Mhoram's Overlooked Advice

[Ur Dead]

Some interesting preceptions on the Land's dead. Seems they know the future to a certain distant. Like they can see it happen in their condition.
And the law of death being broken they can interact with the living. Maybe the dead are in commune with the AoT. So they let bits and pieces of info be told without totally driving the living insane with the straight and narrow answer they may have seen.

Now with Caer Caveral breaking the law of life, a death person can cross back into life. TC and Hollian are the only known ones to do it. But Holian continued with a normal living life and pass on after a spent period of time.
Now TC is a bit of a issue. He came back to interact with the living but not in a mortal form. He stayed in a quasi spirit form in WGW and now has a quasi physical form in Runes. Maybe the Forrestal knew that he had to be the prime cause in the breaking because he may have known what future effects would occur. A twofold effect, Holian was the mother of Anele and TC ability to block Foul. But TC reappearing thousands of years later might have been to far in the future to anticipate. (Rereading WGW, the part where Caer dies, I felt that he was reluctant to break the Law of Life since he was a creature of Law. But he did because he may have seen the effects that it created. But not the far reaching effect as in Runes)

The part "life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other" is interesting indeed. The Law of Death was broken during a time where the first staff existed. The Law of Life was broken thousand of years later when Law itself was corrupted. The breaking tended to compliement each other. The Law are intertwined with each other in their breaking.

Now a new Staff of Law is formed from Vain and Findail. I got the impression that this second staff has much more power than the original.
It's almost alive in the purpose it serves in comparison to the original one.

Spoiler

It has advese effects on creature that are not of the law. Like it correcting the problem. The Wayhim are not creatures of law. So the staff itself is slowly correcting the nature of a lawless object by tranforming it or removing it from the Law of the Land.

Added since this is on SRD FR released chapter

Spoiler

It also may be the main reason that Linden can't use the staff around her son and TC. The staff may be slowly restoring the the two laws back to the original state. The staff of Law is restoring the Law of Death and the Law of Life to be interwoven as they once were. If Linden uses the staff then it break the ability of TC to maintain his physical status amoung the living, eg. the Law of Life is being restored

So what Mhoram is true. The two are interwoven and shouldn't be seperated. Maybe I'm reading more into it than was it really is.

[Zarathustra]

But Ur Dead, concerning your FR spoiler (I think you should be VERY specific which kind of spoiler you're dealing with, so Wayfriend and other like-minded folks won't be spoiled) . . . with the original Laws in place, life and death were NOT intertwined. They were very specifically separated by these laws. So the Staff can't . . .(not really any specific book spoiler--just related to Ur Dead's FR spoiler)

Spoiler

. . . be restoring an original intertwining.

Which leads us to believe that either Mhoram was wrong in the second Chronicles, or the original Laws were wrong and they should have been broken (which is the point I made in my first post here--no spoilers from me, Wayfriend! Just don't read Ur Dead's, if you haven't already).

[KAY1]

It occurred to me, that both Covenant and Linden as well as the readers have (probably) universally overlooked one half of the advice Mhoram gave to Covenant in TWL. And that's while the particular quote is one of the most repeated ones in the entire series.

It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

The phrasing is a bit strange here, if you think the whole thing is only about snares being beset with other snares. Also, Mhoram said he risked much in giving his advice, but I think the snare thing isn't really that big a reveal. Covenant knew Lord Foul well enough by that point to expect sneaky planning.

I think what Mhoram meant to say is two-fold:

1. It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares.

2. And, life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

In essence, it would be a mistake to break the Law of Life! I've felt for a long time that certain problems in Runes stem directly from the breaking of the Law of Life, but now I have better (read: not practically nonexistent) proof than ever!

I don't think Donaldson (although he does sometimes make mistakes) or Mhoram would've phrased (and written) it in this way unintentionally.

If he said it as part of one sentence, then it means they are related ie he meant to specifically say 'It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other' as one 'fact' if you will, not seperate statements.

My brain isn't really working at the moment so I am not capable of really deep thinking but the way he has worded this appears to suggest that 'life and death' are part of the snares. Issues of life and death cropped up several times in 2nd chrons; the fact the dead can appear in Andelain, the breaking of the Law of Life, although at first Sunder and Hollian were only sustained by remaining in Andelain; the death of TC at the end, which didn't stop him from still having a presence and being a force of power, although not active. Also, Hile Troy said that the breaking of the Law of Life was necessary which was obviously right as this made the dead able to act. But even without all the deep thought it is a logical statement that life and death are intergrown anyway as everything which lives, dies, and everything which dies has to have lived first. Of course I don't expect Mhoram meant just to state that obvious fact.

[IrrationalSanity]

Now with Caer Caveral breaking the law of life, a death person can cross back into life. TC and Hollian are the only known ones to do it. But Holian continued with a normal living life and pass on after a spent period of time.

Ah, there is one more person, if you take the time to think about it (leaving a very pregnant pause, to give you that time...)

[High Lord Tolkien]

It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

Here's my 2 cents on this one.

I always read it as one word of warning (no capitals on that ).

Mhoram always gets the most important deepest quotes on the books.
And this was advice he was giving TC himself not a lesson about how the Laws of Life and Death work!

The first part shows that Mhoram knew that TC had to die for Foul to be defeated.
And he was telling TC not to avoid it.
That was the whole point of the 2nd series, TC had to accept he was going to die.
But in a cryptic way he was also telling TC in the second half of the quote that it would be ok.
That although he would be killed he would still be able to act.
And like everything Mhoram says.....it was true.

[wayfriend]

It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares, and life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

I think what Mhoram meant to say is two-fold:

1. It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares.

2. And, life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

On a totally gramatical level, "X, for A and B" means "X, for A and for B", which means "X for A, and X for B".

In other words, what Mhoram said is equivalent to

• It boots nothing to avoid his snares, for they are ever beset with other snares; and it boots nothing to avoid his snares, for life and death are too intimately intergrown to be severed from each other.

So there's no real reason to think that the intergrown part of the sentence isn't modifying the snares part.

Now, I grant you that there are probably hidden levels to what Mhoram is saying. But lets not start off by misinterpreting what he actually said.

Also: If you remember, even the Dead don't see the future: they just extrapolate from what they know.

In the case of the Quest for the One Tree, Covenant’s Dead don’t actually need to predict and plan for the encounter with the Giants, the willingness of the Giants to redefine their own quest, the voyage to the Elohim, the actions of the Elohim, Vain’s ability to escape the Elohim, the Appointment of Findail, *and* Brinn and Cail’s surrender to the merewives (because without that event Brinn might not have been able to deal with the Guardian). What Covenant’s Dead *do* need is an understanding of character: the character of the ur-viles (Vain’s purpose), the character of the Elohim (why the Elohim might fear both Covenant’s power and Vain’s purpose), the character of Covenant (his instinct for extravagent solutions), and the character of Linden (her need to come to terms with her own capacity for evil). Given such resources, only a little imagination is required to see a variety of possible roads which could all conceivably lead to the same end. ... From the perspective of Covenant’s Dead looking forward in the story, there are a variety of conceivable scenarios. Hope doesn’t lie in predicting and planning exactly what Covenant and Linden are going to do: it lies in understanding who Covenant and Linden are. Another way to say the same thing: Covenant’s Dead supply the “raw materials” for a solution to the Land’s plight--and then step back, trusting Covenant and Linden to figure *something* out.

There's no reason to think that this doesn't also apply to Covenant's death as well. The Dead didn't *know* that Covenant needed to die to win.

The Dead may have wanted to remind Covenant that the blurring of the lines between life and death could conceivably help him in his quest. But, don't they convey that just by being there?

[Zarathustra]

Mhoram always gets the most important deepest quotes on the books.
And this was advice he was giving TC himself not a lesson about how the Laws of Life and Death work!

The first part shows that Mhoram knew that TC had to die for Foul to be defeated.
And he was telling TC not to avoid it.
That was the whole point of the 2nd series, TC had to accept he was going to die.
But in a cryptic way he was also telling TC in the second half of the quote that it would be ok.
That although he would be killed he would still be able to act.
And like everything Mhoram says.....it was true.

I agree. I think it's reasonable that his Dead had a unique perspective on his own impending death, and the necessity of it to defeat Foul (why else would Mhoram cryptically tell him not to avoid his own death?). And I agree that he was telling him it would be okay, he'd still be able to act . . . . and was possibly even hinting at the Last Chronicles.

It's not unreasonable that Mhoram could see the future. After all, he was at one time a seer and oracle. Though he lost that ability later in life, it's not out of the question that he could regain it partially, in this one case, once he was dead. Even dead Lord Kevin knew what Covenant was intending, and that's why he warned Linden in Andelain right before Mount Thunder (though his general guilt/despair attitude caused him to not see the "happy" ending). So the Dead do see the future, to some extent.

But even if, as Wayfriend showed with the GI quote, the Dead can only know Covenant's character, that doesn't exclude the fact that Mhoram knew the ultimate ending--how it had to go down in Mount Thunder. It just means that he didn't know all the little details along the way. After all, Covenant's solution at Mount Thunder was deeply tied to his character. It was a character-driven climax.

[Ur Dead]

Now with Caer Caveral breaking the law of life, a death person can cross back into life. TC and Hollian are the only known ones to do it. But Holian continued with a normal living life and pass on after a spent period of time.

Ah, there is one more person, if you take the time to think about it (leaving a very pregnant pause, to give you that time...)

Hollian was prego's with Anele.. I am sure it wasn't Sunder.. (unless SRD has a defined the way the land gets it children)

[IrrationalSanity]

You got it! (OK, the hint was just a little blatant...)

On the other hand, there was a LOT of power released in that exchange. I'm not 100% sure what happened to Sunder. I would have to re-read the text very carefully to see if he was subject to the same effects Linden saw in the other two.

- Woody -