The Haruchai Topic

[kevinswatch]

When I created this forum the first topic I thought that it needed was something devoted to the topic of the Haruchai (haha, devoted...Haruchai). Mainly in terms of how they progress through the entire series. Especially since SRD made a huge point in that one of the themes of the Last Chronicles was their "redemption", in a way.

I think it's also interesting that while many races in the Chronicles had smaller roles or were introduced later (the other people of the Land, the Elohim, the Insequent, etc.), the Haruchai, I would argue, seem to me at least to be one of the primary "characters" that SRD spends quite a lot of time and effort in developing (with a close second being the Giants).

-In the FC we have the whole discussion about the Vow and the Bloodguard; the choices made by Bannor (his decision to leave at the end)
-In the SC we have the results of the end of the Vow and the Banefire; the choices made by Brinn and Cail (fighting the Guardian; leaving for the merewives)
-In the LC we have the result of their judgement of themselves over millennia and their decision to create the Masters; the choices made by Stave and the Humbled (you could even through Esmer in there, technically)

Now, I'm sure this has been talked about in other topics in other forums, but this new forum really allows for thoughts on the Haruchai's development throughout all ten books. How, I'm not poetic enough to get this started with a big philosophical post, but maybe I can start people off with a few questions?

-What did you think about how the Haruchai as a race evolved through the series?
-What do you think of the arc of the "main" Haruchai throughout the series, going from Bannor, to Brinn/Cail, to Stave/the Humbled/Esmer?
-What links are there between the Haruchai throughout the series?
-What Haruchai would win in a huge, bloody melee?

Feel free to go wherever this topic takes you.

-jay

[aliantha]

Interesting topic, Jay.

I've never been a Haruchai scholar. But I think the race has had an interesting trajectory. Of course, there was a time before the Bloodguard, too, and I find it fascinating that their reaction to every upheaval has been to go, as a race, to the opposite extreme.

I wonder how much of the Masters' judgment of the people of the Land was actually a judgment against themselves and their own failings. I loved it that they finally gave Stave his due at the end of TLD.

Maybe their journey as a people was to learn moderation?

[wayfriend]

There is so much to say about the Haruchai that you can spend days.

I would start, to start somewhere, with what Donaldson wrote in Epic Fantasy for the Modern World.

Also because I wanted to bring the epic back into contact with the real world, I chose the technical device of reversing Tennyson's method. He took one epic character, Arthur, and surrounded him with "real," "modern" human beings. I took one real, modern human being, Thomas Covenant, and surrounded him with epic characters: the Giants, the Bloodguard, Lord Mhoram, the Ranyhyn, the jheherrin: characters or images which don't in any way pertain to our real experience of life, but which do pertain to the part of us which dreams, the part of us which imagines, the part of us which aspires.

The Haruchai were built from the ground up to be both inspirational and yet impossible.

And I have wondered long and long about why that would be: of what use to the real world is aspiring to something that doesn't in any way pertain to real life? I have ideas. (Ironic Mode, blah blah.) But whatever it is, the Haruchai have it in spades.

Their evolution is fantastic in my mind. Donaldson did the perfect thing by giving them an arc that started high, fell, and then rose to be even higher. Why do we fall? and all that. How could we care for them otherwise? Donaldson didn't let them become boring through being flawless through ten long books.

I loved the Haruchai, even when I hated the Masters.

[Ananda]

-What did you think about how the Haruchai as a race evolved through the series?
-What do you think of the arc of the "main" Haruchai throughout the series, going from Bannor, to Brinn/Cail, to Stave/the Humbled/Esmer?
-What links are there between the Haruchai throughout the series?
-What Haruchai would win in a huge, bloody melee?

Feel free to go wherever this topic takes you.

-jay

-What did you think about how the Haruchai as a race evolved through the series?

It has been since 2011 that I read these, so memory may not be perfect. And, this is a long reply for the first question. Maybe I won't finish it and probably I am not familiar with the material enough to give voice to all the reasoning behind since I did forget many details now.

I think the haruchai are aspects of TC. They are reflections of parts of him. Externalised, they start as broken men living a vow that has been 'corrupted' but not understanding how to move on from it. They are rigid, vigilant and inflexible (at the surface). They are extreme. They are their own victims. They left their wives and children behind (but, really, we focus on Bannor). By the end of the first series, they finally let the useless vow go and, at least Bannor, realises that he was extreme. He refuses to go to face TC's inner-despite for the reason of hate, but stays and serves something beautiful that he had a hand in destroying (the horses who, in my opinion, are an aspect of TC's relation to Joan, so he's acknowledging (perhaps wrongly) that he had a hand in the damaging of Joan). Elena's marrow meld sculpture at one point is a bust of TC, but it is mistaken for Bannor (or vice versa) because they are one.

The rigidity and severity of the bloodguard can also be an expression of TC's VSE and how TC is told he must live if he is to survive with the disease. TC breaks his own vow, the vow to live the lesson the dancer or whatever that lovely lady he met at the lepersarium was; the rigid, cold, non-feeling and numb existence of a leper. He stops his own VSE. The bloodguard breaks their vow as well.

Ah, it's too late to keep thinking. Will post more later, maybe.

[lurch]

I would have thought that one of'em would have beat the schitt out of TC after his rape of lena..True, her own father did not so how could they...Anyway..always full of themselves and their extravagance...with nothing much else to show of themselves. Never seen their wives or daughters and only till the LC,,their sons ( I think)..Epic, yes, but so grand in their own estimation that it blinded them from seeing their folly. Actually,,very tragic characters from the start.

For that.. I can't say I " enjoyed" the haruchai as characters. Necessary? yes!..Essential to plot and theme? absolutely! But thats the point,,as example of cold reason, with no humanity,,they are no more than simple weapons as they proclaim,,To me, thats sad and unfortunate as characters go. Yet, I believe that is the author's intent..to have us see the flaw that the haruchai is,,and made to feel sorry for them ....i mean...its a Donaldson miracle that Stave and even Branl make it all the way to the end. One wonders were did Donaldson find the torture to keep these tragic figures alive.?

[peter]

My take on the Haruchai is almost as diametrically oposed to Lurch's position as it could be. For me the failures of the H are always the failures of those around them to live up to the inflexible demands they [the H] place on them. Kevin saved them, thereby demonstrating that he understood nothing about them at all. Linden healed them against their will, again showing that the Haruchai's needs and those of empathetic 'normal thinking' peoples could not be squared. The section I have just read of the killing of Hergrom in Brathairealm by Nom is illustrative. They [Ceer and hergrom] could have fled; they didn't. Instead they chose to pit themselves against the Ghaddi's punishment, displaying once again the ever present need for the H to test themselves to the extreme. When Hergrom is killed Brinn, to Linden's horror turns to leave with no intention of any visible form of burial or display of respect. His reply when she questions him is unequivocal, "He failed." The H were for me the concrete reality of Rorsarch's statement in Watchmen; They lived their lives without compromise and [when their time came] left it without complaint or regret.

If you take the central H charachters of each series, Bannor, Brinn and Stave, you can see a progression toward the easing of this intolerence, this inflexibility of charachter as exeplified at it's peak, in Stave at the end of series three. But did the H so really need to change and were they going to be improved thereby? I always loved the H as much becuase of their inflexibility as in spite of it. In the final analysis I'm not even sure that they did change all that much. A smile and a few tears here and there [big things in the H book, but hardly constituting a total-sea change]. Yes they acknowledged their mistakeen hubris as setting themselves up as Masters [I think - did they?] but then threw themselves away extravagantly in battle as of old. And the H had always been capable of acknowledging their mistakes. They doubted Linden all the way through series two, but by series three had accepted her as co-saviour of the Land in times past [even if it didn't stop them screwing up on helping her this time around - although they did so, even if a trifle unwillingly.]

For me the idea of the H as intrinsically damaged and in need of 'redemption' was flawed from the word go. TC himself seemed to recognise this in his granting them the position of servants of Revelstone. In that way as he said, he was attempting to give them a master at last that would not fail them, that would be worthy of their unstinting and inhumanly severe view of service. For me the Haruchai [as I have said elsewhere] displayed all the finest qualities of the 47 Ronin; their tragedy if they had one, was that they were forced to opperate at a level of simple mortality in which their strict and unflinching conception of honour could never be met.

[wayfriend]

The arc of the Haruchai in the first Chronicles stood on it's own, as no sequel was intended. It ends thus:

[Bannor said] "I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service - lest the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured."

The Haruchai did fail. They misjudged their prowess against Corruption, and were corrupted thereby. Then they broke their Vow, because they demanded pure service of themselves, or else no service at all.

[Mhoram said] "Quaan, the resemblance is that both ur-Lord Covenant the Unbeliever and Banner of the Bloodguard require absolute answers to their own lives.

This is the connection between Covenant and the Bloodguard. If you wish, this is the aspect of Covenant that is externalized by the Haruchai: absolutism.

And absolutism led the Haruchai to failure.

"With the Bloodguard it was their Vow. They demanded of themselves either pure, flawless service forever or no service at all. And the Unbeliever demands -"

"He demands,'' Quaan said sourly, "that his world is real and ours is not."

Covenant, then, can only be led to failure if he clings to the abolutist belief that the Land must be real or must not be real. Which is subsequently revealed in the later part of the story: Covenant must stand in the eye of the paradox, and believe both. He must give up an insistence on absolute answers.

In short, the Haruchai, as the Bloodguard, show Covenant what he should not be. Their failure is his lesson.

I mentioned above, of what use to the real world is aspiring to something that doesn't in any way pertain to real life? This is the answer: They can show what taking something to the extreme will do. They can show you what it is in yourself that is dangerous if it dominates you. And so Covenant is taught that unremitting absolutism is dangerous. Real life requires a different answer.

This is why I said elsewhere that the epic heroes which Donaldson introduces to inspire Covenant are not there to inspire him to emulation.

But there is no example for Covenant in the infallible sufficiency of the Bloodguard. He cannot refuse his leprosy away. And real people are fallible and insufficient when confronted with the real world.

They are there to inspire him to seek a better direction.

So not only do the Haruchai fail, they are meant to fail. At least as far as the first Chronicles goes. But of course, they get to do some damn heroic stuff before they do.

[rdhopeca]

I will ask a simple question, and please go easy on me.

In what way does it make sense for the Haruchai to take up the mantle of Lords?

I get that they finally learn to use weapons, and have a relationship to Earthpower from their Vow, but having them becomes the Lords doesn't make sense to me really. Is it just the logical correction of them becoming Masters? The "correct" way for them to take stewardship of the Land?

[Zarathustra]

The Chronicles are full of characters that express one form of absolutism or another.

Haruchai: the Vow, "we suffice," the epitome of physical strength/endurance/prowess. Denial of mortality.

The New Lords (and people of the land): the Oath of Peace, which mistook the need to control which actions one's emotions causes one to enact, for the idea that the emotions themselves need to be repressed.

The Giants: their moral integrity being unbreakable, such that no Raver could possess them.

Lord Foul: the absolute end of our destructive side.

The ranyhyn: absolute horsey goodness.

I could go on. These are all variations on the need to find the balance of the eye of the paradox, how reason is the circumference of passion. Both sides of us are parts of our humanity. Reason is just as human as emotion. Morality is just as important as physical effort.

The Haruchai, in my opinion, don't represent "inhuman" aspects of ourselves any more than any of these other magical creatures who take things to the extreme. They're just the same theme examined through physical might, and pointing out our limits (and the folly of not recognizing them) in this category.

If anyone thinks the Haruchai don't represent a part of our humanity, I suspect they've never raised teenage boys who think they are physically invincible. This is why our military recruits young men, not necessarily that they are in the prime of their lives, but because they don't fear death like the rests of us. They pick fights, think they can kick anyone's ass, and that they entirely "suffice."

[peter]

The Haruchai fail only by their own inflexible standards. It will sound silly, but there is a type of failure in this world [and the Land] that is also not failure. It is the failure of trying to attain something with all your might, pushing yourself beyond the limits that others, and even you, knew that you had - and still failing. There is no dishonour in this and come to that no failure. Failure is when you score grade B in an exam when you could have gotten an A. As Browning said "A man's reach should exeed his grasp, or whats a heaven for?" Surely the Haruchai's 'reach exeeded their grasp', but were they truly any the worse thereby?

[wayfriend]

I will ask a simple question, and please go easy on me.

You have my Vow.

In what way does it make sense for the Haruchai to take up the mantle of Lords?

Well, I can only share my take on it. Others will have different opinions.

But, to me, it follows from learning a new way to value themselves. The Haruchai had always valued themselves by the success of their deeds. What changed was that they learned to value themselves by what they cared about. This moment of realization comes near the end of TLD.1.11. Of course, it is Stave who discovers this. Then Branl rather pointedly states how he will instruct his people with this new lesson.

Valuing themselves by their deeds, they desired only to serve, as it provided a venue for measuring their prowess. But valuing themselves by what they care about, they now chose to more directly care for the Land and it's people. Valuing themselves on their deeds, they disdained weapons and lore because they obviated their prowess. Valuing themselves by what they care about, they no longer refuse such aids.

Hence: Lords.

[Edit: should add that another component to this is the fact that the Masters were among the few people who had enough knowledge of what was going on to step into the role. I think that this led them to volunteer for the job.]

I think it's good that the Haruchai ended as no longer so aloof, so separate, from the life of the Land.

BTW, I don;'t think that the Haruchai intended that the new Council be exclusively Haruchai. Only that they were not excluding themselves from it. The Swordmainir, for instance, were invited to join it. I cannot imagine that they would refuse someone like Liand either.

The "correct" way for them to take stewardship of the Land?

I think so. Since there is no more, I think the author thinks so as well. The Haruchai had never served the Land before, instead they chose to serve something else that would in turn serve the Land. This put them at odds with Land-service from time to time. Then they became Masters, and I guess they tried to serve the Land, but in the wrong way of course. They didn't really care about what they served, they just wanted to serve it perfectly by never allowing another Kevin.

The Haruchai fail only by their own inflexible standards. It will sound silly, but there is a type of failure in this world [and the Land] that is also not failure. It is the failure of trying to attain something with all your might, pushing yourself beyond the limits that others, and even you, knew that you had - and still failing. There is no dishonour in this and come to that no failure. Failure is when you score grade B in an exam when you could have gotten an A. As Browning said "A man's reach should exeed his grasp, or whats a heaven for?" Surely the Haruchai's 'reach exeeded their grasp', but were they truly any the worse thereby?

An excellent point. (And a notion which I apply to Linden particularly.)

But I don't believe that the Haruchai failed JUST because they exceeded themselves. As Bannor said, which I quoted above, they had set themselves up so that exceeding themselves destroyed them. They could not tolerate having failed. They could not pick themselves back up.

Which is what Cail and Brinn eventually discover. "It is agreed that such unworth as mine has its uses." Failure can make you stronger.

The failure of the three Bloodguard who were Corrupted by Foul did not make the Haruchai stronger. It unravelled them completely. They quit under a cloud of self-reproach. They made themselves incapable of surviving a single failure.

But Bannor recognized this. He recognized that their requirement for such absolute answers led to their downfall. And, as the text points it, this becomes the thing which Covenant loves about Bannor the most.

[michaelm]

It's interesting that of all people, the only one that openly finds something tragic about their vow is Covenant. I have wondered if Donaldson intended for there to be some kind of parallel there in that their undying devotion to the Lords is similar to his devotion to his leprosy in the real world.

[wayfriend]

It's interesting that of all people, the only one that openly finds something tragic about their vow is Covenant. I have wondered if Donaldson intended for there to be some kind of parallel there in that their undying devotion to the Lords is similar to his devotion to his leprosy in the real world.

Wow. I had been meaning to get back to this thread and discuss the Haruchai/Covenant relationship and how it changes (and how much I like that).

But, yes, there WAS intended for there to be some kind of parallel.

"My friend, do you remember what Bannor told us concerning this sculpture?"

"High Lord?"

"He reported that Elena daughter of Lena carved it of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder-and that ur-Lord Covenant mistook it for the face of a Bloodguard."

Quaan shrugged.

"Quaan, the resemblance is that both ur-Lord Covenant the Unbeliever and Banner of the Bloodguard require absolute answers to their own lives. With the Bloodguard it was their Vow. They demanded of themselves either pure, flawless service forever or no service at all. And the Unbeliever demands -"

"He demands,'' Quaan said sourly, "that his world is real and ours is not."

Think of it as the sort of cryptic warning you get from an oracle. The warning to Bannor is fairly straightforward. Look at what happens to Korik, Sill, and Doar in "The Power that Preserves." The warning to Covenant is more subtle. Elena's sculpture hints at the danger for Covenant in the moral absolutism/purity of the Bloodguard.

(04/14/2004)

Elena's marrowmeld sculpture put forward the notion that the control of the Bloodguard and the passion of Covenant are two faces of the same dilemma (the need of passion to be controlled, the need of control to be enlivened by passion); and that those two faces can be combined into one.

(11/24/2004)

[ussusimiel]

[Bannor said] "I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service - lest the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured."

[Bold mine]

I am reading TPTP at the moment and I was struck again by this admission by Bannor that the Haruchai require sleep (and in another place he mentions food). There is an implication in the 2nd Chronicles that they may not require sleep (Mistweave suffers because he cannot match the service of the Haruchai as he needs sleep). And in the LCs there is lot of emphasis put on the refusal of the Haruchai to accept healing because they now seem to heal at some phenomenal rate.

I know that SRD sees the Haruchai as a 'magical' race (similar to how he considers the Giants as 'magical'). Is there some sort of case to be made that there is a 'magical' development of the Haruchai across the Whole Chronicles?

u.

P.S. We spoke about this in another thread, but I can't find it. If anyone knows which one, let me know and I'll move this stuff there.

[Vraith]

I know that SRD sees the Haruchai as a 'magical' race (similar to how he considers the Giants as 'magical'). Is there some sort of case to be made that there is a 'magical' development of the Haruchai across the Whole Chronicles?

Huh...there may well be. There is definitely a knowledge progression [for readers concerning what we know about them...and for them in their expansion into the wider world and how their racial/cultural being meshes with that world].

But the sleep thing and the healing thing...I think they're both there from the beginning. Only some details/specifics are revealed/become pertinent to the story. [for instance the sleepless in the SECOND is a choice/determination/effort. The sleeplessness of the Bloodguard was an absolute enhancement [in fact an imposition by the vow] of things any Har. could do to a lesser extent when necessary.

Anyway, there may well be the progression you suggest...
But I think the thematic progression is the other direction. It's the development/realization/acceptance of what [and WHY] they CAN't do, the embracing of the LESS THAN magical...the ordinary, common, mortal...that matters.

[wayfriend]

In the second trilogy, did the Haruchi re-enact their vow? Did they sleep? I don't recall if I ever got that answer in the second trilogy. And I just have to know!

• No, the Haruchai did not re-enact their Vow. Nor have they done anything similar in "The Last Chronicles." They're just so ^#$%# stoical that they do all their sleeping off-stage. <grin>
  
  (03/06/2005)

2) If the Haruchai sleep, why in %$#@ does everyone still call them 'the sleepless ones'? Do they first lock themselves in the bathroom with loud music playing so nobody figures out they're sleeping in the bathtub?

• 2) Admittedly, the Haruchai perform pretty much all of their bodily functions as privately as possible. But be fair: it isn't "everyone" who calls them "sleepless ones." Only the Ramen do that, and they intend it as an insult; as a reference to the Bloodguard (who did *not* sleep), who rode Ranyhyn into peril and death for centuries.
  
  (07/19/2005)

I have a question about the Haruchai. In all of the post-Bloodguard story, there has never been any indication that the Haruchai who accompany Covenant or Linden sleep. They always seem to be on guard whenever the humans & Giants are sleeping, yet they are also awake when everyone else is awake. So, when the Haruchai commit themselves as protectors, are they taking a kind of "mini-Vow" which precludes sleep, like the Bloodguard's Vow? And there was one instance towards the end of AATE where one of the Haruchai eats some aliantha and drinks a little water. That's the only time I can recall any of them ingesting anything. Did the Bloodguard Vow give up food; and if so, do the Later Haruchai require no or little food/water? (oops, two questions)

• This is extra-textual. Since the story doesn't mention a "mini-Vow," we can only speculate. But to my way of thinking, such speculation is unnecessary. The Haruchai are a warrior culture; and warrior cultures can be extremely reticent about *anything* that might be interpreted as weakness. For example, old Samurai texts discuss the importance of concealing even ordinary needs (food, drink, sleep) in order (one assumes) to appear fearsome. Some even urge the use of makeup to disguise signs of fatigue. Maybe the Haruchai sneak food and drink when other people aren't looking? Then there are all those stories about soldiers who learn how to sleep on their feet. Add to that skill the mind-sharing of the Haruchai, and it becomes plausible that, say, Galt, Clyme, and Branl could take turns sleeping while still being effectively on guard.
  
  As for issues like, did the Bloodguard give up food as well as sleep? alas, I really have no idea.
  
  (06/18/2011)

[ussusimiel]

Thanks, way!

That fairly categorically settles the sleep and food issues. They are as I would have expected them to be, the result of severe discipline (with the added twist of the mind-link which allows for an extra level of flexibility that I hadn't considered).

That leaves the healing issue. It become very important in the LCs, especially later on. Is this a new addition, or is it a development of something that was always present?

u.

[Orlion]

That leaves the healing issue. It become very important in the LCs, especially later on. Is this a new addition, or is it a development of something that was always present?

u.

It would seem to me that the Haruchai kinda represent in a sense eugenics in this regard. Those who survive harsh conflicts are elevated, those who can not heal are left to die.

In fact, it would not surprise me if, like the Spartans, they threw their imperfect babies off the mountainsides.

So a combination of a strict form of social Darwinism and probably some Earthpower boosting they got from living in the Mountains (potentially around the area where we get the Earthblood) would account for their healing factor.

[Cambo]

I'd just like to say that the development and resolution of the Haruchai was hands down my favourite thing about the Last Chronicles. IMO they finished in a place very similar to the place TC finished at the end of the First Chronicles; they had had changed profoundly, they didn't know where they were going as people yet, but they knew it would be for the better.

[wayfriend]

That leaves the healing issue. It become very important in the LCs, especially later on. Is this a new addition, or is it a development of something that was always present?

Well, I am like you, in that I thought the notion of the Haruchai healing faster than normal folk was a new notion in the Last Chronicles.

However, it is such a small step from what had been depicted earlier - that they are "hearty", and that they disdain medical attention - that not only does it slip in easily, but it's very plausible that it had been there all along, only unremarked. Mind speech slipped in in a very similar way.

In fact, I don't think I can swear that it wasn't mentioned before.

Is it bothersome to anyone that this was "added" ?