The Runes, the Staff, and Wildwood's Question

[Billy G.]

great thread!

Love the Christmas Smilies....

[ninjaboy]

The argument that Anele could become a 'Stonestal' definately has merit, however a Forestal will also be needed too. It's always seemed the trees and forests of the land need more protection and nurturance...

And so far the only one who's been referred to as a 'lover of trees' is Linden..

Unless there's anything to be said for the resurrection of Forestals...

[lurch]

Some thing to consider, going back to the original question..is,,recognizing all that has been experienced,, versus,,what of it is you and what of it isn't you,,and the task of letting go what isn't you. Wildwood's question addresses Lindens situation with her inability to " heal" Joan,, and pierce Jeremiah's autistic wall.

The unanswered question.. is mystery itself,,the unexplored Imagination. Wildwood enriches Linden Staff,,and as pointed out in the final chapter,,guards against chaos. Please take the exchange Linden has with the Viles into consideration when contemplating Wildwoods question. Words as colors, as experienced with the Viles, is definetly a " new " reality,,perception of the Imaginative realm. So, can it be seen, that the chaos guarded against is the complete capitulation to any " new" reality? From that, can it be seen why some say that Lindens " answer" lies not in any of her talismans? They may get her there, to the brink of the " AHA!" but are not the answer..hhhmm..sounds familiar.

So, the answer is ,, Yes,,the beauty and truth of the past will pass,,as a new Truth and Beauty is discovered in the exploration of ones Imagination.
Creating a future from what we find in our Imagination is a Hope. Perhaps a visit to The Viles enclave .." in caverns as ornate and majestic as castles".. There they devoted their vast power and knowledge to the making of beauty and wonder, and all of their works were filled with loveliness.." wow,,a hint for Linden to return to her unburdened childhood (pre parental screw jobs) for the Hope of the future?
A future of the same old conflicting Black or White,, the " Or" reality, is the despair.

Linden may have to eventually shed her stick, because chaos is nothing to fear if you enter it with no fear...I see Linden's bringing forth TC,, as act of " information gathering"..TC resolved the B&W conflict by literally rising above it all. Linden will ask TC a return question,," How did you do it?" Enter " Love" and its redefining as Time and Space have been.

[Zarathustra]

Wow, it's been almost a year!

I was reading this poem from LFB quoted recently in the thread about favorite Chronicles quotes in the 1st-2nd Chrons forum.

Something there is in beauty
which grows in the soul of the beholder
like a flower--
fragile--
for many are the blights
which may waste
the beauty
or the beholder--
and imperishable--
for the beauty may die
or the beholder may die
or the world may die
but the soul in which the flower grows
survives.

Considering the bolded section, I wonder if Wildwood was looking for an answer like this?

Are we going to get a spiritual answer after all?

Is "spiritual" something we must reinterpret in order to understand such an ending, given SRD's stance on religion?

[wayfriend]

Considering the bolded section, I wonder if Wildwood was looking for an answer like this?

Such was my own thought.

[Relayer]

It also brings to mind Kevin's Lament:

Creator!
...
did You intend
that beauty and truth should pass utterly from the
Earth?
Have You shaped my fate into the Law of life?
Am I effectless?
Must I preside over,
sanction,
acknowledge with the bitter face of treachery,
approve
the falling of the world?

And as many have said before, what I think Donaldson is going for is that there's another answer besides succumbing to despair, as Kevin did. Mhoram found an answer that worked for him. Perhaps in the LC we're being treated to a much larger version of the same concepts that empowered him to his Victory. As in his case, what could that answer be, but for a spiritual one? Everything else has failed. It was his utter love and devotion to the Land, his unshakeable belief that "I trust that Despite is not the sum of life" that carried the day.

Is "spiritual" something we must reinterpret in order to understand such an ending, given SRD's stance on religion?

There are many definitions to "spiritual" beyond the limitations imposed by any given religion.

[SkurjMaster]

Dear Posters,

After reading what is in this thread along with something (I think) Donaldson said about the grass stains on Linden's pants, I wonder if Linden's future is to transform or 'transcend.'

If those are some form of runes on her pants, why are they there? Runes on the staff and runes on the wielder. Something to consider, maybe.

[Zarathustra]

Considering the bolded section, I wonder if Wildwood was looking for an answer like this?

Such was my own thought.

Wow, my memory sucks. You even quoted the same poem. Oh well, "great minds . . . " and all that.

[Vraith]

Just a couple thoughts:
Possibly the runes weren't necessary for Linden's first use and task at the time, but they are necessary for her current task(s) because they are more far reaching and more complicated...the staff WAS pure structure (vain) with the "word" (raw power) of the elohim to enforce it, and some law still survived at that time.
But NOW...more laws have been broken, and the remaining ones are being badly stretched, and on top of that pure structure is pure horror...everything that exists is without any change or possibility...(weird example...but what happens if Frost's poem begins not "Two roads diverge" but "One road went"...a whole universe of one road.)
Which leads to a thought I've been pondering for a while: The way scientists talk chaos, and what people mean by chaos are often directly opposed to each other. Roughly (very), related to entropy, the "heat death" is where nothing happens at all anymore is chaos (there just isn't enough energy left for anything to happen, nothing is connected, no cause/effect because nothing powerful enough to cause), yet in ordinary language chaos is the situation where anything can happen anytime (energy completely unrestrained by rules) so nothing makes any sense at all (again..nothing is connected, but in a completely different way...there are causes everywhere, but no logical effects)
This may have nothing whatsoever to do with what SRD is thinking, of course, but this is exactly the kind of contradiction he often notices/makes use of.
I still think (I posted somewhere a more extensive explanation) that part of the resolution involves LF becoming/being restored to a more natural place in Creation (or the suppressed side of the Creator). Things naturally end, aware beings are naturally sad, feel the loss..but the step from despair to despite is a step from sane to insane. I think the staff will be a necessary part of this (whether I have the transition right or not)
Oooohhhh...hey...sudden thought...in some way (probably not in the Land itself...I think that is gone) Linden/Staff Become the law of a new/transformed place, Covenant/Ring the wild and possible? (hmmm..that thought wasn't as cool to me by the time I reached the end of the sentence as it was at the beginning...ah well.

[Ur Dead]

It may be that Linden's grass stains are the Runes of the Earth. The world has marked her for it's own use.

Her single mindedness to free her son is the Fatal Revenant.

I for one, believe, that she and Covenant will succeed in imprisioning Foul that makes him moot until the creator's designs are fullfilled.

And when that happens, the Land and world will not be rid of Foul's designs. His evil will be substained in the banes and creatures he created. The Land will not revert to the original beauty before Kevin's ritual but will return and heal itself.
It even seems that the world is sentient itself.(Could be an aspect of the worm) It uses the inhabitances to protect itself.
eg. It tried to protect the forest by creating Landsdrop.
It has called to the Elohim's twice.
One of the results was that the forests created the Forestals.
Once that the Forestal were starting to decline, it transformed Berek to spark the Lords and the lore.
It has marked Linden with it's Runes.
It works slowly but it has all the time in the world.

As far as any law that have been broken, it's been the portions Elena and Hile Troy broke. The Law of Death. (I only say the Law of Death) Both are aspects/parts of the same law.
One part allows a summoning of the dead and the physical interaction of the dead to the mortal realm.
The other allowed a crossover from death to life by unconventional means. It's not the creation of a new life, but the contination of an existing person back into a mortal or immortal form. (We don't know if Covenant is mortal when Linden resurrected him) But these were parts of a single law and not two seperate laws. The full Law of Death hasn't been broken but only sections of it.

[Zarathustra]

Which leads to a thought I've been pondering for a while: The way scientists talk chaos, and what people mean by chaos are often directly opposed to each other. Roughly (very), related to entropy, the "heat death" is where nothing happens at all anymore is chaos (there just isn't enough energy left for anything to happen, nothing is connected, no cause/effect because nothing powerful enough to cause), yet in ordinary language chaos is the situation where anything can happen anytime (energy completely unrestrained by rules) so nothing makes any sense at all (again..nothing is connected, but in a completely different way...there are causes everywhere, but no logical effects)
This may have nothing whatsoever to do with what SRD is thinking, of course, but this is exactly the kind of contradiction he often notices/makes use of.
I still think (I posted somewhere a more extensive explanation) that part of the resolution involves LF becoming/being restored to a more natural place in Creation (or the suppressed side of the Creator). Things naturally end, aware beings are naturally sad, feel the loss..but the step from despair to despite is a step from sane to insane.

I don't think you're far off. One of my favorite quotes from the Gradual Interview:

On a conscious level, I was more concerned with trying to tell the truth about the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy, everything always runs down), and to suggest that it is the task of every caring being (that perhaps it is the entire purpose of life) to resist the process as much as possible; to preserve as much as we can for as long as we can.

I asked him about this in the GI. My question and his answer:

Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but I have a strange question about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as it pertains to the logic of the Last Chronicles. Earlier in the GI, you have said: ". . . I was more concerned with trying to tell the truth about the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy, everything always runs down). . ." Well, the *truth* about the 2nd Law is that it implies an "arrow of time," a specific direction in which time flows. For this reason, we usually see things like cups falling to the floor and breaking, rather than shattered cups rising from the floor and spontaneously assembling themselves. The only time we'd witness such a reversal of entropy would be if we were watching a movie played in reverse.

So my question is this: if the Arch of Time is eventually broken, then won't the *arrow* of time also be broken? If the linear sequence of events no longer needs to flow in one direction, won't entropy be undone?

You have also said: ". . . it is the task of every caring being (that perhaps it is the entire purpose of life) to resist the process [of entropy] as much as possible; to preserve as much as we can for as long as we can."

So is the breaking of the Arch in itself an unexpected path to redemption? Achieving or fulfilling the "entire purpose of life?"

I like to think that this twisted logic might actually hold the key to the final "twist" at the end of this series--the way in which the Land is destroyed, and yet Lord Foul is defeated. Do I win? Did I guess the ending?

I accept your interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. (I'm no physicist, but it sounds right.) And I accept your conclusion that breaking the Arch of Time would break "the *arrow* of time," thus making entropy meaningless. But I don't think that any of us would like the results. As far as I can see, if entropy were rendered moot (by eliminating "the *arrow* of time"), the outcome would be...nothingness. Not freedom, not "redemption," not any concept that has human significance: just non-existence. Because if "the *arrow* of time" isn't pointing "forward," it isn't pointing anywhere, and nothing can ever happen. Ever again.

As a matter of principle, I like "twisted logic." But in this case: sorry, no bonus points for you. <grin>

(09/14/2006)

[deer of the dawn]

This goes back a few pages, but:

“This blackness is lamentable” –his tone itself was elegiac—“but I will not alter it. Its import lies beyond my ken. However, other flaws may be amended The theurgy of the wood’s fashioning is unfinished. It was formed in ignorance, and could not be otherwise than it is. Yet its wholeness is needful. Willingly I complete the task of its creation.”

Am I the only one that is bothered by the line at the end of WGW that says that the new Staff had no need of runes?

No, but I was jarred by the statement in Runes that the Staff was "pale wood" as though it were made of "heartwood". (I have the UK hardback.) I clearly recalled that the Staff was black at the end of 2nd Chrons (though IIRC it was NOT Linden's doing, but because of Vain's blackness). I don't have the book with me but I can find it later. (Anyway, heartwood is almost always DARKER than sapwood!) A minor reminder that SRD is an actual flawed, human being.

Ur Dead wrote:

It may be that Linden's grass stains are the Runes of the Earth. The world has marked her for it's own use.

The emphasis on this, like that in 2nd Chrons on similar stains Covenant received on his white tunic while passing through Morinmoss, have intrigued me, but I haven't found an answer yet.

Spoiler

But I believe the Fatal Revenant is the real Thomas Covenant when he returns at the end. A revenant is someone or something that returns; Linden's love for Jeremiah didn't go anywhere.

Jeff wrote:

But NOW...more laws have been broken, and the remaining ones are being badly stretched, and on top of that pure structure is pure horror...everything that exists is without any change or possibility...(weird example...but what happens if Frost's poem begins not "Two roads diverge" but "One road went"...a whole universe of one road.)
Which leads to a thought I've been pondering for a while: The way scientists talk chaos, and what people mean by chaos are often directly opposed to each other. Roughly (very), related to entropy, the "heat death" is where nothing happens at all anymore is chaos (there just isn't enough energy left for anything to happen, nothing is connected, no cause/effect because nothing powerful enough to cause), yet in ordinary language chaos is the situation where anything can happen anytime (energy completely unrestrained by rules) so nothing makes any sense at all (again..nothing is connected, but in a completely different way...there are causes everywhere, but no logical effects)
This may have nothing whatsoever to do with what SRD is thinking, of course, but this is exactly the kind of contradiction he often notices/makes use of.

Now, I never thought of that-- that ultimate chaos is the same thing as ultimate stillness. That's kind of cool (even if I don't believe that is the way the universe is going to wind up).

[Zarathustra]

I've been thinking about this thread in relation to my Runes reread, and thoughts I've posted in the appropriate dissection threads. Donaldson has said that he wanted to tell the truth about the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy). He's not telling us a fairytale. Everything ends. Though entropy, decay, and death can be resisted, that always comes at a cost. In scientific terms, that means local increases of order can only happen at the cost of increases in chaos/entropy to the larger environment. Beauty (if you want to equate that with Order) is only created by a greater amount of destruction to the larger world, say, the universe.

So there are hints of Creator = LF the Despiser right there. No act of Creation can happen without Destruction. This truth is masked by the Land, where transcendent events and powers are the norm. Wood isn't consumed by producing fire and light. Earthpower enables miraculous healing. But it always comes at a cost. Using Earthpower exhausts the user. Hurtloam is consumed in use. Forestals die.

In the Runes dissection, I noted this passage:

"Sure," she went on, "Kelenbhrabanal's despair didn't save the Ranyhyn. I get that. But what did?

"It wasn't anything grand. It wasn't Lords or Bloodguard or white rings or Staffs. The Ranyhyn weren't preserved by Vows, or absolute faithfulness, or any other form of Haruchai mastery. That was the real warning."

"Linden Avery?" Stave sounded implacable, ready for scorn.

But she had come too far, and needed him too much, to falter now. "It was something much simpler than that. The plain, selfless devotion of ordinary men and women." The Ramen. "You said it yourself. The Ranyhyn were nearly destroyed until they found the Ramen to care for them.

This was the point of the first warning given by the ranyhyn horserite, to Elena as a child. They were trying to tell her to trust herself, that she would be enough, and she didn't need to be transcendent, or to transcend life and death itself in order to succeed. That's a message that recognizes the truth of entropy. Not even magic is entirely transcendent, and in the end the misleading aspects of magic cause people in the Land to think they are more (or should be more) than what they are. This is the importance of, "Be True." Looking for transcendent answers to "the problem of evil" or Wildwood's question cause us to destroy what we love (desecration), betray what we love (breaking the Law of Death), or to destroy ourselves in fury and frustration that we are not more than ourselves.

Chaos/entropy happens all on its own, but it can be aided and exacerbated by our Despite. The same goes for Order/Beauty: the universe has self-organizing principles, otherwise things like planets and trees and people wouldn't naturally occur. But we can also increase that Order/Beauty by our loving, willful acts. We will never overcome entropy or death, but we can choose to overcome Despite. Just because we can't kill Lord Foul doesn't mean that we can't beat him. We must recognize that--just as we ourselves aren't transcendent, and the solution we need isn't transcendent--Lord Foul himself isn't transcendent. Perhaps he's not immortal. After all, he's not a symbol for entropy/death/destruction (that would be the Worm), he's a symbol for our own tendency to speed up or exacerbate entropy/destruction. We most certainly can stop willful destruction of Order and Beauty.

However, we'll never be able to stop unintentional destruction, because the very act of creating order leads to an increase in entropy to the environment.

So Wildwood's question--while somewhat linked to the quesiton of how to beat Lord Foul--is a distinct and separate question. While we can defeat LF, we'll never be able to stop Truth and Beauty from utterly passing, eventually. The trick will be to not allow that fact to cause us to resurrect Foul, or to unleash our own inner Despiser upon the world in retribution for those things we cannot change.

Acceptance. Be True. I think that's the answer to Wildwood's question.