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Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:22 pm
by Landroval
Wayfriend wrote:Landroval wrote:... it delivers such a fantastic payoff. (It's a pity The White Gold Wielder couldn't receiprocate in this respect - I was expecting so much).
Eh? Which
White Gold Weilder did
you read?
It disappointed - But maybe i was expecting TOO much, after the heights of the 1st Chronicles it had a lot to live up to.
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:58 am
by Avatar
I found the ending of WGW to be a kick in the stomach myself. After all of that...
--A
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 3:26 pm
by outlander
Excellent post mm i think you perfectly captured the essence of TIW.
Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:57 pm
by ur-monkey
CovenantJr:
(UR-MONKEY, COME TO THE UK MEET-UP!)
When & where is it?
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:08 pm
by matrixman
outlander wrote:Excellent post mm i think you perfectly captured the essence of TIW.
Thank you for those kind words, outlander. Not sure I deserve such praise, as there are other Watchers here more eloquent than me.
As for the ending of WGW: yes, it might seem on the surface anti-climactic when compared with TPTP's pyrotechnic end battle, but I think that, deep down, WGW's resolution was the more profound and moving one. Not that I didn't enjoy Covenant duking it out with Foul in TPTP; it's just that the emotional value of WGW's ending was even greater for me, because of the trials Covenant and Linden had to endure to get to that point, and because of the personal sacrifice that was required of each of them in order to succeed against Foul:
Covenant gave up his life, and Linden gave up the only man she ever really loved in her life.
edit-just putting my last sentence in spoiler mode. I was assuming that those of us posting here have read both the 1st and 2nd Chrons, but I guess I should play it safe.
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:04 am
by Avatar
Well said as usual MatrixMan. And of course, back then, there were no 3rd Chrons, and with the ending, it seemed obvious that there
wouldn't be, which made it all the more poignant.
After all that, all 6 books, all 10 years, all 3,000 years, to end in both victory and defeat of a sort, was a bitter-sweet moment.
We should have expected it of course, because
what other end could there be for the anti-hero?
Certainly not living happily ever after.
--Avatar
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:32 pm
by Usivius
Aptly put Avatar. But I think the ending of WGW changes in view of a 3rd Chrons, but not in a bad way. The notion that is accepted and exemplified at the end "You are the white gold", brings chilling possibilites to the 3rd Chrons, especially since the Law of Death has been broken.
I now wonder what possible ending this could have? ... happy or sad? In this I mean:
Happy - The Land is restored and the enhabitants struggle on to keep the peace, kinda thing
Sad - some twist of things that ends the Land but brings a 'satisfying' conclusion to the protagonists inner and external plight...
For me, The Land has always been the battle-ground, where many are meant to suffer. The fact that the story is about Thomas' struggle (and Linden's too --- people from the real world) allows their personal struggles to be played out in The Land ... the poor battle ground for inner and external Despite.
(OK I was going somewhere with this...
)
...oh, yah...
So with the 3rd Chrons, I am hanging on. Unlike reading the first two series, I viscerally felt that there was going to be a happy ending (which there was), but in this series ... I just don't know... even the proposed titles give me pause....
BRING IT ON!!!!
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:29 pm
by SoulBiter
Yes there was much betrayal... In some ways I think Bannor betrayed Kevin. He knew that Kevin had no wish to to have the 7th ward fall into unready hands.. and yet, he gave up the name of it.
SoulBiter
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 2:50 pm
by Variol Farseer
SoulBiter wrote:Yes there was much betrayal... In some ways I think Bannor betrayed Kevin. He knew that Kevin had no wish to to have the 7th ward fall into unready hands.. and yet, he gave up the name of it.
I think Elena put the moral question involved very well: the choice between a dead service and a living one. Bannor had to choose between obeying Kevin's wishes and helping the New Lords defend the Land. Actually, I'm fairly sure Kevin would have approved of the idea at the time. (Nobody could then have guessed the mad use Elena would make of the Power of Command.) After all, Amok himself, who
was the Seventh Ward, chose to return even though the Lords had not mastered the first six Wards.
The tragedy of the Seventh Ward, to my mind, is that both Bannor and Amok were trusting the fate of the Land to the white gold; but Covenant was still too cowardly to take up that burden, and Elena was too arrogant to lay it down. If Bannor betrayed Kevin, Elena betrayed Bannor, and Covenant betrayed everyone. The debts he had to pay by defeating Lord Foul were simply immeasurable.
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:23 pm
by wayfriend
Variol Farseer wrote:I think Elena put the moral question involved very well: the choice between a dead service and a living one. Bannor had to choose between obeying Kevin's wishes and helping the New Lords defend the Land. Actually, I'm fairly sure Kevin would have approved of the idea at the time. (Nobody could then have guessed the mad use Elena would make of the Power of Command.) After all, Amok himself, who was the Seventh Ward, chose to return even though the Lords had not mastered the first six Wards.
But more, too. The Bloodguard have a specific stance on lore. They don't partake of it, they don't support it, and particularly they don't trust it. To them, it is a weapon that they eschew. They only serve those who weild it. Therefore the Bloodguard approved of Kevin's hiding of the Wards.
In [u]The Illearth War[/u], Banner wrote:"Ur-Lord, we have seen the Desecration. We have seen the fruit of perilous lore. Lore is not knowledge. Lore is a weapon, a sword or spear. The Bloodguard have no use for weapons. Any knife may turn and wound the hand which wields it. Yet the Lords desire lore. They do work of value with it. Therefore we do not resist it, though we do not touch it or serve it or save it.
"High Lord Kevin made his Wards to preserve his lore - and to lessen the peril that his weapons might fall into unready hands. This we approve. We are the Bloodguard. We do not speak of lore. We speak only of what we know."
So when Banner was not only choosing between serving Kevin or Elena. He was choosing between aiding in the acquisition of a lore - which he did not trust - and supporting the protections that Kevin set up - which he did trust. In naming the Power, he was going against every
Haruchai instinct in his makeup.
And Banner spoke of Desecration. He knew the danger of the Power.
He knew! I think that he strongly suspected it would not serve the Lords, only harm them - just as Kevin strongly suspected it - and those words were as close to admonishiong Elena as Bannor could come. I think that, in the end, he made his decision by believing that the choice of the Power was not his decision to make; he could not serve the Lords and at the same time effectively make their decisions for them.
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:25 pm
by The Somberlain
Which is one of the biggest failings of the Vow; they dedicated themselves to service of the Lords and refused to think for themselves.
And presumably one of the key reasons that the haruchai took it upon themselves to become Masters of the Land (not sure if they mentioned this specifically in ROTE). In fact, they couldn't really have done it any time beforehand, since the rulership of the Land went straight from the Council of the Lords to the Clave; the first of which they wouldn't forcibly remove power from, and the second of which they couldn't.
But Mastery of the Land is just as big a mistake... the haruchai really need to learn how to compromise.
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:52 pm
by ur-monkey
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:56 pm
by Guest
In a reply I posted in the "Which Character Do You Hate" thread, I stated that TIW was my least favorite book because of my distaste for Troy...I also mentioned that this was significant because TIW also has some of my favorite chapters - the Tales of Runnik and Tull, the fate of Dhukka, Amok, and Giant Ravers to name a few.
This was before my recent re-read of TIW, which I finished just a couple of days ago. In reflecting on that re-read, and after reviewing this post, I must agree that it is overall probably the best of the bunch - my continued dislike of Troy,
the folly of continuing to live in trees, and the implications of incest notwithstanding.
The grandeur of the Land, the commitment and frailty of its defenders, the revelations and complex betrayals, the diverging storylines, the Forestal, the might of the Stone...there are so many wonders brought into greater detail in this book.
Nice thread...
edit: I suppose it is not insignificant that my chosen name up here comes from TIW. Duh!!!
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:09 pm
by Herem
I'm currently re-reading the Chronicles after several years...
The Illearth War has to be up there with the best for its sheer scope, and as has already been said the promise of its opening contrasted with the sheer despair of the end. No-one has yet mentioned two of the most heartbreaking chapters in the chronicles, "Runnik's Tale" and "Tull's tale", describing the fate of the Giants, Rereading TPTP where Covenant finds out what happened from Foamfollower, you realise that he left the Land after TIW without hearing of the fate of the Giants....
These two chapters also set up the ending of The Wounded Land, which not only revisits the lurker of the Sarangrave (reminding me of Hoerkin in TIW, one of the most chilling passages), but also contains "Coercri", the most emotionally involving chapter of all the Chronicles.
"Come! This is the caamora! Come and be healed!"
Outstanding.
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:04 am
by Fist and Faith
Welcome to the Watch, Chris.
And go check out the Dissection of
Coercri. An extraordinary chapter, indeed!
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:08 am
by stonemaybe
Hi Chris! WABT!
I just love this From MM:
Yes, folks, but tell us WHY you loved The Illearth War. How did it capture your imagination? I agree that it remains, in its way, the greatest of the Covenant books, so I'm not afraid to spout excessive verbiage about it.
The first time that I read TCTC, The Illearth War had the biggest emotional impact of the three books. Its cataclysmic end had left me in a daze. No other TC book began with so much promise for victory, and no other TC book ended with so much hope shattered. Lord Foul's Bane got me hooked on SRD's world; with TIW SRD secured my loyalty forever.
As noted by Jemcheeta in another thread, TIW was a story that began on a positive note--at least for the Land's citizens, if not Covenant himself. TIW really was like a movie with a cast of thousands. In no other book (so far) did the Land seem so potent with the possibilities of Earthpower, and so alive with defenders: the Council of Lords expanded and in possession of the Staff of Law; both the Warward and the Loresraat expanded hugely; Revelwood created; Loric's krill awakened, and consequently Amok awakened--both heralds of the Old Lords' power.
With all these forces allied against Lord Foul, TIW at first seemed to promise a very heroic tale. Then with every passing chapter, TIW spiralled downward into an emotional abyss--and a literal abyss in the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir.
But before that the Forestal of Garrotting Deep came in and stole the show. Caerroil Wildwood inspired awe the moment the reader came across him. He saved the collective ass of the Warward, slew Fleshharrower, completely annihilated the Giant-Raver's army, and destroyed a piece of the Illearth Stone like it was nothing to him. Wildwood represented a level of Earthpower deeper and more ancient than anything seen before in the Land (except maybe the Fire-Lions).
Back on the human scale of things, the heart of TIW was the entangled relationship around Covenant, Elena, Trell and Troy. If this wasn't an epic fantasy, it would be a soap opera, what with these quirky, deranged, or damaged personalities running around.
I also thought the parallel storylines of Troy/Mhoram/Warward and Covenant/Elena/Amok and the way they converged in the end was very well done by SRD.
If I could sum up TIW in one word, that word would be Betrayal. Yes, there is always betrayal of one kind or another happening throughout the Chronicles, but TIW by itself seems like a litany of betrayals. Examples:
-Covenant betrayed by his private bargain with an unwitting Elena
-Elena betrayed by her blind hatred of Foul
-Hile Troy betrayed by his blind faith--in Elena and his own war plan
-Kevin careful design for his Wards betrayed by Morin's revelation of the "password" to the Seventh Ward; Kevin himself betrayed by Elena's blind faith in his ability to fight Foul.
And so on. I might even go so far as to say that Elena or the Land itself--or the mad dream in his mind--betrayed Covenant, in that his summoning, just as Joan was on the phone, deprived him of a chance to reconcile with her. Their unresolved estrangement would come back to bite them in TWL, of course. (Okay, so Joan was doing the biting.)
So, nothing really deep, folks. Just explaining why I find TIW so compelling.
Taking the books individually, TIW is my fave. Saying that, my most fave parts of TCTC occur in other books.
But still, it was TIW that got me reading the series in the first place, thanks to Crash magazine for ZX Spectrum gamers!!! In a tips section for the game 'Lords of Midnight' (my fave) it compared marching your armies all day, every day, to the forced march of the Warward in TIW. Having read that, i went back to my local library where I'd picked up and discarded TCTC many times before,after not being able to get past the leprosy bit, and made myself persevere!
Crash!
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:14 am
by Relayer
Here here! And welcome, Chris!!
TIW is also my favorite book of the 7, and remains so after my re-read last summer (first time in many years). And like Stonemaybe, my favorite individual parts are in other books.
I'm not sure I can say why though... LFB hooked me for the beauty of the Land -- the honor of it's people, the amazement of Earthsight, the wonders of Giants and Lords, Revelstone and Andelain, Ranyhyn and Ramen. Maybe TIW because it's still beautiful... the Land hasn't been ravaged yet... and it's not as despairingly heavy, certainly not in the way the Covenant sections in TPTP are
Those chapters were painful to read the first time, especially when contrasted with the wonder and glory of Mhoram's. A lot of WGW was really hard to read, for the same reasons. Maybe I just didn't like Covenant back then
It could also be that I like Troy, or at least I like reading from his POV. After a book and a half, finally somebody who has hope, who believes in possibility, and eagerly dares to confront his fate!!! (and who dares to stand up to Covenant
) Sure, he made some horrible errors, but at least he believes, and is willing to take risks to fight for what he loves.
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:49 am
by Ramen
TIW was one of the least favourite books TCTC for me - for a long time. Perhaps ´cause i couldn´t understand (and like) Elena, but surely because of this
No other TC book began with so much promise for victory, and no other TC book ended with so much hope shattered
as Stonemaybe said
But the more i read this book, the more i gonna like it.
There a wonderful passages (okay, those are in each of these chronicles), and surely, as the land is sane and beautiful and full of so much wonders....
Perhaps some day i even start to like Elena
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:09 pm
by Fist and Faith
Ramen wrote:Perhaps some day i even start to like Elena
Don't!
You!
Dare!
The woman was an idiot!
But TIW had Amok and Caerroil Wildwood, and many
great moments with Mhoram. Awesome book!
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:18 pm
by Ramen
Fist and Faith wrote:Ramen wrote:Perhaps some day i even start to like Elena
Don't!
You!
Dare!
The woman was an idiot!
