Kevin's Watch

Agreed. In this forum, the Last Chronicles do not yet exist. There are patient souls out there who have not yet opened ROTE because they want to read the four books as a single experience. They are welcome here to read about and discuss the First and Second Chrons without fear of "unearned knowledge."

I still adhere to Kasreyn's philosophy that perfect works must contain a flaw in order to actualize the overall work as "perfection" and that Foul is the flaw the Creator placed into the world. I suspect that Foul is short-sighted and that breaking the Arch will also end his existence...but perhaps that is what he really wants after all, given that he secretly loathes himself.

It's hardly a secret to the readers or to Covenant by the end of the first chronicles; he accepts defeat and requests death, and simply states that Covenant will become a lesser despiser (not necessarily a bad thing). Laughing at him subdued him as Covenant escaped The Land, but in the long run it doesn't seem to have helped The Land a great deal.

If Foul is "perfect" or "flawed" then I'm not sure whether he loathes himself, or wants to die, or whatever is necessarily a proper way of understanding his motives. His existence with the arch is in some way fundamentally unsound (I mean, I think that's been said fairly regularly) - he has to work against the laws in order to be what he actually is. Moreover, it may be that because he sets his sights on death and perfection, he's unable to take intermediate possibilities seriously. Foul is more destructive than the worm, because even if he lacks the capacity for destruction, he carries the will for it.

However, I agree (as has been said) that the "cosmic destruction" is illogical. It's more likely that because Foul is a cosmic force, destroying the land is implicit (or secondary) in, perhaps, destroying himself - at least from his perspective.

IMO of course.

I think the whole Worm/Arch thing is just a two sided coin idea. When you create light you have to create dark, neither is defined alone. And so when you create life, you must have death... from the lowliest ant to the lofty Elohim. The Arch (time) enables existence on the grandest scale, but existence means nothing without obliteration--an end. Thus the Worm was created to be the Earth's "death".

As far as the topic goes. My answer is... the title of the book. Who really is the white gold wielder? Foul may have had the ring but Covenant was still in control. The Worm didn't wake up because TC didn't allow the wild magic to do it.