TC is the worm.

[Holsety]

Being Timewarden doesn't begin at one point in time though... therefore if TC BECOMES the Timewarden he always was and always will be the Timewarden.

Therefore, when Mhoram says "you are the white gold" and "the arch is built on white gold," those statements are only true because of the events at the end of WGW.

It's hard for me to accept that what mhoram said depended on WGW because, if so, how would mhoram have possibly understood these things?

Ok. When people travel back in time with linden they don't reverse age or anything. When TC became timewarden he was then protecting all of time (I think) but that doesn't mean that his past self was also timewarden. His past self was a going to be timewarden.

Even though TC's new role may stretch back in time, the past TC doesn't become the same as the present TC.

I don't know what I'm saying or what I'm arguing against.

[Endymion9]

Covenant says at one point that if Foul has gone right for the Arch, it would've been Game Over.

Had to pick up WGW and read this ending again since there is so much discussion of it and it has been so long since I read it.

Makes TC's taunt to LF more understandable. He wanted the first blow to be against him and not the Arch.

responding to LF's taunt that once free the creator should fear and LF will rule the cosmos.

"Big deal. I could do the same thing-if I were as crazy as you." His certainty was unmatched. "It doesn't take power. Just delusion. You're out of your mind."

reading further...the blast is stopped before it ever leaves the cave by a man standing between LF and the Arch. So Covenant is not the Arch (at least at this point) but merely blocking access to the Arch.

TC says "You can't take the wild magic away from me." Showing no need for the ring. I know there was speculation as to whether now LA would need to give TC the ring since he is back. This implies to me that he doesn't need it.

Later TC is refered to as a barrier, not as part of the arch.

Also a statement that stood out to me concerning LF's nature.

If he had not been limited and confined by the mortal Time of his prison, he would have gone on forever [attacking TC], but instead he faded out.

and in the Restoration chapter TC says about LF.

"We aren't enemies, no matter what he says. He and I are one. But he doesn't seem to know that."

I just never remembered that statement, but now I see where many conjecture that LF is a part of TC.

Later TC tells LA. I'm part of you now and will be as long as you live. When I read this before I thought he was only talking about memories living on, but now I wonder if what LA did at the end of FA was not bring TC down from the Arch but rather embody the part of TC that resides in herself.

So I know there has been further information in the GI and the later books, but I still don't see in WGW where it implied anywhere that TC became the Arch. Only that he is a barrier protecting the Arch.

[wayfriend]

I just never remembered that statement, but now I see where many conjecture that LF is a part of TC.

There's more to it than that statement.

Consider these parts.

But each assault hit nothing except the specter, hurt nothingexcept Covenant. Blast after blast, he absorbed the power of Despite and fire and became stronger. Surrendering to their savagery, he transcended them. Every blow elevated him from the mere grieving spectation of the Dead in Andelain, the ritualized helplessness of the Unhomed in Coercri, to the stature of pure wild magic. He became an unbreakable bulwark raised like glory against destruction.

At the same time, each attack made Lord Foul weaker. Covenant was a barrier the Despiser could not pierce because it did not resist him; and he could not stop. After so many millennia of yearning, defeat was intolerable to him. In accelerating frenzy, he flung rage and defiance and immitigable hate at Covenant. Yet each failed blow cost him more of himself. His substance frayed and thinned, denatured moment by moment, as his attacks grew more reckless and extravagant. Soon he had reduced himself to such evanescence that he was barely visible.

Covenant became stronger as Foul became weaker. Foul poured himself into his blasts, and Covenant absorbed them, until Foul was gone and Covenant stood alone.

Then Covenant says that he and Foul are one.

I didn't figure it out for twelve years. But now I see it clearly.

but I still don't see in WGW where it implied anywhere that TC became the Arch. Only that he is a barrier protecting the Arch.

This.

"But nothing's that simple anymore. The wild magic has been fused into me. I am wild magic. In a sense, I've become the keystone of the Arch. Or I will be—if I let what I am loose. If I ever try to use power.

"But that's not all. If it were, I could stand it. I'd be willing to be the Arch forever, if Foul could be beaten that way.".

But, as I said, I don't think this is literal.

[Seppi2112]

Holsety, I'm not inferring that Mhoram saw the future (though he DID have that power, heh), but rather that Mhoram was able to discern the connection between Covenant and the Arch.

The fact that that connection occurred at the end of WGW is secondary... because a fusion with the structures of time themselves would permeate back and forward in time.

[Holsety]

The fact that that connection occurred at the end of WGW is secondary... because a fusion with the structures of time themselves would permeate back and forward in time.

I do see that, but I don't think that Cov becoming arch in the future would make his past self the arch (which is what I thought you were saying).

[Bran Pendragon]

Yeah, I agree with Holsety on this. Who was that running around in LFB's is TC is now ALWAYS the Timewarden. Paradox becomes an insurmountable problem.

[Seppi2112]

I think of it like Resonance. TC may not have physically been the arch yet in the first chronicles, but Mhoram saw a connection between the first chronicles TC and the arch because the arch itself was (would be) influenced by TC.

[wayfriend]

Hey folks, Time is busted a bit but it still functions. It still flows forward.

TC as Timewarden may be able to reach all times, but that doesn't mean he is one in all times. Time still functions, and he's still subject to it's linearity.

Look at ceasures. They can affect all times, but they only exist from the time Joan got the ring on. Their still subject to Time's linearity, too.