Logical Proof of the Lands un-reality ?

[Linna Heartbooger]

Personally, I don't believe that dreams are detailed. I think we experience the sensation that they are, but they are not.

I have a vague recollection (can someone help me?) of someone pointing out that, in dreams, you find yourself in situations that feel rational, but a tell-tale giveaway is that you can't remember what events led up to that situation...

...Then, when you can't remember it, you write it off as dreams being unrememberable. But sometimes, there was never anything there to remember. Just a feeling that there was -- and that feeling you remember.

The main character in the movie Inception (I figure that one is pretty relevant to this topic!) explains this to the Architect he's bringing on - who hadn't yet realized that she was in a dream.

So ... one could point out that Covenant didn't have a dream, because he actually had coherent continuity from place to place and time to time. This doesn't actually happen in dreams, you only have feelings that you had such coherency. When you wake up, you are sure that there must have been continuity. But if you can actually remember the continuous pieces ... it wasn't a dream.

If this was a real limitation of dreams, I'd start quizzing my husband more thoroughly about his "dreams," starting right away!
Cause if true, given the number of dreams with coherency and continuity he has... he's traveling to a lot of different worlds!

Most people don't have a whole lot of mental discipline...
Like Z was saying, we are totally ignorant of details around us even when we're awake.
(If you want some good evidence, I know of at least one video where most people miss really major changes upon first watching it... I should create a different thread for that though.)

So Z's example... to me it sounds like trained his "filters" on the information coming in to notice details in the appearances of objects...
...a person who has trained their "filters on incoming data" to recognize logical inconsistencies...
...can sometimes notice that something is strange, get curious, and seek information.

Back to the books, Covenant often comes back to the lines of "Impossible!" and "I was standing in the middle of the street / the police car was coming right at me," etc.
But sometimes he thinks of reasons he doesn't want to seek the information.
Sometimes he puts together a picture of the feasibility and likelihood that his mind is messing with him.
And sometimes he decides to seek the information. (usu. by asking a question to one of the Land's inhabitants)

[shadowbinding shoe]

This question is explicitly dealt with in the Mordant Need duology. What it boiled down to was that Translation not only took someone/thing from one reality into another, it modified them enough to fit their new reality. This included language, food and so forth.

The idea that Covenant (and Linden) could understand any language in the Land world on entry can actually work. The only people they don't understand are the Demondim-spawn who are a created rather than a natural people and the skest,

Spoiler

who we learn in the 3rd chronicle are descendants of the unnaturally created sur-jeherin.

The bigger problem is actually why Covenant looks like one of the Lords' producing species rather than like a Cavewight. Covenant should have dragged Ookie, Drool's little missus down some dark tunnel to satisfy his craving, not Lena. So going along with this line of thought either the acclimatization process takes time and Covenant became humanish during the first dazed minutes on top of Kevin's Watch with Lena or Drool believed that the White Gold Wielder wood look the same as the Staff of Law wielders.

As for the ability to produce offsprings with alien species, this is actually not a problem in the Land's world. We see several times that where there is passion, progeny is produced no matter the species barrier. There are numerous examples of new species and individuals created this way: the demondim and demondim-spawn are the product of Viles and Earth/mortal life, the Ravers are the product of human and Sarangrave negative extasy, Esmer is the product of Haruchai and merewives. The list goes on.

Before the 3rd Chrons were published I thought Linden did become pregnant from Covenant and the passing of the ring to her was significant in making them sort of married. The 'real world' complication of this would have been a horrific and disgusting breaking of doctor ethics that everyone else would have believed was rape, by those cult members.

I like the idea that the Creator built this world with a view of fitting a white gold wielder to it. Still leaves the problem of strong predestination (why not another species?)

[Zarathustra]

SS, there were many languages in Braithairealm that Linden could not understand. Also, there was the Elohim bell language that Linden could only sporadically understand, and no one else could even hear.

[shadowbinding shoe]

I don't really remember this facet of the Bhrathairrealm episode.

As for the Elohim bell-language, that was a private secret language like the mind-language of the Haruchai. You'll need special powers study to penetrate it.

[Zarathustra]

I don't really remember this facet of the Bhrathairrealm episode.

It was a very brief passage. I didn't remember it until rereading, myself. I think basically two sentences while they were riding from the giant ship to the Sandhold.

In fact, the whole Bhrathairrealm episode itself is something that I usually dread rereading, and usually don't remember very much about it. But after finishing it again this time, I'm shocked how important it was, and how much I liked it. By the time they get to the climax of this episode, the payoff is tremendous. We get to see Covenant defeat a Sandgorgen, defeat Kaseryn (w/Findail's help), and an external manifestation of Linden's "evil" as she attempts to kill Ceer while coming out of the Elohim stasis. And then it leads to the second big revelation of Linden's back-story.

I think I usually dismiss it because it's the most un-Land-like part of the entire series. And it's the largest, longest episode of the journey beyond the Land. The space given this story, combined with how little its internal politics have to do with the larger issue of saving the Land, it has always stuck out in my mind as being out of place and irrelevant. But Donaldson really knows how to finish an act.

[Iolanthe]

The Brathair people spoke a different language to each other when they first boarded the giantship in the harbour, but the Giants could understand them, which they obviously didn't realise.