WATER

[lurch]

" Linden Avery's fate may indeed have been written in water." Thus begins TLD. Water is everywhere in TLD. Even when on dry hard land there is mention of some one going for water. Water water water. A tsunami ended AATE and the first line of TLD is wet.

What is up with all the splish? There is an answer in Surrealism. The god father of surrealism put it this way;" Man is Soluble"..Man changes as the environment around him changes. Man dissolves into the immediate environment. Man Changes. Take a Yankee to Memphis for a few years and he will be saying "y'all. ". Man changes,,is able to change,,as the environment around him changes Man accommodates.. Man dissolves into his surrounding like a Alka Seltzer dissolves in water. ..

Avery's fate writ in water hints at the changes and Linden's ability and willingness to change ,and make the changes, she needs to make to be part of the environment around her...Water is the metaphor for change, adapting, accommodating, adjusting etc.

It then appears that TLD is about those changes Linden and Jeremiah and even TC make,,to create a new future,,rather than repeat the past. When creating a future, Hope and Love are necessary , otherwise one is just repeating the past. Linden makes the necessary change of ..trusting Love..with the future. The Last Dark,,becomes the unknown Future, trusted to Love.

At the detail level,,the author takes us from a tsunamic ocean, stormed heavens to clear streams to stanky Lifeswallower to the Sarangrave to Defiles Course choking stench and even to the Vile's Palace of Water with a Fountain frozen in time . He even kills the skurj with the foul drainage of Mt Thunders interior warrens. Suicide by Septic Tank. Water is of every kind . Lindens choices leave her looking for better choices to deal with the every kind. Help. I'm sure I haven't caught all the alludes to water so feel free to add your observations.
But the author kept his word. Avery's fate was writ in water. She washed herself clean of her old self and dissolved herself into a future that trusted Love.

[ozrics]

Don't forget that it was lindens heating up of the water in the malachite cliff face that enabled jerry to find that purer piece to complete his temple. Indeed her fate was writ in water as was the lands. I think you're spot on here Lurch. The whole water concept cobined with Anele's 'seek deep rock' ie malachite and the passing of earthpower to Jerry was a well constructed theme that SRD should be given great credit for.

[Zarathustra]

Sea and stone: Linden and Jeremiah? Permanence at rest ... permanence in motion. These two are obviously linked. The "seek deep rock" paved the way for Jer's malachite structure. And in the same leg of this journey, Linden not only finds her son, but encounters SHE, and brings down the roof which alters the plumbing of Mt Thunder. It's also where she encounters "permanence in motion" of water in the Viles' ballroom, which is the place where Linden has her showdown with SHE. This place is very significant in terms of entropy, since entropy is experienced in the "arrow of time," which points in the same direction as everything running down. For a while, the Viles' ballroom had resisted this truth (with magic), but Linden finally brings the truth of time and "running down" (or increasing disorder) to the Viles' act of watery abeyance ... which is significant when you're confronting your own act of speeding entropy along (waking the Worm) and forgiving yourself for it (accepting the confrontation with SHE), which allows you to start working in the opposite direction: resisting decay ... rebirth.

[lurch]

Oh thats right Oz, the boiled water almost taking out Stave, but Jerry gets his keystone so the Insequence have a place to hide,,and..and..and ..I understand what you are saying Z,,the rebirth goes on like the EverReady bunny defeating entropy all along,,even when the author reminds us every now and then..of bullet holes in shirts and pjs. rebirth indeed. Entropy happened in the hollow . Defeating it has been the tale since..to the point of..the" Narrative" is re born as the message is in the Metaphor..

.I have always loved the upside down inside out of TCoTC..like..defeating entropy...In a way..thats a double negative, which makes it a positive. Water everywhere!