WAS Kevin so wrong to enact the Ritual?

[Zarathustra]

They're both valid arguments to entertain. But, I think, they might be better held seperately, to avoid confusion. On the one side, to argue what you think Donaldson wanted to convey about Kevin. On the other, to argue what a "real" Kevin should have done.

I agree completely.

That being all said, I have to ask if anyone can speculate, what the HECK was Foul trying to do, beating up on the Old Lords in the first place?

Maybe Foul incorrectly believed that the Ritual would break Arch or wake the Worm? And then, when that didn't work, he went on to plan B (helping Drool bring Covenant to the Land)? And then when that didn't work, he moved on to Plan C . . . and so forth.

Going back to the thread question: I think we have to remember what this story was originally. It was a leper's story, a man who found himself confronted with his own internal predicament in external, personified terms. Perhaps it has moved away from that now (or perhaps not . . . ), but originally that's how Donaldson thought of it, as he described in his essay, "Epic Fantasy in the Modern World: A Few Observations," (Kent State University Libraries, 1986). So, this leper's story is how to avoid the despair which leads to suicide, and to learn to love himself again--which is a prerequisite to loving others again (which he does in the 1st and 2nd Chronicles, respectively. . . and that's also why Linden was a necessary addition). The Ritual was analogous to suicide, not to killing your children so they don't have to suffer.

So this story was never about war or physical contests. It was about being true to yourself, and remembering there is also love in the world, for a man who thought that all the love in his life was gone.

I think this is why Donaldson gets so vexed by questions about Hile Troy's logistics or whether rivers are running in the correct direction in the Land. People are confusing the figurative for the literal.

[Prebe]

Good posts Malik and wayfriend. I had noticed that SRS was trying to convey the notion that the ROD was a pretty bad idea, thank you I was, as you say, going along with Sill's argument which is I believe, as you do, is based in the real world.

Along those lines, has anyone noticed several strinking similarities between the second Iraq war and the ROD?

[CovenantJr]

And we can definitely say one thing for sure: Kevin himself thinks that he made the wrong decision, as we can see when Elena summons him and when he accosts Linden.

Of course he does. It didn't work. It neither destroyed Foul nor kept the Land from him. By the time we encounter Kevin, he, like the New Lords, has the benefit of hindsight. He knows what the consequences were, rather than trying to guess what they might be, as he did when he was alive. It's an easy position from which to criticise - or regret - but also one from which it's equally easy to forget that Kevin took the best action he could think of at the time.

You are making the mistake that Foul is some kind of physical enemy that can be defeated with enough force. He is an archetype (Donaldson's word), and especially so in the First Chronicles. He represents our own self-hatred and Despite, that part of us which causes us to do destructive things to ourselves and to each other.

As with the Creator, we know this. We know more about everything that's going on than any of the characters do. Their views on Foul and the Creator are conjecture based solely on their experience and what's known of them from prior ages (which, in Kevin's time, was very little); there's nothing in their knowledge of Foul that would suggest he can't be killed.

If you think Donaldson isn't trying to imply that the Desecration was a bad thing, you're missing one of the most important points of this entire series.

Of course Donaldson believes the Ritual of Desecration was wrong, but I think he would readily admit that his point of view isn't the definitive one. Nonetheless, I'm not disagreeing with him, or anyone else, anyone on that particular count. The Desecration was a bad thing, no doubt. I'm not arguing that it wasn't. I'm arguing that we shouldn't malign or lament Kevin's 'foolishness'. There's a lot more to it than being a fool.

I don't try to claim the Desecration was a good thing or a benefit to the Land, but I do think that Kevin's decision to enact the Ritual displayed more wisdom and courage than he's generally given credit for.

[TIC TAC]

I tend to agree with the notion that the ROD was like having your house tented for termites and then finding the little buggers have re infested the place 15 or 20 years later. You can't wipe out all the termites everywhere, all you can do is eliminate the immediate threat knowing you'll be fighting the same battle all over again down the road. Foul aint goin no where. Either Kevin didn't understand the true nature of his foe or he was too desperate to worry about the long term solution. Either way, in this case, neither conventional nor nuclear weapons will undo a foe that transcends them both. Foul is like swatting at a fly that is on the other side of the window pane, you can't really hit him where it hurts. Unless of course you find a way to break the glass and then reach through and squeeze the life out of the fly. I guess it's possible that wild magic could do the job if the wielder was the sort to take his or her aggression to the level required. But then the wielder would be no better than Foul himself. How poetic.

[Zarathustra]

Good posts Malik and wayfriend. I had noticed that SRS was trying to convey the notion that the ROD was a pretty bad idea, thank you I was, as you say, going along with Sill's argument which is I believe, as you do, is based in the real world.

Hmm. . . then perhaps I'm saying something a bit more critical than Wayfriend, and I was too hasty to agree with the particular paragraph of his which I quoted. I think to treat Kevin's act as a "real world" decision blurs the figurative/literal divide such as to miss the point. It would be the same thing as asking how Hile Troy could have change his battle plans to defeat Lord Foul: that wasn't the writer's purpose, because Lord Foul can't be defeated in straightforward terms of physical strength.

Or perhaps it is like asking which chemical reactions makes the Staff of Law work. I think questions like that are so antithetical to what Donaldson was trying to accomplish, that even entertaining the idea misses his point.

Along those lines, has anyone noticed several strinking similarities between the second Iraq war and the ROD?

What, trying to take out a dictator with physical force? Well, if Saddam were an archetypal symbol for our own self-hatred, then yes. But otherwise, no.

You could make a similar point about Hiroshima . . . or any war, really. That's another example of how I think it's missing the point. Sure, war is bad. And sure, the RoD was bad. But they were bad for completely different reasons on completely different levels.

[wayfriend]

Some other thoughts.

I cannot help thinking about Trell. Trell, too, enacted the Ritual. He was a man who abhored the thought of harming stone. When he fell to the Ritual, it was because he his soul was laid waste, and he had fallen so far from himself that he was insane. Should we think that Kevin must have been like this? Was Kevin, in effect, insane with despair?

I also cannot help thinking about Hile Troy. Troy is Covenant's foil: Kevin, too, is Covenant's foil. Everyone in the Land feared Covenant's power, and they feared his passions, because he could be another Kevin. A hundredfold more powerful and therefore a hundredfold more destructive Kevin. Kevin's Lament is a cautionary tale, and Covenant was the current situation that the tale was applied to.

As a cautionary tale, as a foil, Kevin's role in the story was to define "the wrong answer".

So I don't think, as CJ does, that Kevin's regret arises solely from hindsight. He knew what he did was wrong. And he knew, I think, he was insane when he did it.

[Zarathustra]

Of course Donaldson believes the Ritual of Desecration was wrong, but I think he would readily admit that his point of view isn't the definitive one. Nonetheless, I'm not disagreeing with him, or anyone else, anyone on that particular count. The Desecration was a bad thing, no doubt. I'm not arguing that it wasn't. I'm arguing that we shouldn't malign or lament Kevin's 'foolishness'. There's a lot more to it than being a fool.

I don't try to claim the Desecration was a good thing or a benefit to the Land, but I do think that Kevin's decision to enact the Ritual displayed more wisdom and courage than he's generally given credit for.

The point the author was trying to convey wasn't definitive? I know that he claims we can all have our own interpretations, and these are all valid because a text is an interaction between reader and text. But I'm not sure how seriously he takes that. Why bother answering questions on the GI at all if his opinion isn't any better than ours? We could just supply our own answers and discount anything he has to say.

I don't think Kevin was a fool. I think he was human. I think we can pity him, and sympathize with him, because we all have the potential for desecration. And this recognition can elicit forgiveness and love for Kevin, as we would hope to have for ourselves when we fail.

[Mortice Root]

Wayfriend wrote

I cannot help thinking about Trell. Trell, too, enacted the Ritual. He was a man who abhored the thought of harming stone. When he fell to the Ritual, it was because he his soul was laid waste, and he had fallen so far from himself that he was insane. Should we think that Kevin must have been like this? Was Kevin, in effect, insane with despair?

Wayfriend, that's exactly how I've always envisioned Kevin's state of mind prior to the ROD. I think he retained enough of his sanity to feel some responsibility for the others in the land which is why he sent the Ranyhyn, lords and Bloodguard (well, the Bloodguard also so they wouldn't attempt to stop him). I'd always seen the ROD as a type of suicide by Kevin, it's just that Kevin had the power to also try to make his suicide into an (unsucessful) attack on Foul.

So I don't think, as CJ does, that Kevin's regret arises solely from hindsight. He knew what he did was wrong. And he knew, I think, he was insane when he did it.

Again, agreed. I think Kevin's attitude and anguish when we see him later could either be a continuation of his insanity, or as a recognition by a now sane man of his own insane acts. Actually, the latter seems to fit something Foul would do. Take away the insanity of despair in order to show Kevin what he did, so that he'd be in full possession of his faculties and despair all over again.

[wayfriend]

I think Kevin's attitude and anguish when we see him later could either be a continuation of his insanity, or as a recognition by a now sane man of his own insane acts.

I would think that, realizing what he had done, it would probably make him insane all over again.

Poor Kevin.

[Prebe]

Or perhaps it is like asking which chemical reactions makes the Staff of Law work. I think questions like that are so antithetical to what Donaldson was trying to accomplish, that even entertaining the idea misses his point.

As I said, I was going ALONG with the real-world setting. I AM aware of the point SRD is trying to make. Hell, I even appreciate it!

And yes, you could even have a discussion about which chemicals made the Staff of Law work, IF you could conceive an interesting real world scenario. The thing is, Kevins feelings and thoughts are a lot easier for us to move to the real world than the phsyical function of the Staff of Law. They are "less abstract" or "less fictional" if you know what I mean.

That's fantasy/sci-fi readers for you. They (at least I think most people here) CAN love the fictional work of an author, and STILL discuss the scenarios, however far out, in a real world context. That doesn't have to mean, that they don't get the authors point. Check out the Timetravel thread in which I made a point much similar to yours only to retract it in an edit, because it could easily be conceived as insulting. And because (to be honest) I didn't even agree with it myself

[Zarathustra]

Prebe, to be fair, perhaps I'm the one blurring the figurative/literal distinction. You guys are talking about a real-world scenario, and I'm insisting on judging it in terms of the symbolic. You have every right to discuss the novel on whatever level you guys wish. Sorry to have judged too harshly. Carry on.

[Pumaman]

In the end, this comes down to a ethics question (at least metaphorically speaking). That (to me) is a central theme through all of SRD's works, and currently a major theme of FR (can you do good through evil means?). A classic exercise in ethics goes something like this.

A power sub station has had issues with teenagers hanging out there. The supervisor puts up a sign that indicates that the fence is electrified, even though is not. Was this an ethical act?

Most respondents will answer no, that is a lie and therefore unethical. The teacher then responds "so you would let people be electrocuted rather then lie?"

So in the case of Kevin, this becomes the crux. If he acts out the Ritual, he is responsible for the destruction of the land and everything that follows. However, if does not act, he is still responsible for the destruction of the land and everything that comes after, as he has the power to act but does not. Now the question is intent. SRD seems to argues this same thing in the reference to OIWSMSFG with the premise that power is guilt, another way to look at being guilty is being responsible. This is also why the oath of peace, at it's heart, was essentially an act of denial, an eschewing of responsibility in the false hope of innocence. So did Kevin act out of hope or despair? SRD clearly intends that it was the former, Elena thought the latter and seems to have been proven wrong. By desecrating the land with his own hand, he accorded despite the ultimate victory. That does NOT mean it wasn't the best thing to do in the end, however, as other have argued, leading to the summons of TC. Just as Elena was wrong in summoning Kevin back, it was also needed to allow the final summons of TC in the first chronicles, etc. So then the answer becomes that you can do good through evil means. Maybe...

Apologies for any stating of the obvious or redundancies.

P.S. It was really Elena that screwed up, she should have commanded the Illearth stone to imprison Foul. (Wrong thread, I know...)

[[Syl]]

Welcome to the Watch.

Most respondents will answer no, that is a lie and therefore unethical. The teacher then responds "so you would let people be electrocuted rather then lie?"

Most respondents might still be correct. The question assumes many things: that lying will save them, that there is a reasonable expectation that by not lying a death will happen, and that there is no alternate means to prevent death other than lying. Forget the implications of the the teenagers seeing the fence is not electrified and then perhaps deciding to ignore the real 'Danger : High Voltage' signs.

[SGuilfoyle1966]

A bunch of random thoughts on the entire thread.

One comment was about how perhaps the Ritual wasn't POWERFUL enough, that Kevin assumed nothing would survive in the Land afterward.

The Ritual is the Rituatl of DESECRATION, not Destruction.

It's not just destroying, but turning your hand against that which you love.

I made a pointin another thread that I think the "Ritual" has become this "thing" to later generations, and that some believe it might be a page in one of Kevin's Wards. But it isn't.

Amok said Desecration comes to any willing hand. Trell, no experience whatsoever in that kind of Lore or the Wards, enacted the "Ritual of Desecration."

I don't think the next statement will qualify as a real spoiler, but if so, I apologize. In the Final Chronicles, we have already seen that some of the prehistory of the land is wrapped up in legend, and is much more realistic in the actual telling.

I THINK, I'm guessing, if SRD does touch on the Ritual, we'll see what happened wasn't quite so formulaic.

I thought I wrote in a thread like this about a parallel to the Iraq war. There are some people, friends of mine, that I cannot discuss the war with on political terms. They want us to be just as brutal as the people we are fighting. The people who defend the wiretaps and black ops, black bag operations, etc.

Specifically, they want us to start cutting off people's heads like we have seen happen to our people.

My contention is if we do that, and "win" the war, we've lost. If we become like they are, if we become THEM, they win.

I'm willing to fight the war the way we always have, and if that isn't good enough, I'm willing to LOSE. But I don't want to be part of a country that tortures. Don't want U.S. Marines cutting off people's heads.

I don't want to do that to the Marines, even if we get willing volunteers.

And that's the parallel.

Kevin lost the war when he decided to to enact the ritual. His job was to preserve and protect the land. He DESECRATED it.

He did Foul's work for him.

[matrixman]

Welcome, Pumaman!

If [Kevin] acts out the Ritual, he is responsible for the destruction of the land and everything that follows. However, if he does not act, he is still responsible for the destruction of the land and everything that comes after, as he has the power to act but does not.

My issue with this statement is that it seems to assume that the only thing Kevin could have done was to enact a destructive ROD-type act, as if that were the only way in which he could have used his power. As if there were no other options at all. In Kevin's despair-ridden mind, he probably felt that way. But if he had been able to shrink back from the abyss where his thoughts were leading, then perhaps he would have found another answer, a way to fight Foul without putting himself in the position of being responsible for the destruction of the Land. Obviously we'll never know, since Kevin shut off any alternative to the Ritual in his mind.

As I see it, the problem with the Ritual of Desecration is that it is not a process that has a stopping point - it can't just be switched off once its enactor has "achieved" whatever goal he had in mind, because the only logical end result of the Ritual is total destruction, assuming the enactor is powerful enough. Let's say for argument's sake that Kevin did manage to kill Lord Foul in the Ritual: does that mean Kevin would suddenly, miraculously "cease" the Ritual? Could he just stop like that? I don't see how he could. Otherwise, the ROD wouldn't be such a big deal. I think the horror of the Ritual is that it is a point of no return. I think Kevin would have kept on with the Ritual even in the face of Foul's death because his mind was gone. How could you appeal to him at that point? How could he have appealed to himself to stop? He was no longer the High Lord at that stage, but a vessel for pure destruction. And who could've stopped him? Not the Bloodguard. Unlike Trell, Kevin had no Mhoram, no one to stay his hand. I would argue that Kevin would have kept on going til he succumbed to his own mortality. Unless, say, the remaining Forestal(s) somehow stopped him, Kevin would have kept on howling his despair and rage until the Land was totally scratched off the face of the Earth, and he would have still kept going until perhaps the Elohim themselves were forced into action to stop him.

(I also apologize if I'm repeating myself. Holy crap, that was a long rant from me.)

Oops, I see SGuilfoyle posted while I was typing up mine.

The Ritual is the Ritual of DESECRATION, not Destruction.

It's not just destroying, but turning your hand against that which you love.

Kevin lost the war when he decided to to enact the ritual. His job was to preserve and protect the land. He DESECRATED it.

He did Foul's work for him.

Eloquently said!

[Fist and Faith]

A few points...

1) Kevin did not enact the RoD for the reasons Elena thought he did. He did it because he thought it would destroy Foul. In his mind, it was a) the only thing he had left to try, and b) worth the price to the Land.

2) Kevin thought it was the only thing he had left to try because he fell into despair. Again, in the words of SRD: We are not required to save the world. We are required to stand up as truly as we can for what we love. Kevin did not see the value of that. Mhoram did. Mhoram decided that his own love for the Land, even if it was the only thing of beauty left, was worth fighting and dying for, and it was an unbreakable wall between him and despair.

3) If Kevin had sat back, not trying to prevent it in any way, and watched Foul destroy the Land, it would still have been Foul who destroyed the Land. Things like, "Give me everything you have or I'll kill this person. It'll be on your head." are crap. The one responsible for killing the person is the one who killed the person. I would be very sad for the dead person. I would likely do something to try to stop the killing. But I would not share even the smallest part of the blame if I didn't do what the killer wanted, and he killed the person.

4) I'll bet that, if Kevin had not done the RoD, and Foul had ruled the Land for millennia, someone, somewhere, would have found a way to summon white gold. There's always an overthrow of evil rulers.

5) Welcome, Pumaman!

[Zarathustra]

I did a search on the GI for "desecration" and "Kevin." Here's what I found:

Dustin A. Frost (Syl):
. . . a much debated topic at Kevin's Watch is, "Was Kevin right?" Many have argued that Kevin made the wisest choice, stopping Foul from harming the Land for millenia. Others would argue that following Mhoram's example, even in the face of superior odds, a way could still be found to overcome foul without desecrating.

"Is it more important to take into account the logical series of events leading to an action or the ideas surrounding them?" Yes. Both. A good story is an organic whole, and the "events leading to an action" cannot be meaningfully separated from "the ideas surrounding them."

I look at the issue in a very different way. As I see it, my job is to communicate who my characters are and what they're going through as clearly as possible. It is *not* my job to decide whether what my characters feel and do is "good" or "moral" or "right." That, if I may say so, is a job for the reader. (In the real world, of course, some readers care and others don't.) Now, it seems to me that any reader who cares about what he/she reads, or about living a life consistent with his/her values, needs to ask her/himself questions like, "Was Kevin right?" I certainly do. But I ask myself that as a person. As a writer, I don't. Instead, I ask myself to understand and empathize with Kevin--which isn't the same thing at all.

(04/14/2004)

SRD seems to dodge the question here, but he obviously judges Kevin (and simultaneously empathizes with him). See below for hints of his judgment.

Kevin saved the Bloodguard (and the Ranyhyn, and the Unhomed, and most of the people of the Land) because he genuinely cared about them. (Yes, I know there were other factors as well.) And he performed the Ritual of Desecration for essentially the same reason: he cared more intensely than he could stand, and so the prospect of failure became unendurable.

Attempting to avoid the dangers which result when action is ruled by extreme emotion, the new Lords codified a moral principle in the form of the Oath of Peace. (It's the same principle Gichin Funakoshi proposed when he wrote, "If your hand goes forth, withhold your anger. If your anger goes forth, withhold your hand.") But every moral precept has its disadvantages--just as every strength is also a weakness. The advantage of the Oath of Peace was that it taught the people of the Land not to act on the basis of strong emotion. The disadvantage was, well, it taught the people of the Land not to act on the basis of strong emotion. In other words, it taught them to distrust strong emotions (of which there are too many to be covered by any one precept), and thus it left them without constructive outlets for their strong emotions. Mhoram's great insight was that strong emotions themselves are not the real problem: the real problem is the lack of constructive outlets.

The key to "constructive outlets," of course, is the ability to act on strong emotions while still using good judgment. That's a learned ability, and it can only be learned by people who first *trust* their strong emotions (i.e. trust themselves). The core of Kevin's dilemma is that he felt despair because he did not trust himself.


(06/04/2004)

Such "Covenant"-esque ideas as "innocence is impotence" and "only the guilty have power" are inferences drawn from the basic precepts of free will. They might be rephrased thus: only a person who has truly experienced the consequences of his/her own destructive actions is qualified to evaluate--is, indeed, capable of evaluating--his/her future actions in order to make meaningful choices between destruction and preservation. Hile Troy is an interesting example. He's "innocent" in a way that Covenant is not: he's never done anything even remotely comparable to the rape of Lena. As a result, he's bloody dangerous. He literally doesn't know what he's doing: he hasn't learned the kind of humility that comes from meeting his own inner Despiser face-to-face. Therefore, in spite of all his good intentions, he makes decisions which bear an ineluctable resemblence to Kevin's.

Do you doubt me? Look at Troy's "accomplishments." If Mhoram hadn't saved his bacon at the edge of Garroting Deep, his decisions would have effectively destroyed the Lords' ability to defend the Land. He's just too damn innocent. He hasn't learned the self-doubt, the humility, that makes Covenant hesitate, or that makes Mhoram wise.

(07/13/2004)

This seems a contradiction to me. Above he says that Kevin's problem was that he didn't trust himself. But Hile Troy makes similar mistakes because he hasn't learned self-doubt. Interesting . . .

I may be getting myself in trouble here; but I suspect that LF didn't come to the Land until the Old Lords became powerful enough to be useful to him.

(11/18/2004)

I posted this as evidence that LF didn't want to enslave people or fight them for the hell of it. He had a purpose in opposing them, as you'll see below.

I’ll have to refer to you back to earlier discussions of the Oath of Peace because I don’t want to re-explain the insight which allowed Mhoram to become more effective than his immediate predecessors, even though he lacked the Staff of Law. The point is this: for a long time, the people of the Land saw the Oath of Peace as a proscription against certain emotions, while Mhoram learned to see it as a prescription for certain behaviors. In so doing, he opened the door for his own actions, and for the actions of others, to be galvanized, energized, empowered by previously-rejected emotions. Now, speaking as a student of the martial arts, I believe this to be A Good Thing--as long as no one re-creates the conditions which led to the formulation of the Oath of Peace in the first place. And those conditions were: action *determined* by emotion (Kevin and the Ritual of Desecration, Trell and the devastation of The Close) rather than action determined by conscience and then *energized* by emotion (“Lord Mhoram’s Victory”).


(01/01/2005)

As for Foul's reasons for messing with the Lords: why do you assume that they had no real power to release him from his prison? The very fact that Berek created the Staff (an organic instrument vulnerable to destruction) shows that the Lords were (inadvertently) helping to create the conditions necessary to Foul's release: they were (unintentionally) devising ways by which Law would be made vulnerable to damage. In addition, I see no reason to assume that Foul *knew* the Arch of Time would survive the Ritual of Desecration: he may very well have been hoping that such a draconian violation of Law would be enough to spring him free. Remember, he, too, is learning as he goes.


(03/19/2005)

My story is one of extremes: it's about people who push their own beliefs and personalities beyond all rational limits. So, in the case of the Bloodguard, mere fidelity isn't enough: it has to be deathless, sleepless, super-human fidelity or nothing. For Kevin, it was victory or nothing. For the Giants, it was pure untarnished love of life or nothing. And for Lord Foul, it's (for lack of a better term) absolute transcendance or nothing. Only a few characters--Lord Mhoram, Saltheart Foamfollower, Covenant himself--find salvation between the extremes.

(09/07/2005)

[Pumaman]

Welcome to the Watch.

Most respondents will answer no, that is a lie and therefore unethical. The teacher then responds "so you would let people be electrocuted rather then lie?"

Most respondents might still be correct. The question assumes many things: that lying will save them, that there is a reasonable expectation that by not lying a death will happen, and that there is no alternate means to prevent death other than lying. Forget the implications of the the teenagers seeing the fence is not electrified and then perhaps deciding to ignore the real 'Danger : High Voltage' signs.

First, I shortened the example in the interest of brevity (apologies), the sign did work in that context, kids stopped coming. But in the end, whatever may or may not happen, you have 2 choices at the point of decision, act or don't act. Whatever comes, comes from that decision, along with the responsibility.

But if he had been able to shrink back from the abyss where his thoughts were leading, then perhaps he would have found another answer, a way to fight Foul without putting himself in the position of being responsible for the destruction of the Land. Obviously we'll never know, since Kevin shut off any alternative to the Ritual in his mind.

Kevin was the High Lord, sworn to be responsible for the Land. Again I would argue that he is responsible for the destruction of the Land either way, he certainly seemed to feel that way, so his choice is the same, act or don't act.

1) Kevin did not enact the RoD for the reasons Elena thought he did. He did it because he thought it would destroy Foul. In his mind, it was a) the only thing he had left to try, and b) worth the price to the Land.

2) Kevin thought it was the only thing he had left to try because he fell into despair. Again, in the words of SRD: We are not required to save the world. We are required to stand up as truly as we can for what we love. Kevin did not see the value of that. Mhoram did. Mhoram decided that his own love for the Land, even if it was the only thing of beauty left, was worth fighting and dying for, and it was an unbreakable wall between him and despair.

3) If Kevin had sat back, not trying to prevent it in any way, and watched Foul destroy the Land, it would still have been Foul who destroyed the Land. Things like, "Give me everything you have or I'll kill this person. It'll be on your head." are crap. The one responsible for killing the person is the one who killed the person. I would be very sad for the dead person. I would likely do something to try to stop the killing. But I would not share even the smallest part of the blame if I didn't do what the killer wanted, and he killed the person.

In point 1, you hit the center, Kevin thinks that by destroying the land, he will destroy Foul. But that seems to contradict point 3. Kevin wasn't given an ultimatum to perform the ROD, he is doing it willingly to destroy Lord Foul, he does not know at that point it is what Foul wants. Indeed, Foul seems to indicate it was an unexpected bonus in one of his monologues. So Kevin still has one choice to make, act or don't act. Also, I think it's pretty well implied that all other avenues have been exhausted, and all that's left is the "nuclear option"

SO that goes back to point 2, intent, and as you say, SRD has Kevin acting out of despair, which is what blinded him to the likely outcome of Foul's survival. But if he doesn't act, Foul blights the land anyway. He cannot avoid responsibility by not acting, he is the High Lord.

Perhaps this is a better analogy. You are in a parking lot, in front of you a gunmen has a hostage and is threating to kill them. You believe him. You have a gun pointed at him, his head is partially exposed and you think you have a shot. Do you take it?

If you want to proceed from outcomes only, Kevin's approach leads to desecration, recovery, Foul returns thousands of years later. Mhoram's approach leads to recovery,
desecration by Sunbane, Foul returns thousands of years later. SOOooo...

That's why I posit that the question is one of ethics, And I see that Malik has been busy while I'm typing.

Thanks for the welcome, I wish this site had existed 27 years ago. Of course, the web didn't, so that may not have worked.......

[Tull]

If you want to proceed from outcomes only, Kevin's approach leads to desecration, recovery, Foul returns thousands of years later. Mhoram's approach leads to recovery,
desecration by Sunbane, Foul returns thousands of years later. SOOooo...

The problem there is that Kevin was directly responsible for his desecration, whereas the Sunbane had very little at all to do with Mhoram - it was made possible by Covenant's doing, and through no fault of Mhoram's.

Also, if I recall correctly, the First Chronicles take place roughly 1000 years after the Ritual of Desecration, and Foul is already nearing the height of his power. In contrast, in the Second Chronicles, around 3500 years have passed. Granted, the Clave had been around for a goodly long time by then - I don't remember how long - but Mhoram's decisions resulted in Foul's regeneration-period (for want of a better term) being almost 3 times longer.

[CovenantJr]

Try this thought:

We've seen how badly the Warward fared against Foul during Mhoram's time. Without Covenant's intervention, the war would have been lost and everything would have been over. Yes, the Lords and the Warward managed to hold on for a surprisingly long time, but they would have inevitably failed in the end. Covenant was the only hope. Now recall that Kevin's army had already fought the war. We don't know how few were left, but if a full Warward and complement of Lords was insufficient in Mhoram's time, how could a badly depleted version fare any better? It's easy to say Kevin should have carried on fighting regardless, but to him there was nothing left. He had tried everything.