Hey, It's Like All Dark and Sh@t Now

[Sunbaneglasses]

Can a world be saved after a puissant worm eats The Sun and stars? I believe that would be the straw that breaks the camels back with me. I would just curl up in the fetal position and wait for oblivion. Come to think of it, I had a hard time getting over how relaxed the characters seemed about the whole "The Worm is going to eat everything all up and the world will end" subplot.

[lurch]

...and while you are waiting..you'd have a copy of TLD to read,yes?

[Sunbaneglasses]

It just seems like with the end of The World staring them in the face the party hung out, ate meat and cheese, took baths, etc.... for a long time after the confrontation with SWMNBN. That section of complete inaction was overly long and drawn out and the book seemed overly concerned with petty things when compared to The Worm then BAM! the Sun doesn't rise and the stars start to go out. Not to mention the tsunami.

(BTW Lurch, how would I read AATE in the dark?, not to mention the cold?)

I hope SRD uses real world principles and The Land starts to get colder than a well diggers ass.

[lurch]

You make an interesting comment SBG..."overly long drawn out and overly concerned about petty things..imho...you are hitting the nail on the head of exactly the point. Remember,,this book starts off on a riff about TIME. Somebody, here, has already pointed out that the whole of AATE takes place in a relatively short period of Time,,like a litle less than two weeks,,if you count in real world increments,,which I am not sure is the correct way to do it, but in comparison to the other books of TCoTC,,AATE transpires in a short period of Land time..Fascinating!!..yet you echo a common observation,,that things seem to lollygag about every so often in this book. What I'm saying is..how the author "plays" with Time in this book..The subjectivity of Time is experienced by the reader,,not just the characters of the book. Just like,," we" were duped by the Illusionary TC and Jerry in FR as Linden was,," we" on purpose get to feel or deal with the " Time" of the Land...its subjectivity. This " play" by the author , of Time,,leads me to wonder about exactly when is TC seeing the Worm munching the stars. He went thru a caesure to find Joan..exactly " when" he and company got deposited may be at play. ..maybe not..but in any case,,I like the subtle ways the author plays with Time in AATE. Its like..I get to actually experience too much time,,,AND..not enough time thru out this book.

[Orlion]

The Elohim were pretty concerned about the Worm. Everyone else just knows it as a threat in the abstract sense. SHMNBN, on the otherhand, they've experienced first hand. Makes since to me that they'd be emotionally more concerned with Her. Also, it seems they've pretty much accepted the Worm devouring all... there's nothing they can do about it, but they can bloody the bad guy's noses a little bit before hand!

Also, though it would get colder, the Sun isn't the only source of heat

[ninjaboy]

On my second readthrough I am getting a better understanding of how long the journey is taking, and the pacing overall.. It is actually so much better the second time//

BUT essentially, the "sh*t - no more sun" thing.. Yeah I think that's going to scare the crap out of the regular inhabitants of the Land.. And it's not something that can be fixed over time (like the Sunbane) either.

[Orlion]

Maybe they could grow a glourious Tree that emits Earthpower to bath the world in light!

Of course, they should kill all spider-like beings before hand, so Foul won't use it to kill the Tree as a diversion while he wrests the Silmarils from Feanor's treasury...

Something's not working out quite right...

[High Lord Tolkien]

We don't know for sure the sun and the stars are being devoured.
I would say they are not.
To me that would surpass the powerlevels we've ever seen in the Chronicles a million fold and raise it to ludicrous levels.
It just doesn't fit with what we've read so far.
As horrible as the Sunbane was it didn't affect the Sun.
We were first told the the whole Earth was the Worm curled up and that the life that we knew as the Earth existed on it's outer skin.
Now we know that's no true.
The Worm is just like a massive range of hills (mountains? I forget) in size.
We were told that the Worm slumbered after devouring many Stars.
Now we learn that it's main focus/meal is just Earthpower and Elohim.

I got the impression that the sun and stars were being blocked by the debris/dust caused by the damage that the Worm was doing to the Earth.

The Last Dark will be about saving Earthpower itself not the world, imo.

[ninjaboy]

But HLT - the stars there - as far as my understanding goes - are NOT burning balls of gas, but are, in fact, Elohim. The exact thing the Worm feeds upon.

[Cambo]

If the stars are Elohim, is Infelice the Sun?

[lborl]

I had a hard time getting over how relaxed the characters seemed about the whole "The Worm is going to eat everything all up and the world will end" subplot.

My guess is that TLD will be more akin to The Restaurant At The End of the Universe. We've already seen how Joan's white gold made rents in the fabric of time, and that the Theomach could control passage through them into any part of the Land's history.

So what can a white gold wielding ex-Timewarden and a magical gate-builder do, assisted if necessary by another white gold wielder with the Staff of Law?

Seems to me Jeremiah's an Insequent-in-waiting.

[High Lord Tolkien]

But HLT - the stars there - as far as my understanding goes - are NOT burning balls of gas, but are, in fact, Elohim. The exact thing the Worm feeds upon.

That was from the same story that said the Worm curled up and formed the Earth which we now know is false.
Actually even in that story it never said they were the stars.
The Worm ate the stars, curled up and THEN the Elohim manifested themselves.
So... at best they were a synthesis or starstuff and Worm.
BUT like I said most of that story has been shown to be false.
Where did that story come from anyway?
Was that a Giant story they got from the Elohim? I forget.

[Orlion]

But HLT - the stars there - as far as my understanding goes - are NOT burning balls of gas, but are, in fact, Elohim. The exact thing the Worm feeds upon.

That was from the same story that said the Worm curled up and formed the Earth which we now know is false.
Actually even in that story it never said they were the stars.
The Worm ate the stars, curled up and THEN the Elohim manifested themselves.
So... at best they were a synthesis or starstuff and Worm.
BUT like I said most of that story has been shown to be false.
Where did that story come from anyway?
Was that a Giant story they got from the Elohim? I forget.

Stars were winking out of existence at the end, also.

[ninjaboy]

But HLT - the stars there - as far as my understanding goes - are NOT burning balls of gas, but are, in fact, Elohim. The exact thing the Worm feeds upon.

That was from the same story that said the Worm curled up and formed the Earth which we now know is false.
Actually even in that story it never said they were the stars.
The Worm ate the stars, curled up and THEN the Elohim manifested themselves.
So... at best they were a synthesis or starstuff and Worm.
BUT like I said most of that story has been shown to be false.
Where did that story come from anyway?
Was that a Giant story they got from the Elohim? I forget.

Stars were winking out of existence at the end, also.

Doesn't covenant say earlier in the book about Cration stories, that even if the stories are false, they are still true?? That my be kind of relevant..

As for the stories themselves, I began a thread not too long ago comparing the 'creator' story to the 'worm' story, and how they both account for different aspects of the world. There's no Despiser or AoT in the 'worm' story, but there's no giant eternal worm in the 'creator' story - yet we know there is a creator, a despiser, an AoT, and a Worm..

Perhaps I am again getting the stories confused, but I had the impression that the Stars were either related to the elohim (or were/are Elohim) or related to the Creator..

And I believe the Giants did get the 'worm' story from the Elohim..

[bikebryan]

My take is the two different stories are related and reflecting different things; they do not oppose each other!

The creator story basically states that the "stars" were the children of the creator who entered this universe; the creator sealed it off before he realized they were in there so they are stranded and he can't reach in to free them without breaking the Arch of Time and ending the creation.

The Worm apparently was also in said creation, whether created by the Creator or Lord Foul (not really clear on that) and ate a number of the "stars." Then it fell into a slumber.

Finally, the Elohim are basically the direct offspring of the Worm.

My thought is that the Worm is what all Earthpower actually springs from.

[danlo]

I've always enjoyed this old thread on the matter 2 creation stories

[High Lord Tolkien]

I've always enjoyed this old thread on the matter 2 creation stories

I agree.
Watfriend has another great creation story thread too.
Except that finding out that the Worm is only as large as a range of hills tosses most of the ideas in both threads out the window.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I think we're going to find out the answers to the broader questions of what all the "cosmic" things are for real in the Land.
Nothing we've been told so far is proving to be true.
All the stories are false or misleading.
The Worm being the Earth is the most obvious falsehood.
The fact that SWMNBN was left out of the Creator/Foul story tells me that that creation story is bogus too.

[danlo]

Worm is only as large as a range of hills

really? I must have missed that in my first read, I've always envisioned the Worm as "The Doomsday Machine" from the original Star Trek series, now I'm bummed.

[ninjaboy]

I think we're going to find out the answers to the broader questions of what all the "cosmic" things are for real in the Land.
Nothing we've been told so far is proving to be true.
All the stories are false or misleading.
The Worm being the Earth is the most obvious falsehood.
The fact that SWMNBN was left out of the Creator/Foul story tells me that that creation story is bogus too.

Yeah i think we're going to find out a lot of answers, but TBH I think that what we've been told has been truer than I had expected.
I don't think they've been as false or misleading as you say. For what it's worth, just because the Lords or other races' knowledge of the greation of their universe has some gaps, doesn't mean that it's not essentially true..
But either way we'll know for sure after we read TLD I believe..