hile troy not leaving

[Sandgorgon rider]

Sorry about bringing up an old thread, but a thought occurred to me and this seemed the best place to put it.

There are several threads questioning why Hile Troy didn't return to his world when Atarian died while summoning him. I was thinking what if Atarian with her despair and limited lore knowledge truly did something unique. In the process of summoning Hile Troy to the Land she really switched places with Troy and appeared in Troy's/Covenent's world next to Troy's burnt dead body. Now Troy and Atarian are stuck in each other's world with their summoner stuck in the other world.

Atarian, after a few days wandering around trying to get light from piles of rocks and rubbing dirt into her wounds, goes insane and plots how she can get back at Covenent for ruining her life. She forms a wierd religious cult, recruits Joan and tries to figure out how to bring Lord Foul into this world. After 10 years or so she figures out to do so and her group builds the fire at Haven Farm and the events at the beginning of TWL play out.

Some time after Covenent and Linden are transported to The Land, Atarian feels she has completed her purpose and jumps into the fire burning herself to death. It so happens that the jump into the fire coresponds in time with Sunder stabbing Hile Troy/Caer-Caveral with the Krill. So both Troy and Atarian die again in burning flame completing the circle.

[Cmdr_Floyd]

<quote> 'Trell, answer me. What were you doing out there yesterday? - at that grave? Trell! The word 'grave' penetrated Trell's passion. Abruptly, he wrapped his arms around his chest, hunched forward. Through his tears, he glared at Troy. 'You are a fool!' he hissed. 'Blind! She wasted her life.'

and....

'Perhaps.' Lord Mhoram said grimly. This time his tone compelled Troy's attention. Troy stared at Mhoram with a gaze thick with dread. 'He has abundent reason to visit that grave', the Lord went on. 'Atarian Trell-mate is buried there. She died in the act which summoned you to the Land. She gave her life in an effort to regain ur-Lord Thomas Covenant - but she failed of her purpose. Your presence here is the outcome of her Peace-less grief and her hunger for retribution.'

and.....

Was Covenant right? Were all his plans only so much despair work, set in motion by the extravagance of Atarian's death?<quote>

hope this helps to answer the query.....

[Relayer]

Atarian, after a few days wandering around trying to get light from piles of rocks and rubbing dirt into her wounds, goes insane and plots how she can get back at Covenent for ruining her life. She forms a wierd religious cult...

[hierachy]

ZOMG!

This was the first thread I ever created.

[Trapper]

Just a few thoughts:

Atiaran summoned Troy while totally overcome by the grip of despair. Unlike, say, Triock, who had learned to live with his hatred (although it had made him emotionally stunted like Covenant, too numb to be so useful a tool of Foul). As such she was a tool of the Despiser.

Could it be that she ended up summoning a "blind" person because she despised herself for being blind to the danger that Covenant posed to her daughter? Or because gnawing self-doubt made her feel at the last moment that she was "blindly" working into Foul's hands?

(nb I didn't put either of those ideas as well as I would have liked to, but doing it better would set me rambling for hours )

[jwaneeta]

Okay, this question always brings up another question for me: at the time of his summoning, HileTroy was hanging out of his firetrap building with the heat scorching his hands. He said after a while he just couldn't hold on anymore, and started to fall. Then poof, he woke up in the land with the smell of quick fried Atarian in his nostrils.

I can see Troy dying because he fell nine floors. But how does the fire get him in the real world? Unless maybe the building became so involved that the lower floors exploded in a fireball which he fell into? Um?

I think I'll have to go back to contemplating the thematic beauty of "Troy dying in his fire as Atarian dies in hers," and stop sweating the mechanics of this thing, because I just can't work it out.

[iQuestor]

I had questions about exactly why Hile stayed when Atarian died; I had posted a question here on KW, but also went to the GI. Here is the answer SRD gave.

Bob: Mr. Donaldson, thanks for the awesome series. I cannot wait to read Fatal Revenant .

I have a question that has bothered me, and I havent seen an answer in the GI, so I apologize if I have missed it in the TC series or the GI:

When someone is summoned to the land, they stay until the summoner is killed; this seems to be Law, except for Hile Troy. He was summoned by Atarian Trell-Mate , but she died during the summoning. Shouldn't he have likewise been called back to his balcony ledge to die in the apartment fire?

SRD Answered:

I've always operated under the assumption that Troy died in his fire *before* Atiaran died in hers. Certainly "The Last Chronicles" is predicated on that assumption. (07/22/2006)

Spoiler

I think he also means Linden is now Dead in RL, and cannot ever go back. WHich would seem in keeping with what we think we know about how the series ends.

[wayfriend]

Given what the topic of the GI question was about, I think "Troy died in his fire" merely means that he died during the time of the fire, and not afterwards. I don't think SRD was describing what Troy died of. So he died in his fire - of injuries due to falling from the balcony.

I don't think that this breaks the verisimilitude of Caer Caveral's death in any way. It was not fire, after all, that did him in then, either: it was Sunder stabbing him with the krill. Fire was just a related phenomenon in both cases.

If there's any question on the parallelity holding up, it is the correlation between a blow from the krill and a fall of nine stories. Perhaps Hile fell on a fence ...

[jwaneeta]

Thanks, guys, you comfort me strangely. I'm very much invested in the fire theme in TCTC and Caer-Caveral's arc -- fire's a powerful symbol in mysticism and I think it makes CC one of the most "spiritual" characters in the Chrons.

And stabbing has a symbolic place too, expecially in conjunction with fire. (Nice idea with the fence, WF. If it were one of those iron railings they have in urban centers that'd work just fine. /ghoul)

Don't mind me, I could write an essay about it. I even gave a panel presentation at a con once, about the Soul's Journey as it relates to supporting characters (who are often freer to be blatantly symbolic than main characters). Nerd City. But I won't do it here, I promise.

Okay, another question: When Covenant was mortally wounded in the real world, he seemed to know by intuition what his was condition was: he sent Linden back at one point to keep him alive just a bit longer, but afterward he seemed to know it was all up. He knew he'd died in the real world and therefore was going to cop it facing Foul, too.

People have mentioned that Troy seemed to know he was dead. I can remember him saying, "I'm not ever going back," but in context he was saying, "I wouldn't go back for anything, this place roxx0rs." It's reasonable to assume he deduced he was dead, but was it the same thing? Did he know, like Covenant? Is the dead-there-stuck-here thing made explicit in his case?

I ask because of

Spoiler

the implications for Linden in the Last Chrons. Does she assume she's dead, or does she know she's dead at home? Will it directly influence her choices in terms of fatalistic courage, as it did with TC?

And just how do they all know? Is it a revelation or just common sense?

Oh, dear... I feel so very geeky now.

[iQuestor]

I guess Linden knew she took a bullet in the chest, blacked out, then then next thing she knew she was talking to Foul. There is a bullet hole in her blouse. I think that experience, as well as knowing what happened to covenant last time, she probably knows there is little hope for her in RL. She is a doctor, would know exactly what would have to happen to save her.

I think this knowledge will play a significant role in how she acts and decides things in the series.

It's kind of like my Dad, who died of Cancer 11 years ago. He told me one time that it was (in some ways) liberating to know his fate (it was stage 4 when they found it, he had little time) but it freed him in many ways. He didnt worry about little things at all, there was nothing more pressing than his health, and he lived the last months pretty much exactly how he wanted to. He focused on what was important: Family, friends, etc.

I think Linden has the opportunity to view the challenges in the Land like this, sort out what is important, and what is not, and dedicate herself fully. Whether she takes this opportunity, it remains to be seen.

[wayfriend]

Don't mind me, I could write an essay about it. I even gave a panel presentation at a con once, about the Soul's Journey as it relates to supporting characters (who are often freer to be blatantly symbolic than main characters). Nerd City. But I won't do it here, I promise.

Oh please! Do it here. In front of us!

(Really.)

Anyway ... I guess at some point you have to stop explaining things and get on with the story. I have no problem with Covenant knowing he was dying - he did wake up with a bullet-hole in his chest, healed by white magic, and he knows about the Law of Going Out the Way You Came In. So why not? Do we need to have ten more pages of story to explain how he knows?

I think Hile Troy knew, too, by deduction. But I don't think he thought about it more than once because he didn't want to go back, ever. So I don't think it had any effect on what he did. His part to play - a Covenant foill - depended on his having a jump-in, fists-swinging attitude. There's no place for that kind of thinking in his character.

[A Gunslinger]

Don't mind me, I could write an essay about it. I even gave a panel presentation at a con once, about the Soul's Journey as it relates to supporting characters (who are often freer to be blatantly symbolic than main characters). Nerd City. But I won't do it here, I promise.

Oh please! Do it here. In front of us!

(Really.)

Anyway ... I guess at some point you have to stop explaining things and get on with the story. I have no problem with Covenant knowing he was dying - he did wake up with a bullet-hole in his chest, healed by white magic, and he knows about the Law of Going Out the Way You Came In. So why not? Do we need to have ten more pages of story to explain how he knows?

I think Hile Troy knew, too, by deduction. But I don't think he thought about it more than once because he didn't want to go back, ever. So I don't think it had any effect on what he did. His part to play - a Covenant foill - depended on his having a jump-in, fists-swinging attitude.

Whether he was fit as a fiddle, Troy wasn't EVER going back. He wanted to be inb the Land where he was important and not disabled.

As for Linden, she lacks the ability YET to let go. She wants to be sure that Jeramiah is OK before she can be unfettered from the RL link...not only that, but she wants to IMPROVE his condition...very dangerous indeed.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

erm... I expect i just forgot the reason, but why is it that Troy does not return to the "real" world when Atiaran dies summoning him?
ps. Pardon my ignorance...and spelling.

Between this and Cov's call to the think-tank, I always assumed that SRD intended to show that HT was in-fact also a fig of Cov's internal struggles