Me neither. The Land has been so messed up for so long… maybe SRD will just put it out of it’s misery. Although that would be depressing. …But am I the only one who will laugh if (at the end of the Last Chronicles), Covenant wakes up in the hospital and realizes that the ambulance/police car (from LFB) really did hit him, none of it was real, and he’s been in a coma for the last 20 or 30 years?sidpcobain wrote:Are you sure they are? I'm not expecting a happy ending this time.I really wish I didnt know that the good guys were going to win.
Okay, questions, questions, questions…
1) So Linden roused the Worm – supposedly not a good thing. But how long does it take for the worm to ruin everything? When Covenant almost roused the worm in TOT, I just assumed that if it woke up, it would screw everything up pretty quickly. But apparently, it can be countered – and the Elohim will possibly be devoured in the attempt. Now that it’s been roused, one would think that Linden and Covenant would play a significant part in dealing with it. But how much time do they have? Can they even get near the Worm in time to prevent irreparable damage from occurring? Or does it even matter where they are? – if Linden could rouse the Worm all the way from Andelain, how much difference does it make where they are when they try to counter it? Or are the Elohim just finally going to have to get off their @sses and deal with it entirely on their own?
2) Infelice addresses TC as the "Timewarden" and obviously recognizes the importance of that role (since she chastises Linden’s use of the staff because it weakens him). So did the Elohim always know that he was destined to become part of the Arch? If they didn’t know, I can’t help but wonder how they could have possibly missed something that important. After all, they seem to have some knowledge of future events, even if it’s somewhat distorted and/or incomplete. But if they did know, what in god’s name were they thinking when they tried to silence him? I know they believed he might destroy the earth, but if they knew he was supposed to join/become the AoT, how did they expect that to happen if he was basically a walking vegetable? Or did they assume that if Linden managed to stop Foul and the Sunbane all by herself, it would be entirely unnecessary for TC to become the Arch?
3) So Linden goes into Andelain to resurrect TC. Infelice freaks out, of course. But why did the wraiths think it was okay? What, exactly, do they know? And – correct me if I’m wrong – but wasn’t one of the dead Lords nodding his encouragement? Loric or Damelon? Do they realize what may/will happen?
4) Do you think Covenant will even be using his ring in the next 2 books? SRD says he had the Last Chronicles in mind when he wrote the 2nd Chrons. – I think he also said that he left a lot of things unanswered and/or set a lot of things up to be used later. And Covenant clearly states in WGW that he will “never use power again.” So, is he going to stick with that? Circumstances have obviously changed. And is it still dangerous for him to have the ring? One would think that (after being the AoT for about 3500 years) he’d have a pretty clear idea of how strong it was and how not to break it. And it’s not as if he has to be worried about waking the Worm anymore, since Linden’s already done it for him. But since he is the white gold and has been the Arch for millennia, does he now have a perfect understanding of how to use that power? If he does, doesn’t that make things too easy? (And god forbid anything should be easy -- if it would be easy for him, then of course, there will be some reason he has to refuse to possess/use the ring. Then Linden gets to keep it. Of course. Yippee...)
5) Why does Linden’s Staff damage/weaken the Arch? If wild magic is the keystone of the AoT and is not bound by law, why does the use of the SoL even matter? I assume the use of Berek’s staff didn’t hurt anything, so what’s the problem now? Granted, TC wasn’t part of the AoT when Berek was around, but I just don’t understand why the Staff affects him at all. I always got the impression that white gold was somehow stronger than Earthpower.
6) Infelice says that if Linden hadn’t stopped the Sunbane, the Land would have been destroyed and much harm would have befallen the earth. But she insists that the Elohim could, ultimately, have preserved the world. So… why didn’t they just go ahead and do it? I always assumed that they couldn’t do anything about Foul because they didn’t want to interfere or literally weren’t capable of countering the Sunbane. Well, looking back, they didn’t really seem to mind interfering in the 2nd Chrons., since they screwed Covenant up pretty badly and tried to dispose of Vain. And according to Infelice, they could have dealth with the situation if they’d had to. So… why did they go through all that crap, worrying about TC, if they could have dealt with it on their own? If they’d stepped up to the plate and helped out, Covenant might have chilled out a bit and been less likely to screw everything up.
7) And I’ve been wondering about this since ROTE came out: In the 2nd Chronicles, everyone – even the Haruchai – lost the ability to “see.” Only Linden is capable of truly seeing. I always thought that the Sunbane wiped out the Haruchai’s ability to see. And I really don’t see why it would have, since they lived in the mountains rather than the Land. Now, somewhere along the line, they’ve regained that ability – and Kevin’s Dirt doesn’t affect them the way it affects everyone else. So why exactly couldn’t they see during the time of the Sunbane? And why can they see now…? Sunbane affects them, Kevin's Dirt doesn't... Why? What's the distinction?
Okay, so that was a long post. And I haven’t slept much over the past few days, so I can’t tell whether those questions make sense… Ah well.
If he is capable of teaching Berek earthpower and forging the first staff of law, he is certainly capable of more similar manipulations of the Land's destiny. I am absolutely positive we have not seen the last of him.
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