2 niggling issues involving Ravers and the Dead

[Borillar]

So to pass the time until AATE comes out, I've started to re-read the First and Second Chronicles, and I also re-read Fatal Revenant. This led to two questions in my mind:

1) In The Illearth War, the Bloodguard kill Kinslaughterer, and the Raver is apparently banished. Yet in The Power That Preserves, we see multiple instances of proof that a Raver is capable of animating a dead body (first Yeurquin confronts the Unfettered One, and later one of the dead Giants, I think Kinslaughterer, confronts Foamfollower in Ridjeck Thome). So why would killing the body stop the Raver?

2) In Fatal Revenant, Elena appears to Linden very differently than she appeared to Covenant. SRD explains this by saying the following:

Covenant meets a "different" Elena in TWL than Linden meets in FR because he's a different person with (and this is crucial) a different knowledge of Elena. Linden can't evoke the Elena of TWL because she has no real knowledge of that woman: Linden's knowledge of Elena is based pretty much exclusively on stories of Desecration.

However, Linden also evokes Berek Halfhand, and the version of Berek that appears in Andelain is not the version she knows, but rather an exalted version from later in his life that she never met. The same is true for Damelon. So how is this possible?

[lurch]

..mite i suggest..A)...it matters to a Raver. That is to say,,possessing a body of a dead person, has more,,in addition , impact on friends and family in its cruelty and obscene. An analogy mite be,,twisting the memory of a deceased one to that of an ugly existence.

B) Speaks to the larger perception of the whole TCoTC saga,,that of externalized internal conflicts; All as metaphor of the Internal struggles of what it is to be a Human Being. The author of the First Chronicles and Second Chronicles is a younger, not as experienced, ( that is to say, the sum of his life isn't as full) as the author of the Last Chronicles of TC. Therefore, the internal struggles as characterized by the characters of the Last Chronicles' Land,,cannot,, shouldn't be expected, to be the same.

At the heart of the issue..is Donaldson saying, Subjectivity rules the day. The next step is..If Subjectivity rules the day,, then please don't caught in the trap of despair of.. if Subjectivity rules the day, then all is folly, nothing matters. As we trace Linden's arc in the Last Chronicles,,we see her plagued by Lack of Knowledge and as she gathers bits of wisdom, its what
she does, what she Creates from the earned knowledge, that is important to see. What she creates, is her Truth. Her Truth is her transcending the subjective to her own personal Objective.

Thats the best one can hope for in a world where everything is perceived differently by every human being. Our personal Truth, is our personal Objectivity in a Subjective Existence. The open ended paradox.. if one insists as seeing it as a paradox,,is even that Objectivity,,ones personal Truth,,can be changed, discarded, re-created,,as long as one is alive, experiencing Life, and creating.

This is basically a modern extension, continuation, of the Romantic perspective put forth by Goethe, who some consider the originator of the Romantic Era.

Therefore, Elena, and even Berek, Damelon et al..are different, perhaps more fleshed out, dimensioned..etc,,in the Last Chrons than as they were presented in the first and second chronicles., and even different ,between the Time tripping encounters within the Last Chrons. The author is demonstrating the subjectivity of existence.

I hope that helps.

[Borillar]

I've reworded my first question slightly because I'm not sure it was clear what I was asking (based on lurch's response).

As to Q#2, I think you may be missing the point of what I'm asking, lurch (or perhaps I don't understand your answer). My question is a literal one: the Dead are supposed to appear in the way that the person who evokes them knows them. That's why Elena appears beautiful to Covenant but ravaged to Linden. The only way Linden knew Berek, though, was as a much more simple and "uneducated" figure. Yet the Berek that appears before her is the post-Theomach-enlightenment version that she never met.

I'd also add that Linden has at least *seen* the version of Elena that Covenant evokes, as she breaks in to the scene with Covenant's Dead towards the end of WGW. However, I can understand that Linden's deeper knowledge of Elena does not conform to that brief appearance. I don't think the same can be said of Berek.

[wayfriend]

As for question #1, the Law of Death was not broken until the very end of TIW. So there was no possibility of Kinslaughterer possessing an animated dead, as the dead could not yet be animated.

Re: "the Dead are supposed to appear in the way that the person who evokes them knows them". Be careful. Donaldson sometimes be unclear what is plot, or "in story", and what is literary device. Is there some sort of process that actually controls the dead's appearance? Or is Donaldson saying that the story demanded that they be different in order to produce the desired effect. I think, with Donaldson, the answer is a little bit of both.

This is very similar to the Land itself. The Land is "health incarnate" because Covenant is a leper. Now, is that something the author chose, or did the Creator have a hand in it? It's hard to say, and the best answer is "both".

Donaldson once said that the events in his story are things that his characters need to happen. So, is it author's choice that such things do happen, or is there an "in story" explanation that makes them happen? A bit of both.

As for the specific case you mentioned, her vision of Berek is an image created by the stories of Berek that she has heard. Which, of course, is all about Lord Berek, the All-Fatherer, not General Berek, captain of the insurgency. People can build an internal image of someone with very little to go on -- it may not be accurate, but it is surprisingly complete. I bet that that internal image is what led to her seeing the Berek that she did. (And which Covenant saw as well, in TPTP.)

But also, its the only version of Berek that the author had at the time, as well. Coincidence? I think not.

[lurch]

okay,,that makes the answer to both questions, as one word,,Change. There is a Change between a person alive and the person dead.