Kevin's Watch

It's all ready been mentioned that different beings have different modes of perceiving things. Is it not possible that the Elohim saw a possibility for Jeremiah if he was kept alive (say as a lure)? Is it possible that they are afraid of Thomas, Linden, and Jeremiah since they are beings from outside of Time? Getting the Giant to do their dirty work seems to imply this.

Could it also be that they are trying not to get devoured by the Worm? Let's face it, the Elohim are under a LOT of stress right now, I think we can forgive them being a little irrational. A being struggling to survive not considering everything through a Socratic lens from all angles is not a flaw in the work or character writing.

I don't mind the distance traveling contrivances either. They fit with the character and kept the series at four books and not this perpetual Soap Opera Fest like SOME series.

Other things have possible explanations, and I don't mind speculating on them when they are not spelled out. The Harrow dealing with the Demondim when he did is very understandable: he wants Linden and company to sweat a little so he can make his case for getting the Staff and the Ring. (as an example).

End and mid-book spoilers

Spoiler

I will however call shenanigans on a bunch of Cavewights causing more damage to the group then a bunch of Sandgorgons. I don't care if Branl had a mystical blade, the Sandgorgons should have been able to kill SOMEONE before the Lurker attacked them!

On a purely personal and Watch-related note, I cheered when ussusimiel was mentioned (although I was a bit put out that the krill was used as an overgrown peeling knife Was this a deliberate choice on SRD's part in the Last Chrons, to reduce things from glorious to the banal?).

I was also slightly annoyed that later on ussusimiel was deemed unsatisfying when compared to aliantha. I resemble that remark!

u.

ussusimiel wrote: I was also slightly annoyed that later on ussusimiel was deemed unsatisfying when compared to aliantha. I resemble that remark!

u.

Proof that Donaldson DOES frequent these forums

Ussusimiel, I thought about you when I read that in the text. I was wondering if you enjoyed seeing that again.

I didn't have a problem using the krill as a paring knife. Sometimes, a knife is a just a knife.

I did like how we've been given an explicit characterization of the krill (by Covenant) as a tool for mediating contradictions. That's a nice way to put it. Of course, we saw it in action at the end of FR, and we knew it helped Linden bear or channel an unlimited amount of force. We were even told how it enabled the simultaneous use of wild magic and Law. However, from a strictly philosophical perspective, I like the idea of a magical weapon that mediates contradiction and paradox. That's a cool idea, since it is paradox that causes us so much uncertainty and mystery in our own lives ... specifically, how such paradoxes (like mind/body, for instance) resolve and interact. The method or point of interaction for such antithetical "substances" as mind and body, or control and passion, is the closest thing to "magic" that we have in this world. It's appropriate that a magical tool facilitates it in a fantasy world.

The circumstances of Caerroil Wildwood's passing in TLD make for an interesting comparison with what is written in TWL about the same event. If we're not dealing with a simple authorial inconsistency on SRD's part there is an interesting question about potential time paradoxes that we might want to discuss on a new thread.

DrPaul wrote:The circumstances of Caerroil Wildwood's passing in TLD make for an interesting comparison with what is written in TWL about the same event. If we're not dealing with a simple authorial inconsistency on SRD's part there is an interesting question about potential time paradoxes that we might want to discuss on a new thread.

I noted this inconsistency as well. It does suggest two distinctly different timelines (or simply that plot requirements necessitated authorial inconsistency)

Zarathustra wrote:I didn't have a problem using the krill as a paring knife. Sometimes, a knife is a just a knife.

I don't know if I've ever seen a named sword/knife in fantasy used for food preparation. IMO, when a magical object is used in a prosaic way like this, it is deliberate by the author and so has implications (or at least I hope so )

u.

They needed food, they had no other knives, Branl made a comment abou the fact they had no choice but to use the krill. That's it.

I'm Murrin wrote:They needed food, they had no other knives, Branl made a comment abou the fact they had no choice but to use the krill. That's it.

I can almost see the commercial for the Krill already...

"...it slays Giant-ravers...resurrects Timewardens...cuts food..."

[Part II - Chapter 3 *Spoilers* *Spoilers* *Spoilers*]

Hiro wrote:

I'm Murrin wrote:They needed food, they had no other knives, Branl made a comment abou the fact they had no choice but to use the krill. That's it.

I can almost see the commercial for the Krill already...

"...it slays Giant-ravers...resurrects Timewardens...cuts food..."

Exactly. Once you reduce the symbolic and fantastic to the banal you are only a tiny step away from the real world. For someone like me that narrow distance destroys the magic. What I am then left with is neither one or the other, fantasy or reality. It takes the good out of it for me and leaves me wondering what the author's intentions are.

I have just finished Chpt.2 in Part II and we've had another one of those kitchen sink battles that SRD seems to feel the need to load into the Last Chrons. I genuinely hate these battles because of the number and variety of immense forces that they contain. This may be the worst so far and it definitely was the most depressing from my perspective. The skurj I don't mind because I never liked them anyway, but the casual treatment of the sandgorgons and the peremptory use of the Fire Lions was really annoying and almost upsetting. Again magnificance is reduced; to body parts in the case of the sandgorgons (I honestly never wanted to think about the inside of a sandgorgon. I always saw them of creatures of power rather than some sort of animal) and blatant convenience with the Fire Lions.

The resolution of the a battle that had raged for pages took a short paragraph and an opportunity to at least give us a look at the glory of the Fire Lions was passed over with a swiftness that diminshed them to almost an irrelevance. In LFB we got an extended passage where the Fire Lions raged, here we were given nothing. Again it feels like a deliberate toning down and reduction of something marvellous and fantastic.

u.

One wonders whether Tolkien's editors deleted the scene where Aragorn gave up on trying to slice bread with Anduril and asked Frodo if he could borrow Sting.

Ussusimiel, I thought about you when I read that in the text. I was wondering if you enjoyed seeing that again.

So did I. I was happy when Scott Brick pronounced it oo-soos-soo-me-el in the audio version. I think that's the only time I said a Land word correctly all along.

DrPaul wrote:One wonders whether Tolkien's editors deleted the scene where Aragorn gave up on trying to slice bread with Anduril and asked Frodo if he could borrow Sting.

dlbpharmd wrote:

Ussusimiel, I thought about you when I read that in the text. I was wondering if you enjoyed seeing that again.

So did I. I was happy when Scott Brick pronounced it oo-soos-soo-me-el in the audio version. I think that's the only time I said a Land word correctly all along.

Ironically (I think!) I don't pronounce it like that at all. I'm going to put it down to the difference between US pronunciation and how we do things on this side of the pond. I also pronounce 'Covenant' and 'Avery' differently, so saying the name of a fruit differently is no biggie

u.

ussusimiel wrote:I don't know if I've ever seen a named sword/knife in fantasy used for food preparation. IMO, when a magical object is used in a prosaic way like this, it is deliberate by the author and so has implications (or at least I hope so )

u.

You're right, the krill is something metaphorical, as I've noted in my points of its philosophical significance. But therein lies the answer to this particular complaint: if it mediates contradiction and paradox, as Covenant claims, then it should have no problem bridging the divide between literal and figurative, i.e. being both a real knife and a metaphor.

Using it both ways in this story may not be incidental at all.

ussusimiel wrote:I have just finished Chpt.2 in Part II and we've had another one of those kitchen sink battles that SRD seems to feel the need to load into the Last Chrons. I genuinely hate these battles because of the number and variety of immense forces that they contain. This may be the worst so far and it definitely was the most depressing from my perspective. The skurj I don't mind because I never liked them anyway, but the casual treatment of the sandgorgons and the peremptory use of the Fire Lions was really annoying and almost upsetting. Again magnificance is reduced; to body parts in the case of the sandgorgons (I honestly never wanted to think about the inside of a sandgorgon. I always saw them of creatures of power rather than some sort of animal) and blatant convenience with the Fire Lions.

The resolution of the a battle that had raged for pages took a short paragraph and an opportunity to at least give us a look at the glory of the Fire Lions was passed over with a swiftness that diminshed them to almost an irrelevance. In LFB we got an extended passage where the Fire Lions raged, here we were given nothing. Again it feels like a deliberate toning down and reduction of something marvellous and fantastic.

u.

Yep, agreed. All that needed to happen to resolve the whole skurj/Sandgorgon issue in one fell (and clunkingly forced) swoop was for the bad guys to suddenly decide to change ends, like football teams at half-time. So after twenty pages or so, the Sandgorgons for no good reason suddenly decide to charge up the slope after Linden and at the exact same moment, the skurj likewise suddenly decide to charge down the slope after TC. Here's the oh so detailed description of why this Russian ballet-style troika occurred:-

TLD - Part II - Chapter 3 wrote:Then he was given a momentary reprieve. A kind of convulsion seemed to grip the Sandgorgons as if an invisible hand had taken hold of their minds. They paused; scanned the valley as if they sought more satisfying opponents. An instant later, they wheeled away.

Some of them delivered a last flurry of blows, but soon all of them were pounding back up the valley. Massed and eager, they formed a bleached river pouring irresistibly uphill. At the same time, the skurj began to squirm downward, horrific numbers of the serpent-like monsters. As the Sandgorgons ascended, they parted only to let scores of skurj pass among them.

The attackers had traded targets.

Well, that's as clear as mud, then. No good reason at all, apart from a deliberate and blatantly contrived plot device to finish the battle off with lightning speed, since a mere page and a half later, the Lurker floods the valley, killing all the skurj who obligingly have massed together on the low-lying ground and the Firelions dispose of all the Sandgorgons, who obligingly have massed together right in front of them.

A real forced clunker of a resolution there. Did anyone else get the feeling that at this particular point, SRD had pretty much lost interest and was just knocking previously set-up narrative skittles over as fast as possible, carelessly knotting issues off as quick as he could, whle hurrying towards his conclusion?

I can't help thinking that SRD should have issued a fair few preliminary drafts to get committed reader feedback, before sending the final manuscript off for publication. There's a great deal of commonality of feeling and agreement about those passages, issues and narrative treatments where people on KW - SRD and Covenant's most ardent fans, remember - feel they've been sold disappointingly short.

I still feel that my proposed solution mentioned elsewhere would have tidied things up much more nicely: Do away with the fire lions, separate the Sandgorgon and skurj attacks into entirely different battles taking place in different parts of the book.

Sandgorgons attack the giants and Linden while they head off looking for malachite, and Longwrath turns up to use his sword against them (then is subdued and restrained by the Swordmainnir and Stave until Kastenessen shows up). Then skurj attack the party at Defile's Course, where the giants and Linden fight them and Covenant convinces the Lurker to help.

There was no need to combine the two into one big brawl, other than that they were loose story threads that needed tying off.

Zarathustra wrote:

ussusimiel wrote:I don't know if I've ever seen a named sword/knife in fantasy used for food preparation. IMO, when a magical object is used in a prosaic way like this, it is deliberate by the author and so has implications (or at least I hope so )

u.

You're right, the krill is something metaphorical, as I've noted in my points of its philosophical significance. But therein lies the answer to this particular complaint: if it mediates contradiction and paradox, as Covenant claims, then it should have no problem bridging the divide between literal and figurative, i.e. being both a real knife and a metaphor.

Using it both ways in this story may not be incidental at all.

Ahh! Okay, I can see that. That at least is a clear justification for the treatment of the krill. It also fits with some other stuff I've noted as I've gotten closer to the end.

I'm nearly finished, so I'll probably take my thoughts into the more general threads. Thanks, Z, I enjoyed this thread and being able to respond and comment as I went along.

u.

I'm still inching my way to the end, but I hope to join everyone in the general threads soon.

I'm not quite done with Part II Chapter 3, but I think it's interesting that this seems to be the first chapter in which multiple points of view (TC/LA) are used within the chapter itself. I don't remember that ever happening. Maybe it's a narrative way for SRD to demonstrate the fact of their wedding and the consequences to the text itself.

ussusimiel wrote:I was also slightly annoyed that later on ussusimiel was deemed unsatisfying when compared to aliantha. I resemble that remark!

Just saw this. Why yes, you do!

Yeah, the PoV swapping during the battle was a bit jarring for me. Only place in the entire ten-book series where it happens, I think.

aliantha wrote:

ussusimiel wrote:I was also slightly annoyed that later on ussusimiel was deemed unsatisfying when compared to aliantha. I resemble that remark!

Just saw this. Why yes, you do!

In the context of the Watch, I deem that to be a compliment!

In the context of the Chrons, it's a case of eaten melon is soon forgotten

u.