An apology for TLD

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

But not in the sense of saying sorry.

First off, the resolution to the “Diassomer Mininderain” subplot. Technically, the Dancers of the Sea were “made” beings like the “made” ur-viles and Waynhim. And their power flowed from both Kastenessen and She Who Must Not Be Named—through Emereau Vrai. Also, the Vain-Findail relationship is noticeably “queer,” wherefore the union of the Demondim-spawn with the souls of those whom She devoured makes at least obtuse metaphysical sense: the masculine grandchildren of the Viles are now one with the feminine aspect of eternity. They embody the beautiful harmony of the masculinity-femininity dual archetype. (Plus there's Esmer's weird relationship with the Demondim-spawns' Weird, his own ancestry in Kastenessen and Emereau Vrai... And finally, if the Viles themselves were ghosts, for those they indirectly sired to be able to unite with other ghosts seems to fit with the way of things in the Land.)

And why, “I AM MYSELF”? Well, doesn't the Christian deity call His own name “I am that I am” or even just “I am”? In any event, I don't think that She was saying Her true name in this part of the dialogue. I think She was just announcing that She was now truly Herself again *because* She now knew what Her true self was.

Secondly: the last dark itself is the darkness between the last chapter and the epilogue. We can't be given to “see” the recreation of the world since the true midnight eclipses the light by which we would “see” this. Or why do you think that the epilogue opens with the three our-worlders walking in the depths of that kind of night? If it's intentional on the author's part, this is even descriptive brilliance on an absolute scale. The representation of ineffability by a gap between effable pieces of information.

Besides, SRD's descriptions of the devastation of temporal structure are fucking amazing. For him to have Stave speak in three tenses to convey the collapse of the Arch was fantastic. I have never read an author depict the death of time with such perfection. (In fact, I doubt I can remember a time when another author ever depicted such death.) The absences of those turns of phrase we would hope for in an account of the Land's final salvation are made up for by the glory of the precedence and consequence of that salvation, as it is lexically accounted for. At worst, that is, we ought to forgive SRD more or less completely for his “failure” to report in our language how Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah inverted the actions of the Worm.

Third, the “happy” ending is entitled by the end line(s?) of a poem from the first novel, IIRC. A poem about the world dying and yet living on in the souls of those who dream for the sake of that world's splendor. In WGW we got that Covenant would always live on in Linden's heart, and in TLD we got that Covenant's resurrected form was equipped with leprosy owing to Linden's conception of the man. The reborn Earth is the eternal dream of the three our-worlders, then. It is the dream within their dream, even.

And that is the ultimate answer to the question of whether Covenant's experiences in the Land are real. They are real in relation to the dreams Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah themselves have in the Land, and ideal in relation to our waking world. They are the reality of ideality, even.

I mean, the Creator is an archetype who Covenant merges with by merging with the Despiser, his recursively reflected brother. And if Covenant is thereby one with the Creator, is his beloved son in whom, along with Jeremiah, he is well-pleased—and if Linden is the Despiser-Creator's daughter—then it is no wonder save for that of redemption, restitution (wrought in time to redeem and restitute the Land), that Covenant can with his adopted son and wife reconstruct the Moebius Arch of the Land's Earth.

OTOH: I don't agree with the resolution to the Sandgorgon subplot. Not that they were defeated by Fire-lions but that they all seemingly died. Supposing that some survived elsewhere is not identical to knowing that they did. (Then again, that which is good need not remain so until the end...)

[Savor Dam]

Nice. Multiple points of agreement here!

I have made the case in a few other threads that “I AM MYSELF” is an explicit parallell to G-d's response to Moses' questioning of the Divine identity, and that She is clearly either the Creator or an aspect of the Creator...as we would expect the entity behind the “Diassomer Mininderain” mythology to be.

Mighara's interpretation of the gap between the final chapter and the epilogue is inspired. Exactly...and well said!

Even more so, the "dream within a dream" reference further down....both as an amplification of the original "It's only a dream; I dare not believe" position and as a nod to the Impressive Clergyman's "A dweem wiffin a dweem" in another cultural frame of reference. As Mighara says, They are dreams of ideality, even.

[Zarathustra]

Very good. I looked for Stave's three-tense statement, and didn't find it. Care to refresh my memory?

I personally wasn't impressed with the descriptions of time coming undone. I mean, it was tremors and running rock. What else? The descriptions of the inside of caesures were better.

I don't get the She-Bane resolution. What was Her name? Why would telling Her this name be as bad as breaking the Arch? How did Linden give her what she needed and free her? Did She leave the Arch and/or world?

You thought the ur-viles were archetypes of masculinity? Men are supposed to hate their forms? Mine gets a bit soft in the winter, but I whip it into pretty good shape the rest of the year.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Well, the Haruchai also embody typically "masculine" traits. I don't mean that the Demondim-spawn were archetypal, only that they, like Covenant, were able to merge with an archetype (in this case, the betrayed women who are to Her what the Elohim are to the stars, or what the Creator and the Despiser are to each other).

So I think Her true name, whatever it really was, was a recursive function from Her to Her victims and vice versa. That's why the ur-viles and Waynhim would be well-equipped to speak it: remember the recursive aspect of their lore as outlined in AATE?

Setting aside the above potential over-analysis:

"If it will be done," Stave said, or had said, or would say, "it must be done now..."

[Zarathustra]

"If it will be done," Stave said, or had said, or would say, "it must be done now..."

Awesome, I missed that.

[shadowbinding shoe]

What name would define SHE? The common guess was Love (similar to Foul) or alternatively the name of the Creator's wife in the A-Jeroth's myth. But are these names what she truly is or merely her role?

The ones to free her is not Linden. She merely lends a hand. No. The ones to free her and presumably return her name to her, the demondim-spawn, are sexless beings who even disdain the pretense of sexuality, unlike the Elohim. What's more, they are blind. They do not judge beauty by appearances. They see her as HERSELF. Not the Wife. Not the Lustful Betrayer. Not the Betrayed. Herself.

(On a similar note Foul needs to be redefined as something beside Despite. We had been given enough hints to know this is possible. That there is more to him than mere Despite)

[Savor Dam]

An extremely insightful second paragraph, shoe!

[blingdomepiece]

I kind of thought She was a representation of Linden's self-loathing and that I AM MYSELF is her equivalent to TC absorbing Foul.

But I'm probably wrong .

[Zarathustra]

Bling, I don't think you're wrong. I have a slightly different take, but I still think She represented Linden. Self-loathing is certainly part of it, but for a very specific reason: she could not forgive herself for waking the Worm. The Worm represents Death, and thus Linden's waking of the Worm represents her inability to accept TC's death (or death in general). It's similar to why she became a doctor in the first place (i.e. a denial of death built into her by her parents' actions), and thus intimately tied to her main character arc.

So because she was unable to accept TC's death, her denial of this fact or truth led her to commit an act against nature itself, a violation of the Land and all life on it. Therefore, she's got plenty of reason to loathe herself, because Linden feels she betrayed her values, the Land, and everyone in it. [SRD explicitly says this in AATE.]

SheWho represents this sense of betrayal--a self-betrayal that is projected upon others as a way to deny her own culpability, because she can't cope with it. Recognizing that SheWho is actually herself is accepting this culpability, and forgiving herself. But it's also accepting Death and the natural truths of this life that make death necessary: entropy ... or All Things Ending. Because Linden is able to accept this, she is also able to authentically resist it--i.e. to resist death/decay in a way that isn't a denial of death/decay--and become once again a Healer.