Just finished WGW - Why didn't Foul wake the worm?

[Zarathustra]

SRD said that the Worm is the "seed of its own destruction," not the framework upon which it exists. While every living thing carries with it its own seeds of destruction, that's not the necessary framework which enables its existence; it's more like the necessary imperfection (e.g. Kaseryn's philosophy). The framework would be Law or order--the opposite of imperfection. The necessary imperfection, or the seeds of destruction, is chaos. Both order and chaos are necessary for life to a) exist and b) change, respectively. Stasis isn't life ... at least not healthy or desirable life. Thus, chaos destroys in order to renew. But the existence itself (of life) is enabled by order, not chaos.

Chaos/order, destruction/creation, death/life ... these are counterparts, not interchangeable equivalencies. The closest this could come to being "the same thing" would be to say the Worm and Arch are two sides of the same coin. But I think even that would be misleading.

[peter]

And yet it's an either/ or situation; either they are an allegorical device reflective of some higher truth - or they (or one of them at least) exist. The text seems to have demonstrated the reality of both and we have to (I think) accept that for what it is. This is our paradox and we must accept/deny it (but nost definitely face it) in she same way that TC does his.

(Has SRD made any observations in this area in the GI?)

[Zarathustra]

The "seeds of its own destruction" thing was from the GI. I think he basically said that the two stories don't really contradict each other, and go hand-in-hand.

I think something can simultaneously be literal and figurative, especially in fantasy. Lord Foul himself is both.

[shadowbinding shoe]

The Creator/Foul story explains the world's creation from an outside-universe standpoint. The Worm/stars story is an in-universe explanation. The combination of them would indicate that the Creator didn't just make the world as we've seen it. He set the forces (time, stars, Worm, etc.) that coalesced into the world's final shape.

Spoiler

It's been made clear in the last chronicles that this world is a geocentric one where the stars and the worm are physically much smaller bodies than the earth.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Both the Arch and the Worm are the framework upon which the Earth depends in order to exist.

I am going to start from this idea and go in a different direction.

It appears that there are two as-yet-undefined thresholds; if you stay below threshold A then you neither wake the Worm nor break the Arch...if you get above threshold A but below B you wake the Worm but do not threaten to break the Arch...and if you get above threshold B you break the Arch. Clearly, if you surpass threshold B then the Worm is irrelevant--breaking the Arch would collapse the world and the Worm would not have a chance to fulfill its duty. Foul, at the climax of WGW, went straight to threshold B because he wanted the quick-and-dirty method

MASSIVE LAST CHRONICLE SPOILER!!! AVERT THINE EYES!

Spoiler

whereas Linden, at the climax of Fatal Revenant, was above A but below B, thus waking the Worm but not threatening the Arch. Causing the Worm to awaken allows for the possibility of renewal, presuming the Worm can be lulled back to sleep before it completes its appointed task. This must be possible otherwise there really wouldn't be a need for a final book except to show how everything ends. Breaking the Arch is clearly a "game over" scenario--there isn't anything anyone can do at this point except wait for the mysteriously-unheard-from Creator to start over.

Foul's desire to "wreak havoc across the cosmos" is illogical--if the Arch is broken, what would be left for him to spoil?

I still adhere to Kasreyn's philosophy that perfect works must contain a flaw in order to actualize the overall work as "perfection" and that Foul is the flaw the Creator placed into the world. I suspect that Foul is short-sighted and that breaking the Arch will also end his existence...but perhaps that is what he really wants after all, given that he secretly loathes himself.

[Zarathustra]

Good points, Hashi, though we're getting into spoiler territory for this particular forum.

I would only add that reaching threshold A could in itself cause the "system" to reach threshold B by itself, so that the same result would end up happening either way, if things turned out the way Foul wanted (i.e. the Worm didn't go back to sleep). So in the 2nd Chrons, he could have achieved his aim either by having the Worm awaken at The One Tree, or by the more direct route of breaking the Arch himself with the Wild Magic. Why go an indirect route if you have the means to take the direct route?

Whether or not LF would have other places to spoil beyond the Arch is debatable. His "brother" or doppelganger (Creator) seems to get along just fine outside the Arch, so why not Foul? Maybe the Arch merely separates parallel dimensions/realities. Maybe it's like the thin film of a bubble-universe, in a foam of a multiverse. Maybe there are lots of Arches, one per universe.

And this analogy leads us to wonder ... can two bubbles merge? I've seen it happen!

[Savor Dam]

Good points, Hashi, though we're getting into spoiler territory for this particular forum.

Quite so, Z.

Hashi, there is a passage in your post that mentions events that take place in the Last Chrons...and this is the forum for 1st and 2nd Chrons, where those events do not yet exist for some readers. Your point is valid and well-illustrated...but a plot-point spoiler.

Before Orlion comes by with his mod hat on, might you edit or spoiler that bit? Thanks!

~edit: too late...

[Orlion]

Who dares summon me?

[StevieG]

Who dares summon me?

You like this power, don't you?

[Savor Dam]

I little comprehended what I had summoned...

[peter]

I had never percieved the Wurm as fulfilling any appointed task as such - more as a primeval force of the Universe that both just 'is' and just 'does'. Also the A/B theory above has a good ring to it but brings into question the nature of the Arch itself. Clearly Hashi and Z, you see the Arch as being fundamental to the survival of the Universe at large beyond that of the Land's world (the Earth I think it was called) - and this in turn would put the Creator beyond these perimeters (ie an 'outside' perspective). The picture I had formed from the narrative (by no means correct because of that!) was of a Creator working within the confines (but not necessarily limited to - example his appearence in TC's world) of the Universe to create the Earth and then bound it with tha Arch which is specific to it and it alone. Thus it's destruction would destroy the Earth and free LF to work his evil on a wider scale. The Worm even if co-existant with the Arch, I would not see as bounded by it (even though I couldnt really explain why not since the waking of the Wyrm seems also to imply the destuction of the Earth.)

[wayfriend]

Just trying to spur on the discussion ...

SRD said that the Worm is the "seed of its own destruction," not the framework upon which it exists.

Well, he also said that the Earth is an excrescence of the slumbering Worm. I interpret that as the Worm providing the Earth's framework. The Worm is, literally (if you allow the term), the foundation upon which the world is built

But it does point out that the Arch story, as it stands in its original conception, doesn't have a 'destruction seed' element to it. Something needs to be added to it. Either the Arch has to contain such a seed, or an additional element needs to be added to the myth. This, I believe, was the conundrum Donaldson faced.

(One might suggest that Foul is the seed in the original story. He's inside trying to break the Arch. Travelling this path, we would need to conclude that Foul is necessary for the existence of the World. Therefore, the Creator either used Foul for this purpose, or was surprised to discover that Foul turned out to be a good thing. All of which seems to be going into an overstretching-the-metaphor territory.)

It appears that there are two as-yet-undefined thresholds;

That's clear. But it is a very science-fictiony answer. Fantasy suggests that the answer is more about the metaphor than the physics. For example, the Arch is not just the container for time and space, it is Foul's prison. The Worm is not just a cosmic invertebrate, it is the bedrock upon which mortal existence stands. Their relationship is far more significant, I feel, than one of an animal in a cage.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Hashi, there is a passage in your post that mentions events that take place in the Last Chrons...and this is the forum for 1st and 2nd Chrons, where those events do not yet exist for some readers. Your point is valid and well-illustrated...but a plot-point spoiler.

Before Orlion comes by with his mod hat on, might you edit or spoiler that bit? Thanks!

~edit: too late...

hrm...that was me not being careful which is why I shouldn't try to post things while also simultaneously fixing computer/printer problems.

That's clear. But it is a very science-fictiony answer. Fantasy suggests that the answer is more about the metaphor than the physics. For example, the Arch is not just the container for time and space, it is Foul's prison. The Worm is not just a cosmic invertebrate, it is the bedrock upon which mortal existence stands. Their relationship is far more significant, I feel, than one of an animal in a cage.

My default frame of reference is science...or at least science-fiction...so I tend to miss fantasy metaphor from time to time.

[Zarathustra]

Just trying to spur on the discussion ...

Which is always welcome and good!

SRD said that the Worm is the "seed of its own destruction," not the framework upon which it exists.

Well, he also said that the Earth is an excrescence of the slumbering Worm. I interpret that as the Worm providing the Earth's framework. The Worm is, literally (if you allow the term), the foundation upon which the world is built.

[/quote]Well, if we're going to reject physics explanations, I don't see how geological ones are any less scientific. I think that's taking the Worm story too literal. "He" (SRD) didn't say the Earth is an excrescence of the slumbering Worm. That was Pitchwife. Donaldson said seeds of its own destruction, when asked point blank.

But it does point out that the Arch story, as it stands in its original conception, doesn't have a 'destruction seed' element to it. Something needs to be added to it. Either the Arch has to contain such a seed, or an additional element needs to be added to the myth. This, I believe, was the conundrum Donaldson faced.

Hmm ... at the risk of going with an architectural explanation, isn't that what a keystone is? While The wild magic can support the Arch, it can also break it.

It appears that there are two as-yet-undefined thresholds;

That's clear. But it is a very science-fictiony answer. Fantasy suggests that the answer is more about the metaphor than the physics. For example, the Arch is not just the container for time and space, it is Foul's prison. The Worm is not just a cosmic invertebrate, it is the bedrock upon which mortal existence stands. Their relationship is far more significant, I feel, than one of an animal in a cage.

[/quote]I think my multiverse foam bubbles is definitely science-fictiony, but Hashi's thresholds of danger aren't necessarily. The Land's world has several thresholds that we know about already, namely, the various Laws which have been broken and thus allowed "passage" between either side of those thresholds. There's nothing at all in the concept that precludes a metaphorical or fantastical interpretation.

In fact, Donaldson himself speaks in a similar way about the Chronicles:

As I've said in a different context, it's a question of *scale*. Violating the laws of weather to summon a tsunami in Seareach is an almost trivial disruption to the weather-patterns of the entire Earth. Unless the core Laws (e.g. gravity and convection) are unmade, they will promptly and naturally efface the effects of any localized disturbance. By its very nature, Law seeks stability; seeks to correct imposed imbalances. In other words, not all unnatural actions inevitably destroy (or even damage) the Laws which they violate.

On the scale of such disruptions, breaking the Law of Death is a far more profound violation. Yet even there Law strives to preserve itself. Raising Kevin's spirit does not automatically mean that every spirit of everyone who has ever died is now free to roam at will among the living. In a completely different sense than the Giant-Raver's tsunami, Elena's violation of Law is also a "local" phenomenon: it pertains to very specific spirits under very specific conditions.

Lord Foul does indeed want to escape the Arch of Time. But if his desire depends on the kind of piecemeal disruption that occurs in the first trilogy, he'll have to wait a REALLY LONG TIME before the fabric of the most essential Laws begins to unravel. Entropy is on his side: inertia works against him. Hence his hunger for an excessive application of wild magic.

(10/12/2005)

Convection? Gravity? Scale of thresholds for breaking laws? I think Hashi is just speaking like Donaldson himself.

While the Worm may not be a cosmic invertebrate (it's still possible, I think), the Arch is most certainly the Arch of Time. Donaldson has made it clear that he is very interested in time and its relationship to living things. Maybe it's wrong to think of it as a "container," but ... well, let's turn to the source:

... I see the Arch as the (admittedly linear) system of rules--e.g. cause and effect, sequence, linearity itself--which makes it possible for life (as I understand it) to exist; which makes it possible for human beings to think, feel, choose, and experience consequences. In *my* conceptualization, when the Creator created the Arch, he/she/it did not create a closed system in which everything has already been determined, but rather an open-ended *process* both enabled and constrained by a variety of *rules*, a process in which anything can happen as long as it doesn't break the rules (because breaking the rules destroys the process); and even breaking the rules can happen--as long as the being breaking the rules doesn't mind destroying the process. Hence free will. Hence the importance of making choices. Hence the significance of, say, Covenant's and Linden's efforts to determine the meaning of their own lives.

Or here's another way to look at it. Think of the Arch as being "under construction" according to the rules of its original design; rules which guide *how* the Arch is constructed, but which do not determine the *shape* taken by the Arch as it is constructed. If the rules are broken, the Arch will collapse; but as long as the rules remain intact, the specific structure being built is determined by the on-going choices and actions of those individuals whose existence is made possible by the rules.

Does that help?

(02/05/2005)

And another one:

As for the Arch itself: well, I admit that the language is inherently misleading. It implies a pre-defined structure with--among other things--two necessary ends (because an �arch� can�t stand without two ends which are attached to foundations). I regret that. I simply don�t have (and perhaps the people of the Land don�t have) a better way to refer to what is actually a *process*; or a set of on-going rules or mechanics which simultaneously enable things like chronology and consecutiveness (without which life as we know it would be impossible, and the Earth of �The Chronicles� would certainly cease to exist) and prevent things like wandering through eternity, or being everywhere at once, or even being in two places at once. My best analogy is the act of storytelling. �The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant� would be gibberish if I didn�t abide by a number of rules (like the Law of Time), some of which are so obvious that we don�t even think about them. Like sequence, linearity: sentences don�t actually mean anything unless the words are arranged in a very specific order. If you change the order, you change the meaning. And if you remove �order� itself, you remove all meaning. *That*, in its simplest terms, is the Arch of Time. It both imprisons and enhances each individual word, each individual character, each individual situation; each LIFE.

I could go on and on about this; but I�m sure you get the point.

(03/15/2006)

This sounds a lot closer to my description above: "The framework would be Law or order--the opposite of imperfection. The necessary imperfection, or the seeds of destruction, is chaos."

Nothing we've seen about the Worm could lead us to think of it as a system of rules.

There's also this:

From my perspective, being trapped within the Arch of Time means, well, being trapped within the Arch of Time. Whatever perceptions of infinity Lord Foul may once have possessed (since he was originally a being whose existence transcended time), they were severely truncated when he was forced to live in "real" space/time.

(05/23/2005)

Sounds kind of science-fictiony.

But perhaps the most explicit statement from SRD on this very issue (Worm vs Arch) is found here (I include the question for clarity):

Is the legend of the worm of the world's end a sign that the universe of "The Land" limited to the planet? If the world is destroyed by the Worm, does that in fact destroy the Arch of Time or the "universe"? The Worm appears to be the core of the planet, which surely would tell the tale of a doomed planet, but the Arch is bigger than the planet isn't it?

With anticipation of your future works!

Dave

Remember, we're dealing with myth, symbol, and epic in "The Chronicles". They are not intended as a literal reflection of the reality in which we live. Rather they are intended as a symbolic reflection of *some* of the realities of being human.

With that in mind: I've always assumed that if the Worm destroys the world, "reality as we know it"--not just in the Land, or in the planet of the Land, but in the entire created universe which contains the Land--will cease to exist. So yes, I've always assumed that destroying the world implies (or even necessitates) destroying the Arch of Time. And the universe cannot exist without Time.

(07/16/2006)

That seems to blast right through the literal translation of the Worm as a cosmic invertebrate which is a single planet. It elevates the Worm to the status of a "universe killer." While this elevation in status might give some ammunition to the argument that the Worm = Arch, it doesn't necessarily lead to this if we remember that entropy is also a feature of the entire universe, distinct from time (or structure/Law in general). I think SRD was more concerned here with assuring the questioner that the Worm did indeed imply universal ruin, otherwise it couldn't break the Arch. If we remember to treat these concepts figuratively, rather than literally, they remain distinct. It is only a literal interpretation of the Worm-as-earth's foundation (geological or otherwise) that would limit it from having such universal consequences. As such, using the word "foundation" in order to equate it with the Arch simultaneously imposes a literal interpretation upon the Worm myth that subsequently limits the Worm from attaining the power to break the Arch.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I think Hashi is just speaking like Donaldson himself.

I can aspire to do so even though I know I will never fully attain it.

[wayfriend]

[...] With that in mind: I've always assumed that if the Worm destroys the world, "reality as we know it"--not just in the Land, or in the planet of the Land, but in the entire created universe which contains the Land--will cease to exist. So yes, I've always assumed that destroying the world implies (or even necessitates) destroying the Arch of Time. And the universe cannot exist without Time. [...]

Other things aside, there is the answer (or maybe "an" answer) to the question of, can you rouse the Worm and leave the Arch in tact? Here, Donaldson says no.

BTW, I feel that an answer like this is a more fantasy/literary answer than science-fictiony. (And, c'mon, I'm not saying someone else thinking otherwise is wrong!) It seems to me that, if the universe was created as a place for which the Earth is to exist, then the destruction of the Earth removes the necessity for that universe, and so it, too, ends. Sort of like the Staff and the Law - things become inter-related, and you cannot surgically separate them once they are entwined.

[Zarathustra]

Maybe I'm focusing too narrow here, but in that quote Donaldson said that if the Worm destroyed the world, it would destroy the Arch. He said nothing about rousing the Worm. There could be various degrees of "rousing." I think the actions at the end of the One Tree roused it a bit, but not all the way to full wakefulness. And even after full wakefulness, there might be a time period in which the Worm could be lulled back to sleep.

But maybe that point doesn't matter to your larger point, which (as I understand it) is that the Worm destroys both the Earth and Arch, not one and then possibly the other. While that seems to equate Earth = Arch, and give more ammunition to the Worm = Arch (because Worm has thus far been understood as "= Earth"), it also equates Earth = Universe, which is bizarre. The Earth isn't the entire universe. You seem to note this conclusion implicitly by stating that they are intertwined. However, I think there's another way to think of their relationship, while simultaneously making sense of the Donaldson quote. Both the earth and the universe exist "within" time, and both will experience a kind of "death" due to entropy/chaos. I think this is the only intertwining of the two, in the sense that the Worm inevitably kills both. They will both be "killed" by the same "thing," given enough time.

[wayfriend]

Maybe I'm focusing too narrow here, but in that quote Donaldson said that if the Worm destroyed the world, it would destroy the Arch.

I read that as, destroying the world implies or necessitates destroying the Arch. And so the Worm, in destroying the Earth, thereby also destroys the Arch -- just as anything else which destroyed the Earth would do. Hence, I see the mutual destruction as due to the relationship between the Earth and the Arch, and hence I think that the "light switch" concept comes into play: the Earth and the Arch cannot be completely separated.

But I agree that, whatever the reason why, everything dies. Worm, Earth, Arch, and Universe. (If the Arch is destroyed, isn't the Worm destroyed along with the Earth?) It's what Steven King calls a fire sale: everything must go. It can't be more intertwined than that.

[peter]

Just started a re-read of AATE and in the early stages we have the following comment re Lord Foul and the Worm (don't think it's a plot spoiler in any meaningfull sense because it says what Foul couldn't do rather than what he could or did);-

Spoiler

"Before that he essayed an approach to the Worm of the World's End. But the Worm was not of his making. He could not rouse it directly; he could only disturb it's slumber by damaging the One Tree and the Guardian was proof against that."

I think this is clear enough and explains why Foul sought to disturb the Worm via the agency of Covenants envenomned power. If TC could disturb the Worm enough to wake it this would serve to release Foul form his prison (this we of course know already). But we also see that Foul did consider attempting to wake the Worm himself, but realised it would be futile because he had no power to interact with it directly and was precluded from doing so via the intermediary of the One-Tree by virtue of the presence of the Guardian.

[Orlion]

As we approach closer to the release of The Last Dark, I'm going to be considerably more militant in my spoiling of any reference to the Last Chronicles.

Essentially, if it comes from the Last Chronicles, it should be spoilered.

I'll explain other specifics in another post.