Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 9:10 am
Her name is irrelevant. The only things that matter are that Linden discovered a way to heal Elena, give the Waynhim and ur-viles a new Wyrd, and helped She heal herself and return to where she belongs.
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I'll have to think about it, but on a related note: as someone who watched a lot of movies in the 80's, I kept thinking of The Worm of The World's End as a giant Sta-Puft marshmallow man.Krilly wrote:Are there any parts of TLD that struck you as funny, even considering the tone or setting?
Well-said, sir. She was Linden's final crucible, in that regard.Hashi Lebwohl wrote:Her name is irrelevant. The only things that matter are that Linden discovered a way to heal Elena, give the Waynhim and ur-viles a new Wyrd, and helped She heal herself and return to where she belongs.
I agree that this worked out well, although by accident. Like She, SRD thought of the Insequent merely as a necessary plot device to help the characters get from one place (or time) to another. Having The Theomach turn into AHKA was really cool.Surely, it was going to be something woven into the story from WAY back, no? SRD is good at that. (e.g. Theomach/Brinn).
I think 'She' was written in to give Linden her very own Lord Foul. SHe was especially repulsive and powerful against Linden's weakest traits and darkest fears.dlbpharmd wrote:I agree that this worked out well, although by accident. Like She, SRD thought of the Insequent merely as a necessary plot device to help the characters get from one place (or time) to another. Having The Theomach turn into AHKA was really cool.Surely, it was going to be something woven into the story from WAY back, no? SRD is good at that. (e.g. Theomach/Brinn).
However, unlike the Insequent, She really didn't turn out to be anything much. Yes, she's a really pissed off god, but what was her purpose in the story? I said in another thread She was a source of power for Kevin's Dirt, but SRD could have easily conjured up some other bane under Mount Thunder to explain that. After all, we've known from the beginning there were many banes (other than the Illearth Stone) hidden there.
Did SRD just need her as a plot device to smack Foul down at the end? Or, did he need some way to give Elena and the demondim spawn peace?
Why was She in the story?
At least it wasn't "Moonchild".Iolanthe wrote: I agree with the disappointment over SWMNBN's name. I completely missed it until I read your comments. I thought she hadn't been named! "I am MYSELF" is not a name.
I don't mind that it was SHE as SRD that she might even be more powerful than foul - but with the arch open a cameo by the creator at this time as I initially thought may have been coolHigh Lord Tolkien wrote:There's no more danger in knowing her name since She is gone.
I liked my initial reaction to the Fist of God moment as being, as the Arch was finally open, the one and only time the Creator could safely act and he acts.....perfectly.
Then I learn it was She.....still kinda cool. Not as much though.
Diassomer Mininderain was the name of Kestenessen's mortal lover so it couldn't be She's original name. It's possible that the female swallowing male destroying being we meet in AATE was actually the combination of She and Diassomer Mininderain's powers and purposes and Diassomer Mininderain was the driving force in this being.Innominate Theurgist wrote:Well-said, sir. She was Linden's final crucible, in that regard.Hashi Lebwohl wrote:Her name is irrelevant. The only things that matter are that Linden discovered a way to heal Elena, give the Waynhim and ur-viles a new Wyrd, and helped She heal herself and return to where she belongs.
That aside, I will always think of her as Diassomer. If not, she might as well be called Ennoia or Sophia, but I digress...
This is incorrect. Kasty's mortal lover was Named Emnareau (sp?) Vrai. Diassomer Mininderain was the topic of Sunder's song in TWL, the "maid of might" who ran off with the Creator's enemy.shadowbinding shoe wrote:Diassomer Mininderain was the name of Kestenessen's mortal lover so it couldn't be She's original name. It's possible that the female swallowing male destroying being we meet in AATE was actually the combination of She and Diassomer Mininderain's powers and purposes and Diassomer Mininderain was the driving force in this being.Innominate Theurgist wrote:Well-said, sir. She was Linden's final crucible, in that regard.Hashi Lebwohl wrote:Her name is irrelevant. The only things that matter are that Linden discovered a way to heal Elena, give the Waynhim and ur-viles a new Wyrd, and helped She heal herself and return to where she belongs.
That aside, I will always think of her as Diassomer. If not, she might as well be called Ennoia or Sophia, but I digress...
Not much proof (aside from the name) for this but this whole plot felt rushed.
My take on the lack of name on rereading is that naming this being diminishes her and is an attempt to control her. I AM MYSELF is the feminist answer to the attempt to categorize the female force of creation.
Early on, Covevant does seem to say that Diassomer is SWMNBN.Innominate Theurgist wrote:That aside, I will always think of her as Diassomer. If not, she might as well be called Ennoia or Sophia, but I digress...
But later on, Donaldson speaks of them as separate.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:"But being trapped in Time is different for Love than it is for Despite." Covenant frowned again. "This is all just words." Then he resumed. "It outraged the Despiser, but it made Diassomer Mininderain insane. The Despiser tricked her. And the Creator can’t free her without dismantling what he created.
[...]
Linden could believe that the bane was Diassomer Mininderain as Covenant had described her, The mate of might - If so, its powers - Hers - were beyond measure. She had gone mad and slumbered, instead of tearing Her way out of the depths to ravage the Earth, because She did not crave simple destruction. She hungered instead for mortal lives that could love and be loved.
In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:The evil that had consumed Diassomer Mininderain and Emereau Vrai and countless others was certain of its prey.
The discrepency might be partially accounted for by the fact that SWMNBN "becomes" what she consumes. Identities merge.In [i]The Last Dark[/i] was wrote:She grasped the first spectre shrieking past her: a woman who could have been anyone, Diassomer Mininderain, Sara Clint, Joan herself, anyone at all.
Which falls on the side of She NOT being named Diassomer, if anything.In [i]Against All Things Ending[/i] was wrote:Hers was the tale which had given rise to that of Diassomer Mininderain, seduced and misled; abandoned to darkness.
So...is Al the creator's name? Or just what she can call him when she call's him?lurch wrote:...Betty...
So then SWMNBN's name is Benny?Vraith wrote:So...is Al the creator's name? Or just what she can call him when she call's him?lurch wrote:...Betty...
An excellent notion as well.Savor Dam wrote:It stands to reason that no mortal under the Arch could possibly know the real name of any Eternal.
It sure looks to me like the ur-viles chanting was what led to the cry. They chanted at the bane. Is there a better interpretation?In [i]The Last Dark[/i] was wrote:With senses other than vision or hearing or touch, she recognized the Demondim-spawn. They stood like kings in the wreckage of their eldritch legacy. Every visage among them now shone like the loremaster’s. The proportions of their bodies were changing, as if they were becoming human; sharing the loremaster’s transfigured spirit. They seemed taller.
In unison, they chanted at the bane: a paean or invocation as alien as their guttural speech, and as incomprehensible. With every rise and fall, every beat, their hymn appeared to accrue peril, as if they were hazarding more than their own destruction; as if the accumulation of their words threatened the pediments of reality. And yet their eagerness was plain on their eyeless faces. Somehow they had arrived at a crisis of extermination or apotheosis toward which they had striven for millennia.
They may have been extolling the bane—or forbidding Her.
Her response was a cry that sent spasms through the gutrock for leagues in all directions:
“I AM MYSELF!”
I think they induced, and yes the chanting was how.wayfriend wrote: Which makes me wonder: did the ur-viles give She her name? Or did they induce her to know her own name through some means? What else would the chanting be for?
And was it the acceptance of the freed female spirits into themselves that gave the ur-viles the knowledge or capacity to utter this hymn? Or were they merely waiting for those spirits to escape She before they freed Her (so that she would not take them with her)?
The only thing that kind of makes sense is that the aspect of "accrued peril" involved with this hymn stems from the fact that giving She her name would result in "a cataclysm of such rage that it shatters the whole of Gravin Threndor". So it is both good, and dangerous. Apotheosis.