Reality of the creator

[Simanent]

Did anyone in 'our' world apart from TC and LA ever see the creator? Did anyone other than they, Roger, Joan and perhaps someone in the community of retribution ever see LF's eyes in fire or lighting?

What I'm implying is that the creator can be considered just as ambiguously real and 'internal' as the land is, regardless of his seeming to exist in 'our' world.

This could be why the creator is not in the LC. TC no longer sees the creator as external vand although initially LA thinks she still relies on the creator's external reality she did not need to enough to make that actually happen to her this time.

[call11back]

The kid who handed TC the paper with the metaphysical riddle from the Creator saw him.

[Simanent]

The kid who handed TC the paper with the metaphysical riddle from the Creator saw him.

Ah!

I suppose it's arguable that there could have been an old man in the town who gave a child a note but that he was just an old man and the note wouldn't have said anything to anyone except TC and that subsequent appearances of the old man were not witnessed by anyone else except LA so it wasn't actually the same old man for her.

Maybe.

[TheFallen]

...or alternatively and just to be difficult - maybe the kid with the paper was only real to TC... just another aspect of the Creator. We can't (godammit!) presume that the existence of the "kid" proves that an independent third party witnesses the Creator.

[Zarathustra]

From the Creator's absence in this Chronicles, to SRD's frustration with Creator questions in the GI, I think it's safe to assume that he didn't like how readers were interpretting the Creator as a literal, external being in the "real world." Maybe he even grew to dislike his own handling of this character, by letting Linden seem him, when he's really just the creative/positive/life-affirming aspect of TC's own psyche. But then again, Linden gets to see the Land (which was originally TC's own psyche externalized), so maybe that's okay.

If you look at all the Creator questions in the GI, I think author's frustration comes from people taking that character too literally. Such interpretations robbed the story of its human meaning. Therefore, "reality of the creator" questions focus on the wrong thing (in my opinion), much as "reality of the Land" was an issue TC himself dropped by the 2nd Chronicles.

[Simanent]

From the Creator's absence in this Chronicles, to SRD's frustration with Creator questions in the GI, I think it's safe to assume that he didn't like how readers were interpretting the Creator as a literal, external being in the "real world." Maybe he even grew to dislike his own handling of this character, by letting Linden seem him, when he's really just the creative/positive/life-affirming aspect of TC's own psyche. But then again, Linden gets to see the Land (which was originally TC's own psyche externalized), so maybe that's okay.

If you look at all the Creator questions in the GI, I think author's frustration comes from people taking that character too literally. Such interpretations robbed the story of its human meaning. Therefore, "reality of the creator" questions focus on the wrong thing (in my opinion), much as "reality of the Land" was an issue TC himself dropped by the 2nd Chronicles.

I also think (since I made this post) of the post that The Creator's independent reality is a red herring. However, he was introduced in a very independent seeming way and his absence in the LC has to be interpreted in some way or another.

The more I think about it, the less 'our' world in the chronicles is truly recognizable as our world. I made a post once on the question of Who TC's parents were/are. They just don't seem to have ever existed. I extrapolated from this that TC was not an ordinary human but part Creator. Now I question if the whole 'real' world in the chronicles is ontologically different from The Land. The 'real' world is in an unnamed town (If I'm wrong, please someone tell me the name). LA had a detailed childhood but where was it?

I'm not suggesting these questions should be answered, I'm realizing that for years I'd assumed that they had answers (which some folk, including SD) might say were just not important, but maybe they aren't supposed to have answers. The 'real' world isn't real, it's just recognizable and familiar and The Land is just that which is kept hidden and lost. [/u]

[SleeplessOne]

From the Creator's absence in this Chronicles, to SRD's frustration with Creator questions in the GI, I think it's safe to assume that he didn't like how readers were interpretting the Creator as a literal, external being in the "real world." Maybe he even grew to dislike his own handling of this character, by letting Linden seem him, when he's really just the creative/positive/life-affirming aspect of TC's own psyche. But then again, Linden gets to see the Land (which was originally TC's own psyche externalized), so maybe that's okay.

If you look at all the Creator questions in the GI, I think author's frustration comes from people taking that character too literally. Such interpretations robbed the story of its human meaning. Therefore, "reality of the creator" questions focus on the wrong thing (in my opinion), much as "reality of the Land" was an issue TC himself dropped by the 2nd Chronicles.

This is exactly the conclusion that I've drawn; SRD was ultimately a little embarrassed or uncomfortable with either his own portrayal of 'the Creator', or with the readers' interpretations of the character, and chose to move away from this depiction as the series progressed.

[ussusimiel]

I would have liked to seen the Creator in the story one more time before the end, but I think there are a number of fairly straightforward plausible reasons why we didn't.

Firstly, the Creator cannot exert his influence within the Arch without risking tearing it down. By the time the LCs start he may simply have pushed as far as he possibly could risk. Secondly, he has a full-blown representative (Covenant) within the Arch by the time the Last Chrons comes around. Thirdly, we would have had to have someone return to the 'real' world (or be on the verge of dying there like TC with the snake poison) before we could have heard from him. This obviously wasn't part of SRD's plan, so unless he turned up at the very beginning there was no way that we could see him.

I am more and more coming to see the ending of TLD as the concentration of creation in the hands/souls/spirits of the three (free) representatives of the Creator within the Creation itself and thus fulfilling the initial intention for it.

u.

[Zarathustra]

If the Creator was TC all along, then the rule about not being able to reach into his Creation without destroying it was misleading. Obviously, the Creator did enter the Land, in the form of Covenant. So I think that was merely a belief of the inhabitants of the Land, and not an absolute rule. And since those inhabitants were also parts of TC's psyche, this is just another way to say that TC denied he was the Creator (just as he denied that Foul was his responsibility to fight, in LFB). Indeed, that was his character arc, his conflict: he was a man who no longer allowed himself to love or create. He was spiritually impotent, because he denied his own inner Creator. This danger was multiplied by also denying his own inner Despiser.

Or perhaps we can look at it in terms of the symbolic/literal divide: he enters a world where the Despiser literally can't get out, and the Creator literally can't get in, but what happens symbolically is that his inner Despiser *does* get out (of him), in the form of an externalized foe. And the Creator *does* get in, in the form of TC entering the Land. So the very things which are literally impossible (from the perspective of the Land) are now symbolic facts.

So by taking Foul into himself and literally remaking the world, he has finally closed this loop. Now his externalized Despiser is recognized as symbolic of him, and he literally becomes the Creator by recreating the world.

It's a symmetry that demands no Creator character in the "real world."

[lurch]

The Creator is non sequitor in The last Chrons..Everyone is dead to the "real world'..bullets thru the hearts and all that..There is a severance from the real world, allowing All to become metaphor, all to become of another reality , other than the " real world"...If you want another look at The Creator...check out the mirror the next time you pass one.