Kevin's Watch

I have been think about this subject a lot recently and thought I might get a few opinions from everyone else.

I see the old lords tying into the whole story even before LFB, being part of the story that was only told in the begging, and I'm sure many of you see them coming back as just ghosts, but if that's the case then why bring time travel into the story at all?

You could look at the second chronicles and see that some of the things that the old lords did came to light and affected the story. For example, how Berek found the One Tree and set up it's guardian. It doesn't require ghosts or time travel, just a way to reveal some of the history.

Then why introduce time travel in runes? what would be the purpose of this?

Indeed!

There have been many threads on this. The consensus sort of is, Donaldson is not going to write a silly time travel story; time travel is incidental, not central, to the story.

Donaldson has repeatedly stated that prequels have no interest for him.

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:... the same reason that I can't write prequels: as I suggested in an earlier answer, all of my attention is focused *forward*, on the ending. So I set up my reflections and then pursued their implications. I never asked myself about the implications of what might have happened *before* my starting point.

Everything that I've ever created about "the past" in any of my stories is there because it helps me get where I'm going: it doesn't exist for its own sake. In this important sense, if in no other, the Land is less "real" than, say, Middle Earth. Its history does not exist independent of "current events."
(04/13/2004)

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:To that let me just add that I'll never do anything that might be called a "prequel." If you wonder why, just look at Lucas' three prequel films to the original "Star Wars" trilogy. The prequels are, inevitably, boring because (among other reasons) we already know how the story is going to turn out.
(10/14/2004)

Therefore, we can rule out that Donaldson will be using time travel to go back and "experience" anything in othe Old Lord's time. Because that's just a way of making a prequel.

Donaldson has also, more recently, talked about 'mending'.

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:Life is process. The word "mended" sort of implies "returned to its original state". About that I'm skeptical. Everything has moved on. And the whole notion of "mending"--or even "healing"--broken Laws troubles me: it could so easily have the unintended effect of diminishing the significance of the earlier stories. "Well, the Land was in trouble, but now everything is fine. No problem. Ergo: no reason to read the previous books. Or even this one." The past made us who we are. I like to think that I can find a better solution to the dilemma.
(08/30/2006)

Therefore, we can rule out that Donaldson will be using time travel to fix or undo anything that happened in the past. Because that's just a way of avoiding who we are.

So what does that leave?

Well, he's clearly introduced the idea that there is danger and threat in the potentiality of paradox. And so we have the Demondim.

Then again, in Distractions, Anele says that the ceasures "swallow" any birds, beasts, or people that they encounter. (I guess fish and bugs are safe. ) So... what happens to them, where do they go? All the clues point to some future somewhere. And we must ask, why? When you consider that the Earth will be ended somehow, the implications are quite enjoyable to contemplate. For example, are they being saved?

And there is some teasing about the lore of the old lords.

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:I one of your recent replies in the GI, you state (rather slyly, in my opinion) that "as matters stand, the lore of the Old Lords is just plain irretrievable."

"As matters stand"? Is this some sort of hint that Kevin's Lore might feature in Fatal Revenant? Your answer sure sounded like a heads-up or teaser!

• Some days I simply can't resist my impulse to tease. I get an entirely malicious pleasure out of creating misleading expectations. Of course, that's one of the keys to my writing in general. I work hard at setting up expectations which I intend to both frustrate and fulfill in unforeseeable ways.
  (01/20/2006)

So ... the lore of the old lords somehow comes forward? We know none are moved forward in time, since they all appeared as ghosts in TPTP. But their lore can be moved forward ... in some unforseeable way.

The lore of the Illearth Stone came "forward" in an unforseeable way, no?

Finally, remember that Donaldson considers Time to be something that imprisons: forces things to live in a matrix of cause and effect, where things done cannot be undone. Specifically, Time imprison's Foul. So perhaps time travel has something to do with how Foul is ultimately disposed of, or redeemed, or whatever will be.

I think Wayfriend is correct to point out that time travel isn't introduced as a way to fix or mend anything. I think the opposite is the case: it represents a new kind of threat, a breaking of the Law of Time itself. And that is entirely the significance of time travel to the Last Chronicles.

It is a way to move the story forward--in terms of the linear narrative, not time travel--toward future problems, threats, conflicts, resolutions . . .

One thing I would like to point out is that these books are "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" Not the chronicle of the land or of the old lords, not Linden Avery or the Giants, But Thomas Covenant. He is still and will always be the central character no matter how many paths lead away from him. They will always return to him, it is his story. This is a fundamental truth..............

Having said that I believe we will see the old lords, in fact we are seeing one and have been from the beginning. I think Covenant/Berek and Linden will interact with Kevin specifically to end the story.

I think at this point in the story, Covenant would be considered one of the old lords, Yes???? No?????
Milton

Oh, yeah. Covenant / Berek. Dead Covenant / Berek will get Living Linden pregnant, and she will give birth to Damelon Giantfriend, who will go back in time in a caesure and assume the High Lordship once he realises that his halfhanded hero dad has been dead for 3.5 millennia.

Time travel is OK -- as long as tribbles don't show up, I will be fine.

why iQuestor are you a klingon?

Nom brought out a good point (aside from the Klingon)

Time is the point of this series. It may be Linden or one of the other characters that travel thru time to preform or aquire an item or even find out what happen about an event?

What if Stave was thrust thru time into his people's far past? Maybe before the Haruchai developed their methods of fighting and communication? Could Stave be a teacher from legends? This storyline wouldn't interfere with the books but could tie up loose end on how the Haruchai developed their skills.

One thing has puzzle me about the Land. It's Landsdrop.
How did that happen? and why isn't there more volcanism along that fault line? Aside from Mount Thunder and Hotash Stay that line hasn't had any reference to any lava flows. How did the Land suddenly drop (a thousand or three thousand feet). Has it got to do with Kastenessen and the Durance. Something that held the skurj?

So some time traveling may occur in the next books. Some of it to tie up why the Land was the way it was.
It may be needed to provide the means to defeat Foul in a way that keeps the Land and people safe and not destroy Foul.(Remember even TC said you can't defeat Foul, he just comes back stronger)

Just conjecture on my part.

Spoiler

Weakend Foul to the point like he was defeat before, but place him inside a prison made from the Wild magic. (if it can be manipulated)
Place the prison inside two or three sphere of time. (created by Wild Magic - I presume that WM and the arch are very similair or the Arch was made from it)
Each Sphere allows allows 1 year of time to past inside the sphere for every thousand years that passes outside.
If there were two layers then by reasoning a million years of the Lands time will pass before one year of time passes within the prison. If it takes Foul 2500 years to get to some suitable power level where he can crack his prison , approx 2.5 billion years will have pasted in the Land. He isn't defeated but he is taken out of the picture as far as the Books are concerned.

Now anchor the sphere to the Arch and good chance the Land will be safe for a very long time.

Just a thought on my part.

What can we expect from the old lords?

They're by far tougher than the younger lords, since they didn't have horses and had to walk to the Loresraat. In the snow. Barefoot. Uphill. Both ways.

Procedures. The old lords probably had a lot of proceures, and will not hesitate to tell you about the ones that are most embarassing (to you). Berek has been known to go on and on about how he stitched his wounded hand closed all by himself. While running away from the King's army. Barefoot. Uphill. Both ways. And Loric Vile Silencer was previously known as Loric Bile Silencer because he had his stomach stapled. But DON'T get him started on THAT story!

Hats. I'm sure they all wear hats.

They'll probably eat dinner around 3:30 in the afternoon, and prefer the warmer parts of Revelstone. That's how you can tell that Lord Foul is *really* old - he has his home near a river of molten lava. I heard the ur-viles are always complaining about him not turning on the air conditioner.

I mentioned Klingons because iQuestor doesn't like tribbles and everyone likes tribbles except for kilngons.

Romeo wrote:

What can we expect from the old lords?

They're by far tougher than the younger lords, since they didn't have horses and had to walk to the Loresraat. In the snow. Barefoot. Uphill. Both ways.

Procedures. The old lords probably had a lot of proceures, and will not hesitate to tell you about the ones that are most embarassing (to you). Berek has been known to go on and on about how he stitched his wounded hand closed all by himself. While running away from the King's army. Barefoot. Uphill. Both ways. And Loric Vile Silencer was previously known as Loric Bile Silencer because he had his stomach stapled. But DON'T get him started on THAT story!

Hats. I'm sure they all wear hats.

They'll probably eat dinner around 3:30 in the afternoon, and prefer the warmer parts of Revelstone. That's how you can tell that Lord Foul is *really* old - he has his home near a river of molten lava. I heard the ur-viles are always complaining about him not turning on the air conditioner.

I think time travel will play an integral part of the plot, but it will be more along the lines of Linden inadvertently triggering historical disasters and/or appropriating unneeded stuff like the Giant ships left behind in Coercri and the Old Lords that were supposed to have died in the Ritual of Desecration and are not confirmed ghosts like Kevin.

I think the last book will be about time-travel to the dark and distinctly hellish future where Lord Foul rules and where the caesures have been dropping the people they took... Just a hunch.

As much as I love time travel stories, I am hoping TT is not a big thing in these books beyond what happened in Runes. Keep TT in SciFi..not Fantasy.