A thought experiment RE The Land's reality.

[tomposer]

Okay, following in the vein of a couple of posts I've recently made, I'm interested in this:

There are all manner of events which could profoundly effect our (the reader's) perception of the reality of The Land, and the "TC World" character's relationship to it.

I can illustrate with one: Imagine if a character from The Land - like a giant, or Haruchai - was somehow summoned, or placed in Thomas Covenant's world. (This is purely hypothetical).

I personally would be greatly perplexed by this. Why, because I'm working on the assumption that it is impossible. The interesting thing is that I can't say exactly why it is impossible - just from the books, it seems that way.

That is to say, it's hard to see how Donaldson would successfully handle the idea of a mythical creature like a giant becoming corporeal in TC's world. Would a Haruchai still be in possession of their seemingly in-human abilities? But if I'm right, then there's a distinct asymmetry about the TC world, and The Land, which causes the TC world to seem more real - it's characters are equally real in either world.

So how would you feel - obviously speaking hypothetically - if the author contrived to translate a Land character to Thomas Covenant's world? What implications do you think it would have? Considering the progression of the narrative so far, do you think it's even possible?

[Orlion]

Hmm... in the Chronicles, I think it would defeat the purpose of the narrative, but SRD did do something similar to what you are describing in Mordant's Need... granted, unbelief was not an issue in this series.

[ninjaboy]

It is possible. And it has almost happened. But let's back up a bit..

The way it seems to work is that they are 'summonings' and not 'sendings'. As the readers we see TC, LA and HT all summoned to the land through the use of power and lore. And all power and lore relevant to this task is in the Land. For whatever reason, there's no-one with the lore or power in TC's word to summon anyone from the Land. Except the creator / beggar, now I think of it. But that character has no interest in doing any summoning, so it doesn't happen.

But sendings are different. At one point in the Second Chrons, TC successfully sent LA to the 'real world' through the use of Wild Magic. And he had very little lore. Had he been more learned I believe he could have sent any inhabitant of the Land through to the 'real world'.

The other thing is that the Grey Slayer seemed to have been present in the fire when TC and LA were summoned at the beginning of the 2nd Chrons, and again in the Lightning at the beginning of the Last Chrons. Perhaps only the Arch of Time is prohibiting Fangthane from fully & physically appearing in the 'real world', though there is plenty of evidence he has been exerting some influence there for some time now.

[Vader]

The different flow of time would make it harder for Land inhabitants going to TC's world than "real" people going there.

A couple of days in the Land is just a brief moment in our world - a time when TC was either unconscious or slowly dying.

A Land inhabitant spending a few days in our world would have to be unconscious for a couple of months and probably starve or die of thirst because of this.

[ninjaboy]

The different flow of time would make it harder for Land inhabitants going to TC's world than "real" people going there.

A couple of days in the Land is just a brief moment in our world - a time when TC was either unconscious or slowly dying.

A Land inhabitant spending a few days in our world would have to be unconscious for a couple of months and probably starve or die of thirst because of this.

That is a good point, though I find it hard to believe the situation would ever arise. It's difficult enough to summon / send another person, I would imagine it would be much more difficult to summon/send oneself, especially considering the weakened state you generally have to be in for the process to work. And given that there's no-one in the 'real world' with the lore / desire to summon any Land inhabitant, that just leaves us with a sending from the Land.

So we would have a situation where a weakened individual -perhaps unconscious already - is surrounded by lore-weilders in some sort of open area, they do their stuff, and the individual finds themselves in the 'real world'. And back in the Land I find it impossible to believe the unconscious individual would be abandonded, he/she would be bought to a place of shelter by the lore-weilders, and they would endure the individual was kept sustained.

[wayfriend]

Here is the author's take on the question.

In "Covenant," the Land clearly exists in a different kind or order of reality than Covenant's "real world". In the Platonic sense, the Land is *more* real than Covenant's "real world." So characters from Covenant's "real world" can expand into the Land, but characters from the Land cannot shrink into Covenant's "real world".

(09/08/2004)

[ninjaboy]

Here is the author's take on the question.

In "Covenant," the Land clearly exists in a different kind or order of reality than Covenant's "real world". In the Platonic sense, the Land is *more* real than Covenant's "real world." So characters from Covenant's "real world" can expand into the Land, but characters from the Land cannot shrink into Covenant's "real world".

(09/08/2004)

Well that may be how it appears to him. We'll let him have his opinions on here like everyone else. At some point someone's going to break the Law of Being Less Real, you realise..

[tomposer]

Yeah... I don't really buy Donaldson's explanation.

Those from the "real world" being able to live in both worlds seems to give them a sort of advantage. Indeed, in a way it makes them more real, because they can be real in both worlds; whereas the land folk can only be real in their own...

To me, this conflicts with Donaldson's suggestion that the land is more real.

Who does this Donaldson guy think he is anyway?!?

[tomposer]

"
A Land inhabitant spending a few days in our world would have to be unconscious for a couple of months and probably starve or die of thirst because of this."

I agree, this is a good point. But, then again, when Linden or Covenant or anyone else is translated back, it happens bodily. Their body doesn't remain in the Land. I know it's a stretch, but perhaps any translation from the Land to TC's world would similarly be bodily. After all, the relationship between these worlds is asymmetrical in many other respects.

[Vraith]

Yeah... I don't really buy Donaldson's explanation.

Those from the "real world" being able to live in both worlds seems to give them a sort of advantage. Indeed, in a way it makes them more real, because they can be real in both worlds; whereas the land folk can only be real in their own...

To me, this conflicts with Donaldson's suggestion that the land is more real.

Who does this Donaldson guy think he is anyway?!?

I can understand his point in a way, if it's parallel to Platonic Ideal...a "real" triangle cannot exist in our universe...only less-than-triangular triangles, and living things are way more complicated than that.

And for bodily translation: I'm not sure it is, in fact I'm pretty sure it isn't...when TC sends Linden back to save him his "body" is, in fact, still in his home world...it's just that TC isn't in it.

If you combine those 2 things together: our world just doesn't have attributes necessary to make a body for someone in the land.

[lucimay]

see, covenant (or LA or HT) are NOT, in actuality physically IN the land. their bodies are in the "real" world. they are only in the land in their heads, their consciousness has shifted.

that's covenant's initial difficulty. it feels "real" because it is real.
it's just a different type of travel than we're used to reading about or maybe have thought about. esmer (the watch guy, not donaldson's esmer) has alluded to this in many of his posts. it makes sense to him because he's read (spent years in fact reading and rereading) Carlos Castaneda.

Castaneda often referred to this unknown realm as nonordinary reality, which indicated that this realm was indeed a reality, but radically different from the ordinary reality experienced by human beings who are well engaged in everyday activities as part of their social conditioning.

the land has always been "real" to me because of that. thus donaldson's explanation makes sense to me. the bodies of the land people would, in fact, not survive such a shift of consciousness.

edit: don juan and his followers (and i guess that includes castaneda) found a way (if you believe what he wrote was true and not contrived fiction) to shift not just their consciousness but their whole bodies to a..well...separate reality. or at least don juan and don gennaro did. but thats another discussion i suppose.

[Vader]

"
A Land inhabitant spending a few days in our world would have to be unconscious for a couple of months and probably starve or die of thirst because of this."

I agree, this is a good point. But, then again, when Linden or Covenant or anyone else is translated back, it happens bodily. Their body doesn't remain in the Land. I know it's a stretch, but perhaps any translation from the Land to TC's world would similarly be bodily. After all, the relationship between these worlds is asymmetrical in many other respects.

So TC disapperared from his world after being hit by that police car and then suddenly re-materialized in a hospital bed? Must have been quite a shock for the hospital stuff. He can only be glad the bed he appeared in was empty.

[Krazy Kat]

Yeah... I don't really buy Donaldson's explanation.

Those from the "real world" being able to live in both worlds seems to give them a sort of advantage. Indeed, in a way it makes them more real, because they can be real in both worlds; whereas the land folk can only be real in their own...

To me, this conflicts with Donaldson's suggestion that the land is more real.

When I first started reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Lord Foul soon became the most scariest character I've ever known in any book I'd ever read.
Consider, someone who can reach out from a fantasy world and cause so much menace to someone's reality is really extremely daunting.

But nowadays I've gotten used to Foul's ways and he just doesn't bother me anymore - which is a pity - as this takes away something I find lacking in the Third Chronicles.

I do see the character of Lord Foul more clearly in lots of many other ways.
He is a cheat and a coward, who continually works his menace behind Covenant's back, and then runs away and hides from him.

I really hope Stephen Donaldson gets Covenant and Foul together face to face so that they can both roll up their sleeves and have a good old fashion punch-up.
But I know that will never happen because SRD must keep Foul hidden away menacing the people of the Land and ultimately the reader.

Your quote above sounds too much like the ways of Lord Foul, who has no credibility as to wether the Land is real or not. Only Covenant can do that and he stuck either in one place or another, not both.

[tomposer]

Well look, I really agree that the people of the land won't (or can't, or whatever) end up visiting the TC world.

I'm just playing devil's advocate, in order to better frame the relationship between the two worlds.

Regarding this:

So TC disapperared from his world after being hit by that police car and then suddenly re-materialized in a hospital bed? Must have been quite a shock for the hospital stuff. He can only be glad the bed he appeared in was empty.

I suppose I was ambiguous. I meant that in the Land, upon TC or LA returning to their own world, their physical In-Land body simply disappears from the Land. The author, if he wanted to, could use a similar device to get around what I'll call the disparate-temporality-between-worlds problem: He could explain someone departing the land for TC's world by including the disappearance of their body in the Land.

Suffice to say, there are other problems (some mentioned in this thread), but the DTBW problem could be gotten around to some extent.

[wayfriend]

I think one part of what's going on is that the Land is a place where more things are possible than our real world. Giant's and Ranyhyn and Earthpower and Wraiths in Andelain and Forestals and Elohim ... these things aren't possible here. So in that way, the Land is a larger or more completed level of reality than ours.

(You can argue that the Land doesn't have guns and computers and automobiles, and that's the same thing, but I don't think it is. I think those things are completely possible in the Land, but that those are discard paths which Earthpower and Giants and Ranyhyn etc. have rendered pointless.)

In that light, it makes sense that beings from there can't come here. Our world doesn't have the fundamental features that those beings would require. Think about what would happen to a Wraith if it were brought to our world, where there is no Earthpower and no Forest Mind and no fantasy magic to sustain them. It'd be DOA. Even someone like Mhoram would not survive I don't think.

Lord Foul is an exception. He comes from outside the Land, he's shown that he can get into other realities (albeit with issues). Even then, his presence in our reality isn't physical - he merely can send his influences across.

[tomposer]

I think those things are completely possible in the Land, but that those are discard paths which Earthpower and Giants and Ranyhyn etc. have rendered pointless.)

A big Toyota 4X4 wouldn't have gone astray when Linden was trying to get to Andelain

I agree with what everyone is pointing out though. It's an interesting to discuss, because none of this is made explicit by the author himself!

[ninjaboy]

I think one part of what's going on is that the Land is a place where more things are possible than our real world. Giant's and Ranyhyn and Earthpower and Wraiths in Andelain and Forestals and Elohim ... these things aren't possible here. So in that way, the Land is a larger or more completed level of reality than ours.

(You can argue that the Land doesn't have guns and computers and automobiles, and that's the same thing, but I don't think it is. I think those things are completely possible in the Land, but that those are discard paths which Earthpower and Giants and Ranyhyn etc. have rendered pointless.)

In that light, it makes sense that beings from there can't come here. Our world doesn't have the fundamental features that those beings would require. Think about what would happen to a Wraith if it were brought to our world, where there is no Earthpower and no Forest Mind and no fantasy magic to sustain them. It'd be DOA. Even someone like Mhoram would not survive I don't think.

Lord Foul is an exception. He comes from outside the Land, he's shown that he can get into other realities (albeit with issues). Even then, his presence in our reality isn't physical - he merely can send his influences across.

Come to think of it - can Wraiths even go for outside Andelain?

But at any rate, I completely disagree with the assertion (wraiths aside) that 'our world doesn't have the fundamental features that those beings would require.' The regular human inhabitants of the land, as well as the haruchi and Ramen, at worst would feel 'impotent' or have their senses dulled, just the way things are under Kevin's Dirt. That may also be expanded to the Giants, animals, and all other 'human - types'.

There may even be a type of earthpower in the 'real world' anyway, that all the inhabitants there have forgotten as they concentrate on their commercialist, jealous lifestyles.. Just a thought.

[dlbpharmd]

Come to think of it - can Wraiths even go for outside Andelain?

Yes, they can. In TPTP, Triock encountered wraiths on his way to the Unfettered One.