"You Are the White Gold" & Linden's problem wi

[Kaos Arcanna]

My two cents as to why Linden isn't able to use the white gold as
easily this time as she did last time.

I know that many of the people on the forum believe that only
Covenant is the white gold. I'm of the opinion that the white gold
is a means of expressing the power within.

Covenant was a passionate man with his deadened nerves, so the
wild magic came out in bursts and torents of fire for him. (Though I
seem to recall that in his initial battle with Foul that the force of the
ring wasn't so much fire as like a storm). In the Second Chronicles,
Linden had fixated on medicine and being a doctor so when she used
the wild magic it was to heal and she had more control because she
operating in tune with her nature.

Trying to use the ring for anything else is hard for Linden because her
personality is different than Covenant's. Covenant nearly went insane
from being isolated from humanity. After the death of her mother,
Linden deliberately isolated herself and allowed no one or anything into
her heart at all. Covenant was passion and fire. Linden is healing and
disclipine.

So the Staff comes more easily to Linden. My guess is that if Covenant
had managed to create a new Staff of Law he would have been unable to
use it because it's a direct contradiction of his nature.

[Phantasm]

I know that many of the people on the forum believe that only
Covenant is the white gold. I'm of the opinion that the white gold
is a means of expressing the power within.

And there lies the Crux

[wayfriend]

The ring was very hard for Covenant to use. It took him three books!

So in some ways, I think the ring is supposed to be hard to use.

Near the end of Runes, Linden discovers that it was Kevin's Dirt, blocking her percipience, which made it hard for her to use the ring. So that's not going to be an issue going forward.

Conflicts between Staff and ring will be.

[transient]

perfect in it's imperfection.

If the white gold is meant to be a conduit for power drawn from within the wearer then it may be that each ring has different properties given that white gold can be an amalgam of gold and more than one other type of metal. It will be of great interest to see what develops with Joan's ring in this regard. Does it have different properties?. Were they forged in the same way?
Covenant (as white gold) articulated power in a unique way given the complex amalgam resulting from the forge that was his life on earth.. My thoughts on many readings of Chronicles I & II was he probably didnt need the ring. Just didnt know that he didnt or couldnt know more likely.

LA only needs as a practitioner needs implement.

[Zarathustra]

So in some ways, I think the ring is supposed to be hard to use.

Hile Troy didn't seem to have a problem calling up its power, with only an instant to familiarize himself with it, before the Forestal stopped him.

I don't think the ring is inherently difficult to use. I think Kaos Arcanna is mostly right. It depends on the person. Covenant is the white gold. Linden is the white gold. We're all the white gold. Saying a person is the white gold is merely a way to say that the power comes from within you. It's your passion, your will. Now for certain people, there are internal barriers set up between themselves and their will. They hesitate. They doubt. They also set up barriers between themselves and their passions. They hurt too much, grieve too much, or fear too much. So, like the Oath of Peace, they deny their passions.

Of course, now I'm getting into the symbolism of the ring, and leaving behind the mechanics of how it works in this fantasy world. Technically, it's Covenant's. And technically, not everyone in the Land has a white gold ring. But symbolically, I think this is exactly what Donaldson was saying with the Oath of Peace, the Bloodguard Vow, the power which led to the Ritual of Desecration (discovered by Lord Mhoram as being limited by the Oath of Peace), etc. It's all the same thing: the fundamental tension of passion vs control, and how we can become inauthentic with either of those get out of balance.

So it's not merely a case the Covenant needs to learn to use the ring, and Linden needs to learn the Staff. They each (and we each) need to learn to achieve this paradoxical balance.

[wayfriend]

So in some ways, I think the ring is supposed to be hard to use.

Hile Troy didn't seem to have a problem calling up its power, with only an instant to familiarize himself with it, before the Forestal stopped him.

Yes, and Linden didn't have any problem using it at certain times, and Covenant himself didn't have any trouble at certain times (although in his case it was usually not intended).

Conclusion: there are times when the situation is so emotional and so... dire, that self-doubt doesn't even have a chance to impinge on your awareness. Action is automatic.

Otherwise, I agree with you. I don't think that there's a contradiction. I just think that there are times where the passion is so complete that self-contradiction is efaced, and the power flows without conscious effort.

But that doesn't make the ring easy to use. Because more often than not, we're self-conflicted, and the power doesn't flow automatically.

[Ur-Lord a-Jeroth]

I agree that my impression was that White Gold was simply a means of expressing power. I believe Foamfollower makes a comment in LFB regarding Gildenlode and how the power comes from him, but the structure of the wooden keels allows that specific/unique expression. He goes onto to say that White Gold would be useless to him since he does not have the type of power within that White Gold would release. (Would anyone be able to look up the exact quote? I don’t have my books with me. It’s during the boat ride to Revelstone….) Throughout the Second Chronicles I kept coming back to this passage to explain Linden’s mastery over White Gold; that she had the power within her, and like Covenant, could only release it by way of the ring. Simply put, anyone with the passion and capacity for such power were all White Gold. Covenant was White Gold. Hile Troy was White Gold. And Linden was White Gold.

Yet, when Covenant became the Guardian of the Arch, my understanding of this situation became confused. In becoming an avatar of Wild Magic, it seemed the Covenant truly became Wild Magic/White Gold entirely. It was as if he had been Wild Magic incarnate in his human body, but with death, returned to the source and became the source. This is all good and fine, but it is my impression that the same would not happen should Linden or Troy be killed with White Gold. I simply cannot see their being’s merging with the Arch to become a guardian of pure Wild Magic. This tells me that there is something fundamentally different between Linden/Troy’s use of White Gold and Covenant’s and that in some way, Covenant truly was White Gold whereas the others were not.

Any thoughts?

[Relayer]

This brings up something I don't remember seeing here before... does anyone from within the Land (world) ever use the white gold?

WG is itself not of the Land, and is the crux of the Arch. Everyone I can think of that uses it is from "outside" - TC, LA, HT, Foul, Joan. And Kasreyn tried to get the ring, but we don't know if he could've used it, or for that matter if he's not from the Land-world. Bannor touches the ring to the Staff in LFB, but TC is still wearing it, and that's more like a trigger. Is there anyone I'm forgetting?

So maybe no one from the Land has "the right type of power" (however Foamfollower put it). Maybe something about the passion/control/Arch paradoxes also makes it unusable to people from the Land-verse.

[FAP]

The white gold itself doesn't seem hard to use. Hile Troy seemed to be able to activate the ring the moment he had possion of it (end of book 2).

The reason covenant had trouble with the ring was due to himself. If Covenant could use the ring then he would have the power to stop foul. If he had the power to stop foul then all of foul's actions would be Covenant's fault.

Covenant tried to evade responsibility the entire first series. He even consciously made a deal with himself to manipulate Elana into using the power of command so that he wouldn't have to use the white gold.

As for Linden, the problem with white gold and wild magic that it is not a delicate tool. It'd probably be easier to destroy a mountain with it than fix a broken leg. It's a cr@ppy household helper but a great nuke.

[Aleksandr]

Re: So maybe no one from the Land has "the right type of power" (however Foamfollower put it). Maybe something about the passion/control/Arch paradoxes also makes it unusable to people from the Land-verse.

The Elohimin certainly thought they could use it and Findail was desperately trying to get his hands on it at the end of WGW. Of course Elohim aren't from the Land, and aren't "normal" people either

[wayfriend]

I look at it this way.

No one from the Land can defeat Foul. That's the whole motivation for the Creator choosing someone in the first place.

So if the white gold represents Covenant's passion and power, and Covenant was chosen because he is from outside the Land, then it follows that the passion and power is alien to the Land.

The people of the Land are bound by the limits of the Land that they live in. Covenant is not. His power is not. So the people of the Land cannot approach that kind of power. Both symbolically and logically.

[FAP]

The ring was very hard for Covenant to use. It took him three books!

So in some ways, I think the ring is supposed to be hard to use.

Near the end of Runes, Linden discovers that it was Kevin's Dirt, blocking her percipience, which made it hard for her to use the ring. So that's not going to be an issue going forward.

Conflicts between Staff and ring will be.

I took him three books because he wanted to evade responsibility. There's a passage in the books that says, and I'm paraphrasing, only the powerless can be innocent.

If you are powerless nothing is your fault because you are powerless to stop it. The inability to use the ring was covenant's excuse to be powerless. However that powerlessness seems to be largely self imposed, largely unconsiously. Even the condition of triggering the ring with another power was probably an excuse not to use the ring.

Covenant made every effort not to be responsible for anything until book three.

I will agree that the wild magic is hard to control. It's very easy to use it to destroy a mountain but hard, probably impossible, to use it to restore a forest.

[wayfriend]

I took him three books because he wanted to evade responsibility.

It's not easy being the white gold. It's not easy being true to yourself and knowing exactly what you want. Covenant had his issues, Linden hers; the point is, I think, that there's always issues. Everyone is complicated. Everyone works against themselves in some way. And that comes out in the wild magic. When your power is the passion that's in yourself, then your issues, whatever they are, impede the process.

Maybe Hile Troy was so unconflicted that he could use the ring at will. But I doubt it. I think it was the moment - all he knew was Save Elena, Now! I'm sure, at other times, his worthiness issues would have gotten in the way.

[FAP]

Agreed but then again it's not easy being anything.

The Lords had their issues. They were trying to master lore based on passion when they had sworn an oath mandating emotional restraint.

Covenant thought the land was his way of committing suicide. It wasn't until he solved his own paradox and decided to fight for beauty and health, even it was only imagined, that he was able to use the power that had always been available to him.

Covenant at anytime in the first two books could have taken on Foul if he had come to terms with his own power and responsibility.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

The ring was very hard for Covenant to use. It took him three books!

So in some ways, I think the ring is supposed to be hard to use.

Near the end of Runes, Linden discovers that it was Kevin's Dirt, blocking her percipience, which made it hard for her to use the ring. So that's not going to be an issue going forward.

Conflicts between Staff and ring will be.

I have just yesterday finished reading Fatal Revenant. No spoilers here, but --[mod edit - yes, it is - dlbpharmd]

Spoiler

Esmer's presence blocked her use of the ring, and Kevin's Dirt limited her use of the Staff. Beyond that, it was unwise for Linden to use any power lest she reveal her location to Kastenessen.

[Truth or treachery]

[mod edit - this is info that is revealed in FR, thus the spoiler tag - dlbpharmd]

Spoiler

I remember reading that the only reason Linden could use the white gold and the staff so effectively in the end of WGW was because she was in the transitional state between our world and the land. Not sure if that sheds any light on anything but im on lunch break and was supposed to leave 5 minutes ago. No time for quotes!

[dlbpharmd]

That is correct, but to me it seems like SRD is just covering his tracks. So many complained about this after ROTE that he had to come up with some kind of explanation.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

That is correct, but to me it seems like SRD is just covering his tracks. So many complained about this after ROTE that he had to come up with some kind of explanation.

On the other hand, SRD stated that he came up with the ideas found in the third trilogy at the time he wrote the second. Why did he take so long then to write the third one? Because, as SRD said, he lacked the writing skill it would take to "pull that one off."

[dlbpharmd]

That's true, but look at is this way. At the end of WGW. Linden has both the new SoL and white gold, and is, for all intents and purposes, omnipotent. Seriously, with the way that she wielded both, who could possibly ever oppose her? So, IMHO, SRD had to fudge things a little in the LC, or else she would be completely uninteresting.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

That's true, but look at is this way. At the end of WGW. Linden has both the new SoL and white gold, and is, for all intents and purposes, omnipotent. Seriously, with the way that she wielded both, who could possibly ever oppose her? So, IMHO, SRD had to fudge things a little in the LC, or else she would be completely uninteresting.

It is certainly possible for me to see things that way.

However, Linden IS an interesting character, with her own unresolved internal conflicts which she brought with her from the Second Chronicles.

But what is really so interesting about all this to his reader? The entire three Chronicles are enormously psychological, and indeed, it is all just a shared dream anyway (whether such a thing is possible or not, that idea does have certain Jungian connotations, viz., the Universal or Collective Unconsciousness). (Considering Jung's focus on the universal archetype of Womanhood, it wouldn't surprise me if the White Gold Wielder of legend turned out to be a she and not a "he.")

LA lacks Covenant's belief in Unbelief and leprosy (which makes him strangely attractive despite his unattractiveness), but she does possess
an element of despair which originated in her father's act of committing suicide right before her eyes. This despair has shaped LA's life from that point on, leading her to become a doctor, attempting to save others when the person who really needs to be saved is herself. The trauma that requires healing is in herself. In order to accomplish this, the repressive mechanisms which preserve her from feeling the full extent of her despair must be torn away. That is why Lord Foul cannot simply destroy the Land. The events under Melenkurion Skyweir symbolized, in the shared dream which is the Land, one stage in this psychological process which will ultimately lead to LA feeling the full extent of her despair. Her Last Dark is the same as that of the Earth.

In the Second Chronicles, Linden did not feel the full extent of her despair, she was not allowed to, the Land was only temporarily saved (and in fact, I believe it was Esmer who explained to her that the Sunbane would have faded away on its own after Covenant extinguished the Clave's fire). Nothing was truly healed. The creation of a new SoL, furthermore, only served to hamper Covenant's ability to protect the Arch.

Some of the explanations found in FR seem rather constructed and ad hoc, yet, on the other hand, it is rather more interesting to think that SRD had the whole thing planned out long in advance (as he himself claimed). So the Elohim's emptying of Covenant's mind in The One Tree really was a device to prevent the creation of a new SoL, and not an attempt to prevent Covenant from ceding the ring to other forces who coveted it, such as Kasreyn. The emptying certainly helped in that case. However, it DID NOT HELP THE ELOHIM , who would not give one fig about Kasreyn wielding the ring, or even Foul who supposedly would have seduced it away from Kasreyn, if all this didn't ultimately affect them.