Kevin's Watch

wow really intereting PoL ..

I am not sure about that last part .. that anything that occurs within the Land could prevent the destruction of the Universe ..

The AoT is that which preserves the 'earth' .. and we know should Foul manage to breach it .. he will be let loose upon the Universe .. but I do not believe the breaking of the AoT will unravel the Creator's universe .. I think Foul will be its undoing .. in a leadership challenge to the Creator .. or in his undoing other worlds .. of the Creator's make.

I really should've read the rest of the thread .. incase this relates to something I havent considered

In the story of the Creator imprisoning Despite within the Arch, it doesn't mention how difficult it was to do that. Was there a HUGE fight that the Creator eventually won? If not, if it was a fairly easy task for the Creator, then why is he particularly concerned with Foul escaping? Just make another Arch, uninhabited this time, and imprison him again.

from my fragmented memory ~

.. nope the Creator inadvertantly placed the AoT over the earth .. without a knowledge that Foul was there ..

well Foul cant escape without breaching the AoT and in doing this will undo the earth .. destroy it entirely!

the AoT provides/allows/enables - time and space - for which the earth to inhabit ..

Sure the Creator could just make another AoT .. but all he has made .. the Land as we know it .. would be lost!

he would have to organise a new 'earth' and then place a new AoT over it .. to give new life and existence to his new creation.

its not that easy a scenario .. the Creator's desire is to preserve his creation .. while it has an existence and a habitation .. this is his primary concern.

Not quite like that. The Creator made the Arch first, so that his creation would have a place in which to be. Then he made the Earth. While he was doing that, Despite was planting banes of destruction in the Earth. When the Creator noticed, he cast the Despiser onto the Earth. Foul is unable to get back through the Arch, so he must destroy it. Which can only be done with wild magic.

In Leper's End, the Creator said he was worried about Foul having free-run of everything if he escaped the Arch, but if the Earth was destroyed, he'd just make another.

really?? from which book are you reading??

and surely 'just making another' is not the optimum answer for his creation as it now exists .. You're right the Creator can make another .. but thats hardly the plan he would prefer .. Hence calling TC to the Land .. to save it .. surely

He wants to preserve his creation at all costs, which is why he was horrified when he realised he had trapped Foul on the Earth where the creator couldn't prevent him doing things.
The Arch of Time shouldn't be broken because of what it is - it encases the world in Time, so that it is possible for it to exist separate from the Creators world.

The summary of creation that I gave is the story Tamarantha told in LFB's Blood-Bourne.

As for what the Creator said in Leper's End, Covenant asked: "What about the creator? Why doesn't he despair?" The Creator replied, "Why should he despair? If he cannot bear the world he has made, he can make another. No, Thomas Covenant." The voice laughed soflty, sadly. "Gods and creators are too powerful and powerless for despair."

I don't suppose he meant it as non-chalantly as I reported above. (It was almost 1am when I wrote that post. Getting a little lazy. ) He does, indeed, say that he wanted the Earth safe from Foul. But still, a big worry was: "Had my enemy gained the white wild magic gold, he would have unloosed himself from the Earth - destroyed it so that he might hurl himself against me."

It seems as if it is only possible to give one command with the Power of Command, and it does not seem to be the kind of command that you can define with a lot of conditions. If it were, what would happen if you gave something a command that could not be obeyed? It would still be obeyed, but the law would be broken. And then what would you have? The law of death might have been one of the least damaging laws to be broken.

Mt. Thunder was mentioned earlier. What would happen if you asked Mt. Thunder to move to crush Fouls Creche? It would move as mountains move, of course, and probably destroy the land in the process.

I'll tell you why. The EarthBlood is one of the "banes of destruction" that Despite "buried deep in the Earth" when the Creator was creating. Can anyone justify the Creator putting it there? Can anyone think of a reason that Foul wouldnt want it there?

well if you accept Tamarantha's recitation of the legend of the creation .. then she suggests that Despite may have been part of the Creator .. another side of him .. and then she describes that He in his fury cast LF down to his creation.

So if LF is the dark side of the creator then .. why did the Creator place banes in his own earth?

I recall other creation stories given througout the series .. which add some sense of clarity to the Creation. I recall the Elohim also share a version of the Creation ..

If we see LF as placing banes in the earth .. a seperate entity .. not just a nemesis identity .. then the Creator is not responsible for this.

And if eathblood is one of those banes .. then LF if he placed it in the eath would be aware of its existence .. and surely use it to his own benefit .. but perhaps he was .. but as always through another person .. Elena .. TC .. As he did with Kevin ..

I don't think its so simple to all it a bane, or any power a bane infact. The reason why I think this is the simple fact that Amok, in The Illearth War, said "Power is power, its uses' are in the hands of the user." So no power is a bane, in my opinion, the bane is the user of that power.

Think about it for a second. There are supposed to be an excessive amount of banes deep under Mount Thunder, but are any of them doing any harm, did the Illearth Stone do any harm before somebody got their hands on it. No, it only started corrupting when somebody used it. Power is power, but it's nothing without someone to wield that power. Unless the a power such as the Illearth Stone and croyel controls you, that power is only a means of articulating the wielders will; As Pitchwife said.

You make a good point Tuvor. It's sort of like 'free will' - there for the taking, but only in the execution of 'free will' does it become good or evil.

It does seem that the illearth stone had it's origin in 'evil' - no matter who seemed to use it, it turned out bad. The Ravers used it to extreme evil, but the Bloodguard tried to do good with it & it turned bad for them, I'd say...

I don't think earthblood is evil - just omnipotent, capable of anything and everything. The fallibility of the user & his or her intent is where it appears to become evil, IMO.

I agree re: the earthblood .. wasnt it like earthpower incarnate!! or concentrate?? or some such thing?

It was 'the blood of the Earth' meaning it was extremely potent in Earthpower.

The banes were ill in nature, and so the Illearth Stone corrupts all those who try to use it's power, just as it did the people of Stonemight Woodhelven. The evil of the tool corrupts the wielder, if the tool was made for the sole purpose of doing evil. Foul was Corruption, so it did not have any effect on him apart from giving him the power - he created it, after all.

Skyweir wrote:well if you accept Tamarantha's recitation of the legend of the creation .. then she suggests that Despite may have been part of the Creator .. another side of him .. and then she describes that He in his fury cast LF down to his creation.

So if LF is the dark side of the creator then .. why did the Creator place banes in his own earth?

Why do some people cut themselves with razors? Or pull their own hair out bit by bit, each time crying about it afterwards? And I assume some people who abuse their children actually love them, but are unable to control themselves. We've only seen the Creator briefly on a couple of occasions, but it's enough to convince me that he would not put banes in his own earth. But he is not the same being he was when Despite was in him. (Assuming that's actually how it happened.) He is now clean, creative, loving. He has no dark side. Sure, we can contemplate what such an existence would be like, but we are intimately familiar with beings who are both good and bad, creative and destructive, yin and yang, and we shouldn't be surprised to find one that hurts things it loves.

Skyweir wrote:I recall other creation stories given througout the series .. which add some sense of clarity to the Creation. I recall the Elohim also share a version of the Creation ..

Yeah, Pitchwife told Linden the story of creation, as the Elohim had told it to his people. Then, Daphin told the same story to Linden, changing Worm to Wurd. (With an umlaut over the "u".) I'm not sure how much clarity this new story brought to the Creation, though. But there's a thread here somewhere where someone rather brilliantly suggested that the two stories are another paradox - that both stories, though they give different explanations, can be true.

Skyweir wrote:And if eathblood is one of those banes .. then LF if he placed it in the eath would be aware of its existence .. and surely use it to his own benefit .. but perhaps he was .. but as always through another person .. Elena .. TC .. As he did with Kevin ..

I wonder about Foul's ability to use Earthpower. Is it possible that Kevin made him a Lord without ever seeing him use Earthpower? Or is he able to use it, but just not the Staff of Law? Since the Staff was created in response to the recent threat of samadhi, maybe it is the only Earthpower specifically unusable by evils of that level. Or maybe things that are of such intense, concentrated Earthpower, like the Staff and EarthBlood, cannot be used by Foul, even though he can overpower less potent sources.


First Mark, you make good points. I've always liked that quote of Amok. But maybe there were some powers that it did not apply to. As Earthblood said, the Illearth Stone seems to do only harm. Maybe it was made that way, only allowing harm to be done. My thought with the EarthBlood, though, is that it is too damned powerful to be used safely by anyone, no matter what their intentions, and is therefore a bane. And if this is so, then nobody should use it, and I wonder why the Creator didn't figure out a way to make the Earth without it. And if it was put there by Despite, then it would be a stroke of brilliance on his part. No test could show it to be evil, only dangerous and to be taken seriously. And so a Lord might consider using it. Elena assumed she was wise enough to not screw it up. (HA!)

But it may be as simple as my analogy to sound.

In response 2 F&F's question:

Is it possible that Kevin made him a Lord without ever seeing him use Earthpower?

In the old "Lord Foul's Name" topic I wrote:

But he is remembered as a Lord--hmmm...going back 2 the time of Kevin--they say that Foul wore (or was hiding in) the guise of truth and was poking about while Kevin's Wards were being created. Possibly Kevin was 2 busy or 2 charmed 2 notice Foul's true nature, but he did create the Wards because he previeced evil was near (or approaching). Hell what really could have fooled Kevin was that lormilliador did not reject him--it indicated the Foul got rid of the high-wood very quickly--or it was lost soon after tho...

well, I have this little theory, that the Creator is just another guy, someone walking our Earth like we do - only with the potential creating worlds (think about the old beggar) - so he might have exactly the same faults and weaknesses as you and I have

I agree!
that even the creator .. all creator's .. have faults and weaknesses .. He has said as much himself ..

The Creator has indicated his own personal growth stages .. What he was like before the 'earth' was finished .. he has power .. and it was like he was an apprentice creator when he made this earth .. and now he has wised up ..

He has no dark side. Sure, we can contemplate what such an existence would be like, but we are intimately familiar with beings who are both good and bad, creative and destructive, yin and yang, and we shouldn't be surprised to find one that hurts things it loves.[/quote]

The Old Man says something to Covenant along these lines at the end of TPTP (and hey, now that I think about it, doesn't that make TC a rather unique prophet?) when he asks him, [Have you never given any of the characters you wrote reason to hate you?]

Very intense and cool point Syl...