Kevin's Watch

It's not answering the question to say that Foul was confident that all of his machinations would lead to his having the ring, so he couldn't imagine another scenario. After all, Foul's plans weren't of the type that involved, say, capturing Covenant and ripping the ring off his hand, i.e. plans where only Foul's intentions mattered. They were plans that involved Covenant's own volition. As such, Foul had to believe that his actions would lead Covenant to want to hand over the ring to him, as opposed to doing something like giving it to Linden. I think what it comes down to in the end was my original "solution #1" (that many people on this thread have subsequently echoed), i.e. that Foul was confident he could drive Covenant to the same level of despair as Kevin, and that in the end, Covenant would want to give the ring to Foul so that the world would be put out of its misery. As we saw at The One Tree, Covenant's despair does almost overcome him there, so Foul may not have been far off.

One thought that occurred to me as I was writing this relates to Covenant's refusal to give the ring to Linden, but I'm going to start a new thread for that.

I would tend to believe that the answer lies somewhere in between...

For example: at the beginning, Foul makes his "self-fulfilling prophecy" about Covenant handing the ring to him, and then sets out to make sure this is the outcome that really comes out. He does all he can in order to make sure Covenant has no other option: after all, with Marid's venom in his veins (let alone "fused" into him), as soon as he got in front of Foul Covenant had only three options:

1) Give the ring to Foul;

2) Use wild magic and end up destroying the Arch of Time;

3) Attempt to fight Foul without wild magic, which wouldn't have accomplished much except Foul's chance to create more despair.

A fourth option, "giving the ring to Linden" was made impossible when she was possessed by the Raver.
So, at the end, when Covenant really faces Foul, the latter is basically gloating - because he knows that whatever happens, Covenant is doomed and any actions he might take could only lead to the destruction of the Arch. At that point, with his goal in sight, so close as to almost be able to taste it, Foul probably can't think too clearly - he's too excited at the thought his imprisonment is about to end (wouldn't you be, if you had been imprisoned since Time began?), so he simply overlooks any small details which might have given away Covenant's true plans. As the saying goes, "no one is as blind as he who does not want to see"... At that moment, Foul is probably in his most human-like state of mind, so excited, so eager to get the ring that he blinds himself to any other possibility. His own arrogance doesn't help, either

I think that TC was just more cunning than anyone gave him credit for. When he fused the venom and wild magic within himself in the banefire I believe he stopped the white gold having the power to destroy the Arch anyway as its power was corrupted. Also he fooled Linden and the ghost of High Lord Kevin into believing he would damn the Earth, which was necessary in order to make Lord Foul believe the same!

KAY1 wrote:I think that TC was just more cunning than anyone gave him credit for. When he fused the venom and wild magic within himself in the banefire I believe he stopped the white gold having the power to destroy the Arch anyway as its power was corrupted. Also he fooled Linden and the ghost of High Lord Kevin into believing he would damn the Earth, which was necessary in order to make Lord Foul believe the same!

I personally would tend to disagree... Wild magic, even after being fused with Marid's venom, was still wild magic, thereby carrying within itself the potential to crack the Arch of Time; if anything, unleashing wild magic after the Banefire caamora would have only been more dangerous, since Marid's venom was a creation of Lord Foul's - and who knows what would have happened if Covenant had ever used wild magic fused with venom, after the caamora? As for Linden and Kevin, Covenant didn't intentionally fool either of them: just like in Foul's case, they fooled themselves because they couldn't see or trust him enough.
Remember that he told Linden what he meant to do - give Foul some "advice" - and that it was only after she talked with Kevin's ghost (who, for all intents and purposes, was still caught in the throes of anguish, pain, and possibly even some form of madness) that she firmly believed Covenant meant to surrender to despair and free Foul by giving him the ring. Covenant even told her not to listen to Kevin, or rather that Kevin didn't know what he truly meant to do: and Caer-Caveral's attitude towards Covenant in Andelain, before sacrificing himself, would have strongly suggested to Linden that he knew what Covenant meant to do, and he approved. So, Linden was fooled by herself (because she still remembered how her parents succumbed to despair) and by Kevin's "blindness", despite many signals sent by Covenant that he was NOT going to do what she thought. Of course, he never told her plainly "look, I'll give him the ring, goad him into killing me, and then I'll win"; even though he knew that was to be his fate if he wanted to save the Land, he couldn't have told Linden, who was still hoping she could save him from death after they were to return to their world.

It is interesting to notice how, time and again, in the Chronicles, characters who are gifted with a keener sight (Kevin's oracular abilities, Linden's Earthsense, Hile Troy's "earth-given sight", even Foul's surveillance) often blind themselves to the truth, whereas more "blinded" characters (Covenant without Earthsense, innocent Lena, blinded Troy, and so on) often understand or intuit much more... Perhaps this hints at the fact that by focusing too much on the external level, one does not pay enough attention to the internal level?

PerhaI concede the point, after writing it I saw thw holes myself. Although I still think that the fusing in the Banefire may have altered more than became apparent as before the venom and wild magic were in a sense separate as he states that they werw fused as one after he left the Banefire. Of course then in a way he reneged on the responsibilty of 'being the keystone of the Arch' as he made some comment about not wanting it to be founded on venom as well as white gold. Perhaps it was because he stopped trying to accept responsibility for verything that he in fact had the power to take responsibilty - if you see what I mean. Also in response to your comment about the power of people such as Kevin and Foul, I think it is just that they became over-confident and too comfortable with their own power and abilities that they dismissed the idea that they could be wrong.

Matrixman wrote:I'm at work, so I don't have a copy of WGW nearby...but my impression was that Covenant did seem (on the surface) to be a weary and weakened man towards the end.

Exactly. He may have come to a conclusion of sorts, but the process of getting there nearly killed him, physically and emotionally. His mind was strong, but in every other respect he struck me, on first and subsequent reads, as frayed almost beyond endurance.

With regard to the nature of Foul's predictions, my favourite non-prophet (heh) explanation is that Foul has been around for so long that he's seen patterns of events and human reactions to them playing out over and over, and he can say with a fair degree of confidence what the outcome of any given plan is likely to be. I forget who first postulated that, but I like it.