What was Really Happening in those Final Paragraphs?

[peter]

Not quite - It just felt like it

[peter]

Not quite - It just felt like it

[thewormoftheworld'send]

You died?!

I was wondering the exact same thing.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Not quite - It just felt like it

That's not very nice.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Not quite - It just felt like it

Let me guess - your double-posting was brought on by a "server configuration error." You thought your first attempt didn't go through so you sent it again.

I've learned to ignore the error and just wait to see if it did go through.

[peter]

Naahh, more like DT induced hand tremor - heavy weekend!

[wayfriend]

Looking at this closely, Donaldson implies that the tsunami is caused by the Worm. While I think that this is not a misdirection, I think it does leave a lot of things open to interpretation. For example, one can imagine the Worm breaking through the crust of the Earth.

But you can also imagine other things. The misdirection here, and this is consistent with Donaldson's treatment of the Worm throughout, is leaving us to believe that the Worm is literally a big slithering Worm. Which, it really can't be, if it is a creation myth. A myth that is just as true as the Würd myth or the Arch of Time myth or even the Wounded Rainbow myth.

I hope we never actually get to see the Worm. Because that would shatter the idea that it is a myth/metaphor, leaving us to know that the Worm myth is literal truth and the other myths are lesser, less true myths. The paradox/tension created by having multiple myths would cease to be an ediface of the story; it would fall like Kevin's Watch.

So if the Worm is really not a big, slithering Worm, but a metaphor for the physical rules which allow the Earth to exist (as the Arch also is), then the tsunami could be caused by the convulsions of a dying Earth, breaking apart because the Arch is cracked and the rules of existence no longer support it. Saying it is the Worm is merely describing the situation in terms of one of the myths. One might also say the tsunami was caused by the Arch of Time collapsing.

- - - - - - -

As far as the stars going out, I have always seen that as symbolism. Before the Earth existed, the stars were devoured. As the Earth ceases to exist, the stars are being devoured again.

It is probably caused by the same fundamental disruptions that caused the tsunami - the waking of the Earth's inherent capacity for distruction.

However, if you force yourself to see everything in terms of a single myth and believe that myth to be literally true, it doesn't all fit. How can a Worm confined to the Earth be devouring the stars?

(Doesn't anyone remember that the Earth was merely the Worm's skin?)

It's also symbolic, I feel, of the Elohim being consumed. By this point in the story, this must have commenced.

- - - - - -

But the lack of a sunrise?

That doesn't connect to any myth.

But it does connect to the notion that the fundamental rules of existence are failing. We used to say, as sure as the sun will rise. That surety, that reliance that the world will continue to function no matter what else happens, is now lost.

And so we have the Final Dark. The last, sunless days of the Earth's existence.

I try to remember that this will be a happy ending.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

The Worm is as real and physical as the One Tree and the stars that protected it. The Chrons bring every myth to life eventually.

[earthbrah]

When the Worm of the World's End drinks the Blood of the Earth, it's puissance will consume the Arch of Time.

How can a non-physical myth drink? Honestly, I can't imagine Donaldson NOT letting us see the actualy, physical Worm...

[thewormoftheworld'send]

When the Worm of the World's End drinks the Blood of the Earth, it's puissance will consume the Arch of Time.

How can a non-physical myth drink? Honestly, I can't imagine Donaldson NOT letting us see the actualy, physical Worm...

That last is a fallacy called the Argument from Personal Incredulity. But I don't know why wayfriend is so hung up on this mythos thing. To me, those myths from the second Chrons only acted as teasers, nothing more.

[Vraith]

I see the actual Worm and the Myth of the Worm much like our versions of "The Flood" or Achilles and Troy and such, only elevated. There is a blending of the real/historical/factual and the symbolic/metaphysical/meaningful, much as in our world, only more tightly woven/interpenetrating.
Its existence and danger, its role as source and consumer, are literal/physical. Its sleeping and waking, its restraints and its freedom, are metaphysical. Its Myth and Meaning are both.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I see the actual Worm and the Myth of the Worm much like our versions of "The Flood" or Achilles and Troy and such, only elevated. There is a blending of the real/historical/factual and the symbolic/metaphysical/meaningful, much as in our world, only more tightly woven/interpenetrating.
Its existence and danger, its role as source and consumer, are literal/physical. Its sleeping and waking, its restraints and its freedom, are metaphysical. Its Myth and Meaning are both.

I don't know what that part about Meaning means. I just know that, in the Chrons, myth and reality are indistinguishable.

[Orlion]

It's tough. There is something intelligent that the Elohim fear are hunting them down and eating them. That is why they hide. It needs to be 'forbade' from drinking Earthblood to extend life on the Earth a little while longer... there is definitely something here that has been labeled the Worm.

What form will it take? I don't know. I think knowing it is there is enough for me, I don't need to 'see it'.

[wayfriend]

I do know that the Arch of Time myth has no worm. And that the Worm myth has no arch. And yet both explain how the Earth was created.

So, to my thinking, when one becomes more literally true, the other becomes less. And if the Arch of Time becomes less true, then I think a lot of other aspects of the story begin to fall apart (starting in the First Chronicles). Not to mention that I'd be dissapointed as well, as I am somewhat invested in the idea of the Arch of Time.

Can you point to some "fact" that "proves" you can't have an Arch of Time and a Worm in the same cosmos? No, I don't think so. And so I can't argue against anyone who believes that they coexist. (But I do think you'd have a lot of trouble explaining how the Creator and the Worm relate to each other.)

But (to try to veer this back to the original topic), one can look at the text and see that Donaldson has implied the Worm is behind the tsunami, but never actually shows it, to the reader or to any character. Just like he has done at the Isle of the One Tree. So it could, at this time, still be considered a metaphor. Even if that turns out to be wrong.

Yes, Infelice speaks of it as if it's real. But is she speaking in factual terms, or is she extending a metaphor in order to explain things that otherwise could not be explained?

If you wanted to explain a solar eclipse to someone who believed that the sun was a fiery chariot that flies through the heavens, then you might say things like: Helios has driven the chariot into the gardens of the moon and its light is hidden by the branches of the garden. Just because it's more practical and efficient than explaining the whole workings of the solar system from the beginning.

So it could, to my thinking, be that Infelice has explained things in a labor-saving way, using the Worm metaphor, rather than starting at Cosmic Mysteries 101. Or, in her disdain for mortals, she may feel that we can't understand what's going on except as a crude metaphor. Or that there isn't enough time to explain it another way. Or, most probably, that she believes she can manipulate Linden and her Army by speaking in those terms.

No, I don't see how Infelice (and Findail) speaking of the Worm as if it was real is conclusive proof that it is real.

(However, I do agree that the scales seem to be tipping that way.)

[earthbrah]

To the point about using metaphorical language to describe/explain something that might otherwise be inexplicable, TC says on pg. 46: "Old stories--I mean the really old stories, like creation myths--are always true. Not literally, of course. Words aren't good enough." And earlier on pg. 44, TC says (in relation to the Creator and Despiser): "The concepts are too big for words. But it's a way to ty to understand. It's at least as true as saying the stars are the Creator's children. Or the Arch of Time is like a rainbow. ... It's all a paradox. It has to be."

Seems almost as if we're being led to believe that both myth and reality are either synonymous or aspects of a larger whole...

[wayfriend]

Thanks, brah. That illuminates my positition on this better than I was able to so far.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Didn't Donaldson say on the GI that every creation myth could be reconciled, and that there was no contradiction between them? Or there doesn't HAVE to be any contradiction?

[earthbrah]

Even if there is, there is hope in contradiction.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Even if there is, there is hope in contradiction.

There's always something we can pull out of Donaldson's hat, from his books or the GI, to explain things. My own view is that, based upon the dream explanation of the Chrons, the unconscious mind treats every metaphor and allegory as real. Therefore, they will be real in the Chrons.

That's not to say the Creator's star children have to literally be his children.

[Orlion]

earthbrah is, I believe, very correct. We do have, for example, an actual Creator and an actual Despiser. However, Donaldson still wants us to look beyond those personages, to the 'eternal concept' that those beings are suppose to help us gain a glimpse of.

He told me so Well... ali, dlb, Romeo, and me. So, in the contradiction term... everything in the Chronicles is meant to be taken 'literally' and 'metaphorically'.