Translating Kevin's First Ward

[revel]

Then I begin to think about how the Lords used what little they knew of the Wards and I realize that they constantly depended on the skills and strengths of the common people who had, somehow, maintained their own particular powers, from the Earthpower in stone to that found in wood. So I begin to suspect that the Wards were meant to expand upon those homey uses of Earthpower.

Somewhere in one of those Wards would be the key to the Ritual of Desecration, perhaps not clearly spelled out, but certainly available, as Mhoram finally discovers for himself, through the contemplation of the sculpture Elena melded from Ranahyn bone of the combined forces of Bannor's and Covenant's factions. So, perhaps one of those Wards was actually the special relationship brought about by Covenant's exposure to the Bloodguard (and specifically Bannor).

peace,
revel.

[SoulBiter]

Anyone remember anything about Wards 1, 3, 4 and 5? There might be clues somewhere. (the First was brought to the New Lords by the Giants, but were we told what it was besides being the 1st Ward?)

peace,
revel.

They found them sometime between the end of the First Chronicles and the Second Chronicles. Covenant found them in the Hall of Gifts.

Thinking rapidly, he said, "All the lore of the Lords- everything that used to belong to the Council. It's all here. It's all intact."

"Much is intact," Akkasri said rigidly. "The Council was decadent. Some was lost."

Covenant hardly heard her. "The First and Second Wards." He gestured toward the shining caskets. "The Third Ward? Did they find the Third Ward?" Foreseeing the Ritual of Desecration, Kevin Landwaster had hidden all his knowledge in Seven Wards to preserve it for future Councils; but during High Lord Mhoram's time, only the first two and the last had been found.

"Evidently," a Rider retorted. "Little good it did them."

"Then why" -- Covenant put all his appalled amazement into his voice -- "don't you use it?"

"It is lore for that which no longer exists." The reply had the force of an indictment. "It has no value under the Sunbane."

[wayfriend]

Well, if everyone else is throwing in their two cents ...

Kevin's primary goal in the wards was to impart knowledge. Therefore, I cannot imagine that they were needlessly cryptic, or were written in sonnet form, or anything like that. They were manuals. He wrote them to reboot civilization. So he wouldn't play around.

Donaldson tells us exactly why they were hard to understand. It's because they were written by someone who had no proscriptions against unleashing their extreme emotions when they needed extreme power. But the people trying to understand them had an almost instinctual aversion to acting on emotions.

So, as I imagine it, I think Kevin made some basic assumptions about what kind of basic understandings future students might have, but those students didn't have those basic understandings, and so a lot of things didn't make sense to them. He assumed that everyone knew about the connection between passion and power, and assumed it was so basic that he took it as a given and never explained it. And when someone who had no idea about that connection tried to follow his instructions, they didn't work, and made little sense.

As an engineer, I've experienced this many times myself, trying to understand documentation for some new component. Things don't make sense until you realize there are some assumptions that you could not imagine but which the author assumed everyone knew. It's kind of a basic mistake people who attempt to explain things, but with little experience doing so, often make.

Of course, I think that there was ALSO an aspect that you had to learn the first things before you could learn the next things. So all those more advanced techniques were never learned, for want of learning the basic ones. Total shutdown.

I'm not really worried if the Wards were scrolls with words or scrolls with poems or scrolls with pictures or something else. If the author didn't care about the details, they probably don't matter too much.

But I do think Amok was completely different. The other Wards were probably full of many useful things, but Amok provided only ONE THING. He was special. The Power of Command was like a boss level with no baddies except the boss.

And Kevin never used the Power. He wasn't explaining how it worked ... he didn't really know. He was a man handing over a key to a room that he had never been in. He wanted the future Lords to know the room was there. But all he could do was make sure that whoever got that key was damn full of caution and respect.

And so Amok is not just a manual. Amok was also a test. And also a judge. Because the Power was just too damn dangerous for anything less. The Way and the Door. Amok was the knowledge -and- the gate that had to be passed.

[bikebryan]

Hey all.

I'd hazard to suggest that each of the Wards was quite different from the other six.

We know, thanks to wayfriend's reminder, that the 2nd was some type of scroll (though what it contains, be it poems or music or diagrams or spells or recipes is not explained).

We know that the 7th and final Ward was a type of guide to the Earth Blood (and we also know that Bannor was in on the secret, as it was he who told Elena what she needed to say, so even Bannor or the entire Bloodguard were part of that seventh Ward in a way).

We even know that the trigger to the 7th Ward was Loric's Krill. That might even suggest that the Krill itself, or at least the knowledge needed to bring it to life, was the 6th Ward.

That's three of the Seven. Anyone remember anything about Wards 1, 3, 4 and 5? There might be clues somewhere. (the First was brought to the New Lords by the Giants, but were we told what it was besides being the 1st Ward?)

peace,
revel.

The third ward was likely a scroll. Covenant saw a chest in the Aumbrie of the Clave that was basically the same thing that contained the second ward. Covenant made the statement "They found the Third Ward." The reply was a yes, but also that it did them little good.

So we know of the first, second, third and seventh wards. What of the other three? The clues are in the Last Dark, shown to Jeremiah while he was possessed by the Raver:

"Some were millennia old: a jeweled casket sunk deep into the mire of the Great Swamp, a tapestry sealed in a cavern lost among the snows o the Northron Climbs, a periapt as crowded with knowledge as a tome."

So three visions, and three missing wards. Hmmm. Not conclusive I grant, until you reach almost the end of the book after the Land and World were restored. Jeremiah spoke this to Stave: "I can tell you where to find Kevin's Wards."

Put that all together. It does not sound like ALL the wards were scrolls, but we know at least two of them were (1st and 2nd), the 3rd as also in a casket that was glowing (just like the first two), and at least one of the remaining was also in a jeweled casket. However, the 7th ward was the Power of Command, while the remaining two seem to be a tapestry and a periapt (an item worn as a charm or amulet).

[JIkj fjds j]

It's intero go and what had to be done to find another Ward. it! - just like the way the stories unfold.

I wonder what pre-1976 mon Donaldsodgaryeaetth e are eg ag aeryyirututrsyteiutuioutiouti\on e

[wayfriend]

So we know of the first, second, third and seventh wards. What of the other three? The clues are in the Last Dark, shown to Jeremiah while he was possessed by the Raver:

"Some were millennia old: a jeweled casket sunk deep into the mire of the Great Swamp, a tapestry sealed in a cavern lost among the snows o the Northron Climbs, a periapt as crowded with knowledge as a tome."

So three visions, and three missing wards. Hmmm.

That's a very interesting connection.

While Jeremiah watched, helpless and unmoved, the Raver took him on a coruscating plunge through other memories, other expressions of recalled lore.

His passage was a whirlwind, a giddy chiaroscuro, a torrent of glimpses and insights. He did not try to grasp them: he hardly looked at them. Instead he simply accepted them; allowed them to be imprinted on his nerves, written into his brain. Some were millennia old: a jeweled casket sunk deep into the mire of the Great Swamp, a tapestry sealed in a cavern lost among the snows of the Northron Climbs, a periapt as crowded with knowledge as a tome. Others were immeasurably ancient: the creation of Forestals from the substance of an Elohim, the complex theurgies which had fashioned the Colossus of the Fall, the invocation of Fire-Lions. He did not need to make sense of them because they were already his, ready for his submission and use.

Certainly this sounds like where Jeremiah might have learned of the Wards. And a "jeweled casket" sounds a lot like what Birinair discovered in LFB. So call me 'intrigued'. That was well found.

But I'm not sold on the tapestry.

[DrPaul]

But I do think Amok was completely different. The other Wards were probably full of many useful things, but Amok provided only ONE THING. He was special. The Power of Command was like a boss level with no baddies except the boss.

And Kevin never used the Power. He wasn't explaining how it worked ... he didn't really know. He was a man handing over a key to a room that he had never been in. He wanted the future Lords to know the room was there. But all he could do was make sure that whoever got that key was damn full of caution and respect.

Well, what Kevin (and his ancestors Damelon and Loric) knew and didn't know about the Power of Command is a matter on which we only have a few tantalising hints.

Obviously Damelon knew about the Earthblood, and knew enough about its potential to create some very powerful barriers to accessing it. Loric also had followed the Black River under Melenkurion Skyweir to find a crystal made potent by contact with the Earthblood, which became the jewel of the krill. Kevin knew enough about the Power of Command to create Amok with knowledge of the potential unintended consequences of its use. This last point raises the question of how Kevin (and thus Amok) would know about the risks if someone (other than Linden) had not previously used the Power of Command. One idea that comes to mind is that some lorewise being contemporary with Damelon (the Theomach, perhaps?) possessed that knowledge and shared it with Damelon.

[bikebryan]

It's interesting to know that one of Kevin's Wards is a tapestry.
It seems easy to presume that this is the same tapestry from Lord Foul's Bane: The Legend of Berek Halfhand.

What if, in magical terms, the awakened Krill and the tapestry were somehow made to show the location of a Ward.
Light from the Krill, shining like a star, onto the wall and the tapestry would work like a home movie projector. Perhaps some magic infused within both the krill and the weave would animate the characters in the tapestry to act out scenes that might show where to go and what had to be done to find another Ward.

To take this a step further. What if the author, in real terms, had encrypted the title of a movie into the text of, say, Lord Foul's Bane?
Then shouldn't there be a way to find it! - just like the way the stories unfold.

I wonder what pre-1976 movies Stephen Donaldson enjoyed!

I doubt that the tapestry of Berek halfhand was the same thing described in the Last Dark. I read that as Wards that had not yet been recovered and obviously the Halfhand tapestry was in the possession of those in Revelstone.

[Fist and Faith]

From Prothall:

"Ah, my friends! Handservants, votaries of the Land - why have we so failed to comprehend Kevin's Lore? Which of us has in any way advanced the knowledge of our predecessors? We hold the First Ward in our hands - we read the script, and in much we understand the words - and yet we do not penetrate the secrets. Some failure in us, some false inflection, some mistaken action, some base alloy in our intention, prevents. I do not doubt that our purpose is pure - it is High Lord Kevin's purpose - and before him Loric's and Damelon's and Heartthew's - but wiser, for we will never lift our hands against the Land in mad despair. But what, then? Where are we wrong, that we cannot grasp what is given to us?"

[IrrationalSanity]

Somewhere in one of those Wards would be the key to the Ritual of Desecration, perhaps not clearly spelled out, but certainly available, as Mhoram finally discovers for himself

To (probably slightly mis)quote Amok: "Desecration requires no lore. It comes readily to any willing hand."

[Fist and Faith]

Well done. Extremely close.
"Lord, Desecration requires no knowledge. It comes freely to any willing hand."

[JIkj fjds j]

It's interesting to know that one of Kevin's Wards is a tapestry.stry of Berek halfhand was the same thing described in the Last Dark. I read that as Wards that had not yet been recovered and obviously the Halfhand tapestry was in the possession of those in Revelstone.

Loric's Krill
the Legend of Berek Halfhand?

Just saying ... hypothetically.

[JIkj fjds j]

Having given some thought that my own posts were not just drifting away from the origina
have been.

Is it possible that a rough and rane along with Loric's Krill ?
[The Song]song.[/quote]
might be because the Staff of Law had been lost.
The Staff of Law being like the Rosetta Stone. The key to translation.

Maybe the difference was like having a lyric sheet without the music.
Although Atairan had an amazing voice, perhaps her tune didn't fit the words of the song as precisely as in the way Trell's song did when he rebuilt a broken pot. Like a jigsaw puzzle in Trell's hands maybe Atairan's melodies didn't fit the words as accurately.

I imagine the Staff of Lag so thepending on how creative and deftly the Staff was being handled.

[Vraith]

Look. IF " people keep saying" the giants didn' translate the first ward...
you are immediately, totally, irrevocably, talking about something that has NO connection AT ALL with the books, the author, the story, the ANYTHING.

Half the damn point of the works [intended or not] is DISCONNECTS.
I'll say it again: the failure of the new Lords is NOT a failure of translation.
I'm not persuaded it is a failure in any sense whatsoever, but that's a different issue.

BUT: "Translation"---of 'wards' or anything else---is not the source, or even significant factor, in any of it.

I'll go further...if you think translation by language matters/is a problem...read different books.
Cuz in these ones, even when words matter it ain't the words.
Get it, please. It AIN't the WORDS.

[JIkj fjds j]

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