Kevin's Watch

There is an analogy in biology. If you take a normal, healthy leg, and add a power-assisted brace, you get a stronger limb, capable of doing things you could not otherwise accomplish. If you only use that brace from time to time, no problem, but the more you use it, the less you are relying upon your own muscle and structure.

Your natural leg begins to atrophy to the point where you rely upon the brace still more - even for "normal" day to day activity. Suddenly, your brace is removed permanently, and you are forced to rely solely upon your natural leg. You need to be very careful, for while still functional, the leg can be harmed quite easily, or warped away from its original, pre-brace, alignment. You may never regain your original strength.

This is the state of the Law once the brace of the Staff is destroyed in 1st Chronicles. After centuries of support from this tool, the Law is left on its own, and has been significantly weakened. It is now easy to wield EarthPower in ways that before the Law would not have been possible. Lord Foul takes advantage of this weakness: First to make things easier on the post-Morham Lords, possibly allowing them to have so much control that they forget what the natural order was; then, he uses this to warp the order in the Land into the first manifestation of the Sunbane. By then, he has suppressed the land-sight from the people, which was not so much the ability to see Earthpower, but rather the Law, or structure of Earthpower - rightness, wrongness, purpose. He has installed the Raver as High-lord, who "discovers" the relationship between Sunbane and blood, beginning the horror of the bloodletting of the Land and eventually the Haruchai.

This is why it was so critical that a new staff be created in 2nd Chronicles. To bring back that support for the Law, and to enable Earthpower to be reshaped into its "correct" form. The Law is no longer able to stand on its own, or heal itself from the ravages of thousands of years of abuse. This is also why its trip through time enabled the creation of Kevin's Dirt (though we still don't know its exact source). Even the merest thought from Linden cleared the Dirt from the proximity of the Staff. A concentrated effort could possibly wipe the dirt from the face of the Land. Of course, that would probably invoke whatever it was that caused Covenant and her Son to fear the Staff, so I guess we're now stuck until we figure out how SRD is going to get us out of this mess!

BANGARANG!!!

Thanks! Glad you liked it...

Most certainly does it for me Woody. Good analogy and good post. I rarely feel much enlightened by another persons interpretation of a fictional work. Your post is an exception.

Yes, damn fine post IS - but I'm curious about this statement:

This is also why its trip through time enabled the creation of Kevin's Dirt (though we still don't know its exact source).

So if I understand you your theory is that taking the SoL forward in time created Kevin's Dirt?

It is the Staff of Law,it is helpful in keeping law uncorupted when in the right hands,it can also help you harness and use earthpower(remember Drools storms,the moon etc.)and that is all you need to know .

I think Kevins dirt might be yet another attempt by Foul to mock/torment Covenant-Much like leprosy spreads thrue the body causing neurapathy/numbness-Kevins dirt is spreading causing a numbness to peoples perception of earthpower,either that or Covenant is so intertwined with the AOT that he himself is inadvertantly causing it?AHHH yes,I remember Foul stating that he was not responsible for it.Could be Covenant has infected The Land with a type of Leprosy?That would be ironic and explain a lot.

Excellent post and analogy, IS!

I still like the construction analogy, as well. Wayfriend, if you consider that the Law as it existed before the Staff was created was in fact weak, the analogy works well. (just think as if it took the entire time of the pre-Lord history of the Land to build the walls.) Still not as good as IS's, but it does work.

Something else I would like to point out. Again, this is a guess based on what we have already read (and I am not including the revelations of danlo's Fatal Revenant thread.) (IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THAT CHAPTER 6 FATAL REVENANT EXCERPT THAT DANLO POSTED, DO NOT READ THIS SPOILER):

Spoiler

The excerpt danlo posted leads me to believe that the Theomoch created Kevin's Dirt.

Now, back to point (given what we know through Runes.)

I believe, based on evidence in Runes and what we know throughout the 1st and 2nd Chronicles, that Kevin's Dirt was in fact created by the Haruchai.
Oh, it wasn't a deliberate undertaking, but IMHO it is more than likely that they forged the Dirt

The passion and dedication of the Haruchai led to the swearing of the original Vow. They undertook that Vow not knowing that the Earthpower itself would bind them to that Vow in ways they could never have imagined.

I believe the same holds true for Kevin's Dirt. The passion and dedication with which they are Mastering the Land is a new Vow. A Vow that they will protect the Land by erasing the past from the memory of its inhabitants, and also that they will not allow the use of Earthpower.
There are no Lords or anyone else for that matter (until Linden's return) to teach otherwise, to resist what the Haruchai have done. Because of their strength and passion, and the silent swearing of a new Vow, the Earthpower is once again complying. The Earthpower has blinded itself to those who would otherwise see it because of the Haruchai's insistence that it be so.

Now, I am probobly wrong, and we'll probobly find out otherwise in Fatal Revenant or the other books, but it just makes sense to me that for now it is the case.

Again, please don't read the spoiler if you have not read danlo's spoilered excerpt from Chapter 6 of Fatal Revenant.

Again, thanks to all!

Quote:
This is also why its trip through time enabled the creation of Kevin's Dirt (though we still don't know its exact source).


So if I understand you your theory is that taking the SoL forward in time created Kevin's Dirt?

Not directly. I believe it is what made creation of the dirt possible.

I believe, based on evidence in Runes and what we know throughout the 1st and 2nd Chronicles, that Kevin's Dirt was in fact created by the Haruchai.

I'm less inclined from what I have read to believe the Haruchai created Kevin's dirt - at least directly. The moving of the Staff forward simply removed some of the support it had been providing. Not all, since it was not destroyed, or removed from the land, just brought into the present.

We don't know, for example, whether healthsense/landsight had already been restored to the people by the time Linden's trip back came. Clearly there was still some trace of the Sunbane's effects deep within the earth, for Linden to have been able to feel it. Probably not the Sunbane itself, just some residual "congestion" or "pain".

No matter who created it, it could be that this formed the basis for what became Kevin's Dirt. Or, perhaps similar to your suggestion, this latent ill, without the Staff to constrain it, merely formed itself to the desire of the Haruchai to suppress the knowledge of EarthPower, becoming in "essence" a tool to that end.

Remember, while they did not swear a new Vow to Covenant, the same passion and intensity that enabled the Vow was behind their agreement to take care of Revelstone and the Land. Certainly this would have some binding force, and probably unintended consequences the nature of which we have only begun to see.

ur-bane wrote:I still like the construction analogy, as well. Wayfriend, if you consider that the Law as it existed before the Staff was created was in fact weak, the analogy works well. (just think as if it took the entire time of the pre-Lord history of the Land to build the walls.) Still not as good as IS's, but it does work.

Nope. Because I believe that Earthpower and Law were strong and sufficient beforehand. It was only when measured against Lord Foul, who was unnaturally present, did it show up as inadequate.

Yes, and I like the leg analogy better than my bridge one, too. It captures the idea that something withers in the presence of something better, which I was trying to express myself.

Wayfriend wrote:Nope. Because I believe that Earthpower and Law were strong and sufficient beforehand. It was only when measured against Lord Foul, who was unnaturally present, did it show up as inadequate.

How so? According to [one of] the creation myth, Foul was cast down by the creator immediately following the creation of the Earth. So Foul was always there. Earthpower and Law were never proven inadequate in the beginning because they were unknown until Berek.
So in essence, there was no "beforehand." Even if there was a beforehand, without a force against which to measure strength, how can adequacy be determined?

ur-bane wrote:

Wayfriend wrote:Nope. Because I believe that Earthpower and Law were strong and sufficient beforehand. It was only when measured against Lord Foul, who was unnaturally present, did it show up as inadequate.

How so? According to [one of] the creation myth, Foul was cast down by the creator immediately following the creation of the Earth. So Foul was always there. Earthpower and Law were never proven inadequate in the beginning because they were unknown until Berek.
So in essence, there was no "beforehand." Even if there was a beforehand, without a force against which to measure strength, how can adequacy be determined?

I guess that I stipulate that the Creator did a good job creating the Earth up until Foul came along. So Earthpower and Law would not be weak and feeble things in a Foul-less Earth - they would be exactly what the Creator intended, and they would be well-designed and sufficient for what the Creator intended them for. Does not a Creator strive for perfection?

So the "beforehand" would be what the Creator had intended the Earth to be before he discovered Foul at work. I see your point though - this may not be so much a period of time as it is a version of the design. The Creator must have had some idea what Earthpower and Law were originally meant to be.

But it is the Creator himself who, in giving Berek the Staff of Law, implies that Earthpower and Law, in the original form, were not sufficient to protect the Earth from Foul.

Wayfriend wrote:I guess that I stipulate that the Creator did a good job creating the Earth up until Foul came along. So Earthpower and Law would not be weak and feeble things in a Foul-less Earth - they would be exactly what the Creator intended, and they would be well-designed and sufficient for what the Creator intended them for. Does not a Creator strive for perfection?

I see your POV very clearly now. And I must confess, I can agree with your stipulation.

Wayfriend wrote: But it is the Creator himself who, in giving Berek the Staff of Law, implies that Earthpower and Law, in the original form, were not sufficient to protect the Earth from Foul.

Agreed. Well said. I think we are fundamentally of the same opinion, Wayfriend, even if we are expressing ourselves in different ways.