Creator vs the Worm

[ninjaboy]

I'm just confused about the stories accounting of the creation of the world the Land is in..

On one side the Creator is described as so busy making the world that he doesn't notice the Despiser meddling with it, then he casts the Despiser down and seals him in the planet's atmosphere with the AoT..

Then we've got the Worm story, where it essentially is just a large worm which feeds upon the stars / elohim.. And it fell asleep for milennia, and the world of the Land formed about it, and things like Earthpower are a result of the power of the Worm..

If the Creator story is true, that explains the Despiser, banes, people etc, the AoT and to some extent the translation between worlds.. But that would also mean (given the Worm seems to exist) that he thought "lets build this world on top of a sleeping worm who will one day wake up and destroy what I've created."

But the Worm story accounts for the Elohim, but does not imply the presence or necessity of the Despiser or the AoT.. And if the Worm story is true (which given the fact there seems to be a Worm on the loose eating the stars, seems quite plausible) then where does the Despiser originate, and can the Creator be anything other than a sneaky Elohim?

Apologies if this has been discussed before -I couldn't find relevant threads..

[Rigel]

The key concept is that of an unreliable narrator. You can't take anything said in these books as literal truth, but rather as the truth believed by the person who says it.

The story of the creation given in the first Chrons highlights the duality of the Creation, the Creator / Despiser aspect, which fits in with the Christian aspect emphasized.

The story of the creation given in the second Chrons, as I understand it, is more akin to eastern philosophies, and highlights the Creation / Destruction duality.

Both are true - to an extent. Both are also simplifications, generalizations, and rather symbolic. We don't know, literally, how exactly things went down... but from the descriptions given, we can get a pretty good idea.

There IS a Creator, a Despiser, and the Worm of the World's End. Both the Creator and the Despiser have been met several times... the Worm has not. I personally believe that he is not a literal Worm, but that we'll meet him in human form - possibly He is the Creator himself, but that's rather less likely. We'll find out in The Last Dark.

[High Lord Tolkien]

This thread had a lot of interesting thoughts about the Creator and the Worm and the Arch.
Might be worth a reread since we have newer members and a new book.

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