Unearned Knowledge

[lurch]

..Seems to me you all missed it.. What got Linden back to " real time" Land?
It wasn't Lore,, it wasn't even much earned or unearned Knowledge.. She paced back and forth trying to find a way out of her predicament..There was a comment in a previous post about her instinct, almost a belittlement, as in thats all she has or has used..but it was her intuition,,close to " instinct".. that got her out of being time locked ..not Lore,, Not Earned or Unearned Knowledge...Intuition. Seems to me what is being missed in all this discussion,,is the authors little red flannel parable about,,its not what you think so much..but HOW you think and perceive. Again,, seems to me that the Vile experience may have already payed off for Linden,,in that she " stepped out of the box" of normal logical thinking process,,to come to a intuitive leap ,,of adding the gift of a small piece of red flannel to mahdoubts cloak would be the right thing to do to " maybe" get Mahdoubt help her out with her predicament....Now ,, apply the " intuitive" to bringing TC to tangibleness..and don't look or try to come up with a linear logical answer..

[Sunbaneglasses]

What bothers me is that after Linden 'found' TC, he sure did not sound like he
was expecting to be found in quite the way that Linden accomplished it.

[lurch]

What bothers me is that after Linden 'found' TC, he sure did not sound like he
wanted to found in quite the way that Linden accomplished it.

I agree. That does point to the issue of who is the focus, therefore, the important one of the Last Chrons. Linden controls all destinies here. That TC was even more than startled or surprised speaks to TC's secondary position. Maybe secondary is not the rite word..but,, the idea that Linden's decisions are beyond even TC ,,I like. The tragic and the beauty of the consequences of her decisions will give Linden the " earned knowledge" to proceed thru the Land playing out her quest.

[Zarathustra]

If merely giving Linden information out of the blue isn't the same as giving her unearned knowledge, then I can't think of an example of unearned knowledge. That was certainly unearned. She wasn't even looking for that knowledge. How would one earn it in the first place? By seeking it out and taking the steps to find it, probably like the Theomach did. I bet he didn't learn it by overhearing it in a conversation, that's for sure.

Linden certainly earned the right to know the truth about Roger and Jeremiah, but no one bothered to tell her that. She has risked her life and fought like a mad woman to rescue her son. If that doesn't earn her the right to know the truth about him, I don't know what does.

So we have here several different definitions of "earn." One might say she earned the right to know the truth about Roger and the croyel by actually taking the steps to precipitate that knowledge (i.e. drinking the EB and asking the question). That's certainly one way to earn something, and I'd say that's the most straightforward meaning of "earn," i.e. making it happen yourself, learning it yourself. But that doesn't apply at all to the 7 words. Those were a freebie. A gift. Even the Runes weren't that easy. She "earned" the Runes by learning the value of righteous hate, by becoming the woman who doesn't forgive, for making her into someone who can understand Wildwood's vengeful anger.

Neither of these senses of "earn" apply to the 7 words, so I think the criticism stands.

SO . . . if she didn't earn the 7 words, but she used them to earn the Runes, what does this imply about everything else she has done since? Doesn't it mean she didn't earn the knowledge of Roger and the croyel? That she didn't earn the Runes? And thus she didn't earn the power to bring back Covenant? A lot rests on this point.

[lurch]

..perhaps..if one can enter a realm of accessibility to information,,by being "free"..unfettered of all that may weight down,and obfuscate,,,including any concerning of what to do with the " earned",,but rather just the opposite..free of all thoughts on " earning and earned "..the information awaiting and therefore acquired is of more value . The parable of the red flannel suggests that..No lore was involved,,she came to an intuitive leap. Earning had nothing to do with one of the most important tasks confronting her. A small gesture of gratitude and perhaps love, a small spark of warmth in her cold dark heart ( which's condition was brought by...all her " earning" ) got her out of a situation of all for naught.

[wayfriend]

What bothers me is that after Linden 'found' TC, he sure did not sound like he
was expecting to be found in quite the way that Linden accomplished it.

And people offer this as evidence that Linden should not have resurrected him.

I say, of all the things that "What have you done?" might mean, his ressurection is the most straightforward, obvious, and down-right telegraphed one imaginable. Therefore I rule it out completely. No one in their right minds would leave such a cliff-hanger and then, three years later, deliver such a miserable pay-off.

[Zarathustra]

While it's true that Donaldson could have been misleading us with regards to TC's own words, could he really have been playing so unfair with regards to the other characters--both dead and alive--who also reinforced this interpretation? They literally didn't think it was a good idea to resurrect Covenant. So were they all just wrong?

I do expect something "unexpected" to come from this, something good in this apparently bad action. But Donaldson wouldn't really be playing fair with his readers if there were absolutely no danger in resurrecting Covenant. At the very least, he'll have to explain why these characters were wrong.

[wayfriend]

But they, too, were most ambiguous about what they feared Linden would accomplish. Just as some of them were ambiguous about whether or not it was, in fact, a bad idea - Hollian's comments really only say that Linden's course is dangerous, for example.

For example, Infelice feared what Linden would do because she would rouse the Worm. Which she did. So obviously this can be dealt with (or else the last two books will be very short). But it also means that Infelice was NOT worried about resurrecting Covenant; she was worried about the power unleashed in the process -- a wholly different thing.

There is no evidence that resurrecting Covenant was a mistake ... just ambiguous comments that lead you to believe so.

I have faith. "In the end she will heal us all" meant something.

[Relayer]

But it also means that Infelice was NOT worried about resurrecting Covenant; she was worried about the power unleashed in the process -- a wholly different thing.

If in fact it is the amount of power that roused the Worm. We've been led to believe that by the events at the One Tree, but what if that's a misdirection? As I posted somewhere, what if there's something to the metaphysical equation of TC being analogous to the Arch, and the Arch being analogous to the Worm, therefore TC is somehow analogous to the Worm. In which case rousing the Worm might essentially mean the same thing as resurrecting Covenant.

I have faith. "In the end she will heal us all" meant something.

Hear hear!