The End of the Third Chronicles Speculation Thread

[Koriku]

Am I overstepping to suggest that we discuss how we feel the Last Chronicles will end? We have a fair amount of information to give us ideas:

1. The Runes of the Earth
If we assume that TROTE has set us off in approximately the right direction, this gives us some ability to gauge the direction of the books.

2. (Dis)Information from the Gradual Interview

3. The Titles
The titles are, if I remember correctly, TROTE, Fatal Revenant, Shall Pass Utterly, and The Last Dark. We have speculated (with some small amount of confirmation/support from SRD) that Fatal Revenant refers to Thomas Covenant, back from the dead.

...

So, let's come out with it. I'll "spoiler" my speculation, just in case someone pops into the thread to say that this isn't okay.

Spoiler

I believe that The Last Dark refers to the end of the Land and the entire world associated with it. Some of the reasoning that has brought me to this:

1. The title. The way the titles have been in the past suggests something of the outcome, or the content. The Last Dark could equally mean that there is no more darkness after the story concludes, or that the final darkness comes and there is no more light.

2. Taking responsibility has been a theme within the books. The first Chronicles ends when Covenant accepts that, real or not, saving the Land will fall to him. In the second Chronicles, Linden tries to evade the Sunbane to some extent, and avoid the responsibility that her health-sense provides. ("With great power comes great responsibility.")

So, here's the twist: I believe that the end of the Land is the Right Thing(tm). Not because I hate the Land, but because using the Land's Earth as a prison is NOT the Right Thing(tm). It might be practical or pragmatic, but it is wholly unjust for the Creator to leave Foul there.

Ultimately, it is likely that the Creator and Foul are connected, either as aspects of the same being, or as some kind of cosmic equals. Some have speculated that the Creator prefers the status quo, because if he and Foul are equals, then when the AoT falls, the fight will come down to something of a coin flip. I tend to agree with this.

However, going back to my second point, even if the fight is a coin flip, it *IS* the Creator's battle. The people of the Land should not suffer forever simply because the Creator is unprepared to deal with his own equal/brother/darkside. The end of the Land's Earth is the only way for the Creator to take responsibility for the harm he has allowed his creation, and to finally shoulder the burden of the battle against Foul for himself.

Maybe.

Spoiler

Something that would invalidate my whole idea, is that there is a difference between incarceration and rehabilitation. If the Creator is trying to teach Foul something about beauty and courage, the Land is a great place for it.

A prison is simply a place to hold someone against his/her will, and it's tragic for the whole world to suffer simply because it's been used as a trap for Foul. However, if it's meant to educate Foul about nobility and beauty, it might be the perfect place for it.

Doesn't it suck when you have self-canceling speculation?

[Corwin]

Well, i've been rereading, and meditating on the subject of the chronicles as a whole, how it could all come back in a big loop and fully validate itself.... it would have to be a balanced equation so to speak. now how the hell do you balance something as huge as the land and everything it represents? it's too much. But i do have some ideas and when i've sobered up i will post them as a whole for your speculation or criticism. Peace out guys.

- Corwin

[drew]

I think that it is Time for the Land's Earth to come to an end.

It is time for the WOTWE to awaken.

A the end of TPTP the Creator said that Creators cannot feel despair, because they can simply create new worlds.

It's possible that Foul knows that this world is comming to its end, and is simply biding his time waiting for it to happen.

The question is, when the World end, deos the Arch of Time? AS that is Foul's true prison; with Covenant guarding it, it should still be able to hold him, even with Joan's ring, it's at best a fifty-fifty chance that Foul can break his way out...but with Joan's ring and Covenant's ring (Enter Linden Avery to the Land)-Foul's chances of breakingfree of the AOT during the Worl's End are Greatly increased--

I think this is Foul's last oppertunaty; Earlier, in the time of Keven, and during the Illearth Years, Foul wanted dominion over the Earth; AS his Raver started infiltrating the Clave, and he slowly came back into his power, he must have realized that the End of the World was coming soon; and dominion over it was moot...what he needed was to escape; escape from the Arch of Time; which is why he summoned Covenant again, not to achive the power over the Land, but to use the Ring to break free.

Foul must realize (and SRD says he is etting smarter) that if he's still in the AOT when the World end, he'll be trapped forever, trapped in nothingness, with no one to summon, no Ravers to controll, no nothin'.

So now, there's Skurj; there's Kevin's Dirt..there's no Lords or Lore, so he started what could against the AOT, got Joan to start breaking it apart...then he got LInden in the Land, and Bullshitted her enough to TIme Travel herself, thus further wekening Time...Damn he IS getting smarter.

[callback]

I believe that SRD has stated that the destruction of the world (by the waking of the worm) would include the breaking of the arch.

[mortem]

There are a couple of other threads discussing this too (including one I started which is a few threads below this one)

kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9347

[wayfriend]

... and also:

• The End of the Land?
  
  Thought's on the ending of the series?
  
  Some musings on the overall plot
  
  The Fall of the Land: Sad Musings
  
  The LAST Chronicles . . .
  
  Will the Last Chronicles come full circle?

There's a treasure trove in the earlier posts!

[Cagliostro]

Okay, I'm not sure what all has been discussed before, and I'm not quite sure if this is the best thread to spit out my theory, but here it is:

My suspicion of the end won't be the complete destruction scenario that I read in the few threads I've read through. I don't think the whole world that the Land is connected with will be no more. Let me set up what I do think by a geeky comparison.

When your hard drive becomes too corrupted due to viruses - which makes more sense? Do you just go out and buy a new computer (well, some would, yes...but...), or would you just wipe your hard drive and start over, installing the operating system fresh and reloading whatever software you have? I think the second scenario might be a good analogy of what will happen at the end. I see a new Ritual of Desecration. But Kevin did this out of despair. I see Linden doing this out of a hope to save the Land.

Y'see, Covenant didn't really do the job in the First Chronicles, as he just made Foul go away.
The Second Chronicles, Linden recreated the Staff of Law, but it seems the Laws were not mended. Kind of like trying to reload your favorite software that has become corrupted, even though viruses are affecting the operating system. Not a complete and accurate analogy, but the best I can do. In the Last Chronicles, I suspect probably Linden will wipe it clean and set up the Laws all nice and neat again. The Laws have become virus ridden, and more are breaking down with each new badness.

Another thing that makes this make sense to me is there was no real price paid at the end of the First Chronicles, per se. Yeah, it was sad to see Foamfollower and all that, but the stakes for the reader were less than at the end of the Second Chronicles. Covenant died, and that was quite a blow. So how to top that? Ruin the Land. Only makes sense. But Covenant died with a plan in mind, I believe. Just like ruining the Land will be the only way to make it whole again.

I dunno...just speculation.

[Avatar]

I see a new Ritual of Desecration. But Kevin did this out of despair. I see Linden doing this out of a hope to save the Land.

Nice to see you around Cagliostro. That's a very interesting idea.

--A

[Ur Dead]

The Last Dark..

Spoiler

The end of Lord Foul. Or at least a nullifaction of his malice upon the land. If it's the last period of darkness. Then maybe light will shine fully upon the land.

As long as I have read this forum. I havn't seen a side generated in this direction. Maybe something to think about.

Maybe with the exception of Koriku.

[Zarathustra]

I think the only way to deduce how this story is going to end is to consider the reasons why Donaldson is writing this stuff in the first place. He writes books because of the end. That's the whole point. The books are always a solution to the underlying character issues. What are those issues and solutions?

Reading some old GI posts, I came across this:

Alan: why a third series?
all the way through the 1st series people died to give covenant a chance against foul and I can understand why foul came back. In the 2nd chronicles however TC is raised to the stature of pure wild magic between foul and the arch. Linden then creates a new staff of law. this staff is created by the pinicle of the urvile law (vain whose purpose is greatly to be desired) and the elohim, beings of pure earth power. I fail to see how foul can come back. could you please explain.

puzzled of UK

I'm tempted to say, Read the book and find out. But that might miss the point of your question. How is it possible for Lord Foul to recover his vitality? My attitude is, How is it possible for him *not* to recover his vitality? Of course, there are some practical points covered in "The Runes of the Earth" that I don't want to mention here. But the story of the "Covenant" books so far describes a couple of (I believe) temporary solutions to what we might call "the problem of evil." And as long as those solutions ("power" in the first trilogy, "surrender" in the second) are temporary, Lord Foul *must* return. In "The Last Chronicles" my characters will be looking for a more enduring solution. (I, of course, already know what that solution is.)

(10/30/2004)

So all we have to do is figure out what the "enduring solution" to the problem of evil is, and we have the ending. Simple! The "problem of evil," in classical philosophy, is roughly: given that God is a) omnipotent and b) absolutely good, then how is evil possible? An omnipotent God has the power to get rid of evil if He wants to, and an absolutely good God would indeed want to get rid of it.

Many solutions have been given to resolve this paradox. Some have said that evil is necessary for free will. I think Donaldson would tentively agree with that, given the importance he places on freewill. However, I get the feeling that the "problem of evil" for Donaldson isn't really how does evil exist but rather, how do we get rid of it. He's not dealing with a Christian worldview and the problems therein. So he's not really concerned with the "problem of evil" in the classic sense, because he accepts evil as a given, though he doesn't necessarily accept the Christian God as a given--that's not his story.

So, what does he mean by "evil?" And the "problem of evil?" If we're not limiting ourselves to the Christian worldview, but more general concepts, I'd say it's a tension between absolute morality and relative morality. The paradox for his story is about how the Creator can fight his enemy without destroying the Arch and thus freeing his enemy. This paradox only arises in the first place because of the fundamental separation of the Creator and the Despiser—a separation held fast by the Arch. One side exists outside the Arch, while the other side exists inside it. This gulf between the two is conceptually Absolute--but it is a gulf which only arises out of how we define the two concepts. You don't have to define Good and Evil in such absolute, distinct terms if you're willing to admit that good and evil are relative and intertwined. But such an "intertwining" also means that a lot of stuff we care about—which lies in between—gets destroyed. Like the Land.

Let's back up. In the first and second Chrons, we were dealing with absolute Good and Evil. Fighting Evil and accepting Evil didn't end it altogether because these were responses to an Absolute conception. Both of those attitudes are necessary in order to be authentic with regards to the existence of Evil, yet they don’t destroy it. You can't give in to Evil (you must resist it), and yet you can't deny that it exists (you must accept it). Those are the two conclusions SRD came to in the 1st and 2nd Chrons. What else is there as long as Evil is Absolute?

Well, if there were no Evil, you wouldn't have to fight it OR accept it. An "enduring solution" wouldn't require either of those attitudes. But how can that be authentic? How can there NOT be Evil in the world?

What if "evil" isn't really Evil? What if, like Nieztsche, we learn to interpret our old absolute morality into a relative morality? Absolute Evil disappears. Donaldson has claimed that he picked the name "Lord Foul" to be obvious, to let everyone know he was explicitly dealing with archetypal Evil, rather than pussyfooting around with a name like "Sauron," which timidly denies the "evil incarnate" intensions of the character. However, though that was his original intensions for Lord Foul, he has admitted that his conception for LF is evolving, changing, becoming more complex. I believe this goes beyond making the character himself more "sympathetic" by explaining his motivations, but it also includes making the character's symbolism more complex. Pure, Absolute Evil is no longer what he represents. Lord Foul as an archetype has come to represent the more relative conception of evil.

So what does this mean to the text? I think that many here have already touched upon the likely answer: a joining of Creator and Despiser. In relative morality, Good and Evil are no longer separate and absolute, but a complex, changing mixture of desirable and undesirable. It is defined by context and outcome. That last part is especially important to Nietzsche's point in Beyond Good and Evil.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil

In the "pre-moral period of mankind", actions were judged by their consequences. Over the past 10,000 years, however, a morality has developed where actions are judged by their origins (their motivations) not their consequences. This morality of intentions is, according to Nietzsche, a "prejudice" and "something provisional [...] that must be overcome" (§32).

This becomes especially important when you realize that Linden's central problem in Runes is her grappling with the fact that Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. This sentence is repeated at least three times near the end of the book, and it represents the struggle she has been going through when all her decisions have been "evil means" to accomplish an end which is merely "relatively good." It's only good to her and her son. Her goal is not some "Absolute Good" like saving the Land. And Donaldson explicitly points out that her decisions are distinct from Covenant risking the Land to save the little girl in TIW. At that time, Mhoram said the Land can't be doomed by such means or intensions, because they were good. But the problem isn't that simple this time. The Land CAN be doomed by her choices to save one child, and her means AREN'T "Good." [See the Dissection thread for the relevant quotes for these issues.]

How these thematic necessities play out in narrative terms will take a lot more guess work. I suppose the Land will be destroyed. It will probably be Linden's fault. But that won't be Absolutely Evil. She might end up saving her son--a relative good. And the Creator and Lord Foul will rejoin. What does that mean in terms of SRD's cosmology? Gosh, I don't have a clue. A new Arch will be created, one that encompasses both good and evil? One where Creation and Despite aren't separate, and therefore their "battles" are not quite so catastrophic? Maybe the two entities will no longer be external, archetypal "Gods," but dispersed into all of us, so that we each carry a Creator and Despiser within us, making us all capable of much smaller acts of creation and destruction. But that sounds an aweful lot like the "real" world, doesn't it . . .? Which, if you ask me, is the whole point of all of this.

[Avatar]

Great post.

--A

[IrrationalSanity]

Spoiler

Something that would invalidate my whole idea, is that there is a difference between incarceration and rehabilitation. If the Creator is trying to teach Foul something about beauty and courage, the Land is a great place for it.

A prison is simply a place to hold someone against his/her will, and it's tragic for the whole world to suffer simply because it's been used as a trap for Foul. However, if it's meant to educate Foul about nobility and beauty, it might be the perfect place for it.

Doesn't it suck when you have self-canceling speculation?

Yeah, doesn't it!

Spoiler

So essentially, you are providing the "grain of truth" in the lie of the a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells legend...

[Zarathustra]

Charles W. Adams: You have stated previously that the idea for the 3rd chronicles came at the same time you came up with the idea for the second chronicles (at least, that's what I understood). Also, you have said that you work backwords, that you have to see the end and then work towards that end.

Did you have to come up with the ending for the 3rd chronicles in order for you to "get to" the ending of the 2nd chronicles? Or were they separate enough such that you could write the 2nd without knowing much of the 3rd (except for the ending)?

Thanks.

In this specific case, the ending for "The Second Chronicles" came first. But that inspiration led me *immediately* to the ending of "The Last Chronicles": a rush rather like an avalanche of ideas. Or a syllogism. I didn't experience a pause between "if this" and "then that". If you see what I mean. Certainly my knowledge of "The Last Chronicles" was sufficient to let me build all of the loopholes and loose ends that I would eventually need into "The Second Chronicles".

(07/25/2007)

Damn, there he goes again! If it was so obvious to him, why can't we figure it out?!? The Last Chronicles springs naturally from the end of the 2nd. Not just the set-up, but the "final solution" to Despite. Man, this makes me want to reread the 2nd Chrons.

Have we ever had a thread about those "loopholes and loose ends?" A list of possible candidates? Surely breaking the Law of Death (or was it Life?) was a big one. TC becoming the Arch was another. The merewives and Cail are other obvious clues. But I have a feeling that there are more subtle things, like how the Staff was formed and the corruption of the Elohim.

[wayfriend]

I would add:
+ Linden has Covenant's ring
+ broken Law of Life
+ Nom merges with rent Raver
+ TC absorbs Lord Foul's power
+ new Staff of Law is alive/different
+ Sunder and Hollian's son
+ Sunder, Hollian, and son's resurrection
+ The hand that Caer Caveral and the krill had in the resurrection
+ The Haruchai's vow re Revelstone
+ the fate of Kastenessen
+ the fate of the Colossus Elohim
+ the ur-viles ultimate plan/weird re Vain
+ other croyel spoken of
+ other sandgorgons
+ the Sarangrave remains evil
+ no more forestals
+ Ramen and Ranyhyn south of the mountains
+ Consequences of sinking One Tree, Bareisle, and Ak-Haru
+ Consequences of Vain's contact with the One Tree's defenses
+ The darkness in the Elohim
+ The Elohim's unexplained need for Ringweilder and Sunsage to be one.
+ The new government of Brathair
+ The newfound route from Gianthome to the Land
+ The destruction of the krill (what was weakened?)

[Ur Dead]

[Way friend ,some things are pertaint and others I have my doubts but here my take on your list..
(Just for discussion purposes)

[There are potential FR spoilers which I have spoiler tagged - dlbpharmd]

+ Linden has Covenant's ring- No doubt and she doesn't want to give it up.
+ broken Law of Life and death
+ Nom merges with rent Raver --- Nom maybe not be around.
+ TC absorbs Lord Foul's power -- Doesn't have it any more, but may aquired a power thru the AoT.
+ new Staff of Law is alive/different - I don't think Findail will escape soon.
+ Sunder and Hollian's son -- An old "crazy" man who hears the world speak. Now thats a historian. Full of Earthpower.
+ Sunder, Hollian, and son's resurrection - From the broken Laws
+ The hand that Caer Caveral and the krill had in the resurrection - See above
+ The Haruchai's vow re Revelstone - Maybe play a factor
+ the fate of Kastenessen -- A biggie in these books
+ the fate of the Colossus Elohim - Maybe be a factor

[mod edit - the following line is potential FR spoiler.]

Spoiler

+ the ur-viles ultimate plan/weird re Vain -- Manacles?!

+ other croyel spoken of - seems to be a bane of the Land
+ other sandgorgons -- are they still around?
+ the Sarangrave remains evil -- a constant throughout.

Spoiler

+ no more forestals -- may not be the final end of them.

+ Ramen and Ranyhyn south of the mountains -- Ranyhan have survived, they are a factor
+ Consequences of sinking One Tree, Bareisle, and Ak-Haru - Still around, hidden, protected by the Ak-Haru, altho Brinn may not be the primary caretaker now.
+ Consequences of Vain's contact with the One Tree's defenses- was needed for vain to attain the perfect wood structure.
+ The darkness in the Elohim - Yea, Foul got there first.
+ The Elohim's unexplained need for Ringweilder and Sunsage to be one. - was needed for the second books, may not apply now.
+ The new government of Brathair - who knows if Brathair is still around, especially after the demise of the Kemper. Maybe the Sandgorgons were released or Nom stopped the imprisonment.
+ The newfound route from Gianthome to the Land- Rediscovered and the route is remembered by the Giants.
+ The destruction of the krill (what was weakened?) Where is Loric's Krill??

[dlbpharmd]

Please be careful about FR spoilers in this forum.

[Zarathustra]

Minor FR spoiler, chapter 2:

Spoiler

Esmer's speech about good and evil. Specifically: "That which appears evil need not have been so from the beginning, and need not remain so until the end."

This certainly goes along with my theory about relative good and evil above. It seems like Donaldson is indeed busy on his "enduring solution to the problem of evil." And that solution is to reinterpret it in less absolute terms. I wonder how it will play out.

I know this post doesn't contain much besides the spoiler, but it is actually on topic and relevant to this discussion (though saying exactly how is itself a minor spoiler). So I'm not sure what you mods want to do with it. I like it here. Just don't read the spoiler if you don't want to hear one sentence from FR!