Both Anele and Gollum have a circumstial manner in referring to certain things.
Gollum: It/Precious (One Ring) [also his "birthday present"], He (Sauron), She (Shelob).
Anele: it (caesure), they (Masters), things (ur-viles), birthright (Staff of Law).
Both Anele and Gollum often refer to themselves in the third person (see also: the Mahdoubt). Talking in the first person is in both cases a sign of greater-than-usual mental clarity.
Both have something that looks like a dissociative disorder, except that it's really something far nastier and caused by magic. There is the "pitiful" side and the "evil, dangerous" side.
Both Gollum and Anele are old, far beyond their normal span, sustained by a power that also keeps them much stronger than one would suppose from their worn exterior. Both have interesting eyes and have lived in mountains a very long time.
Both have possessed and lost an artifact of great power. Both have developed a mental block about it. Gollum claims the Ring is his birthday present. Anele, on the other hand, prefers to flee when the subject is mentioned, and claims the Staff of Law is his birthright. However...
My theory is that Anele has blocked the entire episode from his mind because there is something very bad there, way worse than what we learned in Runes about him leaving the Staff behind. My theory is the Staff of Law was NOT Anele's birthright and he did NOT receive it by lawful means. I think he had an older sibling, or Sunder and Hollian were not yet ready to retire, but Anele took the Staff anyway, possibly killing someone in the process. But because the Staff was not freely given, Anele could not wield its power, and that's why he left the Staff behind when investigating the caesure.Anele wrote:My recall is disturbed. Have my parents perished? Did I receive my birthright from their failing hands? I am uncertain.
I don't know if Anele came up with his crime himself or if it was suggested to him by someone like a corrupted Elohim or a speedily recovered Lord Foul, but I think he retired to the mountains either to flee punishment for his crime or because he was ashamed about its inability to wield the Staff that revealed it wasn't really his.
Moreover, there is the possibility that the Staff of Law itself isn't innocent of Anele's fate. The new Staff isn't like the old one. It's within the realm of possibility that Vain/Findail's involvement makes it a treacherous Staff indeed. People like Linden don't sense any wrongness in the Staff, but the One Ring has qualities that make everyone think of it as their Precious, Lord Foul successfully inflitrated Kevin's Council, and the Mahdoubt is charming people right and left. Indeed, it may be that Anele turns out to be our Gollum and the Staff of Law is our One Ring.
