Did the New Lords get their Mindmeld power from the Haruchai

[variol son]

That was a lot to take in all at once, especially today.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[Landwaster]

Yeah I wasn't prepared for that either!

I wonder how the New Lords would feel to be so proud of their mindmelding talents, and then upon later dissection of Kevin's Wards, they find that it was something the Old Lords new, too. What a let-down!

[aTOMiC]

Yeah I wasn't prepared for that either!

I wonder how the New Lords would feel to be so proud of their mindmelding talents, and then upon later dissection of Kevin's Wards, they find that it was something the Old Lords new, too. What a let-down!

Perish the thought!

[Landwaster]

Well I'm sure there was a feeling amongst the New Lords that they needed to show they had improved on the Old Lords' work, especially considering that it culminated in ruin.

Yet the New Lords were crap at getting a grasp of that contained within the Wards. This might explain why there was so much bitterness and defeatism amongst them.

[variol son]

Fair enough though. It's not like if they failed, oh well you suck, tough luck. Failure meant the destruction of the Land. Pretty big deal really.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[Landwaster]

Yep, and legacy was pretty offputting, too. Who'd want to be a Lord!

[Lord Luof]

When Thomas Covenant made Banner tell him the name of the power that Amok could unveil, there was a subtle change in the bloodguard. When Korik became corrupted by the illearth stone, the bloodguard's vow crumbled.

It would seem to me that the bloodguard spoke through their vow. They constantly would say "we are the bloodguard" as if some tenuous, unseen cord kept them informed at all times of the health of their vow.

The Lords probably simply discovered melding. They struggled for a long time with just the 1st ward. I'm sure that they tried everything they could.

Also, I think that there are still other powers in the land, untapped. Maybe the air and water also know themselves & Glimmermere is like a forestal, a collasus, a earthroot. Maybe there is a place where the winds gather or where the air is heavy or maybe touching that power is as simple as breathing and as elusive as seeing the air.

The point I'm making is that it would not be such a large thing for the lords to create or unleash some power of their own finding.

[variol son]

True. One of TC's main questions of Mhoram was why the Lords kept studying Kevin's Lore instead of going out and getting their own.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[Landwaster]

Yep and a good question it was, too.

[dANdeLION]

The Earthpower took the Haruchai at their word, assuming they meant that they wanted to guard the Lords every instant of their lives, and took the Vow to its ultimate possibility.

What's kind of interesting to me is that the Elohim also had this ability, and Linden was able to "hear" their melding and sometimes understand it, yet she never heard the Haruchai melding. By the way, the Haruchai in the 2nd chronicles never took the vow of the Bloodguard. Maybe in their case it was just their inate strength, not their vow, that gave them access to this ability. They were also proof against the sunbane, and they had all sorts of talents that were all their own, not just the meld.

The Oath of Peace is all about trust, helping, comfort, yadda yadda. Maybe the Earthpower took the Oath to the same lengths. Maybe it said, "You trust each other? OK, I'll give you access to each other's minds! There's no greater show of trust than that! And there's no way to help and comfort each other more fully either."

I believe Fist has it figured out here. If the Old Lords had this ability, wouldn't they have figured out Foul sooner?

[Svlad Cjelli]

I believe someone touched on this, but wasn't the theory behind the New Lord's inability to grasp Kevin's Lore that the OoP naturally precluded an understanding of a great deal. Something to the effect that their self imposed subservience to concept of peace at virtually any cost made it difficult to unlock a power or grasp a bit of knowledge that might require a bit more arrogance or willingness to commit Desecration. Certainly noone ever said Kevin was perfect. In fact, although he and Berek and the others were very great, their failure was a predetermined result of the arrogance that was born of their mastery over all that knowledge and power.

[Forestal]

as a point, i believe the bells that linden heard was not "mindmelding" but more of speach by the elohim, but as the rest of the quest had no earth-sense they couldn't hear them, as the elohim are, as completely as can be, earthpower incarnate.

now on the subject of the bloodguard and the mindmelding, i think it was more of a natural talent, like the way that their blood was more potent than normal humans...

think of it, in their mountain villages they would perhaps be away from people for a long time... long periods of solitary experience has been known to cause mental illness/insanity, perhaps the haruchai mindmeld was simply a genetic way of rejecting insanity?

i believe the lord's mindmeld and the haruchai mindmeld are completely different, altho share common aspects. the lords had to initiate mindmelding, the haruchai did not. on another track, perhaps the haruchai were similar to the borg ( ) that they had a collective... perhaps they learned how to mindmeld, while young, but it would require a large amount of lore to keep it going... perhaps they simply initiated it and lost control of it after that, not being able to shut it off... but they didn't care because it didn't harm any of them, and at the same time was useful to them.

kind of like a nuclear powerplant... we start the reaction but we can control it, by use of carbon rods, perhaps the haruchai minds were like that... their collective needed more minds to keep it at a level that was bearable... and without it the haruchai felt lost...

i personally perfer the idea that the haruchai had the mindmelding ability from birth, it came naturally, a positive genetic mutation as it were, yet it does affect them when seperate... as we saw from cail in TOT, when he was alone, he did not know what was going on, and was as such, alone and lost in himself.

perhaps the mindmeld was the haruchai's way of fighting dispair?

my 2 cents... or 2 dollars as it seems like...

[Fist and Faith]

Since the general population of the Land did not have the mindmeld that the New Lords had, despite sharing the Oath of Peace, it makes sense to me that the Lords' much greater connection to the Earthpower played a role.

And since the Oath of Peace is perhaps the biggest difference between the Old and New Lords, I assume that has a part in it also. But that's not necessarily that case. It could be that the Ritual of Desecration permanently changed something about the Land (the vibrational frequency; the electromagnetic spectrum; some other nifty sci-fi sounding thing) in a way that is not noticable in any way other than the existence of the mindmeld. Who knows what it is? But I get the impression that SRD wants us to think it is the Oath. Just as it is the Oath that prevented their mastery of Kevin's Lore.


As for the Haruchai, their minds work much differently than the minds of the people of the Land. It could be that their brains are wired somewhat differently, giving them mind-speech. But it could just be their psychological makeup. They certainly have different ways of thinking and seeing things. The people of the Land couldn't conceive of taking a Vow that took them from their families, and wouldn't let them die or sleep. The minds of the Haruchai are extravagant. Their minds are also more clear, by which I mean untroubled, than we can imagine. They see absolutes, no shades of gray. Are these qualities somehow tied in with their mind-speech? Who knows?

[Landwaster]

I wonder if it was a party line or a by-approval system ... I mean, if some Bloodguard shamed himself through failure, could the others cut him off from communication? Would he be left thinking "aww c'mon guys ... guys ... guys?"

[Fist and Faith]

Landwaster, I literally lol'd. But you have a legitimate point. Do the Haruchai have their equivalent of the Klingon Discommendation that Worf went through? Or do they just plug their mental ears and go "La La I can't hear you!"

[variol son]

Or do they just plug their mental ears and go "La La I can't hear you!"

For some reason that is harder to imagine than Bannor swearing his nut off to the other Bloodguard in his head.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[Forestal]

lol landwaster...

[Fist and Faith]

I wonder if it was a party line or a by-approval system ... I mean, if some Bloodguard shamed himself through failure, could the others cut him off from communication? Would he be left thinking "aww c'mon guys ... guys ... guys?"

Hey, this post was made Nov 6, 2003! Go, Landwaster!!

[Avatar]

Next time he turns up, tell him he's a seer.

--A

[The Dark Overlord]

That's why I love this site at least one person picks up on what eveybody else misses. It went completely over my head when Mhoram said the meld belonged only to them. I can't find the quote but he meant New Lords only, right? Not just "Lords" encompassing Old and New?