Joan's Madness

[dlbpharmd]

Also, we know that Joan is in the Sarangrave, and one might assume that Kevin's Dirt does not extend into the Sarangrave from the Upper Land.

When did that happen? Are we extrapolating from the presence of skest?

Hmmm - am I extrapolating, or did I read this in Runes? I can't remember, but I'll look tonight.

[dlbpharmd]

I'm not sure why I thought Joan was in the Sarangrave - I have this vague impression that at one point we were told she was at the base of Landsdrop, and that's where she was using wild magic to break stones. The presence of the skest reinforce this notion. However, in ROTE I can't find anything to support this (I'm reading Part 2, Chapter 5: Against Time - Linden's vision of Joan, while in the ceasure.) The text does mention a crashing sea behind Joan, but this does not necessarily mean she's in the Sarangrave.

My apologies, Wayfriend.

[wayfriend]

Has anybody yet suggested the idea that Kevin's Dirt might have been created by somebody like the Elohim to prevent Joan from using her white ring more effectively?

Has there been anything that suggested that it does?

Well, SRD spent a good deal of time in The Wounded Land explaining that TC was not able to use his power effectively at least partly because he no longer had access to his health sense.

Right, but I don't think that anything in the story has suggested this is happening here, that Joan is being hampered by Kevin's Dirt. I don't think it even requires health sense to generate ceasures.

- - - - - -

Interesting word, "riposte". It can indicate a retaliation for some attack. Or, in the more verbal sense, it can indicate a witty response.

So Kevin's Dirt may be a specific response to something else.

Or it may merely entertain Lord Foul to consider how Kevin's Dirt could be interpreted as a response to something else.

Does this leave us any wiser?

[callback]

So here are the questions I'd like people to speculate upon.

1. The source of Kevin's Dirt: Foul implies that it is is the Elohim, but he doesn't come right out and say it. It's possible therefore that the source of Kevin's Dirt comes from elsewhere and the Elohim merely suffer it to continue for their own purposes, but I don't buy that.

2. The purpose and mechanism of Kevin's Dirt: Ok, we have the obvious fact that it restricts the sight and the wielding of power by the people of The Land. Thematically, this aspect appears to have a lot in common with the Haruchai concept of "Mastery," in that it prevents the people of the Land from defending themselves through the use of lore. That makes sense of itself combined with the authorship of Kevin's Dirt probably belonging to the Elohim (or at least a faction of them.) But when we throw in the idea that Kevin's Dirt was brought into existence as a counter (which would be the meaning of riposte here) to the caesures, things become much more difficult to understand. Is it possible that expressions of lore from the people of the Land might make things worse? Or Joan, Linden, Roger or Thomas Covenant wielding power? Or possibly those skurj who have apparently migrated to Mount Thunder? Or is it possible that there are ramifications to this beyond what has been so far revealed? I personally would speculate that Joan is whom Kevin's Dirt is aimed at, as the threat she poses appears to be the most exigent and the one most clearly connected with the caesures, but there are many other possibilities.

[wayfriend]

Kevin's Dirt, if anything, is a counter to use of Earthpower, not ceasures (see above). Or a counter to a specific use of earthpower, for example, a ritual of desecration, or Lords, or healing. The Masters remain the number one suspect in my book, although it may not have been intentional, but akin to the Haruchai Vow.

... could Kevin's Dirt be warped Vow-power?

[Simanent]

I presume that the Staff of Law is not easily destroyed; it took wild magic to shatter the previous one, and this one is almost alive, so it presumably is even more resistant. What if the purpose of the caesure was to separate Anele from the Staff? Even more - what if whatever created that caesure did not want to touch the Staff, or could not? Perhaps it was something for which the Staff is anathema... something unnatural, upon whom the Staff could have exacted a toll similar, or even worse than, the one suffered by the Waynhim. But of course, this is pure speculation - unless this was Foul's plot and he didn't kill Anele because he would need him later on...

High Lord Mhoram was of the impression that the old Staff of Law had been destroyed in the struggle between Kevin and Elena. To me, that implies that the Staff of Law, while very powerful, still can physically be damaged or destroyed, especially if unattended or held by someone that doesn't know how to call up its power.

Granted, the new Staff of Law was formed in a different manner, but it is still WOOD and iron heels. Maybe that was why the Waynhim stole it - to protect it from falling into the hands of the ignorant who might inadvertently damage and/or destroy it?

I am thinking that the purpose of the time travel is to remove the Staff from the time stream, thereby allowing Kevin's Dirt and caesures to appear. Both are violations of Law that the Staff is supposed to prevent, had it been present.

A ceasure took Anele, even though he had the SOL! The staff didn't help much. Okay, so the ceasure that took him came from a time when the SOL was lost, but the staff was lost because that ceasure took Anele. Just seems like the ceasures aren't very controllable by any power that works in a normal temporal way.

[tonyz]

Looking at this one again...

If Joan's got the sea behind her, then she's not in the Sarangrave (which is separated from the Sea by the Great Swamp). She might be at Coercri, or near Foul's Creche, unless she's somewhere else.

The ceasure that took Anele, I think, was the one that Linden created to go fetch the Staff of Law from near Anele's home. It's the only excuse to find one so perfectly targeted. And it ties in with the general theory of Linden destroying the Land because she doesn't have a clue what she's doing and keeps doing it nonetheless.

[Relayer]

Wasn't that caesure created by Esmer? Your idea is possible but I don't think so, because that starts to involve too many paradoxes. If the Staff wasn't lost they wouldn't have needed to create the caesure which only later was needed to go find the lost Staff...

Esmer is certainly able to create and manipulate them,

Spoiler

like the one he sends at the Harrow).

I suspect he manipulated the one that destroyed Kevin's Watch... the timing, right after Linden is translated, is just too coincidental for it to be a random caesure (I think we talked about this in another thread). And they aren't that common anyway.

Regardless of the Watch it makes sense that he'd be a prime suspect for sending the one at Anele in the past, for whatever reason. And we know he can time travel. Or it could've been a random one; that event could have happened to Anele at any time over a number of years.

I suppose what no one could've known was that Anele wouldn't have the Staff with him when he entered the fall. Maybe whoever sent it at him (if that's true) actually wanted the Staff to be brought back to the past.

[tonyz]

Oh, I think it's creating paradoxes all right. It's just another step in Linden's destruction of the Land.

[wayfriend]

Well, Anele didn't have the SOL with him when the ceasure got him, that's how the SOL was lost.

And when Linden went back in time to retrieve the SOL, the Waynhim had already had it for a while, which means that it was left behind by Anele a goodly while before Linden arrived. There's no reason to think (yet) that Linden caused the ceasure that caused Anele to lose the Staff.

If someone sent that ceasure after Anele in order to also get the SOL, it would have brought the SOL forward in time along with Anele, not sent it to the past. (Ceasures throw things forward unless forced to do otherwise.) If their intent was to send the Staff hurtling forward in time, they failed when Anele didn't have it.

Until Linden came along, and did exactly that!!!!

[Vraith]

Heh...for what it's worth, Linden isn't now, or going to be, the only, or even most important element in the Land's destruction. The elohim say she roused the worm? La-de-freaking-dah. All that means is that maybe Linden made sure the world will die on Wednesday instead of Friday.
Whatever the dangers of what she's done, she's the one making it possible for someone to fight back, someone to survive [at this point].
Let's see...without her, we'd have...White Gold? crazy lady. Anele? Caged. SOL? Lost. Giants? Dead. Revelstone? Rubble. I could go on...
Also...I'm pretty sure [not postive, but damn close] that the ceasure didn't track down Anele, he tracked down it.

[Krazy Kat]

I think that Linden will be the only person capable of putting the Wurm back to sleep by using the Staff of Law. It's as if the Staff of Law represents both the axis of the Earth, and the annoying splinter in the Land.

Pulling out the splinter = the removal of the Earth's axis...oh! wait a minute...that doesn't seem to balance out.

To put it another way, if for the addition of the letter 'o' to Linden's name it could make 'Lion's den'. mmm...yep, that makes more sense!

[Ur Dead]

As I understand it a ceasure exists in multiple time zones as it's released/created by Joan. Also the size of it may determine on how far back in time it can reach.

The one that the Demondin created reach back to a time most probably before Drool Rockworm. It also looks like they can be anchored in place and can be controlled on their time points. Looks like you can travel not only thru time, but travel distances.

It opens so many different questions, it mind boggling.

It can be anchored and the power of the Illearth stone was channel thru it it, it can be unmaded. (as how Linden did it either with the SoL or the Wild magic) You can travel forward and backwards in time and travel distances.
Can it be used as a looking glass?
Great tool to find Joan and Jeremiah.

Spoiler

Some time/distance traveling by Esmer, Roger and Jeremiah/croyel leads me to believe that time travel is allowed by using Earthpower. I'm referencing FR. It may be that ceasures are skewed/warped version of a Time Lore pertainting to the Arch. (Why have a Timewarden if that lore doesn't exist?) And who was the Timewarden before TC got the job?

Also, we may now know why the Demondin were just a reference point in the first Chronicles. It never told whatever happened to them, They sorta just disappeared and the Ur-Viles and Wayinim appeared. The viles had more history than their made children.
FR may be the explantion why they suddenly disappeared from the time of the Old Lords. It tidies up that issue from the 1st Chronicles.