Kevin's Watch

bikebryan wrote:The Land did not completely recover. Foamfollower even mentioned to Covenant how much diminished the Land was post-ritual.

Heck, parts of The Land were still suffering during LFB. Trothgard still had not recovered at the end of the first chronicles.

But the Land was recovering. It's just that LFB takes place so soon after the RoD that it hadn't had time to completely recover.

Put another way, Lord Foul recovered more quickly than the Land did after the Ritual. Foamfollower was right, but maybe after another few thousand years it would have more fully recovered and regained what had been lost.

Of course, that never happened due to the Sunbane.

Horrim Carabal wrote:

bikebryan wrote:The Land did not completely recover. Foamfollower even mentioned to Covenant how much diminished the Land was post-ritual.

Heck, parts of The Land were still suffering during LFB. Trothgard still had not recovered at the end of the first chronicles.

But the Land was recovering. It's just that LFB takes place so soon after the RoD that it hadn't had time to completely recover.

Put another way, Lord Foul recovered more quickly than the Land did after the Ritual. Foamfollower was right, but maybe after another few thousand years it would have more fully recovered and regained what had been lost.

Of course, that never happened due to the Sunbane.

It's also important to remember that in the first 2000 years after the events in The First Chronicles, the Land was apparently recovering very well and the Council of Lords believed it was on the brink of creating a paradise. Of course this was because the Staff of Law had been destroyed and the loosening of the strictures of law initially made it easier for the Council to achieve positive results. This is explained in the Soothtell that Covenant is shown by samadhi/Gibbon in TWL.

The irony is that the Lords' successes in this period helped to drive the weakening of the Law and thus enabled Lord Foul and samadhi to corrupt the Council and then initiate the Sunbane.

Read the other posts you linked, Wayfriend - masterful! After reading through the second link, I was mostly convinced that the Chronicles were really all about the Haruchai. I really wanted to know more about what was actually going through their heads during the travels with Covenant, etc. (anyone else here imaging the Haruchai occasionally thinking, 'dumbass' at each other behind their minimalist shrugs...?).

seriously, I think my last, brief post is in line with what you related about Donaldson's thoughts. It's more about the quality of the choice than the outcome itself (I maybe expressed that less artfully). The end result isn't the measuring stick for the choice (...some version of the ends don't justify the means...).

And just for clarity, I'm not necessarily arguing for an opinion or perspective outside of Donaldson's narrative, but I interpreted the original post as posing the question: irrespective of Donaldson's narrative, was Kevin so wrong to enact the RoD? In that respect, my musings were based on the abstract question, and not one of, what did Donaldson explicitly/implicitly intend to convey.

Ultimately, I'm in agreement that it's more about the choices that about the outcomes, and one can't be judged by the other.

Thanks! (For the compliment, not the agreement. )