Kevin's Watch

Just thought of something when I making a post in the Sunder thread ...

Mhoram believed that Kevin's Lore was too hazardous for the people of the Land to follow because it jeopardized the Oath of Peace and set them on a new path.

Through no fault of Mhoram's, that path led to the Clave and the Sunbane.

Covenant used the krill and the Words of Power to help his Quest more than once. No Lore or object of power resulting from Mhoram's Lore was shown to exist or aid him.

Kevin's Lore came from Berek which came from direct communion with Earthpower itself. In a way, it can be argued that Kevin's way was the way of the Earth itself.

Mhoram's was the work of a man ... a great man, but still a man. And all the good that was done with it was destroyed by the Sunbane and turned to bloodshed and misery.

Was Mhoram wrong to abandon Kevin's Lore?

No!! There isn't a single human being than can look that far ahead into the future and possibly know EVERY single outcome.No single person has that type of wisdom.IF, AND THAT"S A BIG IF, Mhoram knew the outcome we all know that he would not have abandoned the seven wards and the Earthpower that went with it. Knowing Mhoram, NO WAY!! He would not have jeopordized everything all had fought and DIED for. Each death rent Mhoram's heart, so the idea of creating the Sunbane would have been impossible.The only thing Mhoram didn't see was the Raver becoming High Lord of the council,THAT is what screwed everything,NOT Mhoram!!

Also, Mhoram never really meant for his name to become a Semi-Religious Clave Cult thing. He just wanted the people of the land to make use of their own lore, to forge new steps to walk.

Did Mhoram fail? Ah..... no.

Kevin's Lore was incompatible with the Oath of Peace. There was no possibility of keeping both. One or the other had to go. There was no choice about which it would be.

And Mhoram knew such a thing was possible. People were already using Earthpower without Kevin's Lore. Lillianrill and rhadhamaerl are examples. I wonder how many of the Unfettered had found other ways.

If, on the one occasion the Earthpower chose to speak, it had spoken to someone who had embraced the Oath of Peace, I wonder if it would have known that the things it told Berek would not have worked. I wonder if it knows that, as Amok said, "Power is power. It's uses are in the hands of the user." If it knew how the user would not be using it, perhaps it would not offer certain avenues of approach.

Fist and Faith wrote:Kevin's Lore was incompatible with the Oath of Peace. There was no possibility of keeping both. One or the other had to go. There was no choice about which it would be.

And Mhoram knew such a thing was possible. People were already using Earthpower without Kevin's Lore. Lillianrill and rhadhamaerl are examples. I wonder how many of the Unfettered had found other ways.

If, on the one occasion the Earthpower chose to speak, it had spoken to someone who had embraced the Oath of Peace, I wonder if it would have known that the things it told Berek would not have worked. I wonder if it knows that, as Amok said, "Power is power. It's uses are in the hands of the user." If it knew how the user would not be using it, perhaps it would not offer certain avenues of approach.

Why do you say there was no choice about which it would be? Mhoram could have chosen Kevin's Lore over the Oath. He didn't.

I'm not convinced that Berek's Lore "would not have worked". It did work for thousands of years, both for the Old and the New Lords. Granted, the New Lords never fully mastered Kevin's Lore, but they also did many good works with it.

What makes you think the Earthpower approved of the Oath of Peace?

Wait. I'm going to pursue that thought ...

As I think about it, I'm starting to think that the Earthpower APPROVED of the very kind of intense passion the Oath prevented. The mightiest power of Kevin's Lore sprang from the intense emotion the Oath prevented. The Vow of the Haruchai was made because of the intense love and admiration they developed for the Land and Lords. The strongest part of Kevin's Lore was "The Power of Command", not "The Power of Suggestion " ...

Think about how Earthpower preserved Berek in the first place ...

Hmm.

Mind, I don't think that this is the point that SRD was trying to make in the Chronicles .... but I am definitely seeing a plausible rationale here that the Earthpower was never meant to be used in the fashion that Mhoram wanted to use it.

Remember Covenant's Soothtell. There's a brief description of all the good the Lords following Mhoram were able to do using the new Lore they developed, and then there's the line, "They had no one to tell them it was too easy."

Without the weakening of the Earthpower caused by the destruction of the Staff of Law, I'm not sure that Mhoram's Lore would have worked at all ...

Mhoram believed that Kevin's Lore was too hazardous for the people of the Land to follow because it jeopardized the Oath of Peace and set them on a new path.

Through no fault of Mhoram's, that path led to the Clave and the Sunbane.

Because of Lena's scupture of Bannor/Covenant, and Bannor's proxi-litious (:)) description of events that led elena to break the Law of Death, Mhoram gained incredible insight into the Ritual of Destruction and the folley of the Oath of Peace. The RoD was the pinnacle of Kevin's Lore; Mhoram's new path for the Lords was to lay aside the Oath because it and the Lore of Kevin's Seven Wards were mutually exclusive; Kevin's Lore excluded the possibility Peace as an option:

"Thomas Covenant once inquired of me why we so devote ourselves to the Lore of High Lord Kevin Landwaster. And now in this War, we have learned the hazard of that Lore. Like the Krill, it is a power of two edges, as apt for carnage as for preservation. Its use endangers our Oath of Peace.

I am Mhoram, son ofVariol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. I declare that from this day forth we will not devote ourselves to any Lore which precludes Peace. We will gain Lore of our own- we will strive and quest and learn until we have found a Lore which the oath of Peace and the preservation of the Land live together. Hear me, you people! We will serve Earthfriendship in a new way."

My take is that the lore contained within the Wards were for use as weapons to fight despite, or in defense of an attack on the Land by despite (which means a war was in progress), with the pinnacle of the lore being the Ritual of Destruction. This is a direct analog of the Cold War the US and Russia were engaged in when SRD wrote the first chrons. The RoD is basically the same result as a Thermo-Nuclear exchange-- no body wins, and whoever raises up first from the ashes will have the upperhand next time around.

Mhoram didn't want tools to win a war, or fight a War, he wanted tools to preserve and ensure Peace. Just like we finally did when Reagan was president - limit and eventually destroy the nuclear arsenal in favor of peaceful relations. It is difficult to have peace when you have nukes pointed at you.

So did he fail? No. The thing we know most surely about the Despiser is that he always seeks to corrupt. He doesn't do evil directly, he has well-intentioned beings do it for him by corrupting them. Any direction Mhoram could have taken could have and would have been twisted by Foul eventually.

The Na-Mhoram and the existence of the Clave proves Mhoram did not fail! Why? Because if Mhoram had failed, Foul would have not needed to corrupt anything! But when there is something Foul doesn't want around, he doesn't destroy it, he Corrupts it!

Mhoram succeeded so well that the only way to turn around the land to despite was to undo what Mhoram did: Corrupt the Council, corrupt his very name, wipe from the Land all of the past Lengends of Berek and Covenant, and replace it with half-truths so that the Land unwittingly serves despite as good, and the past history is corrupted to seem to be bad. Foul turned the perception of good and evil 180 degrees!

In the second chronicles the first thing TC and Linden discover is that they are not remembered, no one knows about Kevin or berek or the Old Lords, or the New Lords. The one man whose name lived on (Mhoram) was corrupted as the Na-Mhoram to destroy any last vestiges of Mhorams actual success.

Mhoram believed that Kevin's Lore was too hazardous for the people of the Land to follow because it jeopardized the Oath of Peace and set them on a new path.

Through no fault of Mhoram's, that path led to the Clave and the Sunbane.

As you said yourself, though - through no fault of Mhorams did these things happen. Was the Roman Empire a failure because it fell to stagnation and ruin and was eventually sacked by the Visigoths?

One could argue that Lord Foul's return was inevitable, that even adherence to Kevin's law could not have prevented the Sunbane.

Kaos Arcanna wrote:Why do you say there was no choice about which it would be? Mhoram could have chosen Kevin's Lore over the Oath. He didn't.

What I mean is that Mhoram could not have chosen Kevin's Lore over the Oath. Others alive in the Land at the time may have been able to (Indeed, many may have. Maybe some objected, and went off, sort of a like the Unfettered, but for different reasons.), but Mhoram was Mhoram. The Oath was his life, and there was no choice.

Kaos Arcanna wrote:What makes you think the Earthpower approved of the Oath of Peace?

Yeah, there have been discussions along these lines before. Your points are all valid. (It's always a pleasure to have you around, KA! ) But since there were peaceful, non-Kevin's Lore ways to use Earthpower, it's possible that the Earthpower didn't object. Maybe Mhoram's idea could have lead to much more foolproof ways of detecting ravers and Foul (if he ever tried to join the Council again), outrageously powerful Words of Warning, and other non-violent things.

Kaos Arcanna wrote:Without the weakening of the Earthpower caused by the destruction of the Staff of Law, I'm not sure that Mhoram's Lore would have worked at all ...

That huge blow to the Earthpower's sense of itself must have helped Mhoram's Lore establish itself.

Fist and Faith wrote:

Kaos Arcanna wrote:Why do you say there was no choice about which it would be? Mhoram could have chosen Kevin's Lore over the Oath. He didn't.

What I mean is that Mhoram could not have chosen Kevin's Lore over the Oath. Others alive in the Land at the time may have been able to (Indeed, many may have. Maybe some objected, and went off, sort of a like the Unfettered, but for different reasons.), but Mhoram was Mhoram. The Oath was his life, and there was no choice.

Kaos Arcanna wrote:What makes you think the Earthpower approved of the Oath of Peace?

Yeah, there have been discussions along these lines before. Your points are all valid. (It's always a pleasure to have you around, KA! ) But since there were peaceful, non-Kevin's Lore ways to use Earthpower, it's possible that the Earthpower didn't object. Maybe Mhoram's idea could have lead to much more foolproof ways of detecting ravers and Foul (if he ever tried to join the Council again), outrageously powerful Words of Warning, and other non-violent things.

Kaos Arcanna wrote:Without the weakening of the Earthpower caused by the destruction of the Staff of Law, I'm not sure that Mhoram's Lore would have worked at all ...

That huge blow to the Earthpower's sense of itself must have helped Mhoram's Lore establish itself.

How peaceful was the Lore of the Gravelingas and Hirebrands really?

Remember the razor-sharp knives of the Stonedowners? The way that Trell raised the bridge across the river through brute force? The way the Hirebrand of Soaring Woodhelvin struck back against the ur-vile loremaster?

And even they were hampered by the Oath. Remember how it was going to take them 40 years to complete the keels for the Giant-ships? The Hirebrand-- Baradakas?-- apologized and said it wasn't his fault the Hirebrands no longer had the Lore to do it sooner?

Nature itself is pretty violent when you think about it. The Earth is constantly reshaping itself through volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes... trees and plants constantly fight for sunlight, water, and nutrients. There are some seeds that will not grow until they are exposed to the high temperatures of forest fires ...

Thanks for the kind words, FF!

And to be fair, you can't say that violence and passion are all there is to nature any more than it's all sweetness and light and Disney films ... but I think that a failure to recognize the validity of both sides to nature-- and Earthpower-- could be considered a failure on Mhoram's part.

Kaos Arcanna wrote:And to be fair, you can't say that violence and passion are all there is to nature any more than it's all sweetness and light and Disney films ... but I think that a failure to recognize the validity of both sides to nature-- and Earthpower-- could be considered a failure on Mhoram's part.

True enough. But I don't think Mhoram failed to recognize that. He didn't say they were going to become pacifists, after all. He just wanted to find "lore which is not so apt for destruction."

But I don't know what I can say about this that I didn't say loooooong ago.
kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=526

Looking into the future like that, it seems like his ideals failed The Land... but maybe in the end they'll prove the savior? With the intricacies that the people, and Lord Foul especially, create it's impossible to tell whose to blame for what.

I think we should take this question directly to Stephen R Donaldson. Oh, wait ... ( )

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:Peter B.: Stephen,

I just finished reading Runes of the Earth. How wonderful it was to return to the Land! Thank you!! I'm hanging on with anticipation for Fatal Revenant.I'm sure you can hardly wait to begin actually writing it.

My question: At the end of The Power That Preserves Lord Mhoram states, "...we will not devote ourseles to to any Lore which precludes Peace. We will gain lore of our own--we will strive and quest and learn until we have found a lore in which the Oath of Peace and the preservation of the Land live together. We will serve Earthfriendship in a new way."

During the "Soothtell" in The Wounded Land Covenant learns a bit more about what happened after his victory over the Despiser. [Mhoram} commenced a search for new ways to use and serve Earthpower. Guided by his decision, Councils for generations after him had used and served,performing wonders."

I won't ask what new Lore Mhoram and others found.

But did their decision to find another way, one not subject to Corruption, result at ALL in the coming of the Clave and the forthcoming Masters ineffective guardianship?

• I’ll have to refer to you back to earlier discussions of the Oath of Peace because I don’t want to re-explain the insight which allowed Mhoram to become more effective than his immediate predecessors, even though he lacked the Staff of Law. The point is this: for a long time, the people of the Land saw the Oath of Peace as a proscription against certain emotions, while Mhoram learned to see it as a prescription for certain behaviors. In so doing, he opened the door for his own actions, and for the actions of others, to be galvanized, energized, empowered by previously-rejected emotions. Now, speaking as a student of the martial arts, I believe this to be A Good Thing--as long as no one re-creates the conditions which led to the formulation of the Oath of Peace in the first place. And those conditions were: action *determined* by emotion (Kevin and the Ritual of Desecration, Trell and the devastation of The Close) rather than action determined by conscience and then *energized* by emotion (“Lord Mhoram’s Victory”).
  
  Well, the unfortunate fact is that emotions are messy, wisdom is rare, and conscience can be misled. In a very real sense, therefore, I think that when Mhoram removed the “proscription against certain emotions” and replaced it with the “prescription for certain behaviors” he did indeed open the door for the (eventual) emergence of the Clave. (There’s a *reason* why religions tell you how to feel--and it isn’t just because religions are about control [although they certainly are]. They’re also trying to avoid the dangers inherent in letting emotion determine action. Just to pick one example: history has shown us over and over again that punishing people for murder is a less effective deterrent than teaching them that rage, jealousy, and greed are evil.) An inevitable effect of unleashing emotion--even in the best of all possible causes--is that for some people emotion will then begin to overwhelm wisdom/conscience/morality.
  
  So I think that Mhoram’s insight made the Clave possible. Does this mean he made a mistake? Far from it. Consider the alternative: Mhoram stays trapped within the confines of the “old” Oath of Peace; the Lords are defeated; Revelstone is over-run; and Covenant’s victory over Lord Foul does nothing to prevent a kind of cultural Dark Age (one which, in fact, closely resembles the state of affairs in “The Runes of the Earth”).
  
  In practice, however, it was not Mhoram’s insight which led to the “ineffective guardianship” of the Masters: it was the vacuum of culture and lore left by the Clave’s defeat which inspired the Masters to take on a challenge that became too big for them.
  
  (01/01/2005)

Wayfriend - you always seem to come up with the perfect quote from the GI -- thanks.

Krilly said:

Looking into the future like that, it seems like his ideals failed The Land.

but I disagree - when someone performs an action, large or small, they cannot project or even reasonably expect that their decision will absolutely ensure that it will continue as intended ad infinum; ANYTHING can be corrupted over time, because things change, they are dynamic, especially when things like despite and corruption are around to guide it; we cannot know what the future holds. The clave came what, a thousand years after Mhoram died, and did great good for the land for generations. If anyone failed the Land, it was the generations of Lords afterwards, who failed to see and react to the gradual shift in thinking that led to the coming of the clave. Mhoran cannot be responsible for all of the Lords until the final dark comes....

Give me any example of an action , large or small, with great intentions and the purest of motives by the saintlies of peoples, and I can imagine a way in which it will turn out to be not only bad, but in direct opposition to the original act. Why, because the world (and the Land) is dynamic, and there are people and things in the world which have different motives.

Mua ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaa.

Did Mhoram fail? No. Was the Land more interesting, romantic, fun but far more dangerous with a Council of Lords weilding earthpower, righting wrongs and defending the weak and innocent? IMHO definitely. I fell in love with the Land as it was presented to me in the first Chrons and in the way it was described in the time of the Old Lords. The Second and Last Chrons depict a Land that has been damaged. A People that have been altered from what they were, only loosely united. IMHO Mhoram didn't fail when it came to making the right choice but he did pave the way for the end of the age of Lords and dad burn it, I really liked the old days. Oh well. I can always re read the first chrons over and over and over and over and....