his words. He didn't have this explicitly thought out at the time of writing it, but comes up with the idea in the process of answering the question.

SO I guess perhaps I am also saying what you said in that post, only not so clearly.

I myself write, although not fiction (anything saleable, that is) and have read my own stuff a year or so after the fact and felt differently about it. SO I am putting forth that SRD is also human and that the answer he put forth was possibly filtered through thirty more years of life. Its kind o flike the saying:

A Man cannot cross a river twice. It is not the same man, it is not the same river.

If he did originally intend the Law of Identity 30 years ago, which is also possible, then to me, this point in the story is a little awkward and shakey based on the rest of the story.

If I didn't adequately explain myself, then please just take it on good faith I am not disrespecting SRD, you, or anyone else, and am just trying to put forth my viewpoint, and in this case, I did not suffice.


Wayfriend said:

Iquestor: Laws can be broken, that's a given. The forestal stopped Troy because they could be; if they could not be broken, he would not have acted.

I know. My point is that it seems like it would have taken more to break the Identity law than Troy's instant capability to use the ring. Other Laws broken in the Land required the use of earthblood or the IllEarth stone. There was active intent to break a law in all cases, and this one just seemed like there was no effort on Troy's part to use the ring, and something with the force of Law would not be so.... frail? Does that make sense?

But consider: if this is so, then the "blare of violation" could only be Linden's interference with the spiritual unity of Covenant and his ring. It is the Law of Identity thing again, the same thing as in the Troy case. Later, it says "And it was a violation. Mhoram had said to him. You are the white gold. Wild magic had become a crucial part of his identity, and no one else had the right to use it, control it." This sounds remarkably like SRDs comment about the Law of Identity.

But where was such an occurance with Covenant when Hile used it? I dont think it mentions anything about this at that time. But in the second chrons, its there as you have said. My point is, the idea had grown in SRDs plot...

edited to add some comments. sorry to be so long winded.

[wayfriend]

3) Either the Law of Identity is what was about to be broken (which creates holes elsewhere around the fact that Linden was able to use it) or the remark about Law meant something else.

I would grant you that there is no such thing as a "Law of Identity". SRD made it up in his answer, because the question was, what "Law" was the Forestal talking about. Obviously, there is no specific Law which is being broken; the Forestal speaks in a general sense: "It is a breaking of Law." Not "It is a breaking of a Law", nor "It is a breaking of the Law of X". SRD, in trying to phrase his GI answer to be in tune with the question, probably did not intend to lay out some canonical information about the Land's workings. He's merely trying to describe something difficult by using framework of description.

I am quite happy to interpret Caer Caveral's comment "It is a breaking of Law" to mean "This is not supposed to happen". Caer Caveral is, himself, in a way, Law - he has spiritual unity with the Law he serves. So if he perceives that "this is not supposed to happen", it's okay by me if that has the gravitas of Law itself.

(And could it not be that some Law is harder to break than other Law, or that it is easier to break at certain times, or that, where wild magic is concerned, the puissance involved makes Law look like a pile of twigs?)

I believe it remains true that if Covenant loses the ring at that time, the Land is doomed, and that therefore it can be viewed as a violation - of the Land's necessity and the Creators will, if nothing else.

SRD's viewpoint has changed - there is a lengthy discussion of this in some thread, somewhere. (Maybe dlbpharmd remembers where?) His answers from 2004 are very different from his answers from 2005, on the topic of "other people using the ring". Earlier his position had to do with giving vs taking, and speaks about Covenent giving "subconsciously" even when he doesn't actually, in order to explain all the facts. Now his position seems to be anyone can use white gold, but only obtaining it in certain ways imparts the infinite power Foul needs.

From which you can conclude that you should make up an answer for yourself. I offer my answer because it may help you choose your own, and I loke people picking holes in it. There is clearly no "right" answer.