Waking the Worm

[SGuilfoyle1966]

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...

He's going to be a god when Foul destroys the arch and they are taken with him. Foul promised, afterall. But he also made his own arrangements with the croyel to be transported elsewhere, in case Foul double-crossed them.

[SGuilfoyle1966]

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...

This is interesting. It strikes an idea I have had.

The worm consumed the stars until it fell asleep. There were stars in the the cave of the One Tree. Was that the belly of the worm? Or were the stars hiding out there?

But what else, in the series from day one, are bright, lit objects, fanciful to look on? Also shown to have awesome power by Book eight?

The Wraiths of Andelain. I thought they were just pretty. But they were held in deep reverence and thought to be beautiful. But the attack on them was an abomination.

I don't know where this leads, but it is some thinking I've been doing.

[SGuilfoyle1966]

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: [

Are the two tales full of inconsistencies? Or do they tell different parts of one tales.

Because (see post above) there is one consistent thing in both myths.

The stars. The Worm devours the stars and falls asleep and the world is built around him.

In the first "myth," the creator wanted to make something to delight his children, the stars. But to his chagrin, they went down inside the Arch of Time and were trapped. And Foul had been marring his creation, filling it with banes.

If the Worm is indeed the World itself, then the banes are in the Worm.

And, on the link that seems to be at the tip of my fingers, the wraiths, until Fatal Revenant, came across to me as "children" benign and looking for delights and creating delights.

[wayfriend]

This appeared in the GI. It bears on the question of using the Power of Command on the Worm. And on the nature of the Worm itself.

Anthony Buren: Is the Worm a part of the Earth or is the Earth simply built upon the Worm? More to the point can you command the Worm by drinking the Blood of the Earth? If so why wouldn't Linden or the Elohim simply command the Worm never to rouse?

• I could tell you that the Worm is an inherent part of the Earth's creation--which it is. But I find it more useful to think of such things in symbolic terms. Consider the Worm as a symbol of Death. If you had the Power the Command, would you use it to command Death to simply "stop happening"? If you did, the outcome might surpass your worst nightmares. Disasters of astonishing magnitude result from messing with The Way Life Works. Witness the horrors that have arisen because individuals decided that the Laws of Life and Death shouldn't apply--"just this once." Damelon was wise to do everything in his power to keep people away from the EarthBlood.
  
  (03/05/2008)

BTW, I don't think Donaldson means that the Worm IS Death exactly. His other comments imply that the Worm is more of a symbol for the Earth's Capacity for Self Destruction. And he also said that this Capacity is necessary for Life, so removing it might remove the Earth's Capacity for Life. Which is indeed dangerous. IMO he simplified what the Worm might represent here, to make the point about fooling with things.