Runes Part 1, Chapter 5 - Distraction

[kevinswatch]

Hi all. Sorry this is late. And I'm sorry that this is likely going to suck, heh. But this is my first dissection, and I didn't know what to expect.

Also.............I haven't really been reading Runes. Heh. Sorry, I've just been too busy. And with my reading speed, I just couldn't keep up.

So............I'm going to dissect Part 1, Ch. 5 - Distraction (Oh, the irony of that title. Heh.). And......I'm going to be doing it without first reading the rest of the book before this chapter. I'm just going to have to go with whatever I can remember the last (first? only?) time I've read Runes, heh.

Plus, to make things worse, I think I remember this part of the book being my absolute least favorite. It was like chewing on nails trying to get through this part the first time.

But, I said I would dissect a chapter, and I didn't want to pass on my duties again. So I'm going to just do it.

So, like I said, I apologize in advanced that this will suck. I'm just hoping everyone else here will be much more insightful than I am.

Anyway, so we start off...with Linden and Anele stuck in the stupid room.

And........Linden wanders around the room....

And............Linden eats........

And...............Linden cleans herself.......

And..............................Linden sleeps.................

Wow..............I can't see why I didn't into this part of the book at all. It's just dripping with heart-pounding action!

Wait!

A clay pipe angled down into the floor answered other needs.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

My eyes!

I'm blindeded!

*Erk* Anyway, back to the chapter.

So, actually, Linden doesn't clean herself. Because she realizes that being clean is really a metaphor.

A lifetime of ablution might not suffice to make her clean again.

Linden. Sweetheart. You stink. Clean yourself already.

Anyway, so she goes to bed, and has some crazy dreams.

For no particular reason, she chose the bed on the left.

Let's dissect that line for a moment. Did she in fact make this choice for no reason? Or was there a deeper, subconscious reason for choosing the LEFT bed. Perhaps, because, Covenant has LEFT her? Hm... I think I'm onto something...

Anyway, back to the dream. So the dreams were kinda cool. You got to see some flashbacks to the 2nd Chronicles. Including the awesome scene where Honninscrave totally owned samadhi Sheol.

Honninscrave screamed as he contained samadhi Sheol so that Nom the Sandgorgon could rend Lord Foul's servant.

Wow, that was a cool scene. I should be rereading the 2nd Chronicles right now.

Anyway, she dreams. Covenant says "find me" to her again. (At least, I'm assuming that it's already happened before. Or is it the first time? Sorry).

Linden, he called to her faintly, find me.
If her son could have spoken, he might have begged her for the same thing.

So yeah, we are confirmed that a big part of the Last Chronicles will be to find Covenant and Jeremiah. Yadda yadda yadda.

So, she wakes up....eats again....complains about stuff..........goes to the bathroom again........cleans herself (finally)......... Weee.... Good fun. She notices that Mithil Stonedown is real quiet. And then...........Linden does what Linden does best............she thinks some more...and broods. Oh wait, Anele is up. What does he have to say?

"Anele does not sleep in beds. Dreams are snares. He will be lost in them. They cannot find him here."

"Oh stone," he acknowledged. "You do not protect Anele. He has no friend but stone."

So.....another part of the Anele puzzle falls into place. Now if I only *cared* at all about Anele. Heh.

And then Linden goes on again about she promised to protect Anele........although for the life of me I could never figure out *why* she bothered caring *so* much.

So, Linden chats with Anele some more. He goes to the bathroom. And then Liand shows up.

And don't even get me started about how much the word "Liand" looks like both "Land" and "Linden"! It makes it really annoying to read!

"I don't mean to be rude."..."I'm just"-her throat closed convulsively-"just scared."

Scared? Scared??? Bah. Some hero of the Land YOU are.

Anyway, back to Liand.

"You are strange in the South Plains, and to me, and I am hungry to learn of new things."

So, basically, Liand is curious.

And Linden, still, is quite a baby, and whines to Liand about her son for some time.

They talk some, introduce Liand, etc.

We find out that Liand is basically clueless about everything involving the Land's past. Because the Master's are jerks who won't tell them anything. BASTARDS!!!

I can imagine the conversation would go something like this:

Liand: "Please tell me about the Land's past."

Stave: "No."

Liand: "Please???"

Stave: "No."

Liand: "You jerk!"

Stave: *Blank stare*

Anyway, it seems like Liand would do anything for knowledge of the Land. Sort of like that Meatloaf song.

"His words nearly broke down her defenses. An offer like that- She could have taken advantage of him shamelessly."

Sheesh, Linden is a dirty girl. No wonder she couldn't clean herself earlier.

So Liand and Linden chat, and we find out a few interesting things. Like, the Masters have been hunting Anele for a while now, but he keeps escaping. Also, the Masters can sense the Caesures, since they aren't effected by Kevin's Dirt. They sometimes take spring break trips to Revelstone and film the hit video series "Haruchai Gone Wild."

Liand says that the Falls have been appearing for four or five score years. Linden also makes the connection that it was Joan and the white gold right might be causing the Caesures.

We are also given this gem of a line:

"Outside the day had turned crepuscular."

Craptastic.

He then tells the story of when the strange person, the elohim, appeared in Mithil Stonedown, and told them that "a bane of great puissance" had slipped its bonds in the far north, and found "release in Mount Thunder." He also told them to "beware the halfhand." Which Linden takes to mean either Covenant or Jeremiah.

And so...yadda yadda. Kresh attack. And then instead of helping them fight the wolves, she runs away. Like a wuss.

So yeah... I don't think I did the chapter justice (or maybe I did, heh), but there you go. Hopefully some other people have some other insight on this chapter. But yeah....I did what I could. And now I'm beat, so that's enough for me. Good luck!-jay

[Seareach]

You know what Jay, I don't think I've laughed that much in years!!!

[Creator]

I agree!!

[dlbpharmd]

Hilarious!

[iQuestor]

He then tells the story of when the strange person, the elohim, appeared in Mithil Stonedown, and told them that "a bane of great puissance" had slipped its bonds in the far north, and found "release in Mount Thunder." He also told them to "beware the halfhand." Which Linden takes to mean either Covenant or Jeremiah.

I wonder if the comment Stave made earlier about "beings of Earthpower" on Mt Thunder are related to the bane that is discussed above?

Since an elohim has uttered this, I wonder if it was the collossus of the falls that had finally fallen? Or another fated elohim who met the need some distant past, and then has been broken or escaped its fate?

I think the collossus fell in earlier books, dont remember, and too lazy to look it up.

[tonyz]

I'm still trying to figure out where Linden gets off promising to protect Anele, when she has no idea what's going on, or who's chasing him, or what power she has available to protect him with. It's noble, I grant, but does not this sort of reckless promising inevitably, necessarily, result in betrayal of some sort?

One sees, perhaps, echoes of Hile Troy; one sees further parallels with some of Linden's other actions; the idea deepens that she's getting in <i>way</i> over her head very fast. Trying to benchpress anvils while treading water, maybe, would be the best way to describe it.

[dlbpharmd]

I think the collossus fell in earlier books, dont remember, and too lazy to look it up.

The Colossus fell sometime between TPTP and TWL.

[jwaneeta]

Did she in fact make this choice for no reason? Or was there a deeper, subconscious reason for choosing the LEFT bed. Perhaps, because, Covenant has LEFT her? Hm...

BWAHAHA!

That was a panic, kevinswatch. Too darn funny.

[Zarathustra]

Very funny, indeed. Enjoyed every word of it.

Okay, to get serious--I actually enjoyed this chapter a lot. In terms of the story itself, yeah, nothing much happens. It's an infodump. I remember thinking the 1st time i read it: when is she going to get out of that damn room? And at one point (waking up from the dream), I thought this again. It always hits me in this chapter. Apparently, I'm not alone. But I think that perhaps this is intentional. In itself, it creates the tension Donaldson uses to his advantage, resolving it dramatically by the end of the chapter: getting her out of the room, out of the town, and into her flight which carries her toward her quest.

On Donaldson's style: I like how he is taking his time. I like the care he puts into transitions. So far, we've had the longest pre-Land sequence of all three Chronicles, then a whole chapter between worlds, and then several dreams/losing consciousness/drifting among the stars, etc. I love these quiet moments of wonder. I like how that even though the pace is deliberately plodding, SRD still finds a way to make it fascinating. I feel like Donaldson is savoring every moment of his last time through the Land. There's a sweet sadness in this deliberate, lingering among the details.

I like:

"A low breeze seemed to blow through Linden, scattering the ashes in her heart until nothing remained to indicate that she had ever known fire."

This is a vast improvement upon the plethora of similes in the first Chronicles. That sentence conveys so much lost emotion, such exhausted passion, with such a simple image.

Funny about the pipe in the ground--I was just thinking at this point: doesn't anyone in the Land ever go to the bathroom? Apparently, Donaldson was thinking this, too. Sure, we don't have to know every time a character needs to pee, but I feel this is one small sign of how much more serious Donaldson is taking this series, how much more he's engaged in their reality. These people are real, damnit. Everybody poops.

The dream. I can't help feeling it's no coincidence that she remembers the time when Covenant couldn't speak, and how this is connected to the image of him being a boy. Much like Jeremiah. Then we have:

Linden, he called to her faintly, find me. If her son could have spoken, he might have begged her for the same thing.

What's up with this linkage between the two men (well, males) she loves? Isn't Donaldson just begging us to suspect that Jeremiah is a time-displaced Covenant?

Linden caring for Anele. Yeah, this immediate intense devotion seems strange at first. But Linden is a sucker for people who need help. It's her primary driving characteristic, right? A way to make up for killing her mother? So it's natural. It's what she does.

Does anyone else think Anele is the Gollum of the LC? I can't shake that image. The Staff is his "birthright" (birthday present?) which he lost, he's skeletal, moonstone eyes, talks about himself in 3rd person, and has a strange split personality, is unnaturally old, lived in a cave, makes weird noises in his throat. He's Gollum.

Bornin is the worst Haruchai name ever.

Liand is a decent "Sunder" type character. I wish he had more of the pain and desperation of Sunder, but then he'd be too much of a blatant rip-off. I guess he's a good mixture of Lena and Sunder. Within the needs of this Chronicles, he plays his role adequately.

I like the slow build of their conversation. She's revealing her deepest fear (her son), and he's revealing his deepest secret (his desire to know more, climbing the Watch, etc.). This shared desperation is the most natural-feeling connection she's had yet, more so than with Anele and Stave. And then there's the storm brewing. Nothing adds tension like a storm.

I liked seeing Liand's perspective. It makes the plight of the Land more real, more immediate. I kept thinking: how the hell did the Masters actually wipe out all these memories? How did they take away a people's past? Think about the logistics involved in that undertaking. How could it be done? All the people of the Land remembered Sunbane, then its ending. Such a miraculous event would make a huge impression. People would want to tell their children. So how do you make them stop telling their children? Even if you can do this, how do you know you've stopped everyone? All it would take is for one set of parents to tell their children, and the story would spread. Separating the villages is a good start. But I just don't see it. I think the Masters must have some blood on their hands. After all, how did they enforce such a rule?

The theme of taking away the past of an entire population is in itself an appropriate theme for this book . . .

How did Linden make the leap from caesures to Joan? Again, time was the crucial factor here. But I still don't see how she guessed it. If the kresh appeared at the same time, why isn't Joan responsible for them, too? And even if it make sense to think Joan creates the caesures, how the hell did she make the connection to hitting herself in the head? Seems Donaldson is hitting us over the head with this connection.

The elohim story was just cool.

". . . none of us had observed his approach. Indeed, the Mastes themselves had given no sign that they were aware of him ere he appeared. He did not ask for our notice. He merely awaited it."

Such subtlety! No appearing in a puff of smoke, no stepping out of a tear in the air, no descending from the heavens . . . he's just there, impinging upon their attention until they all realize a stranger is among them. Damn I like that.

And then we have:

"But Jeremiah was also a halfhand, in his own way."

Again, equating Covenant and Jeremiah.

She had assumed that her sone had been taken as a hostage against her, so that she might be coerced into surrendering Covenant's ring. But the warnign of the Elohim seemed to imply a larger danger.

What the heck does that mean?

Larger than the destruction of the Arch of Time and the extinction of the Earth--?

Why does she make this leap of logic? Nothing about the Elohim's words suggests any of this. Again, Donaldson is hitting us over the head.

About the croyal.

What might such a creature do to Jeremiah?

Again, where the hell does Linden come up with this stuff? Why think a croyal is involved at all--much less doing something to her son? Stop it, Donaldson, my head is starting to hurt! Do something they don't expect? Why not? You're already thinking all this stuff I never expected. Go crazy, girl! Knock yourself out.

[wayfriend]

Well, I always start off by expression my appreciation to the topic leader. So, Jay, just let me say ... what the hell was that? No, just kidding. Obviously you did the best you could in the time you had. I kid. Your work is very interesting.

Hi all. Sorry this is late. And I'm sorry that this is likely going to suck, heh.

Nice job working 'heh' into the discussion.

But this is my first dissection, and I didn't know what to expect.

Apparently, neither did we. Ta dum, tsss!

Distraction (Oh, the irony of that title. Heh.).

Does anyone know why this chapter is called "Distraction"? Whom is distracting whom? Is it the storm? The kresh? (BTW, did we ever see if it actually was kresh?)

Anyway, so she goes to bed, and has some crazy dreams.

For no particular reason, she chose the bed on the left.

Let's consider this more closely. Did not Anele say, "Anele does not sleep on beds. Dreams are snares"? And what happens? Linden sleeps on the left bed, and then she gets a dream where Covenant says "find me". She was snared!

Personally, this dream-Covenant is a little annoying. "Find me". Not "Meet me at the corner of Andelain and Mithil", or anything you can actually use. Just "find me". Why can't he be more helpful? Now Linden is on the hook; snared indeed.

And how come he didn't mention this find me stuff earlier. Do something unexpected. You need the Staff of Law. Nothing about finding in the first dream. For once, Linden goes to sleep without needing a five knuckle sedative, and the result is that she gets a new Covenant that is completely different from the last Covenant. This one doesn't even have any ocean metaphors.

Just after, Linden thinks, "Her dreams were going to drive her crazy." This is foreshadowing, just like when she earlier thinks, "Over my dead body." And it's also a parallel, in that Thomas Covenant also thought his dreams were going to make him insane.

I wonder if "find me" is the Distraction.

I wonder who she would have dreamed of from the bed on the right.

"His words nearly broke down her defenses. An offer like that- She could have taken advantage of him shamelessly."

Maybe Liand is the Distraction!

So Liand and Linden chat, and we find out a few interesting things. Like, the Masters have been hunting Anele for a while now, but he keeps escaping.

I have to wonder, how does Anele evade the Masters so well? He consistently and continuously has eluded them. Until he hitched up to Linden's wagon, anyway.

"Outside the day had turned crepuscular."

Craptastic.

Actually, crepuscular merely means twilight-like. I looked it up. And that's funny, too... what a complicated way of saying "It was getting dark".

He also told them to "beware the halfhand." Which Linden takes to mean either Covenant or Jeremiah.

And there's another ambiguity besides this one. The Elohim was talking to the Haruchai, "These folk are ignorant, Haruchai. You have maimed them of knowledge. Their doom is upon your heads." And then he says, "Beware the halfhand". So he may have been directing this warning to the Masters. Which would be rather comforting, for assuredly if TC were around the Masters would certainly be in a bit of trouble.

So yeah... I don't think I did the chapter justice (or maybe I did, heh), but there you go. Hopefully some other people have some other insight on this chapter. But yeah....I did what I could. And now I'm beat, so that's enough for me. Good luck!-jay

Hey, get back here! You can't just do this to us and then leave?!?!

- - - - - - - - - -

I wonder if the comment Stave made earlier about "beings of Earthpower" on Mt Thunder are related to the bane that is discussed above?

I think we are led to believe that, but you never can tell, what with Beware the halfhand and tell her I have her son and other intentional ambiguity.

One thing I really noticed was the way Donaldson described this. Slipped its bonds and found release. If this refers to the story of Kastenessen, and who doubts it, then what this means is that the "cap" which was made wasn't broken or removed, but that whatever was contained thereby found a way to escape or was helped to escape.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Wayfriends usual list:

Anele clearly indicates to us that at one time or more, ur-viles or waynhim tried to make Anele remember. Which implies rather strongly that they know quite a bit about him, no?

Liand says, "Any beast or bird or human that nears a fall is swallowed away and does not return." Wow!!! I mean, they aren't killed, they are transported away! If you think about the end of the Land, if you think about the boundary between worlds breaking down, then this has some vary intriguing possibilities. Are these swallowed people being harmed, or saved? Where do they go? When do they go?

Similarly, Linden thinks, "The warning of the Elohim seemed to imply a larger danger. Larger than the destruction of the Arch of Time and the extinction of the Earth-?" Again, this points to dangers in the Land spilling over as dangers to Covenant's 'real' world.

Finally, I have to wonder about this "impenetrable knot of blackness". Doesn't that sound like a Grim?

[Avatar]

Glad to see you managed it Jay. WayFriend...your post manages to be hilarious and thought-provoking at the same time. Kudos.

Is Linden snared by her dream? An excellent question. Is the snare the distraction? It certainly seems to be one of them, perhaps one amongst several in this chapter, including the ambiguous message of the elohim, the storm, and perhaps even Anele himself.

Yet another chapter that seems superficially simple...but we should know by now that things are never that simple. I suspect that Runes contains the heaviest foreshadowing yet.

(And while I usually hate foreshadowing, it's infinitely preferable when it's so subtle and ambiguous.)

--A

[Zarathustra]

A very thought-provoking post, Wayfriend. I was too distracted by the poop pipe to think about distraction. Yeah, I assumed that the distraction was the storm--it distracted the Haruchai so Linden could leave. That is obvious. But with its obvious connection to the title, perhaps it distracts us from the true distraction: the dream. I did think the dream was significant in how it juxtaposed Covenant and Jeremiah. Maybe she's wrong to think it's TC talking to her. Since she's never heard Jeremiah's voice, perhaps she's having a hard time recognizing it. After all, "If her son could have spoken, he might have begged her for the same thing." So she has no problem with her dead lover speaking in a dream, but doesn't consider that her mute son might also? Why does Covenant ask her to do exactly what she's trying to do for Jeremiah? "Find me." Why are their predicaments exactly the same--an issue of being lost?

Spoiler

And then at the end, why do they both--at the same time and on the same horse--render this predicament moot? She never has to find them; they find her.

So you're right about the red herring nature of this problem (it being a distraction). What are the implications?

[wayfriend]

Plus, to make things worse, I think I remember this part of the book being my absolute least favorite. It was like chewing on nails trying to get through this part the first time.

Oops. Forgot to mention.

For those of you, like Jay, who found Runes to be long and boring, Donaldson addresses this point in a well-timed GI answer. Link.

[Relayer]

I assumed that the distraction was the storm--it distracted the Haruchai so Linden could leave. That is obvious. But with its obvious connection to the title, perhaps it distracts us from the true distraction: the dream.

"It boots nothing to avoid his distractions, for they are ever beset with other distractions..." ... SRD often does this with his chapter titles, where there are multiple meanings.

I have to wonder, how does Anele evade the Masters so well? He consistently and continuously has eluded them. Until he hitched up to Linden's wagon, anyway.

Maybe he's able to use Earthpower to disappear, create illusions, or Words of Warning or something. Although we haven't seen him use power around Linden yet. Or maybe he can sense the Masters from far enough away that he can evade them.

Wayfriends usual list:

I love these lists

Liand says, "Any beast or bird or human that nears a fall is swallowed away and does not return." Wow!!! I mean, they aren't killed, they are transported away! If you think about the end of the Land, if you think about the boundary between worlds breaking down, then this has some vary intriguing possibilities. Are these swallowed people being harmed, or saved? Where do they go? When do they go?

An interesting question. I'd assumed this was just Anele not comprehending what the falls really were... to an observer, anyone who enters a fall disappears. But clearly, caesures are important in many ways.

Similarly, Linden thinks, "The warning of the Elohim seemed to imply a larger danger. Larger than the destruction of the Arch of Time and the extinction of the Earth-?" Again, this points to dangers in the Land spilling over as dangers to Covenant's 'real' world.

Agreed. I posted somewhere about my theory comparing the structure of the 3rd Chrons to the Gap... that the "real story" is actually much larger than Linden, Jeremiah, TC, Roger, Joan, and the Land-dwellers. If we're going to be exploring the end of the Land/Earth, we might be treated to whole sections about the Creator, Foul, Elohim, or even players we don't know about yet! (Norna Foul-Mother )

SRD's recent comments in the GI (Wayfriend's link in the previous post) seem to support this...

Look at the first two GAP books ... which in themselves do little more than hint at the scale of what's coming.

[kevinswatch]

Heh, I'm glad some people found some humor in it, at least. Thanks.

And I'm glad to see that I didn't kill the Dissection with my tongue-in-cheek analysis.

Well, I always start off by expression my appreciation to the topic leader. So, Jay, just let me say ... what the hell was that? No, just kidding. Obviously you did the best you could in the time you had. I kid. Your work is very interesting.

Heh. Um...thanks? Heh. Although I have to say, even if I had all of the time in the world to do this, you could expect that my dissection would be the same as it is now. It's just my style, I guess, to find humor in things. I wouldn't have done this dissection any other way. So I can't blame my crappy dissection on the lack of time. Maybe it's just that when I read, I just don't think in depth too much.

But yeah, I wanted to thank Malik and Wayfriend for doing their excellent analyses. You both brought up a bunch of very good points, and both posts were much better than anything I could ever do. So thanks for the follow up.

So yeah...if anyone is ever in the mood for another MST3K: Runes Edition, you know where to find me. Heh.-jay

[Edit]

Oh, and I've read SRD's defense in the GI on the pacing of Runes...but I still don't buy it. I never had a problem with the first two books of the Gap series. Or any of his other books. Even though The Real Story is rather slow and simple compared to the rest of the Gap, I still enjoyed it.

However, I simply found Runes to be, well, boring. That's just how it was. SRD can try to explain that as well as he could, but in the end, it's still boring.

But hey, I'm still looking forward to the next book, so SRD can prove me wrong.-jay

[wayfriend]

I have to wonder, how does Anele evade the Masters so well? He consistently and continuously has eluded them. Until he hitched up to Linden's wagon, anyway.

Maybe he's able to use Earthpower to disappear, create illusions, or Words of Warning or something. Although we haven't seen him use power around Linden yet. Or maybe he can sense the Masters from far enough away that he can evade them.

This and the other thing may complement each other. Perhaps those black creatures who try to make Anele remember also help hide Anele from the the Masters.

(Norna Foul-Mother )

FOUL: Ware of me, my Enemy! I hold the keystone of Time, and I will reave it to -

FOUL MOM: <screeching> FOOOUUUULLLL!!!!

FOUL: ... Not now, Ma. I'm almost at the next level!

FOUL MOM: Foul Francis Despiser! You COME when I'm calling you.

FOUL: But Maaaaaa!!!! I'm reeeeeving!!!

FOUL MOM: Well, then you should have picked up your creche before you started playing. Put the ring down and get that mess picked up. I want all those warped ur-viles back on the shelf. And I cannot even see your bed under all that Sunbane. So march your ...

[Relayer]

And good thought about the creatures helping Anele.

Spoiler

maybe it's him that they come to help in Mithil Stonedown and at the attack of the kresh

[Aleksandr]

It makes the plight of the Land more real, more immediate. I kept thinking: how the hell did the Masters actually wipe out all these memories? How did they take away a people's past?

The Clave did a big piece of that job, by corrupting what people knew about history. And who was left (other than the Haruchai) to recall history to the people of the land? The Giants only knew it through what Covenant had told them. Ditto for Sunder and Hollian. And I rather doubt anyone at Revelstone would have wrriten "The Decline and Fall Of the Council of Lords" and hidden it away safely. Even the hall of Gifts was destroyed. Only the Haruchai retained a true account of the land's past, so they were ideally placed to deny it to the people of the Land.
Remember too that the people of the Land were all but wiped out in the last days of the Sunbane. They were on the very edge of survival, even more so when the Sunbane vanished taking with it the only way they knew how to survive. For a long time, even with Sunder and the new Staff, the Giants and the Haruchai, life must have been have been a desperate struggle.

[Avatar]

Good post. Agreed.

--A

[Zarathustra]

But what about the ending of the Sunbane? That was certainly a large enough event that people lived through, not simply heard about. Every single surviver would have a heritage which included this massive change in their civilization, in their daily lives. And these people required help to cope with their new lives, hence the reintroduction of earthpower, lore, etc. Sunder and Hollian would have taught them these things. And the word would have spread about how this vast change was accomplished. The story of Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery would have spread like wildfire.

If we don't have to explain how the Haruchai eliminated peolpe's memories, if it were something that just happened by accident or default, then why must they try so hard to keep a lid on things? If there's no innate tendency for people to relearn about earthpower and the past, then there's absolutely no reason for the Haruchai to be Masters. They have to be doing (and have done) something. I just want to know what that was.