An Unreal Utopia

[ussusimiel]

it may be that we loved the 1st and 2nd Chrons incondignly

Like Othello the Moor - not wisely but too well!

Who's Iago then? I vote for Vraith!

u.

[Vraith]

it may be that we loved the 1st and 2nd Chrons incondignly

Like Othello the Moor - not wisely but too well!

Who's Iago then? I vote for Vraith!

u.

Then...put money in my purse. [to distort a twisted man's words].
Heh...one of my favorite characters in all Lit., and especially the theater mode.

On the OP: Utopia is specifically prohibited/denied as a possibility by the explicit, literal, words on the page.

I thought the epilogue a bit too sentimental.

I find that most of the things people hate about the LC's are STILL the things I like most. [For instance Linden's renunciation of violence, the sudden "unfulfilling" deaths of folk like Longwrath].

I still believe that "whining" is factually, objectively, a false description of any character.

TLD I'd place behind AATE, FR, and WGW [right now anyway] and ahead of all the others.
And that is the entirety of my posting on TLD any time soon, probably ever.

[peter]

Wow V. Thats as powerfull an argument for me to return to 3C asap and do a re-read as any I've heard! {Your ordering I mean]. I think love the 3C as they might [and no doubt do] there are few who place then above 1 & 2C as it appears you do [unless I've got your meaning totally wrong which is by no means unlikely!]. It behoves me to do a full Chrons read from start to finish, including [Gilden Fire], before long anyway. Now we have the full set it is the only way of truly taking stock of the 'creation' as a whole.

[Vraith]

Wow V. Thats as powerfull an argument for me to return to 3C asap and do a re-read as any I've heard! {Your ordering I mean]. I think love the 3C as they might [and no doubt do] there are few who place then above 1 & 2C as it appears you do [unless I've got your meaning totally wrong which is by no means unlikely!]. It behoves me to do a full Chrons read from start to finish, including [Gilden Fire], before long anyway. Now we have the full set it is the only way of truly taking stock of the 'creation' as a whole.

You got it exactly right. My ranking is a very tight group...kinda like a photo-finish horse race where ALL the entries are in the picture. Sometimes they shift a bit. But the LC's, as a whole, win by a nose.

[wayfriend]

They are an offensive pastiche of whatever TC wants them to be - the ultimate exercise in creating a playground ala Michael Jacksons 'Neverland'. Ughh!

You know, there's some merit to the notion that TC got to partake of Creating here, and the resulting New World reflects his desires and wishes and inclinations. But damn if that's not the most cynical way possible to express the concept.

One might make the same accusation against the Creator with respect to the Land as we first found it, I suppose.

And after writing about Covenant for ten books, one might believe he is so self-serving and decadent as to go about things in this way.

But I see the rebuilding task (IMO it was actually destroyed) as involving, among other things, the Staff of Law, and everything Foul knew of Creation (which I take to be almost what the Creator himself knew), and Linden's health-sense, and the time-spanning perspective of the Timewarden, and the lore of the forestals. Surely this gives them the ability to create a world, but I think it also limits them to creating a viable, consistent, and structured world - the antithesis of whims.

And we know that Covenant loved the Land, and Linden did, and even Jeremiah. Why would they disrespect their own love to produce something inferior?

I think it's fairer to say that, because they loved Giants and Haruchai and Ranyhyn and ur-viles, they did their best to preserve them as they were. Because of their worth, not because it made them happy (although it did).

[peter]

But they didn't preserve them Wayfriend - they remade them; it's not the same.

But hang on - can I do a retake here about what we know for sure and what we assume. Did the Worm actually destroy the Creation and then TC et al follow behind it and put it back together [this is what I have in my head] or [it's a big difference] did they in some way defeat the Worm prior to it's destroying the World. If my memory [which even at the distance of a few short weeks is by no means clear - not a good sign] serves me at all, we never got to see the final conflagration/confrontation - do we know for sure that they actually did this 'rebuild' in the way we are talking. If they did then we are confronting one of the central problems of philosophy head on [ie the very nature of being itself] and are unlikely ever to find the truth of it.

[shadowbinding shoe]

Stave is very lucky that unlike all the rest of his kind he became open enough to outsiders for our heroes to recerate him accurately. He's probably the only accurate Haruchai left.

[lurch]

Seems to me the only thing New after the crumble of reality...is the perspective . Andelain , the embodiment of health and beauty ,is what it was at the beginning of TCoTC. ..The perspective, the way of..the How,,is what is New and what the unified Triumvirate go off to " learn" , to experience. ..

As far as being an unreal utopia...A change in perspective might get one to see that its all about the trying, the effort and will. Visualizing the end game as unattainable ..a) prejudices that there is a end game..b) defeats oneself from all the possibilities of " along the way" . ..why do you keep breathing if you already kno you will die in the end. ? You kno why.

Seems to me ,the message of TLD..achieving a new perspective.,,that brings harmony to ones existence instead of conflict and discord, is tied up well in the open ended epilogue. ,,and no its not utopian. TC saying ,,don't worry we'll be back,,makes that point. A better analogy or more fitting analogy might be..Reborn. Being reborn does not mean or denote a New World is made. Reborn is only a New way of Seeing this old World...and I do not believe the author is using " reborn" in Just the context of Christianity. I suggest as TLD suggests to me..reborn from ones foundation.

We are human beings. We can and do change.

[wayfriend]

Did the Worm actually destroy the Creation and then TC et al follow behind it and put it back together [this is what I have in my head] or [it's a big difference] did they in some way defeat the Worm prior to it's destroying the World.

I just posted something in another thread. IMHO, the world was destroyed but there were sufficient "pieces" that it did not need to be rebuilt entirely.

But whether Covenant preserved pieces, or recreated them as they once were, I still would consider it more of a tribute to what and who they were, that they were worth preserving, than some sort of eye-pleasing decoration of the new world.

[peter]

Yes Wayfriend - I perfectly accept that this was the spirit in which it was written and find that as time and distance [and a second read of the last two chapters] have passed my feelings toward the ending are melowing even to the point of begining to like it. In many ways it was a brave thing for SRD to go for a 'simple' happy ending and fools like me were always going to miss the point of it. Things don't have to end badly to be good and on reflection what other end would I have chosen over and above that which we were given. We see a Land restored to the point where the richness of former times can be achieved; we see the dawn of a new beginning from which new tales, and new legends will emerge. As Hamlet would have said 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.'