Lord Foul's Bane is ...

[aTOMiC]

Dang it Danlo! Leave it to you to come up with actually a great answer. Bravo.

[Furls Fire]

I went and looked at those manuscript pages again for LFB. It's so cool...if you notice, in the table of contents there, Chapter Two "You cannont hope" is missing, and the last chapter was named "Victim" instead of "Survived".

And, is that still yet another title for the book?? "Foul's Ritual"???

Oh..and guys...the white gold wild magic is The Power that Preserves...

Hail Unbeliever! Keeper and Covenant,
Unoathed truth and wicked's bane,
Ur-Lord Illender, Prover of Life;
Hail! Covenant!
Dour-handed wild magic wielder,
Ur-Earth white gold's servant and Lord--
Yours is the power that preserves.
Sing out, people of the Land--
Raise obeisance!
Hold honor and glory high to the end of days:
Keep clean the truth that was won!
Hail Unbeliever!
Covenant!
Hail!

[Fist and Faith]

Heh. I'll give you that one, Fire. What with it being right there in the song and all.

And Prover of Life has got to be the coolest title!

[Furls Fire]

Way cool title "Illender" is awesome too

Of course, that made me cry too when I read it the first 100 or so times. I tell ya, that's all these books do is make a me a weeping wreck!!

[birdandbear]

Furl said:

I tell ya, that's all these books do is make a me a weeping wreck!!

Funny how that's so much of their appeal. I mean, the way you're so defenseless against every horrible, emotionally damaging thing that happens, because they get you hooked through the soul.

[Furls Fire]

they sure do! People aske me, "why do you keep re-reading those books if they depress you so much?' And I tell them..

they don't depress me, they uplift me, because thru all that pain and evil, these people prevail. And it is marvelous and wondrous. I don't cry from depression, I cry in elation for them all.

[Ylva Kresh]

Wait!
I have a new idea! What if the bane acctually depended on what happened in story - like the bane shifts during the storytelling! For the creator it could have been Foul, later possible Covenant and the White Gold. For Foul it could have been the Creator, the Land, Covenant, The Illearthstone, the White Gold. For Covenant it could be Leprosy, Foul, Lena, the rape, the land, the guilt, the boots, the white gold, ranyhyn, for Lena it could be Foul, Covenant, the ranyhyn, Elena, for the lords and people of the Land it could be Foul (always seem to come back to him?), Covenant, the illearthstone, ravers, war, etc...

[Ur-Chico]

I didn't vote...At first I was going to say the Illearth Stone, then I was going to chose TC. But as I thought about it I asked myself, "How many times did anyone mention that White Gold had ever been used in The Land? Did TC bring it to the Land for the first time? If yes, then White Gold would have been his bane.

[Dragonlily]

I was wondering why no one had said the White Gold. It was the combination of Covenant and his white gold.

[Forestal]

not so... i think the white gold was only as destructive as the person who weilds it... so for example if kevin held the white gold, it would act alot differently then it would to TC. TC was just the wrong person with the wrong ring at the wrong time...

[Dragonlily]

A person's bane is the thing that can destroy that person. It isn't a weapon that person can use against others.

As in ratsbane, rat poison.

Or am I misunderstanding your meaning, Forrestal?

"A cause of harm, ruin, or death: 'Obedience,/Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,/Makes slaves of men' (Percy Bysshe Shelley)."
American Heritage Dictionary

[[Syl]]

Hmmm. Let's examine this.

bane ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bn)
n.
Fatal injury or ruin: “Hath some fond lover tic'd thee to thy bane?” (George Herbert).

A cause of harm, ruin, or death: “Obedience,/Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,/Makes slaves of men” (Percy Bysshe Shelley).
A source of persistent annoyance or exasperation: “The spellings of foreign names are often the bane of busy copy editors” (Norm Goldstein).
A deadly poison.

Well, this doesn't help much. We all pretty much know that a bane is something bad, or at least acts counter to something. For clarity, we'll define a bane as a "bad thing."

So, it's Lord Foul's Bad Thing. The question is, who is it bad for? Lord Foul? The Land, lords, or Covenant. Since nothing bad seems to happen to Foul, I'm going to say it's bad for others, and Foul possesses this bad thing.

My original guess at this bad thing that Foul has would be the Illearth Stone. However, Foul doesn't actually possess the stone until after Drool dies.

So, what else does Foul have. Drool? Well, he does fit the definition of "a source of persistent annoyance or exasperation" to Covenant throughout the book. Until I have a better answer, I say, sure. It's Drool. He only gets to be in one book. Might as well make him the title character.

[W.B.]

Usually it seems "bane" is used in the sense of "the bane of my existance" (or like ratsbane above and wolfsbane), something that causes me pain or annoyance not something I can use against others, so Foul's bane would be something that causes him harm, ruin, or death. Or persistant annoyance or exasperation, which, sadly, isn't as grand and sweeping as "ruin"...

[Skyweir]

you make a good point Joy .. with the white gold ..

but was white gold LF's bane? or was it the key to his liberation?

[Dragonlily]

you make a good point Joy .. with the white gold ..

but was white gold LF's bane? or was it the key to his liberation?

He was so desperate to get it into his own hands, that it had to be a bane as long as it was out of his control. It was essential for him to persuade Covenant to give it to him. That's why he worked so hard to get Covenant to doubt himself, enough that he would trust Foul more than himself.

A tall order, given Covenant's stubborn grounding in his own set beliefs.

[Skyweir]

ahhh .. but he wanted it for himself .. it was no bane to Foul ..

it did not threaten him nor his existence .. because it was out of his control .. the white gold presented no harm to LF at all ..

methinks .. then it wasnt really Lord Fouls bane .. it was never going to do him any harm

[Furls Fire]

I still think it's the Stone. It was unearthed by Drool, his tool, it was why he wanted the Staff of Law. He knew he couldn't touch the Staff, and Drool couldn't either, for that matter, because it ended up killing him.

The Stone plays an essential part in both TIW and TPTP. Foul used this "bane" to enslave the Giants for his Ravers, which ultimately led to their deaths, to warp dukkha, to get the council to summon Covenant, to maim the bloodgaurd to look like Covenant so they would abandon their vow, to enslave the specter of Elena, which led to the unnatural winter and the destruction of the Staff of Law, and, if you think about it, it also became essential to his defeat in Foul's Creche, Covenant used the Stone to "trigger" the wild magic, which led to his "fading" and brought down the Creche itself...etc...

So, it was his "bane"...IMHO

[Ur-Chico]

Ok. After reading all your thoughts and speculations, I will now say it is the Illearth Stone. Lord Foul's Bane could be refering to the bane that belongs to LF, right? He got Drool to get it for him and taught him how to use it, but I don't remember why he couldn't just get it himself.

[Forestal]

because lord foul is incompitant... he needed minions to do his dirty work...

[Furls Fire]

He needed the Staff of Law to "unearth" it. But he couldn't touch the Staff. When Drool found the Staff, Foul manipulated him into using it first to summon white gold into the Land, then to dig up the Stone. Using the Staff killed Drool at the end of LFB, then Foul claimed the Stone and went off to Foul's Creche...