Waking the Worm

[Mistweave]

Somewhere in the 2nd Chrons I seem to remember a comment that even Foul was able to use Earthpower to help regain himself after Covenant first defeated him BUT only by lingering at the edge of it.

As I read TWL before I read the 1st Chrons, I assumed that pure Earthpower would actually be toxic for him and never thought he would even attempt to get close to EarthBlood let alone try to drink it.

[Skurj Scourge]

People can be tools of FOUL'S... the issue is that if the creator makes someone a tool then any action they take = an action by the creator = destruction of the arch.

I agree, but if they are a tool, I don't think it is possible to break the AoT. Free will is an absolutely essential ingredient in any action that can threaten the Arch.

[sherlock_525]

I think this is why SRD wrote this series the way he did. You have to remember that only the Creator (and maybe Foul?) know exactly what went into the creation of the earth. There are alot of stories but no actual acounts of how everthing came into being, for instence the Elohim make not mention of anything beyond themselves. If they are the "heart of the earth" certainly they should know but as always they aren't telling. so perhaps waking the worm isn't the same as breaking the arch. But of course no planet=no one left to fight for anything, but maybe Foul will be gone too?

[callback]

[quote="Wayfriend"][quote="Skurj Scourge"]Seems to me that Roger has an agenda that does not jibe 100 percent with Foul's. Don't have FR in front of me, but I recall that the "discussion" in Earthroot gave me the impression that Roger wanted to set himself up as some sort of god, rather than destroy the AoT. I might be misremembering...[/quote]
Yes, he thought he would be a God. Because he was helping Foul, and Foul would then take care of him.

I'm pretty sure that Roger claimed to be working for Foul in the big Earthroot reveal. I'll double check tho.[/quote]

He was and he wasn't. The idea was that he didn't trust Foul to make him into a god and had an alternate plan whereby he would escape into eternity using Jeremiah's power.

[arenn]

[quote="Seppi2112"]People can be tools of FOUL'S... the issue is that if the creator makes someone a tool then any action they take = an action by the creator = destruction of the arch.[/quote]


I don't think this is the case. It violates the "necessity of freedom" and the dictum that you can't use a tool to do something you can't do yourself. Being the Creator's tool inside the arch would break it, that's true. But being Foul's tool inside the arch means you can't break it.

Incidentally, this is one of the core ideas that Covenant borrows from Wagner. In Die Walkure, Wotan gets the bright idea that if he can't kill Fafner to get the Ring back, he'll raise a child, Siegmund, to be a champion and do it for him. Fricka exposes this entire enterprise as a fraud when she points out that using a tool to get what you want is the same as doing it yourself.

[callback]

Dang I just had a weird thought. If Roger and the croyel could use Jeremiah's power to escape the Arch of Time into Eternity, what would prevent the Creator from sneaking IN that way.....

[Vain]

Dang I just had a weird thought. If Roger and the croyel could use Jeremiah's power to escape the Arch of Time into Eternity, what would prevent the Creator from sneaking IN that way.....

Testing

[Seareach]

Dang I just had a weird thought. If Roger and the croyel could use Jeremiah's power to escape the Arch of Time into Eternity, what would prevent the Creator from sneaking IN that way.....

Testing

Hey! Who invited you!

[dlbpharmd]

Dang I just had a weird thought. If Roger and the croyel could use Jeremiah's power to escape the Arch of Time into Eternity, what would prevent the Creator from sneaking IN that way.....

Testing

Hey! Who invited you!

I did!

[Seareach]

Testing

Hey! Who invited you!

I did!

Oh...well...I suppose that's ok...

[Ur Dead]

Dang I just had a weird thought. If Roger and the croyel could use Jeremiah's power to escape the Arch of Time into Eternity, what would prevent the Creator from sneaking IN that way.....

Didn't read it that way. If Roger and the Croyel, were not taken by Foul after the Arch fell, then they had a means of escaping the world.

(lol, I make funny. "Roger and the Croyel" and new show on cable this fall! be sure to watch. )

[Relayer]

Dang I just had a weird thought. If Roger and the croyel could use Jeremiah's power to escape the Arch of Time into Eternity, what would prevent the Creator from sneaking IN that way.....

Interesting thought! Maybe the construct in the entryway to Linden's house? And what was in the house, but Revelstone, Mt. Thunder, and the Arch (either that construct itself, or the racetrack).

That still wouldn't solve the "Creator acting in the Land" issue, but it's something to look at.

[Pumaman]

Rousing the worm destroys the earth. Or does it.....

I don't believe rousing the worm by itself was cited as destroying the arch, but the earth. Findail warns Linden that should the Unbeliever match his might against the worm, the arch could not contain the battle. Something that caught me at the end of FR, though, was the reaction of Infelice. I don't have it in front of me, but I believe she stated that Linden had roused the worm and "now all the Elohim will be consumed". Not "now the world will be destroyed" or the "arch will fall", but as a direct threat to the
Elohim only. Now, it could just be arrogance, but it strikes me that all the tales of the worm come directly from the Elohim themselves, and perhaps they consider something that would destroy them as the same thing as destroying the world, but maybe that's not the case...

[earthbrah]

Mistweave wrote:

Somewhere in the 2nd Chrons I seem to remember a comment that even Foul was able to use Earthpower to help regain himself after Covenant first defeated him BUT only by lingering at the edge of it.

As I read TWL before I read the 1st Chrons, I assumed that pure Earthpower would actually be toxic for him and never thought he would even attempt to get close to EarthBlood let alone try to drink it.

Whoah, I also read The Second Chronicles before I read the First! I thought I was the only one. We must be a rare breed, Mistweave.

I distinctly remember that bit about Foul renewing himself by lingering on the fringes of Earthpower (the little hypocritical bastard! )

arenn wrote:

I don't think this is the case. It violates the "necessity of freedom" and the dictum that you can't use a tool to do something you can't do yourself.

That's the way I understand it too. You can't have your tool do something for you that you yourself couldn't do. Otherwise, it's a violation.

[Bran Pendragon]

The "Worm-Awakening=Arch of Time Breaking" thing in FR was the one big sticking point for me in the story, because it doesn't make sense to me in the context of what we learnt in the 2nd Chrons.

My interpretation was always that the Earth/Worm, like space, all existed within that universe, the ENTIRETY of which existed within the Arch of Time. The Arch isn't physical - there's no physical boundaries to what it encompasses. To suggest that somehow if the planet of the Land is destroyed, that time itself will shatter doesn't make any sense to me.

Findail's explanation in the 2nd Chrons made sense. TC was so riddled with venom that any attack against him brought forth wild magic, and that fighting off an "attack" by the awakening worm would lead to such extravagent outpourings of wild magic that the Arch would surely break.

Now, unless Foul is banking on the fact that the same thing definitely will happen with either TC/Linden's ring, or more unlikely Joan's ring, should they be present when the Worm awakes, waking up the Worm seems a rather risky ploy. Its entirely possible that Linden, faced with an awakening worm would choose to let it destroy her than resort to wild magic. If the worm awakens and destroys the planet, and the Arch remains intact, then Foul is pretty screwed as far as I can see.

[wayfriend]

My interpretation was always that the Earth/Worm, like space, all existed within that universe, the ENTIRETY of which existed within the Arch of Time. The Arch isn't physical - there's no physical boundaries to what it encompasses. To suggest that somehow if the planet of the Land is destroyed, that time itself will shatter doesn't make any sense to me.

I ran across this the other day...

With that in mind: I've always assumed that if the Worm destroys the world, "reality as we know it"--not just in the Land, or in the planet of the Land, but in the entire created universe which contains the Land--will cease to exist. So yes, I've always assumed that destroying the world implies (or even necessitates) destroying the Arch of Time. And the universe cannot exist without Time.

(07/16/2006)

So Donaldson, I'm afraid, disagrees with you.

The Worm, like the Arch, are only metaphors, analogies. You can't extrapolate too much from an metaphor, the analogy breaks down.

(The Worm and the Arch aren't even part of the same myth anyway. Putting them together doesn't make much sense, either.)

I've always understood that the Arch was created *for* the Earth. So its clear to me that the Arch has no purpose without the Earth. Furthermore, it exists to preserve the Earth. If the Earth is destroyed, then it has failed in its purpose, and has no purpose any longer. Under those conditions, because this is a magical universe and not a real one, I would expect the Arch to cease to be.

[Bran Pendragon]

So Donaldson, I'm afraid, disagrees with you.

Yeah, but really, what would he know?

I guess that makes sense, but I'd reconciled the two creation myths in my head quite comfortably by deciding that they were both true: Creator makes universe, inside Arch of Time. Makes Worm and within the Worm, everything that will one day give rise to the Earth we know in TCTC. Worm, in accordance with Creator's plan/guidance, falls asleep, planet evolves, develops as Creator plans. Foul sits there bitching and coming up with increasingly convoluted plans to break curfew.

Mhoram's account of creation and how Foul got trapped is so vague that there's plenty of room for a giant worm to fly around in it - its like a primordial myth that humans could probably only understand on the most shallow level. The Elohim, having greater knowledge and perspective, plus longer memories, understand some more of the specifics about how the Creation occurred, but their perspective has blindspots, just like a human's, because NONE of them can understand the mind of the Creator.

But its SRD's story, and he's got a different direction in mind, so that's cool. The GI is good like that, because it wasn't that I thought SRD had made a mistake, I was just confused because I hadn't grasped that what he said in that excerpt of the GI was the case. I must say that Findail's explanation at the end of TOT didn't help with this, as I'm pretty sure that what he said suggests it would be TC's struggle with Wild Magic against the awakened Worm that would break the Arch.

What interests me is, "Is Foul correct that he could take on the Creator should he get free". It would be quite funny in a way if it ended up that Foul got free only to discover that the Creator can and will squash him like a fly now that there aren't innocents that would suffer should he act to break the Arch.

"Look to your life my Enemy!!"
*Creator beeatchslaps Foul down*
*Ravers and Roger Covenant try to quietly back out of the room looking innocent...*

[Endymion9]

I always looked at that creation myth as LF being the capacity for evil that resided in the creator. The creator did all of the creating. Then noticed the designs of evil in the creation. Mhoram describes it as he noticed Foul meddling over his shoulder, but how could a seperate entity be beside the creator and not be noticed.

I looked at it similar to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Skin of Evil. Where the creator in a fit of rage excised the evil in him and threw it down into his creation, only to realize later that he had trapped his creation in with the evil and could not reach thru the arch of time to help them.

If LF is freed I would assume he would rejoin/merge with the Creator again.

[wayfriend]

... but I'd reconciled the two creation myths in my head quite comfortably by deciding that they were both true

There're other ways once can reconcile the creation myths. Here's my way.

[earthbrah]

SRD has also said that every creation has within it the seeds of its own destruction. Thus, the presence of the Despiser within this creation could easily be the shadow on the heart of the Creator, but that he just wasn't aware of its existence until it was externalized in his creation.