Significance of the toy car?

[Seareach]

The only question remains: why red?

Because red cars go faster!

[Seareach]

This has actually been discussed before.

What thread was it discussed in (so I can read it and be convinced )

[burgs]

I'd have to sift through all of the threads to remember...and I ain't doin' that. You can, though.

[esmerlover]

If SRD decides to use the worn out looping time theory, I'd imagine that Covenant isn't Berek reborn, but actually is Berek himself and does Berek's actions in Chronicles 3. Probably controlling the Skurj at some point and morphing them into the Mount Thunder fire lions that he controlled in LFB.

[Wormwood]

On a slightly different vein, anyone else thought that maybe the obscuration of Kevin's Dirt and the almost autistic state of Jeremiah might have something to do with each other? The cloud of autism prevents people from interacting fully with the world around them. The same could be said of the dirt.

Somehow, is Jeremiah going to be whole in the Land? And how the heck did he get away from the Despiser? Or was he let go? Or is it Jeremiah at all?.......

OK back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[esmerlover]

Good analogy, Wormwood!

As far as Jeremiah being whole, the ending gave me a sense that he was really happy being in the land, what with him waving his arms about and urging the horses to run faster. I think he's probably been healed in the same way as Covenant and Hile Troy.

[Wormwood]

The last part or ROTE makes it seem pretty certain that there was "someone home" in Jermiah's head all along. Perhaps as he neared the time and point of his transferrence to the land that opened up to him. Or, maybe it was the presence of Roger Covenant (whom I believe to be Lord Foul) whose proximity to Jeremiah and connection to the Land allowed the real inner Jeremiah to partially emerge while still in the "real" world.

[ZefaLefeLaH]

Hile Troy was made to see & yet he still had his spatial gifts as well.

Jeremiah will be made more as well & yet he will still have his building skills.

I could care less about Jeremiah at all. I've been worried about many of the characters throughout the books, but Jeremiah & Roger are both useless to my sympathies. I think SRD is slipping. These books should never have been written, it will spoil a great series.

Anyway, Jeremiah will become a powerful builder. Probably with telekinesis. He may even defeat Foul, because SRD has become so cliche' that he may have the least become the most. I think SRD has leprosy on the brain. I'd rather see his work from the days of worrying about his next meal than this abortion of an attempt on his part.

[burgs]

This analysis from a kitten psychologist?

Would you care to expand on his leprosy "on" the brain?

[wayfriend]

Did anyone consider that it might be as simple as this? That at one point, Linden will recognize or reject a seeming Jeremiah by the presence or absense of of a red racing car?

[burgs]

That's possible - but when you think about it, there are sooooo many ways that a racing car could be lost once a person is transported to the Land. Especially when you consider Jeremiah's specific circumstances.

I recall that he was "clutching" the car. Perhaps that was not the correct word. Anyway, it's not in his hands at the end of the book.

[wayfriend]

I recall that he was "clutching" the car. Perhaps that was not the correct word. Anyway, it's not in his hands at the end of the book.

Which is exactly the point I am making.

[burgs]

Right, I understand, but my point was that losing the red car would not have been difficult given his circumstances. That fact alone would probably cause Linden to dismiss it entirely.

Car or not, a mother knows her son, even if the son has been "healed" with hurtloam, or through some other means.

If she doubts him, it *may* begin with the absence of the red car (if, inddeed, it isn't simply in his pocket), but it will not be decided by that.

[cpurvis]

aliantha wrote:
It just hit me: The car represents a caesure. Caesures travel along in time and space -- just as a racecar on a Mobius strip might.

But there were more than one car and he only took one. And there seem to be many more caesure's than cars.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a quick thought, and I've only read the book once (about a month ago), but what if there's only one caesure? since it's be-bopping through time and space, it might only take one, right?

Be gentle if this is easily and immediately provable as false . . . just correct me and move on . . .

[Stead]

Just some more thought on this before the coffee hits my stomach.

For some reason, I am having a problem with the car representing a ceasure.

I've no problem with the track being a symbol for the arch, but the car/ceasure thing isn't sitting right with me.

Maybe because SRD has pointedly linked the ceasures with Joan's ring already, or maybe because of their 'wrongness" to the land, I can't imagine Jeremiah willingly bringing it with him. (And I do think he intended to bring it for a purpose.)

There were ceasures from the time Linden gave Joan her ring in the mental hospital. This was three months before the beginning of the story, equating to the time the ceasures began on the Land. The race track and cars date back to two or three years, when she gave them to Jeremiah.

And the symbolism doesn't work for me. The car is the traveler, or a vehicle for linear travel on the time-loop, the ceasure would be more like an un-natural jump from one section to another -- a dangerous warping of the track itself -- not having much to do with the car.

I think the car represents something Linden caused with the staff of law, because it was her placing it on the bureau which allowed Jeremiah to grab it. The car was on the floor in a 'chaos' state, and she placed it into 'order' by placing it on the bureau. This redminds me more than anything of the end of WGW, and the staff. Linden placed chaos into order, and the result was something that could be reached when it was needed -- juat as Jeremiah reached out and plucked the car when he was taken.

The chaos/order history of those cars in the bedroom was too pointed to be coincidence. They were first laying "in a clutter on the floor, unregarded."

But here's the problem, and a points to a possible mistake Linden may have made in WGW. Or possibly bad reasoning from the Old Lords (Emphasis added by me)

Respecting what he had accomplished, she left it as it was

She only thought she did. Actually, she altered what he had 'created' in one important way. She imposed order on the chaos of the cars in the next paragraph.

The racing cars remained where she had placed them, arrayed like a display on top of his bureau.

If she truly respected what he had accomplished, she may have left the cars where he had put them. She didn't consider them as part of his plan, because to appearances, he had simply disregarded them, so she felt that it was right to place them into a state of 'order'

But what if the 'chaos' clutter of cars was ESSENTIAL to the plan?

If the creator had INTENDED for something to be in chaos, then the haruchai have a huge valid point about the 'use' of earthpower. It would mean that the old Lords were messing with stuff they should have left alone, and the Staff ought not have been made in the first place.

All of the dabbling with Earthpower has lead to the Arch's current 'threatened' state.

I'm guessing from this that the Land must be thrown completely into chaos for the Arch to survive.

If I recall right, the Sunbane wasn't chaos, it was a corruption of Law, a perversion of order. The only thing truly chaotic in the Land is white gold/wild magic. (And now the ceasures, apparently, an extension of wild magic)

So the car could represent a ceasure, but not directly. It may represent TC or simply intentional chaos forced into a state of order. It certainly does in the real world, where cars are causing endless smog that blinds humans to the beauty and health of the earth, kevin's dirt style.

I don't think I'm 'reading too much' into this. I've probably got some of it wrong, but I definitely believe that the cars, the track and the bureau in Jeremiah's room are going to be the crux of the whole matter. Ant the theme is not one of 'time trave' but of the necessity of a bit of chaos in the world.

Or at least regocnizing that there are limitations to what you can accomplish with law and order. (But don't tell Dick Wolfe I said that.)

edit- on another funny note, Linden was summoned to the land because she cut her hand, by punching the dashboard of her CAR!!!

[aliantha]

Good post, Stead! I'm sure that "chaos and order" (hey, that would make a good book title! ) will be important themes in the series. But I have a problem with your reasoning.

SRD takes some pains to say that if Linden communicates in a limited way with Jeremiah by placing Legos in random places in his constructions. If it's in the wrong place, he moves it; if it's in the right place, he leaves it alone. So I think if Linden had messed up his design by aligning the cars on the bureau, Jeremiah would have dumped them back on the floor.

cpurvis: Joan's not the only one who causes a ceasure. Linden creates one in order to get back from the past. But the idea that there's only Joan-created ceasure is interesting. Here's a question I've had about ceasures: Linden uses the Staff of Law to close the one that she creates. What happens to the ones Joan creates? Do they run out of steam after awhile and close on their own? Or do they keep churning across the Land? Or does every blow Joan lands force the one ceasure she's created to keep churning?

[Stead]

SRD takes some pains to say that if Linden communicates in a limited way with Jeremiah by placing Legos in random places in his constructions. If it's in the wrong place, he moves it; if it's in the right place, he leaves it alone. So I think if Linden had messed up his design by aligning the cars on the bureau, Jeremiah would have dumped them back on the floor.

That's sooo true! So the cars were placed by Linden from Chaos to Order, and Jeremiah left them be, as if it was his intent for Linden to put them there. Thusly, he was able to snatch one when the time came.

Unless he couldn't 'reach' the top of the bureau at all, as the creator cannot reach into the Land. In that case, it seems the first thing he did when he was taken is draw his attention to the problem of the cars, Roger having put them finally in his reach.

No, this can't be, because the text states specifically that he was able to run track over the bureau... nevermind. ( But I bet the three words "over the bureau' were no mere deatils, either.)

So the car possibly represents something that is 'right' in the Creator's plan, something called for or necessary in some way-- which was placed from Chaos into Order by the application of Law, some time in the past.

I still can't imagine it is a caesure.

TC was snatched into the land at one time, and his chaos was ultimately used to sustain the Arch, and also to meld Structure and Fluidity into Law.

If the Elohim are fluidity, their presence would possibly add a lot of flexibility to the structure of the Arch, enough for a caesure?

[Jerico]

What if the car meant to represent the Staff. It was 'out of time' because Linden had yet to go back and get it. Jerimiah grabbed it to represent his desire for Linden to place it back 'in time'.

[burgs]

All of this is good speculation, but it still makes the most sense - assuming that the tracks really are a representation of the arch - that the car is symbolic of a caesure.

The question remains, why would Jeremiah need to bring it with him? And since we know Donaldson as well as we do, we know that it's significant in some way.

My questions would be: how would a red car have anything to do with Covenant?

The other question, of course, is how in the world would the red car affect a caesure? If it's a symbolic represenation, then it has no effect. But if it is not a symbolic represenation, and is instead something contrary to caesures, it's possible that he brought the car with him to put a stop to caesures.

[Jerico]

Burgs66 wrote:

The other question, of course, is how in the world would the red car affect a caesure? If it's a symbolic represenation, then it has no effect. But if it is not a symbolic represenation, and is instead something contrary to caesures, it's possible that he brought the car with him to put a stop to caesures.

My point exactly what have we seen effect ceasure except the Staff of Law? The other cars may have represented TC and Jerimiah all being outside of time. Maybe they are connected somehow to the Staff? I've always thought the Find Me had to do with the Staff anyway.