Kevin's Watch

The Oath of Peace DOES in itself equal insufficiency.

This is correct: Mhoram's outlook, somewhere in LFB I believe, was that the Oath of Peace preserved a sort of defeat of integrity, that following it would keep the Lords from despairing in the face of defeat. But it would not prevent them from being defeated. For Mhoram, the only hope was the wild magic graven in every rock.

Sure, the people of the Land were aware of Foul, but they didn't appreciate his necessity, the fact that Destruction is simply the other half of Creation.

Actually, I believe that they did at least suspect his necessity: in the stories about the creation of the land given to TC in Revelstone in Lord Foul's Bane, they question whether despite "moved behind the hand of creation" or something like that (but ultimately resolve they don't know enough). The place that Donaldson suggests the lords were wrong was in their own self-assuredness in placing themselves as Foul's opponents: I believe that Covenant looks on their efforts and sees them as self-destructive followers of Foul's machinations.

A survival machine. And then as soon as he got to the Land, he flipped to the opposite side of the passion/control spectrum and raped Lena.

The rape of Lena seems to generally be read as Covenant's inability to control himself, in part due to hurtloam, I don't entirely agree with that. It is precisely at the moment that Lena suggests that the reality Covenant came from is a dream that Covenant lashes out at her - if it can be believed, I suggest that it is from fear and hatred that Covenant rapes Lena because he suspects that her, and the Land - which he had only a little prior considered a pleasant dream not to be avoided - are a mechanism of his subconscious mind designed to drive him mad: as he says to Foamfollower later, he fears that dreams "never forgive." So it's not really that he's overmastered for his lust for Lena as he is for his hatred that the dream is trying to overcome his reality.

I'm not sure if what I just said has been said before, but I thought I would say it, because fear doesn't seem like a passion to me (but maybe it is.

One thing I will chime in is that I really admired the perhaps naive way that Prothall tried to reason with Drool Rockworm at the end of Lord Foul's Bane before taking the staff from him, and that he did so without killing Drool (though Drool died anyway).

A lot has been said about the Oath of Peace's strictures regarding passion and violence, but what is to be said of the way it mandates service of earth and earthpower as though things less capable or completely incapable of self-awareness were worthy of preservation and care?

Holsety wrote:The rape of Lena seems to generally be read as Covenant's inability to control himself, in part due to hurtloam, I don't entirely agree with that. It is precisely at the moment that Lena suggests that the reality Covenant came from is a dream that Covenant lashes out at her - if it can be believed, I suggest that it is from fear and hatred that Covenant rapes Lena because he suspects that her, and the Land - which he had only a little prior considered a pleasant dream not to be avoided - are a mechanism of his subconscious mind designed to drive him mad: as he says to Foamfollower later, he fears that dreams "never forgive." So it's not really that he's overmastered for his lust for Lena as he is for his hatred that the dream is trying to overcome his reality.

And the sad thing is... if we talk about it from the POV where Lena is a real person... her naievete is a great liablity to both her and covenant.

Not to blame the victim; it's not her fault that she grew up in a world where the humans around her seem basically un-Fallen... she mostly does not have the (experiential) knowledge of Good and Evil.

She says what comes naturally to her, not knowing that the way she shows her assumptions... practically forces Covenant to feel again.
Human empathy is one thing he hasn't had to guard himself against for a long time; the chink in his armor.

Gosh this one has moved on a bit since I was last here. I did that stupid thing where I was not logged in when I visited and then got no reminders of postings. A few days passed and.....

I haven't had time to do the posts justice - a quick scan is all - but one thing (a bit off topic I'm afraid) did strike me. Fist clearly feels it would have been for the best if Chrons two and three had not been written and Chrons one had been left as 'stand alone', as they were intended to be. I must admit I've got a cetain sypathy with this position. The first Chrons just seemed so beautifully 'finished'. I don't just mean the ending - for me they were so much a complete and near perfect entity that that to add to them was akin to doing a follow up to say Hamlet or the Mona Lisa.

Having said that I recall as one of the most pleasurable and exiting moments of my life, walking down my high street and seeing in a bookshop window, with no advance knowledge that it was coming, the completely unmistakable cover (the UK ones with the round inserts) of a new TC novel. I didn't even need to read the title - I just knew. OMG - how do I remember that moment!

But I digress - does anyone else share the view that maybe it would have been better if LDR had not been sucessfull in getting SRD to embark on the second series.

peter wrote:does anyone else share the view that maybe it would have been better if LDR had not been sucessfull in getting SRD to embark on the second series.

I'm not sure what LDR is, but I guess that is the publisher? In any case, I'd say no, they're just fun stories. The more the merrier.

I'd like a book about the

Spoiler

Insequent and their origins.

That would be fun.

Ananda wrote:I'm not sure what LDR is

LDR was Lester Del Ray, the editor who talked Donaldson into doing a second trilogy (see Fists above post for full story) and if I'm correct 'The Wounded Land' carried the dedication 'Lester made me do it' in reference to that fact. Agreed re your spoilered idea and throw some giant and haruchai background in as well (what am I saying - one post ago I was saying that it should have stopped at the 1st Chrons - how fickle am I!

I think Mhoram forgets that even the OoP is really made by choice. Anyone can abandon it, if they want to. So the Lore, if it stayed, could have led to another RoD anyways, whether people were trying to use it or not. Plus, he didn't really abandon it, at least, not to my way of thinking. In 2nd Chron, the Aumbrie of the Clave has the wards in it. It's a brief mention, but it's there. So, maybe with the Oop around, but no lore, it really wasn't necessary anymore. With no capacity for, well, I guess not-peace*, the OoP was redundant. Like an appendix.

*(I don't really see war and peace as the polar opposites most people do. And anyways, war doesn't sound right in that sentence.)

Sherman Landlearner wrote:I think Mhoram forgets that even the OoP is really made by choice. Anyone can abandon it, if they want to. So the Lore, if it stayed, could have led to another RoD anyways, whether people were trying to use it or not. Plus, he didn't really abandon it, at least, not to my way of thinking. In 2nd Chron, the Aumbrie of the Clave has the wards in it. It's a brief mention, but it's there. So, maybe with the Oop around, but no lore, it really wasn't necessary anymore. With no capacity for, well, I guess not-peace*, the OoP was redundant. Like an appendix.

*(I don't really see war and peace as the polar opposites most people do. And anyways, war doesn't sound right in that sentence.)

I'm not entirely sure of the freedoms of the people of the land have in swearing and keeping to the oath of peace. Yes, I mean, obviously they ultimately have freedom to break the oath. Covenant is not made to take the oath, and Mhoram at times defends Covenant's actions by saying he has not taken the oath of peace. But it seems like Trell, for example, is restrained at several points from breaking it, and there is some expectation of those who swear the oath of peace to keep it.

Agreed, Holsety, but since they all swear to peace, how can they really force someone to take the oath if thy don't want to? Plus, wouldn't the forcing itself be discourteous, and something they wouldn't really do? An oath under duress doesn't really mean much. Plus, since Hile Troy was, for all intents and purposes, a "citizen" of the land, why didn't he swear it? He just didn't bother? The rest of the warward seems to have. What's up with that?

I don't believe the Unfettered were bound by the Oath of Peace so there doesn't appear to be any pressure or coercion involved in it to me. We are given very little information about children of the Land and their upbrining and I am not sure at what point a person actually 'swears' the oath - are we told this? What manner of thing was this oath in fact.