Caerroil Wildwood, the Soothtell and Questions of Time

[DrPaul]

In the Soothtell scene in TWL, Covenant is shown that Caerroil Wildwood laid down his life during the golden age of the first two thousand years following the events in the First Chronicles, believing that he was no longer needed because the forests were flourishing.

In TLD we are given a quite different account of Caerroil Wildwood's passing, the relevant chapters being "But While I Can" and "After Too Long" (Part One, Chs. 10 & 12). Caerroil Wildwood dies as a result of the effort of returning Linden, Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir and their Ranyhyn to the "present" of TLD.

After Linden tells Covenant this, he says:

"I wish I could remember... While I was still part of the Arch, I probably knew why Caerroil Wildwood decided to let go. Now that's gone. As far as I can tell, you found the only - I don't know what to call it - the only clean way to do what we need. The only safe way. The only way that doesn't change the Land's history."

Now the passing of Caerroil Wildwood - however it happened - occurred before the Soothtell, and thus in the "past" of TWL. This raises the question of why it would have appeared in the Soothtell as a voluntary act of contented resignation when, as a result of Linden's intervention, it was (or had become) clearly something else. There is an apparent paradox here. Can it be resolved without simply ascribing it to authorial inconsistency on SRD's part?

Bear in mind that the two principal observers of the Soothtell were Covenant and samadhi-Gibbon (and Lord Foul, either directly or through samadhi). The actual events described in TLD that ended in Caerroil Wildwood's death would have certainly been seen by samadhi and Foul as evidence that some highly unexpected and (from their perspective) unwanted future was going to come to pass (of course, given what they were trying to do in the Second Chronicles, they would have regarded any long-term future as unexpected and unwanted).

Of course, how the knowledge of such possibilities might have affected Covenant's choices would not have been known at the time of the Soothtell, and so it is not necessarily the case that samadhi and Foul would have seen it as being to their advantage to fudge the facts of the Forestal's passing in the Soothtell.

Then there is the question of how such knowledge might have affected Foul's decisions in the Second Chronicles.

Food for thought, perhaps.

[Hiro]

Ooofff, can of worms...

[dlbpharmd]

Now the passing of Caerroil Wildwood - however it happened - occurred before the Soothtell, and thus in the "past" of TWL. This raises the question of why it would have appeared in the Soothtell as a voluntary act of contented resignation when, as a result of Linden's intervention, it was (or had become) clearly something else. There is an apparent paradox here. Can it be resolved without simply ascribing it to authorial inconsistency on SRD's part?

It's a bit more of retconning on SRD's part, something we'll have to live with.

[Zarathustra]

Well, Linden did change the history. Isn't it as simple as that? Of course, perhaps this was only the personal history of one forestal, so that it wouldn't have affected the history of the whole Land. I don't see it as any worse or different from Linden being the genesis of the Unfettered, or the cause of Skyweir's breaking. She made the "same thing" happen that would have happened anyway, so that's why TC can say she didn't (substantially) change history.

[DrPaul]

Well, Linden did change the history. Isn't it as simple as that? Of course, perhaps this was only the personal history of one forestal, so that it wouldn't have affected the history of the whole Land. I don't see it as any worse or different from Linden being the genesis of the Unfettered, or the cause of Skyweir's breaking. She made the "same thing" happen that would have happened anyway, so that's why TC can say she didn't (substantially) change history.

Yes, but my point is that the history that Linden changed could still have appeared in the Soothtell, that samadhi (and Foul) and Covenant would have been very interested to know how she came to be playing a part in that aspect of the Land's history, and that knowing this could (or perhaps should) have affected their decisions in the days and weeks following the Soothtell.

[SoulBiter]

Well, Linden did change the history. Isn't it as simple as that? Of course, perhaps this was only the personal history of one forestal, so that it wouldn't have affected the history of the whole Land. I don't see it as any worse or different from Linden being the genesis of the Unfettered, or the cause of Skyweir's breaking. She made the "same thing" happen that would have happened anyway, so that's why TC can say she didn't (substantially) change history.

When you think about it, she changed history the first time she was in the past when she told the the Forestal what would happen in the future. That bit of knowledge changed his decision to "let go" during that age.

The issue with telling a story that has any time travel in it, is trying to keep all the knots tied together and maintain the credibility of the story being told. Once you allow a change in the past in your story (especially one as long and intricate as the TC books) you take the chance of a 'miss'. In this case, maybe it wasnt a miss, but he decided that it didnt matter that there was this in-continuity in the story.

[Borillar]

Speaking of retcons, two others jumped out at me:

1) The explanation about why Ravers never possessed Covenant: in the First and Second Chronicles, it's explained that Covenant serves no purpose as a mere tool; he has to accomplish Foul's will voluntarily. But now there's a (to me) weak explanation that Ravers don't want to possess his leprosy-ridden body. This smacks of an explanation that was wholly unnecessary (a la Star Wars "midichlorians"; did anyone really care exactly how The Force worked?)

2) The explanation about why Kastenessen was punished so severely: previously it was said because he had harmed a mortal woman and called it love, but now it's because he allegedly taught her forbidden magicks. I was entirely content with the prior explanation (it's much more eloquent), and don't love the new one.

[Zarathustra]

Borillar, I agree with 1, but 2 didn't bother me. I took it as part of the reason why Elohim can't fall in love with mortals. Perhaps the "harm" was teaching her magic she was never supposed to have, which could have produced undesirable effects. Unearned knowledge, after all. Or maybe she was altered to make mating possible, which gave her magic (similar to Roger ... but I don't want to know which part he cut off to do that. ).

[Cord Hurn]

All interesting explanations, but I prefer to think that samedhi Sheol didn't know as much about the finer details of the Land's history as he'd like to think.

[wayfriend]

In the Soothtell scene in TWL, Covenant is shown that Caerroil Wildwood laid down his life during the golden age of the first two thousand years following the events in the First Chronicles, believing that he was no longer needed because the forests were flourishing.

In TLD we are given a quite different account of Caerroil Wildwood's passing, the relevant chapters being "But While I Can" and "After Too Long" (Part One, Chs. 10 & 12). Caerroil Wildwood dies as a result of the effort of returning Linden, Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir and their Ranyhyn to the "present" of TLD.

It didn't occur to me until I read this question that these things could be seen as mutually exclusive.

Suppose Linden provided the answer that Caerroil needed. Having his answer, he would feel that he was no longer needed. Feeling no longer needed, he would be amenable to spending his last strength in that way.

It's not that the TWL version was changed ... only that it was incomplete. And we know that Foul only let Covenant see what he wanted him to see ... it twisted facts by omitting critical details.

[OhYeah]

Like those kooky, crazy The Insequent, it is a ret-con that we must live with.

[joques]

These things don't bother me. Details tend to get garbled over the centuries and millennia, and I have no problems if some facts don't line exactly up. I just think "this is what he heard, or is willing to tell, not what actually happened".