Atrium, are you sure SheWho is as powerful as Lord Foul? I dn't remember reading that.
I was positive i had read that, either in the gradual interwiew or in AATE. Now you made me a little insecure. Anyone else remember?
It seems reasonable enough though. Assuming that the Clave is right on this she is another immortal from beyond the arch of time, and the Creators sweetheart. And there is also the idea - i forget if this is from Donaldson or something i picked up in this forum - that she incarnates a "concept" just like Foul incarnates the concept of Despite. Her concept being that of Love. Love would not be weaker than Despite in a Donaldson story right?
And i still think you are being charitable. Sure, we always knew that there were nasty banes in Mount Thunder, this is explained already in book one. But the only one ever detailed to us is the Illearth stone. The rest remain nameless.
At the end of WGW, Donaldson wrote:There Linden let go. The mountain towered over her, as imponderable as the gaps between the stars. It was heavier than sorrow, greater than loss. Nothing would ever heal what it had endured. She was only mortal; but Mount Thunder's grief would go on without let or surcease, unambergrised for all time.
That's a very odd and dark way to end this book, this 2nd series, given that Linden has just performed a "miracle" of healing and had a monumental victory over the Sunbane. Why would the mountain itself be more wounded than the rest of the land? Why is this wound related to grief and loss? Why is it "unambergrised" for all time?
I had no problem understanding why Mount Thunder, after millennia of being used as a breeding den and charnel pit by the most vile creatures in the Land, and housing Despite in its heart wielding the Sunbane, would be a very unhappy mountain. I think its hinted in more than one passage that the mountain in itself has a kind of slow consciousness, that its not at all happy about the use it is being put to but unable to purge itself of its banes because its too slow and timeless. I always liked this passage, its very poetic and fits right in with the nature of the Land where even the earth and mountains have a sould and feel pain and seeks healing:
BTW, i dont find a translation for unambergrised on the web, but i believe i looked it up in my english-swedish dictionary when i first read the book and understood it to mean something similar to unhealed. Anyone have a clear definition?
Nothing would ever heal what it had endured.
Note that we are still talking about "it", here, as in what the mountain had endured, not "she", as in what She had endured and will have to endure for 3000 + years more.
Sure, interpreted generously it leaves an opening. And if i would retconn in another evil power into the Lands history, the Deeps of Mount Thunder would be the logical place to put it. But there is still the question of how this very powerful entity could lie there under the radar for all these millennia escaping notice from all the very perceptive and magically gifted inhabitants of the Land. If She indeed is the Love principle gone sour, its a very far stretch of the imaginatin that this universal principle didnt affect events and the emotions and motivations of its near neighbours.
In the end i guess it boils down to execution. If i had liked the way She was brought into the story and interacted with the characters, i could have overslooked the kind of logical leaps i harp on about here. I really disliked that part of the book, and have no incentive to be forgiving. No kind eyes here
The Insequent, however, have no such defense. Sure they are powerful, but not in the same way as the Elohim. Foul would most likely trash all of them if they stuck their noses into the Land.
And yet they choose to stick their noses in now, and are not trashed by Foul and his minions (apart from the Harrow, who acted a bit overconfident). As i recall they do have their own homeland, the Haruchai encountered it when they ran into the Vizard, so it cant be too far away from the Land. And these guys know much about things going on afar. But still choose to go under the radar when their help could have made all the difference. Sure, the text gives us their explanation and we must take their word for it, but its just another piece in the puzzle that for me makes the LC seem so different from series 1&2.
The whole Land setting has changed from something dynamic and organic with a rich history and great set of secondary characters to just a pale theater backdrop for the final confrontation between the only players that really matter, Linden, Covenant and Foul.