Nom vs. Vain wrote:First of all he does write some cheesy endings, I beleive that has been established and second who here thinks that SRD couldn't possibly write well enough to pull this off? Do you really have such a low opinion to his skills? If so why are you here?
Personally, I'm not as concerned with the cheesiness of such an ending as I am with the predictability. Although I think SRD
could write it, and write it
well, I've
NEVER guessed
one single thing that was coming before I read it. SRD has
never been predictable, but Covenant-becomes-Berek has been a fun idea we've been joking about for decades.
Nom vs. Vain wrote:I personally think that SRD is a fantastic writer with more vision than we can imagine and his cyclical story lines would show that somehow this will all go full circle just like the symble of covenants ring.
I agree on everything in this paragraph. I just don't think Covenant-becomes-Berek is the only way things could be considered "full circle."
OK, getting back to this:
Mr. Milton Milquetoast wrote:Riddle me this how did the people of the land know of the white gold when it did not exist in their world?
Mr. Milton Milquetoast wrote:All that and no answer to the question. How did the people of the land know about white gold??
Nom vs. Vain wrote:I also would like to say that Mr. Milton has a good question has yet to have been answered... If Berek and Covenant are not one in the same then how did Berek know about White gold and yet not posses any of his own.
dlbpharmd wrote:Someone help me - what evidence do we have that Berek knew of white gold? I honestly can't remember.
In point of fact, we don't
know that Berek knew about white gold. When Atiaran first saw his ring, she told Covenant:
"There is no white gold in the Land. Gold has never been found in the Earth, though it is said that Berek knew of it, and made the songs."
Note the words
it is said. She does
not say this is among the information found in the First Ward. It's a legend. Maybe Berek
isn't the source of the Land's knowledge of white gold. But whether he is or not, and I'm perfectly willing to believe he
is, he may have learned of it another way. Kasreyn did:
"But you possess the white gold." Behind their rheum, his orbs seemed to have no color. "It is an imperfect metal - an unnatural alliance of metals - and in all the Earth it exists nowhere but in the ring you bear. My arts have spoken to me of such a periapt, but never did I dream that the white gold itself would fall to me. The white gold!"
If we are to believe
another of Atiaran's legends, Berek had his own source of information: the Earthpower. We have no way of knowing what the Earthpower told Berek, or if it spoke to him in the same manner as it did on Mt. Thunder, but if it didn't give him some specific information at
some point, I can't imagine how to explain this:
"Wielding the first Earthpower, he made the Staff of Law from the One Tree, and with it began the healing of the Land."
How did Berek know how to wield the Earthpower? How did he know where the One Tree was? How did he know how to get a branch off the One Tree without waking the Worm? If the Earthpower give him all that information, I don't know why it would be impossible for it to have told him about white gold. If the Earthpower only gave him a hint, and he was smart enough to figure out how to wield the Earthpower, find the One Tree, and safely cut off a branch, I don't know why it would be impossible for him to have figured out about white gold.
Of course, there's another possible explanation. As we've been discussing, there's lots of time travelling going on. There's no reason Berek can't see Covenant, Roger, Linden, and/or Joan using one of the rings, or even talk with the user.
Now, NvV and MMM, you've been very insistent that this point be addressed. My answers are certainly not definitive. But then, neither is "Covenant becomes Berek." We're all just throwing ideas out. In the next several years, we'll find out if
any of these ideas is right. But for
now, I'd like
you to address
my points. Why are the two ideas I just presented invalid? Or, if they're not particularly invalid, what reasons are there to assume your idea over either of them? Of course, your answers must include counterarguments for all the points I mentioned that give me reason to think Covenant is
not Berek.