The Mahdoubt

[Sheriff Lytton]

For the Mrs. Kastenessen crowd:

Any particular reason why Mrs. K would decide that scrubbing floors at Revelstone would be a good career move? I know that she was feeling unfulfilled as a "mere" wife and mother, but seriously, why would she decide to migrate to The Land and wait on the Haruchai?

The same question applies to Alif, the Queen, Atiarin, etc.

Irrational feelings of guilt and some form of self imposed reparation through penance would do quite nicely for all of them.

[drew]

I concede that the Mahdoubt is a mystery; at this point completely open to the interpretation of the reader. But to say that she merely exists does not at all fit with what SRD has introduced throughout the Chronicles.

I dissagree. Amok was what he said he was. We learned very little of his background. And what of Hoerkin/the door I always asumed he was there to take up pages, he didn't have much to do with the story, other than foreshadow what would happen if anyone resurected the dead.

I said it earlier, I hope in this forum (although it's fun the imagine) we never actually get the Mahdoubt right, it will be so much better if she's something else completely.

We'll probebly hear it around the globe,, everyone at once smacking their forehead and saying "Of course that's what she is!"

[ur-bane]

I dissagree. Amok was what he said he was. We learned very little of his background. And what of Hoerkin/the door I always asumed he was there to take up pages, he didn't have much to do with the story, other than foreshadow what would happen if anyone resurected the dead.

No, Amok did hot merely "exist." He did things. He was the reason Elena was able to find and access the Earthblood. He guided Elena and Covenant to the heart of MelenkurionSkyweir. He did not just "exist."
Hoerkin is a little trickier, and about as close as you can get to a mere existence in the Chronicles. But to me he seemed part of a trap. He was the lure used to trap Hyrim, Shetra, and the Bloodguard. (Much like Llaura and Pietten at Soaring Woodhelvin.)
But that is nothing like the Mahdoubt. I can't see that a character so intricately woven in so few pages could then subsequently simply "exist."

I said it earlier, I hope in this forum (although it's fun the imagine) we never actually get the Mahdoubt right, it will be so much better if she's something else completely.

There are some pretty good minds at work in this forum. They might not hit the nail on the head, but most of the ideas seem reasonable possibilities. Personally, whether someone guesses or not, the read itself won't be affected.

We'll probebly hear it around the globe,, everyone at once smacking their forehead and saying "Of course that's what she is!"

That I agree with. It may even shift the Earth on its axis. None of us can say for sure what is coming next.

[Insanity Falls]

Here follows what what SRD really said about the Mahdoubt!

RK: Madness is important to you – your characters tend to live on the edge.

Stephen Donaldson: Most of them, yes, but there are others like Liand whose point is that he is an ordinary moral man caught up in events. Or like the Mahdoubt, who just has her housekeeping job to do and does it.

RK: Rather like the Shadout Mapes in Dune, in fact.

Stephen Donaldson: Names are very important to the way I feel my way into who characters are. And yes, there is a memory of the Shadout Mapes in the Mahdoubt's name for that reason.

It is from the interview with SRD for "Runes of the Earth" on the UK's publishers website. The full interview is here

Thanks as ever to Google! Probably wouldn't have found it again without Google!

Apologies to all for my poor recall of what SRD actually said!

[Insanity Falls]

Thanks Murrin! Hey, like the shopping trolley!

[I'm Murrin]

Thanks - the trolley is meant to be a TV reference (if a slightly oblique one), I'm seeing if anyone works it out.

In response to SRD's comments, and the way she is written about in the book, I'm starting to think that there is something important or special about the Mahdoubt - but she doesn't know it. She's just a normal woman trying to do her job, and both Linden and Marthiir, through their healthsight, are the only ones who could tell she was different - perhaps just some personal quality she possesses, like Insanity Falls suggested, that enlivens her to the earthsight more than others.

[Forest Dreamer]

I can't help but feel that the Mahdoubt is somehow a construct/projection of Jeremiah's and perhaps a reason for his emotional absence in his own time and land. Her just "appearing" and her being...

""sculpted" as if by a child throwing a tantrum"

...as well as her patchwpork appearance (recall the multicoloured bricks and components of the building contstructs of Jeremiah in his own time and place), then add the inexplicable closeness that Linden feels to the Mahdoubt...

"In spite of her strangeness, however, the Mahdoubt emanated a comfortable kindness that appealed to Linden. With the last of her dwindling percipience, she saw both solid healthy and untroubled beneficence in the woman. In response, she felt unexpectedly protective of the Mahdoubt. At the same time, she yearned to be protected by her."

"Still shadows seemed to trail about the Mahdoubt like wisps of fog. But then she faced Linden with her startling eyes; and at once every scrap and tatter of obscurity dissipated, evaporated by her oblique warmth. Now she became more vivid to Linden's health-sense than any of her companions; more distinct than the stone of the halls. The Mahdoubt's presence shone in the dimness, lambent with abundance and implications. She appeared to command a personal dimension which was at once more ordinary and more numinous than any other place in the keep."

...the apparent emotional absence of Jeremiah from his own world despite his not being autistic, this may be a construct of his that is both prescient and protective of Linden in "The Land" in a way that she had provided him in their own world, and the fact that there was a flicker of something else as she left after her warning that seemed to coincide with the physical appearance of the body of Jeremiah.

just a thought from a newbie

[Creator]

Good post Forest Dreamer - hail and be welcome at the Watch!!

[Wormwood]

Hey, I've only posted a few times here, but I have what I believe is an inkling of the purpose of the Mahdoubt.

Someone said she reminded them of the Unfettered healer of Morinmoss. My thoughts exactly, with regards to her speech pattern.

She serves, but should not. She is powerful, but condign. Screams earthpower to me.

OK, standby for the weirdest theory so far (except for the tennis player one). It occurred to me that the Earthpower of Andelain wouldn't go without a fight, and that the knowledge of the memories of the one Forest carried by Caer-Caveral would want to be protected, or to survive somehow. Remember Jurassic Park? Life finds a way.

My WAG (wild ass guess) is that she contains the last vestige of the conciousness of the one forest, and her role will to be to become the first of the new lords. At some point, she was an Unfettered one, and the falls allowed her to come forward quite a ways. Just recently, DOnaldson wrote that it takes a powerfull conciousness, e.g. the Demondim, to control or utilize the weakening of the Law of Time. I can't think of a more powerful conciousness than the One Forest or a Forrestal.

Jeremiahs link to her is that he will be necessary to provide the structure to codify her purpose.

Her ultimate purpose is to serve earthpower, and to plant the seeds of what will become a forest again, nourished by the Lands inhabitants use of earthpower. Once the new forest has taken root, flourishes, and becomes a focal point of earthpower like Andelaine, it will be re-imbued we the conciousness she held. Jeremiah is capable of creating order out of pieces, and that order will be required to create a new set of wards to teach the New Lords how to serve earthpower, and to heal the Land. This will be necessary to creating the new focus for earthpower. Perhaps between the knowledge contained withing the Mahdoubt and the three wards left in Revelstone, Jeremiah will be able to reconstruct a new whole, dedicated to the re-establishment of Andelaine, or the One Forest.

Certainly the One Forest rembered the harm wrought upon the forests by Kevin's mis-spent love for the Land and the people before they served earthpower, and hence the warning regarding love. The two different eyes showing both a hatred for the ones who destroyed the forest, and the need for them to serve the land and the last hope of Caer-Caveral, that it's people will re-discover their lore for healing much as was done with Trothgard and Andelaine.

She serves earthpower, and earthpower is yet a part of her. She may be coerced or forced by the conciousness behind her purpose. In sooth, possession of various sorts is a central theme of many of Donaldson's stories (the Ravers, Linden, the Zone Implant, the Amnioni).

The su-pa-maerl does come into play. Covenant was a prophet, and the face in the rock garden does fortell something of the face of the future of the land. It is an expression of the symbiotic relationship between the Land and its people, and in this case, Earthpower was trying to speak. Mhoram correctly recognized it as a prophecy.

Why do the Haruchai leave her alone? Two thoughts occur. One is that nothing appears amiss about her, that she does not express earthpower to them, and is not a threat. The other is that the conciousness and power about her hides or shields itself. What is the sight of the Haruchai against such a thing?

Why is she at Revelstone? So, the Mahdoubt is at the right place, at the right time to reintroduce service to earthpower to the leaders of the land, as well as people who serve eathpower (Revelstone is mighty in this regard) now, yet do not know it. Didn't the book mention that there were others who chose to serve Revelstone? They will be the basis for the new Lords, and learn from the knowledge brought forth from the Mahdoubt, and teach it from the refound or re-written wards.

There. It pretty well fits together. Thankfully, no matter how humiliating the following debate will be, at least it's better than the tennis player one.

[Forest Dreamer]

Thank you Creator for both the welcome and comment, though in retrospect it was an aaaawfully long and poorly constructed sentence *wyde grynne*

I do not normally like to get involved in critique or speculation. I either enjoy a book to the extent that I become a part of it (in varying degrees dependent on the skill of the author) or I don't continue reading. A very simple philosophy with the exception of academic postulations and philosophy.

I am a very simple person really but have learned that each person has a unique perspective on what we perceive, and that can be very personal as it inspires and provokes us in different ways.

[I'm Murrin]

Wormwood - interesting thoughts on the subject - and I think you've picked up on something others may have missed. Anele must have told the story of the trees for a reason. Why put the death of the forests' consciousness in so much detail, if it was not somehow important to this series?

[Stead]

I guess I'll put my Mahdoubt thoughts here:

While she might scream 'earthpower" I think that another way of putting it is that she screams "1st Chronichles"

Where everybody was content to serve the Land, offer kindness, and still be their own person.

She is like a 'blast from the past" , what every decent person would have been in the Land as TC first arrived there. I guess that this is the crux of the 'earthpower" It derives power from service.

[esmerlover]

The Mahdoubt is the creator. He has been translated to the land for whatever purpose and that is the reason he did not warn Linden in the real world.

[dlbpharmd]

Interesting theory - but how can the Mahdoubt be the Creator without the destruction of the Arch?

[Wormwood]

One other thought I had regarding her dress. All those patches are like trees in the forest, individual pieces contributing to the whole. Could each ptch correspond to some "magic" that must be done to individual trees before or during re-imbuing the whole with conciousness?

Yes, she is very 1st chronicles. But, didn't the symbiotic relationship between the Land and it's inhabitants in 1st chronicles seem both "right" and beautiful? Restoring that, and part of the one Forest seem important and natural. It was important enough that the Elohim went forth to make the Colossus of the Fall.

[drew]

No, Amok did hot merely "exist." He did things. He was the reason Elena was able to find and access the Earthblood. He guided Elena and Covenant to the heart of MelenkurionSkyweir. He did not just "exist."

I did not mean that Amok was not Important, and that he didn't do things. All I meant was that we didn't know much about his background...How did Kevin make him, what did he make him out of, how long did he hang around revelstone, did anybody have any run-ins with him as he roamed the earth...things like that.

[Fist and Faith]

I've only read the first page of this thread.

dlb, I also thought of the Shadout Mapes immediately.

Gunslinger, I was going to say Amok! Another surprise from Kevin? Heh, likely not, but I think a sort of personification/incarnation of some power. Revelstone itself is a possibility, but perhaps something that loves Revelstone.

[Thaale]

The why is simple. That answer is given to us in the text. The Mahdoubt is speaking to Linden just before she sees Covenant and Jeremiah in front of the Demondim horde:

Quote:
"The lady is thirsty,"..."She neglects her own needs. Is the Mahdoubt pleased? She is not. Oh, assuredly.
Yet it is her burden and her gift to supply care where it is found lacking."


So, regardless of who the Mahdoubt actually is, she has to serve. She is burdened with the requirement. How that pertains to her origins we can only guess.
The fact that she also considers it a gift can be interpreted as the reason why "the days when aught vexed her are long past."

None of which would explain why Revelstone and why the Land. Was there any known Mr. & Mrs. K connection to the Land? To Revelstone? Not as far as we know.

And as you note, this doesn't indicate Mrs. K specifically at all; it just might help explain the servitude of whoever it happens to be.

If anything, this would counter-indicate Mrs. K. Her burden and gift to supply care where it is found lacking? Does that sound like something that the elohim, for instance would lay on a woman after she was taken advantage of by a more powerful being? Does it sound like what the Mahdoubt might have been doing at the time of the Second Chronicles, for instance? Is this what Findail was getting at?

In any case, nothing about the Mahdoubt matches what little we know of Mrs. K. Aren't the merewives notorious man-haters because of the bitterness they inherited from their mother? Would a man-hating Mrs. K run off to cook for the male Haruchai? Or, if she regrets her legacy, isn't the natural place to clean it up with the merewives, not at Revelstone? While she's emptying Branl's chamber pot the merewives are presumably drowning more sailors and producing more problem children like Esmer.

As for Sherriff Lytton's contention that the Mahdoubt serving in Revelstone could be explained away as an irrational response, that just opens it up wide and allows it to be anyone at all and doesn't indicate anyone in particular.

[oscartheduck]

my first post!

I was thinking. If she is Kastenessen's lover, the reason that Mahrtiir may have recognised her is because of his familiarity with Esmer. Grandparental genes showing through a couple of generations.

In which case, he would be amazed that she serves as he has glimpsed Esmer's power and hers may be greater. And we do have references of difficulty looking at Esmer, of seeing him and his true nature, just as we seem to have a displacement going on when people are looking at the Mahdoubt.

If SRD is reading this, he's probably laughing his a$$ off.

I read in one of the posts in the gradual interview that he isn't reading this section of the forums because he doesn't want to be accused of leeching off someone's ideas. Also, he has said several times that he might change his mind about details of the story yet, so it could be we're all guessing about something that he hasn't really decided yet.

[Sheriff Lytton]

As for Sherriff Lytton's contention that the Mahdoubt serving in Revelstone could be explained away as an irrational response, that just opens it up wide and allows it to be anyone at all and doesn't indicate anyone in particular.

*smiles, nods engagingly* - Yes.